1.127

The Son of Rome

“You’ve done well,” the Hero said. Both Griffon and I stared at the towering cultivator, utterly thrown, and he laughed. “Not what you expected?”

“Not quite,” I said warily.

“We haven’t made many friends here,” Griffon added.

The Hero chuckled, eyes crinkling in fond recollection. “No, you’ve made a beautiful mess of this place. It’s to be expected that the bees won’t be happy when you kick their hive. If you ask me, though, the schemers deserve every gray hair you’ve given them.”

Griffon relaxed ever so slightly, his arm no longer an iron bar around my shoulder. I eyed the jovial Hero.

“May we pass, then?”

“Of course not.”

The Hero waved his hand through the air between us, brushing off Griffon’s poisonous glare. “None of that,” he chided. “Appreciation of good character doesn’t change the world around us, nor our place within it. This is the Burning Dusk Cult or near enough to it, and only members of its faith may enter without an invitation.”

“Some would argue that the Rosy Dawn and Burning Dusk are one face,” I said.

“Some would,” the Hero agreed, placing gentle emphasis on the first word.

Griffon cast his own words mockingly back. “Let’s speak candidly.”

The Roman portion of me grimaced and cursed my idiot brother’s lack of diplomacy. The part of me that was Greek readied itself for a fight. All the while, the Titan Flame’s ichor beat a tattoo against the spokes of the wheel inside my chest, burning hotter and hotter every second.

The Hero inclined his head. “Fair enough. Old ‘Zalus won’t tolerate a single one of Damon Aetos’ ilk inside of his domain, least of all one of his Young Aristocrats.”

Griffon didn’t rock back on his heels, nor turn his face as if he’d been struck, but he might as well have done both. The utter stillness of his expression gave him away clear as daybreak. When his eyes flickered down, it only drove the point home.

Since our flight from the Scarlet City, Griffon and I had been through our fair share of misfortune. We had been battered by cultivators in back alleys and sand pits. We had sailed across the Ionian and then further, up the Aegean and back, in just a few days each way. We had weathered the cruel blizzards of northern Thracia as well as the unnatural storm that hung eternally above Kaukoso Mons. We had been beaten down time and time again by the man known as the Gadfly.

We had lived.

In that time, my attire had changed frequently. It wasn’t a question of aesthetics. Though my roots were patrician, the legions had long since disavowed me of such vanity. No, it was a question of practicality. My Rosy Dawn attire had already been ruined before we stole the Eos, marred by months of slave work. The indigo silks of the Raging Heaven Cult that I’d acquired after my bath were finely made, but they were still ceremonial. Our midnight marauding had all but unmade them by the time Socrates thrashed me.

In the end, the Gadfly had given me his own battered breastplate from his days as a hoplite, and that was the only piece to survive our trip to Thracia untattered. The tunic had nearly made it through, only for my bastard horse to tear it in half during our struggle outside the Orphic house.

Even the grimiest vagrant had to change out their rags eventually. Yet somehow, throughout it all, Griffon had never once given up his Rosy Dawn silks.

He had worn them negligently, shrugged them off his shoulders, and walked around with a bare chest while they hung from his belt, and their designs had been marred by blood stains and tears long before Olympia was a sliver on our horizon. The months that followed had only added on to the damage. They’ve been almost unrecognizable as early as that morning.

But Prometheus had made us well, from the hair on our heads to the tips of our toes. Even our clothes have been mended. For the first time in centuries, the Gadfly’s bronze breastplate glimmered pristinely without a single dent or scratch. And for the first time since our escape, Griffon’s scarlet silks stood out proudly to anyone that cared to recognize them.

Red sun rising, more scarlet thread then there was white. More than just a mystiko’s attire. Griffon’s renovated robes marked him as a young pillar.

“My compliments to your tailor,” the Hero said easily, breaking Griffon’s tense silence. “I’ve seen good men give up after far less abuse than what you put those robes through.”

“You have us at a disadvantage,” I put forward, mind racing as I did. Where was the path forward?

“In more ways than one,” the Hero agreed.

“Who are you?” Griffon asked, intent. The Hero tapped the flat edge of the blade that hung without a sheath at his hip. It was an ugly, wicked looking thing. Too broad to be a sword and too long to be a cleaver.

“They call me the Butcher in this city,” the Hero said thoughtfully, and though there wasn’t a hint of a threat in his voice, I felt the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand straight up. The Butcher hummed, then shrugged. “But you can call me senior brother.”

Griffon snorted, unwinding his arm from my shoulder and stepping forward. He had to tilt his head back to meet the Hero’s eyes, but he still managed to make it look like he was staring down his nose at him.

“If you know enough to recognize me by my station, you should understand this much. A Young Aristocrat has no senior brothers outside the airistois. I’ll call you elder.”

The Hero abruptly grimaced. “Please don’t. I’m not that old.”

