Hades and Seph

by Eileen Glass

  “When I come back, the balance will be restored, and I want to marry you all over again. That way I feel like I have the real marriage in my memories. And also, it will remind you where my heart really is… while I’m up here trying to solve this shit.”

  Sixty-Three

  Their departure is short. Hades embraces him. Kisses his cheek. Then tells him he loves him and climbs back into the chariot alone. Their eyes never leave each other as he takes up the reins, snaps them, and then he is gone. Seph looks up after the dark horses for as long as he thinks there is a chance he might still glimpse them through the gloom and the snow.

  But those are only seconds. He is well and truly gone.

  “Which way?” he asks Hecate, and miserably, silently, she points forward.

  Seph gathers his cloak around himself and begins the trudge. Uphill in the snow, his steps sinking halfway up to his ankles. They would sink even farther in all this endless snow if not for Hecate’s magic to elevate them both and keep his knee functional. While this is not a great challenge, it is annoying, she says. Like carrying two distracted babes on either side of her hips. Since Seph wanders autonomously, she must always be tracking him, following him, and lifting him. As well as herself.

  She is not dressed at all for the blizzard they walk in. She wears another thin, lovely gown like the one he met her in, and while Seph’s magic warms him without even thinking about it, her skin seems to glow and her miserable expression may also be for the concentration that she must maintain all the time.

  “How much farther?” he asks when they have walked a long time. He continuously has the urge to offer her his hand, his polite inclinations forgetting that she is the truly powerful one of them both.

  “Hades could not come too close,” she says loudly over the wind, holding her hair to one side. Both of them, though warm, are collecting ice, and some of it is melting into their clothes. Seph’s cloak is heavier than it ought to be, snow clinging to the bear fur.

  “Onward then,” he says, and the trudge continues.

  All he can think about is Hades and the lovely days he used to spend with him. Even if Hades was not there, he knew his husband wanted to be, and that was enough. Seph loved spending time in his husband’s vast home, every room and art piece a reflection of the man himself. Elysium was their world. And the Earth, while beautiful, is really just a mess. There’s no design to it, unlike Elysium.

  He can only think of how much he misses his home already.

  But Hecate will help them get back when the time comes. And he is certain this is the right thing to do. This is best for all the realms.

  He also worries that he won’t have any better luck than Zeus. He hasn’t been able to come up with a plan for being out here. He doesn’t even know what to expect! He doesn’t know what his mother will say, or if she will look exactly the way he remembers.

  He’s nervous about meeting her, but the physical discomfort of climbing a snowy mountain in a blizzard is enough to bury those concerns. Even himself missing Hades gets turned and layered upon and obliterated by the blanketing snow.

  His breath becomes a little heavier than it naturally would be. His climb slows due to the wind and ice. Though Hecate’s magic strengthens his knee considerably, he loses his balance, and Hecate catches him by the arm, straightening him.

  “Not much farther now, master. She senses us, and she’s curious I think. A little closer, and you shall make yourself known.”

  “She can see us?” Seph asks, looking all around.

  “No, she senses us, I said.”

  And they march forward again. Seph assumes this sense is a god thing, and he doesn’t find it within himself. Minthe was right. He’s practically a mortal.

  But you are wrong about me being weak.

  They reach a small flat area atop a steep incline. The mountain ahead is straight up and won’t be possible without magic or ropes.

  “We are here,” Hecate says, taking his elbow. She puts his hood down and combs her fingers through his hair, twice. “Call out to her and see if she answers.

  Seph looks around. There is nothing here. Not even a human-shaped boulder like he expected to see.

  “Mother!” he shouts vaguely at the sky, watching the scenery. “It is I, Persephone! Your son! I’ve come home to visit!”

  There is nothing, but his questioning glance at Hecate confirms that she is here, somewhere. This is his chance.

  “I’ve come to talk to you about this long winter. Mother, there’s too much death to sustain the Earth. There are not enough boats in the underworld to take them, and we are losing too many wandering souls to the ether. You’ve created too much work for Hermes to do, so I’ve come to beg—”

  The voice comes from everywhere. From underneath his feet perhaps.

  “My son?”

  And then he hears a great crack, almost like the thunder when his father was mad. But instead of lightning, the snow from the top of the mountain comes down in an avalanche, and Hecate jumps in front of him, throwing her hands up.

  The air shimmers, a ripple spreading out from Hecate’s palms. But it is unnecessary. The snow misses them.

  And the mountain… moves? It is hard to see since the top is nearly obliterated by gray clouds and falling snow, but the shape of the mountaintop awaiting them is different.

  “Persephone, is that you?” The sound booms from the very center of the Earth. The entire world must hear! His legs shake from the noise vibration. And he grabs around Hecate’s waist briefly, feeling unsteady.

  “It is me, mother,” he calls out, though a little more quietly. He’s afraid. But he has to confront her, the same as he did with Zeus. “I understand you are unhappy to have me gone! But you have killed too many! I have come to ask you—to bargain with you, to beg—please stop! This wind, the snow—please do not bury the Earth in ice!”

