Thrice Bound

by Roberta Gellis

  "I see you succeeded," Dionysos said, "but are those the same rats? They are elegant, and more than usually clever."

  Hekate laughed aloud. "Oh, yes, they're the same. I nearly lost one of them. I hadn't put enough antidote in the wine and the poison started to work, but enough of it had been countered by the antidote that I was able to give more antidote to the rat directly and from that determine how much to put into the amphora. I gave a double dose of the treated wine to the second rat, and he had no ill effects at all."

  *Good,* Kabeiros said. *We should go and put that antidote into the amphora at once. I dreamed all night of that first rat's death throes.*

  "I agree," Dionysos said. "And when you return, I think we must make ready to go to Ur-Kabos and see if the one we want is there—although I still don't see why he should be."

  "I think I know that," Hekate said, sighing with weariness. "He had to bring all his sorcerous equipment back to his old workroom in Ur-Kabos."

  Then she explained, reiterating the events she and Kabeiros had deduced Perses had planned for the funeral. An essential part of the plan was that the body of the old advisor, who was greatly hated, would be found as well as that of his apprentice. Seemingly then the taint of evil magic would be gone from Byblos because only the innocent prince would appear to have survived. Perses, Hekate pointed out, would want to keep the king free of any sorcerous taint because he would then be able to say he hated sorcery and be free to rid Byblos of other sorcerers, even to make war on any neighbor that tolerated magic.

  To protests from Kabeiros, she replied that Perses would need no magic with which to influence the king because he would now himself be king. Even so Hekate agreed that she could not believe Perses would give up the power of sorcery; thus, he would need a place to work. Ur-Kabos, she pointed out, was ideal. Far enough so that the doings of that less-important place were of little interest in Byblos and close enough, less than two candlemarks ride on a good horse, for Perses to travel back and forth frequently.

  "Then it is likely he is there," Dionysos said. "Good. If you are still unwilling to face him, Hekate, I will go alone." His generous lips thinned as a red light behind his blue eyes seemed to make them glow purple. "I am tired of your father. He has hurt you long enough. Not to mention that a person who would inflict such suffering on near a hundred innocents to better drain the last dregs of their life-force is better gone from this world."

  "No, Dionysos!" Hekate cried.

  The blue eyes glared, but his voice remained soft when he spoke to her. "You need not worry," he assured her. "I'll not risk myself. The whole city of Ur-Kabos will be roused to fall upon him and tear him to pieces."

  Hekate was aware of a whole mix of emotions. There was pride and relief because the wild, half-mad boy was now a man. No longer a victim of his enormous powers, he was able to leash them and free them deliberately as he needed them. She felt relief, too, that Dionysos had sense enough not to wish to expose himself to Perses. And she felt a kind of resigned amusement because she was aware that many more than a hundred innocents might suffer when he sent a whole city into a frenzy of rage and terror. To that, Dionysos seemed unaware or indifferent. But above and beyond all the other emotions was her awareness that even if the whole city razed the house in Ur-Kabos, they might not find Perses if he sheltered in the buried workroom.

  Hekate went to Dionysos and touched his cheek. "No, love," she said gently. "I am ready now—at least I will be as soon as the amphora is fixed. I'll not risk the chance that—" she took a breath and then said deliberately "—that Perses will win and doom those people."

  * * *

  Rendering the contents of the amphora harmless, even beneficial, was more easily accomplished than Hekate had expected. She already had the means to dismiss and reinvoke the door wards, and she was uninterrupted both in entering and while working. Either Kabeiros had successfully distracted the apprentice or the power source was only used for renewal of the spells at intervals.

  She carried with her not only the flask of antidote—to be safe she had doubled the amount she thought she would need—but a rather scruffy mouse. Kabeiros had had a terrible time catching such small prey, but Hekate refused to carry a rat.

