Destroyer of Light (30 page)

Eris sauntered past the hosts of the Underworld and opened the gates with a groan. She hummed to herself and skipped inside the courtyard. People shuffled about the square, muttering the same wordless nonsense as the guards.

One burst out in laughter, startling Ares. Two musicians played, one so out of tune on his flute it made him queasy. A number of Sisyphus’s guards stood around a great barrel of barley mead, their cups sloshing fat drops of thick malt all over the ground, the barrel’s spigot a wellspring trickling into the street. Their words rose and fell, but they said nothing intelligible.

If Ares were drunk, more drunk than he’d ever been in his life, this place might feel normal. But he was stone sober, and fear— that detestable emotion, his greatest and most hated frailty— clawed up his throat with every step he took. A child loped past them with a moan and only when Ares looked at the boy’s face did he realize that his eyes— and everyone’s eyes— were closed.

“Gods above, what dark magic is this?” he whispered.

“Something the gods above aren’t capable of,” Hades said. “You wanted to charge the walls of Ephyra, Ares? I give you a better strategy— walk right through their front door.”

***

Thanatos stared at Sisyphus before belting out a painful laugh. “You… are you serious?
Kill
Hades?”

“Why would I not be? I can do this to
you
, can’t I?”

Death’s laugh turned into a howl of pain as Sisyphus twisted the
doru
slowly, its sharp tip digging further into his flesh. Gold-tinged ichor dripped onto the floor. He gritted his teeth and looked away.

“You have no idea what you’re calling down on yourself!”

“I think I do,” Sisyphus said. “I know what I risk to finally end the tyranny of Olympus. Can you think of a better reason than the thousands who suffered and died during Demeter’s winter?”

“A winter you made worse…”

“If so, my part pales compared to the destruction caused by the Bitch of Eleusis. Must all suffer because of a petty marriage dispute? With you here, Thanatos, all men are immortal. The equals of the gods. And once the gods are dead, we won’t have to live through your famines, your plagues, war and pandemonium, old age… But a point must be made to Zeus. The gods must surrender quickly, or there will be a bloodletting that could cost the lives of all mankind. How better can I show the Olympians that I am now the arbiter of life and death than to destroy one of the three rulers of the cosmos? The
God of the Dead
no less?”

He twisted the spear again and Thanatos screamed through his teeth, fearing they would break with how tightly he clenched his jaw. Through pain-blurred eyes he saw Voleta stand and wrap the gold veil around her body.
Run, Voleta. Run. Get away from here.
How he wished he could speak with her where Sisyphus could not hear her— that they had the kind of bond his parents shared, or his king and queen shared. “So confident in your victory. You are the arbiter of nothing! It’s only a matter of time before they—”

“They?” Sisyphus stopped and raised his eyebrows. “Just how many are coming to your aid?”

Thanatos was about to answer when Voleta filled the room with an angry cry, female, primal, and determined. She threw her legs around Sisyphus’s waist, knocking the air out of him, and rained blows on his shoulders and back. The
doru
clanged loudly to the floor, and the king of Ephyra twisted fruitlessly. Voleta wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing with all the strength she could muster. Sisyphus gripped her wrists, trying to pry the girl’s arms from around his throat.

“Run! What are you doing?!” Thanatos screamed. “Run!”

Sisyphus stumbled and reached back to yank at her hair but cursed when her teeth closed on his hand. He threw an elbow into her ribs and she recoiled, loosening her grip on his throat. He reared his head back, crushing her nose. Voleta yelped as he twisted her around to capture her in his arms, then kicked her feet furiously before going limp and crying.

“Shh-sh-shh… What’s this?” He cooed gently in her ear. Sisyphus gripped her jaw, forcing her to look up at Thanatos. “You cannot possibly feel sorry for this creature, can you? This baneful
thing
that killed your kin? So many died during the winter. Surely those you cared for were among them?”

A trickle of blood leaked from Voleta’s nose and tears pasted strands of her blonde hair to her cheeks. She stared up at Thanatos, eyes wide and desperate, unable to free herself from the king’s grasp. She sniffled and the blood dripped on Sisyphus’s hand. He spun her around and let her go. Voleta stood frozen.

“But all women are compassionate creatures, are they not? Is that what this is about? Hmm?” He smiled and tenderly brushed her hair from her eyes. When he saw the rivulet of blood running from her nose and the drops on his hand, his face fell. He lifted his hand to his mouth and tasted it.

Voleta heaved a sob and started backing away.

“Lampades…” Sisyphus growled and advanced on her, his blue eyes like shards of ice.

