Of the Under-World and its King

It began, simply enough, in a cave, with the coupling of a Titan maid and the earth itself.

The Titaness, Ashpet by name, was a huntress and shape-shifter, and the earth had loved her from the dawn of time, when his father had shaped her, and many other beings, from the earth's own soil. He savored her footfalls, be they the silent pad of cougar's paws, the fleet strike of doe's hooves, or the graceful spring of human feet, skimming over his flesh, day after day, like the sweetest caress. He drank up the water that trailed from her body when she rose from her baths in lakes and streams, and every night she made her bed upon him unawares, and he yearned and ached with longing.

Many of her race had sought to make her their wife, but she only laughed and outran them all and made her home in the woods, hidden among the highest branches and hunting and foraging to fill her table. But one day a fierce rain besieged her nesting place, and she descended from her tree to find a cave to shelter in till the rain might pass. Now, every cave and valley and mountain is made of earth, and when Ashpet entered the hollow her swain welcomed her, as would a lover into his arms, and spoke most tenderly and in earnest of his love for her. She endeavored to laugh this aside, as she had the suits of many warriors and craftsmen, but the earth persisted, bringing forth silver and gold and brightly hued gems to lay at her feet as tokens of his devotion. The proud Titan maid was not to be wooed by rich presents, nor pretty words; indeed, she had made up her mind to brave the rain once more when the earth bespoke a human form, that he might entreat her face-to-face.

The earth made a plain man, as might be imagined: dusky-skinned, with hair and eyes the color of coal, and smaller in stature than the huntress herself. And in this the Titan maid did marvel: that the earth, who possesses every treasure and gem, and to whom borders and nations are foolishness, should manifest himself before the woman he loved in so modest a form. She conceded to talk with him a while, till the rain might pass, but the sky is the earth's brother, and he knew what had begun in the cave, and did not let the rain abate. As the night trailed on, Ashpet drew near the earth-man for warmth, and soon kisses were exchanged, then tender little touches and gasps and finally groans as their limbs parted and tangled and their bodies meshed upon the floor of the cave.

The earth had never known a lover, no more than the Titan huntress, and he sought to detain her in his arms with kisses and passionate caresses, but she snarled at him like a cougar, impatient with her mate now that their coupling was finished, and sprang from the cave on broad paws.

Now she was not resentful, this Titaness, nor regretful of what had passed between herself and the earth, but vexed, rather, for she had known neither father nor mother nor lover before that night and did not comprehend the deeper feelings that the earth's words and hands and mouth had roused within her. She fled that place, first as cougar and then as doe, but she had forgotten that every patch of ground is the earth's own flesh, and she might run a hundred miles only to find him that she had left behind standing before her, his hands outstretched in supplication.

She ran from him for a fortnight, till her feet would no longer carry her away, and then she ran to him, seeking him out in every cave and glen and shadowed place. The earth rose up to meet her and took her in his arms, covering her black hair and fierce mouth and limber form with kisses, and made love to her, again and again, till both were weak with pleasure. After each coupling she left his embrace, though with increasing reluctance, and not to run: merely to stretch her lean limbs aboveground and collect berries and game for her repast, which she ate with her cheek pillowed on her lover's breast as his dusky hands stroked her hair.

The earth showed her wonders that no Titan had ever seen, much less imagined: the sands of a hundred shores, the soil of a thousand lands, and a rainbow of raw gems to rival any colors seen aboveground. He taught her the songs of the stones and she sang them back to him in a voice as lovely as her countenance, and the earth trembled with love for her.

Many months passed in this fashion, and the weight of Ashpet's rounding belly soon slowed her steps, till one day it anchored her wholly and she could not move from the earth's embrace, for their unborn child would no longer be parted from his father. She knew a moment of grief at this, for even in the coldest months a huntress must run and chase and bring down game, but her lover assured her that the winter would pass swiftly in his arms, and at length she took a bear's form, that she might slumber away a portion of the season and not grow restless. The earth was dormant then as well, and cocooned himself about his mate, warming her body and their child's within her.

