Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (27 page)

She was a maiden of dream pallor—her skin like the first frost upon which a rainbow had capsized and crumbled into shards; her delicate brows and flowing hair of an immortal hue that changed constantly from silver to lavender to blue, and then to white.

Her eyes were great smoke-colored jewels of introspective innocence. Her lips, a winter rose.

She wore a long dress of white brocade and silver thread to match that of her love, and a fur-trimmed ethereal cape flowed from her sloping shoulders. Tiny perfect white boots warmed her feet, and a hat with a coronet of ice diamonds sat upon her hair, far more splendid than the Imperial Crown of the Realm that she had left behind at Silver Court.

“Oh!” Claere exclaimed, then turned around and spun in place, and her dress and cape and glorious hair spun around her like a flurry of snowflakes.

Vlau looked at her with a hungry gaze of intensity and amazement, and he whispered, “Claere . . . you are
alive!
You are exactly as I have seen you in my impossible dream. . . .”

“And you!” she cried, laughing, weeping with joy. “Oh,
you
are alive also!”

Hecate watched them with a look of amusement and compassion and wisdom. And the King and all the soldiers on the parapets, and the storm itself, witnessed them thus.

“Yes, yes, enough with the maudlin foolery! You are
both
alive!” Hecate exclaimed, her hands outstretched in an embrace to both. “Blessed be my immortal children! Welcome to the world, immortal Jack Frost! Welcome, thou most beloved Snow Maiden!”

D
uke Ian Chidair, who was once Hoarfrost, and now had become Old Man Winter, stood at the gates of Letheburg.

Persephone, the dark, glorious, utterly insane Goddess of the Underworld, had just given him life and immortality—the two things he could never have imagined, yet the two things of which he secretly dreamed.

He stood, still a barrel-chested giant, but now also pristine white and deadly cold and perfect, as the storm he himself had called forth, raged about him.

“Go into the city,” Persephone had told him. “Go inside and make them cower, until they open the gates of their own accord.”

Do what you must, drive them to insanity, drive them to turn on each other and to open themselves to you
. . . .

“Gladly!” Winter replied, with a deep rumbling laugh of crackling ice—for though his lungs were no longer lifeless bags collecting an inner rime of frost, he enjoyed the terrible sound they made as he crushed ice crystals on purpose with the immense force of his own innards. “I will thrust them into madness of freezing wind and snow and ice! And once their fragile mortal flesh dies, they will come forth as undead and open the gates and weaken the wards of sorcery, for it will matter no longer!”

“Good!” she replied. “Let them all die, and let the world fill with the animated dead. For life gives one that unfortunate tedious thing called ‘purpose,’ while the dead are made docile and ultimately indifferent by their loss of fullness of being. In the end they will surrender most of their free will in order to exist and serve me. And I will take them all unto me, their energy and the immortal power that lies within their souls. For these new creatures are
my
domain.”

“I will lay waste to Letheburg, to its puny King and all the mortals!” he roared, and the wind started to gather and thicken, and the fallen snow began to rise from the earth.

“Do it swiftly, Old Man, for now I must be gone, and I leave you to it. . . . But take not too long in your pleasure. For I will return shortly, and when I do, my Trovadii army must be ready to enter the gates.”

She stood before him, her form perfection, an animate statue of silver and mercury, flowing in place like an eternal fountain fixed in supernatural motion.

“Where will you go now, dark Goddess?” Old Man Winter asked, adjusting his glorious fur cape, as the aerial turbulence increased. “Must you go and miss all the sporting delights, the fun of it?”

“Ah
 . . .” the Goddess of the Underworld said. “But I go to see my love! It is what awaits me now, what I’ve been waiting for, and what must be done, first! Thus, I go to
him!
”

“Persephone! Do not go, my daughter!” Demeter’s voice, like a strange unseasonable breath of summer, sounded from beyond. The golden form of the harvest goddess stood just behind them, relentless in her persistence.

But now Demeter was like a faintly glowing weak candle in the dark maelstrom.

“Begone, Mother of mine!” Persephone said, pointing her hand at Demeter.

And the golden Goddess winked out of existence, cast out
elsewhere
.

