Destroyer of Light

by Rachel Alexander

  “Please…” he sniveled as a Ker pulled the golden circlet off his head and started playing with it. The toothy creature hissed at him and tossed the crown to one of its sisters. “I don’t want to—”

  “Silence!” She stared up at him. “You murdered Voleta and Merope, and many more; you raped your own niece, you stole from Gaia herself, and for what?”

  “For mercy… Asopus’s daughter… I don’t deserve…” he said. “Voleta attacked me. Merope… I wouldn’t have touched her if she hadn’t—”

  “You blame your miseries on women?” She recalled how Sisyphus had dismissed her at his own judgement, and a smile curled her lips. “The same was done to Pandora, you know. The wife of Epimetheus. It is a delightful tale you mortal men dreamed up. They say that she was the first woman. She was given a jar she must not open, and was cursed by my father with curiosity to see what lay within. They say she let loose all the evils of the world and that her sex would forever be a plague upon mankind. But one thing within that fabled jar was not allowed to escape.”

  “Please.” A Ker tested the air with its tongue near his eye and bared its teeth.

  “What was it, Sisyphus? What did Pandora hold back?”

  Another Ker hissed into his ear, drawing a claw lightly across his cheek. “Hope,” he said weakly.

  “You ask for mercy. I shall give you hope, instead. You’ve spent your whole life trying to avoid the flames of Tartarus. So if you can complete one task for me, I will set you free.”

  “Persephone—” Aidon warned, then stilled when she glanced back at him.

  Trust me. She continued. “In the Fields of Punishment, there sits a great stone. If you can roll it uphill and out of Tartarus, then we will release you.”

  “August Persephone, my queen, thank you, I—”

  “I’m not finished,” she said. “There is a reason the condemned are told in my husband’s court to abandon all hope when they are sentenced to Tartarus. Hope is the greatest curse there. All you will have is desire, the illusion that you can possibly escape. Your obsession with escaping your fate will follow you to the Pit. The stone will roll down upon you every day and you will keep pushing, mindlessly, endlessly, for all time.”

  His eyes widened, finally understanding her. “Curse me with anything else. Anything else… Please!”

  “Aeolides, who calls himself Sisyphus, King of Ephyra.”

  The flames below him started to glow with the pale pulsing light of Ixion’s wheel, and the Keres gripped his wrists. When they grasped his shattered right leg he let out another contorted scream. The Keres pulled him from the ceiling and dangled him over the Pit.

  “I, Persephone Praxidike Chthonios, sentence you to Tartarus, where your mind will burn with hope, your body will be broken by your task, and your tale will be a dire warning for anyone who tries to escape my husband,” she said, and looked over the yawning edge of the Pit. “Kottos!”

  Yes, Praxidike… His voice boomed.

  “Take him!”

  The flames reached forth, darker and hotter. Sisyphus’s open mouth was fixed in a scream but she couldn’t hear him. The Keres chants drowned out his voice as they flapped madly about. “Wanakt-ja! Praxidike!” they called out in high-pitched unison, “Wanakt-ja! Wanakt-ja! Wanakt-ja!”

  A great stony hand emerged from the widening flames, the palm splayed open. The Keres dropped him and Kottos’s fist closed around Sisyphus. As his fingers slowly shut, Sisyphus struggled and cried and beat at the tightening cage of the Hundred Handed One. His face, his garments, his body were stripped of light, leaving only a faceless shadow behind. Kottos’s fist lowered itself back beyond the ring of fire and each Ker made a last sweep around their Queen and dove in after it.

  By her will, the path swirled shut, the flames quenched, and silence filled the room. Persephone stood stock still, her hands quivering at her side, her breath uneven. She heard a rattle of bronze armor plates from the throne and turned to see Ares staring at the spot on the floor where Sisyphus had been dragged to Tartarus. His knees shook as though he were about to collapse, and his face was pale as the moon. Only his arm leaning on the golden throne held him upright.

  A warm, familiar hand reached for Persephone’s shaking one, then traveled up her arm to rest on her shoulder with a comforting squeeze. She spun around and wrapped her arms around Aidoneus, his eyes wide with surprise.

