Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia

Chapter 1.97

The Young Griffon

Scythas and Sol’s quiet conversation abruptly ended when I joined them at the front of the ship. The Hero glanced at me uncertainly, having no doubt overheard my conversation with Selene - as he overheard most all things that he cared to. Sol acknowledged me with a nod and twisted to lean an arm against the ship’s rail, looking out over the waves pensively.

I stepped through the gap that separated the two of them and climbed up onto the Eos’ figurehead, a woman carved from wood with both hands cupping her cheeks. In the vision of my father and my uncles that Chilon’s story had shown us, the wooden woman had been reaching wantonly for the horizon. I leaned against her with my back to the sea, crossing my legs at their ankles and my arms over my chest.

At some point, she’d changed.

“I saw my family,” I said without preamble. I had their attention at once. “While Sol was speaking to his faceless friend, I saw the boys and girls that I grew up with - but as men and women instead. It was the final stage of the rites. A delusion.”

“What?” Scythas asked, confused. I frowned, considering the figurehead’s expression as she considered the sea. The naked desire of her first rendition was gone, replaced by a puzzled wonder.

“Every greater mystery cult has its theme,” I said, and Scythas nodded once. Sol was still confused, so I elaborated, “The Rosy Dawn is governed by light and the Burning Dusk by heat, both of them the flame. The Broken Tide by the waves. The Howling Wind, and so on. These traits are foundational. They’re the first tools that an exceptional mystiko uses to build upon their cultivation.”

“Your point being?” Scythas asked.

“Bakkhos was born and raised in Thracia. He loved Orpheus like a brother and buried him with honors. And if he was telling you the truth, he would even return from time to time, to share a drink with his friend beneath the earth. Bakkhos was the kyrios of the Raging Heaven, but he did not study there - not in his formative years. It isn’t lightning that defined him. His domain lay elsewhere.”

“The Mad Tyrant,” Sol realized, eyebrows raising as he followed my train of thought. The fell thread that connected our misadventure to our companions race through chthonic beehive tombs. “Delusion. Madness.”

The ivory gates had confounded Scythas and Selene just as the milk and honey had addled our senses. They’d told us that it was our voices they had heard on the other side of the gates, and that was why they had tried to leave. In reality, the mad acoustics of the singing house had fooled them, twisted the sounds of the Thracian gatekeepers trying to murder our horses. Sol and I had seen things I had few words for, and the commonality in every shifting vision had been the madness - inflicted by the Mother, inflicted by the deaths of friends, inflicted by the turning of the wheel.

“You’re saying he studied the Orphic mysteries?” Scythas murmured, a growing frown on his lips.

They found him in a field of grape vines, half-submerged in the dirt. Like his parents had tried to bury him and given up partway through.

I sighed. “I’m saying that if anyone rose to the heights that Bakkhos rose to by using what Sol and I just experienced as their foundation, Mad Tyrant would be an entirely appropriate title. You knew him better than we did, though you denied it at his funeral-” Scythas grimaced, but didn’t gainsay me. “-so I can only speculate.”

“Did the late kyrios have any interests or abilities that would coincide with what we all went through last night?” Sol asked him quietly. “A passion for singing? A talent for the lyre?”

“The kyrios had a talent for most things,” Scythas said. I hummed, considering the fading red marks on his face and arms. His stings were healing swiftly, based on how ugly they had been before in Selene’s recollection. Sol followed my eyes, his train of thought matching my own.

“Including beekeeping?”

The Hero’s expression didn’t shift in the slightest degree. But his heart did.

“Bakkhos was a beekeeper,” I said, considering that new knowledge. Scythas’ eyes flickered, chagrined. “And he was also known for his madness. Perhaps the connection is there. Perhaps it isn’t. Either way, while under the influence of the Orphic mystery, I saw grim delusions designed to cut me to my core.“

And so did you.

I didn’t say it, though I was nearly certain that it was true. Had we been having this conversation even an hour before, I would have.

Not everyone is made of iron, Griffon. For some people, the fire only burns.

Instead, I offered up a portion of myself.

“The sons and daughters of the Rosy Dawn and Burning Dusk have no reason to fear the light of day, nor the heat of scouring flame,” I said, raising a hand and unfurling its fingers. The rosy light of dawn bloomed in my palm and crept up each digit, glowing brightly and throwing off heat like a campfire. “Our bodies are tempered by the sun.”

“I’m familiar with your city, yes,” Scythas said, rolling his eyes. “And I’m still waiting for you to get to your point.”

I felt his heart flicker and betray his feigned irritation, another whisper of sensation that wasn’t meant to be shared and so I only dimly overheard. Something like fear, maybe, or at least a deep unease. He’d seen the trajectory of the conversation, and he didn’t like where it lead.

