7. Underworld: Everything you have ever desired (PART 1)

Part 2: Chapter 7

This is Part 2: Chapter 7 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 and navigate back a chapter, or begin at the beginning. For SHORT STORY content click here instead.

This is quite a mammoth chapter, so I decided to split it into two parts - I know how precious reading time can be! This is PART 1, and PART 2 will follow on Friday morning, replacing Crossworlds Fantasy Friday this week.

CHAPTER 7: Everything you have ever desired (PART 1)

Summer fades and autumn creeps slowly across the land. It’s colder here than in Arkadía - there are fewer sunny days and more storms. The winds howl about the citadel, racing through the passages and courtyards, and bending the tops of the pines outside my window. The leaves on the other trees turn from green to yellow, burnt orange and brown, and are pulled from branches by the swirling gusts.

Soon, the first snow arrives and my world shrinks to the slopes around the citadel’s walls. I’m wary of going riding on my own. I'm not familiar with this land and I wouldn’t know, under the cover of snow, where the hollows were that could cause my horse to stumble and fall. So I only venture out on foot, coming back with my leather shoes and furs sodden and my feet ice-cold and numb. I spend more and more time in Ífaistos’ workshop - for the warmth, for the knowledge I’m gaining, and for his company.

When I’m not with him, on dull afternoons, I keep mostly to my rooms. Back in Arkadía, I only sewed to mend things that were torn, but here I’ve started to embroider fanciful designs on my sheets and chitons, just for something to do with my hands. This is what I’m engaged in one dull winter afternoon when my door is flung open without warning, and Athiná, Ártemis and Afrodíti come chattering into my chamber. They surround me, playing with my hair and smoothing imaginary wrinkles out of my clothing.

“What are you doing, Kóri?” they ask. “Why do you shut yourself away up here? Why don’t you spend time with us?”

“She spends all her time with Ífaistos in his forge,” says Afrodíti.

“Urgh,” says Athiná. “Ífaistos! Whatever for?”

“Maybe he lets her pump his bellows,” says Ártemis, and they all shriek with laughter.

“Is that what you do in there?” asks Afrodíti, beginning to braid my hair. “With Ífaistos?” She pretends to shudder in disgust.

“Maybe the smoke from the forge helps to hide his ugly face,” giggles Ártemis.

My own face is hot. “Stop it!” I say. “It isn’t like that!”

Ártemis and Athiná look at me sceptically, but Afrodíti narrows her eyes.

“Perhaps not,” she says. She crouches down so that her eyes are level with mine, grabbing my chin in her hands and scrutinising my face. “No… she is telling the truth,” she says to the others at last, releasing my face and straightening up. “She could serve in one of your temples, Arty.”

Ártemis snorts with laughter.

“Well, she did grow up in a cave in the mountains,” Athiná says in a tone that sounds kindly, but is meant to ridicule me.

“But what about that man who looked after you?” presses Ártemis. “Didn’t you and he…?”

“No!” I almost shout, disgusted at the thought.

“Calm down,” says Ártemis, inspecting her fingernails. “I was only asking.”

“Yes, you can’t blame her, Kóri,” adds Afrodíti. “You are so beautiful. Of course he must have thought about it.”

“No, he didn’t!” I insist.

“What? Was he a eunuch or something?” Ártemis says.

I have had enough of them. “Why are you here?” I burst out.

“Oh, that’s nice,” says Afrodíti. “You have a thing or two to learn about hospitality, Kóri. I don’t know how you treated guests in your cave - if you ever had any - but here at court we have manners. You should have called for wine when we stopped by, and sweetmeats. Luckily, we brought our own.”

She claps her hands, and three nymphs enter my chambers, one bearing a jug of wine, another a tray of stone beakers, and the third a plate of confections dripping with honey. They set them down on the low table in the centre of the room and leave. Athiná and Afrodíti drag me over to the table and Ártemis pulls cushions and pillows off my bed and couch for us to sit on. I don’t want them here. I want to tell them to leave, but I know they won’t go, not until they get what they came for - whatever that is.

Ártemis pours wine for all of us and then picks up one of the sticky sweets and pops it into her mouth. She licks her fingers and looks at me wolfishly.

“Kóri owes me a favour, don’t you?” she says conversationally. My muscles tense. I wondered when she would bring that up. “We had a little game -”

“I didn’t lose!” I cut in. “We both took our shot, but neither of us hit the … target.” My voice falters on the last word, and Ártemis gives me a nasty smile.

“If you remember correctly, I did hit the target,” she says.

