17. Underworld: The faith of an immortal
Part 2: Chapter 17
This is Part 2: Chapter 17 of the serialised YA Fantasy Fiction novel ‘Underworld’, a reimagining (not a retelling) of the myth of Persefóni. Use the button below to access the Table of Contents. For SHORT STORY content click here instead.
In the previous chapter… Persefóni went to the sea with Poseidónas and faced the decision of whether to ally herself with the sea god and give up her humanity, or remain alone, friendless and powerless.
The faith of an immortal
Being in the sea was a distraction, but as I walk through the palace, my thoughts return again to the feast in Afrodíti’s hall. I remember the faces of the guests—Poseidónas wasn’t the only one who saw what Áris and Apóllonas did to me. Yet not one of them intervened on my behalf, as I had intervened for the Princes of Thíva. Did I really expect them to? I’ve made no alliances here. There is no one who would be willing to risk Áris’ violent temper on my account—but there is one who should have, and who easily could have. My mother is far more powerful than the god of war.
I change course and, instead of heading to my chambers, I make for Dímitra’s hall. She’s sitting on the steps of the dais, weaving baskets in the company of a few dryads. I stalk up to them, dripping wet, still clutching the damp fur Poseidónas gave me about myself.
“Leave!” It’s the first real command I’ve ever given to another immortal, but nonetheless the dryads scrabble to collect their things and scurry away. I don’t think, then, how I feel about other beings obeying me so hastily and without question. I only turn to my mother, not bothering to wait for the dryads to go.
“Do you know what happened to me last night outside Afrodíti’s hall?” My voice is shaking with rage. “Do you know what they did to me afterwards? Because I don’t!”
“I am aware,” she replies, without a trace of sympathy or concern.
“Well?” I demand. “Are you going to do something about it?”
She looks genuinely surprised. “Do something?” she asks. “Do what?”
I gape at her in disbelief. I’d hoped that she would be outraged, ready to avenge me and strike such fear into the hearts of Áris and Apóllonas that they would never dare to speak to me again. At the very least, I’d expected her to pretend to care, to offer some words of comfort, but she doesn’t seem to think I deserve even that.
“How can you call yourself a mother?” I demand. “How could you let this happen to your own child and just let it be?”
“This has nothing to do with me,” she retorts. “You brought this on yourself. Just because you are my daughter, it does not give you the right to interfere with the will of the gods. Do not presume to count yourself among them. There is an order here. First and foremost, there are the children of Krónos. Then, your cousins and brothers and sisters, the lesser gods: Áris, Apóllonas, Ártemis and the rest. Perhaps, one day, with my help, you can achieve their status, but they were here before you. You must earn your place among them.”
“I don’t want a place among them! I never wanted any of this! I don’t belong here. Let me return to Arkadía—”
“This is your fate, Kóri.”
“You’re wrong! I'm destined for something more than this.”
“More—than Ólimbos?” Her voice is shrill with incredulity. “We are the most powerful beings in this world. We can take whatever we want. There is nothing more than this.”
“There is! I’ve seen it in the valley. There is true friendship, and loyalty, and love—love stronger than death!”
Dímitra gives me a pitying look.
“Love is for mortals,” she says. “You are a goddess, divine, a symbol of all that is perfect and eternal. Mortals will worship you, immortals will lust after you, but no one will ever love you for who you are.”
I gasp as if she has hit me. I know, of course, that she doesn’t love me, that I’m only here because of something the Pythía told her, but it still hurts to hear those words coming from the mouth of the woman who bore me. But Dímitra doesn’t seem to register the implications of what she has said, or my reaction to it.
She sighs heavily. “Eternity is a lonely place, Kóri. Maybe now, you believe in love and duty, but those are just fairy tales mortals tell each other to make it bearable.”
“Make what bearable?”
“The fact that their lives are so pathetically short and pointless. They want it all to mean something, so they believe in ideas that are bigger than they are: honour greater than death, unconditional love.”
“I think it's admirable,” I say. “It's beautiful.”
