Free The Black Chalice by Marie Jakober Page A

chamber which lay next to the great hall. It was, as he had guessed, a pagan shrine. In the center was a high dais, where the Black Chalice stood alone, dark, yet almost incandescent. Below was a stone altar with many carefully arranged objects: colored stones, sea shells, pieces of polished wood twisted into strange shapes. And among them, a small onyx cup, shaped like the great urn and crusted with jewels; over the top of it lay a splendid curved horn.
    The horn in my throat, and my blood in the cup… is this how it ends? What a wicked irony, for a man who marched to Jerusalem and spilled so much blood for a different god….
    “I didn’t bring you here to lop your head off, Karelian, but if you continue to scowl at me, I might consider it.”
    He forced himself to smile. “I’ve never scowled at a pretty woman in my life. I merely find all of this… surprising.”
    “I can’t imagine why. You’ve already contemplated all the awful possibilities. That I’m a demon, a vampire, a succubus, a lamia… have I forgotten anything? Men are wonderfully inventive with such notions! All of it has crossed your mind, my lord, has it not?”
    “Yes. Briefly. A man isn’t responsible for every thought which might run across his mind.”
    “And what do you think now?”
    “That you are still the loveliest, most desirable creature I’ve ever seen.”
    She smiled. “I must say I admire your poise.”
    She picked up the chalice and the horn, murmuring, raised them four times, to each corner of the world, and placed them back on the altar.
    “You asked me who I am, Karelian. I am three things: guardian of the Reinmark, keeper of the Grail of Life which Maris brought here from the vale of Dorn, and high priestess of Car-Iduna. I brought you here to make a bargain with you.”
    She paused, her mouth crinkling with amusement. “It’s not what you think. I don’t bargain for my bed— at least not very often, and never with a man like you.”
    “Why not with a man like me?” he asked, offended.
    “Because I would find myself content with pleasure, and forget to ask for anything else. My bed you have for a gift, and willingly. But my protection and my power— those are different matters. If you want to have those, you must pledge me your loyalty, and acknowledge my gods.”
    “Neither of those things is possible, my lady.”
    “Are they not? How truly do you believe in your Christ— the Christ for whose sake Jerusalem was drowned in blood?”
    He looked away, to the spill of winter light falling from a curved window.
    “I don’t know what I believe,” he said heavily. “But however many doubts I have about Christ, I have as many about Odin.”
    “Odin?” She made a small, dismissive gesture. “Odin is an upstart. He’s like most of the sky-riders— Zeus and Yahweh and your bachelor Father Eternal, and now Allah, too, as if we needed another one. They’re like spoiled princes, racing their chariots across the world, full of threats and vanity and blood-lust. I serve better gods than that, Karel.”
    He waited.
    “The Vanir,” she went on, “the ancient earth gods; and those of the high Aesir who still remember that sky belongs to earth, and is nothing but emptiness without it. Gods of the herds and the hunt, of the fields and the fires. Gods of love and pleasure, and of the winter tree which never dies. They aren’t always gentle, but they don’t destroy men just to prove they can.”
    He watched her, silent. Priestess, she had called herself, an alien word in a Christian world, so strange it lingered in the mind long after the conversation had moved to other things. Sorceress was a word a Christian recognized, yes, and catalogued instinctively, without needing to think about it. But what was a priestess? And who were these gods she claimed to serve? Were they true gods, or were they demons? Indeed, were they real at all, and would it ever be possible to know?
    He had wondered about such things in his later