Underworld: Enslaving the minds of men

Part 2: Chapter 1

We’re entering Part 2! This is Part 2: Chapter 1 of the serialised novel ‘Underworld’, a reimagining (not a retelling) of the myth of Persefóni. Use the button below to access the Table of Contents, navigate back a chapter, or begin at the beginning.

PART TWO: ÓLIMBOS

CHAPTER 1: Enslaving the minds of men

I don’t know how far we ride, I only know it is much further than I have ever travelled before. Outside my valley, others join us, nymphs and satyrs - Dímitra’s attendants who have travelled with her from Ólimbos. I have never seen so many immortal creatures together; the ones in my valley are mostly solitary, tending their trees and waters, totally consumed by their craft. These wear fine clothes, and some have painted faces like Dímitra. They don’t say much to me, but they watch me with open curiosity, and I stare back, equally curious.

At first, we journey through forests and along wide-bottomed valleys with towering mountains on either side, like the ones I am familiar with. Then, one day, the trees end and the land stops, and in front of us is the glittering sea.

My heart leaps and I urge my horse into a gallop across the sloping ground, down onto the coarse sand. I slide from her back, pulling off my sandals and sinking my toes into the beach.

The sand is hot, scattered with small pebbles of many colours. I walk across it, my feet sinking slightly with every step. I have to keep moving, or the dry sand will burn the soles of my feet. But then it becomes more solid, cool and damp, and my feet sink into it in a different way, leaving tiny depressions that shrink and close behind me. I walk backwards, watching the way the water pools in my footprints and disappears into the sand. Then, I am at the shoreline, and the water runs up over my feet and pulls away again. I hadn’t known it did this - Ánitos never told me. It’s like the sea is breathing, or beckoning, and I find I cannot resist its call.

I drag my chiton over my head without unfastening the fibulae and fling it onto the sand behind me. Then, I dive into the cool water. It’s salty on my lips and it stings my eyes, but I keep them open, staring at the underwater landscape. It’s not like the mountain lakes I learnt to swim in - there are no green weeds waving on the seafloor here. Instead, the sand stretches on into the distance, beyond the point where my vision can penetrate, and all I can see is a wall of opaque blue, like fog. Rocks litter the sand, some small and some large, and between them swim shoals of tiny fish. They dart about, their silver skins catching the light filtering through from the world above. The pattern of it on the sand below me is not unlike the way the sun shines through the leaves of the forest, dappling the ground with ever-moving patches of light and shade.

I come up for air, a huge gulp of it, and then I begin to swim. I swim and swim, my legs kicking and my arms slicing the water over and over. I see I’m in a huge bay. The land curves around in a smooth unbroken line, from the beach where I left my horse to the low mountains directly opposite me, but although I keep swimming, they never seem to get any closer. The sea is deceptive, I realise - it looks like a large lake, but it is much bigger. I duck my head under and see it is also much deeper than the pools I know. The seafloor is far below me now. I dive to reach it, but it is too deep. I feel as if someone immensely strong is pushing the sides of my skull together. I’m afraid that if I go any deeper, my head will be crushed by this invisible force, so I shoot to the surface for another gulp of air.

Lying flat on my back, and I’m thrilled to find that, if I relax, the sea can support my weight. I lie there, the almost imperceptible movement of the water nudging my body up and down, up and down. Above me, the sky is a flawless azure. My ears are under the surface and all I can hear is the sea - a sound like the wind, and yet not. For the wind blows wild and free with nothing to contain it, but the sea encloses the deep, dark places of the world. A shiver runs up my spine. There is something sinister about that sound - it murmurs of mysteries, I think, sunken and unreachable.

When I bob upright again, I hear splashing and see a satyr swimming towards me.

“You must come back!” he pants, then chokes on some water. “Dímitra is afraid for you. You are too far out.”

“I’m not tired,” I tell him, kicking the water beneath me rhythmically so that I stay upright in one place. I turn to face the mountains again, misty blue across the water. “I can swim to the other shore and wait for you there.”

“No!” he cries, sounding desperate. “No, you must come back!”

“I don’t want to. I want to swim and swim.”

“Please, Kóri,” he says, and I think it’s his use of this name - the name that is not mine - that decides me. I shrug apologetically, submerge myself and kick off in the direction of the mountains. When I come up for air, I can hear the satyr shouting, but he doesn’t follow me.

