Cybermancy (37 page)

The blood might be nothing more than magically charged ones and zeros, but the oath was as real as if I’d made it in the flesh. I felt the weight of geas settling on my shoulders. Such is the way of the mweb, which we enter in the soul. I handed the athame to Shara.

“Over to you.”

Pulling a cable from within her belly pouch, she plugged one end into the athame and the other into her nose. Inelegant, but oh well. Then she knelt and jabbed the blade deep into the hand on which we stood. The effect reminded me of e-mailing Shara out of Hades, a cartoonlike moment when the gorgon’s whole body collapsed in on the point where the athame went into her hand, like a giant balloon punctured by, and sucked up through, a straw. As she shrank, we were swiftly lowered to the ground until we stood alone on the island of rock.

“Well,” I said to Shara, “did it work?”

“Why don’t you come over here and find out, big boy?” Shara said in her best Mae West and winked at me. She was back!

“All right, but don’t tell Cerice.” I stepped up close and lifted her for a big old kiss, then set her back on her feet.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Very, very strange.
My other self spent a lot of time literally living within the mind of Necessity, and that’s going to take some getting used to. Huh.” An odd look crossed her face. “She did something very strange with Ahllan, something to keep her safe . . . I don’t understand it. But there’s a lot here I don’t understand. There’s also a good bit of Persephone’s programming still in here. Between the two I see why the other
me
was a bit crazed. The way Persephone’s code is pulling at me would be enough to send anyone around the bend all on its own. It keeps trying to force me to find a way for her to escape, even if it means destroying the universe. It’s like an itch I can’t scratch, and it’s getting worse fast.”

“Well then, let’s redeem my oath.”

“How?” she asked.

“By opening the trapdoor.
The island, that is.”

“Of course,” said Shara. “It’s so obvious it’s hard to see.”

She resized herself, becoming the gorgon in stature if not in feature. Lifting me up, she stepped onto the surface of the frozen sea, then turned and caught one edge of the island with her fingertips. Beneath was a smaller data set.
More orderly and less chaotic, something like a traditional circuit board only graven in light.
At various junctures were little hologramatic emblems.
A cloud with a lightning bolt.
A three-headed dog.
The planet Earth.
A Raven.

It took only a matter of seconds to locate the fire-eyed skull that denoted Hades. A line of chain connected it to a recess in the board. In the recess sat three seeds from a pomegranate. The rest of the fruit lay next to the globe of the Earth. Squatting, I reached for the seeds, lifted one.

Pain! Blinding, mind-numbing, soul-searing pain! The thorn tree was back, and it had brought a forest along for company. My hand jerked, and the seed dropped next to the recess. The pain went on, built even. As I groped for the seed, my fingertip touched the recess. The pain vanished, and I fell back on my heels. I looked down. Now the recess held two seeds and a tiny black feather. The third seed had returned to the pomegranate.

“Chaos and Discord,” I whispered.

“What?” asked
Shara.

“Apparently the recess has to be filled. If we free Persephone, someone has to take her place.”

“Shit,” said Shara.

“Yeah, and—” My head twisted involuntarily to one side, and I felt a burning in my cheek. My body had just taken one hell of a slap. “Something’s happening back in Hades! I’ve got to get back there, and quickly.”

I glanced at the board. There had to be some way to free her that didn’t involve getting stuck in Hades for three months of every year. I just needed time to figure it out—my head rocked the other way—time I simply didn’t have.

“Go!” said Shara.

“But—”

“Go! And take this.” Leaning forward and shrinking back to her normal size, she plugged one claw tip into the recess, freeing the feather. She handed it to me. “I think I’ve got an answer.”

“Cerice will—”

“Go!”

She pursed her lips and blew at me. In that place and time she must still have had some of the power of Necessity’s security system, because her breath hit me like a hurricane. Before I could argue further, I flew up into the air and through a patch of blackness above, popping out into the world of the mweb server. I wanted to turn back, but a third slap changed my mind. In the ever-mutable world of the mweb, changing shape was as easy as changing your mind, so I took on the form of the Raven once again and flew like the wind back to the place I had left my body.

