“You are far too kind, my love,” said the Countess D’Arvu. “Rumanar Avalais is neither. I have not yet decided what she is. And what she has done to our Leonora—”
And again the Countess went silent, while moisture welled in her eyes.
When the sun slanted toward evening and the heavens turned deep orange and persimmon along the western horizon, they saw before them, upon a hill, the towering golden walls of the Sapphire Court.
No, they were not gilded, merely a bright yellow sandstone color that reflected the light with a warm radiance worthy of the golden citadel it contained.
Even this close to the city, the traffic was not overwhelming on the thoroughfare, and consisted mostly of civilians of the lower and working classes, not much different from the peasantry of Lethe or Morphaea. One detail stood out however—the complete lack of snow. It must have disappeared subtly since morning as they had traveled the countryside. Or, possibly it was gone long before, but the land itself had corrugated together and carried some remnants along into places where they did not belong.
Percy looked around her in curiosity, and also in a constant state of hyper-vigilance, because now a constant blessed silence was in her mind—she could feel only a few dead beyond the city walls before her—indeed they had all gone to war.
But she felt, like a butterfly puling at her, the single death presence of the one she came to regard in her mind as the Cobweb Bride.
“She is nearby!” Percy whispered, looking up at Beltain. “I can feel her, beyond the walls!”
And the black knight merely gazed upon her with a soft-eyed look of undisguised emotion that combined wonder and adoration.
The Count D’Arvu took charge and rode forward with his spouse, moving ahead of them, with Beltain discreetly following on his great charger, keeping his black cloak pulled about him to downplay his suit of armor. At the gates they were examined only cursorily, treated as part of the D’Arvu traveling party.
And then, they rode into the exotic wonder of the Sapphire Court.
Sunset turned the golden roofs to liquid fire. . . . Percy covered her eyes from the overwhelming splendor, a perfect complement to their own Silver Court. Except, the latter was a northern jewel of ice to this southern jewel of flame.
The city perspective here was drawn in the same magnificent arrow-straight design, with streets and boulevards laid out in concentric circles or perfect parallels or perpendiculars, by some ancient genius architect, to be seen as a carpet of intricate symmetry from the tallest vantage points of the citadel, the cathedrals, and the Palace of the Sun.
“Come along, no time to waste . . .” Count D’Arvu told them, as they rode past one of the many lesser squares, glancing around like countrified tourists at the marvels of architecture.
In a quarter of an hour, just as twilight grew and the street lanterns bloomed forth in rosy gilded points of radiance, lit by diligent evening watchmen, they arrived in the center of the citadel, before a tall, ornate brick house of at least four stories, situated just a few blocks away from Trova Square.
“You will share with us a supper in our home and a brief rest,” said the Count, stopping before the front entryway, and observing the footmen of his household approach in haste, bowing, ready to take their horses. “And as soon as darkness falls, we will proceed.”
Beltain nodded, though even now he never fully let down his guard, and they were assisted by the diligent footmen to dismount and go inside.
After a nearly silent weary meal of finely prepared yet perfectly tasteless foodstuff, consumed in a beautifully appointed dining room that had a lofty ceiling painted with antique frescoes, the Count asked them to wait.
He was gone then, for at least half an hour, while Beltain and Percy sat on a finely upholstered divan and watched the sky turn dark blue then black outside the arching windows. The Countess had retired to lie down meanwhile, for she was exhausted and rather unwell after their day-long journey. But she insisted she would be going along with them on their final stage to the Palace.
“Do you trust them?” whispered Beltain at some point, looking deeply into Percy’s eyes. “Please, be wary, Percy . . . for despite their words we truly know nothing of them or their intent—”
“Yes, I trust them . . .” she responded gently. “The mother’s grief is true, and the father shows honor. Everything else matters not.”
And to that he nodded, and then took her hands and pressed them between his own warm palms, sending the sun flowing through her veins. . . .
Eventually, the Count returned, accompanied by a nondescript man dressed in working attire, with pockmarked skin and a seedy appearance. The man bowed politely before the knight, appraised him with one sharp look, and then introduced himself as Diril.
“He will guide us through the underground maze,” said D’Arvu. “I have worked with this man many times, and will vouch for him.”
“Then lead on!” Beltain said, rising from his seat, and Percy got up also.
As they walked down a marble staircase, the Countess D’Arvu was waiting for them below, covered in a dark lace veil and cloak. “You shall not go without me,” she insisted. “For I must see my daughter for myself. I must be there when she is found—”
“My dear, I am afraid the way will not be comfortable,” her husband protested. “We shall go through filthy dark tunnels, and—”
“I care not for filth or darkness!” the Countess exclaimed. “Let’s go!”
And thus, they all followed Diril who took them outside into the street. They made a turn into another street, just before Trova Square, then entered an older venerable building through a small side-door.
Next, there was shadowed darkness and many, many slippery mildewed stairs going down. . . .
Their way lay through a brick-trimmed tunnel space, consisting of a long corridor that stretched underneath the length of the Square itself, with occasional horizontal wooden support beams overhead, garlanded in spider silk and cobwebs. Knife scratches and scrawlings of antique graffiti made by generations of criminal denizens of the city’s underbelly, decorated the bricks.
