by K.N. Lee
Sweet, sweet to the taste, soft to the touch, warm and cool against my aching body. Kissing her was a sensation like no other.
We progressed quickly from kisses to caresses. My daydreams of introducing Persephone to the pleasures of the body in my great ebony bed were smashed to splinters when she wrapped her arms around my neck and jumped into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist. It was impossible then to resist bracing her against the trunk of one of the trees and dig my fingers into all of her softness.
It was her questing hands that sought me under my tunic, her determination to impale herself on my length. She was the first one to scratch and bite in ecstasy, demanding rough treatment from me instead of the tender seduction I longed to give her.
“My queen!” I roared as I pumped hard and fast into her.
Mortal days and weeks may have passed as we violently rocked against each other in an embrace outside the confines of time. Only Zeus really enjoys the quickness of lovemaking with mortals. The rest of us prefer the divine agony of the timeless torment of an everlasting climax. Yet, even to me, it seemed that it was all too brief. Persephone wailed as she stretched and strained in pleasure, and I felt an unutterable release of my own within her.
Gently, I lowered her to the ground where she sat cradled by the roots of the pomegranate tree. I stretched out on my side beside her, tenderly pushing back the damp tendrils of hair that clung to her cheeks and breasts.
I caught her gaze and frowned slightly at the curious, almost detached expression in her eyes.
“Are you not happy, my love?” I asked.
“It is so strange. I feel such power, and yet so contained.”
I smiled. “Did I not tell you that you possessed great power, that you were mean to be a great queen?”
Persephone looked at me steadily, and I felt my heart sink slightly when her expression did not change.
“Let us wander, my lord,” she said briefly, rising in a single fluid motion to her feet. “There is more of your kingdom I would see. I believe I am strong enough now to endure it.”
I followed her, standing up and trailing behind her as she walked, shifting the reality around her as easily as if she had been me. Around us, the landscape turned unsteadily, revealing glimpses in uneven beats of the fields of blessed, the pit of the damned, my palace, the lair of Cerebus. I watched carefully, wary of her precarious control of her power, tensing as she unwittingly brought us to the pit of the Titans.
“Where are we?” she asked evenly, even though I caught a flash of something undefinable in her eyes.
“The pit of the Titans,” I replied. “They are imprisoned here and have been ever since Zeus defeated them to reclaim the mortal realm from their terror.”
“They were cruel to the earth?”
“Their power is terrible. Earthquakes, volcanoes, oceans, fire and fierce winds all obey their command.”
“How are they kept imprisoned if they are so powerful?”
I glanced at the glowing pit where the groans and angry rumblings of the Titans bubbled just below the surface.
“It is my power that keeps them here in this pit.”
“I thought Zeus was the one who was the only one who could defeat them?”
“He was not the only one who fought them, but he was the one who claimed the victory, drawing the earth as his realm.”
Persephone startled me with a low laugh, and I looked up to meet her chillingly calculating gaze. Suddenly, she released her form and showed her true nature, blinding light, a blast of power like the heat of a furnace and the relentless force of life itself--her native power as the goddess of newborn things.
I was blown back, striking the cave wall and crumpling to the ground. Scrambling to my feet, I watched in horror as Persephone’s raw power destroyed the barrier to the Titan’s prison, releasing them.
Farewell, Hades. Her thought was a cold and mocking echo in my mind.
I had no time to rage at the betrayal of Persephone or to follow her flight. The Titans were free, and suddenly, the fate of all humanity rested on my shoulders.
I summoned my powers for the battle.
Chapter 7
In the end, it was Ascalaphous who found me, or so I am told.
I have a vague memory of his strange, long, white fingers hesitantly touching my shoulder, his voice calling me to wakefulness. Pain clouds so much of those moments, though. I cannot be truly certain of anything other than the fact I single-handedly fought the Titans and returned them to their prison.
I can guarantee you that no poet shall ever set that feat to couplets. Zeus would never allow it. You know how vain he is, but with that comes a great deal of petulance and pettiness when his magnificence does not dwell alone in the sun. Oh, that old bugger Hesiod made sure to drop our names when he described the battle of Zeus and the Titans. But, you won’t find great detail of the way Ares infused us all with his bloody, unyielding wrath, or how Demeter commanded earth and root to rise up and become weapon and manacle. Do not forget that Poseidon, too, is forgotten, with the way he smashed the Titans, breaking and crushing them under walls of water. Hephaestus gets more than a mere nod, but it is little more than bribery from Zeus to keep him happily toiling away, hammering out an arsenal of lightning bolts.
By all means, though, let it be Zeus who is the cleverest, handsomest, strongest, and fiercest of us all.
You do know that it is foolish to smirk at a god? You want to know what I did to defeat the Titans and rebuild the walls of their prison. You doubt my feats because I do not share every vainglorious detail. Did it ever occur to you that I withhold this part of my tale out of consideration for your fragile mortal mind? To know the darkness I command and terrible things I am capable of would drive you to madness. Suffice it to say that it takes a great deal more power to reign over and rein in all that dwells in the Underworld than to turn oneself into a swan, or a bull, or whatever. (I freely question the sanity of any woman who becomes so lustfully besotted of a swan. Nasty, biting creatures. Not to mention, the logistics of such a coupling are both disturbing and difficult to imagine.)
