The Gates of Horn and Ivory E-Book

Francis Rosenfeld

• Herausgeber: Francis Rosenfeld
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Walking in the footsteps of the goddess: Persephone's story.

Das E-Book The Gates of Horn and Ivory wird angeboten von Francis Rosenfeld und wurde mit folgenden Begriffen kategorisiert:
fantasy, myths and legends, fiction, Greek Myths, ancient gods

Leseprobe

Francis Rosenfeld

The Gates of Horn and Ivory

UUID: 2205b9ba-89ca-41fa-ac36-16679aa1a54d

This ebook was created with StreetLib Writehttps://writeapp.io

Table of contents

PART I

Chapter 1

Spring

Praise Olympus!

The Haunted Caves

Chapter 2

The Healings of Epidaurus

Charming Dionysus

The Moirae

Chapter 3

The Dionysia

Eleusinian Mysteries

Summer Festival

Chapter 4

A Trip to Magna Grecia

Kore

Chapter 5

The Thesmophoria I

The Thesmophoria II

The Thesmophoria III

PART II

Chapter 6

Going Home

The Patterns of Reality

Land of Dreams

Chapter 7

Politik

The Cave of Hypnos

Behind the Bronze Gates

Chapter 8

The Blessed Isles

Strife

Through a Veil, Darkly

Chapter 9

Inspired

Joyfully Reborn

The Unreality

Chapter 10

Spring Fever

The Silent Kingdom

Chorus

PART I

Chapter 1

Spring

Persephone had a secret, one she could never tell her mother.

She had never enjoyed the gossip, the pointless aggravation, and the churning of vanities and ambitions that surrounded her life in the living world, the daily rehashed dramas of the nymphs’ latest trysts, the self-centered empty dalliances of the male gods, the petty envies of the spurned minor goddesses, the closed-minded expectations of the powers that be, the gaudy, useless pomp, the empty rhetoric.

When tall, dark, and handsome walked her way, she had rolled her eyes at first, in exasperation of having to endure yet another episode of the over-inflated male ego, and was determined to evade his attention as soon as feasible and with as little damage to her eardrums as possible, but he turned out to be nothing she expected.

He didn’t tell her who he was, of course, out of fear he’d be rejected before he had a chance to speak his woo, and by the time they got closer, he had even more reason to keep his identity quiet, grateful for the miracle of her and worried not to lose her love.

She was young and pretty, Persephone, even though a bit of an airhead, perhaps, like most young girls were, but that was not what had attracted him to her. There was a sweetness about her, a genuine warmth that soothed his soul like a balm, and which always reminded him of the delicious taste of pomegranates.

She was an old soul, or at least appeared to be, when her far-away gaze dwelled upon the horizon, forsaking the world’s tumult and wasted expectations.

They spent a lot of time together, in silence, in the early days of their dating, enjoying blessed peace, and the more time they spent together, the more it became clear she was his soulmate and he was her home.

So, naturally, since they had found unexpected happiness, the world put its wheels in motion to thwart it: one of the Erinyes told a dryad, who told a nymph, who started the gossip mill, which reached the ears of Demeter, who was instantly incensed anyone would dare accuse her blameless daughter of carrying on with the king of Hades.

She stormed upstairs to complain to her all-powerful brother, Zeus, whose debt of gratitude to the ruler of the underworld made him rather unresponsive to her plight, and she raised hell, claiming rape, incest and dishonor, and threatening to let everything burn to cinders if her daughter wasn’t returned.

Back channel negotiations started, during which it transpired Persephone really didn’t have a problem dating the king of the dead, thus fueling Hades’s confidence and raising his stakes in the dealmaking.

During his repeated bargaining meetings with his older brother, Persephone paced, filled with anxiety and rage for having her fate decided by someone else yet again, blaming her mother, her uncle and her female gender in random sequence, as emotions inspired her.

