Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia

The Son of Rome

“Bastard,” I snarled. “Vile old wretch. Low life latrine digger. I’ll put you on a cross.”

“I’m sure you will,” Socrates said, unimpressed. My vitriol did not slow his stride a single pace, nor loosen his iron grip on the back of my neck.

We walked in lock step down Kaukoso Mons. Socrates had evidently decided against a repeat performance of our rapid ascent, and with nothing else available I had no choice but to use as a cane the same spear that had crippled my left leg. Above, the immortal storm of the Raging Heaven Cult continued to roar. And Griffon was somewhere up there in it.

“If you’ve killed him, I’ll-”

“Crucify me. Yes, you just said that.”

I lashed out with an elbow but I might as well have been striking the mountain. Socrates didn’t even flinch, just tightened his grip on the back of my neck until darkness crept in around the edges of my vision.

“What’s up there?” I ground out, focusing on the stone-cut steps as we descended. One foot in front of the other. I’d been beaten black and blue, broken and crippled in several places, and Griffon had not fared much better. I had no doubt that he had survived the impact, somehow, but I had no way of knowing what he was contending with up in the clouds. The peak of Kaukoso Mons was entirely closed off from sight by the eternal storm, a pillar of wrath that rose all the way up to heaven.

“What do you think, boy?” Socrates asked. After a bit of silence, he shook me by the neck like a stray dog. “That wasn’t rhetorical.”

I thought back to the first time I had ascended these steps with Anastasia. What she had told me about the Raging Heaven and its perpetual storm.

“The members of the cult call this place a monument to hubris,” I answered, my unease growing. “Which would make the storm a monument to tribulation.”

“Accurate enough,” he said, turning us off onto a winding path that continued down through a series of transplanted grottos. Idly, he grabbed a wild pear from a sagging branch, inexplicably ripe despite the current winter season. He took a bite and chewed noisily, a considering look in his plain brown eyes. “But far from the full picture. You understand the basis of tribulation, yes? Aristotle taught you that much?”

I scowled. “Tribulation is heaven’s punishment for man’s hubris.”

“Go on.”

“When we reach beyond our station, there’s always a greater force to remind us of our place,” I said. “When a man runs out of other men to remind him of his limits, Heaven steps in.”

“Artful, but not the path I was looking to go down.”

“What do you want me to say?” I asked, irritated. “Tribulation Is tribulation. Past a certain point, a cultivator gets struck by lightning every time they advance.”

“Better,” he said, and I scoffed. His hand otherwise occupied guiding me by the neck, the wiseman instead slammed my face against a nearby pear tree, cracking the bark. “Discourse doesn’t have to be an art form at all times. The world is full of wonders enough without trying to fabricate your own from delicate language.”

A Greek suggesting utilitarianism to a Roman. Griffon had rubbed off on me more than I thought.

“You’re saying the Storm That Never Ceases is more than just a storm,” I said. It was an obvious thing, something anyone could guess just by looking at the localized pillar of clouds that never once drifted out of place. But I had to know. I had to be sure of what Griffon was facing.

“It is, and it is not,” Socrates said. “What distinguishes lightning from tribulation lightning?”

“Intent.”

“And what makes you think so?”

I gave the question the attention it deserved. I thought back. “Only during moments of ascension have I seen lightning fall from clear blue skies.”

“And that means it never does otherwise?” Socrates pressed. “Do you see everything there is to see, in the past, present, and future?”

I frowned. “No, but-”

“But?”

“But lightning doesn’t strike from a clear sky with no reason. That’s ridiculous.”

“Life is ridiculous, boy. Until we discern the why and the how, the what will always be absurd. A common mistake of cultivators is to draw a line in the sand between acts of nature and acts of cultivation, as if the two are clear and distinct from one another. As if there’s any separation at all. How can you know that this is something unique to tribulation lightning?”

We took another turn, back onto a stone-carved stairway, but these were overlaid by marble without any jewel veins, and they lead into the mountain rather than up or down it.

