Temple Stone

Fantasy short. In a temple of Zeus, a beautiful stranger tells a story of Hades and Persephone.

Fantasy short. In a temple of Zeus, a beautiful stranger tells a story of Hades and Persephone. Rated T, 3.5k, with a new appearance from Ganymede Cavendish. CW for ableist attitudes.

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It was raining so heavily that Rudy felt as though the drops were bruising him under his anorak, and he slipped on the slick stone that led up into the temple.

It had a white marble front with traditional columns, but inside, it was wood-panelled and warm. Twin fires cracked at each side of the room, and two walkways led wither side of a stone diorama of Olympus. He always loved to see it when he came into the temple — it was a hundred years old, and contained so many little statues he could never remember who they all were, but there was a certain satisfaction in examining them all and trying to work it out.

The temple attendants moved them about sometimes to make new scenes, new friezes, all of them surprisingly brightly painted, and he always looked forward to seeing them, but now they were simply lined up in neat rows, awaiting a new narrative.

The parcels in his cart had to be signed for, but he was in for a wait, he realised, when he entered the waiting room outside of the high priestess’ office — her door was closed, her secretary nowhere in sight, and someone else was waiting.

“Do you think he’ll be very long?” he asked the stranger, who turned to look at him, and Rudy lost his breath, lost his train of thought, lost almost all his faculties.

“I expect so,” said the stranger quietly, in a smooth, sad voice.

He was beautiful.

He was so beautiful Rudy couldn’t string his thoughts together, couldn’t make his mouth move right away. He was dressed in a fine silk shirt and a pair of tailored trousers, his knees together and turned to one side, his hands neatly set in his lap.

He was stunning, beautiful in a way Rudy couldn’t get over. His skin glowed in the golden light from the lamps, his melancholy eyes glittered, his lips shone, his hair…

“Are you a priest?” asked Rudy.

The man laughed softly, without feeling.

“No,” he said quietly. “I have business with the temple, that’s all. Ferrying deliveries, are you?”

“Yes. I can’t leave them, I have to… I usually have to wait. Sometimes longer than others.”

“That’s the way.”

“You’ve been here… often?”

The man was staring distantly into space, his beautiful eyes glazed over as they looked at something far away that Rudy couldn’t see. “Yes,” he said finally. “I’m not a priest, but I am religious — or at least, pious. I don’t know that I’m religious any longer.”

Rudy had no idea what to make of that.

“I’m not a Hellenist,” he said, slowly sinking down into another of the seats in the waiting area, “but I love coming into the temples. Such a sense of… of place. And I love the art. Do you like the diorama, the one at the entrance?”

“Do you?” asked the stranger.

“Oh, God, yeah,” said Rudy. “Yeah, no, it’s gorgeous. I always look forward to being the one to make deliveries in here — I love all the marble pieces, but especially that one, how colourful it is, how many moving parts. I never knew stone could look so alive before I first saw work like that.”

The stranger was smiling faintly, and Rudy almost felt dizzy, he was so glad to see it. Grief still shadowed him like a cloud, but that smile, it was like sunshine peeking through.

“It’s work I’m proud of,” he said. “Like all artists, I see my flaws when I examine old work, but other people’s affection for it does overwhelm my natural inclination for self-critique.”

He talked… Old.

It wasn’t just the slightly prissy accent or that he said he’d made a sculpture Rudy knew was decades old at least. The way he spoke was old-fashioned and long-winded in a way no one modern talked. He didn’t look older than thirty.

“You made it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re Ganymede Cavendish.”

“Yes.”

“You’re… you’re big,” said Rudy. “You do a lot of, um, art. For the temples. Well, for… for everywhere.”

“Yes.”

Ganymede Cavendish, the sculptor. People said he was beautiful, said that his beauty showed him to be blessed by the gods he served, showed that he was shown favour, but Rudy had never understood exactly what that meant before now.

He was painfully beautiful — handsome, pretty, regardless of what you called it, he exuded a calm and collected beauty that made Rudy’s chest ache wit want and yearning and need. It made him feel hollow inside, looking at Ganymede.

“I admire your work,” said Rudy. “I go to every exhibit I can — I’m not big about art, but marble sculptures, sculptures in general but especially marble, I just… I die over them.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” said Ganymede softly. “What use is a dead admirer?”

Rudy’s laugh came too suddenly, was a little too high and too sharp, but Ganymede smiled anyway. He was flushing with embarrassment, apparently at Rudy’s compliments, already.

“You’re a Hellenist,” said Rudy.