  When she had again made a penetration of the sealing spell, she first drew out the same amount of liquid that she intended to add and neutralized it. Then she mixed the antidote thoroughly into the contents of the amphora. After waiting a few moments to be sure the antidote had destroyed the poison, she took the mouse and a piece of bread from her pocket, added a few drops of the liquid in the amphora to it, and put it and the mouse under a dark ward.

  The mouse ate the wine-soaked bread, took a few tentative steps, and fell over. Hekate drew a frightened breath, thinking for a moment that her antidote had failed. But the mouse didn't squeak, didn't twitch, didn't seem uncomfortable. Hekate leaned closer. It was breathing well, softly and for a mouse deeply. It uttered a tiny, contented snore.

  Hekate clapped a hand to her mouth to suppress her giggles. She had put too much wine on the bread. The mouse was drunk. Still smiling she removed the wards that imprisoned the mouse, sent her mind voice to Kabeiros to warn him that she was leaving, and went out of the house with no more difficulty than she had entered it.

  Now one part of her screamed to set out for Ur-Kabos at once, to end, one way or the other, the fear that had eaten away at her all her life. Perhaps if that were gone, she wouldn't cling to Kabeiros so tightly that he was half smothered. Perhaps if she weren't afraid, she would manage to survive if Kabeiros left her . . . if either of them were alive . . . if either of them were sane . . . if either of them were not helpless slaves.

  She stumbled, needing to catch herself against the wall of a house to keep from falling and realized how very tired she was. Could she walk the distance to Ur-Kabos? Did she have the strength . . . She stumbled again and went to her knees. One passerby looked at her with disgust, apparently thinking she was drunk; another came to help her up and, seeing her close, made a lewd suggestion. Hekate tried to pull away. He gripped her arm . . . and the black dog was there, snarling at the man who retreated in haste, offering his sturdy shoulder for support.

  Hekate steadied herself and pushed away the desire to finish, to escape immediately from the fear that oppressed her. She was too weary, having been up all night, to do more that day, and it was the ultimate stupidity to set out for Ur-Kabos exhausted. If she were anything but completely ready, completely at the top of her powers, the worst would not only befall her but likely Kabeiros and Dionysos. And even if they escaped, Perses would be free to play his evil games again.

  CHAPTER 27

  Hekate slept all the rest of the day, ate heartily of a meal Dionysos brought in from a cookshop, and then slept all night with Kabeiros pressed against her in the bed. She woke early, refreshed, almost happy, and slipped out of the house to visit an old shrine of the Mother. She felt no special greeting, but was comfortably aware of the swirling above her of the high power and the thin threads of earth-blood below. Byblos was not rich in earth-blood. Was that why Perses had turned to blood magic? No, she wouldn't excuse him. He used blood magic because he enjoyed the suffering of his victims.

  Kabeiros and Dionysos were breaking their fasts when she returned and she joined them.

  "What do we need to take?" Dionysos asked.

  "Some food for a noon meal along the way. There are some farms, I suppose, but I prefer not to involve any other people in this. Perses might just be able to detect my aura and punish the folk for helping me."

  So that was how they went, carrying nothing but the makings of a good meal and a flask of wine and another of water. They kept a good pace, but not a hurried one. At midday they stopped and ate. Hekate described her father's house as it had been when she had left it, hesitating as she realized for the first time how many years had passed. But she was sure there would be few changes in the workroom . . . except for the way in, which seemed to have changed each time
she was forced to use it. So she warned her companions of the way Perses could change the passage.

  "It was straight when I Saw it," Dionysos reminded her.

  She looked at him in surprise. "How can you remember so long ago?"

  "I never really forget a Vision," Dionysos said, his eyes shadowed with old sadness. "After I know what they mean, I don't think about them anymore. But if I need to See one again, I only need to—" he shrugged "—call it up from inside me. It's always there."

  "If I took you to the entrance to the passage," Hekate said, "could you remember the way you went?"

  "I think so," he said, "but I can't be sure. Why is it important?"

  "Because if he senses our coming, which I expect he will, he might turn that passage into a maze. If I know which walls are false, I can try to break the spells on them. I don't want to waste the time or the power trying to dissolve real walls."

