The Eighth House: Hades & Persephone by Eris Adderly

THE MORTAL COIL PREVIEW

Danaë’s son did notenjoy palaces. They were ostentatious, full of people he had little use for⁠—other than to take their coin in exchange for the fulfillment of near impossible tasks⁠—and every time he left a palace, his life became more difficult.

The light from many torches set the complicated facade aglow ahead, as Perseus left behind the last of the road’s switchbacks for the southern entrance to the palace. From the hilltop, it overlooked the terraces of buildings heading down to the harbor, and even now, he could hear a large gathering, the noise rolling down from inside the palace walls.

Guards stood at the entrance, and the pair did not fail to notice a lone figure in sword belt and cuirass headed their way.

“The banquet is begun,” said the one on the left, stepping to block the path. “Petitioners may return in the morning.”

Perseus slowed his gait but didn’t stop. “I am not a petitioner.”

“Either way,” said the other guard, “you’re not a guest of the king. Palace entry is suspended until morning.”

“Danaë of Argos is my mother, and the king will speak with me,” said Perseus, voice growing in volume. The guards gave each other a look, but they were small obstacles. “You will let me pass, or I will go through you.”

He flipped his chlamys back over his shoulder, and the hilt of his sword stood out, obvious, ready for a drawing hand. The two men tightened grips on their spears, the one on the right tried to take control.

“Turn around,” he said. “Don’t bring trouble on your head.”

Perseus sighed. “I will not.” He readied himself in a stance. “On either count.”

Bronze spear points angled down. He crept his hand across his waist to his sword. Flapping sandals sounded on the steps.

His eyes flicked up to see an older man hurrying down the wide steps toward the guards, neither of whom would shift their gaze from Perseus, despite the conspicuous noise.

Smart.

The man with his short, grey-bristled beard scurried up behind the shoulder of the guard on the left, and began to unload a stream of quiet, rushed speech into the armed man’s ear. The more the guard heard, the more his face turned sour.

When the messenger stood to the side, he looked from the guard to Perseus and back again. No one breathed or flinched for several heartbeats. Then the spear on the left straightened.

The guard wore a scowl, but he stepped back in the direction of his post. His fellow cocked his head, but the first guard dipped a curt nod, and the pair opened the way again.

Perseus stood straight and eyed the two. The older man was all but leaning toward the palace. There was no possibility this was good luck.

Rather have fought these two. Combat is honest.

He followed the bearded messenger up the steps, hand never relaxing away from his weapon until the guards at his back were well out of sight.

“Is there something I should know?” Perseus said to the other man as they moved along a massive corridor and turned a corner.

Sounds of revelry grew louder. The man said nothing.

His options were few: split off from this silent guide to go search this labyrinth of a building for either his mother or the king, or follow toward what sounded like a crowd, and if the king wasn’t there, create enough of a scene to force an audience. Turning back was out of the question.

It had been years. Years.

“Brother! Is it true you pulled this fetching young woman from the sea? Tell me your name, pet. And such a handsome boy! Where is his father?”

Diktys had done his best. It was one thing to dissuade a brother bent on a goal. It was another thing entirely when that brother was also king. Polydektes was nothing if not patient. He’d only had to wait for Perseus to become a man, to go out into the world for long enough. It was some wonder the king had waited until now⁠—Perseus had left boyhood at least a decade past.

Torchlight glittered over mosaics set in the walls, and the corridor opened into a vast, rectangular courtyard. People were everywhere. Standing, drinking, laughing. Sitting at banquet benches and tables. Clapping for performers who danced and plucked strings and thumped drums.

At the opposite end of the court, past a sea of chaotic merriment, stood an elaborate table. Platters of meat crowned its center, as only a palace could afford. Tuna and eel and lamb. Dessert cheeses and honey breads. Olives and figs. And behind it all, sat Polydektes. To his left, Danaë of Argos.

Perseus, the only still body in the place, caught the eye of the king. The messenger had disappeared into the crowd.

“Ah hah!” Polydektes clapped his hands twice. “Our wayward hero returns to Seriphos!”

Tongues stopped wagging, and a hundred pairs of eyes swiveled in the newcomer’s direction. Music died on the salt air. Someone coughed.

