by Eileen Glass
The land is dead.
Seph wonders if it has always been like this, or if it was even more dead until Hades came and started planting things. Are these trees his creations as well?
I will ask him when I get back.
Hades might not only be the King of the Underworld. He might be its entire creator.
They get to solid ground, the boat nestled in some untouched, unbent grass, and Minthe hops out, the cloak dramatically billowing with his movements. Traveling in the boat was slow and aimless, but now the nymph’s natural grace and speed make him like a dark mouse scurrying off for the high tree.
After a sigh, Seph follows at a small run, noting how there’s an absence of rocks under his feet. An absence of stray sticks too. The ground is easier to walk on than his mother’s well-groomed fields back home.
They reach the top of the hill, Minthe stopping and putting his hood back, and Seph takes in the scene.
“There is Tartarus,” Minthe says, pointing.
Seph scans and squints, finding it difficult to pick up details in this light, and with the many tree trunks blotting most of his vision. What he sees is in fractions, but it’s another palace. Sort of. More like a fortress, really, or just a really big, really somber building. There are no pillars, no statues, no normal things you would find on a Greek government building. And there are no walls. There are none needed.
It takes some examination, Seph only able to view strips and peeks through the many broad trees, but Tartarus is an island. The land cuts off suddenly, as do the trees on the side where he is. The water… Well, it is very strange for a moat. It must either be shallow or dry, for Seph can see the rock underneath the soil of the island. The grassy lawn cuts off to a cliff.
“Be very quiet, okay? You are about to see the most upsetting thing. We are on the wrong part of it now. This is the back end. But when we circle around Tartarus’s front, you will see why I brought you here.”
“Okay.”
And I have the feeling it has nothing to do with Hibus.
Or does it?
Am I about to see my bunny dead, hanging upside down, with his throat slit and his entrails emptied from his carcass?
The thought of it makes his stomach clamp down and his intestines shrivel. Perhaps he is not so forgiving of Hades as he thought. If Hibus did end up here…
What will I do? Can I really say I am in love with husband if he’s betrayed me like this?
No. No, of course not, Hibus meant too much to him.
So perhaps Minthe’s plan, if Seph has guessed it, has actually been working all along. But at this moment, that doesn’t even slightly convince him to turn back. Tartarus will reveal a truth about Hades, even if it is a truth Seph does not like. He has to see it, or his love for Hades will not be any more significant than his love for Teysus was.
They move away from Tartarus a few paces, going back down the hill the way they came, and Minthe leads him, racing, in a long gradual arc through the forest. The land to their right, towards Tartarus, becomes rocky and jagged, the trees more scarce, but the hill keeps the fortress mostly hidden from view. Only the top, a corner and a plain tower, are visible now and again.
Seph begins to hear… something.
Not much.
The rush of water. And an on-and-off again hiss, like steam let out of a pot.
Or…
A bird?
The sound becomes more high pitched and shrieking, like a wild cat’s warning.
But distant. Louder at first, when he can hear it best, and falling off into nothing, There is quite a pause between the noise ending and starting up again. They can run past six or so spread out trees, but then it will start suddenly again.
“What is that?” Seph asks, calling ahead though Minthe told him to be quiet, for he is very curious.
It’s a beast, he thinks. He already knows how Hades seems to like utilizing ugly creatures to maintain borders. So that’s what it will be.
But he can’t imagine what kind of beast it is.
Minthe looks back at him with a grin.
“That is the thing better left unsaid. You will see!”
He sounds gleeful about it and rushes ahead.
Seph pauses, frowning, acknowledging again that he might not want to be here. He might not want to see. And what reason could Minthe have to show him this?
What does this have to do with Hibus?
But alas, all the answers lie ahead, and all the reasons to keep moving are the same. Ahead is the truth. Seph cannot turn back now and pretend that he still loves Hades completely and deeply after refusing to learn this secret.
