Chapter 8 The House of Hades
Danae came to with the tang of blood in her mouth.
Her head ached as though it had been cracked open, and her right eye was swollen shut.
She groaned, recalling the ferryman’s fist connecting with her face before she lost consciousness.
Then her hands flew to her neck, and she gripped the iron collar encircling her throat.
Through the pulses of pain shooting across her skull, she searched for her life-threads, desperately hoping her disconnection had been a momentary lapse.
She felt nothing.
Feebly, she tugged at the metal ring, feeling for weak points. There were none. The breath hitched in her throat.
She was alone. Truly alone.
The voice was gone. Hylas was gone. Orpheus was gone.
Orpheus.
The memory of the musician caught between Kerberos’ jaws swallowed her, twin serpents of grief and guilt binding her chest. If she hadn’t attacked the ferryman he might never have summoned the beast, and Orpheus would still be alive.
She curled into herself, sobbing until the pain in her head was sickening. It was only then that she took in the vast bed she lay on, its frame constructed from dark, polished wood, and the softness of the sheets, made from wool so fine it felt as though they had been spun by spiders.
Peeling herself from the bed, she looked around a room that was twice the size of her family’s hut on Naxos.
Its walls were made of smoothest obsidian marble, cracked through with pale veins.
The only other furniture was an oak table with a small silver jug, goblet and a dish with a beeswax candle resting upon it.
No frescos adorned the stone, no carvings or mosaics.
And there were no windows. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed, only that her mouth ached with thirst.
She hauled herself up and pushed herself off the bed. She staggered as her head throbbed with the movement but managed to steady herself on the bedpost. Sucking in deep breaths, she inched her battered body towards the table, lifted the jug and sniffed.
Water.
It might be poisoned. But if her captor wished her dead, they’d already had ample opportunity.
Ignoring the goblet, she tipped the jug to her lips.
Its contents were surprisingly sweet and fresh.
She gulped, her stomach aching as it filled with cool, delicious water.
Once she’d drunk her fill, she wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and realized that her skin, while bruised, was clean.
She looked down and saw that her sandals and peplos were gone, replaced by a gown of ink-dark silk.
She yanked it above her legs. Someone had scrubbed her head to toe.
Clenching her teeth she flung down her skirt.
She would find whoever was responsible and make them pay. But first, she needed to get her powers back.
She forced her aching legs into motion and strode towards the ebony door.
Bracing herself for it to be locked, she tugged at the handle and almost fell back as it swung open without protest. Gathering herself, she crept forward and peered out into a high-ceilinged corridor lined with more beeswax candles nestling in bronze bowls.
Tentatively, she took a step beyond her room.
The candlelight shivered up the dark marble walls, chasing shadows into the corners.
Like in her chamber, no art adorned the corridor, no murals or statues, just sharp lines of polished stone.
Her breath echoed down the vast passage, accompanied by her footsteps and the dripping of candle wax.
At the end was another door set into the stone.
She tried the handle. This one was locked, and she had no power to force it open.
She had never felt weak before she’d discovered her sister’s sea-bloated corpse floating in the waves, dragged it onto the beach near their home and watched an apple tree sprout from Alea’s still heart.
The day she’d tasted the golden fruit, and her powers had awoken.
In her youth she’d delighted in her body, relished the exhilaration of running across the sun-baked earth, sparring with her brothers and clambering over sea-slicked rocks.
But now those pleasures seemed feeble to her.
It was as though she had grown wings, only to have them torn from her back.
Beyond this second door, the corridor turned abruptly, and she found herself stepping out onto an open square walkway, surrounding a large chamber below.
Pillars crafted from the same obsidian marble stretched up from the ground to support the upper level.
To her left, a grand sweeping staircase descended to the lower floor.
She looked up. Instead of a roof, the ceiling became one with the jagged rock above.
She realized that this building must be carved out of a vast bed of marble beneath the earth.
