David White
Stories
4
Chapters
1,771
Words
1.0 K
Comments
0
Reading
5 m
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It was a pitiful truth that a person’s demons resided within as often as they did without. Selene had learned this truth early on, internalized it within herself and built the monument of her soul around it. Humanity was its own worst enemy. From the grandest scale of war between nations of thousands and millions, all the way down to the tragic conflict of a single tortured soul. She was only sixteen years old, a blink of an eye by the standards of people like her father, but already she had seen…-
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The raven had used up all his good fortune early in life. From here on, it would be struggle. Going forward, he knew he couldn’t hope to be given what he desired - what he Thunder rumbled in the shadowed grove. Try, and try again. Until the proper question was found. Another. Substance could be found even in the vagueries of Greek thinkers. As a young man, the raven had scoffed and turned his nose up at the barbarians accepted into his father’s legion when they had leveled that sentiment towards…
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92 •
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Through horn, truth. By ivory, lies. The motif was a quirk of the Aeolic Greek dialect and nothing more. That was what the raven from Rome had been taught. Aristotle, his mentor and the Father of Rhetoric, had explained it in this way: The Greek word for Aristotle had stressed, however, that a coincidence was likely all that it was. There was no observable property in either horn or ivory that could be meaningfully associated with prophecy or delirium. Horns could be hollowed out and used as drinking…
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92 •
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Horn is fulfilled. Ivory deceives. Two ravens and two Heroic souls had entered the Orphic house through gates of ivory - or perhaps it was horn. In the empty stands and shadowed rafters, the ravens had heard the echo of a lyre where the Hero of the Scything Squall had heard nothing at all. And thus they had ventured into the true singing house, immersing themselves in chthonic shadow that a crow could only briefly traverse. Prior to that, two initiates of the Thracian Orphic mystery had seen the…
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92 •
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You are born. Your infant cries herald the end of endless spring and the first dawn of the summer sun. The sun beats warmly down. Your mother seeks shelter for you in the shade, while the first seeds are planted and the seasons begin the first of their tireless revolutions. The wheel begins to turn. The world is silver-bright. You are betrayed. A Titan is to an Olympian what an Olympian is to a Man. The oldest generation takes the youngest generation in their hands. You are torn apart, limb by limb,…
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92 •
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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…
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92 •
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I’d never cared for the lyre before meeting Aristotle. As the Young Patrician of a notable family, I was raised under a certain set of expectations. It was a given that I would be educated. It was all but guaranteed, looking back at my father and my great-uncle’s careers, that I would serve my time in the legions and make the climb up the cursus honorum. How far I progressed in the end was something no one could predict, but it was a safe bet that I would claim that first honor if not any more to…
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92 •
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First, we mingled. There was a certain etiquette that even a dead man could be expected to follow. In a theater, it was common sense that the stage belonged to those performing. A spectator could heckle if the act warranted it, but you never joined the actors on the stage unless you were first invited. In a symposium, although the lounges might be arranged around the room with equal prominence, a partygoer did not approach the organizer of the event while he was otherwise preoccupied. The details were…
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92 •
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“If we’re going,” Scythas said, when the story had been told and the last strings had been plucked, “then now is the time. The hand guided me here, Solus. I From the beginning, I had seen a downtrodden reflection in him. A soldier that wanted nothing more than to be accepted into the ranks. To stand shoulder-to-shoulder with his peers and know that no matter how miserable the road ahead might be, he would not have to march it on his own. An outcast in search of belonging. In the past, I might…
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92 •
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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…
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