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The Underworld has no love for trespassers. To those who have not yet come to call it home, it is mysterious and freezing cold and apathetic to the point of cruelty. Even for humans, masters and custodians of the star, it is a place that evokes their respect and their fear. That lession is impressed upon all children of their star: Etheirys is for the living, and the Underworld is for the dead.
It is a lesson that is not easy to unlearn, even when one is positioned as an exception to the rule. Though his talents and his office grant him right of passage, Emet-Selch may never grow accustomed to this confounding, illogical space. The terrain defies all known laws of the physical world. He might be picking his way up a steep slope only to slide the last few yalms uphill, or he might jump and find himself suddenly falling headfirst onto another path. He might reach a different road based on whether he turns sharply or slowly right, or if he first spins deosil or widdershins, once or twice.
Emet-Selch has not tried spinning more than twice. To spin round in circles like a giddy child under the bright summer sun is beneath the dignity of the Third Seat of the Convocation.
That is what he would say if asked. The truth of the matter is that he knows his limits. At any given moment, his vision extends about a quarter malm out from where he stands, no more. He can see the path on which he walks, where it curves off in new directions and splits off onto other roads, but those roads fade out into the gloom and the fog and he cannot tell where they lead. Emet-Selch can walk the Underworld in relative safety, but always he walks cautiously, with the fear that he might still lose himself in this strange, inimical space.
He has learned the routes through painstaking memorization. There exists a single copy of a map, ancient beyond all measure, drawn out and handed down by generations of Emet-Selchs. Just as they have noted the movements of the tides and currents, the traversable paths and the hazards, so too will he be expected to continue on their work. The Underworld is vast and ever-changing, and it is to their advantage to learn all that they can. Someday, when he has taken sufficient precautions, he might well be called upon to find out what happens if he continues to spin.
It is a long, slow labor, mapping the Underworld, but it is the task entrusted to him. This is a plane of pure aether; only he with his keen sight is given leave to traverse it freely.
Strange, then, that he finds himself jealous of another.
Hythlodaeus’s soul is bright against the mist of aether. Emet-Selch’s first glimpse of him is when he appears seemingly right before Emet-Selch’s eyes, close enough to touch if he but reaches out his hand. But distance in the Underworld is misleading; Emet-Selch does not move, and with another two steps Hythlodaeus drops down a layer and disappears.
He cannot stop himself. “Hythlo—” Emet-Selch begins. But before the name has left his mouth, Hythlodaeus is resurfacing just at the edges of Emet-Selch’s sight. He is very far away after all.
Where Emet-Selch proceeds with care, Hythlodaeus moves with not an onze of hesitation. He walks with no regard for his own safety, as if this is merely an everyday, pleasant stroll through one of Amaurot’s many parks. He has no need of maps to show him the way: the paths of the Underworld appear to him so plainly that he requires no guidance.
Frozen, Emet-Selch watches him, throat tight with nerves. Every time Hythlodaeus’s soul flickers and vanishes, Emet-Selch’s breath stutters; every time Hythlodaeus reappears, Emet-Selch feels his heart restart in his breast. They are not good for him, these moments where he teeters violently between certainty that he is as good as dead and realization that he still lives.
Hythlodaeus shows none of Emet-Selch’s caution. For all Emet-Selch knows, he is laughing as he comes. Perhaps he is watching Emet-Selch as Emet-Selch watches him, amused at every anxious hiss and relieved sigh. Perhaps he even sees beneath that, to the core of envy that never flares brighter than at moments like these.
Hythlodaeus might not recognize the envy for what it is. Hythlodaeus likely believes Emet-Selch would have no reason to ever envy him. But the undeniable truth is that Hythlodaeus was first choice for seat of Emet-Selch, not Hades, and the reason is never clearer than when he walks the world of the dead. Though he may claim that he lacks power—though he may claim that his ineptitude with magick renders him unqualified—he moves through the Underworld with the careless grace and unthinking confidence of one who belongs. He has no need to rely on maps and the experience of others; he sees farther and deeper than Emet-Selch ever has. Emet-Selch’s painstaking attempts at navigation are clumsy and artless in comparison.
