Persephone's Tears: A Romance in the Seventh Dimension

By Karen Nilsen

When a warlock steals an egg from a phoenix nest and brings it to the afterlife, he hopes to bargain his way out of Hell. However, the thief’s wicked scheme doesn’t work out quite as he plans, and the egg winds up in the possession of Hades, the ruler of the dead. Desperate to hatch the egg, Hades and his loyal servant Dante seek Zeus’s advice. Chaos ensues . . .
Above ground, Persephone dances with other maidens through a world that has never experienced winter. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of fertility, has kept it summer forever. One day, Persephone hears mysterious singing and whispers coming from a dark chasm in the forest. Her mother forbids her to investigate the strange matter further, but Persephone rebels and ends up in Hades’s chariot. More chaos ensues . . .
From instruction concerning the correct feeding of a phoenix chick to gods and spirits debating philosophy to the three-headed dog Cerberus chasing ghost cats, this re-imagining of an ancient myth will take readers on an adventure across the River Styx to explore the geography of the afterlife.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Karen Nilsen
• Release date: Feb 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005811099

Karen Nilsen

As a child, Karen suffered frequent bouts of insomnia. The only way she could settle into sleep many nights was to imagine stories that played out like movies on the dark ceiling over her bed. Since her mean parents refused to replace the TV after the cat blew it up by peeing on the cord, all Karen had left to entertain herself in the lone wilds of the Minnesota wilderness were books and her own stories. As Karen grew, the stories grew with her. One day when she was fourteen, she told her mother one of these stories for probably the hundredth time. Her mother, who knew Karen very well, turned to her and said, “You know, Karen, you keep talking about these stories, but you never write them down. You keep saying you’re going to write a novel, but I don’t believe that you will.” This comment infuriated Karen so much that she started writing her stories down and hasn’t stopped since.

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PERSEPHONE’S TEARS: A ROMANCE IN THE SEVENTH DIMENSION

A Novel by

Karen Nilsen

Copyright 2019 by Karen Nilsen

All rights reserved.

Published by Karen Nilsen at Smashwords

Smashwords edition published 2022

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

To Rita Silver, a fellow author and a good friend, who first mentioned tears to me in connection with certain elements of this story.

Chapter One ~ Hades

When my steward entered the main hall, I thought at first he carried the moon concealed in the folds of his cloak. He held his arm out at a strange angle, something tucked under his elbow, and I glimpsed a bright opalescent glimmer, startling in this place of inky night. Only the lurid smears of torches lit the place usually, so any other source of light stood out. Zeus had claimed this wasn't a punishment, just how the underworld functioned, that it was part of the honor of being known as the dark lord of death and the afterlife, that I actually had to live in shadows in order to maintain the ambiance. According to him, the shadows suited what he saw as my dull life amongst books and ghosts. I supposed he had a point, but I still considered it a punishment sometimes, when the constant dark wore on me. Other times, I didn't mind it so much—the dark could be a comfort as well as a curse.

I straightened on my throne, curious at the flash of glowing white. Dante, what do you have there?

An egg, my lord Hades. He held it forth in all its gleaming glory. It was large for an egg, about a foot high perhaps, and it appeared made of solid opal, the way the light danced over its surface. Twisting jeweled threads of sky and water, fire and ice flickered in its pale depths.

A firebird egg from the Phoenix Realm—wherever did you acquire that? I exclaimed, rising from my throne and stepping off the dais to get a closer look. I reached out and ran my fingers down the surface of the egg. It's warm, I murmured with a craving I didn't even know I felt until I had touched it. Despite all the fiery torches, this place was never truly warm. Warmth implied living things, and no one here was alive. We existed here, but we didn't live here. Again, part of that ambiance Zeus considered so important because he didn't have to abide here amidst all the ghosts.

Dante handed it over, and I cradled its full weight. A bauble for your throne room.

