Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (15 page)

He nodded, his countenance turning serious, the softness that was directed at her retreating as he focused on what was being said. “She does not want to die. Or rather, she is dead, but she does not want to accept whatever it is that happens after the soul leaves the mortal flesh—the
end
. For that, I do not blame her.”

“I do not blame her either. But unless she agrees to accept her fate, the world will continue broken as it is.”

Beltain took a step forward and he stood directly before her, so that Percy had to look up even more, while her breath quickened slightly, because she could feel the warmth of his body radiating at her, even without them touching.

“There are other things she told me
. . . 
.” And she related the conversation with Leonora, while speaking softly into the shirt on his chest.

“So we have a mad, damaged goddess
 . . .” Beltain mused. “I admit, I am still coming to terms with the notion of the classical gods and goddesses living in our midst and the One God allowing it—or sharing the universe with them. Now, it may be that what Lady Leonora has just told you might explain much of this immortal Sovereign’s violent behavior, but not all. Given what appears to be possible, what does she want
now?
What
can
she want or expect from the world, from all of us in it?” And he placed his hand on Percy’s bare arm, near her shoulder, his fingers splayed, and moving lightly against her skin.

Percy shuddered with the shock of his touch and looked up at him.

Beltain was looking down at her with intensity, his head leaning in, until his face was directly over her cheek and the wavy locks of his soft brown hair tumbled against her neck. She felt his warm breath on her cheek, and then he whispered, “Sweet Percy . . . let the gods be mad as they may, but . . . I must steal a kiss.”

“Oh!” she said.

He kissed her mouth, hard.

She knew the now familiar yet still impossible-to-believe pressure upon her lips, and she turned into it so that there was no space between them, no breath, no skin.

Soon, both his hands held her face between them, tilting her head back so that she felt as though she was swooning into the floor, into the ground, into the earth itself, while he
opened
her, consumed her from above and from the inside, and her gaze was turned heavenward, and
he
was the dome of her sky, its entirety. . . .

They came up for air, and both were shuddering with exultation, with heat and lassitude in their limbs.

“My sweet love,” he said. And his eyes, so near her own, were molten and dark, and soft and oh-so-vulnerable.

Percy placed her hands upon his chest and she leaned into him. She rested the side of her face against him, feeling the linen of his shirt, and through it the heat of his skin and deeper yet, the steady beat of his heart.

And then he gently disengaged himself and stepped back. The bed was just two paces away. “It is getting late . . .” he said, standing and looking at her without end, with the candlelight warming the planes of his face. “You must rest now, Percy, and so must I, for none of us know what will come tomorrow. Now, go on and lie down on the bed, it is all yours . . . while I will stay in the chair.”

Percy looked in uncertainty from him to the great bed with its soft and plush coverings, its many grand pillows with tassels and the delicate linen sheets. “What do you mean, My Lord?” she said. “You need to lie down properly. Come and sleep in the bed, there is so much room!”

“I—” he said. “I am afraid. . . .”

Her lips parted. “Afraid of what?”

He was silent, his gaze brimming with leashed intensity.

“Beltain!” said Percy. And as she said it, she was cognizant that for the first time she was using the black knight’s given name, and doing so entirely without permission. Not that any of it mattered any more.

“If I lie down next to you, Percy, I am afraid that I would—I would not be able to hold myself back. That I would
do
to you what a husband does to his
wife
. . . .”

And saying that, he blushed darkly, his cheeks and forehead and neck burning.

She stared at him, and started to flush also. She bit her lip and averted her gaze and looked down at the soft bed coverlet, at the fringe on the pillows and the tassels . . . and then her lips started to quiver with a tiny little smile.

“Get into bed, Beltain,” she said. And she looked up and gazed directly into his eyes.

“You—” he said softly, looking at her in amazement. “But you are so young. . . .”

“I am not! I am not young at all! I’ll be seventeen at the end of May, and that’s only a few months from now! Besides, half the girls my age back in Oarclaven are already wed, with babes in their arms! And yes, I know all about that, they told me plenty! Besides, how old are
you
anyway? Not all that older than me, I venture, five and twenty, no more! Now, get into bed, or so help me, I will thrash
you!
”

He shook his head and gasped, but then the beginning of a grin was taking over, and then he started to laugh, his baritone ringing with warmth.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet Percy . . .” He chuckled, then went silent, but his lips retained a malleable softness, and a smile. “I will lie down at your side, but I will not touch you in
that
way, nor harm you, for you know not of what you speak. . . . I would not impose on your dear body, not at such a time when the world is falling apart and I can offer you little to nothing in return, not even my family home. Even the good ancient name of Chidair is tainted now, so I must first set it aright before anything else. And you are quite young indeed, and you may not want me, or a child of mine, when all is said and done. Thus, let us only sleep now, beloved. We shall lie together as friends. Come!”

