The sky was thickly clouded; the fires reflected their light against the clouds. When we topped a rise, I saw the hall of Dis. Three rings of fire and in the center a throne overlooking the central pyre.
“I must go first,” our guide told me. “The bridges are unseen.”
The throne of Dis is the meaning of the maze. We walked around the first ring till our guide told us to stop. Then he crossed; the bridge was only a shadow over the flames. I followed, my feet feeling their way because I could see nothing. Once the fire roared up around me, the flames licking my arms and legs.
I closed my eyes and stood fast. I whispered—yes, Dugald had taught me some things—“A compact with thee, Fire. Fire, do not harm me.” And it didn’t, neither did it burn my clothes. I was mindful of Gray. “A compact with thee, Fire,” I whispered. “Do not harm my friend.” Then I added, “Please,” because it doesn’t do to be insolent with the elements.
The fire didn’t harm Gray, but it did burn some of his clothing. His trousers were handwoven wool. They smoldered. His shirt was linen, and it was left in ruins.
Our guide nodded. “She witched you,” he said.
Gray was very pale, but only said, “Lead on.”
“We must walk,” our guide said. “He—” he inclined his head toward a distant figure on the throne in the center “—changes their position from time to time.”
“What if he changes them while we are in transit?” I asked.
“That,” said Gray, “is really a fool’s question. Enough already. If I think on it too much, I will be useless. Don’t answer.”
“You are brave, both very brave. Most of those I have conducted hither were gibbering with terror by now,” our guide said.
“Well, we are, but trying to put the best face on it,” I said.
“Pert,” Gray said. “No matter what the circumstances, ever pert.”
Our guide responded with only a smile. Gray seemed to find it rather ghastly, because he looked quickly away. But I returned it with a smile of my own. It took an effort to surmount my terrors, but I did.
“Talorcan is my name,” our guide told me. “It is a word of power. Summon me if you will as boar or a ghost. I am a mighty man. For this is my payment for my sacrifice. I feel the steel in my heart when it is spoken.”
We had reached the second bridge. The fire no longer made trial of our courage. We crossed easily and had no difficulty with the third, and then we stood before the dreaded Lord of the Dead. Gray went to one knee before the father of nightmares, but I stood my ground.
“You have no right to conduct us here. We are yet living,” I said, “and you have no power over us.”
You see, up to then I had not thought my ancestry a real thing. Bodiccia. What folly; I am a poor girl. I hunt, cook, clean, tend fields and our garden, and learn spinning, weaving, and dyeing at Kyra’s feet. And I shall make the best bargain I can with some lordling and do all those same things in his household. And in addition, I will share his bed and bear his children. This is the lot of an ordinary woman, and if he be loving and generous, and I industrious and honest, it is not a bad one.
But now I understood, to my sorrow, that Dugald had been right. I am no ordinary woman, and born to a different fate. I would not go whimpering. The thing on the throne chose to be amused by me, not offended, and it laughed. Even its laughter was a horror. The flames from the pit at its feet leaped and writhed around it. They were like serpents, these flames, and they coiled, uncoiled, twisted, hissed, and tried to bite. One leaped at my foot above the spot where the laces held my shoe. 1 felt the fangs press at my skin, but then they dissolved, sparking away into nothingness.
The throne it sat on was an evil sort of thing, a mockery of the garden of life, of an apple tree. The throne itself was made of steel, with leaves of emerald, flowers of bone, and apples of ruby. The fire which would have destroyed any ordinary fruit left them unharmed. Besides the apples the tree was also hung with the fruits of both victory and defeat: the heads of men. They were living yet and joined their master, the king of the dead, in laughter.
The face of the creature on the throne changed sickeningly. Now covered with blood; now withered, wasted by disease and pain; now bloated by drowning or twisted by torture. He was all death and all death was met in him; and I felt very small, a sparrow in the talons of a hawk, and I understood what it meant to despair.
One of the heads spoke loudly enough for me to hear. “Hs’s‘s’t, my lord.” And death inclined his face to it, where it hung among the leaves and fruit on an iron bough.
They spoke together in low voices.
