Pitchfork

by Nicole Scarano

  “Do it.” Alkaios bolted to his feet. “Whatever you need, I grant you freedom over this realm to construct it, but by the gods, hurry.”

  “I do not know if I can finish it in time…” Hephaestus started.

  “Try,” Alkaios interrupted.

  “Or if it is even possible,” finished Hephaestus with a pointed look at the king of the Underworld. “I am attempting to restrain a god, the likes we have never seen before.”

  “My father’s blood sealed that door for lifetimes,” Hades said, standing from the throne. She lifted a palm and slid it over the tip of the pitchfork’s broken prong. The metal sliced her soft flesh, and red bloomed across her skin. Cupping the pooling crimson, she moved to Hephaestus and smeared it on the hammer hanging at his waist. “May my blood strengthen whatever you forge.”

  “Thank you,” Hephaestus nodded, “I will do my best to help you, but if I build my maze, there is another thing to consider. The reason Medusa believes Hades needs to be locked with the Old Ones is that as her sanity deteriorates, her freedom will wreak havoc on earth. A creature of absolute power with a driving bloodlust, she could blot out the sun with the smoke of her carnage. My prison will cage all of that power and destruction here with you.”

  “I do not care,” Alkaios said with resolve. “If it saves her from their fate, then I do not care.”

  “You say that now,” Hephaestus said, “but have you considered what that would mean? I do not wish to be insensitive, but you could be locked here with a monster, one who is far more dangerous than that hellhound. She could turn the Underworld into a desolate realm in a matter of days if she follows in her ancestors’ footsteps. This maze might be a death sentence for all who abide here.”

  “But we must try. I cannot bear a life apart from her… a life where I never meet my son…” at that, Alkaios’ words broke off, and his voice fumbled. He turned and finding Hades, reached out a broad hand and enveloped hers in his.

  “Then I will try,” Hephaestus said somberly. “I only wanted you to be aware that I make no promises. I may fail, and it will cost you, or I may succeed, and you might still pay the price.”

  “Nevertheless, thank you,” Hades nodded as she clung to her husband, and the smith dipped his chin in response as he turned to leave.

  “Hephaestus?” Hades called out before he faded from the Underworld. He twisted his head back and caught the dark blue eyes of the raven-haired beauty. “Do not tell Zeus about your maze of a prison,” she said, and when he raised his eyebrows, continued, “I asked him to imprison me behind that seal if it must be done. Unless we have proof this will work, I do not want to give him a reason to hesitate on his promise. Unless there is truly a way to save me, I need him to believe there is no hope; that he must trap me in their realm. If Zeus knows there is a possible salvation, however futile, he may pause. With gods this powerful, all it takes is a single moment, and we will be destroyed. He cannot hesitate.”

  “Zeus will know nothing,” Hephaestus promised, and with that, he vanished back to his forge.

  “Hades?” Alkaios called as he pushed through the field of his mortal farm on earth.

  “The sky grows steadily darker,” drifted her voice through the wheat stalks. Alkaios moved toward the sound to find her motionless amidst the grain, eyes cast heavenward.

  “You should be resting,” Alkaios said as he settled in behind her. She was right. The darkness was spreading like a cancer. Its origin point hovered over Medusa’s mountain, a savage stain on the graying clouds.

  “A storm is coming,” Hades answered not bothering to look at her husband. “The heavens turn to ash, and the whole of the earth will die. I do not have time to rest. It has already begun.” Her eyes narrowed on a grain stalk next to her. Alkaios watched as she raised a hand and grasped the wheat. It crumbled between her fingers, black and rotten.

  “How is this possible?” Alkaios asked in shock as he reached out to take hold of the wheat beside him, but it too was diseased with death. “We blessed this grain to grow eternal, to give hope to those who need its blessing. The grass and trees are green.” His furrowed brow surveyed the land to assure himself that he was right, that color still sprung from the earth.

  “It is because of me,” Hades said with sorrow in her tone as she finally turned to face Alkaios. “I am tainted. This land was blessed in part by me, and therefore, it is the first to turn. I am the weed that chokes out the garden, but the rest of the land will eventually follow. Here is only the beginning.”

