🌚 Haides Rising; Haides Falling
6LS14: Our intrepid matchmaking team draws back and lets fly.
On this, our final day of the year, I present our final installment of The First Seed: KORE & KLYMENOS. Happy New Year, y’all!! ✨🥳✨
Previously on 6 LITTLE SEEDS:
…Eros mustered up every iota of reverent solemnity he possessed when he said, “Great Mistress of Crossings, I am on a delicate mission of which I fear only your six deft hands can ensure success.”
Hekate smirked from three mouths as her maiden form sing-songed, “Flatterer.”
“Nay, Wise One. Fact. My mark is a most formidable and elusive prey. Only with your help may his heart be pierced—and healed.”
All of her heads perked in intrigue. “Healed?” the matron said. “Well, you know I am even more susceptible to one in need of healing than I am to flattery.”
—Start at the beginning
—Mature Content Warnings for this series
HEKATE, LADY OF CROSSINGS, THE THREEFOLD GODDESS, MISTRESS OF MYSTERY, MAGIC & MOON
🌝🌗🌚
It was all too easy, for she was Haides’ favorite opponent to wager against. On the night of the full moon, it had become tradition for them to battle wits in a game of Rise and Fall over a carafe (or several) of blood-nectar. In the Underworld, the ensorcelled view of the midnight sky was reversed, so as Selene shone her radiant face upon the Upper Realms, those on the other side of the Impassable Threshold enjoyed their darkest night.
All evening, the Lord of the Underworld and the Lady of Crossings would wager over the death-tolls of some war or event that only Hekate could foresee with her maidenly mind. Burgeoning with all that the future held, her youthful, prescient self would set the board, then depart along with her crone form. She refrained from using her powers of foresight or her inability to forget a single nugget of history. Rather, she faced the Commander of Multitudes neutrally, in her Form of Present Knowing, so they could engage in a well-matched contest.
Lost bets included things like being pinned breathlessly beneath Styx’s boulder for a day while the Underworld heckled and threw beetles, or subjecting one’s chained, splayed flesh to Kerberos’ vicious viper-mane, or pressing one’s face and genitals against the Walls of Bronze and Night—a zinging zap of an experience, or tongue-kissing Thanatos, Death-Bringer.
(Hekate never truly minded that last. She may have chosen eternal virginity, but Thanatos’ kiss was…hair-raising, to say the least. To enjoy it, one simply had to refrain from inhaling through one’s nostrils while close enough to smell his death-breath.)
The stakes of tonight’s game were somewhat different, as were the rules, but Haides didn’t know that. After all, the Lady of Magic and Ever-Shifting Mysteries had never sworn to play fair, especially not with him.
While Hekate’s middle-aged self got him good and drunk over the game board, her elderly and youthful forms visited her favorites in the Elysian Paradise. Once the alibi for both crone and maiden had been established, her elderly form left the maiden behind to enjoy feasting and dancing with the Honored Dead.
She slipped her wrinkled, stooped self down, down, down through the festering depths of Erebos, the primordial Darkness of the Underworld. It took a mortal shade nine days to make that plummet, at last splatting before the gate of Tartaros’ prison. Hekate sprinted through space and skimmed time, arriving in nine seconds. She was one of the few to possess a key to that gate, so she strode in as though on official business.
Her wicked grin flashed. Which I am.
Tartaros grinned back, a yawning primordial pit of never-ending hunger, forever raging, eternally storming. Lightning crackled here and blasted there, yet the cloudy skies never produced a drop of rain. Only the pockmarking of ice craters gave relief from the oppressive heat of his belly, although the plunge into sudden deep freeze was even worse than the stenchy swelter. In every direction, the conical pit rumbled and belched up plumes of fire at random—never where Hekate stepped, of course. They had come to an understanding long ago, she and Tartaros.
He would not discharge lava up her skirts, and she would not retaliate with potions and enchantments that gave him bellyache.
Today, his labyrinthine ridges and caverns seemed to shift in her favor, rather than their customary disorienting twists and turns, which allowed her to traverse the pit in record time. Apparently even the Prison of the Damned favored this quest to see its warden finally wed. The rest of the Underworld certainly did. They had been vibrating and giggling all night, quickly squashed whenever Haides passed by.
