“I will care for you and keep you safe.”
That statement was so ridiculous in the light of where they were and how Eurydice had got there that she was shocked silent. She was shocked again when they came to the shore of the Styx and she saw a boatman—not the boatman who had brought her; she had learned that there was more than one Charon—waiting there, but the explanation was simple enough.
“Play for me again,” he cried as soon as Orpheus came into sight.
“I will,” Orpheus said, lifting the cithara, which he had been carrying naked in his hand, “but not until my wife is aboard. You must not set out without her.”
The boatman, of course, could see Eurydice. His brows lifted, but when Eurydice bent and whispered, “It is with King Hades’ and Queen Persephone’s permission,” he said, “She is aboard, sweet singer. Sing.” And pushed off into the river.
“Eurydice?” Orpheus cried.
“I am here,” she answered, but her voice was low, her heart heavy.
He called her Gifts accursed and said he would protect her. His protection had brought her through the gates of death. This time it had been the best thing that ever happened to her, but next time… She shivered, remembering how Persephone had said that next time those who hated and feared her Gifts might kill her. And then Orpheus began to sing…and all she could remember was that he loved her enough to follow her into death’s realm.
The song ended. The boatman sighed, as if somehow fulfilled and thrust hard with his pole. Soon the prow ground on the pebbles of the other shore. It was pitch black—the torches that had guided Eurydice were not alight—but Orpheus stepped over the boat’s side without hesitation and called, “Eurydice.” For one moment she hesitated as a wave of fear and regret washed over her, but all the safety and kindness in the world could not make up for the lost love of a man who would seek her through death’s doors.
“I am here,” she answered, and came ashore, hearing a moment later, the scritch of the pebbles as the boatman poled his vessel back into the river.
Without thinking, she muttered the spell to light crystal that Hades had taught her when she began to go into the far caves and mines to Heal and Find. It took a lot of Power, which was why few could use it, but here in Plutos Eurydice never seemed to lack for Power. As the pebbles made of crystal lit, she recalled how wondrous and exciting those journeys through the caves had been, more thrilling than her travels in the upperworld. The dangers were much the same—wild beasts, bandits, rough terrain, and, most terrifying of all, chrusos thanatos—but the glories she had seen and the easy acceptance of a woman who wished to share the experience were better. No one needed to live a dull peasant’s life in Plutos, except by his or her own desire. Her thoughts were broken when she heard Orpheus gasp and she saw him looking around at the glowing stones.
“I am a witch,” Eurydice said.
He spun around—she had been behind him—and cried, “Eurydice!” and leapt to take her in his arms.
He kissed her lips, her eyes, her hair, clutched her to him so tight her ribs creaked, pushed her away so he could kiss her again, drew her close to hug again, all the while muttering her name and shaking so hard that the cithara in his hand banged against her.
“You are real. You are warm. You are not dead.”
She returned his caresses with fervor, laughing as she said between kisses, “So are we all, in Plutos. There are no cold and clammy dead among us.”
He clutched her tighter for a moment and then said, “And will you be cold, clammy, and dead when we leave Plutos?”
“I do not know,” Eurydice replied. Actually she didn’t think so. She was sure Persephone would have warned her if that fate threatened, but she was willing to let any doubts and fears Orpheus had work on him. Perhaps the fear of losing her again would bring him to come back with her. “We can go back,” she added tentatively.
“No!” he exclaimed, pushed her away, and turned back to his pack.
From that, he drew a stick with a fat, straw-wrapped head, from a pouch on his belt a small pot of coals and a twig. The twig caught flame in the pot of coals and then set the straw aflame, which ignited the pitch and ground burning rock of the torch.
“Can you hold that?” he asked Eurydice.
She took it from him, wondering whether he expected the solid wood to slip through her ghostly hands. He closed his pack, cased the cithara, pushed his arms through the pack straps and hung the instrument from it. Then he took the torch from her and slid his free arm around her waist.
“Come,” he said. “We will be out of here in no long time.”
“But I do not wish to be out of here,” Eurydice protested. “I am following you because I love you, but here I have found a home, Orpheus. I wish to stay here.”
“You are ensorcelled,” he said, and gently urged her to go with him.
“No, I am not,” she said.
She then began to explain what her life was like, what the people with whom she lived were like, the kindness of Hades and Persephone. Orpheus did not respond at all, not even to deny what she said, but after awhile his arm dropped from her waist. He did take her hand, but more as if he wished to be sure she would not run away than out of affection. Eventually Eurydice fell silent.
They went along the passage and through the chamber in which Radamanthus had spoken to her—or perhaps another judge’s chamber—and out into a tunnel which Orpheus followed with surprising certainty. Eurydice did not remember it at all and imagined she had been carried along it, either still unconscious from the blow she had received or drugged. She had seen two other sacrifices come in during her stay and they, too, had “died” in the upper cave and wakened in the judge’s chamber. Neither had been sufficiently Gifted to be taken into the royal household. They had gone among the common folk. Eurydice shivered suddenly, remembering that she had had to Heal one of the “sacrifices” who had been brutally beaten and had several broken bones. Was that to what Orpheus was bringing her back?