In response Percy stepped forward and turned her back to him, saying, “Well then, it will be as you wish, Sir Knight, you ninny—big strong man with your big strong arms and your fool of a brain—as long as you lie down properly and not on some idiot chair. But first, I need to put on my nightshirt, and so you will have to undo these horrid laces at my back instead of one of the maids, all of whom I think have gone to bed, and I would hate to bother the poor girls at this hour, because I dare say they have plenty to do around the house without having to undress the sorry likes of me—”

And in the next breath, his fingers were at her back, and she felt their strong touch, and coursing waves of honey-weakness poured into her at every point of contact. And then she realized that his fingers were also trembling. . . .

P
ercy awoke in the first glimmer light of dawn diluting the thick pitch-black night darkness. The candles had long since gone out, and she was lying in his arms, while he slept, breathing deeply, his body great and warm all around her, and she could feel his virile heat through her long cotton nightshirt.

He had kept his word, and steeled himself all night, lying at her side without touching her at all, not even her hand.
 . . . And only toward morning, when his sleep deepened, did she come to lie with her head against this chest, her face pressed against his heart, and his arms came to wrap her in an unconscious embrace, even as he slept.

She did not want to move, not ever. This was the only true perfect moment of her being, the only thing real—this one instant here and now, with
him
.

But Percy took a deep shuddering breath of regret, and then she gently disengaged herself from his arms—the arms of deity, her heart’s one god—for such he had become to her. And she softly slipped from the bed without waking him.

She stood and dressed, and watched him lie there, beautiful in his abandon . . . listened to his sweet breathing.

Oh, how she wanted to kiss his muscular arms, his bronzed shoulder, the side of his neck, his parted lips—all of
him
.

But she could not—she must not. For he would wake.

And she had to go.

Percy glanced at her beloved one more time. And then, in the thick twilight before dawn, she glanced in the darkest corner of the chamber where the shadows stood thickest. And she walked into them, willing herself to travel, to fade from this place, and to emerge
elsewhere
.

Death’s Keep.

T
he mist was a grey curtain, and then Percy was walking through a pale cobweb forest. The web filaments were all around and she blinked, her lashes trembling, her skin filling with primeval unconscious shudders of revulsion at the strange faint touch.

She knew this place
 . . . it was the Hall of bones, the grand sepulcher with columns curving upwards into arches of ribcage, and overhead swayed the endless ocean of webs and a strange dark starry sky that was neither true sky nor true stars.

Only a few steps away before her, through the veil of cobwebs, began the dais of Death’s Ivory Throne.

It stood empty, with no one seated there.

Percy blinked.

And then in the next blink, she saw him. Dark and beautiful and pitch-black, with skin the color of jet, and ebony eyes, and hair so black it had a bluish tint, dressed in a tunic of swirling silver and darkness, Hades sat upon the Throne.

“Lord Death
 . . .” Percy said, feeling suddenly all alone—for indeed, for the first time of the many times she had been here in Death’s Hall, she truly
was
. “Lord Hades.”

The dark God’s face had been averted, as if he had been looking into eternity, and she had somehow interrupted his brooding thoughts.

“You have come back, my Champion,” said Hades, Lord Death, turning his head and training the impossible, fathomless black eyes upon her. “But you do not have my Cobweb Bride.”

“No,” Percy said, “I am sorry, I do not. I am truly sorry, Lord Death, but the Lady Leonora is not quite—ready to accept her fate. And I am afraid but I cannot force her to it—at least not yet.”

“Ah . . .” Hades spoke sadly. “No one is ever ready for their fate. Such is the paradox of mortality that to be ready for death is to not be alive. Indeed, the moment one of you mortals decides they have had enough of living is when they are no longer mortal. But ah, what am I saying?—I may not divulge such occult mysteries to your kind—not even to you, my Champion. See how weakened I have become . . . even now, as I sit and wait for
her
to come to me, to arrive here in this forsaken Hall, the limits of my divine function fail me, my tongue is loosened, and I am made to speak secrets of immortality. Enough!”

“I am not sure I understand,” said Percy. “But I wanted to tell you what I have learned of your—of the Goddess Persephone.” And Percy repeated the events told her by Lady Leonora.