“All my life,” said Ganymede.

“Right. That, that makes sense with your, because I know you were, um, and your name is — ”

“I was raised in a Hellenist children’s home.”

“Yeah. Do you have a main, uh, god? That you…?”

Ganymede met Rudy’s gaze, tilting his head slightly to the side, and then he looked to the temple door before shifting in his seat, his knees facing more toward Rudy. A little of his gloom seemed to have faded away.

“You feel drawn to our religion because of the characters it offers, the depth of its narratives?” Ganymede asked. Rudy flustered, fidgeting, but Ganymede laughed a wonderful laugh, and gently shook his head. “Please, I take no offence and don’t mean to scold you. We have many stories and many gods — I love that too, as an artist.”

“You have a favourite?”

“A favourite god?” Ganymede clucked his tongue playfully. “A dangerous thing to admit to, even in the halls of Zeus’ temple.”

“A favourite story, then. One I won’t have heard.”

“I’m no writer, nor a raconteur.”

“Please?”

Ganymede exhaled softly, and adjusted his knees. “You know of Hades and Persephone?”

“He stole him away with her,” said Rudy, shifting his trolley of parcels in front of him. “And she ate six pomegranates from his table — to stay six months of the year with him, and six above ground.”

“There are a few variations of that story,” said Ganymede, with a fond shift of his lips, “but yes, that’s the core. Of course, the gods go where they please, one way and another — there are times when Hades leaves his realm, and goes elsewhere.”

“To Olympus?”

“To Olympus,” agreed Ganymede. “Or somewhere else on Earth. Not often — he prefers the company of earths and ores to people, but sometimes. And like many devoted spouses, he is happiest when he follows where his wife goes.”

For the first time, Rudy noticed the glint of gold around Ganymede’s ring finger. It was a delicately made ring, and around its edge were carved a great many eyes, interspersed with suns. Ganymede, noticing him looking, stroked his thumb over its polished surface.

“For all the flaws a man may have,” said Ganymede softly, “one might forgive them if he remains a loving and dutiful spouse. It is a core duty, to be committed to the contentment of one’s wife or husband — such that Hades would walk where Persephone asked him.

The first time this happenstance occurred, he walked with Persephone on his arm with their sights set upon Olympus, although the path from Hades to the plateau of the gods was a long one — and before they had even left their bounds, a messenger barred their way.

”Halt!” said he. “You will not step foot on the earth given by the Lady Gaia, nor lovingly tendered by the Lady Demeter.”

“The Lady Demeter is my mother,” said Persephone, “and this ground would be fruitless were it not for my aid in tending it. How dare you deny me passage?”

And the messenger said, “My lady, this edict is not for you.” He handed her a scroll then — quite the insult, to hand it to her and not her husband, his being so senior and this being his realm. The messenger was shaking: this had been his instruction, but he took so pleasure, let alone confidence, in its execution.

In Persephone’s hands was a note that advised Hades could not be trusted to leave the underworld, and that were he to try, in protest Demeter would raze the world to cinders. Following this, naturally, was a meeting of the gods on neutral ground.”

Ganymede spun the ring on his finger, turning it slowly in its place, and smiled faintly.

“On one side of a great table stood Demeter, and on the other, her daughter and Hades. Between them, Zeus, and Themis at his elbow.”

“Themis?”

“Lady of Justice. A titaness.”

“She’s blind,” said Rudy.

“She is,” said Ganymede, smiling his pleasure that Rudy should know. “And she isn’t. She wears a veil in matters of justice — the tip of her scale she feels by weight, not by its appearance. This meeting she held not her scales, but her sword.

Zeus demanded, his voice booming in the meeting hall, “What is the meaning of this? What trial is this, over which you ask me to preside?”

And Demeter said, “This man has stolen my daughter.”

All the room laughed at her — none of those at the table, but the other gods about the edges, who were watching.

Hades, stone-faced, said, “She is my wife before she is your daughter, and our contract is already written. I do not care if it leaves you unsatisfied — our word is bond, and we have been bonded.”

Said Zeus, “You waste our time.”

And Demeter said, “I do not. I do not waste your time. I know that the contract of my daughter’s marriage is now written and bonded: it is not this I seek to change. It is that of Hades upon the earth.”

“What contract do I need to walk the earth?” demanded Hades, impatience.

“You steal,” Demeter told him.

“I take,” said Hades, “that which is my due,” in the soft and quiet way of a man with rage bubbling beneath it — Persephone had said nothing, but she was so angry she looked ready to burst into flames, her hands clenched at her sides, her teeth gritted.

