Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  She turned to her husband. “All these shades… If most go to Asphodel and the especially evil go to Tartarus, where do the good ones go?”

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “The good mortals— the ones who were especially brave or kind. There’s no place for them?”

  “Mortals are mortals and Asphodel is there for them. There’s little difference between them individually. All people are a sum of their parts, good and bad,” he shrugged. “The better they are in life, the easier a time they have here; the better chance of being reborn to the living world.”

  “And that’s their only reward?”

  “Unless they defied the gods or committed despicable acts in their lifetime, yes.”

  Persephone knitted her brow again and silently looked across the marsh to the Plain of Judgment.

  “Are you ready to go home?”

  “Yes, but it will take Charon a while to come back here.”

  “There’s no need to bother him. We’ll just travel to the palace through the ether.”

  Persephone lowered her eyes once more, as she had on the boat. He looked at her in confusion. “You don’t know how?”

  She turned away from him and balled her fists, saying nothing. Her shoulders tensed forward.

  Aidon cautiously put his hands on them. “Persephone, I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “I don’t understand why you have any interest in me at all,” she said under her breath. “I know nothing about your kingdom—”

  “Most don’t.”

  “—I don’t even know how to travel the way gods are supposed to,” she said, tears stinging her eyes. “You are the eldest of the three most powerful immortals in existence and I’m just— I know nothing.”

  “Look at me,” he said, leaning over her and turning her toward him. “There is nothing wrong with you. I don’t understand why Demeter didn’t—” he stopped and closed his eyes before saying something he would regret. “She was only trying to protect you.”

  “I’m just a flower goddess, Aidon; I’m an afterthought compared to my mother. I have no idea what I’m even doing here…” A tear traitorously spilled down her cheek. Aidon caressed her face, catching the droplet as it fell. He lifted her chin so her downcast eyes met his.

  “Persephone, you’re my wife; everything I rule I lay at your feet. You are Queen of the richest part of what we divided after the war, and the Fates decided you were destined to rule before you were even born.”

  “What kind of a queen am I? I’ve hardly left my room since I got here—”

  “That’s more my fault than anything—”

  “—and I didn’t even know the true name of where I’ve lived for over three weeks. There is so much I need to know.”

  Aidon startled and looked away from her for a moment, remembering what Thanatos had said to him that morning. This was the perfect opportunity.

  Persephone saw light dance in his eyes. “What is it?”

  “I could teach you.”

  “H-how to travel through the ether?”

  “It’s not as difficult as you think.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. It would be my pleasure to show you how,” he said. “All you have to do is hold on.”

  “We should wait?”

  “No,” he said with the faintest hint of a smile. “I meant hold on to me.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, feeling heat rush to her face. Persephone carefully put her hands around his waist, feeling the heat from his body through the heavy wool himation.

  “You’ll have to hold on tighter than that,” he said quietly. She brought her arms up around his neck and stood on the tips of her toes, her lips tingling as she came face to face with him. His arm braced her against him, his palm spreading across the center of her back between her shoulder blades, crushing her chest to his. Aidon reached toward the shore with his left hand, his rings glinting against the backdrop of the palace.

  “First of all, everyone does this differently. The gods all have their own strength; their own sigil, theirs by birth or deed. I live in an unseen realm, shrouded in darkness, and draw my strength from that. You however, are from the world above, and your own pathway will likely reflect that. You will see it,” he whispered into her ear. “And once you make it yours everyone will see it.”

  His closeness made her shiver. Her breath hitched as black smoke started to swirl around their feet, moving outward, upward, surrounding them. Persephone held her cheek against his, her shallow breathing so different from his focused, measured breath.

  Aidoneus leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “You have to concentrate on where you want to go. Picture that you are already there, that you were there the entire time.”

  She wrapped her arms tighter around his neck, her entire body shaking as the smoke closed in around them, blotting out everything. She remembered the sun turning red from the smoke in Nysa when he pulled her into his chariot. She remembered how she wrapped her body around his in the darkness of Erebus and shuddered.

  “All you have to do is let go—” he whispered. She felt the rush of the ether take them in a blink of silver and crimson light. She didn’t even have time to breathe before they were standing under the golden poplar tree overhanging the entrance to the palace. “—and there you are.”

  She gasped, and looked around. Persephone felt his arms tighten around her shoulders as he bent slightly, gently returning her feet to the solid ground. She looked up at him, suddenly cold as the heat from his body vanished from her skin. Her arms and thighs prickled. Aidon’s gaze scanned over her body, his eyes stopping just below the neckline of her chiton. With a sharp inhale, she realized that the tips of her breasts were chafing the fabric and very visible to him. His nostrils flared before he took a long breath and averted his eyes.

  “My mother didn’t take me with her through the ether very often. We only ever visited Olympus twice; both times were when I was a very young girl. When I started… becoming a woman, we left Nysa through the ether to live in Eleusis. Then once when the mortals were waging war on each other in Attica. And the last time I went with her was to Nysa so she could hide me from… from you.”

  His face was solemn as she spoke, but she saw a hint of sadness in his eyes. Aidon masked it with a pained smile and let her continue.

