Thrice Bound

by Roberta Gellis

  They caught several of the fish for dinner, so easily tempted with leftovers from the food they had carried that Hekate felt slightly guilty. However, after Kabeiros showed her how to bake them, wrapped in a jacket of clay dredged from the side of the pool, and laid in a bed of rocks heated by the blood of the earth, she put guilt aside and enjoyed her meal heartily.

  Another chamber frightened Hekate half out of her wits. From the roof hung hundreds or perhaps thousands of huge needles of rock formed by water that dripped very slowly along each needle's surface, leaving more rock behind. Sharp pillars grew up from the floor to meet those needles. Near the entrance, the needles above and pillars below had fused together leaving a central opening. The formation looked exactly like a gigantic mouth surrounded by jagged teeth. It took some force of will to step through the opening. Hekate could not help but envision those jaws closing on them.

  Beyond that in some places the needles dropping from the roof met the pillars growing up from the ground so that the way was blocked and they were forced to weave this way and that. Kabeiros had once tried to clear a path by knocking the needles from the roof, but he had not got far. What he had done exposed what seemed an unending vista of jagged needles, but he told Hekate he didn't dare try to clean more away because the reverberations of his hammering had caused other needles than those he struck to fall. He was afraid if he continued, the ceiling would come down and kill him.

  Despite the uneasiness it caused her, even that chamber had its strange beauty. Many of the needles were of different colors and the moving mage lights caused them to flicker and glow. Still, neither of them liked the place, fearing that sound or movement or some touch during their passage would begin a collapse. And once, a needle did come down not far from them when they were walking through.

  Unfortunately, they had to pass through that place every day to bathe in a wonderful cavern full of pools and geysers of hot water. One could choose there a bath of exactly the right size and temperature and some of the geysers had produced a sand as fine as powder from wearing away the rock that surrounded them.

  "I wish I could go out," Hekate had sighed when she had finished washing with the fine sand. "This mixed with a little oil and some ash from the bones of the meat would make a paste that leaves one feeling truly fresh and clean."

  For a long time Kabeiros did not respond, and Hekate looked at him in surprise. "I wish so too" might have been an expected answer. But by the time she had finished drying herself on cloths used to wrap offerings—the offerings having been tidily stored on the shelves—he said, "I can take you to an opening on the east side of the mountain, but I wish you would tell me honestly if you plan to leave. I will not try to stop you."

  Perhaps not physically, Hekate thought, but I suspect you would reason and plead, and I am so comfortable here. . . . "No, I wouldn't leave without warning you," she said. "I promise not to do that. I trust you, Kabeiros. I don't feel I will need to escape. Perhaps—" She didn't finish what she had started to say, which was to ask him to come with her. That was something he couldn't do if he were magically bound to the caves of the dead. Or could he?

  As she swallowed the invitation, she wondered why she had done so. If she could break the spell that tied Kabeiros to the caves of the dead, he would be an ideal companion to accompany her to some safer and more comfortable refuge where she could work out the problem of dealing with her father. And the combination of the friendship between them and his gratitude for her breaking his bondage would doubtless make him grateful enough to accept her as a shape-changer. She would be able to take the form of the woman again.

  She finished dressing and came around the spur of rock that gave her some privacy. Kabeiros was sitting on a boulder, his sandals still unlaced, his head in his hands. Recognizing the blow she had dealt him by confirming she intended to leave, she went to him and touched his shoulder.

  "Tell me how you are bound," she urged. "For my own protection, I have studied bindings and the ways to loose them. Perhaps I could find a key to free you."

  "It is useless." Kabeiros shook his head. "Mother knows I have tried myself in every way I know, even drawing on the earth to enlarge my power. Moreover, when I first was imprisoned here, I called and some of my friends heard me and came. But none of them could loose my bonds either."

  "Perhaps none was as strong as I."

