Harvest Moon: A Tangled Web / Cast in Moonlight / Retribution. Michelle Sagara
him if I need to. Or who knows? He might just fall into some, thanks to The Tradition. Let’s see if we can’t get this happening sooner than a year and a day, or everyone and everything in Olympia is going to starve to death.”
She got up and reached for her torch. “Wait!” Brunnhilde said.
Hecate paused.
“This was all your fault,” Brunnhilde said, pointing at Thanatos. “I want something in exchange for going along with this and not just summoning my father and giving him an excuse for a war of the gods.”
Hecate raised one eyebrow. “She has a point. And I’m a goddess of justice, among other things.”
Hades nodded. “All right.” He sighed. “What is it you want?”
Brunnhilde smiled in triumph. “I want you to make my husband an immortal.”
So this was Elysium.
It was certainly pretty. Flowers, flowers everywhere, underfoot, overhead in the trees, clouding the bushes. But not a hint of fruit. Nothing like a vegetable garden. No fields of grain.
Which, all things considered…was not at all surprising. Everyone here seemed to be blithely uninterested in the humbler tasks, or indeed, in work of any sort. Well, it wasn’t as if they had to work; they were spirits after all, they didn’t eat, or drink, they had everything provided for them. But it made her feel just a little impatient, looking at them lolling about, doing nothing but exercising, having games, discussing ridiculous things like “How do I know the color blue is the same to you as it is to me?”
Hecate was at least right about one thing. Elysium did have light. It had its own sun, and its own stars, which were in the heavens at the same time. She had gone to it by means of an imposing gate in an otherwise blank wall; here the gate stood, quite isolated, in the middle of a field of—yet more asphodels. She had the feeling that she was going to be very, very tired of asphodels after a while.
Perhaps if this experiment worked she could get other flowers to bloom in the gardens of Hades’s palace.
There was none of that all-enshrouding mist here. Aside from the extraordinary sky—in which the sun, as near as she could tell, did not move, but simply winked out from time to time, making “night”—it was rather like the slopes of Mount Olympus, minus the animals and birds. No flocks of sheep, no songbirds, no insects. Hmm. And no bees.
Which means I am going to have to pollinate whatever I am trying to grow by hand.
But it wasn’t wilderness. It was all very tame. Mannered groves, manicured meadows big enough to conduct games in, hills with just enough slope to make a good place to watch, rocks where they were most convenient to sit on, small, “rustic” buildings or miniature temples dotted about.
And everywhere, people. Which she ignored, because she was trying to figure out what, if anything, she might be able to get to bear fruit, and why there was nothing bearing fruit here now.
Finally she gave up trying to reason it out herself, and went searching for someone who could tell her. Most of those she asked looked at her askance, and said they hadn’t really thought about it. A couple groups actually turned the topic of their debate to whether or not there should be such a thing as planting and harvesting here.
Well, it was no worse than the “color blue” question.
Finally she was sent to the ruler of Elysium; the former king Rhadamanthus, who was the son of a Titan. Or, as she was well aware now, at least half-Fae.
She found him arbitrating a dispute between two philosophers, but once he caught sight of her, he seemed more than pleased to tell them they were both wrong, dismiss them, and go to greet her.
“So, this is ‘little’ Persephone.” The king chuckled. “I must say, I envy Hades. Perhaps Thanatos can find me another like you?”
“Oh, he already did, and you wouldn’t want her,” Persephone replied, thinking about the rather formidable war-goddess she had left stewing in Hades’s care. “Cross Athena with Ares’s temper, and throw in a bit of Bacchus’s madness, just to keep things uncertain—” She explained to Rhadamanthus what had happened as briefly as she could. “So the problem is,” she concluded, “since Thanatos didn’t abduct me, I have to find another way to keep Mother from getting me back. Hecate says the only way she can think of is for me to eat something grown down here. But it has to be real food, apparently, flowers won’t qualify, or I would already have had a salad of asphodel.”
“Well…that is a problem. The definition of Elysium is that it lies in eternal spring—not a good time to produce anything edible.” Rhadamanthus pondered this for a moment. “Well, if you have any of your mother’s power…”
She sighed. “Hecate said the same thing.”
“There might be one place where you can succeed. Come with me.”
She followed Rhadamanthus, for quite some time. He proved to be an excellent conversationalist and told her many valuable things about Hades’s moods and personality. It was only when he took her through a very precipitous cleft that she noticed that this part of Elysium was a bit different than the rest. Drier, not so lush, and at the moment—warmer.
On the other side of the cleft was a tiny valley. It was not a particularly fertile valley, either. But there were three stunted pomegranate trees here, with a few blossoms on them.
“I really don’t know why this part of Elysium is resistant to the eternal spring we have everywhere else,” Rhadamanthus mused. “But it is. No one but myself ever comes here. I only found the place by accident. I’ve seen fruit start—I’ve never seen one ripen, but I have seen them start. If there is anyplace in Elysium where you can succeed, it will be here.”
Persephone stared at the unprosperous-looking trees, and for a moment was ready to give up completely. This was ridiculous. The trees were warped by drought and deprivation, the soil was poor, and in any event, pomegranates took five months from blossom to fruit! By that time, Demeter would surely track her down and demand her back!
“The Tradition does demand the almost impossible in order for the Hero to succeed,” Rhadamanthus said, as if he was reading her thoughts.
She almost groaned, but he was right. This was exactly the sort of thing that The Tradition required.
It seemed she was going to be growing pomegranates. Hopefully, at an accelerated pace.
Hopefully, her mother’s power actually was in her.
Leo had more than a few choice words for the Olympians, and he was delivering them when Hecate returned. This time the billow of dark smoke sprang up between him and the others, so that Hecate was in an excellent position to interrupt them all when she stepped out of it. “Your woman seems to be fine, mortal,” Hecate said, cutting his tirade short. “And she’s no better pleased with this than you are. I pledge you that Hades has no intention of holding her if there is any way we can work out a solution for this predicament he and Thanatos managed to muddle into.”
Leo frowned, and was about to demand what she meant by if, when she held up her hand, forestalling him. “However, if you’ll give me the favor of holding your tongue for a moment, Olympia has a much bigger problem to deal with here than just one separated couple, and unfortunately, this is one that won’t wait.”
“Just what would that be?” Leo asked angrily.
Hecate’s somber face made him pause. “Demeter is the goddess of fertility,” she said slowly and deliberately. “And the goddess of fertility has just abandoned her home and run off into the wilderness and beyond. I would not in the least be surprised to discover that she has abandoned her duty and fled past our borders as well. The Tradition has put her firmly in charge of the magic that keeps Olympia fertile and growing, and there is no way to replace her. And we have a country populated by mortals who have no concept of ‘seasons,’ and no reason to store food, since Demeter has insured that things ripen all year long.”