The Cult of Kronos (4 page)

From a safe distance he
hurled a spear of bronze

and struck the beast down.

When the Cyclopes were
freed from their prison cell

they rewarded the sons of
Kronos with gifts.

They had been locked away
by old Uranos:

the primordial.

To Hades they gave
invisibility.

To Poseidon they gave
command of the waters.

At last they gave mighty
Zeus his thunderbolts

to strike down Kronos.

“
Either death is a state of
nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say, there is a
change and migration of the soul from this world to another…Now if
death be of such a nature, I say that to die is to gain; for eternity
is then only a single night.”

-Plato

V.

Celene Davis approached the
shore of the black glass river. The man on the boat, a kindly old man
dressed in rust-colored robes, smiled and bowed his head. “This
ride,” he said, “is on me.” He offered his left hand to Celene
to help her onto his boat. She stepped on, unsure of where she was
going, but somehow aware of how to get there.

The boat slid across the
water, barely disturbing the mirrored surface. Behind her, ghosts
waited, shuffling at the shore. Why wasn't she a ghost? She was dead,
wasn't she? Celene closed her eyes, remembering the rough hands that
yanked her from the car. She had screamed and fought, but he was
strong, as strong as Frank. Then there had been pain and she was
gone. Celene touched the back of her neck and shivered.

The ferryman ushered her
across the river without conversation. When she stepped off the boat,
he bowed his head once more. There was a great gate—three stories
tall—carved from polished, black stone. It was beautifully rendered
with horrific details—a mountain of skulls, wailing ghosts—each
with a very human face—, and a great three-headed dog at the
center. Souls were lined up, waiting, shuffling like they did at the
shore. Celene wondered if she would find Richard in here and if he
would even recognize her when he saw her. It had been so long since
she had seen her late husband. A ghost in armor walked back and
forth, keeping the line in order, though none tried to cut ahead.

When the guard's eyes fell on
Celene, he hurried over. It was the liveliest she had seen anyone
behave since arriving. “My lady,” he said, bowing his head, “you
do not wait in line. Follow me.”

Celene obeyed, walking after
the ghost, looking all around her at the palace they were entering.
Outside the gates, a massive three-headed dog snarled and snapped and
strained at its chains. Its jowls quivered with fury as it tried to
lunge at anything passing near it.

“
Kerberos,” Celene said,
remembering his name.

“
He will not harm you,”
the guard said as they passed through the gates and left the monster
behind. The floors were dark as coal and glassy like the river behind
them, but the light of a thousand mounted torches set the two apart.
No light had penetrated beneath the surface of the waters, but the
light that hit these stone floors caught streaks of purple and green
and reflected them back at Celene. The throne room was enormous.
Ghosts lingered at the fringes of the room, most of them armored. To
the side, doorways were cut into the stone. They lead to halls that
branched off in every direction, though Celene could tell little of
what was down those corridors. Ahead was a great throne of stone, its
high, straight back making it monolithic in stature. A man slouched
in the seat. He was tall and well-muscled, built like an 80s action
star. He wore raven black robes, which were draped over one shoulder
and clasped with an ornament of bone. An inky fur cape, too unearthly
in its blackness to come from any mortal creature, was draped over
the arm of the throne. A crown adorned with golden ram heads rested
on his hair. He leaned his jaw on his hand and his elbow on the
armrest of the throne. His beard was thick and black as coal and his
eyes were a shade just as deep. Celene knew those eyes. They had
stared coldly back at her many years ago, long before she was Celene
Davis, and they had given no sympathy when she watched her daughter
descend to the land below.

“
Peter?” she asked.

He sat up, suddenly alert, and
looked down at her, shaking his head. “No. You're dead?”

“
There was an accident—no,
that's not right. I was murdered.”

The man, Celene knew he was
Hades, stood up. Like a ripple running through water, his appearance
shimmered from head to toe and the guise of Hades, Lord of the Dead,
was gone. Peter stood before her, dressed as she always imagined him,
in baggy jeans and a t-shirt. “Penny?”

