neither enjoyment nor distaste.
This apparently infinite stretch of ground, flowers and mist, she knew already, was the part of Hades’s realm called the Fields of Asphodel, where the souls of those who were neither good nor evil went. In a way, the penalty for being ordinary was to be condemned to continue to be ordinary. Every day was like every other day; the only change was in the comings and goings of new souls, and the Lords of the Underworld.
Charon pushed off once they had gotten out of the boat; there were always new souls to ferry across, it seemed.
The mist still persisted everywhere, making it impossible to judge distance properly, or to make out much that wasn’t near. She and Hades made their way on a road that passed between the two Fields, and the shades gathering and eating flowers paid no particular attention to them. But as they traveled, hand in hand, she saw that there actually was a boundary, a place where the Fields ended. The asphodel gave way to short, mosslike purple turf, and like two mirrors set into the turf, she saw two pools, one on the left of the road, and one on the right. The one on the right was thronged with more shades; only a few were kneeling to scoop water from the one on the left.
“Lethe is on the right,” Hades said, and sighed. “The ordinary choose to forget.”
She nodded, and the two of them stepped a little off the road, which now passed through a long span of the dark purple mosslike growth. It actually felt quite nice on her bare feet. The road itself was crowded with shades, waiting in line. Eventually Persephone made out three platforms ahead of them, each platform holding a kind of throne. The closer they got, the more details she was able to make out.
The three platforms stood in the courtyard of an enormous building, which, at the moment, was little more than a shape in the mist. There were three men there, one enthroned on each platform, and Persephone already knew who they were. They were the judges of the dead, who had been three great kings in life, well-known for their wisdom. Minos was the chief of them, and held the casting vote, if the other two disagreed.
Hades led her past them with a wave. Minos, in the center, shook a fist at him, but with a smile.
Hades chuckled. “Minos would rather have more to do than less,” he explained. “Despite what Charon said.”
The judges held their tribunals in the forecourt of what proved to be a great palace, which, as they approached and details resolved out of the mist, was not what Persephone had expected. She had thought it would be gloomy and black, forbidding, bulky. It was, in fact, all of white marble, and as graceful and airy as anything built on Mount Olympus. Waiting there impatiently in front of the great doors was a young man holding the reins of four black, ebon-eyed horses hitched to a black chariot. There was a bundle in the chariot that moved and made ominous and threatening noises.
“By Zeus’s goolies, it’s about time you got here!” the young man said, indignation written in every word and gesture. “I thought you said the wench was going to come willingly! I finally had to gag and bag her! If I can’t father children, Hades, it’ll be all your fault!” Then he stopped, and stared at Persephone. “Who,” he said slowly, “is that?”
Horror crossed Hades’s face. “This is Persephone. We decided to forgo the abduction and figure out some other way to keep her down here. Maybe arrange for my priests to have some dreams about her or something—”
Thanatos went pale. Which was quite a feat for someone already as white as the marble of the palace behind him. “Then who have I got?”
“That is a very good question,” Hades replied in a flat voice.
All three of them stared at the moving bag. The sounds it was making were very ominous indeed. And very, very angry.
By the time Leo had dug out a pit the size of a shallow grave, he had to give up. He sat back on his heels and restrained his first impulse, which was to scream imprecations at the heavens. His tunic was plastered to his body with sweat and dirt, there was dirt in his hair and dug under his fingernails. And he didn’t care. All he wanted was Brunnhilde back.
Screaming wasn’t going to do any good. This was either the work of a very powerful magician, or—possibly one of the local gods?
Leo clenched his fists and tried to remember what the charioteer had said. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
He ran a grimy hand through his hair, thoroughly confused now.
Think, Leo. Think this through. The man shows up coming up out of the ground, and the ground closes up behind him. He says, “There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” And I’ve never seen him in my life.
Could the man have been looking for Brunnhilde?
If it was someone from the northlands…maybe. He was dressed like a local, not like one of the gods or mortals of Vallahalia. He’d never seen a chariot that looked like that in Vallahalia, and anyway, the only chariot there was one pulled by goats. The rocky terrain of the north wasn’t very good for chariots.
And he was dark, not blond; virtually every northlander he’d seen was either blond or red-haired. No, he looked like the people around here.
They didn’t know anyone local.
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you!” The man certainly thought he knew Bru; Bru had certainly stared at him without any sign of recognition at all.
The only way he could have known her was if someone local had been scrying them—but if so, why would he say, “I’ve been looking all over for you”? If he could scry them, he would have known exactly where they were, and he wouldn’t have had to go looking for them.
He couldn’t have been looking for Bru.
If he hadn’t been looking for Bru, he must have been looking for someone like Brunnhilde.
What else had he said…? “You went to the wrong meadow, just like a girl.”
“You went to the wrong meadow”?
It not only sounded as if he was looking for someone, it sounded as if he was looking for someone who was expecting him.
And it must have been someone he had never actually seen.
So he had been looking for someone like Brunnhilde. It was a case of mistaken identity.
It would be hard to mistake Bru for anyone else, if you knew her. Even someone who had only been scrying them from a distance would have a hard time mistaking her for anyone else.
Conclusion: the man had to have been going from a description, and not a very good one, either.
And that meant another question. Man, or god?
Leo didn’t even have to think twice about that. Only a god would be so sure of his own power that he would simply appear and abduct a complete stranger without thought of consequences.
All right. Assume that it was one of the local gods. That put Leo up against a god. With all the power of a god, who could probably squash him flat without thinking twice about it….
To hell with that!
He lurched to his feet, feeling rage surge through him. So what if they were gods? They were pretty damned small gods, and he was married to a god, and he was going to get to the bottom of this and get her back no matter what it cost him!
He caught up his discarded sword and headed for the Vallahalian horses at a grim trot. Damn if he was going to bother going through an intermediary; let the natives putter about with priests. After all, he’d been presented to a goddess of the earth as her son-in-law, and faced down the All-father. In a Kingdom where the gods were real, physical beings, he might as well go straight to the top.
Or wherever he needed to get to in order to confront them directly. And he had a pretty good idea of who could get him there.
The two big bay horses—well, they weren’t just horses, after all, they could stride through the air, you never had to worry about them