721 P.F.
Fall Equinox
Rhetra
Structure is the ultimate human vanity, our frail attempt to impose order on a world of chaos.
A soldier shoves me in the back. “Keep moving.”
Everyone on the street looks away, as if acknowledging my humanity would infect them. Busy urbanites caught in the thrall of community, moving with contrived necessity.
Some flaunt wealth as they traipse by, dressed in the latest fashion of billowing linen shirts, tight leggings, and wrinkled leather boots. The truly wealthy hide, slithering by in slave carried palanquins, invisible, imagined, and envied in their locked and velvet-lined litters. The majority, the rest, wear homespun clothes, and are burdened with the drudgery of society: crates, babies, vegetables, chickens, and dirt.
A guard seizes my elbow. “Stop here.”
Three more prisoners slump along, all wearing the same black robe as me, all guarded by identical triads of dull-eyed, breastplate-wearing thugs. These captives are, like me, gleaned from amongst all the 20-year-olds of Koinon. We are not, as imagined, extraordinary kernels waiting to burst through the topsoil. We are, instead, grist for the millstones of history.
Enter a middle aged man, clearly the builder of this bandwagon, wearing a black robe. It’s the same as mine, except his has an embossed silver triangle on the front and a hood that drapes neatly on his head. I do love it when fashion reinforces hierarchy.
With stiff fingers, he flips the cowl down, revealing short cropped gray hair, a gaunt face, and the kind of bushy white eyebrows that look like caterpillars that may go rogue and crawl off his face at any moment. His guards, sleek and lithe as hawks, sport drawn and hungry bows. Their beady eyes dare us to run so they can skewer us on taloned arrow points.
“Novices,” he says. “I am known as the Lash and you will address me as ‘Your Honor.’ On this Fall equinox in the seven hundredth and twenty first year after Rhetra’s founding, you five shall begin your path as Eristics.”
One of the other captives steps forward. He is clean-shaven to the point of squeaking, bald, at least six inches taller than me, and from what I can discern underneath his too-tight robe, made entirely of muscle. “Aren’t there only four of us present?”
“Your Honor, aren’t there only four of us present?” The Lash repeats slowly, his eyes demanding obedience.
The bald man nods. “Your Honor, aren’t there only four of us present?”
“Obviously, novice, one more is coming.”
Half a dozen day laborers pour out of a nearby stable, raucously hauling two donkeys. They swing wide of our group like crows avoiding rotten meat.
“Aye, more baby Fancies,” one hollers. “Come to dirty the streets of Rhetra.”
Another one mumble swears and picks up his pace.
In my new black cloak, my symbol of status, that stale desire to fulfill my role in the power pantomime and retort with an insult aches like a phantom limb. I laugh instead. The Lash gives me a sneer that clearly has been decades in the making.
One of the other captives turns to me. He has brown shoulder length hair, a thin goatee, and a wandering eye that makes it hard to tell what exactly, if anything, he’s looking at. He’s taller than me, but skinny for his height. Like the rest of the prisoners, he’s wearing a plain black robe, a black shirt, black tights, and black boots.
“Maybe not everyone in Rhetra loves Fancies?” He whispers.
One of the workers turns and spits on the cobblestones. After some protracted eye contact, he and the rest of his group melt away into the crowd.
The Lash frowns. “Fancies is a word, a childish slur, used by Bores. You are novices now. You are no longer common Bores of Koinon. You are novice Eristics. You are Artists. You serve the school, you serve the city of Rhetra, and you serve the land of Koinon. You were educated and fed by the wealth of the three schools, and now you have been chosen to serve, to repay that debt.”
The third prisoner interlaces her fingers and clears her throat. Her hair seizes my attention. It is massive, with curls that look forged by the Master Craftsman, each a tiny black spiral staircase that leads to the part at the top of her head. Her skin has a healthy brown tinge to it, accented by dozens of light orange freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. She’s the same height as me, making us the shortest of the group.
“Your Honor, I never in all my days dreamed that I would find myself in the five-towered city of the Golden Goddess, being brought into the service of the Art on this holiest of days,” she says with a bow. “It is truly a blessing to be welcomed into the fold and made a novice Eristic.”
The Lash inclines his head slightly at her.
“Tell me your name, student.”
“My Eristic name is Peitho, Your Honor.”
The Lash grins a perfect set of white teeth, a grin so manufactured and so devoid of feeling that my stomach turns in response.
“Excellent. That is your only name now, Peitho.”
Peitho bows deeper, her black ringlets rising and falling in assent, her eyes on the cobblestones. “All praises to the golden arm of the goddess, Your Honor.”