“You take,” retorted Demeter. “You take that which is not yours.”

“I take only what is mine,” said Hades. “The ores of the earth, that I might turn them to metal, the dead souls of men, that I might turn them to Hades. These are of my domain.”

“But she wasn’t.”

“She is my wife,” growled Hades, and he put his hand out now, gentled Persephone with a hand over her chest, to prevent her from lunging across the table. It is known that where Hades is cool, his wife burns hot, the forge by which Hades’ heart is warmed, and this applies to their tempers, too. “As I am her husband. We belong to one another.”

“Not before you stole her.”

Zeus, impatient, clapped his great hands together, that thunder silenced the room, and demanded, “Must we talk in circles? If you have a point, make it!”

Demeter said: “He stole Persephone because he saw her, and she was beautiful. What more will he steal?”

After a few moments of pause, where silence rang out in the wake of her words, the room then dissolved to sudden whispers.” Ganymede took a pocket watch from his inside pocket, glancing at it — this too was finely carved with a watchful eye inside a sun, with Greek lettering about the design’s edge — before he set it back. “Demeter had made a striking point.”

Rudy frowned, and Ganymede noticed his expression, chuckling.

“Demeter said, “If Hades sees fit to take my daughter, and make it legal after the fact, what more will he lay his eyes on, and choose to abscond with when it suits him? Trees and flowers? Temples and palaces? Men and women, children, who are yet living?”

“I don’t desire to take any of those things,” said Hades. “They are not for me, and I am at peace with this.”

“She was not for you either,” said Demeter, “until you decided she was.”

“I decided I was,” said Persephone.

“Or so you think,” was her mother’s reply.

One presumes these conversations happen very often between the three of them,” said Ganymede as an aside. “Choice is more complex than any of us give it credit for — and there is nothing we like less than a person’s choice we cannot understand, or change.”

“Do you think she chose it?” asked Rudy. “Persephone?”

“I do and I don’t,” said Ganymede. “I think she loved Hades from when first she saw him and his sweet awe of her, but love does not make a marriage. Her hand was forced in that regard, and his too. A steel of wills between them, I think.”

“A steel of wills?”

“The way I have heard it, Hades did everything to block Persephone from his table and his tray, doing everything to push her from his realm except to touch her, which he feared to do, lest with even the barest brush of his fingers he should leave her frozen forever, and at a loss for the spark that made her burn. He feared to touch her — if he ever touched her, so beautiful was she, with how he loved her, how could he ever let her go? She remained. She stepped forward and forced him to step back, and even when he still blocked her from his table, she remained. She took her seeds in secret.”

“But he’d already taken her,” said Rudy. “Why stop her from staying?”

“She’d already been taken,” Ganymede corrected. “Not by Hades — nothing upon the earth was for Hades except for that which was his. He despaired to have her in his realm, a woman he desired so much, and had no claim to. It was by an agent of Zeus that she was ferried to the underworld.”

“So she took the seeds,” said Rudy, “and made his claim for him.”

“What is a love story without some lies and manipulation?” asked Ganymede, although there was a catch in his voice Rudy couldn’t make sense of, before he went on. “Demeter decreed she feared to let Hades roam, lest he set his cold eyes on something else he liked the look of, and went to make it his own. He had stolen once — surely he would steal again. What, and whom, would he steal next?”

The lady Themis said, “You make many accusations, and a great many predictions, too. Do you offer no solution?”

“I do,” said Demeter.

“And what is it?” asked Themis.

“I want his eyes.”

“Hs eyes?” repeated Persephone.

“I want his eyes,” said Demeter. “If he wishes to walk my lands, I would take insurance: his eyes, that he might not look at what isn’t his, and be tempted by its beauty.”

Persephone was furious, but Hades laughed.

It was a booming sound, a laugh that would echo in mineshafts and often did — it crackled, was brittle, and it shook like stone.

“Is this what you would do to shame me?” he asked. “Ask that I walk on the earth blind, and leave my eyes in Hades?”

Demeter faltered, and said, “That you not look at that which isn’t yours. That you only see what belongs to you, and look no further.”

“You think it is a shameful thing, to be blind,” said Hades. “You think to punish me, think I should rather refuse you than give up my sight.”

“You will?” asked Demeter, not believing what she was hearing — and she was angry, too.

And Hades, incensed but laughing too, said, “Where is my son?” and from the crowd of gods observing this negotiation walked Plutus.”

“Plutus?” asked Rudy.