For once she doesn't seem scornful. There’s something almost wistful in her expression as she says, “In time, all those stories fade away, Kóri. You realise that honour is meaningless and unconditional love is a lie. Eventually, you are left with nothing but your own reflection, and it is not enough. It is never enough.”
I see, for the first and only time, what is behind her cruelty. It’s a gaping emptiness which nothing—not power or notoriety or the worship of mortals—can fill. Strangely, I’ve never felt closer to her than I do now, not even when I fell asleep in her arms on our journey to Ólimbos. I still detest her, and I certainly don't agree with her, but I think I begin to understand her a little.
“I am sorry for what happened to you,” she says, as Poseidónas had done, “but you cannot expect me to intervene for you in your disputes with the other gods. That is not how things work here. The balance of power is delicate. You must learn your place in the order of things: greater than the mortals and nature spirits, and lesser than the gods.”
It’s some time before there’s another feast. There are wars which keep the gods occupied, and some of them even travel to other parts of the land. No one pays much attention to me, and I’m grateful. I spend my time in the forest with Armónia, or spinning in my chambers, and sometimes I ride to the sea. I know the way by now and, although I can’t swim as deep or remain under the waves without Poseidónas’ power, I prefer to be alone. But my solitude can’t last forever.
Áris returns after some sort of victory and announces a feast. Dímitra comes to help me get ready herself, fussing over my uncombed hair, dirty clothes and filthy bare feet. She and her nymphs bathe and dress me in jewels and finery, and I sulk through the whole process, although I don’t protest. I speak not a word to my mother, for what would be the point? This—attending feasts I don’t want to go to, with people I despise, and dressing up like someone else—this is my place, the one she says I must learn to inhabit.
In Áris’ hall, the god of war beckons me over to him, and I go. I know what will happen if I don’t.
He smiles at me as if there is no ill will between us, but of course it’s too much to hope that he’ll treat me with any courtesy. He told me that he would ensure I behaved like his pet Kyría, and he hasn’t forgotten. He moves his knees apart and gestures to the floor between them. “Kneel,” he says under his breath, the single word full of threat and menace. I hesitate for a heartbeat, and then I sink slowly down to my knees before him. Greater than the mortals and nature spirits, and lesser than the gods.
He smirks at me. “Good girl,” he says, taking my face in his hands and pulling it closer towards his body. “Now what does this remind me of?”
I flush with impotent anger, and he mistakes it for shame. He laughs and lets go of my head.
“Come now, Kóri. I only wanted to make sure you had learnt your lesson.”
He pats my head as if I am indeed his pet, and I clench my teeth. Something is building inside me, and I don’t think I can contain it, although I know the price. I think of the knife Ífaistos gave me, but it’s gone now. I feel its absence, and my vulnerability.
I’m suddenly aware that there’s someone standing beside me. Looking around, I see it’s Armónia.
“Áris,” she says, and her voice is low, like water running over gravel. “Long ago, you promised me something. You have not yet given it to me.”
Áris' eyes flash annoyance, but Armónia continues unperturbed.
“Perhaps I can give you something in exchange for what you owe me. Something you desire.”
I see a light of interest, of greed, kindle in Áris' face.
“Go on,” he says.
Armónia glances at me.
“You may go,” she says haughtily, as if a nymph had the right to command a goddess.
Áris sneers and Armónia continues to look at me disdainfully, while I stare at her in disbelief. What is she doing?
“Run along, little virgin,” she says nastily. “The grown-ups are talking now.”
She’s a brilliant actor. I can read nothing but disgust in her expression, but I know her well enough by now to realise she’s saving me from Áris, from further humiliation up here in front of the whole court. I push myself to my feet, keeping my eyes downcast so that Áris won't see the gratitude in them.
As I stumble away, I see Armónia slide onto his lap and curl her arm around his broad shoulders. She rests her forehead on his as naturally as if she really cared for him, instead of detesting him with every fibre of her being. Why would she do that—swallow her pride and her revulsion—for me?
The next afternoon, I find Armónia beside the spring in the trees. I sit down next to her and take her hand.
“Was it awful?” I ask.
She pulls a face. “Extremely.”
“Why did you do it? He would’ve left you alone—”
“But he would not have left you alone,” she says.