Celene shook her head. “I
don't know. She was alive when he…” Celene could see the rainy
scene vividly in her memory, but she could also see other things. The
memories of Demeter's life that had been echoes before, dreams, now
were as vivid as her own. “How did you do that?” she asked, “How
did you change forms?”

“
Something happened when I
got here. I remembered—”

“
Everything.”

Peter nodded. “As Hades
became as real to me as Peter, I found myself changing. Those aren't
my only forms.”

“
Then you remember before?”

He nodded again. “I do.
Mostly. I've been back at work since I got here, managing my realm.
How much time has it been? When did you die?”

“
August. The same year.”

“
Who killed you?”

Celene closed her eyes and
pictured the man. She had only caught a glimpse of his face and, at
the time, he had been a stranger to her. Now she could see in those
wild eyes a man that she knew. Long ago, centuries before they were
locked away, this man had been her father. She had only known him as
a monster, a monster who ate children for fear of a prophecy.
“Kronos,” she said. “It was Kronos.”

Peter tensed. “I have had
words with my guards. A lot has happened over these past few months.
The night before I arrived here,” Peter said, “he tried to break
in. Kronos. He's been quietly ruling his little island for centuries
where Za— where Zeus left him in exile after his sentence was over,
but five months ago he left. He didn't get very far, but if he came
back here after all of those years sentenced to suffer in the pit of
Tartarus, he must have wanted something. The Titans we killed, Atlas,
Prometheus, Epimetheus, Menoetius…they're in Tartarus. Perhaps he
was trying to free them.”

Celene tried to piece together
what had happened from her memory. It was difficult at first, but as
she filled in details, more became clear. Kronos had been punished in
the pit for centuries after the Olympians overthrew him in their
rebellion against the Titans. When due punishment was served, Zeus
placed him in exile as ruler over a tiny island off the coast of
Greece. He had stayed there for centuries. As far as Celene could
remember from her life as Demeter, Kronos had stayed there. “Why
did he leave? What scared him off?”

“
Charon, my ferryman, raised
the alarm. Kerberos was sicced on him. He fled.”

“
We need to find out if
Penny made it out of the wreckage alive, and we need to know what
Kronos was after.”

Peter turned back to the
throne and grabbed for his weapon. It was a bident, a two-pronged
weapon made of solid metal. The weapon was as tall as Peter. Even in
this form, the too-skinny teenage boy with sunken eyes, he looked
majestic. Death suited him. “Then we need to speak with the Moirai.
They will know if Penny's thread has been cut short.”

Peter hurried out of the
throne room. Celene followed.

They ascended the narrow stone
path, a ledge cut into the cavern walls with no railing to keep them
from falling. The base of the bident clinked as Peter tapped the
stone with every step. Celene tried to focus on her foothold as she
walked, but lifetimes worth of memories were floating to the surface.
She tried to remember the last thing she saw before she was Celene.
She was Demeter, sleeping in her room at the palace on Olympus. It
was the last night before Persephone was to return to Hades for the
winter. The darkness that had filled the room was complete, like the
void inside Hades' eyes. She was scared. Then there was nothing.

Peter held his torch up to a
cavern cut in the rock. The little hall lead to a room that was wet
and dim and filled with candles. It smelled of mildew. Three old
women sat in a circle, their heads bent, hard at work in the dim,
flickering light. They looked fragile and terrifying, and all that
Celene could think of when she saw them was a trio of old, sick cats.
One pulled thread from a basket of spools. Another pored over a map,
pointing to spots on the heavy paper with a silver scepter. The third
held a pair of heavy sheers, and when she cut the thread that her
sister held, Celene was certain that something tragic had just
occurred. The snip of the sheers echoed off of the walls.

“
Sisters,” Peter said, his
voice low. “I have come for information.”

The plotter looked up from her
map. Celene stayed back while Peter advanced.