  “Persephone…” He brought his arms around her with caution, remembering her ire in the fields beyond Ephyra. He felt each breath she took in, felt her relax with each one. She needed him. His heart leapt; she was in his arms again. He was tempted to kiss her on her head, but dared nothing more than simple comfort. He brimmed with confusion and longing, and knew she could feel it too.

  She pulled away from Aidon and stared up at his face. Soon?

  As promised, wife.

  “We need to see to Thanatos.”

  “Of course,” he nodded.

  Hypnos broke the silence and spoke first, his mouth dry. “M-my queen? There’s quite a bit more chain here than what Sisyphus stole from us.”

  “He enchanted an alloy,” Aidoneus said under his breath. He pulled out his sword, tossing it hilt first to Hypnos. “That should cut through it.”

  While Nyx held Thanatos aloft, the God of Sleep swung the blade down on the Chains and sliced neatly through them. Nyx wrapped her arms around her son.

  “My sweet boy,” Nyx said into his ear. Thanatos just stared at Voleta’s limp body, cradled in Hecate’s arms.

  A tear fell down his cheek. Nyx stroked his forehead and willed his flesh to pull back from his bones, revealing his true manifestation in the world above.

  “There’s too much…” he slurred as the chains fell through his arms and wings. “Mother, there’s too much to do…”

  “Just rest, my child,” she said, descending with him. The darkness that wavered about her wrapped around Thanatos, holding him gently.

  “Voleta…” He shuddered, reaching out to her.

  Nyx looked to Hecate, pleading with her. The Goddess of the Crossroads thinned her wrinkled lips and sighed. Her face softened and she somberly inclined her head toward Death. Hecate rested her fingertips on his bony shoulder. “This wasn’t your fault, Thanatos. She knew the risks.”

  “Hecate… I’m so very sorry…” he whispered, then sobbed dryly. Hypnos unclasped his chlamys and Nyx laid him within it. “She wasn’t near… when she died, her spirit… it’s my fault. She never would have… I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

  “Just rest, Thanatos.” Hecate gathered her arms around the nymph’s body. “I’ll take her home.” With that, she vanished into the ether and Voleta with her, bound for Chthonia.

  Morpheus leaned through the doorway. “My Queen? I fear there’s something amiss outside.”

  Persephone looked around the room. All were there, save Hecate and…

  They heard a distant scream. Ares finally had enough voice to speak. “Eris.”

  “We have to leave. Now,” Persephone commanded. Hypnos cradled Thanatos in his arms and flew through the halls ahead of everyone.

  Morpheus, guided by Aidoneus and Nyx, gasped as they ran. “Nightmares. I can see them.”

  “Can’t you call back the Oneiroi?” Persephone asked, grasping her long skirts to run. Ares deliberately trailed far behind them.

  “Not unless the mortals awaken.”

  They reached the colonnade and stopped. The entire marketplace was aflame, tradesmen staggering about, shouting and babbling, with torches in hand. Musicians still played and soldiers cut at the air with their swords, fighting against enemies that weren’t there. Children wailed and screamed, huddling together. Ares finally caught up, then stomped ahead of them when he saw her.

  “Eris! Damn it, woman!”

  She leaned against the raised hearth of the agora, her arms wrapped around a hoplite soldier who passionately kissed her in the midst of his dream.

  “I told you not to touch them.” />
  She rolled her eyes. “But they taste so good when they’re asleep!” She turned back to her mortal companion and locked lips with him again, her hand wandering up the inside of his thigh.

  “Eris, now!”

  She unceremoniously dropped the unconscious soldier to the ground and folded her arms across her chest, walking toward them. Her wings spread, silhouetted against the burning marketplace. Eris cracked a wide grin when she saw Thanatos held in his brother’s arms.

  Leaning over, she placed a kiss on his exposed teeth. “Get well soon, lover. We’ll see each other again when you’re rested.”

  “No, we will not.”

  “You say that every time,” she cooed, tracing his rib cage. He squirmed away from her touch. Hypnos bristled at her.

