1.114 [The Caustic Queen] (Pt.3)

The Caustic Queen

“Who are you, really?”

The Young Griffon asked the question without suspicion or any particular heat, and his pneuma did not stir from its work – but neither did he take the small clay jar from her outstretched hand. She leaned closer with it, waving the cloth-covered top under his nose so he could smell the sweet gold therein. He ignored it. Humming, she pulled back and knelt across from him.

Between them, a cultivator lay wheezing in the cool sands of the Olympic Stadium’s arena pit. The man appeared young enough, in his prime as most cultivators did, but she recognized him. His name was Chilon and he was closer to a century old than not. An eighth rank Philosopher, which made him senior to most in the world. Here in the pit, though, he was junior to all but one.

“What have you done to him?” she asked curiously, folding her legs primly and shifting her onyx silks so they pooled around her in the sand.

“What portion of a truth can be lies before it becomes no truth at all?”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“At what point did Theseus’ ship cease to be his own? Was it the day he died or was it when the final rotten plank was torn out and fresh wood slotted in its place?” Incorporeal hands of Griffon’s intent moved up and down the wounded Philosopher’s body, prodding and digging at different parts of his body and massaging his pneuma into Chilon’s flesh. Without looking up from his work, he continued, “Or will it always be his ship, even after all of us are dead and gone?”

She considered it briefly. It was a common thought experiment for junior Philosophers, and one she hadn’t thought about in years. She’d never heard of it used in this sort of context, though.

“It isn’t a fair comparison,” she decided.

“Ho?”

“The argument can be made that any ship is Theseus’ ship so long as to Theseus it belongs.” Whether or not a ship could still belong to a man after his passing was a sticking point of the topic, but in this case it didn’t matter. “Owning a ship is not the same thing as knowing the truth. The former is yours to alter as you choose, and so long as it can sail it will retain its core identity. Its purpose remains the same. On the other hand, the truth has no stated purpose. It simply is.”

“A ship has no purpose on its own,” Griffon pointed out, digging his flesh and blood fingers into the gap between two of Chilon’s ribs and frowning at the Philosopher’s pained gasp. “It won’t push itself into the water, nor work its own oars against the waves. If we chose to keep our ships on dry land and live in them like homes, then that would be their purpose. We decide their purpose. Isn’t that so?”

Despite herself, she found herself considering it and posing her own question in return. “If ten thousand men sail their ships over open seas and one man keeps his instead in the shipyard as a home, are each of those uses equal?”

“Perhaps.”

“You don’t believe that,” she said knowingly. He snorted and finally glanced up at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Is that so?”

“The question you’re asking isn’t whether Theseus’ ship was still his after every portion of it was replaced. The question you’re asking is whether it was still a ship at all.”

He tilted his head.

“If every portion of a ship is stripped away, piece by piece, and replaced with a portion of a house, at the end of this process there will be no question at all as to its identity. It will be a home, clear as candlelight.” She waited for him to nod, and continued. “What if, then, the very first piece taken from the ship is a plank straight from its hull?”

“It’s made worthless,” Griffon murmured.

A ship couldn’t sail without a water-tight hull, that much was common sense.

“It can still be used as a home,” she pointed out. “More so the further the changes progress. And though it will never sail again, surely it is still a ship? After all, you’ve only taken out a single piece of it.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He didn’t appear shocked, or particularly enlightened. If anything, she seemed to have confirmed a thought he’d already been thinking.

“I don’t believe so,” she agreed. Whatever else could be done with a ship, the greatest of the purposes ascribed to it was its ability to sail. Without that ability, it lost its substance and became something else.

She supposed the truth was much the same.

“What is the purpose of a truth, Griffon?” she asked him curiously.

“To shed light.”

“How poetic,” she said, her lips curling. He ignored the light jab. “Then if we compare it to the ship, if we were to remove a bench instead of a portion of the hull, it would still be seaworthy, wouldn’t it? In that case, a great many portions of the truth could be substituted for lies. So long as it sheds light-”

“No.”

Oh?

“It’s more delicate than that. It’s a ship made of papyrus, each sheet thinner than a fingernail’s width.”

Of course, a ship like that could still float. However, depending on what replaced it…

“What is a lie, then?”

The Young Griffon’s lip lifted in a sneer. Who it was for, she couldn’t say.

“A lead weight.”

In both of their minds’ eyes, the paper ship sank.

“Perhaps the truth is closer to a cup of wine, then,” she suggested. “And every portion of a lie the poison.” Griffon glanced up at her, his scarlet eyes piercing, but she merely smiled.

“A drop is enough to spoil the cup,” he completed the sentiment, and the words resonated with the virtue in her soul.

Purity.

“What are you doing here?” Solus asked her, releasing his hold on her neck and settling wearily back down beside his alchemical furnace. It was the only furnishing in the cave, though there were piles of trinkets and silks along with clay jugs of wine and food stacked along the edges of the mountain alcove.

“I came to see how you were doing,” she said simply. He grimaced.

“Every day is a new joy,” he responded. “I told you to give the honey to Griffon. It isn’t safe for you to be seen associating with me.”

“I’d be far from the first,” she observed.

“I haven’t met with your Tyrant yet. You’re still abducted. If they follow you up here-”

“You think I was seen?” she asked archly, and he exhaled in dim amusement.

“Fine. Fair enough. Why the music, though?” In the background, invisible now even to her vision, the Dancing Muse continued to strum her lyre.

“So I wouldn’t be seen,” she answered truthfully. Whether it was his exhaustion or the idea of her that existed within his head lending it credence, he accepted that without further comment.

“The honey?”

She spread her empty hands apologetically, and cursed herself for not carrying a jar of mad honey in her paradox space. It was an uncommon poison, found further east than she cared to go ever again, but it would have made this endeavor a simple one.

“Already delivered, I’m afraid,” she said. The Roman closed his eyes in brief exasperation, then nodded and returned to his work.

“You’ve seen me,” he dismissed her, dipping a spoon of lead into the alchemical furnace and stirring its contents steadily. The liquid within was a deep red, the color of blood. When she leaned in closer to inhale from its vapors, the intensity of the aroma made her nostrils burn. Spices, herbs, and potent wine.

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When he didn’t immediately push her away, she settled to the cave floor beside the Roman, folding her slipper-clad feet delicately beneath her and shifting her midnight black robes so they pooled around her.

“What are you really here for, Anastasia?” he asked her. His voice was low. Rough. Despite being only a Philosopher, he was still a bit taller than her. A testament to how small she’d been before ascending to the Heroic Realm as much as to his own stature. She let that drop of bitter poison fall away to join the rest and mustered a concerned expression.

“I’m worried about you,” she said. It was the truth, too.

Though perhaps not in the way he imagined it.

“You ignored my question,” she said, watching with some concern as the wounded sophist’s eyes rolled in his head. Every one of Chilon’s breaths was more haggard than the last, and they’d started to sound wet.

Griffon nodded as if it was to be expected. “You ignored mine first.”

Who are you, really?

“May I help?” she asked, reaching out for the wounded sophist. Chilon’s eyes locked on her, and though he couldn’t speak, he nodded frantically. Pankration hands brushed hers away.

“What does a Roman legion’s camp look like from the inside?” Griffon asked her. She stared at him.

“Is this really the time?”

“What do a man’s eyes look like when he dies?”