Harvest Moon: A Tangled Web / Cast in Moonlight / Retribution

Harvest Moon: A Tangled Web / Cast in Moonlight / Retribution Michelle Sagara Mercedes Lackey Cameron Haley A Tangled Web by Mercedes LackeyKidnapping Persephone should have been easy. But in the Five Hundred Kingdoms, nothing's ever simple–and the wrong goddess is stolen by mistake, leaving Prince Leopold without his new bride. At least until he braves the realm of the dead to get her back…Cast in Moonlight by Michelle SagaraBarely a teenager, Kaylin Neya is a thief, fugitive and attempted assassin. She also has a smart mouth, sharp wits and mysterious markings on her skin. All of which make her perfect bait for a child prostitution sting in the city of Elantra–if she survives her first meeting with the Hawks! Retribution by Cameron Haley In the underworld, there are tricks to killing. Like executing rivals at crossroads so ghosts won't follow you home. But sometimes retribution is hard to avoid–and now a supernatural hit man has a contract on Domino Riley's life. Luckily she knows a thing or two about death… Selected praise for A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms series by New York Times bestselling author MERCEDES LACKEY “Wry and scintillating take on the Cinderella story…Lackey’s tale resonates with charm as magical as the fairy-tale realm she portrays.” —BookPage on The Fairy Godmother “This Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms novel is a delightful fairy-tale revamp. Lackey ensures that familiar stories are turned on their ear with amusing results.” —RT Book Reviews on The Snow Queen Selected praise for The Chronicles of Elantra series by New York Times bestselling author MICHELLE SAGARA “Intense, fast-paced, intriguing, compelling and hard to put down, Cast in Shadow is unforgettable.” —In the Library Reviews “Sagara swirls mystery and magical adventure together with unforgettable characters in the fifth Chronicles of Elantra installment.” —Publishers Weekly on Cast in Silence Selected praise for the Underworld Cycle series by CAMERON HALEY “Mob Rules is exciting and fresh, with a complex and conflicted heroine who grabs your attention and doesn’t let go. This book will make you fall in love with urban fantasy all over again!” —Diana Rowland, author of Mark of the Demon MERCEDES LACKEY is the acclaimed author of more than fifty novels and many works of short fiction. In her “spare” time she is also a professional lyricist and a licensed wild bird rehabilitator. Mercedes lives in Oklahoma with her husband and frequent collaborator, the artist Larry Dixon, and their flock of parrots. MICHELLE SAGARA has written more than twenty novels since 1991. She’s written a quarterly book review column for the venerable Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction for a number of years, as well as dozens of short stories. In 1986 she started working in an SF specialty bookstore, where she continues to work to this day. She loves reading, is allergic to cats (very, which means they crawl all over her), is happily married, has two lovely children and has spent all her life in her native Toronto—none of it on Bay Street. CAMERON HALEY Since graduating from Tulane University, Cameron Haley has been a law school dropout, a stock broker, an award-winning game designer and a product manager for a large commercial bank, but through it all has never stopped writing. An active member of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Cameron is hard at work on the second book in the Underworld Cycle. Cameron lives in Minneapolis. For the latest dirt, visit www.cameronhaley.com. Harvest Moon Mercedes Lackey Michelle Sagara Cameron Haley CONTENTS A TANGLED WEB MERCEDES LACKEY A TANGLED WEB EPILOGUE CAST IN MOONLIGHT MICHELLE SAGARA CAST IN MOONLIGHT RETRIBUTION CAMERON HALEY RETRIBUTION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A TANGLED WEB MERCEDES LACKEY A TANGLED WEB It was the usual perfect day in Demeter’s gardens in the Kingdom of Olympia. Birds, multicolored and with exquisite voices, sang in every tree. Flowers of every sort bloomed and breathed delicate perfumes into a balmy breeze that wandered through the glossy green foliage. It would rain a little after sundown, a gentle, warm rain that would be just enough to nourish, but not enough to interfere with anyone’s plans. The only insects were the beneficial sort. Troublesome creatures were not permitted here. When a goddess makes that sort of decision, you can be sure She Will Be Obeyed. Now and again a dramatic thunderstorm would roar through the mountains, reminding everyone—everyone not a god, that is—that Nature was not to be trifled with. But it stormed only when Demeter and Hera scheduled it. Everyone had plenty of warning—in fact, some of the nymphs and fauns scheduled dances just for the erotic thrill of it. Zeus enjoyed those days as well, it gave him a chance to lob thunderbolts about; and the other gods on Olympus would be drinking vats of ambrosia and wine and encouraging him. Meanwhile, on this perfect afternoon of this perfect day, in this most perfect of homes in the center of the most perfect of gardens, Demeter’s only daughter, Persephone, stood barefoot on the cool marble floor of the weaving room and stared at the loom in front of her, fuming with rebellion. There was nothing in the little weaving room except the warp-weighted loom, and since you had to get the light on it properly to see what you were doing, you had to have your back to the open door and window, thus being deprived of even a glimpse of the outdoors. It was maddening. Persephone could hear the birdsong, smell the flowers, and had to stand there weaving plain dyed linen in the dullest of patterns. Small as the room was, however, Persephone was not alone in it. There was a tumble of baby hedgehogs asleep in a rush-woven basket, and a young faun sitting on the doorstep, watching her from time to time with his strange goat-eyes. There were doves cooing in a cornice, a tumble of fuzzy red fox-kits playing with a battered pinecone behind her. Anything Persephone muttered to herself would be heard, and in the case of the faun, very probably prattled back to her mother. Demeter would sigh and give her The Look of Maternal Reproach. After all, it was a very small thing she had been tasked with. It wasn’t as if she was being asked to sow a field or harvest grapes. It wasn’t even as if she was weaving every day. Just now and again. Yes, this was all very reasonable. There was no cause for Persephone to be irritated. Of course there was, but it was a cause she really did not want her mother to know about. Persephone wanted to scream. She had the shuttle loaded with thread in one hand, the beater-stick in the other, and stared daggers at the half-finished swath of ochre linen before her. Oh, how she loathed each. Not for itself, but for what it represented. I love my mother. I really do. I just wish right now she was at the bottom of a well. Persephone took the beater-stick and whacked upward at the weft she had created. Of all the times for her mother to decide that the weaving of her new cloak had to be done…this was the worst. In fact, the timing could not possibly have been worse. She had spent weeks on this plan, days setting it up, gotten everything carefully in place, managed to find a way to get rid of the nymphs constantly trailing her, and now it was ruined. Stupid Thanatos would probably drive the chariot around and around a few dozen times, forget what he was supposed to do and head back to the Underworld; he was a nice fellow, but not the sharpest knife in the kitchen. Well, really, how smart did you have to be to do the job of the god of death? Just turn up at the right time, escort the soul down to the Underworld, and leave him at the riverbank for Charon. Not something that took a lot of deep thinking. And poor Hades—oh, wait, Eubeleus, she wasn’t supposed to know it was Hades—would spend half the day questioning him until he finally figured out what had happened. It had to be Thanatos, though, that was the only way this would work. Otherwise, things got horribly complicated. She wasn’t supposed to know she was going to be carried off to the Underworld, just as she wasn’t supposed to know her darling wasn’t a simple shepherd. She was supposed to be “abducted” by “a friend with a chariot.” But she had known Hades for who he was almost from the beginning, and given that her darling was Hades, who else would drive his chariot? Not Hypnos, that would be incredibly foolhardy. Certainly not Charon. Minos, Rhadamanthus or Aeacus? Not likely. First of all, Persephone had the feeling that the former kings and current judges intimidated Hades quite a bit, and he wasn’t likely to ask them to do him that sort of favor, never mind that he was technically their overlord. And second, she had the feeling that he was afraid if one of them did agree, he might be tempted to keep her for himself. Poor Hades had none of the bluster and bravado of his other “brothers,” Poseidon and Zeus. He second-guessed himself more than anyone she knew. That was probably another reason why she loved him. Of course, Hades didn’t realize she knew the other reason why the abductor had to be Thanatos, because he didn’t know she knew—well, everything. We can set it up again, she promised herself. It wasn’t the end of the world. She was clever, and “Eubeleus” was smitten. Even if she hadn’t met all that many men—thanks to Mother—she could see that. His feelings went a lot deeper than the lust the nymphs and fauns and satyrs had for each other too; the way he had been so patient, so careful in his courtship, spoke volumes. He was willing to be patient because he loved her. And she was smitten in return. She didn’t know why no one seemed to like the Lord of the Underworld. It wasn’t as if he was the one who decided how long your life would be—that could be blamed on the Fates—and he wasn’t the one who carried you off; that was Thanatos. He was kind—it was hard being Lord of the Dead, and if he covered his kindness with a cold face, well, she certainly understood why. No one wanted to die. No one wanted to have everything they’d said and done and ever thought judged. No one wanted to leave the earth where things were lively and interesting when you might end up punished, or wandering the Fields of Asphodel because you were ordinary. And everyone, everyone, blamed Hades for the fact that they would all one day end up down there. The Underworld was not the most pleasant place to live, unless you were remarkable in some way. From what she understood, on the rare occasions when she’d listened to anyone talking about it, Hades didn’t often get a chance to spend time in the Elysian Fields where things were pleasant—he mostly got stuck watching over the punishment parts. If he was very sober, well, no wonder! He needed a spot of brightness in his life. And she would very much like to be that spot of brightness. Besides being kind, and patient, and considerate, he never seemed to lose his temper like so many of the other gods did. He was also quite funny, in the dry, witty sense, rather than the hearty practical joking sense like his brother-god Zeus. She had started out liking him when they first met and he was pretending to be a shepherd. And as she revisited the meadow where he kept up his masquerade many times, she found “liking” turning into something much more substantial rather quickly. They’d done a lot of talking, some dreaming, and a fair amount of kissing and cuddling, and she had decided that she would very much like things to go straight from the “cuddling” to the “wild carrying-on in the long grass” that the nymphs and satyrs were known for. But he had been unbelievably restrained. He wanted her to be sure. Not like Zeus, oh, no! Not like Poseidon, either! They’d been seeing each other for more than a year now, and the more time she spent with him, the more time she wanted to spend with him. Finally he had hesitantly asked if she would be willing to defy her mother and run away with him, and she had told him yes, in no uncertain terms whatsoever. He never seemed to have even half an eye for anyone else, either. And not many males paid attention to little Persephone—though it was true she didn’t get a chance to see many, the few times she had been up to Mount Olympus with her mother, she might just as well not have been there. It would have been hard to compete for the attention of the gods anyway. She wasn’t full-bodied like her mother—face it, no one was as full-bodied as her mother except Aphrodite. She didn’t make men’s heads turn when she passed. By all the powers, men’s heads turned when just a whiff of Demeter’s perfume drifted by them! Aphrodite might be the patron of Love, but Demeter was noticed and sought after just as much. Zeus even gave her that sort of Look, when he thought Hera wasn’t watching; Poseidon would always drop leaden hints about “renewing the acquaintance.” Not that she noticed. She was too busy being the mother of everything that wandered by and needed a mother. Demeter, goddess of fertility, was far more of a “mother” than Great Hera was. Hera couldn’t be bothered. Demeter yearned to mother everything. Oh, yes, everything. As Persephone grew up, she had resigned herself to being part of a household filled to bursting with babies of all species. Fawns and fauns, nests full of birds, wolf-cubs and wild-kits, calves and lambs, froglets and snakelets, mere sprouts of dryads; if a species could produce a baby and the baby was orphaned, Demeter would take it in. Very fine and generous of her, but it meant that even an Olympian villa was filled to the bursting, and Persephone shared her room with whatever part of the menagerie didn’t fit in anywhere else. She might have a great many playmates, but she never had any privacy. Or, for that matter, silence. Demeter sailed through it all with Olympian serenity. After all, she was a goddess—granted, a goddess of a tiny Kingdom, one you could probably walk across in three days—but still, she was a goddess, and a goddess was not troubled by such things. Her daughter, however… Her daughter would like a place and a space all her very own, thank you, into which nothing could come unless she invites it. Is that so much to ask? The fox-kits had gone looking for more adventures, but there were still four of the foundlings here in the weaving room, ensuring she didn’t have any privacy. Not counting the hedgehogs, the faun was still in here, now there was a nymph sorting through the yarn to find something to use to weave flower crowns with, and there were a couple of sylphs chatting in the windowsill, for no other reason but that the windowsill was convenient. Unless, of course, Demeter had sent them to keep an eye on her. Persephone threw the shuttle through the weft again, trying not to wince at the noises the little faun by the door was making, trying to master his panpipes for the first time. If Demeter had her way, Persephone would be the “little daughter” forever. Though nearly twenty, she’d aged so slowly that her mother was used to thinking of her as too young for any separate life. She’d never be alone with a male, never have an identity of her own. There was no doubt that Zeus himself was infatuated with Demeter, though he would never say so to his wife, nor probably even to Demeter herself. After all, Demeter was in charge of marriage vows, so she would take a dim view of that. But that was why it was no use complaining to Zeus. He would just pat her on the head, call her “Little Kore” (Oh, how she hated that childhood nickname!) and tell her that her mother knew best. And Hera would take Demeter’s side too, as would Hestia. Aphrodite would probably take Persephone’s part, if only for the sake of mischief, but having Aphrodite on your side was almost worse than having her as your enemy. Whatever Aphrodite wanted, Athena would oppose. And any god who wasn’t infatuated with Demeter would still side with her, because she controlled the very fertility of this Kingdom. No god wanted to risk her deciding that nothing would grow in his garden…or that his “plow” would fail to work the “furrow” properly… Bah! The loom rocked a little with the vigor of her weaving, the warp-weights knocking against each other as she pulled the heddle rod up and dropped it back again and beat the weft into place with her stick. She hated the loom, she hated