The Young Griffon
I leaned back.
Six Heroic cultivators crowded around the table alongside Sol and I. They had been at the furthest edges of the room when the story began, but now each of them leaned forward on elbows and crossed arms to get as close to the fading papyrus as they could.
In the dull silence that followed the story Chilon had gifted me, the world seemed to lose a certain quality that I hadn’t known it possessed before. Without the warmth of heroic glory suffusing the air, each breath felt colder in my lungs than it truly was. Without the lights of triumphant flame suffusing all above, the shadows in Elissa’s home seemed that much darker.
“-iffon?”
I blinked. Little King Leo tugged again on my arm, confused and wary. To my right the little sentinel, Pyr, crouched beside their guardian, watching Lefteris with concern.
“Yes?” I responded belatedly.
“When are you going to tell the story?” the little king asked as the last embers died out in the hearth and the papyrus dimmed.
“It’s already been told,” I informed him. His expression tightened indignantly, his distinguished nose wrinkling.
“Leo. Not now.” Lefteris shook his head once, his eyes riveted to the story on the table. The little king made to protest, thought better of it, and slunk back to his brother’s side.
In the weeks since my arrival at Olympia, I had achieved an adequate understanding of the Heroes and Heroines gathered around the stout wooden table. Nothing near what I wanted, but assuredly more than they were happy with me knowing. Their mannerisms, the quiet martial habits that they carried with them everywhere, as well as their feelings towards one another. There were power dynamics at play there, ire and affection depending on who was paired with whom.
It was a given that they had all known each other before Sol and I ever set foot in their city. Heroic cultivators weren’t nearly common enough for them to have missed each other. It was said that in a crowd of a hundred Citizens you might find only one lonely Philosopher. The same rule applied the further up you went. In a crowd of one hundred Philosophers and ten thousand Citizens, if you were fortunate, you might find a single shining Hero. The city of Olympia was an exception to this rule in some ways, especially when it came to her Tyrants, but not enough for these six to be unacquainted.
Our Heroic companions had history. They had enmity and affection for one another. The three that I had claimed as my own were friends, or at least friendly. Elissa was familiar enough with Kyno to not stab him when he held her back in her heated moments, and Kyno was familiar enough with her to know when she needed holding back. Lefteris liked them both well enough to try warning them away from me, and they liked him well enough to try to justify their involvement.
Sol’s companions, similar to the Roman himself, were a mess. Jason and Scythas kept company with each other but hated my three, and my three disdained them both in turn. Anastasia was somehow feared by all, in the way that hunting cats feared a cobra - a wary understanding of her nature. They weren’t cowed, but they kept their distance from her when they could. For her part, she regarded them with a cool amusement. Content to let them skirt around her.
All of that was gone now. Those small nuances that they so carefully kept, the thousand-thousand truths and convictions they had used to sculpt their identities. The interplay between each other. Whatever required conscious effort to maintain had been stripped away. Friends did not look to friends to discuss what we had just seen. Enemies said nothing to enemies as shoulders and knees brushed together at the crowded table.
Scythas, Elissa, Kyno, Lefteris, Jason, and Anastasia had each withdrawn into themselves, struck by a portion of what we had all seen. I knew them well enough to know it had been a different moment for every one of them that did it. I had my suspicions as to what those moments had been. But for now, I could still only guess as to why.
Finally, I glanced at the Roman directly across the table from me. Gray eyes stared piercingly back.
You didn’t know, the raven in his shadow whispered to mine under the table, quiet enough that the others wouldn’t hear.
There are many things I don’t yet know, the raven in my own shadow whispered back, levity in shifting ink. You’ll have to be more specific.
In lieu of a response, Sol clenched his fist and then slowly unclenched it on the table. His eyes trailed meaningfully down. I followed his gaze.
Hm.
I relaxed my right hand, dismissing fifteen hands of violent intent that had layered themselves in the same space. Pain drove through each finger like a needle as it uncurled. My nails weren’t long enough to break skin, but they had left four crescent grooves in the meat of my palm.
You didn’t read it first, Sol accused me.
There wasn’t time. I flexed blood back into my fingers, distantly observing the pain. If I had been taught the hunting bird’s breath, I could have dispersed it. Made it future strength.
So you laid it out in front of them. Legendary cultivators from all over the known world whose motivations and allegiances we still don’t fully understand. And you rolled the dice on this convincing them to work with us, rather than against. When you had no idea-
No.
I saw the storm gathering in his glare.
I knew it was a Hero’s story. Because the only other thing Chilon carried in his fishing net was the satchel of letters he’d never replied to. And I knew who it was about.
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In a grand parade of one hundred heroes, only one among them could be expected to ascend to the realm of ravenous authority. It was only natural for that singular Hero to stand head and shoulders above the rest. A legend among legends. A Hero’s deeds were always worth hearing of, no matter if they lived and died at the lowest of the ranks. But that didn’t mean they were all equally inspiring.
Every Tyrant was once a Hero. Every Tyrant was once the greatest of one hundred greats. The magnitude of their deeds could only reflect that.
The details were irrelevant. What was important was that each of these wilting cultivators had seen what a Hero was meant to be. That even for just a moment, they had felt what they could feel if they only took the risk. Glory above all.
