The Queen of Flowers and Roots

by Io

  “The magnolia grows in the Elysian fields.”

  I thought of the plant he was talking about; a dark tree, with smooth and hard leaves. I had never seen it flower. It did not exist in my country.

  “I don’t know it.”

  “You will know it.”

  The horses galloped tirelessly. I didn’t know much even about those animals, but I doubted that the deadly beasts could bear such a pace for much longer.

  “When will we get there?”

  “My kingdom is very far away.” I bit my lip. His behavior was strange, disturbing and, at the same time, protective. He was killing me, and yet he desired me. I was confused, even more so because I really had no idea how to ask him for an explanation.

  Hesitantly, I tried: “Aristaeus is really dead?”

  “He won’t bother you anymore.”

  “That is not, I mean, I thank you for that, but ... where do the gods go when they die?” This time I could not be mistaken, Hades’ lips

  curved into a smile, subtle and ironic.

  “The big question. If Zeus had made it, at the

  time he divided creation, he would now be in my place.” My father, of course, would not have stopped at the entreaties of a girl who had fallen into his hands. None of the gods

  I knew would have done.

  “And is that where are we going?”

  “No,” said Hades, “My realm is located beyond the wall of

  tears, in the Elysian fields where the sublime souls dwell. You will like it!”

  He was not a talkative type, but if my questions annoyed him, he hid it well.

  “Forgive me, I think I am unable to resolve this misunderstanding, then.”

  He glanced at me, and as a reaction I pulled his mantle closer. Childish protection, its scent enveloped me completely. It was he, himself, who protected me.

  “There is very little to misunderstand.”

  I blushed, knowing that I was making a complete fool of myself,

  “When we first met, you said the gods could die, if you kill them.”

  “That’s true,” he confirmed.

  “And now, I’m here, torn from the realm of the living ... so, I wonder ... why did you kill me?”

  Hades turned to take a good look at me, and the embers at the back of his eyes seemed to disappear, because there was an expression of pure astonishment. I never saw anyone more dumbstruck. The reins were loosened in his hands, and the horses began to gallop in a disorderly fashion, pulling to all sides. I had to hold onto the edge of the chariot, to prevent myself from falling.

  He grabbed me and put me on my feet, continuing to stare at me as if he had a hard time understanding what he saw. He took up the reins, to regain control of the horses.

  “Killed? I would kill you?”

  “Aristaeus...”

  “He got what he deserved,” he said curtly, “but why should I kill you? How could you think...”

  I felt his eyes sting me, but I held back the tears. I said, bitterly,

  “My father tells me I’m a fool. The god of the Underworld has stolen me, pulling me into the underworld, and I have drawn an illogical conclusion! It is really amazing, to think that it is to the realm of the dead, you go when you die!”

  My voice broke and I turned my head, refusing to burst into tears again. Hades turned back to his horses, he almost felt embarrassed.

  “You’re not dead, Persephone. I will not raise my hand against you, for any reason; I swear on the waters of the Styx.”

  His words struck me. Oaths on the Styx are irrevocable. Even the gods think well before formulating them. But Hades had spoken without hesitation, just to calm me.

  I searched for a little gentleness:

  “I wasn’t asking much. Only, after seeing what Aristaeus had become, I believed...”

  He shook his head, to show me that I was not thinking clearly, “As with everything, there are exceptions, but I don’t kill the gods. There is no need for that. They will die alone, when that time comes.”

  “A time without gods?”

  “It will come,” said Hades, “and the gods will come to the Avernus. What will happen next, when the last immortal god of the last mortal realm is dead, and all life will merge under my dominion, is not possible to know. It is found beyond this type of death.”

  I lowered my eyes. From having no explanation, I had come to having too many. I was almost as confused as before.

  “Why do you tell me these things? They are the mysteries of your realm. I shouldn’t know them.”

  My words fell into the silence of the underworld, into rhythmical galloping of the horses. I looked at the engravings on the chariot and dared not move.

  I saw a hand beneath my face; I felt his long fingers stroking me. Hades made me raise my head to meet his gaze. He was very close.

  I moved, so abruptly that I bumped against the edge of the chariot. I was breathing heavily, in gasps, like a deer hunted by dogs. I was his prisoner, whatever he could say or do to reassure me. I was a prisoner under his cloak, a prisoner under his shadow, a prisoner of his will. I was afraid of that will, in the face of which mine was no more.

  I watched him from below, I’ve never been tall, like a flower, nothing else, and I tried to understand my fate; but he did not allow me to understand anything. His appearance was that of a statue, a rock formation, always present, immovable, unrelenting. That face was incomprehensible to me. But I did not lower my eyes.

  Eventually, Hades looked away and attended to the horses.

  He didn’t try to touch me again, did not come near, and when I pulled the mantle around me, so that it wouldn’t slide away, he didn’t even look in my direction.

  Time passed. I felt every moment on my skin. I shifted my weight from foot to foot, uncomfortable.

  “There’s a seat.”

  I winced. His voice always arrived without notice, and when it did, they were the final words, whatever the subject.