  They move. The snow shifts underneath them like sand. A giant wave of it rises, and Seph is swept off the mountain side with it, clinging to Hecate now. Together, they barely maintain their balance. But the entire land falls away around them, and then they are lifted up.

  It seems to Seph they are looking at a great cave surrounded by magnificent stone. It is all perfectly circular and too smooth to be naturally made. There is a strange light glistening from the portal.

  And then Seph realizes—it is an eye!

  He moves in front of Hecate and takes off his cloak. He lifts the black diadem from his head as well.

  “I’ve come home, Mother. Please.”

  It seems that all around his feet is a great icy white plain. And further on there are rock walls that go up, too hazy to be seen clearly. But these must be her hands.

  “My son!” The eye disappears behind another avalanche. It seems to Seph that the entire world is coming apart, snowdrifts diving and falling off the mountain into oblivion. “Oh, my son! You’ve come back!”

  And then they are falling with the snow, though the ground underneath their feet stays steady. It is like they are on a plummeting, shrinking plate, the other mountains, just shadows in the distance, rushing up all around them.

  And then, though his mother is monstrous—a giant!—Seph can see her face. He can make out the details of her hands. She glows warmly vibrant, and he feels that same warmth through the soles of his boots. Through his hand also, as he reaches down and touches her skin, going to his knees during the fall.

  The snow becomes rain all around him and around her. Light from above goes dark as her other hand folds around the top and cups him.

  “My son, I’ve missed you,” she says, and her lips are like entities onto themselves, moving in such a strange way, teeth like trees becoming visible.

  But she is still shrinking. And down, down they go.

  Snow continues to fall off of her. She is wearing a blue dress, like from one of his memories. She has elegantly carved bangles on her wrists, jewels hanging from her ears, and gold necklaces around her neck. While resizing clothing do
es not come easily to Hades and Hecate, she seems to do it without thinking, expanding riches out of thin air.

  Down, down they go. And he and Hecate hold on dearly as she moves them to a place beside her knee. First she is an impossible giant. A mountain still! And then she is half that size, but still a giant. And then her knee, covered by her dress, is as tall as Seph is. And then Seph gets the weird sensation that he is actually growing taller over her.

  She gets smaller and smaller. Until Seph is standing over a huddled Greek woman, her hair messy, wet, and neglected, frayed and falling out of the decorative hairpins. She is thin too, much thinner than he remembers. She does not look any different from the new souls that Seph looks after, except that she is alive. And she emanates warmth.

  It is just the same as what Seph can do, but it is melting the snow all around them, even on the ground far away.

  And she weeps.

  “Persephone! My baby boy!” She crawls and clings to his knees. Seph picks up his cloak and puts it over her. In her unaided form, she is skinny and weak. Her dress is soaked and filthy too.

  “Mother… Mother…” He can’t think of anything to say to her. So he squats beside her and holds her in his arms.

  She must be scorching with heat, but Seph’s magic seems to resist this as well as the cold. He sets his cheek atop her hair, feeling her soaked, bedraggled features. He holds her and soothes her, for she cries like a child. And then she kisses him all over his cheeks, his hands, his head and everywhere. She checks over him, tugging on his clothes. And she smooths her thin frail hands across his face. She smiles, but it is like a grimace of pain too.

  “Y-you aren’t hurt a-are you?” she stutters out, and Seph shakes his head, trying to give her a happy expression. But this is strange for him. He expected to see her as something other than ‘the Greek woman’.

  He waits. Surely the memories will come back.

  But nothing more is there.

  I have everything I’m going to get, he realizes.

  And also, I want to know her.

  While Zeus’s interest in him was insincere, his expressions exaggerated and his heart hollow, his mother only looks at him with desperate, genuine love.

  “Let’s go home, Mother. I want to speak to you.”

  Sixty-Four

  Hades returns to his quiet world, and it is without the dramatics that even he himself was expecting. Every question he anticipates of, ‘Where is our other king?’ he expects to be a mild stab reminding him that his lover left him. His husband, his mate.

  But even though he’s inclined to give into dramatics and helpless thinking, he notices even on the way back, before he has touched down in the stables, that it won’t be allowed or necessary.

  He flies over Charon’s boat, which is now as big and long as a warship, steered by his magical pole and carried by the current into the marsh. The judges are as busy as ever, unable to hurry with their work, but the souls crowd onto the island so much that now they are up to their waists in water if they cannot quickly decide to take their turn. Here they linger, up to their chests some of them, not even having ground to stand on.

  And he is reminded yet again, as always, there is work to be done.

  He does not fly the horses home. He scours the woods instead and finds Styx tending young Adonis with one of her daughters, Bia, who is Hecate’s favorite sparring partner. They have the same fiery desire for violence and competition, but Bia grew up under Hades’s rule and is loyal to him.

  “I need more help from you,” he says directly after landing, without even a hello. And soon, Bia offers to take up the hunts in her mother’s stead.

  The little boy Adonis also eagerly wants to help, but he is turned down.

  “When is Hecate coming back?” he asks his foster mother, though the question is clearly meant for Hades.

  “When she can,” Hades answers, for he is not in the mood for longer, detailed explanations.