  Hekate spoke without false modesty. She had always been powerful, although warned by her mother she had kept as much of her strength hidden as she could. Still she had never come near Perses in her command of leashed energy, which was why he could fell her and control her. Now, however, her power grew every day and the steady increase puzzled her. When she had spoken, she suddenly wondered whether the power came from the caves, and she asked Kabeiros.

  "Not to me, anyway," he said. "As far as I can tell, I am what I always was. But for many, it is the opposite. The caves drain them or make their magic go awry. That was why my most powerful friends couldn't even try to help me."

  So Perses was not merely superstitious, Hekate thought. What he feared was true, and he was one of those whose power was drained or damaged by the caves. Even if he were not, his fear would shake his concentration and make his magic less effective. Hekate drew a deep breath. Would there be some way to draw him into the caves? Even as the idea came to her she knew it was hopeless. If anything could have drawn Perses there, it would have been his determination to retrieve her and use her.

  Perses was out of her reach, and just as well. Strong as she had grown, she still feared him too much to challenge him. She winced away from that honest if shameful admission and brought her attention back to Kabeiros. Once again he had not told her what bound him to the caves of the dead. She sighed. He had a right to keep it to himself if that was what he wished, but that secrecy would prevent her from helping him and deprive her of a valuable companion. Perhaps she could come at the answer sideways. Hekate brought the conversation back to power.

  "You have power enough, if that spell of terror and despair was any example and if you still claim to be the Kabeiros who made the fountain." She laughed suddenly. "I remember how I laughed when I first saw it. But why? Why choose such a . . . I mean, if you wanted the poor to have good water, that is estimable, but why that form?"

  He shrugged. "I'm sorry to say that I don't believe I even thought of the need of the poor for good water. I was not given to serious thought in those days. They were both there, the water and the dog, that's all. I told you it was a prank. I was very young . . . so very young . . ."

  "So was I, once," Hekate said. "You still haven't explained why a dog peeing."

  He had begun to look lost when he spoke of his youth—it still happened once in a while, though not as frequently as at first—but she knew a sharp question or remark would bring him out of it. Now he smiled at her sharp tone and answered.

  "I saw the water under the ground—as I see the blood of the earth in the veins—and I think I had just stepped in a puddle of filth or there was garbage all over the road or something of that kind. Anyway, I thought what was needed was a fountain and that it was ridiculous that someone hadn't paid a sorcerer to bring the water up."

  "Not everyone can see what you see. I told you that before. And the people who live there probably can't afford to pay a sorcerer and would be too frightened to approach one anyway."

  "Either I didn't know it then or just didn't think of it. I could have been drunk. Then farther along the street I came across the statue of the dog . . . ah . . . watering the pole. Of course the two things came together in my mind at once, so I moved the statue to the water and brought it up." He grinned. "I suppose I could have made it come out of the dog's mouth, but that would have been so ordinary. I've seen ten thousand fish spitting water and nymphs pouring it out of pithoi and—"

  Hekate laughed. "And a dog peeing it was a little different. Yes, I can see that."

  Kabeiros smiled, laced his sandals, and stood up. Both fell silent as t
hey entered the chamber of the needles and stepped as gently as possible. However when they were safely through, Kabeiros said, "I wish all my pranks had been so innocent. Sometimes people got hurt." He frowned. "A child . . . I remember grieving over that. A child died because of my carelessness and stupidity. The father had annoyed me, raving about some heavy chest that was either at just the perfect height or too low or something of the sort. It was so long ago, I don't remember the cause, but I do remember bespelling the chest some two handspans above the floor and going off. I suppose I meant to come back and tease the man, or make him admit his work of art wasn't perfect or something, but I forgot. And eventually the spell wore out and the chest fell—and the child was beneath it and was crushed."

  Hekate looked at him sidelong. His eyes were fixed straight ahead, his mouth downturned with remembered sorrow or possibly even with new pain. A better nature than mine, she thought. She would have cursed the man and his woman for carelessness, not blamed herself.

