Chapter 19 The King of the Primordium
The King of the Primordium
“Father,” Hades said. His voice was barely above a croak. “Your Majesty.”
“Time to feed,” his father boomed, in a voice that sounded like insect legs scuttling over stone. I flinched and covered my ears instinctively. The humanoid chaosgotter next to me tugged my hands down in a panic.
The Vizeking interjected hastily, “It is our Monarch who will be feeding, sire. On that one.” He pointed to me. “There.”
“That’s my son,” said the King.
“No, behind her.”
The King did not seem to know what he was talking about. “Snack time,” he said.
Elke and the chaosgotter, very very subtly, started to push me behind them. Deeper into the crowd, farther away from the King’s sight. Perhaps I could climb into the pipe shaft. Again I had the idea to throw myself off the cliff.
Hades said, his voice a little clearer this time, “Father. Are you… all right? You look… different.”
“Your father,” the Vizeking interjected smoothly, “has been indisposed.”
“Uh-huh.” Hades sounded unconvinced. “That’s what you usually say when I request an audience.”
“He would be resting at this very moment, save that you insisted on his presence for the tribute ritual,” accused the Vizeking. “So. Here he is. Here we all are. Let us go to the Lake.”
Everyone pressed almost imperceptibly backward.
The King lumbered forward. Everyone recoiled. I tried to hide under Elke. Then Hades thrust his open palm out at his father. “Father, no.”
Everyone gasped, but his father ignored him. Didn’t even seem to have heard.
But Hades repeated, “NO.” The thin croak was gone from his voice.
He grabbed me and wrapped an arm around my waist, tight as a rope.
I clung to him like iron to a magnet. I couldn’t trust him, but I’d been down here three days and he hadn’t hurt me yet, which I knew like a hunted animal was absolutely more than I would be able to say of the King.
“Father,” Hades repeated. Even the Vizeking was running after the King, trying to dissuade him.
I got the terrified impression that the Vizeking did not trust the King to remember that I was supposed to go in the Lake instead of being eaten on the spot like a piece of candy.
The King had a human-sized head, I tried to tell myself. He would not be able to actually pop me in his mouth. If he wanted to eat me, he would have to do it bite by bite. Surely I could hurt him in that time. Rip his eight eyeballs out of his head. Punch him in the throat.
I pushed away from Hades and faced the King. I balled my fists.
Hades shoved me behind him at once. But not before the King, for the first time, caught sight of me.
The King slowed.
The Vizeking caught up with him, panting. “Your Majesty.”
“She looks like Mütte,” the King boomed, wonderingly. “You.” He pointed to Hades. “Show me Mütte.”
Even I clenched up at the King calling his own son you.
But if Hades was upset — and I knew he was — he didn’t show it.
“This one’s not yours,” he said calmly. “This one’s mine.
I’m the one who found her, I’m the one who brought her here in spite of the fact that she bit me” — here he cast me a reproachful look, which I was too terrified to even sneer at — “and I’m the one who’s been putting up with all her shit.
I will be sacrificing her to the Monarch.
I honor you, Father, but please, step aside.
I am the Prince of the Primordium. I will sacrifice the tribute by my own authority. ”
No one, least of all the King, seemed to know what to do with this.
It was the Vizeking, astonishingly, who said, “Yes, yes, yes! You do it, Your Lordship. Let us go now and get this whole beastly business over with.”
I panicked. I couldn’t figure out a way out of this. Hades had not moved, but in a moment he would sling me over his shoulder. He’d take me to the Lake and drown me there, as he’d always intended to do. He would console himself with the thought that at least he’d visit my sleeping corpse.
Then a thin reedy voice piped up, “No.”
It wasn’t Hades. His voice was too deep and masculine. And the only other person here who might defend me was Elke, but she worked for the Royal Family and would never.
No, the speaker was no one I’d met before. Instead, it was the humanoid chaosgotter next to me, who’d stopped me from covering my ears.
The Vizeking and Hades and the King all stared at him.
The chaosgotter was humanoid enough to blush. But he stood his ground. “No,” he repeated. “Don’t do it. Don’t sacrifice her. Please.”
Then another worker said, “No.” And another. And another.
“Cease that this instant,” said the Vizeking loudly. “She’s human.”
But far from quieting, the voices surged. My heart surged with them. I couldn’t believe it, but a second chorus was building: “She saved us.” “She helped us.” “She thanked us.” “She helped us” —
Hades roared, “ENOUGH!”