  Hades held out a hand, he ignored my nervous movement, and swung one of the carvings, to release a small platform. I followed the movement of his wrist, fascinated in spite of myself by that skin that was so white under the cuff that was so black, while he blocked the seat against the inside, so that I could sit down.

  “Thank you,” I stammered. “It is... an ingenious mechanism.”

  He did not answer. He shook the reins, and the horses, which should have been exhausted by now, increased their speed at the gallop. I suspected that he had waited until I was sitting down securely to do so, but I dared not ask. To get answers from him frightened me even more than not having one at all.

  He did not address a single word to me, and I didn’t know what to say, or, indeed, if there was anything to say. My head was empty; the scent of magnolia was everywhere.

  When the horses went from a gallop to a trot, and finally began to walk, it seemed to me that only a few moments had passed. Before us, the Acheron was as immense as the sea.

  The Cruel Equilibrium

  He lifted me taking me by the waist, without effort, and set me down on the arid soil of the Avernus. I expected cold instead I felt a mild warmth underfoot, and the silky smoothness of the dust that had settled. Above us, the sky was a strange color, bruised and purple, and long clouds similar to the filaments of roots seemed to flicker in the light of stars I did not know. The glow was suffused; it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. Where it did not arrive, among the rocks, or in the deeper recesses, the darkness was absolute, boundless night, immortal Erebus, the darkness of the underworld.

  The wagon had stopped on top of a promontory, so steep that it could be said to be almost a precipice. I kept away from the crumbling ground, but I could not prevent my being curious about how far I could see.

  It was a sight stranger than I could ever have imagined, that had always been limited to the colors of the flowers and spring.

  The horizon was something vague and distant, neither heaven or underground; just clouds, ro
ots, stars and darkness. The rocks of the Avernus, so sharp that it hurt even to look at them, they looked like beaks, among which water flowed that seemed to come from everywhere in the world. They were rivers, vast as the seas of Poseidon. I counted five. They seemed to converge beneath us, into a dark abyss that I could not see, because I dared not lean forward again. I noticed, however, that the nearest river was murky, while the farthest had clear water like crystal, sparkling even in the subdued twilight.

  They bore no resemblance to the stories the nymphs told me at night, to test our courage. There were no screams or moans; there were no demons or flames, or fog, shadows, monsters. Indeed, it was so quiet that any noise seemed to be sucked away. The Avernus was not the nightmare that everyone thought they knew. It did not give the idea of danger, either remote or looming. It was not unpleasant, although it was certainly not welcoming. It was strange.

  “You live here?”

  He shook his head, involved in unhitching the horses from the chariot. As soon as they were free, they came up to me, lengthening their necks and flaring their nostrils, intrigued. In my eyes they appeared huge, but since Hades did not seem worried, I took courage and put out my hand. The horses snorted, allowing me to stroke them.

  “They like you,” said the god, “you need not fear anything you see from this moment on.”

  Easier said than done! No plants or flowers could be seen; I didn’t find one thing that I could refer to that had reassured me on the surface. Perhaps in that place there was no danger, but it was not an environment in which the living could be at ease. The Avernus did not exist for this.

  I began to feel uneasy, and when Hades said that I had to get into the saddle, I shook my head. He narrowed his eyes, clearly unused to being disobeyed.

  “You cannot walk on the banks of the Acheron.”

  “Why not?” Without giving me an explanation, he took me and lifted me up on to the back of the nearest horse. I had to grab the mane to keep from falling, and fortunately the animal, except for turning his neck to look at me, had no other reaction.

  “Stop treating me like this!”

  “I’ll stop,” he said, “when it ceases to be necessary.”

  He started off holding the stallion by the bridle. There was no choice for me but to keep myself as best I could on the large animal’s back, which at least had a steady pace, smooth as velvet. He didn’t shake me; indeed, he seemed to be very careful to avoid potholes and jumps, not to bounce me off. As we descended, the banks of the river with the murky waters passed in the foreground, and the other disappeared behind the rocks.

  “That’s the Acheron, right?”

  “The first of the five rivers of the Underworld,” he confirmed. I wanted to ask more, but we had come to the valley and

  I needed to get my bearings. I looked up, and I saw with some anxiety that we were very far from the place the chariot had been left. The river flow seemed quiet, almost stagnant, but I did not want to know what was going on, when the waters disappeared into the dark abyss hidden by the headland. The ice abyss of Tartarus?

  At the thought, I shivered in the cloak. If the five rivers all flowed into the dark vortex that I’d seen, it was not difficult to infer that I had hell behind me, literally.

  The view did not improve even in front of me. I had not noticed from a distance, because of the lack of colors in that place, combined with the insignificant and colorless light, it was difficult to make out details, but there were individuals on the path who were walking about with a dazed look, as if they didn’t know exactly where they were. None of them cast shadows, I noticed, and saw too, with a thrill of horror, that many entered the river, walking indifferently and disappeared beneath its surface. You could see them through the waves, distorted and unrecognizable. It was this that had muddied the waters.

  “But who are they?”

  “The unburied. The forgotten. They will wander for a hundred years, or until someone celebrates their funeral rites, paying the price of the ferry.”

  “How cruel!” He did not answer.