  She said soothingly, "I'm sorry about the child, but you couldn't have known. Usually a spell fades a bit at a time, so the chest would have settled down very slowly over several days. And it was a pure accident that the child should be there at the particular moment the spell failed all at once. It was only a prank, not meant to harm."

  He smiled at her doubtfully. "At least that was the worst," he admitted, "but so often I meant to do good and caused harm, like when I dropped a merchant's purse to a poor whore with a sick child. She took the money, took the child, and ran. Naturally, she left the purse behind, and a thief who came to buy her body found it and was blamed for the crime."

  Hekate laughed aloud. "That seems more like a fated justice than a prank that went wrong. I suspect he well deserved the punishment he received."

  "That's true enough, but if the woman had been slower to flee . . ." Kabeiros went on to relate a dozen or so adventures, most of which ended far differently than he expected. Hekate had only been listening to what he said with half an ear, and finally she frowned.

  "Are those the only spells you can use?" she asked in the first pause.

  He shrugged. "Well, I can make mage lights and fire and send terror abroad. I know most of the basics, what is pounded into a child who shows promise in magic. Later . . . As I've implied, I was a fool when I was young, only wanting to play with my power, not really use it. I never even learned properly how to make wards. Later, ah, later I regretted that. I had cause to regret it bitterly, but it was too late."

  "What do you mean it was too late? One can learn spells at any time in one's life, or even learn to make them. It isn't necessary to start from childhood. Well, many sorcerers only come into their power at puberty or even later."

  Kabeiros' lips twitched. "True enough, but I don't see a long line of sorcerers willing to teach me. And I have nothing with which to pay . . . and don't look toward the outer chamber. The minions of the king of the dead do come at the equinoxes to gather up the offerings. I don't know whether they have some way of knowing what was left for them, but—to speak the truth—I'm not brave enough to discover whether they do by stealing from them."

  "But I am here," Hekate said, laughing again. "And if I say so myself, I am no mean spell-caster. I can teach you wards of any kind and any power. I am a specialist in wards from trying to protect myself from my father." She grimaced. "Not that I ever found one that would completely protect me, but . . . but I had less power then, and simply being in my father's presence exhausted me more than casting ten spells."

  She stopped speaking abruptly. That was how she had always felt in her father's presence, as if she had been pouring out power into spells. Was there some way he could have been draining her all these years? Not draining her completely, as he drained Asterie because he had never had any intimate contact with her, but . . .

  Holy Mother, that added another layer of impossibility to the binding she had accepted to make Perses powerless. If he had some way of draining her without coupling, as soon as she came near him, even if he could not touch her with the coercion spell, he could drink her power until any spell she cast at him would be too weakened to do him any harm.

  "You will teach me spells?" Kabeiros' voice broke into her unhappy musing.

  Hekate smiled at him, glad to be diverted from her unpleasant thoughts. "And I won't charge you. After all, haven't you lodged me without charge? I can teach you spell-making, too. What kind of spells would you like to have?"

  His face lit with eagerness. "Is there some way to make me invisible? Sometimes when they bring one of the Gifted to the caves, they don't obey the rule of the king of the dead that the person not be molested. If I could go among them unseen, I could give back a shrewd blow or two or blast a few with my spell of terror while not touching those who do the victim no harm. I would like that!"

  "Invisibility is very hard. I know the spell but it takes a practiced sorcerer to put together the commands and the mental images. The backlash from such a spell can be dangerous. I could build it myself and give it to you, but then it could only be used once or perhaps a few times, and each use would take more power." She shook her head. "However, there's an easy spell I call `look-by-me.' That would permit you to walk among the worshipers and not be noticed, but it wouldn't serve if you struck someone. That would be too strong an attention provoker for the spell to cover."

  "That will do," he said eagerly.

  So Hekate taught him the look-by-me spell and then a spell for stasis, so he could keep the food brought as offerings for a much longer time and in more perfect condition than the cool room. And then she began to teach him how to create spells of his own. That was much slower work and took considerable practice.