“It’s alright.” Sol reached out and clapped the Hero on the shoulder, storm gray eyes not wavering from me as he did it. “This isn’t an attack.”

Only once the words were spoken did Scythas’ expression flicker, showing his unease. The Hero exhaled and nodded. But it wasn’t until a beat later, when the whispers of his heart had fully receded, that Sol squeezed his shoulder once and let go. As if he’d known to wait.

As if he’d felt it for himself. The raven in my shadow reached out for Sol’s. In the dead of night, sitting as close as we were, it didn’t stir our silhouettes.

“You can feel it, too?”

Sol frowned faintly. “Feel what?”

“His heart. You weren’t responding to his heart just now?”

The Roman looked at me strangely. “I suppose, if you want to be Greek about it.”

It was a struggle not to let my irritation show.

“I’m not being florid. I’m asking if you’ve gained a Hero’s heart sense as well.”

“No. I don’t need to ‘feel’ his heart to know that he’s uneasy.”

Like he was simply reading the room. Ridiculous, empathetic Roman.

I raised thirty more pankration hands around me, each of them unfurling like the blooming petals of a rose. Calling up the light of dawn.

Perhaps my approach had been wrong from the start.

“Tempered by the sun,” I said again, a quiet prayer. “In the Scarlet City, it’s considered good fortune to be born during the day. If a mother is lucky enough to give birth while the sun is still up, the first thing she’ll do is raise her child to it. It’s said that if the first thing a newborn sees is the blinding light above, they’ll be better suited to its study when they’re older. This continues into the child’s formative years.

“Tempered by light. Tempered by heat. Blinded and burned, because the foundational techniques of the Rosy Dawn and Burning Dusk are as dangerous to the user as they are to the target. The Rosy Fingers of Dawn and the Burning Edge of Dusk.”

Cultivators refined the body as well as the soul. We grew stronger, taller, and better defined physically at the same time that we grew wiser, more spirited, and hungrier. A powerful body with a weak soul was a senseless, worthless beast. A powerful soul with a weak body was an ember in a bed of dry leaves. A balance was required.

Scythas knew this as well as I did. He’d been tempered in his own way, as had every cultivator - the ones that had made it to his level of refinement, at least. Any cultivator that could call upon the Rosy-Fingered Dawn had been tempered by the sun. In the same way, any cultivator that could bend the wind to their whims like Scythas had been tempered by the tempest.

All that changed was how the tempering was done.

Not every man was made of iron.

“When I was four years old, my father taught me how to make a fire,” I explained. Of my two flesh and blood hands and thirty manifested hands of intent, only one was still dark and cool. Idly, I rubbed together the thumb, index, and middle fingertips of that hand. Slowly, the motion generated warmth. “He took me out into the forest and showed me the proper wood to gather, taught me which materials would serve best as kindling. Tell me, Sol, if I asked you to light a fire right now, how would you do it?”

“I’d use one of those,” he said at once, gesturing to my thirty-one burning hands. I nodded. Using a pre-existing flame was the easiest and most common method. It was why every Greek citizen kept a hearth lit in their home.

“And if there was no flame around to borrow from?”

“There’s always flame around,” the Hero said, his eyes flickering hazel and gold. I smiled faintly.

“Granted, for you. But we’re only Philosophers of the second rank. Our hearts have yet to burn.”

The Hero snorted in disbelief. To Sol, he offered a sarcastic slow clap, “So you advanced last night, from the first rank to the second. Congratulations, Solus.”

“Thank you,” the Roman said genuinely. Scythas groaned. To me, he answered, “Without another flame I’d use a flint.”

“Right. And if you had no flint?”

“Friction,” Sol answered, eyeing my fingertips. I raised them up so Scythas would see them too, feeling the heat build where my skin rubbed together.

“Exactly.” I confirmed. “We used sticks. It was difficult, and I was young, but my soul was awake and I was strong enough to see it done. He instructed me on how to nurture that flame, first with my breath and then by feeding it kindling. Soon enough we had a robust campfire. And my father took my hands in his, told me that it was these hands that had done the work alone. From beginning to end, I had cultivated that flame. I was ecstatic.”

I chuckled softly at the memory.

“Then he pulled our hands into the fire, and held them there.”

Two heart’s flickered. The one belonging to the Hero, as well as the one belonging to the Heroine doing her best to pretend she wasn’t eavesdropping.

“My hands healed, as you can see,” I said, flourishing my rosy fingers while the unburning fingers continued to rub together. “The next time my father told me to build a fire, I was somewhat less enthused. But I built it, this time without any instruction, and when it was lit he congratulated me on a job well done. Then, as before, he took my hands in his.”

