Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy)

  Ebrai Fiomarre immediately turned and was staring at her with dark-eyed intensity.

  “Yes,” Percy said, since there was no avoiding it.

  “Very interesting!” The Duke gave her his full attention. “So is it true what they say you do?”

  “I have no notion what it is they say,” Percy replied, looking up at His Grace to stare directly in his eyes. “I put the dead to rest. That part is true.”

  “And what of your ability to find passageways through shadows?” Lady Jelavie persisted. “Whatever you did, did not take us to Death’s Keep, but it did bring us here to relative safety.”

  Percy nodded, but did not elaborate.

  “Well, well,” said Goraque. “If this is indeed true, then it can make a great difference in our favor.”

  “It must be repeated that this girl is under my protection,” said the black knight again, angry heat flooding his cheeks.

  Goraque glanced again at Beltain, noting his high color. “Yes, I understand what you said the first time, Lord Beltain. If she is also your bedwarmer, have no fear, you have made it abundantly clear that your claim of that nature is made. However, since you and she are availing yourselves of our hospitality, then it might be expected that a little accommodation on her part might be expected in return. If she can put the dead enemy to rest when we are attacked, as I’ve heard it was done at Letheburg, then it will go a long way toward smoothing the differences between Goraque and Chidair—”

  Before Beltain uttered anything he might regret, Percy interrupted them both. “Thank you for your hospitality, Your Grace. I will endeavor to do what I can to help—to the best of my ability.”

  Beltain stared at her with earnest agitated eyes, and once more her heart felt a sharp pang of impossible affection.

  “I am glad, girl, that you are so accommodating,” Duke Goraque said with an exhalation of relief. “We are all fortunate to have you among us—indeed, all of you, Ladies and Gentlemen.” He nodded to the room in general. “Now, if I can have you join us, let my men show you to a favorable place where you and your people can set up your own area within our camp. Because we are about to attempt an approach to Letheburg. And a good rest can do everyone some good before we march.”

  “With all due respect to Your Grace, and frankly our gratitude for your exceedingly kind hospitality, but we are not interested in a war,” Count Lecrant D’Arvu spoke up. “We have worked very hard to escape as far as possible from the centers of conflict. Indeed, many of the people of the Lady San Quellenne’s party are simple townsmen and peasants with their families and children and beasts of burden, looking to settle down somewhere safe, and they have no knowledge of arms or fighting—”

  Vitalio Goraque raised one hand to interrupt. “My Lord D’Arvu—”

  But the Count went on, “Furthermore, if we might be allowed to rest overnight, we would happily proceed on our way and not inconvenience you any further, as we seek a peaceful spot in your Realm, or for that matter anywhere as far as possible from Her Brilliance, the Sovereign—”

  “My Lord D’Arvu. I see you have no notion of what is happening here. No notion at all. . . .” The Duke rubbed his forehead tiredly. He then pointed to the map on the table before him, and beckoned with his finger, motioning for the Count to approach.

  Frowning nervously, Count Lecrant stepped up to the table, followed by Beltain and the others.

  “See this?” Goraque pressed with his finger a portion on the map marked as Letheburg. “Do you know where this is?”

  “I am assuming, a number of miles south of here,” Beltain spoke up in the Count’s place. “We are about a mile north of Lake Merlait on Chidair land, if I suppose correctly.”

  “No,” said the Duke. “We are not.”

  Beltain frowned. “Then where are we?”

  The Duke pointed at the entirety of the map of the Realm, waving his hand from one edge to the other. “Most of what is shown here, most of the landmarks depicted on this map no longer exist. What still exists as far as I know is this—” he pointed to Letheburg—“and I am assuming, this—” he pointed to the Silver Court—“and possibly a small part of this—” and he pointed to the northern portion of the Kingdom of Styx. “Morphaea is gone, most of Lethe is gone—”

  “So then where are we, if not in Chidair?”