A few feet behind them, Lady Ignacia Chitain cowered, finding herself surrounded by the dead, their bodies suspended motionless and their limbs creaking while they stood at attention in ranks and formation, Trovadii army divisions next to the original Hoarfrost’s men.

“Your Brilliance!” Ignacia cried, in sudden terror. “What of me? You promised me Eternity for my service!”

Persephone’s laughter sounded like a rolling spring brook, and she glanced at Ignacia once, briefly, with her impossible blue eyes. “Why, of course, my dear girl—only, I’ve decided to give you instead an Eternity of Service, for you ‘weasel’ a bit too much—”

Persephone clapped her hands, and Lady Ignacia found herself suddenly squeezed for breath, and then shrinking and
transforming
. Seconds later, a small furry creature crawled out of a fallen sage green cape—the only thing that remained of Lady Ignacia Chitain of Balmue.

The little beast—a polecat—made a small angry sound, and then it scampered away, narrowly avoiding the legs and other dangerous limbs of the dead soldiers and headed in the general direction of the city of Letheburg.

Persephone laughed again, and then she
disappeared
.

Old Man Winter remained at the city gates, and he raised his hands eagerly, calling the winds to him, and directing the clouds above to thicken into deep grey darkness.

Ah, the winter party was long overdue!

S
he had so many names.

Dark Goddess
 . . . Lady of the Underworld . . . Bringer of Spring . . . the Sovereign of the Domain . . . Her Brilliance . . . beloved charming queen . . . occult seductress . . . savior . . . Rumanar Avalais . . . Kore . . . Despoina . . . Praxidike . . . Proserpina . . . Melinoë—
no!

Dark lover
 . . . Black Wife.

Persephone.

The Hall of shadows and bones stood in silence. Not a whisper here, only somnolent repose and softly wafting cobwebs.

She emerged from the fabric of shadows, forming out of a single sigh of emptiness—a sigh that air itself made as it let go to make room for
her
, displacing nothing else. As she arrived, dust barely shifted on the granite stones underfoot.

Here she stood, perfect and fully formed, her skin a shimmer of achromatic grey and iridescent ebony and mother-of-pearl.

Perfect, and yet broken.

The soles of her metal sandals alighted upon the stone floor of the Hall in material silence, which however sent forth a psychic resonance that echoed through Death’s Hall.

Hades, Lord Death, watched her coming from a great distance, attuned to her every movement, every temperature, even to the faint cobweb shadow cast by her thought.

For the thoughts of gods cast shadows. So much existential weight do they bear that they mark the ether
 . . . and this otherwise intangible
gravitas
is felt metaphysically by other gods in the form of a fine gossamer trail, like cobwebs
. . . .

No mortals can detect this shadow-thought trail. But sometimes, cobwebs are left behind as tangible proof in the physical world.

Cobwebs.

There was an infinity of them in this Hall, and hence, so many ancient thoughts solidified. Was it Death himself who had thought them, over the ages?

Hades, Lord Death, the shadowed one, sat on the Throne of Bones, waiting.

He heard her every footfall, felt the rustle of the fabric of her chiton against her smooth legs and thighs
 . . . how it slithered against the curving pear lobes of her hips . . . how it flowed with every loose, gentle swing of her arrow-tipped protruding breasts.

His skin immediately went several degrees darker, deepened into a rich hue, was now pitch-black.
 . . . His powerful sculpted fingers clenched, sharp nails dug into the armrests of the throne, leaving deep marks in the hard ivory.

Otherwise, he did not move a muscle. Neither did he raise or turn his head.

Another breath, and she was before him.

Persephone.

Then, her voice sounded.

“My love.
 . . . I am here at last.”

He did not answer; did not look.

Moments flowed or fell or flashed—it was impossible to know what manner of
discreteness
happened to time.

“My sweet Lord.
 . . . Hades, my deep, coal-dark, pitch-black, shadow lover. . . . Oh, how I’ve needed you, my one profound love. . . .”

No answer.

“My Black Husband.”

Her words were
thought
soft, yet came out hard, violent, each one a thrown anvil.

And he could not resist any longer, could not hold himself from looking.