“I don’t understand. Why put yourself through that, for me?”
“You are good,” she says simply. “You are not like them.”
I’m honoured that she sees that in me, that she would make such a sacrifice for me, but at the same time I see the futility of it. I sigh heavily.
“You can’t protect me forever,” I tell her. “Tonight, or tomorrow, or next week he will …” I leave the sentence hanging. I don’t know how it ends, and I don’t want to.
“I know,” she says, then she turns to face me and takes my hands in hers. “Do you want to know why I really spoke to you that night, at your first feast? I recognised you, Kóri. Long ago, when I still guarded the spring in the Akmonian Wood, I heard a whisper in the waters. I saw your face in my pool. You looked different, more like a mortal, dirty and unkempt, but it was you.”
I think of what the nymph told me in my own forest, back in Arkadía.
“What was the whisper?” I ask, although I already know the answer.
“It’s hard to say,” she replies. “Power? Revolution? Death?” She shrugs. “What matters is that you are important, Kóri. You will be powerful. You aren’t like them, and I can’t let you become like them, because that would only make Ólimbos more powerful.”
I don’t know what to say. I feel the weight of her belief in me like a physical burden, pressing down on me. The faith of an immortal. But I am nobody. I am nothing.
“It’s you who are good,” I tell her.
She shrugs.
“I don’t know anymore,” she says. “I have forgotten who I was, and I don’t know who I have become. It’s this place.”
She kisses my forehead and we sit together in silence for a long time, our hands clasped together and the sound of running water about us.
Everywhere Áris goes, Armónia is there. I’m troubled by her sacrifice, sure that it’s futile. I have no power, and whatever whisper she thought she heard, it can’t have been about me.
One day, she comes to my chambers. She’s never visited me before. We always meet outside, in the forest or by the spring, or in the halls at feasts. When she knocks and enters, I’m standing in the centre of the room, my chest heaving, having just completed my morning exercises. I have no opponent, of course, and no weapon now either, but still I practise.
I must look strange, sweating and gasping for breath, but Armónia makes no comment. She runs to me and throws her arms around my shoulders. Her vulnerability is a shock to me. Of the two of us, she has always been the emotionally stronger, and her sudden weakness unnerves me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, holding her.
She mutters something into my shoulder.
“What?” I say. It’s not that I don’t understand, but that I don’t want to.
“I’m pregnant,” she repeats more clearly, loudly even, a note of defiance in her voice.
“Oh, Armónia,” I say, uselessly. I can’t find any other words.
She collapses into a chair with a huff of breath that might be a bitter laugh.
“Funny, isn’t it? It’s what every immortal wants, the thing we’re always being told is so rare, so precious, such a blessing.”
I still don’t know what to say. I feel somehow that this is my fault. If I hadn’t let her protect me from Áris …
“Armónia, I’m so sorry.”
She leans forward in her seat.
“I’m scared, Kóri,” she says.
“I can stop this,” I tell her. “I know which herbs to use on mortals. I’m sure they would work in the right quantities. We could ask Ekáti—” but she shakes her head.
“Áris is a monster, but this child is blameless. Perhaps I can get her away from here.”
“You believe it’s a girl?” I say, focusing on the only detail that doesn’t really matter—the one thing that’s safe.
“I know it,” she tells me, and although her smile is brave, I can see it costs her.
Armónia begins coming to my chambers more and more often. At first, there’s no difference in her slim frame, but slowly a bump begins to show. When she’s large enough, I feel her abdomen the way the wise women in the village taught me. I gently press and prod. I frown. There are too many limbs.
“Is it a monster?” Armónia asks, seeing my expression. Her face is pale. We’ve both heard of such things. They say the witch-queen of Kríti gave birth to a boy with the head of a bull.
“No, of course not,” I say reassuringly. “Twins, maybe.” After all my time on Ólimbos, I’m becoming better at lying.
I smile at her, but my heart is thudding in my chest. It isn’t twins, but I won’t tell Armónia that. Like me, she’s probably never heard of a woman who has delivered more than two babies and survived, and I think she’s carrying three, maybe four.
To be continued …