Danaë’s eyes were wide as she watched Perseus, bereft of further time to plan, strolling toward the long, central table. There was only a scattering of other women in the room⁠—slaves, the only sort permitted at a feast such as this⁠—and his mother’s clothing was a match for theirs.

Beneath his ribs, Perseus’s heart drummed a heavy tattoo. Behind him, footsteps. He spared a glance to either side and noted a new pair of guards had taken up positions at his back.

The king made a slow sweep with an upturned palm and smiled. “Kneel and present your gifts, Destroyer.”

Perseus ground his teeth on the unwanted moniker. “I kneel for no man, Polydektes. You know why I’ve come.”

Gasps rose among the feast-goers. His mother was busy making herself small, and the king laughed outright. “Hear this Son of Olympos”⁠—he raised his voice for the benefit of his audience⁠—“who claims he is far too great to kneel before his king.” He made a twitch of two fingers.

A sandal rasping on stone was just enough. The spear butt aimed at the back of his knee glanced when Perseus shifted. He rounded on the man and seized the ash haft in his grip and yanked. The guard came forward, off-balance with a grunt, and with a jab of his arms, Perseus cracked the man along the temple with the wood.

The second guard was rushing in to check him while the first was slithering to the ground. Perseus swung the polearm from the fulcrum of his right hand, and as it connected with his opponent’s neck, he pushed forward with his left. Like an oar carving into the sea, the spear slid around and carried the man headfirst toward the floor. Toward Perseus’s knee.

Now two were lying on the stones.

They’ll live.

A bark of laughter erupted from a crowd that had done well to stand back during the altercation. Perseus turned to see a man the size of an ox with a wild beard and grin to match clap his hands together from where he stood, off to the right of the king’s table.

Not to lose control of the moment, Polydektes joined in the laughter. Too loud, too practiced. He set to clapping, as well, and the attention in the courtyard returned to the king of Seriphos.

“The Golden Son does tricks!” His bright smile concealed venom. “Well done!”

Danaë flinched at another name Perseus hated, but Polydektes seemed content to ignore and continue as if he’d planned the match between the ‘guest’ and his guards all along. Merely another spectacle for the crowd’s amusement.

“I don’t suppose one of your tricks was to bring the wedding gift this feast requires?” The king sipped wine from his kantharos and his eyes glittered at Perseus over the vessel’s wide-handled rim.

Perseus glanced at his mother and tried to keep his hands from becoming fists. “I know of no wedding.”

“No wedding?” Polydektes was all feigned confusion. He set down his kantharos. “But then why have you come? Our dear Pelops is engaged to Hippodameia of Pisa.” He made a lavish gesture toward the young man sitting to his right. “It is the entire reason for our feast! And every guest is to have brought a fine horse. I should assume a Son of Olympos has brought the finest yet. Have you handed your gift off to the stablemaster?”

All while the regal posturing went on, some dozen additional guards had filtered forward through the crowd. And those were only the number Perseus could see straight ahead, and in his periphery.

You cannot fight them all.

He had his reasons for fighting his battles alone, but there were times when allies would have made matters so much simpler.

“I know nothing of horses, either,” Perseus said, “or feasts. I am here because Danaë of Argos does not belong in this place. Allow her to leave, and you will have no more trouble from me.”

“Doesn’t belong?” said Polydektes. “But what do you mean?” His hand slid to the back of Danaë’s neck and rested. “Was your mother not born in a palace? Of course she belongs. You would deny her this birthright now? And have her sent back to live with a fisherman?” He lilted a chuckle, and the crowd returned a nervous echo of the laugh.

His mother’s eyes were on her plate, hands folded in her lap while she tolerated the king’s touch. What had they done to her? She was never silent. Never meek.

“Slave’s garb is not her birthright.” Perseus took a step toward the table. Several guards adjusted their stances. He wanted to snap each one of their necks and bludgeon Polydektes with their limp corpses.

The king clucked his tongue as if Perseus were some unruly youth. “So disrespectful,” he said. “Here this one comes to our banquet, uninvited, without even a gift for our honored guest and his betrothed.” The grip tightened on his mother’s neck, and Danaë winced. Polydektes tilted his head to her. “Is this how you raise sons, darling?”

If he murdered a king in front of a hundred witnesses, could he and his mother make it out of the palace alive?