“What in damnation are they on about now?” he had asked, upon sitting down before the game board.
“Oh, I think it’s still that Ares business,” Hekate had quipped, much to the chagrin of the Notorious One. “More blood-nectar, my lord?”
Of course he had wanted another cup after that reminder. More than one sniggering chthonic plotter had needed to be stifled with her Evil Eye, but in all, the Underworld had kept her and Eros’ secret. The realm might be a lot of lip-flappers and gossips, but when it came to hushing up and feigning placidity in the face of their lord, they were masterful.
As was Hekate.
At last, she arrived at her destination: the cage that housed those most heinous of criminals, the Titans.
Hekate was technically a Titaness herself, but she had sided with young Zeus and his Olympian siblings when they overthrew their father, Kronos, and some of his own siblings. As such, she had been awarded many boons and powers, including the unlimited right to cross back and forth through Zeus’ new wardings that kept ghosts, daimons, and all other residents of the Lands of the Dead trapped behind the Walls of Bronze and Night.
After his coronation as King of Olympos, Lawgiver Supreme, Lord of Lightning and Sky On High, Zeus had requested Hekate’s help to work such magic. He had also asked the Divine Sorceress to keep performing her duties as guardian and key-bearer to all important places in the Great Below, like the Gate of Shades.
And the Titans’ cage.
Once arrived at the flaming bars that detained those growly behemoths, she lurked in the shadows, dangling her keys and whispering reminders of all the insults and injuries they had borne at the hands of their conquerors. “And oh, do you remember how those monstrous, one-eyed spawn of Gaia came to the Upstart’s aid?”
The Upstart—that was the snide name some of the most ancient immortals on either side of the Impassable had given to Zeus. Others called him The Usurper. The Titans roiled and boiled every time they so much as heard mention of him. The same was true of the one-eyed Kyklopses.
“And ah, what glorious gifts they gave to those three traitorous Olympian brothers—the bolt, the trident, the helmet—all wielded against you! And woe, when Briarios crushed Koios inside his hundred arms and flung him against the mountain! And lo, how that wicked Upstart stood upon the neck of his father, grinding his face into the muck and…”
Detail after detail, Hekate dredged it all up, until those towering lummoxes arose rumbling, then grumbling, then growling, then howling. Just before the Moon reached her zenith, they rallied to declare rebellion and marched toward the gate, dragging their chains in a clanking, frothing, fist-raised throng.
Satisfied, Hekate chuckled and melted into the gloom. From there, she and the Underworld put on a fabulous show.
Her adolescent form ceased dancing around the fire. Her prescient eyes went black, then filled with stars. She let out a horrified scream and vanished from Elysion. Bursting into Haides’ gaming room, she cried, “Oh, Illustrious King! I have had the most villainous vision! The Titans! The Titans!”
Right on cue, those vile colossi hurled the first boulders at their gate. The alarm network of daimons, skulls, and stones reached Haides’ palace just as her words finished sounding. Warning screeches blared through the eternally gaping mouths of the gargoyles that lined the edges of the gaming room.
As Haides leapt to his feet, Hekate bounded after him. She clutched his arm and piled on worry from her middle-aged mouth of Present Knowing. “Oh, no! Oh, woe! Even now they assault the gate!”
Her maiden form continued spouting a poetic garble of doom as her crone form transpired into their midst, waving hands and tearing at her tattered veil, adding her voice to the overlapping cacophony. “Oh, Mighty Commander of Multitudes, remember well what happened the last time the Titans rebelled. The fractured walls! The crashing ceiling! Woe, how Iapetos pierced the warding and all those ghosts escaped!”
All around, the light globes moaned, the gargoyles groaned, the floor and walls trembled, the ceiling wept. “And I’ve just finally gotten over the last time I was fractured! Oh, woe! Oh, no!”
Even Kerberos’ triple-voiced howling could be heard from the other side of Akherousian Mere.
At last, Haides threw back his head to bellow, “DAMNATION, BE SILENT!”
