Shimmering Splendor

by Roberta Gellis

  If this was the Mother’s doing, then Psyche knew she had no choice. In the past, the Mother’s urgings had brought her only good, but this—was this the calling in of many favors? Was she to be a sacrifice? Psyche shivered, knowing that the Mother was not some great mage who under his or her power was only human. A mage could be fooled or bribed; the Mother could only be obeyed or defied. And yet there was a small chance, Psyche thought, that she was reading too much into some ploy of Aphrodite’s.

  “Lady Aphrodite,” she said, “if I succeed in this last task you have set me, will you then welcome me as a friend, as an equal?”

  Aphrodite rose from her chair and held out her hand. “I have long known you for my equal or my better, Psyche. I fear you because you, like Eros, could bind my heart and hurt me. How could I let myself love you and then watch you fade and die? I do not seek such pain. I still think Eros is a fool to love you. But if you come from the Mother renewed and accepted, I will welcome you back to my house with open arms and into my heart with no reservations.”

  “Then I will go to the underworld,” Psyche said slowly.

  * * *

  Psyche had not yet decided, even when she stood in the great hall of Plutos, clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering with fear, whether she was truly following the inspiration of the Mother or simply leaping after the lure of immortality dangled before her. Had Aphrodite sent her to Persephone to make her whole or to be rid of her?

  Certainly the Olympian had done everything she could to ease Psyche’s way to Plutos. She had sent Eros on an errand to a native temple and had arranged with Hermes to have Psyche transported. Now Psyche realized, feeling even more frightened, she had been so locked into her own doubts and reasonings that she did not even know whether her return had been arranged.

  Her gaze fixed on Persephone, who had been so gentle to her less Gifted mother in the field behind the lodge. There was nothing gentle in her now. She might have been modeled by stone-working Hades from the same rock that made up the white pillars of the hall, and locked within that rigid exterior was a bubbling, seething cauldron of power that she somehow kept leashed. If the queen of the Dead knew anything about Aphrodite’s intentions, no sign of that knowledge appeared in her exquisite face—and Psyche was not about to ask her any questions.

  She listened to Psyche’s request—made in Aphrodite’s name—and glanced at her husband. Inside, Psyche shivered harder. His black eyes were bottomless pools that took in light and returned nothing; his face might have been carved from the gray stone of the cavern. Yet Persephone showed no fear and felt none. Psyche set her teeth harder. What had she to fear who held within her a volcano of earth-power, blood-power?

  “You are the priestess,” Hades said, in response to his wife’s look. His voice was like stone grating on stone.

  Persephone nodded at him and turned to Psyche. As she met the gaze of those clear, gold eyes, behind which flickered just a little red from the tongues of power that lashed out from their confinement, Psyche shuddered visibly. If the Mother offered her the power that manifested itself as that red-brown roiling violence, the cap would seal her well. And even if the Mother could tear off that cap or break it, Psyche knew she could not accept such power. It would sear away her gentle, shimmering mist, and she would be so changed as not to be Psyche anymore. Was that what Aphrodite desired? Would Eros be repelled and reject a being that held so much violence?

  If she saw her petitioner’s doubts, Persephone ignored them. All she said was, “We must go at once. You cannot remain here long because you must not eat or drink in Plutos. You must be blindfolded, too. To see too much here might also bind you to the underworld, and that would not suit you or Aphrodite, whom Hades and I always wish to please.”

  Were those last words an answer to the questions she had not asked, Psyche wondered. It was enough to keep her from backing away as Persephone rose from her throne and came toward her. And, actually, she was not sorry to submit to having her eyes bound. The great cavern in which the twin thrones of Hades and Persephone stood was terrifying to her. Immensely high, and dimly lit by flaring torches, here the only bright spots were Persephone herself, the two great thrones, gilded and bejeweled, and on either side beyond the thrones, giant gates of gleaming brass. Psyche did not want to see herself go beyond those gates. Although she knew she could not be more in the underworld than she already was, she felt that when those gates closed on her, it would be forever.

  It was already too late, she told herself, and with grim determination she went where she was led. A small relief was granted in that she heard no clang of metal, and when, in her judgment, she had been led far beyond the distance that would take her through the gates, she was warned she must climb up.