He isn’t wrong. It is very far indeed to the other side. When I eventually reach it, my limbs are aching and my breathing is heavy. Most of the coastline here is made up of vertical cliffs, but I spot a small cove and make for that. When my feet strike the sandy floor, I sink back, allowing the small waves to push me closer to the shore. There, I lie in the shallows as my heart rate slows, until my chest rises and falls with the rhythm of the water running up the beach and returning - in, out, pause, in, out, pause. The water is warm here, and the sun beats down on my face. I realise that I have no clothes, no sandals and no horse, but for the moment I don’t care. I am happy here, in the undulating embrace of the sea.

The sun passes its zenith and still I lie there, rocked by the tiny waves. I listen to their breath on the beach - the slithering sound as the water drags the fine pebbles on the shoreline across each other on its way in and its way out. I wonder what Poseidónas is like - the one they call the god of the sea. I wonder what kind of power he has over this vast expanse of water. I know I have only crossed a corner of it. I know that, to the west, it stretches on and on, much further than even I could swim - perhaps forever.

A shadow falls across me and I sit bolt upright; it’s unlike me to be so heedless of my surroundings. But it is only Dímitra. She shoves my chiton towards me. I stand, pulling it over my head. It sticks to my wet skin, and she yanks the cloth roughly this way and that to help me arrange it.

“Reckless!” she hisses. “What were you thinking? We have galloped around the bay, out of our way, and now the horses are spent and it is barely past noon.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, but I’m not really. I don’t regret what I did at all, even if it has made Dímitra angry with me. I would do it again in a heartbeat, for I have already fallen under the spell of the sea. I try to explain, to make Dímitra understand the magic of it. “I have never seen the sea before and -”

“I sent a satyr after you,” she cuts across me. “I told you to come back and you deliberately disobeyed me.”

“I wanted to swim -”

“I don’t care what you wanted!” she snaps. Then, she seems to reconsider her words. “I only want to keep you safe,” she says, her voice softer.

“I was safe. I can swim. I’m strong.”

“Oh, I know you are,” she replies, and she doesn’t sound angry at all now. Instead, her tone is gentle and coaxing, as if she is humouring a child. “But you are very precious to me, Kóri - the most precious thing in the world.” She puts her arm around my waist and leads me out of the water and back onto the beach. The sand sticks to my wet feet as we walk. “You must listen to me because I know what is best for you.”

Under the trees at the edge of the sand, the others are waiting for us with the horses. I can see they’re annoyed with me too, and I avert my eyes, feeling a little guilty now, especially about the poor horses who have run so hard in the heat. They make camp, and I help rub down the animals whose sides are glistening with sweat. After we eat, everyone - nymphs, satyrs and horses - lies down in the shade to rest, but I cannot sleep. Far from tiring me out, my long swim has invigorated me. I remember something I saw as I approached the land - a collection of buildings just above the cove we are in. I am sure one of them at least is a temple, and I have never seen one up close. The people of my valley build no such structures - only homes of mud and wood. I get quietly to my feet, picking my way over the sleeping bodies of Dímitra’s entourage. It’s still hot, and my clothes have already dried, the fabric stiff and my skin sticky from the saltiness of the sea. I hope higher up the slope there will be a breath of wind from the sea.

Dímitra is still awake, however, and she calls across to me in a low voice from beneath the shade of a tree.

“Where are you going now?” She sounds irritated again.

“I only wanted to look at the temple. I’ve never seen one up close.”

Dímitra gives a cursory glance in the direction I am heading.

“One of Irá’s,” she says dismissively. “I have many dedicated to me too. One day, you will have temples built in your name, Kóri.” She holds out her hand to me, smiling now. “Come here, child,” she says.

I don't really want to, but I go to her. She indicates that I should sit down next to her on the ground, and we lean our backs against the rough bark of the tree. She puts her arm around my shoulders, pulling me close, so that my head rests on her shoulder. Then, she begins to gently stroke my hair.

“Kóri mou,” she whispers. “My daughter.” And the part of me that basked in her praise back in Arkadía wakes up inside me again. Maybe, I think, all those things she said to Ánitos last year about prophecies and power were just excuses. Maybe she just wants me to come home.