  Flesh, painful to manifest thanks to his injuries, spread across Thanatos’s body. He wanted to look her in the eye. When he opened his, he looked squarely into hers. “I said no, Eris. I will never visit your bed again. Not now, not at aeon’s end, not ever.”

  She pouted and stood upright, backing away as he slipped the bonds of his flesh again and curled up against Hypnos in peaceful sleep. Eris opened a pathway through the ether behind her, its edges forever collapsing in on themselves in a chaotic geometry. A pert smirk twisted her features. “Until we meet again…”

  Ares surveyed the gods of the Underworld, his face solemn and pale. He gave them a respectful nod, then quietly followed after Eris. The gateway shut behind them.

  Ephyra burned.

  “Don’t look now, but if we don’t leave we’ll be over run,” Morpheus muttered. His blind eyes perceived what they could not. Soon after he spoke, sleepwalking mortals, locked in nightmares, pointed in their direction. They screamed and railed, unintelligible, shambling toward the palace steps with their eyes shut.

  “We can’t just let them burn,” Persephone worried. “Hypnos, can you wake them?”

  “It will be utter chaos.”

  “At least they’ll have a chance.”

  “Will we?” he asked, nodding his head at his unconscious brother.

  “Persephone, find us a way out of here,” Aidon said quickly. “Hypnos, wake them.”

  An asphodel grew through a crack in the steps and a great ring of fire bloomed as soon as the first flower opened. The mortals drew closer, tripping on the palace steps, some falling to be trampled by others. She ignored them and pulled Eleusis closer, bridging the divide. “Now!”

  Hypnos closed his eyes and pulled back the veil of sleep he’d cast over the city. The caterwauling stopped and all voices and motion ceased. Mortals dropped where they stood, and the thousand shadows of the Oneiroi leapt from their bodies and flew away, disappearing into the blackness of night. Slowly the people of Ephyra awoke, softly at first, then to great alarm as their marketplace blazed. Burning olive oil filled the air with thick black smoke, and embers landed on thatched roofs. A young man shouted directions at three soldiers, fetched large pitchers of water. As the Ephyreans organized themselves to douse the flames, the chthonic gods walked, unnoticed, through the ether to the fields of Eleusis.

  Persephone knelt where Hypnos had laid Thanatos on the ground and smoothed her hand over his brow. “Is he going to be all right?”

  “Yes,” Nyx said, hovering over him. She looked up at Aidoneus. “Physically, it shouldn’t take long. But…”

  “Thanatos will recover, my lady,” Aidon said stonily. “He’ll protest, but I don’t want him active for at least a few days.”

  “Are you coming with us?” Hypnos asked.

  Aidon glanced at Persephone. Her eyes were wide and expectant. “No. But I’ll be back home soon enough.”

  “Not too soon, I hope,” Morpheus said with a smile. “I imagine that you and the Queen have a bit of catching up to—”

  Hades’s glare was palpable and Morpheus cut himself short.

  “Little one.” Nyx smiled at Persephone. “If you ever doubt your true place in this cosmos, remember tonight. Until we see each other again, my queen. My lord,” she nodded and a great dark path opened behind her. Nyx’s sons followed her, and the starless gyre wound shut on itself.

  Then they were alone.

  18.

  Chirping crickets and frogs were a deafening chorus, and the smell of night blooming lilies filled the air. The silence between Hades and Persephone stretched on. He slowly inhaled.

  “Persephone…”

  “Why did you not come to me?”

  “Wife, if I came to you I would have never—” Aidoneus tightened his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her. “Why did you not send any word to me? You saw Hermes often enough.”

  She creased her brow. “What could I have said? Should I have told him everything I wanted to say to you for him to repeat to all of Olympus?”

  He started shifting from foot to foot, then paced a few steps. “I don’t care what the Olympians think.”

  “But I do!”

  “Why? Are you ashamed of what they know about us? About what you feel for me?”

  She softened. “Of course not, Aidon.”

  “Then what is it?” He came to a stop.

  “You have no idea how much easier it is for you,” she muttered, shaking her head.

  He looked at her incredulously. “Easier?”