  “Hades,” Alkaios said, voice soft yet firm as he reached out and grasped her hand. The warmth of his fingers spread over her skin. “We will stop this,” he continued with a certainty he did not feel as he drew her to his heart, enveloping her with his strength.

  “I cannot find them,” Hades said, voice broken and muffled by Alkaios’ massive chest. She took a shaky breath to steady herself and pulled back to look her husband in his beautiful mud-blue eyes. “I cannot find them.” She sounded unsure of herself. “I should… I should be able to feel them, to know where they are, but I cannot. It is as if they are shielding themselves from me, as if they know I cannot be trusted, that I am still too much yours.”

  “Hades,” Alkaios breathed, taking her face in his hands and looking deep into her eyes. “You will always be mine.” He leaned down, and his lips crashed against hers, melding her into his body. He clung to Hades, deepening the kiss until he could not breathe, his lungs thrashing for air, and then he held on longer. When Alkaios finally pulled away, breath surged to fill his chest, and he watched his wife desperately swallow air. Her beautiful face was flushed as she clutched him, unwilling to be parted.

  “Always mine,” Alkaios repeated, brushing Hades’ hair behind her ears before claiming her mouth again in a kiss that made her believe him.

  Zeus stood on the sand, watching the waves violently pound the beach. The water was a grey that matched the sky, the beautiful blue faded as if the sea itself was dying. The white bubbling of the tide slammed against the dismal sand as if trying to climb onto the soil and spread its poison. Zeus regarded the swells in their agitated state, and after what seemed like endless moments of waiting, a head broke through the waves. A pair of piercing eyes crested the surface, and Poseidon strode from the ocean toward his brother. Water dripped down his perfect skin, making him appear more handsome than he ever did on land. The sea was his realm, the water his home. Any mortal observing Poseidon stride from the surf would have been overwhelmed by the beauty of the god, but the only soul lingering on the shore was Zeus, and his face wore a mask of anxious concern.

  “No sign of them,” Poseidon said, shaking his head. He speared the base of his rusting trident into the sand and reached his hands up to brush the wet locks of hair from his eyes. Zeus watched with dismay and sighed heavily, the weight of the world crushing the air out of his lungs.

  “There is no sign of them on earth.” Zeus ran a broad hand over his mouth. “And now you find no trace of them in the sea.”

  “Hades?” Poseidon asked, hoisting his trident back from the sand.

  “She cannot locate them either.”

  “But she is one of them?” Poseidon raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.

  “Her soul remains tethered to that husband of hers,” Zeus said with a hint of bitterness at the reference to Alkaios. “She may yet remain too much one of us for them to reveal themselves to her.”

  “The earth is fading… so are the depths,” Poseidon said, surveying the beach. “Something is here, and its reach is wide. I admit I was doubtful, but Medusa was right. Someone is coming, but where are they?”

  Zeus opened his mouth to answer his brother, but no words came, rendering him a gaping, dying fish out of water. He had no answers. He was the king of them all, the god of gods, the almighty on high, and yet he did not know… and it terrified him.

  Hades appeared in black smoke on Medusa’s mountain. She knew the Gorgon would sense the shift in power, so she settled
on a slab of debris at the temple’s entrance to wait. In a matter of moments, Medusa emerged in human form, the snakes at her crown braided loosely down her back.

  “We cannot find them,” Hades admitted, turning her head in greeting. “I cannot find them.” Medusa nodded and sat next to the dark god. Both women bore the faded bruises of their fight, but they looked significantly less horrifying.

  “So, let us see if they will find me,” Hades said and with that stood up. She lifted the pitchfork slightly off the ground and with a deafening crack, slammed it deep into the dirt. Black smoke shot from its uneven prongs and rocketed with lightning speed into the ashen stain that burned through the sky above. Hades’ fist released the weapon; its embedded base holding it erect as her fingers relinquished their hold. She turned her eyes heavenward and watched the unending onyx stream spew from the bident into the raging storm.

