"The circle is unbroken. Out of life comes death, and out of death, life."
Maria looked at the point in the rock, engraved with a circle—the symbol of the mother—and surrounded by spirals so old that time was weathering them away. From the middle of that circle the water of the sacred spring had flowed—apparently unceasingly, for millennia. Now, as she watched, a tiny drop slowly formed and dripped down to the clay basin that stood in for the cracked holy pool.
Maria put Alessia down beside the cracked pool. The baby girl was too listless to go anywhere. Too listless to even cry. Maria turned with sad eyes to Renate. "You'll see her safe to Katerina, Holy Mother?"
Tears streaked the older woman's face. She nodded. "This can fix things, Maria. If you are willing."
Maria shrugged. "It is too late for me. Benito's dead. It'll be too late for Alessia soon. So what do I have to do?"
"Drink the water of the holy pool. Take up the almond. Offer yourself as a willing bride. I will do the rest."
Maria stared up at the figure of the Mother, the old, old figure cut out of the living rock. Legs like barrels, fat thighs that stood for the plenty She provided, the cleft of Her mystery, overhung with the great belly of fertility, the huge domes of pendulous breasts, the round ball of a head, featureless except for a hint of carving that might have been hair, a mouth. How old was She? Who had carved Her? Was there still any power in Her at all?
Maria tried to feel something from that figure; all she could feel was her own despair.
Well, even if nothing happened, there would be a few drops of water.
She went to the basin; raised it to her lips, and drank. With the taste of sweet water still on her tongue, she walked the two steps to the altar, and took up the half almond.
Her fingers touched it, with a shock.
Her hand closed involuntarily on it, and she whirled, to stare at the Mother.
Gathering about the shapeless form were tiny, dustlike sparks. Only they weren't dust, they were sparks of golden light, more and more of them with every moment, outlining the figure, then enshrouding it, enveloping it in a blanket, a haze of gold, the color of corn, the color of wheat, the color of life . . .
A sigh eased from her; she closed her eyes, and let the power lead her where she needed to go.
The yellow dog found the cliff entrance to the temple-cave by nose. There was only woman-scent coming from it. And, for the first time on this accursed island, also the strong, heady smell of powerful magics. Unless the other had sent a woman . . . he was here first. The only problem was that the cave mouth was up there, and the yellow dog form was not good for climbing trees. He wondered briefly if he should assume his human form, but decided against it. That was by far the most vulnerable.
He hesitated. By the intensity of the magics up there, time was not on his side. He changed into the hagfish form. This body did not like the dry, but it could climb like a snake.
He ignored the screams of people who saw the huge, oily-black monster twining its way up the graveyard poplar, and oozing into the cave mouth. Soon it would not matter.
It was dusty and dry and spiked with stalagmites here, so the shaman assumed the doglike form again. His nose led him, hastening, up the narrow labyrinthine passages, panting and slobbering a little.
Yes. This was what he had been sent to find. To the shaman's senses, the entire place pulsed with power; throbbing like a racing heart. The master's advisor, Mindaug, had said the master needed to be physically present to claim this. The shaman wished he knew how to do so himself.
He ran into the temple chamber yowling in triumph, ready to fight.
There were two humans there. An old woman with long white hair, unconscious and crumpled on the floor. And a baby—dying, by the smell of it.
He could feast later. The shaman's nose told him there had been three. He quested for that third, to rend, to kill, with the magical energies in this place growing around him. To his eyes the place was full of sheets of green light.
She wasn't here—yet she had not left.
The shaman gave a half-vulpine, half-canine sort of shrug and began the ritual to call his master's physical presence here.
It was as if all solid things had become shadows. Maria, with the almond in her hand, her firm chin up and heart hammering, walked down steps of light set into the shadow.
She could not have said how long she walked, but she came at length to a great hall. At the far end were two thrones. A tall man stood up from the left-hand throne and walked toward her, palms out. On his right hand rested the other half of the almond. A tall man, made of shadows, as the Mother had been made of light. Shadows, but not evil—the restful shadows of twilight, the dark before dawn. And yet, she sensed there was a great deal concealed by those shadows, and she willed them away.
"Greetings, bride." He seemed to be looking through to the inside of her. He did not seem to notice that his concealment was melting until he stood before her unveiled. "Your spirit is very beautiful."
He was black-haired and gray-eyed; lean, pale, grim-looking. She set her jaw. Just because she had agreed to this, did not mean she was going into it blindly. Oh, no. All right, the marriage with Umberto, not unlike this one, had worked out—but she'd known Umberto, hadn't she? This—Person—she knew nothing at all about. So before she took the last irrevocable step, she had to know. She would do it, yes, but she still had to know.
"Just exactly who are you?" she demanded. "Husband," she added, as an afterthought.
It took the man aback. In fact, he literally stepped back a pace.
"You are a willing bride?" The pale-visaged man showed both surprise and a hint of doubt.
