205. A Visit From Hades
A Visit From Hades
I had not seen him for an era.
Styx had warned me that he was no longer
the gentle boy-God he used to be
but a bitter, paranoid version of himself.
Some said it was the loneliness
of the Underworld that did this to him.
Others said it was because that power
untold, unchecked, had corrupted him.
Either way, his tall, brooding form
appeared in my palace uninvited.
This was a tacit insult. You do not
enter the threshold of another God’s domain
without permission. To add further
insult, he had walked into my sanctuary,
the apothecary Thanatos had built me,
while I was working on my poisons.
It was in my examining the brittleness
of old Hydra eggshell that I saw the shadow
in the doorway. I looked up and cold grey eyes
met mine. I asked, ‘And what brings the ruler
of this entire realm to my home?’
Hades did not speak. His face looked
chiselled out of old stone by a slightly
careless craftsman, all angles and oddities,
like his too-high eyebrows and too-soft lips.
Then he spoke slowly. ‘I am here with a warning.’