Snow blanketed them both for a soft, silent season, but the earth awoke with the first thawings of spring and eagerly roused his bear-mate from her slumbers with damp, loamy kisses. As Ashpet woke she resumed her human shape, and to her distress, her labor commenced at once, for her babe was anxious to wake as well; to forsake his own warm hollow and come forth to greet his parents. Her body cried out to give birth in an animal's fashion, but she had conceived in her natural form, and so also must the child be delivered.

The earth braced her with his strength, for her pain, even in bringing forth his child, grieved him beyond measure, and after many whimpers and groans and fistfuls of soil in white-knuckled hands, a dark, tiny babe slipped between Ashpet's strong thighs, and at last the earth cradled his son.

He was a surpassing beautiful boy in the fine-featured fashion of his mother, though his eyes were as bright as the silver his father had first presented to her as a lover's token. The Titaness suckled the babe with joy and a fierce mother's pride, then she made a sling from her garments and bound him snugly to her chest, for her long slumber, followed by his birthing, had left her ravenous, and she meant for the child to accompany her on a hunt.

But no sooner had they reached open ground than the boy began to scream and cry, for he was half made of earth and could not bear the absence of his father's broad expanse sheltering him from above – and what was more, his silver eyes could not bear the sun's light. He wailed against his mother and tiny diamonds fell from his eyes to litter her breast; the priceless tears of the earth's own child.

The earth tremored at his son's grief and promptly swallowed them both up, drawing the Titaness and their child deep into his flesh, like rabbits in a burrow, and holding them close. But this Ashpet could not bear, for she was a huntress and required the sun and air and green things to survive, and the total embrace of the earth was a stifling thing, and terrifying to one who must freely draw air to breathe.

And at this the earth himself cried out, for it appeared he could not keep both his mate and his son, and that he would not accept. With a mighty groan he reshaped himself from within, carving out caverns and towering corridors and countless chambers within his flesh. Here he hollowed a mountain to make a palace, there he rerouted a river to form an underground waterfall, or drained a lake, that it might serve instead as a broad pool below. The walls of this horizons-wide kingdom were seamed with precious metals of all kinds and glittered with gems, and here and there the earth cut portals in his flesh and windowed them with clear quartz and diamond, that there might be small measures of sunlight for Ashpet's contentment. He left also a hundred passages to the world above, in caves and valleys and secret hollows of rock, that she might ascend to hunt or chase at any time, for the earth knew that his mate was a wild creature and must be free to come and go as she pleased. He erected furnaces of bronze in the darkest places of this kingdom and filled them with burning coals, that neither Ashpet nor their child, whose matter came half from her, should grow cold, and finally he cut two paths to his own heart; a lake of molten gold at his very core, which pulsed like a war drum and blazed hotter than any furnace, that his child and mate might draw near to that most intimate part of him and be warmed by its heat and rich golden light.

The earth called this kingdom of his flesh the Under-world and gave it to his son, to serve as a playground and later, a royal domain. And though one might imagine a kingdom of earth to be a dank, wretched place, full of darkness and creeping things, in truth it was a realm finer and more beautiful than any aboveground king's, and no less full of pleasures. The earth's son had a cradle of silver and curtains of gold, spun by his mother's clever fingers, and he played with gems as a mortal child might play with blocks or sticks. He could call precious metals to him simply by pressing a hand to any surface of his palace, and they would swim through solid rock to reach his fingers, like little gold and silver fish surfacing greedily for bites of bread.

Moreover, this kingdom was a haven for those quiet, gentle creatures who make their homes in dark hollows. The boy's arms became a burrow for a stream of rabbits and fox kits and badger cubs; indeed, he never slept without half a dozen warm, downy bodies jostling for a place in his cradle, while mice and velvet-furred moles made nests in his black hair. Whiskered owlets liked his neck best and would tuck themselves there even when he toddled about the caves, while bat-pups perched beneath his ears and now and again nipped affectionately at the lobes.

