1.87

The Young Griffon

We descended the last few tiers of benches, brushing past the aghast souls of long dead Orphic initiates.

Orpheus sat on his own ivy covered tomb. There was room on either side of him, but Sol disdained the implicit offer to sit side-by-side. Instead, he pulled an ivory stool from the same place he had pulled his lyre, which was to say nowhere, and sat directly across from the Augur with his back to the stands.

Not to be outdone, I manifested every hand of my violent intent and built myself a shadowed throne of thirty open palms. I crossed my legs and propped my chin up in a hand of flesh and blood while Sol adjusted the strings of his lyre as if they weren’t made of shadow and illusion.

The Augur’s smile deepened a shade at our unspoken refusal.

“Welcome to my home. My name is Orpheus, keeper of the strings. What are yours, friends?”

“Griffon,” I answered.

“Sol,” the Roman replied.

“Ah, I see. We make quite a set, don’t we?” The late Hero leaned back, one arm bracing him while the other idly tapped the golden neck of his instrument. “Three men named, and three names discarded.”

Sol’s fingers went still over his shadow strings.

“Orpheus isn’t your real name?” I asked curiously.

“It’s as real as yours,” the Hero replied. I inclined my head, conceding the point.

“Why Orpheus?”

“I was the product of an unfaithful union,” he explained. “When my father discovered the truth of things he cast me out. The name Orpheus denotes an orphan. Though I had been raised with a man I called my father, and though in time I came to know the ones responsible for my birth, I knew from that moment of exile that I was and would always be a child without his parents.”

He spoke with the ease of a man who had long since moved past his hardships. I suppose that was fitting. The concerns of the living hardly mean much to the dead.

“I was raised Lio Aetos,” I said, returning truth for truth. The keeper of strings chuckled.

“I suppose the name speaks for itself. Tell me, then: Sol has made his questions known. What brings you to my humble home?”

“We’re here for a good cup of wine.” It was the proper answer. The reason we were here, after all, was to find a golden cup of spirit wine for the Scholar. We had sailed the full length of the Aegean Sea and traversed the frozen lands of Thracia for this purpose alone.

One week had passed since we set sail from Olympia, one of only twelve. If we found our divine reagent here now and returned to the Eos with all possible haste, we might be done with the first of the Gadfly’s errands after a week and a half. It was a slower pace than what I desired. If we were to traverse these ten destinations and find every infernal component of the late kyrios’ nectar before the competitors were required to show for the Olympic Games, we would have to be faster. Even now, every moment that passed was one that I could not afford to spend.

But even so. Despite the fact that Kronos was against us, I couldn’t stop myself from uttering the words that came next. I couldn’t stop myself from wondering.

“What did you mean a moment ago? How has my brother made his questions known?”

That faint smile deepened again.

“The two of you are young.” It wasn’t a question. Sol nodded shallowly, confirming it anyway. “There are a multitude of discoveries that lie ahead of you. A thousand revelations that have yet to shake your hearts – experiences that can only move a man once. It’s enough to make me jealous.”

My eyes rolled behind my veil. “A meaningless response.”

The chthonic Hero stood.

It was a truth universally known that the line between mortality and divinity was drawn at the precipice of the Heroic Realm. Before that, every man and woman was equally frail in all the ways that truly mattered. When a man was born the Fates waved his destiny and swaddled him in it – the progression of his soul, the events that would define him, the pinnacle of his growth and the degradation of his health. Everything. All of it. Height, beauty, temperament and disposition.

Whether you were the lowest of the low Citizenry, or a captain of the Sophic realm, the ceiling was the same. Your reality was fixed. Predetermined. It wasn’t until – unless – a cultivator reached beyond their mortal standing and grasped the first handhold of their brazen epic that the constraints of fated humanity could be defied.

Beloved by the Muses. Reviled by the Fates. A Hero was an existence that was larger than life. Every deed done and every rank advanced only emphasized that fact. My father and my uncles stood taller than any mortal man could hope to grow. The disgraced kyrios of the Burning Dusk was much the same.

When Sol and I were standing, we saw eye to eye with one another. We were both nearly twenty hands tall, a height that put us noticeably above most mortal men. When Orpheus stood, he towered over us. Even if Sol had stood from his ivory stool and I had risen from my throne of shadowed palms, the Hero still would have dwarfed us. Twenty-five hands tall at least. Perhaps more.