Persephone was drawing back her arm to hit me again when I slid into my body and then, with it, out of my chair. Shaking my head, I met her eyes. Her pain had redoubled, but there was something else there as well.

“What did you do?” she asked, sounding breathless. “He’s coming, now. I can feel it in the pulse of the underworld. But I can also feel that his grip on me is looser. What’s going on?”

Before I could answer, the door of the office ceased to be, the dead wood decaying into dust in an instant. On the other side stood Hades, and the fire in his eyes was every bit as strong as the pain in Persephone’s.

Hades the place is not Hell, and Hades the god is not Lucifer, but he holds the black fire that withers souls in his keeping. It burned hot in his eyes as he crossed the threshold.

“You’re mine,” he said, letting the flame of his gaze fall on Persephone so that she flinched. A sob escaped her lips.

The heat touched me next as hot agony burned along the line that connected our eyes. I saw hate there, and fury, and a terrible, devouring sort of lust.

“She’s mine. And you will be.
Forever.
Death I will bring you, and as Death I will collect you, and though heat will bake you and flames burn you, never will Lethe’s sweet waters pass your parched lips. You will envy Prometheus.”

As he spoke I could feel the fire of his will eating away at my soul, pushing me already toward death, and fear filled me. Persephone stood then and stepped between us, breaking the link, and I sagged against the desk, my chin coming to rest inches from Shara’s laptop shape. I noticed words on the screen.

Type: “Escapee. Execute.”

There was a cursor prompt right after a big chunk of the programming language that Cerice had written for her dissertation.

Why?
I typed. Neither Cerice nor I ever used the “Execute” command anymore, preferring “Please,” which allowed the webgoblin freedom of choice in the question of a program run.

Trust me.

I did.
Escapee.
Execute
. Then I hit return.

Data flashed across Shara’s screen too fast for me to follow. It looked like a complete read-off of her memory, but I couldn’t tell for sure. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flickering and realized that whatever was happening within Shara was being mirrored on Hades’ monitor. But I didn’t have time to think about that, not with Hades himself on the spot.

Catching the edge of the desk, I pulled myself to my feet. Hades had crossed deeper into the room, coming to stand only a few feet from Persephone. The weight of his gaze had bowed her down, pushing her own eyes floor-ward. It was the first chance I had to really look at him.

He was dark, with black flame in his eyes, and thick black hair like billowing smoke. His frame was long and lean, and he looked hungry, with his bones too visible under his skin, a skeleton playing at being a man. If Zeus is thunder and lightning, bluster and brawn, Hades, his older brother, is smoke and shadow, a fire burning underground. He smiled as he took another step,
then
backhanded Persephone with a crack that suggested a broken cheekbone.

Without so much as a whimper, she crumpled to the ground. Now only a desk stood between me and the Lord of the Dead. Hades raised his hand. Dark flames streamed from his fingertips, reaching for that last shield. Where they touched, decay ate into the rich mahogany, points of dry rot racing outward like ants escaping a shattered hill. It was mesmerizing, and I watched as one long line of rot slid under the now blank monitor, making it sink and tilt. Only then did I think of Shara, reaching to catch her up. Halfway there, my hand stopped as suddenly as if I’d run it into a wall.

Her screen was black and empty, off and more than off. Her case had lost its shine, fading from true purple to mauve as it had when she’d been killed. I didn’t know what “Escapee” was
supposed
to do, but it was clear that Shara was no longer at home. Whether that meant I’d finally finished the task I’d set out to perform on my first trip here was something only time would tell. While I was still trying to decide what to do next, her mortal shell fell into the collapsing desk and vanished from sight. Dust puffed outward as the last bits of wood lost their structural integrity. Hades stepped forward, smiling still, his eyes level with my own.