Hades listened, looking into space filled with the gossamer of cobwebs, and past her, and his divine visage showed nothing.

“So this is what she did
 . . .” he uttered at last. “My only love drank the water of Lethe thrice and more, in secret, long before she had been given to drink a mere sip by the Mother of Bright Harvest, blessed Demeter! My love was already harmed beyond mending long before we knew it—long before we tried to help her in her despair! Ah, woe! This I had not known!”

And Hades leaned with his pitch-black muscular arm on the Throne of ivory, and he rested his forehead in his hand. His silken filaments of midnight hair moved in an invisible wind, and at times appeared to be ghostly serpents.

“If I might ask, My Lord Hades, what exactly happened to cause all this? How come the gods to be broken in the first place? How can it even be?” Percy knew that the questions she asked were daring and were likely not to be answered.

But the Lord of the Underworld gifted her with an intimate look of his heavy eyes, and he started to speak.

“You mortals think that gods are eternal, inviolate, and powerful. Truth is, we are like glass—fixed, limited, and fragile—for we are defined by our divine function. Glass is unyielding, but it is easily broken if forced to bend or to take on another shape, unless it is first returned to a molten state through fire. When a god deviates from his function, he is vulnerable to the forces of the Universal Scheme, and shatters like glass from the conforming pressures of the surrounding universe. It is said that gods are molded and forged—and once we are fixed into the final shape of our function, we may only perform it and none other.”

“What a strange thing!” Percy said.

Hades wore a bitter smile.

“I will tell you this dark story, my Champion, for the world has little time left, and I might as well. It started long ago—far longer than you mortals can know or even imagine, for time works differently for us. We gods ride time in all directions while you follow a straight linear path of your own making, a path that you yourselves believe leads forward, but in truth simply marks an endless circle. There are as many circles as there are individuals. Each circle is different from the others—offset in a unique manner, a tiny bit or a great distance, in every conceivable direction and being of every size—and when all of the circles are put together and superimposed, they give shape to the Grand Sphere that is the universe—an eternal thing of
infinite plurality
that we gods both observe and maintain while you mortals merely tread and fill with both wonder and woe all of which then comes with you on the journey.

“Do not be discouraged by the ultimate circularity of your path—it is so vast that you have no way of grasping it. Nor should you be bothered by it, but take comfort that there is no end—for circularity is fate, or the promise of continuity. Instead accept the glorious reality that along each point in your path you have the ability to make different choices—for that is your free will. Indeed, both gods and mortals travel the circles—you do it unknowingly, while we do it with intent. And it
changes
you, while we gods remain the
same
.

“And thus, a long time ago, at some point along the circle which she and I both travel, Persephone, the Goddess of Resurrection—she who is my consort and my only love, and who keeps the world itself moving—Persephone paused for one moment in her divine
function
and looked back at herself. And seeing herself thus, from a strange alien perspective of
other
, of someone else looking at herself from the outside, she realized some things that should not be realized, not even by the gods. And she knew a moment of
doubt
in herself and her function, and with it a moment of being abysmally
alone
. It was not true, of course, for the concepts of
aloneness
and of
union
are both an illusion of moving time. But it was just enough to throw Persephone slightly off balance, and to give her cause to desire more for herself than she already had.

“You might wonder—how can one who already
has
the entire world feel they need anything more? But it was such a small thing, fueled by a tiny bit of curiosity, and a bit of self-reflection, and Persephone did not think it would make any difference in the greater scheme. And thus, Persephone, continuing to think along the lines of ‘self” and ‘other,’ decided to take a tiny bit of the world and
keep
it entirely for herself. It was not enough that she already had everything, since that all-encompassing ‘everything’ also had to be shared with all the rest of the universe, the gods and the mortals. No, she wanted something completely her own.

“And Persephone gave birth to a child in the Underworld.”

“Melinoë,” Percy said astutely.

Hades nodded. “Yes.” He continued looking at Percy, and his steady gaze was rich and mesmerizing, and with it came vertigo, and a strange sensual overpowering flood of warmth that made Percy flush and think of Beltain.

“My . . . Champion,” said Hades softly. “I must explain some things to you now, things that may be difficult for you to fathom because of your innocence. But they must be divulged before you can even begin to understand.”

“I—” Percy’s blush deepened further, the longer she looked at the dark God, falling in and out of sensual vertigo, drowning and then rising again in her mind. It seemed she was stranded at the shore of a great sea, with sweeping waves coming every few breaths to pull her under, then releasing her once more into the moist sand to regain her footing and stand upright on unsteady legs, feet sinking into the shifting quagmire of land yielding to water.
 . . .