Perseus scowled. The Kêtos had been one foe. One. However large and daunting. Polydektes had two dozen spears, ready to bleed his challenger dry. Perseus was not fast enough, could not defend himself from that many directions at once. He was not bringing useful weapons to this fight. Not paying attention to his adversary’s weakest points.

But Vanity. Cruelty. Avarice. In those places the king was soft. Perseus relaxed his shoulders. Ensured his hand was nowhere near the hilt of his sword.

“And what gift could I bring,” he said, “that the King of Seriphos would grant my request and release my mother to me?”

Danaë’s eyes lifted to her son, to the new tone of his voice.

A different way, Mother. I am trying.

“Well”⁠—pleasure transformed the king’s face⁠—“that is a far more interesting question.” He withdrew his hold on Danaë’s neck to take up his vessel for another sip. “What gift? What gift is worth an Argive princess?”

Perseus closed his eyes, took a breath. Much like the sea monster, he’d have to follow Polydektes into his element. Risk drowning for his chance at his target. He waited, eyes open and on the king again.

“Ten horses?” Polydektes asked the crowd. To his right, Pelops smirked. “One hundred?”

Someone guffawed in the crowd. Perseus didn’t look, but it sounded like the wild-bearded man who’d applauded earlier.

“No,” the king went on with the wave of a hand. “Too simple. He would only have to ask his father, wouldn’t he?” His grin widened. “A crack of lightning from the sky and”⁠—he slapped his hand on the table, and several people jumped at the sound⁠—“wish granted! Horses everywhere!”

Ripples of laughter spread out around the seated king. Perseus’s jaw flexed. How many more Kêtea would he have to bring down? How many more princesses chained to rocks would he have to pull from harm’s way, before his name could stand on its own? Before he could simply be ‘Perseus’, and not ‘Son of Zeus?’

As though the Lord of the Skies has done a thrice-damned thing to help me or my mother in all this time.

“Ah!” said the king. “Here we are!” He leveled an eye and a vicious smile at Perseus. “Bring me my brother’s heart. In one of his fishing nets.”

“Fuck you!”

The entire crowd gasped, and it almost covered the crack of an open palm on skin. Danaë stood, shaking, and a red mark grew on the king’s cheek. She stared at her splayed hand, her own face going white.

Polydektes touched fingertips to his cheekbone, and cocked his head. Then he snapped his fingers, and a pair of guards at his back closed the distance. They took hold of Danaë’s upper arms.

“Mother!”

The hilt of Perseus’s sword was in his hand without thought, but more guards were pushing their way between him and the table, and the king, whom he wanted to injure in unspeakable and protracted ways. Four guards. Six, crowding him back, weapons ready.

“Perseus, no!”

Between their shoulders, he could see them hauling his mother from the courtyard, the hand she’d used to slap a king outstretched, reaching. Her eyes flickered, wet in the torchlight, before the men wrested her past a colonnade and she was gone.

Polydektes sat, tapping the knuckle of his first finger against his lips in contemplation, as though nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Mmm. Not a useful gift, that last.” He turned his attention again to Perseus “Dear to come by, but what good will it do my throne, after?” A pause, and then: “I have it.”

Perseus did not like what he saw glittering there in the king’s eyes.

“You will bring me the head of the gorgon, Medousa”⁠—Polydektes made his voice resound between four walls⁠—“and in exchange, I will return Danaë of Argos to your care.” He laced his fingers flat on the tabletop, a smile curling on his face.

Gorgon. The word nagged at him, familiar. Some beast, likely, but⁠ ⁠… Speculation narrowed his eyes.

“How will the head of this creature help Seriphos?” Perseus asked. “What good will it do the throne, as you say?” Beyond the ability to boast, though he wouldn’t put the idea past this king.

A surprised laugh burst from Polydektes. “Medousa? The ‘Bane of Men?’ You have been away from this island a long time.”

Perseus rolled a shoulder in a shrug.

“Not even one rumor?” the king went on. “The she-serpent who’s been murdering innocent men on the streets?” There were murmurs among the crowd at this, nods as though it were common knowledge. “She turns them to stone for sport, Destroyer. If you want to be a hero, do it here at home. Bring me her head.”