  Another ten-day passed. Hekate was growing very tired of her confinement. She was beginning to miss the sun and the wind, the sounds of birds and beasts and the activities of people. The caves were not silent, but the many noises made by water were not enough. There was no doubt that Kabeiros sensed her restlessness. His face was always sad now at any time when it was not animated by his interest in what he was learning or by their conversation.

  Despite that restlessness and longing for the outer world, Hekate was not quite ready to leave. She and Kabeiros were good friends now, and she had never had a friend before. It would be very, very hard to part with him. Also, somewhere, like a faint aftertaste of something foul, she still sensed the guhrt.

  Then one day when she had been sitting for a long time explaining how a trap spell could be used to delay the magical attack of a stronger sorcerer until a more effective spell could be made ready, she found she could not get to her feet when she was done. Suddenly despite the light of the mage lamps, the sparkle of the crystal in the ceiling, the image of rushing waters on the walls, Hekate could bear the cave and her ancient body no longer.

  "A pox on these ancient bones," she cried. "I must take them out into the sun."

  Kabeiros said nothing for a moment, then got to his feet. "Well," he sighed, "I knew I couldn't keep you forever. I will pack all the food we have in stasis. It will take us two days to reach the other way out of the cave. I hope there will be enough dried meat and flatbread left after that to feed you for several days, until you reach some settlements and can buy or trade spells for food. On the way, you will be able to gather some fruits and berries that ripen in early summer."

  There was no expression at all on his face. Hekate limped over and took his hand before he could turn away. "Come with me, Kabeiros."

  "I cannot," he said.

  "Why not? You have never told me what binds you to this place. Did you anger the king of the dead?"

  "No. Not him. Only another sorcerer, but he . . . Half the spell was my own. He just twisted it so that . . . I cannot leave here."

  "Let me try," Hekate begged. "Let me see the binding and try to break it. You will not die, will you?"

  "No," he said softly. "I will not die." But he would not meet her eyes nor agree that she should examine what bound
him to the caves.

  She argued with him and pleaded with him all that day and night while they made ready to leave. The next day, Kabeiros spent some time in the outer cave, rearranging the tribute to the king of the dead and writing a letter, which he left plainly visible in one of the vases, stating that he would be gone for some time. Someone should be told to collect the offerings.

  "Who collected them before you came?" Hekate asked curiously, distracted for the moment from the hope that had roused in her. If he only intended to show her the mouth of the cave he should only be gone for four days and return well before the autumn equinox.

  "One of the dead," Kabeiros answered. "I would have gone mad in the beginning if he had not been here. He had a funny Gift. When he got angry, his hair would burst into fire. I think he could cause fires, too; but there's nothing much in the caves that would burn, so it was safe enough."

  "Except you," Hekate remarked dryly. "I can see why his Gift was not widely appreciated."

  "Oh, I was in no danger. He was very glad of my company and was careful not to let his fire touch me."

  "What happened to him?"

  "I have no idea. He went to take the tribute to wherever the king of the dead accepts offerings and he never returned. I had been helping him gather the sacrifices and . . . and I just went on doing it . . . but I had no idea for how long."

  "Long enough," Hekate snapped. "I need you more than the king of the dead."

  "Do you?"

  He looked at her with such longing in his eyes that Hekate thought he would surely tell his secret, but he did not. Nor did he agree to let her try to undo the binding, although she argued with him and pleaded with him all the way through the passages and chambers they traversed to find the hidden way out. She begged him for reasons; she railed at him for stubbornness, but all he would say was "I cannot."

  When they arrived at the cave mouth, it was almost as dark outside as in. Only the faintest gleam of promised dawn showed on the eastern horizon. They had lost the rhythm of day and night while traveling and had walked through the night. Kabeiros set down the pack of food and other necessities he carried, keeping only the roll of furs and blankets he had been using as a bedroll. He touched her gently, then turned away.