Prester John was shaking his head thoughtfully. "I wonder what made them think they could get away with it?"
"Maybe there's some truth to those stories about Lucifer's crown," I said. "The Lucies sure think so. And the Cathars knew they'd never get close working on their own, so they hired the Luciferians to do the dirty work for them. Then Lang got cold feet. Maybe he saw a vision or something. It's been known to happen. He was working up his nerve to return the Grail when he got hit."
"Lang had swallowed the stones," Maggie said. "I got 'em back. We'd been running electronic intelligence ops on the Lucies for a while. We intercepted one call yesterday afternoon that alerted us, and another call last evening from the hotel. That's when I got sent in. He was messed up enough when I got there that nobody's going to notice a few cuts more."
"Who was it who nailed him?" Prester John said.
"The Cathars," I said. "They'd figured out by then that he was trying to double-cross them."
"Any thoughts on how to get the Grail back to its rightful shape and rightful place?" John said. "We'll have to set new wards, too, so this won't happen again."
"That's your problem," I said. "Maybe you could hire the Lucies yourself. Me, I've got a social engagement. I promised Maggie a drink and I'm going to find her one."
"Hang on," Prester John said. "You're a priest. She's a nun. You can't go on a date."
"Don't worry," I said. "I won't get into the habit."
SHADOWLANDS
by Elisabeth Waters
Chosen by Marion Zimmer Bradley
I've been an anthologist and writer for over forty years, yet my early favorites still impress me. But my all-time favorite is Elisabeth Waters' "Shadowlands" with its perfect take on the Orpheus legend. I've never read anything in over forty years to top it.
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Oriana confronted the household priest over her husband's body, which lay on the bier in front of her. "No, I will not agree to hold the funeral at first light tomorrow! Why are you in such a hurry to put my husband underground?"
The priest sighed. He had been in the chapel with her and the body for several hours now, it was late, and he was tired. "My lady, why do you insist on delaying the funeral? This refusal to accept the situation avails you nothing."
Oriana simply stood there, a silent column of black. Her sole concession to her husband's death had been to put on mourning robes: a loose black gown, tied at the waist with a plain black cord, covered with layers of black veiling, enough to hide her pale face, her dark hair, and anything of the slender body the garments might conceivably have revealed. She felt like a walking shadow, and everything seemed distant and unreal.
The priest gathered what remained of his patience and tried again. "You are overwrought," he said gently, "and it's late. Please, my lady, go to your bed; sleep, and things won't seem as bad in the morning."
That argument she had heard before. "No," Oriana said firmly. "I did as you ask last night, and I assure you nothing was the slightest bit better this morning."
"Healing takes time" the priest began weakly.
Oriana ignored him. "But, as you say, it is late, and I am sure you are tired. You have my leave to retire; I shall stay with my husband. I'm not as ready as you to consign him to the lands of the dead."
The priest opened his mouth to protest, decided it wouldn't help, and left, shaking his head.
Oriana knelt at her husband's side, the perfect picture of a devoted widow no, wife; she absolutely refused to think of herself as a widow and listened to the priest's footsteps fade away into the silence. It was nearing midnight, and the rest of the household had gone to bed long since.
Oriana looked steadily at the face before her. Quaren looked magnificent. He had always worn his age lightly, even in life. Oriana had never thought of him as old, even though he was twice her age. Now, with his body at rest and his face peaceful, he looked even less than his forty years. The few threads of gray in his dark hair seemed to be nothing but a trick of the flickering light cast by the candles about his bier reflecting off the silver embroidery of his dark green tunic. She still expected him to open his eyes and speak to her at any second.
He'd never been ill a single day in the six years of their marriage. It was totally inconceivable to Oriana that he could be gone so suddenly, in a single hour. The huntsmen who brought his body to her spoke of an accident, a bad fall with his horse, which had landed on him, but it made no sense to her. Her husband lay on the bier before her, but he just couldn't be dead.
And if he was, she was going to bring him back.
The house was still now; even the priest had gone to bed, and there was no one about to interrupt what she was about to do. Quaren might yet benefit from the things he had taught her. Of course, every minstrel knew the song of Orfeo, who had gone to the lands of death to bring back his wife, but very few people knew how to make the journey in truth. Such studies had been a hobby of Quaren's, and he had taught Oriana everything she could absorb. She rose silently to her feet and crossed the room to the door standing open between the chapel and the rest of the house. Quietly she closed the door and locked it. Then she returned to the bier.
From its hiding place in the long sleeve of her undertunic she pulled a small silver dagger, Quaren's ritual knife. The household priest didn't know about all of the rituals performed in the chapel. This would not be the first ritual she had done behind locked chapel doors, even if it was the first one she had tried to do alone. She could only hope that Quaren had taught her enough.
Using the dagger, she cut a lock of his hair and two locks of her own, braided them together and wound them around the hilt of the dagger. Now the dagger would tie her spirit to her husband's and help her to find him. She circled the bier, blowing out the candles, until the chapel was absolutely dark. Then she lay down on the bier, draping herself carefully across Quaren's body, and shifted into trance state.
She was in a narrow rock passageway, filled with billowing fog. Everything around her was a very dark gray, but as she went forward down the sloping tunnel, it widened and became lighter. Soon she could see quite well. She needed to be able to see here, for this was the place of the recently dead, the spirits not yet detached from the world and its concerns. Quaren should be here, if she was lucky.
The fog had slacked off to the occasional wisp by the time she reached the gates. There were two sets of them, made of round iron bars the size of her arm welded together into giant lattices. One could climb them easily, as many of the forms on the far side of them were doing, but since they went right up to the ceiling, they couldn't be climbed over.
Oriana walked up to the first gates, the ones that didn't have whoever they were crawling all over them. The gates were latched on the other side, but they didn't fit together snugly and it was easy enough for Oriana to slide the blade of the dagger through the crack and lift the latch. Opening the gates was much harder; she had to lean on one of them and push with all her might before it opened wide enough for her to slip through. It fell shut with a loud clang as soon as she released it, but by then she was safely through. Holding the dagger tightly with both hands, she approached the second gates.
The forms on the other side proved to be people more or less. They wore no clothes, and their bodies lacked the sharp detail of a human body, rather they were pale brown human-shaped manikins. But their faces were definitely human, as were their voices.