“That’s barbaric!” Selene protested from further down the ship, causing the sea dogs around her to stir and grumble in their sleep.

“Ho? You’re calling my father a barbarian?”

Abandoning her attempt at privacy, she gathering up her sunray silks and philosopher rags and crossed the deck to join us at the front of the ship. She sat down directly across from me, completing our little diamond formation, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m calling a cruelty a cruelty,” she said firmly. “That couldn’t have been the only way to temper you. At four years old, no less.”

“Not the only way, no,” I agreed. “He would also make me stare up at the sun with him on particularly bright days.”

“Greeks,” Sol cursed wearily. The daughter of the Oracle just stared up at me, aghast.

“Perhaps it was a cruelty, and perhaps it wasn’t necessary,” I acknowledged. “But whether it was by coincidence or by design, I was tempered far beyond the rest of my peers when it came time to take the dawn in hand. With time, the pain faded and the scars healed. It’s a common failing of the Rosy-Fingered Dawn that its own users can be blinded by its light if they aren’t careful. I’m sure you’ve all encountered for yourselves the double nature of the Burning-Edged Dusk, scorching its wielders as often as it does their opponents.

“The more a scarlet son is tempered, and the stronger the flame that does the work, the more they can withstand when their soul invokes their mystery faith. But even then, there is generally a limit.”

I snapped the fingers that I had been rubbing together, creating a spark that quickly turned to flame, spreading down my thirty-second hand and burning cheerfully in the night.

“I haven’t suffered a burn since I was a child,” I said, shrugging shallowly and staring into the searing lights. The Heroic cultivators and Sol all looked away. It was too bright for them. “In the end, the fire was what I needed. It made me stronger. And I suppose it was my hubris to assume that this was a trait I shared with every man and woman.”

Try being honest.

“The children I grew up with weren’t raised the way that I was,” I admitted to the Heroes and to Sol. “All this time, I was certain that that was the reason why they ended up lesser than they could have been. I knew, deep within my heart, that if they had only been raised the way that I was raised, they would have been stronger. Greater. Better.

“But while I was under the influence of the Orphic cult’s milk and honey, I saw that ideal image made real. I saw them as I’d always imagined they could be, as men and women I’d be happy to stand beside no matter where we were headed or what stood in our path. I saw them as my equals, in heart and soul.”

There was something in Sol’s face, something I couldn’t discern. If he had a Hero’s passionate communication, I might have been able to glean it from his heart. And if I had his empathy, I might have recognized it regardless. But he didn’t, and neither did I.

You are a shadow, aren’t you?

“They couldn’t stand the sight of me,” I whispered.

“It was a delusion,” Sol said at once. “Nothing real.”

“Perhaps.” The lights of dawn flickered and went out one by one. “Perhaps.”

We sat in silence, waiting for the waves to bring us home. I sent my pankration hands out to work the oars once again, formless and without heat. The steady sounds of water parting around them beckoned us peacefully to the realm of dreams.

A cultivator could do without sleep for a long while, but the past week had been more eventful than most. Eventually, Selene drifted off, sprawling out on the deck with her head on Sol’s thigh as a cushion. The Roman kept on brooding, his eyes half-lidded and distant while the storm rumbled behind them. Thinking about where he was going and how he intended to get there, I imagined. Eventually, my eyes drifted shut too.

“Closer to a Scythian than a Greek.”

My eyes flew open.

Scythas stared steadily back at me. The shadows of the night cast by stars made his expression look haunted.

“Hm?” Sol rumbled, turning his head to regard the Hero.

“It’s a Greek saying,” I explained, because I could see in his eyes that the Hero expected me to. “Most commonly spoken in the Hurricane Heights, which are furthest north and closest to the lands we just departed. In reference to a Thracian and their culture, despite the fact that they share borders with each of our nations - even so, they’re closer to a Scythian than they are to a Greek.”

“You can tell when people are lying, or at least you think you can,” Scythas continued, not breaking eye contact with me. I nodded shallowly. Now more than ever, that was true. “So can I. Not always, and not in every context. But there is one circumstance where I can always tell.”

“That being?” Sol asked. I didn’t raise my pneuma, and neither did he. If the Hero chose to start a fight here and now, he’d be dooming himself as surely as he’d be dooming us. He was on our ship, and from horizon-to-horizon there lay nothing but the open sea.

“A name given to a child by their parents, and a name that they’ve chosen for themselves. I can always tell the difference.”

Sol and I shared a look.

“You weren’t born Griffon,” Scythas told me. Didn’t ask. His eyes finally shifted away from me, just for a moment. “And you weren’t born Solus.”

“Griffon is my name.”

“And Scythas is mine,” the Hero agreed. “But we chose those names for ourselves. Tell me I’m wrong.”

I didn’t.