Receiver of Many
by
Rachel Alexander
Receiver of Many, Copyright © 2015. An electronic novel by Rachel Alexander.
All rights reserved.
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e ISBN-13: 978-0996644716
Cover image and design © ms.morgan graphic design 2015
All rights reserved
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The following book is meant for an adult audience and contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and violence. Readers of this book should be 18 years of age or have reached adulthood as defined by the laws of their respective locale. Please store this book in a place where it cannot be accessed by minors or those offended by explicit content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination and sole intellectual property of the author, or they have been used in a fictitious manner. And resemblance to any characters or actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
The author holds exclusive rights to this book, in all its editions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used for the purpose of reviews or promotion. Please do not support or participate in the piracy of copyrighted material. The author appreciates your support. If you feel you have received an unauthorized or pirated copy of this book, please contact the author immediately at the email address listed above.
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other persons or entities. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.
This book also contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Destroyer of Light. This excerpt has been set for this edition only, and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.
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Version 1.1
for Robert, my muse
Table of Contents
Cover
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Prologue
She looked skyward and blinked back tears, determined not to let them fall on the infant’s head. If Demeter shed tears, who knew what terrible consequences her sorrow would have on the newborn child?
The ten-year war was over. Father Kronos was cast into Tartarus along with the other Titans, monsters, and demons of the old order. Her child was safe here at her home in Eleusis. All the Olympians were safe.
Her heart was broken. She had been his first and his love, their child conceived to rule in peace or in war. But as her belly grew, Zeus Kronides turned his attentions elsewhere— first to Metis, then to Hera. Hera had not captured his heart; she’d secured his critical alliance with the priestesses of Samos. She had convinced several of the Titans to join with the rebel god, Zeus. She had ensured their victory and earned herself the title of Queen of Olympus.
And with that, Demeter was forgotten. She had been left to tend the growing things while her brother gods divided the firmament, the waters, and the earth.
The infant was oblivious, happily gumming her breast. Demeter coaxed her child to suck droplets of ambrosia from her finger. She smiled, enjoying the grip of her daughter’s tiny hands and staring into her wide, pale eyes.
The soft voice of her servant Cyane interrupted her.
“My Lady,” the nymph said, “Th-there is someone here to—”
“Hades Aidoneus,” Demeter said to the looming figure behind her. She hid her breast behind her red chiton, brushed back her long blonde hair, and clutched the swaddled infant to her shoulder.
Demeter looked up at him; his dark eyes peered at her through the slits in his golden helm. The black plumes of the crest were stiff and caked, the helm and plate armor stained with the blood of ancient gods and monsters. The edges of his charcoal and crimson tunic were frayed, and his great black cloak was torn and flecked with blood. Cyane bowed and departed quickly.
“Deme,” he said informally, removing his helm and shaking out his hair, “Please, I’m Aidon to you. I was— I am your ally, even still. ”
“I will have no such familiarity with any of you. Keep your war and your scheming to yourselves. I’ll have no part of it.”
“But you did have a part in it. Just as we all did,” Aidoneus said, standing over her. “Deme…”
“Address me by my proper name, my lord.”
“Fine. Demeter Anesidora,” he said, chewing on the words, “the war is over. I regret that all was not resolved the way you hoped.”
She looked away, her green eyes filling with tears again.
He continued, “This war didn’t turn out as I wanted either. When we cast lots to divide the cosmos, I received rulership of the Other Side. I, the eldest. Do you really think I fought for the privilege of having Kronos and his pantheon of monsters haunting my doorstep?”
“The Other…” Demeter paled. The third lot was not rulership over the earth as they had all thought, but… ruling the dead. Aidoneus would rule over the dead. And if he did… she held her infant daughter closer. “At least you were given something. What I have lost—”
“Enough, Demeter. Do you really want to be with him? To marry him? In just the past year he’s had many and pursued more women than I can count. Not least among them Themis…”
“Stop.”
“Metis…”
“Stop!”
“Hera—”
“Stop it!” She screamed, jerking away from Aidon’s hardened eyes. “Stop it.” The wind howled coldly outside, and the baby squalled, balling her tiny fists. Demeter held her closer, cradling her head with her arm as the gale subsided. “You scared her.” She turned back to Aidon, glowering.
He waited silently for her to calm the child. As he listened to her cries, something heavy and unfamiliar settled in his chest. Aidoneus shook his head, and then straightened. “About Persephone—”
“Kore.”
“Excuse me?”
“Her name shall be Kore.”
“Zeus— the Fates— named her Persephone. Given her name, and who she is destined to become…”
Demeter looked away from him. “She is not to marry. And certainly not to someone as hard-hearted as you.”