The compromise all the parties resentfully accepted was nothing she desired: no young bride volunteers to spend half the year away from her beloved, and the mere thought of leaving the peaceful warmth of her home to get drowned in the noise of the madding world and digest its pointless gaggle made her nauseous.

With the passing of time, her biyearly commute became routine, modulating her emotional waves into an endless sinusoid of frustration and release.

Frustration approached right now, as she looked at herself in the mirror, getting ready for the questionable privilege of rejoining her mother to perform her duties under unnecessary guardianship.

Her keen eyes sought fault with her own countenance, a tiny wrinkle, maybe, or a blemish, only to encounter the flawless peaches and cream complexion that so endeared her to her betrothed, and she breathed out slowly, grateful and relieved for the gift of eternal youth.

Her eyes looked too old for her face, and the illusion of seeing someone else wear her face like a mask made her recoil.

“You are beautiful,” Hades whispered in her ear, with a little kiss, placing his hands on her shoulders and leaning over to admire her graceful mirror image. “Stop worrying, you look perfect.”

“Tell my mother that,” Persephone sighed, comforted.

“You know your mother doesn’t speak to me,” he smiled back, indifferent to the family drama.

“Yes, I am fully aware. And you know why? Because she spends six months a year, every year, elaborating on her reasons. I so wish I didn’t have to go.”

“I drank from the Styx on this solemn promise. You know I can’t break it, right? I wish you didn’t have to go either, but fall will be here soon.”

“Why don’t you ever come visit?”

“People don’t appreciate being reminded I exist, makes me feel unwanted.”

“I want you. Who cares what everyone else thinks?”

“Your mother.”

They had the same conversation every year, equally frustrating every time, with Persephone’s soul bouncing wildly between love and revolt, as she dragged her feet behind Hecate towards the portal to the world of the living.

She knew her mother would be there, waiting outside the palatial cave of Cumae, with its hundred entrances and just as many resounding echoes, like one would the release of an incarcerated from a prison in which they refuse to step foot.

Persephone stopped for a moment in front of the open portal, bracing herself for the inevitable deluge of pity and questioning, and getting twirled around like a top and looked at from every angle to make sure she’s intact.

She sighed, took a deep breath, and crossed the threshold.

The cave of Cumae was bathed by the sunrise of the spring equinox, looking a lot more impressive than she remembered it, and the Sybil bowed deeply before her as she passed by, honored and intimidated by the presence of the goddess.

Persephone didn’t have a haughty bone in her body, but engaged in the pageantry of the Olympians anyway, barely nodding, stony faced, to her humble servant.

“Thank the gods, daughter! Well, not all of them, of course, my poor innocent child, what has become of you! Come! Come! You must be starving, you look so thin! I made barley, your favorite, see?”

She offered her daughter a thick sheath of barley, tied with decorative ribbons, which the latter welcomed into her arms like a bridal bouquet.

All around the entrance to the cave, the ground was covered in barley seed, an inch thick, mulching the soggy ground so the mud underneath couldn’t reach Persephone’s delicate sandals.

She suddenly remembered the world of the living had seasons, and she should have picked more substantial footwear.

To her relief, a golden chariot awaited, not too far, and its silk cushioned upholstery and fine woolen rugs looked a lot friendlier to dainty apparel than the wet dirt path of spring.

The breeze felt chilly, but also carried a familiar fragrance, that of daffodils, which she breathed in deeply to fill her lungs with it. Existence felt so primal above ground, crude, untamed, unwise, excessive. It reminded her of the innocence of youth, innocence, ignorance. It’s all in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? The age when one simply doesn’t find the time to think ahead, because everything around one is so new, so interesting and so overwhelming in the present.

She felt out of place in her gossamer tunic, lighter than the breeze, hanging on to her shoulders secured with fancy gold pins and gathered around her torso with a belt of woven silver and gold.

“How can you still wear that, Persephone?” Demeter recoiled in outrage at the sight of the fateful item, which brought back very dark memories of her daughter’s abduction.

