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In a cave under a mountain, a doctor pressed his back against a corner of his cell and stared into nothing. He had scratches all down his back from the rocks of the cavern floors. His fingertips still throbbed from when he'd tried to claw his way back out, and the iodine stung like the very devil.

"Better than Crossing the Balkan Mountain in January," he told himself.

At least there was no snow. No mud or bombs. Nobody was shooting at him. Just silence and cool, absolute darkness. Andrei might as well close his eyes as open them.

What good was light to him now? No need to plan or run. Andrei had been well and truly caught. Just not by the right people.

Was a hissing collection of trogladytic cultists better than a court martial? Were these cave-Thracians likely to be any more merciful than the Major General? Was it better to be sacrificed to some pagan god or cleanly executed?

The devil you know, Doctor, or the devil you don't?

Andrei had been given a basin of hot water, a cloth, a bowl of bread and milk, and a bundle of clothes. Doing the appropriate things with the first two had used up maybe a half an hour. Now the rest of the night stretched before him. The rest of his life, however short that might be.

He reached for the clothing. Groping in the dark, Andrei first found the undershirt and drawers, which seemed to be cotton as modish as any found in Paris. Under them, however, lay a voluminous, ankle-length robe, and a broad woolen sash to hold it tight, like the vestments of a monk or a dervish. The robe was lined with felted wool, but its outer covering was some coarse, papery fabric that rustled loudly with even the slightest movement. Andrei understood why when his fingers found the slippers. Their soles had been pierced by an arc of metal tacks. Wearing these clothes, Andrei would click with every step and rustle with every gesture.

That was all. There didn't seem to be any fox-fur cap included in Andrei's kit. Maybe you only got one once you'd sacrificed somebody to Hades.

What would these people do to him? Why do any of this to a runaway physician? Why march Andrei across a continent, kill his patients as quickly as he fixed them, chase him up a mountain, and imprison him in the darkness? What next?

Andrei sank to the chilly floor, pulling his knees closer to his chest, and stared at his hands.

He frowned. Rotated his wrists. Wiggled his fingers. Was his skin glowing?

In green and purple blotches. That can't be healthy.

Andrei closed his eyes. No difference. The bruise-colored outlines continued to wave against the blackness.

He opened his eyes again, again to no discernible effect, and traced up the green and purple outlines of his arms and shoulders. His waving hands stood out much more clearly than his unmoving torso. When he breathed, though, there was his chest, clear in his non-sight. When Andrei stretched his legs and wiggled his toes, he could see them right through his slippers. The corner of the cell's bed, however, failed to reveal itself until Andrei's kicking leg whacked it.

Ow! So. No preternatural senses, then. Andrei was only hallucinating.

A man could always feel where his own body was, and he could remember the general positions of the few items in this room. Starved for real light, Andrei's brain helpfully confabulated vision for him. Why should that lie make him feel better?

How many times have you told a doomed patient that he would recover?

Andrei hissed out a breath through his teeth, and the walls of his cell seemed to brighten.

Lies and hope. What was the difference? When these cave-Thracians told him that if he passed their tests, they wouldn't kill him. What did that even mean? Would they only torture him to insanity? Crown him emperor? Put him to work polishing the idols and sorting the snakes? Or whatever work it was that cultists needed done.

And what work do you need to do, Doctor?

Andrei blinked, and green and violet wheeled. He'd said he'd take these people. He'd entered their house, certainly, and there was sickness here for him to cure.

He pulled his knees back up to his chin. There was no point in thinking about medical ethics. What Andrei needed was to work out a way to convince them to let pass their "test" and live. Did they need a doctor in this mountain? Or did they already have one?

Ask instead if they need a god.

"Shut up." The walls of the cell rang with his voice. They seemed very close.

Andrei stood with the convulsion of an insomniac and groped along the wall until he came to the bed he'd kicked. Now, along the bed to explore the opposite wall.

The sheets on the bed were finer than those in his family house, but the rest of the cell seemed monastically bare. At least, Andrei's hands found nothing when he paced the perimeter of the chamber but bare walls and a locked door. The floor was stone, smoothed by generations of feet and eons of water, very slightly canted to one side. Andrei had to adjust his pacing.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He had made three dozen laps around the cell when something clicked in the darkness. Wood scraped against stone and the breeze on Andrei's face shifted. Someone had opened the door. He turned to face it, breathing hard, trying to remember what he'd planned to say to his captors.

"What do you mean to do with me?"

"I would have that this was already clear." The voice seemed to come from a long way up, as if a goblin clung to the ceiling. It spoke in Russian.