The dread shockwaves rippled across the realm, and the whole place stilled, but for the quivering of the globes and a few stray tears still splattering shoulders from the ceiling.
An incredibly drunk Haides had to steady himself by gripping the back of his chair. “Wailing spawn of Kokytos, ichor of Night! Let me fucking hear!” Pushing himself back upright, he raked back the scraggly curls that hung in his face. “Infernal fuck,” he muttered. At last, he got his eyes to focus. He pointed at Hekate’s Form of Present Knowing. “Status.”
She bowed and reported, “The Titans have begun ripping up chunks of rock and hurling them at the gate of their prison, my lord. Thus far it holds fast.”
“You.” He pointed at her Form of Future Seeing. “Speak.” With a sharper glare, he added, “Plainly.”
Hekate’s maidenly eyes glowed and then darkened once more as she watched the events that would unfold this night and beyond. They were the same images she had seen upon laying hands on Eros’ arrows, so she squashed her grin in favor of an expressionless stare. She did not divulge what she saw. Neither did she weave vague threads around a poetic fabrication that could be interpreted a number of different ways. Instead, she committed a crime she never would have dared under other circumstances.
She told a boldfaced lie to the King of Shades.
“The cage shall hold the Titans fast;
The triple-warded walls shall last.
But only if the Specter King
Shall thrice ‘round his domain ring.
See defenses well in tune
Before the zenith of full moon.”
Haides’ face contorted in a wince. “Shit and piss of the fallen!” His palms slammed together, a sound nearly as sonorously deafening as his voice when he summoned the only other deity to whom Zeus had granted unrestricted passage across the Impassable Threshold. “HERMES!”
Hektate’s three forms exchanged knowing smirks.
So did the gargoyles.
Haides didn’t notice.
The Conductor of Souls materialized upon the table, disheveled and dripping sweat, scattering game pieces in every direction. His customary traveler’s cape and hat had been discarded. Instead, his slim, runner’s physique sprawled naked but for his winged boots. “Oh, my honey-flower, of course I’ve never felt like—what the—?”
Haides loomed over him, growling. “Good evening, Nephew. Have I interrupted your merriment with the needs of the Cosmos?”
Hermes’ eyes bulged and he squeaked. Crimson-faced, he lurched into the air, boots flapping wildly. He tried to swipe his dusty-brown curls into some semblance of decorum before dropping like a stone to the floor where he bowed over his knee. “Mighty Lord! Great Lady. W-what has—?”
Hekate touched her middle finger of Present Knowing to Hermes’ forehead. She did not gift the messenger with instantaneous insight, for he didn’t need it. They had plotted at length yesterday, so she sent him her gratitude, along with a pulse of impressed amusement for his fading erection. It was shiny and slick. Nice touch, that.
It’s all in the details, lovey, Hermes sent back. He cast a ghost of a wink before feigning shock almost as convincing as hers. “The Titans!” he cried with just the right amount of horror. In a ripple of light, his travel clothes whisked onto him from where he had abandoned them on a nymph’s riverbank. “Uncle! The message!”
Once Haides had seared his request into a hunk of stone ripped from the nearest wall, Hermes vanished with it. Six-and-a-half seconds later, he returned bearing an Olympian sanction from Zeus’ own hand. Lightning-burned into a piece of oak, it granted the Lord of the Underworld the temporary power to cross the Walls of Bronze and Night—once to ascend and once to return. Hekate gave a wry sniff when she noted the special conditions, a tiny etching along the bottom of the wood: the pass was only good for the next four minutes.
More than enough time.
The moment Hermes handed it over, a blinding flash engraved Haides’ palm with an eagle radiating bolts of lightning.
The dark king transpired in the stables with the others on his tail. When he glanced down, stunned to find himself still in the spidersilk apron he had been wearing all evening, his brow furrowed. “Where’s my bloody helmet and—”
“No time!” Hekate cried from all three of her mouths. She had enshrouded his Helmet of Invisibility and armor behind several layers of centuries. Without her help, it would take him three moons to find them. She only needed these few minutes. In a triple-voiced cacophony of encouragement, she bustled around him, shooing and tugging him to his golden, jewel-encrusted chariot. “The moon will crest on the Other Side any second now. Just go! Go! Ride swiftly! Fly true!”
