W
hen he saw the two mountain peaks rising ahead of him Lars Porsena smiled. “We are nearing Pythia's palace,” he told Justine.
“Is that where we're going? But you told me she hates you and wants to harm you.”
“She does. I am tired of fleeing however. I want to put an end to the quarrel between us and rid myself of fear. Cowardice ill becomes me, dear child.”
“So you are going into her den to confront her?” In spite of herself, Justine could not keep a throb of admiration from her voice. Hiding from trouble, or running from it, or not admitting its existenceâthese were her ways of coping. They had failed her miserably, as her life proved. Yet the one time she had taken her courage in both hands and faced a tormentor, it had proved to be this demon at her side.
Lars Porsena uttered his demonic chuckle. “âDen' is hardly the word I would use for Pythia's palace. She is lazy and likes her comfort, as you will soon see. Her
taste is a bit bizarre, perhaps, but reflects her true self. There, just ahead. Those gates in that high wall are hers. Beyond them is a long road that leads to her, ah, den.”
The gates were made of metal bars cunningly contorted to resemble a tangle of briars. Large, needle-sharp thorns protruded in every direction. Anyone who attempted to force the gates open, or climb over them, would be badly lacerated. But there was a handle; a single smooth handle shaped into a serpentine curve.
“Try it,” Lars Porsena suggested.
Brushing past Justine, Vesi reached forward and took hold of the handle.
From somewhere among the thorns came a dry, menacing rattle.
Vesi, unintimidated, twisted the handle until both gates swung open. Lars Porsena's eyebrows shot upward in surprise, but he recovered to reward her with a sweeping bow. “After you,” he said.
Once the three had passed through the gates they heard them slam shut. Justine glanced back. No visible agency had closed the gates, and there was no handle on the inside.
Ahead lay a road that wound down a dark valley between two somber peaks. No light reached that road; it lay in eternal shadow.
“This place frightens me,” Justine whispered.
“So it should,” Lars Porsena laughed. “This is the Valley of the Shadow.”
They had gone some distance before Lars Porsena stumbled. Then, visibly faltering, he stumbled again and came to a halt. “I am growing weaker,” he complained to Justine.
“Surely not here, not so soon.”
“Yes, dear child, right here. Right now! I dare not approach Pythia unless I am at my full strength. And for that I need you. It is your reason for being. Come to me now,” he said in a seductive voice. “Come to me.”
The demon opened his arms.
Afterward Justine walked in a daze for a time. When at last she took notice of her surroundings she discovered they were approaching a round, oily-looking black building that rose layer upon horrid layer, each successive coil smaller than the one below. There was no peak at the top of the structure, no tower, no turret. Merely an awful emptiness.
“Pythia's palace,” announced Lars Porsena, striding forward.
Scale-cloaked and hooded figures guarded the double doors that led into the palace. Although their faces were concealed by the enveloping hoods, Justine sensed they were apprehensive at the arrival of the visitors.
Lars Porsena said brazenly, “Tell the dark goddess her favorite acolyte has returned. Announce the arrival of Bur-Sin of Babylon.”
The guards drew back; the doors swung wide.
A second set of figures wrapped in iridescent, scaled cloaks appeared from within the palace to usher Lars Porsena and the two women into a large audience chamber. The room was devoid of furniture aside from benches of obsidian and onyx lining the black walls. Sullen yellow flames flickered in bronze braziers. Pythia's servants indicated silently that the new arrivals were to seat themselves. Then they all but ran from the hall.
The central feature of the audience chamber was a circular pool brimming with black liquid. From time to time a lazy bubble surfaced, glistened, broke. Justine found herself gazing at the pool as if hypnotized. Her mouth was dry, her tongue thick with an ancient and irrational fear of the unknown.
A disturbance destroyed the apparent tranquillity of the pool, a slow roiling that gradually intensified, a sense of some mighty body moving below the surface.
When Pythia's head emerged from the pool Justine gasped and opened her mouth to scream, but Lars Porsena's fingers tightened in a savage grip over her jaw. She choked on her fear in silence.
Vesi sat unmoving, looking straight ahead.
The goddess rose from the water just far enough to reveal the upper curve of her breasts and fixed unblinking eyes on Lars Porsena. “You.”
“Yes.”
“You never fail to surprise me, Bur-Sin; I suppose that is why I tolerated your insolence and your insubordination for so long,” said Pythia in a terrifyingly soft and sibilant voice. “But this time you go too far. Or have you returned to submit to the punishment you so richly deserve?”
“No, Pythia, I have a different resolution of our conflict in mind.”
“What could you possibly suggest that would give me more pleasure than reducing you to blubbering madness?”
“A sacrifice.”
Justine's stomach contracted with fear. But instead, Lars Porsena gestured toward Vesi. “I have brought you this woman as an offering. Visit upon her whatever punishment you had in mind for me.”
Justine observed that Pythia had yet to look at Vesi. “Why should I accede to your request, Bur-Sin?” the goddess inquired. “What makes you think she would be a sufficient substitute for you?”
“Because she is not just any woman, Great Goddess. She is quite remarkable: an oracle, a seer. I personally witnessed her prophesying for the king of Rome. We both know that oracles are favored by the gods. Therefore she is a very valuable sacrifice and one that should more than repay my, ah, misdeed.”
At last Pythia transferred her gaze to Vesi. “An oracle, you say,” she continued in the same conversational tone.
“Unless my eyes deceive me, she is also an Etruscan. She certainly has Etrurian features; the race beloved of the gods, or so they claim.”
“Therefore she is twice valuable, Pythia. And in additionâjust so you will know how much I am willing to pay for your forgivenessâshe is the mother of my child,” Lars Porsena finished triumphantly.