He also has the terrible feeling that his love was about to come to an end on its own anyway.
But Minthe was wrong about Hades’s reaction to the bunny. He was not mad or cruel. Perhaps Minthe is a jealous ex-lover, or simply not a nice person, and he doesn’t know Hades well at all.
Then why does he have a flower named after him?
Again, all Seph can do is continue forward. He’ll confront this disaster and hopefully be able to withstand the terrible secrets of a place that even gods are afraid of. Even Zeus would not come here.
What if it is just a very big dog? he thinks in a joking tone, to give his legs courage. But then, What if it is a very big dog who’s job is to eat souls, the way Cerberus harms the souls who run?
He pictures a dog as big as his mother when she’s angry, terrorizing a village, eating women and children. Yes, that would be very Tartarus-like.
It is something like that.
And so he continues.
Minthe crouches behind a tree, stopping again with heaving breath. He puts a finger to his lips, then speaks.
“We have to be very quiet now. The grindstone is ahead. It’s an enormous crank, turned by the most dutiful and strong slaves ever born to humans. Ones that are peaceful with their position. Hades calls them his gentle giants. They’re a lot bigger than regular humans, since their form requires it. And once Hades found out that some souls are sneaking here for a peek against his wishes, his slaves grew really big ears. So they could serve better.”
“Weird,” Seph murmurs, incredulous, but it is not the strangest thing he’s heard. Gods make everything weird, especially the ones related to him.
“We have to sneak close, but don’t worry, if you stay by me you won’t be seen. Their job is tedious, and they are not very good guards. They only listen well. They won’t turn their heads unless they hear something.
“I know you will have questions, so I might as well tell you. The chains run underground. What they are attached to, you will see in a moment. The boats to Tartarus don’t have ferrymen. I don’t know if you noticed that. Soon you will see why. They are all attached to this crank.”
Seph is getting tired of hearing all the things he will see and understand in a moment. So he nods quickly, twice, and twice more again when Minthe puts a finger to his lips, reminding him to be quiet. That is no challenge. There is no forest litter, like dead leaves, to make noise. The grass grows as if from freshly tilled earth, and only the occasional tree root must be stepped over. Staying silent is easy.
There are less trees here overall, and the downward slope becomes a wide open meadow. At the bottom where it is flat, Seph sees the gentle giants working, even from a great distance. They are big for humans, certainly. Twice as big. But still not as big as some of the Titans’ children. Before humans, they made creatures enormous so they could protect themselves against other creations, which were all large and deadly at the time.
Nobody knows where the humans came from exactly. It is believed they are Gaia’s children, and that the nymphs are an earlier version of them. The first humans were small and ugly, timid little creatures, his mother told him. Prometheus saw that they were smart though, and he began to speak to early humans and teach them things. He gave them fire and made them stand upright, like the gods, and so began a feud with Zeus that he lost.
Prometheus is stil
l on a mountain somewhere, having his liver eaten out by an eagle every day.
‘It was not about the humans, it was about respecting Zeus’s rule and conceding to power back then,’ his mother said. ‘A god of gods was a new thing. Back then all the gods ruled themselves, and thus there was no one to punish your grandfather, Chronos, for what he’d done to us. There were no laws. Zeus was an even greater tyrant back then, for a man who puts on a crown is a fool unless he can see to it that he’s obeyed. He could not have done it without Hades’s involvement, and Poseidon conquered the many powerful sea gods, bringing them to heel. The three of them made the world what it is today. Peaceful, with less catastrophe among gods and mortals both.’
Then she added, with a heavy sigh and a sneer, rolling her eyes, ‘If only Hera was never born and your father’s cock was cut off. The world might be a paradise then.’
As he remembers all of this, they get closer and closer to the large slaves working in the meadow below. There are no more trees on their end of the hill to cast long and comforting shadows. Instead, he and Minth dart from boulder to boulder, which are frequent here. The occasional fall of dust here and there worries Seph, and he begins to take extra care where he places his feet, traveling more carefully.