  “Right here.” And Goraque pointed to a spot on the map just north of Letheburg. “Except that all this part is gone and this is where the Chidair northern forest is now—four miles away from Letheburg! We can see the Trovadii red through the trees if we go out a bit of distance past the next rise! They surround the city, and we are just hiding here a couple of miles away, biding our time.”

  “Impossible!” Beltain exclaimed.

  “So then what is Your Grace’s point?” Count D’Arvu observed in some confusion.

  “My point is, you have nowhere to go! You and your family and your people cannot escape this war, nor can you keep running, because the land—this land, any land—is likely going to disappear tomorrow!”

  “Dear God . . .” The Count paled.

  “Then we are not going to run!” Lady Jelavie San Quellenne slapped her elegant gauntleted palm on the map, right in the center of Letheburg. “We will stay and we will fight. Because one way or another we will die anyway. Or should I say, not die. We will remain in this horrible world—unless this girl Percy sends us off—and we might as well try to make something of it while we rot!”

  It was late afternoon, and the Goraque campsite had swallowed up the newcomers with the ease that comes from an excess of difference. It was composed of so many other refugees that it welcomed all.

  Percy sat before a small tent, warming her feet near a fire, next to Beltain and the family D’Arvu. The Count had generously invited them to share his tent for the night, since the cold was rising, and it was likely to snow later.

  Percy had a flash of memory of just a few days ago, of sitting in Grial’s cart, with Betsy hitched before her, huddling against the wind, pressing herself against Beltain’s sleeping body—at that point he was still a stranger, unfamiliar to her, and yet already there was something so wondrous—the other potential Cobweb Bride girls curled in lumps. . . . And then she remembered that Grial was Hecate . . . and that the real Cobweb Bride was found, and that she was right here, sitting not more than two feet away from her, silent, dead, and entirely unwilling to die or even meet her immortal bridegroom.

  Percy turned to stare at Beltain as he held a hot mug of tea, the vapor from it curling in the air, and brought it to his lips. She watched the lean lines of his stubbed jaw, the comely profile as he turned slightly to pick up something, a chunk of bread and cheese, then turned, as if sensing her gaze . . . and her heart danced at the look of his beautiful eyes, and his immediate smile. He offered it to her.

  “Beltain,” she said softly. “As soon as the evening comes—the twilight—I will go to see Death in his Keep.”

  He immediately set down the food and the smile left him, replaced by a grave expression.

  “I have to try to see him, Lord Hades, and find out what has happened and why we did not end up in his Hall this last time, and also, to find out what is to be done.”

  “I am going with you,” Beltain said.

  But Percy shook her head. “No, my beloved, I must speak to him myself.”

  “There is no way I am letting you be alone with him! Not ever again!”

  “Why?” she said.

  “Because of what he is. Because of what he can do—to you. I know him now.” Beltain’s face was a mask of intensity.

  “He showed you something, did he not?” she guessed astutely. “That last time when you followed me on your own?”

  “Yes. . . .”

  “What was it?”

  But Beltain shook his head. “No,” he whispered, “I cannot.”

  Percy had no chance to say anything else because a familiar girlish voice sounded right behind her. “Percy Ayren!”


  Percy turned, and there was Jenna Doneil clambering toward her through the snowy campsite. “Percy! Oh, Lordy Lord, it’s you! Oh, Percy, am I glad to see you!”

  “Jenna? Oh my Lord! What are you doing here?” Percy was amazed and she sprang up, seeing the familiar twelve-year-old girl from her home village. She rushed to embrace her, but Jenna was there first, and she bodily hurled herself at Percy, hugging her so tight that they almost collapsed, and burying her little red-nosed face against the front of Percy’s coat.

  “Oh, you are here, Percy! Thanks be to the Lord Almighty! I just knew it! Now that you’re here, everything’s gonna be all right!”

  “How did you get here? And who else is here?”

  “Oh, lots of folks from Oarclaven! We’re way back thataway!” and Jenna pointed behind her at a distant smoking fire.