“You will feel better when you are out in the sun again,” Orpheus said, having felt her shudder.
“I will be glad to see the sun,” she said—and recalled that this, too, had been promised by Persephone, who told her that they must pass out of the underworld to the temple of the Goddess.
She began again to try to explain why she had come to love Hades’ realm but met only another stone wall of silence and eventually a sharp order to be still.
“You are bespelled,” Orpheus said, his voice harsh with anger. “You are compelled to try to draw me into this world, and I will not be: drawn. I have used such Power as I never used before and never will again to ensnare the King and Queen of the Dead so I could have you back. I do not blame them for setting their will upon you to hold me here, but I will not be caught in the trap no matter how you cry that you love this place.”
Was that possible? Eurydice wondered. Was it possible that she had been ensorcelled into contentment? She could not believe that Hades and Persephone would do such a dreadful thing. And then she realized it would not really be an evil act to set such a spell on those who came into Plutos. They could not go back because they would be driven out again and perhaps hurt worse. Why should they not be content with their new home? The doubts kept her silent as they walked, and walked, and walked.
The torch lasted incredibly long and Eurydice was very tired and very, very hungry and thirsty before it began to gutter. Orpheus seemed disturbed when it began to burn low, looking from side to side and walking more quickly, dragging Eurydice, who was flagging a little. And then a darker patch loomed along the right-hand wall and he cried, “Ah! Here is where we can stop to eat and rest.”
He drew her into the side cavern, sticking the guttering torch into a socket sunk into the wall near the entrance. Below was a pile of torches similar to the one Orpheus had used. He reached for a new one to light from the old, but Eurydice caught his hand.
“Do not waste torches. Wood is very precious in Pluto
s.”
She said the spell and the whole cavern lit. Orpheus gaped around him at the brilliant starbursts of lacy white crystal that grew out of the ceiling, which itself glittered as if strewn with many-colored stars. More clusters of glowing white clung to the walls overspreading shining wave-form seams of silver, green, and blue. At the back a sparkling trickle of water ran from a crevice down into a broad bowl below.
Eurydice looked around at the little cave. The beauty was no lie, but there was no warmth in it. She slipped the roll of blankets from her back and pulled her cloak out to draw around her. She was no longer cold in the home cave, she thought. Was it possible that a spell had been set upon her and was wearing off? She thought of the warmth of the sun. It would be pleasant.
Meanwhile, Orpheus had recovered from his amazement and shed the cithara and his pack, which he opened. He drew packets from it, which he opened to expose travel bread, smoked meat, and dried fruit. Eurydice sighed. At Hades’ table they would have had a rich soup, succulent roast, and sweet tubers spiced with moss from the blue-light caves. They had eaten well at Phineas’ court too, she told herself. They would be welcome there and that was where they would go. Spirits rising, she went to drink at the fountain, but Orpheus rushed over and pulled her away.
“I have water of the upperworld,” he said, pressing a flask into her hand. “What you eat and drink here will bind you.”
The water in the flask was flat, slightly tainted by its container, and almost warm, unpleasant compared with the freezing purity of the cave spring. Eurydice almost turned back to the sparkling liquid in the bowl and then wondered whether what Orpheus said could be true. So she sipped the water she was given, spread her blankets and took the food.
Orpheus watched her eat with obvious relief and pleasure. Clearly he had been afraid that she would be unable to take ordinary food. Troubled, Eurydice felt within herself, but there was no sense of disturbance in the rhythms she was accustomed to feel within her body, no disorder among the tiny flickering stars that were spells ready to be invoked with a word or two or in the gently roiling currents of her Power. She was sure there had been no tampering there, and yet…
As if reassured, Orpheus sat beside her and also began to eat, but his eyes were on her more often than they were on the food, and before long he reached out and touched her hair, following with his finger a little curl that bent around her ear. Suddenly Eurydice was aflame. Her hunger for Orpheus was so intense that she could not wait to finish what she was eating. She dropped the food to the blanket, twisted around, and flung her arms around his neck.
“I missed you so,” she cried. “Even though I knew it was impossible to be with you again, you were never out of my thoughts and I could never stop wanting you. And then you came! You do love me. You do.”
“Of course I love you,” he murmured, but could say no more because Eurydice sealed his lips with her own.
She started to lean sideways, pulling him with her, but he resisted, drawing her across his body, saying softly, “It will be too cold and hard for you on the floor, come atop me.”
The consideration for her lent fuel to her flames, and she could feel his shaft hard and hot against her thighs as her body slid down with his. It took only a moment to raise her tunic and his. She was burning already and needed no readying and he was groaning softly with eagerness even before she impaled herself. Then, having him fast within her, she found all need for haste was gone. She lifted slowly, drawing her nether lips lingeringly along his shaft and, just before he slipped from her completely—which he strove to prevent by seizing her hips—and stopped, holding just the bared head within her, and wriggled. Orpheus let his hands drop from her hips and moaned. Eurydice slid down, just as slowly, slid up and wriggled, slid down.
