Chapter 1.50

Chapter 1.50

The Young Griffon

The ideal of the institutions that we called the greater mystery cults was camaraderie in pursuit of greater understanding. These were learning places, yes, as well as fonts of overwhelming strength in times of strife. But their central purpose was not to uplift, nor to make war.

The mystery cults were a timeless reminder that every man was equally worthless under the sun.

“You’re certain that you can’t tell me anything about it, senior brother?”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” my senior within the Raging Heaven Cult affirmed. His pneuma marked him as a cultivator in the eighth rank of the Sophic Realm. Yet even so, I had found him more than halfway up the mountain. A man of his standing would have enjoyed comfortable seniority within the Rosy Dawn Cult, but here in Olympia he was hardly fit for the second-rate estates - only the junior mystikos slept closer to the storm crown than him.

No, that wasn’t true. The ones that slept closest to the storm crown were the boys following me like lost ducks, their guardian, and the ugly philosopher that had dared to put his hands on my brother.

Still, it was a shame. A man of such advanced cultivation, and yet so little renown to show for it. I wondered what he could have accomplished by now, this senior of mine, if he hadn’t wasted his time vying for the approval of men that couldn’t care less about him or his life.

“Surely, there’s something you can tell me,” I pressed him. He frowned, shifting the bundle on his back - dozens of papyrus rolls tied by string, clay tablets wrapped in leather, and the whole lot of it bundled in a fisherman’s net of all things.

“I never made it past Sisyphus,” he said ruefully, raising his hand to shield his eyes against the glare of flashing light above. “Up there in the storm, the words your seniors used to comfort you lose all meaning. The thunder is so loud that you can’t hear yourself think. They urged us to go it alone, of course, but once the seniors were out of sight we all bunched up like sheep.”

“They don’t go with you?” I asked. Kyno had said that every senior mystiko within the Raging Heaven Cult was sent by their elders to guard the new initiates during their trial. The Rosy Dawn’s initiation rites were much the same. Everyone, even the pillars of the Aetos family, descended into the heart of the eastern mountain range together to behold the confounding sight of the fallen sun god.

“They do, but only so far,” he said, tearing his eyes away from the Storm That Never Ceased. He sighed and tousled the sandy curls of his hair. “For a man to prove himself worthy of the Raging Heaven he must bear its weight alone, even if only for a step. That is the final trial, the one that every hopeful initiate must surpass.”

“Only one step?” the little king asked, and I smirked at the disdain in his voice.

Fortunately, my senior was just as amused. “Only one,” he confirmed, chuckling. “And I’ve seen boys your age with twice your refinement fail, sulking all the way down the mountain because they couldn’t manage it.”

“Cultivation alone isn’t enough,” the little king declared, puffing out his chest and pounding it with his first. “Pyr and I will make it at least as far as Griffon. Farther, even!”

The little sentinel viciously smacked his younger brother over the head, at about the same time that the boy himself realized what he’d just said.

“You’ve already...” My senior looked sideways at me, his brow furrowed.

“I’ve already decided that I’ll reach the top,” I said, and understanding gentled his expression. That, and a nostalgic sort of mirth.

“Second rank of the Sophic Realm,” he said, fondly and a bit sadly, having gauged my standing just as I had gauged his. “I remember those days. I thought I would be competing in the Games by now, or perhaps pioneering a new field of natural philosophy. The possibilities seem so vast when you’ve only just reached the foot of the mountain.”

“You’re talking like an old man,” I said, knocking him sideways with my elbow. He laughed.

“I am an old man, by the Raging Heaven’s standards. And you’re not far behind me.”

“Is that so?”

“It is so,” he confirmed. “Out in the villages where men like you and I carved our names, captain of the Civic Realm is a rank worthy of respect. No man would hesitate to offer his daughter’s hand in marriage to such a citizen. Reaching captain of the Civic Realm before you’ve even reached legal adulthood? Your father would have to beat the suitors off with a stick.”

“I don’t recall saying that I grew up in a village,” I said, raising an eyebrow. He waved the hand not holding his bundle of texts, gesturing at my tattered cult attire.

“You strut through the premier cult of the free Mediterranean, waving down senior initiates as if it’s only natural that they give you their time and insight, all while wearing the colors of a cult that you can’t possibly be from,” he said. The odd sensation of being pitied and supported at the same time washed over me. “In a way, the trial of the storm crown is much like the experience of stepping into Olympia after a lifetime of shoveling shit on a farm.”

“I think you’re projecting, honored senior.”

“‘Honored senior,’ he says, while sneering in my face.” The older cultivator lashed out with his free hand, a slap to the back of my head that the boys didn’t notice until the clap of flesh against flesh made them jump.

