Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (26 page)

Within seconds, there was almost no visibility, only swirling
whiteness
.

And none of it was coming down from the sky, but
rising up
from what already lay upon the ground.

Men huddled in their coats or hauberks and chain mail, capes were raised as many hunched over to keep the white stuff from their eyes.
 . . .

King Roland Osenni himself held on to his fur-lined hat and squinted, raising up his fur collar.

The only ones seeming unaffected by this bizarre onslaught were Claere, Vlau, and . . . Grial.

“Well, I suppose this is as good a time as any,” said Grial, taking a step forward.

And as she moved, she
flowed
, she transformed.

Instead of a funny-looking middle-aged woman in a frumpy plain coat and winter hat with floppy scarf flaps and old woolen mittens, an unearthly silver-dark figure emerged, the whirling snow retreating from her in a circle of ten feet.

The woman who had been Grial wore an iridescent garment, ancient, Grecian, noble. The chiton flowed like liquid moonlight around her statuesque form, and her arms were bare, their skin both dark and light at the same time as only night can be when the moon passes through clouds and reveals various depths of shadow and glimmer. Sandals of silver were on her feet, and bands of cool nameless metal circled her wrists, arms, and throat. Her hair—no longer a kinky, frizzled mess—was now a smoothly flowing river of silk gathered upward in a braided crown, and it appeared that snakes lay twining around her brow and their eyes blinked like stars.

The whirling snow retreated from her, and the immortal one took another step forward, while the soldiers and the King gaped at her
 . . . and Vlau and Claere gazed at her with wonder.

“Grial?” said Claere softly.

“Yes, I am Grial, dear child. . . . But I am also someone else. You are not afraid?”

“No!” replied Claere, with intensity in her yes. “Not afraid of you, how can I be? Oh, Grial! I am—”

“No, indeed, it cannot be happening! Grial?
Grial?
Who or what are you?” the King exclaimed meanwhile, holding his hand up over his eyes to keep away the onslaught of raging snow. “Dear God, are you—immortal? Bah! I knew there was something unnatural, something wrong with you, I
knew
it—”

Grial who was Hecate smiled. She then raised her arms high overhead and threw her head back, and suddenly a
blast
of power came from her, shattering the air, and the wind and snow retreated into a strange calm, like the eye of the storm.

The weather raged beyond them, but at least on the battlements it was suddenly still and peaceful, with not a breeze blowing.

However, the King of Lethe was now suspended at least ten feet over the bulwark, hanging like a sack in mid-air, grasped by an invisible divine hand.

The King struggled and lost his fur-trimmed hat, followed by the powdered wig, revealing his dark hair graying at the temples. He grunted and exclaimed, and then went entirely still in paralyzed terror.

“You said you wanted a better view over the walls, Your Majesty,” said the dark Goddess with amusement, and then lowered her arms, and His Majesty came down, directly into the crowd of his guards, so that they caught him in a pile of arms and hands.

“What manner of
insanity
is going on!” the King cried, as the soldiers helped him back on his feet, and one of the guards went chasing after his ignobly fallen wig and hat.

And in the next instant an impossible gale wind struck at them once more from outside the city walls. It was so loud now that it was almost impossible to hear over the screeching wind, and everything went flying—all small unattached objects, barrels of black powder rolled and tumbled, supply carts were being upturned, and even the men in heavy armor felt themselves nearly airborne.

“Whoever you are, Goddess—
Hecate
, as you say—help us now!”

Hecate, pallid and dark at the same time, was still and composed within the eye of the storm. At the edges of the periphery, the air was thick with funnels of white, while the two closest persons to her, the Infanta and the marquis, were also within a sphere of calm.

“I can help you hold this city, but it may not be for long,” Hecate said in a voice that was heard above the storm. “There is so much more than Letheburg at stake, mortal King. So much more than your Realm and their Domain. This is a war of the gods.”

“Who is our enemy? Who is down there? Who is she, this Sovereign? And what has become of him, the dead madman Duke who was besieging us—” King Roland Osenni struggled to stand while the soldiers around him were all being buffeted with the impossible pressure of the maddened air.

Hecate continued looking beyond the outer walls, and did not reply immediately.

“I beg your mercy, Hecate! In particular I beg forgiveness for any offenses I might have made, or if I questioned your wisdom—” The King was speaking hurriedly. “Please! Have mercy!”

“So many questions, even now, Your Majesty. . . .” Hecate turned her immortal visage at him, and the King recognized the same very dark eyes that he was used to seeing in Grial the witch woman. . . . And for the first time he understood their occult nature, and their otherworldly pitch-black color, its weight like an anvil, and knew exactly why the sight of her always made him shudder—the eyes beckoned with their utter
unknown
, the transition and the ephemera, the boundary and the doorway.

“The one whom you know as the Sovereign is the Goddess of the Underworld, of Life and Death, and Resurrection. She is Persephone, and her coming has been precipitated by grief and madness. She is now the greatest misfortune your mortal world can ever know.”

“What does she want here?” Claere asked in that moment.

“She wants to enter and take what she thinks is hers—which in fact is something of
mine
. I will not allow it,” Hecate said. “You, my Claere, have warded the city. And without my will, no other entrance or exit will be made. However, I am not able to contain all of the onslaught.”

Hecate pointed at the storm around them. “See this, mortals? While men and gods may not enter past the boundary, other more insidious things can. Persephone knows she may not pass, and thus she has made someone who can. Behold, the Goddess of the Underworld has
deified
winter itself.”

“Is it he, the Blue Duke?” Vlau Fiomarre asked.