“Hades’ son,” said Ganymede, eyes twinkling. “Wealth incarnate is Plutus — and he is sightless, too.

Plutus walked not on his cane, but on the arm of his sister, who led him to the table until he could lean on his father’s arm instead.

Hades said, “Dearest child of mine, if I ask of you a boon, will you give it me?”

“Is it wealth?” asked Plutus.

Hades said, “Yes.”

“Father,” said Plutus, “it is already yours.”

A laugh passed between them, then, a laugh as passes between fathers and sons.

“My wealth, as well you know, is the happiness of your mother,” said Hades. “She wants that I should go where she does, from time to time. I would do this for her, as I do all for her.”

“Yes,” said Plutus. “Without your eyes?”

“Without them,” said Hades. “If your grandmother blinds me, can I rely on you to teach me?”

“To see without eyes?”

“Can you?”

“No. But I walk with my cane or the arm of my sister, and the letters of my ledgers I read from stone.”

“That, then.”

Plutus came to rest between his father and his mother, and as Hades gripped his shoulder, Persephone kissed his brow and stroked his hair.

“Your son will teach you to steal without eyes,” said Demeter, seeing her advantage was lost and attempting to change her plea.

“You accuse my husband of thievery,” said Persephone, in fury to rival and overpower her mother’s, “and now you call my son a thief? Under what charge?”

And Demeter faltered.

She had thought to deny Hades passage from his realms by demanding a price so high he would not pay it, and she had chosen wrongly. So she said, “Fine. Fine. Give me his eyes, and I will yield.”

But Lady Themis said, “Hold. This is not just. You say he would steal all that was not of his realms — why should he be sightless within them?”

“I want his eyes,” said Demeter.

“They are not passage paid,” said Themis. “If you think the eyes of your son-by-marriage a danger, why do you want them so?”

Demeter was silent a moment more, and Hades and Persephone leaned closer together, both of them leaning on their son, and holding him between them.

“Very well,” said Demeter. “Let Hades’ eyes be for his halls only.”

And it was so.” Ganymede adjusted the cuffs of his sleeves, and said, “They say where Hades goes today, he does so blind — he wears a fold about his eyes, and walks with a cane. He sees nothing that he does not touch, or that does not come to his lands.”

“What did Demeter do?”

“Settle, somewhat,” said Ganymede. “Theirs will always be a thorny battleground — they are united and divided by love for the same woman.”

“She doesn’t understand what he’ll sacrifice.”

“I don’t think it was a sacrifice,” said Ganymede. “Not for him. Disabling, yes, but not shaming in the way Demeter hoped it would be. It is a toll paid as needed, and that is all.”

The door from the priestess’ office opened, and Ganymede stood to his feet.

Rudy swallowed at the man who stepped out from the office. He was so stall he had to bend his head to move through the doorway, and he rippled with muscle, his shoulders extremely wide, and he had a thick beard and hair in a bun.

At the sight of him, Ganymede softened.

His beautiful mouth curved into a sweeter smile, his eyes on this new man, and when the stranger bent to kiss him, one mighty hand cupping Ganymede’s cheek, Rudy saw matching wedding band on his huge finger — Ganymede’s husband.

Rudy looked away, almost ashamed.

“Who is this?” asked the husband, in such a low and threatening growl that Rudy shivered, met his gaze, and then hurriedly looked away again.

“A postman,” said Ganymede. “We were talking as we waited, that’s all. It was a pleasure to meet you, Rudy.”

Rudy hurriedly nodded his head, almost not daring to look directly as Ganymede took his husband’s arm and they walked out into the temple proper. Rudy sat there for some seconds, staring at his cart.

“You have a delivery?” asked the priestess, and Rudy hurried to his feet, nodding his head.

“Yeah, no, sorry, I do, um, yes, the — ”

“You seem flustered,” she said.

“I just… I didn’t think I’d told him my name, that’s all.”

The priestess smiled. “Mr Cavendish can have a dazzling effect on people,” she said mildly, reaching out and squeezing his shoulder. “Come on, I’ll sign for these and put you on your way.”

There was another little marble sculpture by Cavendish in the priestess’ office that Rudy had seen before, but never focused on. It was a little figurine, one of a blind man leaning on a cane.

He’d never looked at it very carefully before, because it wasn’t painted.

It didn’t belong to the diorama outside, but stood on its own little plinth amongst the other ornaments and statues on the shelves. Rudy stared at it, and saw for the first time the pomegranate carved in the figure’s free hand. The half-fruit was open, its seeds ready to be eaten.

Rudy took his invoices, and then he took his leave.