Circle of Nine: Circle of Nine Trilogy 1 (33 page)

Then silence.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

We are all we think;
With shadows from our minds
We make the worlds.
Let all your thoughts be pure and strong
So you can harvest light.

— Faian quote

K
hartyn sat still, in the middle of a deep trance. She had been several hours in the silver cage, but remained calm, unlike her poor apprentice who was on the verge of tears. Khartyn could feel the energy of Emma and the Stag Man around her.
They are with us
, she smiled to herself. Help was near. Then she felt Rosedark’s shudder of fear next to her, and knew that Sati was closer to them than anybody.

Rosedark!
she sent the thought pattern out. She couldn’t risk talking, in case a guard stood in the shadows of the room.
Can you do it? If the cage is unlocked, do you recall the lesson?
There was only a groan in her mind from her apprentice. ‘May the darkness give light,’ Khartyn muttered under her breath.

Rosedark!
The arrow thought she sent was so strong that she was convinced Sati would intercept it.

Old Mother! I . . . I can’t recall the lesson! What lesson?
Her apprentice’s thought wave sounded close to breaking. Khartyn cursed under her breath. There was little time left, but she had to keep her patience with the maid.

When we took to the skies, the summer before Emma came.
Khartyn looked at her meaningfully. There was a short pause.

I can’t remember the words.

Khartyn nearly choked on her fury. Never was there a worse moment for Rosedark to give in to panic. When I get her out of here, she thought, she will get a tongue-forking!

Yes, you can, Rosedark. Concentrate on the claws, on the beak, the words are within you. They will come. Call them to you.
Another mental silence, and she could hear the sound of a rat scurrying.

You’re angry with me, aren’t you, Khartyn?

For the sake of the Goddess and Emma, concentrate, Rosedark!
Khartyn told her, then lied:
No, I am not angry.
May the Dreamers forgive me, she thought. She could feel her apprentice begin to concentrate. The fear was beginning to ease. Khartyn longed to hold her, to comfort her, but she couldn’t risk distracting her from her contemplation.

Then, footsteps.
Oh Goddess.
She couldn’t risk sending another thought arrow to Rosedark, as whoever was outside would hear it. The sound of a key rattled in the lock. Khartyn held her breath. If Rosedark failed to remember, she would be trapped in the holding cage, at least until Khartyn managed to return with some help. But she had no doubt that even if she managed to escape, Sati and Ishran would waste no time in killing the girl.

The Crone climbed to her feet and strained through the heavy bars as Sati approached. Warily, Khartyn watched her ex-apprentice through slitted eyes. She was still slumped in the corner of the cage, her hair falling over her face.

Sati’s dark hair was piled in snaking curls on the crown of her head. A cape of exotic black and plum bird plumes hung magnificently over her shoulders.

‘How the mighty and great have fallen!’ Sati sneered.

Khartyn grimaced. ‘Are you referring to yourself, Bindisore, and all the wonderful potential that you once had — for that is something truly fallen.’

Sati laughed. ‘Mother, your foul, aged tongue will not babble for too much longer!’

In one hand glinted a small dark key; in the other she carried lethal finger crushers.

‘I need you to answer a few questions, Old Mother.’

The key was in the lock, the door swung open.

‘Now!’ Khartyn breathed to Rosedark. The secret word was spoken in synchronicity between them and Sati screeched in anger as Khartyn and Rosedark transformed themselves into two tiny finches. Small enough to slip through the open door of the cage, they flew swiftly to each other.

Sati, however, transformed herself just as quickly into her bird form of a black eagle and followed in pursuit of the finches, who had left the room and disappeared into the darkness.

Over the heads of the angel guards, over the castle drawbridge, they escaped with peeps of joy, up and away into the air of the Wastelands. Then Khartyn spied the black eagle swiftly gaining on them. There was no chance of out-flying Sati in their present form; the skill of flight was her special gift. Signalling to Rosedark to descend, they began to quickly transmute mid-air. Maid, Crone, bird landed in a flurry of feathers. Barely had their faces descended from bird family to Faiaite than Sati was upon them, transforming herself, black poisonous venom ejecting from her talons as she stood savagely before them, half-eagle, half-Bindisore. A strangled cry came from her throat. Quickly, Khartyn and Rosedark began to cast a magic circle of protection around themselves.

‘Hello, Sati.’