The Lash frowns, setting off a war of papery wrinkles on his face. “Where are you from?”
“Youel, Your Honor.”
“Youel. Home of the skeptics,” he says, a fluffy eyebrow dancing slightly.
She scans the street, as if the word might summon doubt or worse, an actual skeptic. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“And were you raised in a skeptic commune?” He asks.
Her face pales, then blotches crimson. “By the merciful goddess, no, Your Honor. Those filthy animals are tearing apart the very fabric of our fair city.”
“Such is the inexorable way of progress, child.”
Peitho chews her lip but offers no response.
The Lash points at the student with the wandering eye. “And you, novice, what is your name?”
“My Eristic name?” He asks, then adds quickly, “Your Honor.”
“Your old names and your old lives are gone now.”
“Xeno.” He shrugs. “If I’m honest, I think I like my new name better, Your Honor.”
“Excellent. And where are you from, Xeno?”
“I grew up here, in Rhetra, Your Honor but we… moved to a small village just north of Adiaphora when I was around 12.”
“Fascinating.”
Does he know he uses that word too much?
Xeno shrugs again, wearing his doubt like a shawl over his hunched shoulders. “It wasn’t a choice, Your Honor. My mother was expelled by the council.”
“Fascinating. And what was she expelled for?”
“She worked for the Rhetran council, Your Honor, as principal diplomat to the city of Leontius. She told dad and me one night over dinner that the council didn’t like some advice she gave them. Hated it, I think she said? Anyway, the next morning, she went to the council building like usual. She showed up at noon at my school and pulled me out. Together we went and got dad from work and when we got home she told us we had to leave the city by nightfall. I remember the look in his eye was somewhere…”
“Truly fascinating.” The Lash takes a step forward and interrupts Xeno. “And who on the council appointed her to the position of diplomat?”
Politics. That’s his angle. I try to speak. “The powerful use…”
“Silence, child!” A dust puff of green emits from his hand and my breath vanishes, like I’ve been kicked in the solar plexus. I gag, double over, and scramble to breathe.
There it is: structure exposed. Brute force.
Peitho flicks me a silent frown.
“Interrupt me again and there will be further consequences,” he says.
Right, more brutality hiding up the sleeve. Check. With effort, I manage to stand back upright. “Understood. Your Honor.”
He swivels back to Xeno, all teeth and smiles again. “Now let us resume our conversation, novice. Who did you say on the council appointed your mother?”
“I um. I don’t know that but I don’t think I did say, Your Honor, although I ramble sometimes. Politics isn’t interesting to most 12 year olds, you know? I remember one time I asked her why the council kicked us out. I don’t think I really wanted to know the answer, I just missed the city and my friends and wanted to talk about all of it. She didn’t answer my question but she did tell me never to go back to Rhetra. She rarely talked about work when we lived here and then never did once we moved. Maybe that was my clue that I’d really lost my home.” Xeno looks around and shrugs. “Until now, I guess. Thanks for the welcome party.”
“Fascinating. And you, novice,” he says, making eye contact with the enormous bald man. “What is your name?”
“Ergon, Your Honor.”
“An excellent name.”
Of course he loves our names, he’s a tailor who hates measuring but loves the warp and weft his own work.
”And where are you from, Ergon?”
“Nous, Your Honor.”
“Excellent. The most splendid coastal city in all of Koinon. And what did you do there? Fish?”
“The fishing business, Your Honor.”
“Not much for words, Ergon?”
“Not at the moment, Your Honor.”
“Just observing and learning?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
The Lash slams his hands together as if knocking dirt off them. “Watch this one carefully, novices. Patience is the,” he trails off suddenly, scowling his forehead into a contour map of impatience. “Here comes the fifth.”
A tiny, black-cloaked female paces toward the group, surrounded by three armed soldiers. She smirks on arrival, her gaze gliding over us. Her eyes idle on the Lash’s disappointed frown and her visage pirouettes into a full blown smile, complete with mischievous dimple. Her hair is only slightly less magnificent than Peitho’s, a whirl of white-blond that could leap off her head and live an epic life of its own. Her legs, though short, are thick and muscular, and look out of place with the rest of her lithe body, as if borrowed from someone else.
Her guards, dull and worm-eyed, are equipped the same as ours: chain-mail shirt, leather jerkin, leather pants, swords, and a unit patch on their left shoulders. The patch is embroidered with a badger holding a snake in its mouth. That’s familiar, though I can’t say how.
The Lash interrupts my thoughts. “Achlys, I presume?”
She bows with the grace and precision of a falcon. “So I’ve been told, Your Honor. My sincere apologies for the delay.”
