by Eileen Glass
Seph reaches under the covers and removes Hades hand from his cock before he can wake it up too much, and goes back to reading with a smirk. A second attempt however and a nibble of his ear is deterred with a harsh tone.
“You will be patient, bunny, or you will get nothing.”
The nickname always causes an enraged squint, and from his nose, the slightest wrinkle and twitch as his nostrils flare and he exhales a short breath. Watching his husband for minute changes in expression has become an art form. And Hades does rather look like a bunny after he’s been called one. Or a bull, which would be more flattering, but bunny suits his purposes fine.
“That is a misappropriated memory. You do not call me that. And you should never call me that. I have told you—”
“That I used to have a rabbit, yes,” Seph says, unwinding the scroll to reveal another block of text. He prefers the codices for reading, finding it easier to access each page of information, but there are not very many of them. “But who’s to say you aren’t lying? Who’s to say you aren’t the delicate bunny I cherished, and you’re playing a trick?”
Hades huffs and his hands mind their own business atop the covers. Then he says, “You really don’t remember Hibus? Still? Are you sure?”
“I know the name because you told it to me,” Seph answers, and this is true. He has tried to picture a rabbit pet several times, white and fluffy like Hades says, but he has not had any success. “I do remember arguing with my mother about a rabbit though, I think.”
He pauses, looking up.
“No. No, it was a cat. Something about a cat, and I was screaming, angry. I wonder what his name was…”
And so Seph’s days pass in comfort and mental focus. His daily time with Hades continues to decrease, until Hades wakes him up with a kiss every night—and quickly sees to his needs—only to be gone in the morning before the lamp fires are lit for morning.
“The neighborhood is full,” Hades says one night, curled against him in the dark. “I never imagined I could fill one so quickly. This is worse than any plague I’ve ever seen.”
“What makes it so bad?” Seph asks, whispering against his ear. “Why is this year so different?”
“It is winter all over the world. Usually there is an alternating balance. Winter in one place and summer in another. And then rotating again, so that the cold places are not cold too long. The plants have time to grow and the animals have time to raise their young. But now there are villages disappearing from the north places on the Earth. It is cold all over. Many creatures are starving, not just humans. And for the side of the Earth opposite Greece, spring never came.”
“So you will speak to Zeus then? He will find the—god—” For a moment he wanted to say my mother, but his tongue tripped. “He will find her and make sure she follows the rules. That’s what a king does.”
“Yes. He’s supposed to. I don’t know why he hasn’t.”
“Sleep then, my king,” Seph answers. “It is Zeus’s worry to stop all this death. We will do as we’re supposed to on our end.”
And so it is for another two months.
Seph begins to walk without a god’s help making him lighter, and while he finds that far travel, even in Hades’s chariot, will quickly exhaust him, he’s relieved and happy to spend his days in other parts of the palace. Mainly the stables, where he relearns to ride a horse and discovers that he can do so with ease. And then the library, which he pursues for both fiction and education, inviting the souls who wrote the books to be his tutors and storytellers.
Sefkh is not one of the scholars, but he is one of the oldest souls most readily available on a daily basis, and Seph invites him to translate scrolls written in Egyptian.
“There are two spiritual elements,” he says, sitting with Seph at a table in the library, several Egyptian scrolls sprawled around them. “The ka and the ba. I am the ba—the soul. The ka does not really exist, but if it did, it would be like a physical body left in the living world that I depend upon in this place. We believe that we need to nourish the ka even long after our death, so we give gold and bread to tombs, to take care of our dead. Sometimes we speak to them as well, at the tomb. We might ask questions, or seek a blessing.”
Quietly, his thumb running over the papyrus, he adds, “It is all wrong, of course.”
“Most cultures get some of it right. I think the Greeks guessed best simply because of that is the spot on Earth Zeus chose to make his home. They had to get some things right.”
Egyptian writing is complicated, but the many animal symbols seem to speak to Sefkh as clearly as the Greek does to him.