Soon she could hear Orpheus breathing like a bellows, and, in another moment, he had hold of her hips again, trying to pull her down, hold her still, push her up—clearly so excited that he did not know what he wanted. His passion drove hers. She moved harder and faster, no longer able to linger teasingly at the top of her stroke. Now it was at the bottom, with his shaft completely swallowed, that she writhed and twisted, rubbing that tiny tongue at the tip of her lips against him until she could bear the rising pleasure no more and collapsed against Orpheus, crying aloud in relief. His voice echoed hers and she felt him thrusting against her as his own climax came.
“I cannot believe you are dead,” Orpheus sighed after awhile.
“Well of course I am not dead,” Eurydice said, laughing. “Do you not remember that the Gifted are sacrificed to Hades alive?”
Orpheus looked troubled, and she touched his face. “Much that you have been told about Plutos is not true. Far from being stone hard and dour, the King of the Dead is a very kind god, often more kind than just. Persephone…ah, she is different. Her Goddess is so strong in her that sometimes she is not…” Eurydice stopped abruptly, having almost said Persephone was not always human. She was not supposed to be human; she was supposed to be a goddess herself. Eurydice shook her head. “I am truly sorry to leave them and to leave Plutos,” she went on, and then as if Orpheus’ expression had stopped her, smiled and added, “but I will not urge you to stay here any longer.”
“You are freeing yourself from the bespelling,” Orpheus cried, taking her in his arms again.
Eurydice smiled at him. It was not true. If there had been any ensorcellment, it was as strong as ever. She regretted leaving a place in which her Gifts were welcome without any taint of fear, a place in which she had been safe and never bored. But that was all nothing compared to being with Orpheus. In fact, she doubted she had ever been bespelled. The beauty of the cave around her told her that the greater beauties she had seen below were real, that Finding folk trapped or lost so they could be rescued was more satisfying than Finding lost trinkets or straying husbands. Nonetheless, she was happy. Orpheus had come for her.
They ate then and talked of upperworld things, mostly of Orpheus’ journey and how successful he had been. There was a nice cache of silver waiting for them. And he told her the news that had drifted from Yolcos to the courts in which he had been entertaining. Jason had returned safely and married Medea, and his uncle had, after a brief time, left the throne and the country. The golden fleece was now hung behind Jason’s high chair, a mark of his heroism. There was news of Heracles, too. He had also returned safely but without either Hylas or Polyphemus.
When they were finished with their meal, Eurydice cut the spell and darkened the chamber and they slept. When they woke—they had no way of knowing whether it was night or day, but both were rested enough to be ready to go on—Orpheus discovered that his coals were dead. He was appalled, but Eurydice laughed and took from her pouch an oval piece of wood that held a round of flint and a grooved metal wheel. She took a torch, spun the wheel with her thumb, and an avalanche of sparks fell on the oil-soaked straw. It burst into flame.
“What is that?” Orpheus said.
“A fire-striker—a thing of Hades’ devising. All of us who travel into the deep caves must have a way to make fire and something to burn.”
“But you can make the caves light,” Orpheus said as he donned his pack and hooked the cithara to it, then took the torch from Eurydice.
“Not all caves have enough crystal to light,” Eurydice explained, lifting her rolled blankets to her shoulders. “Those that can light, I can light. However, I am a strong witch. Many in Plutos have only weak Gifts and cannot sustain that spell. It needs Power.”
Without answering, Orpheus stepped out into the passageway. He closed his eyes for a moment when Eurydice darkened the cave. When he opened them, the torchlight seemed bright enough.
“You are stronger now than before you came to Plutos?” he asked. He did not sound very happy about it.
“No,” Eurydice said. “I am only less afraid. Here in Plutos, I am not afraid at all.”
“We will not be in Plutos much longer,” Orpheus said, and started off.
As they walked along she thought back over her life. The wisewoman in her village, to whom she had been apprenticed as a child, had soon become afraid of her. She had brought her to the temple, where the priestesses had welcomed her warmly, but that had not lasted long. She had soon learned that even in the temple, it was wise to smother her Gift—on the one hand because she wakened envy by being much stronger than the other priestesses, even the high priestess, and on the other because her Power made the priestesses desire to immure her among them so they could use her. Only in Plutos had she been free.
Her uncomfortable thoughts were interrupted by Orpheus, who pointed out another small cave and said it was time to eat again. When they were seated and the packets of dry trail food opened, he asked anxiously about her silence. They were coming near the end of the tunnel, he said, and would soon be in the cave of sacrifice. He watched her, a hand poised as if to catch her if she started to rise. She realized that he was afraid the ensorcellment that held her to Plutos was taking hold of her again.
Smiling because she was certain now that there was not and never had been any ensorcellment, Eurydice assured him she would not run away. Despite all the bad memories of her life in the upperworld and all her good ones of Plutos, she had no desire to turn back. But she did not say that because she knew he would not believe her, and she wished to keep her promise not to urge him again to live in Plutos—at least, not urge him directly.
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