I glanced around—shelves lined this endless room on all sides, filled with books of myth and magic from many realms, hourglasses of all descriptions, and other instruments and artifacts of enchanted navigation. I had collected these over the centuries. When sorcerers or witches died, they sometimes brought supernatural items with them, and if they had led less than exemplary lives, they were often eager to bargain. Nothing of the mortal world could pass over the River Styx, of course, but true magic had little to do with mortality and everything to do with spirit.

It's a magical thing, to be sure. But it doesn't quite fit because it's a living thing as well. It cannot hatch here. I stared down at the egg and tried to envision the chick within. Poor creature—it would never see the light of day, never rise in beautiful song to greet the sunrise.

Dante shifted, clearly discomfited. You seem displeased, my lord.

Who brought this? I stared at him, clutching the egg to me.

A thief—he stole it from a phoenix nest, and it was the last thing he ever stole. The phoenix sang to him and turned him to ash.

But then the egg should have stayed in that realm.

He uttered a wicked spell as she sang him to death, a spell that insured the egg came with him when he crossed over.

Ahh. I gazed down at the egg—it gleamed so that I could glimpse a ghostly reflection of myself amidst all the colorful threads. That is a terrible crime—surely he was Hell-bound after doing something like that.

Dante nodded. He was—and hence eager to bargain. I just couldn't let the egg go with him to Hell—after all, it is an innocent, undeserving of punishment, and what if by some miracle, it hatched down there? We couldn't let Lucifer near such a prize.

Sound thinking—there's a reason you're my most trusted servant. Where did you send the thief instead?

Limbo.

I chuckled at his clever sense of justice. He would die of boredom after a year or so—if he were still alive, that is. After a decade, he will be begging to go to Hell. Limbo was nothingness. Some found this void peaceful—at least for a time. If someone crossed over after much pain or suffering, that soul often needed somewhere to sleep and recover for awhile. Most souls soon rested enough and left Limbo, shifting to places like Heaven or the Elysium Fields or Nirvana. However, there was nothing to struggle against in Limbo—one did not evolve there. The thief would have no opportunity to grow and thus advance from there. He would have to return to Hell in order to be purified.

Dante shrugged. He would have been wiser to bargain for Purgatory, but if he had such wisdom, he wouldn't have committed such a wicked act in the first place.

True enough. I returned to my throne, still holding the egg. When I sat, I placed it on my lap and gazed down at it, mesmerized by its lovely shell with the colored lights endlessly moving in its depths, mesmerized by its warm weight, mesmerized by its utter mystery. I knew what a firebird looked like, but only from pictures in books and brief visions of the Phoenix Realm during my far-sight dreams. They never crossed over to the afterlife, instead transforming at the instant of their human deaths into beautiful immortal birds. And their plumage came in many colors, each one's song a little different from the others. So this egg represented a mystery to divert me for an eternity as I pondered what the being inside would have been like if able to hatch.

My lord? Dante's voice rose at the end in a clear question, a question I ignored, for something had occurred to me.

Phoenixes don't usually lay eggs, do they? I asked. Usually they die and transform—they may mate, but their union produces no young.

Dante sighed. I really know little about them, my lord, just that they exist. There is a myth from that realm, is there not? An angry mob burnt a pregnant woman to death for being a witch, and she and her unborn transformed together? She laid an egg, did she not?

Yes—and it's no myth. This has to be one of her descendents.

Dante stepped forward. I can take it, find a place for it, if you wish.

I don't wish. My fingers tightened around the alabaster smooth shell. I want to keep it with me. For the present at least. It's a young thing, and we have so few of those here.

Dante's brow, already wrinkled with age and much learning, crinkled even more, deep furrows under his white mane—clearly he regretted bringing the egg after witnessing my strange behavior. When such artifacts had shown up in the past, I had remarked over them, then found a place for them on the shelves until I had a use for them.

Look, Dante, this egg is a living thing—I can't treat it like I would a crystal ball or a flask of potion or a book.