And there, prising through great cracks in the raw stone, were more of the glowing roots, these thick as tree trunks, snaking down to the floor below.
She crept forward, trying to get a better view of an object that seemed to be suspended from the ends of the tendrils.
It looked like a table, fashioned from another slab of marble and held in the air by the roots curled around it. Benches carved from ebony were stationed beside it, and on its polished surface lay silver platters of food.
Her stomach groaned. It felt like days since she and Orpheus had shared that meagre hunk of bread.
Roasted meats, freshly baked cakes and sweet citrus fruits called to her like lovers. As she crept through the shadows towards the staircase, her body thrummed with anticipation, any moment expecting to be ambushed. But she remained alone.
As soon as she reached the lower floor, she ran to the table and snatched up a flatbread, tearing the still-warm dough then submerging a piece in a dish of luminous olive oil.
The bread was almost at her lips when she noticed a bowl of pomegranates.
They had been sliced in half, their seeds glistening like blood-red jewels.
She dropped the bread and took a step back. So much of what she had been taught about the world was a lie, yet the tale of Hades tricking Persephone to remain in the Underworld by feeding her six pomegranate seeds was ingrained in her being.
She must not allow herself to become distracted.
Her eyes darted across the table and settled on a small knife next to a bowl of russet apples. She snatched it and pushed the blade beneath the metal collar, wincing as it caught her skin.
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
She pulled the knife from her neck and spun around.
A figure emerged from the darkness beside the staircase. A man clothed in a long black robe that seemed to melt into the floor at his feet.
Danae had never seen a likeness of the God of the Underworld, but she knew without doubt that this was he.
As Hades moved, she caught a faint whisper of Heracles in his face, but where his nephew was built for power, he himself was slight.
He seemed young and ancient all at once.
His pronounced cheek bones tapered to an angular jaw, and his midnight hair was cut unfashionably short and brushed away from his face.
His skin was so pale it was almost blue, his face smooth and hairless, except for two lines etched between his dark brows.
His eyes too appeared bleached from lack of sunlight, his irises more grey than azure, like a dying sky clinging to the last vestiges of light.
Danae’s fist tightened on the handle of the blade.
Hades prowled to the far end of the table, trailing a bone-pale finger across the edge of the marble slab.
‘You might accidentally slice your jugular. Death would follow in three heartbeats.’ He spoke softly, but his voice rasped as though it were not often used. His pallid eyes lingered on her collar. ‘It is unsettling, I know, but necessary after what you did to Kerberos.’
Danae stared at him. He almost looked pleased.
Her free hand flew once more to the collar around her neck, and a sudden realization dawned.
She remembered that when she had discovered Prometheus chained atop the Caucasus Mountains, he too had been shackled with a ring of iron.
His had rested on his shoulders, loose around his emaciated neck.
Now she knew why. Imprisoned for centuries on his icy crag, cut off from his powers; no wonder he had not been able to escape his chains.
Despite the anger she’d nursed for the Titan over the past year, she felt a pang of pity.
Prometheus’ final revelations may have destroyed everything she thought she knew about the world, but to feel like a hollowed shell for centuries was a cruel punishment indeed.
‘You leashed me. Like a hound.’
The ghost of a smile played across Hades’ mouth. ‘And, like a hound, I must train you.’
She tensed.
‘Please, sit.’ He gestured to the opposite end of the table as he lowered himself onto one of the benches.
The blade still in her hand, Danae remained where she stood. ‘Why haven’t you killed me?’
Hades straightened the knife that lay beside his silver plate. ‘Why would I want to do that?’
She did not answer.
‘If I were Zeus, I would certainly wish to eradicate you. But I am not my brother. Now …’ he gestured again to the table, ‘please eat.’
She did not move. ‘You know who I am?’
Hades poured himself a goblet of amber wine.
‘Zeus’ children may believe his lie that you are one of my creations, but I know the truth.
When the prophet falls and gold that grows bears no fruit, the last daughter will come.