  Percy’s heart lurched with sudden hope. “Are my folks here? Ma and Pa, and Belle and Patty?”

  Jenna’s wildly joyful face lost some of its enthusiasm. “Oh, no, I’m sorry, Percy, I don’t think they made it out. . . . At least I don’t remember! When things started fading on our street, I just went a little crazy! I was running and screaming, cause I been through all that awful shadow stuff with Death’s Keep already, and I knew it when I saw it! So I was screaming my head off, and some people came out and started running too, and all the streets and houses were getting all transparent and horrid, and you could see right through them, and then I just ran and ran and ran!”

  And Jenna began bawling, and wiping her face against Percy’s coat.

  Percy held the girl, gently stroking her head covered by a poor, much-worn shawl, from under which wisps of flaxen hair were sticking out.

  Moments later, Jenna quieted and she looked up, and her eyes again brightened. “You know, Flor Murel and Gloria Libbin made it out! They’re back there! And so did old Martha Poiron, cause I dragged her by the hand, as soon as she came out the door—”

  “Well done, Jen!” Percy patted her again, and pressed her in another hug, while her heart slowly started to ache, thinking of her parents and sisters in their suddenly transparent hovel with its badly thatched roof, all fading away. . . .

  Jenna turned around and for the first time noticed Beltain, sitting right near the fire. “Oh!” she said. “The Black Knight!”

  “And hello to you too, Jenna,” he replied with a light smile, at which Jenna almost shrieked.

  “Lordy Lord! He knows my name!”

  “Well of course he knows your name, Jen, what do you think he is, a dolt? He’s been in our company for days.”

  “Oh, Percy! You ain’t afraid of calling the fearsome Black Knight a dolt?”

  “She’s called me far worse,” Beltain said, taking a swig from the hot mug.

  Jenna raised the back of her hand to her mouth.

  At which both Percy and Beltain laughed. It was good to laugh innocently, even for a moment, and when it was over, their faces sobered, both of them remembering what was being discussed before Jenna’s untimely interruption.

  “It’s so odd, isn’t it!” Jenna said meanwhile, not seeing their darkened mood. “How we all went to be Cobweb Brides, and then none of us turned out to be, and then no one ever found her! Wonder where she is, that dratted Cobweb Bride? It would sure be nice to finally find her and make the world all right again!”

  Across the fire, Lady Leonora was watching Jenna speak, staring with her glassy dead eyes. Her expression was unreadable.

  Percy threw her one tentative brief glance, then looked away again, not wanting to put her on the spot.

  Jenna continued chattering, and wanted to drag Percy with her back the Oarclaven fire, but Percy gently disengaged herself and promised to come by and visit them later.

  Eventually Jenna ran off, and went back to her Oarclaven group, frequently turning around and stumbling in the snow, and waving to Percy all the way.

  Before they realized it, dusk was here, an early evening in this thick winter overcast.

  When the shadows started to coalesce on the other side of the tent, and between the sparse stands of trees, Percy stood up from the fire. Beltain had been holding her hands, warming them both between his large palms, rubbing them to get the blood flowing.

  But now she pulled away and she said, “I must go.”

  “Percy!” he started to rise after her, but she put her hand on his shoulder gently, pushing in vain against the hard metal armor.

  “Beltain, please wait here,” she said. “I promise I will not be gone for long. But I must do this alone.”

  There was pain in his eyes. A moment of hard decision.

  And then he nodded and sat back and watched her go, with an impassive face.

  Percy did not look back because she could not bear to see his eyes. She approached the nearest shadow, and reached out with her death sense.

  Immediately there was the familiar grey mist.

  She stepped through it.

  Percy found herself inside Death’s Hall of bones. But immediately she realized that something was wrong.

  There was a new quality to the light here, a deepening of dusk. The illumination was low enough that the shadows appeared longer, the dark places pitch-black between the columns stretching in rows unto infinity, and the cobwebs cast a forest of secondary shadows of their own—something that had never been seen in the Hall before.

  Cobwebs casting shadows, she thought.