  He contemplates the answer though as he flies off to his unfinished neighborhood. The architects still need him to make revisions in blue ink. He goes to the table, sits in the familiar chair, splits open a new reed with a small knife, and waits.

  His people will come to him.

  First there is Periphetes, who has made dramatic improvements since that time he looked over the plans last. And then Verah appears with a pitcher and goblet in hand. She takes a comb from her belt and briefly tends his hair, making it perfect again, while he drinks gratefully from the goblet.

  “I send for God Hermes?” she asks in Greek, anticipating one of his needs, though his mind hasn’t got there yet.

  He is reminded again that he speaks Verah’s native tongue, but she strives to learn Greek for him, because on some level they are family.

  “Simply deliver a message for me that he is to return to the Earth immediately and continue his good work of collecting lost souls. Our King Persephone does not need protection from Zeus any longer.”

  She nods once and replaces the crown on his head. There is no surprise in her expression nor a questioning gaze. While Seph was quite naive when he first came to Hades, he has proven in a short time to the citizens that he is a capable king.

  And he has proven himself to his husband as well.

  I made him like that.

  On the one hand, Hades would not have minded being Seph’s protector (and jailer) forever. He was prepared for it when he asked for the young god in marriage. But that was when the world didn’t have so many deaths. And admittedly, he now has seen that he could not have managed this place for billions of years anyway. Not without some innovation or help stepping in.

  Humans are prospering, and they will cover the Earth if they aren’t accidentally destroyed by ice first. All the gods visit their cities and admire. Certainly, there are no such marvelous things as the Olympic Games between gods, though Zeus has been tempted to try.

  The gods are too few, and they disagree too much.

  So it is good that Seph will sway Demeter’s heart and make her realize that we do well together. Humans will grow and spread and achieve much. More than the gods alone ever would.

  Hades draws a blue line and stops. He picks up a fresh scroll, unfurling it over the table. He wets the pencil tip with his own tongue quickly, dabs it in the powder ink, and inspiration moves his hand, a simple yet elegant dwelling design appearing in his mind’s eye. A place of far-spaced homes in a rolling meadow, adorned by a magnificent, enormous stallion statue in the distance. Towering.

  He doesn’t have to worry about Seph, nor look after him anymore. He will return when he is able to.

  And in the meantime, I will make many more homes for our children.

  Sixty-Five

  With Hecate’s magic, driving her to exhaustion, Seph and his mother fly to the nearest human city where Demeter is recognized by the priests. A nobleman takes them in his chariot along a winding road through the barren trees. Demeter says they are going to the manor, which is six days away, but eight given the poor state of their horse and the conditions of the roads.

  It is crowded with four people on the back of the chariot, but Hecate is exhausted from flying and her duel with Hades, and Seph’s mother does not look well. She’s healthier now with fresh clothes and clean hair, but she’s older than Seph was expecting. Physically, she seems older than Hades by a decade at least, and this must mean she’s exhausted since Seph has only seen goddesses who look young.

  They take shelter at night in the houses of humans, which are roughly worn, cold, and almost always empty of children. Yet, they welcome the god of their faith with tired but happy smiles. Some even grasp Seph and kiss him on both cheeks, like they are welcoming a friend.

  And then some seem to know him.

  “We have a wolf hunt for you,” says one farmer, sitting beside his son. “The packs crowd close to the village now. One tried to take my boy!”

  And Seph knows this has something to do with him, some memory he’s lost.

 
; His mother says, “My son has had a long journey and will spend some months at the manor. But your fields will be safe soon, I promise it.”

  And then there is the strange fact that many of the common human folk know to address him as Seph and do not use his longer name, even though it is all his mother speaks.

  The closer they get to the manor, the more people address him correctly. And when they arrive at a small city, humans gather outside their homes, some stepping into the street, their arms raised and making offerings, or kissing their hands and showing them up again.

  Seph remembers his first ride through the city of Elysium, one of his first memories with Hades. This is nothing like that. Though they cry tears of joy, they do not get close to the horses or the chariot wheels.

  His mother does not acknowledge any of them, though some cry out, “Great Goddess Demeter!”

  “These are your children?” Seph asks, and his mother gives him a suspecting look. Though they have spoken much about his time in the underworld and Demeter’s grief for him, she has held back many worrying questions it seems. She suspects that Seph is not the same as he was, and Seph has not explicitly explained it to her yet.

  She says in a manner of stating the obvious, “You are my only child. And these are not my subjects. Their ruler is Synesius, who lives in the highest house there.”

  Seph did not even notice that the large building was supposed to be a small palace of some kind. It is nothing compared to the palace of Elysium. In fact, there it might be a regular house.

  “But I am their goddess, and that means I look after their livelihoods, yes.”

  Seph keeps his remarks to himself. For the humans she is ‘looking after’ are fit for the underworld, and Seph can even recognize by the hollowness in their eyes and their protruding bones which ones will be on Charon’s boat soon.

  His tongue is very tempted, and he weighs the cost of challenging her in public, something no ruler likes.

  But he cannot hold back.