He ran into the temple chamber yowling in triumph, ready to fight.
There were two humans there. An old woman with long white hair, unconscious and crumpled on the floor. And a baby—dying, by the smell of it.
He could feast later. The shaman's nose told him there had been three. He quested for that third, to rend, to kill, with the magical energies in this place growing around him. To his eyes the place was full of sheets of green light.
She wasn't here—yet she had not left.
The shaman gave a half-vulpine, half-canine sort of shrug and began the ritual to call his master's physical presence here.
* * *
It was as if all solid things had become shadows. Maria, with the almond in her hand, her firm chin up and heart hammering, walked down steps of light set into the shadow.
She could not have said how long she walked, but she came at length to a great hall. At the far end were two thrones. A tall man stood up from the left-hand throne and walked toward her, palms out. On his right hand rested the other half of the almond. A tall man, made of shadows, as the Mother had been made of light. Shadows, but not evil—the restful shadows of twilight, the dark before dawn. And yet, she sensed there was a great deal concealed by those shadows, and she willed them away.
"Greetings, bride." He seemed to be looking through to the inside of her. He did not seem to notice that his concealment was melting until he stood before her unveiled. "Your spirit is very beautiful."
He was black-haired and gray-eyed; lean, pale, grim-looking. She set her jaw. Just because she had agreed to this, did not mean she was going into it blindly. Oh, no. All right, the marriage with Umberto, not unlike this one, had worked out—but she'd known Umberto, hadn't she? This—Person—she knew nothing at all about. So before she took the last irrevocable step, she had to know. She would do it, yes, but she still had to know.
"Just exactly who are you?" she demanded. "Husband," she added, as an afterthought.
It took the man aback. In fact, he literally stepped back a pace.
"You are a willing bride?" The pale-visaged man showed both surprise and a hint of doubt.
Maria nodded, feeling completely out of her depth, and brusque with it. "Yes, of course I am. The priestess said that without a bride the Mother could only resist, passively. That without a bride you would not intercede. Look," she continued, in growing irritation, "my baby was dying. My friends are dead or dying. The man I loved, Benito Valdosta, is dead. I was too proud to tell him that I loved him, and now he's dead. The whole island is dying. Somebody had to do something, so I said I would do it. I knew I had to be willing and I had to be fertile, of childbearing age. I didn't know I had to know all about it."
Just like a man! Assuming, she supposed, that because things had always gone a particular way, they always would go that way! Just proving Gods could be as dense and intransient as humans.
"I'm a new acolyte, and somehow or other nobody got around to telling me what I'm supposed to be doing. The priestess assumed I knew everything already, I suppose, and I assumed she'd tell me sometime and never got around to asking. I knew that to take up the almond, to become the bride, meant I would die. But if that was what it took to get you to help, I was willing. You are going to help us, aren't you?"
Perhaps that last came out a bit aggressively, but—oh, stupid man-God! Why was He just standing there, as if none of this mattered to Him? Was He going to act, or not?
He seemed altogether startled, now. "It is not that I did not wish to help. It is just that I cannot. My only connection with the Mother is through her embodiments. You are the embodiment of the Mother. The things above the earth are hers only. I have no power there, but I can lend my strength. I always have willingly given my help to my Mother."
Maria was now more confused than she'd been before. "I don't understand," she repeated. "Just who are you?"
He blinked, slowly. "I am the Lord of the underworld. Aidoneus is the name I am sometimes given."
"The devil?" He didn't seem evil. Just distant.
He shook his head in violent negation, the first time he'd shown any sign of emotion. "No! Shaitan's realms are elsewhere, and I want none of his kind of darkness." He spread his hands, as if in apology. "The spirit world is a complex place. All things are possible here. And none."
Well, that was certainly unhelpful. It was like arguing with Eneko Lopez. "It all seems to be shadows," she said doubtfully.
He nodded, more certain. "This has been called Shadowkeep, at times. And Hades, which is nothing like Hell. More often, simply the realm of the dead. Some of the dead leave here to go on to other realms, but all are here at least for a time. Time is meaningless to the dead. Of course, you are not dead, so you are not outside of time."
She wrinkled her forehead. She thought the point of this was that she died; this was getting more confusing by the moment. "So am I not dead?"
He shook his head. "No. Only a living one can be the living embodiment of life. One day you will die, but you are not destined to do so for many years. You will stay down here and be my wife. And the Mother Earth will be fertile and grow, because I can lend Her my strength."
Stay here and be his wife? Was that what all this bride business was about? To be a real—wife? To a God? Or something—
Well, she'd accepted dying. And you could get used to anything.
She shook herself all over, and one thing swam up out of her sea of confused thoughts. Alessia. What was going on out there? Or up there? Or wherever "there" was?
"Alessia—my baby?" Surely the Lord of the Dead would know if Alessia was dead? Or if the Hungarians had broken through . . . there'd be many dead, including Stella.
He looked past her, his face gone indifferent again. "Your child is lying beside the sacred pool in the temple of the great Goddess. There is an evil creature of darkness, a cursed one, sniffing at her." He sounded as if it all meant nothing to Him. Actually, it probably didn't.
But she reacted with outrage. "But—but you're supposed to help! Renate was supposed to take her away! Why didn't she? She's not going to kill my baby, is she?"
He looked into the middle distance. He was plainly seeing things in the shadowy places. "The priestess lies within the portals of the underworld. She has expended too much opening the way."
Outrage was no proper word for what she felt now. All the sense of betrayal, all the despair, all the anguish that had brought her here welled up inside her and spilled out.
"You're supposed to help! You—you cold fish, you're supposed to be stopping all of this! That's the bargain! That's why I came here!" Maria knew she was screaming, although in this strange place it didn't seem so. The sound was curiously deadened.
He looked at her as if she was a child to whom he had already explained the situation. "I need to be asked. And death and life need to be joined so the circle can be complete."
"Well, I'm asking you. Do something! Now!" She stamped her foot. This sound too was faint and thin. More like the memory of a sound.
For the first time a flicker of expression ran across that cold face. It was hard to say what it was. But his voice was somehow warmer, more interested. "You remind me of my first wife. Kore was from before the humans came. She brought fire and light into this place. We had some terrible fights, as I recall. She also had a quick temper like yours." He sounded nostalgic.