1.53 [Jason]

Hero of the Alabaster Depths

When Jason was six years old, his father sat him on his shoulders while they sailed into a cyclone and told him it was time he learned about standing.

Standing, or reputation as the mortals called it, was something any man could understand whether he was a cultivator or not. But, as with most things, its significance increased along with pneuma. Standing was what contrasted a man from his peers. In a financial sense, standing was the difference between the man that cleaned stables for a living, and the man that owned those stables. In a physical sense, it was the man that sat front row for every wrestling match his city put on, contrasted with the man that was in the pits competing.

Jason had been young then, and terrified of the approaching storm. The panicked hollering of his fathers crew hadn’t helped. So his father had provided him with an even simpler example to illustrate the point.

The Reaver That Broke the Loom had stepped up onto the Golden Thread’s figurehead, a winged boy with a noose around his throat, and forced Jason to look behind them. Below, at the men roaring against the waves. He forced Jason to watch as his crew gnashed their teeth and wrenched their oars through the sea. Veins bulging, chests heaving for breath. All while Jason’s father stood above them, at the top of the ship’s hierarchy in every way that mattered.

Even a pirate knows the way of things, the Reaver had said, before turning back to face the storm.

A slave knew his place when the freedman spit in his face. A freedman knew his place when the metic chased him from his wares. The metic knew his place when the citizen sneered at his petty wealth. The citizen knew his place when the aristocrat humiliated him in the agora.

And the aristocrat knew his place when the tyrant took him in hand.

A cultivator was no different. A cultivator labored under the same hierarchy, only more so. The Reaver’s men were each cultivators of infamously high standing, men that could do unspeakable things with nothing but their own vital essence and whatever was at hand. Yet there they labored, fighting the wrathful sea while Jason looked down on them all. He was hardly a cultivator at all back then, and a child besides. But they labored for his benefit nonetheless.

Why do you think that is, little rat? his father had asked, and Jason had fought the terror of the coming storm just long enough to answer.

Because you told them to.

The Reaver laughed, and said that he was exactly right.

Jason sat on the captain’s shoulders, his standing greater than anyone else on the Golden Thread, because his father had decided it would be so. And no one on that ship questioned his father.

His father had told him they could push the crew further. At Jason’s confused look, he’d elaborated – perhaps on top of laboring so Jason wouldn’t have to, and speaking to him with the respect a superior was due, his father could have them share their rations of food and drink with him as well. Or he could go beyond that – he could demand that each of them pay a portion of their wages to the Reaver’s son as a sign of deference.

Caught between terror and bewilderment, Jason had asked why his father would ever treat the Golden Thread’s crew so poorly. These were men that Jason had grown up admiring. These were the men he had dreamed of rowing beside when his father finally deemed him fit to join them. Why would he treat them like slaves?

Why wouldn’t I? his father had asked in turn. That’s what they are, in the end. That’s what every man that stands below you is. Why not fleece them for everything they can give you?

Scandalized, yet knowing the kind of man his father was even back then at six years old, Jason gave him the only answer he could. The only answer that the Reaver would possibly accept.

They’ll mutiny.

A roar had gone up then, a chorus of voices raised in vehement agreement. The crew had been listening, and they didn’t hesitate to chime in. His father had only smirked and nodded in satisfaction.

Standing is what separates greater existences from their lessers. Once you become a man worth talking about, standing becomes renown, renown becomes glory.

Kleos. The divine hierarchy that governed them all.

However, the nature of kleos was that of a ladder. Every great man started at the lowest rung. His father could place him at the top of the financial hierarchy, the social hierarchy, even the political hierarchy – but no man could climb the divine ladder in his son’s place. And if you were on the ladder, you were a rung to everyone else. There to be grasped, there to be stepped on.

It was natural for man to fear the heights. It was terrifying to reach for that next rung, knowing the man you would have to step over to get to it. That fear won out over every man eventually. Whether it was as a Citizen, as a Philosopher, as a Hero – even as a Tyrant. Eventually, every man decided that what was required to reach the next rung was more than he was willing to risk. That was how you kept a crew of significant men. That was how you kept a portion of the world docile beneath your thumb.