Then the Lord of the Dead laughed again. “That should do nicely,” he said. One shadow hand pointed to a place on the right of the throne, at the edge of the pit. Then he directed Gray to the left, so we stood facing each other over the fire.
“Hear now my ruling, my geas, and you—each and both—must accept it. She will be your second wife, Gray, and you will lie with her here before my throne. And you, Gwenifyr, will serve him all the remainder of your days, until I welcome you both into my realm forever. You—each and both—will have none but each other now and for whatever lifetimes you have to come.”
It was a dreadful curse. We would be bound to each other for all time. Slaves through the years, living out stunted lives together. If we tried to escape, the geas would bring us to death, and from death we would return to live again, only to be condemned to the same ghastly fate as before, world without end.
Then Gray showed what he was made of. I was in tears. Yes, truly I was, because, you see, I only half comprehended the sheer awfulness of it. But Gray met the face of nothingness, and he said, “No.”
The sound was like a crack of the lash; and indeed, a whip of fire encircled Gray’s body. When it faded, he was both burned and bleeding in a dozen places. He staggered to his knees, sobbing and crying out with pain. The fire lash cracked again. Gray screamed and screamed, in a way that made even Talorcan cringe, until Gray lay facedown in a pool of blood.
I watched as he struggled to his knees. I saw what remained of his clothing was drenched with blood, and one eye was gone, sucked out by the lash.
I screamed, and for a moment I felt myself surrender to the horror I felt. “No! No! Stop! I’ll do whatever you want, only don’t hurt him anymore.”
“See.” Death laughed again. “See, little one, how easily you break? Now.” He gestured toward Gray. “Come around to the front of my throne and consummate your marriage.”
“Yes,” Gray said. “It is no shame, dread lord, to be destroyed by another’s pain, for that, I have observed, is what causes most of us the worst suffering. But I am not dismayed by my own. Dear to me, oh, so dear to me, is the fragile envelope of flesh I wear. But even fairer is my honor!”
And so saying, he plunged forward and down into the fire.
I remember thinking, Yes, he’s right. That’s the best way. But the time of thought is nothing, and I followed.
Gray felt the fall. At first it seemed the fangs of a hundred serpents tore at his flesh. He was unable to imagine a fire pit with no bottom, but this was one. As he drove down through the fire snakes, they tried to seize him, but failed. He saw darkness rushing at him. He knew she had pitched herself over the edge behind him, but then she was a worthy descendant of ancient queens. So he knew death was not far away. He had a second to mourn his loss, but when he slammed into the darkness, he found it water. Why? Then he thought, surprised, I will drown.
But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure how long he held his breath, but he was swept along by a current that sucked him down and down. Then he broke the surface and felt air on his skin. So, not knowing what else to do, he breathed. He seemed to spend an eternity in darkness, but at last it was as if something spat him out.
He saw the water was green and filled with silver shapes. Fish? No, dolphins. He struggled toward the light. His head cleared the surface, and above he saw spires of clouds glowing in the late afternoon sun. One of the dolphins nudged him forward, and he saw a line of cliffs in the distance. He struggled. The salt water stung his body in a thousand places. He could see from only one eye, and he knew the Lord of the Dead had maimed him, but he was a kind that does not willingly die. He began, pain or not, to swim toward the shore.
Something strange loomed before him. He reached out to push it away and felt wood. A large, heavy piece of tree swept out to sea by a storm. He embraced it with more fervor than he ever embraced a woman. The tide was at the flood. He rode it to shore. He found himself beached in a cove on the very strand along which they had fled the boar. Above the tide line, the tracks belonging to the three of them marked the sand. The boar had left no tracks, but then all things considered, this wasn’t surprising.
Thirst tortured him, and a multitude of wounds, scoured by sand and salt water. All he wanted to do was lie still and be left alone. So he lay for a long time, trying to gather strength to rise and search for water. It was his greatest need. He heard a rush of wings and saw a raven land next to him. He recognized the bird. It had a lot of pinfeathers. She had lost quite a bit of her plumage after Dugald chased her off to Ireland, and it was growing back.
She squawked, “Gray.”
“In the flesh,” he croaked back. “You illegitimate, louse ridden, misbegotten terror of a bird. You leave my good eye alone, or I’ll see you in the stew pot—”
“I believe he is alive,” someone said.
