The Goddess of the Underworld: The Chronicles of Arianthem VIII

by Samantha Sabian

  “Oh, don’t look at me that way,” Ingrid said, glancing down at her young companion. The Tavinter could hide nothing; everything they thought and felt was written on their face. “Cast it again,” Ingrid said, turning back to Idonea. Her professional curiosity was getting the best of her.

  Idonea sent a questioning look Y’arren’s way, and the old elf simply nodded. Idonea composed herself, then began constructing the cage, symbol by symbol, once more. That was one problem that had to be overcome. Right now, the casting of the spell was piece-by-piece, taking a length of time that was totally impractical. Hel was not going to stand around while Idonea finished the job. Eventually, she was going to have to cast it instantaneously, in one smooth motion.

  But today, Idonea still built the glowing cage of light one wall at a time, finally sealing the pyramid at the top. It crackled and popped, the energy seething against its invisible constraints. Idonea took a deep breath and stabilized the spell.

  Ingrid examined the glyphs, mentally translating their various raw meanings and seeing the pattern they formed to build the trap. It really was quite ingenious and she determined she would prod the mage until she gave up their origins. But right now she was more interested in their combination, the configuration that produced the end result. One glyph leaped out at her, not for its power or originality, but because it did not seem quite right.

  “This one,” Ingrid said, moving closer to Idonea and pointing at one symbol, “something is wrong with this one.”

  “I am open to suggestions,” Idonea said, her sarcasm returning despite the strain of maintaining the spell.

  Ingrid stared at the glyph. It was familiar, and yet not. Something was slightly off, and her thoughts began to wander. If, as she suspected, Fenrir had given Idonea these glyphs, he must have done so from memory. And if he had seen them when he was trapped, then he had seen them only from the inside of the cage…

  “Flip it,” Ingrid said, “from left to right. I think it is backwards.”

  Y’arren leaned forward. If the sorceress was incorrect, it could have devastating consequences. If it was an act of sabotage, it was one that they might not recover from if Idonea was injured or unthinkably, killed. Nothing told Y’arren to stay Idonea’s hand, but her misgivings for her inaction were great. Skye, too, stood up from the bench, prepared to do something, but with no idea of what. Both waited to see what Idonea would do, leaving the decision to her.

  The glowing glyph floated before Idonea as she considered her next move and its repercussions. All of the possible motivations of the sorceress were in play. Most of the potential outcomes of the action were bad. The endless branching of possibilities was making her head hurt. Finally, despite her newfound maturity, patience, and discipline, she reverted to her natural state of reckless action.

  “Well, fuck it,” she muttered, and waved her hand.

  The glyph flipped and all present held their breath. But the result was almost anticlimactic. The crackling stopped and settled into a low thrumming as the spell stabilized. The red light, already brilliant, brightened further and seemed to throb like a heartbeat. The cage itself seemed to harden, taking on a near-solid form.

  “You can thank me later,” Ingrid said, and the glance at Idonea’s cleavage communicated how she wished to be paid. Idonea was again reminded of her mother’s caution that magical energy and sexual energy were likely two sides of the same coin, marveling at how wise that old dragon was.

  Ingrid turned about, reveling in her triumph, a rarity in this present company.

  “That was entertaining,” she said as she took Skye’s hand, “but I’m in the mood for a different kind of entertainment.”

  Skye grasped the hand and dutifully followed her from the garden while Y’arren was left to ponder the Tavinter’s relationship with her dark paramour, contemplating all the twists and turns of fate.

  Chapter 20

  Raine sat in the garden, staring at the ground before her. The altercation with Hel and its aftermath had left her shaken and drained. Even now she shivered as she sat before the ominous tree. A handmaiden brought her a blanket and draped it over her shoulders, but she did not move or even acknowledge the gesture as she stared at the fluorescent plants before her without seeing them. The handmaiden faded away into the shadows. The quiet chirp of the birds did not register on Raine, and the gentle hum of the glowing insects faded away into her dark thoughts.

  She felt broken, shattered into a million pieces. Her attempt to engage her Scinterian side had failed, only playing into Hel’s hands further. She had no idea where Weynild was, if her friends had survived, or how the war had played out. For all she knew, Arianthem was utterly destroyed, or still under siege by that army of Hyr’rok’kin. She refused to ask about any of these things. She had long hoped she would hear some rumor in the court, or some whisper from the handmaidens, but no one spoke of such things, at least within her hearing.

  Her physical attraction to Hel seemed to grow with every contact. She had been unable to resist the Goddess from the start, but now their couplings grew more and more intense. It did not matter what the Goddess did to her, she responded to her with a passion that was as degrading as it was uncontrolled. Raine was fearful she was beginning to lose herself in that passion, the continual waves of pleasure, the feelings that never touched her heart, but could erase everything else around her like a drug that provided euphoric rapture, then left one numb.

  Her eyes flicked upward. The blackness at the edge of the garden beckoned invitingly, and Raine looked back down lest her interest in that wall of darkness could be seen. Both Feray and Faen had been watching her closely all morning, probably on some intuition of the Goddess. Indecision was mirrored on her face, but no one could see as her back was to all save the tree. She did not know what was in the emptiness, monsters, madness, or perhaps nothing at all, but she could no longer remain and do nothing. The hope that Weynild’s fate would be revealed to her was dying. Her only solace was that her love could find her anywhere, even in that black oblivion.