“Weathered Hero,” Griffon suggested.

“Even worse.”

“Ancient chain breaker-”

“Absolutely not.”

“Tell me then, senior,” Griffon continued archly, “why can’t your juniors pass?”

“I already told you old ‘Zalus won’t allow it,” the Hero said in bemusement.

“And if we have good reason to be here?” I pressed him, vividly aware of the brawl that continued to rage further up the mountain. A distant roar, but not distant enough. “We have something Polyzalus wants. Something he can’t get for himself. A gift.”

The Butcher of the Burning Dusk raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I can count the number of such gifts on one hand.”

“Nectar to cure his wife,” Griffon said, and the Butcher’s other eyebrow rose.

“That would be one of them.” The Hero tapped the hilt of his blade and cast his eyes skyward. “Though your chances might be better if you threw in a golden apple to sweeten the deal.”

He didn’t believe us. That was fine. We’d expected as much.

“What if we could prove it?” I said, finally stepping onto the golden path forward. “What would your answer be then?”

Or so I thought.

The Butcher shook his head. “Still no.”

“What?” Griffon hissed.

“You could convince me the sky was a hammer and its anvil the earth – it wouldn’t change a thing once you passed through those gates,” he said, tilting his chin at the gateway behind him. “That’s old ‘Zalus’ world. And you’ll never convince him of a thing.”

“We have proof-”

“It doesn’t matter. He’d cast his wife into the sea before he fed her anything from the Rosy Dawn.”

“And if you took it to him?” I asked, though I knew Griffon would never accept such a solution. “If it was your hand that offered the cup?”

“Even then. Your role in this arrangement taints it.”

“Selene told me her father loved her mother,” I challenged him. “She told me he’d do anything to see her made well. Are you calling her a liar?”

The Hero stepped back, leaning against one of the carved columns that marked the boundary between the Burning Dusk faction and the rest of the Raging Heaven Cult. He glanced up at the stone relief that each of the columns together propped up – that of a towering king riding in a chariot, reins in one hand and the sun in the other.

“Tell me,” the Butcher bade us, “what do you know of the First Son to Burn?” Griffon and I shared a look. “No, you’re right, this isn’t a lecture and I’m far from a philosopher. Let’s start smaller. What do you think a Tyrant is?”

There were some questions that existed without definitive answers, whetstones for the mind that mentors used to challenge their pupils. It tested the portion of the mind that lay dormant while a student memorized the truths of the world that weren’t up for debate. On the other hand, there were questions that could only possibly lead to one conclusion – questions that the Pythagorean’s and their like pursued tirelessly.

Somehow, I knew this question was both at once. There were countless ways to define a tyrant, and for all that that was true, I knew the Butcher would only accept one. I could spend my entire life searching for that answer and there was no guarantee that I would find it.

I could only tell him the truth as I saw it. As I had seen it in the darkness of command tents, in the bondage of iron chains, in the grip of mad visions – and in the weeping of this Half-Step City.

What is a Tyrant?

Griffon and I answered a question with an endless number of possible answers at the very same time, and then, impossibly, our answers were exactly the same.

““A prison.””

The Hero snapped his fingers and pointed at us like we’d given away a secret. “That right there. That’s exactly why.”

“You didn’t say we were wrong,” Griffon noted.

“I didn’t.” The Hero sounded pleased, but the heart flames behind his eyes were burning low now. “Because you’re right, of course. The problem is, you don’t know why.”

His heart flames flickered, and a sullen glow began to seep through his blade. Within moments, it looked like it was fresh from the forge and ready to be quenched. He nudged the pommel of his ugly cleaver and the blade swung in its belt loop, tapping lightly against the marble pillar behind him.

A line of fire like a hairline fracture appeared in the marble column, beginning at the point where the cleaver marked it and spreading in whisper-thin lines. It surged down the column and across the mountain trail, encircling us before Griffon or I could act. It spread ravenously, as if the butcher had scattered invisible lines of sawdust at our feet.

Then as quickly as it had begun it was complete. The flames kept burning but spread no further. And as we jerked back and spun in place, I saw that the Hero’s display had been more than a cheap intimidation tactic.

The Butcher had painted a man’s silhouette on the mountain in flames, and he had placed us in the center of it.

“Most people your age would say a Tyrant is a ruler,” the Butcher explained patiently, as if nothing had happened. “For most, it’s synonymous with king. An Egyptian might call them pharaohs, and Anatolians might instead label them emperors. No matter where you go, so long as there is a city of men, so shall there be a Tyrant.”

He paused, waiting, and when neither of us said a word his grim approval grew.

“Most Greek men your age would have denied that sentiment just now,” he observed. “We call them the free cities for a reason, don’t we? Surely a Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn knows how the great city-states are governed.”

Griffon’s sneer was answer enough.