  *I can help with that,* Kabeiros said. *Real walls will smell of wood or stone; wards and illusions will smell of magic.*

  "Will you have power enough for breaking the illusions and dealing with him?" Dionysos sounded grim, as if he had suddenly realized what they would face.

  "Yes. There's little earth-blood, if any, in his workroom, but the higher power should be there."

  She didn't say any more just in case her father's scrying had become cleverer and less heavy-handed than it used to be, but she thought to herself that the draining spell didn't take much power. Once initiated it supplied far more power than the mage expended in maintaining it.

  Thoughtful but silent, Dionysos gathered up the remains of their meal. He looked at the chunks of bread and cheese, the slices of meat and his expression grew grim and very determined. Then he rewrapped the leftovers and put them back in the pack. Plainly Dionysos had decided they would need the supplies for the return journey. Hekate prayed he was right as she watched him carefully stopper the wine and water, tie the flasks together, and sling them over his shoulder. Kabeiros got up and shook himself.

  They set out on the road again. The day was hot but not unbearable and there was shade by the side of the road, but no one suggested resting in it. All were now determined to reach their goal as quickly as was consonant with their strength and readiness. Dionysos was grim. Kabeiros was silent and withdrawn. Hekate, after so many, many years of denial, of excuses, of shameful fear, was very nearly merry although she didn't impose her mood on the others. Better for them to be anxious and wary.

  About three candlemarks after noon, they drew close enough to glimpse Ur-Kabos on its plateau and Hekate began to worry about recognizing the right lane. So many years had passed . . . fifty? seventy? The problem didn't materialize; on their own her feet turned into the path that, shockingly, seemed as familar to her now as it ever had been. She did think as she turned in that the hedge bordering the garden looked a trifle unkempt, but she passed through the opening only to stop dead and stare.

  The garden itself was the real shock. Gone was its ordered perfection. What was not overgrown with drought-tolerant weeds was brown and withered with lack of care. Hekate hurried up the path, Dionysos hard on her heels, Kabeiros a man-length to the fore. They mounted the three broad steps. Kabeiros was waiting at the closed door.

  Hekate expected the door to be locked and as she climbed the steps was thinking about whether it would be better to try to manipulate the lock by magic or blast the door open. Both would warn Perses that an enemy had arrived, but the blast might direct his attention to the wrong enemy. She warned Kabeiros and Dionysos to stand away from the door, turned to face it to begin the spell . . . and the door opened.

  Within it was a doorkeeper, what looked like an old man chained by the neck. Hekate's lips parted to invoke stasis on him, but the spell remained unuttered. This wasn't the creature she remembered. There was recognition in the eyes of the old man.

  "Hekate," he mumbled. "You used to give me sugared dates."

  "Mahound," she whispered as she made out the remnants of the features of one of the little page boys who had run errands while she lived in the house. "What happened?"

  "We tried to run away. Farran was lucky. He died."

  "I'll set you free—"

  But his eyes had gone blank and he shook his head. "If you are summoned, you know where to go."

  "Later." Dionysos took her arm and hurried her through the doorkeeper's chamber. "When you are done, you can come back and free him."

  For a heartbeat, Hekate resisted, then went forward into the courtyard. If she lost the battle, she thought, the doorkeeper would be recaught and punished or killed; if she won, she would have time enough to try to restore him.

  The courtyard was another shock. The stone paving was broken and unswept. The flowers were gone, their containers filled with cracked, dusty soil; the bushes that had been so luxuriant were dried skeletons of bare twigs. Opposite the open arch that led to the reception chamber was what looked like a solid garden wall. Hekate approached that, running her fingers lightly along the surface. Dionysos and Kabeiros waited, silent. At about the two-thirds point, Hekate paused, pushed, prodded, and a narrow door, plastered and painted to match the surrounding stones, clicked open. Kabeiros slipped through, then stood waiting.

