The Last King of Erebos

[Ascendancy]

Chapter Three: The Inheritance of Stone

*

Deep beneath Erebos, the immense weight of the mountain had begun to shift. Hades stepped onto the observation platform and rested a hand upon the railing. Dynamis stirred at his command, extending his awareness into the surrounding mountain. The foundations of the mountain revealed themselves to him, layer upon layer, until he found the source of the disturbance buried far below the excavation. Something was placing an extraordinary burden upon the oldest supports. And they had yet to appreciate how much.

Several weeks had passed since his visit to Persephone's court. The affairs of Olympus had scarcely interrupted the ordinary business of his kingdom during that time. Hecate's inquiries continued, and Alecto had yet to return from Greece. Hades had seen no reason to disturb either of them. There would be a message when there was something worth reporting.

For the present, the mountain demanded his attention. Far below, the excavation stretched into an enormous subterranean chamber, its vaulted ceiling disappearing into darkness beyond the reach of the illumination suspended overhead. Great bridges of stone connected galleries carved into from cavern walls like tiered platforms. Machinery occupied platforms at various elevations, while enclosed transport conduits moved materials between the excavation shafts and distant processing facilities. Along the exposed rock, veins of copper and gold caught the light in brilliant streaks, interrupted here and there by deposits of unfamiliar minerals whose value far exceeded that of precious metals. 

The chamber was one of hundreds comprising the Deep Works, an immense subterranean network extending beneath the inhabited territories. Hades had spent centuries expanding and perfecting its capabilities, drawing upon the wealth of the earth to sustain a civilization of extraordinary sophistication. Few of his achievements had given him greater satisfaction.

Today, however, something was off.

"We noticed the first cracks some weeks ago, my lord. They've widened since, though the foundations have held firm. We found nothing to suggest an immediate danger."

Kleitos was Master of the Deep Works, a broad-shouldered god whose considerable experience was suggested by the silver threaded through his dark beard and the deeply lined skin around his eyes. He wore a sleeveless working garment of heavy red cloth beneath a fitted leather harness carrying tools, measuring devices, and several compact artifacts of his own design. His hands bore the faint scars of someone working with substances that occasionally objected to being handled.

Hades had appointed him nearly two hundred years earlier, after a predecessor demonstrated an unfortunate enthusiasm for ambitious experiments conducted without adequate precautions. Kleitos possessed the virtues his predecessor had lacked: patience, discipline, and the wisdom to recognize that an extraordinary discovery was of little value if its recovery destroyed the people attempting to extract it.

"You have underestimated the danger."

Kleitos turned toward him, his expression serious.

"What have I overlooked?"

A sensible question. Hades appreciated it.

He moved closer to the railing, the long, divided drape of his black and bronze overgarment shifting behind him. Beneath its sculpted collar, a fitted tunic of deep burgundy followed the lean lines of his frame, the rich fabric gathered beneath an elaborate fastening. Dark hair swept back from his face, leaving his severe features unobscured as he studied the excavation below. Even among the immense machinery of the Deep Works, there was something unmistakably regal about him, though the fine leather gloves covering his hands suggested he had come prepared for more than an inspection.

He rested a gloved hand upon the black stone. For a moment, he listened.

There was a language within the earth that none understood as he did. Every formation possessed its own character, shaped by pressure, heat, and the passage of ages. The continent beneath his kingdom was no exception. Mountains concealed ancient fractures, buried strata pressed against one another with unimaginable weight, and deep within the earth lay the slow movements of forces that would eventually transform even the most enduring landscapes. At times, he felt he could sense the very churning of the planet on its axis. He had spent a lifetime learning those relationships. More importantly, he had spent centuries altering them.

The Deep Works occupied portions of the continent whose geological depths had been extensively reinforced during the earliest construction of Erebos. Those alterations had permitted excavations of a scale that would otherwise have been impossible. Immense networks of stone and bound Dynamis distributed pressure through the surrounding formations, preserving the integrity of the inhabited regions above while the wealth beneath them was gradually brought to the surface.

But the earth had not forgotten its original shape.

Hades closed his eyes.