Bane of Men⁠ ⁠… turns them to stone⁠ ⁠…

Andromeda’s more patient account of the attack in the courtyard, given as they’d walked through the night to meet Diktys, rang against the king’s words in some foreboding harmony. ‘Innocent men.’ Perseus tugged at the first thread of suspicion. These men might all have something in common, and he would wager it was not innocence. The princess had hardly been able to tell him without tears.

“And you will release my mother?” he replied at last. “If I accomplish this task?”

“The head of Medousa,” the king said, “for Danaë of Argos. A fair exchange. You have my word.”

Perseus narrowed his eyes. The word of Polydektes would be like a fever dream: real enough to smell and taste in the moment, and then ephemeral once the sickness had passed.

And who was this creature? Where? How did a man, even a Son of Olympos, face down a foe who could end him in some macabre way he didn’t even understand? For which he could build no strategy?

But none of it mattered. He could not leave his mother here, to suffer the dreadful whims of this king. He could not return to Diktys and explain how he’d done nothing. Tried nothing.

“Then you have my word,” said Perseus. “I will return.”

Polydektes smiled on the other side of the long table, smug behind the line of armed guards. “Very well,” he said, as though he settled in for an intriguing performance. “You might want to run along, then.” He made a small shooing motion with his fingers. “I can’t vouch for your mother’s treatment when she’s out of my sight.”

Fury coursed in Perseus’s veins. His blade would separate a king’s head from its body, just as well as it would do some other abomination. In front of him, the guards’ knuckles tightened on their spears.

Go. Now before you make it worse.

He turned with a snarl and a swirl of his chlamys, and strode from the palace courtyard, waves of gossip already beginning to crash back in from the crowd on all sides.

Where would he start? How would he do this thing?

This time there was no escorting messenger through the massive corridors, and it was just as well. Polydektes had set him this task because the man had full confidence it would kill him. No need to have him guided anywhere safely, now.

The sea breeze cooled sweat on his skin as he left the walls of the palace proper, and Perseus had to slow his angry pace. Had to start thinking, and rationally, for creation’s sake.

On the stones behind him, sandaled footsteps came in a hurry. His hand moved for his sword.

“Perseus!” said a deep voice. “Wait.”

✧

When her small ship came parallel to the dock on the west side of Sarpedon, Medousa’s amateur crew was already leaping to tie off lines, to furl the single wide sail. What they lacked in experience they made up for in enthusiasm, and it assured her again that what she was offering, what she’d been teaching them, was right.

It was not time yet to lift the gauzy veil she wore over her eyes⁠—that would come after the women were safely out of her sight⁠—but she could still see the shapes of two figures on the sand. One limbed as a human, the other more complicated. Winged and coiled.

She raised a hand in a wave to her sisters.

In her own human form, Medousa made her way onto the dock. The women ahead of her⁠—some dozen and a half⁠—formed a nervous cluster on the sand. Some of them had open stares for the other two gorgones, as Medousa had promised this group of refugees, like she had all those before, that hers were the only eyes they dare not meet. The stone gaze was her weapon and curse alone, though her sisters could be terrifying enough to the daughters of men.

She let her voice carry as she stepped onto the beach. “Those of you who are injured still, Euryale will attend to your wounds. Fill your bellies with real food.” Her golden-haired sister stepped toward the new survivors, then. From a modest stone structure nestled at the base of the cliffs sheltering the cove, several more women emerged, established residents of the island. Shoulders dropped and arms relaxed on Medousa’s newest arrivals.

Their unlikely savior had told them the truth: they would not be alone on an island of monsters. Others had come before them. Others had healed and would show them the way.

“If there are any who are not hungry or in need of healing,” Medousa called out, “and who wish to train, Sthenno will guide you to the sparring grounds. Though I would advise a full night’s rest, beforehand.”

Even with the caution, three of the newcomers began to trudge over the sand in the same direction as Medousa now moved. Toward her sister, Sthenno, in the full monstrous form she preferred, russet scales of her coilgleaming in the late afternoon light, fídia hovering about her face, tongues flickering to scent the approaching trio. Her gold wings hung folded at her back, and Medousa tasted the thinnest bitter current of loss at the back of her tongue for all she’d given up.

But these women, here and safe away from the men who’d attacked them⁠ ⁠… The sight of them was enough. Her sacrifices had been worthwhile.