The voice behind Sati’s back was gentle, polite. Sati swung around and gasped. A great White Stag approached her. She spat more of the deadly black venom at him and he laughed. His voice came from the cliffs and the sky and the earth around him. He was born of the land, his cells blew with the wind and the earth formed his words.

‘Your killing methods are always primitive and obvious, Bindisore.’

Sensing defeat, Sati transmuted herself into her eagle form and flew into the sky. From inside their circle, Khartyn and Rosedark stared wide-eyed at the legendary Stag Man. His eyes held them captive for a few poignant seconds. Khartyn held her breath as she realised she was staring at a creature that belonged to the prehistory of Eronth.

‘Before the Dreamers slept — I was!’

How often had Crone and maid heard that tortured cry to the night moons? Now, held in his gaze, she looked upon the face of the divine. He moved around their circle of protection, bowing slightly to the four quarters. Khartyn realised that he was blessing them and she raised her hands in response to his benediction. She could feel his great power, his great light, his longing for his soulmate and his endless agony. Again, she felt his relentless stare as he probed their minds for information. Khartyn gave her mind to his in an open invitation. There could be no withholding from one as pure as he.

‘Good Crone.’ The approval came from the air of the Wastelands. Then he was gone. He vanished into the ether; in his place lay a shiny red apple.

Satisfied that they were safe, Khartyn opened the circle and turned to Rosedark.

‘Quickly, maid! We have to locate our ilkamas — call them to us so we can travel out of the Wastelands. We have to attempt to retrieve Emma from the underground. If the Stag Man has appeared to us there must be huge transformations occurring.’

Rosedark stooped down to pick up the apple.

‘Why an apple?’ she wondered aloud.

Khartyn took the fruit and smiled. ‘Because of what lies inside the apple.’

Holding it up to the light, she instructed Rosedark to gaze inside the apple. Rosedark did so, uttering a cry of delight.

‘A pentacle!’ she cried.

Khartyn nodded. ‘The brown seeds are sacred. He wants us to deliver these seeds to Emma, or else they are some form of message to her. A pomegranate was the trigger that Hades used to entrap Persephone in the underground. The apple may be the trigger that will bring her up — and when she rises, hopefully she will bring Emma with her.’

She ran her hands over her eyes, suddenly realising how weary she was. The deep lines on her face were more pronounced than usual.

‘Let us hope Emma’s mind can withstand the rising,’ she stated, feeling a sense of oncoming dread.

*

When Persephone arrived for her third visit I was delighted that I could vaguely make out her form. A faint figure, the suggestion of a long braid. Whispers, hints of a being. Now, in the walls of the underground cavern I could dimly make out fossils and shells, and even the gleaming entire skeleton of a unicorn caught between rocks.

‘You see?’ Persephone smiled triumphantly. ‘Your eyes are adjusting! It doesn’t take long! Although once your eyes adjust fully to the underground you can have trouble adjusting back to focus in the overground.’

‘Is that why you prefer to stay? Because of the blindness when you rise above the earth?’

There was silence from the blackness. Then the dark moved, found a voice.

‘Perhaps. That and other things. Mainly I hate living between two worlds. I’m never fully part of one or the other. So it seems easier to stay in one place. I’m constantly changing my mind about which place to stay in.’

I remained silent, finding it difficult to reconcile the idea of Persephone as a goddess with the frustrated child-woman that actually spoke to me.

‘Hades is expecting visitors tonight,’ the child-like voice continued, ‘Ishran and Sati. They think I’m ignorant of the schemes they are hatching, the webs they are spinning. They think all they have to do is throw me another dead Crossa to play with and I’m content. No, no, not at all! The soil and the mother cleansers tell me everything I need to know about their visits — and everything I don’t need to know.’

I leaned forward toward the dark, sensing hope. ‘Do you know why they have put me in the underground? Do you know why they are so keen to claim my child?’

There was a brief silence. I could hear the beating of a heart.

‘Column IIXCI of the Tremite writing. The Azephim have interpreted the text as a prophecy that the child born of the Crossa who is Bluite–Bindisore is the Chosen One. The Azephim believe the child will have the power to reactivate the silent Eom. Others have interpreted it to mean that when the moons turn red in the land of the Triple Moons and the child enters her thirty-third moon cycle she will be able to enter the Crystal Shell and influence the Dreamers. Either way Sati and Ishran are intent on securing your child. Sati of course will never bear fruit. Her belly is barren, frozen in an eternal winter which distorts her heart chakra, turning her into black ice, black frost. They are incubating you here with me. Letting your child swell and grow while they wait, preparing for the birth.’

