Hands over his eyes, Andrei stumbled backward. The edge of a cot hit him in the hip.

  "Andrei?" came Kori's voice from the streaming brilliance. Andrei lowered his hand and looked for her.

  The hard, white light seemed to pin Kori, suspend her in a sea of black velvet. One eye and half her mouth lay still in that sea, shadowed by her chin and nose. The other eye shown as if polished. A curl of hair cast a shadow on her cheek, bold as the stroke of a Chinese brush.

  Andrei swallowed. "So that's calcium light. It will be hard to work around the shadows. Perhaps I can rig up some mirrors for all-around illumination?"

  A smile swam up from the depths. "Of course we have already done so. Look into the corners of the room."

  He squinted. The light barely penetrated so far, but there did seem to be something gleaming up there.

  "They only need to be properly aligned," said Kori. "Go pull on those brass rods. You can reach them better than me."

  Andrei enjoyed a brief fantasy of watching Kori lift her arms over her head, but lumbered off toward the nearest corner mirror. "Now I see why you want to keep me around. Except, no, that can't be it. Nikolai is taller."

  A sigh from the Maiden. He turned back toward her.

  "Would you tell me why you do want me alive?" asked Andrei. "Am I to be your doctor? Your god? Something else?"

  She was so beautiful. Her hair gleamed like polished wood, her face alive with deep, swift thought. Her simple dress and the wide cloth sash cinched around her waist showed off those hips to great effect.

  "I can't tell you," she said. "And that's already saying too much."

  He remembered. The darkness knows itself.

  The calcium light didn't penetrate far into this corner of the infirmary. Andrei had to squint and let his eyes adjust before he could find the brass rod that controlled the angle of the mirror mounted up there. This was almost more difficult than just staying in darkness. He grasped it and gave it a little tug. A bright point swung across the concave, silver surface, and now he had two shadows.

  Andrei walked to the other mirror on the opposite side of the room. By the time he got there, he had figured out a different angle for his questions.

  "It's not usual, is it, to grab some outsider and make him play the part of Pluto?"

  A pause while Kori calculated the danger in answering that question. "Usually, no man plays Pluto during the Un-Descent. I put on the mask of the Maiden, and I talk to the mask of Pluto on a wall."

  Her tone of voice was encouraging.

  Andrei turned to examine the room. The patients lay on their backs, wet towels over their eyes. They both groaned and turned their faces away from the light. A good sign.

  Now he could see the twin altars, one on each side of the room. One portrayed a bearded man, the other with a tall, slender woman. Very symbolic. Various grooves had been cut into the wall at waist height, as well as the floor. Equipment and cabinets of supplies stood along one wall, and ventilation slits peered from the corners. The ceiling was high and vaulted, like the interior of a beehive, painted in soot-stained white, red, and blue.

  Andrei walked to Vlada placed the backs of two fingers under her jaw. Slightly warm, but much better.

  "How is she?" asked Kori.

  Andrei glanced at the open mouth under the damp towel that covered her eyes. "Sleeping. The best thing for her now is to be left alone."

  He could turn off the calcium light now, but he wouldn't. Andrei wanted to look at Kori while he talked with her. "Why don't you put the mask on one of your priests?"

  "Because the priests don't speak for the gods, they interpret what I say when, I suppose you would say when the goddess pours from me."

  "All right, so male avatars aren't usually allowed?"

  "'Avatar.' Is that what I am?" She sniffed. "But no. Men can speak for a god as well as women. We usually have one of our operatives play the part of the Rushing Shepherd, for instance. He is the messenger of the Sky Father."

  "And who is Zeus in this scenario?"

  "Oh, we don't really care about the other gods. There are so many of them and frankly we don't see any evidence for their existence."

  "And you do see evidence for Apollo, Dionysus, and Hades."

  "Reason, madness, and opportunity? Yes. We see them all regularly."

  "Alright." Andrei was not about to be distracted by religion. "But how many men have played Pluto? What makes me special?"

  This time, she didn't hesitate to answer. Perhaps the darkness already knew all this. "You have the…expertise? No, that's not the right word."

  "I should hope not," Andrei grumbled. "As I have never played the lord of death before."

  Oh, Doctor, haven't you?

  Back when they'd first crossed the Danube, Andrei had thought he could keep his infirmaries safe, make them little, clean, walled-off havens in the midst of war. But war infiltrated the tent. The wounded brought it with them. Their blood pooled on the floor, freezing to ice or drying to glue or else swarming with drinking mosquitoes. Quartermasters breathed down Andrei's neck: why do you need so much fresh water and fuel? And Poruchicks: why isn't what's-his-name back in uniform? Once, a captain had flung aside the tent flap, strode up to a wounded soldier, and discharged his pistol into the man's lower left leg. It had been, he said, an act of love. This underground chamber was a paradise by comparison: deep, cold, and slow.

