Underworld's Daughter

by Molly Ringle

  Not every time would go so smoothly. Hekate could see that. It was partly why she usually only went out at night, if she wasn’t on a diplomatic mission. The moon and stars cloaked her in serene magic, and the darkness hid her from easy recognition.

  Today, shooting upward into the sunny sky, she worried more about how Adonis might be received if he strolled into some town and announced himself as an immortal. Hermes had warned him, apparently, but Adonis might not realize the extent and determination of the angry faction. He could find himself stabbed all over again.

  Hekate landed in a wildflower-filled field, tied up her horse, and switched realms. She knew the location: a large coastal town on the southeastern peninsula, where the sea was a clear, light green-blue. The island of Kythira lay as a low blue shape on the horizon. The spot where she switched over was the customary place for immortals to do so around here, marked by a lightning-split tree in the spirit realm and a pile of stones—a cairn—on a path outside town in the living world. Cairns or small shrines had sprung up in several of these crossover spots, built by adoring mortals, those who still loved the immortals.

  Hekate now found herself before an old woman trudging up the hill with a bundle on her back. Upon seeing Hekate swirl into place with Kerberos in her arms, the woman beamed a toothless grin and raised her hands with a joyful, “Ah! Goddess!”

  Thank goodness Hekate ran into someone who did worship them, she reflected. Perhaps using these customary switch-over spots every time wasn’t so wise. Thanatos-crazed enemies could lie in wait by the cairns with spears and bonfires at the ready.

  But so far that hadn’t happened. Perhaps the good worshippers chased away any such idlers, or perhaps the murderous group was too small and thinly spread to assign watchers to many points at once. For now she dismissed the concern, distracted by the prospect of seeing Adonis. She set Kerberos on the ground, and with a bow and smile to the old woman, she and the dog ran downhill.

  Finding Adonis would have been easy even without her immortal sense of him. People jogged and hurried toward the market square in the middle of town, calling with excitement to each other.

  “A new god!” was the call she heard most often, along with, “The god Dionysos,” which intrigued her. Dionysos was from old stories. Her father had told her of sanctuaries to Dionysos on Crete, and a festival for him that involved drinking wine and wearing animal masks.

  When she pushed through to the front, her Adonis-sense singing brighter and clearer, she saw why they might have begun calling him Dionysos, and she laughed in delight.

  He sat upon the low stone wall surrounding the spring, speaking conversationally with the excited crowd that clustered around him. He wore a long purple cloak and a sandy-yellow tunic fastened over one shoulder, with no jewelry that she could see, but exquisite embroidery of grapevines curled all round the hems of his clothes. He had grown a thicker beard, and his hair was gathered into a loose ponytail of gold and brown waves. He looked both exotically wild and resplendently elegant. The old feeling of breathlessness punched her lungs once again as she beheld him.

  At his side lay a giant wildcat, as large as he was himself. She wasn’t sure what to call it. It was rather like the leopards in Africa, but brown with yellow spots rather than yellow with black, and certainly bigger than Greece’s wild cats. Likely he’d captured it from the spirit realm. It drowsed in the sun, blinking lazily while he stroked its fur. The people kept their distance, staring at it and tittering nervously.

  But they had many questions and comments for him, coming from all quarters, and they addressed him as “Dionysos.”

  On his other side sat a large clay jug, and he invited people forward to fill their cups from it. Wine, she deduced, glancing into someone’s cup. The heady fermented grape scent perfumed the air.

  He must have sensed her then. His gaze moved straight to her, and he smiled and held out his hand. “A familiar face. One of my saviors.”

  She stepped forward and took his hand to squeeze it in greeting. “Welcome back. Dionysos.” She tried out the name aloud. She decided she liked it.

  His gray eyes twinkled at her a moment, then he turned to the crowd. “The goddess Hekate,” he introduced. “You know of her, don’t you?”

  They mostly murmured “yes.” She and Hades had visited here a few months ago.