  “And if they come?” Medusa asked.

  “Alkaios, Zeus, and Poseidon are lying in wait. If they come, we will open a portal to the door. I am the entrance of that portal.” Hades reached out and touched Medusa’s chest. An electric jolt shot from her fingers through Medusa’s breast so suddenly, the Gorgon stumbled backward, feet clambering for a hold.

  “And now you are the exit,” Hades said. “Go guard the door. If they come, hopefully, we can trap them.”

  “And you?” Medusa asked with meaning.

  “And me,” Hades’ answered with both strength and sorrow in her voice. The dark god held the Gorgon’s gaze for a long moment before Medusa nodded her head solemnly.

  Hades let out a trembling breath and faced the emptiness of the mountain as the darkness of the temple swallowed the Gorgon. Hades’ hand slipped up and deftly swiped at the solitary tear that snuck from her eye. She knew Alkaios could not see her face from where he hid, but she felt him all the same. He would know what her finger wiped away even if he could not see it, so Hades turned her back to him. She refused to allow that errant tear to be the last of her Alkaios remembered.

  And there she stood, under the watchful yet hidden eyes of the three greats, and waited. Nothing happened as the sun passed overhead, the subtly shifting shadows the only hint it still existed behind the blackening sky. The pitchfork poured a steady stream of darkness into the heavens, a deadly beacon calling out, yet the only gods drawing breath on this mountain were the three she arrived with. Hades sighed and leaned back against the debris. They must know it was a trap; they could probably smell the weaker gods laying in wait.

  When most of the day had passed uneventfully, Hades pulled herself from her perch and accepted defeat. A movement teased the corner of her eye, and she whipped her head just in time to see what appeared to be a strand of dark hair flutter behind the far side of the temple. With unearthly speed, Hades had the pitchfork in hand and bolted after the teasing sight. She rounded the temple corner and skidded to a halt. Her eyes darted back and forth, seeing nothing but crumbling walls and wind lashed dirt. Nothing moved among the debris, and Hades swallowed a shaky breath. Had she imagined the movement, or were the shadows playing tricks on her eyes? She should return to Alkaios before madness took over her senses.

  And there it flashed again, a blurred shape darting through the rubble. The fluttering of dark hair bolted from behind a collapsed wall before disappearing behind the temple. Wasting no time, Hades disappeared in tentacles of black smoke only to appear a fraction of a second later in the dirt to bar the fleeing shadow’s escape. She dug in her heels, bracing for impact, yet none came. The crumbling space was empty save for centuries of decay and an impenetrable pass that ascended the final peak of the mountain at the rear the sanctuary. Hades had wondered why the witches only guarded the maze at the front of Medusa’s hidden lair, but seeing the deadly peak that surged into the storm, she realized that no one on foot would have ever survived the climb up the sheerness at the rear of the temple.

  A nagging bloomed in the back of her mind at the sight of the impenetrable pass. Whoever the figure was had climbed that treachery. Hades could feel it. Taking a fortifying breath, she drew her dress above her knees and knotted the fabric. Her bared legs strode unencumbered toward the pass, and with the pitchfork firmly in hand, Hades plunged against the jagged cliff side and began the climb. Within seconds, she realized the climb was even more impossible than it appeared, and with shins and knees grating over serrated protrusions, she hauled herself upward one painful fingertip hold after another.

  Before long the pallid clouds obscured her vision, rendering even her divine eyesight useless. The razor mountainside abraded her palms as Hades fumbled heavenward on touch alone. Her fingers gouged into the stone, making crevices when her grip failed to find a hold in her blindness. Grit and pebbles fell from where her hands and feet dug in, and the shifting soot threatened to give way and send her body to a shattering death.

  Crack! The splitting of stone echoed above her, and with barely enough time to register what she was doing, Hades flung herself sideways. Aching fingers dug desperately into the cliff to save her from careening to the jagged earth below just as a massive boulder plummeted down the ledge. Its lurching mass barely missed Hades’ skull, an impact that would have painted the rock with her cranial fluid, and she sucked in a breath trying to steady her erratically thundering heart. Hades felt it. She was gaining on them, and with a surge of power, she shoved herself up. The force of the movement caused the stone to crack where she landed.

