to have this face?'
Atreus looked up at the cowled figure. 'Anything,' was his answer. 'I would give anything…my fortune, my life…'
'Wrong answer.'
The figure brought its hands together and the shimmering square shrank to a single tongue of guttering flame.
'Your fortune means nothing to me, and I do not want your life.'
Atreus stared at the fading flame and asked, 'What then? Tell me, and you shall have it!'
The cowled figure lowered its hands and the last wisp of flame winked out, revealing the face beneath the hood.
'You know what I want' The voice remained Tarch's, but the face was Seema's. 'Give it to me, and you shall have what you want'
Now the voice as well became Seema's. 'Give it to me,' she said, 'and you shall have Langdarma.'
She reached out and leaned across the brazier as though to embrace him. A sense of serenity and contentment flooded ever Atreus and he understood at last what the figure wanted from him. He stretched out his arms and stepped forward to accept the embrace, then suddenly grew dizzy and pitched forward and found himself hovering over the brazier, staring down at a single white ember still shining in the dead charcoal.
'Too late,' the voice, now distant and sexless, said. 'He's for the dead book now.'
Atreus craned his neck around to look up beneath the hood and found himself staring into the empty stone eyes of a statue. The statue reached down, grasped the edge of the brazier, and the brazier turned into a thousand-spoked wheel, the white ember its burning hub.
'The Seraph spins the wheel round and round.' The statue twirled the wheel as it spoke and the white ember became a six-pointed snow-flake, feathery and beautiful and cold, Motionless in the heart of the spinning circle. 'Round and round and nobody knows where falls the dead man's soul.'
Atreus's stomach became light and empty and he began to fall, whirling down toward the white crystal brilliance.
CHAPTER 11
The fall took… how long? To Atreus, it seemed the mere flash of an instant and the endless drag of forever. Beneath him rose the thousand-spoked wheel, still spinning, as vast and as flat as a dead calm sea. The feathery snow-flake in the center hovered motionless, growing neither larger nor smaller, but growing more brilliant with each passing moment The long plummet made his stomach qualmish and hollow, and the brightening snow-flake filled his eyes with a cold, scratchy ache. The chill air whipped past his face, tickling his flesh, drawing the heat from his body. His joints stiffened and his bones grew as heavy as ice. He plunged toward the frigid oblivion of the dead, banded by the glare of that feathery, six-pointed star.
An eternity later, the snow-flake melted into a dark-hearted halo. Something pressed itself against Atreus's frozen lips. His numb flesh sensed only the weight, not the touch. Warm air swirled down through his throat and flooded his lungs. His pulse boomed to life. Blood rushed in his ears. The halo grew dim, and he saw Seema's smooth cheek pressed close, her brown eyes staring down at him, her dark hair making a tent around their faces. Her soft lips were pressed against his and her mouth was working, her hot breath mingling with his. A sense of joyous wonder welled up inside him, and something more primal stirred lower down. He reached up, twined his fingers into her silky hair, and returned the kiss.
Seema pulled away, her brow arching in surprise.
Atreus took his hand out of Seema's hair, dimly aware that he had made a terrible mistake. 'I, uh… I thought…' he trailed off, fearing he would only make matters worse. 'I didn't mean to-'
'It certainly felt like you meant to!' Seema's cheeks darkened, then she laughed lightly and called over her shoulder, 'Have no fear for your friend. He only lured me down here to steal a kiss.'
'Not at all!' said Atreus, mortified and struggling to identify where 'here' was. 'We were in Langdarma-'
'You have seen Langdarma?' Seema gasped.
'Yes,' Atreus said, thankful to talk about anything but the kiss. 'It is… white… and beautiful…and we were inside a…'
The image faded even as he tried to describe it. He recalled only the peace, the feeling of falling, and a handsome face in a shimmering mirror. He closed his eyes, frying to recreate the memory through sheer will, but it was lost, wiped away when he kissed Seema.
Seema clasped his forearm. 'You cannot describe Langdarma,' she told him, her voice warm and understanding. 'Is bliss not different for everyone?'
'I… I don't know,' Atreus answered, still confused by his surroundings.
He seemed to be lying in the bottom of a small white well, with Seema crammed in beside him. About six feet above her, Rishi and Yago were kneeling atop the wall, silhouetted against a brilliant blue sky, furiously dragging armfuls of snow away from the edge.
As soon as Atreus remembered the snow, comprehension came crashing in like the avalanche itself. He tried to sit up and found he could not He remained entombed in snow from the waist down, one arm still twisted around beneath him. The air in the bottom of the hole was shadowy and frigid, and the pressure on his legs made his muscles ache.
Atreus was seized by the over whelming fear that the pits walls were about to come crashing down. He began to claw madly at the snow, trying to dig out his waist so he could sit up and pull his arm free.
'Yago! Get me out of here!'
Atreus had hardly closed his mouth before the ogre's long arms stretched down to pluck Seema out of the hole. She cried out in surprise, but Yago paid her no attention and set her aside without apology. He lowered his legs over the edge and planted one immense foot on each side of Atreus's chest, then squeezed down into the hole and grabbed Mm under his arms.
Yago began to pull, slowly and steadily, but the snow held fast. Atreus felt as though he would be torn in two. The ogre twisted him back and forth ever so slightly, and there was a loud slurping sound. The pressure on Atreus's legs vanished, and he began to rise, until the chain tightened around his buried hand, bringing him to an abrupt halt
'Wait!' Atreus commanded.
Yago stopped pulling, and Seema leaned over the pit, peering down over the ogre's shoulder.
'Did he hurt you?' she asked. 'Dragging a person out of. an avalanche is not a good way to rescue him.'
'No, I'm fine,' said Atreus. 'It's Tarch.'
'Tarch?' echoed Rishi. That tailed devil is still alive?'
'I don't know,' Atreus said, 'but if he is, he might be buried under me. I still have the chain, and it was wrapped around his neck when the avalanche started.'
'And you are not thinking you should let go?' Rishi asked, incredulous.
Atreus glanced up at Seema and said, 'I'm willing, but the decision isn't mine. We all promised not to kill Tarch.'
'Tarch started the avalanche,' said Yago. 'I don't see why we have to dig him out'
'Because if we don't, it will cost Seema her magic…right?' Atreus glanced at the healer, hoping she would correct him.
Instead, she nodded and said, 'We must do what we can for him, and not only because failing to do so will harm my magic. It would injure all our souls.'
'That particular peril I am most happy to brave,' said Rishi. 'Whereas no good at all can come of freeing an angry devil like Tarch.'
'Had Tarch not pulled you from the river, you would be frozen or drowned. You would not be here to say such things,' countered Seema. 'It is not for you to turn the wheel of life.'
