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It was not as if Mriga was unprepared for the one she knew would be sitting there-the sweet young mistress of spring, who fell in love with the lord of the dead, and died of her love, the only way to escape heaven and rule hell by his side. But all Mriga's preparation now proved useless. Of all things in hell, only she wore white: a maiden's robe, radiant even in the sad light of the braziers. Beneath the maiden veil her beauty was searing, a fire of youth, a thing to break the heart, as Siveni's was-but there was no healing in it for the broken one afterward. Hell's Queen sat proud in the throne, cool, passionless, and terrible. She held a sword across her lap, but it was black of blade from much use; and the scales lay beside the throne, thick with dust. Hell had apparently made its Queen over in its own image, depriving her even of the passion that was the reason she had come ... and, like those she ruled, she was resigned to it. Mriga suddenly understood that the frightful resignation on ghost-Razkuli's face was a family resemblance.

Mriga looked over at Ischade. The necromant stood quite composed with Tyr beside her, and gracefully, slowly bowed to the still woman on the throne. The gesture was respectful enough, but the air of composure still smelled of Ischade's eternal cool arrogance. Even here there's no dominating her, Mriga thought, annoyed, and admiring Ischade all over again.

"Madam Ischade," said hell's Queen. Her voice was soft and somber, a low voice and a rich one. There was no believing it had ever laughed. "A long time it is since you last came visiting. And you never before brought friends."

"They are on business, madam," Ischade said, her bearing toward the Queen as frank and straightforward as to anyone else she perceived as peer. "Siveni Gray Eyes, whom you may remember. And Mriga, a new goddess- perhaps the same as Siveni: They're working it out." A secret smile here. "And Tyr."

Tyr sat down, her tail thumping, and looked with interest at the Queen of hell.

She did not say "Welcome." She said, "I know why you've come. I tried to stop you, several times, through one or another of my servants. Whatever happens to you now is on your own heads."

She looked at them, and waited.

Mriga swallowed. Beside her Siveni said, "Madam, what price will you ask for Harran's soul?"

The Queen gazed gravely down at her. "The usual. The one my husband demanded of the gods for my return, and the gods refused to pay. The soul of the one who asks to buy."

Mriga and Siveni looked at each other.

"The law is the law," she said. "A soul for a soul, always. No god would trade his life for my freedom. And it's as well, for I did not want to leave."

Ischade's mouth curved ever so slightly.

"Why would I, after I went to such trouble to come here?" said the Queen. "I gave up being spring's goddess in favor of something more worthwhile. Shipri handles spring now." She was still a moment. "Besides, even Death needs love," said the Queen at last.

Mriga could think of nothing to say.

"So." She looked down at them, grave, patient. "Choose. Will you pay the price? And which of you?"

"I will," said Siveni and Mriga simultaneously. Then they stared at each other.

"Best two falls out of three," Mriga said.

"No! You cheat!"

"You mean, I fight all-out!"

Siveni swung angrily on the Queen of hell. But anger could not survive that gaze. After a second of it, Siveni turned and said to Ischade, "This is all your fault!"

Ischade said nothing.

A hand shot from behind Siveni and snatched her spear out of her grasp. Siveni whirled, but not before Mriga had executed a neat reverse-twirl of the spea. ^haft and was holding the sizzling head of it leveled at her heart. "Don't be an idiot," she said. "Harran needs you. And this town is going to need all the aggressive gods it can field on its own behalf in the next year or so, with Ranke dying on the vine and the Beysib and Nisibis pushing in from two different directions. I'm mortal enough to die successfully. And with me gone, you'll get all your attributes back. Siveni, let go-!"

"Harran's right, you are still crazy! Suppose when you die, the attributes are lost forever-confined down here! Then what happens to Sanctuary? Haven't you noticed that I've got the fighting attributes, but you've got the winning ones? "

There were two sets of hands on the spear-haft now, wrestling for control; and no matter what Siveni said, they were very evenly matched. Back and forth the two of them swayed. But, "Peace," said the Queen's low voice, and both of them were struck still. Only their eyes moved and glittered as they looked at her sidewise.

"I would see this paragon over whom goddesses contend," she said. "Skotadi."

Between Mriga and Siveni and the throne, darkness folded itself together into a shadow-shape like that Ischade had cut loose from the girl-corpse and Razkuli and Stilcho. It seemed a maiden's shadow, vague around the edges, wavering but lingering in the dark air like a compact smoke. "Fetch me the shade of a man who was called Harran," said the Queen. "He will be within the walls; he was buried today."

Skotadi swayed like blown smoke, bowing, and attenuated into the paler dark. The hold on Siveni and Mriga loosened, so they could stand up. But the spear was missing. The Queen was leaning it against one arm of her throne, and its head was dead metal, smoking gently in the braziers' gray light. "Since you cannot decide," the Queen said, "he shall."

As she spoke, Skotadi came into being again and bowed before the Queen. "Majesty," she said, "there is no such man within the gates."

Even Ischade looked surprised at that. "Impossible!" Siveni cried. "We buried him!"

The Queen turned dark eyes on her. "If my handmaid says he is not here, he is not."

Mriga was out of her reckoning. "If he's not here, where else could he be?"

"Heaven?" Siveni said, plainly thinking of all the way they'd come, possibly for nothing.

Ischade looked wry. "Someone from Sanctuary'!" she said.

"Everyone who dies comes here," said the Queen. "How long they stay, and what they make of this place while they're here, is their business. But very few are the mortals who don't have something to expiate before they move on. Still ..." She pondered for a moment, looking interested. Mriga thought back to that look of weary interest on Ischade's face, and hope woke in her. "There is only one other possibility."

Tyr leaped up, barking excitedly, and ran a little way toward the great door: then turned and barked again, louder, dancing from foot to foot where she stood.

"Burial enables one to pass the frontier," said the Queen. "It does not compel one to pass ..."

Tyr ran for the door, yipping. Mriga looked in shock at Siveni, remembering how Tyr hadn't wanted to get into the boat ...

The Queen rose from her throne. "Skotadi! My Lord's chariot." Siveni abruptly found herself holding her spear: It was working again, but seemed much subdued. "Madam, goddesses," said the Queen, "let us see where the little one leads us."

Somehow or other the door was only a few steps away this time. Outside it stood a great iron chariot with four coalblack chargers already harnessed, and Skotadi stood on the driver's side, holding the reins. They climbed in and Skotadi whipped up the horses.

The chariot rolled through the courtyard and out the gates in utter silence. Outside in the streets, the cries and lamentation became muted too, and finally ceased in astonishment and dread-for not in many a decade, Mriga's omniscience told her, had the underworld's Queen come out of her dark halls. The only sound was Tyr's merry barking ahead of them as she led the way.