Maria nodded, feeling completely out of her depth, and brusque with it. "Yes, of course I am. The priestess said that without a bride the Mother could only resist, passively. That without a bride you would not intercede. Look," she continued, in growing irritation, "my baby was dying. My friends are dead or dying. The man I loved, Benito Valdosta, is dead. I was too proud to tell him that I loved him, and now he's dead. The whole island is dying. Somebody had to do something, so I said I would do it. I knew I had to be willing and I had to be fertile, of childbearing age. I didn't know I had to know all about it."
Just like a man! Assuming, she supposed, that because things had always gone a particular way, they always would go that way! Just proving Gods could be as dense and intransient as humans.
"I'm a new acolyte, and somehow or other nobody got around to telling me what I'm supposed to be doing. The priestess assumed I knew everything already, I suppose, and I assumed she'd tell me sometime and never got around to asking. I knew that to take up the almond, to become the bride, meant I would die. But if that was what it took to get you to help, I was willing. You are going to help us, aren't you?"
Perhaps that last came out a bit aggressively, but—oh, stupid man-God! Why was He just standing there, as if none of this mattered to Him? Was He going to act, or not?
He seemed altogether startled, now. "It is not that I did not wish to help. It is just that I cannot. My only connection with the Mother is through her embodiments. You are the embodiment of the Mother. The things above the earth are hers only. I have no power there, but I can lend my strength. I always have willingly given my help to my Mother."
Maria was now more confused than she'd been before. "I don't understand," she repeated. "Just who are you?"
He blinked, slowly. "I am the Lord of the underworld. Aidoneus is the name I am sometimes given."
"The devil?" He didn't seem evil. Just distant.
He shook his head in violent negation, the first time he'd shown any sign of emotion. "No! Shaitan's realms are elsewhere, and I want none of his kind of darkness." He spread his hands, as if in apology. "The spirit world is a complex place. All things are possible here. And none."
Well, that was certainly unhelpful. It was like arguing with Eneko Lopez. "It all seems to be shadows," she said doubtfully.
He nodded, more certain. "This has been called Shadowkeep, at times. And Hades, which is nothing like Hell. More often, simply the realm of the dead. Some of the dead leave here to go on to other realms, but all are here at least for a time. Time is meaningless to the dead. Of course, you are not dead, so you are not outside of time."
She wrinkled her forehead. She thought the point of this was that she died; this was getting more confusing by the moment. "So am I not dead?"
He shook his head. "No. Only a living one can be the living embodiment of life. One day you will die, but you are not destined to do so for many years. You will stay down here and be my wife. And the Mother Earth will be fertile and grow, because I can lend Her my strength."
Stay here and be his wife? Was that what all this bride business was about? To be a real—wife? To a God? Or something—
Well, she'd accepted dying. And you could get used to anything.
She shook herself all over, and one thing swam up out of her sea of confused thoughts. Alessia. What was going on out there? Or up there? Or wherever "there" was?
"Alessia—my baby?" Surely the Lord of the Dead would know if Alessia was dead? Or if the Hungarians had broken through . . . there'd be many dead, including Stella.
He looked past her, his face gone indifferent again. "Your child is lying beside the sacred pool in the temple of the great Goddess. There is an evil creature of darkness, a cursed one, sniffing at her." He sounded as if it all meant nothing to Him. Actually, it probably didn't.
But she reacted with outrage. "But—but you're supposed to help! Renate was supposed to take her away! Why didn't she? She's not going to kill my baby, is she?"
He looked into the middle distance. He was plainly seeing things in the shadowy places. "The priestess lies within the portals of the underworld. She has expended too much opening the way."
Outrage was no proper word for what she felt now. All the sense of betrayal, all the despair, all the anguish that had brought her here welled up inside her and spilled out.
"You're supposed to help! You—you cold fish, you're supposed to be stopping all of this! That's the bargain! That's why I came here!" Maria knew she was screaming, although in this strange place it didn't seem so. The sound was curiously deadened.
He looked at her as if she was a child to whom he had already explained the situation. "I need to be asked. And death and life need to be joined so the circle can be complete."
"Well, I'm asking you. Do something! Now!" She stamped her foot. This sound too was faint and thin. More like the memory of a sound.
For the first time a flicker of expression ran across that cold face. It was hard to say what it was. But his voice was somehow warmer, more interested. "You remind me of my first wife. Kore was from before the humans came. She brought fire and light into this place. We had some terrible fights, as I recall. She also had a quick temper like yours." He sounded nostalgic.
Maria felt her fury rage against the flatness of the man, and the place. "Listen, you! I'll make your life a misery for all that long life you've said I'd have, unless you do something now! About my baby. About the siege. About Renate. NOW!"
Her voice seemed louder somehow than it had when she'd shouted earlier. And edges to everything seemed sharper, clearer.
"You have a beautiful, strong spirit," he said, with what could almost be a smile. He reached toward her and she saw the hands were like Benito's brother's hands. Long and shapely. And the almond seemed to glow. "Come. Join me then, avatar of the great Goddess. Join me and then I can do this 'something' you demand."