The darkness within leaped between us, driving me to my knees. I might be a power now, but the Raven was no match for Death. I could feel my inner strength fading. I wouldn’t last long, and I knew it. But I refused to look away from his gaze. I would meet my own personal death eye to eye despite the terror in my heart, even if it hastened the outcome. Shadows closed in around the edge of my vision again, narrowing my view till all I could see was the dark fire. Soon, even that began to fade. I was dying. Blackness and . . .

Discontinuity.

The world rolled under me like the deck of a ship in strong winds. I realized I was lying facedown. Something had changed, though I had only the haziest idea of what. There had been a sound, a wild, wonderful, totally unexpected sound, and Hades had released me. What had it been?

Laughter?

That was it. The light ringing tones of pure living joy, a sound utterly alien to this land of dust and ashes. I didn’t understand. But I was alive still, and that meant I had to go on trying. My arms felt as heavy and dead as old logs, but I forced them to move, dragging my hands up beside my chest and pushing myself onto my knees again. What had become of Hades?

There he was, standing over Persephone, and the fires engulfed him now, a continuous sheet of black flame that wrapped around him like a shroud. But Persephone didn’t seem afraid. Didn’t even seem to notice him, looking through Hades rather than at him, and her eyes held . . . joy? That couldn’t be right, but it was. The pain was still there, would always be there, but it had been pushed down into the depths and Persephone was laughing. Laughing in a bright clear voice like a stream foaming over polished rocks on a sunny morning high in the mountains.

Hades tried to strike her again. But his hand passed through her face without touching it, and I realized that she was fading. Or perhaps
clarifying
would be a better word. I could see through her, but she didn’t look one iota less bright. Rather it was as though she were being transformed from flesh into light in a process that was accelerating steadily.

She turned to look at me then and paused in her laughter. “Thank you,” she said. And, “freedom,” though I could not hear that last word, only see the movement of her lips.

Then the light filled her, and she was the most beautiful thing in the world, perhaps in all the worlds. This is how she must have looked in the beginning, before her long imprisonment, and I cried for the joy of seeing her so. But the vision lasted only for an instant. Then she was gone, leaving me alone with Hades, who now turned his wrathful gaze full upon me.

But I was no longer afraid. Somehow, with Shara’s help and against the longest of odds, I had righted one of the oldest and harshest of wrongs in a universe full of them. Persephone was free. What better epitaph could anyone ask for? Now I could, and would, face Death with a smile. After all, I had triumphed over him once, and in a way that would echo down the long years into eternity. Even if I was doomed to fail, Hades would know he’d been in a fight.

The black fires shot from his fingertips. My clothes rotted around me, my blades rusted, and I actually felt my hair going gray. But this time I did more than stand and take it. I reached deep into the chaos at my core and reshaped myself, changing my hair back and clothing myself once again. Not with the court garb my grandmother demanded, but in the leathers of my own choosing. I had broken the chains that bound Persephone. I was the Raven and master of my own House, a child of Fate no longer.

But the fires fell on me again. This time the gray hair burned completely away and took some of my suddenly wrinkled skin with it. Arthritis blossomed in my joints, and my bones
creaked
as microscopic fractures raced through them like threads of lightning. I reached inward to tap chaos again, but the response was weaker now in my premature dotage. I knew, even as I started to renew myself, that the next round would kill me. This was not a battle I could win. Not this way, and probably not at all.

Then, as the old do more often than the young, I thought of those who had passed into Hades before me, and especially of those I had sent here.
Laric, the cousin that I had loved as a brother.
Moric, the cousin I had hated but would not have killed had I any choice at all. I wondered if Moric were here still, and whether I might meet him again and apologize. His death in the fires of chaos haunted me yet. Suddenly, on the edge of death, it also gave me an idea. It was a bad idea, and one that probably wouldn’t work, but as Melchior would have pointed out were he there to remind me, that wasn’t a big surprise.