therkalexander:
The Good Counselor - PrologueFree previews published weekly every Wednesday night...
The Good Counselor - PrologueFree previews published weekly every Wednesday night at Midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give her all that they have dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
“He won’t be long,” she said, pausing at the door.
Persephone grasped the handle and the aged hinges creaked when she opened it. Warmth and incense, the scents of mint and parsley, flooded from the other side. She stood in the door frame, and many pairs of tear-streaked eyes met hers.
“My lady,” a frail voice said from the bed that dominated the center of the room.
“Hello, old friend,” she smiled.
“Gods, it’s good to see you again.”
“And you as well.”
“To think… I am only a child compared to you… a mote of dust, Soteira, yet I grow old while you stay evergreen, no?” He chuckled around the rattle in his throat and managed a smile for her.
“You mean more to me than you give yourself credit.”
The venerable priest squinted at her, and his forehead wrinkled with worry. “My lady, it is two days past. Shouldn’t you be with your honored husband by now?”
“He understands, Eumolpus,” she said, shutting the door and walking to the bed. His students and family cleared a path for her and Persephone sat beside him, stroking thin wisps of white hair away from his liver spotted forehead. “This time you’re coming home with us.”
“I will only be another shade in Asphodel…”
“No,” she soothed. “You’re going to Elysion.”
“I do not deserve it, my lady.”
“Of course you do. With how good you are, with all you’ve done…”
“I served you for seventy years and more. But my youth was not so piously spent. No, not so.” He frowned, every breath harder to draw. “I whipped my servants,” he blurted. “When I was seventeen I plied an unwilling girl with drink until she lay with me, I forgot sacrifices to the gods and—”
“We are, all of us, the sum of our parts, good and bad,” a baritone voice said from the back corner of the room. He removed his helm, becoming visible to all within. Hades watched twenty pairs of eyes widen, then avert. The dark robed mortals knelt and bowed to him, some trembling in fear. Eumolpus’s eyes widened and he stretched a knobby hand out to his lord.
“Eubouleus,” he whispered, using one of Aidoneus’s many epithets.
“Be unafraid,” Persephone said to the cowering Eleusinians. “Plouton is here as a friend.”
They knew Persephone well, many since birth, but even members of her priesthood were wary of the Unseen One. They gave him a wide berth, crowding to the far side of the bed when he strode across the room to join his wife. Aidoneus managed a thin smile. “My queen speaks the truth. Do you suppose anyone who goes to the Elysian Fields is as pure as snow?”
He smiled and coughed again. “Of course not, my lord.”
“Then how do you suppose I would welcome a mortal who has done more for my wife, more for all of Chthonia, in his short life than anyone who has lived before or since?”
A smile spread across the old priest’s face and his breathing gentled.
“We have a question for you, Eumolpus,” Persephone said, blotting sweat from his forehead with the corner of her shawl.
“I might have an answer,” he smiled. Though his eyes were dulled by cataracts, Persephone saw the same sparkle in them from long ago.
She looked to Aidon, who carefully removed a gold foil scroll from his robes. Persephone took it from him, unrolled it and held it out for Eumolpus. “Charon has been finding these in the mouths of the dead. Do you know who would do such a thing? I’ve never seen their like in Eleusis.”
The dying man nodded, squinting at the text. Eumolpus turned to his youngest son. “Keryx, will you read this for me?”
A gray haired man took the scroll and unrolled it. “It’s written in Thracian.”
Eumolpus closed his eyes and shook his head.
“…But on the other side, from the lake of Mnemosyne, you will find water flowing fresh. Say: ‘I am the son of Earth and starry Heaven, but my parentage is heavenly: know this you too. I am dry with thirst and dying. Give me quickly then water from that which flows fresh from the lake of Mnemosyne’.” Keryx looked at his father, confused.
The old priest merely nodded. “I know who writes these. He was my student several years back, practically a boy. The son of a Muse no less; rumor is that Apollon is his father. Came to Eleusis intrigued by the idea of rebirth, then left for the temple on Samothrace. He had his own ideas about what greets those who journey across the Styx.”
“Should we be concerned?” Aidon asked.
Eumolpus shook his head and coughed violently. “No… no. His heart is in the right place. But I believe you should seek him out, regardless.”
“Why?” Persephone asked.
Eumolpus breathed in again, the rattle in his throat growing louder. He waved toward the door. “All of you out,” he commanded, then raised his palm before anyone could protest. “Every soul in this room knows as well as I that death is not the end. I will see each of you again in Elysion. Keryx, you stay.”
They filed out quickly, his eldest granddaughter weeping as others ushered her from the chamber. The door shut behind them.
“My lady,” he said with a smile. “I know you have long desired a child.”
Persephone leaned in. “Yes…”
“The one who wrote that… he is gifted. With his lineage, his intelligence… it’s quite possible. There are rites that his order oversees—”
“Eumolpus,” Aidoneus stopped him quietly. “My wife and I have tried… many methods already. Spells, rituals, traveling throughout the known world…”
“Aidon…”
“Persephone, no. Sweet one, we suffer through this once a decade, to no avail. I won’t let your hopes be crushed yet again.”
“My lord, please,” Eumolpus strained. “It is a fertility rite, yes, but the Samothracians invoke one who is not yet born. An heir to the earth and heavens— a god of life, death and rebirth.”
Hades and Persephone exchanged a long glance.
“It requires sacrifice. A king and his barren queen have already—”
He was cut off by another round of coughing, so violent it bowed his back. His breathing became labored. Persephone looked up at her husband, her eyes pleading.
Aidoneus sighed. “What sort of sacrifice?”
“I know not. But it must encompass…” He took one gasping breath, feeling lighter, euphoric. “…what you are… your most heartfelt desire…”
“What is the man’s name?”
Eumolpus saw the lamplight around him glow more brightly, the incense thicker, like fog, obscuring his last vision. He could feel warmth, like sunlight, and heard the laughter of childhood friends. He closed his eyes, exhaling a last word. “…Orpheus.”
