Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy)

  “Who’s Gerard?” Percy asked.

  Belle suddenly blushed—it was visible even in the moonlight. “Oh,” she said. “I guess you don’t know about Gerard Sorven. He is a very nice young man, from Fioren. He has been coming by our house, since he did some work with Pa. He likes to talk about all kinds of things and seems so very knowledgeable—”

  “Belle, are you two courting?” Percy exclaimed with a sudden grin.

  Belle continued to blush furiously. “I think so. . . . Ma and Pa like him very much too.”

  “Good heavens! What other great things did I miss?”

  Belle smiled and patted Percy’s cheek.

  “Is Pa and Ma and Patty in there now?” Percy said, somewhat shyly.

  “Oh, yes!” Belle turned to look at the house. “They’re all inside, and we’ve just had supper, and Pa is telling Patty a story, and Ma and I are making dough for Mid-Winter Holiday bread. I just came out here to get a bucket of snow—”

  “Since when can we afford Holiday bread?”

  “Percy, you’re not going to believe this, but a large sack of flour, a basket of eggs, a pot of freshly churned butter, several juicy pomegranates, and jars of milk, honey, brown sugar and satchels of cloves and cinnamon appeared in the pantry, just a little while ago! And they are all fresh! As if the milk was just taken from a cow’s udder this morning! And the eggs were laid a few hours ago!”

  “You’re right, I don’t believe it.”

  “Well, come on in and see for yourself! Oh, they’ll be so happy to see you! Ma has been really worried that she treated you badly, and she regrets all those times terribly, especially now that you’re all famous and a heroine! Let’s hurry and go inside before we wake up Uncle Roald and the neighborhood dogs—”

  “Wait,” Percy said. “A heroine?”

  “Well, of course!”

  “Being Death’s Champion was more of a horrible burden. All I did was make people die. Good people, bad people, little innocent kids, everyone.”

  And then Percy again rubbed her forehead and her nose with the back of her mitten, because something was itching there. “Belle, this may be a weird question, but—am I dead? Are you dead?”

  “Of course not!” Belle sputtered in her usual serious manner, with that gentle humorless worry. . . . “I mean, I don’t think so. I don’t feel dead. You’d think a person would know when they died, right? We’ve seen enough of those poor undead to know what that’s like. And Gran. . . .”

  “Aye, there was that,” Percy said. “But now that Death has his Cobweb Bride, and the world is back to dying like normal, maybe we all died and came down here. I suppose you might say it makes me a heroine, though, one would think, a lousy one. I put the Cobweb Bride to her final rest, and it was no different than putting Gran to rest, and it took me most of forever to get to it too.”

  “Oh, Percy, what are you nattering on about?” Belle put her hand on her sister’s shoulder and patted her lightly, then tweaked her round cheek. “You’re a heroine because Persephone, Goddess of the Underworld has awakened here tonight, as she always does, on the Black Throne—and somehow, thanks to you, she is her own proper self again—gentle, compassionate, glorious, and full of spring. I know that Lord Hades is now with Lady Persephone, and tonight is the Longest Night. And that’s why we’re making Holiday bread!”

  And then Belle laughed with joy, and she pointed up at the diamond stars again. “Look, oh, there is one great bright star there, and it just appeared! It is like the rainbow! Look up, Percy, it’s just directly overhead, where the North Star used to be, near the Little Dipper! The constellations are a bit different here. . . .”

  Percy’s mind was reeling with the news, and she threw her head back and stared together with Belle, directly up, seeing indeed a very distinct looking bright star, larger than the others around it.

  Belle put her arm around her, and they gazed together, like they used to do so many nights before. Percy put her head on Belle’s shoulder, smelling the sweet familiar scent of her sister, and Belle ruffled Percy’s hair that had many loose tendrils and was starting to fall out of its braid. “Why are you bareheaded in the cold, girl?” Belle said suddenly, picking snow out of Percy’s hair. “Where is your nice big woolen shawl?”

  Percy thought about it, and wondered too. . . .

