As the weeks passed, Eurydice lost all sense of strangeness. She hardly noticed Aktaion’s scars or Sisyphus’ blasted skin or even Koios’ horrible mutilations. They all became friends, even, to her amazement, Hades and Persephone, who had a lively wit and often mixed in the general conversation with hilarious results. Eurydice also had work enough to make her feel useful: Twice, she was able to detect and eradicate the earliest stages of chrusos thanatos, before even a speck was visible to the eye; she Found a gang of outlaws who had terrorized some outer caves, although most of her Finding was lost children and trinkets and strayed pets—those were very strange creatures, indeed. In addition, she found a ready market for her spells, most especially those to instill appetite. Apparently, the food provided for the common folk was not as varied or as tasty as that which appeared on Hades’ and Persephone’s table and the ability to spell-cast was not as common as being Gifted. Eurydice was content. She was safe. She was home.
It was that word passing through her mind that brought her first twinge of regret. She had found a home at last, but she had lost Orpheus—who had lost her by seeking out his own home. She wiped away the tears that had flooded her eyes when she thought of him, and put the regret aside. If she were dead, they were lost to each other.
By then, however, Eurydice’s shock had abated, as had the fear and wonder generated in her when Hades took her or summoned her into the deep mines and great caverns of the underworld to Find for him. This time, when Orpheus came into her mind, she had slipped into a comfortable pattern and there was no bemusement or sudden shock of fear or delight to drive his image away. Suddenly she knew why, although she was safe and truly at home, she was not really happy. Then, for the first time, she felt true grief over being dead, being forever lost to her love. And, in the fresh, wrenching misery of her loss, she began to wonder if there were not some way to amend it, wondering if she could at least look forward to being reunited with her husband if he should die. The ache in her heart would not ease all afternoon and, at last, she went to Persephone with that question.
“Not unless he is sacrificed to Hades—or to me,” the queen replied, her eyes sad. “You must know that there could not be space in these caverns for the multitudes of dead. You who are sacrificed to us are set apart and dwell with us here in Plutos. The others go…elsewhere.”
“Then I wish to go to wherever that elsewhere is,” Eurydice cried.
“Not now,” Persephone said. “Not yet. It will be many years before Orpheus reaches that sad and empty place. Why should you wait for him there, where you will be no use to him, to yourself, or to anyone else? Why not pass the years here, where you do so much good? Would you have wanted poor Timon to die in agony behind that wall of rock, which he would have done had you not Found him. And what of the little babe you saved the very day you arrived? And what of poor Hades, who has enough grief on his soul without giving grace to babes? When the time is ripe, you will go to that elsewhere.”
“And find Orpheus?”
Persephone looked past her, her golden eyes dimmer than usual. “I do not know,” she whispered. “There are some things even the ‘gods’ do not know.”
There was an odd note in the queen’s voice when she said the word “gods.” It made Eurydice wonder whether Persephone believed that she and Hades were gods. Over the weeks that followed, other things made her wonder. Venturing too boldly near a pool of burning rock, Persephone burned her foot before Hades could snatch her back, and he brought her to Eurydice to Heal. Did gods get blisters on their toes? Eurydice wondered. It brought back all her doubts about why the dead bled when they were cut, why they needed to be Healed, to eat, to sleep, why they felt cold and heat?
Alert and filled with doubt now, Eurydice found more and more puzzles as time passed. She had put aside the question of why there were babes in Plutos. Children died in the upperworld, and she assumed they were given to underworld women to care for. Nor did women with swollen bellies seem impossible, as pregnant women died too. However, when a girl came to her and begged her for help in holding a child she had conceived, saying she had lost two before—that seemed really strange. How could the dead conceive?
Then one day Koios slipped and fell. Hearing him cry out, Eurydice rushed into the passage to help. She saw at once that he had done himself no serious damage and went to help him rise because she understood how distasteful to him it was to sprawl helplessly. And he was heavy, too heavy for her to lift! She ran for Hades, and watched, deeply puzzled, as the “god” strained to raise his fallen friend. Hades was not dead, she knew that, and knew also how strong he was. How could a dead wraith be so heavy that a “god” could not lift him easily?
Among all of them, Koios was the one she was most certain had died. His mutilations were dreadful; it seemed as if every bone in his body had been broken and had set wrong, even his neck. Yet he had considerable substance, if Hades’ effort was evidence, and Eurydice knew from her own experience that he was warm and solid. She was too. They all were. They were not dead!
Yet she and most others had been sacrificed to the King of the Dead… And then she remembered that one of the things that had frightened her most about the tales of the Greeks sacrificing their Gifted to the King of the Dead was that they were forbidden to kill them. The poor creatures were bound and carried or driven into certain caves where it was said that the dead seized them and drew them through the stone walls of the cave into the underworld.
Then she was not dead at all! She could go back to Orpheus!
She jumped up from her chair to seek the queen, and then stood frozen. Persephone would scarcely welcome the news that the secret of the underworld had been uncovered. What she had discovered might be dangerous. Hades and Persephone did not reign over the dead. They ruled the outcasts of the upperworld, and possibly of Olympus. If the others realized that they were not dead, would they not wish to return to the upperworld? Would Hades and Persephone be left rulers of nothing?