Hythlodaeus vanishes again. When he does not immediately reappear, Emet-Selch draws a sharp breath through his teeth. His eyes flit about, trying to decipher which passage Hythlodaeus took and where he will emerge, but there is nothing around him but the faint shine of souls and silence.
He blinks, and Hythlodaeus does not reappear. He turns, and Hythlodaeus does not reappear. He does one spin around—then, unnoticing, two and then three—and Hythlodaeus still does not reappear.
Panic is just starting to overtake the frayed edge of his thoughts when suddenly hands reach out and cover his eyes. Emet-Selch nearly jumps straight out of his skin. There is a breath of laughter at his ear.
“Got you,” Hythlodaeus says. He is much too pleased with himself.
Emet-Selch growls, “Are you trying to force my early return to the star?”
There is a beat, an instant in which Emet-Selch realizes he spoke with a tad too much force. There is no mistaking his distress. He bites down on his lip so hard he imagines he tastes copper on the tip of his tongue.
Hythlodaeus lowers his hands; from behind, he embraces Emet-Selch and draws him close. He says, this time with no trace of levity, “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”
Emet-Selch breathes out slowly, his chin dipping nearly to his chest. “See that you don’t. What are you doing here?”
Hythlodaeus hums. He rests his chin on Emet-Selch’s shoulder. “Urgent message for you from Elidibus. They’re calling an emergency Convocation session and couldn’t reach you. I volunteered to come find you.”
That comes as no surprise. Emet-Selch is walking so deep in the Underworld that communication from the surface cannot reach. It is not the first time a messenger has had to be dispatched to call him back. An emergency, though…
Hythlodaeus’s laconic tone and relaxed demeanor are at odds with his words. Bracing his hands on Hythlodaeus’s arms, tilting his head back, Emet-Selch asks dryly, “Urgent or not, which is it?”
After a moment of thought, Hythlodaeus admits, “Personally I didn’t find it that urgent.”
Emet-Selch groans. Hythlodaeus laughs and steps away. He holds out his hand; Emet-Selch takes it, and easily, effortlessly, Hythlodaeus pulls him along the currents back toward the surface.
Hythlodaeus is a faultless guide to the Underworld. He really would have been a most suitable Emet-Selch.
“What’s on your mind, Emet-Selch?”
The sound of his title in Hythlodaeus’s voice, in direct opposition to his thoughts, catches him off-guard. Emet-Selch stumbles. Hythlodaeus pulls at him sharply before he can fall deep onto the wrong path.
Emet-Selch steadies himself, planting his feet more firmly on what passes for the ground. Hythlodaeus is looking at him strangely. If Hythlodaeus can read Emet-Selch’s mood from the slightest shift in tone, so too can Emet-Selch read Hythlodaeus’s mood in the tilt of his head and the twist of his lips.
He cannot say what he is thinking. He cannot say, I think you would have been a more than serviceable Emet-Selch; he cannot say, you are better at this than me. He cannot say, you are at your most beautiful when you are as sure of yourself as you are now. There is no power in the world that can restrain you; you could have had this too had you only accepted it. This office should have been yours, and what does it matter that I am your better at magick when these peaceful times need never call upon you to perform some great work?
Emet-Selch does not say any of that, but after a moment Hythlodaeus nods as if he did. He stops walking.
This place is not on Emet-Selch’s map. Emet-Selch does not know where they are, nor if this is a safe place to tarry, but Hythlodaeus does not seem to care. He blinks lazily and cocks his head in that particular way that says he’s looking closely. “The Underworld suits you, I think.”
Emet-Selch’s mouth opens. He is a living man, for all that he spends so much time with the dead. He feels as if he should protest, but he cannot quite gather the necessary indignation.
Hythlodaeus is already grinning as if he had. His voice is rife with fondness as he says, “It’s quiet here. Peaceful. And you’ve never had much tolerance for other people, have you?”
And ah, there is the token protest at last. “I tolerate them just fine.”