‘So in the meantime I’m to rot down here!’ I cried.

In the belly of the underground I could sense Persephone’s empathy with my distress at being restrained in this world of darkness.

‘You won’t rot, Emma. I promise you. Soon you’ll grow used to your new home with me. You’ll adjust.’

‘Persephone, we have to rise! You know damn well that if I stay here I’ll go mad or die! I’m not like you! You’re a goddess, you can adjust to the underground, but I’m a Crossa! I’ve lived on the Blue Planet most of my life. With fresh air and light and oxygen and pure food.’

I exaggerated madly in my panic, then I began crying in earnest. ‘If you keep me here, closeted away with you, it’s murder. What’s wrong with you? Are you so selfish that you don’t care about the Faiaite people going hungry because you won’t rise? Don’t you care about useless acres of crops where nothing is growing and everything is dying? Don’t you care that Demeter is grieving and venting her fury on Eronth? Why do you want to stay in the dark?’

There was no reply, only the sound of feet retreating and the click of the door. I collapsed into terrified sobs until finally I drifted into the healing arms of sleep.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I
was sprouting. A new shoot was forming from my being. Delicious sensation! What joy! I pushed my shoot from me so quickly, poking it through my kernel with no conscious control. A tiny green tip, a new life. I wound through the soil. Moving and weaving so gracefully, so awkwardly. I sought the light and then I was through! The light and the sun were so nourishing, I swayed slightly in surprised delight. Another shoot erupted from the centre of my being and pushed through the soil eager to join the first. The Stag Man was above the ground. I quivered in ecstasy at his nearness. Yes, he was the sun who brought me to life. Gently his hands stroked my burgeoning foliage, so tender, so new. Then over me he sowed seeds as he hummed a particular mantra (I would remember the meaning later). The seeds fell onto me, dropped down into the soil . . .

When I awoke I realised with empty grief that I was still in the underground. My head ached from the lack of air. In my hands I held the seeds of my dream. Small, brown apple seeds. As I stared at them through the darkness they shone like precious jewels. Even as I watched they formed themselves into a pentacle. A smile of realisation crept over my face as I folded the seeds into a handkerchief. So he had been here . . . he was aware I was in the underground. My eyes could now dimly make out forms and shapes.

Stumbling over to one of the darkest corners, I relieved myself, hoping I wasn’t voiding on anything of importance. Then I settled back down onto the hard earth, reflecting on the meaning of the apple seeds. When the meaning became obvious I laughed aloud. Now all I had to do was convince Persephone to take them!

*

‘You look so beautiful tonight.’

Hades kept his voice low, sensing that she had been disturbed by his prior outbursts. He was quivering — what a fool he was, but she never failed to affect him in this way. The adoration, the craving he felt for her only seemed to increase with every dinner that they shared.

His heart squeezed, as if she held it in her tiny hands. How he loathed himself for displaying his weakness, his vulnerability to her, she who did not seem to reciprocate.

He leaned toward her, hoping that she was admiring his beauty. Hoping that his breath was not stale from the meal that they had just shared. ‘My love is as boundless as the sea,’ he intoned solemnly. ‘My love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.’

She looked at him blankly.

‘Shakespeare, a Bluite poet,’ he said, suddenly wishing that he hadn’t given in to the impulse. She did not share his taste for literature. He felt exposed, afraid, slightly drunk.

She did not seem to share his taste for anything, he thought sourly, inwardly attempting to control his feelings. He had tried to introduce her to the great works of literature. He had tried to share his love of poetry, but she always demanded outward stimulation. Perhaps their differences were the attraction between them.

Damn, why didn’t she make this easier for him! He was hopeless at displaying feelings! Why did his little Queen have to toy with his heart so mercilessly?

Persephone stared at Hades across the enormous wooden dining table. Tonight he had not been the most amiable companion, roaring at the servants for their poor service and finally dismissing them with a torrent of curses. He was always in the foulest of tempers after Ishran and Sati departed. It was as though the evil that the couple generated transferred itself to Hades.