  Her body scaled the rock with unnatural speed, and Hades felt the top rather than saw it in a matter of moments. Hauling her body over the edge, she stood on the peak of this mountain. The mountain that held the entrance to her kind’s realm, and in that moment, she knew she stood higher than Olympus ever would.

  Hades squinted in the impenetrable clouds, and her eyes caught on a shadow ahead. Gripping the pitchfork, the queen moved through the blackness toward the figure, the thrashing of the dark hair the only detail she could make out. Gaining on the motionless image, Hades sped up and burst through the fog, but she stopped short as her body obliterated what was merely a shadow. Her toes slid off the edge of the peak, and not a soul accompanied her atop the height. Hades looked down and saw the plummet was a straight drop to earth, not a single ledge or crevice jutted out to break the sheerness. A fall from here would end devastatingly on the ground far below. There was no way the figure had jumped off this peak.

  A crunch of stone came behind her, and Hades whirled around. Whack! Something slammed into her, and the dark queen stumbled to catch her footing, but there was no hold for her feet to find purchase on. Her balance teetered before Hades crashed backward. Her hair flailed around her eyes as she plunged, and so she could not be certain, but the glimpses of the figure that had pushed her unnerved Hades. She could have sworn it was herself… or at least someone who looked like her.

  Accelerating through the whistling wind, Hades twisted to see the ground approaching fast. It beckoned for her flesh to break against it, but the black smoke vaulted from her body before hungry earth drew her closer to death. The tentacles ebbed and weaved, and she vanished only to crash down on the stone at the temple’s entrance. She groaned as her back impacted, and Hades lay there heaving, sucking in all the air she could get as her spine exploded like sparks of searing embers.

  “Hades!” Alkaios’ voice boomed, followed by the sound of three sets of running footsteps. Hades forced her spasming back into a sitting position to see Alkaios, Zeus, and Poseidon barreling down upon her.

  “Hades?” Alkaios plunged to his knees , uncaring that they skidded against the dirt like sandpaper. “What happened?”

  “There was someone here,” Hades answered, looking from her husband to Zeus and Poseidon and back. “Someone was here. It had to be one of them…” but her words died on her lips when she saw Alkaios’ face. “What?”

  “There was no one here,” Alkaios said softly.

  “Yes, there was,” Hades demanded. “She was shrouded in mist, but she was here. She tr
ied to kill me.”

  “Hades,” Zeus interrupted. “We were watching you. We could see the whole mountain.”

  “I was covering the back of the temple when I saw you disappear into the clouds on that cliff side,” Poseidon said, concern etched in his voice. “Hades, there was no one here… only you.”

  “There was someone up there with me,” Hades repeated, turning to Alkaios who sat on the rubble next to her. Night was falling, but under the blackness of the sky, the setting sun was barely noticeable. Zeus and Poseidon had returned to Mount Olympus, but Hades remained at the temple, Alkaios faithfully beside her.

  “You think I am crazy; that I am seeing things,” Hades insisted, “but I was not alone up there.”

  “I want to believe you,” Alkaios said sympathetically, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side.

  “But none of you saw anyone,” Hades finished for him, exasperation in her voice.

  “We were watching you,” he said into her hair as he pressed his lips to her head. “No one moved on this mountain, save you.”

  “They have managed to hide from us these past days.” Hades’ tone rang bitter. “What is to say they cannot pass you unnoticed?”

  Alkaios opened his mouth to answer but then snapped it shut. What could he say? She was right, and he was exhausted. He did not want to consider her words; that they possessed the ability to slip unseen before their eyes. So instead he stared off into space, clinging to his wife.

  “I should get you home,” Alkaios said after a long silence, turning his gaze to her still flat stomach. “You need rest.”

  “What does that matter?” Hades spat. She bolted to her feet, forcing his arm to fall from her shoulders. “I will be locked behind that door with them. What does it matter if I rest? This child will never see the light of the sun.”