The contents didn’t matter.
I inhaled deeply, and listened past the roaring in my ears as my brother broke the silence.
“Elissa,” Sol said. “Do you have any wine?” The Sword Song stiffened and looked up from the table, blinking rapidly. Unaccompanied by her usual scorn, the scars that riddled her ceased to be fierce - they became something nearly tragic.
“Wine,” Elissa murmured, desert flames flickering fitfully behind her eyes. “Yes. This calls for wine.”
The Sword Song all but ran out of the room, returning shortly thereafter with an impressive clay jug balanced precariously on her shoulder. She reached for a pitcher of clear water on a nearby table to dilute the wine, decided against it, and snapped her fingers.
“Cups.”
The Heroic cultivators in the room reached absently into the folds of their chitons and tunics, pulling from them cups for Elissa to fill. Paradox logic, pockets of folded rhetoric that they kept hidden in their clothes. It was different than what I had expected, nothing like the space within my shadow. Somehow more and less profound now than it had been before I knew the trick of it.
Kyno and Lefteris murmured quiet thanks while she filled their cups with thick red wine. Anastasia nodded in appreciation, thoughtfully regarding the long sheet of papyrus. Sol had no cup to fill when Elissa reached him. Instead, he dipped a hand into the open jug and took a mouthful from his cupped palm. She grimaced but moved on without a word.
While Jason drained his portion in one pull and Elissa went to fill Scythas’, the Hero of the Scything Squall broke the heavier silence. The one that talk of wine and niceties hadn’t breached.
“Bakkhos,” he breathed, and Elissa dropped the jug.
Pankration hands caught it just before it shattered, glowing faintly with the rosy light of dawn. I raised the jug to my mouth with hands of formless intent and drank deeply of the undiluted kykeon, setting it aside when my insides were sufficiently warmed. Elissa left it there.
“Bakkhos,” she echoed Scythas, leaning heavily against Kyno’s shoulder - he was tall enough that she could do it standing while he sat. “I knew that was his name. I know I knew that.”
“We all did,” Kyno agreed.
“And yet you haven’t said it once.” I ignored their bristling and brushed off the unspoken you do not belong in the air. “Sol and I have been in the city for over a month, and in all that time I have never once heard the kyrios of the Raging Heaven Cult referred to as anything but that. Not even the night of his funeral, while you all told stories in remembrance of him.”
There was nothing they could say to that, because of course it was the truth.
“You’ve all forgotten the name of the Tyrant Riot, the man that terrorized greater mystery cults for no greater purpose than his own amusement.” I pressed both palms flat against the table and leaned forward, sweeping across each of the Heroes. “You’ve buried him in your minds deeper than your elders buried his corpse.” Anastasia, sat beside Sol, glanced up through the coal black fringe of her hair in brief acknowledgement. The rest of them-
“Aristotle taught Damon Aetos,” Lefteris blurted, as if unable to believe it. “The Father of Rhetoric mentored Damon Aetos.”
Did you know that? The raven in Sol’s shadow asked mine.
Did you?
He frowned and shook his head minutely.
“He taught more than just him,” Anastasia said meaningfully, tilting her head at Sol beside her without looking up from the papyrus. Her fingers traced lightly over the map, brushing Chilon’s story aside where it obscured it.
“Damon Aetos is your senior brother,” Jason said with a hysterical sort of wonder, dashing wine from dark stubble where it had spilled past the corners of his mouth. “Wait, unless! Is he-”
“Your junior?” Scythas asked, intent sharpening his focus.
Kyno frowned. “Did you know him personally? Before he was…”
“A Tyrant? Elissa suggested.
“A Hero?” Lefteris added.
“Himself.”
Once again, a group of people that should have known better wavered on the edge of an outrageous assumption.
They had an excuse this time, I supposed. The story of my father and my uncles was still a vivid silhouette inside my soul. We had looked too long at the sun, and now a portion of it remained when we closed our eyes. The memory of the Philosopher Aristotle so casually shedding his cultivation and his years was as fresh in their minds as it was in mine. Who was to say that his student wasn’t capable of the same? Even if they came to accept Sol’s status as a first rank philosopher now, a part of them would always wonder if he used to be more.
Normally, it wouldn’t even be a consideration. A shattered ego was the end of a cultivator, that was common knowledge. There were theories and hearsay remedies, certainly, but no one knew anyone that had benefited from them. In nearly every circumstance a cultivator of virtue chose death of the body before death of the self. Those that did cling to life afterwards led miserable existences, unacknowledged without as well as within.
If I’d been asked at any point in my life other than this one here now, whether a man could shed like a snake the culmination of his soul’s greater aspirations and carry on without breaking stride, I would have laughed. And then I would have spit.
Yet here we were. The Heroic cultivators in the room waited for the rank one Philosopher to tell them he was an ancient, that he had stood among the strongest before he chose to discard his ego like a torn rag. I could already see the questions that would follow creeping up their throats.
The son of Rome resigned himself to the room’s attention, arms crossed as he sought the words.
The truth, this time, I advised him through the shadows beneath the table. The one on your right is a physician. If she’s mended you before or does so in the future, she’ll know your true age.
Sol sighed.
She can hear us.
Anastasia smiled.
You gave me away, her shadow whispered teasingly.