“You claimed that a philosopher was a man who knew his limits, that he knows nothing at all,” Socrates continued, with an odd sort of disdain. He sighed. “Statements like that are pleasing to the ear, and not necessarily untrue, but they lack substance. Philosophers, in the end, are men that understand there are countless things in this world that we do not know. The field of natural philosophy, then, is a man’s attempt to understand the rules of nature, in as many small degrees as he can before he dies.

“It is easy to prove a man wrong,” The old philosopher said. “What’s hard is proving him right. So I'll ask you again. What distinguishes the light that strikes before thunder from the punishment of heaven?

I inclined my head, grudgingly, and admitted, “I don’t know.”

“Good. An honest answer.”

“What’s the difference?” I asked him, after a beat.

Socrates shrugged. “I’m sure your friend will tell you if he survives.”

“What was the point of that if you didn’t intend to tell me anything?” I asked, frustrated. Socrates glanced sidelong at me.

“I’m trying to see if there’s anything behind your eyes, boy. If you’re not satisfied with the answers you’re getting, ask better questions.”

I bit down on my tongue, stifling my vitriol. I thought hard.

“Has the storm always been here?”

“Nothing has always been anywhere.”

“Was the storm here before the city?” I amended.

He grunted. “No.”

“And what about the cult?”

“What about the cult?”

I scowled, but clarified, “Which came first? The Storm That Never Ceases or the Raging Heaven Cult?”

“The storm.”

My thoughts whirled. The city first, then the storm, then the cult. As Griffon had explained it to me, and as I had seen for myself back in the Scarlet City, the greater mystery cults of the free Mediterranean were established around natural mysteries. Entities, like the bisected corpse of the fallen sun god, that defied all explanation. That could not be understood by mortal minds.

“Is the storm the mystery?” I asked. Socrates inclined his head.

“It is.”

“Then that means it’s a part of the initiation rites,” I guessed.

“It does.”

“So it’s safe,” I pressed, willing it to be true.

Socrates barked a short, ugly laugh. “No, boy. No, it isn’t that at all. Tell me, what do you know of the Raging Heaven Cult?”

“It’s a cult composed of other cults. A nexus for cultivators in the same way that the city of Olympia is a nexus for Greek cultures.”

“True enough,” he said. “I assume, perilous as the act may be, that Aristotle at least touched upon Olympia‘s political significance?”

I nodded, as much as I could with his iron grip on the back of my neck. I had asked him often enough for stories about the Olympic Games, after all. “It’s called the sanctuary city because no matter what conflict plagues the Mediterranean, each of her cities set aside their struggles to come together and compete in the games. Every four years, from the moment the olympic flame is lit until the champion is crowned, there is peace in the Mediterranean.”

“For a given definition of peace,” Socrates said. “But yes. The Olympic Games serve as a quad-annual armistice, an opportunity, slim as it may be, for unreasonable men to experience a moment of clarity. The city of Olympia, as the host of the games, has taken on a sanctuary status as a result. Regardless of the alliances and feuds between the city states, Olympia remains a neutral entity. Because if nothing else, it needs to be standing for us to enjoy our games. And that is something even the most hated enemies can agree upon.”

“All the world for bread and circus,” I murmured, recognizing the sentiment for what it was. It was almost nostalgic, the reminder of my days before the legions, before Aristotle even. When all that really mattered was who won the chariot races that day.

“Some things are the same no matter where you go,” Socrates agreed. “Now, in the same way that the city and its games serve as neutral territory, so too does the Raging Heaven Cult. A cultivator’s solution to a cultivator problem.”

My brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” Socrates said, utterly exasperated. “Why do you think I was so furious with the two of you? You have no idea the forces at play here. The Raging Heaven Cult is neutral ground for cultivators, and the greater mystery cults in particular. It is not coincidence that each of the cult’s elders are Tyrants from different city-states. What does that tell you?”

I considered it. The Olympic Games were a miracle of political maneuvering, but they only occurred once every four years and for a short period of time. It was one thing for a man to set aside his grievances for five days. It was entirely another to do so indefinitely. And yet here were the Tyrants of each of the greater mystery cults, coexisting for centuries without any overt conflict between them.