  And then it came to her, and she remembered.

  Suddenly everything was twisting, churning, her gut, her innards, her lungs were being torn out of her, and the lump in her throat came to choke like a boulder, and tears and snot and shuddering sobs came, and Percy opened her mouth and screamed and wailed . . . while the bright star started to fall from overhead, like a meteor, directly onto Percy.

  A bright flash . . . then only white light.

  Chapter 18

  Percy awoke with a shuddering breath, and she was lying on the floor in Grial’s parlor. Ebrai Fiomarre was bending over her with concern, while Hecate, free of cobwebs or any other binding sorcery, stood nearby. Percy could see the sheen of her immortal feet and the metallic sandals, just out of the corner of her eye, on the edge of the rug.

  Percy groaned then turned her head, feeling her face strangely wet, her eyes salty and her nose swollen, and she started to get up.

  “Careful, do not move too quickly,” Ebrai said. And then he gave Hecate a very strange look.

  Hecate was gazing down at her with a look that was truly hard to describe—a mixture of wonder, awe, and exultation. It was a look usually reserved for beholding the gods, not for the gods themselves at the sight of mortals.

  “Where is she?” said Percy, with a glance at the empty rocking chair.

  “She is where she should be,” Hecate said serenely. “And she is once more the true Goddess of dark and light.”

  “What happened?”

  “My dear girl, you put her to rest.”

  “What? What does that mean?” Percy’s mind was a mess. Indeed, she had difficulty gathering her awareness enough to know where she was, or what day it was, and how much time had passed. Everything felt extremely hazy and fuzzy. Edges blurred . . . in her mind.

  Hecate smiled gently, and then reached down and took Percy’s hand, and pulled her up with the ease of a feather. “Your instincts were true. At the point of Persephone’s immortal death, you, as Death’s Champion had dominion over her, and you did the one and only thing that could have enacted the healing change in her—you showed her the White Bridegroom who is indeed the gentle Mortal Aspect of her one true love. It is an aspect of him that she never sees—indeed, it is but a counterpart of her own loving nature, and thus there is no need. But now—now it was the only thing that could cleanse her broken soul and restore her compassionate vision of mortality. For the White Bridegroom conducts your mortal kind in unconditional love to the next stage, that which you may know only as the Final Mystery. Through him and his light Persephone glimpsed it and was thus reminded of her original nature. Then, as she was resurrected Below, the Immortal Scheme—the so-called order of the world—came into play, and it restored her in the process of her own divine function.”

  “So—she is a monster no longer?”

  “Blessed be the dark Goddess—no, she is not.”

  “Ah-h-h . . .” Percy groaned, as a phantom spasm gripped her head.

  “And you,” Hecate continued, speaking in Grial’s sonorous voice, “you, my dumpling in apple sauce, have done something that not even the Olympians could imagine, nor the Angels of the One God could conceive, nor the celestial spheres could sing about! For nothing such as this has ever been done before! There simply is no precedent! Admittedly, divine rebellions are not all that common, although they do happen—as witness the Angel Lucifer and his Fallen Host—but in the case of our poor broken Persephone, she was the crux and anchor of the whole mortal world, the one goddess whose corruption would affect the very life process.

  “Persephone had been gradually growing ill in her soul for far longer than we imagined—even before sh
e was damaged completely by drinking too much water of Lethe. And her present course was fatal for the mortal world. Had you not changed her just as she died to enter Below, inducing her to conform to the divine function and rebirth in the white light, she would have done even more damage in the Underworld. And that would have meant that the whole universal scheme would fall apart and naturally, everyone would have to start over! And really, the planning and making of a new mortal scheme is such a horrible, usually tragic hassle for the gods, with all manner of repercussions and needless futility—”

  “Grial . . .” said Percy. “That is, Hecate. I need to go to him. . . . Now.”

  Hecate observed her with compassion.

  There was a pause of silence, and Ebrai stared also, grim and somber.