Persephone’s retinue didn’t dare face Demeter’s wrath to tell her how they came into the possession of the belt, or the real details of the girl’s disappearance, so they got together and agreed on the story the earth opened up and swallowed her whole, circumstance during which the belt allegedly came undone.

“Speak, daughter, or did your dark husband take your voice as well!” Demeter snapped.

“I’m thrilled to see you, mother,” Persephone smiled, for she loved her mother and this whole circus of the eternal feud between the gods drove her to despair.

“I should hope so! You look like you’re happier being dead!”

“I’m never dead, mother. I’m immortal. I couldn’t be dead if I tried!”

“You know what I mean. How you spend months and months in the dark with that beast is beyond me.” She brushed off the aggravating imagery. “To happier subjects. I’ve prepared your work list. We’re having a unique blend of plant preponderances for harvest. You should familiarize yourself with it as soon as you get settled. Spring came early this year, so you’re already a couple of weeks behind schedule. There will be a worshipful ceremony at your temples tomorrow. Do something nice for the people, will you? Your subjects expect to hear from their goddess. Oh, and talk to Dionysus, he asked. Something about the equinox after-party. Youth these days!” she stiffened at the thought of debauchery and excess.

‘Yep. Exactly as I remembered it,’ Persephone sighed, exasperated, but said nothing.

“What about the sowing schedule?” she changed the subject. “Is everything ready to go in the ground?”

“Of course not! Everyone was waiting for your instructions. They wouldn’t dare decide without your approval! People got smitten for less!”

The bitter taste in Persephone’s mouth started to dissolve in anticipation of engaging in her worldly passion - tending to the needs of the plant kingdom.

Demeter saw her daughter’s eyes light up and went quiet, not wanting to jinx it. She didn’t understand how the girl could be happy with the ruler of the dead and was relieved to see her enjoy herself above ground for a change.

1

Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica Hymn II (To Demeter) translated by H.G. Evelyn-White

Praise Olympus!

The sun woke her up the next morning, the memory of her dream still fresh. She was picnicking in her orchard, eating pomegranate seeds at dusk, while Hades, who sat beside her, watching, brought each seed to life with a light of its own as her lips touched it, just to amuse her.

A group of nymphs burst into the room, giggling and shoving each other, and suddenly grew quiet when they found themselves in the presence of the goddess.

A prolonged monotonous droning of odes and praise ensued, a spectacle Persephone listened to with patience and appreciation, like a good immortal would, secretly relieved when it finally ended and it was proper for her to get out of bed.

The darn thing was massive, placed atop of a stepped marble platform to loom over the also enormous room, which would have been a better fit for a ballroom than a bedroom, and whose glistening white portico opened out to the sights above the clouds.

Far into the distance, the peak of Mount Olympus poked through them, a vision in rose and lavender, halfway between dream and reality.

Everything in the room was so white it made her eyes hurt. The walls, the ceilings, the floors, the benches surrounding the walls, everything was made of white marble, polished until its shine gained a wax-like quality. Her bedsheets were crafted from the finest white silk, so soft and light they competed with the clouds she could see through the portico. Large cups and carafes made of the finest silver gleamed on even brighter silver trays, and the air was infused with an intense scent of tuberoses.

A singular detail clarified who this sparse white room belonged to: the thick sheaf of barley from the day before, which was standing on its end in one of the marble apses, defying the laws of gravity and balance.

She squinted to adjust her sight, and jumped on the bed, filled with the energy of youth, all but forgetting the decorum of her goddess status.

“My heart is filled with gladness at your return, mistress,” her personal daimona, Angelos, advanced to the center of the room, bowed with a flourish at her feet and retrieved a rather long scroll, waiting for the response protocol demanded before going into its details.

“Praise the wisdom of Olympus,” Persephone swallowed a yawn, trying in vain to look dignified after the jumping on the bed routine.

Strange how coming back to her childhood home always returned her demeanor to a childlike state.