He might as well have knifed me.
Everyone shut up. The workers gaped at him. Elke covered her mouth.
“There we go,” said the Vizeking with satisfaction. “Thank you, Your Lordship. It is good to know you have found your place.”
“Don’t ever thank me again,” Hades said flatly.
The Vizeking laughed. To the King, he said, “Come, Your Majesty.”
“Snack time,” boomed the King again.
“Snack time soon,” said the Vizkeing soothingly. He began to coax the King back the way they’d came. To the catacombs that led to the throne room. To the Lake.
As soon as they were gone, I punched Hades square in the stomach and bolted for the pipe-shaft.
But there were too many godlings in the way. Hades, who had doubled over when I’d punched him, recovered easily. He caught me and threw me over his shoulder like he was rescuing me from a burning building. I hammered on his back. I wailed. But no one, not even Elke, moved to interfere.
“How could you!” I shrieked. “How could any of you!”
Elke looked in shame at the ground.
I couldn’t believe it. They’d all fought for me a second ago. But this was different. The Vizeking and the King had their fear, but Hades had their respect. They would not defy him just to help a human. Not even one they kind of liked.
Hades began to run toward the Lake. I screamed.
When we were far from the crowd — which was shuffling, uncertainly, after us — Hades snapped, “Goddess. Stop screaming and listen. You have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust you!” I fought as hard as I could. I drew blood with my nails. I bit his neck again. But it was useless. Within minutes we were in the throne room, the stalagmite throne still empty. And then we were in the cavern with the Lake.
In the corner boiled the King. He was being kept at bay by the Vizeking, but he lit up when he saw me. I screamed again. This time I screamed, “CALIX!”
Hades flinched.
“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” the Vizeking hissed at Hades. I got the impression that he could not hold the King off much longer. But what would happen when his influence over the King broke? Would it be better or worse than getting drowned?
With me still writhing in his arms, Hades waded out into the Lake. I felt his body tense as the frigid water hit his skin.
I sobbed.
When he was hip-deep in the water, he stopped.
This was it. Surely there should be some kind of ceremonial prayer, the lighting of candles, the drinking of some consecrated wine, as they did in the churches in Corcagia.
Surely there was something that would enable me to stall, to save myself, to get the fuck out of here.
But no. Hades simply lowered me into the water. I hissed. My ass touched the water first, then my thighs and back. My hair.
“Trust me,” Hades whispered.
I sobbed back at him, “If I am resurrected, you’d better get me in that sac fast, because otherwise I am going to kill you.”
His mouth quirked. Was I imagining, though, the flicker of worry and determination in his eyes?
Then he took a deep breath — my only clue that I should take a deep breath, too — and pushed me underwater.
He held me down as I kicked. As the freezing water began to penetrate the pores of my skin. He kept his hand wrapped around my throat.
It was like being stabbed. Or like being eaten. Like my flesh was being punctured by giant, needle-like teeth.
But I couldn’t cry out without sucking water into my lungs. I clung to Hades’s wrists. I wanted to dig my nails in, but I couldn’t, because then he might let me go —
Somewhere distant — somewhere beyond the surface of the Lake, which at this point might as well have been a solid ceiling, so far away did the world beyond it seem, so incapable was I of lifting my head above it — I thought I heard an enormous bang.
Hades’s hands moved. They pulled away from me — or were pulled.
I lunged upward and surfaced, gasping.
I had not breathed in the waters of the Lake. I had not drowned. I had not been given to the Monarch.
But I could feel the rivulets of Lake-water on my body grasping at me, trying to drag me down. Far out in the dark center of the Lake, the candles on their pillars guttered wildly. The cocoons swung.
And I still couldn’t swim.
I was thrashing. The muscles in my stomach were cramping, which only made me panic and thrash harder.
Water splashed into my mouth. I tried to spit it out and only ended up with more.
Please, I thought, I had lived three days in the underworld, I had been saved from sacrifice, I couldn’t get this far and die just because I couldn’t fucking swim —
Someone was splashing out to greet me. His blue eyes shone in the darkness.
Hades?
A pair of slim, strong hands wrapped around my ribcage. My rescuer pressed me to his body and hauled me to shore.
I knew those hands. I knew the body that braced me as I coughed up water. I had imagined that body so vividly back in the village, lying on the wood floor night after night while my mother coughed up blood.
Those hands, this body, belonged to Calix.
He had come to rescue me.