1.46

The Young Griffon

“Lio! Teach-”

I slapped the little king upside his head. He yelped.

“When did I say you could call me that?”

“Griffon,” he amended, rubbing at the spot where I’d struck him. “Teach us.”

“I refuse.”

“What- You can’t refuse!”

“And why not?”

“Because he’s the king,” his older brother said, doing his best to impart authority through a ten year old’s voice. “When the king makes a demand, it comes from two mouths. The mouth of the man and the mouth of the kingdom.”

I smiled faintly. “Then I refuse him twice.”

The two boys shouted in outrage and leapt on my back, clinging like monkeys while they hammered punches into my side. I locked them in place with pankration hands and reached back, digging knuckles of flesh and blood into their fire-branded hair and rubbing viciously. Their battle cries turned to shrieks of pain in an instant.

I let them go, leaving them to roll on the ground and rub at their heads while I walked through the vast storm-carved gates that separated the Raging Heaven Cult from the city of Olympia. Unlike most metropolitan constructions of this scale, it had no men to guard it. Any unfortunate soul that tried to slip past the cult and through these unmarked gates would have their labor laid out for them. The cult guarded this side of the city, that was universally known, and any that came down the mountain would of course be welcome in Olympia.

The Stairway to Raging Heaven that connected the Half-Step City to Kaukoso Mons was no less bombastic than the rest of the cult. Upon each step a man’s name was carved, inlaid with precious gems that burned even in the pitch dark night. Titles and nicknames were present just the same. Each name was a living soul within the Raging Heaven Cult. Each name was a man or a woman standing at the foot of the mountain, casting defiance up at the stars.

But that wasn’t the most interesting thing about this stairway. What had first drawn my eye, and what still did now as I approached, was how the names changed.

Lambros. Nikitas. Lyko. Three steps, and a name for each, each glowing with a progressively brighter blue light as the steps ascended. But my eyes drifted, and when they drifted back, the names were changed. Mideia, Annita, and Flora.

Every step leading from Olympia to the hallowed grounds of the Raging Heaven Cult was inlaid with a mystiko’s name, and at the same time, the stairs were inlaid with every mystiko’s name.

There were forty-one steps on the stairway to heaven. One for every rank and realm of cultivation. And each step proudly proclaimed the names of every mystiko who shared that rank.

“Wait!” The little king and his sentinel bounded up the steps after me, stepping over the names of the civic cultivators within the Raging Heaven Cult – children of senior initiates, those lucky enough to be born into an institution that otherwise only accepted the best.

“I won’t,” I declared, but manifested pankration arms obligingly when they jumped on my back again. This time they simply hung on and peered over each of my shoulders.

“Theri said we weren’t to leave the house,” spoke the sentinel that called himself Pyr, though his heart wasn’t in it. The boy’s nose scrunched, eyes roving intently over the entry to the grandest institution in the free world. His younger brother didn’t even bother pretending.

“We’ve never been up this way before,” spoke the little king that called himself Leo. He set his chin on my shoulder, peering down at the steps curiously. “Whose names are those? Past members?”

I shook my head, stepping onto the first rank of the Sophic Realm – someone named Vaso. When I raised that foot, the name was changed to Kovos.

“These are existing cultivators, your rivals and friends,” I explained. “The Raging Heaven Cult keeps a living account of their members, along with their standing among heaven and earth.”

“How do you know?” the little king asked.

I stepped up onto the second rank of the Sophic Realm, the name Griffon disappearing beneath my feet, and when I moved on up the name was unchanged. The boys’ eyes drifted over the step without pause. As I had suspected, the stairway to heaven would always show you your place among your peers, but others wouldn’t necessarily see the same thing.

“A hunch.”

“So you don’t know,” the little king concluded. Ho, was that scorn?

I continued up eight more steps and then fell into a crouch on the tenth step of the Sophic Realm, looking down at the next step where mortal man became legends. The boys tensed on my back, and the little sentinel reached across my shoulders to shove his little brother.

“Apologize,” he hissed.

“Why should a king apologize?” I asked, and they both relaxed. I smiled faintly. “I expect an answer.”

I considered the first step of the Heroic Realm while they exchanged hurried whispers. The higher up the stairway you went, the fewer names you would see. That was common sense, given how few managed admittance to the Sophic Realm, let alone those of heroes and tyrants. I swept my hand across the time-weathered stone, watched the name carved into its face inexplicably shift.

Periklis, Wave Dancer, became Amalia, the Breeze. The Breeze became Haris, Wind Weaver.

The Wind Weaver became Elissa, the Sword Song.

“The only time a king should apologize is to his people,” little Leo decided. Pyr nodded in firm agreement.

“Under what circumstances?” I asked, passing my hand over the Sword Song’s name, and revealing Kyno’s in its wake. “Does the citizen have a right to the king’s apology whenever they desire it? How about the metic, or the freedman? What of the slave?”

“Of course not!”

“And why not?” I asked curiously.

“A king doesn’t owe a slave anything, any more than he owes an enemy,” Pyr said at once. “His duty is to his citizens and his soldiers, the men that owe him everything because he’s given it to them. The only time a king apologizes is when he’s failed his kingdom.”

“Are the metics and freedmen included in that kingdom?”

He hesitated. “Here, in Greece, they are.”

“They are,” the little king said firmly.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“So freedom is the deciding factor,” I mused. “A king should apologize only if it’s a free man he’s apologizing to, is that it?”

“That’s part of it,” little Leo agreed.

“And if he does otherwise, he ceases to be a king?”

On that, neither boy hesitated to voice their agreement.

I considered that for a moment, along with the next step on the stairway to heaven.

“Do you know why they built this stairway?” I finally asked. “Can you see its significance?”

“You said it was to keep an account of the initiates,” Pyr said.

“Beyond that.”

They joined me in staring down at the first step of the Heroic Realm as I passed my hand back and forth across it, watching the names shift and glow.

“You have to step on them.”