standing at it, she hated the monotonous toil of it, and hated that although her mother considered it to be a proper “womanly” task, she was not considered to actually be a woman. She luxuriated in her grievances for a good long time, until she had actually woven a full handbreadth of cloth. But she could never hold a temper, and once she started losing the anger, what Hades called her “clever” self came to the fore, and she found herself thinking… But on the other hand… Oh, the curse of being able to see, clearly, both sides of everything! That was why she could never stay angry, no matter what, no matter how aggrieved she felt. And no one knew Demeter better than her own daughter did. Could she really blame her mother for wanting her to stay a baby forever? Every single baby creature that left this household, Demeter watched go with sorrowful eyes. Sometimes she even wept over them. She hated losing them, hated seeing them go out into the dangerous world, even though their places were immediately taken by yet more foundlings. After all, the dangerous world was why they were foundlings in the first place. Demeter’s heart was as tender as it was large. It was impossible, when she looked at you with those enormous, loving eyes, not to love her back. Persephone knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her mother loved her. Not as a little image of herself, not as a shadow, and not as a possession. Loved her. And wanted to keep her protected and safe forever. But…being manipulated by love was still being manipulated. How long would it take before her mother allowed her to grow up and leave, as she did everything else in this household? Or was she a special case who would never be allowed to grow? Her temper flared as frustration took over from understanding. Persephone threw the shuttle again, beat at the weft with angry upward strokes, and the warp-weights clacked together. Demeter glanced in at her daughter at the loom and sighed. There was no doubt that she was angry, probably at being sent to work when what she really wanted to do was be with her playmates, lazing about in the meadow. But the nymphs had tasks of their own to do today, and Demeter was not going to allow her darling to wander about unescorted. She had tried to explain that, but Persephone was hardly in the mood to listen. There were times when Demeter wondered if she would ever grow up. But more times when she dreaded the day when she did. That would mean losing her, and things would change between them forever. Little Kore would vanish, and someone else would take her place, a stranger that Demeter might not recognize, someone who would have ideas of her own, and no longer have to listen to her mother’s wise words. Demeter absolutely hated the idea that one day she would lose her little girl…if only there was a way to keep her little forever! But there was no doubt, given Kore’s budding body, that even if it were possible to do so, the time to do so was long, long past. She wished, sometimes, that she had the instincts of a mother animal. Animals knew that there is only room for one adult in the territory—and eventually even the most devoted mother animal drives her own children away. It would be easier to feel her love turning into irritation—easier than the pain of knowing that one day Kore would grow into her given name and no longer depend on her mother for anything. There were other issues at hand; this was not a good time for Kore to assert her growing womanhood. There simply was no one suitable for her to assert it with. It troubled Demeter deeply that there was no one among the Olympians that she thought was a decent match for her daughter, and a mortal—well, that was just out of the question…the loves of gods and mortals were inevitably tragic. Zeus was out of the question, Poseidon was her father…maybe. There was some confusion over those things. Apollo never even gave her a second glance. Hephaestus never looked past Aphrodite. Hermes? Never! Other, lesser gods? Not one of them was a fit husband for the daughter of Two of the Six. Perhaps a new Olympian will join us, one that is worthy of being her consort. One with real power, but even more important, one that won’t treat her as Zeus treats Hera. One who will be devoted to her and not wander off to the bed of any female that catches his eye. With an effort of will, she reminded herself of what the Olympian gods truly were. Their numbers were added to—albeit slowly—all the time. And even though the tales of the mortals made them all out to be brothers and sisters, or at the least, closely related—that wasn’t actually true. Which was just as well, considering how Zeus hopped beds. On the other hand, perhaps one day that bed hopping might produce a male that was as unlike his father in that way as possible. Demeter would be willing to welcome the right sort of part-mortal for her girl. Someone faithful, intelligent, and able to think beyond the urges of the moment. If there was a drawback to being a god, it was that so much power seemed coupled with so little forethought. Forethought…. Prometheus? No, she had to dismiss that, though with regret. The Titan was currently in Zeus’s bad graces, and she wouldn’t subject Persephone to the results of that. Besides, Prometheus, unlike his brother, had never shown much of an interest in women. Then, again, finding a man in Olympus was never easy. Demeter reflected back to the early days of her existence. Kore was the result of one of those early indiscretions on the part of Poseidon (although now they said her father was Zeus), though truth to be told, Demeter had quite enjoyed herself once she realized what the sea-patron was proposing. It wasn’t as if she’d had a husband or he a wife in those days. Things would be different for Kore. There would be no flitting off to some other light of love. Kore would never know the ache in her heart of watching the male she adored losing interest in her. Not if Demeter had anything to say about it. Perhaps, Demeter reflected, she had sheltered the girl too much. She just seemed so utterly unprepared for life. There was nothing about her that said “woman,” from her short, slender figure, to her mild blue eyes that seemed to hold no deeper thoughts than what color of flower she should pick or what dinner would be. And Demeter despaired of her ever attracting the attention of a man; charitably one could describe her hair as straw-colored, but really, it was just a yellow so pale it looked as if it had faded in the sun, her eyes were not so much light-colored as washed out, and no amount of sun would bring a blush to her cheek. And one had only to walk with her to see how the eyes of men slid over her as if they did not see her. Poor child. It was utterly unfair. Demeter could not for the life of her imagine how two gods as robust as she and Poseidon had managed to produce this slender shaft of nothing. No, she was not ready for life. Demeter sighed and resigned herself to that fact. Kore needed nurturing and cultivation still. There was no one, god nor mortal, who was more adept at both than Demeter. Perhaps in another year, perhaps in two, she would finally begin to bloom, those pale cheeks would develop roses, and she’d ripen into a proper woman by Demeter’s standards. Then Demeter could educate her in the ways of man and woman, give her all the hard-won wisdom she had garnered over the years, and (yes, reluctantly, but then at least the child would be a woman and would be ready) let her go. Until then, she was safest here, at her mother’s side. Brunnhilde stretched in the sun like a cat, all her muscles rippling, and those gorgeous breasts pressing against the thin fabric that left nothing at all to the imagination. Leopold reflected happily that she looked absolutely fantastic without all the armor. She looked good in it; in fact, she would look good in anything, of course, but Leopold was a man, after all, and he preferred his wife without all the hardware about her. In the gowns of his home, in the more elaborate gowns of Eltaria—the Kingdom where they’d met—in a feed sack, even. He had to admit, though, he liked her best of all in the costume of this country, which seemed to consist of a couple of flaps of thin cloth, a couple of brooches and a bit of cord. Marvelous! Her golden hair spilled in waves down to the ground, actually hiding more than the clothing did; her chiseled features seemed impossibly feminine when framed by the flowing hair. Her blue eyes had softened under the influence of this peaceful place, and her movements had taken on a grace that he hadn’t expected. Maybe it was being without armor. The armor made you walk stiffly, no matter how comfortable it was. And the gowns of his homeland and of Eltaria seemed to involve some female underpinnings that were almost as formidable as armor. She had the most wonderful legs he had ever seen, and it was nice to see them without greaves, boots, or skirts getting in the way of the view. “So what is this place again, and why are we here?” he asked, lazing on his side with his hand propping up his head and a couple bunches of luscious grapes near at hand. Oh, what a woman! One moment, she was right at his side, joyfully hacking away at whatever monster it was they had been summoned to get rid of—the next she was gamboling about in a meadow as if she had never seen a sword. This was the life. It was fantastic to be doing heroic deeds together, but it was equally fantastic to have this moment of absolute indolence too. Brunnhilde finished her stretching and began combing her hair, which, as there was rather a lot of it, was a time-consuming process. “Olympia. They don’t have a Godmother because they have gods instead.” She frowned. “Which is not altogether a good idea. I mean, look at Vallahalia.” Leo picked a grape and ate it, still admiring the view. The sweet juice ran down his throat and at this moment, tasted better than wine. “I have to admit I am rather confused about that. If Godmothers are so good at keeping things from getting out of hand, why are gods so bad at it?” “I’m not sure.” Brunnhilde paused, and put the brush down on her very shapely knee to regard him with a very serious and earnest gaze. “The ravens told me once that gods are nothing more than another kind of Fae, who get power and shape from worship and the mortals who worship them. So I suppose it’s because we are made in mortal image? Formed the way that mortals would choose to be themselves, if they had godlike powers?” “Hmm, awkward,” Leo acknowledged. “Given that every man I know would think he was in paradise if he could carry on with women the way the gods do. And given that gods don’t seem to suffer the sorts of consequences from that sort of carrying-on the way mortals do.” “And other things. Mortals, given the choice, would rather not think too far ahead, or even think at all. So—the gods they worship don’t, either.” Brunnhilde nodded, and took up the brush again. “Then, of course, because awful things happen, the logical question becomes Why didn’t they see this coming? and then the mortals make up all sorts of excuses for why infallible gods end up being very fallible indeed. Like Siegfried’s Doom. Then they make us live through it. Ridiculous, really. I wish that there were no such things as gods. I’d rather be a nice half-Fae Godmother, and be on the side of making The Tradition work for us, instead of on us.” “But if you had been, I would never have met you, and that would be a tragedy.” Leo grinned at her. She twinkled back at him. “I don’t think Wotan likes the idea of the others knowing about our true nature,” she observed. “He’d rather we all believed the creation stories, which, even before the ravens told me about being Fae, I didn’t entirely believe. My mother, Erda, told me there was no nonsense of me springing forth fully formed from Wotan’s side, or his head, or any other part of him. I was born like any of the others, I was just first.” She sighed. “Poor Mother. The shape and fate The Tradition forced her into was rather…awkward.” “Your mother is very…practical, and she seems to have done the best she can with her situation,” Leo said, doing his best to restrain a shudder at the thought of that half woman, half hillside, who had done her awkward best to make polite talk with her new son-in-law without lapsing into fortune-telling cries of doom. “I was going to say ‘down-to-earth,’ but that is a bit redundant.” Brunnhilde barked a laugh. “Since she is the Earth, I would say so. It’s a shame that the northlanders are so wretchedly literal minded.” Her nephew Siegfried’s escape from his fate had seriously disturbed the northlanders’ unswerving view of The Way Things Were, and had shaken them all up a good deal. Having Brunnhilde take up with a mortal, and an outsider, had shaken them up even more. That just might be all for the best. If it shakes them up enough to start changing how The Tradition works up there, everyone will be better off. Once they had left Siegfried and Rosa, Queen of Eltaria and his new bride, Leo and Brunnhilde had worked their way up to the northlands to break the news of their marriage to Brunnhilde’s mother in person—in no small part because they weren’t sure Wotan had done so. It had been an interesting meeting, if a bit unnerving. He’d sensed that Erda hadn’t really known whether to manifest as a full woman and offer mead and cakes, or manifest as a hill and leave them to their own devices. She’d opted for a middle course, which made for a peculiar meeting at the least. He’d ignored the beetle and moss in his mead and brushed the leaves from his cake without a comment, and tried to act like a responsible son-in-law. “My mother is delusional, as they all are,” Brunnhilde responded dryly. “I’d come to that conclusion once I saw what life was like outside of Vallahalia, long before you woke me up, you ravisher.” Leo raised an eyebrow and smirked a little, since the “ravishing” had gone both ways. “You promised me you were going to explain why you seemed to know all about everything when I woke you.” She laughed. “You see, while Father was planting me in meadows and on rocks across half a dozen Kingdoms, he forgot that I would see what was going on around me in my dreams. It’s something the Valkyria can do—we get it from Mother. She sees everything going on around her, no matter what state she’s in. I might not have been trudging through all those places afoot the way Siegfried was, but I learned a lot. Probably more than he did, because I wasn’t having to do anything but watch and learn, while he was trying to keep from starving to death or being hacked up.” Leo blinked. He tried to imagine what that must have been like, and failed. “Well, that must have been useful.” “Useful enough to know when you came marching across my ring of fire I had a good idea of exactly what I wanted.” She winked at him. He grinned. He hadn’t awakened her with just a kiss, and they had very nearly reignited the fire ring all by themselves. “At any rate, unless the mortals of our land manage to actually learn to think, now that my sisters have told Wotan what he can do with his magic spear and flown off, what will probably happen is that he’ll seduce Erda all over again. She’ll have another litter of daughters, Wotan will create another swarm of Valkyrias. Then, not having learned his lesson the first time, he’ll philander with another mortal, produce another set of twins-separated-at-birth, another dwarf will steal that damned Ring from the River Maidens, and it will begin all over again.” She sighed. “Stupid Tradition.” He echoed her sigh. Godmother Elena, Godmother Lily, Queen Rosa and King Siegfried had carefully explained The Tradition to both of them before they left Eltaria. It seemed prudent to all of them, given that Leo was a tale just waiting to happen and Brunnhilde was a goddess. It had left Brunnhilde nodding, and Leopold outraged, but with no target to be outraged with. Just some nebulous force that was going to make him dance to the tune it piped unless he learned how to avoid it or manipulate it himself. “Well, maybe we can find it a whole new path,” he replied. “We’ve got time to think and plan. Well, you do.” He felt a moment of melancholy. That was the one fly in their soup of happiness. He was mortal. She wasn’t. “Well—it just might be that we do,” she replied, her blue eyes going very serious indeed as her brush stopped