His mouth worked as he chewed over a thought. But my lord, that egg can never hatch here. If you intend to hold it until it does, you shall have it on your lap until all the realms end.

I gestured at the shelves. Perhaps there is a spell somewhere in this vast library that can offer some guidance in encouraging it to hatch then. If nothing else, maybe we could find a way to return it to its parents. At that idea, misgiving cast a leaden cloak over my heart. I already wanted to keep the egg for myself—already I clutched it to me most jealously. Wrong as I knew that impulse was, I couldn't help it. It was so dark here, so dead. Was it really so strange I wanted to keep this bit of living warmth and innocence with me always, a light against the depthless dark?

~~~~~

I contemplated the egg often as I went about my work. Zeus rarely descended to these depths, preferring his airy sky palace and the inescapable worship of the masses below as they solicited his benevolence, dreaded his ill humor. By the time these same masses reached my throne room, they had given up praying. They certainly didn't worship me. Instead some questioned that they were truly dead, tilting their heads quizzically as if wondering why I would play such a terrible jest when we didn't even know each other. Some questioned my motives for reaping them, often angrily insisting they still had important work to do in the mortal world. Some questioned the reality of this place, gazing around in confusion as if in a dream. Though many of them had been praying about the afterlife for years under Zeus's burning gaze, they couldn't quite seem to accept its reality once they were here, no sign of Zeus or God or whatever they called him to greet them. Just me, and I could be a most shifty character, a being of shadows with a quiet rumble for a voice.

Some thought I was the Devil himself and screamed when they saw me, convinced they'd ended up in Hell. Those amused me the most—occasionally I played along, donning horns and a forked tail for a moment, much to Dante's rampant disapproval. Some wept and pleaded to return to their mortal lives, their families. These bothered me the most, for clearly they loved those they had left, the separation well nigh unbearable. Although the pain of love cut short eluded me—I had never loved—I did understand the loneliness of separation. My whole existence had been spent apart from life and the world above. Usually it didn't bother me—I knew little else. But the weepers' desperation to return to life gnawed at me, informing me that perhaps I had missed out on something important.

Of course, not all souls appeared before me. Most didn't. Most quietly crossed over and went to Heaven or Hell or somewhere in between. Or perhaps they were like the thief, with such a common concern that Dante or one of my other servants could handle it. I only dealt with the most difficult cases. My realm was the seventh dimension, the infinite outer shell and inner yolk of reality all at once, and hence had no borders or end. Neither days nor nights passed here—rather eternities wrapped in instants happened simultaneously. No past, no future, only endless present.

During one such eternal instant, I sat with the egg on my lap. I always had the egg with me, a constant warmth. What about the souls due to reincarnate? I heard myself ruminate aloud. Maybe one of them could take the egg with them? Even as I speculated it, though, my fingers tightened around the curved surface.

Does the phoenix realm have reincarnation? Dante remarked.

I sighed. No, it doesn't. I forgot. So that plan comes to naught.

Why don't you ask . . . him? Dante paused, hesitating with an odd delicacy. He knew how I felt about Zeus. I cut my gaze in his direction, not uttering a word. I know, my lord. I know. But he does see much from his vantage point that escapes us here. He may know what spell would work . . .

I'll consult every book, every scroll, in this library before I summon him for help, I thundered as I shot to my feet and strode about the dais. The egg rocked gently at my side, cradled in the crook of my arm. I'd be damned to the pit with Lucifer before I let Zeus near it.

Dante lowered his head and examined his hands, clearly chastened. Of course, my lord.

So I studied every book within walking distance, the countless moments folded in on each other in the compressed spiral of eternity. And I found nothing. Occasionally, my head would start swimming, and I would need to step away. My chariot and shadow steeds awaited me at these times, the shimmering black horses prancing with impatience to travel wherever I willed them. I called them War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death, another jest Dante didn't appreciate. In defiance of their names, I often set them to galloping over the Elysium Fields, endless plains of waving grass and flowers awash in the colored light of a million galaxies swirling overhead, all the souls there singing in lovely harmony with the spheres before they harvested the fruits of wisdom from their multitude of orchards. It was the closest we came to a jaunt for pleasure.

Other times, when rage overtook me, we went to Hell and quashed the perpetual rebellions brewing there. I drove through, slashing my great sword with merciless abandon at the souls clawing and biting me while my horses breathed fire like dragons from their mouths and nostrils. Nothing I did could permanently quell the unrest. The very definition of the place implied no rest and unceasing torment. However, my presence at least reminded them that they could eventually leave the place—not by rebelling but by attending to their particular punishment until it transformed them beyond recognition.

The egg went everywhere except Hell with me—it never left my sight otherwise. Whenever my anger drove me below to the pit to mete out some rough justice, I entrusted the egg to Dante. He took it reluctantly—which was why I trusted him as much as I did. He might grumble and fret and irritate me at times, but he never plotted behind my back to seize more power than was his due.

