she demanded of the hooved child, who looked up at her with startled eyes, his mouth forming a little o.
“M-m-meadow?” he stammered.
Demeter ran to the meadow where Kore was used to playing. There was nothing there, nothing but a scatter of blossoms.
Nothing at all.
Gingerly, Hades approached the squirming bag. The very fabric looked angry. “What did you do, Thanatos?” he demanded.
“I did what you asked me to do,” Thanatos replied, looking indignant and sullen at the same time. “I looked for an immortal maiden with yellow hair in a meadow. I found lots of maidens in meadows, not many with yellow hair, and only one immortal. So I took her. You said she wouldn’t fight me, that she was expecting to be abducted, but she fought like five she-goats! I’m bruised all over!”
“You’re a god, Thanatos, heal yourself,” snapped Hades. “Who did you rape?”
“I didn’t rape anyone!” Thanatos yelped.
“You know what I mean! Who’s in the sack?” Hades bellowed.
“How should I know?” Thanatos shrieked back.
“Oh, for—” Persephone pulled the little dagger she used to cut fruit out of her belt, stalked around them and went straight to the bag. She bent over and cut the rope holding it shut, then leapt back with the grace and agility of a young doe.
The bag writhed, a pretty foot and a long, strong leg emerged with a vigorous kick, then the rest of the young woman fought free of the fabric, with only a momentary glimpse of something the lady probably would not have wanted strange men to see. A pair of extremely blue eyes beneath a mass of tumbled golden hair blazed at all of them, and it was only Hades’s quick thought to cast a circle of magic around her that saved them all from the tiny bolts of levin-fire those eyes shot at them.
Thanatos yelped again, jumping back automatically.
“Well,” Hades said slowly. “Definitely god-born.”
Persephone approached the circle slowly. “One woman to another,” she said, getting the captive’s attention. “There has been a dreadful mistake. I’m going to cut you free now so we can explain it, all right?”
The woman glared for a long, long moment, then slowly, grudgingly, nodded. Persephone glanced at Hades, who dismissed the magic circle with a little twirl of his fingers. Then she knelt beside the woman and first cut her wrists free of their rope, then handed her the little knife so she could get rid of the gag herself.
When the woman untangled herself from ropes and sack, she stood up, rubbing her wrists. She did not give back the knife.
She was taller than Persephone by more than a head; she was nearly as tall as Thanatos, and he was not small by either mortal or godly standards. As she glared at them all, he stopped sulking and began gawking.
Then the gawking took on a bit of a leer.
“Well,” he said, looking aslant at Hades, “if this one isn’t yours, can I have her?”
The words hadn’t even left his mouth before he was dancing in place as levin-bolts peppered the area around his sandaled feet. She was tossing them this time; they looked like toy versions of Zeus’s thunderbolts. Fascinated, Persephone wondered if one day she could learn to do that.
Persephone clasped both hands over her mouth to restrain her laughter, as Hades merely folded his arms and watched. Eventually the woman wearied of tormenting Thanatos and allowed him to stop capering to her crackling tune. She stood with her fists on her hips and looked them all over, ending with a glare at Thanatos.
“I’m no one’s property, god or mortal. And I’m married,” she said shortly. “Another suggestion of that sort, and I’ll aim higher. And maybe with the knife, too.”
Hades gave her a short bow, equal to equal. “Your pardon, sky-born,” he said so smoothly that Persephone could only sigh and admire his manners. “The gods of Olympia are…somewhat free with their favors, as often as not.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Some wouldn’t consider that a ‘favor,’” she retorted dryly. “Now, what, exactly, am I doing here, and where is here in the first place?”
Hades and Thanatos began speaking at once, and the stranger’s head switched back and forth between them to the point where Persephone feared she was going to get a cramp. “Wait!” she cried, holding up her hand. Both men stopped. Hades bowed.
“My name is Persephone. I am the daughter of the goddess Demeter. My mother is—” she made a face “—overprotective. This is Hades, the Lord of the Underworld, where the dead go.”
“Ah!” The woman’s eyes brightened with understanding. “Like Vallahalia. Go on.”
“You are actually in the Underworld now, to answer your second question,” Hades put in. She nodded.
“I managed to catch sight of this lovely maid, and—” Hades reached for Persephone’s hand. She let him take it, blushing. “I asked the king of our gods, Zeus, for permission to wed her. He agreed, but cautioned me that her mother would never let her go.”
Persephone nodded. “She thinks I am still a child,” the girl said sourly.
The stranger nodded, sighing. “All mothers are like that, I think. I begin to get the shape of this. I take it that you decided to abduct her?”
Hades hesitated. “Not—exactly. That is more in Zeus’s style than mine.”
“He courted me!” Persephone said proudly. “And as if he was nothing more noble than a shepherd’s god, or one of the minor patrons of a brook or grove, so I wouldn’t feel as if I had to yield to him!”
Now it was Hades’s turn to blush, as she squeezed his hand.
The stranger’s cold eyes warmed a little. “I begin to favor you, god of the Underworld. So. This still begs the question of why I am here.”
“My mother is the Earth goddess, Demeter. Fertility,” Persephone said pointedly. The woman’s eyes widened.
“Aha! So you complicate things by sending another in your place to take the maid. So that she does not know who to curse, and you may garner more allies to soothe her before you reveal the truth.”
“Exactly.” Hades beamed.
“And because he did not know the maid—” she eyed Persephone “—there cannot be many yellow-haired wenches among your people. You are the first I have seen in this place. I can see where there would have been a mistake.” She nodded, satisfied. “Well, with that settled, I forgive you. You can take me back now and in return for this insult you can help me and my Leopold with a problem of our own.”
“Uh…” Hades bit his lip. “This is where things become…complicated.”
“Complicated?” The woman’s expression suddenly darkened. “What do you mean by complicated?”
“Thanatos is the god of death, you see—” Hades gestured helplessly with his free hand at the hapless Thanatos. “That was why he was supposed to take Persephone. She’d be dead, and have to stay here, you see—”
“But I am immortal!” the woman shouted, making them all wince.
“Well, er, yes. But gods can die—” Hades freed his hand from Persephone’s and it looked to her as if he was preparing to cast another protective circle.
“I—!” the woman roared—and then suddenly fell silent. “Damn it,” she swore. “We can. Baldur did. And I was supposed to die to bring about the fall of Vallahalia—”
“So…er…you can’t leave. I mean, I just can’t let you go, you see.” Hades gestured apologetically. “It would be a terrible precedent. People would be coming down here all the time, demanding that