My senior stared curiously at the pankration hand that had intercepted his own just before it struck me. Without the Rosy Fingers of Dawn to render it visible to the naked eye, he instead observed it with his sophic sense. Unlike the aggressive overtures I had often encountered since unlocking my Philosopher’s eye, his influence felt less like a wave and more like the waterfall currents that fed a bath. It coursed over my pankration hand, flowing into the gaps between its fingers and the creases left behind in the skin when those fingers curled and uncurled.

The older philosopher squeezed the hand of my intent, and I squeezed back. He let go.

“I meant no disrespect,” I said honestly. He hummed.

“You may have been right. Perhaps I was projecting. Certainly, my intent was nothing like that when I was a newly minted Philosopher. How long have you been refining that ability?”

“How long has any man been refining the use of his hands?” I asked in turn.

“Fascinating,” he murmured. “I take it next you’ll tell me that you really are from the Rosy Dawn.” I smiled faintly, and he shook his head. “Right, right. That aside, being stronger than I was at your rank doesn’t mean much on this mountain. I said it before, but a captain of the Civic Realm is only impressive in the settlements that can hardly be said to have citizens at all. How old were you when you reached the peak of that realm?”

“Seventeen.”

“Which would put you somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years old now, if you were fortunate while bridging the gap and didn’t waste a moment in your studies.”

I said nothing, and thanks to the little sentinel’s quick thinking, neither did the little king.

“A secret, is that it?” We both watched the little sentinel grapple with the little king, one hand planted firmly over his mouth while the other struggled to fend off his brother’s fists and elbows. “What a sad day, when a junior can’t trust his senior with something so basic.”

“Ah, but you already have me at a disadvantage.” I conjured burning hands of pankration intent between the two boys, separating them, and then when they both simply glared at one another I drowned them in a flurry of slaps and light punches. The little king and his sentinel let fly their battle cries, pneuma surging, and began to fight back against the hands of my intent.

“How’s that?” My senior asked, eyes tracking the now visible limbs with keen interest.

“You’ve seen a manifestation of my soul,” I said, conjuring another pankration hand in front of his face, close enough that his eyes crossed as he looked at it. I flexed and waved the fingers of dawn, contorting the limb this way and that so he could observe it. “You’ve also heard my name, though it was given to you secondhand. And I still don’t know yours.”

“Chilon,” he said, his eyes not wavering from the pankration limb even as he offered his free hand to me. When I clasped it with fingers of flesh and blood, he seemed almost disappointed. “I didn’t notice it before, but in the light...” His eyes flickered, tracing the shadows cast by the rosy light of dawn - the faint silhouette of an arm beyond the flaming hand. “There’s more to it that can’t be seen, isn’t there?”

“You have a keen eye, Chilon,” I complimented him.

“No,” he said, watching them fondly as they drifted around him. “These are stories I’ve collected during my time here. Stories worth telling.”

“Where were you taking them?” I asked.

“Everywhere. Most men have a relic that’s close to their heart. An ancestor’s gift, or perhaps a lover’s token of favor.”

I raised an unconscious hand, rolling between my finger and thumb the scarlet gem that hung from my ancestor’s necklace. The one I had stolen from the filial pools in my father’s courtyard, five months and a lifetime ago. Chilon nodded.

“Every cultivator needs something to comfort them when they stand alone against the Fates. Admittedly, I could have chosen something more sensible, but I am who I am. This net and all its contents are my precious relic. Each of those scrolls and tablets is a story that I’ve been told during my time in Olympia, a tale of a Heroic soul that even tribulation lightning could not strike down.”

“You carry all of them with you, and your family's letters,” I said pointedly.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Chilon, an old man with the face and the body of a twenty-five year old, smiled boyishly up at me, shedding all of his years in an instant.

“Because when that hero condemned me with his eyes, I promised myself that I wouldn't utter another boasting word until I had surpassed him. I ignored every letter my family sent me, every request for information - even when they only wanted to know that I was alive. That I was whole, and happy. I was too ashamed to read any of them more than once, let alone reply.

“And when they passed and my siblings gave up on reaching me, gave up on believing that I had passed the initiation rites at all, I realized what a fool I had been. I realized that chasing after that Hero's shadow for so many years had never given me a moment’s joy. I realized that the happiest I’d ever been was riding on my fathers shoulders while he paraded me around the town, holding my mother close when the joy made her legs give out.”

“So you gave up on becoming a hero?” The little sentinel asked. The boys had regained their breath and clambered up my back, peering over my shoulders once again.

“Not at all,” I said. The ire in my soul settled back down to rest. “He only shifted his focus.” Chilon snapped his fingers, pointing at me.

