Dazzling Brightness

by Roberta Gellis

  Anyone who opened the door would have to do so against his considerable bulk. The door would hit him, and one of the cups should now drop right on his head when the line that supported it went slack. If that did not wake him before any attacker could get in, he would be dead already and of no use anyway.

  Persephone put their two cloaks together, shoulders to hems to make a nearly rectangular blanket. Her attempts were somewhat impeded by the increased pitching and rolling of the ship, but she finally got them fairly straight and bent down to spread them. That effort was also defeated by the ship’s movement. As she bent, the ship dipped, and she fell forward with such impetus that she would have gone head first into the door had not Hades caught her. She hit him instead, drawing an anguished “Ooof,” and they rolled together first against the wall, then away, and back again.

  “What a shame we cannot make love,” Hades whispered. “We could just lie still and let the ship work for us.”

  Persephone locked one leg around his back and pushed the other between his thighs. “You are too tired,” she whispered back, “even if we let the ship do all the work.”

  The increasing pressure she felt on the thigh between his legs gave her the lie direct, but before he could answer in words, a cold wind whistled through the cracks in the planking of the shelter. Persephone shivered, relaxed the hold she had on him, and groped for the cloaks she had let fall. “It is too cold,” she said regretfully, “and I would not really enjoy it. If the wind can come through, so could our love cries. As long as they believe we are alert, they might think twice about attacking us. They know how strong you are. But it would be beyond imprudence to issue an open invitation by the sounds of our grappling.”

  It was a mark of how tired he was that he did not even offer a token protest. He sighed and helped her straighten the cloaks and was asleep almost in the moment that they were well wrapped. Fortunately their expectation that they would not be troubled was confirmed, which was just as well because Hades was still soundly asleep when a dull thudding and muffled cries woke Persephone. Her eyes flew to the door, but that was closed and her ears had already told her that the sounds were coming from beyond her head, from the litter.

  She squirmed out of the lax grip Hades still had on her and then from under the cloaks as quickly as she could. By then she was certain the protests were too high-pitched to be from Poseidon. She hurried to the litter and pushed back the panel.

  “Hush, mother,” she whispered urgently. “I am sorry to have bound and gagged you, but Poseidon had hit you so hard that I feared you would try to fight or cry out as we were taking you aboard ship. If you will promise not to scream or utter any curses, I will take off the gag so you can have a drink and, if you want it, some food.”

  Demeter nodded at once, so quickly that she made Persephone suspicious. “I will hold the gag in my hand,” she warned. “If you do not keep your promise, I will simply jam it back into your mouth.”

  She shrugged as Demeter shook her head “no” vigorously and fetched a small jug of watered wine, which she held between her knees as she undid Demeter’s gag. Lifting her mother’s head with one hand, she tilted the jug cautiously with the other, so that the liquid hardly reached the lip of the jug. The motion of the ship slopped some into Demeter’s mouth—and some over her chin and down her neck.

  After a few sips, Demeter raised her chin to push the jug away. “What happened?” she whispered. “How did we come aboard a ship?”

  “Hades saved us,” Persephone whispered back.

  “Hades?”

  “I told you I loved him and he loves me. I sent him a message more than a moon since and he came for me. Oh, mother, I never had a lover.”

  “It was not Hades you met in that bespelled house,” Demeter said.

  “No.” Persephone smiled. “It was the carpenter who made the litter in which you lie, but he never touched me. I paid him with gold I broke from the jewelry Hades had given me. How could you think any common creature could content me after I had lain in Hades’s arms for two years? He is a great mage and a great man. He made me high priestess and queen—and I am my mother’s daughter. I desire to rule, as do you, mother, and like you I can love only one man.”

  “Love wears out,” Demeter muttered.

  “Perhaps after a man is dead for nearly twenty years, but my man is not dead. I longed for him more with each day that passed. All I thought about was how to send him word and how to escape to join him.”

  “Did he kill Poseidon?” Demeter breathed.