“Indeed! You would do that, surrender the mother of your child to me? An impressive sacrifice, Bur-Sin. But”âthe tongue of the goddess flickered fretfully between parted lipsâ“is one woman enough to atone for your crime against me? Even if she is all you claim.”
“Oh, she is, Great Pythia! I can prove it.” Lars Porsena caught Vesi by both shoulders and clamped his fingers painfully deep into her flesh.
“Say something,” he growled at her. “Look into the future and tell us what you see.”
Vesi did not move, did not blink.
“You are trying to deceive me, Bur-Sin,” drawled Pythia. “I expected as much.”
“This is no deception! She is a seer, I tell you! If you once hear her speak, you'll be convinced.”
“Oh, I have heard her speak,” replied Pythia in that unmistakable voice. But the words did not come from the goddess in the pool.
They came from the lips of Vesi.
Lars Porsena snatched his hands away from her shoulders as if burned by her flesh. “I have not only heard her speak,” the voice went on, “but I have spoken through her. I even used her as a tool to tear apart a human for my amusement. Bur-Sin, you fool, you have brought me my own plaything as a sacrifice. The mother of your child, indeed! How ironic, since my minions have exhausted themselves searching for your son. Once they found him, he was to be used as a lure to draw you: and I then thought I might kill him in front of you as part of your punishment. But now that I have you in my coils, I do not really need him. I can punish you
quite sufficiently in a thousand other ways. Ah, Bur-Sin, for you I will create undreamed of tortures! You will die each night, awaken reborn in the morning, suffer and die again. Remember, I warned you.”
As Vesi fell silent, Pythia emerged farther from the pool, revealing a second and then a third row of breasts. Justine fought an insane desire to giggle.
A whore in Rome could make a fortune with those,
she thought. Then she noticed that one breast was desiccated, as flat and flaccid as an empty purse.
Pythia noted the direction of her glance. “
He
did this to me,” she hissed. “Bur-Sin, whom I trusted, whom I even loved. He crept close to me as if he found my form beautiful, and when he was nestled on my bosom, moaning with what I thought was pleasure, he ⦠did ⦠this!” The voice of the goddess shrilled to a screech.
Rising still higher, she turned toward the demon. The great mantle on either side of her neck flared wide. “You stole enough of my power to make a body for yourself! Several bodies, apparently. That is a fine one you wear now, Bur-Sin. Tell me, is it virile? Is it a worthy lover for a goddess?”
Her sarcasm was like the lash of a whip. Lars Porsena clung to the tatters of his courage. “Accept the sacrifice I have brought you, Great Pythia,” he pleaded, “and I will demonstrate the prowess of this splendid body in whatever way pleases you.”
Her cold laughter was even more unpleasant than a demon's chuckle. “Until you return what you stole from me, nothing you do could possibly please me.”
“You want me to return the power of embodiment? I beg you, Pythiaâreconsider. Without it, I would lose the body I now wear.”
“Having a human body again seems more important to you than anything else, Bur-Sin. How very curious. I would find one rather stiff and limiting, myself. But surely you need more than the power you stole from me
to support your current situation. The Netherworld was never meant for human bodies, yet here are all three of you wearing Earthworld flesh. How ever did you manage to arrange it?” Pythia's voice was soft again, silky, deliberately misleading in a way another woman could recognize.
Justine tensed.
The demon could not resist a chance to show off his cleverness. Placing one hand on Justine's shoulder, he said, “I have provided myself with an additional source of energy to draw upon, Great Goddess. One I can take with me anywhere, even here. Whenever I feel my strength failing”âin one swift move he ripped the Roman's gown open from neck to kneesâ“I feed!”
In the fitful yellow light of the torches the body of an exquisitely beautiful young woman stood revealed; revealed in all its dreadful despoliation. Strips of flesh had been torn away from Justine's ribcage, evidence of teeth and claw marks still visible on the edges of the wounds. A gaping wound showed where the belly had been laid open so the soft fat underneath the skin could be devoured. The breasts had been badly chewed. No injury was enough to kill her, but each was excruciatingly painful.
Dark fires flickered in the eyes of the goddess. “You are indeed a demon, Bur-Sin.” Her head rotated on its slender neck until she was looking at Justine. “And what was the prize for which you paid so much?”
“My youth, Goddess,” Justine whispered.
“Humans! I always knew they were fools. What value is youth? Something no one can hope to keep!” Pythia looked back toward the demon. “You bought her very cheaply.”
“I did what I had to in order to survive,” Bur-Sin protested.
“Your survival was assured anyway. Few spirits lose their immortality. As a demon in the Otherworld you enjoyed unfettered freedom. Had you preferred to be in
the Netherworld you could have materialized here in any form you chose. But unfortunately, your insatiable appetites prompted you to steal a second Earthworld existence for yourself. A great mistake, Bur-Sin; the gods disapprove of demons incarnating on earth. They invariably try to claim our prerogatives there.
“You say you came here to offer me the woman as a sacrifice, so I accept herâbut my acceptance does not imply forgiveness. Far from it There is no atonement for what you did to me, Bur-Sin. I merely take her for my own amusement, and I will keep the young one as well. To survive what you have done to her she must have an exceptionally strong spirit. I am sure I can find an interesting use for such a spirit. Entering my service will mean the irrevocable destruction of their Earthworld bodies, of course, but no matter.
“As for you, Bur-Sin ⦔ Pythia hesitated in order to prolong his agony. “As for you, obviously you will have no use for either of them any longer. You have sacrificed much for that body you prance around in, but your days of enjoying human flesh in all its forms are over. I mean to give you
exactly
what you deserve.”
Surging upward, she began to leave the pool.