“Your mother hopes you had a restful sleep and reminds you to forsake the asphodel crown when you visit the temple of Asclepius. The sick take exception. Will there be any special orations you prefer during your visit?”

“Whatever you see fit, I don’t have a preference. Why am I visiting the temple of Asclepius?”

“A special devotion was offered in your honor by king Eumenes, seeking your help in the war against Perseus of Macedon.”

“My help? At the temple of Asclepius? Does he know who I am and what I do?”

“Yes, mistress. And yet, he seeks your favor.”

‘Stoics,’ she thought. ‘The world is becoming strange indeed.’

“What else is on today’s schedule?”

“Queen Laodice brings you an offering of grain and honey and seeks favor for her departed husband, Mithridates. She wants to host a banquet in his honor and asks for your dream visitation and advice.”

“Given her departed was poisoned at one, and as of yet is not sure it was not by her hand, I find the idea rather ironic.”

“So, do you deny her?”

“No. King Mithridates also insists his horse could talk and sends constant requests to till the Asphodel Meadows, because he says he’s allergic to them. What else?”

“Barley planting needs to start today, with your blessing.”

“You have it. Next?”

“The Telesterion requested the honor of yours and your mother’s presence to go over the ritual.”

The list unfolded for the next hour, as the light in the sky changed, trailing behind Helios’ golden chariot.

“Would that be all, mistress?” Angelos dared ask, after a long pause during which Persephone seemed to be lost in her faraway world.

“Yes, thank you. Tell my mother I’ll be ready in a minute.”

Angelos bowed again and retreated backwards, closing the door behind her without noise.

Three worlds, Persephone thought. Three worlds, each one different. Why would this one be better than the other two? In truth, she had very little knowledge of the oceanic realm, which surrounded her home, and lent it its waters to serve as agents of change and portals between worlds.

She already missed her home, the kingdom of the chtonic gods, a place filled with riches beyond measure, guarded by fearsome beasts and daimons, a place beyond fear, entreatments, and the ambitions of the mortals, where love always awaited her.

People dreaded her realm, the place from which all abundance pours forth. They respected its wonders, but feared them, like people always fear what they don’t understand.

Hades kept no secrets from her, not even Tartarus.

The Furies bowed before her in obedience and even the fearsome Cerberus laid his heads in her lap, whimpering softly like a puppy, to be acknowledged by his mistress.

In her fantastic grove, fast-growing poplars shivered in the twilight, with trembling leaves of glistening old gold. The grove extended all the way to the ocean’s shore, where the Isles of the Blessed shimmered in the distance, surrounded by mists. There, the righteous enjoyed their eternal existence outside of time, far away from the whims of ruling gods.

Rubies, garnets, obsidian and diamonds trimmed the edges of the Phlegethon, forged in the glowing river of fire and amplifying its sparkle with the multifaceted mirrors of their crystals.

The beautiful river Acheron flowed through dark gorges, disappearing underground in places, only to resurface, surprising, seemingly out of nowhere, bubbling up from the ground in pools and waterfalls and carrying soulful memories in its restless waters.

Far into the distance, the fiery pit of Tartarus’s volcano cauldron burned eternal, lighting up the night with bursts of molten metal, while slow flowing lava carved rivulets on its mountainous container, which looked like veins pulsating with the blood of Gaia.

In her orchards and vineyards, the branches were heavy with clusters of translucent grapes and overripe pomegranates, whose scent filled the air with honey sweetness, while the bees, her messengers to the world above, buzzed around diligently gathering pollen and nectar.

On the edge of the Asphodel Meadows, whose spires of honeysuckle fragrant flowers reached up to the sky like glowing torches, the river of forgetfulness and peace, the Lethe, bubbled softly, barely a whisper, between the rocks of the Hall of Sleep.

In this place where neither sounds nor sunlight were allowed, surrounded by clumps of red poppies, Hypnos enjoyed his perpetual slumber on ebony benches upholstered in black silk.