  "Faláta ésta 'bremésa,'" said Kori. "I suppose the best translation for it is 'resonance. My resonance is with the Maiden, for example and," she clicked and pointed, "Little Vlada over there resonates with the Echoing Girl, because she repeats everything she hears."

  "And Nikolai?"

  Kori's mouth drew down in disappointment. "Batsáss órpei, ái vu kálit. He is a man of great voice, who sings the gods' messages to the people. He left behind his family and came into the Depths so he could find something of great value. He is in danger from the followers of the God of the Grape. Do you understand?"

  "You mean he's a drunk?"

  "Don't even suggest such an offense," said Kori. "The high priest would never touch alcohol, of course. That is not at all what I meant. The Vine God has many weapons. His sweet delusions tempt all of us, but," she admitted, "I think Nikolai struggles with them more than most."

  "Romanticism," Andrei diagnosed. "This idea of letting go of your control and running wild like a beast."

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  "When you have been confined, running wild sounds tempting."

  "Only if you don't care about other people, and what you might do to them" said Andrei, thinking of some soldiers he'd seen.

  "Nikolai resonates with the one we call the Orphan," said Kori. "Father-of-Songs, Famous-of-Name, the Player-of-the-Lyre." After a moment, in which Andrei did not supply the name, Kori huffed impatiently. "órpei!"

  "Oh." Hadn't Andrei thought Nikolai needed only a guitar to complete his look? "Does everyone have resonances?"

  "Yes. Usually impure. Unrefined. Alloyed together."

  "Musician and engineer. Doctor and murderer." Andrei examined the sleeping Murad, "poisoner and…some kind of clerk? Maybe a lexicographer." A refined brow the man had. And with luck, the brain behind it would continue to work.

  The priest was no longer shivering, which was very good. The blankets over him rose and fell regularly, and the surprisingly modern hot water bottle under his feet was still warm.

  "Even I am only sometimes in tune with the Maiden. Sometimes…"

  Andrei looked up from his patient to see Kori's expression had turned guilty.

  "Sometimes?" he prompted.

  "It is the Binder who seizes me."

  That sounded like a confession of some horrible sin. Kori hugged herself as if cold.

  "The Binder?"

  "The Greeks called her Artemis or Hecate. The goddess of the Moon." She raised her chin and clicked her tongue, looking past Andrei's shoulder. He turned to see one of the silver mirrors.

  "There are practices," said Kori. "Mental techniques, I suppose you would call them."

  Andrei tried to remember his Greek mythology. Artemis killed men who lusted after her, and Hecate was some sort of evil witch. "I suppose you'd better stay in tune with Persephone, then. But then what about me? Apollo is the god of doctors, isn't he? 'I swear by Apollo Physician, by Asclepius, by Hygieia, by Panacea…' and so forth. Hades isn't in there."

  "Pft. Apollo," said Kori, as if dismissing a composer of popular music. "He is flash. Logic. Distraction. Asclepius was only a man like Orpheus. An immortal hero, certainly, but born to die like the rest of us. Hades is a god. He walks unseen. He carries a bag of wealth. He accepts all who come to him. He is grim and cold, but never unfaithful. He takes people to where they must go."

  Andrei slapped a hand to the back of his neck, which had suddenly grown cold. "A bag of wealth? So that's why those shepherds loaded my pack with all that junk."

  "They were saving your life," said Kori. "It is death for a Fool—an outsider—to hear the Good Language. However, if he is initiated into the mysteries of the Wealthgiver, then he is no longer an outsider." She shrugged, looking away guiltily. "That's what you did with Nikolai?"

  "We welcomed him in and gave him a new life."

  Andrei heard the defensiveness there. "Is that what you do to me?" he asked quietly.

  Kori's chin jerked up. She looked at him, eyes wide, and put her fingers to her lips.

  "How many other members are there of your male harem?"

  She snorted out a shocked laugh. "Shut up, you idiot. I rescued you—only the two of you—because the alternative was to let you be killed, just as we've been discussing. Nikolai, I add, was a great success. He has brought much to the Depths."

  Such as zealotry. Andrei had met firebrands before, in the church, the government, and most especially the military. Unless older, wiser men stomped hard on them, young hotheads could do a great deal of dáhamge…

  Oh.

  Andrei took a step back from her. "Is that why you kidnapped me? You found the first person you could with 'resonances' to Hades so that …" He didn't need her to shush him this time. With one hand, Andrei mimed buttoning with his mouth. With the other, he made motions as if beating someone with a stick.

