1.83

The Young Griffon

The Conqueror’s polis was not entirely abandoned.

The husk of a city – what Sol insisted had once been a military colony – was all but rubble now, nearly every structure bearing scars and infirmities. There was not a stone column remaining without a few cracks or missing chunks. Every wall was at least partially collapsed, every door torn down or left hanging morosely in its frame. Decorative carvings had been scraped away. Murals had been scoured off the walls or otherwise painted over. All in all, it was a desecration too complete to be the work of Kronos alone.

However, there was one building that still stood without any signs of wear. Ironically, in this abandoned city of scattered bricks and marble rubble, the only monument left intact was made of wood. A humble odeon – also known as a singing house. A smaller iteration of a Greek theater, with a shingled roof of sun-baked clay added onto the design to facilitate better acoustics.

A pair of Thracians sat at the entrance, one on either side. Scythas pulled ahead with his mare as they came into view, making a beeline towards them. As we drew closer I saw that one was a man and the other a woman.

The man was a typical example of his breed, red-haired and larger than the average unrefined Greek by the full span of a hand. The details of his physique were mostly obscured by his ridiculous Thracian pants and voluminous chiton, but his crossed arms were bare and layered with muscle. Vibrant blue tattoos stood out starkly from the man’s pale skin, patterned like ivy leaves growing up and down his arms.

The woman was a sharp departure from the mothers and wives we had seen tending to the children and men of Thracia’s wandering cities. Her clothes matched the style of the man beside her, as did the tattoos on her arms, and dark makeup shadowed her eyes while also coating her lips. Her brown hair fell freely without braids or cloth to bind it. The only ornament on her head was a crescent band of gold, less than a crown but more than a tiara. As we approached, I saw a pattern of hexagonal shapes pressed into the gold. Like it was made of honeycomb rather than metal.

Scythas stopped his dappled mare a respectful distance from the Thracians and the entry they were guarding. Sol and I shared a doubtful look.

“This… doesn’t seem promising,” Selene said quietly, leaning sideways to look around Sol at the wooden singing house. “I can’t sense anyone besides those two at the door.”

“Neither can I,” Sol confirmed, and I made a noise of my own agreement.

It was surprising enough that I could feel something from the two sitting guard. They were Thracians, that much was plain to see from their features and the clothes they were wearing, but even so I could feel it as their notice brushed over me and their influence parted around mine. The sensation of their vital essence was odd, familiar and yet alien. I was all but certain they were cultivators of some kind, but I couldn’t intuitively grasp their standing the way I could a Greek’s.

“It could be a veil of some kind,” I said, considering them as we drew closer. Thracian gatekeepers in a ruined Macedonian city. “Or it could be that everyone inside is unawoken.”

“Could be that there’s no one there at all,” Selene murmured. I glanced sidelong at the daughter of the Oracle, reaching across the distance with a pankration hand and lightly shoving her shoulder. She blinked, breaking her gloomy focus.

“We don’t need it to be packed full of rowdy barbarians,” I reminded the girl. “So long as there’s wine and a golden cup to pour it in, we’ll have found our way.”

“Scythas knows what he’s doing,” Sol assured her, and though the words were spoken at a solemn volume, I saw Scythas straighten up a fraction in his saddle up ahead.

“Our destination is inside,” the Hero informed us when we joined him, Sol on his left and myself on his right. “All that’s left to do is pay.” I looked down on the woman wearing a half-crown of honeycomb gold. She raised an eyebrow at me, expression disinterested.

“I have no money,” I told her. This close, I could count the combs of her half-crown and see the individual flakes of gold strung through the hem of her chiton – grape leaves, to accompany the black threads woven to look like vines.

I could also see the faint glitter of gold dust in the shadowed makeup around her eyes when she blinked and tilted her head.

“You have a horse.”

The price of doing business in Thracia. It seemed Scythas had been speaking more literally than I’d first thought.

“I’ll work for it,” I offered instead, politely ignoring Sol’s disgusted sigh.

The Thracian woman was seated on the right hand side of the wooden stairs leading up to the singing house’s entrance. Aside from her maroon chiton and garishly patterned pants, she had nothing at hand to protect her from Boreas’ cruel winds or the snow covering the steps. Nothing but a hollow horn cup filled with white liquid, emitting no steam.

Yet her bare arms did not shiver, neither her fingers nor her naked toes were blackened by frost, and as she sipped from her frigid beverage she seemed entirely unbothered by the weather. I waited patiently while she considered my offer.

“No.”

“Don’t be fooled by my ugly cloak,” I said, plucking at the gift I had received from the men of the Korpiloi tribe. Manifesting the limbs of my violent intent, I blessed her briefly with the heat of my cult’s foundational mystery. “A Greek Philosopher is offering you his service in exchange for admittance to this derelict theater. Ask me any question and I’ll answer it truthfully. Assign me any task and I will see it done. You have my word.”

“Griffon,” Scythas snapped. I raised an eyebrow of my own at the gatekeeper. She took another sip from her horn.

“In that case- no.”

“No,” I echoed her, considering the barbarian woman. “But if I gave you this horse, that would be enough?”

The woman eyed my horse critically. Finally, she nodded. “Just barely.”

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“So then,” I said mildly, continuing the thought. “What you’re telling me, ultimately, is that everything I am capable of saying and doing is worth less to you than a horse without a saddle.”

To her credit, she did not hesitate.

“Yes.”

I smiled sharply. “Tell me, barbarian, are you familiar with the concept of discourse? Would you like to exchange some?”

“Griffon,” Sol rumbled in low warning. I glanced left and saw the storm in his eyes. He was serious. His pneuma rose to match mine, an unspoken ultimatum – if I started another brawl here, he’d make good on his prior warning to join in on the opposing side. Doubtlessly, Scythas would join him over me. A hopeless fight.