“But I am curious… So many human cultures present gifts to the deceased. Why do you think this is? Yours is particularly strict about it.”
“We recognize that there is a journey, I think. So we offer provisions. Also…”
He considers a moment, touching his lip. Sefkh is handsome and young, appearing as an older teen, but his words often remind Seph he is speaking to someone much older than himself.
“Also, I think there is a pointlessness to life that we all feel while we’re living it. We wonder about it sometimes, but not too closely. Because it’s dangerous. And that is how the achievements we make as humans simply end. They are picked up by others of course, but for us, the progress is over. And humans desire progress more than anything. It’s why most can’t make it into this place.”
He spreads his hands on the table, looking between his thumbs like he’s gazing at a small picture projected by his mind.
“I lived a long time when I was alive. Over ninety! Almost no human, not even the pharaohs, can say that. But I was not rich. I was just lucky. I saw many of my sons die of old age before I did. And I think living so long helped me. It made me realize the pointlessness of money and achievements. That is how I’m here. But for someone who dies so young, they do not get to see it. And so it is important to them that they take their accomplishments with them. Especially their gold. When they get here, they want to keep working.”
Then he shrugs. “Poor souls.”
“Hm.” Seph makes no comment because he has come to terms with Tartarus and what it means. He is also not afraid of it anymore. After all, he was mostly destroyed and reborn again. Nowadays he feels like a new person, but the right person. He’s who he’s supposed to be. And so he knows that souls who go into Tartarus come out okay again. And they are just as lively and loving as they were, glad to continue and to tackle new agendas.
The same way that Seph now is determined to be a rightful and wise king, whereas the old Seph was rather aimless.
“I think humans will grow old collectively,” he says, after pondering his response for a moment. Sefkh is his subject and his son, a mindset he borrows from Hades. It is his job to guide him, though he is currently the novice learning from his son right now. “You are, in fact, one god split into many separate beings. There is no end to you, and you will all live and grow wise as one. Humans always do best when they borrow from each other.”
And then he hears, from the level below, Hecate’s bossy voice say, “My master has not requested your presence, and you’re interrupting his studies. Be gone. Or fight me, rule breaker.”
Seph grins as he hears Hades say, “Every time, Hecate? You are not tired of this game yet?”
“I think it is you who is tired! And cowardly.”
“Go on,” Seph tells Sefkh, giving him a nudge. “I guess we are done here. Thank you for spending time with me today.”
“Of course, pharoah.” He wears the slightest smile as he bows. Besides Alfric, everyone Hades keeps close to serve him don’t tend to be the personable types. So this new title must be a sign of friendship, and Seph briefly mimics the bow back (a playful attempt, for he is a king), and Sefkh leaves via one of the servant’s passages here. There is a small door tucked in the corner between shelves.
“Goodbye,” Seph says to him, and he nods before he disappears. And then Seph goes to the balcony to
call below, “Hecate, let him pass. As long as he promises not to annoy me, he is fine.”
Hades shoots him an unhappy look from below, and knocks Hecate’s dagger away from his throat with an unaided hand. Seph leans against the railing, waiting for his husband to climb the many stairs up to him. And though he pretends to be nonchalant about it, he is always eager for Hades when there is a moment they can be alone. They do not come often anymore.
“How are you?” he asks first, before Hades has reached him, because it helps him determine his expectations. Hades might have the endless stamina of a god, and he never refuses Seph physically, but Seph would like his heart to be in it as well.
“Not well,” he answers, and Seph wishes they would grab each other and move toward the book cases instead. But this will not be that day.
“What is it this time?”
He draws Hades to lean into him instead. There is a tired dullness to Hades’s eyes that Seph doesn’t like, and secretly he makes plans to get out of the palace. As more and more of the upperworld’s humans die, the need for Seph to help grows greater. Seph is trying but his recovery is too slow.