moving. “I asked Godmother Elena’s dragons about other places with gods, and they knew all about this one, and what is more, they had some interesting things to tell me about The Traditions here. This Olympia is just stiff with ways for mortals to become immortal. That’s why I brought us here.” He sat straight up, grapes and melancholy forgotten. He was hard put to say whether he was more shocked, delighted or terrified. Probably all three at once. “You—what?” he gasped. “You mean—” She nodded. “We’ll have to be really careful, though. Some of the ways for mortals to become immortal are not pleasant. For instance, becoming immortal but continuing to age. Or becoming immortal as a spring or a rock. Or a constellation of stars. Not the sort of thing I want to see happen to you.” He thought about the first, and shuddered. A bit of waterworks or a rock would be far preferable, and still not something he wanted to think about. “So how do you go about it without nasty consequences?” he asked. “Or have you found that out yet?” “Nothing that will work yet, but I expect to. Either we’ll find a god-tale, or we’ll go introduce ourselves to the gods here and ask. Right now, all I know are the things that come to me in my sleep—when you let me sleep—” she began with a grin. And that was when the ground opened up behind her with an ominous rumble. It really did open up; there was a sound like thunder, the earth trembled, a crack appeared and the ground rolled back as if two giant hands had pulled it apart. Steam issued from the opening. Leo nearly jumped out of his skin, and both of them leapt to their feet, seizing the swords that were never far from their hands. A chariot pulled by four magnificent black horses rumbled up out of the chasm; the chariot was black without a lot of ornamentation; the horses were huge things, very powerful; snorting and tossing their heads as they plunged up the slant of raw earth. The chariot was driven by a man in a long black cloak with a deep hood, who reached up with one hand and threw back the hood of his garment on seeing the two of them there. Leo hesitated; the man was unarmed, and looked absurdly young, barely more than a stripling. “Well, there you are!” the fellow said crossly as his eyes lit on Brunnhilde. “You went to the wrong meadow, just like a girl. I’ve been looking all over for you!” “I—what?” Brunnhilde stammered, for once speechless. “I think you must have mistak—” Too late. The man jumped from the chariot, seized Brunnhilde and tossed her into the chariot as if she weighed nothing. She shrieked with outrage and tried to scramble to her feet, but he leapt back in, grabbed her around the waist with one hand to keep her from jumping out, and wheeled the horses with the other hand. Before Leo could do more than take two steps and Brunnhilde start to fight back, the chariot plunged down into the chasm, which promptly closed up behind them, leaving Leo to claw frantically at the earth, shouting Brunnhilde’s name. When Persephone finally had woven enough to satisfy her mother, the sun was going down and she practically flew to the meadow on the chance that Eubeleus would be there. Her mother, thank all the powers, had gone off to round up some of her foundlings and had not given Persephone any orders. Persephone didn’t wait for her to change her mind. She didn’t even stop to snatch something from the kitchen for supper, afraid that her mother would invent some reason to keep her indoors until nightfall. And by nightfall, her beloved would certainly have left the meadow. She’d forgotten her sandals, but that hardly mattered, this was Olympia and the paths were thick with soft moss wherever her feet touched them. Neither Persephone nor Demeter would ever suffer a bruised foot within her walls. Like the magic that kept the carnivorous foundlings from snacking on the rest, Demeter’s magic kept all harm at bay. Wonder of wonders, her love was still in the meadow, looking altogether forlorn as he perched on a rock with his hands clasped between his knees. She whistled like a boy, and he looked up, startled, to push off the rock and race toward her. He was quite tall, but it would be difficult to tell how tall he was, since he habitually slouched, as if he carried all of the troubles Pandora had allegedly let out of the box on his own back. His hair was as black as Zeus’s but fell about his face in unconfined ringlets, since he never wore the royal diadem of the gods in her presence. People forgot that he was as much a warrior as his brother-god Zeus, but the simple, one-shouldered garment of linen he wore showed off his muscles rather nicely, she thought, especially when he was running. Of the three original male gods, he was really the cleverest, too, though she suspected if she told him so he would just mumble a little and blush. It’s just as well he got the Underworld, I suppose. Zeus would have made a dreadful mess governing it. Only someone who actually knew him would see the Lord of the Underworld in this sad-faced shepherd, who looked gratifyingly lovelorn, and whose face lit up in a way that was even more gratifying as she ran toward him. Oh, how she loved seeing his dark eyes shine when they met hers! They met in an embrace that threatened to become very heated indeed. He broke it off, not she, but kept his arms around her as he looked into her upturned face. “I was afraid you had changed your mind.” Persephone snorted. “No, it was Mother. She decided that today I needed to weave. I’m sorry I was too late to be abducted. I hope your friend didn’t get too bored. Where is he?” Hades frowned. “Actually, he drove off, saying he was going to look for you, but he’s never seen you, has he?” “I don’t think so.” She shrugged. “There can’t be that many blond-haired, blue-eyed immortal maidens hanging about in meadows on the slopes of Mount Olympus. Not that there aren’t a lot of maidens, or at least young females, and if they are nymphs or dryads or sylphs, they might very well be hanging about in meadows, but there are not many blondes. Most of them are brown- or raven-haired. I hope he comes back here instead of going back to the stables. We could still go through with this if he does.” “I suppose you are right. You generally are. But hoping that Tha—my friend does something practical is hoping for a lot. He doesn’t think much past his job, which isn’t exactly hard.” Hades’s brow creased with thought. “Is there any real need for us to go through that entire abduction business?” She looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean? I thought it was Traditional, and it would make it harder for Mother to demand me back.” She did not mention the other part, which she was not supposed to know but had deduced. “Well, yes, but—” Hades waved his hands helplessly. “Why not? You were ready to go, why not just come with me? We might not get another chance. Especially if Demeter finds out about me.” He looked at her with pleading eyes. “We’ve been tempting the Fates, dodging anything that could tell her. We can’t have good luck forever. And I don’t want to lose you.” She didn’t have to think about it very long. A solid afternoon at that loom, while Demeter kept popping in “just to see how you are doing,” while that wretched little faun-baby made the most appalling sounds on his flute, was more than enough to convince her that if she didn’t get out of that house soon, she would probably be a candidate for the Maenads. And she didn’t want to lose him. Not ever. “It’s a wonderful idea,” she said warmly. “Let’s go.” Obviously, Persephone had never been to Hades’s Realm before. The passage in proved to be surprisingly uncomplicated, since she was with the Ruler. The most complicated part was when Hades decided it was time to Reveal His True Self. Hades found a cave, and led her inside, that was when he held up his hand and made a ghost-light. The little ball of light drifted just over his palm, and reflected off his face. She could tell he was working his way up to the Revelation. “Um,” he said awkwardly. “I—uh—I’m not really a shepherd…” She stood on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I know you aren’t, silly. You’re Hades. And the friend who was supposed to abduct me is Thanatos.” His jaw dropped. He stared at her for a moment. Now in this position, Zeus would have spluttered, and Poseidon just stared dumbly. But Hades was made of better stuff. After a moment, he began to chuckle. “How long have you known?” he asked. “Since about a month after we first met,” she replied, holding tight to his hand. “I knew you weren’t mortal. And I knew there were only a limited number of gods you could be. Eros is in love with Psyche, Zeus wouldn’t dare come near me for fear of Mother, Poseidon smells of fish no matter how much he washes, Apollo is too arrogant to disguise himself, Hermes could never control his need to pull pranks, Ares is…” She rolled her eyes, and he nodded. “And besides, he’s besotted with Aphrodite. Hephaestus is besotted with Aphrodite too. Who did that leave? You or Dionysus. And you always left part of the wine in the jar when we picnicked.” “And you don’t mind? I mean…I’m old…” But the eyes he looked at her with were not old. They were as young as any shepherd lad with his first girl. That look only made her love him the more. “Old enough to be your father, surely. And my kingdom isn’t the loveliest place in the cosmos, either. Well, with you in it, it would be, but…” He stammered to a halt. “We’re immortal,” she reminded him. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, you’ll still look like you do now in a hundred years, and then the difference between us will be insignificant. And anyway, it’s not as if you were like Zeus, chasing after…well….” “What do you—oh,” he replied, and a flush crept up his dark cheek. She giggled. “Maybe I’m not old,” she said, “but I am fairly sure that I love you, whatever you call yourself. And I think you are certainly old enough to be sure you love me.” “Oh, yes,” he said fervently, and if it hadn’t been that this was a cave, the floor was cold and not very pleasant, and neither of them wanted Demeter to somehow find them before they got into his realm safely, they might just have torn the chitons off each other and consummated things then and there. But Hades was not Zeus, and after breaking off the fevered kiss in which tongues and hands and bodies played a very great part, he stroked the hair off her damp brow, smiled and turned toward the back of the cave. With Hades holding her hand, a door appeared in the rock wall, as clear and solid a door as any in her mother’s villa. It swung open as they approached, then swung shut behind them. “Are we there yet?” she teased. He laughed. “Almost. But Demeter can’t follow us now.” There was a long, rough-hewn passage with bright light at the end of it, which brought them out on the banks of a mist-shrouded river. It was a sad, gray river, with a sluggish current, and had more of a beach of varying shades of gray pebbles than a “bank.” Mist not only covered its surface, it extended in every direction; you couldn’t see more than a few feet into it. Tiny wavelets lapped at Persephone’s bare feet. The water was quite cold, with a chill that was somehow more than mere temperature could account for. “The Styx!” Persephone exclaimed, but Hades made a face. “Everyone makes that mistake. It’s the Acheron. The river of woe. The Styx, the river of hate, is the one that makes you invulnerable. When you see it, you won’t ever mistake the one for the other. Look out—” The warning came aptly, as a flood of wispy things, like mortals, but mortals made of fog, thronged them. Spirits! Persephone had never actually seen a spirit, and she shrank back against Hades instinctively. There must have been thousands of them. They couldn’t actually do anything to either her or Hades, but their touch was cold, and Persephone clutched Hades’s comfortingly solid bicep. “What are they?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper—but still loud enough to sound like a shout over the faint susurrus of the voices of the spirits, too faint for her to make out anything of what they were saying. They tried, fruitlessly, to pluck at her hem, at her sleeves, to get her attention. “Why are they here?” “They’re the poor, the friendless. They’re stuck on this side of the Acheron. Charon charges a fee to take them over, everyone knows that. You’re supposed to put a coin in the mouth of the dead person when you bury him so the dead can pay the ferryman’s fee. It’s not much, but if they don’t have it…” Hades’s voice trailed off as she gave him a stricken look. She glanced at the poor wispy things, and their forlorn look practically broke her heart. “I have my standards, you know.” The sepulchral voice coming out of the mist made her jump and yelp, and the poor ghosts shrank back from the river’s edge. Hades turned toward the river in irritation. “I’ve asked you not to do that, damn it!” Hades snapped. “Don’t just sneak up on people, do something to announce yourself when you know they can’t see you!” A boat’s prow appeared, poking through the mist, and soon both the boat and its occupant were visible. The ferryman plunged his pole into the river and drove the boat up on the bank with a crunch of pebbles against wood. He had swathed his head in a fold of his robe, and bowed without uncovering it. “As you say,” the ferryman intoned, pushing his boat closer to the bank, so that it lay parallel to the beach. With his foot he pushed a plank over the side to the dry beach. “Do you need my services, oh, Lord?” “No, we’ll just walk across,” Hades replied with irritation. “Of course we need your services!” “Wait a moment.” Persephone was pulling off her rings, her necklace, her bracelets, even the diadem in her hair. Gold all of it, and pearls, which Demeter thought proper for a maiden. She’d put them on this morning on a whim, thinking it would be nice to be married in them. She offered all of them now to Charon. “How many will these pay for? To go across?” The hooded head swung in her direction. Slowly Charon removed the covering, revealing his real face. He was exceptionally ugly, with grayish skin, a crooked nose and very sad eyes. “I—uh—” The dread ferryman appeared unaccountably flustered. “I mean—” Hades brightened. “Give her a discount rate,” he said with a low chuckle. “After all, she’s buying in bulk. It’s the least you can do.” The ferryman swiveled his head ponderously, from Persephone’s face, to her hands full of gold, to the suddenly silent throng of spirits, and back again. “I—uh—I am not accustomed to—uh—” The ferryman gave up. “All of them,” he said, sounding frustrated, and a bony hand plucked the jewelry from Persephone’s hands. With an almost-silent cheer, the spirits flooded into the boat. Although, as far as Persephone could tell, they were insubstantial and weighed nothing, the boat sank lower and lower into the water as they continued to pour across the little gangplank. Finally the last one squeezed aboard—or at least, there were no more wisps of anything on the shore—and with a sigh of resignation, Charon pushed off. “Don’t blame me when Minos gets testy about all the extra work—my Lord,” Charon called over his shoulder as he vanished into the mist, poling the boat to the farther shore. “And that is why I love you,” Hades said, pulling her into his arms for an exuberant kiss that was all out of keeping with the gloom of the place. “You see what needs doing, know I can’t do anything about it, and deal with it yourself. What a woman you are!” His arms about her felt warm and supportive, a bulwark against the dank chill of the mist that surrounded them. She flushed with pleasure. “I know they’ll only start piling up again,” she said apologetically when he let her go. “But I just couldn’t stand here and do nothing about them.” He considered this. “Perhaps something can be worked out,” he suggested. “Put a definite end to their time of waiting. Shorten it if the living will do something for them. Sacrifices or…something. Maybe even pay ahead of time when they are still alive.” He pondered that a moment. “I shall put that into the minds of the priests and see what they come up with.” They watched the mist for a while, listened to the wavelets lapping against the stones at their feet. This was a curiously private, if chilly, space—the most private time they had ever had together. When they had met in the