Thrice Bound

by Roberta Gellis

  Kabeiros laughed. "It's just as well that we've been away so long. Maybe he'll forget where Hermes got the spell." He was silent for a while and then, looking more at ease than he had since she had a man's face to read, said, "If we can jump back and forth . . . Yes."

  He said no more, but finished his meal with good appetite speculating easily about what food was likely to come in as an offering, whether the dog should go hunting, or whether they would be gone before they needed more meat. When the meal was over, Hekate left for the valley of the Nymphae. Kabeiros said an abstracted good-bye, but he was shaking his head while he examined the disorganized piles of offerings. Clearly his mind was on how best to arrange them for removal by the servants of the king of the dead.

  * * *

  The body of the girl was even lighter and stronger than the body of the woman. Hekate covered the distance from the caves to the outskirts of Ur-Kabos more quickly than she expected. As she hurried around the north end of the city, she was sorely tempted to enter it and see whether it had changed. Soon after she suppressed that dangerous notion she was racked by the even more dangerous desire to send out a probe and find out what her father was doing.

  The urge was so strong that her pace slowed until she was standing still, facing the city wall, which was invisible behind the trees. She had actually begun to walk toward the city, her mind fixed on using high magic for the probe so it would be invisible to Perses when her toe struck an upstanding root with enough force to break the thought and make her cry out. She bent to rub the sore toe, but stopped with her heart pounding in her throat.

  Was she mad? Perses should be blind and deaf to high magic, but who knew from where he came and what abilities he kept hidden? She had been afraid he would sense her aura, and now she had considered sending out a probe? Oh, no, that couldn't have been her own thought . . . She turned from Ur-Kabos and began eastward again as fast as she could without drawing undue attention.

  Her father had set a trap spell for her! So frightened that she could hardly breathe, Hekate ran faster, but the fear and the rapid pace soon brought her to a halt. She stood gasping, leaning against a tree, expecting every moment to feel the weight of her father's watcher settling on her. But it didn't, and after a time she gathered her wits and began to tell herself that it would have been ridiculous for Perses to set such a spell and expend the energy to keep it going for so many years.

  That calmed her and she set off toward the valley of the Nymphae again. As she went, she thought about that desire to probe for her father. It seemed stranger and stranger the more she thought about it. She didn't care where Perses was or what he did. As she calmed, she grinned, wondering if so much association with Hermes had made his intense curiosity contagious. But that was more ridiculous than Perses setting a trap spell . . . No, that wasn't so ridiculous. Perses had many and bitter enemies. It wasn't ridiculous at all for him to set a trap spell—not for her but for anyone who had any knowledge of him at all.

  Her toe still ached, and Hekate smiled down at it. Good fortune alone had saved her from exposing herself. Well, that was a lesson. She wouldn't travel near Ur-Kabos again unless Kabeiros was with her. He would have smelled that spell and warned her. The dog form was certainly useful; if only he could change back and forth when he wished. Hekate sighed and turned further north, working her way through the cedars and cypresses to where ash and oak began. The ground was rising steadily and in a short time there were only ash and oak trees, thinning as the ridge became more barren.

  Eventually she found the cleft that was like the center of an upper lip. She breathed a sigh of relief, glanced about to make sure there were no shepherds in sight, and walked off the top of the ridge, which seemed to drop hundreds of stadia into a bare, rock-strewn ravine. That was pure illusion, and Hekate smiled with relief because her work was still protecting the valley. She paused on the other side to examine the spell she had set so many years before. She knew a better way now, one that didn't draw so much power, but there was power in plenty in the earth here, and she left things as they were.

  She went down the lushly grassed hill, crossed the stream, and entered the grove in which the house of the Nymphae grew. As she came into the tiny clearing before the vines that curtained the Nymphae's door, the three emerged with a tall, blond young man behind them.

  "Hekate—" the three voices said together.

  "Hekate?" the young man repeated doubtfully.

  Hekate laughed and shifted form to the woman.

  "You did not need to do that," one of the Nymphae said.

  "We knew you at once," a second agreed.

  "But Dionysos did not," the third pointed out.

