For the second time, Aidon looked down at her sleeping face, guilt and sorrow bitter as ashes in his throat. Her hands lay bandaged in snowy linen on the coverlet, her face empty and very young in the depths of her sleep.
He had held her in his arms, for a moment, when the world had stopped for him; when he had found her lying bloody and unconscious at the foot of the Gates of Horn. She had tied her bedclothes together in the time-honored fashion of the lady escaping from durance vile, and had forged her way across the grey woods to the Gates. He had been impressed with her fortitude; he was struck to the heart, although not entirely surprised, to find that she had removed each of the petals of the white rose before snapping its stem and leaving the remains on the silken coverlet. The scent of roses hung heavy in the air.
Aidon remembered Zeus again, strong and golden as he was thin and pale, standing with him on the balcony of Olympus Heights, drinking something purple with an umbrella in it. They had been watching the small shapely forms of some of Zeus's nymphs disporting themselves in the tennis courts below. He remembered it perfectly; the heat of Helios on their shoulders, the warm roughness of the stone beneath their hands. "How do you do it?" he had asked.
"Do what?" the King had said, distantly, his eyes fixed on one particular pert white-clad behind.
"Get them. I mean, you just sort of swoop down on them and grab them around the waist. How do you get them to stop thinking of you as a marauder and start loving you? Or at least willing to submit to your carnal desires?"
Zeus had looked at him, one golden eyebrow raised. "You don't give them a choice. They like the force. At least most of them do; and when they don't, you just have to compliment them and say their beauty just seized you. You've got to be confident."
He had turned back to the tennis nymphs, shaking his head. He couldn't imagine that kind of relationship; in fact, he had never imagined any sort of relationship, because his life had mostly consisted of the ruling of his domain. No one had ever captivated him; although the nymphs were undeniably attractive, he felt no compulsion to snatch one and have his way with her.
He sighed, returning to the present, and canceled the grey rainstorm with a wave of his hand. The weather here followed his mood, more or less, but he could influence it directly. Once he stopped concentrating on it, the rain would start again. He wouldn't be surprised if there was hail in it.
What he had said to her was true. He was dying; he would die, would wither and fall to ashes, without her; if he let her go, he would be letting himself go with her. Yet she loathed him. She would batter her flesh until it bled to get away from him and his domain. It was not something Aidon was good at dealing with. Zeus, Aidon knew, had never really been in love.
He rose, restlessly, paced to the window. Already the grey rain was drizzling its way over the poplars from the north, where Lethe flowed pale and sweet and soporific; it carried a little of Lethe in every drop, and he was almost glad for the numbing effect. There were things he had to do.
I drifted out of emptiness into a grey room that was horribly familiar. For a moment I thought my entire failed escape had been nothing more than a dream; then I moved, and a stab of pain in my abused hands told me otherwise. Nothing had changed. I lay in the great grey bed, remade with fresh sheets; while the scent of roses remained in the air like an invisible smoke, the debris of his memento was nowhere to be seen.
Gods help me, I thought wretchedly. All of this was like a bad fairy tale. Only in fairy tales the girl is gorgeous and blonde, and a prince comes to rescue her from the tower where the evil wizard holds her capture. But he's not exactly evil....just mad. He's got to be mad. Why else would he call me beautiful? And why ever would he think I was a god?
I gave up. There had to be a way out of here, one I could actually get through. I closed my hands, testing the pain in them, which was dull but persistent, and slithered out of the bed for the second time.
Surprisingly, the door opened to let me out, and lamp after lamp lit itself down the distance of the corridor. I shrugged into a dressing gown and left the room. Why, I wondered, would he have left the door unlocked? Presumably, even were I to leave the mansion, I would still not be able to pass the gates.
The light wasn't grey, I noticed. It was almost golden, a warm creamy yellow that seemed to heat as it threw illumination, like a fire does. The corridor was long and rather elegantly put together, with dark marble flooring and high vaulted ceilings stretching into the distance. Doors of polished wood opened off it at regular intervals. As I paused before one, it swung itself open.