  She stood, pretending to examine the nearby plants in greater detail. She followed the line of plants, which brought her conveniently close to that forbidden boundary. She kneeled down, examining some glowing petals and fingering their silky texture, coming away with an iridescent powder on her fingertips. She rubbed the pollen between the pads of her index finger and thumb, then stood upright. She took a deep breath. It would take only three steps, and she would be swallowed by that great night.

  She did not make it one.

  “What are you doing?”

  Hel stared down at her, having materialized directly in her path. Her emerald eyes were furious, and Raine knew that any excuse, really any words at all, would only make matters worse. Her arms were snatched by the demon guards that now stood on both sides of her, and they dragged her roughly away from the border of the garden.

  “Unfortunate,” Hel said, raising her arm, “for I have always enjoyed this view.”

  At the command of Hel’s raised arm, a massive ebony wall rose up at the edge of the garden, churning the earth beneath it, enclosing the space entirely. It reached towards the night sky, blocking out all of the emptiness beyond. The garden now had a far more claustrophobic feel to it, having transitioned from an open air space to an enclosed courtyard. The one place that had felt like outdoors to Raine now felt like a prison.

  Hel stalked by her, her black robes flowing behind her. “Bring her,” she said icily.

  Raine was half-dragged, half-carried by the demons who were feeding off the anger of their Mistress. Feray watched the escort of the prisoner with near pity. She had seen Hel in every phase of anger: irritation, annoyance, frustration, even rage, but she could not remember ever seeing such volcanic wrath on the face of the Goddess of the Underworld before. The demons dragged Raine up the stairs as she stumbled to get her footing, then shoved her into the room. />
  “In here,” Hel said, moving into the shrine.

  The demons complied, nearly pulling Raine’s arms from her sockets as they dragged her across the floor, then threw her on the stone tiles in front of those great heavy curtains.

  “Leave us,” Hel commanded, and the demons disappeared.

  Raine rubbed her arm where the guard had nearly dislocated her shoulder. She was still on her knees, uncertain if Hel would strike her if she got to her feet. But when she looked up, Hel’s volcanic anger had transitioned to something different. Her fury was still present, but now it was tinged with self-satisfaction and a trace of triumph. The expression filled Raine with dread. She slowly got to her feet, still rubbing her shoulder.

  “So willing to leave me after all we’ve shared?” Hel said sarcastically.

  Raine said nothing as Hel stalked in a circle around her.

  “Willing to walk into the blackness of oblivion?” Hel continued. “Willing to chance annihilation rather than share my bed?”

  Raine maintained her silence, but the dread she was experiencing was only increasing. Hel was leading up to something, and whatever it was, it wasn’t good.

  “Then perhaps you should see what else you were willing to walk away from.”

  And with a great flourish, Hel swept one of the curtains aside, the massively heavy drape that Raine had been unable to budge. The curtain moved as if it weighed nothing, then fluttered to the floor. Raine stared in horror and disbelief at what lie beyond.

  It was Weynild.

  The dragon was in her human form, trapped in what looked like a block of amber only slightly lighter in color than her own golden eyes. Those eyes stared out expressionlessly, vacantly, the body immobilized in the hardened, petrified sap that looked exactly like that which oozed from the Tree of Death.

  “That,” Hel said triumphantly, “is what you would have left in my hands.”

  Y’arren received the courier carrying the missive from the Alfar Republic with great gravity. The young man was exhausted, having spared no time for rest in his long journey. The elven matriarch waved to her attendants to assist him, and turned her attention to the bundle he produced. Although the courier knew nothing of the content of the message, the mood and words of the Directorate’s young companion had impressed themselves upon him, and this urgent solemnity was conveyed to Y’arren in an instant. She removed the scroll and carried it into her tent.

  The graceful scrawl was familiar to Y’arren. The message was from Maeva’s young prize, Kiren, the human lover who was a talented scholar and an expert in linguistics. But although the handwriting was familiar to Y’arren, the broad loops and the bold slashes of the writing was not, and they indicated that it had been written in great haste and agitation.

  Y’arren’s heart beat faster and she took a deep breath to calm herself. She read down through the missive carefully and methodically, resisting the urge to just skim through it. She absorbed Kiren’s process, her step-by-step reasoning, her interim findings, and finally, she turned to the last page where the conclusions were written.

  Her heart stopped. She read, then re-read the translation of the final line of the prophecy. She went back to the beginning of the letter, read through the entire thing again, especially Kiren’s humble entreaties that her work be reviewed and vetted in the hope that she had made an error.

  Y’arren slowly lowered the parchment. She knew that the brilliant little scholar had made no mistake. She would have her own sages review the work, of course, and she would do so personally, as well. But she knew that Kiren had translated the line properly.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  The elven attendant stood in the doorway, unwilling to disturb the matriarch, but moved by the stricken look on her face.

  “We need to call the allies to a meeting,” Y’arren said.