meadows it was always possible that someone would stumble upon them, or her Otherfolk friends would come looking for her. And it occurred to her at that moment that this was as good a time and place as any to ask some rather troubling questions. The most pressing of which was— “Are you really my uncle?” Persephone asked suddenly, to catch him by surprise. “Wait—what? No!” He looked and sounded genuinely shocked. Persephone sighed with relief. That was one hurdle out of the way, at least. “Then why do all the stories say you are?” she asked with an air that should tell him she was not going to accept being put off, the way Demeter always tried to put off her questions. He groaned, and shook his head. “Mortals. And that damn Tradition. And—it’s a long story.” “We have time,” she pointed out. “Mother never tells me anything. She always says she will, later, but she never does.” He looked a little aggrieved, but then visibly gave in. “All right, I’ll start at the beginning.” He pondered a bit. “The truth is, gods are just—immortals that mortals say are gods, or at least, that’s what we are. We’re half-Fae, the offspring of Fae and mortals. I don’t know how it came about, but there happened to be a concentration of us here in Olympia. Some of us eventually became the gods, and some became the Titans.” Persephone nodded, and waited for him to continue. She had never actually seen any Fae, only Otherfolk, but she knew they existed, if only because the Otherfolk talked about them a great deal. She had the impression that the Fae were, more or less, keeping a watchful eye on Olympia to see that the gods didn’t get themselves into something they couldn’t get out of. “The original six of us—me, Zeus, Poseidon, Demeter, Hera and Hestia—fought and confined what the mortals decided to call the Titans, which were also half-Fae, but were mostly from Dark parents…” He paused. “They were making life pretty hideous for the mortals here. Rounding them up and using them for slaves, and even eating them, like cattle, for one thing. You do know that not all Fae are particularly pleasant, right?” She nodded at that as well. “Well, someone had to put a stop to that, and we decided that we would. Besides, it was only a matter of time before they ran out of mortals and came after us.” He gave her a wry smile. “Not all of the Titans were bad, of course, and the ones that sided with us as allies didn’t get imprisoned. In fact, Zeus—” He stopped, flushing. She squeezed his hand. “No surprise that the ones that sided with you were mostly female?” she suggested. “The only ones I can think of that are male are Prometheus and Epimetheus.” “Uh—er. Yes. Zeus can be very—persuasive.” He hastily continued. “We built ourselves a nice little complex of palaces and villas up on Mount Olympus, flung a wall around it to keep mortals from straying up there uninvited and thought that was the end of that. Then—the first of the Godmothers, the fully Fae ones, had started turning up, and Zeus suggested we study them and see if we wanted to do what they were doing, you know, steering The Tradition and all that. It seemed like a good idea.” “Well, I don’t know what else you could have done, really,” she replied as an eddy of mist wrapped around them. “Someone had to, right?” “We all thought so. The thing is…we were used to thinking in Olympian time.” He laughed ruefully. “We thought we had plenty of time to figure things out, what to do, who would deal with what, you see. But the mortals here have particularly strong wills and good imaginations, and before you know it, I literally woke up down here as Lord of the Underworld, Poseidon found himself in a sea cave and Zeus woke up alone except for the women, and there was an entire Traditional mythos built up around us and compelling us to do what it wanted.” He sighed. “Which ended up with poor Prometheus on that damned rock. How fair is that? Bloody-minded mortals. And, of course, every time another half-Fae turned up, the mortals dreamed up some role for him that fit into the mythos and the family.” “Or not,” Persephone said sourly. “Or not,” Hades agreed. “There are some wretched bad fits. I wouldn’t be poor Prometheus under any circumstances. So no, the long and the short of it is, I am not your uncle. Poseidon is your father, not Zeus, no matter what the mortals say. And none of us are Demeter’s brothers by blood. Not even half brothers.” “That’s good, because I wouldn’t want our children to have one eye or three heads,” Persephone replied, hugging his arm and patting his bicep admiringly. He flushed. “There are more than enough Cyclopses about, and your dog is the only three-headed creature I would care to meet.” “Oh, he’s a good puppy.” Hades softened. “I suppose since you guessed who I was, you’ve already figured out why I wanted Thanatos to abduct you, right?” She nodded with enthusiasm. “And it’s horribly clever. Thanatos is the god of death, and if he takes me, I’m dead and belong here, right?” “Exactly.” He actually grinned. “Well, you’ll have to help me figure out some other way to keep you here. I’m sure that between us we can do it.” “I wonder, why doesn’t every one of the Olympians know that they’re really only half-Fae? The ‘gods,’ I mean, not the Otherfolk and the mortals.” To her mind that was a very good question. Of course, she knew very well why Demeter wouldn’t have told her—Demeter always assumed she “wasn’t ready” anytime she asked a tricky question, and this was certainly the trickiest of all. “Ah, good question. Two reasons, really. Well…. two and a half.” He nodded gravely. “The first is the mortals and their Tradition, as I said, it is very strong, and once a role has been picked out for you, it becomes harder and harder to remember that this role wasn’t always what you were. You really have to work at it. Some of the Olympians aren’t comfortable working at it and would really rather just fall into the role.” “Like Zeus?” she prompted. “Ah, that is where the half part of the two and a half reasons comes in. Over there—” he waved his hand vaguely at the mist “—I have two fountains. Lethe and Mnemosyne.” “Forgetfulness and Memory?” He nodded. “I, for one, take great care to have a drink of Mnemosyne whenever I feel my memories of what I really am start to slip. Zeus, on the other hand…” He paused. “In fact, one of these days we’ll be going to one of Zeus’s feasts, and when we do, at some point Hebe will ask you if you want the ‘special cup.’ That’s ambrosia mixed with Lethe water. Drink that, and all you’ll remember about yourself is what The Tradition says you are.” She shuddered. “No, thank you. Do the others know this?” Hades nodded. “Or—well, they know it before they take the first drink. After, it hardly matters, does it? I’ll say this much for Zeus, he will generally explain it all to the newcomers before they are offered the option. I’m just not sure he’ll explain it to you, especially not if your mother—” He broke off what he was going to say. “That’s a good point.” Persephone scuffed her bare toe into the pebbles. “I can’t always predict what Mother will think, and I honestly don’t know what view she’d take, whether it was better for me not to know, or better for me to know and fight what I don’t want this ‘Tradition’ to do to me.” She heard a splashing—it sounded deliberate—and looked up to see something out there on the water. “Oh, look, there’s Charon.” A dark shape loomed out of the mist, resolving into the boat and the ferryman. “Well,” Charon said, sounding a tad less lugubrious, “that was interesting.” He toed the plank over the side, and it slid onto the gravel. “Good interesting, or bad interesting?” Hades asked, handing Persephone into the boat, which was surprisingly stable. “Good, I think. Minos is going to have his hands full for a little.” Charon chuckled. “I confess I am rather surprised that I carried over quite a few who are neither destined for Tartarus nor the Fields of Asphodel. The friendless and poor on earth may not be such paltry stuff after all. In fact,” he added thoughtfully, “a good many of them are, in their own way, heroes. Leaving them on the bank is doing them a grave—” he chuckled again at his own pun “—disservice, perhaps.” Hades looked to Persephone. “We might be able to think of something,” she said, in answer to his unspoken query, as he handed her into the boat. “We were just talking about that, in fact.” Hades got into the boat beside her, which rocked not at all under his weight. Charon poled them through the mist to the opposite shore. It wasn’t as far as Persephone had thought, and yet it was very difficult to tell just how much time actually had passed; Hades remained silent, and Charon wasn’t very chatty. On the other side…if Persephone had thought that the banks of the river were crowded with souls, here there were shades in uncounted thousands. As far as she could see in either direction, a thinner mist hung over endless fields of pale blossoms. The shades wandered among them. They seemed particularly joyless as they gathered the white flowers of the asphodel, marked with a blood-red stripe down the center of each petal. They did not seem sad, just…not happy. Until the fields themselves hazed off into the mist, the asphodel blossoms waved, pallid lilies standing about knee-high to the shades. They seemed to have no other occupation than to pick and eat the blossoms, showing neither enjoyment nor distaste. This apparently infinite stretch of ground, flowers and mist, she knew already, was the part of Hades’s realm called the Fields of Asphodel, where the souls of those who were neither good nor evil went. In a way, the penalty for being ordinary was to be condemned to continue to be ordinary. Every day was like every other day; the only change was in the comings and goings of new souls, and the Lords of the Underworld. Charon pushed off once they had gotten out of the boat; there were always new souls to ferry across, it seemed. The mist still persisted everywhere, making it impossible to judge distance properly, or to make out much that wasn’t near. She and Hades made their way on a road that passed between the two Fields, and the shades gathering and eating flowers paid no particular attention to them. But as they traveled, hand in hand, she saw that there actually was a boundary, a place where the Fields ended. The asphodel gave way to short, mosslike purple turf, and like two mirrors set into the turf, she saw two pools, one on the left of the road, and one on the right. The one on the right was thronged with more shades; only a few were kneeling to scoop water from the one on the left. “Lethe is on the right,” Hades said, and sighed. “The ordinary choose to forget.” She nodded, and the two of them stepped a little off the road, which now passed through a long span of the dark purple mosslike growth. It actually felt quite nice on her bare feet. The road itself was crowded with shades, waiting in line. Eventually Persephone made out three platforms ahead of them, each platform holding a kind of throne. The closer they got, the more details she was able to make out. The three platforms stood in the courtyard of an enormous building, which, at the moment, was little more than a shape in the mist. There were three men there, one enthroned on each platform, and Persephone already knew who they were. They were the judges of the dead, who had been three great kings in life, well-known for their wisdom. Minos was the chief of them, and held the casting vote, if the other two disagreed. Hades led her past them with a wave. Minos, in the center, shook a fist at him, but with a smile. Hades chuckled. “Minos would rather have more to do than less,” he explained. “Despite what Charon said.” The judges held their tribunals in the forecourt of what proved to be a great palace, which, as they approached and details resolved out of the mist, was not what Persephone had expected. She had thought it would be gloomy and black, forbidding, bulky. It was, in fact, all of white marble, and as graceful and airy as anything built on Mount Olympus. Waiting there impatiently in front of the great doors was a young man holding the reins of four black, ebon-eyed horses hitched to a black chariot. There was a bundle in the chariot that moved and made ominous and threatening noises. “By Zeus’s goolies, it’s about time you got here!” the young man said, indignation written in every word and gesture. “I thought you said the wench was going to come willingly! I finally had to gag and bag her! If I can’t father children, Hades, it’ll be all your fault!” Then he stopped, and stared at Persephone. “Who,” he said slowly, “is that?” Horror crossed Hades’s face. “This is Persephone. We decided to forgo the abduction and figure out some other way to keep her down here. Maybe arrange for my priests to have some dreams about her or something—” Thanatos went pale. Which was quite a feat for someone already as white as the marble of the palace behind him. “Then who have I got?” “That is a very good question,” Hades replied in a flat voice. All three of them stared at the moving bag. The sounds it was making were very ominous indeed. And very, very angry. By the time Leo had dug out a pit the size of a shallow grave, he had to give up. He sat back on his heels and restrained his first impulse, which was to scream imprecations at the heavens. His tunic was plastered to his body with sweat and dirt, there was dirt in his hair and dug under his fingernails. And he didn’t care. All he wanted was Brunnhilde back. Screaming wasn’t going to do any good. This was either the work of a very powerful magician, or—possibly one of the local gods? Leo clenched his fists and tried to remember what the charioteer had said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.” He ran a grimy hand through his hair, thoroughly confused now. Think, Leo. Think this through. The man shows up coming up out of the ground, and the ground closes up behind him. He says, “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” And I’ve never seen him in my life. Could the man have been looking for Brunnhilde? If it was someone from the northlands…maybe. He was dressed like a local, not like one of the gods or mortals of Vallahalia. He’d never seen a chariot that looked like that in Vallahalia, and anyway, the only chariot there was one pulled by goats. The rocky terrain of the north wasn’t very good for chariots. And he was dark, not blond; virtually every northlander he’d seen was either blond or red-haired. No, he looked like the people around here. They didn’t know anyone local. “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” The man certainly thought he knew Bru; Bru had certainly stared at him without any sign of recognition at all. The only way he could have known her was if someone local had been scrying them—but if so, why would he say, “I’ve been looking all over for you”? If he could scry them, he would have known exactly where they were, and he wouldn’t have had to go looking for them. He couldn’t have been looking for Bru. If he hadn’t been looking for Bru, he must have been looking for someone like Brunnhilde. What else had he said…? “You went to the wrong meadow, just like a girl.” “You went to the wrong meadow”? It not only sounded as if he was looking for someone, it sounded as if he was looking for someone who was expecting him. And it must have been someone he had never actually seen. So he had been looking for someone like Brunnhilde. It was a case of mistaken identity. It would be hard to mistake Bru for anyone else, if you knew her. Even someone who had only been scrying them from a distance would have a hard time mistaking her for anyone else. Conclusion: the man had to have been going from a description, and not a very good one, either. And that meant another question. Man, or god? Leo didn’t even have to think twice about that. Only a god would be so sure of his own power that he would simply appear and abduct a complete stranger without thought of consequences. All right. Assume that it was one of the local gods. That put Leo up against a god. With all the power of a god, who could probably squash him flat without thinking twice about it…. To hell with that! He lurched to his feet, feeling rage surge through him. So what if they were gods? They were pretty damned small gods, and he was married to a god, and he was going to get to the bottom of this and get her back no matter