Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (34 page)

The King set down the spyglass, then turned around, and climbed back down from the raised part of the walls. “All right. Put an additional patrol on watch duty, and observe this—whatever the hell it is,” he muttered. “Meanwhile, I need to go lie down for a while and think.
 . . . And have a few glasses of brandy and whisky and maybe top it off with cream liqueur, and then maybe whatever in blazes the Palace cooks have made for supper.” He started walking back down the parapet stairs again. Then added loudly, without turning, “But do keep me informed. If anything
else
happens.”

T
he peculiar lukewarm storm winter winds continued blowing through Letheburg well into the evening and night, interrupted at some point by a soft lovely snowfall, then resumed again. And then, about four hours after midnight and very close to dawn, another horrific grating
noise
was heard, and this time it felt like an earthquake had quaked the firmament and the ground all around the city. Or possibly, it felt as if a very large object
collided
with Letheburg.

It was unclear what had happened, but the source of the disturbance came from the direction of the southern walls. Garrison soldiers ran to investigate and report back, but in the ensuing confusion they were distracted by yet a
second
horrendous noise, a true sonic boom, that not only quaked the earth for leagues all around, but seemed to have originated slightly southeast of the city walls.

In the windy darkness of the night, spyglasses were nearly useless, but they were trained in all directions nevertheless, by ranking officers, while frantically confused soldiers stood ready with bared blades, muskets, pikes, tar and pitch and torches ready to be lit, and whatever else was at hand.

After straining their telescopes into the darkness, they noticed small flickering lights of torches a few hundred feet away, strung out across horizontally like beads on a necklace. And as the thick cloud cover was unrelieved, it was impossible to verify whether or not another large hulking shape had grown out of nowhere just outside the walls.

“Ahoy there!” someone from the Letheburg battlements finally cried out.

“Ahoy yourself!” came from about a hundred feet away. “Identify yourselves!”

“You identify yourselves, villain! Are ye dead men?”

“Do I sound like a dead man, sirrah?” came from the south.

“How the hell different does a dead man sound?”

Across the black expanse of night, pinpoints of lights that were distant torches flickered, at approximate eye-level of the soldiers on top of the city walls. The lights seemed to be spread in dots all across the south and southeast, suggesting other walls where earlier in the day there had been only sky.

“Well?” the Letheburg soldier persisted. “Answer now, ye flaming whoreson!”

“I bite my thumb at you!” came from the south.

“What foul-mouthed magic is this?” came another voice, even more distant, this one about a hundred-fifty feet away from the southwest. “Who
are
you people?”

But before anyone could reply, in the pre-dawn murk, another terrifying scrape and boom sounded, and this time the walls of Letheburg shook from the impact.

Patrol soldiers up on the battlements witnessed an unbelievable moment of translucence and dissolution along a portion of the parapets walkway for about thirty feet, as the walkway was swept away from under their feet—and a few misfortunate men stumbled and fell, both from the outer and inner walls like tiny toy soldiers. And then, as they rushed back from the place that was collapsing, dissolving, in the same spot they saw new walls rise—walls a few feet taller than the level of the Letheburg parapets—and these were wrought of a different kind of stone.

There was a godawful scrape, as the strange walls wedged themselves in a circular manner into the break of the Letheburg walls, settling with a deep rumble, sending up snow powder raining from all the tops of the nearby merlons.

And then there was abysmal silence.

Soldiers wearing the cobalt blue uniforms of Letheburg stared up in horrified disbelief, as just a few feet before them, along the newly formed section of wall, a patrol of Silver Court guards wearing the Imperial black and silver with a fine trim of red and gold pointed muzzles of their muskets directly down at them.

But that was not the worst of it.

“The safety barrier!” a Letheburg soldier cried, as several lurching dead figures moved in at him from the outside walls, unhindered by any protective wards of sorcery. “It appears to be gone!”

P
ercy felt the dark Goddess Persephone inside her mind. It was an intimate touch that held the innermost part of her like a vulnerable living marionette, within the cruel hand of the Goddess. The thing that held her was a terrible dark
intelligence
.

You are mine.

What will you do now, mortal girl child?

Percy knew pressure, overwhelming, stifling, followed by a burst of panic. Her spirit struggled, for the psychic touch surrounding her was full of numbing cold and grating corrosion and there was an even deeper layer of pain beyond, and its color was pitch-black.
 . . .

Indeed, pain was
her
domain—pain strung along a continuum leading to dark pleasure—and deeper yet, empty hollow silence within walls of sociopath logic and hard soulless reason. No mercy or compassion. . . . No awe or wonder.

Negation of all.

The Goddess was the sickness of grief interspersed with fury at
something
inexplicable. She was hatred and disdain for
all else
that was not herself.