  “Yes!” She straightened. “You have the refuge of Chthonia, but I have to live here. The Olympians gossip, and it’s not idle. They know that I am— that we are a weakness for each other. Our marriage is their greatest source of curiosity right now, and I endure all sorts of questions, even from someone as staid as Athena. And the things my mother—”

  “Oh, damn your mother and her precious opinions to Tartarus!” She flinched, and he paused to calm his voice. “Surely she recognizes that you are a woman now. A married woman.”

  “Barely.”

  He shook his head. “You could have at least written to me.”

  “I don’t know how to write, Aidon,” she reminded him. “I barely know how to read!”

  Aidoneus exhaled and looked away. He could have kicked himself for forgetting.

  “Even if I could write, what would stop Hermes from reading every message I send to you?”

  “He’s not allowed to do that.”

  “Do you think that would stop him? I’ve been so tight-lipped about our… life together… that any information about us is more precious to them than gold!”

  Aidoneus saw tears form in her eyes. “Persephone—”

  “Do you have any idea how desperate I was to hear from you? You said you’d come to me.”

  “There was too much to be done.”

  “Do you think my tasks were any less? I thought you resented me, Aidoneus. Maybe even hated me.”

  “What? Why?!”

  “Because I hid my plan from you. Because I ate the pomegranate seeds without telling you.”

  “Do you think so little of me, do you think me so fickle as to hate you for that?”

  “When I hear nothing from you for three months, what should I think?”

  “What would you have me do? Let all the things that I wanted to say to you privately come rolling off Hermes’s tongue?”

  He’d asked her that same question moments ago, and she’d responded in kind. She took a step back, the same understanding softening his features, too. Persephone did not want to fight. She just wanted this to be over so he could hold her, but she needed answers. “You missed me, Aidon, but not enough to come see me?”

  “I missed you plenty,” he answered, his brow furrowing.

  “Then why not just once?”

  “Because I would never have gone back! For Fate’s sake, Persephone. It was hard enough for me to leave you up here in the first place.”

  “Dreams would have enabled you to—”

  “I’ve hardly slept. Between the glut of shades and… your absence…” He took a cautious step toward her. “It’s been nearly impossible.”

  She looked down, forgetting how restless he
had been before she came into his life, and worried that it was worse for him now that she was gone. His sandaled feet and greaves came to a stop in front of hers. She could hear him breathing and felt the tension in their bodies humming between them. Persephone felt his walls crack and come tumbling down, leaving him raw and exposed. She slowly lifted her gaze to meet his. Her husband’s eyes were awash with emotion. “Aidon…”

  “Enough.” His voice was rough. “Enough words for one night…”

  He pulled her against him, almost knocking the wind from her, and their mouths crashed together haphazardly. They moulded together, hands lacing through hair, teeth gently pulling at lips, tongues intertwining. She surrendered. A whimper of relief was answered by a halted groan from her husband. They could barely breathe, and Aidoneus pulled away with another nip of her lower lip.

  “I’ve missed you…” he whispered against her cheek, his voice shaking. “That’s all there is to it. I’ve missed you terribly, sweet one.”

  She relaxed. “I don’t want to argue with you, Aidon. Not when we have such a short time together. But I cannot just leave this matter unfinished and expect everything between us to be all right when I come home.” She brushed her fingers over his jaw line. He held her, his eyes betraying his vulnerability. “Do you understand?”

  Aidoneus nodded. “I do. My love, I’m so sorry I did not contact you. After we parted, I worked day and night for over a month to restore our kingdom. When that time had passed, I simply didn’t know what to say. And I couldn’t have Hermes just unfurl a scroll and read off everything I’ve held back.” He cupped her face in his hands. For the first time since he’d appeared in the world above, he smiled for her. “Persephone…”

  “My love, I—” Aidon swept a thumb across her lips.

  “Sweet one, it’s all right. Let’s not dwell on what has passed. We’ll find a way to do better in the future.”

  “I barely had enough time to plan what I did,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I thought I did the right thing by not telling you.”

  “Perhaps you did.” He kissed her forehead. “The state I was in… I would never have let you go if you’d told me you’d eaten the seeds.”