After a small silence and sigh, Hades confesses, “Perhaps I should not tell you. It will only make you hate me.”
“No. That is precisely why you should tell me. And I will not hate you. I am your mate, Hades, my husband.”
Perhaps they should be over these endearments by now. Their marriage is not so new anymore. But Seph wishes to remind him that he’s not alone forever, even if he has to do all the work for right now.
Hades seems shorter than he usually is. Smaller. He curls against Seph’s chest and closes his eyes before he speaks.
“I am thinking of letting the good ones go to Tartarus. I cannot make room for them all. There is plenty of space, of course, but I have never had so many new children. How can I trust my souls to keep them safe when it usually requires several to one? They are adults—most of them—so they think for themselves and decide to runaway. Or they don’t acclimate right and they try to pursue past wars and old enemies. There was a hunt today. And there will be another tomorrow. And another, and another. They do not stay because they are not looked after.”
The hunts. Seph knows what must be done. He has to share the burden and carry his weight. Perhaps even while he relies on a crutch sometimes, and he crawls into bed with his knees hurting. But this is Hades’s plea, and he has to answer.
“I will do the hunts.”
For a moment Seph is extra aware of his body, every limb placement, and his posture and the careful slack in his features.
Sure enough, Hades lifts his head and there’s a critical gleam in his eye.
“You? You can’t…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He has a reluctant frown as his eyes travel slowly downward, and Seph knows that while Hades may be thinking about his knees, which sometimes give out on him, and he’s definitely eyeing the cane Seph left propped against the table where he was studying…
He needs the help.
Hades sighs. He’s definitely considering it.
So Seph presses.
“I’ll be riding. There won’t be much for me to do, honestly, except oversee everything. Cerberus will do the tracking and the punishing. Hecate will command the dog and help me secure the prisoners to my horse. Then it’s just a matter of bringing them in.”
Hades is quiet, looking away from Seph, at the window far away.
“I can ride a horse fine. Hades, let me help.”
His lips presses together briefly. “I’ve never had help.”
“I know. But I’ve just got here. You had to assume I’d be fit for something useful eventually.”
“No. I just expected you to…” He shrugs.
“Be your stallion? Be your pretty bed thing?” Seph grabs Hades’s waist and brings them together again. He kisses Hades. His husband’s mouth barely moves as his thoughts seem far way and complicated.
“I can be,” Seph says, thinking it over. “I’m not unhappy being your bed thing. But I think…”
What he wants to say may come across as an insult. Seph cups the back of Hades’s head. He needs his husband’s attention for this, and his eyes seem so far away.
“I think you don’t like to let people help. But just think of me as another one of your processes. You have the judges, the ferryman, and the giants, don’t you? You don’t expect yourself to crank the gears of Tartarus all day long.”
Hades catches his hand and holds it. As if he’d like to remove his caress. But his thumb brushes against the back of Seph’s hand instead.
“You’ve never hunted. Not like this.”
And a memory comes back to Seph. Murky and dim, and the voice feels very faint.
Seph, a boar would be lovely at the feast, don’t you think? And you haven’t hunted for the table in months. Are you still depressed over that boy—what’s his name? He hears her fingers snap several times. Fen-something…
The memory might as well be a phantom speaking to him now out of thin air. Seph has no attachment to what is said, and he can’t remember his reply.
“I’m not the same as I was when you brought me here, Hades. I promise—I can hunt. Besides, nothing truly dies here that hasn’t already passed on. I think it will be easy. It’ll let me get away from these books. And I can finally start to care for our people, the way a king should.”
Hades sighs again. He eyes Seph unhappily. But at last, tiredly, he says, “Alright.”
Forty-Five
Hades stands outside in a barren land, the nearby wilderness presently being cleared of trees, and he has several scrolls spread out across a wide table. He draws with blue ink over red lines, now and then following the guidance of a leather strap marked with measurements. He brushes the paper quickly sometimes, or blows away the dust. The dye they use is like chalk and requires moisture. He dabs the end of a split reed against a soaked rag and then grinds the stalk into a little ink pot often. Then he resumes drawing.