  “Hades would not do that! He is good and gentle—”

  “And a great fool!” Demeter snarled. “Poseidon will drown us all as soon as he comes to himself.”

  “No, he will not,” Persephone said, but she did not tell her mother that Poseidon was with them. Angry as Demeter had been over the sea king’s attempt to rape her daughter, Persephone did not trust her mother not to join forces with Poseidon against Hades.

  Demeter stared at her and then said, “Let me free. Where can I go aboard a ship? I wish at least to have a chance to swim or to catch part of the ship when we go down.”

  “Not unless you swear by the Styx and by Her continued favor that you will speak no curses, nor try to harm my husband, nor join with anyone else who wishes to harm or constrain him or me, nor do anything at all in his despite for any purpose at all—

  “Have done! I swear by all I hold holy, by the Goddess whom I serve, and by the black Styx, that I will not curse and I will not interfere—while we are aboard this ship—with any desire or plan of yours or of Hades’s, no matter how unwise. Now loose me and let me free or I will bepiss myself.”

  “Oh!” Persephone exclaimed and hurriedly rolled her mother over so she could untie the cloth that bound her wrists.

  The binding was soft and the knot large, so that was quickly done. Nor were Demeter’s arms or hands numb from pressure, because she had been rocked back and forth all night long by the motion of the ship. She pushed herself erect while Kore was untying her feet, and the first thing she saw over her daughter’s bent back was Hades, sitting erect and gazing at her.

  His eyes were obsidian, his features granite. Demeter shuddered slightly.

  This was what Kore said was the kindest and gentlest man in the world? No, not Kore—it was Persephone, hard as flint herself, who praised Hades. Kore was sweet and gentle; sipping her power was like tasting honeydew. The power that leaked from Persephone was hot as peppercorns. Her daughter had been ensorcelled and the spell could not be leached out of her simply by the passage of time.

  At the moment Demeter was too bemused—and too frightened—to consider whether the spell was beyond breaking in other ways. Her feet came free; Persephone helped her to stand and pointed behind the litter where the curve of the stern left a small space in which there was a large, wide-lipped pot and a box of leaves. She stumbled, but Persephone did not see. Her daughter had caught sight of Hades and turned to him at once, asking, her voice soft as Arachne’s spider cloth, whether he was well rested and if he wanted to eat. Demeter lifted her skirts and used the pot, thinking that it would take the greatest of mages to break that spell, if it could be broken at all.

  “I will just go outside and relieve my bladder,” Hades said. “I did not want you to turn around and think I had been spirited away.”

  “Be careful, beloved.”

  Demeter stared at the wooden panel of the litter that hid Hades and Kore—no, Persephone—from her. It was sickening, she thought, the amused tone of his voice and the way her daughter fawned on him. What could happen to him, unless he were so clumsy she feared he would fall overboard? Demeter had no idea what kind of binding could produce quite the result displayed by Persephone, but that did not matter. Aphrodite would know. She knew every binding that existed.

  As she stood up and rearranged her garments, Demeter’s lips thinned. Aphrodite was in Olympus and was not one to look for trouble—except when it might bring her a lover. If she wanted Aph
rodite’s help, Demeter knew, she would have to return to Olympus and make her peace with Zeus. So be it. She would bind herself to make the fields of Olympus fertile if Zeus would command Aphrodite to seek for a way to unspell her daughter.

  She smiled at her daughter as she emerged from behind the litter and Kore/Persephone made haste to take her place. She even found a tentative smile for Hades when he came back. His hard mouth did not curve in response, but he nodded acknowledgement. Persephone had promised to remain with her until the fields were blessed, Demeter reminded herself. Perhaps Aphrodite would find a spell of unbinding before it was necessary to let Persephone go back and give her Kore again. But even if she could not, Persephone would come back each spring. Sooner or later Kore would stay with her. She smiled with more certainty and said, “Good morning.”