The boy had every luxury and comfort: his mother's milk and later, the feast of plants and game that she foraged for him from above; animal companions without number, and more treasure than an army of kings might spend in a thousand years – and of course, he was always in the presence of his beloved father. The earth spoke to the boy at all times and taught him the songs of the stones, only to weep rubies when first he heard the child sing in return, for he had a voice so lovely, even in infancy, that it could silence every creature in the Under-world and even still the war-drum of the earth's molten heart. The earth resumed his man-like form often so he might touch and kiss and hold his son in a human fashion, and many nights passed with the earth-man and Ashpet bedded down in one of the caves where first they had lain together, their limbs entwined and their child nestled between them; now suckling, now cooing, now drowsing amid happy gurgles as his parents caressed his tender skin and pressed kisses to his tiny fingers.

But as the boy learned to walk and speak in his turn, he began to grow lonely, for every child longs for playmates to share its toys and meals and made-up languages. So the earth crafted companions for the boy from the walls of his kingdom: earth-people, slender and soft-spoken, with skin like shadows, and the boy called them Seam-folk, for their bright eyes were hewn from the seams of silver that lined his walls. They played with the earth's son and tended to his needs, but their service was a joyous thing and the boy embraced them like kin.

Now as the boy grew, he dared to stand beneath the quartz-and-diamond portals through which sun- and moon-light reached his kingdom, beneath which his mother – who wore always a necklace of the diamond tears he had shed when first she tried to take him aboveground – lingered often and drank up with both hunger and relief. His silver eyes could bear that light now in moderation, and so she took him up to a woodland cave, that he might watch as she hunted with arrows of gold and perhaps, in time, hunt alongside her. That day was spring, the very first of it, and the earth's son beginning his eighth year, and he glimpsed from the mouth of his shelter a wonder he had never seen before, much less imagined.

It was a girl, no more than two years of age, with hair like a seam of pure gold and skin as pale and luminous as moonstone. As she toddled about the woods, she bent to sweep her little white hands over the barren forest floor, and everywhere she touched, grasses and ferns and bright tiny violets sprang up. The earth shivered with delight at this, and his son did as well, for he was half made of earth and could feel the girl's touch like a caress upon his own skin. He wanted to go out to her, to touch the curling hair that caught the light and hold his dusky hand alongside her white one, but then his mother returned with a fine stag slung across her shoulders and they withdrew to their palace below.

The girl, she told him, was an aboveground child, born to a Titaness like herself, and as powerful as he in her own ways. "The mortals name you gods," she explained, "the children of Titans, equipped with powers and functions in the natural world. Your realm is your father himself, and your powers are an extension of his own. That girl's powers lie in making things grow, in sowing the woods and fields and bringing forth flowers and fruits in their time. Another leads the harvest; a boy about her age, though their powers are entwined, near inextricable."

The boy asked his father about the girl in turn and learned that, though barely more than an infant, she was much beloved of the earth already. "Her hands are gentle," the earth said, "as the brush of that owlet's feathers against your neck, and her steps as soft and nimble as a rabbit's. I will give her whatever she asks, and more besides."

The boy smiled at these words, for he liked the pale girl very much, above any of his Seam-folk companions. In truth, he loved her already, and in quite a different fashion from his father, though he knew it not. "May I play with her?" he asked. "May I join her in the woods, or bring her here to see my home?"

The earth gave a sad sigh at this. "Those aboveground think themselves of a higher order than us," he told his son, "with their white skin and golden hair, though their kin were shaped from my flesh, just as your own mother was. They will mislike and may even fear you, though you mean them no harm. Better that you stay where you are king and adored," he said, "and venture above only with your mother."

The boy conceded, for he loved both of his parents and had no thought to question their judgment, but he could not forget the pretty little girl from the woods and quickly put his clever mind to finding ways of communicating with her.