CHAPTER TWO: Vraveío Astéri

CHAPTER TWO: Vraveío Astéri

(The Greek Prize Star)

Every century in the Asphodel Meadows, there was the Vraveío Astéri festival, otherwise known to the locals as the Hades cook-off.

Asphodel Meadows was like any other city earthside, with suburbs and shops, roads and roadkill. Rae was always amused when she saw a screech-owl lying in the road. They lay there for a moment, then sat up dazed, before they went to hunt down whichever idiot had run them over.

Rae’s suburb was a leafy district, home to more ash-tree nymph Meliae than anything else, but she loved it for its quiet understatedness. Her home was a cavern under one of the roots of the largest ash trees in the area. She merely had to take one right turn at the end of her cobblestone street, carry on straight for three hundred metres or so underneath the awning of ash tree leaves, cross the road, and then she was at the bistro.

Unlocking the tree stump door, Rae got to work setting up the kitchens for the day. This would be the year she would win the cook-off.

The rules were simple: the festival was held in the first year of every new century and ran for twelve days. During that time the contestants had to produce a festival dish – the ultimate showcase of the best produce and chef talent Asphodel Meadows had to offer to their queen, Persephone. Hades then presented the winning dish to his bride and queen. Hence why they all called it Hades cook-off instead of its fancy festival title.

Each century the festival had a theme and the dish had to include a key ingredient. This year’s theme was The Kallistē Clash, and the key ingredient was apples.

The Kallistē Clash was still all anyone could talk about down here in the Underworld, even though it had been nine years since the clash had occurred. Hera, the Goddess of Marriage, Athena the Goddess of Wisdom, and Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love and Beauty, had all been attending a wedding, when Eris – the Goddess of Discord – had thrown a beautiful golden apple inscribed with the words “for the most beautiful” onto the wedding buffet. According to the Greek gossip mill, the goddesses had squabbled over it so incessantly, Zeus had let a young mortal prince decide who was the most beautiful.

Now there were a whole host of starving Greek and Trojan soldiers walking along the Styx river and through the doors of the bistro.

All of this because Paris had chosen Aphrodite, who had promised him the love of the world’s most beautiful woman. It was a pity then that the woman in question, Helen of Sparta, was already married to King Menelaus. And so, when Paris had stolen her away on the ships, war had ensued.

The majority of the Underworld was happy about a good bloody war – it meant new customers. Business was good, the Underworld economy thriving. The only ones who didn’t particularly appreciate it were those of Rae’s kind – the Arae that were hounded by the newly-dead who had sworn false oaths in the mortal realm. The new arrivals – simply known as the Souls to locals – thought they would find absolution with an Arae, unknowing it was the deities job to take vengeance on them, however they saw fit.

Rae turned on Ibrik – a small brass pot with its long spout whistling as it heated Rae’s coffee blend on a small spherical gas element that the Souls always commented looked like a camp stove. Whatever that was.

The counter stocked, the Ibrik coffee brewing, Rae moved to checking the table set ups were perfect. She’d done them yesterday afternoon, but sometimes, when the bistro was being playful, it rearranged things. It was a little game they played together.

Just because she was only the supervisor did not mean she did not hold Geras’ Grub to the same standards as … other restaurants in the area.

Each table was made of a dark wood, so brown as to be black. The cutlery was freshly polished palladium mined from deep within Tartarus, laid on brown linen napkins. In the centre of the tables were small plant cuttings that she had taken from her own garden over time, nourished with Asphodel soil, and encased in glass bowls. Watering each plant, straightening each piece of cutlery until it was perfect, Rae surveyed the place and nodded to herself. Yes, this would do for the day.

One day, Rae wouldn’t just be the supervisor of this place – she’d own it. That was the dream. Perhaps with the prize tokens Hades offered with the festival, this would be the century it would finally come true.

Ibrik whistled.

“Yes, I know.” Rae chuckled, turning to her brass companion. “You’re my biggest cheerleader.”

The brass pot rattled – an indignant protest.

“Oh? You aren’t my biggest fan?” Rae widened her eyes at the pot in mock surprise.

At that moment, the door tinkled. There was no bell above the door, the greeting itself coming from the door as it opened, its voice singing through the air at whoever had walked through.

Rae turned towards it, and her surprise was immediately replaced with a scowl.

“What are you doing here?”

The agathodaemon slithered in, a cocky smile on his face. He reached the edge of the counter, opposite Rae, and grabbed a handful of pomegranate seeds from the offering bowl in front of the éos. The offering bowl was similar to what the mortals called a ‘tip jar’, though there was no need for tip jars in the Underworld, given that mortal currency didn’t work here.

Instead, the offering was for their queen – the goddess, Persephone. The queen to their lord Hades, and the love of his immortal life. It was thanks to her that the plants in Asphodel Meadows now thrived as the mortal realms vegetation did. Before that, the flowers had been in eternal death. Beautiful, but, with no hope.

Now, there was hope.

The agathodaemon opened that wide mouth of his and poured the pomegranate seeds down his throat.

“Are you drunk?!”

Taking from an offering bowl was as good as insulting the goddess herself.

“This early in the day? You think so little of me, my Rae of sunshine?”

“I think nothing of you, Garth.” Rae pinned him with a stare, one hand on her hip.

