The Descent (36 page)

A dark frown creases Adair’s face, his brow. “Why, then, I tell you, your system is already spoiled. I can never be close to her again, never. We will always be at each other’s throats.”

“Oh, don’t be so unreasonable. You’ve always been so dramatic—but then, I guess it is your nature. That’s the reason you were chosen for this position, you know. You were tailor-made for it, given to impatience. We knew you’d be perfect for it—your sister, too—and that you were made to rule together. Who else could we pair you with, anyway? You were both so troublesome, so argumentative. No one else would have you, either of you.” The old man chortled to himself, amused by his memories. “Anyway, as I was saying, it doesn’t matter if you can’t stand each other. Few of us can, you know. Husbands and wives—it just works out that way. Think of the old fellow, the one who ruled the underworld before you. Hades and his wife, Persephone. She couldn’t stand the sight of him. Eventually, she came around—enough to tolerate him, anyway. And they ruled a good long time. It’ll happen that way for you, too. You’ll see.”

Adair feels despair fill his chest. He’d promised to obey the old man’s decision and yet he knows he won’t be able to bear it.
“No, it won’t be all right. I’m telling you, it won’t work out. You see, I’ve fallen in love.”

Now it is the old man’s turn to go dark. His expression is as frightening as a thundercloud. “So I’ve heard. A human? They are sweet diversions, my son, but you know that never works. Not in the long run.”

“She’s extraordinary. She’s changed my nature. I’m not the same soul I once was. I’m not all hellfire and damnation. To be honest, I don’t think I can do it anymore.” Adair gives him an imploring look. “If you’re afraid that someone too tenderhearted will mess things up—well, that’s me. I’ve become empathetic.”

The old man laughs and lifts an eyebrow. “You’re joking, aren’t you? She’s tamed you, you say?” He looks Adair over. “She sounds extraordinary,” the old man says finally.

Adair claps a hand to his shoulder. His mind goes to the room where he’s put Lanore, and he lets the protections unwrap and slide away, like a dust cover falling to the floor, so the hidden room can be seen, so that it becomes real. “She is. I would be honored if you would meet her for yourself.”

The place where Adair has left me is lonely. It looks like an ordinary room. It has four walls, a ceiling, a floor, and furniture. It even has a door. But I know that it’s different. For one thing, it feels like an elevator, like a small, finite space shut up on itself. It feels disembodied, as though it’s floating in space. I can only imagine what his sister might do to me if she was able to catch me—still, I pleaded with Adair to stay. “Don’t leave me,” I said as he was preparing to go. I even grabbed at his shirt,
but he pried my fingers gently from the fabric. He explained to me that I would be safe, that he would be able to wrap me in spells and protections so that no one, not even she, would be able to find me. “I have to see the god above us all.” He tried his best not to seem worried in front of me. “I don’t know what sort of mood he’ll be in. I defied him when I chose to leave. He doesn’t usually stand for that sort of thing, and he’s not the forgiving type.” He kissed my hand and then walked out the door.

What he meant to tell me, in so many words, is that the outlook for us is not good. The odds are that this deity will not decide in our favor. I suppose under a relatively benign outcome, Adair would remain here and resume his reign. If things go really badly, I imagine Adair could be punished for disobeying the god in charge, sentenced to something really horrible and long-lived like the fate of Prometheus, who had his liver torn out every day by eagles as punishment for sharing fire with humans. I pass the time pacing in circles, trying not to surrender to worry, but I’m so nervous that my teeth are chattering.

I’m startled when there’s someone at the door. It’s Adair, and he gives me a faintly encouraging smile before stepping aside to hold the door open for a tall old man.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” I say to them, though I’m so unnerved that I’m surprised I can joke.

Instinctively I know who this man is—God. There’s no mistaking him: he’s dressed the part in luxuriant robes the exact color of the moon, but even if he weren’t outfitted like this, even if he didn’t have long hair and the beard, there would be no mistaking him. He projects a certain air, calm and
all-knowing, though he has a hint of a darker nature (vengeful, wrathful), too, a side that is reflected in Adair.

“Lanore, come here,” Adair says. He takes my hand when he sees that I’m unable to move, my feet frozen to the floor. “There’s someone I want you to meet.” The only way I can become unstuck is by telling myself that this man isn’t God but Adair’s father, that I’m not meeting the force behind all of creation but a member of Adair’s family—as though that on its own isn’t frightening enough. The air is absolutely electric, like the seconds before the break of a huge, juddering thunderstorm. Imagine a thunderstorm stuffed into a space as small as your drawing room. Yet the three of us go on pretending that nothing’s out of the ordinary.

I don’t know what to say, what to do, if I should take his hand or drop to my knees in worship. Instinct kicks in and I start to ask if he’d like something to drink before I realize I have nothing to offer, and have no idea what kind of refreshment to offer God, anyway. I become completely self-conscious, remembering that he most likely knows all the terrible, stupid things I’ve done, which causes me to flush with embarrassment and regret. I’m literally meeting my maker and it is every bit as awful as you might think it would be.

“He’s told me so much about you,” the old man says as he gestures to Adair, then settles onto the couch, arranging his robes around him.

I want to say something witty back—believe me, when you’re in the presence of God, you want to impress him—but I can think of nothing to say. Nothing. My mind goes blank, as though someone has pulled a plug at the back of my skull and let all of my intelligence drain away. My mouth struggles
to form a word: nothing. Adair, patient, takes my hand to steady me.