what it cost him! He caught up his discarded sword and headed for the Vallahalian horses at a grim trot. Damn if he was going to bother going through an intermediary; let the natives putter about with priests. After all, he’d been presented to a goddess of the earth as her son-in-law, and faced down the All-father. In a Kingdom where the gods were real, physical beings, he might as well go straight to the top. Or wherever he needed to get to in order to confront them directly. And he had a pretty good idea of who could get him there. The two big bay horses—well, they weren’t just horses, after all, they could stride through the air, you never had to worry about them straying off and they always looked magnificent—were still where he and Bru had left them. They weren’t happy though; they were prancing and pawing the earth, looking every bit as agitated as he was. And now, if ever, was the time to find out just how different they were from “horses.” He seized the reins of the horse he had been given on either side of the bit and looked into its eyes. “Do you know where the gods of this land live?” he asked it. On the surface of things, such a question, put to a horse, might have seemed insane, but these were horses that had served the Valkyria, were bred in the pastures of Vallahalia, and he wasn’t inclined to put anything past them. One of Brunnhilde’s sister-Valkyria had given her mount to him, saying with a laugh that it made a fitting “dowry” for him, and that this way he wouldn’t have to ride pillion behind Bru. The other Valkyria had found this hilarious at the time. Since then, his mount, named Drachen, had done literally anything he asked of it. The only “supernatural” ability it had displayed so far was the ability to fly—or rather, to run through the air. It had a doglike loyalty, was a cherub to him and Bru, and a devil to anyone else. He’d suspected it had a very a high level of intelligence, and perhaps a lot more than that, but hadn’t had a chance to ask Bru. The horse looked at him measuringly, and then slowly bobbed its head up and down. “Was that a god who took our lady?” he asked it fiercely. Drachen snorted, as if it thought the answer to such a question was so obvious the question didn’t even need asking, but again bobbed its head up and down. He didn’t ask any further questions. He threw himself into the saddle and took up the reins—but left them slack, because clearly, he was not going to be the one in charge on this ride. “Then let us go to these gods and get her back!” he growled. Both horses threw up their heads and trumpeted agreement. Leo’s mount reared up; its forefeet found purchase on the air through whatever magic it used to run, and they were off. Both of them plunged up toward the sky as if they were running on a hill. Powerful muscles drove them upward at a pace that far exceeded that of a flesh-and-blood horse. Once they were well above the level of the treetops, it was pretty clear where they were heading; a cloud-capped mountain loomed in the middle distance, and looked to be exactly where one would want to set up housekeeping if one happened to be a god, at least in Leo’s mind. And as they headed upward, Brunnhilde’s horse cast a glance over its shoulder at him…and snorted. “What?” he shouted at it. He got no direct answer. But his horse swerved a little and made a beeline for a patch of dark clouds. Before he got a chance to object, both beasts plunged in, and a moment later he found himself in the middle of a rainstorm. When they emerged again on the other side he was spluttering and soaked. But clean. His hide and the little one-shouldered excuse for a tunic he wore in imitation of the locals were both dry long before the slopes of the mountain and the buildings there were clearly visible. And if he hadn’t still been so angry he was quite ready to set fire to the entire mountain, he would have been enchanted by the view. The lowest slopes, mostly forested, were dotted with flowering meadows where flocks of sheep and goats grazed, or little isolated structures of white marble rose. A little higher, as the trees began to thin, there were more substantial buildings, about the size of one of the manor houses that he was familiar with, also of white marble. Halfway up the slope, a line of clouds formed an unmoving ring around the mountain; so far as Leo could tell, this ring would make it impossible for anyone on the ground to see what he saw from his vantage in the air. With its base rooted in the top of the clouds, a massive wall stretched around the mountain itself, not at all unlike the wall around Vallahalia, and probably erected for the same reason. The gods were not inclined to permit just any old mortal to come walking up the front path. There was a gate in this wall, and it was closed; not that this mattered in the least to Leo. Behind the wall, and crowding up to the summit, were more of the white-marble manors, surrounded by terraced gardens. As Leo’s mount galloped above the wall and these buildings passed beneath him, he saw the occasional person in the gardens or on a terrace gaping up at him. All the buildings had a kind of inner glow, like light shining through translucent porcelain. He ignored the people below him. The gods were like anyone else; the most important personage lived at the top, and that was where he was heading, to a single enormous, colonnaded structure ornamented by heroic statues of men and women. The horses seemed to take on fire and life as they neared this building; and rather than feeling intimidated, Leo experienced a surge of energy and strength, as if he had opened up some sort of heroic spring inside himself that he had never known was there. His anger stopped being all-consuming, and became focused; Brunnhilde had been taken, and there was nothing on this earth, above it, or below it, that was going to keep him from getting to her. Beneath him, his horse began to shine with an unearthly, golden glow, just as the buildings here glowed, but brighter. He took heart from that; these beasts were the mounts of gods themselves, and if they felt he was worthy of being carried up here, then who were these upstarts in their draped sheets to stand between him and his mate? The horses trumpeted a challenge as they landed in the forecourt of the chief building; their hooves rang on the pavement as they touched down, now blazing with golden light. Leo jumped out of the saddle without even thinking about it, pulling his sword from the sheath at the saddlebow. He was barely aware of half a dozen people in robes and tunics staring at him dumbfounded; he had eyes only for one. That one sat on what looked like a throne at the center of the forecourt; a man with the physique of a fighter, long, curling black hair and beard, and some of that same golden glow about him. Like the others, he wore one of those draped garments, but at least this man imparted the ridiculous swath of cloth with a sense of dignity. Even with his mouth hanging open. Leo stamped toward him. Evidently these gods were so convinced of their own power and invulnerability that they had nothing whatsoever like guards. But—anger didn’t kill caution; Leo stopped a good twenty feet away. Just in case. While the man still stared at him, Leo pointed at him with the sword he still held in his hand. “You!” he roared, his own voice echoing at such a volume that he himself was startled, though he took care not to show it. He swept the sword point around in an arc. “All of you! What have you done with my wife?” Demeter examined one of the trees in her orchard with a critical eye; like all the trees, it had buds, blossoms, green and ripening fruit on it all at the same time. She wondered if perhaps she should have some of the insects eat a few of the blooms so as not to overburden the tree unduly. While there were the strange cycles known as “seasons” outside Olympia, here there were no such things as set times to blossom and ripen or lie fallow; there was planting and harvest, of course, but no particular time for either. That was because of her; beneath her care, every plot and field in Olympia flourished, and year-beginning to year-end marked not so much a cycle as a progression. Care had to be taken, though, to make sure the soil stayed fertile, the trees and bushes were not stressed. Demeter spent a great deal of time among the mortals, speaking through her priestesses, schooling them in husbandry, and spent almost as much time in her own fields and orchards, seeing to it that what she tended personally served as an example of perfection rather than neglect. She directed a beetle to snip off a particular bud and drop it into a swarm of waiting ants, when she felt a tremor pass through her—and a sensation as if something had just been cut off from her as that bud had been cut from the tree. Bud? she thought, and then, in something like Panic fear—Kore! She whirled and ran as she had not run since she was a child herself, in that long-ago time when she played in the fields with the sheep tended by her shepherdess mother—ran back to her villa, and stopped, panting for breath, hand pressed against her aching side, in the door to the weaving room. The loom was unattended except for a kitten playing with a ball of yarn and a faun curled around a basket of sleeping hedgehog babies, poking at them with a curious finger to see them stir. “Where is Kore?” she demanded of the hooved child, who looked up at her with startled eyes, his mouth forming a little o. “M-m-meadow?” he stammered. Demeter ran to the meadow where Kore was used to playing. There was nothing there, nothing but a scatter of blossoms. Nothing at all. Gingerly, Hades approached the squirming bag. The very fabric looked angry. “What did you do, Thanatos?” he demanded. “I did what you asked me to do,” Thanatos replied, looking indignant and sullen at the same time. “I looked for an immortal maiden with yellow hair in a meadow. I found lots of maidens in meadows, not many with yellow hair, and only one immortal. So I took her. You said she wouldn’t fight me, that she was expecting to be abducted, but she fought like five she-goats! I’m bruised all over!” “You’re a god, Thanatos, heal yourself,” snapped Hades. “Who did you rape?” “I didn’t rape anyone!” Thanatos yelped. “You know what I mean! Who’s in the sack?” Hades bellowed. “How should I know?” Thanatos shrieked back. “Oh, for—” Persephone pulled the little dagger she used to cut fruit out of her belt, stalked around them and went straight to the bag. She bent over and cut the rope holding it shut, then leapt back with the grace and agility of a young doe. The bag writhed, a pretty foot and a long, strong leg emerged with a vigorous kick, then the rest of the young woman fought free of the fabric, with only a momentary glimpse of something the lady probably would not have wanted strange men to see. A pair of extremely blue eyes beneath a mass of tumbled golden hair blazed at all of them, and it was only Hades’s quick thought to cast a circle of magic around her that saved them all from the tiny bolts of levin-fire those eyes shot at them. Thanatos yelped again, jumping back automatically. “Well,” Hades said slowly. “Definitely god-born.” Persephone approached the circle slowly. “One woman to another,” she said, getting the captive’s attention. “There has been a dreadful mistake. I’m going to cut you free now so we can explain it, all right?” The woman glared for a long, long moment, then slowly, grudgingly, nodded. Persephone glanced at Hades, who dismissed the magic circle with a little twirl of his fingers. Then she knelt beside the woman and first cut her wrists free of their rope, then handed her the little knife so she could get rid of the gag herself. When the woman untangled herself from ropes and sack, she stood up, rubbing her wrists. She did not give back the knife. She was taller than Persephone by more than a head; she was nearly as tall as Thanatos, and he was not small by either mortal or godly standards. As she glared at them all, he stopped sulking and began gawking. Then the gawking took on a bit of a leer. “Well,” he said, looking aslant at Hades, “if this one isn’t yours, can I have her?” The words hadn’t even left his mouth before he was dancing in place as levin-bolts peppered the area around his sandaled feet. She was tossing them this time; they looked like toy versions of Zeus’s thunderbolts. Fascinated, Persephone wondered if one day she could learn to do that. Persephone clasped both hands over her mouth to restrain her laughter, as Hades merely folded his arms and watched. Eventually the woman wearied of tormenting Thanatos and allowed him to stop capering to her crackling tune. She stood with her fists on her hips and looked them all over, ending with a glare at Thanatos. “I’m no one’s property, god or mortal. And I’m married,” she said shortly. “Another suggestion of that sort, and I’ll aim higher. And maybe with the knife, too.” Hades gave her a short bow, equal to equal. “Your pardon, sky-born,” he said so smoothly that Persephone could only sigh and admire his manners. “The gods of Olympia are…somewhat free with their favors, as often as not.” The woman raised an eyebrow. “Some wouldn’t consider that a ‘favor,’” she retorted dryly. “Now, what, exactly, am I doing here, and where is here in the first place?” Hades and Thanatos began speaking at once, and the stranger’s head switched back and forth between them to the point where Persephone feared she was going to get a cramp. “Wait!” she cried, holding up her hand. Both men stopped. Hades bowed. “My name is Persephone. I am the daughter of the goddess Demeter. My mother is—” she made a face “—overprotective. This is Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, where the dead go.” “Ah!” The woman’s eyes brightened with understanding. “Like Vallahalia. Go on.” “You are actually in the Underworld now, to answer your second question,” Hades put in. She nodded. “I managed to catch sight of this lovely maid, and—” Hades reached for Persephone’s hand. She let him take it, blushing. “I asked the king of our gods, Zeus, for permission to wed her. He agreed, but cautioned me that her mother would never let her go.” Persephone nodded. “She thinks I am still a child,” the girl said sourly. The stranger nodded, sighing. “All mothers are like that, I think. I begin to get the shape of this. I take it that you decided to abduct her?” Hades hesitated. “Not—exactly. That is more in Zeus’s style than mine.” “He courted me!” Persephone said proudly. “And as if he was nothing more noble than a shepherd’s god, or one of the minor patrons of a brook or grove, so I wouldn’t feel as if I had to yield to him!” Now it was Hades’s turn to blush, as she squeezed his hand. The stranger’s cold eyes warmed a little. “I begin to favor you, god of the Underworld. So. This still begs the question of why I am here.” “My mother is the Earth goddess, Demeter. Fertility,” Persephone said pointedly. The woman’s eyes widened. “Aha! So you complicate things by sending another in your place to take the maid. So that she does not know who to curse, and you may garner more allies to soothe her before you reveal the truth.” “Exactly.” Hades beamed. “And because he did not know the maid—” she eyed Persephone “—there cannot be many yellow-haired wenches among your people. You are the first I have seen in this place. I can see where there would have been a mistake.” She nodded, satisfied. “Well, with that settled, I forgive you. You can take me back now and in return for this insult you can help me and my Leopold with a problem of our own.” “Uh…” Hades bit his lip. “This is where things become…complicated.” “Complicated?” The woman’s expression suddenly darkened. “What do you mean by complicated?” “Thanatos is the god of death, you see—” Hades gestured helplessly with his free hand at the hapless Thanatos. “That was why he was supposed to take Persephone. She’d be dead, and have to stay here, you see—” “But I am immortal!” the woman shouted, making them all wince. “Well, er, yes. But gods can die—” Hades freed his hand from Persephone’s and it looked to her as if he was preparing to cast another protective circle. “I—!” the woman roared—and then suddenly fell silent. “Damn it,” she swore. “We can. Baldur did. And I was supposed to die to bring about the fall of Vallahalia—” “So…er…you can’t leave. I mean, I just can’t let you go, you see.” Hades