David White
Stories
4
Chapters
1,771
Words
1.0 K
Comments
0
Reading
5 m
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Half a year had come and gone since the day I stood alone in the center of the Scarlet Stadium and accepted every laurel crown the Daylight Games could offer me. Standing tall and proud, as unfulfilled as I was triumphant, I had understood something crucial about the nature of my father’s city and its people - of Alikos entire. That conscious acknowledgement had spurred my soul beyond its limits, forcing through the bottleneck in my refinement and carrying me forward from the ninth rank of the Civic…-
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The day that we boarded the Eos and set sail for distant Thracia, Griffon and I had been of one mind. It was the Gadfly’s intent to keep us busy - to keep us safe from ourselves and the higher powers we had provoked with our unkind marauding. Mostly, it was to get us out of his sight. Griffon and I had understood that, and we had afforded that sentiment about as much respect as it deserved. That had been the plan. And then, on our very first stop, we had been afforded a glimpse at the Tyrant Riot’s…
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92 •
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He had done his best. It was a cold comfort, he knew, but it was what he clung to in the end. In the business of cultivation the results were all that mattered - the tribulations were hardly worth mentioning, so long as they were overcome. Hubris unending was permitted, so long as one advanced forward in the end. And in that same vein, no amount of well-meaning virtue would make a difference in a man’s final judgment if he succumbed to the unforgiving defamation of a bottleneck. Yet even so. Myron had…
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92 •
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It was said that there were as many paths to heaven as there were stars in the night sky. That platitude was one that countless cast-off sons and daughters of Helen clung to every day, assuring themselves of its absolution as soon as they awoke and seeking its cold comfort in the fleeting moments before Hypnos delivered them to rest. The sentiment was appealing, there was no arguing that. Cultivation favored the bold, and it was the nature of bold men to chafe at the bonds of those that came before. It…
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92 •
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As a melting pot of Greek culture, the city of Olympia celebrated more holidays and religious festivals than even the twice-lauded Coast - it was said that a citizen of the Half-Step City worked about as rarely as a slave enjoyed a day off, and that statement wasn’t all too distant from the truth. Over the course of my year as a servant in the Rosy Dawn’s estates, I was offered two holidays of rest. Naturally, Griffon stole the first of them from me by sponsoring me through the cult’s initiation…
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92 •
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“Griffon?” A woman’s welcome voice woke me from my dozing. I opened my eyes and smiled languidly up at the Heroine standing over me, incredulous at the sight of me. “What are you doing here?” Above her, the marble columns of the indigo stadium jutted up into the clear blue skies, winding like vines up a formless tree and reaching vainly for heaven. The Olympic Stadium was an architectural wonder in an entirely different class from my home city’s Scarlet Stadium, where I had ‘competed’ for…
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92 •
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The storm-crowned mountain was divided nine ways - eight grand estates acting as envoys for the greater mystery cults, each with its own Tyrant ruling in their consolation domain, and the rest of the mountain serving as the truly neutral ground that the Raging Heaven Cult’s otherwise unaffiliated initiates called their own. When night fell and the Elders sent out their scavengers, there were few truly safe places for the independent cultivators of the Raging Heaven. An ambassador from the Howling Wind…
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92 •
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Every institution had its daily routines - the underlying maintenances and mechanisms that an outsider looking in might not necessarily see. Naturally, the more prestigious the institution and the grander its scale, the more opaque it became. There was appeal in a veil of transparent silks, as there was mystique in the shifting silhouettes behind a cloth curtain. What, then, lurked beyond the marble wall? A As a boy in a no-name village far from any civilized place, those separations had been thin…
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92 •
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A man's credibility was his myth made manifest. Through reputation, renown. From renown, credibility. In credibility, Damon Aetos was Damon Aetos. He did not need to convince the Scarlet City to listen when he spoke. He did not need to make them weep tears of sorrow and joy with his words to convince them of his views. He was above that, just as Bakkhos had been above that in the Half-Step City. A theory could be argued. Emotion could be questioned. These things were portions of a man, but only To…
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92 •
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When the kyrios came for Aleuas, he was dressed in nothing but shadow and rags. That had been over five hundred years ago. Five hundred and fifty-four years to be exact. In fact, two months from now it would be five hundred and fifty-five. In the course of his years, time had loosened its grip on Aleuas - as a child, so long ago now that entire civilizations had risen and fallen in the intervening centuries, a year had seemed like a wondrous eternity. As a man grown, a year had seemed like a short time…
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92 •
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