He mutters about the ugliness of the initial plans while his gaze roams for ways to improve it. For the foreseeable future, his concern is only to build the most magnificent neighborhoods as efficiently as possible, and receiving first drafts such as these is an unacceptable setback.
The rough drafts his architects are giving him cover a wide area and certainly provide enough homes, but they are lacking uniqueness and personal touch. His architects have been scolded, and they wait nearby with large rolled up papers in their hands, their eyes downcast and shame. No one is eager to hand over what they’ve drawn and have him go over it in blue ink.
They will have to copy his revisions on new papers in the red pencil again, and he will have to review them for final additions in blue again. Their lack of effort has extended the process, and Hades lets his displeasure be known with a permanent scowl as he concentrates, adding measurements carefully in his head. His leather strap nearly draws the lines itself for how dirty it is.
Periphetes, who watches him go over his work, ignoring the red lines and drawing a completely new schematic, crosses his arms over his belly and looks put out, like he was wrongfully scolded.
He speaks quietly at first, but with growing assurance. He does not want to disrespect Hades, but he feels strongly that he is right.
“Little gardens and fountains do not make the new ones feel less homeless. We can deconstruct and add later. What they really need are personal rooms. They are plain boxes, as you said, but they can add their own furniture. And then when the plague and sickness has slowed down, we can revise the neighborhoods up to your standards. We’re all dead down here. We have nothing but time.”
The other architects eye him with appreciation and wait for Hades’s response.
Hades finishes his calculation first. To make this neighborhood more interesting, he’s constructing several open prisms. Apartments make up the outer shell, and connecting them are decorated walkways over a massive garden. He wants a multileveled courtyard, trees gro
wing all the way to the top and out of the homes. The community can mingle daily amongst seating areas, and the fountains for water supply are never too far from any home.
It’s an entirely unique neighborhood he had an idea for a long time ago. It has been sitting in the back of his thoughts, and he did not know he would need it so soon. This is one of his more complicated projects, and now is not the time for a rushed miscalculation. The architects who should have helped him draw his visions came back with their own functional but bare designs.
“Do you think people look forward to sitting around in boxes when they reach the afterlife?” he asks when he can. “And do you think I am a king of dissatisfied subjects? That I am happy with achieving the most meager housing I can provide?”
“No, but it is only temporary.”
This architect is old, though he looks young, and he’s earned Hades’s respect. So Hades patiently explains to him, “In life there is always the question of what will be. What will I become? What will I see and do? Who will I marry? But in the afterlife, all has been achieved. And all that everything will be… already is. They cannot sit in blank boxes, not for very long, before they start to wonder, ‘Why am I even here?’”
“Yes, but it will not be for very long.”
A breeze makes the waiting architects turn their heads. Hades glances to the sky and immediately knows who it is. He finishes his conversation.
“The plague will not let up. Not soon. Demeter is not a fighter, but she is a goddamn mountain. It will take Zeus some time to figure out how to move her.” Without pausing, he addresses the god who has just arrived. His nephew. Hermes. “And what is the outlook in that regard?”
Hermes usually blinds him with his smile, which always makes him look a bit like a pleased fox. His teeth aren’t showing today, though he manages a smirk and tosses Hades an apple. It is hefty, Hades notices as he catches it. Food from the upperworld always feels heavy compared to what grows down here.
“She smashed him right flat into a crater!” Hermes says, propping himself on the table opposite the side of Hades, careful not to disturb the documents while also leaning across it, pretending to have a disregard for Hades’s important work. His elbow lands dangerously close to the wine goblet. Though he seems brash and clumsy without a care, Hermes is known for elegance in physical feats and mindful tact as well. Nothing he does with his body or with the words he speaks is ever unintentional.