  “She has powerful magic. She helped to raise me up from a dying, miserable mortal man to a god.”

  “The Fates did you that favor,” Hekate quickly corrected, for it wouldn’t do to spread the word that she could make people immortal. The orange’s secrets had to be guarded closely, and the rumors were already persistent enough. “You’ve been traveling a while,” she added, to turn the subject.

  He nodded and began talking about a festival he’d seen in Egypt, which drew further questions from the increasingly tipsy listeners. Most were soon laughing and pressing closer, jostling Hekate aside.

  She climbed onto the wall on the wildcat’s other side so she could stand higher and look for any sign of an anti-immortal siege. But nothing looked amiss, and in any case, the mood of the crowd felt jubilant and silly, no malice that she could sense. All the same, she sat and placed her palms upon the circular wall, infusing it with protective energy, which should give them a chance to escape before anyone harmed them. She also had a job keeping Kerberos away from the cat—he growled with hackles raised, and the cat opened her eyes a slit and hissed in answer.

  As Dionysos chatted with the others, Hekate only listened, smiling to be near him, but feeling out of place. He had a way with the people, a charm she lacked. She could sense energies and adjust magic and sometimes save lives with it, and she admired the colors and vibrant life of the cities, but she had never fit into them. A girl conceived and raised in the shadows of the Underworld carried that dark imprint forever. Dionysos, in contrast, had begun life among the mortals on the surface, and had always strived to please them through beauty and enjoyment.

  Soon they were imploring him to honor them with his presence at their own Dionysian festival, later in the month. He cheerfully accepted, and glanced at Hekate. “You’ll come, won’t you?”

  Her face warmed, and she chuckled, glancing at her feet. Dionysian festivals involved the most public nudity, drunkenness, and general madness of all the rituals out there. “Well. Perhaps. Just to watch.”

  He nodded approval, then turned to answer someone else.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Hekate was accustomed to festivals taking place on a single night, corresponding to the full moon. So it surprised her to learn that this village’s Dionysia would last three days.

  She showed up the first day at sunset to watch the procession. She didn’t advertise being an immortal. She left Kerberos in the Underworld, and tried to be nondescript in the crowd in her dark blue cloak and loose, unadorned long hair, with a light wrap of magic around her to dissuade unwanted attention.

  Apparently Hermes saw through her spell, though, for his presence soon zoomed close to her and in the next moment he was weaseling in beside her. He was barefoot and wore a lightweight red tunic, with a yellow narcissus stuck behind his ear. He was clean-shaven, as usual, and his brown curls fell loose to earlobe length, making him look about fifteen years old altogether.

  “You’ve heard of his rousing homecoming, then?” Hermes said.

  “I came and said hello when he arrived. He does have a way with them.” She glanced about at the milling crowd. The procession wasn’t ready to begin; its officials scurried around in purple robes, bringing baskets and masks and food behind the draped-off staging area inside a house.

  “He’ll be the next great immortal sensation,” Hermes said. “Mark my words. The herald has spoken.”

  She smirked. “Herald you may be. Not the same as an oracle.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at her, pleased, and opened his mouth to banter back, but a blast of horns and drums rolled out from the draped house. The crowd answered with a greeting cry.
All turned toward the house and fell silent.

  The drape tumbled to the ground in a ripple of purple. From the house the procession marched forth, all its members cloaked head to toe in purple linen. Their masks were blank cloth covering their whole heads, nothing upon them except small holes for eyes and mouth. The horns and drums played a wild, lamenting tune. The marchers touted grotesque animal masks upon poles, with a large mask of a bearded man at the head of the procession. Behind, others carried baskets of grapes or bread, and jugs that probably contained wine, water, or oil. Hekate also spotted sexual symbols on some poles—oversized and stylized male and female body parts, though male ones were the more numerous, since this ceremony honored a male god.

  “Ah, they clearly used me as the model for those,” Hermes whispered to her.

  She elbowed him, which gained her an “Oof” and then silence.