After one such trip to Hell, I staggered back into my throne room, dragging my sword so the metal screeched on the floor. A searing chill prickled over both shoulders, my arms and hands numb. I dropped the blade with a clatter—normally I might have winced at the sound, a warrior worried about damage to the edge of his weapon, but such a gesture was beyond me at the moment, the ice spreading throughout my body.

My lord? Dante turned from the bookshelves, his spectacles sliding down his nose.

Wraith bites, I said with some effort. Where's the egg? I glanced around wildly.

In answer, he reached for what looked like a globe on a stand, covered with black silk. He pulled the cloth aside and let it float like a cloud to the floor, revealing the egg shining bright as the moon underneath.

Why did you hide it like that?

Because it needed a nap, he replied without even a trace of a smile.

Ah. I resisted the urge to chuckle. After all, he had once been human, long ago—perhaps he understood things I didn't. Besides, laughter would sting my lungs right now, given how they felt full of tiny icicles.

Dante came over and tipped his head, examining my wounds critically. Two bites, one on each shoulder, the quicksilver blood of my spirit still flowing freely. In the middle of Hell, two wraiths had descended upon me with screeches like cannon balls, a coordinated attack as one bit my right shoulder and the other my left. It had taken all my strength to guide my chariot out of the pit and return here.

Dante tsked. These are nasty wounds.

Of course they are—wraiths are nasty creatures. Most souls eventually evolved out of Hell and went to Purgatory—or returned to the mortal realm for another try. Wraiths were souls who devolved instead, a spirit distilled to utter evil malice. After awhile, they decayed into nothingness and returned to empty space, the spiritual manure needed to fertilize new creation.

I don't understand why you risk yourself down there. If there were something to be gained. But it's fruitless. All you do is stir them up. At my sidelong glare, he added a perfunctory, my lord. He prodded one of the bites, and I drew breath with a hiss. It's good they're still bleeding—it'll carry most of the poison away so they can heal quickly.

Hell needs stirring up, I said. It's my duty as god of the underworld to traverse my entire realm, including Hell. Despite what you think, they actually need me down there, to prod and poke—it's the only way some of those poor souls will get out and avoid becoming wraiths themselves. They certainly don't need me like that in Heaven—they've already learned their lesson, or they wouldn't have reached there in the first place. I glanced toward the egg then, feeling a wonderful warmth radiating from it. The shoulder nearest to it already seemed better, less numb. I sidled closer and realized it was no illusion. Now both my shoulders stung and prickled with the needles of returning sensation. I lifted one hand, an impossibility a moment before, and rubbed at my opposite shoulder.

Dante shrugged as if this were an ordinary occurrence. It possesses the spiritual healing energy of phoenix song. Not as powerful as an adult firebird, naturally, as it's still young and protected by its shell. But still . . . He touched one rapidly shrinking wound, thoughtful.

I thought you didn't know anything about them.

He offered me a bland look. I've been reading—you must have pulled a thousand books containing information about phoenixes from these shelves. Only a true dullard wouldn't have picked up some insight. Although, of course, nothing about how to hatch them, the one thing you want to know.

I frowned. I know, believe me, I know. My frown crinkled into sheer distaste as if I swallowed some bitter elixir. I suppose I shall have to summon him.

It's about time he came down here and mingled with his disembodied subjects, Dante sniffed with a true Christian disapproval for us pagans.

You know he likes his worshippers to have bodies, particularly the young nubile ones. I arched a brow, enjoying Dante's reaction.

Dante grimaced. He has no character. He doesn't like it here because these souls have seen the other side. Here, they know he's not the true God—his ego can't handle it.

He's a facet of the true God, I replied with a mild rebuke. As am I, I suppose.

But you don't guzzle wine and chase after every virgin with nefarious intent. You have dignity.

Is that what it is? At last able to feel all my limbs, I retrieved my sword and sheathed it.

Dante nodded. You may jest about religion overmuch occasionally, but at least your wit encompasses all faiths, including your own. In fact, I'm not even certain what you believe, which is as it should be, given your position. And you know that if life is a serious business, then death is even more so, no matter one's beliefs. Zeus only respects his followers; he openly mocks all others. How can I take him seriously when he refuses to take me or any of my ilk seriously?

Now that I could move my shoulders again, I shrugged. He always was insecure, and Judaism and all that followed rendered him even more so. He doesn't understand such religions, and he never will. For what he doesn't understand, he pretends contempt to cover up his fear. Take his mockery of your faith as a sign of his fear—it props up his flagging confidence in his own relevance, nothing more. He has no true power over you, and he knows it.

See, dignity—part of dignity is acknowledging the limits of your influence. He could never make such a speech.

I think you're confusing dignity with humility, Dante, I suggested gently.

He smiled. That's just it, my lord. In my religion, they're one and the same. Maybe you're a Christian and don't even know it.

I picked up the egg and gazed at it. You would know if anyone would, wouldn't you?