“I am not yours!” Percy cried in the desperate quicksand of her mind, feeling herself choking on the claustrophobic oppression pressing in around her
 . . . and suddenly she was falling deep. . . .

It was completely unlike Lord Death’s serene grey place that was separate unto itself. This was not a separate realm but a translucent
layer
of internal corruption superimposed upon her present field of vision—shadow detritus, tangled, twisted threads turning aimlessly upon themselves in futility, and filaments of befouled silk.

Cobwebs of despair.
 . . .

Percy had not been transported into another place. Rather, she was still present in the mortal world—standing in the snow-covered forest in the middle of the Goraque camp and surrounded by the chaos of the Trovadii attack.

But she now observed the world though a decadent filter of depression and corruption, an overlay of
wrongness
that was the dark inverted Goddess, taking residence inside her.

You are mine, little girl. For you bear a mark bestowed by my dark love, and you bear my own name. All that has been his is now mine. You are mine completely
. . . .

“No,” Percy said, “I am not. Get out of my mind!” And she struggled with white-hot passion, but it was like moving through molasses that thickened with every step.

You will be my instrument in the new mortal world when this one falls. I shall forge it with him who now waits Below, and I shall rise Above, bringing him up, and you will rise with me, my priestess.

“You will not succeed,” said Percy, “because your will is an aberration, and you do not command me.” And then she saw, through the overlay of wrongness, two beautiful sky-blue eyes that resided in her inner field of vision, as though she was looking at Persephone eye-to-eye, inches away, and the other was looking at her, both of them poised upon the brink of the other like drops upon the surface of a mirror.

I have succeeded already
, said the broken Goddess.
For now you may not use the power given you by Death without my will. Every death you take, you will regret. For every act of putting dead mortal things to final rest, I will take mortal lives and grant them death.

“No! You are lying.”

Disobey me and see. Oh, but do come, test me, little mortal who bears my name and boasts of free will! For oh, even now, how I long to add to the ranks of my dead armies. . . .

Percy felt her mind resound with the echo of despair and joyful rage that rang through her like distorted bells, dissonant tolls of discord.

It was the Goddess laughing.

I will take everything from you, mortal child. Everything that is you, and everything that you love. Give me a reason!

“You have are already taken away most of my world . . .” Percy said softly in her mind.

Ah, but it is only the beginning! I will break you and reforge you into my instrument, and you will be sharp and ruthless and you will cut like the edge of a blade.

You will be
my
Champion
.

And the next instant Percy was free—free of the hold, and back inside her own mind’s walls, and Persephone’s presence was gone, for the moment.

“Percy! Bless you, girl, you did it!”

The Count and Countess were calling her name, for the burly dead man who had come through the snow at them was now a true fallen corpse. “Thank goodness!” Countess Arabella exclaimed. “For the dead soldier was about to turn on us.
 . . .
Are you all right, dear child?”

“I—I just saw
her
,” Percy said, blinking, breathing hard, yet leaden with despair. “I saw Persephone, or the one you know as the Sovereign. She spoke horrible things in my head. And now—now I am afraid—I cannot do this thing again now, not until I know—”

“What thing? What do you mean, Percy?” They stared at her, fear in their eyes.

“It means, I cannot put the dead to rest, I cannot defend you!” Percy said bitterly. “Not any of you! Else she will take other lives in exchange!”

W
inter dawn came over Letheburg, sweeping softly from the east, and the winds did not abate, and neither did the overcast.

From the thicket of infinite layers of grey, the dome of sky pressed down upon a strange scene of mortal battle below.

Three citadels stood in the plain. Three great walled cities, each framed in invincible stone.

Letheburg was now physically wedded to the Silver Court—the grand citadel that was the heart of the Realm—jammed stone into stone. And the closed circle of Letheburg’s walls, and its supernatural safety ward, was thus broken.

Just to the east, beyond these two, stood a third city, a mere hundred feet away, its own magnificent walls rising eye-level to the other two. This was the Sapphire Court of the Domain, standing flush next to the heart of the Realm, having arrived deep in the night, just before dawn. . . .

All that was left of both countries now was but the sparse northern Lethe forest just a handful of miles north, a tiny sliver of the River Styx to the west, no more than three miles away
 . . . and less than a league south, was the encroaching sea.

Inside Letheburg, snow was melting, for the winter was mild near the Mediterranean, and the weather that had spanned the former Realm and Domain lands closest to it was a wide contrast of mild and continental climates. Winter had nowhere to go, and yet, here it had to stay.
 . . .

Outside the walls of the three cities, on the plain below, the Trovadii armies of the dead stormed Letheburg, for it had no more defenses left. Men were fighting in chaotic melees and once again the great siege machines of war went to work, catapults hurling boulders and flaming pitch into the city.

In less than an hour after the fall of the magical barrier, the gates of Letheburg were forced open.

