Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (37 page)

She looked around her then, seeing the D’Arvu family gathered around Leonora’s body, and she saw Ebrai Fiomarre, behind her.

“You,” said Percy Ayren, looking at him with a vacant stare. “You, who are Lord Fiomarre, Vlau’s brother. I can feel
her
presence inside me even now, even after what has come to pass. She
just will not go away
—the one who is the Sovereign. . . . The one who is the Goddess. You said before you wanted to try—to take me to her.”

“What do you mean, girl?”

“I mean, let’s go.
Take me to her now
. I know exactly where she is, but I would like you to come along—and do what you had planned to do.”

“But if she is immortal,” Ebrai said, “and she cannot be killed—”

“Let’s go.”

And then Percy turned around and she said to Count D’Arvu, “My Lord, please watch over Beltain, for he lies in the snow.
 . . . For—I must go and do something. I must do something. But—someone must watch over
him
, as he lies in the snow. . . .”

P
ercy rode with Ebrai Fiomarre, awkwardly seated in the saddle before him, as they moved through the forest filled with fallen dead and loudly energetic living. Some of the folk were rejoicing, and the mixed groups of peasants and townspeople cheered the nearby infantrymen and cavalry knights as they rode over piles of fallen dead bodies. A few more feet of forest and they had reached the wide clearing before the plain upon which three cities stood next to each other.

The plain was a sea of pomegranate-red, silent fallen men, all Three Armies of the Trovadii. But the battle had not ended, and indeed the war was far from over, because the living soldiers of Solemnis of the Domain were present and they still had their orders, and they now engaged the Goraque soldiers of the Realm.

However the odds were now mortal,
human—
at least here on this battlefield. Those who were mortally wounded, fell and did not rise again. And for some strange reason, it served to invigorate
both
sides, so that now the battle raged fiercely in the field and around Letheburg. And this time, the garrison soldiers of the Silver Court and Sapphire Court joined the battle. Fresh formations in Imperial colors joined the fray, while on the other side, the Domain garrison came out in a lesser force.

Ebrai Fiomarre rode carefully and swiftly, not engaging in any skirmishes. And because the distance was short, they had remained lucky enough to approach within a hundred feet of Letheburg’s open gates that has been damaged by a battering ram, together with the adjacent section of wall that had come down in coarse granite boulders and lay in pieces on the snowy ground.

“I do hope you know what you’re doing,” Ebrai said to her through gritted teeth, as he had to draw his sword and ready his shield arm for military contact. “I understand the tragic loss you’ve had, Percy, and it might have affected you somewhat—”

“Get me into the city, My Lord,” she said in a dead voice. “Get me through the gates.”

“And then what?”

In Percy’s mind the dark Goddess laughed.

Come to me, my Champion, and watch me make another Cobweb Bride! I will stop the cycle of death yet again, for it is as easy as your next breath!

Percy was numb. Her next breath did not rise inside her, for she was suddenly choking, being stifled by an invisible hand
 . . . her lungs could not move in natural reflex and she was drowning.

See how easy it is, how I hold you, my Champion!

Percy did not struggle. Ebrai saw how she was suddenly sliding limp against his chest. “Percy! Are you well? What is it! What is wrong?”

And then the Goddess released her. And Percy gasped and coughed and took in a deep shuddering breath of air.

“I am—it is nothing,” she said to him. “
She
is toying with me. Keep going.”

Up ahead, only fifty feet, was the breach of the gates. Musket and arquebus fire volleys came loud and with it the stench of black powder. Solemnis troops were here in force, and they were holding the passage into the city.

“There is no way to get through!” Ebrai exclaimed, pulling up his horse short.

Mother!
Percy thought.
Mother, help me!
And her briefest thought was of Niobea, followed by overwhelming golden light.

Help me, Mother of Bright Harvest, you who are Thesmos, who have come to me in dreams
. . . .

And before them, out of the grey smoke and grime, hanging like a curtain before the gates, arose a golden light.

It bloomed forth in a warm radiance against the polluted sludge of snow and the fallen Trovadii corpses and the roiling mess of fallen bricks and sections of city walls and running foot soldiers. . . .