Percy blinked, steadying herself on the inside, steeling herself for a loss of innocence and the gain of revelation.

“It is thus,” spoke the dark God. “All the gods have their specific eternal functions. Persephone and I, we create the cycle of life and death—a circle in itself, an overlying Grand Pattern of movement that shapes the nature of all others—and hence we power the engine of the mortal and immortal world. We are mated, she and I. And our act of union every season generates and restarts new life . . . along the infinity of circles and worlds and indeed the entire Sphere of the universe.

“A long time ago, before we had attained our functions, I emerged out of my personal half-life and darkness into the world of light and saw Persephone for the first time—a young radiant goddess, in a field of blooming flowers underneath a blue sky. I saw her and she saw me, and we recognized ourselves in the other, just as the sun and moon appeared in the heavens in that exact instant—for indeed we gave them physical form. I saw her light and she saw my darkness.
 . . . And immediately we were thus bound by abysmal inviolate desire, need, and love—the thing that brought us together and unknowingly fixed us in the scheme of the world. It was then I took her to me—took her
down
with me Below.

“It had to be done. For I am of Below, and she was of Above, and by taking her, I
transformed
her, deepened her into her true self, so that suddenly she was
both
—both Above and Below, both light and dark, and thus complete and full to overflowing with the
energy
of the world.”

“You took her to the Underworld! You stole her away from her divine grieving mother! Oh, I do know that strange sad story.
 . . . My own mother had told it to my sisters and me many times,” Percy whispered.

“But no, you do not know the full of it, not the true story,” Hades replied. “For I ‘stole’ her only in a sense of mythic metaphor, stole her from her former self, as much as she allowed herself to be stolen and
changed
by the act of love. . . . For she desired me as much as I burned for her, if not more—even now I wonder which one of us it was that looked at the other first in that blessed ancient field of flowers older than time. And in truth, as she was changed, so was I. No stories ever tell this secret part, but I too had become
both
—I was now a deity of both Below and Above.

“Furthermore, it is how Death was born—Death the White Bridegroom—for he is my Above aspect, and he exists only for the mortal world, for all of
you
—not to cause pain and destruction but to bring relief and transition into the light. It was inevitable and it was the birth of our common
function
. You see, this happened so long ago, that there is no way to describe it all in your mortal reckoning. All you mortals know is the fearful simplified story told infinite times and transformed by the imperfect act of telling—transformed almost as much as we have been. . . . Which in itself is an impossibility, for gods cannot change, but we were, by each other.”

“So you’re saying that Death did not exist until you met Persephone?” Percy stared in amazement.

“Yes. And neither did the mortal world exist as you now know it to be. Everything was new back then, primeval, raw, formless as clay and fire, as titans and giants existed with the gods in virile strife, and ancient divine wars were fought for meaningless supremacy. And Persephone and I, coming together as we did, refined our separate functions and created the way things are now.”

“What of Melinoë?”

Hades momentarily averted his gaze, as a wave of old grief returned. “Persephone and I come together every autumn season. When we love, as a result of our union we recreate life for each spring. Our function made it so that Persephone has to be Above and Below for half of each year, in order to make the cycle happen. She sits down on my Dark Throne in the Underworld and—and she emerges on the Sapphire Throne in the mortal world—”

His words faded strangely, and Percy saw that his perfectly black eyes were brimming full of liquid, and it made their darkness change in nature, attain a strange pallid gleam, like a film of quicksilver on the surface.

“This is the part that will change you, and take away your innocence,” Hades whispered. “You see, in order for Persephone to move from one world to the other, from Above to Below, and back again, she has to
die
. To enter the Underworld, my love dies in the mortal world. And to come back, she has to die
again
.

“When autumn comes to the world of light and leaves turn the color of flames, and the Bright Harvest ripens and is gathered by her divine mother Demeter, and all you mortals celebrate the fruits of plenty, it is when Persephone sits down on the Sapphire Throne and dies for
you
, in order for the cycle to begin again. As she dies, the world receives the entirety of her life force in the great sacrifice that precedes the coming of winter. She is dissolved and her life spills over into the universe. It fills the expanses of physical matter, of earth, sun, and stars, and it makes the universe resonate with completion, with the stately slowing
movement
of light falling into the profound deep. Only then, when all is done, the earth lies fallow, and the song of the spheres is sung, her essence sinks gently beneath, into the depths, until it emerges Below. It is then that she is given divine form again and awakes in the Underworld, seated on the Black Throne. We are reunited, we are—we—” His words again failed.