At their closest point, he ducks beside a rock with Minthe, and examines the slaves.
The crank they turn is a massive wheel on its side, the middle wrapped in chains. Six giants keep the wheel turning by spokes sticking out, and the chains disappear and reappear in two places, into holes in the platform they work on, going into the earth.
There is no end to it. Seph feels sorry for the giants. The crank seems heavy. But there is no slave master here, nor a dog to nip at their ankles and keep the giants in line. They are doing this on their own.
And the ears they’ve grown to serve Hades are massive as well. Like bat ears on a human head, but with lobes. They have small eyes compared to the rest of their face. It seems like their eyes are always closed, covered by enormous bushy brows.
When one giant turns to him, Seph ducks quickly behind their rock, certain he’s been seen. The giant crinkles his nose in their direction, which is huge even for his face. Seph wonders if they enhanced their sense of smell for Hades as well?
But why not their eyes?
Perhaps because they like to look down, which this giant soon does. The slaves look at their feet, and the crank keeps turning. The chains rattle and clink, but their noise is quickly lost by the emptiness of the world all around.
That beast in the distance calls a bit louder.
It reminds Seph of hunting and the squeal a boar makes as it’s speared. He helped kill a big wolf once, and he was very proud of that hunt. Though the animal snarled and fought until its death, he did not feel bad because human children were disappearing from their yards where the houses thinned out towards the country, and they had already found the remains of one in the woods.
He was celebrated by the humans and his mother both. That was a couple years before he met Hibus, and he thought he would be a great hunter at the time.
They leave the giants behind and continue. He can see the other side of the tower at the fortress now. There are only small windows like slits. The top of it is flat. Unlike Hades’s home and all of Elysium, there could not be any less effort put into the building’s design.
“We’re here,” Minthe tells him, looking up the hill. A large rock sticks out over the cliff. They have left the giants far behind. Seph feels like they have traveled far enough to have come from his mother’s mansion to her villa in the mountains, and all of it by foot or by boat. He’s not exhausted by physical effort, but he can sense that it’s late in the day.
“I’m going to have a look first to make sure it’s safe, okay? Hades is probably searching already.”
Seph nods, and Minthe goes up the rock alone, looking out at the fortress. And then to one side.
The screeching sound bothers him. It’s so familiar. Yet too rhythmic and predictable to be from a cat or any animal. He frowns, puzzling it out, and then realizes Minthe said something confusing.
What is Hades searching for? For him? And why out here?
For the last time—what does Hibus have to do with all this?
He determines to ask Minthe immediately, and he’s already approaching the rock when Minthe turns.
“Alright!” the nymph calls. “We’re here! Come see for yourself. This is Tartarus.”
Twenty-Eight
Hades parks his horses and chariot in a cave, where the beasts won’t be so tortured by the piercing sunlight. But they are still bothered by all the small sounds in this world, including the constant mild wind which makes the leaves shake and rattle. The horses are not used to it. And a fly around their heads, near their eyes, landing on their ears, is nearly enough to make them panic.
They’ve forgotten the discomforts of being alive. But with some crooning and petting and apple slices from his travel pouch (they don’t need to eat, but the apples will still taste good) the mares finally calm down.
Then the only matter is to find a suitable home for the bunny.
Frowning with dislike, Hades opens the top and peeks at the bunny. It is safe and as lazy as ever, only sitting up because its lid was opened. Why so much trouble for a rabbit? Why is this allowed?
Of course, it is for a sweet young face that will be sad in the coming days. And Hades wants him to feel better.
As Hibus becomes curious about the outside world, perhaps wondering why his box was opened, perhaps sensing that he is back in a real, physical place, he pokes his head up over the side and Hades gently shuts him in again.
Sure, it would be easy to tilt the box onto the ground and be done with this.
Does he think about it?
