Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia

Chapter 1.79

The Young Griffon

For the concept of a greater to exist, a lesser was required to give it meaning. For a man to be notably tall, for a distance to be notably far, or for a body of water to be notably deep, there had to be a corresponding norm that each of them surpassed. It followed, then, that for a greater mystery cult to exist, there would have to be a corresponding lesser. Something profound enough to inspire virtue, and opaque enough that no living Greek had ever unraveled its mystery - but less so than the institutions that the great city-states called their own.

These lesser mysteries were the source of inspiration for most men of virtue. Logistically, it was impossible for things to be any other way. A Greek cultivator was an exceptional existence, but the greater mystery cults were even more exceptionally selective than that.

A man had ten choices and ten choices alone if he coveted the pursuit of highest virtue.

This was the first and in some ways most important decision he would have to make in his life. The pursuit of heaven was a hopeless dream no matter where you stood. But for a child uninitiated, the pursuit of membership in a greater mystery cult seemed very nearly as hopeless.

The choice of which to pursue was crucial. Each cult valued different things in a mystiko, required skills that more often took years than months to properly hone. In deciding on an institution to pursue, you were committing yourself to one at the expense of nine. As a young man, or even a boy, you were forced to invest all of yourself into that singular goal and ignore the possibility - the greater likelihood - that your true unknown potential resided somewhere in the other nine.

The considerations of filial expectation, geography, and financial logistics limited most burgeoning cultivators’ options to greater or lesser degrees. The final choice, however, remained theirs. Families advised and a man’s means confined, but universally known was the reality that every cultivator faced heaven alone. In the end, the young man decides. In the end, even the boy must choose.

Responsibility of that magnitude is a cruelty when thrust upon a child. It is a necessary cruelty, though - the first of many more to come. Making that choice and suffering what follows is fundamental. It changes a person. For better and for worse, it is the first time in a cultivator's life that it truly matters that they are alive. Their first act that no one but themselves could have possibly put forward. A joy and a sorrow uniquely theirs.

Unless, of course, they were born into a greater institution. In that case there was no need to worry. No trials were required for them to take in hand what less privileged souls were fighting and clawing and desperately living to one day possibly achieve.

No, certainly not. Nothing so unsightly for the brightly shining heirs. It was only natural that the free world’s fortunate sons would receive as gifts what the masses had no other option but to steal - like cursed fire from the heavens.

Men like Alazon and Gianni Scalla were above that lesser struggle. Children like my cousins had greater pursuits to occupy their time. As did I.

All my life, I had never once been cursed with a choice.

At any rate.

Eight city-states were home to ten greater mysteries. It simply wasn’t enough for even an above average cultivator to win admittance. Let alone an average cultivator, or even worse, an unrefined soul. Perhaps if the kyrioi were more generous these institutions could have found ways to spread their wonders to the masses. But they were not. If they had been, it was doubtful they’d ever have made it to where they were today.

Instead, those less privileged than the free world’s prodigies and her aristoi built what monuments they could with the materials available to them. They observed what there was to be observed. They cultivated what virtue they could find. And lacking the greater mystery of, say, a fallen sun god, they instead contemplated humbler phenomena. Down-to-earth discoveries, some would call them.

Though under the earth was perhaps a more apt description.

“What was that?” Sol finally asked once the second chthonic hand receded, that storm flashing in his eyes as he glared daggers at the earth. The riptide pull of his influence doubled and redoubled, drawing our horses unconsciously towards him even as they screamed. I smacked my white mare on her neck, breaking his sway over her with my own. She huffed and danced nervously away.

“You’ve never seen a lesser mystery before?” Scythas asked quizzically, wiping horse blood off on his faded green attire.

“I’ve seen many things that could be called mysteries. None of them have looked like that.”

“Ah, true. I suppose this is a different flavor of madness than what you’re used to.” The Hero glanced in the direction the ink-black hand had pointed, then down at the soil where his mare had been dragged under. The hand had taken even the blood from the soil. All that remained were the drops on the grapevines and what he had on his own hands.

“You’ll need another horse,” Selene observed, unplugging her ears. The scarlet flames behind her eyes flickered and cast uncertain embers from their corners. “Those directions weren’t very specific.”

A poor reward for the sacrifice offered. Of course, she didn’t say that out loud. Not while we were still standing overtop of the receiver.

“It’s enough,” Scythas assured her. “In the meantime, I’ll walk.”

“Impossible,” the old Thracian said at once. Khabur heaved himself down from his dappled mare, patting her flank. “I’d never sleep another wink if I let a Hero walk while I rode a horse he’d rented for me. Take her.”

“I appreciate your intent,” Scythas said, a bit awkwardly. “But, the pace we’ll be keeping…”

“You’re too slow, old man,” I told him frankly. Khabur grunted and smacked his thighs, each impact a meaty sound.