Dynamis gathered around him, the flows extending downward through the worked stone and into the foundations below. The firmament answered readily. The flame followed, though he required only the faintest measure of it to distinguish the deeper thermal currents. He traced the arrangement of strata surrounding the excavation, moving beyond the familiar reinforcement structures to the older rock beneath them.

"You are watching the wrong part of the mountain," he said, opening his eyes. "Those cracks are merely a symptom. Far beneath your foundations, the mountain is settling against a fracture. The weight of it will eventually bring this entire excavation down."

Kleitos frowned, his attention returning to the immense chamber below.

"That area has been stable for three hundred years."

"Throw enough rocks and eventually you loose an avalanche, Kleitos. Mountains move slowly, but they move."

Kleitos regarded the excavation with renewed concern.

"What would you have us do?"

"First, show me what you have found."

They descended through the complex by one of the standing Pylai connecting the greater works beneath Erebos. The arch was fashioned from a single sweep of black stone, its surface veined with silver and set at the crown with a spherical baetylus. Kleitos laid his palm against a small seal worked into the arch, and the empty space beneath it shimmered. A moment later, they stepped through into a gallery overlooking the newest excavation.

The chamber beyond was magnificent in its proportions. Immense pillars had been left standing where the surrounding stone was cut away, supporting a vaulted roof high above the platforms leading downward. Broad terraces descended toward the excavation floor, connected by stairways and bridges carved directly from the mountain. Light burned steadily within vessels suspended from the ceiling, revealing seams of copper and gold along the walls and great masses of dark rock awaiting removal. Far below, laborers and miners tended enormous mechanisms whose bronze limbs and stone counterweights moved with a slow, deliberate precision. Some were driven by the strength of men, others by intricate bindings of Dynamis. Together, they had opened a wound in the mountain large enough to swallow a palace. For all its function, it was actually quite beautiful a sight.

At the heart of the work lay something far more valuable than gold. The cavern's walls revealed a branching seam of dark glass embedded within the rock. Smooth mineral surfaces protruded at irregular intervals, catching the illumination in shades of violet and aqua. Beneath those exposed faces, the deposit appeared to extend deep into the surrounding stone. Hades could already perceive its shape through the firmament, though he suspected the people who had discovered it understood only a fraction of what they had uncovered.

A Baetylus core.

He approached the gallery's edge with considerable interest.

The Titans had attributed many extraordinary properties to such stones, and for once their legends had not entirely exaggerated. Properly prepared, certain varieties could receive and retain complex holdings of Dynamis. Others preserved the delicate arrangements upon which the most sophisticated technema depended. The rarest specimens could endure concentrations of power sufficient to destroy lesser materials.

Their worth depended as much upon their nature as their scarcity. A Baetylus stone suited to sustaining illumination might be useless in an instrument fashioned to open a standing gate. Another could strengthen the flow of Dynamis through an auxeton, provided its internal structure was sufficiently pure. The finest artificers spent lifetimes learning the distinctions.

The Underworld possessed deposits of extraordinary quality. They had been discovered in its earliest years, when Hades first turned his attention to the wealth concealed beneath the southern ice. Others had emerged only after long periods of excavation. Gold, gemstones, and precious metals were plentiful enough to have made him fabulously wealthy long before the first great works were completed, but baetylus had proven more useful than all of them.

His brothers had always been rather fond of demanding tribute. Hades preferred the satisfaction of knowing that his kingdom could produce more wealth than theirs could ever hope to extract.

"That vein is unusually pure," Kleitos explained. "We believe it may possess precisely the qualities required for the new regulators."

That interested Hades more than the spectacle of the deposit itself.

"How much of it is worth recovering?"

"Nearly all of it, my lord. Even the smaller branches appear remarkably pure. The artificers have been searching for a formation of this quality for a great while."

Hades studied the dark mineral embedded in the mountain.

"Then I assume there is a reason you haven't already brought it to them."

Kleitos gestured toward the exposed rock.

"The richest portion lies beyond the oldest excavations, in stone we have only recently begun to open. Unfortunately, the mountain's weight has settled against the supports you raised centuries ago. If we remove the surrounding rock, we risk bringing down the galleries above us."

Hades examined the formation more carefully.

There was the trouble. The baetylus had formed along ancient fractures deep within the mountain, beyond the reach of the original excavations. Over the centuries, the immense weight of the surrounding rock had settled against the supports Hades had raised to secure the Deep Works. Removing the deposit would disturb that precarious balance, threatening not only the newly opened chamber but the galleries above it.