But every man has his limit, and it’s the Captain’s job to know it. Press as close as you like to that line in the sand, it makes no difference. Every man below you is a willing slave until you cross his line. It’s only once you cross it that you’re inviting mutiny into your ship.

No matter how many years passed, Jason would never shake the feeling that the king below the waves had sent that storm personally. And though his men urged the Reaver to turn back, though any other captain would have fled long ago, his father had held them true to course. The Reaver That Broke the Loom had stood defiant against the rain and the wind.

When the time comes for you to bite the hand that feeds you, don’t you dare hesitate, his father had said. And when you are the captain and the first of your men comes for your place on the ladder, remember this:

Once he’s crossed his line in the sand, you’re nothing to that man but another tribulation.

Jason clamped a hand down on the scarlet son’s wrist and dragged it roughly away from Sol and the Oracle. Burning hands of Griffon’s violent intent punched and clawed their way into existence, each one aiming for a different vulnerable spot on his body. Behind, Scythas whistled sharply and a gale enveloped Jason as well as Solus and Scarlet Oracle, deflecting and dispersing the worst of the attack.

Since that very first moment he’d laid eyes on Solus’ student, Jason had known he was a threat to everyone around him. He’d seen it as soon as he walked into that club. Griffon had been staring down Alazon, a Heroic Young Aristocrat of the Raging Heaven, as easily as he would a vagrant beggar. Jason had known it then, like he knew the rolling of the ocean beneath his feet.

Griffon had glanced at him, over to Anastasia and Scythas, inevitably settling on his master. But from Alazon to Jason, to Anastatia, and to Scythas, that look in his eyes hadn’t changed. Not once. Not even for a second. Not even when they settled upon Solus himself.

Wherever Griffon‘s line in the sand was, he had left it behind when he crossed the Ionian. To him, every existence on this earth was nothing but a tribulation for him to overcome.

“Control yourself,” Jason said harshly, projecting his voice over the wind. Blazing fists of manifested pneuma pounded at the gale wind shell, ripping and tearing and grasping for purchase. Heedless.

“Griffon,” Solus said quietly. “What are you talking about?”

Every manifested hand slammed against the curtain of wind one more time, all of them at once, and then they vanished. After a cautious beat, Scythas allowed his winds to disperse as well.

Griffon set his sheathed blade against the floor and leaned artfully onto it, blood running rivulets down his forehead and around his eyes. He sneered at the holy woman of his city like she was the ugliest thing he’d ever seen.

“I’ve met eight of the nine oracles since we last spoke, Solus,” he said, deceptively calm. “During your time in the legions, did you ever have the privilege of meeting a holy woman?”

The captain from the west stared hard at his student.

“I did.”

Scythas exhaled a shaking breath behind them.

“Of course you did,” the Griffon that was also the hungry raven said easily. “And when you met her, did she grace you with her majesty?”

Solus grimaced. “Is that what Greeks call it?”

The Oracles tittered and laughed. Jason braced his heart against the simultaneous sensations of drowning, melting, being crushed and hung and turned to stone. Majesty was admittedly a kind word for it.

“So she did,” Griffon said. “And tell me, oh master, was that a sensation you’ll ever forget? Was that an experience you could possibly mistake for a mortal woman’s charm?”

Solus’ silence was answer enough.

“Then believe me when I tell you -” the sword the scarlet son had never bothered to use slammed cleanly through the ivory and gold tile of the floor, sheath and all. His pneuma rose precipitously around him. “- she is not one of them. This pretender is wearing the uniform and mouthing the words, but there is no majesty in her soul.”

“This is where the oracles reside,” Solus said, waving his arm expansively at the late kyrios’ underground courtyard. “She was living here well before the kyrios died. You think he couldn’t tell the difference? The man that spoke to any oracle he wanted, any time he felt the urge?”

“Living with the king doesn’t make you a queen,” Griffon said. Jason’s eyes widened.

“You dare?” Scythas ground out, stalking over to Solus’ other side. He glared furiously at the Griffon, and the Griffon glared right back. “You come here uninvited, unwanted, and make a mess of a great man’s living memory – and you have the audacity to question an Oracle’s right to be here? When you are the intruder?”

