Dazzling Brightness

by Roberta Gellis

  He did not say “kill,” because to take away all hope would merely make his prey more desperate. They would certainly run into the temple to try to find weapons or hiding places rather than yielding tamely in the expectation of gaining their freedom from the king. However, they neither fled nor yielded. The taller of the two women stepped forward and placed her hand on the big man’s shoulder; the shorter, who had been closest to the temple, whirled around and returned to face him.

  “You are mad!” she shouted. “I am Lady Demeter. How dare King Celeus give such an order.”

  The captain stood open-mouthed; the men, who had readied their weapons, paused in consternation. All were certain a dreadful mistake had been made. Their king would not order the death of the Lady who had brought them such plenty. But before the captain could excuse himself and beg Demeter to come with them and explain the confusion to their master, the man spoke.

  “Your king has mistaken us for others,” Hades said. “I am sure he does not really desire a visit from the King of the Dead.”

  As he spoke, a strip of the road about a handspan wide right in front of them; heaved, spat steam, and then began to glow—first red and then yellow, sinking a little as it started to bubble like thick mud. All shouted in terror and jumped back, the men shrinking away from the melted, boiling earth. They were too frightened to take their eyes off Hades and were backing down the road when a huge voice roared, “Stand your ground. I am the sea king, and I will drown Eleusis and wash it all into the sea, including Demeter’s puny temple, if you do not follow King Celeus’s command and kill these three.”

  Poseidon did not wait for the men, paralyzed with horror, to act. On the same breath he said to the tritons, “Take them! Rend them!”

  His will lashed them, but the sea creatures did not leap forward over the glowing, molten earth. Even stronger than the sharp prod of Poseidon’s will was their terror of fire. The fear that held them frozen made them even simpler and unable to understand that, although their master’s will drove them directly forward over the molten earth, they could obey by going around the burning area. Poseidon’s fury at their lack of response made him slow to understand as well, and by the time he realized what the trouble was, the bubbling yellow had stretched to nearly an arm’s length in width and was curving around to form a protective moat.

  Poseidon laughed. “Fool!” he said. “How long do you think you can expend so much power? All I need do is wait.”

  In reply a thin, molten tendril leapt across the space between Poseidon and the glowing moat and lashed out over his bare feet so that he screeched with rage and pain. Then Persephone handed Hades something and he threw it. The rock reddened as it flew, turned bright yellow, glowed white, and began to drip just as it struck and lodged in the flesh of one of the tritons. The creature shrieked and tore at his breast, then wailed and ran, his intense physical pain breaking the hold Poseidon had on him. His keening floated back as he raced for the cool quenching waters of the sea.

  The threat was clear, and Poseidon, seeing his revenge escaping him, roared with rage and gathered himself, seeming about to launch himself at Hades over the widening area of molten ground. Hades had just reached back for another stone and his eyes, fixed on his brother, showed that the next white-hot rock would not be a threat or a weapon against the terrified tritons. In that instant, before personal combat and crippling injury could generate irrevocable enmity, a blinding blue flash arced over Hades’s head and struck the ground at Poseidon’s feet.

  Everyone’s hair stood on end and a long spark shot from Persephone’s hand to Hades’s, making them both cry out with surprise and drop the stone she had readied. Poseidon was so shocked that the last bond he held on the tritons was severed and they, screeching in horror as the lightning flickered and spat all around them, fled.

  “You mortal men, begone!” a voice like a brass gong bellowed. “I am the servant of Lady Demeter, the guardian of this temple. Only her will holds on these grounds, not that of your king or of any other god. Go!”

  They did not need a second invitation. The sound of running and cries of fear and pain when a man fell and was helped to his feet and dragged along by his fellows diminished into the darkness. A brief pause followed while the lightning Zeus had used sparked and crackled away the last of its energy. Then in a slightly plaintive voice, Zeus said, “Hades, please. Turn off the heat.”

  “I cannot,” Hades said, equally plaintively. “I can only heat it. It has to cool by itself. Can you not draw up a nice gushing spring, Poseidon? That would wreath us in steam and provide a truly godlike exit for us.”

  “For whom to see?” Poseidon growled—but he was no longer incoherent with rage; indeed, his voice sounded more long-suffering than indignant, betraying the relief that lay under his belligerence when he added, “Who asked you to interfere in our affairs, Zeus?”

  “Actually, Hera. She has been so worried since Hades’s visit to me that she had an unusually clear vision of this confrontation, which is how I knew where to come and when. She is very fond of both of you, you know.” He laughed. “A good deal fonder than I am at this moment. I was sorely tempted to fry both of you, but I need you. There is no one but Hades that can keep the dead confined, and no one but Poseidon who can rule the creatures of the sea. However, I will take oath of both of you that this will end here now and for all time.”