  "I didn't know you could do that!" Dionysos exclaimed, and looked so young and innocently amused that Hekate held out her hand to him.

  He stepped around the Nymphae and took it. He was taller even than Kabeiros; Hekate's head came barely to his shoulder. As a youth, he had been transparently pale. His skin was still white, but it had a healthy glow, and around his head, holding back shoulder-length golden hair, was a many-stemmed wreath. They walked to the turf-covered bank where they had talked when Dionysos was a child—nothing changed in the valley of the Nymphae—and sat down.

  "Are you celebrating something?" Hekate asked, looking at the wreath, and then, "Did you See my coming and leave your aunt's house in the middle of a party?"

  A shadow passed over Dionysos' face. "I am not often invited to parties in my aunt's home. I am not living with her any longer."

  "Was she unkind to you?" Hekate asked anxiously. "I didn't know. Why didn't my binding tighten? Was I too far for you to Call me?"

  "No one can be unkind to me." For a moment Dionysos' face could have been graven from marble and his eyes were hard and bright as sapphires. Then his brow creased with concern. "And knowing what you had fled from here, I wouldn't Call." He frowned. "I can deal with men, but that . . . that thing." He shuddered.

  "The guhrt?" Hekate patted Dionysos' hand, offering comfort. "It's gone—back to its own plane, I hope. Kabeiros and I got rid of it."

  "Kabeiros?"

  "You knew I went to the caves of the dead?" Dionysos nodded and Hekate continued, "There I encountered a man named Kabeiros who protected the caves with a spell and collected the offerings for the servants of the king of the dead to take to the underworld."

  "Are you sure he didn't collect them for himself?"

  Hekate laughed. "Quite sure. He left the caves to come with me and protect me on my journeys, and he took nothing with him."

  Dionysos started to get up. "If you have a companion, you won't want me."

  Hekate caught at him. "Won't want you? What can you mean? Kabeiros is my lover, that's true, but you are my friend, Dionysos. Now you are a man grown, you are even more my friend. No one can have too many friends, and I have too few."

  He settled back and his face was that of a boy again, cheerful and expectant. "You've been away a long time. Have you been to many strange places?"

  "Indeed I have, and I'll tell you all the tales . . ."

  She looked up. The Nymphae were standing close by, actually between their house and the turf-covered bank where she and Dionysos sat, almost as if they were herding Hekate and Dionysos away from their most private place.

  "You've hidden our valley," the breezelike voice of one of the Nymphae said.

  "And that magic has held good, as you promised," the second sighed.

  "And it will continue to hold as long as the earth lies quiet," Hekate assured them. "I examined it on my way in and the spell is good, the linkage to the power of the earth firm."

  "Yesss," the word was slightly sibilant through the third Nymph's sharp teeth. "And care of Dionysos was the price we paid for that shelter."

  "So we took him in, when he returned," the second said.

  "But he is a man grown now, not a child. We can care for him no longer," the first said.

  "I thank you," Hekate said, "for all you've done, and I u
nderstand."

  Unfortunately it was clear from his expression that Dionysos didn't understand and was bitterly hurt. He muttered that even the Nymphae didn't want him. Hekate felt a well of sadness from him and also more dangerous emotions stirring beneath. She stood up and took Dionysos' hand, pulling him up with her.

  "It's time for me to go to the caves of the dead, isn't it?" he said. There was a tremor in his voice. "I knew long ago that I would have to go there."

  Hekate laughed. "Yes, but you are no sacrifice. You will leave the caves, just as I left them, whenever you wish. For Kabeiros and me—and for you, too—the caves of the dead are only a temporary resting place. And I'll show you a wonderful magic trick to getting there."

  To be more secure, she put her arm around him, hugged him tight, and said, "Dei me exelthein ta loisthia spelaion," while her mind made a clear picture of the mouth of the caves of the dead. She heard an exclamation from Dionysos, oddly truncated and, equally oddly, completed as they touched ground in the dark cave mouth.

  "How did you do that?" the young man gasped.

  Hekate grinned at him. "I didn't do it at all. It's not a spell I made. It's . . . I don't know what—an essence? a distillation?—of the Gift of a young Olympian called Hermes. He can somehow form a piece of his Gift into a bit of power that acts just like a spell."