And so he did.
And so stealthy Eros shot three of his gold-tipped arrows.
Thwip!
Thwip!
Thwunnng!
They did fly true, straight into the heart of the all-too-visible, unarmored Unseen One.
As Hekate watched with her mind of Present Knowing, she returned to the gaming room, salivating and grinning. Gaming, indeed. There she gave moment-by-moment updates to the river beetles who awaited her. They zipped and swooped out from the palace in every direction, carrying the news hither and thither. The winds, rocks, and rivers took it from there. Upon delivery of that long-awaited news—“Eros has struck the King of the Dead!”—mirth roared from one end of the Underworld to the other.
When Haides thundered back into his lair and slammed the Earth shut behind him, the cheers cut short. From every direction, a myriad hopeful voices pelted him. “Well, Lord? Are the walls secure?”
“Will they hold, Great King?”
“Are we safe?”
“Yes, yes,” Haides assured them. “All is well. Be at ease.” He jumped down from his chariot, tossed the reins to a bowing daimon, and materialized back in his hearth room where Hekate pretended to walk circles around the table.
She had converged into her singular countenance so she would only have one expression to wrangle into severity.
The King of the Dead flopped down into the waiting embrace of his cushioned chair, swiped back his sweaty hair, and heaved a sigh of relief. “Almighty f—”
He blinked hard to find three dove-flighted arrows sticking up in front of his nose. He blinked again, then once more as though waiting for his vision to clear and prove that he was, in fact, hallucinating. At last, his gaze ran down the length of the woody shafts and halted where they protruded from his breast. He squinted, reading what was engraved upon each one.
Passionate Agitation.
Inflamer.
Fated Love.
Haides’ eyes grew round in stages. He trembled, then shuddered, then jumped to his feet and shook the multitudinous layers of the Earth with his bellow. “EROOOOOS!”
Safe in Aphrodite’s temple on Olympos, the Mother and Son of Love pressed their gilded heads together over her Descrying Bowl and giggled in triumph. Hekate longed to join them as she peered at them with her mind of Present Knowing.
Outwardly, she donned her most doting face. Before the Notorious One could fly into one of his fits of wrath, she said, “Hush, now, young Haides. Do not fret.”
“I’m not fucking fretting,” he shot back. “I’m fucking furious!”
“I know you are.” Coming to stand before him, she laid soft hands upon his quaking shoulders. The comforting waves that flooded through her palms were powerful enough to soothe a whole battlefield of the wrongfully slain. “It’ll be all right, my darling, my dear. Just let me pull these out and—”
“No!” Haides jerked away and began pacing furrows into the ornate carpet. “No, the moment you do that I’ll forget who cursed me.”
“Only his lead-tipped darts shoot curses. These are—”
“That puffed-up, sneaking little carrion-eater! I will have him dragged down here by the Furies, and so help me Nemesis! He will undo what he’s done. Then I will have his throat ripped out by fire-piranhas for eternity. I will have his little boy’s meddling prick swelled by she-daimons, only to be chomped off and spat into the blazes of the Pyriphlegethon, over and over and over for all—”
Hekate grabbed the raging king’s face and dragged it toward her until he met her eyes. “Calm down. She will be yours as certainly as you are hers, I promise.”
Haides’ nose wrinkled up. “Who?”
“You know who. The one who already burns in your heart.”
He wrenched himself away again. “You don’t know what you’re babbling about, old shrew.”
“Of course I do, young wretch.” Hekate reached for the arrows again but he swatted her wrinkled hands away. She tittered. “Trust me. This is a good thing. I have foreseen it.”
His eyes blazed as he rounded on her. “Foreseen! You let this happen to me? With no warning?”
She fixed him with a bat of her maidenly gaze.
As comprehension fell upon him, he flinched as if eviscerated. “You…you were complicit.”
“We all were, sweetheart.”
“All? Who…?”