“Come now, Kóri, don’t be a sore loser,” Afrodíti chimes in. “It is only a game, and we love games.”

“Oh, yes, do you remember Ílion?” says Athiná. “Such a game we had - so many players. Íra and I triumphed, in the end, and Afrodíti lost. But, look, is she upset about it?”

Afrodíti shrugs her shoulders and smiles to show it all means nothing to her, and perhaps it does. But I have heard of the war over Ílion. Ánitos was there. I’ve heard how many people died: the entire city - men, women, children, babies - all slaughtered over some petty disagreement between a few immortals across the Aegean Sea on Ólimbos.

“Let us play a new game,” Ártemis says.

“Oh, yes. Let us choose a new city,” adds Afrodíti, sitting forward on her seat.

“I have one,” says Athiná.

“The one you won from Poseidónas? The one you named after yourself?” Afrodíti turns to me. “She’s so vain,” she says, in a mock-whisper that’s loud enough for us all to hear.

Athiná tosses her hair. “Wouldn’t you be vain too, if you were me?”

She pouts coquettishly and they all laugh.

“Very well,” Ártemis says. “Athína it is. We will play for control of the city. Who will attack and who will be defence?”

“I will attack,” Athiná replies.

“You are going to attack your own city?” I say in disbelief. They all turn to look at me.

Athiná waves her hand dismissively.

“I won it from Poseidónas,” she says. “It is mine to do with as I please, and I want to play with it. So” - here she makes a great show of pondering her choice - “I choose the Lakedaimonians for the attack.”

“Again?” asks Afrodíti, rolling her eyes.

“They fight well,” answers Athiná. “And they are so loyal to me.” They all snigger, but I don’t understand the joke. “So, who will play against me? Or are you all too afraid to lose?”

“I’ll play defence,” Ártemis says. “I already have General Periclís and his sons inside the city walls.”

“I too will play defence,” says Afrodíti.

“Are you hoping to win back what you lost at Ílion?” asks Athiná lightly. “When will you learn?” She turns to me. “And what about you?” she asks. “Who do you choose, Kóri?” She leans close to me. “I must tell you, in confidence, that I am the safer bet,” she murmurs, and winks at me.

I stare at them, horrified. “No one,” I say. “I choose no one. I don’t want to play.”

Afrodíti turns her back on me. “What is the point of being beautiful,” she asks the others, “if you insist on being boring?”

“Well, you mustn’t be boring tonight, Kóri,” says Athiná. “It is Midwinter and there is to be such a feast. We will all get ready together and, when we are done, the beauty of the four of us will be unmatched.”

“Is it not already?” asks Afrodíti, rising from the table and beginning to rummage among my bottles and amphorae, pausing to look at herself in the mirror and arrange her hair. Then, she opens my cupboards and looks at their contents.

“Let us go to my rooms,” she says. “You have so few things here.”

I look at the oils and paints on my dressing table, at the row of brightly-coloured chitons and the growing pile of jewellery, and I think fondly of the short, plain chitons I wore in Arkadía, of my unadorned arms, my empty fingers curled around the rough wooden shaft of a spear. What I have now may seem paltry to Afrodíti, but it is far, far more than I need.

Still, I follow them out of my chamber, partly because I want to see where Afrodíti sleeps, and partly because I suspect I don’t have a choice.

Her rooms are, as I supposed, far larger and more opulent than mine. There are at least three adjoining chambers, but we stay in the central one. It has a larger dressing table and more cupboards, couches and overstuffed chairs than mine. The windows are huge, hung with layers of thick curtains to keep out the cold, and fires blaze in three hearths.

We spend hours there. We try on chitons in shades of dark purple, midnight blue and sea green, and we pair them with jewels of every colour until we decide on our costumes for the evening. Then, they paint each other’s faces and mine. Afrodíti also has a mirror. I’m almost afraid to look into it when they are done with my makeup, because I imagine they’ve done something to make me look awful. But when I go to stand in front of the mirror, I see the same thing I always see: a goddess, although tonight her beauty is fearsome. They’ve dressed me in black with heavy bracelets of obsidian, and rimmed my eyes with so much kohl. It doesn’t draw attention away from them, however. On the contrary, it makes them stand out so that even I am entranced by their gaze and I can hardly look away. They’ve stained my lips a dark shade of red, and woven black ribbons into my hair. On my brow rests a coronet of dark metal, and from the centre hangs a single jewel - a tiny ruby. It reminds me of a drop of blood.

To be continued …