He recoiled, then drew himself up and narrowed his eyes. Demeter wouldn’t— couldn’t do this to him. Too much had already been taken from him today. “When she comes of age—”
“She will remain with me,” she said, but her voice wavered as she spoke. Demeter’s eyes grew wide and pleading. “Aidon, please; she’s all I have left.” She looked down at her baby girl, who murmured softly as she drifted to sleep.
“We made a bargain,” he said, growing impatient. “I rallied the House of Nyx against the Titans and their servants. The war would hav
e been lost without me. She is part of the oath that both of you swore.”
“There is no longer a both of us,” Demeter cried. “He has taken that... that... bloodless, brainless, conniving—”
“Careful,” he said quietly, his teeth on edge. Love and loss were not his concern. He didn't understand matters of the heart any more than he understood childbirth or the movements of the sea. “His choice of queen has nothing to do with our pact.”
“Marriage is now Hera’s domain, and I’ll have no part of it. Not for me, and not for Kore! I swear off all the Olympian men and swear on the Styx that none of them shall have her. No one shall destroy her as he destroyed me!”
“I accept,” Aidoneus said.
“You accept what?”
“Your oath. After today, I am no longer one of them. If you are so eager to keep her from the Olympian men, then I will renounce their company, and with them the sunlit world.”
“That doesn’t mean you can take her from me! I didn’t mean—”
Aidoneus stood resolute. “For my part in the Titanomachy, when Persephone comes of age, she is to be my queen and consort and rule the Underworld by my side. You cannot change that!”
She glared up at him, tears staining her cheeks, saying nothing.
Hades shook his head and turned his back to her, walking to the door. “Do not think to see me again until that time,” he called out behind him. “None of you will see me. If you are going to swear off the Olympians for her sake, then so will I.”
1.
“Kore!” Demeter squinted in the noon sun and called out again, “Kore?”
“Over here, Mother!” Kore stood amidst the sheaves of barley to wave Demeter over, then crouched again and poked her finger into the soil. Dark green leaves shot out in every direction, and she circled her wrist upward, raising a stalk out of the earth. She stood slowly. The plant crept toward her hand. Kore splayed her fingers wide and a purple blossom sprang from the thorny stalk.
“Oh, Kore, if you grow a thistle in the barley field, someone might prick their finger.”
“Wait,” Kore said, smiling. “Just watch.”
A fiery copper butterfly fluttered on the warm breeze and alighted on the blossom. Demeter smiled.
“You see? I saw her wandering in the barley and made her a home. You don’t mind, do you?”
“My sweet, clever girl, of course I don’t.” Demeter hugged Kore. The butterfly folded its wings, fed and content.
“My thistle won’t interfere with the harvest, will it?” Kore knit her brows.
“Not in the slightest.”
The butterfly spread its wings, sunlight catching them as they fanned. “I don’t think she will be alone for long. Surely a good mate will come looking for her.”
“Yes.”
“What’s wrong, mother?”
Demeter looked north, toward distant Thessaly and Mount Olympus.
Kore leaned on Demeter’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think before I spoke. The meeting is tomorrow, yes?”
“It is…”
“Why must you go?”
“Because,” Demeter smiled and stroked her daughter’s shoulder. “Although I don’t dwell on Olympus with the rest of them, I am still a member of the Dodekatheon. I have my responsibilities here, but each full moon, I also have a responsibility to them and to the domain I govern. Just as you have a responsibility to the fields and all that blooms within them. And my going there… keeps us safe.”
Kore swallowed. Demeter, she knew, had made Eleusis forbidden ground for the rest of the gods, specifically the male gods. She had known little of the Olympians since her childhood in the Fields of Nysa. Artemis and Athena visited infrequently, and she had seen Hermes on the rarest of occasions when he delivered news to her mother. She’d heard about Apollo and Hephaestus, and all the rest of her cousins, only from nymphs and in stories told by the mortals.
“There remains much for me to do before tomorrow. I need to go to Thassos and Crete. And I regret leaving you with Minthe again…”
Kore sighed.
“Daughter, you know you’re safest here. Eleusis is under my protection, and with it— most importantly— you. Don’t ever forget what Daphne was forced to do to protect herself from Apollo.”
Kore’s lips tightened into a line and she looked away. Maybe if she met these gods herself they would see that there was nothing at all tempting about her. Maybe she could convince her mother there was nothing to fear. Kore would wait until tomorrow. “All right,” she said. “Perhaps I can accompany you to Crete next time, Mother? Or to… wherever you happen to go?”
Demeter grinned and stretched her hand out, opening up a pathway that would carry her over land and sea to the ripe fields across all of Hellas. “We’ll see.”
“I’ll see you around sunset,” Kore called out as Demeter disappeared into the sheaves of barley. She turned back to the thistle, watching the butterfly rest on the thorny stalk before it flew off toward the pasture. Kore danced after it down the pathway.