“You’ve got a keen eye, too,” he said, and I snorted. It only made his grin grow. “Here and in the other great cities, a sixty year old man in the eighth stage of the Sophic realm is hardly worth acknowledging in the agora, let alone listening to. It’s been nearly a decade since I advanced from seventh to eighth. My prospects are terribly bleak.”

Against my best efforts, my lips began to curl. “But even so.”

“But even so,” he agreed. “I will take those last three steps into glory. Even if it takes me the rest of my natural life, the rest of every man’s natural life - even if the stars go out and the sun falls from the sky, I will become a man worth telling stories of.”

“And then what?” The little king asked. His mismatched eyes watched the senior Philosopher intently. “What will you do then? Become a Tyrant?”

“No.” Chilon shook his head, carefully slipping the stack of letters back into their leather pouch. “Then, I’ll respond to each and every letter my parents sent me, because I’ll finally have a story for them to tell.”

“But they’re-” This time, it was my own flesh and blood hand that covered the little king’s mouth.

I bowed my head to the old man.

“Thank you for your story, senior sophist. I look forward to hearing the rest of it some day.”

Chilon smiled warmly. I deposited all of the stories that had nearly gotten away back into his net, and he cinched it shut with practiced motions. But when he rose to his feet and heaved it over his shoulder, there was still one more scroll at his feet. I picked it up with a pankration hand, offering it to him.

His eyes swept over the picture that had been brushed with ink across the outside of the papyrus. An ink painting of four young men, standing side-by-side under a mottled brown ring.

The thumb of my pankration hand brushed against the ring, a piece of it crumbling away, and I realized that it was old blood. When this scroll was first written, those four young men had stood beneath a scarlet sun.

“Keep it,” Chilon said. “A gift for my junior, come all the way from the Rosy Dawn. It’s worth reading, I can promise you that.”

Rather than thank him again, I offered him my arm. He reached out, clasping my forearm while I clasped his.

“I made it to the statue of Sisyphus and no further,” he said, looking down pointedly at his own arm. There, I saw a faint scar just above where my hand was clasped. An odd sight for a cultivator of his standing. “When you go, as proof of your progress, try to find the statues of those that fell before us. Each of them carries a blade. When you can’t progress any further, push on until you find one more statue. Leave your blood on its blade, and all of the Raging Heaven will know how far you went against the Storm That Never Ceases.”

“How will they know which blade left the mark?” I asked, turning his forearm so I could get a better look at the scar. Of all the blades I had taken from that mountain - lurking now in my shadow - I could only think of a few that would leave a mark at all noticeably different from this one.

“These statues are memorials to the stories we were raised on.” What had at first been an unassumingly handsome face, when I marked him as an easy target, was now made just the slightest bit wild by his passion. “These are the stars in the sky that we looked up at as children, that our parents promised us we could grasp in our hands if only we gave it everything we had. These men and women, these giants and monsters and holy seers, they’re the curtain of heaven above. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, every son of Helen sees the same thing when he looks up at the cosmic glory.”

As he spoke the words, his influence impressed them upon my soul. The world as I knew it fell away, and in its place -

“There he is, Chilon,” my mother whispered while I lay in her lap. Her hand pointed up, at the vast expanse of light. “There’s Sisyphus, pushing his boulder up the hill. There’s the tyrant that cheated death.”

- I saw the constellation carved into his arm. It was a scar left on his soul as much as his body. Something that I couldn’t have faked if I tried.

“Good to know,” I said, and meant it twice. “But unless the cult’s mystery has a blade of its own, I don’t intend to come down with any scars.”

His pneuma rippled around him. Not an advancement, not quite - but the promise of one on the horizon.

“To the peak?” He asked, though he already knew.

“To the peak.”

The ideal of the greater mystery cults was brotherhood beneath the storm. The acknowledgement that no matter how old you were, no matter where you stood among heaven and earth, some mysteries simply couldn’t be solved. Every man was equally unlikely to reach that impossible understanding. Any man could stand humble by your side in contemplation of the unknown.

We let go at the same time. Chilon turned back up the mountain, continuing the climb to his quarters. Or perhaps beyond. I slipped the scroll he’d gifted me with its four painted men and its bloodstained sun into the makeshift satchel around my waist, the one that I’d made out of an old woman’s golden shawl. The scroll settled beside the cypress mask of tribulation that I’d taken from Melpomene.

“You ought to advise your juniors more often, Chilon,” I called over my shoulder, turning down the mountain while the boys waved goodbye. The sixty year old Philosopher turned his head, shifting the net that he used to catch stories so he could look back at me.

“Why?” he called.

Why? Worthless old man, that should have been obvious.

“Because you’re good at it.”