None of it had any detrimental effect on the Countess D’Arvu who walked steadily after her husband, unafraid of the squalor of the tunnel.
Diril walked before them all, carrying a small candle lantern that he had lit only once they were inside. Percy and Beltain came last, and the knight periodically moved his gauntleted arm to the pommel of his sword, ready to act in a split second.
The tunnel turned in different directions a number of times, then widened into a small square room with a stone floor covered in deep dust. There was a door, and Diril opened it with the skill of a lock-pick, then proceeded upwards through the narrowest stairwell imaginable, black and covered with soot.
They followed him silently, and emerged from a doorway behind a wall-hanging inside a dark corridor—elegant, dimly lit, and at least three stories above street level. They were now inside the Palace of the Sun.
The man named Diril extinguished the lantern, motioned for silence, and for them to follow. They moved through the empty corridor for about fifty feet, following its turns and observing a veritable gallery of old paintings in gilded frames and various hangings every few feet on both sides of the corridor.
Diril stopped before one particular floor length tapestry depicting an antique scene of battle. He lifted the corner end of it, and a discreet door was revealed, painted the same color as the walls. He opened it with a skill born of familiarity, and they were again faced with a claustrophobic passage. In they went, without light, and this time walked for interminable minutes in unknown directions, by feel, moving between walls, and taking endless turns past what felt like quite a few other doorways that Diril ignored.
At last he stopped before one, and he opened it a crack. He paused, listening, then moved aside what must have been a large hanging, and in the shadows they could see his hand motioning to follow.
They emerged from a sha
dowed corner into a grand splendid Hall—possibly the grandest Percy had ever seen. This was the Hall of the Sun. It was perfectly empty and silent, locked from the outside, and no candelabras were lit. But the curtains were not drawn, and thus the moonlight filled the expanse with silver illumination, bright as day, and set the crystal garlands suspended from sconces everywhere to a cold winter sparkle.
The Countess D’Arvu drew her breath in sharply, and put her hands over her own mouth in an emotional reaction at the sight of the Hall and the memory of the last time she stood here.
Diril remained near the secret doorway while the rest of them walked in soft careful steps along the polished parquet floor.
Before them, all the way on the other end of the Hall loomed the Sapphire Throne, a grand single perfect jewel upon a dais. . . . Even from a distance it sparkled fiercely with a cold immortal fire in the moonlight, its smooth sharp facets and cabochon rounded edges capturing the light in their own ways, transforming it in prismatic motion.
Percy went still, her breath catching, and she clutched Beltain’s hand. “She is here . . .” she whispered, and pointed at the throne.
Up on a column pedestal on the right of the throne sat a small golden statue of the goddess.
They neared the throne, taking each step in such silence that they could hear their own breath and nothing else.
Before the dais they paused. Percy stood, dumbstruck, and then she reached out with her own death sense because the pull of the Cobweb Bride had grown overwhelming. The golden figure of the goddess was before her, and yet, it was not what called her, and thus she glanced at it only momentarily. But the Cobweb Bride—she was here too, yes! Only—
Percy turned around slowly, compelled by the pull, the impossible need of the death shadow. And she approached the Sapphire Throne itself.
She did the unthinkable, by climbing the three ceremonial steps directly up to the throne, a place that only the Sovereign had the right to occupy. She stood on the top step, right before the throne—so near, she could sit upon it if she chose—breathing deeply, and sensing the single death billowing, fluttering . . . under her feet.
Thus, she pointed down at the throne, and underneath it, and she whispered: “Here . . . here lies the Cobweb Bride.”
They stood watching her in a mixture of fear, wonder and urgency.
Percy turned her back on the Sapphire Throne and walked back down the stairs of the dais, pausing before the pedestal with the Goddess Thesmos. “Is there something down there?” she whispered, looking at her companions. “Down, underneath the Throne?”
The Count shook his head negatively. “No . . . That is, I don’t know.”
“Could there be a hidden passage,” said Percy. “Similar to the one we just used? Anything?”
“Ask your man,” Beltain said softly, pointing to Diril who remained on the other end of the Hall.
The Count raised his hand and beckoned for Diril to approach. The man neared, and they consulted in whispers, and Diril shook his head negatively several times.
It was Countess D’Arvu who interrupted. “We must pray!” she exclaimed in a stifled whisper. “Pray to Thesmos for truth! The answers must lie here, else she would not have called us to her! Pray, child!” and the Countess wrung Percy’s hand with her clammy own.
Nodding to her, Percy turned to the Goddess.
The golden shape was smooth and exquisite, a statue formed by a master sculptor. The true brightness of gold was leached by the moonlight into a silvery cream softness. The face of the Goddess has a serene expression, languid half-closed eyes. Her lips were shaped at the corners in the faintest shadow of a smile.
Percy reached out and placed her fingers upon the folded leg of the statue, trembling at the touch of cool metal that was somehow also warm, in an impossible dichotomy of the senses.
“Oh, no! You mustn’t touch!” The Countess put her hand to her mouth in worry.