  “Very well,” Hecate said. “I will take you to your true love. This fine gentleman can come separately, on his horse. While you and I, we will walk through the shadows of daytime.”

  Percy nodded, and Hecate pointed to a corner of the room, where the pale daylight from the window did not reach. As she watched it, a soft silvery shimmer began to appear, as an entrance formed, akin to the twilight shadow curtain of mist that led to Death’s Keep, but not precisely the same.

  “Take my hand,” Hecate said with a solemn face. “I give shape to entrances and exits where none are found. Come, child.”

  And Percy took a step, and placed her hand in the warm powerful hand of the Goddess, feeling a jolt of power.

  She walked after Hecate into silver.

  They emerged in a white snow-filled forest. It was the same familiar spot where Percy had vaguely remembered was the scene of battle, and where it happened.

  Percy’s heart was pounding. Her breath caught, and there was a lump in her throat, as she glanced around them, at the sparse trees and graphic black branches laden with snow, the various rises and shrubbery, and the spots where bodies of the dead had lain, bright pomegranate. . . .

  She saw groups of people, mostly collecting the dead and piling them into carts. Others were dealing with the wounded. Occasional weary Goraque soldiers walked around the former campsite, but there was a noticeable absence of the sound of gunfire.

  Percy glanced up past the trees toward the clearing and she saw that here was the portion of the plain that she remembered. But ahead there was no longer the cluster of three walled cities. The only thing remaining was the southwestern portion of the walls of Letheburg, silhouetted against the anemic pallor of the winter sky, while both the capital citadels—the Silver Court and the Sapphire Court—were gone.

  The plain itself had shrunk to the size of a small square. The Trovadii bodies still littered whatever was left, and there were only a handful of living troops of the Emperor and the Sovereign, but they did not appear to be fighting.

  But Percy did not care about any of it. . . .

  She turned around, her eyes boring into the nearest groups of people in the forest, looking for a frame of reference.

  Suddenly she spotted a familiar mounted knight, slim and elegant, with helm off and a mass of brazen red hair flowing down her back. It was the Lady San Quellenne.

  “My Lady!” Percy cried in a hoarse voice.

  Lady Jelavie turned and then came riding toward her.

  “Where is Lord Beltain Chidair?” said Percy, looking up into the lady’s dark brown eyes.

  Immediately a somber look came to Jelavie. “Percy Ayren!” she said. “I am—so sorry—”

  “Where is he?”

  The lady pointed with her gauntlet to a spot about fifty feet away where was a mid-sized tent. “In there,” she said. “They laid him out with the other ranking dead.”

  Percy did not hear or see what else Lady Jelavie was saying, because she ran, stumbling through the snow.

  Hecate walked slowly after.

  In the tent, there were many rows of tarp spread out to cover the ice ground, and upon it lay motionless figures, many of them in armor, some not. A soldier stepped from the entrance with a kind look, and asked her whom she sought.

  “Lord Beltain Chidair!”

  “Ah, the Black Knight. . . . there he is. What a great loss.” And the man pointed toward the back in one of the central rows.

  Percy pushed past him, and she walked inside, head pounding, and right then she could see his distinctive black armor plates from many feet away.

  Beltain’s body was placed in a row of three other men.

  “They did not touch him, any of them yet,” said the man, trailing her. “They still have to break ground to dig, and there will be burial likely tomorrow, or the day after. So many good, brave men to bury—”

  Percy was not listening. She came up to him and stopped. And then her knees again buckled, and she collapsed, and then as she crawled to him, she saw that his arms had been folded on his chest, both gauntlets back on—even that one she had removed for a moment to touch his warm hand for the last time—with the length of sword now resting in noble honor underneath the gauntlets. The chain mail coif hood was pulled back up over his hair and his eyes had been closed.

  “His eyes!” she said with accusation, looking up at the man. “Who closed his eyes? Who touched him?”

  The man stood awkwardly, then mumbled, “Not sure, lass. . . . It is a common thing that is done, generally, with the dead—”

  “No!”

  And then she wept, in deep shuddering sobs.