~~~~~

When Zeus finally deigned to answer my summons, he arrived in his usual grand style, an intricately carved chariot with cloud cushions, drawn by swans and lions. How he kept the lions from eating the swans, I had no idea. It was unnatural, but Zeus liked making large pronouncements about the natural order and then defying his own rules. And everyone else's. The same actions that would have sent a human sorcerer to Hell or at least Purgatory made Zeus a god.

He strode into my throne room, and I blinked. His cloak of heavy golden cloth blinded me as it flowed over his shoulders, swirling behind him as he called for wine and refreshments. When no one answered his summons, he turned his glower on me. The hospitality of your house is sorely lacking, he remarked.

This is the afterlife, Zeus. We're past all food and drink except that of the spirit. I gestured toward the shelves groaning with the weight of a thousand-thousand realms' knowledge of the eternal mysteries.

He rolled his eyes and flung himself down on a chair. Then he scowled and wiggled about, and I knew he wanted a cushion. None of my chairs had cushions. You've become such a dried-up old ascetic. I blame that servant of yours, that Dante.

I crossed my arms and glanced at my boots, trying to restrain myself from too sharp a retort. If I was going to endure his presence, I should at least keep him here long enough to ask him what I needed to ask him instead of driving him off in a rage. Otherwise, my suffering his bad company would be in vain. So I said, Actually, Dante is the one who advised that I summon you. He believes you possess the knowledge I seek.

That piqued his interest—anything that sounded vaguely like a compliment always got his attention. He sat up straighter, brushed at invisible lint on the shoulders of his cloak, clearly preening. I do know much, everything that passes between the sky and the ground, he declared baldly.

Yes, well, it seems Poseidon and I foolishly chose the lesser realms to rule, I said, my outward gravity tinged with irony. I knew he had wanted the underworld for his own and would have chosen it if offered the chance, much as he mocked it now. But I was the eldest and got first dibs. Poseidon confided later that he was glad—he had worried that if Zeus became the lord of the dead, he would play favorites the way he did with the mortals