She reached out her hand, opening it to reveal the almond. Her hands were work-calloused and rough compared to his. "Doing something is always better than doing nothing," she said firmly.
As their hands clasped, the two almond halves touched. She felt them draw toward each other.
Click . . .
The seed began to swell and then burst into growth. The roots were wriggling against their clasped hands and leafy shoots came questing upwards. And Maria found she could see things in the strange shadows of this place. People and places, myriads of them.
"It's a strong tree. The strongest I have seen in centuries," he said. His voice was definitely warmer now. And somehow he seemed less inhuman. "Let us plant it."
"It needs light, and earth and water," snapped Maria. "Not shadows. And I need to get on before it is too late for little 'Lessi."
The place was definitely lighter. "Then get on. Make earth and light and water for it." His voice was deeper, stronger and more powerful now. And there was definitely a gleam in those gray eyes.
It was a test of some sort, she knew. And she had no idea what to do. She looked into the strange shifting shadows, looking for a place for it.
Instead she saw Alessia, lying still and pale. Renate just beyond, fetal and breathing so faintly you could hardly see movement in that frail chest. And a great yellow-furred dog-creature. It was scratching symbols with undoglike precision on the stone floor of the temple. Drool hung down from its jaws.
She searched her memory of all the things the priestess had said, desperate for a clue. All she could think of was Renate saying calmly: "Use your anger. Channel it with your will."
She looked around at the pale, shadowy hall. Either she was getting used to it or it really was more substantial and more clearly defined than it had been. There was a dead piece of wood there, in the middle of the floor. She channeled her will at that place.
Let there be earth, rich fecund . . . earthy, steaming with the scents of morning, as she remembered it from the forests of Istria. That wonderful earth that could support a hundred thousand mighty trees, growing strong and tall and straight.
Let there be sunlight, as warm as a lover's caress, as golden as . . . as the morning sun on the wings of the Lion. Oh, she remembered that, too, that sunlight that was so full of life you could drink it like wine, light that touched hurt and left healing behind it.
Let there be water, cool and clean and refreshing as the water in the temple had been that first time she'd gone to pray for Umberto. Water, oh blessed Jesu, let there, of all things, be water!
She felt the power answer to her will; where it came from she did not know, but she launched it as she had launched a thousand rocks at the enemy, as she had launched herself into this voyage, as she had launched Alessia into life—
By the hotness of her anger at wrongness of all this, by the love she held for all of them, let them BE.
And . . . they were.
The earth-smell, that had been so strange to her when she first came to the forest, tickled her nose with its lush scent. Sunlight welled around the dead stick, coming from everywhere and nowhere. And there was a mist, curling, lush with water, around the remains of the last bride's tree. And suddenly, the hall seemed very small to contain such richness.
He actually laughed. "I'm grateful you left me some hall! Come, let us plant this tree, and see to your need."
They walked forward into the sunlight, off the cold flags and onto the loamy earth. Using their free hands they dug a hole into it, and then put the seedling into the soil. The rootlets actually started reaching through their fingers and pushed hungrily into the earth. It was growing, growing even as they formed the soil around it.
"It will be the finest tree I have had here in many millennia." There was respect there; interest, too. Still holding her hand, he turned to point earthy fingers at the shadows. The yellow dog was howling there. "Let us see what happens with the half-jackal first—the cursed one. In a way it is protected from me. It cannot die."
In the shadows Maria saw the creature now for what it was: No dog. One removed from the dog-line. A cross between gray wolf and golden jackal, a howling half-domesticated creature from the wet northern forests that could have been the father of humankind's four-footed loyal companion.
Could have been. It had once fawned and guarded, and pretended loyalty. And when the man and the woman had left it to guard their most precious thing, it had eaten the child. The one they had trusted was cursed, cursed to live until it had been forgiven for the betrayal that was now long forgotten by men. But the memory and the shame were with all dogs—whose ancestors were cousins to it—and man's other ally, the horse, forever. The hyena they would hunt and hurt as often as possible. They could hurt it, even if they couldn't kill it.
There was also a shadowy person in there. Someone who had taken the cursed creature's name. The shaman had taken the form and with it the curse. He thought not being able to die a good thing, and cared nothing for the rest.
"How do we deal with it?"
The lord of the dead shrugged. "We protect your babe, and that is all we need do, for now. The great Goddess is dealing with it already, as She does with all those who work magics here. This is the place of the great Goddess. You know what the earth of Corfu does to foreign magic. The greater the magic—the faster it will draw that power. The creature relies on magic for its being. It would have been dead millennia ago if nature were to have run its course. The magics it uses now would kill it—were it not unkillable for magical reasons. The more it does, the more the earth of Corfu will draw that power that sustains it."
She understood now. The Goddess was absorbing anything worth having from the creature, and the longer it remained, the more She would take. Even the curse that kept it alive would be affected.
It was diminishing itself.
Still—this was that passive defense again, and that was not enough. "Surely there is something I can do," she said, feeling her anger welling again.
The God shrugged, very much amused. "You are She. And my power is yours. Take it up, my bride."
And she did.