gestured apologetically. “It would be a terrible precedent. People would be coming down here all the time, demanding that I turn this shade or that loose. You see?” “Yes, damn it all, I do.” The woman gritted her teeth. “But I am not staying here. If I have to, I will fight my way out.” Hades and Persephone exchanged a long look. “I think she would,” Persephone whispered. “I have no doubt of it,” Hades responded. He ran a hand nervously through his dark curls. “I think we need to figure a way out of this.” “Yes,” the woman said sharply. “You do.” Demeter stood in the middle of the open meadow with both hands clenched in her hair and her heart torn with anguish. Of all of the things that could have befallen her daughter, this had never, ever occurred to her. That Kore might, in some childish fit of pique, run away—yes, that she had thought of, and put barriers around her own small domain so that Kore would be turned back from them if she tried to cross. She had carefully kept Kore out of sight of the other gods once she began to mature, so that none of them would have been tempted to steal her away. The lesson of Hebe was plain there; Zeus had fancied the child as a cupbearer, and whisked her off before her mother could say aye or nay. So who, or what, had stolen her child? Where had she been taken? She did not stand in anguish for long; if there was a single being that knew, or could find out, everything that went on between heaven and earth, it was Hecate. Hecate was one of only a few Titans who had been permitted by Zeus to retain her power. To Hecate she would go, then. With her thoughts in turmoil, and her heart in despair, she did not even notice that in her wake, the growing things were beginning to fade and droop. She paused only long enough in her kitchen to gather up what she would need; the roast lamb from the supper Kore would not now eat, poppy-seed bread, red wine and honey. She caught up three torches and sped to the nearest crossroads, a meeting of two paths that her flocks and their shepherdesses used. With a flat rock for a table, the three torches driven into the ground around it and lit, Demeter laid out the meal, and waited, slow tears tracing hot paths down her cheeks. As darkness fell, she heard the slow footfalls of three creatures approaching; two four-legged, one going on two feet. Through the trees, a golden glow neared; as Demeter waited, holding her breath, the light took on the shape of a flame, the flame of a torch held high by a figure still obscured by distance and the intervening foliage and tree trunks. Soon, though, that dark-robed figure paced slowly and deliberately through the trees; on either side of her was a huge dog. As she drew near, the stranger slowly removed the veil covering her head, revealing that she was a gravely beautiful woman of indeterminate age, taller than Demeter. It was Hecate. Demeter’s mouth was dry, and she could not manage to speak for a moment. “What means this, sister?” Hecate asked. “Why do you invoke me as if you were a mere mortal?” “I did not know how else to call you quickly, elder sister,” Demeter whispered, and her voice broke on a sob. “Oh, Hecate, it is my daughter, my Kore! She has been taken from me, and I do not know where nor how!” Hecate blinked with surprise. “This is a grave thing that you tell me,” she replied. “And a puzzling one, for I know you fenced your child about with great protections. Tell me what you know.” While Demeter related the little that she knew, Hecate listened carefully. “I think,” she said at last, “that we should go to Mount Olympus. If there is any being who would have seen your daughter stolen, it is Helios, and as the sun has set, he will be with the other gods, feasting.” She held out her hand to Demeter. “Come. If Zeus has been up to some mischief, or countenanced it, he will not dare to deny the both of us combined.” Demeter took Hecate’s hand, and Hecate passed the torch in front of her from left to right. The world blurred for a moment, and when it settled, they stood in the forecourt of Zeus’s palace. But Zeus and the other gods were already occupied—with one very angry, and seemingly very powerful, mortal. “What have you done with my wife?” Leo shouted again, holding down his sense of shock and surprise that no one had struck him dead with a thunderbolt yet. On either side of him, the Vallahalian horses pawed the marble, striking sparks with their hooves, tossing their heads and snorting. “Ah…” The fellow on the throne looked down at the tip of Leo’s sword, which was unaccountably glowing. “We haven’t done anything?” He glanced around at others of his sort who were gathering in the twilight, while torches and lamps lit themselves. “At least I haven’t. Have any of you lot been stealing mortals this afternoon?” A chorus of baffled no’s answered his question. Leo wasn’t backing down. “We were minding our own business, when someone came up out of the ground in a chariot drawn by four black horses,” he thundered, taking full advantage of the fact that his wrath seemed to have taken them all aback. “He said something about ‘I’ve been looking all over for you,’ grabbed my wife and dragged her underground. If that wasn’t a god, I’m a eunuch, and you are the only gods hereabouts, so what have you done with my wife?” “Impeccable reasoning, Father,” said a rather stern-looking young woman in a helmet and metal breastplate in addition to the usual draperies. In her case, the draperies covered a disappointing amount, from her collarbone down to the ground. His conscience chided him for that thought; he put it aside. Besides, she was carrying a spear and looked as though she knew how to use it. “Four black horses? Then it can’t have been Helios or Apollo,” the young woman continued. “It’s unlikely to have been Hephaestus. That leaves only one possible candidate.” “Two, if you count Thanatos. Hades lets him drive, sometimes,” the man on the throne corrected with a sigh. He turned his attention back to Leo and was about to say something, when there was a soundless explosion of black smoke, and two more women appeared at the edge of the courtyard. One, dressed in a dark blue drape, was visibly distraught. The other, dressed in black and carrying a torch, with a huge dog on either side of her, looked sterner than the young woman in the helmet. “Hold, Zeus!” the black-clad one intoned. “Hear now the pleas of Demeter, whose daughter has been foully riven from her this day!” “What, another one?” exclaimed a young man, who was dressed in sandals with wings on them and not much else, exclaimed. “There hasn’t been this much excitement around here since Zeus turned into a swan!” The man on the throne colored, and the oldest-looking of the women glared metaphorical thunderbolts at both of them. “Or was it a bull?” mused the irrepressible young man, glancing slyly at the chief of the gods. “Hermes!” the young woman in the helmet hissed at him. The oldest woman glowered. The woman in dark blue—Demeter—wept. Leo shifted his weight uncomfortably, but—damn it, I was here first. He firmed his chin and stood his ground. But at this point all the gods started talking at once. The males were adamant that whatever had happened to Demeter’s daughter, they had nothing to do with it. The females had started to group themselves around Demeter and the other one. Clearly, this was turning into a potentially ugly situation. It was broken up when two literally radiant young men appeared in another explosion of smoke, this one white instead of black. “Hail Zeus!” said the handsomer of the two. “Ha—“ He did a double take. “What in the name of heaven and earth is going on?” he demanded. The gods all started talking again. Finally the young woman in the helmet silenced them all by pounding the butt of her spear on the marble, which rang like a gong. Leo blinked. That was certainly an interesting trick. And effective. “Hail Apollo,” the young woman said, with no hint of mockery. “This mortal came before us on god-horses, making a claim that one of the gods falsely stole his wife away. He had not done making his testimony when Hecate appeared with Demeter, saying that Persephone was also stolen. That is the long and the short of it. However, now that you are here, you—or rather, Helios—are in a position to answer both those accusations, for Helios sees all things.” “Most things, wise Athena,” said the other young man with a slight bow. “In the matter of Persephone…” He hesitated. “Speak, Helios!” the woman in black commanded him sternly. Helios sighed. “Much as I hate to break a mother’s heart, I did see Hades take Persephone. But it looked to me as if she went willingly.” Demeter let out a wail that woke tears in Leo’s eyes, and at least half the gods’ as well. “No, great Zeus, this cannot be! Hades? Lord of Darkness and Gloom and Death? He is no fit mate for my golden child!” Helios coughed. “Ah, gracious goddess, I hate to contradict you, but Hades is ruler of the Underworld, the third part of creation, and is the brother-equal to Poseidon and Zeus himself. If he isn’t worthy, no one is.” “Then I shall linger here no longer!” Demeter let out a heartbroken cry and fled, vanishing among the gardens and marble edifices below. The woman in black watched her go, broodingly, then turned to Zeus. “I would learn the truth of this myself, Zeus,” she declared. “By all means, Hecate, do as you please.” the man on the throne said weakly. “Don’t mind me, I’m only the king here.” With a sardonic smile, the woman in black vanished in another poof of black smoke. Now Helios turned to Leo. “As for this mortal…” he said, his brow wrinkling thoughtfully. “Ah, yes. It was Hades’s chariot that took his golden mate. But it was Thanatos who took her.” A leaden silence fell. It was the woman in the helmet who broke it. “Mortal, what was it you said that Thanatos called out?” Leo licked lips gone dry. Whoever this “Thanatos” was—the gods thought the situation was very serious indeed. “Uh—he said, ‘Well, there you are! You went to the wrong meadow, just like a girl. I’ve been looking all over for you!’ Then he grabbed her and vanished into the earth.” “Oh, dear.” The silence grew even heavier. “Mortal, I am sorry. Given that Hades was seen to leave with Persephone—who is a golden-haired maiden—and given that Thanatos, Hades’s servant, was driving Hades’s chariot—I believe your wife is the victim of a case of mistaken identity.” Zeus looked unhappily down at the helmeted woman. “Do you think?” She nodded. “Aye. I think he sent Thanatos to fetch Persephone, so that her mother would have no way to take her back. But Thanatos had never seen the girl, and took the first woman that matched her description. This mortal’s wife.” She turned to Leo. “Mortal, I am sorry. There is nothing we can do for you.” Leo’s anger erupted again. “What do you mean, there is nothing you can do for me? He’s one of you, isn’t he? Order him to bring her back!” “Mortal—” The oldest woman stepped forward, a sympathetic and sorrowful expression on her face that filled him with dread. “Mortal, even the gods are subject to rules. Thanatos took your lady. Thanatos is the god of death. Not even we can take her back from him. That is why Hades must have sent Thanatos to take Persephone.” She shook her head. “I am sorry. But we are as helpless as you.” “Is there a precedent for getting someone out of here?” Brunnhilde demanded. “Well…” Hades paused. “I didn’t actually die, you know!” she snapped. “I was kidnapped by your dim-witted flunky!” “Hey—” Thanatos objected weakly. “She has a point,” Persephone said patiently. “Just because Thanatos took her doesn’t mean she actually died. He took her body and spirit.” “It’s a technicality, but it’s the technicality we were going to use to keep you here,” Hades pointed out. Brunnhilde’s eyes darkened dangerously. “Do you really want to get into a battle between my people and yours?” she asked, her voice low and menacing. “You wouldn’t like that. We’re not civilized.” She moved very close to Hades and narrowed her eyes. “We live for fighting. We thrive on doom. My father actually tried to bring on Ragnorak. He’d be overjoyed to find a way to destroy not just one, but two entire sets of gods. If only to get away from his wife.” “What’s Ragnorak?” Thanatos wanted to know. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.” Hades waved his hands frantically. “No, we have to work together to figure out a solution. There has to be an answer.” A puff of black smoke erupted next to Hades’s throne. “By Gaia’s left breast, Hades, you really are a moron,” said a sardonic female voice from inside it. The smoke cleared away, revealing a handsome dark-haired woman with a torch in one hand, accompanied by two dogs. “I cannot believe what a hash you made of this business. And you’re no better,” she added in Thanatos’s direction. She looked down at her dogs. “You two, go run and play with Cereberus.” She stuck her torch in a nearby holder, and the dogs, suddenly looking like perfectly ordinary canines, yipped and ran off. She turned to Brunnhilde. “I’m Hecate. You must be the abducted barbarian.” Brunnhilde nodded, and drew herself up straight. “Brunnhilde, of the Valkyria, daughter of one-eyed Odin, king of the gods of Vallahalia, and Erda, goddess of the Earth.” “Or, in other words, half-Fae like all the rest of us.” Hecate did not quite smile. “When we choose to remember it, that is. Bah! A fine mess this is.” She sat down on Hades’s throne. Hades didn’t even bother to protest. “All right, first things first. Persephone, I assume you’re here of your own free will?” Persephone looked ready to burst. “Aunt Hecate, I am sick to death of being treated like a toddler! I love my mother, really, I do, but she—” “Was smothering you, as I told her a dozen times in the last year alone. You, Hades. Is this some enchantment or some other trick?” The gaze she threw at Hades would have impaled a lesser man. Persephone answered before he could, proudly detailing how Hades had met her as a simple shepherd-god, much her inferior, and wooed her gently and with humor and consideration. Brunnhilde caught Hecate’s lips twitching a little during this ebullient tale, as if the goddess was having trouble keeping her expression serious. “All right, all right,” Hecate said when Persephone paused for breath, before she could start in on another paean to her love. “I’ll take that as a no. And I suppose Athena was right—you intended to have Thanatos take her so you’d have the rules on your side to keep her here. Right?” Hades confined himself to a simple “Yes, Hecate.” “By Uranus’s severed goolies, this is a mess. Let me think.” Hecate drummed her fingers on the marble arm of the throne. Her nails made a sound like hailstones. “Persephone, keeping you here should be easy enough. Eat. Eat something that was grown down here.” Hades grimaced. “Ah…not…that…easy. The only thing that grows here is the asphodel—and that only nourishes spirits. We bring all the food we eat from Olympia. There just aren’t that many of us that need real food.” “Try the Elysian Fields, at least there’s light there,” Hecate suggested. “Persephone, there has to be some of your mother’s powers in you, go coax something to grow, then eat it. That will make you part of this realm. That’s what works for the Fae realms, and The Tradition should make it work here.” She pointed a thumb at Brunnhilde. “Now, you, and your mate. What is it, usually, Hades? Nearly impossible tasks?” Hades nodded. “As few as one, as many as seven.” Brunnhilde quickly saw where this was going, and nodded, though not with any enthusiasm. “And a year and a day, usually,” she said with resignation. “Damn.” “Hades, you figure out some tasks for the barbarian woman. I think the best thing to do with the man is to set him to guard Demeter so she doesn’t manage to get herself abducted by something nasty, or fall down a well, or something.” Hecate pondered. “I’ll manufacture more tasks for him if I need to. Or who knows? He might just fall into some, thanks to The Tradition. Let’s see if we can’t get this happening sooner than a year and a day, or everyone and everything in Olympia is going to starve to death.” She got up and reached for her torch. “Wait!” Brunnhilde said. Hecate paused. “This was all your fault,” Brunnhilde said, pointing at Thanatos. “I want something in exchange for going along with this and not just summoning my father and giving him an excuse for a war of the