  “No,” she cried, “I am Death’s Champion! He is not dead!”

  A small crowd had gathered, including several of the San Quellenne, and a few familiar folk from Oarclaven.

  “Percy!” Flor Murel, a slim, pretty blonde, came rushing forward, and she put her arms around Percy from the back, and started to rock her—or at least it might have been so, but there was only numbness, and Percy did not know or hear or feel. And then Jenna came running, and she was bawling too, and Gloria Libbin stepped forward, stocky and quietly comforting.

  Hecate approached, clad in her mortal Grial aspect, and the crowd parted for her, for even though they were unsure who it was, there was an aura of great power about her.

  “Here he is, your true love. . . .” Hecate’s resonant voice came softly.

  Flor and Gloria and Jenna turned their heads and a burst of hope came to their eyes, “Grial!” they whispered.

  “Hecate!” Percy blurted fiercely—and all the girls stared in confusion at the use of the different name, for none of them of course had known yet about Grial’s true nature. “Hecate! You too are of the Underworld! Can you do something?”

  “I am so sorry,” the Goddess said gently. “But he is gone too far into the otherplace even for me and the other immortals to remedy. Not even my divine blood can bring him back—unlike the dead who were still with us when death was stopped. I could bring them back by making them immortal, as I did for Claere and Vlau, for they were merely suspended between worlds, and their souls were still within reach of this world—”

  “You brought back Claere?” Flor said in amazement, wiping her nose from weeping. “She lives?”

  “And Vlau died? Oh no! But you brought him back too?” Gloria muttered.

  Percy stood up. She pushed past them all, choking, needing air, and she stumbled outside the tent.

  The cold forest was all around. People moved, horses made sounds. Carts creaked.

  Percy stood and she looked up at the monochrome grey skies, all the many infinite layers. . . .

  God in Heaven! The One God who rules them all. . . .

  Take my life and give him his life back!

  There was no answer.

  “God in Heaven!” This time she cried the words out loud, and people turned and stared, in passing.

  “He cannot,” said Hecate, standing behind her.

  “Then who can?”

  Hecate advanced forward and gazed into Percy’s eyes. “Know, child, that the One God—He is so vast that He cannot be moved, else the Universe falls. Nor can He answer, for the very act of opening Hi
s Mouth is Movement, indeed the greatest Act of all, for it is the Word. And this is precisely why He has made an infinity of lesser gods, creating them in His own image, so that we can do the lesser things on His behalf. We are His hands and arms and feet and mouths. We are His answers to your prayers, enacted along the great Framework of Being.”

  “But—you said that no immortal can bring my love back!”

  There is one who can.

  The words fell softly, reaching Percy from a distance, like the soft flutter of verdant leaves in the trees and the warm mellifluous flow of the surf, foaming in the southern sea. . . .

  Persephone.

  The Goddess of Resurrection walked through the cobweb forest toward them.

  She was bright and glorious, as though the sun had broken through the overcast and cast its rays upon her immortal form—the deep hues of profundity and darkness of the Underworld had been leached from her, for she was pregnant with light. And thus her colors were luminous pastels and warmth, her chiton pure white, her skin alabaster and her hair a mass of burnished gold and ripe persimmons. Wherever her golden sandals stepped, the snow parted to reveal peat moss and soil and eager breathing earth. . . . She cast her gaze upon Percy, and her eyes were soft blue as summer skies.

  And all her visage, her exultant face—it was gloriously alive.

  She was bursting with life, filled to the brim with the energy of renewal, carrying inside her the pure joy of being.

  The Goddess of Resurrection approached, and everyone in the forest and the surroundings turned in her direction, sensing her approach. People stopped whatever they were doing and came forth from the trees and the shrubbery and the makeshift tents. Weary soldiers, wounded or hale, moved closer, elderly and young, peasants and townspeople and country folk, and even those from the city—for there were people coming from the plain, from the direction of what remained of Letheburg and the other citadels. . . .

  Persephone the Goddess stood before Persephone the peasant girl.