  Kori looked guiltily away. Andrei was right. He was the hammer the prophetess would use to re-arrange the bones of her priests.

  And they knew it. Nikolai didn't just want to kill Andrei out of religious principle. His professional pride was wrapped up in this mess as well.

  Don't forget the romantic envy as well, Doctor.

  "And you can't just order Nikolai to leave me be?"

  "The vessel of the Maiden does not give orders. She prophesies."

  Andrei thought about that. "Except you're not exactly Persephone, are you? Hades was the one who kidnapped her. And didn't Orpheus go into the underworld looking for his wife? He didn't get kidnapped by Persephone either."

  Kori's thin-lipped mouth thinned further in a self-satisfied smirk. "Events don't occur in exactly the same way each time around."

  "So what do you want me to do, then? Carry you off? Feed you pomegranates? Assemble an army of the dead?" Steal her out of this deadly place?

  Kori gestured at the walls. "All I can say is be patient. Wait. Open yourself to signs and they will come."

  That sounded like more mystical claptrap. But something about her intonation made Andrei think there might be more to her words. Some hidden message.

  Andrei had an idea. Watching the slits on the walls as if they might house snakes, Andrei edged up to a cabinet. Sachets of powder, jars containing dried herbs. Did these people's hatred of alcohol include medicinal extractions?

  "What are you looking for?" Kori had come up behind him, silent as always.

  "Willow," he said, "and yes, chamomile. We'll add that to the tea. How convenient this room comes with a hot water spring. We must make sure she drinks enough. And make sure the other patient doesn't drink. And something else?"

  "Something?"

  Andrei couldn't figure out how to answer that other than something for writing secret messages with. "How about bandages? Bandages and iodine solution?"

  It was impossible to tell whether Kori understood his purpose, but she glided to a different cabinet and opened it. "The iodine is there with you," she said.

  Andrei looked again, noting the wax-sealed pots of camphor and the clean syringes. He ran his hand over them so he could find them by feel next time without relying on the calcium light. "And here's the strychnine…" He remembered his goals. "And, uh, the iodine. Yes, there it is."

  Andrei took the roll of cotton gauze she handed him and the bottle of dark liquid. He uncorked it and upended the bottle with his index finger plugging the hole, considering.

  Andrei jabbed his iodine-soaked index finger into the wad of gauze in his left hand. It left a purple blob.

  Kori raised an eyebrow at him, still smiling. Her hands were clasped in front of her creating a long vertical crease down her chest.

  Andrei closed his eyes and applied iodine to his finger again.

  With mortifying slowness, he picked out the letters of a word against the cotton: Run?

  She rolled her eyes and reached out. Her hands closed around his, which was closed around the bottle of iodine. One of her fingers traced a circle on the back of his hand, and every hair on Andrei's body stood up.

  What was she doing? Was this how people made love in these caves? He could only hope so! But no, Kori took a firm, purposeful grip on his wrist and pulled. She passed his hand from her right to her left and, again, Andrei felt her little nail against the back of his hand.

  "Put down the bottle." She reached the knuckle of his middle finger and made a sharp downward angle. She reached the knuckle of his middle finger and made a sharp downward angle. The arrowhead shape nearly glowed. Andrei realized he was shivering.

  A brief horizontal slash of her finger, and it departed. Came again, to make a sickle-curve. Another. This was torture! Andrei nearly panted. He wanted to seize her and press all her against all of him.

  She tapped the back of his hand sharply, twice, as if saying "Attend!"

  More finger-tracing. Arrowhead, sickle, sickle, circle, an open curve, like a cup, then a cross. What the hell was Kori doing? Not seducing him. Not that he needed much seducing.

  Kori traced another shape on the back of his hand, patient as a woman sketching a tree, or a schoolgirl copying out her letters on her writing-slate.

  Andrei gasped in understanding. Kori waited, but now Andrei couldn't remember what message she'd traced on his skin. What letters. He risked a noise.

  "Hm?"

  Kori looked up. "Wait," she said.

  "Yes?" said Andrei eagerly. "Wait for what?" But Kori twisted around. She let go of his hand and stepped back, head cocked and eyes unfocused. "We should put out the calcium light."

  "Why? Is someone—?"

  Kori put her finger to her lips and jerked her chin up. Her eyes darted to the door. Andrei pricked his ears too, and now he could hear the click of slipper-tacks.

  He could make it to the calcium light if he made a dash for it…but no. Andrei decided to turn around and fold his arms. He knew his guest would be Nikolai.