The Cult of Kronos Read online

  Black wings, soft like the skin of a bat, were poised

  ready to take off.

  At last the sharp tip of her scorpion tail

  was curled up and hovering over her head.

  So when Zeus arrived at the Tartarus jail,

  Kampe was ready.

  The great god dodged away from her dagger tail

  and evaded the biting beasts at her hips.

  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 su
rface. 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.

  Hades returned to Celene, tearing off a scrap of his long robe and wrapping the dagger in the cloth. He gave it to Celene. “When the time comes,” he said. “His death will be eternal.”

  The pair began to walk, following the path of the Styx to the delta where it met another river. The journey took hours. The water of the Styx gradually merged with the water of the Mnemosyne, which shone like moonstone, before both streams flowed clear and disappeared into a tunnel to the outside world. Beyond this river was the tunnel that they would follow for days to reach the surface; the North American portal to Hades came out in the middle of New Orleans.

  A few ghosts hovered around the mnemosyne, the river of memory. Peter and Celene were walking quickly, eager to make it back to the surface, when one of the ghosts reached out and tried to grab her arm. She shouted and staggered back, but his hand passed through her.

  “Dr. Davis,” the boy said. Celene tried to calm herself as she looked at the boy. He was a tall, handsome teenager with dark skin and large, almond-shaped eyes. He was dressed in a suit. She knew him from one of her biology classes. This was Ryan Bear, Diana Hill's boyfriend. He had died from an allergy attack last summer.

  “Ryan,” she said, her hand placed over her heart. It did not beat. “What are you doing out here?”

  “They wanted me to drink from the Lethe,” he said. “But I didn't want to forget.”

  “I'm sorry for what happened, Ryan.”

  Ryan tried to touch her again, but all he did was give her a chill. “Diana needs to remember,” he said. “Tell her to drink from the Mnemosyne. She will remember.”

  Celene turned to Peter, who was still in the form of Hades. He nodded. “Of course. Of course! The water of memory—I didn't think of it because we discourage the dead from drinking from the mnemosyne, but it does wake them up. It's like turning a light on. When you die, everything is hazy and you shuffle through. You drink from the Lethe without thought. But the guards, we gave them Mnemosyne so they remembered their lives and they did their duty. If the other Olympians were to drink it…”

  He turned and took off towards the onyx gates. “Wait there,” he shouted.

  Celene stood next to Ryan's ghost, waiting. She didn't know what to say to him. He was dead, and she hadn't known him very well in life. She couldn't exactly ask how life was treating him. Did he know that his death was more than an accident? Ryan did not seem to mind the quiet. He was dead, after all. Celene figured that eternity granted patience.

  After a few minutes, Hades ran back with a water skin in hand. “One
of the guards had it,” he explained. He tipped the bag and poured out the wine. It smelled wonderful, though Celene wondered how ancient ghost wine would taste. Hades knelt at the edge of the river and filled the skin. When it was full, he slung it over his shoulder and wiped his hands on his robes.

  “You'll want to change,” Celene said. “You can't go to the surface in a chiton. And leave the bident, too. It'll attract too much attention.”

  He nodded and shifted, his face staying the same, but his robes turning to a canvas jacket and faded jeans. He passed the bident to Ryan and asked him to carry it back to the throne room. “I should say the same for you,” Peter said. “You were just murdered, and you were a pretty school teacher. Your face is undoubtedly all over the news.”

  “I don't know—”

  “Just remember,” Hades said. He handed the water skin to Celene. “This may help.”

  Celene held the bag to her mouth and tipped it back. The water, bitter and sweet at the same time, trickled over her lips. She saw herself standing in a field as men, their backs bare, worked to harvest grain; she saw herself kneeling in the Athenian cemetery, watching and weeping as Persephone descended below; and she blushed as she saw herself laying in a field with a handsome mortal. The memories and all of their attached emotions came flooding back, as if a gate in her mind had opened up and a wave of images had burst out. Tears brimmed at her eyelashes and she shivered.

  When Demeter lowered the drink from her lips, she was no longer in the form of Dr. Celene Davis, middle-aged school teacher. Instead, she had black hair, olive skin, and a face that would forever look thirty-three years old. Only her green eyes were the same. She wore a gown of draped green fabric and a gold band around her arm.

  “There you are,” Hades said.

  Celene turned to look on her reflection in the surface of the Mnemosyne. She gasped, unable to believe how beautiful she was. “This is who I really am?”