  "Did you steal it from him?"

  The question made Hekate laugh aloud. "Not from Hermes. He is the master thief, and anyway, Dionysos, you should know that I don't steal. I bartered with him spell for spell."

  "Would he barter with me?" Dionysos asked eagerly. "A spell like that could spread my worship all over whatever part of the earth can support the vine of the grape."

  "Spread your worship?" Hekate echoed.

  "Oh, yes," he said with a charming mixture of pride and amazement. "I am the god of wine, and many temples have been raised to me. This is such a wine as you never drank, not sweet and thick and cloying like date wine. The wine of the grape is a fine quencher of thirst, sweet or almost astringent. It is much less likely to make you sick—although if you drink enough even of grape wine you will be sick. And it is a great opener of hearts—"

  "Are you sure that is such a good idea?"

  Hekate turned, let go of Dionysos, and leapt lightly across the blood trough to kiss Kabeiros gently on the mouth. Aloud she said, "Dionysos, this is my dear companion, Kabeiros," and before Kabeiros could look surprised at the display of intimacy, she said mind to mind, *I have told Dionysos you are my lover. I wanted to remind him of that. He must have had some bad experiences with his aunt because he feels no one wants him. Make him welcome, please, Kabeiros.*

  Dionysos had not heard the mental exchange and frowned slightly at Kabeiros, not like a jealous man but in response to what Kabeiros had said. "Why not?" he asked.

  "Because open hearts often lead to drawn knives," Kabeiros replied, smiling. "A thin veneer of lies is often the perfect grease for a smooth relationship."

  Dionysos grinned. "You may be right. It's true enough that a beaker or two too many can cause a slip into some wild behavior."

  "But what is this about temples?" Hekate asked, coming back across the blood trough with Kabeiros, who held out his hand to Dionysos.

  The younger man smiled and took the hand, but his eyes were on Hekate, and he said, "You knew of my Seeing about planting vines?"

  "Yes."

  Dionysos touched the wreath of intertwined stems around his head. "These are the vines. They live as long as they touch me, and they never grow fewer, no matter how many I plant in the earth. It has come to me how to nurture them, how to ferment the fruit, and I taught these skills. Moreover, where I pass the grapes are sweet and perfect and ferment into a drink like no other. Those who followed my teaching have grown rich and have raised temples and leave offerings to tempt me back into their vineyards where my touch, or even my thought, can produce a wine like ambrosia. If I could only leap in an instant from one vineyard to another, I would be . . ." His voice drifted away and he cocked his head at Hekate. "Ambrosia, the drink of the gods! Surely only a god could leap as you did—"

  "But you know I'm not a god," Hekate said, laughing.

  "Then this Hermes, who bartered spell for spell with you, would he barter his spell or essence or whatever for something I had?"

  "I'm sure he would, as soon as you are in Olympus. And if you had nothing to barter at first, I believe Hermes would lend you a spell until you could pay him." Hekate now put her arm around Dionysos again and said, "I've found your father, and Zeus is the leader of the Olympians. Olympus is a city full of people who have great Gifts, so no Gift is an anathema. I've told Zeus about you, Dionysos, and you are invited to come and live in Olympus.

  "And you?"

  "I will live there too. Zeus—" she chuckled softly "—will be a lot happier with you than he is with me. In Olympus, Gifts are what is accepted. My magic and spells are suspect."

  CHAPTER 23

  Hekate was surely no seer, for no prediction could have been further from the truth than her statement that Zeus would be much happier with Dionysos than he was with her. Not that Zeus didn't welcome his son kindly. At first he was pleased to see him and very willing to acknowledge him as son. Later, when he took the full measure of Dionysos' Gifts, he bitterly regretted what he had done, but by then he had learned to his horror that he was as powerless against Dionysos as any common native.