Ascalaphous must have dragged me a good ways, as the next thing I can recall is lying on the ground in the hall of Cerberus, covered in ash and dust. My faithful hounds whimpered at the sight of me, nosing and nuzzling me with three sets of wet snouts.
“Have a care, you unmanageable mongrels!” I cried weakly, wincing. “I am a single divine bruise from head-to-toe!”
Ascalaphous attempted to help me sit up, jumping back and dropping hard to the ground when Cerberus snarled at him in an excess of misplaced protectiveness.
“We must get him back to his chambers,” the boy said, sounding as if he was asking the hounds for an opinion on the matter. It seemed strange to me to hold such a conversation, but then again, I had just knocked my head against the ground for the umpteenth time, so it was easy to assume I was merely hallucinating.
“I will do it.”
That voice. I now knew I was delirious. That voice belonged to my runaway queen, who was even now basking in sweet sunlight, nestled safely in her mother’s arms.
Cerberus snarled and snapped, and I forced myself to open my eyes, despite the pounding pain in my head.
“Impossible,” I whispered.
Persephone stood straight and proud before me, an imperious glint in her eye. Ascalaphous looked at her doubtfully. “Perhaps it would be best if you just stayed with him while I go to fetch help.”
“It would be best if you obeyed your queen and stepped aside. Do you not trust that the wife of Hades cannot move as she pleases through the Underworld?”
Ascalaphous glanced at Cerberus, and I grasped his meaning. The hounds existed to protect the Underworld both within and without. No one could pass them without my permission. Obviously, Persephone had come up against them in her attempt to flee, and knowing that I had not given her leave to depart my kingdom, they had barred her way.
As pained in body and spir
it as I was, it was hard not to admire her naïve effrontery in asserting herself as my queen when it pleased her to do so. Who knew that a godling who clothed herself in sweetness was capable of laying such cunning traps and wielding her will like a weapon?
Yet, the only reason she was there to decide upon my care was because she had not been able to escape. No other reason.
For the first time, there was no thrill of love in my veins when she knelt next to me and touched my hand. I could only lie there, too injured and weak to care when she whispered in my ear, “Rest, Hades.” I did not yearn to take her into me even when she surrounded me with mist and essence in the same intimate way I had done with her in order to move us through space and distance in my realm. I welcomed the darkness as it took me.
My love had become a bitter fruit on a dying vine.
Chapter 8
My injuries were more grievous than anyone had suspected.
Indeed, they were serious enough that I often thought I could hear the brush of Thanatos’ cloak against the door to my bed chamber. As I drifted on slow-moving currents of pain and delirium, I struggled to discern dreaming from wakefulness. There were things I saw that I wished were real, and things I heard that I wished were not.
For six months, I lay abed, broken and weak. I heard the mournful cries of the heroes who dwelt in my palace, each one attempting to outdo the other in their braggadocios lamentations. The howls of Cerberus were more genuine, but they could grow to such volume that they shook the very walls of Tartarus. Most disturbing was the confused susurrations of the souls of the dead. On occasion, I had heard once in a while the whispered plea of a soul who became lost on the road to the Elysian Fields or wherever he felt destined for. A gentle prodding by one of the tendrils of my consciousness easily set him back on his path. As my strength returned and awareness grew clearer, I worried in ways I couldn’t describe and for reasons I couldn’t catch.
Eventually, the cotton bindings and bandages came off. The unguents and poultices became less foully pungent. There were fewer insipid tisanes to swallow. I began to rise and take halting steps, though the number of steps required to reach my throne was still beyond my reach.
All of these were but minor inconveniences compared to the one part of my convalescence that I was eager to be done with.
Persephone.
I could feel her presence, always there, always watching. Her little fingers were the only ones that wrapped the bandages around my body or smoothed the ointments into my skin. She was the one who spooned the broths and sponged my brow.
Always there. Always watching.
Ever wakeful. Ever present.
Her expressions were variations on pity and guilt with the occasional flicker of impatience. I’m sure she felt badly for just how wrong her little game had gone. Puzzling through the coruscations of her plot had been one of my pastimes while I grit my teeth against aches and sweated out fevers.
She had come to me that morning in the orchard, full of a strange determination. I had known that her charm, her seduction, her submission—all of those were simply part of an act. It was not even a particularly sophisticated performance on her part, nor did it have to be. All she needed was to play on my all-too-evident weaknesses, knowing I would willingly do her bidding for even a single groat of her affection.
It’s hard to know how she knew that congress with me would both unleash and giver the ability to contain her power. Perhaps Demeter had enlightened her, or a nymph had giggled secrets into her ear. Aphrodite could have come to cry about her latest lover, revealing all kinds of sordid details about divine release.
The sole truth I can take from our encounter is that she hated me enough to give me her virginity.
She was so desperate to escape my kingdom that she did not think through the consequences of releasing the Titans from their prison. If I had not managed to contain them, they would have trampled the earth, ripped the heavens, and boiled the seas. Her freedom was so dear to her that it could have cost us all everything in existence.