  “To you also,” Hades replied. Then Persephone came around the end of the litter and Hades’s expression changed. Demeter bit her lip. “And to you also,” he said. “May every morning until the end of time be a good morning for you.”

  “And so it will be if we are together,” Persephone said, flashing a smile at him, and then with a lift of the brow, “How was it out there?”

  “Quiet,” Hades said. “Perhaps we have done the captain an injustice and he means honestly by us. I did tell him last night that there would be a reward above his charge for passage if we came swiftly to Eleusis. Nonetheless, it will be well to be wary and keep weapons at hand.”

  Possibly the warning implicit in that little speech was taken seriously after daylight had clearly shown the captain and crew Hades’s height and breadth, his steel weapons, and his determination to set a high price on any advantage they might try to take. Possibly she and Hades had held unnecessary suspicions about an honest man. In any case, no attack came. Demeter laughed at their concern, especially after breaking their fast when Hades took her out to walk a little on the deck to relieve her cramping and boredom.

  Hades reported in answer to Persephone’s anxious questions when they came in that no more than cautious curiosity was shown by any member of the crew. And Demeter said, “Now that they have seen us in the light, straight and tall—at least they have seen Hades and his “partner’s” sister—you need not fear them. They are more likely to faint with terror if you speak to them than offer you insult.”

  “I think Lady Demeter is right,” Hades said. “I might be one of them grown large, but Lady Demeter’s size and coloring is too different from that of native women.”

  “Do they know who you are?” Persephone asked.

  “I have a temple in Eleusis,” Demeter said, and laughed lightly again. “They suspect, but they know they must not acknowledge a goddess who does not wish to be recognized.” Her eyes flicked from Hades’s face to her daughter’s, but Persephone—not Kore—looked harder and more threatening than he. Demeter shrugged. “You need not look at me that way. I will not break my oath not to interfere. I know if I commanded the crew to overpower Hades you would not come to Olympus to assist me. And now that I have enraged Poseidon for your sake, I have little choice. Without his protection, I doubt Zeus would long leave me in peace in Eleusis. So I must come to terms with Zeus. Having his brother thrown overboard would not pave the way to that goal.”

  Although she smiled at her mother’s little joke, Persephone was uneasy. She felt Demeter had yielded too tamely and was planning to make trouble somehow, and she warned Hades when she walked out with him after the noon meal. “She is too agreeable. Do you think she knows we have someone hidden in the litter?”

  “Have you heard him stir?” Hades asked eagerly. “I was beginning to worry about him.” He glanced toward the door, which was close by, neither having enough faith in Demeter to do more than pace back and forth along the wall of the shelter. “Surely she would not be foolish enough to release him?”

  Persephone did not reply, but with one accord they turned back. The panel of the litter facing the room was closed; of course, it was impossible to say whether it was still closed or closed again, but Demeter showed no signs of hurry or confusion. She was sitting quietly on the pallet, her face thoughtful but not spiteful. Persephone went to use the pot, as if that was why they had come in so soon. Hades heard the far panel hiss softly as she opened it and then a faint squeak. When she came out, she was carrying the blankets in which Demeter had been wrapped. She folded them and sat down on them.

  “If you dropped that ring into the space between the leather padding when you helped me lay my mother in the litter, it shifted its position,” she said. “Do you want to look for it?”

  Hades had worn no rings at any time since he had left his own domain, so what had shifted must be Poseidon. “I had better look,” he said. “I do not want it to pop out of the litter at an inappropriate moment.”

  “Do not play childish games with me,” Demeter said, her voice sharp but kept very low. “Rings do not thump and groan. Whom did you abduct? If you took Neso or Nerus as a hostage, you are worse fools than I thought. Poseidon does not care enough for them, or anyone, to keep you safe, and he can drown us without hurting them anyway. Both are of the sea and can breathe in water.”