Medousa reached Sthenno’s side before the cautious pace of her new charges brought them near.

“A fair-sized batch, Sister,” the gorgon said, hands on her serpentine hips. “Only a few weeks, this time. You’ve been busy.” The last words came with a sinister smile.

“Busier,” said Medousa. “I had four refuse to come.”

“Oh?”

The three women arrived. Two of them would only look at their feet in the sand, but one assessed the red gorgon with a bold eye. Medousa could guess who her sister’s next promising student would be.

“I’ll tell you later.” She was eager to be alone for a time, to have her veil off, and perhaps sleep in the sand. To dream of more pleasant things than the filth against which she waged her own private war.

“We will join you after everyone is settled.” Sthenno nodded at the women, and several snake heads nodded with her. “You can tell us your tales.”

Medousa gripped her sister’s shoulder and gave it a brisk squeeze⁠—only Euryale would put up with any sort of real affection⁠—and dipped her chin. “Good to be home.”

On the north end of the beach, a narrow set of steps switched back and forth up the side of the cliffs, and Medousa left her rescues behind to begin the climb. She had done her part, and now her sisters would begin to do theirs.

The stairs had not always been there. They had only become necessary after the loss of Medousa’s wings, after she could no longer reach the hidden clifftop entrance among the gnarled pines by the same means as the other two gorgones.

Once she passed under the lintel, there were more stairs. These went down, into the heart of the cliff, into the home their father Phorkys had made for them. The sons of man might call it a palace. Phorkys had begged its formation from the very limestone as a favor from his ancient mother Gaia, a gift for his youngest daughters. The old gods had not stirred on the mortal plane in ages, now. Medousa could only touch memories of her parents through the accumulating haze of time.

There were whisperings on occasion, and she could swear they carried the sound of her mother’s voice. When needs required Medousa to descend into the sea Poseidon had corrupted, there were flickerings of madness. She had tried to explain to her sisters the way her awareness⁠—for a heartbeat⁠—had not been singular, but had spread out like points of starlight, near and far, beneath the blue.

Sthenno had dismissed the idea outright. Ketô, their mother, had long ago fled her domain, and there was no possibility for the Bane of Men to be somehow touching the minds of the Ketea. From the regal whales migrating near the surface, to the many-armed squid jetting through the lightless deep⁠—all her mother’s children still lived and hunted and mated and died, all under Poseidon’s control.

Euryale would listen with more patience, but the pale gorgon’s brow would knot with concern the way it did when she tended women who had been out in the sun too long without water. Perhaps the jolt of wading into the borders of his realm was enough to make Medousa’s grip on reality stretch thin and snap a few threads.

Worth it, again, to deliver these women from violence.

Deep under the rock, but still far above the sea, the descending steps opened into a high-ceilinged chamber. At the far end of the many-columned space, the walls opened to the salt air of the ocean in a triad of tall archways. It was there Medousa went and stood, and pulled her veil away so she could look out over the blessing of an uncomplicated horizon. She inhaled. Exhaled.

Twenty-two men.

Twenty-two pale, hideous memorials in stone, all over the island of Seriphos, this time. Twenty-two just as cruel and entitled as Poseidon, but not nearly as successful at ruining lives.

Oh no. Not at all.

And eighteen women, removed from that rapacious nightmare. Free to heal and exist without fear among a sisterhood who would not shame or shun them. Some chose never to leave Sarpedon again. She couldn’t argue with their motivations.

Some time after she’d retired to a less-cavernous adjacent space in their cliffside home, Medousa heard voices, echoing. They drew near the room where she reclined on her back atop a stone bench padded in sheepskins, one arm thrown across her forehead while she watched the stars track the evening sky through the opening in the rock, overhead.

“Here you are!” Euryale’s voice blossomed into the room, along with torchlight, and Sthenno gliding along in her wake. “We’ve brought food.”

More whispers came from behind the gorgones, and Sthenno was blunter. “Cover your eyes, Sister, unless you want a statue of one of our girls.”

Medousa sighed and shifted the forearm over her eyes. Sounds of bustling and low voices came from off to her left. Crockery and wood, scraping.

“Thank you, Iola. Doto,” said Euryale after the fussing noises had ceased.