That alone was astounding, but there was something about it that gave me pause. Just before I answered, my teeth clicked together. I went over his question again in my head, examining every word.

It is not coincidence that each of the cult’s elders are Tyrants from different city-states.

Tyrants.

“Cultivation makes us more of who we are,” I murmured. I didn’t know much about the Greek style, but some things were universal. “A Philosopher grows by acting as a philosopher. A Hero grows when accomplishing heroic things.”

“And a Tyrant grows in acts of tyranny,” Socrates finished the thought. He waved his free hand. “Go on.”

“A man doesn’t become a tyrant by mistake, and a cultivator doesn’t make it that far by chance,” I said, frowning. “Why would someone like that accept a position in an institution like this? What is there to conquer in a city dedicated to neutrality?”

“Nothing at all,” Socrates answered. Still, he seemed expectant.

“Then why?” I pressed. “Why are they here if they know it will stifle their cultivation?”

Everything I knew of the Greeks, and their cultivators especially, told me that it didn’t make any sense. Their tyrants were not loyal to their own in the same way that a Roman dictator was loyal to the Republic. They had no concept of hanging up their laurel crowns and returning to their humble estates. The ideal of Cincinnatus did not exist here. So why?

“What is here that’s worth more than their advancement?”

“You’ve made an assumption that you have no basis for,” Socrates said. I looked at him, confused. He elaborated, “You assumed that they came here looking for something. More than that, you assumed that they chose to come here at all.”

My eyes widened.

“It goes against a tyrant’s nature to exist peacefully beside his rivals,” Socrates said with utter contempt, as we reached the bottom of the marble stairway and stepped through an amethyst archway. “But it is perfectly within a tyrant’s nature to break his rivals one by one and gather them beneath him. The elders of the Raging Heaven Cult are not here because they chose to be. They are here because the kyrios went out into the world and broke them, each in turn, and dragged their beaten bodies back to this city.”

We stepped into the late kyrios’ estate, into the heart of Kaukoso Mons.

A facsimile of a courtyard awaited us, a grand cavern with ceilings high enough that it would have been impossible to see them if not for the amethyst veins that ran through the stone, emitting a faint but enduring light. Burning braziers lined the walls and torches jutted out from grand, towering pillars that rose from floor to ceiling. Eight pillars in all, and the torches affixed to each burned with a different colored flame. The place reeked of smoke, though the air was entirely clear.

The walls of the courtyard inside the mountain were cut by a pythagorean’s fine hand, cornered eight times. A massive octagon, and a pillar for each side. The tip of my spear made an odd chiming sound as it came down to support my next step, and when I looked down I saw that the path beneath our feet wasn’t simple stone, but instead a mosaic trail made of ivory and gold shards. It wound ahead of us into the octagonal courtyard, spiraling in the center to create a massive portrait of a man that I didn’t recognize, before branching off eight ways towards each of the eight walls of the courtyard.

Each mosaic path, as it left the ivory and gold center, drifted from those colors into other gemstone shades, until eventually they matched the color of the flame burning upon that side’s pillar.

Each path ended at a ceremonial tripod. At the moment, all of those tripods were empty.

Except for one.

“Solus!”

“Selene?” I asked incredulously, watching her leap off of her tripod and rush towards us.

“You’re hurt!” She exclaimed, stopping just a step away from me and leaning forward, her hands hovering over my most visible wounds. I couldn’t see her eyes behind her golden veil, but now that I knew to look for it I could see the faint glow cast by her scarlet heart flames. It was easy enough to imagine those eyes flickering anxiously across my body.

“He’s fine,” Socrates said gruffly.

“He’s beaten half to death,” Selene countered. “Who did this to him? Where did you find him-” Abruptly, she stopped and drew herself up to her full height. Which wasn’t very tall, admittedly. “Did you do this to him?”

“I did,” Socrates admitted without shame.

“Why?”

“You know why,” he said. He urged me forward, brushing aside the girl in the sun rays silks, though without particular force. She fell in step just behind and beside me, hands flickering out as if to steady me and then returning to her sides. “If this one and his friends are to be believed, you saw firsthand what he’s been doing.”

