Harvest Moon (8 page)

And everywhere, people. Which she ignored, because she was trying to figure out what, if anything, she might be able to get to bear fruit, and why there was nothing bearing fruit here now.

Finally she gave up trying to reason it out herself, and went searching for someone who could tell her. Most of those she asked looked at her askance, and said they hadn't really thought about it. A couple groups actually turned the topic of their debate to whether or not there
should
be such a thing as planting and harvesting here.

Well, it was no worse than the “color blue” question.

Finally she was sent to the ruler of Elysium; the former king Rhadamanthus, who was the son of a Titan. Or, as she was well aware now, at least half-Fae.

She found him arbitrating a dispute between two philosophers, but once he caught sight of her, he seemed more than pleased to tell them they were
both
wrong, dismiss them, and go to greet her.

“So, this is ‘little' Persephone.” The king chuckled. “I must say, I envy Hades. Perhaps Thanatos can find me another like you?”

“Oh, he already did, and you wouldn't want her,” Persephone replied, thinking about the rather formidable war-goddess she had left stewing in Hades's care. “Cross Athena with Ares's temper, and throw in a bit of Bacchus's madness, just to keep things uncertain—” She explained to Rhadamanthus what had happened as briefly as she could. “So the problem is,” she concluded,
“since Thanatos didn't abduct me, I have to find another way to keep Mother from getting me back. Hecate says the only way she can think of is for me to eat something grown down here. But it has to be real food, apparently, flowers won't qualify, or I would already have had a salad of asphodel.”

“Well…that is a problem. The definition of Elysium is that it lies in eternal spring—not a good time to produce anything edible.” Rhadamanthus pondered this for a moment. “Well, if you have any of your mother's power…”

She sighed. “Hecate said the same thing.”

“There might be one place where you can succeed. Come with me.”

She followed Rhadamanthus, for quite some time. He proved to be an excellent conversationalist and told her many valuable things about Hades's moods and personality. It was only when he took her through a very precipitous cleft that she noticed that this part of Elysium was a bit different than the rest. Drier, not so lush, and at the moment—warmer.

On the other side of the cleft was a tiny valley. It was not a particularly fertile valley, either. But there were three stunted pomegranate trees here, with a few blossoms on them.

“I really don't know why this part of Elysium is resistant to the eternal spring we have everywhere else,” Rhadamanthus mused. “But it is. No one but myself ever comes here.
I
only found the place by accident. I've seen fruit start—I've never seen one ripen, but I have seen them start. If there is anyplace in Elysium where you can succeed, it will be here.”

Persephone stared at the unprosperous-looking trees,
and for a moment was ready to give up completely. This was ridiculous. The trees were warped by drought and deprivation, the soil was poor, and in any event, pomegranates took five months from blossom to fruit! By that time, Demeter would surely track her down and demand her back!

“The Tradition does demand the almost impossible in order for the Hero to succeed,” Rhadamanthus said, as if he was reading her thoughts.

She almost groaned, but he was right. This was exactly the sort of thing that The Tradition required.

It seemed she was going to be growing pomegranates. Hopefully, at an accelerated pace.

Hopefully, her mother's power actually
was
in her.

 

Leo had more than a few choice words for the Olympians, and he was delivering them when Hecate returned. This time the billow of dark smoke sprang up between him and the others, so that Hecate was in an excellent position to interrupt them all when she stepped out of it. “Your woman seems to be fine, mortal,” Hecate said, cutting his tirade short. “And she's no better pleased with this than you are. I pledge you that Hades has no intention of holding her if there is any way we can work out a solution for this predicament he and Thanatos managed to muddle into.”

Leo frowned, and was about to demand what she meant by
if,
when she held up her hand, forestalling him. “However, if you'll give me the favor of holding your tongue for a moment, Olympia has a much bigger problem to deal with here than just one separated couple, and unfortunately, this is one that won't wait.”