“No, please…” Her feet failed her. “I’m not—”

“Hecate’s spy. I know what the blood of a nymph looks like, girl,” he said, gripping her shoulders. “And what it tastes like.”

“Please…” she sobbed, and looked up at Death. “Please! Thana—”

The back of Sisyphus’s hand cracked against her cheekbone, sending her to the floor. When her head hit the limestone, she stopped moving, her eyes closed, unconscious. The golden veil billowed around her motionless form and settled.

“Voleta!” Thanatos yelled.

Sisyphus turned to him, a cold smile rising on his face. “You know her.”

Death only glared, frozen.
You fool, you great ignominious fool
, he thought to himself.

“But the Lampades are part of Hecate’s retinue, and if legend serves, you two have aeons of enmity between you.”

He remained silent, his lips pursed.

“So how is it that you know this whore?” Sisyphus picked up the
doru
and calmly thrust it back into Thanatos’s ribs. “What is she to you?”

Light crackled behind his eyes and agony washed over him anew.

“How many are coming?”

“All of them!” He bellowed. “
Every last one of them!
”

“Who? The Lampades? The Stygians? The Cocytides?” Sisyphus taunted. “A whole clutch of pretty little nymphs you’ve fornicated with, on their way to save you?”

He screamed again, then glared at Sisyphus and spat on him. The king propped the
doru
on the floor and stepped back, wiping the spittle from his nose and cheek. Thanatos whispered to himself.

“What was that?”

“I said
bastard
!” Death snarled.

“Is that all?”

“You…” he smiled. “I welcome this. Whatever you can dream up, it only gives me more cause to kill you as slowly, as excruciatingly as I can manage, Aeolides,” he said, hissing Sisyphus’s birth name.

“From up there?” Sisyphus folded his arms across his chest. “That would be
quite
the thing to see.”

“The torments you’ve designed for me will be a
festival
compared to what we will inflict on you… every day a bitter agony… until the ending of the world… And they will be here soon enough.”

“And again, boy, who is this ‘they’?”

“
Every member of my house
,” Thanatos yelled. “My mother… My numberless brothers and sisters… The wrath of the Queen…”

Sisyphus chuckled and shook his head. “I have summoned enough power to hold back the House of Nyx. And do you really think I’m concerned about a little flower girl? She’ll perish faster than her husband. Truly, I cannot thank you enough, son of Nyx, for all you’ve done for me.”

He coughed, trying to ignore the pain of the
doru
digging into him. “And why is that?”

“Because you, Thanatos— and remember this when you watch each of them die—
you
delivered into my hands the means by which I can end the gods. Capturing you and keeping you here is only the honey on the cake. Why do you think I drew you out and let you pursue me when I could have more easily imprisoned your brother?” He picked up the curved sickle, adamantine, its blade flashing in the light of the column braziers. Sisyphus examined it. “You handed to me, on a silver plate, the weapon of the Terrible One. The very sickle Kronos Pantodynamos Ouranides used to destroy his own father. And because I hold you here, death exists in this room alone. If everyone outside these walls is now blessed with eternal life, then the only true power in this world is death, and the cosmos belongs to he who wields it.”

Thanatos laughed softly, as much as he could without rattling the spear and causing himself more pain. “You have no idea how that works.”

Voleta stirred to consciousness with a low whimper, blinking and trying to get up. A dark bruise was blossoming on her cheek and blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. Thanatos glanced back at her silently, trying to tell her to be brave. It wouldn’t be long now…

“No, I don’t honestly,” the god king replied, twisting the sickle in his hands. He faced Voleta. “But that’s easily remedied. What do you say to a demonstration?”

Thanatos opened his eyes wide. “Sisyphus, no… No!”

“After all, I can only prove its effectiveness in your presence, Death.”

***

Ares walked through the agora. Flames licked up from the great raised hearth fire and people stood around it, mumbling, their eyes shut. A soldier staggered toward him, spear in hand. The God of War skirted away from him and drew his sword.

“You should put that away,” Morpheus said. “No sense in startling the poor hoplite. You might give him a nightmare.”

“What if I did?” he said, cautiously sheathing his weapon.

“Best we not find out here and now, no?”

“They could surround us. And since they cannot die…” Hypnos answered for his elder brother. “Right now they are dreaming of exactly what they were doing before they fell asleep. At a glance it would appear that everyone is going about their business, as though we never arrived. But if you disturb them too much…”

Eris wandered over to one of the womenfolk, about to tap her on the nose. Ares lunged and grabbed her hand. “Touch nothing.”

She pouted, but obeyed, following them past the agora, up the great steps and through the colonnades of the palace. The atrium beyond was wide open, its doors leading to many halls. Ares brandished his sword instinctually.