  That was a welcome warning, and she grasped eagerly at a rope guide that was presented to her hand. She started to climb wide steps and had just begun to wonder why the dead needed a rope to guide them when a rushing sound she had been hearing changed to the howling of a thousand thousand souls in torment. Psyche froze and heard within that sound an echo of Eros’s voice calling her name. She cried out in answer and would have turned back then, but Persephone’s strong hand fastened on her shoulder and urged her up.

  “In Plutos,” Persephone said, “you do not look back. You never look back. The crying is the wind, only the wind.”

  And, indeed, so strong a gale swept over the top of the stairs Psyche climbed that, unprepared, she might have been whirled away, except for strong hands that clamped on her arms and drew her up and thrust her forward into the teeth of the gale—and out into the sunshine. She knew she felt the sun, for it warmed her—it had been cold and still in the cavern until the gale caught her—and she smelled growing things, and a faint breeze lifted her hair.

  The warmth did not touch her inner being. The assurance she had gained from Persephone’s seemingly casual remark that Aphrodite did not desire Psyche to be caught in the underworld had vanished with that half-heard crying of her name in Eros’s voice. Surely that was only in her mind. Eros could not be in Plutos—or could he? Once he had heard her cry for help all the way from Iolkas to Olympus and had come for her. In the darkness behind her blindfolded eyes, Psyche wondered, am I, all unaware, crying so loud for help?

  They walked, Psyche was sure, along a smooth, graveled path for a while and then there were more steps, not many this time, and the warmth of the sun vanished. In another moment, the blindfold was removed.

  She was in the shrine of a temple, such a temple as Psyche had never seen, all of white marble, polished until it shone softly and was smoother than the finest woven silk. The altar and the Goddess were bedecked with gold and jewels enough to blind one, even in the subdued light. But Psyche hardly saw them. She saw the face of the Mother. Such a face! Not beautiful at all! Not beautiful, and yet it held enormous beauty. Strong. Enduring.

  “Mother,” Psyche said, forgetting Persephone, forgetting all her fear, “I have come partly because I am a vain and fearful mortal and partly because two beings that I love will be hurt by that mortality. I do not know what is best for all of us. I have been very happy of late, and I would like that happiness to continue, but if the face I see shows what You are, then I am content to leave to You what is best. Only, I am frail and mortal. I am not strong, like Your favorite daughter, Persephone. Be gentle with me?”

  She raised her hands, not like a priestess invoking, but like a child begging to be lifted into a parent’s arms. That grace was not accorded her, but from the Mother’s outstretched hand poured a shimmering splendor, an opalescent mist that touched her, caressed her, as a mother might stroke the hair and face and body of a beloved child. Psyche had no sense of drawing in, of the “gathering of power” that was forbidden to her people. Nonetheless, power filled her, not only the well within, but her flesh and bones and blood. She knew she would always be full, always, no matter how much she used—so long as that usage did not offend the Mother.

  She looked eagerly up
toward that powerful face, hoping that more would be granted her—not more power; she would never have need, she thought, of half of what had been so freely given—but of some understanding, some deep comprehension of what was, is, and needs to be. Behind her there was a bawling, a roaring. For an instant she strove to shut it out, but one voice—ah, that voice would call her back, not only from the grave, but from eternal bliss.

  Psyche whipped around, crying, “Eros!”

  She could have sworn that as she turned away from immortal enlightenment she heard a deep, but female, chuckle. It was something about which she would puzzle and chuckle herself for the rest of her very, very long life. At the moment, however, Persephone’s shriek of “Hades!” and the sight of her slender Eros grappling with the stone giant that was the king of the Dead was far more compelling.

  As one, Psyche and Persephone leapt out of the temple and down the steps, crying in chorus, “Stop that!”

  Hades’s arms fell away and Eros rushed to gather Psyche to him, crying, “My soul, my soul, suddenly you were gone. I could not feel you within me. I could see you, but I could not feel you. Where were you?”

  Psyche’s head turned toward the shrine, and then she looked back at Eros and smiled, “With the Mother, I think.” She kissed him, wondering where she would be now and if she still would be Psyche if he had not called her, but all she said was, “How did you know I was here?”