Hythlodaeus makes a small, doubtful sound. Insistently, though with a small wry smile, Emet-Selch says, “I do. Unless it is you or Azem trying to get a rise from me.”
Hythlodaeus’s stifled laugh says plainly that he is unconvinced, but thankfully he drops the subject. “Regardless. You always seemed content to be left to your own devices. I never could imagine you spending every day of your life bowing to the whims of others.”
Hythlodaeus nudges his white mask aside with the base of his palm, revealing those well-loved violet eyes alight with amusement. He reaches out to clasp Emet-Selch’s hands between his own. “Whereas I, as you well know, delight every day in seeing all that our people have to offer. I would quickly grow bored walking this quiet world by myself.”
Emet-Selch rolls his eyes and huffs out a breath. It is not as effective at disguising his reaction as he might have hoped. “Are you calling me misanthropic?”
“I am merely saying that each of us has found himself the office best suited to him, and I would have it no… other… way.”
Hythlodaeus steps closer as he speaks. He drops his voice and slows his words, elongating each syllable so they slide seductive as a caress down Emet-Selch’s skin. Emet-Selch is all too aware of the distance between them; he is aware of the heat of Hythlodaeus’s hands, so out of place in the cold of the Underworld.
Hythlodaeus’s mouth is hotter. The first kiss he drops small and brief at the corner of Emet-Selch’s lips, the merest tantalizing ember. When Emet-Selch turns into it, instinctively giving chase, Hythlodaeus kisses him again. His breath is sweet on Emet-Selch’s lips; his tongue is a line of fire in Emet-Selch’s mouth. Heat washes through the whole of Emet-Selch’s body, banishing the cold of death and all thoughts along with it.
Hythlodaeus briefly pulls away. Emet-Selch begins to speak, but words are not what Hythlodaeus wants from his lips at the moment, and so he closes the space between them once more.
Even then there is a persistent, nagging thought at the back of his mind. He is forgetting something. What is he forgetting? What brought Hythlodaeus here in the first place?
Elidibus.
Sense reasserts itself long enough for Emet-Selch to reluctantly push at Hythlodaeus and stumble away. He growls, still disoriented and breathless, “This is neither an appropriate time nor place.”
It is unfair, the way Hythlodaeus looks at Emet-Selch in moments like these, as if he is laying eyes on the star’s greatest treasure for the very first time. There is wonder and unabashed affection in his gaze as he says, “On the contrary, I can think of no better. We are not expected back for a while yet.”
“This is the Underworld, Hythlodaeus,” Emet-Selch says, as if to remind him. Perhaps Hythlodaeus has somehow forgotten. The only other alternative is that Hythlodaeus has fully taken leave of his senses at last.
“Yes, and?” Hythlodaeus drawls. Emet-Selch revises his opinion: It is most definitely the latter. “It’s ideal. There is no one is here to watch or interrupt.”
“Except the dead.”
Hythlodaeus shrugs. He raises one hand and traces slender fingers along Emet-Selch’s jaw, nudging away his mask of office. “Except the dead, and what do they care for the passions of the living?”
Emet-Selch sighs. “I thought you’d come on urgent business?”
“Not that urgent,” Hythlodaeus says, and then, in response to Emet-Selch’s utter exasperation, “It made for a good excuse, that’s all. I think we can afford to tarry a little longer.”
Emet-Selch isn’t as certain, but he recognizes a losing argument when he sees it. There is no arguing with Hythlodaeus when he is in this sort of mood, and anyroads Emet-Selch is in the sort of mood where he isn’t inclined to argue.
“Very well then,” Emet-Selch says, and is rewarded by a smile as bright as he could ever wish. “But just for a little while, you hear me?”
Hythlodaeus says nothing in answer.
They are quiet then, sharing their thoughts only in soft murmurs or the brush of skin against skin. As predicted, no one is there to see or to interrupt. The Underworld is theirs alone. Only they out of all the peoples of Etheirys dare walk its paths.
For one blissful, stolen moment, it is just the two of them in an empty world: their only companions the faint lights of drifting souls, the star itself their only witness.