  In the beginning Zeus wanted this son close to test him and also protect him from Hera, although he soon realized that Dionysos needed protection from no one. Before he learned better, Zeus asked Dionysos to stay in his palace, insisted on it, although Dionysos told him he was welcome in Hekate's home until his vines had replaced the harsh and sour grapes that were native. Still he was glad of Zeus' invitation and soon accepted it because Hekate was seldom at home. Besides, it was easier for him to approach the other Olympians from the palace.

  His memory of the leaping spell firmly in mind, Hermes was the first, and Dionysos and that young mischief maker found an instant rapport. Having sampled a few draughts of Dionysos' wine, which he had carried with him by ship from Ka'anan and then transported on the backs of two asses, Hermes became an instant devotee. He was delighted to give Dionysos his spell, on the understanding he would be repaid when Dionysos came into his full worship. In addition, Hermes volunteered to take Dionysos to places where he could leap, like Egypt, and offered to accompany Dionysos for the fun of it when he found new places to visit.

  Conversions of winemakers were easy. Two beautiful men, taller and stronger and much fairer than the natives, appearing out of thin air went a long way to making a man's mind pliable. Then a taste of the wine Dionysos carried completed the job. Dionysos was certain that when those who planted his vines and followed his way of pressing and fermenting the grapes grew rich, he would be worshiped in Greece as he was among the people of the Fertile Crescent. Hermes believed him. Although he pretended mild contempt, Zeus believed him too, which might have been the root of the trouble between them.

  Hekate was hardly aware of any problem. Aside from reiterating that Gration's house was open to Dionysos at any time, she didn't interfere with the new Olympian's life. She had a new focus for her attention. She had learned part of a spell absolutely forbidden in Olympus and all her mind was fixed on keeping the secret and on completing the spell.

  When it was far too late, Hekate wondered whether it was Dionysos' calm assumption that he would join the pantheon of Olympians who called themselves gods that annoyed Zeus or whether Zeus and Dionysos had quarreled over Semele. Dionysos would not hear a word against his mother, placing all the blame for her "death" on Zeus. Zeus grew cold when Semele was mentioned. He might not utter any direct criticism, but his inner sneer was all too plain and he often said he pitied Hades who was now forced to deal with her.

  Whatever was the cause, Hekate realized there must have been a confrontation in which Zeus came out second best. Zeus twitched whenever
Dionysos was mentioned, and although Dionysos remained respectful of his father, there was a new sadness in him, a tinge of hopelessness. He left his apartment in the palace for another of the empty houses that had once belonged to a Titan. This one was not in such perfect repair as Gration's house, but Zeus arranged for it to be refurbished and refurnished. Clearly Zeus would do anything to be rid of Dionysos.

  None of these events made much impression on Hekate while they were taking place because all her attention was focused on the possibility of actually finding a permanent draining spell she could use against her father. The draining spell itself, although a temporary one, Hekate had found on the voyage back to Olympus after their ship made its way into the harbor of Lysamachia.

  Lysamachia was a busy enough port, but Hekate and her companions discovered that all the ships there were either beginning a trading run south along the well populated coasts of Mysia, Ilyria, Caria, and so on, or had completed their trading runs—like the ship on which they had arrived—and were now turning around to sail home to a southern port. A ship going north along the more barren coast of Thrace to Greece was rare.

  Hekate was sorry they had not waited in a port like Miletus for a vessel that would island-hop across the Mare Aegaeum to Euboea and Greece. But those ships were less frequent than the coastal vessels plying northward toward Thrace, north was the direction in which they wanted to go, the captain of the ship they had selected was charming and knowledgeable . . . and they had made a mistake.

  Now, having visited every factor in the port and made their wants known to almost every person who made a living in any way at all from the sea, the three had time on their hands. Dionysos promptly disappeared into the interior, seeking farmers with suitable hillsides for grape vines. Hekate and her black dog felt and smelled for magic.

  The Talented were not officially persecuted in Thrace, although it was not unknown for the guards or officals of a town to look the other way when a magic worker was beaten or even killed. They did exist in Lysamachia, however, and, sought discreetly, were willing to sell or exchange spells with Hekate. None were even near her in power or ability, but Hekate concealed that fact and was eager just to talk about sorcery. She had found that there were often new bits and pieces attached to the most common spells that were useful—and she still never forgot a spell.