Perhaps her intent hadn’t been to release the Titans. Maybe it had simply been the seizing of an opportunity. She could have meant for us to wander my kingdom until she found the right moment to flee.
“Your thoughts seem as dark as your brow, my lord,” she said softly.
I grunted, unwilling to lose the thread of my musing.
“Your body heals, but your spirit fails in equal measure.” She dipped a cloth and wrung out the cool water.
“What is it to you?” I mumbled.
“What do you want it to be to me?”
“It hardly signifies now.”
“It could…if you wanted it to.”
I caught and held the timbre of her voice, splitting it into wires and chords, milking every modulation for emotion. I examined and analyzed, yet there was no dissembling in her tone. The breath behind her words was quiet, the contrition there but only as a faint flavor. What was loudest was the element of genuine vulnerability.
I scoffed, having now plumbed the depths of her motivations. She remarked on the return of my strength because she feared the strength of my wrath. She sought to use vulnerability to play upon my pity.
“Leave,” I said flatly.
She made a small sound of protest.
It seems my fate was now to be saved by Ascalaphous these days. Before Persephone could grow snippy or I could snarl, he strode into my chambers. When did the boy stop fearing me that he no longer felt the need to knock or grovel? I harrumphed in his general direction.
“My lord, gracious Hermes is here and insists upon speaking to you.” He puffed out his chest as if he were the lauded messenger himself. I would have to teach him his place again. When I felt better. At some point. If I remembered.
“Leave,” I ordered Persephone once more.
She made a moue and gave me an inscrutable look, but left without further comment.
“I suppose Hermes waits outside the door?” I groused.
“He’s an, erm, urgent sort of fellow.”
I rolled my eyes and gestured for him to be shown in.
Hermes bustled into the room with quick, precise steps. He came to an abrupt halt at the foot of my bed and surveyed me critically. “Well, you are awake. That’s an improvement. However, your looks? Not an improvement. Not at all.”
“You spend too much time with my brother Zeus. Your jokes used to be funnier.”
“There are bad tidings and worse tidings. Which do you wish to hear first, my lord?”
“Tell me in whatever order amuses you the most.”
The prolonged silence finally prompted me to look up. The gravity on Hermes’ face took me by surprise.
“If things continue as they are now, Zeus and Poseidon will have nothing left to rule, and you will be king over all.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“All that was living is now dying. Soon, the Elysian Fields will be overrun, and the pit of lamentation will overflow.”
“Why? How?”
Hermes gazed at me steadily. “Persephone.”
Chapter 9
I didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to believe.
I wanted to rage and tear the world apart.
The one thing, the only thing I had ever asked for, was being taken from me. There was no mercy from any god. Only I seemed to cling to the foolish belief that in return for the awesome powers I held, I had an equal obligation deal in fairness and justice.
I scrubbed my hands over my face, struggling with all these emotions roiling within my breast. Never had I felt more lost, more…mortal.
“The loss of Persephone has driven Demeter to madness,” Hermes continued. “At least that is what I choose to believe. Some in Olympus whisper that she is right in what she does, that you are wrong. It is unnatural for life and death to dwell together in such a way.”
I felt a measure of calm return with consideration of his words. It was unnatural for life and death to dwell
together? What could be more right, more perfect, more balanced than the opposites of existence being in harmony? I was absolutely certain of this.
Even the pain I felt at the thought of letting her go was dulled by this certainty. No matter where she and I dwelt in the cosmos, we would be inextricably entangled. She would leave. I would let her go. Those were the other certainties I held.
“Zeus…” Hermes began hesitantly.
“Yes, yes,” I interrupted. “He wants me to return Persephone to her mother. Demeter is willing to kill off all his mortal playthings without a care for consequences to get what she wants.”
Like mother, like daughter.
“Soon,” Hermes said. “She must return soon before there is nothing left to live or die.”
I nodded. Slowly. Painfully.
Words I had spoken in such longing and hope came back to me, and I returned them in a forlorn echo to Hermes.
“Take her.”
Sorrow gave me strength. Without love to fill my days and serve as guide and purpose, I turned to duty.
My kingdom had fallen into disarray from the influx of victims of Demeter’s wrath. It angered me to see so many new souls whose only fault was that they lived while Demeter raged. Minos, Aeacus and Rhadmanthus grew grey and gaunt. Charon stiffly poled his skiff, as if plagued by aches. Even Cerberus seemed weary and almost indifferent to the task of guarding the gates. In a rare moment of respite, I wondered why no haughty heroes or irritating loves tried to take advantage of our dullness, marching into our dark halls and demanding the return of treasure, lovers, etc. Then, I realized it was because they were all already here, fatally reunited.
Tireless days and endless nights finally brought all of them to their perceived final reward. My palace rang with tortured glee once more, the old tales with new lies flowing like wine. For some reason, I had never gotten around to teaching Ascalaphous his place, and he sauntered through the halls with a cocky self-assurance more suited to a newly-promoted scribe than a minion of darkness.