  “Aphrodite called me back. She was half mad with grief and fear, regretting what she had done. Still, I think if I had not been so frantic to come here and get you, I would have killed her. She had a spell all ready to give me and sent me after you, but when I arrived, Hades would not tell me where he had hidden you—”

  “I told you I had not hidden her,” Hades said indignantly. “I told you that several times, very loudly.”

  Persephone cocked her head, and giggled. “I think you did not use your full powers, my love. I know you can be very persuasive.”

  Hades cast a glance at her that flicked up her body like a single bright flame. White teeth shone behind his neat black beard. “Perhaps I am more persuasive to those who are stricken by my charms,” he retorted, with an answering chuckle. Then he shrugged, winced, and rubbed his shoulder where Eros had hit him in their struggle. “Eros seems immune. He would not listen to a word I said, and then he heard Psyche’s voice, and before I could lay a hand on him, he was away and up the stair.” He shrugged again and grinned. “He runs much faster than I do.”

  “You are growing a little thickabout, my love,” Persephone said, reproachfully.

  “Because I cannot pry you away from the table,” Hades retorted. “I do not understand how you can still walk.”

  Psyche was staring from one to the other. Was this the awesome queen of the Dead? The stone-hard king of Plutos? Had the Mother worked some magic, or was it only the ending of her own fear that changed models of terror into charming people who loved each other? Then Hades turned his eyes to her, those deep black pools, but he did not look hard and gray; he looked kind.

  “Do you have your answer, Psyche?”

  “Indeed, Hades, I do. Thank you for keeping Eros from drawing me away from the Mother too soon.” She turned to Persephone. “And thank you for allowing me to come here.”

  Smiling, Persephone embraced her and shook her head. “She loves you,” she said. “You needed no intervention of any priestess. You could have drawn Her to any shrine, or to any place from which you called Her.”

  “Perhaps,” Psyche agreed, “but that does not make your kindness less.”

  Her eyes flashed around the fertile valley below the temple, took in the men and women working the rich crop, the herds dappling the hillsides. She remembered the blindfold and that Persephone had forgotten it in her anxiety over the righting men. With a smile, she drew Eros closer.

  “I have been very frightened,” she said to Persephone, “by your awesome majesty and Hades’s iron command of his dark and gloomy world. I admit you have been kind to me, but this is a dreadful place.” She smiled around at the peaceful, sunlit scene. “Just dreadful!”

  Eros grinned also. “Yes, I can fully understand your reluctance to have visitors. No one would be able to understand how you endured life in so horrible a place.”

  “You have not seen half the beauty of my realm,” Hades said eagerly. “Under the earth are such glories—and good hunting, too.”

  “Good hunting?” Eros repeated, smiling with obvious interest at Hades.

  “No,” Psyche said. “This is no time for hunting. Have you forgotten Aphrodite?”

  Eros shrugged and sighed. “My soul and my conscience. Thank you, Hades. I hope you will invite me again, but we must return. My friend is grieving for us, and Aphrodite should never grieve.”

  To that Hades and Persephone agreed at once, and they all walked together down the smooth, sunlit path, through the wide mouth of a cave, braced against the howling wind that rushed in and buffeted them until they got down the stair and entered the huge cavern that was Hades’ throne room.

  When she reached the foot of the dais, Psyche realized that an opalescent drop within her had grown very large. She knew immediately that it was a translocation spell and that Aphrodite had spoken the exact truth. She had arranged for Hermes to give her the return spell; if the Mother gave enough power, Psyche could use it and would be welcomed in every way. Holding Eros, she invoked it. A shining veil enveloped them and parted to show the fountain in the garden room—she felt not the smallest chill, not the slightest weakness; in fact, the shimmering splendor within her was no less.

  “Beloveds, oh my beloveds, you are come back to me,” Aphrodite cried, jumping up from her chair, and her voice mingled with the happy cries of the children she had gathered around her in her need for comfort.

  Both Psyche and Eros embraced her, and she kissed both and then stood holding a hand of each, laughing like bells pealing. “So we are bound together,” she said, “love and beauty and the soul.”

  “And none of us will ever be alone or lack a friend ever again,” Psyche murmured, at last as sure of Aphrodite as she was of Eros.

  To Jenmara, who gave me the clue that made the book work

  Copyright © 1995 by Roberta Gellis

  Originally published by Pinnacle Books [ISBN 978-0786001323]

  Electronically published in 2016 by Belgrave House

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  This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.