Hades nodded and reached over his shoulder to unsheathe his own. “We’re not sure if Hypnos’s poppies worked in here. There might be another spell cast over the palace. Hecate?”

“I cannot feel anything,” she said, then smiled, pointing at a guard in the hallway who leaned against a column, flirting in his sleep with a swaying, snoring serving girl. The urn in her hand trickled rivulets of sheep’s milk, making patterns across the tiled floor.

“Good,” Hades said under his breath, putting his sword away.

“Wait,” she said, her eyes growing wide and her lips quivering. She clutched a hand to her breast and her voice faltered. “Atropos, no…”

The witch hobbled a few steps, then ran down a hallway. Persephone picked up her skirts and followed, Nyx, Hades and Ares behind them, Hypnos helping Morpheus keep pace.

“What’s wrong?” she asked Hecate.

“No, Atropos… Fates, please don’t cut…”

“Persephone, get back!” her husband yelled. She slowed her pace as Ares and her husband rushed past her and they overtook Hecate, reaching the ornate double door at the end of the hall. Ares grunted and kicked its lock, the doors slamming apart on its hinges and wood splintering against the adjacent walls.

Hecate faltered, her hand clamped over her mouth, and Persephone caught her in her arms, holding her tightly. She squinted in the bright light of the braziers, peering into the room beyond the doors. Above a jewel encrusted golden throne, a pale figure was strung up in chains. She gasped. Thanatos. A spear was propped up against— no—
inside
his ribcage. Tears ran down his face and he stared, stricken and unmoving, at a crimson pile of cloth on the floor.

“Lord Aidoneus,” Sisyphus addressed him calmly.

A
spray of red marred
the king’s golden robes and dripped from the inner curve of the sickle.

“Careful of the blade,” Ares cautioned. “All of you, stay away!”

Hades stepped to Sisyphus’s unguarded side. The god king turned to him and feinted a lunge at Hecate and Persephone, forcing Aidon to slide back between him and the women. Sisyphus bolted for the wall, wrenching a golden sword free from a jeweled display. He it in front of him, the blade shaking as Aidoneus advanced.

“You know what I hold.”

“I see it, murderer,” he growled, circling the Ephyrean and lowering his helm over his face. “A sword in the wrong hand…”

Sisyphus dodged to the right and Hades drew his weapon, swinging it in a hard arc toward the mortal king.

“…Made from the wrong metal…”

The blade cleaved in half in the king’s hands.

“…and wielded against one of the deathless ones.”

Sisyphus threw the jeweled handle to the side and blocked Aidon’s next lunge with the sickle. Sparks flew when they met. Aidon’s eyes widened; he hadn’t anticipated the king’s unnatural strength. Hades finally pushed him back. Sisyphus swung the sickle sloppily and Aidon ducked out of the way, respecting the dangerous weapon. Another lunge, and Aidon knocked the sickle off course, giving ground as Sisyphus hacked at the air between them. Aidoneus vanished from sight and Sisyphus stopped his advance, turning about. “Coward!”

Sisyphus turned his attention toward Ares. The God of War stood frozen, his eyes trained on the sickle, his sword shaking in his hand. Sisyphus advanced on him, the sickle held low at his side. The God of War backed up and felt his heel hit the wall.

“Ares. I’m sure your father will take me just as seriously when his only—” His breath and speech were cut off. Blood soaked his robes and a glint of metal pierced through his chest from behind. Sisyphus looked down in shock.

Aidoneus appeared behind the king, his hand gripping the mortal’s shoulder. He shoved the blade further between his ribs to the hilt with another wet slice, then pushed Sisyphus off his sword and onto the floor. He stood for a moment over the still and crumpled body and stepped over it, shaking off the blood, making his way to Ares’s side.

“You all right, boy?” Aidon placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Voleta, sweet child!” Hecate cried, letting go of Persephone and running for the pile of crimson fabric in front of the throne. Persephone followed her. As she drew closer, the air left her lungs. The cloth was dyed by blood, parts of the veil still gold, and a fair-haired girl lay inside it. Hecate picked her up, cradling the girl to her chest and repeating the nymph’s name over and over through her tears.

“Hecate,” Thanatos slurred. “Hecate, I’m sorry. Please forgive me! Voleta… Voleta…” he mumbled, echoing Hecate, his head lolling to the side.

Hecate held the girl and Persephone pulled the spear from Thanatos’s side. Her eyes blurred with tears. Sisyphus had slashed the girl’s throat open from ear to ear. Hecate supported Voleta’s lifeless head, tipping it forward before rocking her body in her arms.