"You were wise to suspend the work."

Kleitos inclined his head.

"We attempted a smaller separation along the outer seam. The mountain shifted before we had cut a hand's breadth."

"And you stopped."

"At once."

"An uncommon virtue among those who discover something valuable."

The Master of the Deep Works accepted the compliment with a restrained smile.

Hades rested his hand upon the gallery's parapet and studied the immense chamber below. There was no question of abandoning the deposit. Baetylus of this quality was too rare, and its recovery would advance long efforts of work. The mountain would simply have to be secured before the excavation could proceed. It was an undertaking of considerable delicacy, given the forces involved, but hardly beyond his abilities.

"Clear the lower galleries. Withdraw the lifting frames and see that everyone is well beyond the excavation before I begin."

Kleitos looked toward the excavation.

"That is a considerable portion of the works, my lord."

"I am aware."

The older god bowed his head and departed to issue the necessary orders.

Word passed through the galleries. Great bronze bells sounded at measured intervals, their tones carrying through the cavern and into the connecting passages. Workers laid aside their instruments and withdrew along the terraces. The lifting frames were secured, their immense chains drawn taut and their burdens lowered safely to the stone. One by one, the great mechanisms fell motionless.

Hades watched the evacuation from above. He knew the arrangements of the chamber as well as he knew the halls of his own palace, for he had shaped much of its original architecture himself. Every pillar and supporting structure occupied its place for a reason. Some had stood for hundreds of years. Others had been added as the excavations grew deeper and the demands upon the mountain changed.

Only when Kleitos returned with assurance that the galleries were empty did Hades move. He descended to the central platform by a long stairway cut through the living rock. The elaborate folds of his over garment moved around his legs, and the polished onyx at his breast caught the light as he passed beneath the suspended vessels. He removed one glove and tucked it beneath his belt.

Kleitos remained behind, watching from above. When Hades reached the end of the platform, he laid his bare hand against the mountain's damp walls. Dynamis rose within him, familiar as breath, and he turned his attention to the baetylus.

The richest portion lay several fathoms within the mountain, where narrow veins of dark mineral converged around a great central mass. Some branches were no thicker than his fingers, while others disappeared deep into the surrounding rock. He had no intention of recovering them all. The central lode was the prize, and the lesser veins would remain for Kleitos' people to excavate in due course.

He found the places where stone pressed against mineral and began to draw them apart. A crack rang through the chamber. Another followed, sharper than the first, and a web of fractures spread across the exposed rock, splintering behind his palm and stretching far overhead. Slabs broke free as he separated the mountain from its treasure, each caught and moved aside before it could fall. Dust spilled down the face of the excavation, settling against his skin like fine snow. Through the falling haze, flashes of violet emerged from beneath the black stone.

Hades allowed himself the smallest of smiles. He had seen deposits of baetylus brought before him from every reach of his dominion, some worth more than the palaces of mortal kings. This was finer than most. Its purity was remarkable, and its branching structure promised considerably more material than the artificers had dared to hope.

He followed a narrow vein deeper into the rock and parted it from the central formation when something yielded beneath him.

A faint tremor passed through the platform, scarcely enough to disturb his footing. Hades recognized the danger immediately. Removing the stone around the baetylus had upset the balance of the mountain's immense weight. Deep below, a mass of rock had begun to settle, forcing an unbearable burden toward one of the great supporting pillars.

His expression darkened. The complication was not entirely unexpected, but that made it no less concerning. Hades seized the slipping rock with the firmament, holding it in place before its weight could overwhelm the supports. The immediate danger was contained, though the mountain continued to strain against his command. He would need to find somewhere else for that enormous burden to rest.

The resistance was familiar. There had been a fortress during the war against the Titans, built high among the mountains to command the narrow approaches below. Its defenders had boasted that no army could breach Iapetus' walls, but Hades had found no reason to try. He had reached beneath the foundations and torn the mountain apart, bringing towers, battlements, and the soldiers within them crashing into the valley. He remembered the thunder of its collapse, and the satisfaction of watching a stronghold that had resisted every assault disappear beneath the falling stone.