  And where it had been neutral pallor, the dusk hung deep and oppressive.

  “Lord Death!” Percy said loudly, suddenly feeling the beginnings of fear. “I am here, Lord Hades!”

  For a long time there was no answer. The silence was so thick that Percy could hear the pounding of her own temples.

  And then a familiar deep voice replied, only this time he spoke soft as a whisper. His voice failed to raise even a single echo.

  “Come to me. . . .”

  Percy blinked, and she saw the faintest stirring of dust at her feet, as a weak breeze rifled the cobwebs and pointed her in the direction she had to go.

  She emerged into the great portion of the Hall, with the ribcage structures rising to the ceiling, the dais in the center, and upon it the great Throne of Ivory.

  Percy strained to look at the throne and see him, the one who was Death, Lord Hades. She blinked repeatedly, willing her eyes to perceive, and only after several long moments could she see a translucent figure of the one she knew to be Hades, seated in a slouching form upon the chair, hands grasping the armrests in weakness, his head bent forward. There was a look of mortal illness about him—which was surely impossible. He exuded abysmal weariness and infirmity of limbs, in the way his hands lay passive, and the head was motionless, fixed in vulnerability. For the first time, the infinite compounded ages of men and gods weighed heavily upon him, wearing down his immortality into a brittle husk.

  “My Lord Hades!” Percy exclaimed. And then she rushed forward, forgetting for once the repulsive obstacle of the cobwebs. She stopped before him, having climbed up all the steps of the dais, and he was only a foot away.

  My Lord . . . what has become of you?

  Her thought was unvoiced, but as always, there was no need for speech.

  The dark God was within her mind. Had always been.

  My Champion. . . .

  Percy reached out and placed her fingers upon the great swarthy hand with sharp-clawed nails—his supple ethereal skin no longer had the skeletal pallor of Lord Death, but the deeper black hue of Lord Hades.

  And immediately she was transported into a serene place without a frame of reference. No up, no down, only unrelieved grey.

  It was here she had seen him once as the glorious White Bridegroom, and he had given her a bit of his own heart and his power through a kiss. . . .

  But there was no White Bridegroom now.

  Hades stood before her, a mere shadow of himself. Wan and sickly dark he was, like coals that had partially burned down and had a veneer of white ashes coating them. br />
  “What has happened here, My Lord? What happened to you?” Percy said.

  “She has happened,” the God replied softly. “My love was here and she tried to pass through to the Underworld, and she did not succeed.”

  “You stopped Persephone!” Percy exclaimed, hope surging inside her. “It is a good thing, is it not?”

  But the dark God’s lips barely moved into a bitter shadow of a smile. “I merely delayed her entry. She will persist and she will enter my kingdom eventually and come unto me, and together she and I will bring this mortal world to its final destruction. But for now—yes, a reprieve. . . . Only, it has cost me, dearly. I am weak, as you can see. And—”

  Hades grew silent, watching her with eyes of despair.

  “Was this why we ended up in Lethe instead of coming here, all those Tanathe people and Beltain and I? Was your Persephone here at that exact time?”

  “Yes. I could not have her see you . . . and thus I simply gave all of you passage directly to where you had to go.”

  Percy felt the burden of sorrow come upon her like a soft blanket that begins with the illusion of comfort and then weighs more and more with each breath, stifling her.

  “Would it help,” she said, “if I brought the Cobweb Bride here now, if I forced her against her will to come before you? It pains me to think this way, but—I have already forced so many dead to pass on in the battlefields. . . . What is but one more already dead person? Indeed, if her death might restart the normal process of dying in the mortal world, one more normal thing, maybe it might help somehow—”

  And Percy grew silent, horrified at her own ruthless thoughts in this grey monochromatic place of serenity.

  But Hades continued watching her, and he slowly shook his head with its dark locks and the faint shadows of snakes. “It is too late now. . . . I can no longer take the Cobweb Bride in the proper way that would restart the cycle of death in the mortal world.”