  “So, I didn’t have much experience with it,” she said, her mouth mischievously twisting up at the corners. “But I know for certain that I didn’t have to hold on to my mother like… that… when she began the journey.”

  Aidon narrowed his eyes and leaned toward her. “In case you think that I was using it as an excuse to press your beautiful body against mine,” he flirted, making her shiver as his gaze slowly moved over her once more, “I assure you it was necessary. We were traveling through the ether between points in the Underworld. You will need to practice first. Even an experienced god has far less control over it here than they do in the world above; including me.”

  She shook her head incredulously and muttered, “Everything about this place…”

  “You don’t like it here…” Aidon’s face fell and his eyes looking away.

  “No!” she said wide-eyed. “No, that’s not what I meant. Chthonia is just so very… different. Beautiful and different. I— I like that I had to hold on to you,” she blushed.

  Aidon straightened, taken aback, before he took a step closer to her and cupped her face in his hand, running his thumb across her cheek. He carefully leaned over and rested his forehead against hers, letting her make the first move to kiss him. Persephone stared up at his dark eyes and saw a soft smile on his face. She stepped into the kiss, feeling his arms close around her. She crushed her lips against his. Her hands came up to his collarbone, her index finger slowly winding through her favorite lock of hair at the nape of his neck; the one that was always too short to be caught in the band he wore to pull back his unruly hair.

  He wanted so badly to deepen the kiss. Aidon could feel hi
mself pulling toward her, entranced by her as his fingers spread out along her waist and shoulder blades. Instead, he pulled away from her lips, listening to her shudder. “We should practice.”

  She could feel his voice, just a little above a whisper in the center of her chest. Her lips moved forward again, but he tilted his forehead to hers to avoid the kiss. Aidon looked into her eyes, smiling as Persephone echoed him. “Practice?”

  “I said I would teach you. But not here.” He took a step back and held up his left hand to show her his three rings. “Do you know what these are?”

  She shook her head, watching light glint off and reflect within each deep red cabochon.

  “They are called the Key of Hades.”

  She bit the corner of her lip and tilted her head.

  “Trust me; I didn’t name it,” he said with a smirk. “But to protect the world above, the Key was given only to me. If the unthinkable happened and something escaped Tartarus, I alone would be able to seal off Chthonia. This represents the only pathway between the worlds through the ether.”

  “But others come and go from here, don’t they? What about Thanatos, or Hecate? Or Hermes?”

  “You’ve met Thanatos?”

  “No,” she said, “but everyone knows who Death is and where he’s from. He’s a skeleton cloaked in black.”

  “Most of the time in the world above, yes, he is. Down here, though, he looks very different. Thanatos and his brothers cannot truly cross over through the ether. They only appear as shadows of themselves in the world above.” He held his fingers out to Persephone and watched as she took his hand and gingerly touched the cold stones, closing her warm hands around his. “Hermes doesn’t use the ether to travel; he’s too fast to need it, and only comes down through the passageways guiding lost souls back here. And… well, Hecate is never really here.”

  “I’ve seen her almost every day, though.”

  “What I mean to say is Hecate never really leaves the ether. She is its goddess— as much a ruler of all the spaces and pathways between the worlds as I am ruler of the Underworld, or your father ruler of the sky. While she prefers to appear most often in Chthonia, she’s not ever truly, bodily here.”

  “What will happen to me if I cross over? Will I become a shadow?”

  “No,” he said, “Nothing will happen to you. You’re from the living world; which is why it will be easier for us to practice there.”

  She stared up at him, wide-eyed, almost disbelieving what he’d just said. Was he going to actually take her above? She would be able to see the green fields again, to see the sky once more. “I won’t run away,” she blurted out.

  “What?”

  “I won’t run away,” she repeated quietly.

  He couldn’t let her go now, not when he was so very close… Her lips were parted and he dove back into their kiss, unable to stop himself from tasting her. Her arms crept up his shoulders to his neck. The tips of her fingers danced across his skin as she held onto him.

  Persephone broke away from the kiss. “Teach me.”

  11.

  Delphinia winced.

  She didn’t expect him to be gentle. Few men were taught how to be gentle, whether it was with their wife or a hetaerae. Delphinia was neither, and softness was not needed for this act. She silently forgave him and tried to refocus on the rite itself. The earth. The earth. The gods must be appeased. The earth must heal. For the sake of all humankind, every man, every woman, every child…

  He pinned her to the floor, and her attention snapped to her bruised shoulders and her lower back roughly scraping the wood planks. She whimpered and wanted to tell him to stop, to have a care for her, but she remained silent. This man was a powerful king— practically a god among his own people. She didn’t dare anger him. His guards stood outside her home in the cold.

  Delphinia had heard things— that the king’s guests often disappeared only to be found later, floating in the canal. She heard that the king had once defied Zeus himself. Delphinia knew better than to trust country gossip. Peasant folk would always whisper about those with power. Especially when that power was not of this world. She knew that from her own experience.