  “Not Neso or Nerus, whomever they are,” Hades said with a faint smile. “We brought someone Poseidon loves more than any other being.” The smile changed to a frown. “But you are right about drowning us. I had forgotten that person could breathe in water.” He looked at Persephone. “Should we pour more of that sleeping draught into him?”

  Persephone looked stricken. “I did not bring it,” she whispered. “When we ate, I put it back on the shelf so it would be out of the way. And when I packed up the food for you to take to the ship, I forgot it. Oh, love, I am sorry.”

  “Never mind,” Hades said, putting an arm around her. “In a way I am glad. I was a little afraid to give him more lest it do him harm. If I need to do so, I can always knock him on the head again, but truly, I do not see what harm he can do bound and gagged. For the first setting, a spell must be said aloud with the appropriate gestures. Afterward it may be used or transferred with only a token, but the token must be given.”

  Somewhat uneasily Persephone agreed. She had had to touch the doorframe to transfer her no-see-no-hear spell, and Hades’s had kissed her forehead to transfer to her the spell that lit crystal. But she could pass strength to him without a touch or a token, only by her will, so it seemed to her that Poseidon might be able to do something without words or gestures. She did not voice that concern aloud. She thought Hades had spoken more to calm and console her than because he was overconfident about Poseidon’s helplessness. As if to confirm her thought, he went to the litter, removed the bed of the upper compartment, and stared down at his brother.

  Poseidon’s eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and even. Hades thought his hands were in a different position than when he had closed the panel on him and that his knees were slightly more flexed. Persephone came to stand beside him.

  “Has he wakened?” she asked.

  “I cannot tell,” Hades replied, “and he surely will give no sign to help us decide. I moved the litter sharply twice when we carried it here. It is possible the shaking shifted him. Do not worry, love. I do not think it possible for him to break free, but I will check on him now and again.”

  He did so throughout the afternoon without any positive result. Once he thought he saw a finger twitch, and he said over his shoulder to Persephone, “I wish he would show that he is awake. He must need to piss and be very thirsty, perhaps hungry too.”

  “Let him alone,” she replied. “It is possible the potion is still affecting him, and as far as needing to piss, he has had nothing to drink and may have little to void.”

  Hades waited another moment to see if Poseidon would respond and when he did not, covered the compartment. “I suppose it will be safe to leave him as he is until we come to land.”

  “And what do you intend to do with him—and me—when you come to land?” Demeter asked.


  “I will take you both to the caves of the dead,” Hades said.

  Demeter shrank back and Persephone said, “My mother must go to Olympus and I with her. I promised.”

  “So you shall,” Hades replied. “There are ways to Olympus through my realm, as you well know.”

  Persephone glanced at him and then down at her hands, which were folded in her lap. She understood that Hades did not wish to leave his hostile brother and her stubborn and unreliable mother behind when they went ashore. Poseidon had considerable influence with the native kings along the coast and Demeter was worshipped in Eleusis. Together they might easily be able to organize a party to pursue them. On the other hand, getting the oversize and overweight litter to the cave of the dead might prove difficult. As she understood it, the entrance was not close to the town or the port but some leagues away in the mountains. How were they to control their captives without the sleeping potion?

  A silence fell and lingered. When worrying at the details of the problems brought her no closer to a solution, Persephone glanced again at her companions. The look afforded her little satisfaction. Hades was staring at a crack in the wall as if he could see something faintly amusing through it. Demeter was also looking at Hades, trying not very successfully to hide her growing consternation. Persephone wished Hades had been less frank or looked less as if he were happily contemplating the death throes of enemies.

  Finally, afraid that fear of the underworld might force Demeter to break her promise and try to interfere with their escape, Persephone moved over beside her mother and began to assure her she would find Plutos beautiful and fascinating, not at all dreadful. And when Demeter protested that she could not exist for long without food and drink, but that she would rather die than be condemned forever—as poor Kore had been—to a living death in Hades’s realm, Persephone did not angrily reject the name Kore but gently assured her mother that food and drink would be brought to her from the outer world so she need not fear being trapped below.