“It is our pleasure, Wide-Stepping One. Strong One. Guardian!” The woman called out the last to the far side of the space where Medousa still lay with her eyes covered.

Medousa waved an acknowledging hand in the direction of the voice and heard the footsteps retreat. When the air in the room tasted only of her own kind, she rolled to her side. Sat up and took in a familiar sight.

Torches burned now in the room’s sconces. A low wooden table stood laden with a platter of fish, and with bread and olives and wine. She moved to sit on the floor, to fill up a plate and sup with the only two who knew her.

The immortal gorgones ate for pleasure, for companionship. Medousa ate for sustenance, these many decades since her bargain with Athena. She might not age, but she could starve. And unlike her sisters, the blood of the deathless no longer ran in her veins; would no longer heal her wounds. She had only her wits for survival now. And her eyes.

“Our sister tells me there were four this time,” Sthenno said around a mouthful of tuna.

“Oh?” Euryale tore a flat piece of bread in half and dipped it in her wine.

Medousa cut her eyes sideways at the reminder of the loss. “The angry ones are more likely to come.” She reached for an olive. “The fearful, less so. They need to be⁠ ⁠…” She popped the fruit into her mouth, then located and spat out the pit while she chose her words. “… less afraid of me than they are of the men. There doesn’t seem to be any right answer. If I show my serpent form, they almost never accept. More likely to wet down their leg.”

Sthenno snorted at this, and Euryale shook her head.

“And if I appear to them this way”⁠—she gestured at herself⁠—“they don’t always understand. They don’t put the events together. The bastard on top of them turns to marble, and then here is this woman.” She shrugged and sipped her wine. “They can’t believe I’ll be of any help. I look just like them. Who am I to do anything useful?”

“You’ve done plenty useful.” Sthenno, flashed a glint of fang. “Ridding that island of a plague.”

Medousa waved her off. She’d hardly made a dent in that island’s ‘plague.’ “And the last, before I left, I tried to make the offer without showing myself at all. From the shadows.”

“And?” Euryale had rapt blue eyes for her sister from over her cup.

“The largest failure of all,” Medousa said, and carved off her own hunk of the fish. “As soon as I’d ended this beast I’d been following for half the night⁠—I knew his type. I could smell it on him⁠—some other walking phallus comes running to her side.”

Sthenno growled.

“Had her convinced,” Medousa ranted on, “he was there to protect her. And she believed him! Truly!” She threw up a hand. “Where had he been, then? While some pustule was trying to spread her legs? She was Aithiopian, I don’t even know what she was doing on that island.”

“Should have taken care of the second one at the same time.” Her russet sister, spat out a fish bone.

Euryale made a noise of distaste at this, but Medousa shook her head. “I couldn’t have. Not without endangering the girl. And I hadn’t caught him doing anything wrong. You know my rule.”

“Bah!” Sthenno reached for the bread. “You made that rule. No one’s holding you to it.”

If the Strong One had her choice, Medousa might go out of her way to petrify every man she saw, but Athena’s words from that fateful night had never left her.

He was an innocent. You will govern yourself in this.

If the dark sister used her power without discrimination, she’d be no better than the predators she sought to eradicate. But let her cross paths with this last one again⁠ ⁠… If she caught him in the act one time⁠—one time!⁠—that handsome face would stay that way. Forever.

“You could offer the women sanctuary without killing the men.” Euryale’s softer voice still rang clear amid the small sounds of dining in the room. “You are clever, Sister. There are other ways.”

Medousa leaned back on her palms, hunger sated. “That won’t stop them from trying their nonsense with other women.” And then there were the deceivers like that ‘hero’ in the courtyard. The ones who had women convinced that some men were still more than a waste of air.

“How long will you stay on Sarpedon this time?” Euryale said.

“A month, perhaps. Longer.” Medousa stretched her legs beneath the table. “I need a rest. The ship needs repairs.”

She met the eyes of her sisters, blue and black in turn, grateful the curse of her gaze was lost on the deathless.

“Maybe you want to put that veil on and come down to spar,” said Sthenno with a grin. “Help me make warriors of this lot.”

She had given up her wings for this. Given up the promise of eternity.

“After she’s had some sleep,” Euryale said.

She would not give up her family.

Without them, she would be alone. And that might be worse.