It was a sitting-room. A roaring fire burned in the fireplace, the first sign of life I'd seen in this dead country. Row after row of leather-bound books lined the walls, and thick sheepskin rugs lay on the dark wood floors like islands of warmth. Almost without realizing it I wandered into the room, staring around myself, fascinated.
Something was tugging at my attention.
"So she has finally come?"
"I don't know. Is it really her?"
The voices were so faint I thought I had imagined them. They seemed to move around me. Oddly, I felt no fear; just curiosity, and a desire to know who they thought I was.
"Who's there?" I demanded.
"She can hear us!"
"It must be her. No one else of that realm can hear us. None but of his race."
"Who are you?"
"Should we tell her?"
"It can't hurt."
There was a small swirling of breeze around me, and the voice, closer now, whispered in my ear. "We are mortals who chose to serve Hades rather than die. We keep this house. You must be the one we have waited for. What is your name?"
"Persephone," I said without thinking. "I mean Kore. Kore is my name. What do you mean, you waited for me? Why am I here?"
"Because he needs you," said one of the other voices. "Back in the beginning of the world Hades was created differently from his brothers and sisters, not complete as they are, which is why he was consigned to rule this gloomy realm. But if one of his race falls in love with him and agrees to stay with him in the underworld, spring and summer will come here. This place will be alive. We will be free."
"Why do you think it's me? I have nothing to do with gods." I sat down on a sheepskin, aware of how soft and warm it was, how wonderful. The voices swirled around me impatiently.
"Don't be silly, child. You are the daughter of gods, heir to gods. She never told you?"
"Who?"
"Your mother." There was a muffled conversation, and then the first voice, closer than ever, said "Close your eyes."
I did. There was a little breath of wind over my forehead, and suddenly I was swimming into memories more vivid than I had ever known. I was a baby, carried in my mother's arms through golden fields of wheat; around us there were tall golden people, beautiful, distant, smiling at me; I was four or five, walking with my mother through a pale marble temple, waving to the great white statue of Zeus, aware in some part of my mind that I had been there before....."You see? You remember things. You are Zeus and Ceres's daughter, born before Zeus married Juno. You are Persephone. And Hades loves you so much that he is dying for you." The mental image suddenly shifted to a darkened room hung in white gauze, and the form of the pale man standing on a windswept balcony overlooking the forests of black poplars, leaning heavily on the balcony railing. As I watched, he swayed and clutched at the railing for support. "His kingdom is dying with him. And with the kingdom dies a part of you, Persephone; you are linked to this place by blood. Understand who you are. Understand why you are here."
I shook my head. "This is crazy. I want to go home."
"You are home," said one of the voices, softly, sadly. "This is your home."
Anger flickered through me again. "I can't believe this. Any of this. I'm not a god, I'm not holy, I'm just Kore, Ceriss's daughter, and I want to go home."
"Ceres didn't tell her. None of them told her."
"I know. I know. It's sad. But Ceres never wanted this, any more than he does. She is bitter still."
"What are we going to do?"
"I don't know what you're going to do," I said, "but I'm going to get out. Somehow."
"Don't you see? You can't. There is no power save that of Zeus himself that can take you away from here. And...Persephone....he's dying. We've been watching him die."
"That's his problem," I said acidly, and got up. "I will not be held captive by a crazy god, no matter how big his crush on me might be." I left the room, feeling the eddies of the wind trying to stop me, but my anger was like a fire inside my head and I could hardly see the walls, and I ran out of the room and down the corridor.
I wandered for what seemed like hours, lost. Lights turned themselves on for me, and doors opened at my touch. Every room I passed through seemed to have a banquet laid out on a satinwood table or a silver tray, and my hunger was getting worse and worse. Still, I couldn't forget that soundless thunderclap, and the voice in my skull. If you eat of the food of this realm, you may never leave.
Well, really. It didn't look like I had much opportunity to leave anyway. I reached out for a cracker, setting aside mysterious voices in my head, and had almost taken a bite when an odd noise caught my attention. Putting the cracker down again, I tiptoed out of the room and down the hallway, following the noise. It was coming from a half-open door lost in grey gloom—down this corridor the lights had failed to burst into cheery flame at my approach—and I crept closer, curious to see if there might be someone else in this mansion who shared my captivity. Maybe together we'd be able to open those damned gates.