This was a Hero’s stature. That our companions still existed largely within the boundaries of mortal measurement was a reflection of their lack. They should have loomed over us in every aspect. They should have towered-

“Take my seat,” Orpheus told me. I blinked, looking up at him strangely. Though he couldn’t have possibly seen my expression behind the midnight veil of the raven, he seemed to infer it anyway.

“Take my seat and give me yours,” he bid me again. “You want to be center stage, don’t you?”

I stood. At my full height, the crown of my head only just reached the Augur’s collarbone. He was as tall compared to me as my father would be compared to him. He sat unceremoniously on the throne of my pankration hands, and I took his place atop his tomb. The ivy rustled and shifted as I sat down on it.

I wondered idly if the tomb was empty in this shadowed reflection of the Orphic House. Above and all around, hundreds of spirits stared at me in rapt displeasure.

“How does it feel?” the Augur asked me. I hummed, considering their glares and simmering disdain.

“I’m not against it.”

“You can stay there, if you’d like,” he offered, and I saw dozens of long dead souls visibly bite down on their protestations. “The lyre is properly tuned, and there are picks hidden in the ivy if you prefer to use one. Play us a song.”

I picked up the golden instrument, weighed it in my hands and considered its scarlet strings. I tucked the tip of my finger beneath one, pulling it back. What sound would the lyre make, I wondered, when it was a Philosopher plucking the strings instead of the Augur?

Rather than release it, my finger slowly returned the straining scarlet string to its original position. I pulled my hand away without it making a sound.

“I can’t,” I decided. “Not like you.”

“Why not? You have everything you need, do you not?”

My head tilted.

“You’re sitting in a Hero’s seat,” Orpheus explained. Familiar eyes of scarlet flame danced as he leaned back and made himself comfortable in my pankration palms. You have a Hero’s instrument at hand, and you bear the mark of higher power’s blessing. That should be enough to do what I do, shouldn’t it?”

The founder of the Orphic mysteries raised an eyebrow when I didn’t reply.

“Is it not enough?” he asked me knowingly.

“How long have you been listening to us?” Sol asked him.

“Since you plucked that first cord.”

“Liar.”

More than one restless spirit came to their feet in the stands and elevated balconies, their outrage clear to see. Orpheus raised a hand without looking back, forestalling them.

“What did you call me?” he asked Sol.

Rather than repeat himself, the raven from Rome returned his fingers to the smoke serving as his lyre’s strings. Sol played three simple cords, the sound traveling to every corner of the singing house, carried by its fine acoustics. The sound of them was shrill, more so than the first song he’d played to grab the Augur’s attention.

Orpheus leaned an elbow onto the open air, scarlet flames burning behind his eyes, and laid his cheek against a loosely clenched fist.

“That’s twice,” he said, though Sol hadn’t spoken a word. “Call me a liar in my own home one more time.”

Stolen story; please report.

“Can you really understand my intent to that degree?” Sol asked. He sounded like he wanted to disbelieve it, but couldn’t quite bring himself to. When Orpheus nodded, he sighed. “What about Griffon? He only spoke once between my first cord and your invitation to take the stage, and that was just to call me rude. You’re the Keeper of Strings, you can hear the words the lyre says in my place, fine – but he hasn’t plucked a single string in this house. What voice spoke for him that you could hear his underlying intent?”

“This voice,” Orpheus spoke, and laid his unoccupied hand over his heart.

“Is this a joke?” I asked incredulously. “You heard my heart speak?”

“It wasn’t as if I had a choice. It’s all but screaming.”

“Your myth didn’t mention an ability like that.” Sol’s veiled head turned to me, seeking confirmation. I shook my head. “Is that a chthonic ability?”

“No,” Orpheus said at once, but decided against it a moment later. “Well, it shouldn’t be. These days, though… maybe so.”

My heart and Sol for a straight answer.

“Where do the two of you stand?” Orpheus abruptly asked, spearing first me and then Sol with pointed expectation.

“What does my heart say?” I asked blithely.

“It says it’s disappointed. It says it aches to burn. Mostly, it despairs that the brightest souls are the ones that are smothered first. It’s been saying that since I first started listening. So, again – where do you stand?”

“… Sophic Realm. Second rank.”

“Sophic Realm, first rank,” Sol chimed in.

“I thought so. Tell me, what do the two of you think a Hero is?”

Sol and I shared a look through veils of raven shadow.

“There are no wrong answers,” Orpheus said invitingly. I grimaced. Was he a liar that had been listening to us in the underworld all this time, or was it sheer coincidence? To what extent was my virtuous heart betraying me?

“More,” I said. If he was telling the truth, it was all that needed to be said.