I lean into her, letting myself relax against the solid warmth of her. I close my eyes, realising I am tired after all. I hear her voice telling me about temples and sacrifices, worship and cults; saying that, together, we can carve our names into the stone tablets of history - immortal, eternal. But I am not really listening to her words, because I don’t care about fame and fate. All I really want from her is this; a warm embrace from the woman who birthed me. This thought brings a pang of guilt when I remember Ánitos, although I don’t think I will ever love anyone, even my own mother, like I love him. But still, it is nice to be held like this. I feel safe in her arms.

Just before I fall asleep, I remember, for no reason at all, the day I watched one of the mortals in the valley kill a pig. He had raised it from a piglet, fed it every day, and talked to it gently so that it knew his voice. It trusted him completely, so when the time came to slaughter it, it trotted towards him and laid its head in his lap. It never suspected anything about its imminent death - didn’t struggle, never even saw the knife.

---

We follow the coast for a while, but soon we leave the sea behind us. We are still travelling north. Dímitra fusses over me as we go. Am I hot? she asks. Am I cold? Have I had enough to eat? It feels like she is trying to make up for hundreds of years of mothering in a matter of days. Ánitos never asked me these questions; he trusted me to take care of myself.

Dímitra points things out to me as we pass - the roads to city-states, the crops the mortals grow, the clothes they wear - and she asks me what I like to wear and to eat, and how I spend my time. I try to please her, to give the right answers - to tell her something Érsi would approve of.

When we stop to make camp, I feel rather than see her use her power. In the places we rest, there is a shift in the air - a shimmer like a heat haze that I sense rather than see, and suddenly there are ripe berries growing on bushes where there should be none, thick patches of lush greens and root vegetables ready for harvesting, although it’s not their season. Hares and grouse wander past, there for the taking, and do not startle when they see us. One evening, as we sit on the ground at the base of an oak, green shoots push their way through the soil beneath her hands. I watch the tendrils snaking higher, wrapping themselves around the trunk of the tree, putting out white flowers followed by tiny beans that thicken and grow almost to the length of my forearm. The entire process takes only a moment.

Dímitra shifts to her knees and begins picking the beans, motioning for me to join her. Their crisp stalks break with a satisfying snap under my fingers. They seem as real as the beans Ánitos and I staked out beneath the trees in Arkadía - more real, even: greener and fleshier, the surface of their pods rough and cool.

“You told Ánitos I could have power,” I say, carefully not looking at her, not knowing if I am about to ask a stupid question. “Did you mean like you?”

“There are many kinds of power,” she says, sitting back on her heels. “The children of Krónos the Titan have great power: I command what grows on the land, your father the skies, and Poseidónas the waters. Irá has mastery over the lore of the mortals - their rituals and rites.”

I wait, but she doesn’t say more. “There are two others,” I venture. “Two other children of Krónos.” I remember the stories Ánitos told me. “Estía is the goddess of the hearth, and Plútonas the god of the dead.”

“They do not belong on Ólimbos. They threw their lot in with the mortals long ago.” She is condescending, but does she also sound bitter, betrayed? I’m not sure.

“What about the others?” I ask. “The other gods and goddesses of the Court of Ólimbos? Don’t they have power like you?”

“Hardly,” she says, and this time her condescension is obvious. “Some are merely skilled at certain arts, like Ártemis with her hunting and tracking. Of course, she can cast simple enchantments to keep her aim true, and to uncover that which wishes to remain unseen - small magics the likes of which even a skilled dryad might be capable of in time. But it does not matter now. Gone are the days when we shaped the cosmos.”

Her hands fall to her lap and her eyes grow distant for a moment. “I barely remember them now,” she says. “The world was very young. Everything was different then. … I was different then. I remember … forests rolling out across the valleys at my command, and flowers springing up in my footsteps. In those days, we did not live on Ólimbos. We walked and worked side-by-side with mortals.”

She draws a breath, seeming to collect herself and remember me. “But that was long ago. It is all about what we make mortals believe now. Athiná, for example, has hardly any power at all, beyond her beauty and her wit and the ability to weave a few basic enchantments, but mortals will kill for her, and die for her in droves. That is real power, Kóri. The world has changed and it is the only kind that matters now: the ability to mould the thoughts and intentions of others. The power we use most often on Ólimbos is really nothing more than enslaving the minds of men, and with your beauty and your heritage, and the cult I shall build around us, you should find that very easy.”

She smiles at me as if she is giving me a great gift, or letting me in on a wonderful secret, but I shudder. It sounds sinister.

To be continued …