He had taken considerable satisfaction in that moment. Now he devoted the same mastery to preserving what he might once have destroyed. The irony almost amused him.

A low groan rolled through the galleries above. One of the great pillars had begun to bear the strain, and fragments of black stone broke loose from its upper reaches. They struck the platform a few paces away with sharp, ringing impacts. Hades did not flinch. He had ordered the galleries emptied for precisely this reason, but the sight of stone breaking away from a pillar he had raised with his own hands offended him.

The pillar had stood since the first great expansion of the Deep Works, enduring every burden placed upon it. He would not see it damaged for the sake of a piece of baetylus, however valuable.

Hades reached deeper into the mountain, searching beyond the failing rock for a formation capable of bearing its weight. There he found what he required. With painstaking care, he began to shift the burden away from the endangered pillar, drawing it toward the stronger stone below. The mountain resisted, grinding against itself as he compelled one enormous mass to settle against another.

He could have forced it more quickly. The temptation was there, born of the same confidence that had once brought down Iapetus' fortress. But haste would accomplish nothing if the weight merely found another weakness. Instead, he guided the stone into place, strengthening the formations around it until the burden rested securely upon its new strongholds. The trembling subsided, the pillar stood unharmed, and the mountain settled into silence.

Hades held the firmament a moment longer, testing the arrangement he had made. Satisfied that it would endure, he returned his attention to the baetylus.

The central formation rested within the hollow he had opened, joined to the mountain by a single thick branch. He severed it cleanly and lifted the mineral free. Dark violet and aqua gleamed across its irregular surfaces as it rose into the light, entirely unblemished despite the violence of its removal.

He guided it toward an empty receiving dais beside the excavation, lowering the great mass with the care of a jeweler placing a precious stone upon velvet.

A considerable prize.

Yet his greater satisfaction came from the mountain itself. The galleries would endure, the excavation could continue, and the artificers would have their precious mineral. He had recovered what he wanted without sacrificing anything he had built. Only then did he release Dynamis, and profound silence filled the enormous chamber.

Hades turned to examine the recovered formation. Not a single branch had been broken. He put his glove back on.

Kleitos descended from the upper gallery, passing the recovered baetylus without so much as a glance. He approached the edge of the platform and surveyed the vast chamber stretching before them, his attention lingering upon the great pillars supporting its vaulted ceiling. Beyond them, the exposed face of the mountain had been transformed, revealing formations that had remained concealed until Hades began his work.

For some time, Kleitos said nothing. Then he laid a hand upon the nearest support. Hades recognized the faint stirring of Dynamis as the Master of the Deep Works examined the stone, following the strength of its supports into the rock beyond. Kleitos withdrew his hand slowly.

"You have strengthened the entire excavation." He said with a moment of breathlessness.

"It seemed prudent if you are to continue the extraction."

Kleitos looked toward the upper galleries, then back at the mountain. Hades could almost follow the implications taking shape behind his expression.

"We could extend the works considerably farther now.”

Hades regarded the surrounding stone. That had not been the purpose of his intervention, but he had recognized the possibility while arranging the new supports.

"Then have your people study what I've done here before proceeding. There is considerably more to be gained from this mountain."

"Of course, my king."

Yet Kleitos remained a moment longer with an expression Hades seldom saw upon the face of so accomplished a god. Only then did he turn toward the baetylus resting nearby.

"And this may be the finest deposit we've recovered in living memory."

"I trust you have some use for it."

A smile touched Kleitos' face. "As it happens, there is something I would like you to see."

Hades brushed a fine layer of stone dust from the shoulders of his overgarment, regarding with mild displeasure the pale residue that clung to its dark fabric. He flicked the last of it away before raising an eyebrow.

"Something more valuable than what I have just removed from the mountain?"

"Possibly, my king."

That was sufficient to secure his interest.

The chambers devoted to the work of the artificers occupied a quieter portion of the complex. Here the rough stone of the excavation galleries gave way to polished walls, graceful arches, and broad passages illuminated by vessels of pale crystal. Historical reliefs depicted the founding of the Deep Works, the opening of its earliest shafts, and the construction of the great foundations beneath Erebos.