  “Given,” Hades said promptly, “by the Styx and under the authority of the Mother of All. I am sincerely sorry for the insult and injury done you, Poseidon, but powerless as I was in your realm, I could think of no other way to protect myself and my wife.”

  “Given, by the Styx and by the Mother.”

  Poseidon was less gracious and offered no apology for the near rape of Persephone, but he was not sorry to be bound to forgo any revenge on Hades. He had not realized just how powerful Hades’s Gift was or how it could be used as defense and weapon and not only in the underworld. However, in the future he would not forget the way that white-hot stone seared its way into the triton’s flesh or that the next was meant for him and would have found its mark.

  “And you, Persephone?” Zeus asked.

  “Poseidon did me no harm,” she said softly. “What happened was a mistake, and I am sure will not happen again. I owe him no ill will and I am sorry for the poor triton who was hurt.”

  Carefully, Zeus did not ask what had happened. He said instead, “Hermes is here, Poseidon, and will spell you back to Aegina if you wish—at my cost.”

  “Good enough,” Poseidon said.

  Zeus gestured and the young mage stepped out of the shadows near the temple wall into the dimming orange glow from the still-molten ground. He flew across the hot trench, murmured, and pressed a finger to Poseidon’s brow and to both arms. He nodded. Poseidon spoke a single word and was gone. After a minute pause to be sure no failure in the spell would bring him back, everyone sighed with relief.

  “With your permission, Demeter, we will enter the temple where we can find light and places to sit.”

  Demeter started when Zeus spoke to her, but she nodded a gracious acceptance of the courteous, almost apologetic tone. “Of course,” she said, hurrying into the building and calling for her priestesses.

  Cries of relief came at the sound of her voice. In moments she was surrounded by scurrying priestesses, who had been huddling in the darkest corners. They wept for joy at her return. Lamps were lit, wine and cold meat and rounds of bread and cheese were laid out. Demeter kissed them and blessed them and sent them away, and they went at once, but looked backward with adoring eyes.

  Persephone recalled the less harmonious atmosphere of the temple in Olympus and the frustration of the priestesses, who felt themselves to be Demeter’s equals held back by her from honor and power. That would not happen in Eleusis. These native women, although Gifted, would never aspire to Demeter’s power. If her mother had Eleusis to refresh her spirit, she might be happier in Olympus during the time she spent there and would not mi
ss her daughter so much!

  “Demeter,” Zeus said. “Olympus will starve if the crop is not good this year, but I cannot give your daughter back.”

  “You should not have given her away.”

  Zeus shook his head. “I cannot say I am sorry for that. My brother, whom I love, is happy. My daughter, whom I was not allowed to know but who I felt needed her freedom, is also happy. I can say that I am sorry what I did caused you so much pain, but that is all.”

  “Mother—” Persephone said.

  Demeter made an angry gesture, but it did not have the force of full conviction. She was remembering how Zeus had said he was her servant, the guardian of her temple. He had not tried to usurp her power in Eleusis. She knew both from what Hades had told her and from Zeus’s manner that he would not again meddle in temple affairs in Olympus either. But after a struggle that had stretched over nearly three years, she hated to give in so tamely.

  “You will have your crop,” she said. “I will return to Olympus, with you if you desire, but I will enliven no seed nor bless any field until my daughter joins me.”

  “Demeter—” Zeus began.

  “That is what we promised, brother,” Hades said. “Persephone will come each spring to bless the seed and fields of Olympus with her mother. Then she will return to me.”

  “You are generous, brother,” Zeus said.

  Hades grinned. “I am an enslaved husband, brother, and do my wife’s will.”

  “You are my good and gracious lord, always indulgent.”

  Persephone leaned forward and kissed Hades’s lips, and what was between them filled the room so that Zeus looked away, his lips thin with envy, and Demeter’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  Epilogue

  The seed had been quickened, the fields blessed. So strong was the fecund power that the first fields already showed a mist of green shoots. In two days more, Demeter would need to accompany her daughter to the entrance of the great cave where the sacrifices to the dead were sent and yield her up to black-eyed Hades.

  Demeter hesitated, then entered the door, held open by a smiling and cherubic boy-child who led her swiftly down the wide corridor to another door that opened onto a large chamber painted in the likeness of a lovely garden. Beyond a small pool into which tinkled a tiny fountain, soft cushioned couches were drawn into a close semicircle. On the central couch, Aphrodite reclined.

  Demeter felt surprised as she always did when she saw Aphrodite, despite the many years she had known her and no matter how often she saw her. Each time, Demeter still expected a sensual, knowing woman, with a voluptuous body, full breasts, rounded hips and thighs. Instead she saw the figure of a barely nubile girl, a perfectly modest gown, and an expression of innocence that wrung the heart.

