1.56

The Son of Rome

Griffon’s trio of Heroic cultivators stared at me without comprehension. The boys on either side of Lefteris leaned around their guardian to whisper to one another, confused. Anastasia, for her part, hummed and nodded once, as if I’d just confirmed a long held suspicion.

“Old ‘Zalus has been keeping quite a secret.”

“Fuck,” Elissa whispered.

“… fuck,” Kyno agreed.

“Fuck!” Lefteris slammed his hands to the table with force enough to crack it and make his boys flinch. Elissa smacked his shoulder so hard it nearly knocked him on his back, but he didn’t seem to notice or care. “Just what I needed! Just what we all needed!”

“I didn’t realize you felt that strongly about the Oracle,” I said, bemused. On his lounging couch at the far side of the room, Griffon watched Lefteris intently.

“I don’t,” Lefteris snapped. “I feel strongly about being passed a Tyrant’s secrets like a flask around a night fire. This isn’t bathhouse gossip, and ‘Zalus isn’t the kind of man to take an insult on the chin. Tyrants have burnt out entire family trees for less; don’t you understand?”

“Doubtful,” Jason said sarcastically. “How could Solus possibly understand the whims of Tyrants?” Scythas snorted.

I closed my eyes and prayed for patience.

“Whether or not Old Zalus takes offense to the airing of his dirty laundry has no bearing on us,” Griffon said, rising from his lounge. He ignored the myriad sounds of doubt and incredulity sent his way, approaching the table and taking a seat at its one remaining side. He reached for the map with a hand of flesh and blood, pressing a finger to our first destination.

“A Tyrant’s ire won’t deviate my cultivation or my digestion,” he said, smirking faintly at my sharp exhale. “Besides, once we’re finished with this, he’ll owe us all a greater debt than any insult could outweigh.”

“Oh my,” Anastasia whispered, eyes widening as she looked the map over again. Realization dawned in caustic green flame.

“The true Scarlet Oracle isn’t dead,” I explained to the rest of them. “She’s been asleep for sixteen years, suffering from an illness that no one could identify and none could hope to cure.”

“None could care to cure,” Griffon said with special emphasis.

“The kyrios.” Kyno put it together next.

“The kyrios,” I confirmed. “Socrates believes that nectar and ambrosia could cure whatever it is that ails the Oracle, but the kyrios refused to offer his personal stores and he wouldn’t allow anyone else the knowledge of how to synthesize it.”

“And he took it all with him when he challenged the fates,” Elissa said with mounting dread. I nodded.

“Even Socrates doesn’t know the exact recipe. But he knows the kyrios accumulated this knowledge as a hero, and he knows where the kyrios has been. Whatever the materials are, we’ll find them if we retrace those steps.”

“This is the kyrios’ epic,” Lefteris said with a dull sort of shock. Lean as he was, the lines of his jaw and cheeks had been prominent the moment I first saw him. The weeks since the funeral had only weathered him further – he looked nearly gaunt as he regarded the map now.

“We have to find whatever there is to be found at each of these locations,” I explained, keeping it short. Simple. They wouldn’t be able to process much more than that at the moment. “Which means securing passage through any cities we might encounter, charting courses and securing a ship for the locations that we can’t reach on foot. We’ll need provisions as well as a plan – several. Best if we split our efforts, focus part of our efforts on scouting the distant locations while the rest of us handle the nearby marks.

Kyno raised a hand, the other kneading at his forehead. “Slow down.”

“No, stop,” Elissa said, that fury rising in her voice. “And tell me that you don’t expect us to join you on this- this-”

“Thrilling adventure,” Griffon offered.

“Nonsense,” she spat. She slapped the map. “The full Mediterranean, from corner to corner! A journey across the civilized world while the Olympic Games are just four months away. Have you forgotten why we all came to Olympia in the first place, or-” and here the Sword Song glared at me and me alone. “Do you simply not care?”

“Where are the other competitors?”

Burning desert heat eyes swiveled and settled on the former Young Aristocrat.

“What?”

“Where are the other competitors?” he asked again, the scarlet gem of his necklace swaying as he leaned forward. “Hundreds of Heroes compete in the Olympic Games, is that not so? And yet, aside from the people in this room, I can count the number of other Heroic cultivators I’ve met in this city using only my hands.”

“How many?” I asked wryly, and he flicked the side of my head with fingers of violent intent.

“Well?” he pressed. “Where are they, Elissa?” She sneered at him. “Anastasia!”

“Yes, Griffon?” the caustic Heroine asked, amused.

“I am young and unrefined, brought up in a distant land with barbarians as my neighbors,” he said, glancing meaningfully my way. “Enlighten me – where are all the rest of the competitors?”

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“Wherever it is that Heroes go, I imagine.”

“Ho? And why aren’t they here, preparing for the Games? They’re only four months away, after all.”

Anastasia considered Griffon, and then the fuming Heroine across the table. Her smile deepened. “Technically speaking, competitors aren’t required to be in the city of Olympia until a month before the Games. Most choose to spend their time abroad prior to that.”

“With their families and their cults?” Griffon asked. Anastasia laid a finger to her chin, making a show of thinking deeply. Slowly, Kyno began to inch himself closer to Elissa.

“Pursuing advancement, whatever that means for them. Every rank is an advantage over the competition, another door opened to them.”

“How so?”

“A Hero of the first rank can only compete in a single event, no matter how skilled they might be in others,” Anastasia explained earnestly, without any apparent satisfaction at Elissa’s rising pneuma. “A Hero of the second rank can compete in two, the third rank in three, and on it goes. Only a captain of the Heroic Realm can hope to win glory in every single event. Only a captain can hope to seize the Olympic flame.”