“Yes, Hoarfrost, your enemy so aptly named, is no longer a dead man, but an elemental creature of Eternity—a new god and something more. For nothing can stop winter, no god, no magical ward can stand against it. Only spring can come and bring the thaw. . . . And spring is never again to be, for
she
, Persephone, is spring . . . and she is now
something else
.”

The gale-force wind raged, and soldiers held on to the stones of the bulwark and parapets for dear life.

“What of that golden woman?” the King cried through the wind. “Is she a goddess too? Can she do nothing with her warm light?”

“Alas! Demeter is her mother. And she is also the Mother of Bright Harvest and the queen of summer and autumn.
 . . . Even now she stands below, trying to convince her daughter to give up this madness, but she loves Persephone too much, and can never use force against her. Nor can Demeter summon summer or her favorite rich autumnal season to confront the winter, for it stands out of order, and may not come before spring.”

Hecate sighed, for a moment sounding very ordinary, and very much like Grial in her less raucous moments. “And now—I cannot spend more time here, for I must return within the city and protect that which is most precious from Persephone,” she said, looking around them from her center of calm. And then her impossible dark eyes attained a spark of living energy.

“Not all is lost, mortals!” said the dark Goddess with sudden inspiration. “For even though we do not have spring, summer, or autumn, we can use winter against itself!”

And with those strange words she turned to Claere and Vlau and she smiled at them. “It is time,” she said. “Time to make things right, at least in a very small way.
 . . .”

Hecate beckoned the nearest garrison soldier to her, having to literally pull him into the sphere of calm, as he was clutching the parapet wall to keep himself upright.

“Now, my good man, have you a sharp knife on you? Any small blade will do.”

The soldier, a musketeer, stared at the goddess in awe and started digging through the inner sewn pockets of his hauberk, and then finding nothing in a hurry, offered her the sharp slim bayonet from the end of his gun barrel.

Hecate took the sharp blade and pricked her index finger, so that a small droplet of blood welled on the tip. “Come to me, Claere . . .” she said.

And when the girl complied, Hecate lovingly placed the blood upon Claere’s pale lips, turning them for the first time in days a living shade of rose.

“Breathe, child! Breathe!” the Goddess said, and then struck the maiden in the chest, directly over her dead heart.

While Claere was gasping in terror and wonder, suddenly doubled over, suddenly feeling a strange
impossibility
begin inside her, Hecate pricked the index finger on her other hand and turned to Vlau. “And now, you, young man, come!”

Vlau took a step toward her in utter disbelief, and felt the taste of divine ambrosia on his lips. In the next instant, the Goddess whispered, “Breathe!” and struck him in the chest also, and he grunted, and then spasmed, and the next few seconds were vertigo and agony and intensity.
 . . .

Lightning struck twice, up on the battlements. The world was suddenly brought into razor-focus and perfect contrast of light and dark. Claere felt a jolt of electricity enter her and she was filled with a river of white
fire
that blasted through her every point and cell, pulling her inside-out and then back again—or so it seemed for a split second. Next to her, Vlau was now doubled over from the same shock, and the two of them were incandescent, luminous, radiant with white light, while inside them the world was turning. . . .

Two hearts pumped, strong and hale and
perfect
, as they had never been in life. Two sets of lungs inhaled air and allowed its life-giving oxygen to enter the bloodstream—for yes, there was living joyous blood again, new fiery liquid in their veins, pulled in and gathered from the air and the sky and the white snow, and transformed into the burning wine of life. . . . Frozen organs came to life, and all wounds closed up, especially the wound in
her
heart that had been made by
him
.

Claere exhaled a shuddering fierce sigh, and she could feel every smallest tingle in her body, every extremity, every tiny hair rise along her skin.
 . . . Her ears, that had seemed to be full of thick cotton for days, deadening all sound, remote and distant, could suddenly hear and
separate
the different sounds of the storm around them in minute detail, every harmonic whistle of snow crystal against stone, every particle striking another in its frenzied dance. . . .

She blinked, and her eyes focused differently, with infinite perfect sharpness, so that not only could she now see every facet of each tiny snowflake whirling in the storm beyond, but she could also see for leagues forward
 . . . and she could see
around
the curvature of the earth, see the chiseled rune lines upon the face of the sleeping moon that had not risen yet and hung far below the horizon . . . and she could see the radiant glory of the sun in full force,
through
the overcast.

Claere blinked again, turning her eyes away from the occluded sun’s unreal
brightness
that seared her now-immortal eyes. And then she laughed!

Next to her, Vlau was staring around him in equal wonder, listening to the song of the snowflakes striking each other like tiny bells, and observing the dust motes in the distant layer of clouds.

As Claere looked at him, she realized that he was no longer swarthy dark and olive-skinned, but now his darkness had turned to silken gloss of bluish silver, and his skin now reflected like snow and metal, while his hair, still ebony like a raven’s wing, was also like black diamonds . . . or like ice encrusting stark branches silhouetted against the pale forest wilderness.

Vlau’s simple jacket and trousers were now resplendent white brocade embroidered with silver and pale blue thread and trimmed with white fur, with similar white boots, and a rakishly angled hat of fur and silver sat over his shimmering locks of twilight.

But oh, Vlau’s eyes were still the same soulful darkness and complexity—warm like living breath upon a wintry day, and yet cold and eternal like the heart of winter.

And he was looking at her.
 . . . Oh, how he was looking at her!

Claere looked down at herself then, first at her own fingers, examining their elegant Dresden porcelain delicacy and their slim shimmering surfaces. And if she could only observe herself through Vlau’s eyes, then she would have seen a glorious vision of crystalline perfection in female form.