“Why not?” Griffon asked with disdain. “No one else was going to.”

“Your master just told you,” Jason said, because Scythas looked too enraged to speak. He’d always been too emotional when it came to the kyrios. “This is hallowed ground in the Raging Heaven Cult. The kyrios never took guests here, never entertained lovers in his private estate. No one but an oracle or the kyrios could possibly live down here.”

“And yet here you are. Here we all are, my master and his crows. I suppose that would make him the kyrios, but what does that leave the three of us?” The narrowed eyes of a predator swept up and down Jason and Scythas, the color of blood and molten heat. “The two of you don’t look like seers to me. I don’t feel like an Oracle, though I suppose I could be wrong.”

“The wind runner is pretty enough for it,” teased the Oracle from the Alabaster Isles.

“Shut up,” Griffon said at once, and all three of the holy women erupted into giggles once again. An utterly bizarre sight, made more so by the fact that one of them looked older than the city of Olympia itself.

“You’re certain of this,” Solus finally said, something formless passing between himself and his student. Nothing that Jason could perceive with a Hero’s limited senses. After a beat, Solus sighed. “Why are you lying to me, Selene?”

The young woman slung over his shoulder, noticeably silent up to this point, blinked and shook herself out of a trance. She looked away from Griffon for the first time since leaving her room, meeting Solus’ eyes with earnesty.

“I’m not,” she said. And then she winced. “Well, not entirely.”

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Scythas muttered something under his breath. The words apoplexy and acute brain suffering were all that Jason caught from it, through the barrier of his own disbelief.

“He’s not wrong, then,” Solus observed, and the Oracle’s – the girl’s? – head bobbed in agreement.

“He’s not. However, he’s not right either.”

“Then by all means,” Griffon said, “enlighten me.”

“She isn’t an oracle yet. But she will be.”

Socrates came striding out of the Scarlet Oracle’s quarters, shutting the bone white door behind him with one hand while the other cradled a mangled bust of a woman’s head. Jason caught a glimpse of the room beyond just before the door slammed shut. Everything was as it had been before Solus pulled him out of Scythas’ veil. Somehow, the Gadfly had fixed it all.

The first philosopher gestured irritably with his free hand, and the chunk of marble that he’d thrown at Griffon’s chest leapt across the room. He caught it and pressed it against the partially reformed marble bust of a woman’s head, and when his hand came away it was whole again.

Selene, the girl that may or may not have been an oracle, sighed in relief at the sight.

“Thank you.”

The Gadfly grunted. “Be more discerning about who you invite into your room. And get off the boy’s shoulder already, you look ridiculous.”

Selene flushed. Solus set her down, brow furrowed as he worked over the Gadfly’s words.

“The oracles are meant to be crones,” he said.

“That they are. And do you know why, boy?”

Solus grimaced again. “Men hunger for various things.”

“Wrong,” Griffon said quietly, riveted on the Gadfly.

“Wrong now, but right once upon a time,” the Gadfly corrected him. Idly, Jason wondered how many centuries Solus had spent fighting demons out in the furthest reaches of the West. How long had it been since he’d stepped foot in a free city? “Before we forgot the names of those that came before us, chastity was of prime concern for a seer. Do any of you unruly children know why?”

All three oracles raised their hands. The Gadfly ignored them all.

“Back then,” Selene said softly, “oracles were handpicked by their patron. Blood relation was not needed, and so the divine preferred their hosts to have no relations at all.”

The Gadfly nodded once. “A man I once knew liked to say that an oracle was like a glove for their god, perfectly fitted to their hand. The immortals used them to affect change that a direct touch wasn’t suited for. And what man, mortal or divine, wants to put his hand in a glove that’s filled with seed?”

The Gadfly glanced meaningfully back at the late kyrios’ personal quarters. Jason wished he could say that the line was out of character for the memories he had of the man. But it wasn’t.

“But that was before,” the first philosopher continued. “Now, we cling to what’s left of our divinity with everything we have. There are no patrons left, so we preserve the last spark of those that were chosen through their blood. The oracles are no longer forbidden from breeding – now, they’re required.”