When the First Army of the Trovadii under the leadership of Field Marshal Claude Maetra poured into the open gates after the battering ram, rivers of blood flowed, as the living soldiers fiercely defended their city.

In the wake of the First Army, came the dark Goddess.

She walked on foot, wearing her silver-steel immortal aspect, and her sandals left red bloody marks upon the snow as she passed the open gates.
 . . .

And then, Persephone faded into thin air, for now she could move as swiftly as she pleased.

She was gone in the blink of an eye, hurtling toward the heart of the city.

H
ecate sat in her rocking chair in the front parlor of Grial’s living room with its cheerful chintz curtains. The windows outside were bluish with dawn.

The girls had just finished rolling the dough for the latest batch of “military pies” as Lizabette was starting to call the apple tarts they made for the city soldiers. Marie and Catrine were cutting apples and stirring the cinnamon sauce for the filling, while Niosta washed a pile of dishes from their hasty breakfast, in a large washing cauldron. Faeline had set the teakettle to boiling, for the fire was cheerful and everyone could use a second cup on this chilly morning.

At some point, as the distant noises from the outer portions of the city grew prominent, Hecate stopped rocking. She then sighed and listened, and then she transformed from comfortable dingy Grial to her divine goddess aspect.

“Ladies!” Hecate said in her sonorous loud voice. “Stop doing everything and anything you are doing and come here! Quickly now, pumpkins!”

Hearing her voice, the girls obeyed instantly, and Lizabette came running first, with flour in her hair and on the tip of her nose. “Yes, Your Divine—I mean, Grial?”

Hecate, seated very still in the rocking chair, hands on the wooden armrests, turned her very dark gaze upon Lizabette and the others as they came into the parlor one by one. All except for Catrine, who was still in the kitchen, wiping apple and cinnamon off her face with a wet towel and scrubbing her forehead.

“Catrine! Get your skinny arse here, sis!” Niosta hollered then cleared her throat in mild embarrassment before the Grecian Goddess, of whom, to be honest, she was no longer as particularly frightened as she ought to have been.

“All here, girlies?” Hecate was looking at them with her wise Grial eyes. “Now then. This is very important.
 . . . Listen to me very carefully. I want you to put your warm winter clothes on as quickly as you can, all of you. And then, take a few baskets of pies and cheese, load ’em up with whatever’s easiest—”

“Are we going to feed the soldiers at the walls now, Grial?” Marie asked.

“No, duckie, unfortunately not this time. Once you are ready, I want you to go outside this house . . . and then I want you to
run
as fast and as far as you can. Run, and do not look back! And do not return here! Not unless I come and get you, wherever you might be. And no, do
not
tell me!”

“Oh! But why?” The girls began speaking in troubled voices.

“Because, my dears,
she
is coming. The one who is Persephone.”

“You mean she’s coming
here?
” Niosta’s eyes got very big.

“Yes.”

The room became chaos. Squealing girls went running all over, gathering clothes, pulling on scarves and coats and snow shoes, and Lizabette fled to the kitchen to throw random pantry food items into baskets. In a few minutes they were ready, and Hecate, still seated in her chair, nodded to them as they headed for the front door.

Marie paused at the door and threw her a frightened glance. “Grial
 . . . will
you
be all right?”

Hecate looked at her with a gaze of wisdom, and her dark eyes suddenly seemed very warm. “Don’t you worry about me, sweetie, you just stay safe and out of the way! Promise me!”

Marie nodded, and Catrine and the others stared in awe-filled wonder at Hecate from the door.

“Would—would you like me to bank the fire for you, Hec—Grial? And take the kettle off, so that it doesn’t boil over? Since you, well, you may not get up from that rocking chair—I know you may not—” Lizabette was looking at Grial with liquid eyes.

“Yes, dear girl. That would be very kind of you.” Hecate nodded to Lizabette, and a faint shadow of a smile came to her immortal face.

Lizabette rushed to the kitchen to do the tasks, hastily wiping her nose and the single wet trail on her cheek.

When she was done, the girls rushed outside, and they heard Hecate say, “Shut the door, but don’t lock it, my dears. And oh, if you need any help out there, be sure to call upon the Snow Maiden and Jack Frost! Now, off you go, with all my love!”

T
he light turned pale blue and the icicles were melting on all the buildings on Rollins Way when Persephone, dark Goddess, stepped out of the shadows and into being before a freshly painted red door underneath a cheerful crooked shingle.

Persephone stood before the red door and opened it with a mere look.

The door swung open with a creak, and the Goddess of the Underworld entered the slightly warmer interior, stepping past a window dressed with chintz curtains and through the entrance into Hecate’s house.

Hecate sat rocking in the wooden chair.

Persephone heard the regular creak-creak sound from the parlor as her metal sandals stepped in silence upon the floorboards and the parlor rug. She paused only a moment, then approached.