When he looked up, Dugald and Maeniel were standing over him.
“For once she is innocent,” Maeniel said. “She saw you and led us to you.”
Dugald gave him some water. “Where have you been and where is Guinevere?”
Gray gulped the water. “Telling you that would take more strength than I have now. We were taken to the house of the dead, and she departed in the same manner and in the same direction as I did. I hope she can swim.”
“She can,” Maeniel said, “and she swims well. I know. I taught her.”
“Good,” Gray said. “I landed in the sea some little way off the coast. A floating log brought me in. Lift me up and I will show you. I’m half blind. I can’t see from here. Is my eye gone?”
Dugald examined him closely. “No, the side of your face is swollen and there is a cut on the eyelid. I am not the Lord Christ, but I can help.” He rested his hand on the side of Gray’s face, and some healing was done. The swelling went down a little.
When Gray realized he had two good eyes, he fainted.
Dugald drew back. “I see we will get no more from him.”
Maeniel was pointing out to sea. “Look, Dugald, the dragons. I never saw so many—not in one place before.”
Dugald rose and placed Gray’s head gently down on the sand. “You evil bird.” He addressed Magetsky. “Stay away from his hurts.”
She soared and aimed a squirt at him, but didn’t quite dare hit him. It landed on the sand nearby.
Maeniel laughed. “She won’t be wanting another journey to Ireland.”
Then Dugald looked where Maeniel pointed out to sea. “At least twenty, maybe more. I didn’t know she was friends with them. You didn’t tell me they had met.”
“Yes, once,” Maeniel said. “When she was much younger. Once. I couldn’t see the harm in it.”
“No, no!” Dugald cried, wringing his hands. “No. They have her. There would not be so many otherwise. They have taken her. She is among them.” He tore at his beard. “No!”
“Old man,” Maeniel said, “you frighten me. What will they do with her? She’s like my daughter. I had thought she might take my son. She could come with us. Live free.”
“I cannot think,” Dugald cried. “And they are strange cattle—”
“Cattle?” Maeniel said. “If there is one thing they are not, it’s cattle.”
“I don’t know,” Dugald cried again, sinking to his knees beside Gray on the sand. “She was not to meet the dragons. And now I do not know.”
She surfaced among the dragons, and there was no question of letting her go back to shore. One of the giants, a silver maned beauty, simply camp up under her, and she found herself seated on his back. A chorus of voices sounded in her mind as they greeted her with relief, joy, pleasure, and some indignation. It was hard to get a word in edgewise.
“My friends,” she said, pointing to the shore.
“No,” the voice of the one she rode told her. “Your guardians have become careless. You were nearly lost to us. It never occurred to anyone that even Lord Dis would want Merlin in his debt. Only your courage and the man’s saved you both from lifetimes of pain.”
“I cannot think a man like Gray would have been a fate worse than death!” I was angry because I had never loved him so much than in that final moment before the dark lord. I had known him a brave man from the first when he, not Bain, the leader, led the war band down to the pirates.
“No, they cannot protect you. You will not leave us for the present.”
“Then tell me if he is alive, as I am.”
“He is, and on the beach with your friends. They will care for him.”
“I hope so,” I said, looking back.
I could see a few figures clustered on the sand in the distance before we sailed into a fog bank and the wild cliffs and shingle shores of my home were lost to view. It was then that I realized how tired, sore, and drained I was. I threw my arms around the dragon’s neck and rested my head against the slightly rough skin.
In the natural world it was evening, and my depleted body had no defense against the coming night’s cold. “I wish you would let me go ashore,” I said. “I could make a fire and get warm, and I’m so hungry.”
“Presently!” was the terse reply.
I could hear them talking about me among themselves, and they, too, were worried about where to take me—at least for this evening.
“I suggest we try to make the gates.” This was from Silver Mane, the one I was riding.
“No.” The voice was female and rather warm and low in tone. “There’s a squall out to sea, and while I don’t think it will move inshore, we are headed for some high, rough waves. We might not make the gates much before midnight. She’s a land creature and not equipped to defend herself against the cold night air.”