  “We are so glad to have you back, dear Demeter,” Aphrodite said.

  Again Demeter was shaken. The voice was sweet, low, musical, full of sincerity and conviction. Demeter gathered her wits and reminded herself that it was part of Aphrodite’s Gift. It was neither true nor false—just part of her.

  “Zeus has spoken to you as he promised?” Demeter asked.

  “Oh yes. He is very eager to avoid any other misunderstanding. He asked me to break the spell that causes your daughter to love Hades—but that is impossible.”

  “I thought you could make and break any love spell.”

  “And so I can,” Aphrodite said, “but I know no spells that can change true love into hate or indifference—and if I did, I would not use such an abomination.”

  “But if she is bespelled to love him—

  “Demeter, Persephone is not bespelled. I have seen her, heard her, touched her, smelled her, even tasted her. No spell was ever used. She loves Hades for what he is, for what he has given her, but most of all for his terrible need for her.” Aphrodite shrugged. “I can make and break a false loving. I can paint a garish image of love over the dull or ugly truth of hate or, indifference—but when love comes of itself, the truth gives color to life, and I cannot change that. And so it is with Hades and Persephone.”

  “Then I must yield her to him?”

  “Only until next spring, Demeter.”

  “For a few weeks, and then I must give her up again.”

  “Because he needs her more than you do, Demeter. He has only Persephone and will forever have only Persephone. Will you not open your eyes and see the many daughters that wish to love you and learn from you?”

  Demeter turned away, but she was not scowling nor was her jaw set in the ugly, mulish line that had so long marked her unshaken determination to regain control of her daughter. She looked back over her shoulder at Aphrodite.

  “I knew it when we parted in Eleusis,” she said, “but I had to make sure.” Suddenly she smiled. “These have been sweet weeks, with more love and kindness between us than has been for years. I will be content.”

  Author’s Note

  This book is a fantasy. Unlike my historical novels, in which I strive, although I do not always succeed, to obtain accuracy in every detail, in this book I have tried to carry the reader into an entirely different reality—the reality in which myths were the lives of all-too-human people. Although I have written a fantasy, I have taken few liberties with the major outline of the myth of Persephone and Hades; thus I feel no guilt over minor deviations because all myths in themselves are layered with millennia of changing accretions over some nugget of fact. For example, dragons, so prevalent in myth, may have been built on the folk memory of the lingering remnants of large saurians.

  The differences between my tale and that found in versions in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, Bulfinch’s Mythology, or summaries in such works as the Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, with which the reader may be familiar, are largely differences in characterization. I have not wantonly deformed the myth to suit my plot, however. Actually, the mythological characters have been deformed over the years to make pretty adventure stories for cultures that no longer believed in them as gods. Thus I have felt free to go back to earlier renditions of the characters, as described by Farnell and others, and have built my Hades and Persephone not only on the single myth of the “rape of Persephone” but on many other myths that also mention Hades, Kore/Persephone, Demeter, and the others.

  I have consulted many scholarly works and read everything I could find about Demeter, Kore, and Hades (all of whom have many other names). I have also read whatever original sources I could find in translation—my Greek is a one-letter-at-a-time affair, so I could not use untranslated material. Some information I have used; other information I have discarded. For example, I ignored research that suggests that Kore and Demeter were different aspects of the same being—that would have required a plot entirely different from the best-known version of the myth. However, I used aspects of both that are adaptations of separate goddesses of different native populations, which were overrun by the tribal migrations of the people who became Greek, and were adopted into the Greek pantheon. From this material I have garnered images that I have developed into the characters of this book.

  It is clear from the many myths that mention invasion of the underworld by various heroes, such as Heracles, that Persephone is no pallid, shrinking, homesick girl. She is, indeed, sometimes the dominant figure in the bargains made with the invaders. Nor does Greek art or ancillary myth support the notion that Persephone spent only the three months of winter with Hades. On every vase and in every myth, she is in the underworld, seated beside her husband—often the figure in more prominent view.

  The Greeks, like many other peoples, were very superstitious about the chthonian (underworld) powers and did not worship them directly. Pausanias says that there was only one temple where Hades was worshipped, at Elis. However, the god of the underworld was worshipped over a wide area, appearing under various forms and names, such as Plouton, Klymenos, Trophonios, and even Zeus Chthonios. The Hades I have described comes from “this ‘nether-Zeus,’ [who] is not merely the grim lord of the dead but the bene
ficent god of fruitfulness…” (quoted from Lewis Richard Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, vol. III, Ge, Demeter/Kore-Persephone, Hades-Pluton, Mother of the Gods and Rhea-Cybele, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909).

  R.L.G.

  Copyright © 1994 by Roberta Gellis

  Originally published by Pinnacle Books [ISBN 978-0786000234]

  Electronically published in 2016 by Belgrave House

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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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.