The table was laden with fermented and smoked meats and cheeses and fruits, but neither of them appeared to eat. Food was not necessary for sustenance in the underground. Persephone sipped her grape juice slowly, half-convinced that Ishran drugged her wine to keep her more under his control. She grimaced at the chalky taste. Time moved slowly over dinner. They may have sat there for minutes or eternities; it all meant the same in the underground. Finally his tongue broke the silence again.

‘In the Overworld they are celebrating Salhmain soon. I have a lot of work to prepare.’

Shocked, Persephone stammered, ‘How can that b-b-be? I haven’t risen!’

Hades slapped his knee and roared with laughter, although his heart seemed to stop with the mention of the word ‘risen’. ‘Do you think those simpleton Faiaites care whether you have risen or not?’ He shook his head as if in pity at her naïveté. All the while he was admiring her profile. Sati might be a dark temptress, but in contrast, Persephone was light. Her purity and beauty easily eclipsed that of the Azephim Queen.

Why did he have to feel such a wrenching of his heart at even the thought of Persephone rising again? Why did she never seem to care? He longed to wound her with his words, his indifference, for not appearing to love him as much as he adored her. ‘All the Faiaites want is their festivals! A day off work to fill their mouths with good food that the underground provides. A night to fill their wives and servant girls with their pricks and sing to any old gods that take their fancy! They don’t care if you’re there or not, sweet child! You’re not essential, nor are you missed! Don’t forget you’re just a goddess! A meaningless symbol of a time that is passing, thank the Gods!’

Persephone watched him unblinkingly as she sipped her wine slowly. ‘Emma assures me it is the opposite. I am indeed missed. She claims there is famine in the land of Faia as a consequence of my failure to rise.’

She wished she had not spoken when a scowl darkened his handsome features and he jerked his chalice onto the table, spilling blood-red wine all over the cloth.

‘Emma!’ he roared. ‘What the hell would that damned Bindisore bitch know! Worse than that, the bitch is a Bluite! Not even a Bindisore, but a Bluite! What the hell would that miserable, doomed crossbreed know of affairs in Faia? I ask you!’

Persephone lowered her eyes, but deciding she would push him further, she ventured, ‘She is close to the goddesses. A particular favourite of Artemis, I hear.’

She was in the habit of conversing with a willow tree, communing with its roots to learn all the news from Faia that Ishran would normally censor. At the mention of Artemis, Hades frowned. He hated having to deal with the goddesses at any time but an Artemis seeking vengeance for the retrieval of her silver garter would be an awesome spectacle indeed.

‘You spend too much time with the Crossa, Persephone. It doesn’t do to get too attached to your little pets. A fatal mistake. You know how upset you get when they die.’ He shook his head, still touched by the memory of when her last toy had died. His love had keened for so long that frost had begun to form in the underground.

Persephone shivered. She was still haunted by the sadness of memories of Crossas who had died in her arms, begging to be released back to their world and their families. A tear fell down her cheek and Hades reproached himself, his anger fading. He hated to see his Queen upset.

‘Emma won’t die, will she?’ Persephone sobbed.

Caught between a lie and a truth, Hades hesitated. The hesitation was her answer. Choking with tears, Persephone ran from the room. Hades heard a door slam and loud sobs from her bedchamber. Moodily he sipped his wine, wondering if it was worth all the trouble to keep Persephone underground. She needed constant stimulation and could be very jealous if he paid attention to other women. She had gone through so many pets that he feared an investigation by the Dreamers.

Hecate had virtually set up permanent camp in the underground. Yet the undeniable truth remained that he imprisoned his Queen here and spent most of his days scheming how he could manipulate her into staying longer because he was madly, desperately, in love with her. Since she had been in the underground he had rutted with many other women but they failed to move him the way Persephone touched his heart.

From the fateful moment he had spied her, filled with youth and joy and beauty, he had longed to be with her always. Maudlin tears filled his eyes when he thought of her rising. Every spring the light went from his life when she rose slowly through the soil and re-emerged back into the Overland.

Then he would spend those lonely, dark days of silence without her, joylessly having other women, overeating food that he never tasted, drinking wine he couldn’t enjoy, and always listening for the cry of her return, when she would fall through the soil toward him, fulfilling the sacred contract at the season’s end.
I am an old fool
, he thought.
The Dreamers have me by the balls. I am a figure of fun among the goddesses, and despised in Faia because of their damn crops and rituals.