“I’m sorry…” Thanatos kept repeating. “Please…”

Nyx and Hypnos flew from the doorway to Thanatos’s side.

The Goddess of the Night turned and gasped. “Hades! Behind you!!”

Aidon whirled, his sword held at guard. Sparks flew as curved blade met heavy bronze, and the light illuminated Aidon’s horrified face. Sisyphus grinned and Ares crowded toward the wall, open-mouthed and wide-eyed. The king spoke, calm and measured. “Merope was a Pleiade, a daughter of Atlas, was she not?”

Hades landed a kick to his gut, hoping it would break the king’s grip on Thanatos’s sickle. Sisyphus rolled and stood, weapon still in hand, and Aidoneus circled him so he stood between his wife and the Ephyrean sorcerer. “Abomination…”

Persephone stared at Sisyphus, seething. He had killed Merope. He’d killed the poor girl lying in Hecate’s arms. He was trying to kill Aidoneus… her husband… separate them forever… Everything she’d fought for, everything she’d done, would be meaningless. The Queen took a step toward her husband, balling her fists, feeling fire rise within her.

“Merope was only a nymph,” Sisyphus said. “Their kind is only immortal within sight of their domain. I chose well when I married her. She and her sisters were creatures of the stars. And now I draw my immortality from the heavens above.”

He stepped toward Aidon, the sickle held out in front of him. Ares mustered his courage and slunk away from the wall, stalking like a lion.

“Where I’m sending you, there is only darkness.” Aidoneus shifted from foot to foot, flourishing his sword and feinting to hold Sisyphus’s attention, not affording Ares a glance lest Sisyphus notice his approach. Zeus would never forgive him if his only son was maimed. Or killed.

“So long as the stars shine in the sky, I will be deathless,” he declared with a smile.

“Then you can be deathless without an arm!” Ares charged, slicing upward with his sword. Sisyphus startled and turned as the blade caught on the curve of the sickle and wrenched it from his grip. The sickle skittered across the floor to the wall.

Sisyphus turned pale, and sprinted after it. Hades reached toward the sickle with his open hand and it wavered and vanished in smoke, pushed into the ether. The Ephyrean stopped short.

Hades and Ares advanced on him, swords drawn. Sisyphus closed his eyes, muttering an incantation in Minoan. A golden crack stretched along the wall, and he stepped through and disappeared with it.

Aidoneus stopped in his tracks.

Ares threw his helm loudly the floor, stomping his feet and cursing with every word he could find in Greek and Theoi.

Persephone stalked forward, her fingernails digging half moons into her palms, her jaw set tight, and her eyes burning with unshed tears. “No…”

Hecate raised her head. “My queen…”

Nyx called out to her. “Persephone, please!”

“No…” Persephone snarled. Suffering surrounded her. Disorder, death, the danger the condemned man posed to her husband. Aidon had protected
her
first and foremost. He’d endangered himself because of
her
. Persephone’s throat tightened and her shoulders stiffened. A flood of unwanted images of what might have been raced through her mind. She tore her asphodel crown from her head and threw it to the floor. “No more!”

The crown burst into flames. Fire whirled across the floor, twisting like the great river Phlegethon, growing under her control. Hades stepped back to his wife’s side and Ares crowded against the arm of the throne. Persephone closed her eyes and concentrated, seeing silver strands of light and a warm glow of crimson stretching in every direction. She found the shadow of a man. It was just like her practice with Aidon, passing objects back and forth through the ether, except this one was in motion. Sisyphus was trying with all his might to fly over land and sea, fleeing them. She could hear the same chanted incantation growing closer, closer as she bridged the space between them.

She reached out with her consciousness and grasped at his ankle. Sisyphus yelped and struggled as she gripped him harder, reeling him out of the ether, up through the maw underneath. She heard his frightened cry come closer, then cease once it was above her. When Persephone opened her eyes Sisyphus, the sorcerer king of Ephyra, was pinned against the ceiling of his throne room, gasping for air.

“Enough!” she yelled. Her irises were circled with flame.

His breathing steadied and he looked down at her. She could see astonishment flit across his eyes. He’d expected that Aidoneus had dragged him from the ether. Sisyphus smiled at Persephone. “Demeter’s daughter,” he crooned, then snarled at her husband. “Hades! You still send your whore bride to deal with me? A sniveling concubine? How did you and yours fare the last time you did such a thing?” He was trying to break her concentration, Persephone knew— to escape back into the void.