“And even the Roman must have some experience with enlightened governance,” the Butcher set his sights on me, his tongue as sharp as any cleaver. “In its time, the Republic was a city without kings, was it not? That principle was its very foundation. How did it go again? Ever an empty throne? No, not that. For every crown, a dagger? Hmm. Maybe it was-”

“Thus always to tyrants,” I said quietly. The Butcher grinned.

“There it is. So tell me, boys, in a land of noble republics and democratic city-states, why didn’t either of you speak up just now?”

Because he hadn’t been wrong.

Satisfied, he continued, “Those were answers any man your age would have given, but you two aren’t just any men, are you? You’re cultivators.”

The lines of flame and the silhouette of a man shifted. Not moving, exactly, but giving the illusion of movement. Some of them burnt low, shrinking down to amber outlines in the stone, while others brightened and surged up to greater visibility. The effect started at the edges and rippled inward, giving off the illusion that the man was shrinking.

When the flames settled again, the brightest of them had formed the shape of a man no taller than Griffon and I.

“A Greek cultivator would have almost certainly viewed this question through the lens of their refinement,” the Butcher explained. “In that sense, a Tyrant is more than just a ruler of men. A Civic cultivator might have said that a Tyrant is someone in the fourth realm. They might have said a cultivator is someone who has climbed thirty steps on the stairway to heaven.”

The Butcher rapped his blade against the column and threads of flame seeped out from the silhouetted man, emanating from his head.

“You boys are Philosophers, though, and the world looks different to a thinking man than it does to a citizen. A Philosopher might have said a Tyrant is a man that sought refuge in ethos at the expense of logos and pathos. A Philosopher might have called such an existence the unavoidable fate of any great man given enough time to stagnate – curiosity fades and passion burns out, but no man is ever truly free of his hunger.

“A Philosopher might have said those things, especially one that benefited from the teachings of men like Aristotle and Socrates.” The Butcher’s heart flames flickered, and the silhouette rippled and grew. “But not you two.”

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author’s consent. Report any sightings.

“Give us the Hero’s answer, then,” Griffon challenged him. “Tell us what old ‘Zalus is to you.”

He did. “To me, Tyrants are the men that hold me hostage in my own soul. They’re the ones that spend my heart’s blood like it’s their own, though of course they lack the hearts to pump it. They are the weight of Heaven pressing down, the tribulation that persists long after the lightning has struck. They are far more than just the king – they are the kingdom.”

The Butcher shrugged. “Simply put, they are a prison.”

“You won’t let us pass,” I said slowly, “because our answers are the same.”

“Our answers are the same,” the Butcher said, pointing at Griffon. “Not yours, son of Rome.”

“The Tyrants must have spent your hearing along with your blood,” Griffon said scathingly. The Butcher easily ignored him.

“On each answer, thus far I’ve spoken as the authority,” he said, “but just as a Hero sees the world differently from a Philosopher, so too does the Tyrant know a different world. Fortunately, I’ve received a Tyrant’s wisdom in my time – I can pass that answer on to you.”

The burning silhouette grew larger again, recapturing its original size.

“Tell me, raven,” the Hero bid, “what does a Tyrant see when they look into a mirror?”

Ill fitting armor; tailored to my frame and yet three sizes too large. It was how I wore it that was to blame. It was the same reason why the creases in my uniform looked sloppy, yet the captain’s pristine white cloak looked shamefully untested. I was wearing the mantle of a greater man, and I did not fit.

“A prison,” I answered for the second time. The Hero bowed at the waist and flourished his empty hand.

“Both of your answers are correct, but they come from different places. Worse than that, they come from higher places.”

He couldn’t have chosen a worse way to phrase it. Griffon’s pneuma rose, pankration hands rising up around him like the wings of an eagle.

The Butcher openly admired the manifestations of his intent, neither threatened nor insulted. “In all my years and all my travels, I’ve only seen three manifestations of intent as elegant as that. Do you mind?”

As he asked the question, the arm of the burning silhouette beneath our feet peeled up from the stone and grass, at one of the floating hands of Griffon‘s intent. Without hesitation, the rest of Griffon‘s pankration hands tore it apart.

“I do,” Griffon said, belatedly, after the last of the sparks and embers had fallen and sputtered out.

“Fearsome.” The Hero tilted his head. “Strange, though. Even the least of a Hero should be greater than the entirety of a Sophist. Those hands of yours are stronger than they should be. I wonder…”

The Butcher abruptly ceased his play acting and speared Griffon with the full weight of his focus.

“Tell me, son of scarlet faith. What is the first virtue?”

Griffon lifted his chin. “Justice.”

The burning silhouette flickered and went out. The Butcher sighed and leaned his head back against the gateway pillar.

“I thought so.”

It was infuriating, watching the knot unravel itself in his mind while my own only grew more tangled. Griffon’s response had solved a mystery for the Butcher and I had no idea what it was, or how it had been solved. The Titan’s ichor burned hot inside my chest, feeding my frustration.