“Me, the realm—”
“My realm?” He flashed betrayal at the upended game board, the lurking gargoyles and globes, the damp ceiling.
“And Eros, Aphrodite, Hermes. Even your dear old gran.”
Haides’ face contorted. “How did you get Gaia involved in all this?”
Hekate offered up her own grandmotherly smile, then took his face back in her tender grasp. “You’ll soon understand.” Two more hands extended from her torso to clutch his fingertips. She pressed them to her lips.
As her tranquilizing magic began to settle into him, he winced away, saying, “Don’t,” but she held fast.
“Darling, this is for your own good.”
Her third pair of hands snatched the arrows from his breast.
His face twisted in agony. “Agh! Three-faced, baying inferno-bitch—”
The arrows disintegrated, and with them, his memory of being pierced. The spell was sealed. The rage melted from him and he sighed. A gooey look transformed his features—an expression Hekate thought to never witness upon the Tormentor of Tartaros.
Haides blinked several times. His gaze darted around the chamber. “I—I—”
She patted his cheek. “You have secured the Underworld, my lord. The Titans remain locked up tight. All is well.”
His head gave off several absent nods as he fought to orient himself.
She held out his cup. “More blood-nectar?”
“I...no. I think I’ve had more than enough tonight. Is Hermes still here? Hermes! Herm— Oh.” As the Olympian trickster glided out of the shadows on his winged boots to offer a floating bow, the Lord of the Underworld draped a heavy arm on his shoulder and dragged him close, a most un-Haides-like gesture of intimacy. “I need you to deliver another message to Zeus. Right now.”
Hekate hid her smile behind three layers of nonchalance.
Hermes did not. His sly beam lit up the room. “Why, immediately, Uncle. It would be my express pleasure. Would you like me to inform him that the walls are secure?”
“W-what?” The lovesick Haides halted in his tracks. “Oh. Yes. Yes, of course. But, no. There’s something else. More important.”
“Oh, my-my,” the messenger said. “And whatever could that be?”
Haides glanced about the room, then frowned. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.” He vanished.
Hermes turned to Hekate. “Where did he go?”
After a quick peer into the present moment, she smirked. “His treasury.”
“Ohhhh…” The Conductor of Souls waggled his eyebrows and chuckled, along with the whole room.
After careful deliberation, Haides returned with another stone. A diamond this time, raw and huge. With a few precision bashes of his hand, a flawless jewel emerged, cut with a flat surface into which he seared his words. It was so heavy that he had to hoist it into his nephew’s bottomless purse himself.
Hermes’ mouth quirked up. He hid it in a deep bow. “I’ll deliver this to my father right away. Have a lovely night, Uncle. Lady.” He shared one last, lingering look with Hekate from the corners of his eyes. Eternally enamored of her, he blushed, smiled, glanced away. Then, in a flash of light and a cloud of feathers, he vanished.
Haides left the gaming room without so much as a word to anyone. Head in the mist, he wandered off to wherever it was that swooning, arrow-shot Lords of the Underworld went while awaiting a reply to their marriage proposals.
Hekate sat down before the mess of their game board and poured herself a rewarding draught of blood-nectar. Then she picked up one of the scattered black horses. She made clattering-hoof noises with her tongue as she galloped it across the table. The horse reared in time with her loud neigh. When its hooves came down, it toppled one of the grand fortresses that Haides had favored. With an oh-so-satisfactory crashing-down noise, she placed the horse on top of the wreckage.
She took a long sip from her silver cup. As the headiness of the blood-nectar worked at the back of her skull and the warmth massaged her belly, a bit of the red liquid ran down her chin like what trickled from her sacrificial offerings. She wiped at it, sucked it from her fingertips, leered. Lastly, she set the horse in front of a larger fortress that remained standing.
It didn’t matter that the Lord of the Underworld had been winning at Rise and Fall for the past two hours of their match. It didn’t matter if he rose up in victory to claim his rosy-cheeked bride against insurmountable odds, for he had already fallen.
In his wake, so would the rest of them.
And that concludes The First Seed: KORE & KLYMENOS.
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