“
My queen,” he said.
“Persephone. She has a mortal form. Penelope Davis. Is she dead?”

The sister with the thread
reached into her basket and pulled on the end of a strand. When she
held it to the candle-light, it glistened. Celene saw that it was
made of gold.

“
Penny Davis is alive, my
Lord, and living on earth.”

“
The thread is gold,”
Celene said. She searched her memories for a time when Demeter had
been here, but she realized there was none. Her engagements with the
underworld had never been for tourism. She had never seen this room.

“
Great Goddess of the Earth,
all of the immortals have threads of gold. Only the wound from the
water of the Styx could turn a golden thread of fate to silk. This
thread was mortal until five moons ago, when she drank the nectar of
immortality. Now, even if we tried, it could not be cut, only removed
from the earth.”

“
You're saying anyone who
drank the nectar cannot die?”

“
Not for long, at least.”

She went back to her basket,
selecting another thread for measurement. Celene turned to Peter, her
heart racing as she realized the possibilities. “We can leave,”
she said.

Peter furrowed his brow. “You
think so?”

“
You're Hades, don't you
know?”

“
Tell me how clear your
memories are.”

“
They're a mess,” Celene
admitted. “There's too many all at once. I have to sort through
them.”

Peter stepped away from the
old crones and sat on the slick stone floor. He closed his eyes and
rubbed his eyelids. “I let Orpheus take Eurydice. I knew that he
would not have the strength of will to bring her out, but if she had
left, she would have lived. So long as a soul still has its memories,
and so long as a soul has not been wounded with a weapon dipped in
the styx, I have the authority to send them back.”

“
How? Does her body
reanimate?”

Peter shook his head. He stood
up, and as he rose, his t-shirt fell into dark robes and he grew
taller. He had taken his true form again. “I need to think. Let's
walk.”

Celene followed behind Hades,
or whoever this confused man was. He was Peter and he was Hades, and
in either form Celene knew him. He left his torch on the floor for
Celene to carry and started down the stone path, muttering to
himself. “The body was rotting. The body was lost. A new body. She
was to have a new body. The clay! Prometheus made men out of clay.
The clay at the mouth would build her a new form, but only if I
ordered it.”

“
Then you can order us new
bodies,” Celene said.

Hades nodded. “I can. I
mean, I am the King down here. I can order whatever I want. I could
bring back anyone.”

“
Then start with us,”
Celene said. “We have a Titan to stop.”

They left the palace, walking
alongside the river of obsidian water. Peter, in his teenaged form,
stopped suddenly and held up a finger. “Wait.”

“
What is it,” Celene
asked.

“
You heard the Moirai. A
wound with water from the Styx can make a man mortal.”

“
And?”

“
I told Zach—I told Zeus
not to free Kronos from Tartarus. I told him to leave the old Titan
there for eternity. But we gave him freedom, we made him king of an
island, and this is how he repaid us.”

“
Are you suggesting we kill
him? For good?”

Peter nodded. “Any
objections?”

Celene shook her head. “First
he ate me, then he murdered me. I have no pity for him.”

Peter laughed. “Alright
then.”

He turned to the guard who was
back to his job managing the line of ghosts. “You there,” Peter
said, shifting back to his bearded form. “Do you have a spare
weapon?”

The ghost bowed before drawing
a dagger from one of the scabbards on his belt. He was a Spartan
soldier in life, but that had been thousands of years ago. He was
frozen like this for an eternity. Not even the horse hair brush on
his helmet shifted as he bowed. The dagger he drew was the length of
Peter's forearm. The blade, slightly curved, was engraved with a
relief of soldiers in a Phalanx, fighting Persian slaves. There was
no knuckle guard on the ancient weapon. The handle was fastened
directly to the blade and a large, embellished pommel capped it off.
As the soldier handed the ghost weapon to Hades, it took form and
became solid in his hand. Hades thanked him before walking to the
Styx and dipping the blade into the water.