Demeter, golden Goddess of plenty and the riches of the harvest, rose before them out of the icy ground, and she was growing, and she was twenty, then a hundred feet tall.

Help me do this one last thing!
Percy thought with all the force of her being.
Take me to her!

“Come, dear child!” boomed the voice of Demeter the golden-tressed, as her immortal shape towered like a colossus before the gates of Letheburg. “I may not take you through shadows, but I will take you through light! Enter me and ride!”

And the next moment the figure of the goddess blended with pure light and she became a shimmering curtain, a portal into another place.

“Ride!” exclaimed Percy.

Immediately Ebrai spurred his horse and they flew forward into the curtain of golden light. . . .

.
 . . And they emerged on the other side.

It was a small street in Letheburg, claustrophobic, snow-covered, with narrow buildings nestled together with second story overhangs, away from the clamor of the fighting.

It was Rollins Way.

P
ercy opened the red door of Grial’s house and it creaked gently. And she stepped inside, while her mind was empty and numb. Ebrai Fiomarre came after her.

Grial, or Hecate’s parlor was a mess of broken furniture, pulled chintz curtains and smashed knick-knacks, all except for the sofa, upon which Persephone sat, humming to herself and examining her nails, long delicate claws of glossy ivory, reminiscent of those of her consort, Lord Hades. She was dressed in her silvery-metal chiton and her succulent skin was rich bronze and her hair the deepest pitch-black mahogany. An erotic scent of musk filled the room
 . . . stifling reek of barely repressed immortal
desire
.

In the corner, seated upon her wooden rocking chair, was Hecate.

Hecate was in her immortal form, rigid and motionless. But she was no longer fashioned of silvery-moonlight. Instead, all her surfaces had a strange matte pallor, like a rime of frost. Only her eyes remained unaffected, familiar, warm, and very, very dark, watching Percy with wisdom.

It took a second for Percy to recognize the fine layer of cobwebs starting to cover her from head to toe, and frosting her noble braided crown of hair with whiteness.

Persephone stopped humming.

“My Champion!” she said. “And my dear Ebrai. How good of you to deliver my Percy to me. I suspected you would prove loyal, from the very first instant you looked into my eyes. Although, I must say at first you struggled so hard to maintain your tedious façade of deception that I came to pity you. Such a clever ruthless boy you thought yourself to be—it made you a delicious curiosity, and yes, it kept you alive. Ah, my poor Ebrai.
 . . . What—did you think I did not
know
you and your father were sent to spy on me?”

Ebrai Fiomarre went very still. He was gripped with the charismatic slithering force of her gaze—eyes that were no longer sky-blue, but sensuous ripe earth and upturned soil, and the sweet, deep burrowing riches of its fertile darkness.

She was his Sovereign, now as much as ever, as she had been before, undeniably, when last he saw her in the splendor of the Palace of the Sun at the Sapphire Court . . . just before she gave him her last task to carry out.

“It is done,” he had told her then. And these same words he spoke again now, even though this time the words were formed in grim resignation.

She knew everything
.

“You have done well, my Ebrai—
despite
yourself.”

Fiomarre felt cobwebs and darkness suddenly crawling through his mind, and he struggled in despair, for he knew that he could never deny her, not in the very end.
 . . .

He stood very still, his mind in ruthless turmoil, while Persephone stood up suddenly, ignoring Percy for the moment, and she strode up to him, and placed her nude sensuous bronzed arms around the raven-haired man’s neck. She then pushed back his chain mail and the armor gorget round his neck, and her slim fingers stroked the column of his muscled throat, right over the pulse point, and up over the Adam’s apple.

Ebrai’s eyelids flickered but he held himself steady and he somehow managed to meet the direct look of her eyes.

And then slowly his right hand moved down to his side. With a quick practiced move he took out his short secret dagger, and he plunged it directly into the chest of the dark Goddess.

He had nothing to lose.

She made a small stifled sound. A light, sweet gasp.

Or maybe it was Percy, standing nearby in numb silence. . . .

