But she was not dead; she was still moving through the fiery darkness alone; but there was a voice heard through the thrumming of the drums, which went on until her whole head was ringing with it.
Now you are in My kingdom, and this is the third and final
Gate of the Underworld. Here there is nothing left to you but your life. Will you lay that down as well to serve Me?
Kassandra thought madly, I can't imagine what good my life would be to Her, but I've come so far, I won't turn back now. She thought that she spoke aloud, but a part of her mind insisted that she made no sound, that speech was an illusion, like everything else which had happened to her on this journey - if it was indeed a journey and not a curious dream.
I will not turn back now, even if it means my life. I have given all else, take this as well, Dark Lady.
She hung senseless in the darkness, shot through with fire, surrounded by the rushing sound of wings.
Goddess, if I am to die for you, at least let me once behold your face!
There was a little lightening of the darkness; before her eyes she saw a swirling paleness… from which gradually emerged a pair of dark eyes, a pallid face… she had seen the face before, reflected in a stream… it was her own. A voice very close to her whispered through the drumming and the whining flutes:
Do you not yet know that you are I, and I am you?
Then the rushing wings took her, blotting out everything. Wings and dark hurricane winds, thrusting her upward, upward toward the light, protesting, but there is so much more to know…
The winds were ripping her asunder; a lightning-flash revealing cruel eyes and beaks, rending, tearing—it was as if something alien flowed through her, filling her up like deep dark water, crowding out all thought and awareness. She looked down from a great height on someone who was and at the same time was not herself, and knew she looked on the face of the Goddess. Then her tenuous hold on consciousness surrendered, and, still protesting, she fell into an endless silent chasm of blinding light.
Someone was gently touching her face.
"Open your eyes, my child."
Kassandra felt sick and weak, but she opened her eyes to silence and cool damp air. She was back in the cavern… had she ever left it? Her head was pillowed in Penthesilea's lap; the older woman's face was blurred with such a halo of light that Kassandra shielded her eyes with her hands and blurted out, "But you—you are the Goddess—" and was silent in awe before her kinswoman. Her eyes hurt and she closed them.
"Of course," the older woman whispered, "and so are you, my child, never forget that—"
"But what happened? Where am I? I was—"
Penthesilea quickly covered Kassandra's lips with a warning hand.
"Hush; it is forbidden to speak of the Mystery," she said. "But you have come far indeed; most candidates go no further than the First Gate. Come," Penthesilea murmured, "come."
Kassandra rose, stumbling, and her kinswoman steadied her.
The drums were silent; only the fire and a thin wailing. Now she could see the flute player, a thin woman hunched behind the fire. Her eyes were vacant and she swayed faintly as if in ecstasy; but the fire and the flute at least had been real. In a circle around them, about half the maidens still lay entranced, each watched over by one of the older priestesses. There were vacant spaces in the circle. Penthesilea urged her to make her way carefully, touching no one, toward the entrance of the cavern. Outside it was raining, but from the dim twilight she could tell that the day was almost over. The drops of rain felt icy and clean on her face. She felt sick and fiercely thirsty; she tried to catch rain in her hands and sip the drops, but Penthesilea led her through a door she vaguely remembered seeing, and then she was in Imandra's lamp-lit throne room, where the magical journey had begun. She still walked carefully, as if she were a fragile jar filled to the brim with alien wine which would spill if she made a careless movement. Queen Imandra came from somewhere and embraced her, clasping her tightly in her arms.
"Welcome back, little sister, from the realms where the Dark One walked with you. Your journey was long, but I rejoice for your safe return," said the Queen. "Now you are one with all of us who belong to Her."
Penthesilea said, "She passed all three Gates."
"I know," Imandra answered. "But this Initiation was long delayed. She is priestess-born, and it is late for her."
She stood back and took Kassandra by the shoulders as her mother might have done. "You look pale, child; how are you feeling?"
"Please," said Kassandra, "I am so thirsty." But when Penthesilea would have poured her some wine the smell sickened her and she asked for water instead. It was clear and cold and relieved her thirst, but like everything she would eat or drink for many days, it had a pervasive slimy-fishy taste.
Imandra said, "Be sure to notice what you dream this night; it will be a special message from Earth's daughter." Then she asked Penthesilea, "You will be returning south soon, now you have her word?"
"As soon as Kassandra is able to ride, and Andromache prepared to return with her to Troy," answered the Amazon Queen.
"Be it so," Imandra said. "I have readied Andromache's dower, and many to travel with her. And for our young kinswoman, the priestess, I have a gift."
The gift was a serpent; a small green one very like Imandra's own, but no longer than her forearm and about as thick as her thumb. Kassandra thanked her, tongue-tied.
Imandra said softly, "A suitable gift from priestess to priestess, child. She is hatched from an egg of one of my own serpents; and besides, what else should I do with her? Give her to Andromache, who would flee from her? I think she will be happy to travel south with you in that beautiful pot, and to serve with you at the shrine in Troy."
That night Kassandra lay long awake, troubled at the thought of what she might dream; but when she fell asleep she saw only the rain-washed slopes of Mount Ida, and the three strange Goddesses; and it seemed that they struggled with one another, not for Paris's* favour, but for hers, and for Troy.
CHAPTER 14
They set forth in carts as clumsy and slow as the tin wagons, laden with gifts for Troy and many of the treasures of Colchis, gifts from the Queen to her Trojan kindred, Andromache's bride-gifts and dowry; weapons of iron and bronze, bolts of cloth, pottery and gold and silver and even jewels.
Kassandra was unable to imagine why Queen Imandra was so eager to have her daughter allied with Troy, and even less able to imagine why Andromache was willing - no, eager—to go along with it. But if she must return to Troy she was glad to have with her something of the wide world she had discovered here.
Also she had come to love Andromache; and if she must part from Penthesilea and the women of the tribe, at least she would have with her one true friend and kinswoman in Troy.
The journey seemed endless, the wagons crawling day by day at a snail's gait across the wide plains, moon after moon fading and fulling as they seemed no nearer to the distant mountains. Kassandra longed to mount and ride swiftly at the side of the Amazon guards, leaving the wagons to follow as best they could; but Andromache could not, or would not ride, and fretted at being alone in the wagons; she wanted Kassandra's company; so, reluctantly, Kassandra accepted the confinement and rode with her, playing endless games of Hound and Jackal on a carved onyx board, listening to her kinswoman's simple-minded chatter about clothing and jewellery and hair ornaments and what she would do when she was married - a subject which Andromache found endlessly fascinating (she had even resolved on names for the first three or four of her children) - till Kassandra thought she would go mad.