“Just what would that be?” Leo asked angrily.

Hecate's somber face made him pause. “Demeter is the goddess of fertility,” she said slowly and deliberately. “And the goddess of fertility has just abandoned her home and run off into the wilderness and beyond. I would not in the least be surprised to discover that she has abandoned her duty and fled past our borders as well. The Tradition has put her firmly in charge of the magic that keeps Olympia fertile and growing, and there is no way to replace her. And we have a country populated by mortals who have no concept of ‘seasons,' and no reason to store food, since Demeter has insured that things ripen all year long.”

Athena was the one who grasped the gravity of the situation about the same time that Leo did. She gasped and paled, understanding that Hecate meant the country was about to plunge into starvation as the last of the food was eaten and there was nothing growing to replace it. Leo's first reaction was another flare of anger. These people had made their bed, so to speak, let them lie in it! What did he have to do with them, or the troubles they brought on themselves? He only wanted Bru back!

But then…

Then something else cooled the anger as quickly as if he'd had a bucket of water thrown over his head.

He couldn't let that happen. The mortals of Olympia were innocents in this, and what was worse, the gods could probably hold out and it would be the innocent mortals that would suffer.

He could not let that happen. Not and still be himself.

He was Leopold, the People's Prince, who had fought a city fire in his shirt and breeches like everyone else, passing buckets and setting the firebreaks among the
homes of the great that saved the greater part of the capital. He was the Prince who had joined in with his own two hands while the citizens rebuilt.

And now, he was…well, if he wasn't quite a Hero like Siegfried, he was still the Prince who fought dragons and tyrants in lands not his own. And while he
claimed
that he did so because it was exciting and dangerous and therefore a fantastically amusing thing to do, down deep inside he knew that he did it for the same reasons Siegfried did. Because it was the right thing, because The Tradition, and magicians and powerful creatures and people, all conspired to make misery of the lives of ordinary people, and someone had to help them. He was a Prince. Noblesse oblige, that was the concept that his own father had taught him, and it wasn't just a nice phrase to him.

It was an obligation and one that, despite his outwardly cavalier attitude, he took seriously. He and Bru had talked about this at some length just before they crossed the border into Olympia, and it had been an interesting conversation.

At first, when he and Bru had embarked on this life of adventurers, Bru had been rather like a child let loose in a circus. While her fighting ability was both inherent—because she and her sisters were, after all, minor battle-goddesses—and instinctive, she had never actually
used
her weapons much. Like her sister Valkyria, her main tasks had been to fetch the heroic dead from the battlefield and take them to Vallahalia, and it was a rare occasion when she even brandished her spear or sword, much less used them. She and her sisters sparred, and that was about the extent of her opportunities to fight. She had the spirit of a born warrior, and to be
finally able to go up against creatures and people that were clearly evil and best them in combat had been, for lack of a better term, exhilaratingly
fun
for her. She'd really not taken any thought for anything but the sheer excitement of pitting herself—and him—against them.

But it had been a brief visit to Siegfried and Rosa that had opened her eyes to the other side of the situation. They had just had a very odd encounter with another dragon, one who agreed to come guard Eltaria, but only if they could beat him in combat. After their victory, it seemed rude not to drop in on Queen Rosamund and King Siegfried.

After the initial greetings were over, Siegfried had asked casually if they wanted to come along and lend him a hand with a “wild bull problem.” The Tradition was making things lively within Eltaria since the King was a genuine Hero. While the presence of guardian dragons on the border was keeping armies at bay, this did nothing to stop the country itself from presenting the new monarchs with all manner of Traditional challenges whenever things started to look a little too peaceful.