"Oh," Andrei said. "Nikolai Igorevich. Look, I don't suppose you'll drop this idea of ritually sacrificing me and just join me in my escape? Two sons of Russia together, eh? Making a break for freedom?"

An aggravated pause, followed by "No." The very darkness seemed to scowl.

Andrei essayed another try. "Is this how you treat a guest? So as to make him want to run away? I'm a doctor who could be useful to you, not a sacrificial victim."

"We are all victims in the end, Andrei Trifonovich. And in the end, use can be found for all of us, as well." Nikolai chuckled, pleased at his own insight.

Andrei nodded. So much for the hope that he'd been wrong in his first estimation of Nikolai's character. High priest of Pluto or not, the man fit a mold. He reminded Andrei of his youngest brother.

The family's plan was for the boy to study agriculture, but somehow he'd fallen in with the Narodniks. After Andrei's intervention and certain other disasters, his brother had left both his friends and his university to become a monk.

At the time, Andrei had breathed a sigh of relief. His youngest brother had a tendency to follow, to find people to worship. Now, Andrei wondered what might happen if ever his brother was so unfortunate as to be elected abbot.

"How about breakfast, then?" he asked. "Fatten me up before you pop me into the oven?"

"Fool," whispered the priest. "Your life hangs by a thread."

Note this, Doctor: he thinks you worth frightening.

"I suppose you had better tell me what I can do to increase my chances of survival, then."

A wet sound in the darkness. Andrei imagined lips parting in a smile. "You have come to us as a gift, Andrei Trifonovich, but it is left to us to determine the nature of that gift. We must hone your shape. Cut away the worldly clay so that the divine metal may ring true. Only then can we hear your resonances."

"Comforting," said Andrei.

"There is to be a ritual."

"Yes? The equinox, was it?"

"The equinox approaches, yes, and with it the Un-Descent." Now Nikolai sounded a bit disappointed under his sepulchral tone, as if he'd been hoping for more pleading on Andrei's part.

"And the Un-Descent would be?"

"The Fruit-Bringer will leave the Sacred Depths for the season and go among our people, spreading the flowers of hope and the fruit of victory."

"I see." Andrei squinted into the pitch-blackness. "I understand, in any case."

"A sense of humor," said Nikolai, "is unbecoming in the vessel of Grim Hades."

You're in for a surprise, priest.

Andrei chuckled to himself.

"Stop that!"

"My sincerest apologies," said Andrei. "So, then. Aside from grimness, what's expected of me during this ritual?" Again, Andrei's imp of the perverse had him by the voice box. "What am I to do with the Maiden? What Hades does with Persephone?"

A hiss. A choke. A noise like "Hrrpm!" as Nikolai forced his lips closed.

Andrei took note of the audible symptoms of acute flusterment.

"No! Of course we do not believe that the Maiden is actually Persephone." Nikolai bit the words off like flesh from a wormy apple.

Ah, thought Andrei, a lie.

Nikolai's hands brushed over his robes, as if straightening them. "Mademoiselle Chthamali is the vessel of the goddess. What we must determine is whether you, Andrei Trifonovich, do the same for—"

"Her lover."

"Ssht!"

Nikolai hissed and rustled while Andrei wondered if he wanted the priest to regain his self-control. How could he best get information? Andrei was reminded of the time when his infirmary had run out of lamp oil, and he had been forced to extract bullets in the dark, by feel.

"I'm supposed to be possessed by Hades?" Andrei groped. "And this is the Un-descent, right? So, I'll have to, what, let Persephone go?"

"That is broadly correct, yes. I suppose an uneducated Fool could not do better."

Imagining a scalpel, between his fingers, Andrei considered what to ask next. "Then, in the autumn when my wife returns to me—"

"You have no wife," snapped Nikolai, "and you will not live to see the harvest."

Aha. Andrei had struck a nerve. He'd learned that, one: Nikolai worshiped Kori Chthamali as his literal goddess, despite what he'd said. Two: he was fanatically jealous. Three: Perhaps, he had reason to be.

"Let me make something clear to you, Fool," said Nikolai. "The Maiden of the Sacred Depths is a treasure that you will not be admitted to tarnish. She says you were sent to us by the Wealthgiver. Very well. But he sends the viper as well as the narcissus. Show which you are, and I will deal with you appropriately. Is that understood?"

Andrei considered telling the priest what he did to poisonous reptiles when he found them. But a threat in his position would make him look weak. "Well understood, Your Serenity," he said. "How can I prove myself worthy to, ah, contain your god?"

A dry smile colored Nikolai's voice. "Speaking his language is the absolute minimum."

"Beg pardon?"