  “It’s not their fault.” I insisted.

  “For this reason in a hundred years they can pass. And, in the

  meantime, the ones who have forgotten them will join them here, and they will ask for an account of the wrong they have received.”

  I imagined what it meant to die and come face to face with someone who’s fault it was that you had wandered in the limbo of the Avernus, unable to move on. It was cruel, but also there was balance. I suspected that the whole realm rested on that principle.

  Before I was prevented, I slid down from the saddle.

  “I’m not afraid of these poor souls,” I said defiantly, “I have done nothing that they would want to harm me, neither have they done something for which I should feel repugnance to have them near.”

  “Few would dare think so.”

  He added nothing more, but as I looked, I had the distinct impression that he was pleasantly surprised. I turned quickly away, before blushing again.

  Hades horses stretched out their muzzles to be caressed. They had blood-red eyes and grim tufts that fell on their neck, but they seemed eager to make friends, and in that spirit I removed the flowers that had remained in my hair, and I offered them to them. The horses sniffed, but pulled back their heads. I felt bad.

  Hades’ voice was subtly amused, “Abaste, Aetone, Meteo and Nonio belong to the Avernus. They won’t eat your flowers, Persephone.”

  I smoothed the hair back to weave them in again, to regain my composure. “And what do they eat? The souls of the wicked?”

  “No,” he replied. “Not them.”

  He nodded, and the horses went past me, reaching the riverbank. I realized only then that there was a boat, apparently docked on the low water, with a curved and hooded individual astern. In the gnarled hands, of a hundred years, he clutched the largest oar that I had ever seen, and he seemed indifferent to the people who crossed the walkway. As they climbed, the dead would drop a coin next to him, and the trill of the gold was the loudest noise in that surreal place. It took place all in an atmosphere of calm that suggested a ritual celebration.

  With a movement so fast that it could hardly be seen, the oar rose into the air and fell on a deceased person who was climbing aboard, among the others. He hit him hard enough to bounce him off the walkway, straight into the river. I had thought it was shallow, so close to the shore? The deceased fell, without raising a splash from that gray water, and he did not come back to the surface.

  “Who does not pay, does not get on.” Rejoined the boatman, in a voice that seemed like the crackling of an old oak, the moment before he’d hit out. “No contribution, no crossing.”

  Nobody, neither the deceased nor Hades, even the horses had turned their heads to watch the drama. It seemed that this was normal.

  I rummaged around, knowing I didn’t even have a ring with me.

  “Oh, I’m afraid of not being able to pay for the passage. It seems I’ll have to go back...”

  My attempt at humor did not arouse even a flicker on Hades’ cheek. He put an arm around my shoulders and pushed me onto the gangway, he brushed past the boatman who made no movement towards us. Although he was his king, he was completely indifferent. But he did not ask for the toll.

  The walkway was pulled up, on its own initiative, and Hades led me to sit in the stern, next to the ferryman.

  “Do not lean over the water; the submerged would pull you under, trying to get on board.”

  The boatman propped the oar on the shore and gave it a monstrous shove, which sent us into the middle of the current in an instant, I imagined I would find myself at the bottom of the infernal river, among the souls of the damned, and I hastened to nod. However, on the boat it was very calm. The deceased were waiting, without speaking or moving. Lined up at the bow, the four horses meditated sleepily. They were at home.

  Suddenly a shadow covered us, enormous, three sided.

  I smelled a terrib
le odor of sulfur, and a fetid stench, as if a thousand herds breathed upon us, then, in the bow, I saw the head of a black dog, as large as one of Hades’ horses, which savaged one of the souls, which was lifted kicking over us. There, while the boat was advancing, there were two other heads, which pounced on their comrade’s victim. There was an indescribable noise, of something torn, and the soul stopped struggling.

  When I saw the three heads that writhed and snarled, fighting over the shreds, I cried and hid my face in Hades chest, despite his icy armor. The god pulled me slightly away to avoid a direct contact that would have frozen me.

  You need have no fear! That’s...”

  “It’s horrible!” I took notice of his assurances that did little or nothing to help me. “If this is your way of governing, it’s horrible! No one deserves this!”

  I gasped when one of the black heads returned to fall on the boat, grabbing another deceased. It fell like a hawk on a fish, and no one, not even the victim tried to escape. When the head lifted, we passed under the shadow of the hellhound, I saw that all the passengers had remained motionless.

  I pressed my hands to my ears, and I shut my eyes.

  “You’re a monster! And I thought... believed...” Calmly, Hades bent down and pulled my hands away. His colorless face

  was motionless, and he did not lower his eyes when he saw the accusation in mine.

  “Charon.”

  “Sire.”

  “What sins had that soul committed?”

  “Which of the two?” He shrugged.

  “The last.” The boatman gave a new, gigantic stroke of the oar, and

  the three-headed monster disappeared behind the headland.

  “He had six children with his wife, and he used the six as if they were his wife. When she found out, he killed her, and then sold the elder daughters to pay the judge so that he would be acquitted, disgracing his wife as an adulteress. The other children died from the brutality he subjected them, and when the last one died, he began to

  kidnap other people’s children.” A new stroke of the oar.