And Siegfried was very much a Hero King in the style of his native land. Which meant that he turned up wherever there was a problem, without fanfare or escort (other than the Firebird, his constant companion), talked to the locals, then dealt with the situation, or sent the Bird for some reinforcements. Usually (he said) he didn't need the reinforcements, and having seen him in action, Leo could well believe it. Besides, he was a Hero—and a Hero, Traditionally, was supposed to get rid of such things single-handedly. Siegfried had it down to a kind of routine now. Once he had the measure
of the situation, he'd dispatch the menace in question, then allow the locals to make a great victory fuss over him, and depart.

“It's useful,” Siegfried had pointed out. “I'm a foreigner, after all. Most of them expect me to turn up wearing nothing but a lion pelt or a bearskin, waving a club and grunting. They get a good look at me, I prove I'm dedicated to protecting them, and everyone feels better when it's all over.”

In this case, however, without even going to the village being threatened, Siegfried already knew he would need a little help. This bull was a monster, powerful and preternaturally fast, very crafty, and he would need a team to tease and distract it until one of them managed to kill it.

“The Firebird could help,” he had told them, “but she doesn't have the agility she did when she was just the little brown forest bird. A slash with a horn at the wrong moment—” He'd shaken his head. “I won't risk her. But the three of us are good enough to keep anyone from getting hurt, I think.”

Leo and Bru were both more than willing to help out—and this was where Bru had gotten her first taste of what Leo and Siegfried both felt. That noblesse oblige, though if she had said anything at the time, Siegfried would just have shrugged and said, “But that is what a Hero does.”

They went to the village, which was nearly on the eastern border, and saw at firsthand how the Black Bull had actually smashed cottages unless they were made of stone. She was at first impatient as Siegfried listened to the stories of his people and soothed them. She didn't see why he needed to talk to them. After all, Siegfried
already knew the Black Bull was a monster, and that he needed to kill it because it had done dreadful things, he was king, and it was his job to remove such dangerous creatures. He didn't need to listen to story after tearful story. All he needed to do now (in her mind) was find out where it was so they could kill it.

But then she started to pay attention. Leo knew the moment when she understood that these were
people
to him and Siegfried, and not just warriors. He could see in her eyes the moment she stopped feeling impatient with what she had probably initially thought of as their “whining,” and began to empathize with them.

The fight had gone as planned; the Black Bull, a creature easily twice the size of a farm cart and as vicious a beast as anything Leo had ever seen, was no match for three fighters, two of whom were as fast and deadly as it was, and the third, who, while not as fast, could take an astonishing amount of punishment. They had killed it, the villagers descended on it, and them, and there was a great feast. Siegfried had been genial and gracious, Leo had played the madcap “best friend,” and Bru had watched them both as they filled the roles that the villagers expected, watched as the villagers took this “barbarian King” to their hearts and accepted him as their own.

It had been a good visit, if short. Gina, another of the Dragon Champions, had dropped by, and Bru had had a long talk with her that had led to them coming to Olympia.

For the entire visit, Brunnhilde had been very thoughtful, watching Leo and Siegfried as if she had just discovered something about them that she had never expected. That was when they'd had that talk, and it had
been hard for her to articulate some of what she felt, but from that moment, their adventures had become something more meaningful than just another exciting battle for her, a chance to test her strength and skills. He could tell that her attitudes had changed. She was a protector, a defender now.

And so was he. They fought for more than adventure and glory. They fought to keep ordinary folk from extraordinary harm.

In a way, he suspected he had always felt like this. He might have cultivated a devil-may-care facade, but under that facade was a deep drive that was not unlike that of a fierce guard dog for its master.

Which was why, when Hecate had said what she had, he knew very well that he couldn't just let these people wallow in the crisis they had made for themselves. Once again, unless someone stepped in, it was the poor mortals who were going to suffer. The common folk. And as far as he could tell, these gods were about as useful in this situation as a lot of gawky adolescents. He was going to have to do something about it.

“How much food do you think is stored?” he demanded of the dark goddess. “Obviously the mortals are going to have no idea what is going on when winter falls on them, and they won't have prepared for such a thing, so how long do you think it will be before conditions get dire? A week? Less? More?”