1
Hekate
After sleeping for millennia, waking was a gradual process. The deep darkness of endless sleep lightened slowly to the murk of dreams.
A voice whispered, "Wake, Sister. You are greatly needed."
I recognized her voice as familiar, though I couldn't remember her name. I didn't know my own. Only that she, too, was as old as time.
Ancient power threaded through her words, stirring something inside me. Not memories, exactly, but knowledge.
Darkness had always been my domain. The great mysteries of the universe flowed through me. Mother Earth enfolded me in loving arms as I slept, and the world above had changed so much from what I'd known that it could now be an alternate plane of existence. It wasn't a world I knew any longer. I'd wearied of humanity long ago and had descended into sleep that never ended. No one had disturbed that sleep for thousands of years. Humans had long ago forgot my existence.
No. That wasn't entirely true. There were still some who remembered me. Soft as spider silk, their prayers had whispered down through thick rock and earth to reach me. Pleas for my assistance. Offerings for my gifts. Some did still believe. But my interest in earthly doings had ended long ago when my line died out. I had no heirs to continue my bloodline, or to mother the creatures who'd sprung up from my magic.
"You could birth a new heir."
I sighed and the earth shifted around me, a deep rumble from the depths of bedrock that formed the foundations of the world. I could. Yes. But why? It was so much heartache to watch your children suffer in this world of men. Even thousands of years ago, they had no place for our kind any longer. Magic had all but died.
"All things dark and deadly, all creatures of death and magic, all monsters poisonous and fanged, the Mother of Venom calls them all."
Each word rang inside me, hammer to glowing iron in the forge, reminding me of my purpose. My children had once been formidable weapons in the Great Mother's arsenal. If Gaia had need of venomous queens on this earth in this age...
Then I must certainly oblige.
After lying as dead for so long, I didn't have the physical strength to regenerate a body. I would need help to restore myself to my former glory, especially if I was going to create an heir. A child for Gaia. A queen. She would be powerful and deadly, the most poisonous nightshade, so beautiful that she killed with a glance. All my gifts. All my magic. All my children. They would be hers to command.
"Come." I sent the silent call out like a gentle rippling wave through layers of dirt and stone, tree and cement, layers both natural and manmade. Even the greatest cities couldn't keep my children out. They slithered and crawled and killed, just as I intended. As Gaia intended.
I was death and destruction. So that life might be rebuilt from the decay.
Time passed. How long, I did not know. Another century was only the blink of the Mother's eye. I was deep in the bowels of the earth. It took time for my smallest creatures to reach me, burrowing down through the darkness. But they came to my call.
Slithering snakes coiled around my fossilized bones. Scorpions plated my exterior. The best armor a goddess could have.
Cobras. Death adders. Mambas. Knotted together into flesh, their venom pulsing as blood. My will focused their individual shapes into my physical body. My magic melded them into one. One spirit. One beating heart, pumping venom through my regenerated body. The first step of my return was complete. The easiest, by far.
My children still poured down through the earth, digging away stone and soil to form a path to the surface for me to return to the living. But I would need a place of safety for my heir. A palace stronghold to which she could always retreat from the world of men and jealous gods and goddesses who might harm her. I had suffered too many deaths of my daughters' daughters to be complacent. Gaia might need her, but I couldn't bear to watch yet another queen of my line die in vain.
I needed sustenance to work such magic. The longer I was awake and aware, the more I felt the gnawing pit of need growing within me. Hunger. The kind of hunger that would devastate entire lands, tear down city walls, and bathe in the blood of thousands. Blood and sex were my preferred ways to feed, but until some of my larger creatures arrived, I could feed on venom.
Vipers coiled around my newly formed arms and legs. Enough venom to kill thousands of humans. Or build my heir's home.
"Bite," I rasped, trying out my new voice.
Hundreds of fangs sank into my new flesh. Exquisite agony as venom pumped into me. Magic flared, power pulsing as if the sun had exploded. I opened my mouth wide and shrieked with pain and joy. Bedrock shifted into impenetrable walls that glistened with crystalized venom. A place of darkness, a retreat, but I also wanted it to be beautiful. Luminescent vines crawled up the glittering walls. Complete darkness lightened to shades of deep violet and midnight blue. Carpets of moss and delicate moonflowers softened stone floors.
"Mother." A soft voice echoed in the cavernous hall I had made. "Hekate."
The final piece of myself fell into place inside me. Goddess of magic, mother of darkness. Hekate Titanes. Nothing could hold me, even the gates of the underworld. I had traversed the land of the dead to help Demeter find her daughter, and the halls of darkness and death had become a second home to me.
Wispy specters glided up from the underworld in answer to my call, even though I had forgotten the lampades might answer. They dressed me in a flowing cobweb silk robe and began making my new stronghold more comfortable. Cushions and carpets made from soft furs of creatures that hadn't walked the earth since the first Roman emperor. Gleaming goblets and platters forged in the deepest caverns until my stone table was laden with luscious fruits, wines, and tender meats. Yes, I hungered, but not for the pomegranates they offered.
I moved deeper into my palace, marveling at what my creatures' venom had wrought. The walls glittered like black diamonds laced with poison. One casual touch and the unsuspecting human would certainly die in seconds. This much venom... I would suspect even the great lord of death himself would hesitate to transmute so much poison, for fear he might drain himself for a thousand years or more.
Not that I would have any issues with Hades. We had an agreement. As long as he had his precious Persephone at least half the year...
Suddenly unsure, I hesitated. How many of the gods and goddesses were still aware and breathing? Or had they long ago succumbed to slumber as I had done?
When I had decided to sleep in the Mother’s embrace, few of my kin still walked the earth. Our time of renown and respect among the peoples of the world had ended long ago, and some of the ancient ones had adjusted better to the changing centuries than others.
The voice who’d woken me. She Who Was and Is and Always Will Be. Isis, the Egyptian mother, had always been more interested in the various bloodlines and courts our children had established in the world of men. She’d once had many daughters of her line, but the old blood faded. Magic died. Though it did not surprise me in the slightest that Isis’ line might still walk this earth. Her queens had always been stronger than most.
Who else still breathed to work their magic? Too few, even in my day.
I retreated to the darkest corner of the cavern and lay back among the cushions and furs the lampades had brought from the depths of hell. My children of venom immediately covered me, drawn by my hunger. Poison dripped from their fangs and barbs, casting a green light on my skin. I soaked in each drop, adding to my power, but I needed so much more.