“That is that and this is this,” she said hotly. I felt a powerful sense of vertigo as the daughter of a Tyrant scolded one of the most powerful men I had ever met. “He can barely walk.”

“He’ll live,” Socrates dismissed. “Or he won’t. It’s not worth complaining about.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked her, finally finding my voice.

Socrates rolled his eyes. “Where did you think the Oracles spent their time when they weren’t in their temples?”

I stopped short, and was promptly dragged off my feet when Socrates did not. The spear went out from under me and I collapsed to the ivory and gold mosaic floor, staring at the young girl that immediately bent to help me up.

“You’re an Oracle?” I asked her, stunned.

Selene bit her lip. “I am.”

A few things suddenly made significantly more sense, and others made even less. Knowing that she was an Oracle, it only took me a moment to realize which Oracle she was. Her sun-stained attire was far from subtle, as was the fact that she had literally hopped off of a scarlet tripod to approach us.

“You’re the Alikoan Oracle?” I said, accepting her hand and allowing myself to be pulled back to my feet. Broken bones twinged and my leg continued to hang worthlessly beneath my body.

“Yes.”

Socrates made an impatient sound, dissatisfied with how quickly I was regaining my balance. Selene ducked under my arm, the one holding my spear cane, and shouldered the weight of my left side. Socrates continued on, and though I heavily considered making a break for it and trying to retrieve Griffon, I could hardly imagine making it to the foot of the steps before I was caught again. I took a painful step forward, and continued on with Selene‘s support.

“I thought Oracles were meant to be crones,” I muttered. Selene dipped her head, and when she answered her voice was sad.

“They are.”

Something else occurred to me, and I glanced around the courtyard, at its eight holy perches. “Those tripods. They’re more than simple stools.”

“Prophecies are delivered from the seat of heaven,” Socrates said idly over his shoulder, walking over the unfamiliar mosaic portrait in the center of the courtyard and continuing straight, following the ivory and gold path.

“But why are they down here?” I asked, confused. “The Oracles have temples outside where they can take visitors. Why would they need them here-”

And I understood.

“Go on, then,” Socrates demanded. “Share your discovery with the room.”

“The kyrios is king in his domain,” I said, the pieces coming together like a grand mosaic in my head. “In a lesser cult, that might mean presiding over Heroes, Philosophers, and Citizens. But here, the kyrios reigns over Tyrants, too.”

A tyrant among tyrants. And a hunger to match.

“He claimed the Oracles for himself,” I said, looking around at the courtyard with new eyes. “He used Alexander’s assault on the free cities as an excuse, and he brought them here. He built a temple in his own estate, and he filled it with every Oracle under the sun. For himself.”

“You begin to see what power the Tyrant of Olympia commands,” Socrates said, coming to a set of ivory doors at the far side of the courtyard and pressing them open. “This is what the elders of the Raging Heaven, each of them a Tyrant in their own domain, is maneuvering to seize for themselves. This is the struggle that you and your idiot friend have so brazenly inserted yourselves into.”

I limped into the next room with Selene‘s help, and beheld the late kyrios’ quarters. Grandiose, yes. Ostentatious, absolutely. They were as different from Damon Aetos’ personal office as was heaven from earth. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to properly appreciate the sight. Socrates had already thrown open another ivory door and stalked further into the bowels of the mountain.

“Where are we going?” I finally asked, unable to remain silent. “And why?”

For all that we had miserably failed, Griffon and I had assaulted the old philosopher with everything we had. Though it hadn’t left any lasting marks, we had struck him. And though he had consigned Griffon to the storm, he’d acknowledged that it was a place he could return from. Socrates hadn’t killed him, and he had yet to kill me. Why, when he was so furious with what we had done?

“I told you already. I know you have ears, boy.”

I have no choice but to make right what he left unfinished.

Socrates threw open another door, the most ostentatious yet, and we entered into an utterly unadorned room.

To call it a room at all was a stretch. Where the rest of the kyrios’ subterranean estate was obviously man-made, painstakingly carved out of the mountain and filled with earthly treasures, this room looked like nothing so much as a small cavern. There were no mosaic floors, no pillars, and the walls were naturally rugged and uneven.