“Why not?” said the Count D’Arvu. “She may be able to call upon Thesmos with her touch. It is said that touching the gods’ sacred effigies can heal the sick and bring enlightenment upon those who seek answers—”
Percy let go, then sighed and continued gazing at the divine form before her. Moonlight shone softly from the great windows, and just for an instant a spark glittered on the very top point of the headdress, sliding like a pinpoint star upon the braided wheat of the harvest crown. It beckoned her. . . .
Percy was compelled. She reached out with her fingers and placed them on top of the crown, reaching for the elusive spark of brilliance, moon silver upon tangible gold.
She touched, and then, because it seemed the right thing to do, she extended her palm and rested it fully upon the spot on top, feeling a sudden effusion of warmth coming to her, or maybe leaving her flesh and entering the cool metal.
How strange it was, that she felt the need to press her palm in just such a manner, to give and receive warmth, as though this was the perfect spot, and her hand a source of inner fire. . . .
Long moments passed. Her hand—it was now a part of the goddess, flesh to flesh, and the warmth had become a thing of love.
The spot no longer felt like anything but an extension of her own mortal body. Moved by instinct, Percy pressed down and then caressed it, with a slight turn of her wrist.
As she did thus, the goddess figurine moved. It rotated softly, turning on its base, until it reached ninety degrees. At the same time, a grinding noise sounded, coming from the back of the Sapphire Throne.
Several gasps sounded. One of them belonged to Diril, a sound of grim satisfaction. The Countess and her husband were staring, their countenances filled with terror and hope.
“Ah! It is indeed a key!” Diril began to speak in an energetic whisper, excitement in his eyes, for the first time showing a living expression behind a mask of impassivity. “All these years, we have suspected! We in intelligence have searched for the meaning behind this effigy! Skilled hands from many factions have touched it, examined it variously for hidden latches, for any signs, and all for nothing—until now! The trick is to hold it down for long moments, then turn! A simple but effective combination!”
They swiftly went to observe what had been revealed behind the throne. “Come!” Diril signaled eagerly. “It’s a passage leading down! What a magnificent discovery!”
The parquet floor had been moved aside along interlocking geometric portions of its mosaic pattern, sliding apart to reveal a dark passage.
One by one they entered and descended, with Percy and Beltain walking last, behind the others. The darkness became soft grey in hue, then resolved into a strange illumination that seemed to have no source. A sterile stone chamber was before them, and ahead a passage corridor with arches and light sconces in each niche, their lanterns like disembodied moons behind frosted glass.
They walked, following the corridor, and the Countess D’Arvu moved unsteadily, held by her husband who gently assisted her.
At last they emerged into an impossible larger chamber, filled with soft overwhelming light, anemic lavender.
Percy felt herself trembling because the pull was so strong now, the Cobweb Bride and her death, were here, were just ahead. . . .
She entered last, after everyone else who had paused at the entrance, stilled in what must have been terrible mind-freezing shock.
The room was filled with people—with women. They were motionless and covered in fine, white cobwebs. A sargasso sea of cobwebs.
They seemed to be statues, but somehow Percy knew they were not—because at the side of each was a gentle mournful thing of supernatural smoke, a death shadow, also petrified somehow, suspended into an impossibility—a shadow imprisoned, turned into invisible stone. Stilled in different positions, seated on chairs, standing upright, lying in repose on the smooth stone floor, these women and their shadows were a chilling sight, possibly because of their pristine beauty coupled with mortality. Not even dust here, only clean spun magic of silken strands, like a lace
forest. And they were drowned in it. . . .
Percy sensed their different deaths, held, imprisoned, changed in nature. And yet, she registered it all with only a periphery of her attention.
Her main intensity was focused upon only one.
She lay in the very center of the chamber, upon a long slab of ornate marble, her funereal slab. All in white she was, young and fair and ageless. Not a blemish upon her, only a soft matte sheen of infinite silken threads.
The Cobweb Bride.
Percy moved forward, past Beltain and Diril and the Count and Countess.
And she entered the cobweb forest.
“Leonora! Oh, Leonora!”
Somewhere behind her, Percy heard the Countess cry out in a piteous rending sound of despair. And there was a rush as they moved frantically toward one of the frozen figures, the one seated closest the entrance, right before their eyes—the one whom they recognized at last as their missing daughter.
But Percy did not look around, and continued moving forward. A few more steps, past stilled women-statues whose strangely untouched, open, living eyes seemed to follow her motion.
A few more steps, through a forest of fine spider silk that made her skin crawl and sent shudders of instinctive revulsion throughout her body. Percy used her fingers to move the strands out of her face and hair, closing her eyes when it became unbearable, and persisted forward.
Just another step. . . .
And Percy stood at last before the Cobweb Bride.
The maiden lay before her, fragile and anemic and perfect, her eyes opened wide, gazing eternally upward. There was a spot of curious darkness here, surrounding her in a shadow cocoon, for the infinite layers of cobwebs filtered the light down to a faint glow.
Percy stopped and she was now right before the death shadow—a mere breath away. It stood, translucent and petrified, formed of both twilight and pallor, shadow and light, as though the two had become intermingled and thus fixed in place.
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