  Despite all she’d heard, she needed to trust him. He was reported to be ageless— if not immortal, by his own will. His countenance seemed such. He looked younger than he ought to be. He also knew the rite of hieros gamos when few did. He knew the sacred words of the rites in Theoi— the language of the gods, and though lesser in stature than she thought he’d be, the king had a bearing about him that spoke of great charisma and power. He wasn’t one to be trifled with.

  She closed her eyes and strived to refocus her energy on the act itself, on taking up the part of Gaia to his Ouranos. She was the earth. He was the sky. And the fervent prayers offered up with the rhythm of their bodies might be enough to render the earth fertile once again. The very thought sent a wave a pleasure charging through her. His path within her was eased and she heard him hiss at the slickness that freshly enveloped him. Delphinia could control this— control him.

  The hieros gamos was her sacred rite— this was what she had trained to do since girlhood. She had taken unskilled youth and wise hierophants through the ritual. She could do so again. Delphinia pushed against his flanks with her heels and arched under him, shifting so his thrusts would push against the places within that would vault her to ecstasy.

  Delphinia’s whole body tightened, and she could feel his heart beat faster against her breast. She could sense the blood pumping through his veins and his phallus thickening within her. She angled down so he could ride high and stroke against the bundle of nerves atop her entrance, then canted her legs up so he could thrust deep. The earth must heal… the earth must heal… Gaia… sweet Gaia…

  Her toes curled and her thighs went taut, a wave of exaltation taking her. She let it grasp at her soul, and she channeled it through them both, then beneath their connected bodies and into the earth itself. The causeway was opened. She was open to him and he to her. He gasped, his breath hot against her neck, his voice strained as he shook and gave her the gift of seed. They lay still, with her beneath him, their bodies glistening with oil, anointed with frankincense. The blood rushing through her ears abated and she could hear the crackle of the hearth fire— feel its heat. She sighed and relaxed as he withdrew.

  “Well.” He stood. A smirk lit his face as he washed his face and genitals, then donned his ceremonial golden robes. He smiled politely at her. “I appreciate you… accommodating me on such short notice.”

  “My lord, there is no such thing as short notice when the survival of all is at stake,” Delphinia said. “And I needed… one who had been anointed by the gods for it to have meaning. So I thank you.”

  “This wasn’t for all, priestess.”

  She amended her words. “Of course, my lord. It was for the gods. For the earth.”

  “Again, no. I care not for the gods.”

  Delphinia propped herself up on her elbows. Run, a voice told her, run now. She shook it away. She’d misheard him. “Surely you don't mean…”

  “I do. And in your heart of hearts, I doubt you meant this for them either.” He fastened the long chitoniskos at the shoulders, and draped his finely-embroidered himation about himself. “Ask yourself: what have the gods done for you?”

  “They’ve… they’ve nurtured and protected me… they’ve…” Delphinia covered her bare breasts. She had served them all her life. First as a virgin oracle, then as a priestess, indoctrinated into the rites with the priest of Delphi. She had become a servant of Hecate, of Demeter and Kore… How could he cheapen this act with his talk? “Why did you come? Did you lay with me for your own amusement?”

  “Oh, certainly not. I admit, you’re more skilled than most hetaerae, but you’d have to be, since you are willing to lay under any man who fancies himself Ouranos for one night.”

  “You speak blasphemy, my lord.”

  “But only blasphemy toward those that pun
ish us with plagues and famine. With death.”

  “Death is—”

  “Merely a facet of life?” He chuckled, placing his golden crown on his head. “Spare me. That’s peasant talk. Is that what you really think?”

  “What else could there be? The proof is all around you. The plants must be plucked from the earth to feed the animals and they must be slaughtered to feed us.” She wrapped her cloak loosely around herself. “And when we die, we nurture the worms. And our immortal souls—”

  His low laughter interrupted her. He donned his shoes, lacing the leather buskin with his sandals. “Do not speak to me of souls, woman… So many of your kind have nothing but laws and rules for where a soul is to go when they know even less than I do. You are but dust— the very earth you try so fervently to bring back to life. I am not. I am beyond the constraints of this world and the next. It’s why you took me in.”

  Tears stung her eyes, but she bit her cheek, willing them away. “Why join me in the hieros gamos if you harbor such animosity in your heart?”

  “Because our goals are the same. We wish to create a better world.”

  “I do this to bring fertility back to the earth whether or not Kore is returned.”

  “Then you defy them,” he said, eyes wide.

  “No, I—”

  “Is it not their wish that you mortals should die like flies?”

  “No… they wouldn’t—”

  “Are you not defying the Fates themselves, Demeter’s will?”

  “I,” she choked, and his golden clad visage blurred in her vision. “I only wish to restore the earth. I want to stop the suffering.

  “Restore? There is no going back. Kore is the concubine of the Lord of the Dead now. He doesn’t let anyone leave his kingdom and I’m sure that goes twice over for her. She will not be returned,” he said calmly, his back turned to her. “And neither will life to the earth.”

  A tightness strangled her throat. She bared her teeth as she spoke, her voice shaking. “You forget that it does not matter what you think or what resentment you hold.” Her face resolved into a smirk. “Our essence will nourish the earth by this act whether you will it or not!”