Hades shuddered and lifted his beautiful immortal face, and the long flowing locks of his midnight hair were now true snakes come to life, stirring.

Persephone—demoness, seductress, goddess, soulless broken one—stood before him, beautiful as hell and smiling at him.

Her eyes . . . her beloved blue eyes were vacant, empty as the winter skies of the mortal realm. And yet, the simmering need was there,
something
was there, corresponding to his own.

Hades looked at her, allowed the gaze of his eyes to lock with hers. And one instant was sufficient. He was incapacitated, struck with sacred rage and sweet weakness, falling in his mind.
 . . .

And so was
she
.

Desire
flared. Not shadow, not darkness, but true abysmal pitch-black. It struck, it leached, it sucked the air out of the Hall, and the cobwebs and the dust motes and the fragments of bone crumpled and contorted with infernal dissolution of their fundamental structure.

All matter collapsed for one infinite moment, then spasmed back into being in an involuntary precursor of divine orgasm.
 . . .

No!

Hades closed his eyelids and exhaled, as control returned to him, a mere flimsy illusion, yes, but still it held him.

She in turn blinked also, and her succulent lips parted in a silent exhalation that transformed into a gentle moan—

No!

“Persephone, we may not—it must
not be!
” His voice rang in his own Hall, crumpling stone and sending ancient bones to warping, and making the shadows convulse.

“Ah! My sweet Hades! My lover speaks!”

Her breathy laughter issued forth, its sonorous sound caressing him along every point on his flesh, vibrating in his immortal bones. The snakes at the tips of his silken locks opened their jaws and hissed, sharp fangs protruding, lascivious. . . .

And again, a flare of infernal
sacred desire
.

With a hard snap he cast it off, and it simmered wickedly nearby, just nearby, just under the surface of thought.

Hades looked at her with a blank unreadable countenance, and he said, “Why have you come to torment me? Do you not know that I will not allow you to enter Below, no matter what you do, no matter what is done in this shadowed Hall?”

“Oh, my beautiful dark one,” she said, coming a step closer, sauntering toward the dais of the throne, with her body trained toward him. “Of course I know! Just as well as I know that this is not real—none of it,
nothing
here is real—and that
you are not really here
. But oh, what sweet torment indeed, to tease and caress your poor shadow-self, your mortal aspect here Above. Poor, poor Lord Death! Ah, how much you need me, admit it my love!”

“It is self-evident that I need you, as much as you need me, Persephone,” the dark God replied in a voice of perfect control, never averting his gaze, never blinking. “So what will we achieve in this stalemate, except for undue pain?”

She took the first step upon the dais. The cobwebs near the throne parted before her of their own accord. “Ah, but deep,
bone-deep
pain of this kind is such sweetness, like the scent of the narcissus and the asphodel, and the bitter taste of crushed pomegranate seeds upon the tongue. . . . Besides, why must it be a stalemate? You are growing weaker with every moment that we do not consummate our Longest Night. While I—I am now able to take unto me the life force of the dead mortals who cannot pass on. . . . This life force, it gives me strength, just enough to blunt the edge of my need for you. . . . If I persist, you will fall before me, and you will flee back down Below, and I promise you, My Lord Hades, you
will
vacate this Throne. And the moment you do, I will come to you, and it will be over. Why resist the inevitable?”

“Because what you call
inevitable
is impossible. If you come to me in the Underworld, as you
are
now, the resulting union will destroy this mortal world, corrupt its nature according to your own damaged self. Water would burn, earth would press down from on-high, and the skies would form mountains—”

“Yes, and fire would pour like the tears of those who are lost!” She took another slow step on the dais. “Ah, but would it be such a bad thing, really? Old, worn-out, tired rules crumbling, a new order coming to light, a new fresh pattern. We will still rule this new mortal pattern together, my love! Only it will be of my own making! Come, you know you want to have this pleasure with me, for it will be infinitely more delightful—”

“It will not bring back Melinoë.”

For the first time he saw her falter. The
name
still had the effect upon her, even after all that had come to pass.