Persephone felt her husband’s rage building beside her and placed her other hand on Aidon’s arm to calm him. She saw Voleta, lying cold and limp in Hecate’s arms, then thought about Merope. Her friend’s voice echoed in memory from the depths of Tartarus, telling how this man had nearly destroyed her to cheat his way out of his fate.
He drugged me with black henbane so I couldn’t cry out and broke my legs so I couldn’t escape.

She felt her essence wrapped around Sisyphus, holding him to the ceiling. Persephone focused her power on his legs, and with a snap, she shattered one bone, then the next. His cries filled the chamber and he writhed in pain, his body wriggling against the forces that constrained him. “I have never seen anyone more afraid of their end than
you
, Sisyphus.”

He whimpered between labored gasps.

“What’s the matter? Have you no more to say to me than ‘Demeter’s daughter’?”

“Mercy… Mercy, please, I don’t deserve—”

“As you showed mercy? The pain you suffer now is a reminder, the first of many, of what you did to Merope. To others.”

She looked down at her ring of fire, twisting with silver threads, and willed its path to Tartarus. Black flames twisted at its center, then a shrill chant, growing louder from the Pit.
Praxidike… Wanakt-ja… Wanakt-ja…

Ares yelped and clapped his hand to his mouth before he could scream again. Black diaphanous creatures emerged from the Pit, crawling through the flames and across the limestone, filling the throne room. They crept up the walls, latching onto the stones and the ceiling, surrounding Sisyphus until the hall was black.

“Mercy!” He stared into their pupilless eyes. “Please, gentle queen, I beg you!”

“Gentle?” Persephone asked. “It is true what you said. I am my mother’s daughter, she who visited great wrath upon men when I was parted from her. I am also the Queen of Curses— the one who silences the voices of men. What sort of mercy do you think I have for you?”

“Please…” he sniveled as a Ker pulled the golden circlet off his head and started playing with it. The toothy creature hissed at him and tossed the crown to one of its sisters. “I don’t want to—”

“Silence!” She stared up at him. “You murdered Voleta and Merope, and many more; you raped your own niece, you stole from Gaia herself, and for what?”

“For mercy… Asopus’s daughter… I don’t deserve…” he said. “Voleta attacked me. Merope… I wouldn’t have touched her if she hadn’t—”

“You blame your miseries on women?” She recalled how Sisyphus had dismissed her at his own judgement, and a smile curled her lips. “The same was done to Pandora, you know. The wife of Epimetheus. It is a delightful tale you mortal men dreamed up. They say that she was the first woman. She was given a jar she must not open, and was cursed by my father with curiosity to see what lay within. They say she let loose all the evils of the world and that her sex would forever be a plague upon mankind. But one thing within that fabled jar was not allowed to escape.”

“Please.” A Ker tested the air with its tongue near his eye and bared its teeth.

“What was it, Sisyphus? What did Pandora hold back?”

Another Ker hissed into his ear, drawing a claw lightly across his cheek. “Hope,” he said weakly.

“You ask for mercy. I shall give you hope, instead. You’ve spent your whole life trying to avoid the flames of Tartarus. So if you can complete one task for me, I will set you free.”

“Persephone—” Aidon warned, then stilled when she glanced back at him.

Trust me
. She continued. “In the Fields of Punishment, there sits a great stone. If you can roll it uphill and out of Tartarus, then we will release you.”

“August Persephone, my queen, thank you, I—”

“I’m not finished,” she said. “There is a reason the condemned are told in my husband’s court to abandon all hope when they are sentenced to Tartarus. Hope is the greatest curse there. All you will have is desire, the
illusion
that you can possibly escape. Your obsession with escaping your fate will follow you to the Pit. The stone will roll down upon you every day and you will keep pushing, mindlessly, endlessly, for all time.”

His eyes widened, finally understanding her. “Curse me with anything else. Anything else… Please!”

“Aeolides, who calls himself Sisyphus, King of Ephyra.”

The flames below him started to glow with the pale pulsing light of Ixion’s wheel, and the Keres gripped his wrists. When they grasped his shattered right leg he let out another contorted scream. The Keres pulled him from the ceiling and dangled him over the Pit.

“I, Persephone Praxidike Chthonios, sentence you to Tartarus, where your mind will burn with hope, your body will be broken by your task, and your tale will be a dire warning for anyone who tries to escape my husband,” she said, and looked over the yawning edge of the Pit. “Kottos!”

Yes, Praxidike…
His voice boomed.

“Take him!”

The flames reached forth, darker and hotter. Sisyphus’s open mouth was fixed in a scream but she couldn’t hear him. The Keres chants drowned out his voice as they flapped madly about. “
Wanakt-ja! Praxidike!
” they called out in high-pitched unison, “
Wanakt-ja! Wanakt-ja! Wanakt-ja!
”