***
Rhadamanthys handed a scroll to Minos, who unrolled it and ran his eyes across it.
“The one before us is Aeolides, son of Aeolus and Enarete, king of Ephyra.” He flattened the scroll on the ebony table before him and folded his hands.
Hades nodded to the judges, then leaned back on his throne, regarding the trembling mortal. “Aeolides, known to his people as Sis—”
“Please! You don’t understand!” The dead mortal screamed. “I’m not—”
“Silence,” Minos said, barely raising his voice. “You dare to interrupt the Receiver of Many? At your own judgment, no less?”
“There’s been a mistake,” he said, crumbling to his knees and weeping. The man raised his eyes to the inexorable god on his throne and the fearsome winged daimon beside him. “Please… Mercy. Please…”
“You will not speak unless spoken to. There are worse fates than even Tartarus,” Rhadamanthys added before addressing Hades. “My lord, this one has been ranting since he arrived that he is not Sisyphus. Should we—”
Aidoneus raised his fingers from the arm of his throne and the brothers fell silent. “Hold, Alekto.” The winged daimon relaxed her golden wings and stepped back. The Lord of the Underworld turned to the mortal. “You died three days ago, no? A mighty king leveled by tooth rot.”
“No, no I wasn’t, I was burned. I was burned by him!” The man trembled. “I am not he. I am not Sisyphus!”
“Aren’t you now,” Aidoneus peered at the mortal, his face a mask. “You know of my other names, do you not?”
“I know, y-your Excellency. You are the Lord of Souls. Please, Merciful One, Righteous One, I beg you, look into mine. Look into my soul. My true soul,” he cried, his words choked out through sobs. “Please. You will see. I am not Sisyphus. He betrayed me. The black henbane… the pyre…”
The barest hint of a smile crossed Minos's face. He snorted. “I’ve heard this before, my lord. Wealthy mortals, fearing an eternity in Tartarus, pay charlatans to cleanse them of their wrongdoings, and will even murder, thinking the sacrificed souls will take their place so they can escape your judgment.” He leaned forward to speak to the weeping man. “How many talents of gold did that false trick cost you?”
Alekto snickered and folded her wings.
Aidoneus was not amused.
“Please,” the mortal begged again, his voice a hoarse whisper.
“You wish for me to look into your soul, then? A brave request.” The Lord of the Underworld narrowed his eyes. “I will tell you what I see.”
“You,” the mortal’s voice shook, “y-you will give me a chance?”
“If your words are true, you will drink the waters of the Lethe. You will forget the suffering of your mortal life, and you will join the souls in the Fields of Asphodel. If, however, your claims prove false…”
“Thank you; thank you my lord. You are wise and just.” His shoulders relaxed and he closed his eyes, sighing
deeply.
Aidoneus stood, his staff held firmly in his right hand, his gaze affixed to the mortal. “I see one who defied Zeus, the King of the Gods.”
The dead king’s eyes opened wide. “No…”
“A host who murdered his own house guests.”
“No, please!”
“A kinsman who raped his own niece, compelling her to murder her children, then drove his brother to madness and death.”
“That’s not true. That was him! It was him!”
“I see a man who, through his own hubris, tried to elevate himself above the gods.”
“Please, no, no, no,” the man crumpled forward, sobbing.
Aidoneus had seen the wicked react this way before when the breadth of their sins was laid bare. He had very little patience for it. His staff pounded the floor, the echo resounding through the room. He stood tall, his shoulders drawn back. “Abandon all hope, Sisyphus, son of Aeolus and Enarete. For the murder of your guests, the violation of your niece, for offenses against Zeus and all the gods, you are denied the waters of the Lethe. I, Hades Aidoneus Chthonios, firstborn son of Kronos, sentence you to Tartarus for all eternity. Rhadamanthys and Alekto will escort you to the Phlegethon. You will be cast into the Pit where the Hekatonkheires will exact your punishment.”
“No, it’s a mistake! Please, Merciful One, please have mercy on me! Mercy! Mercy!” The man let out a wail of grief, his voice ringing through the granite halls as golden-winged Alekto dragged him bodily.
Aidoneus sat, exhausted. He rarely sent a soul to Tartarus, and disliked doing so. But it was a necessity. He pinched the bridge of his nose and slumped back into his throne.
“Are you well, my lord?”
“I’m fine, Minos.”
“Hypnos tells me you haven’t been sleeping.”
“A full night’s sleep would be worthier of Hypnos’s gossip, no?”
Minos chortled.
Aidoneus opened his eyes. “Are there any more today?”
“No my lord. And no coming judgment of any other kings or nobles, either.”
“That is good.”
“You know, the harvest is on the full moon,” the judge said. “Fewer die during this time. I truly believe the sick, weak, and old are filled with enough joy from the harvest festivals to stay alive a little longer than they normally would.”
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