The Lash moves his mouth as if chewing a tasteless and mealy apple. “I see you know how to properly address me.”
“As you command, Your Honor.”
The Lash claps, the noise a small detonation that swallows my attention. “Excellent. Let’s move on.”
Peitho lights up, her cheeks flushing slightly. “Will we be entering through the gate of the Wise Goddess herself?”
“That is the custom,” the Lash says.
He goads the group north, toward the market, the massive walls of the city, and the looming statue of Rhetra. Nothing solidifies authority so clearly as two tons of painted stone shaped into the likeness of a war deity hefting a sharpened spear.
Ten steps later, we’re plunged into the overwhelming crucible of a farmers’ market. The din of mercantile exchange hits my ears like a fistful of knives. The reek hijacks my nose. I cough and spit onto the pavement. Somehow I fight back a panicked demand from my stomach to empty.
“You alright?”
It’s the one with the wandering eye. Xeno.
I shake my head. “No idea. I think I just need a moment to adjust. Maybe it was that punch from the Lash or maybe it’s that I’ve never been to… a market this big.”
Xeno points at the Lash’s back. “He never asked you where you’re from, did he?”
I laugh cautiously. Here we are: prisoners surrounded by a contingent of escorts, speaking casually to one another about markets and home cities. Those in charge want us to bond, to be friends, to prepare for some future time in which we sacrifice ourselves to some unseen summit under the delusion of camaraderie. “Born and raised in the nowhere village of Topos.”
“Just south of Adiaphora?”
“Shh!” I mock.
He winks. “Was I not supposed to know?”
“No one outside of our olive groves is supposed to know our secret location.”
“Compared to where I live… lived… Adiaphora is a sprawling city.”
Another laugh escapes me. “The village council would fart with horror to hear their never-changing hamlet called a city.”
He shrugs.
“Where’d you grow up?”
“Doxa,” he says, searching my face. “Don’t worry. Really nobody has heard of it. All we’ve got is a bunch of mushroom farms, fields of grain, and a temple to great mother Oumehis.”
“Oumehis? The mother of all? I didn’t know anyone had a temple to her. That’s crazy.”
In a small village, there’d only be one temple. Everyone in that village would belong, which means he’s a member of that temple I just called crazy. “Like crazy weird, I mean, not like crazy insane. Like how many of those are there even in all of Koinon?”
Xeno nods as a new voice rises above the noise of the market and smothers our conversation.
God talk. Only a sermon is delivered in that persistent cadence, that grating tone, that hammering drivel that assaults your awareness and can’t be ignored.
The speaker stands on a wooden crate, dressed like a peasant grandpa: plain brown shirt, pants, and sandals. His beard is trimmed to a sharp point and his head freshly shaved on the sides, making him look like a well-groomed, if frail, lizard.
“Hear me, children, for the divine is the bow that cannot be grasped, fired by the archer that cannot be conceived. Know that all these words miss the mark, as will any metaphor of the infinite. Yes, for all we can see, all we can feel, all we can know is the emanation, the path of the arrow. And what, you may ask, is this divine trajectory, this thing that can not be grasped? Behold, it is an arc, a path that is the future prophet of flesh who shall unveil the dilapidated edifice of the ancient gods and their false stories. It is the prophet who will deliver us and transfix us, stringing us back toward that bow which cannot be named, back towards the Source, children, the Source. Have you heard that this prophet will be one of us, children? It is so, for they will be blessed with the Art, and they will rise up from the city of the five gates, they will rebel…”
The tiny girl, Achlys, bursts from her triad of guards. “Liar! You and every one of your crazy fucking cultist followers are nothing but donkey shit.”
The crowd flows instinctually away, leaving the preacher and Achlys with nothing but bare cobblestones between them. She gnashes her teeth like fire seeking dry tinder, and her three escort guards rush in to restrain her.
“My child, I do not know who has hurt you, but let me assure you that there is a path to healing for you and for all of humanity, one path whereby we submit to wisdom. One path where we wither before our own ignorance and admit the Truth. The singular Truth, yes, that the divine creative force of the universe lies beyond. Beyond the weak tools of our intellect, our words, and our experiences.”
With a hiss, Achlys showers spit on his sandals. “Fuck you, charlatan!”
Ergon stands next to me, a full head taller than all others in the market. “I have seen this variety of holy man before.” He talks as if he is taking notes at a lecture, not witnessing the beginning of an assault.
The Lash flaps a finger at the guards. “Bring the novice away from that nattering fool.”