  Raine stood before her entombed lover in stunned silence. She took a step forward, unable to process the sight of her beloved so close to her, yet still so impossibly far away. Weynild was in her armor and had her hand upright, as if to ward off whatever disaster had placed her in this state of suspension, caught in the pose right before her imprisonment. Raine slowly lifted her hand and pressed it against the transparent prison, inches from the hand of her love.

  “The most prized trophy in my trophy room,” Hel said, her rancor having dissolved into an amused sarcasm that was so much worse.

  “What have you done to her?”

  “She is not dead,” Hel said, moving to examine her prize. “She is encased in the hardened resin from the tree you sit before in my garden.” Hel’s tone was perversely casual. “I feared it might kill her, but dragons can hibernate for centuries, even millennia, and so she lies dormant as a protection against the draining of the substance.” She gazed at the beautiful regal features that stared out at nothing. “It was exactly what I expected to happen.”

  Hel’s self-satisfied exposition tore at Raine like a jagged blade. She pressed her forehead against the amber in anguish. Hel’s pleasure at her agony was almost as great as the pleasure of viewing Talan so powerless.

  “You once asked me,” she continued, stepping away from the encased dragon, “why I didn’t kill you.”

  Raine tensed at this change in conversation, thinking Hel was going to speak of the bond between her and Weynild, fearing that somehow she had discovered their connection.

  “You said you did not want to turn me into a thrall.”

  “Well, that was certainly part of the reason,” Hel said, “but I did not tell you the truth in its entirety.”

  Raine turned to the Goddess, who was now toying with the cord of the other curtain. “I needed to keep you alive so that you could fulfill your prophecy.”

  “My prophecy?” Raine said bitterly. “My prophecy has hardly been fulfilled.”

  “Oh,” Hel said, her sense of triumph filling Raine with even more dread, which hardly seemed possible, “I’m afraid that it has.”

  Hel swept aside the second curtain with the same ease, and the cloth that Raine could not budge again fluttered to the ground. There was no horrific revelation this time, no loved one encased in amber like some insect, merely a stone wall with primeval markings on it that resembled ancient elvish. But Raine’s sense of dread had not diminished a whit, but continued to grow with an almost suffocating intensity.

  Hel waved her hand, and the first line of ancient symbols lit up in glowing outlines, then resolved themselves into the common tongue. Although Raine could easily read it now, Hel took great pleasure in reading it for her.

  “The Dragon’s Lover,” she began, with a significant glance at Raine, then at Weynild. She waved her hand, and the second line on the wall jumped to life, then transitioned to the common tongue. “Felled by the closest of allies.” Hel pointed to the comatose silver-haired woman.

  “You were felled by the closest ally of all. You gave yourself up in an attempt to save Talan.”

  Raine’s jaw clenched, but she did not dispute this version of events, and Hel continued. The third line was illuminated, then translated in glowing letters.

  “Carries into death without dying.”

  Hel paused. “And here you are, in the Underworld, the land of the dead, amongst death itself, and yet you still live.”

  This realization pierced Raine like an ice-cold needle through her heart. She had not considered the prophecy in that light, nor given it any connection to her current situation.

  Hel waved the hand again, and yet another line illuminated and translated, which she read aloud.

  “That which saves all worlds.”

  “And how have I saved any worlds?” Raine said, her bitterness even more pronounced. “I have saved nothing during my stay here.”

  “Oh, but you have,” Hel said. “You see, the instant you were taken from that battlefield in Arianthem, I withdre
w all of the Hyr’rok’kin from the mortal realm. The Veil has been emptied. I have not ventured one foray against the borders of Ásgarðr. I have not once left the Underworld to battle against any realm, content within my land for the first time in eons.”

  Raine sought to process this improbability, nay, this impossibility, that her presence at Hel’s side had stayed the hand of the Goddess against her enemies, had protected the helpless in the mortal realm from her fiendish creations.

  “You withdrew the Hyr’rok’kin from Arianthem?” Raine said uncertainly.

  “I did. There was no battle after you leaped into my portal. I told the mortals to stay out of the Empty Land, stay clear of the Veil and Nifelheim, and that they would be troubled no more. I ordered my army of a million Hyr’rok’kin to stand down, and they marched back across the desert. There was no war, not even one death on the battlefield that day. And not one Hyr’rok’kin has passed into the mortal realm since.”

  This was too much for Raine to absorb. As much as she had tried to avoid thinking of her friends, thoughts of their demise had tortured her. She had visions of the destruction of her homeland, and the idea that it was still exactly the same, verdant and green, continuing on peacefully as if nothing had happened, was too much for her to comprehend. She stared dumbly at the glowing text on the wall.

  “And so now, my love,” Hel said, “would you like to see the final line of the prophecy?”

  Raine stared as the symbols of the final line illuminated and began to glow. She could not breathe as Hel began to read the prophecy in its entirety.

  “The Dragon’s Lover, felled by the closest of allies, carries into death without dying, that which saves all worlds.” Hel paused, waved her hand, and the final line translated itself into the common tongue.

  “And whose destiny it is to be The Consort of the Queen of the Underworld.”