This season he knew the tide of public contempt against him was at an all-time high because he had never before managed to restrain Persephone in the underground for this length of time. It was worth it, he thought defiantly. Even having to do business with the likes of Ishran was worth it for those precious extra moments with Persephone.

As the sounds of sobs from Persephone’s chamber showed no sign of abating, but rather increased in volume, he frowned. He had been looking forward to lying in his Queen’s arms but bitter experience had taught him that when Persephone was in a depressed mood she was best left alone. His groin stirred as he remembered the dark sultriness of Sati and the musky smell of sex that hung over her — perhaps the Crossa? It seemed so long since he had moved inside a woman’s body. No, he decided, Emma would have to conserve her energy if she was to live long enough to deliver the Chosen One. Besides, he told himself, women with the smell of the Blue Planet on them failed to arouse him. The truth was he was afraid of Emma and the connection she had to the Webx race. He stared into his wine listlessly, remembering again that first glorious moment he had spied his Persephone.

He had sensed her through the underground, felt the vibration of the earth alter as she walked upon it. When he had first seen the maid with her waist-length, dark-blonde hair, her pale-blue gown and her tiny shell-like feet, he had fallen hopelessly in love. True, he had abducted other females before, dragged them screaming into the underground, but he had never felt his heart chakra opening so rapidly, so painfully, as it had opened when he had first spied the maiden in the sunlit meadows of Nysa. (Later all cultures in the known worlds would claim the abduction had occurred in meadows of their own kind.)

The maiden captured his heart effortlessly and when she stopped to admire a beautiful narcissus, eyes closed to appreciate the sweet perfume, Hades had seized his opportunity.

With a lusty roar that startled the villagers and animals for miles, Hades had sprung from the soil, grabbed the shocked Persephone and they had descended together to the Underworld.

Now he sat at the table, finishing his cold supper alone and feeling increasingly irritated by the sobbing from behind Persephone’s door. When she had first entered the underground she had sobbed just like this. She had cried until he could hear her retching, calling for her mother in between bouts of vomiting. Gradually, however, she had settled down and he had been able to make her smile, make her laugh. Thanks to the bargain he had made with the accursed mother Demeter, Hades could only have his love underground for a third of the year. The result was that her love for Hades had taken longer to develop than it might have done otherwise.

Nevertheless, her love for him had grown and he had noted with pride the spark in her eyes when the barren winter months signalled her return to the underground. Yes, Hades reasoned, studying his reflection in the golden surface of the chalice, he had been justified in breaking the contract made with Demeter. One third of the year underground was not time enough for lovers . . . Persephone was his wife, she was his Queen, and she had taken the pomegranate seeds. Subconsciously, perhaps, she had wanted to live underground with him.

As he heard the sounds of sobs gradually ease he smiled gratefully, draining his juice. Now her mood had improved he might be able to claim his marital rights. It seemed an eternity since he had thrust inside her body. Increasingly, those were the moments that he lived for.

I am an old fool
, he reproached himself.
How much longer can I go on like this? Loving something too much, knowing what you love more than anything doesn’t return your ardour in the same way. I should run from here, put as much distance between my Queen and myself as I can! You poor fool, Hades! May the wind put my fire out, and the earth bring me sweet release, for she will only bring me torment with her sweet, simple ways, her innocence. But look at all that you have done for her, you vacillating fool!. She holds you in her soft hands, her scented breath! She plays with you like a kitten with a mouse, like she plays with one of her doomed toys! You have given up so much for your Queen! You risked your entire position in Eronth when you dragged her into the underground!

No
, he told himself, feeling the urge to put his head down and sob like a small child.
Don’t go to her chambers tonight. Be aloof! Don’t beg her for what she should give willingly.

Sweet Goddess, don’t let him have to hear the word ‘rising’ again. There was only so much that he could take.

He rose, and began pacing the room. He could relax, sit with a book and read, or perhaps call for more wine and get himself rolling drunk. An image came to him: Persephone in her room, unbuttoning her dress, unrolling her hair. Looking small and lost, sitting in her huge bed. Eyes wide, looking around, afraid of the dark, of the shadows.

He should go to her, hold his little Queen. Not to open her legs, of course, but to keep her night memories at bay. To inhale the fresh odour of her hair that always smelt of the overground. To feel her perfect breasts against his chest . . .

Temptation wrestled with him, and won. His long shadow approached her chamber.