gods.” Hecate raised one eyebrow. “She has a point. And I’m a goddess of justice, among other things.” Hades nodded. “All right.” He sighed. “What is it you want?” Brunnhilde smiled in triumph. “I want you to make my husband an immortal.” So this was Elysium. It was certainly pretty. Flowers, flowers everywhere, underfoot, overhead in the trees, clouding the bushes. But not a hint of fruit. Nothing like a vegetable garden. No fields of grain. Which, all things considered…was not at all surprising. Everyone here seemed to be blithely uninterested in the humbler tasks, or indeed, in work of any sort. Well, it wasn’t as if they had to work; they were spirits after all, they didn’t eat, or drink, they had everything provided for them. But it made her feel just a little impatient, looking at them lolling about, doing nothing but exercising, having games, discussing ridiculous things like “How do I know the color blue is the same to you as it is to me?” Hecate was at least right about one thing. Elysium did have light. It had its own sun, and its own stars, which were in the heavens at the same time. She had gone to it by means of an imposing gate in an otherwise blank wall; here the gate stood, quite isolated, in the middle of a field of—yet more asphodels. She had the feeling that she was going to be very, very tired of asphodels after a while. Perhaps if this experiment worked she could get other flowers to bloom in the gardens of Hades’s palace. There was none of that all-enshrouding mist here. Aside from the extraordinary sky—in which the sun, as near as she could tell, did not move, but simply winked out from time to time, making “night”—it was rather like the slopes of Mount Olympus, minus the animals and birds. No flocks of sheep, no songbirds, no insects. Hmm. And no bees. Which means I am going to have to pollinate whatever I am trying to grow by hand. But it wasn’t wilderness. It was all very tame. Mannered groves, manicured meadows big enough to conduct games in, hills with just enough slope to make a good place to watch, rocks where they were most convenient to sit on, small, “rustic” buildings or miniature temples dotted about. And everywhere, people. Which she ignored, because she was trying to figure out what, if anything, she might be able to get to bear fruit, and why there was nothing bearing fruit here now. Finally she gave up trying to reason it out herself, and went searching for someone who could tell her. Most of those she asked looked at her askance, and said they hadn’t really thought about it. A couple groups actually turned the topic of their debate to whether or not there should be such a thing as planting and harvesting here. Well, it was no worse than the “color blue” question. Finally she was sent to the ruler of Elysium; the former king Rhadamanthus, who was the son of a Titan. Or, as she was well aware now, at least half-Fae. She found him arbitrating a dispute between two philosophers, but once he caught sight of her, he seemed more than pleased to tell them they were both wrong, dismiss them, and go to greet her. “So, this is ‘little’ Persephone.” The king chuckled. “I must say, I envy Hades. Perhaps Thanatos can find me another like you?” “Oh, he already did, and you wouldn’t want her,” Persephone replied, thinking about the rather formidable war-goddess she had left stewing in Hades’s care. “Cross Athena with Ares’s temper, and throw in a bit of Bacchus’s madness, just to keep things uncertain—” She explained to Rhadamanthus what had happened as briefly as she could. “So the problem is,” she concluded, “since Thanatos didn’t abduct me, I have to find another way to keep Mother from getting me back. Hecate says the only way she can think of is for me to eat something grown down here. But it has to be real food, apparently, flowers won’t qualify, or I would already have had a salad of asphodel.” “Well…that is a problem. The definition of Elysium is that it lies in eternal spring—not a good time to produce anything edible.” Rhadamanthus pondered this for a moment. “Well, if you have any of your mother’s power…” She sighed. “Hecate said the same thing.” “There might be one place where you can succeed. Come with me.” She followed Rhadamanthus, for quite some time. He proved to be an excellent conversationalist and told her many valuable things about Hades’s moods and personality. It was only when he took her through a very precipitous cleft that she noticed that this part of Elysium was a bit different than the rest. Drier, not so lush, and at the moment—warmer. On the other side of the cleft was a tiny valley. It was not a particularly fertile valley, either. But there were three stunted pomegranate trees here, with a few blossoms on them. “I really don’t know why this part of Elysium is resistant to the eternal spring we have everywhere else,” Rhadamanthus mused. “But it is. No one but myself ever comes here. I only found the place by accident. I’ve seen fruit start—I’ve never seen one ripen, but I have seen them start. If there is anyplace in Elysium where you can succeed, it will be here.” Persephone stared at the unprosperous-looking trees, and for a moment was ready to give up completely. This was ridiculous. The trees were warped by drought and deprivation, the soil was poor, and in any event, pomegranates took five months from blossom to fruit! By that time, Demeter would surely track her down and demand her back! “The Tradition does demand the almost impossible in order for the Hero to succeed,” Rhadamanthus said, as if he was reading her thoughts. She almost groaned, but he was right. This was exactly the sort of thing that The Tradition required. It seemed she was going to be growing pomegranates. Hopefully, at an accelerated pace. Hopefully, her mother’s power actually was in her. Leo had more than a few choice words for the Olympians, and he was delivering them when Hecate returned. This time the billow of dark smoke sprang up between him and the others, so that Hecate was in an excellent position to interrupt them all when she stepped out of it. “Your woman seems to be fine, mortal,” Hecate said, cutting his tirade short. “And she’s no better pleased with this than you are. I pledge you that Hades has no intention of holding her if there is any way we can work out a solution for this predicament he and Thanatos managed to muddle into.” Leo frowned, and was about to demand what she meant by if, when she held up her hand, forestalling him. “However, if you’ll give me the favor of holding your tongue for a moment, Olympia has a much bigger problem to deal with here than just one separated couple, and unfortunately, this is one that won’t wait.” “Just what would that be?” Leo asked angrily. Hecate’s somber face made him pause. “Demeter is the goddess of fertility,” she said slowly and deliberately. “And the goddess of fertility has just abandoned her home and run off into the wilderness and beyond. I would not in the least be surprised to discover that she has abandoned her duty and fled past our borders as well. The Tradition has put her firmly in charge of the magic that keeps Olympia fertile and growing, and there is no way to replace her. And we have a country populated by mortals who have no concept of ‘seasons,’ and no reason to store food, since Demeter has insured that things ripen all year long.” Athena was the one who grasped the gravity of the situation about the same time that Leo did. She gasped and paled, understanding that Hecate meant the country was about to plunge into starvation as the last of the food was eaten and there was nothing growing to replace it. Leo’s first reaction was another flare of anger. These people had made their bed, so to speak, let them lie in it! What did he have to do with them, or the troubles they brought on themselves? He only wanted Bru back! But then… Then something else cooled the anger as quickly as if he’d had a bucket of water thrown over his head. He couldn’t let that happen. The mortals of Olympia were innocents in this, and what was worse, the gods could probably hold out and it would be the innocent mortals that would suffer. He could not let that happen. Not and still be himself. He was Leopold, the People’s Prince, who had fought a city fire in his shirt and breeches like everyone else, passing buckets and setting the firebreaks among the homes of the great that saved the greater part of the capital. He was the Prince who had joined in with his own two hands while the citizens rebuilt. And now, he was…well, if he wasn’t quite a Hero like Siegfried, he was still the Prince who fought dragons and tyrants in lands not his own. And while he claimed that he did so because it was exciting and dangerous and therefore a fantastically amusing thing to do, down deep inside he knew that he did it for the same reasons Siegfried did. Because it was the right thing, because The Tradition, and magicians and powerful creatures and people, all conspired to make misery of the lives of ordinary people, and someone had to help them. He was a Prince. Noblesse oblige, that was the concept that his own father had taught him, and it wasn’t just a nice phrase to him. It was an obligation and one that, despite his outwardly cavalier attitude, he took seriously. He and Bru had talked about this at some length just before they crossed the border into Olympia, and it had been an interesting conversation. At first, when he and Bru had embarked on this life of adventurers, Bru had been rather like a child let loose in a circus. While her fighting ability was both inherent—because she and her sisters were, after all, minor battle-goddesses—and instinctive, she had never actually used her weapons much. Like her sister Valkyria, her main tasks had been to fetch the heroic dead from the battlefield and take them to Vallahalia, and it was a rare occasion when she even brandished her spear or sword, much less used them. She and her sisters sparred, and that was about the extent of her opportunities to fight. She had the spirit of a born warrior, and to be finally able to go up against creatures and people that were clearly evil and best them in combat had been, for lack of a better term, exhilaratingly fun for her. She’d really not taken any thought for anything but the sheer excitement of pitting herself—and him—against them. But it had been a brief visit to Siegfried and Rosa that had opened her eyes to the other side of the situation. They had just had a very odd encounter with another dragon, one who agreed to come guard Eltaria, but only if they could beat him in combat. After their victory, it seemed rude not to drop in on Queen Rosamund and King Siegfried. After the initial greetings were over, Siegfried had asked casually if they wanted to come along and lend him a hand with a “wild bull problem.” The Tradition was making things lively within Eltaria since the King was a genuine Hero. While the presence of guardian dragons on the border was keeping armies at bay, this did nothing to stop the country itself from presenting the new monarchs with all manner of Traditional challenges whenever things started to look a little too peaceful. And Siegfried was very much a Hero King in the style of his native land. Which meant that he turned up wherever there was a problem, without fanfare or escort (other than the Firebird, his constant companion), talked to the locals, then dealt with the situation, or sent the Bird for some reinforcements. Usually (he said) he didn’t need the reinforcements, and having seen him in action, Leo could well believe it. Besides, he was a Hero—and a Hero, Traditionally, was supposed to get rid of such things single-handedly. Siegfried had it down to a kind of routine now. Once he had the measure of the situation, he’d dispatch the menace in question, then allow the locals to make a great victory fuss over him, and depart. “It’s useful,” Siegfried had pointed out. “I’m a foreigner, after all. Most of them expect me to turn up wearing nothing but a lion pelt or a bearskin, waving a club and grunting. They get a good look at me, I prove I’m dedicated to protecting them, and everyone feels better when it’s all over.” In this case, however, without even going to the village being threatened, Siegfried already knew he would need a little help. This bull was a monster, powerful and preternaturally fast, very crafty, and he would need a team to tease and distract it until one of them managed to kill it. “The Firebird could help,” he had told them, “but she doesn’t have the agility she did when she was just the little brown forest bird. A slash with a horn at the wrong moment—” He’d shaken his head. “I won’t risk her. But the three of us are good enough to keep anyone from getting hurt, I think.” Leo and Bru were both more than willing to help out—and this was where Bru had gotten her first taste of what Leo and Siegfried both felt. That noblesse oblige, though if she had said anything at the time, Siegfried would just have shrugged and said, “But that is what a Hero does.” They went to the village, which was nearly on the eastern border, and saw at firsthand how the Black Bull had actually smashed cottages unless they were made of stone. She was at first impatient as Siegfried listened to the stories of his people and soothed them. She didn’t see why he needed to talk to them. After all, Siegfried already knew the Black Bull was a monster, and that he needed to kill it because it had done dreadful things, he was king, and it was his job to remove such dangerous creatures. He didn’t need to listen to story after tearful story. All he needed to do now (in her mind) was find out where it was so they could kill it. But then she started to pay attention. Leo knew the moment when she understood that these were people to him and Siegfried, and not just warriors. He could see in her eyes the moment she stopped feeling impatient with what she had probably initially thought of as their “whining,” and began to empathize with them. The fight had gone as planned; the Black Bull, a creature easily twice the size of a farm cart and as vicious a beast as anything Leo had ever seen, was no match for three fighters, two of whom were as fast and deadly as it was, and the third, who, while not as fast, could take an astonishing amount of punishment. They had killed it, the villagers descended on it, and them, and there was a great feast. Siegfried had been genial and gracious, Leo had played the madcap “best friend,” and Bru had watched them both as they filled the roles that the villagers expected, watched as the villagers took this “barbarian King” to their hearts and accepted him as their own. It had been a good visit, if short. Gina, another of the Dragon Champions, had dropped by, and Bru had had a long talk with her that had led to them coming to Olympia. For the entire visit, Brunnhilde had been very thoughtful, watching Leo and Siegfried as if she had just discovered something about them that she had never expected. That was when they’d had that talk, and it had been hard for her to articulate some of what she felt, but from that moment, their adventures had become something more meaningful than just another exciting battle for her, a chance to test her strength and skills. He could tell that her attitudes had changed. She was a protector, a defender now. And so was he. They fought for more than adventure and glory. They fought to keep ordinary folk from extraordinary harm. In a way, he suspected he had always felt like this. He might have cultivated a devil-may-care facade, but under that facade was a deep drive that was not unlike that of a fierce guard dog for its master. Which was why, when Hecate had said what she had, he knew very well that he couldn’t just let these people wallow in the crisis they had made for themselves. Once again, unless someone stepped in, it was the poor mortals who were going to suffer. The common folk. And as far as he could tell, these gods were about as useful in this situation as a lot of gawky adolescents. He was going to have to do something about it. “How much food do you think is stored?” he demanded of the dark goddess. “Obviously the mortals are going to have no idea what is going on when winter falls on them, and they won’t have prepared for such a thing, so how long do you think it will be before conditions get dire? A week? Less? More?” “For the humans, a week, perhaps two.” Hecate nodded. “They will be