Eurydice sat down slowly again and thought about that, finding herself shaking her head. Surely she could not be the only one to have realized that she had entered the underworld alive. Likely there were guards and spells to prevent escape, but many would not want to escape. The caves were dark and cold, but what they had left behind was not a good life, as evidenced by the scars many bore. And for those born in the underworld, not only was it their familiar home, but the evidence of their eyes and ears given by parents and many newcomers must tell them that the outerworld was not kind to strangers or the Gifted. If life in Plutos was hard and dangerous, which it was for many, at least there was true justice and respect for their Gifts, whatever they were. They were not spat upon for witchcraft nor threatened with burning…
That brought back the memory of that last night? morning? in Orpheus’ village and the furious voice shouting she should be burnt. She shivered in her safe, dry chamber and wondered to what she would return, if she could obtain Persephone’s and Hades’ permission. Certainly not to the village. But where else could she find Orpheus? And now that his people had decided she was dangerous, they would give him no peace until he agreed to be rid of her. Fearful of her “return from the dead,” might they not even attack Orpheus if he tried to protect her?
That raised an even more painful question: Would he try to protect her? Was he not as bad as those who had raised him? He might love what he wanted her to be, but he did not love Eurydice the witch. He wanted to bind her to slavery, strip her of her Gifts. She bit her lip, remembering that even before the villagers had attacked her she had been planning to leave him. So what would she have in the upperworld? A dreadful, precarious life, all alone. Here she had friends and a secure home.
She buried deep the knowledge that she was alive, and went about her business, but the bloom of joy in her work and the acceptance of it had been lost. While she believed she was dead and that Orpheus was totally out of her grasp, much as she ached for him, it was an impossible dream. Now she knew that with clevernes
s and manipulation, it was barely possible that she might “return from the dead.”
Only she did not want to go back to the upperworld. By the time a second moon had passed, she had been introduced to the beauty and glories of the crystal caves, had come even closer to the folk among whom she lived. She had come to love the underworld, and Persephone said that soon she would be taken to a temple where she could worship her Goddess. But neither the ravishing beauty of her new world nor the warm friendship of its rulers and their people could cure her desire for Orpheus. As often as she put aside that longing as foolish and unhealthy, it returned stronger than ever.
Then she began to dream—strange dreams of Orpheus wearing a large pack and hurrying, hurrying, only at last to stand in wide-eyed awe—or fear—before…what? She could not tell what he saw because she was behind it, looking out at him. She woke weeping, reaching out for him, and wept again when she knew it was not a Finding but only a dream. But when she slept again she dreamed again. This time Orpheus was playing his cithara to one of the more horribly scarred “dead,” who walked before him carrying a torch.
When she woke and dried her tears, she tried to laugh at herself for dreaming what she desired. Her first impulse was to try to Find Orpheus, but she shrank away from that. Once when she was newly come to the underworld, she had sought him and Found. He was sitting on a stool near a richly draped, bearded man, just putting aside his cithara. When it was cased, he smiled up at a woman seated beside the man. Smiled! And she was dead!
She had cast the vision from her with a cry and had fallen from her chair, curled up as if she had been stabbed in the breast. In the next moment, laboring for breath around the agony that gripped her breast and throat, she told herself that he had not yet known she was dead, that it was necessary for him to smile at his host’s wife. Nothing helped. The pain tore at her until she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep. It was with her, only slightly diminished, when she woke, and still, as now, whenever she thought of seeking her love, that pain gripped her by the throat so she could scarcely breathe. No, she would not try again.
Partly because it was painful, partly because, buried in the darkest recesses of her heart, she had a hope that Orpheus was coming for her, and she did not want the king and queen to be warned, she did not mention her dream, not even when it returned the next night and the next.
On the fourth day, Eurydice was in a side cavern, beyond the deep curving stair where the winds howled day and night like an army of tormented souls. She had been called to Heal a miner who had stepped on a sharp rock, cut his foot, and either because he did not want his carelessness known or did not want the cost of a Healing marked against him, ignored the injury until it went putrid. Barely able to save the foot and leg, Eurydice was satisfied this time to follow Hades’ order and not Heal the hurt completely. It would only make the men careless, the king said, if they did not suffer some inconvenience.
Eurydice had thought that harsh, but had evidence in the past that he was right. This man, instead of being grateful that he would not be crippled, complained bitterly over needing to have the wound dressed and wait until it would cure itself by nature. Eurydice had sat back on her heels, about to speak some sharp words, when Aktaion came in and said the king and queen wanted her.
She froze where she had been kneeling beside the man’s bed. For a moment she could not even force herself to look up at Aktaion. When she did, her heart leapt into her throat and began to pound. There were smears, as if tears had been roughly wiped from his face, but he looked disapproving, too. She had to look down again, because her vision began to swim, and then she forced herself to blank her mind completely, as if she were about to embark on a great spell that could be damaged by any strong emotion.
In that state she gathered the remaining bandages and herbs and without question followed Aktaion back to the public audience cavern. The thrones were empty! The whole chamber was empty! She had not dreamed true. Orpheus had not come.