“How cruel you are, Husband! Do not speak thus of our child who will be made again! Melinoë will be the first new issue of our union, only this time she will be perfect and immortal, and she will be a queen of all places, Above and Below. Death will not be her flaw. And indeed death will be no longer, I’ve decided, for the mortal world can exist quite well without it, fixed in its own moment Between, as it is now.
 . . .”

“Have you no pity for these mortals, then? No mercy or allowance for the exercise of free choices in the course of their own fates?” he said, looking at her with liquid eyes of truth.

“None whatsoever,” she replied, taking yet another step toward him, so that only a few paces remained.

“Oh, Persephone.
 . . .” So sorrowful his voice had become, losing its veneer of control. “What has become of you? Your heart, so full of compassion for the world that you die for it, twice every season! Do you remember, gentle beloved, how it comes to you, the gentle choice of sacrifice, the decision, and the act of letting go, the perfect
dissolution of divine will
that recreates the universe?”

“I remember enough to know I will never make that idiot choice again!” she cried then, and her bright voice struck the stones and rebounded in his heart like a dagger of agony.

He said nothing, averting his face slightly, a mere-quarter turn, so that he could gaze elsewhere and not at her, but his own flesh betrayed him, responding with a shudder. His hair-snakes hissed again, undulating in barely leashed desire. Already, beads of divine venom gathered like pearls at the fang tips, quivering. . . .

“My beautiful, beautiful love,” said Persephone soothingly in a mesmerizing voice, and then she was up one more stair, and standing directly before him, eye-level, with only one stair remaining.

He observed her indirectly, from the corner of one eye, like a hawk fixing its wild stare, and saw the pulse in her throat and the shadowed deep cleft between her breasts, their softness pressing at the bodice of her chiton. There was a blood-black cabochon jewel nestled there, filled with miniscule golden embers of captured light, mocking him.

Oh, how he wanted to be that jewel, to rest upon her thus, between the rotund flesh, inside—

No!

Hades turned his face directly at her once more and he said, “I have her ashes, you know. Hecate has given me the jar. And it is hidden out of your reach.”

But Persephone turned her head slowly sideways and back again, looking at him still, straining toward him. And then she took the last stair between them.

“Foolish love
 . . . Melinoë’s ashes are not there—they have never been within that jar of blue clay.” Her lips curved into a mocking smile. “Hecate was given a jar of ordinary mortal earth, to deceive her. Instead, I took Melinoë’s beloved ashes to Ulpheo, hiding it in my mother’s shrine while she was under the influence of the water of Lethe. Only—only—” And a strange petulant expression came to replace the smile, which then became, in a manner of the insane, a look of horror.

“Only what?” he asked.

“Nothing!”
the dark Goddess screamed suddenly, and the Hall of bones was filled with a new degree of darkness. . . . It came pouring out of her, and she was suddenly pitch-black with grief, with fury, and to this complex mixture was added a strange sensual dimension of desire.

“Ah, My Lord
 . . . sweet,
lusty
 . . . Hades . . .” she modulated her voice again so that now she was whispering, leaning her beautiful ebony-black form over him. And as she did thus, her ruddy-gold hair transformed and deepened into earthy brown and then a midnight hue as it cascaded forward to sweep along his skin, while she hovered inches away. “Why not let go and let me in? Receive me . . . sweet and deep . . . down Below. We both know how it will end—”

“Do we?” Hades said in a hard voice and then suddenly took her by the hair and pulled her to him and brought her face down to his with one muscular hand. His sharp claws dug into her scalp, and beads of immortal blood welled on her head under her glorious mane of midnight-ruddy hair.

At the feel of his claws she moaned and her eyelids fluttered, but it was with dark pleasure. He held her thus in a vice of iron, lips almost touching,
breathing
her. She floated over him in lassitude, turned to flowing honey, shuddering with exultation.

And then he placed his lips upon her brow in a strange chaste kiss. “My sweet
Black Wife
,” he said, and let her go, harshly.

She staggered back, stunned by the sensual perversity of such a death-cold touch.

“Now, begone,” he said, his visage blank and timeless, for he was Lord Death indeed. “Begone, my sweet love. You may not come near me, not ever again.
I do not allow it
.”