  After the last cloaked marcher passed, the crowd fell in behind and followed. Hekate and Hermes joined them. They traveled out of the town, up the hill past the cairn, and into a rocky hollow studded with conifers, where a cliff rose up as a backdrop.

  The leader stuck the pole with the god’s mask into a crack between rocks, then climbed onto the boulder next to it. He rolled up his cloth mask only enough to display his mouth, and began his oration.

  As the sunset faded to an indigo sky, and torches were lit below him, throwing stark dancing shadows upward onto the cliff, he performed the tale of the dying and rising god. “Performed” was much more the word than “told.” Even Hekate, who knew the tale was largely poetic invention, felt goose bumps rise in thrill upon her arms as he lamented the death of the betrayed youth. The crowd shrieked their grief in genuine-sounding agony.

  “Death is woven into our life, eternally,” mourned the masked speaker. Around Hekate, people wept and sent up the wails they customarily only used at real funerals. Even Hermes looked impressed, and stayed quiet. “But behold, my sisters and brothers!” The speaker swung aside to display the mask of the god. “He is born again! For life is woven into the fabric of death, as well. He shall live again, tonight!”

  A cry of hope arose from the crowd.

  “We must summon him,” the speaker said, in his most sepulchral tone. “Friends, we must bring about the appearance of the god. Summon him now by name!”

  “Dionysos!” people began shouting. The drums beat hard and loud in accelerating rhythm. Soon everyone called the name in unison. “Dionysos! Dionysos! Dionysos!”

  Hekate chanted it along with them. The magical thrill swirled around her and shot through the crowd, though she knew all it would do was push them to higher ecstasies rather than actually summon Dionysos. She sensed him behind her, though couldn’t see him—he was likely another of the masked folk, hiding among them until it was time to make his appearance.

  Which evidently was now. Her sense of him changed: he was switching realms and rushing forward.

  Then, in a sudden flare of light, new torches burst into being before the mask, and a breeze rocked all the flames, sending the light slanting crazily back and forth. There he stood, masked like a leopard, bare-chested, with a short cloth draped around him from waist to knees, torches in both hands.

  This must be what it felt like to stand beside a strike of lightning, Hekate thought. In the triumphant roar of the crowd, and the sudden blazing appearance of the god, the people’s amazement and devotion nearly made the Earth tremble under her. Indeed, many of the worshippers fell to their knees as if bowled over, while their shout of victory rose to deafening levels.

  Then everyone threw off their masks, revealing colorful face paint. The horns struck up a lively, happy tune. Meanwhile Dionysos stood holding the torches, a regal smile upon his lips, as the people cheered and danced. An attendant brought his leashed leopard forward, and the cat prowled possessively around Dionysos’ legs.

  “He does know how to make an entrance,” Hermes said to Hekate, leaning close in the noise.

  Hekate agreed, laughing, and accepted an ivy wreath from an attendant, which she put upon her head the way everyone else was doing.

  But in her own body, the worship for him throbbed and rushed around, as strong as any of these mortals could possibly be feeling it. It made little sense for an immortal to feel this way, especially one so closely connected already with the mysteries and magics of the Underworld. It wasn’t his immortality or the mystery thereof that she wished to worship, the way it was for them. It was him, bodily; and his mind that she couldn’t fathom yet, but wished to; and most of all, the emotions and thrills he stirred up in her and in nearly everyone he met.

  Hekate couldn’t say she liked every part of the festival. Dionysos’ many duties kept him busy, and throngs of people vied to be close to him, leaving her no chance to wander up and talk. Though he did kiss her in greeting, he did that with everyone, so she couldn’t take it as a special favor.

  She also didn’t care for the official opening of the wine jugs, because it led to widespread inebriation—among the mortals only, of course—and she ended up fending off too many drunken attempts at seduction and witnessing too many bouts of vomiting. As for the theatrical performances, some moved her, but others left her more baffled than entertained.

  And the evening of the sacred marriage was her least favorite.

