0.5

“Am I boring you, young Aetos?” an old man asked me. He was a philosopher, eighth rank within the sophic realm, with a beard that hung down to his chest and bushy white eyebrows. He was in the midst of sorting a book’s worth of loose papers spread across the table between us, each sheet covered in numeric equations and geometric formations. He was the cult’s resident master of the pythagorean virtues and had been a tutor of mine since I was a boy.

He was also, yes, boring me.

“You are,” I told him freely. “I think I’ve had my fill of you for today.”

For a man of such advanced cultivation, he was easy enough to read. He resented our time together. I’d known that much since I was a boy. He suffered from the same delusions that many of the cult’s elders did- that they continued to exist for any reason other than my father’s mercy, and that they would ever contribute anything to the world that my father had not already mastered and internalized.

It made it hard to take any of them particularly seriously. This one was particularly surly about the private instruction my father demanded all his elder philosophers give to his son, to the point that he made even otherwise interesting topics miserable.

“Your father expects these forms to be finished by dinner,” the elder warned. As much as I knew he’d love to send me on my way, within these walls the word of Damon Aetos was absolute.

“Naturally.” So I swept the papers into a messy stack and rolled them up, utterly ruining the sorting he’d been doing. His expression tightened. His pneuma flickered, ever so slightly. Alas, he held his tongue. “I’ll deliver them myself.”

“If the work is not properly done-”

“It will be on my head,” I finished, standing from the table and turning my back on him. “As always your instruction has been invaluable. Truly, I had eyes before today, but now I finally see.”

“The pleasure is mine,” he said, a model of restraint.

They were all so dull.

“Slave, with me,” I called without breaking stride. A dozen heads whipped around at the sound of my voice, but I trusted they had enough sense to know I wasn’t talking to any of them. I continued on down the hall, pondering the best place to finish my busy work and enjoy the sun while it was still bright in the sky.

Why did I not hear footsteps?

I stopped and looked behind me. There were a few initiates chatting with one another, leaning against the rails looking out into the courtyard, but no one else. I frowned, doubling back to the kitchen entrance.

“Slave.”

Once more a dozen slaves looked up from their work in unison, radiating confusion and anxiety in varying amounts. All but one, stood over a table in the back with a mound of dough in his hands. Beside him, the same slave girl that I’d seen teaching him to knead dough the other day tugged frantically at his sleeve, eyes wide as she looked at me. He brushed her hand off absent-mindedly and drove his palms into the dough.

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Men and women scrambled to get out of my way as I entered the kitchen. The girl watched me approach with naked terror.

“Slave,” I said, softly, standing directly beside him. “Are you ignoring me?”

“I’m making bread,” Sol responded.

“And that takes precedence over me?” I asked curiously.

“Evidently.”

The girl sucked air through clenched teeth, looking for all the world like she wanted to leap past me and slap her hands over his mouth to silence him. The rest of the kitchen’s staff stood frozen in their work, eyeing me like a goat eyes a mountain cat. I considered him.