She will end the reign of the thunder and become the light that frees mankind.
’ Danae’s blood chilled to hear those words trip softly over Hades’ tongue.
The Lord of the Underworld smiled. ‘If you wished to hide the fact that you are the one prophesied to end my brother’s reign, you should have been more careful about displaying your powers.
And perhaps arrived on a less conspicuous animal than one of my own creations. ’
Hylas.
‘What do you mean, one of your creations? Where is my horse?’
Hades took a sip of wine, then dabbed the corners of his mouth with a pristine cotton cloth. ‘The beast is quite comfortable in his old paddock. Now tell me, how did you steal a Hesperides apple?’
Danae frowned. ‘I didn’t steal anything …
’ The name of the fruit was strange to her, yet as the memory of her sister’s chest cracking open and the golden apple tree bloomed in her mind’s eye, it did not seem important.
In the chaos of her capture, she had become distracted and forgotten the only thing that truly mattered.
‘I will tell you anything you want to know, if you take me to my sister.’
The lines between Hades’ brows deepened. ‘Who?’
‘My sister, Alea. She’s dead.’
He sighed. ‘Please, sit. You must eat.’
Her skull felt tight, the pressure in her temples mounting. ‘She died three years ago. I need to see her ghost.’
Hades reached for an apple and sliced the fruit precisely in two. Then again and again, arranging the pieces until twelve perfect segments sat side by side on his plate.
‘Let me rephrase my previous question.’ He crunched a segment between his teeth, staring at Danae as he chewed. ‘How did you gain access to the tree with golden apples?’
‘It just appeared.’
‘You’re going to have to do better than that.’
Danae swallowed. ‘If I tell you, will you promise to let me see my sister?’
Hades smiled. ‘A truth for a truth. All right.’
Every instinct cried out for her not to reveal how she had gained her powers. But what choice did she have?
‘My sister drowned herself. I dragged her body from the ocean, then her chest split open, and a tree with golden apples grew from her heart. I … I was compelled to eat one.’
Hades stared at her, so still he could have been cast from white marble. When he did not speak, she continued, ‘Is Alea in the Asphodel Meadows? Is her soul here, in the Underworld, with the other virtuous dead?’
‘Gold that grows bears no fruit …’ he murmured, as though he had not heard her. ‘Yet here you are.’
‘Is there an afterlife in the Underworld?’ Danae pressed.
Hades blinked, then sighed once more and popped another slice of apple into his mouth.
Danae could contain herself no longer. She slammed her fists onto the table and screamed, ‘Tell me!’
Hades stretched out a hand. Danae gasped as her fingers took on a life of their own and clenched tight around the knife, lifting it to her neck. A sickening realization crashed over her: he was using his life-threads to control her.
‘Remember to whom you speak, little Titan.’ He released her hand, and the knife clattered to the ground. ‘I was led to believe you spoke with Prometheus, yet you seem as ignorant as every other mortal.’ His voice was laced with irritation.
Little Titan.
‘He was a liar,’ Danae rasped.
Hades surveyed her and for a while neither of them spoke. Then he lifted a hand into the air. Danae flinched, but this time it was not his own power he used. She was grabbed by several pairs of rough hands. The air around her shimmered, and four pairs of crimson eyes loomed out of the darkness.
She lashed out, but they were ready for her, leathery hands pinning her arms to her sides.
‘Take her to the ferryman. Instruct Charon to show her my kingdom of Erebus.’ Hades met her gaze.
‘You will find the answers you seek. I hope you may be of use to me when you return.’ He snapped his fingers and as the shades dragged her past the table he added, ‘A word of advice. Stay close to the ferryman, however inquisitive you may feel. The creatures of the Underworld know not to harm Charon, but you are something new …’ He turned back to his plate.
‘Will Charon take me to my sister?’ Danae called as the shades hauled her towards a doorway beyond the root table.
The Lord of the Underworld did not answer, continuing to eat his apple as though she had already left the room.