Behind the chamber doors, artisans practiced disciplines whose sophistication rivaled those of any court in the world. Precious metals were worked into impossibly fine arrangements, rare minerals prepared according to closely guarded methods, and fragments of baetylus shaped for uses that would have bewildered the kings of Greece.

Kleitos led Hades into a spacious chamber at the heart of the workshops. Much of its floor was occupied by a garden enclosed within towering walls of transparent crystal, its boundaries forming a courtyard beneath the high vaulted ceiling. Inside, a slender tree rose beside a shallow pool, surrounded by beds of flowering plants and moss-covered stone. A gentle mist drifted above the water, illuminated by a warm radiance that seemed to emanate from the garden itself.

Hades approached the enclosure. It was remarkable enough to find such a place so far beneath the mountain, but his attention settled upon the elaborate construction surrounding it. Six great pieces of baetylus stood at measured intervals beyond the crystal walls, each suspended within a framework of bronze and silver. Slender bands of intricately worked metal linked the stones to one another, forming an elegant arrangement that extended around the entire garden.

Dynamis rested within the baetylus, held in bindings of extraordinary delicacy. Hades could perceive its influence throughout the enclosure: warmth in the air, moisture gathering upon the leaves, water circulating through the soil. Every condition necessary to sustain the little garden was governed by the technema, its workings concealed within the graceful architecture.

He regarded the arrangement with considerable interest.

"The seventh arrangement," Kleitos said. "It has sustained the enclosure for thirty-two months without requiring another flow of Dynamis."

"And how long did the last arrangement persist?"

"The bindings held for twenty-one months before they began to fail."

A year longer. It was an appreciable improvement.

Hades moved around the structure, examining the arrangement of the stones. He could perceive the delicate bindings held within them, each designed to perform a particular task. Some sustained the warmth and illumination of the enclosure. Others governed the movement of water, maintained the quality of the air, or preserved the conditions required by the living plants.

The whole was extraordinarily intricate, yet its true achievement lay in something less immediately apparent because no god attended the apparatus. No artificer stood nearby to replenish its power or correct its workings. The prepared stones retained their bindings and sustained the little garden entirely by themselves.

"How long do you expect it to endure?"

"If the bindings continue to behave as they have, forty years."

Hades considered the answer.

"And you are pleased with this?"

Kleitos glanced at the garden.

"It greatly exceeded my original expectations."

"An admirable achievement for a household ornament."

The Master of the Deep Works suppressed a smile.

"Its purpose is rather more ambitious than that, my lord."

"Then forty years will hardly suffice in the blink of time."

He stepped closer to the dais.

The garden was the latest achievement in an undertaking that had occupied the finest artificers of the Underworld for several generations. Its purpose was simple enough to describe, though immensely difficult to accomplish: to preserve life within the southern ice without requiring the continuing intervention of Hades himself.

The great habitable regions of his kingdom owed their existence to arrangements of Dynamis unlike anything found elsewhere in the world. Beneath Erebos, throughout Elysium, and within the countless sheltered settlements scattered across his dominion, technema devices not unlike this one tempered the bitter cold, sustained illumination, and governed the movement of warmth and water.

Some were small enough to be held in the hand. Others occupied entire chambers. The greatest were bound into the foundations of the kingdom itself, immense constructions through which Dynamis flowed according to arrangements devised by Hades long ago.

Artificers maintained the lesser works while skilled gods attended the greater ones, strengthening old bindings and renewing those that had weakened with age. Yet the deepest foundations remained beyond their collective abilities. Certain tasks demanded a command of the firmament and a strength in Dynamis possessed by no one else in the Underworld.

For centuries, Hades had performed those tasks himself, but he had always known that he could not do so forever.

Over seven hundred years had passed since his birth. He remained vigorous, and there was little reason to suppose that his natural life would end for another three centuries, perhaps somewhat longer. Yet the gods were not immortal, whatever the mortals of Greece chose to believe. Even the greatest among them eventually surrendered to the passage of time.

Hades found nothing particularly troubling in that certainty. Death was hardly an unfamiliar subject to the ruler of the Underworld. But the survival of his kingdom could not be permitted to depend upon his own indefinite existence.

He had spent too many centuries building it, shaping its foundations and transforming the frozen continent into a land where cities prospered, fields yielded abundant harvests, and the inhabitants enjoyed comforts unknown to most of the world. He intended those achievements to endure long after his reign had ended.