The door shut behind us, and the only light in the room came from the amethyst veins in the walls. Just bright enough, with a cultivator’s enhanced sight, to see what lay at the center of the room.

“Aristotle left you unfinished,” Socrates said, crossing his arms. “And now I’m faced with two options. I can let your fool choices lead you to their natural conclusions, or I can finish your education, and perhaps watch you live long enough to become a virtuous man.”

“What does this have to do with that?” I asked, staring at the stone slab jutting up out of the ground, the only thing in the room with a clean, angular silhouette. It was a tablet the size of a man, and it was covered in chiseled script.

“A virtuous man is a worldly man,” Socrates said. “And a worldly man must speak the language wherever he may be.”

I thought back to the Eos, to Griffon‘s uncanny ability to speak to several men who couldn’t possibly understand his mother tongue, and how easily he had understood them. And I thought of all the cultivators that I had spoken to since arriving at the sanctuary city-

That I had spoken to in Latin.

I knelt, painfully, before the tablet. Selene settled beside me, the glow of her eyes behind her golden veil all the more apparent in the dark room.

“This is how cultivators speak to one another?” I asked. Socrates grunted.

“All languages are united by a singular purpose,” he explained. “To convey, from one soul to another, and to be heard. The sounds may differ, but the intent remains the same. Every culture has a foundational myth, their first story worth telling. Each of those stories is written on this shard of Babylon, and every other shard in kind.”

I stared at the tablet. Without a doubt in my mind, I knew that something like this did not exist in the city of Rome.

“Read it,” Socrates commanded. “And be learned. I refuse to teach a man that only speaks barbarian tongues.”

I traced over the script, each carefully carved line. The stone was covered from edge to edge, three sections neatly separated from one another, each in a different language that changed as I looked at them. The text itself was cleanly carved. Easily discerned, even in the low light.

And yet…

“I can’t.”

“You what?”

I felt Selene tense beside me at the old philosopher’s dangerous tone.

“Do you mean to tell me, boy,” Socrates said with violent intonation, “that Aristotle did not teach you to read?”

“It’s not that,” I said, annoyed and frustrated in equal measure. I could feel the beginning of a headache coming on in addition to all of my other injuries. “It’s… it’s a mess. Like two stories written over top of one another.”

As soon as I verbalized it, I had an idea. I closed my left eye, and abruptly, half of the overlapping text vanished, and I could read the middle section.

Begin our singing with the Heliconian Muses,

Who possess Mount Helicon, high and holy,

And near its violet-stained spring on petal-soft feet,

Dance circling the altar of almighty -------.

“Why did you close your eye?” Socrates demanded, and I looked up, startled.

“I can read it now.”

“With only your right eye?” he pressed, sounding for some reason more agitated than he had at any point since our first encounter outside of the bathhouse.

I looked back at the shard from Babylon and closed my right eye, opening my left.

I sing of arms and of the man who first

Came from the coasts of Troy to Italy

And the Lavinian shores, exiled by fate.

“I see a different story with each eye,” I realized, recognizing both from childhood days. “The Theogony and the Aeneid.”

“Oh,” Selene breathed.

And as I continued to read both, alternately opening one eye and closing the other, I felt something inexplicable and profound winding into me through my eyes, through my skull and down the line of my spine. Something primordial, of the same association as what I had felt while I looked upon the bisected corpse of the fallen sun god. Something powerful.

And I was interrupted again, as Socrates slammed a clenched fist against the stone behind him hard enough to shatter it.

“Two stories,” he spat. “Two stories. I’m going to murder that negligent son of three whores.”

“What?” I asked, utterly lost.

“You aren’t meant to see two stories, boy. These tablets show you your culture’s founding myth. What you see on that stone is a reflection of what you are. It’s a marker of your culture. And you see Greece and Rome.”

He struck the wall again. I coughed at the overpowering taste of smoke.

“Your foundation isn’t just unfinished,” Socrates said with mounting wrath.

Selene finished his thought, utterly fascinated.

“It’s split in two.”