Oh yes. Extensively.
As he’s removing his crown and setting it on a nearby rock like a common item. As he retrieves the helmet kept in a simple bag, another one of the great perks of being Hades, King of Underworld, and someone all gods are a little jealous of. And astounded by. His helm is unpolished bronze, hammered and shaped into an overly simplistic Greek warrior’s battle helm.
He fits it over his head and mist envelopes the lower half of his body, spreading thickly around his feet, which vanish at the ground. He is essentially a ghost. He’s turned invisible.
And why has he done this? Why has the Evil God Hades come out of his realm, donned the Helm of Hades, one of his great weapons, and now ventures down a mountainside to the mortal city below?
Why, the mortals would shudder in terror if they knew!
He is here to deliver a pet bunny to a happy household.
Has love made him sick? Is he as foolish as Hera now, only instead of chasing after his cold lover, he’s simpering over the sweet boy instead? Working for smiles and strokes down his back like his dog Cerberus?
Yes, he thinks sourly. But only for his foolishness. Seph does not mean to use Hades’s affection against him frivolously, and Hades cannot return and lie to the pretty face. He does not particularly care what happens to this rather unexceptional rabbit. But he does care about Seph. Deeply.
He will not harbor lies in this relationship, and he told Seph he would deliver a bunny to a well off household with happy children. He will do just that.
With the helm’s magic, he has legs but no feet, only mist, and he travels swiftly like a wraith, through the grasses and the trees. He rushes down the mountainside like a cold wind, sweeping through trees and gliding over rocks. It is easiest to pass in the shadows. Here, Hades is so airy thin, his form can wrap around and through physical objects. He feels it only as bark scraping against his skin if he is passing a tree.
In direct light, he is still invisible to others but solid enough that he should avoid bumping into them. Fortunately, a wealthy town like this has a covered space, a roof held up by many pillars, a building which they call the agora. Its shade will make his search easier.
He enters the busiest plac
e of mortals, especially packed on this late noon day, and slows down, passing them leisurely as if he was really here. Feeling the brush of their clothing and occasionally the smell of their sweat as he goes by.
It is strange to see humans like this. To see so many of them aged. To Hades, the wrinkled faces and missing teeth are a sign of innocence and naivety. That is why he comes. To wander a while, gaze on this youth, and wonder if any will come home to him when they are ready.
The time is close for several, including a skeletal girl clinging to her mother, both of them to be sold as slaves. He touches her, though she cannot feel him, and her cheek is blazing hot, flies swirling nearby. The occasional one crawls on her shoulder, others taking turns landing in her hair.
Her mother kisses her and bounces the young girl, only a babe in Hades’s eyes.
He is sad. He would take her now, if life was balanced that way.
Again, he looks at the box in his hands and wonders how a rabbit’s life can be so important. Shouldn’t the slaves all go to well looked after homes as well?
What about the poor children?
But alas, it is not the nature of life to occur without pain, and the humans are very young still. They will get better. They are the smartest creations to ever happen on Earth. Everything else has just been a slightly smarter version of an animal. A mortal’s mind is equal to a god’s, and they must have free will in order to grow. They will become wise. The things they make already have surprised the gods. No other creation has been inspired to make art. To sing and make music, or even to govern themselves in some manner.
The nymphs just hunt, love, and sleep. Only one or two of them are born exceptional, whereas with humans, all of them are.
Hades moves on. There is no need to mark her. If she is a good fit, he will meet her shortly—probably this winter if she survives the early weeks of fall. And having heard the slave seller’s prices, he wanders not far to where they sell raw fish, eggs, and bread. He listens to the prices called and hears the egg seller haggle.
Their stock is normal. Many baskets of eggs, many hanging fish. But a young woman is turned away, unable to buy anything at reasonable prices. The women selling weaves are doing so without a profit. Their time is not accounted for, nor the materials, and feet are shuffling past them, ignoring their offers.