Her disappointment was so violent, that she was through the brass gates and walking down the central corridor that led to the royal living quarters before shame hit her. If Aktaion had wept, something terrible must have happened.
“What—” she began, but Aktaion shook his head and opened the door in silence. She saw at once that Hades and Persephone were there, safe and well. “Koios?” she cried. He was the dearest and the most fragile, but as soon as she was farther into the room she saw him too, also tearstained.
“Your husband has come for you,” Hades said.
Chapter Twenty-five
Joy and terror hit Eurydice simultaneously so that she only stood and gaped at them. Orpheus had come for her! But she would have to leave Plutos!
“The dead do not return,” she whispered.
Hades blinked. “Is that what you wish us to tell him?”
Tears filled Eurydice’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Oh, no. I love him so.”
“Do you wish to return with him?” Persephone asked. “Do you wish to live again in fear among those who hate and despise the Gifted?”
“No,” Eurydice whispered.
“Well, you must choose between the two,” Persephone said, her voice now hard. “Hades and I offered your Orpheus a haven here with us—he, too, is Gifted, greatly Gifted. He sang our poor guard into ensorcelled obedience to bring him from the entrance to our audience chamber. And then he sang to us. Every man and woman in the chamber was enslaved by his music. We, also. We offered him honor, a home, and you. He would have none of it. He would take you back again.”
“You sent him away?” Eurydice could scarcely force out the words. “Could I not even see him to say goodbye?”
“You may see him,” Hades said. “You may even go with him… I could not deny him, a man who would descend into death’s halls to find his wife.”
“I have your leave to go with him?” Eurydice looked from one to the other. Both looked sad rather than angry.
“You have our leave,” Persephone said, “but if you go, I fear you will not return here.”
“You will not have me back?” Eurydice caught her breath.
“Child,” Persephone said, more kindly, “I said I fear. Hades and I will not reject you, my dear. I fear if you return to the upperworld, this time they will kill you instead of sacrificing you, perhaps burn you so that your ashes cannot rise again, as they will believe this body of yours rose again from the dead. Then you will go to that elsewhere that even the ‘gods’ do not know.”
She understood. She had long known the “dead” of Plutos were not dead at all. Somewhere inside her was fear, the knowledge of how close she had come to true death and that as long as she lived on the upperworld that threat would hang over her. But over and above that, beyond all fear, was a longing so powerful that it made nothing of death. Orpheus was here. She could be with him again. Her eyes passed around the room, meeting those of the people who had offered her acceptance, friendship. Tears wet her cheeks again.
“I do not wish to leave you and Plutos,” she cried, “but I love him.”
Persephone bent her head. Hades put his hand on her—arm. “Aktaion,” he said, “take Orpheus out into the passage from which he arrived.”
To Eurydice, Persephone said, “Then go. We will neither help nor hinder. Just remember that you may turn back at any time and be welcome here, and Orpheus with you, if you can make him understand the danger into which he is leading you and induce him to return with you.”
Eurydice went out of the chamber hard on Aktaion’s heels, but she did not follow him to wherever Orpheus had been told to wait. She was shaking with eagerness to see him, but she knew the journey out must be at least three days long. She had dreamt of Orpheus for three nights. She did not need to see which passage Orpheus entered; she could Find him. What she needed were blankets, her slingshot and pebbles, a warm cloak; her long knife and other necessities of travel in the caves were already on her belt.
Not that she needed to
Find Orpheus. As soon as she emerged from her chamber and passed the brass gates, she heard him cry out, “Eurydice!” in a despairing voice, as if he had called more than once.
“I am coming,” she replied, running toward the end of the chamber from which she, herself, had entered.
“Eurydice,” he called again, and then, “Where are you?”
She had entered the tunnel by then and saw him looking back, right at her. A pang of fear passed through her, and then she realized that he was caught in the illusion that prevented anyone who had crossed the Styx from looking back.
“I am right behind you,” she said, “but you cannot see me if you look back. One never looks back in Plutos. Go forward. I will follow.”
That was not true for residents, of course. The spell wore away, unless it was renewed for some reason, in a few days.
“Speak to me,” he said, his beautiful voice trembling. “How will I know you are there?”
“When we cross the Styx you will see me,” she assured him, smiling with joy as she ate him with her eyes. “But you would see me the sooner if you would come back and stay in Plutos.”
“You do not mean that,” he said. “You are ensorcelled. There is a spell on you that makes you try to bring others into this ghastly place.”
“No, Orpheus,” she said. “Hades and Persephone are good and gentle pe—ah, gods. They would not do such a thing. And Plutos is not ghastly. This part is cold and dark, but there are great beauties in the underworld, and better than that, there are good, kind people who do not fear my Gifts, people who like me and wish to be my friends.”
“Those Gifts!” Orpheus turned and began to walk along the tunnel. “Those accursed Gifts were what brought you here.”
“No, Orpheus,” she said. “It is the fear most folk have of anything different and the envy of the ungifted that brought me here. And I do not wish to leave. Here I am safe and cared for.”
Enchanted Fire Page 45