  A very short passage terminated in a second passage, like the leg and head of a T. To the right was a closed door and a stone wall. To the left, the door was open. Hekate cast her mind back and remembered that the way through the right-hand door was much longer than the way from the left.

  "That's right," Dionysos said, looking toward the door on the left. "I only came out this way, but I know the left-hand door is the way in."

  It was. As soon as they passed through the door, they were at the head of the stairs Hekate remembered all too well. Below was only darkness. Hekate said the word she had heard her father use so often and wondered what would happen. Would the mage lights be as decayed as everything else? No. They came up bright and clear, illuminating the steep, dangerous stair that had been hacked out along the curving wall of a natural sinkhole. Naturally, Hekate thought, starting down. Perses uses this stair. Naturally he would keep it well lit.

  Dionysos followed, pausing only once to pick up a pebble and cast it down. At first nothing came up except the faint indeterminable noise that Hekate had never been able to decide was moving water or echoes. Eventually there was a ping of stone against stone and finally a very faint splash. Hekate could hear the black dog panting. She was aware suddenly that dogs didn't manage steep downward stairs well.

  *Be careful, Kabeiros,* she whispered.

  *Don't worry,* Dionysos said, for once using mental speech. *That's why I went ahead. If he slips, he'll run into me and I'll grab him.*

  Both Kabeiros and Hekate thanked Dionysos, but Hekate was more frightened rather than less. Dionysos was no weakling, but she had her doubts about his ability to hold Kabeiros' weight on the curved, narrow stair. If they went down together . . . Frantically she sought a spell that could catch them. She had little confidence any spell could do so, but she had to do something . . . and trying to increase the power of the spell filled her mind so that she was unaware of the descent and was suddenly at the end of the stair.

  The mage light showed only the black maw of the corridor, nothing within it. Recalling how often she had bumped painfully into walls and corners and that Dionysos had Seen the corridor as straight, Hekate prepared a spell of dissolution of magic, called for a mage light, and stepped forward . . . into a short straight corridor closed with a plain wooden door.

  She put her hand out but could not grasp the doorlatch for a moment. Her breath stopped and she could not draw it in. Magic? No, she told herself, cowardice . . . panic. She forced her hand forward, lifted the latch, shoved the door open—and breathed. And stopped breathing!

  She had intended to rush forward and seize Perses in her arms before his surprise at her arrival permitted him to act in any way, but shock froze her in place for an instant. The workroom had not chang
ed. The creatures in agonized stasis still hung from walls and ceilings. The alembics, the jars with their strange contents, the little skeletons, all the apparatus were on the tables and the shelves that lined the walls. But Perses had changed. He was old, old as the crone. A few strands of yellow-white hair straggled over his scalp, his mouth was sunken so that his nose almost touched his chin. His back was bent, his hands crooked and mottled. Open-mouthed, Hekate stared.

  The sunken lips stretched into a travesty of a toothless smile. "Come in, Hekate," Perses said. "I've been expecting you."

  With the words, his will lashed out at her. That wasn't old. It was as strong as it had ever been. Change flooded over her, and it was the crone that hobbled forward helplessly in response to his imperious demand.

  Seeing the change, Dionysos believed Perses had sucked most of the life out of Hekate. His pain and fury knew no bounds, and he flung at Perses the full power of his Gift, willing him to panic and madness.

  That was not the first time one of Perses' victims had fought back. He was shielded, armored against magical attacks, but he had never been touched by any as powerful as Dionysos'. Terror racked him; confusion caused chaos in his mind. But he was even prepared for that. Almost lost to himself, a mindless, prepared response took over. Words, now without meaning to him, began to pour from his mouth.

  Dionysos gasped and staggered back under a violent blow. His mouth opened as if to cry out, but no sound emerged. He was mute. Instinctively, he tried to move forward but ran into . . . nothing, as hard as a rock wall. Checked, his blue eyes bulged as if they would leap from his head at his enemy. Perses uttered two more words and his right hand began to rise to trace in the air the symbols that would complete a second spell . . . and a huge black dog leapt up, seized the arm, and began to close its jaws.