frightened within a few days when blossoms wither and fruit and vegetables do not ripen. For animals, the grass-eating ones at least, it will take a bit longer before they begin to starve. For the Otherfolk…I am not sure.” “Who’s in charge of wild animals?” he demanded, looking around at the bewildered deities. “You’re all gods, so presumably you have the duties and patronage all divided up. At least, that’s how things usually go.” “Ah, I suppose that would be me,” replied a young woman in an abbrieviated tunic, her hair cropped short, with a bow and arrows on her back. “And Pan, perhaps. Crius is in charge of domestic animals. I’m more of a huntress, but I’d better work with Pan to be sure he doesn’t get distracted and forget what we’re supposed to do.” Her brows furrowed. “So what are we supposed to do?” By this point all of the gods had gathered about him and Hecate; it was very clear that while they were completely willing to do what he told them, none of them had the faintest ideas of their own. At least they’d all seen the gravity of the situation at once. They could very well have taken the attitude that “what happens to the mortals doesn’t concern us, there will be more along soon enough if this lot dies.” “You’ll have to come up with some sort of way to awaken the wild things’ instincts about winter,” he told her. “Maybe you can borrow the memories of animals from outside your borders where there are seasons, but it has to be done if you don’t want all your wildlife dying off. Can this be done by means of a spell or something?” He looked to Hecate, who nodded. “I think I can do that, with Pan and Artemis taking part in the ritual,” she replied. “And I will tell Crius that we must do—what, with the flocks and herds? The pasturage won’t last long once the grass stops growing.” “Let me think…” He massaged his temples with his fingers. He considered himself a quick thinker, but this was a bit like being thrown into the deep ocean and told you were going to have to reason your way to land. “Your neighbors…are they friendly?” “Mostly absent,” Zeus answered immediately. “The lands around Olympia are largely wilderness. Not nearly as lush as our land, nor as fertile, so mortals who are near the border tend to decide to join us,” he added with great pride—but then his face sobered as he remembered who was responsible for the lush fields. “As your land was. It won’t be in a few weeks. Well, that is perfect. Tell Crius he must speak with the herders—and with the herds to get them to cooperate with their keepers. Some sort of pronouncement from the clouds or something outrageous to get the attention of the mortals. The point is, they need to be impressed with the urgency of this situation and begin to move the herds of this land across the border until you have gotten Demeter back to her duty.” He spoke, and suddenly realized that he didn’t sound like himself at all. His air of authority, his steadiness, were not like careless Prince Leopold, but rather like his father… Hell. I’m turning into Papa. “It will take time, of course,” he added, quickly driving that uncomfortable thought out of his head, “but they can afford to go slowly, and take what grazing they can find until they reach a good place to stop. It’s late spring out there, so they’ll be all right for several moons. Let us hope this situation doesn’t persist until winter.” Instinctively they were all turning toward him, as to the only person who seemed to have any ideas about what to do in this situation. Even Zeus. I am standing here giving orders to gods… It would have been a heady thought, except that this lot of “gods” seemed to be as feckless as a lot of young squires. “As for the inhabitants of Olympia, I suggest you inform those creatures that are not mortal to seek the Fae realms for now, unless they want to begin starving. They can come back once Demeter returns.” He made a wry face. “I don’t suppose any of you have Fae allies? Or still are in contact with your parents?” Zeus flushed, a few of the gods looked puzzled, as if his words made no sense to them. It was Zeus who answered. “We…” He coughed. “As a whole we have tended to avoid the Fae.” “You have,” Hera replied tartly. “Not all of us are so shortsighted.” She turned to Leo. “Would you have us seek out our relatives, mortal?” He nodded. “You’re going to have to get food from somewhere. In the short term, see if you can find some Fae to supply something that mortals can eat safely. They’re Fae though, they won’t have the patience to put up with this for too long, you gods are supposed to be taking the place of Godmothers, not mucking things up. The good ones will wash their hands of you pretty quickly. The bad ones…well, I understand you fought them once already. So you know they’ll take advantage.” He rubbed his temples again. “You are going to have to find a way to buy food from outside your borders. And transport it.” “I can help there.” The lively fellow with a look of mischief and little wings on his sandals and odd flat helmet had lost his smile, trading it for a look of determination. “I am the god of merchants as well as speed. I myself have never bargained before, but you might say it is in my blood.” “I’ll bring that out in you with another spell, Hermes,” said Hecate. “And I am sure Hephaestus can come up with all manner of things you can barter with. Gold certainly.” “We can get the Giants to help with moving the food you buy.” The speaker was a voluptuous woman that Leopold was resolutely not looking directly at. The moment she had joined the group, he’d had to keep himself under very tight restraint, because it was pretty clear what this lady was the patron of. “They won’t say no to me.” “Nothing male will say no to you, Aphrodite,” Hera replied with a touch of venom. Aphrodite just smiled lazily. “And right now,” she purred, “even you will admit that is a very good thing.” Leo decided that he had better get between the two of them before something erupted that would distract all of the gods. “All right then. The sooner you get going, the least harm will come of this,” Leopold interjected. He gave Zeus a look. “And your king and I will sit down and work out more detailed plans, while the rest of you take care of the immediate situation.” Zeus nodded. “Winter…we just never had to think about such a thing before,” he said weakly. “Demeter always kept things under control.” “If I have learned one thing in my short mortal life, King of the Olympians, it is that nothing lasts forever,” Leo retorted. “And if I have learned another—it is that those who rule a land are responsible for it. Especially when things go wrong.” “You should be a philosopher,” Zeus said glumly, and motioned for him to follow. Demeter had experienced many emotions in her long life, but grief was new to her, and so painful that it overwhelmed her in every possible way. And now she was so lost in her grief that she was not sure where she was going, only that she needed to leave Olympia, for it had become a terrible and alien place to her. The other gods, who should have been her allies, were clearly not going to help her get her Kore back. Zeus had probably been in favor of this from the beginning! Her grief was deepened by that betrayal. She could not believe that her golden girl had gone with grim Hades of her own free will. He must have bewitched her somehow, and they were unwilling to admit it. Perhaps some of them had even helped him—she wouldn’t have put it past Aphrodite to work her magic just for the sake of the mischief it would cause. And as soon as Kore was carried beneath the earth, such enchantment would never last. How could Kore, who loved to laugh and frolic in the sun, ever find Hades and his sunless realm attractive, even under the most persuasive of Aphrodite’s magics? She had never seen Hades so much as crack a smile in all the years she had known him. Surely once the magic wore off or was broken, he would terrify her poor child. And as for his realm, his “third of the earth”— She shuddered. Oh, the Fields of Elysium were all right, but he would never allow an attractive girl like Kore to go there, populated as they were with all manner of the shades of the so-called “Heroes.” Most of those “Heroes” were as lascivious as Zeus, and most of them regarded women as disposable playthings—no, Hades wouldn’t allow his stolen bride anywhere near them. So Kore would find herself mewed up in Hades’s gloomy palace in the Asphodel Fields, without sun, without music or laughter, where nothing grew except the lilies of the dead, and nothing moved but the shades in their dull, bleak, never-changing afterlife, condemned to be bored in the netherworld because they had been boring in their mortal lives. Not that Demeter had ever been there herself, since only Hecate, Hermes, and the gods of the Underworld could journey there, but Hades had complained about it often enough in her hearing. By now, surely, she was learning the truth of this; by now she must be weeping with fear and loneliness, and longing desperately for her mother and home! Demeter’s throat closed, and her tears fell faster at the thought. How did mortals bear this dreadful emptiness, this aching sorrow? She was consumed with it, swallowed up, until grief was all that there was. And it was all the worse for being sure that Kore was wrapped in the same agony. The Tradition held that a goddess was not bound by the restrictions of mortals or even Godmothers; she did not need a spell or magic sandals to make the miles speed beneath her feet. As Hecate did with or without her torch, Demeter only needed to desire to be somewhere—or away from somewhere—and it was so. So her feet took her, as only the feet of a goddess could, across the breadth of the Kingdom in moments; she rejected the fields of Olympia, and the gods that had been her companions, and her feet bore her swiftly away from their knowledge. The gods had not helped her, would not help her, and the fields that no longer would be the playground of her daughter could wither for all she cared. She suffered—so let all of Olympia suffer with her! She mourned—well, all of Olympia, if it would not mourn for her, let it mourn with her. She knew, though, the moment when her path crossed the border. Behind her, the land was already showing the signs of her sorrow and neglect, as flowers faded and died, fruit dropped unripened and ripe fruit withered. But here… Here there was something Olympia never saw. Spring. Confronted with this living exemplar of the renewal of life, Demeter sank to the ground beside a pure spring that welled up out of the greening earth, sobbing, grieving. As she grieved, she deliberately threw off her beauty and ripeness, transforming herself into the likeness of a barren old woman, withered without, as her heart and soul were withered within. She cried until her eyes were sore, wept until her voice was no more than a hoarse croak, and thought, Let it be so. When she heard footsteps approaching, and the soft laughter and chatter of young women, she did not even look up. The chattering suddenly stilled, and silence took its place. Finally, Demeter did look up, to see four pretty young maidens with bronze pitchers in their hands, clustered together and looking at her with faces full of pity. Their clothing was not unlike that of the mortals of Olympia, but they wore wool rather than linen, and were wrapped in the rectangular cloak as well, to keep off the chill in the spring air. They reminded her, in their grace and charm, of Kore, and she was about to burst into tears again, when one of them stepped forward. “Old mother, we see that there is great sorrow in your heart,” the pretty thing said as the others filled their pitchers. “Why do you lament beside the spring, alone with your grief, when there are many houses in our town that would welcome you, and many who would help you with your burden of tears?” Demeter listened to the maiden’s words with a faint sense of astonishment. Was this how mortals coped with loss? By sharing it? Was that even possible? But her heart warmed a very little, because they were so young and pretty and so like Kore, and spoke out of hearts that were clearly kind. “I should not be welcome in your town, dear children,” she replied. “My people are far away, and there are none who would care to be near me in my loss.” The maiden shook her head. “You are gentle of speech, old mother, showing a noble heart and birth, and clearly rich in experience. If your own people would not welcome you in their houses because you mourn, then the more shame to them. We honor the wisdom that comes with age, and cherish those who achieve it. There are Princes in this land who would be glad of one such as you as nurse to their child, and help you to temper your grief with the joy of an infant’s smile.” The maiden offered a shy smile of her own. “Indeed, my own father, Celeus, would gladly give you hearth-room for such a cause. My mother, Meitaneira, has given us a new brother, and she would rejoice to find such wise help with Demophoon. I feel sure that your heart would grow lighter with him in your arms.” It took Demeter a moment to realize that the girl was, essentially, offering her a job, that of nursemaid to a young Prince. And rather than feel offended, as Hera might have, she actually did feel a little of her grief pass from her. They meant it kindly; the girl who had spoken had understood, instinctively perhaps, that having an infant in her arms again might well be the balm that Demeter needed to keep from going utterly mad with grief. So Demeter bowed her head a little. “I am called Doso, maidens.” The four girls named themselves to her: Callidice and Cleisidice, Demo and Callithoe, who had spoken to her first. “I thank you for your kindness,” Demeter said gravely. “And I shall follow along behind, for I would have you ask your mother if she would indeed find me suitable as a nurse. Not that I doubt your honesty, but perhaps your hearts are a little more open to a stranger than hers.” She choked back her grief. “Mothers are wise to protect their children, for the world is not all a kindly place, and disaster can fall upon the trusting and unwary.” But Callithoe only smiled. “We will run ahead, Mother Doso, but you will find that our mother will welcome you as warmly as ever you could wish.” With that, the four girls ran back up the path they had taken to the spring, with Demeter following. “I don’t know what to do,” Persephone cried into Hades’s shoulder as Hades comforted her. “I barely got the poor thing to get me half a dozen fruits, and now there are only three left, and they don’t look as if they’ll live to ripen! I’ve done everything I could think of, everything anyone in Elysium has suggested…I can’t think of anything else!” She buried her face in the shoulder of his tunic as panic rose in her chest. Unless she could get something she could eat to grow here, her love for Hades and his for her was doomed. “If it were dead, I would be of more help, my love,” Hades replied, stroking her hair. “The asphodel might as well be weeds—nothing that happens to them ever seems to kill them, and they are the only plants I have any experience with. All I know is that you are doing your best.” Persephone sobbed into the smooth, dark fabric. Hecate had borrowed Hades’s helmet, which granted invisibility, and followed Demeter to keep an eye on her. They both knew that things were getting rather dire in Olympia, because of the reports that Hecate brought them regularly. Demeter had left the realm entirely, and was playing nursemaid to a mortal king’s child under the name of “Doso,” which meant “to give,” which was certainly an accurate description of her now-neglected duties as the goddess of fertility. From what Hecate said, she was pouring all her thwarted maternal energy into this child. For a little while, Persephone had hoped this would solve their problem; Demeter would be willing to let Persephone go and lavish her attentions on this mortal Prince. But her hopes were soon dashed; Demeter did not return to her duties, and Olympia continued to fail. For once, all the other gods were working together to keep the realm alive, but it was clear that what was needed was for Demeter to return to her duties. Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/cameron-haley/harvest-moon-a-tangled-web-cast-in-moonlight-retribution/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.