Deep beneath the ground, amidst the gold and jewels that are the treasures of the earth, an immortal thrashes and does not die.

One act of mass murder - killing each of Hades' messengers for that year - one additional lifetime. That was the pact she made with Demeter. Time was her payment, and for two hundred and fifty years she collected her salary. And like the pharaohs of old, Sagakhan was buried with all of her treasures.

She struggles against an unyielding earth, even as it dries around her. The water in the soil of Sahar sinks ever deeper until it has passed away to great underwater basins and leaves only drought behind. As the water fades away so does the rainforest above start to wilt. As the rainforest wilts Demeter, bloody from where Aphrodite stabbed her, gives up on her search. For many weeks she has wandered this dying world, croaking out calls for her lost assassin. For many weeks Sagakhan has not answered her. She calls and calls and calls and the beast yearns to answer her but it can not escape the earth's clutches.

The rainforest wilts. Flashgrown wood and flowers crumble to sand. Dying trees pour all their energy into seeds, thick and stonelike that can survive underneath the sand until the rains next come. They fall like hail into the ground, thump thump, thump thump, the harvest planting as Demeter calls for her murderer. 

And finally, in the depths of her frenzy, Sagakhan realizes how she can answer Demeter's call.

She gives her body to the seeds. Gives them her immortal life, the endless bounty of her blood. They sink into her and she rises through them. In the midst of a dying jungle life endures and even brightens. But it is life strange and terrible, life as the answer of an assassin.

Flowers grow in neat rows. The grass never rises above its most beautiful level. Bushes entwine and form hedges. Glittering rows of dew-kissed blueberries the bushy heads of yams emerge from ungiving soil. A single tree stretches out its branches just so, each twist and curl to its trunk artfully arranged. Even as the desert of Sahar reclaims its birthright, this little patch of green thrives. The perfect garden.

And with every heartbeat of the monster down below unspeakable poisons run through every root and branch. 

Two hundred and fifty lifetimes were what Sagakhan took to the grave with her. And for two hundred and fifty lifetimes the Toxicrene's Garden will live on. In time, assassins, heroes, murderers, doctors and foolish victims will find their way into this terrible little garden. By their wits they will find ways to stopper some shard of this hateful afterlife, or by their lack they will water the garden. 

For two hundred and fifty lifetimes the mother who devoured her children, that she might master time, will suffer the fate of Kronus.

But after two hundred and fifty lifetimes her poisons will have run weak, and eventually run dry. The garden of death will have become a garden giving. Toxic gifts will have become simple gifts. Roots will cling less desperately to the soil. The artificial structures will have wearied and grown wild and tangled. When the last of Demeter's coins run out then the patch of untamed wilderness, a green oasis on a barren world, will spread its seeds and crumble to dust at long last. 

END OF PART ONE.