A look like that on a Soul would have worked. Instead, Garth laughed. Loudly.

“Liar. Besides, Persephone won’t miss a few. Not when she sees what I’m making in her honour for the cook-off.”

He was no mere mortal Soul. He was a daemon. Worse than that he was the daemon that people in the earthly realm paid libations to after a meal. They would smash their drinks on the ground, singing his praises and thanking him for the food on their plates.

“So,” Garth niggled at her. “What are you making for the cook-off?”

“None of your gods-damned business,” she grumbled.

“Of course it’s my business, Sunshine. You’re my competition.”

Rae tried not to smile at that, because for the last four centuries Garth and his restaurant just down the road from her – Zeus’ Watering Hole – had won the cook-off. Rae had never been to his restaurant but she knew why he was winning. It wasn’t based on talent. Garth won because of the libations. Every time a mortal ritually poured water, wine, oil, milk, or honey in honour of the gods – Garth grew in popularity. The more popular he was, the more powerful he grew down here in Asphodel.

The fact that he considered her actual competition this year was a good sign.

“Why are you here?”

Garth let out a breath, his wavy dark hair blowing up before settling again around his oval face. The light hanging from the bistro highlighted the jade green tints in his otherwise black hair, making it look like snakes were hugging his skull.

Rae was about to tell Garth to forget the question, she was busy and he should leave, when Ibrik let out a low whistling howl in warning.

“Fine,” she muttered under her breath, turning and taking her friend off the element.

“Can I have a cup?”

“No.”

“I’ll tell you why I’m here if you’ll give me one.”

“I suspect you’ll tell me anyway.” Rae threw a shrewd look over her shoulder as she began to pour the coffee into a kylix.

It wasn’t that she disliked Garth. It was just … unfair. It was unfair that the mortals paid him libations without knowing what it meant. It was unfair that he grew more powerful simply because people believedin him. It was unfair that he won the competition every year, and the prize tokens from Hades, when he didn’t even need them. Not like she did.

“I need a favour.”

Now he was just messing with her.

“What could a good daemon like you possibly need from me, a cursed one?”

“I need you to work in my kitchens tonight.”

Rae almost dropped the kylix holding the molten hot Ibrik coffee. “Excuse me?”

She turned to face Garth as he leaned against one of the tables. His corded forearms bulged, but Rae’s eyes zeroed in on the fact that one of his wide hands had skewed the napkin just twenty or so degrees.

That was annoying.

“I need you to work in my kitchens tonight,” Garth repeated, a smile in his tone.

Rae roamed her eyes over him, eyes still narrowed, as she watched his body language for an explanation. Garth was not a young daemon. He’d been in Asphodel since Rae was a new deity almost a millennium ago, but that grin on his face and the way his dark eyes twinkled gave him a permanent youth. The muscles in his neck were thick, which translated to a wide torso, a dark sprinkling of coarse black hair on his chest that was just visible from the short chiton tied over one shoulder. But it was his skin beneath his chiton that gave away he was an agathodaemon.

Every inch of him from the head down was made of snake skin rather than human flesh. It almost looked like a tattoo, and as he leaned back on the table further, crossing one leg over the other, the scales shimmered.

“Why?” Rae asked.

“Because my sous chef is … unavailable.”

“Unavailable?”

Garth shrugged. “We had a disagreement.”

“What kind of disagreement?”

“He lost his head over something silly. It doesn’t matter.”

“That depends. Did he lose his head figuratively or literally?”

Garth grinned. “He had three. He could afford to lose one.”

Rae laughed. “And people think I’ll be the one to curse them if they don’t like my food.”

Garth continued to smile at her, his scales glistening under the swinging bistro light. Rae looked up and scowled at the playful chandelier.

“Cut it out,” she told it.

The bulbs simply glowed brighter. Rae knew what it was getting at, the glow showering Garth in angel light.

“I know you’ve always wanted to work in a real kitchen. This would be your chance. Come play in mine.”

When Rae didn’t reply, he continued. “At the very least, you might get to see what I’m preparing for the festival tomorrow.” Garth wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

“If I’m your competition, why would you give me that advantage?” Nothing in this place was done without calling in a favour later down the line. Not even from a good daemon.

Garth shrugged. “Like I said, Sunshine. I’m short staffed. I need your help.”

At that moment the door opened, this time on a groan.

“Good morning Geras,” Rae said without even glancing towards the bistro entryway. It only ever groaned for its old, tired owner.

“Think about it,” Garth told her. He rose up off the table to his full height again, knocking the table setting even further askew, and turned towards the door.

“Geras,” he nodded at the other old daemon, who was hunched over, his bald head shining underneath the light.

“Garth,” Geras grumbled.

Then he was gone.

“Why,” Geras grumbled again, “have you not put the baked goods in the cabinet yet, Arae?” His pointed nose and chin drooped naturally towards the floor, until it looked like someone had attempted to melt his flesh off and had only half finished the job. It left him with a permanently displeased look on his face, often directed at Rae.

“Sorry, Geras. I’ll do that now.”

“And why isn’t this table set like the others?”

“I’ll get on that, too.”

Ibrik whistled out a sad song.

“Tell me about it,” Rae muttered.