  Dionysos honored the hosting city by “marrying” a local noblewoman in a non-binding but realistic ceremony, after which he swooped her up and raced off with her into the dark wilderness. The people cheered and shouted lecherous suggestions.

  Hekate asked Hermes, “Does he actually…?”

  Hermes plucked a cup of wine from a stumbling passerby and stole a sip. “If he wants. If she wants. And why wouldn’t they both want?” He offered her the cup. “Don’t suppose you want?”

  She glanced at the wine, as if he meant that, though she was sure he didn’t. “Not now, thanks.”

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Dionysos resolved not to seek out Aphrodite. He hadn’t seen her in four years, though he heard she still lived upon the same island, an easy spirit-horse jaunt from the mainland. Even two years ago, he would never have been able to keep away. She would have drawn him like those magical rocks that pulled iron up against themselves. But now he did resist, and when he thought of seeing her again, it caused only a flutter of a disturbance within him, not the full cold sweat and longing it would have before.

  But the true test, he knew, would come only when he did see her. Which finally one night he did.

  It was a few days after the first festival. He was on the road with his nine newly hired attendants—the people he liked best who had performed offices in the festival, and who were willing to leave town and wander with him to celebrate the rituals in other parts of the land. They had made camp for the night and begun to cook their supper in a sheltered spot between grassy mountain slopes. A glitter of distant sea peeked between the hillsides, shining in the sunset.

  When he felt Aphrodite approaching at immortal-horse speed, his hands stilled in opening a jug of wine. He looked toward the sea.

  Wild goats bleated. One of his new friends played a flute while another sang a poem. The fragrant smoke from the campfire billowed up into the clear sky. Then the smoke swirled about in a puff of wind as Aphrodite broke through into this realm, standing dangerously near the flames, one sandaled foot touching the end of a burning stick. His friends yelped in surprise; the flute and song stopped abruptly.

  Aphrodite started and leaped aside to the grass. Dionysos jumped to his feet, wine jug still in hand, to take her arm. “Careful!” he said.

  She stamped her feet and rippled her pale green gown, looking down to make sure she wasn’t on fire. Upon finding she wasn’t, she exhaled dramatically and lifted her face to him with a laugh. “Goodness. Not my most graceful entrance.”

  “You’re accustomed only to setting others aflame, not yourself,” he teased.

  Her laugh tempered to a fond smile as she looked him up and down. Eve
n in the wake of an awkward appearance she managed to look exquisite: tumbling waves of black hair, slim and flattering gown, artfully placed flowers and jewels on her hair and body, and in every curve the kind of beauty he thought he’d overestimated in his memory. Now he saw she was every bit as breathtaking as he had remembered.

  But this time he could look away, smile at his companions, and speak with self-possession. “My friends, we are honored indeed. As you can surely tell by looking at her, this is the goddess Aphrodite.”

  His followers were a familiar and enthusiastic lot, not the somber and pious type. Rather than drop to their knees and go into an awed hush the way some worshippers would, they sent up a joyous shout, and began rearranging the camp to make her comfortable. They pulled over the best blankets for her to sit upon, praised her, kissed her hand, served her wine and bread and honey, offered to invent a new song for her, raced out into the dusk and back again with fresh wildflowers to strew in her lap. Both she and Dionysos were soon laughing at their attentions.

  Of course, it meant he and she couldn’t speak in private for some time. The feasting and chatting had to be taken care of first, and his companions did have a thousand and one questions for the famous Aphrodite. Between her answers, he sometimes exchanged a gaze with her in the dancing firelight, and discovered a respect upon her face that he’d never seen before when she looked at him.

  It gave him the confidence to set down his wine cup late in the evening and stretch his hand to her. “Will my lady take a ride with me?”

  She smiled and took his hand. They said goodnight to his followers, who merrily sent them on their way.

  Holding hands, they switched into the spirit realm. Her white ghost horse gleamed in the starlight. She glanced about. “Where’s your horse?”