Finally, I blurt out, “He’s told me nothing about you.” Well, it’s true.

Nonplussed, he just nods his head. I suppose he’s used to people saying stupid things when they first meet him. He pats the spot on the couch next to him, indicating that I should join him.

God works hard to put me at ease. He tells me about the origin of things: how he got the idea for cellular structure and waveforms and black holes, then goes on to explain why the giraffe has its long neck and the dodo went extinct. “It’s all connected, you see. It all comes out of one calculation, like one gigantic formula,” he says of his greatest creation, the universe. “That’s the beauty of it. Once you set it in motion, there’s no stopping it. Each step is inevitable; it all must play itself out,” he finishes, and looks expectantly at me, as though he thinks that I understand his grand plan. As if—just like that—I am able to absorb the secret of creation and life, mysteries that have eluded the greatest minds since the dawn of civilization. God has just told me the thread on which all of life hangs—and I’ve forgotten it. In my panic, I’ve lost it.

Both Adair and God know that this is all beyond me. I’m blowing it, this audience with God, and the truly frightening part is that Adair’s and my future happiness might depend on it. What if God is judging right now whether to grant Adair his freedom based on my reactions? What if God condemns Adair to the underworld for eternity because I am not good enough or smart enough for him, because I don’t know how to behave or what to say?

They are staring at me, waiting for me to say something. I take a deep breath to steady my nerves and press my palms against my legs. Exhale.
Try not to think of him as God,
I tell myself.
Think of him as Adair’s father
. A smile comes naturally to my lips and I turn to him. “Tell me what Adair was like as a little boy,” I say. “If he ever was a little boy. I want to know everything about him.”

There is a hint of delight in God’s smile, as though he has been waiting a long time for someone to ask him this very question.

By the time God rises from the couch to bid us farewell, we have drunk our way through a tray of tea that magically appeared, and I’ve heard a half dozen stories of things Adair did in an earlier time, and it is quite apparent that God is very fond of Adair. As a matter of fact, Adair might be one of God’s favorites. “A pleasure,” God says to me as we part at the door. Adair gestures for me to wait a minute and then slips out the door behind him.

Adair spent the entire audience watching Lanore proudly. She would make a good queen—fair, kind, empathetic—but not, perhaps, of the underworld. He remembers some of the things he was forced to do as the king of the dead, judgments handed down, punishments meted out to obstinate souls who swore on their innocence even as they were sucked into the cold black maw of the cosmos or consigned to roast in eternal fire, or were sent to another, equally heartless fate. As one who is guilty of bending or breaking rules in order to survive on earth, Lanore is too forgiving to be queen. As one who has committed thousands
of heartless acts during his time on earth, Adair flinches at the thought of returning to his throne and passing judgments on others. He’s not hypocritical enough to think he has any right to condemn his fellow sinners. Perhaps there’s a good reason why only a god sits on the throne here. You can’t have been mortal and do this job.

In fact, Adair cannot even see Lanore choosing to
remain
in the underworld, let alone be queen. He remembers Persephone, the last queen: she may have reconciled herself to living in the underworld, but she was never happy. A strange deal had been worked out with the old man, where Persephone was allowed to leave her husband and return to the world for six months of every year. If she didn’t have those months to look forward to, she probably would’ve willed herself to die, Adair thinks. It just goes to show that the old man isn’t heartless. There might still be a way. He wouldn’t want Adair, his favorite, to die of unhappiness.

Which happens. Even gods don’t live forever, and they know it. The most determined ones will last a long time, for as long as a giant red sun, even longer. But the sad ones and the unhappy ones, they find a way to short-circuit their lives. Or disappear from the ranks suddenly, no explanations given, a replacement dug up from somewhere, a hasty appointment made.

Out in the hall, once the visit is over, the old man throws his arm around Adair’s shoulders affectionately. “You’re right—she’s a lovely woman. I can see why you want to keep her.”

Adair tugs on his thin beard. “I want more than to keep her,” he says shyly. “I want to have children with her. . . . I will die without her.”

“How human you have become,” the old man says—and he doesn’t mean it in a good way. The gods think themselves above men. To be human is to be weak and concerned only about one’s self.

“I served you well in this position for a time, and you know it,” Adair reminds him. He has to be careful; he can’t risk making the old man mad at him. He needs the power above them all to release both him and Lanore from the underworld, as he’s the only one who can. Adair knows they would not make the journey through the abyss.

He needs the old man, but at the same time, his famously short temper is burning up like a lit fuse. “You’ve always said that this is the hardest job in all the heavens. I’ve done my share: now is your chance to prove your generosity by granting my release.”

“And what about your sister?” the old man counters wearily. “One could argue that she’s served me more faithfully than you.
She
never ran away.
She
held down the fort while you shirked your responsibilities. Why shouldn’t she be the one to get what she wants?”

“You’re right; I left my post, but I did so out of principle. I could not wed my sister. And now I have fallen in love. Haven’t you always said that love is your most perfect creation? That of all the things you made for man, love was your crowning gift? Why should only men be allowed to fall in love? Why should your greatest gift be reserved for men and not shared with the gods? You cannot fault me for falling in love. My sister is good and acting out of duty, but she isn’t in love with me. Give her the chance to fall in love, too.”