“Don’t waste your worry, žibùtė. This old dog’s still got a few years left in him,” he assured me. It wasn’t difficult to believe him.

Of all the worthless sea dogs that we had left the Eos to, he was perhaps the least useless of them all. He was tall, even a bit taller than Scythas, which was remarkable for a man that had never refined himself. He had been skin and bones when we took him from the slave galley, but already he had filled out to something nearly formidable again. Broad-backed and thick-wristed. His hands were as large as mine and littered with calluses and scar tissue that stood out from otherwise leather tanned flesh.

He had no hair on his head. Perhaps a cosmetic choice, perhaps a product of slavery‘s stress, or maybe just Kronos leaving his unshakeable mark. He still had his beard, at least, and most of it had even retained its striking auburn shade.

The rest of our sea dogs were each a ruinous combination of too small, too weak, too stupid or belligerant to be of value even in a field. Khabur the Thracian, to his credit, was merely old. In his time, I could imagine him making a go of what he was suggesting. Even more beyond that. If Sol and I had found him before Kronos, then…

Well. It didn’t matter now.

“Get back on your horse,” Sol commanded, and Khabur had no choice but to obey.

“We can ride together, at least -”

“The mares are too small to ride double.” I smirked faintly at the betrayed look Khabur sent my way. “The Hero has offered to walk and is assuredly faster than you. You’ll learn to sleep with the guilt, or the Eos will have gained a tireless oarsman. Neither outcome will upset me.” I didn’t dislike the old Thracian, but that didn’t mean I’d humor him.

“The stallion is strong enough for two,” Sol decided. As if it had understood him, the black horse with the blacker attitude snapped its teeth and pounded the soil with broad hooves.

Scythas eyed the beast doubtfully.

“It’s just a horse,” Sol said impatiently.

The stallion glared at Scythas. Its eyes were yellow and hateful.

“It can’t be helped,” Selene said, sounding not at all exasperated as her words implied. The girl in the sunray silks and philosopher rags swung her legs around so she was sitting side saddle, braced her hands on her mare’s back, and pushed.

Her mare shifted its legs like it had been lightly shoved, but the daughter of the Oracle soared up and across the gap between her horse and Sol’s, flipping head over heels and landing adroitly behind him on the stallion’s bare back. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she smiled winningly.

“I knew we’d meet again,” she said, rubbing the black horse’s flank. “Let’s get along this time, hm?” The beast threw its head back and reared up on its hind legs, screaming as it sought to throw her-

Sol wrapped an arm around the stallion’s neck and viciously choked it.

“You were lamenting that I chose you before, weren’t you? I could hear it rattling around that empty head of yours,” I said soothingly to my own slender white runner. “I bet you don’t regret it anymore.” My long-legged mare whinnied softly and leaned into the pankration hands that were currently stroking her head and massaging heat into her fatigued limbs.

“You’ll break before I do,” Sol, by contrast, was promising his stallion while it gagged.

“He just needs a little discipline, that’s all,” Selene insisted, one arm wrapped around Sol’s waist to keep steady. Her eyes lit up in the literal sense. “And perhaps some encouragement! Treat him like one of your soldiers!”

Sol tightened his choke hold and leaned in by the black beast’s ear.

“I will bind you in a sack, fill it with snakes, and throw you into the river.”

The stallion’s eyes bulged.

In the end, Scythas took on the docile mare that had first passed from Sol to Selene, and the two of them rode the stallion. We rode hard through the night, the Hero and the Thracian discussing the different tribes in the region and our likelihood of passing through each of them. The hand of liquid shadow had pointed us vaguely, the girl hadn’t been wrong about that; but Scythas seemed confident enough, and Khabur’s familiarity with the area was sufficient to fill the gaps that did exist in his mental charter.

As we rode, the raven in Sol’s shadow reached out to mine.

What the fuck is a lesser mystery?

He glared at me when my shadow laughed, its gurgling caw a sharp and ugly sound.

You acted like you knew.

I said I’ve seen mysterious things in my life. I then clarified that I’ve never seen anything like that.

That was a Hero’s cult, my shadow explained to his, amused. A chthonic institution, lesser to the likes of the Rosy Dawn and Raging Heaven.

What cult? Where? We were in the middle of a vineyard. Where was the temple? Where were the initiates?

I shrugged. Same place as the Hero, I’d imagine. The underworld.

Some things were simply common knowledge. Before now, I had never personally seen a direct appeal to a Mystery Hero’s chthonic cult, but I had known since I was young that there was a reason we distinguished between Philosophers and Heroes the same way we did between unrefined souls and cultivators of virtue. A man was mortal all the way up to the tenth rank of the Sophic Realm. Past that point, he was more than a man. Not quite yet a god. Something in between, semi-divine.