That ambition had inspired the work now taking place before him. One day, the great sustaining arrangements beneath his kingdom would need to function without him. He envisioned a realm supported by many independent works, each capable of preserving its own territory and maintained by accomplished artificers who understood their design. No single failure would imperil the whole, and no future sovereign would be required to possess the extraordinary abilities upon which the original had depended.

It was an undertaking worthy of half his lifetime.

"What caused the previous bindings to eventually fail?" he asked.

Kleitos approached the dais and indicated the arrangement of stones surrounding the central vessel.

"They endure remarkably well while the demands placed upon them remain constant. But the garden does not remain constant. Its needs change. The water must be replenished, the warmth adjusted, and the light governed according to the growth of the plants absorbing those demands. Every correction places a little more strain upon the prepared stones."

"Until the bindings unravel."

"Eventually."

Hades studied the delicate construction.

"And you cannot replace the weakened stones without interrupting the whole."

"Not yet. We can preserve the garden ourselves while the work is done, but that is hardly the independence we seek."

Hades leaned closer, examining the arrangement of flows within the outer stones. Their workmanship was excellent, but he could perceive the gradual strain accumulating around several of the finer bindings.

"These are bearing more of the burden than the central vessel."

"We have tried several arrangements. The difficulty lies in finding stones of sufficient purity to endure the repeated changes."

Hades straightened.

"Then perhaps your difficulty has just been remedied."

Kleitos smiled.

"That is precisely what I wished to discuss."

The baetylus recovered from the excavation possessed a consistency rarely found in natural formations. If properly prepared, it might receive the more delicate bindings without the imperfections that caused their gradual failure.

The discovery was promising, though Hades knew better than to mistake promise for certainty. Each new arrangement would require careful preparation and years of observation before the artificers could trust it.

"Have the finest portions of the deposit set aside for this work. I want a new arrangement prepared, with the outer stones fashioned from the material recovered today."

"It will require considerable time."

"Take what is necessary."

Kleitos inclined his head.

"If the new stones perform as we hope, we may finally possess an arrangement capable of sustaining itself for a century."

Hades said nothing at first. His attention remained upon the garden, where a slender tree stood in bloom beneath the gentle radiance of the technema. The bindings were imperfect, their eventual failure inevitable, yet for thirty-two months the little enclosure had flourished without the intervention of a single god.

A millennia was not enough. He wanted infinity. But the artificers had accomplished something he could not have demanded of them through force or authority. They had found a way forward.

"I should like to see that," he said at last.

Kleitos regarded him with a trace of surprise. For once, Hades had offered no correction, no more ambitious expectation.

"Then we shall endeavor not to disappoint you, my king."

"You haven't yet."

Hades left Kleitos to his work, though he paused at the threshold for one last look at the garden.

The tree had begun to flower. Its pale blossoms stirred in a breeze of the technema's making, while water passed quietly among its roots. For thirty-two months, the little enclosure had flourished without the intervention of a single god. Hades regarded it with considerable satisfaction. An achievement of such elegance could only have emerged from a civilization that had mastered the very forces upon which its existence depended.

His civilization.

He had given the Underworld its foundations, its laws, its wealth, and much of its greatness. He had made a home of a banished continent that would otherwise have remained barren beneath the southern ice. There were few among the gods who could claim as much, and fewer still whom he would trust to preserve it. Yet one day he would have to entrust it to someone.

The thought was not a pleasant one. Hades had never considered himself particularly suited to relinquishing anything, least of all a kingdom. He enjoyed ruling it. He enjoyed the admiration of his subjects, the satisfaction of overcoming difficulties that would have defeated lesser gods, and the knowledge that his will had shaped something extraordinary. There remained so much he intended to accomplish.

He looked again at the flowering tree. It neither knew nor cared who had fashioned the world that sustained it. It simply grew, sheltered by the ingenuity of those he had gathered to his service.

Hades watched the flowering branches for another moment, his expression growing thoughtful. There was comfort in what Kleitos had accomplished, though considerably less in contemplating why such an achievement was necessary.

If the Underworld must one day endure without him, he would see to it that nothing of its greatness was lost.