He drew back violently, and watched silvery-red immortal blood run down and stain the front of her iridescent chiton.

Persephone looked down at her chest and the wound, and then looked up at him. Her lips curved into a smile.

She reached down to touch her blood with her fingertips and brought it up to her lips, and tasted it.

“Sweet ambrosia . . .” she whispered. “Do you know that I used to cut myself and drink from my own wrists?” She put her fingertip directly into her wound, and she offered it to Ebrai. “Would you like a taste of immortality, foolish mortal? But no, you may not have my sweet blood, for you have not earned it. Far from it—now you have displeased me. Whatever shall I do with you?”

Ebrai’s lean face was a lifeless mask.

But Persephone already turned her back on him and now she gave her full attention to Percy.

“You are here just in time, my priestess and my Champion,” said the dark Goddess, standing before Percy and looking into her eyes. “But oh, you have restarted the tedious grand process of death, releasing so much of that wonderful life energy back into the cycle—so many souls set free and cast back into the universal ocean! I must say I am not pleased. Now I have to start all over again with another little Cobweb Bride—maybe a comely youth this time—”

“What have you done to Hecate?” Percy spoke in a numb wooden voice, not her own.

“My sister is merely indisposed,” Persephone cast a brief glance at Hecate in her wooden chair. “You might say I am gently divesting her of all that immortal
gravitas
. Soon she will be light enough that I will move her to this nice spot on the sofa upon which she can recline for all eternity.”

“You require the use of this rocking chair?”

“I require the use of this Throne to the Underworld.”

Percy stared at Hecate, covered in cobwebs and motionless, and the realization of the magnitude of it all came to her with a blow that was almost tangible.

Thoughts raced within Percy, and connections were made.

“You will sit upon this Throne and you will die, and you will dissolve and fall Below and come into the Underworld
 . . .” Percy mused, and her voice was cold, remote; someone else was speaking in her stead.

“Precisely, my Champion.”

Percy bit her lips. “Ebrai and I will help you move Hecate from the chair. Will you have mercy upon us and the rest of mortal kind, if we help you now do this one thing?”

“Will I?” Persephone laughed, a soft silvery laugh, like the sound of a running spring brook over stones. “But lo! What’s this? You have given up—or so you want me to believe—and now you offer your will to me? Not much of a sport, are you, my girl? No fun at all! I’d hoped for more of a passionate struggle and existential flailing, raw mortal anguish on your part, maybe even a few choice curses aimed at the gods, especially after I had slain your true love. What, you would serve me now, and be my priestess and my Champion, while
he
lies in the snow?”

Sharp serrated blades and razors bit into Percy, cutting her in her mind, ripping off slices from her spirit
 . . . and the room turned and there was vertigo.

“Yes.”

Persephone laughed again, and Percy saw her hard, empty evil eyes.

“Ah, but you are lying to me, sweet little Percy, and doing it rather terribly. You always were such an awkward liar, and you can never lie to me.
 . . .”

“All right, I am lying,” Percy said. “I hate and despise you with every fiber of my being—or what’s left of it. But we
will
help you to relocate Hecate nevertheless. I don’t want her harmed any more than she already is.”

Ebrai nodded silently, still stunned from his own failed act of assassination, and grimly stepped forward. “What must we do?”

“Simply lift her up enough that she is not touching the wood of the chair with any portion of her body . . . not even a single hair must touch it, for it keeps her in control of the Throne. That should be enough. I myself cannot do this, for her power still rejects me and my slightest touch, even though she has grown very weak.”

Percy approached Hecate, and she put her hand upon the arm of the Goddess of the Crossroads, feeling the cobweb crystalline layer of energy covering every point of her surface. “I am so sorry, Grial,” she whispered, looking into the familiar wise eyes, liquid in the shadows. “But I must do this thing now.”

The eyes watched her with infinite understanding, without judgment.

Ebrai approached from the other side, and together Percy and he raised Hecate from her seat, gently, unfolding her stiff figure, a lovely silvery statue
 . . . and the moment she was no longer in contact with the rocking chair, Persephone gave a gasp of delight.