That being the case, if our faceless divinity could persist beyond death, it followed that our Heroes could do something similar. Perseverance, not through death as the divine might. But within it. A half remembrance.

Lesser. Yet still profound.

The lay of the land, and the deeper relation between the greats and their lessers. This was all knowledge that any Greek cultivator could be expected to know. Alas, Sol had been brought up in a legion, and Aristotle was a bastard.

I was left with no choice but to make up for their lack. My raven explained the circumstances surrounding a cultivator’s first unlikely pursuit, and what remained for them if they failed, as we rode through the Thracian countryside and dark gave way to dawn. There were worse ways to pass the time.

A cultivator has ten choices if they desire the best of what this world can offer them. I had assumed your mentor would have taught you that much if nothing else at all, but it seems the Father of Rhetoric had other ideas for you.

Why bother priming me on Greek mysteries I had no intention of seeing? Sol replied, defensive of the men that had failed to properly raise him as always. Aristotle couldn’t have known I’d end up here.

I wondered about that.

Whatever the case. Before a cultivator’s journey begins, there are ten high roads that they can walk.

Should they choose to brave our cruel and perilous West, to mark their worth in passing days and burn their soul asunder, the sunlight cults might take them. If coals can be tread and dark thus traversed, they just might make it through the hallowed mountain halls of the fallen sun god. Whether by light of Rosy Dawn or heat of Burning Dusk, they can find their faceless faith in the Scarlet City of Alikos.

If the cultivator possesses deep and noble roots, they can venture to the lauded Coast and prove their worth in the heart of free civilization, there twice submerging their soul. If they can part the waves like a seaside cliff, the Broken Tide might break them. If they can brace the lines like a campaign foot, the Brazen Aegis might shake them. Either way, they can find their faceless faith in the twice-exalted Coast.

If they are rather she, or else man enough to defy Her, they can stalk through lands of eastern silk and there let fly their soul. If their aim is true and their rhythm in-tune, through shadowed groves the Blind Maiden might hunt them. United as sisters or deflowered as lovers, the cultivator can find their faceless faith in the Obsidian City of the Amazons.

If bound for blood and mad at heart - if calmer minds won’t have them - they can march to south Peloponnese and re-cast their soul in crucible iron. If pain is their first and closest friend, and provided the threat of death excites them, the Infernal Frenzy might descend and in the press incite them. Assuming exsanguination does not take them before virtue, they can find their faceless faith in the war torn city of Lacedaemonia.

If they know and welcome their hunger, they can measure their worth in the weathering of gales and cry out their name into the tempest that upended the bread basket. If their voice is sweet sin and their ears are sharp as wheat sickles, they may just hear the Howling Wind reply. In the event that they make it up, they can find their faceless faith in the floating city of the Hurricane Heights.

If not by the coast and not by the colony - if not by Greek mainland at all - they can rig up their worth and try for the sea, to settle their soul in isles of shifting alabaster. If their stride can match the Strider and their words can reach the deafened, the Waning Wax might melt them. With golden thread to guide them there, they can surely find their faceless faith among those Alabaster Isles.

If they are no Greek at all, a free citizen by technicality alone, they can scrounge for their worth in lands of ancient wonder and in Egypt there find their lost soul. If their stomach can stand the sight of their fellows, and their lips resist the urge to sneer, they will likely be welcome in the cult of Scattered Foam. Unlikely as it is, if they retain what is theirs and do not emerge a mongrel Macedonian hound, they can find their faceless faith even there in the Conqueror’s Pearl City.

And of course, if they are great enough for any and all of those greater institutions, they can set their sights as high as holy Olympia. If they are everything a free city desires, curious and passionate and hungry, they’ll find their virtue lurking somewhere inside the immortal storm crown. In baptismal lightning, the Raging Heaven might even anoint their soul. Without question, they can find their faceless faith in the Half-Step City.

These are the roads most coveted and least often traveled. That being said, they are far from the only options available to a cultivator. If none in ten decide to take them, their mother in the earth will always provide. We’ve laid to rest our Heroes and their Golden Age has passed, but that isn’t a reality they’ve necessarily accepted. And as you well know, a Hero’s nature is the same in every era.

Defiance of greater imposition, came Sol’s pensive reply.

Just so.

Even the final imposition, greatest of them all.

I’ll tell you a story about one of those Heroes, I decided. So pay attention. This man was foreign-born, just like you, and when he died he was one of our own. Though compared to you, he was easier on the eyes and sweeter with a lyre.

He played? Sol’s raven warbled, interested.

I hummed, nodding. The story goes that even bees could be charmed out of their honey when they heard him pluck his strings. We called him the Thracian, while Thracians called him the Augur. In the course of his life, most knew him only by his heavenly hands and the splendor of his voice. In the end, however, his name was Orpheus.

On the second day, we reached our kingdom of savages.