What I saw made me go cold all over. In the dusk of the curtained room, the pale man who had stolen me lay slumped on an ornate chaise-longue, coughing his lungs up. He sounded awful, worse than this one boy I'd known who had TB, and as I crept closer I could see that the handkerchief he was pressing to his mouth was stained with dark blood. Looks like he was right. He's dying.
I couldn't help it; Mother had always told me to help people in need, and I'd been her assistant several times when she was called upon to act as a healer. Besides, said a small nasty part of me, if he dies, there's no guarantee you'll ever get out of here. I hurried into the room and approached his couch, bent over him. Close up, he looked even worse, that weird white hair of his soaked with sweat and falling limply into his eyes; he was colorless except for those dark eyes and the blood on the handkerchief. The fit didn't seem to be letting up at all; he was gasping at the end of each run of coughs, a sharp breathless gasp, and immediately coughing back what little breath he could draw. I slid an arm around his shoulders and helped him sit up, leaning forward so his breath came easier, and rubbed his back. Gods, he was so thin, as if the wind flickering poplar leaves against the windows would blow him away, as if the coughing would shake him to pieces.
Holding him, I tried to remember what was good for a cough. Coltsfoot, and honey, I thought, and laudanum. I was never any good at memorizing the medicines, or the chemical distillates Mother made from them. Even if I had known something that would help, I didn't have the ingredients or the equipment to make it, and even then I'd no guarantee that it would do anything at all against whatever-it-was that he had. I merely held him while he coughed.
The whispers of wind were suddenly there around me again. "She.......?"
"She is holding him. Perhaps there is hope."
I turned, still rubbing his back. "I'm not changing my mind about any of this, so go away unless you've got something that will help."
"Bossy."
"Assertive. I like that." There was the sound of one wind-gust swirling away. I shrugged, ignoring them, and turned my attention back to the pale man. He seemed to be getting his coughing under control, finally. When the fit passed he lay back limply, and I stuffed a pillow behind his back and let him go. He lay there quietly, gasping, his eyes closed, and didn't protest as I took the handkerchief away and found a relatively blood-free section to wipe his lips with.
The wind danced back to me, this time bringing a small grey glass half-full of some black liquid. "It is the only thing that helps him now," it said. I sniffed at the liquid; it smelled odd, harsh and bitter, the way tears feel at the back of your throat. Still, I wasn't a healer, and presumably these disembodied voices knew their stuff.
What had he said I was to call him? "Aidon," I said softly. "Aidon, can you drink this?"
His eyes flickered open, and saw me, and knew me, and he began to cough again, awfully, a heavy retching cough. I cursed and held the handkerchief to his mouth, supporting him. The fit didn't last long this time, and as soon as his gasping had eased I held the glass to his lips. "Try and drink some," I said. "They say it helps you."
He managed to swallow some of the black stuff, and the change was remarkable; his breathing came slower and deeper, without the nasty crackling in it. Soon he opened his eyes again, and stared at me.
"Kore," he whispered.
I couldn't think of anything to say. Are you all right sounded silly, and Yes, it's me unnecessary. He gave me a wan smile, and murmured "This is more than I deserve."
"Yes, it probably is," I agreed, and got up, wrapping his fingers around the stem of the glass. The utter desolation in that porcelain face at my withdrawal was really rather touching, although I still couldn't shake the thought that he was having me on. No one had ever implied that I would be worth that kind of obsession.
"I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "That was a fairly disgusting display. You should never have had to see that."
I scowled at him. What did he think I was, some pampered brat who'd never seen blood? "No trouble," I told him, and folded my arms. "Still not going to let me go, huh?"
He coughed again helplessly and took another sip of the medicine. "I....." he said, and shook his head. "I can't."
"Can't don't want to, or can't are unable to?" I demanded.
He opened his great black eyes and looked up at me. "Right now........I am unable to. I don't have the strength."
"But you will have?"
"If you stay with me a little, yes," he said quietly.
"And then you'll let me go, so this will happen to you again? Right." I shoved my bandaged hands in my pockets. "Hope your cough gets better, Lord Hades." Without another look I turned on my heel and stalked out of the room.