Beyond the Hall of Sleep lay the Land of Dreams, a place where reality ended and fantasy began, a realm populated by dream tribes, whose denizens bore no allegiance to the rules of reality, or even to truth, and who sprung into the world through the enormous Gates of Horn and Ivory that kept guard at its borders.

The gates were tall, forty, maybe fifty feet, intimidating in their monumental size, even for a goddess, and the legend said true dreams came through the horn gates and false dreams through the other.

Their humbling height was meant to serve as a reminder, even to the gods, that truth and falsehood were absolute, and served no master, but Persephone had experienced enough of the world’s mirages to know false and true changed hands all the time, with one shift in perspective, with one minor detail, until the whole world is fantasy and both gates equally bear truth.

So, she simply admired their exquisite craftsmanship, the work of the Titans, maybe, as one would the monumental cenotaphs of a lost civilization, a warning to its descendants not to make the same mistakes.

Or maybe those impressions were just figments of the ivory gate playing with her mind.

She’d asked Hades what weight should she bear on the omens that came through those gates from the world of dreams, and he shrugged off the answer.

Just as the humans, the gods waded through the uncharted waters of reality gathering knowledge through their own experiences, knowledge which was individual and often impossible to share with another. Whether your life is the fleeting flash of a mortal fate or spanning eons, like that of the gods, you experience it inside a tiny cocoon of what you can feel, sense, and know, and that ends up being your ultimate truth.

She closed her eyes to remember the soothing whispers of the river Lethe, and its familiar image brought with it a deep longing for the warmth and fragrance of her world of twilight, and for a second she thought she felt Hades’ hand on her shoulder and turned around, expecting to see him there.

“Are you not ready yet? I’ve been waiting for you. Your handmaiden said you would join me shortly,” Demeter entered the room, in the company of the winds.

Persephone smiled at her childhood companions, the mischievous anemoi, who used to chase her through the meadows to tousle her hair.

The room suddenly became animated by air movement, which parted the clouds to reveal the world below, barely out of its winter slumber.

“We should get started,” Demeter pointed to their destination on Earth, like one would on a map. “It’s a long way to Cappadocia, and we have to stop in Epidaurus on the way back.”

“For you, Goddess of the Fruits of the Earth, your secret rites I will fund; in your shrine at Eleusius shall burn the sacred flame in celebration of your mysteries.”

“Do you hear that? They already started the ceremony.”

1

Seneca, Hercules Furens 229

The Haunted Caves

They saw it from afar, as they were traveling among the clouds in Helios’s chariot, the strange city of caves, carved in the soapstone of a cluster of spiky cliffs, sometimes by nature, sometimes by man, displayed amid the arid landscape like a giant sculpture, maybe an artifact the titans left behind, before his love of humankind landed Prometheus his penance.

A huge human beehive it seemed to be, where the diligent workers moved about through hundreds of holes in the stone cliffs towards the innards of the place, dug deep into the earth: the huge underground metropolis that marked the beating heart of Anatolia.

A large delegation welcomed the goddesses, with the traditional sheaves of grain and prolonged orations, and when it was done prostrating, the group surrounded them like living water and carried them down stairs and ramps through large subterranean chambers and hallways, past people carrying on their mundane activities, past carved galleries and alleys and arcades, public spaces and ventilation shafts, temples, tombs, and sanitation systems, stables and wells and water reservoirs, all the parts of a flawlessly functioning city, miles beneath the earth’s surface, illuminated only by Prometheus’s gift.

There seemed to be no bottom to this upside down underground metropolis, and Persephone, who was more versed in the intricacies of subterranean living than her mother, expected to see the glow of red flowing lava at any moment as they continued their seemingly endless descent.

The journey ended in the lowermost chamber, a huge arched cave, fifty feet tall, with painted walls depicting epic battles, and scenes of daily activities, prayers for the dead, devotions of the living.

The echoes of hundreds of voices were reverberated and amplified by the tall stone vaults, walls and floor, reaching a deafening, disorienting loudness.