“Hecate, my sister
 . . .” Persephone said. “What a quaint little home you have among the mortals.”

“Good morning, Persephone, my sister.” From her seat in the corner, Hecate raised her serene face at the dark Goddess. “It serves me well. And I rather like it.”

“What have you been doing since the time that I’ve seen you last? When I gave you a little glazed blue jar and told you to hold on to it with all your being?”

“I am afraid I no longer have the glazed blue jar,” said Hecate. “But then you don’t really mind, do you?”

Persephone smiled. “No,” she said, “No, I don’t.”

Hecate continued rocking in the chair.

“Will you not ask me, sister dear, what brings me here?”

“From the sounds outside, I can hear the city being sacked. No need to ask, though I would be remiss in my hospitality if I did not offer you a cup of tea. It is my favorite of all the mortal brews, almost as cheerful as a drop of ambrosia.”

“I believe I will abstain,” Persephone said, taking a step closer and looking down into Hecate’s very dark, very wise eyes.

“Your Trovadii are very thorough, especially now that they are dead. Tell me, do you plan to leave anything unturned, or will you raze Letheburg to the ground?”

“I have not decided yet. It depends—on you.”

“How so, my immortal sister?”

A strange expression replaced Persephone’s neutral gaze. Her eyes, blue as summer skies, darkened several shades and changed hue to a deep brown with a shadow of black, the color of rich fallow earth and occult colorless places underneath the roots of ancient trees. At the same time the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to acquire more dimensions and solidity.

But Hecate turned her head slightly to the side, and there was a bloom of radiance in the parlor, as though the moon showed its face indoors and painted the walls with a brief ethereal glimmer.

“Do not tarry with me, Lady of the Crossroads.” Persephone’s gaze was black fire. “You will
rise
from the Throne upon which you sit, and you will surrender it to my will. Do it willingly, and I shall spare you and favor you in the new mortal world order that comes soon after. . . .”

“Is that so?” Hecate’s immortal lips moved into a light smile. “Would you perchance like a freshly baked apple tart to go with it?”

Thunder struck indoors, and it was the
voice
of the dark Goddess.

“Rise before me now!”

“Not a chance, dumpling. You always had a bit of a temper in you, as the Mother of Bright Harvest likes to call it.”

Persephone’s rage was the force of a storm. The room began to shake, and the furniture and all the objects within it rumbled, as though in an earthquake, jumping and sliding along the flat surfaces, while knick-knacks trembled on shelves and the chintz curtains shook, flapping wildly, in a rising indoor wind.

The wind was gale-force and the objects were soon airborne, hurling themselves at Hecate who was still seated in the rocking chair that had now gone very still. Nothing seemed to land on her or hit her, but the tendrils of her shadow-silver hair escaped from her neatly braided crown, and her eyes were fixed with effort.

“Get up!”
Persephone shrieked and leaned forward, reaching with her hands for Hecate, in an attempt to pull her out of her chair.

“Sit down!”
Hecate said suddenly in her ringing sonorous voice. And in the next blink Persephone found herself picked up by an invisible force and slammed bodily against the nearest sofa and forced in a reclining position against the chintz pillows—and Hecate did not move an inch from her spot.

In response Persephone clutched the pillows around her and laughed. “Ah, Hecate, but you are so much weaker than I am! You cannot keep this up, not for much longer.”

“Well, we’ll just have to hope that your mother arrives before anything else is broken, and we can all have a civilized conversation.” Hecate again raised her voice and called, “Demeter! Come, O Thesmos, Mother of Bright Harvest!”

The room filled with golden light, and in the next breath Demeter, statuesque and warm like the harvest sun stood in the middle of the front parlor. Demeter’s countenance however was grave with sorrow. The flying objects in the room momentarily settled back down, many of the fragile items crashing hard against the floor and shattering into shards of broken china.

Hecate shook her head in regret at the mess in the room. “Ah, there you are,” she addressed Demeter, as though Persephone was not present. “Where have you been, blessed sister?”

Demeter glanced bitterly at her daughter, seated on the sofa in a fixed posture. “I have been consulting with the other gods in Olympus,” she said. “And our worst fears are justified. Because of what my daughter has
become
, the mortal world, as it is, is irrevocably broken. Even if, or when, the cycle of death resumes, the cycle of new life and resurrection cannot be reinstated.”

“Then why let any of it bother you, Mother of mine?” Persephone said from her reclined position. “Let this mortal world fall, and we will make another—or
I
will make another according to how I please. For you know that in this present scheme of things not even Olympus can stand against me. Indeed, I should thank all of you for it—for it is
you
, infinitely blessed immortals, who have assigned to me this accursed divine function and hence given me this ultimate power over all of you. And now, you have only yourselves to blame. Come, laugh with me, for I find it rather amusing.”

“Ah, Persephone, my poor daughter. I can only weep.”