One of the guards hefts Achlys and carries her to the Lash. The crowd of humanity resumes shopping and meandering, blithely walking through the fading embers of tension. The preacher resumes his pontifical cadence, his automatic monologue completely undisturbed. “Who among you demands the Truth? Who among you demands certainty? Who among you demands purpose? All of humanity has earned the Truth. All of you have extracted...” His voice melts away as we plow through the market, the guards propelling the still boiling Achlys forward.
“Why is such blasphemy against the Golden Goddess allowed in the sacred city?” Peitho asks.
The Lash waves his hand behind him, not bothering to look at what he is dismissing. “That idiot’s drivel is merely the newest grafted branch on the ancient and blighted tree of superstition.”
“There should be a law against such things,” Peitho says.
“Instead, at the Dean’s request, the fair council of Rhetra decreed a law protecting such pestilence,” the Lash replies.
“Disgusting,” Peitho says.
Xeno elbows me. “Can you imagine what kind of fool you have to be to think you have found the one and only path to the truth?”
“Can you imagine how many people pretend to agree with the proclamations of the powerful so they are left alone?”
Xeno shrugs and grins. “If I agree with you now, will you think I want to be left alone?”
I laugh. “You saw how the Lash shut me up like a baby, so you can’t possibly think I’m powerful.”
“Weren’t you the only one who rattled him?”
“No. Anything he threw at me was an act. But the short girl…”
Xeno’s eye wanders more, and red flashes across his cheeks. “Achlys?”
“Yeah. The one who came in late. She genuinely pissed him off.”
He smiles. “That was beautiful, wasn’t it?”
Achlys, as if summoned, moves closer to us and points. She seems completely composed, as if she hadn’t just screamed at a complete stranger. Her guards are still watching her closely. “Who’s the oaf on a pedestal?”
I follow the finger and see a familiar face. A statue of my uncle Thomas. He looks younger than when I knew him, and more muscular than I remember or maybe more muscular than he ever was, but that’s him. He’s got the family nose, same as mine and dad’s. He’s not wearing a helmet, but otherwise he’s in full Digger gear: spear, breastplate, shield, grieves, boots, sword strapped to his side. His mouth is open wide in a battle cry. It’s meant to look like he’s leading a charge but there are no other statues, no other stone soldiers around him, only the pedestrian flesh of shoppers.
Peitho gasps predictably. “Have some respect! That’s Thomas the Poet, the hero of Rhetra.”
Achlys makes a noise like an irritated donkey. “Looks like any other fool with a spear to me, ready to fly into death for some rich fucker’s immortality project.”
“Every cause needs a hero or two to clamor, then clamber over,” I say.
“They could have at least picked someone better looking.”
“Without Thomas’ leadership, the Grays would have burned the city of the five gates to the ground!”
“How utterly fucking tragic,” Achlys says. “Maybe then I wouldn’t have been taken from my people and brought here.”
I walk closer to my uncle. At the base of the pedestal is a short poem.
Thomas the Poet:
“My duty and life are the same:
All for the splendor of Rhetra’s flame.”
There’s no way Thomas would write something so feeble and jingoistic. There’s also no way he would have called himself, “Thomas the Poet.” Someone else’s lies and someone else’s titles. So it has always been. The soldiers are props and the powerful etch whatever story they want in stone.
Peitho and Achlys, still trading nasty stares, move forward. I trail behind. The demeanor and dress of the crowd changes from commercial to celebratory here at the edge of the market.
The Lash stops at a butcher’s stall. I can’t decide which is more disturbing, the flies, the smell, or the fact that no one has accused me of being a gaunt doppelgänger of the statue of Thomas.
“As per the custom of the Eristic school, new students are welcomed into the fold during one of the five city festivals. Today is the fall equinox,” the Lash says drolly, “as I’m sure you’re all aware.”
Peitho’s body vibrates like a child on New Year’s expecting gifts of cakes and coins. “The sacred birthday of the Goddess.”
“Yes. Expect the outer city to be,” he says with a thick sigh, “a circus of ignorance.”
After his words, costumes pop up like mushrooms after a heavy rain. The women are done up in homemade armor and shields. Some have fake eagles affixed to their shoulders. Some wear gaudy necklaces made of painted stones, shells, and string. One has taken great effort at painting an eagle on a shield. I look to see if Peitho has noticed, but she’s absorbed in conversation with Ergon.
The men wear black leather, their faces painted down the middle with makeup: half sun, half moon. Most carry cheap bows or even sticks hung lamely with string. One is attempting, with no success, to lead a live peacock on a leash.
The syrupy crowd gives way to our entourage.
As we pass under the menacing stone likeness of the golden goddess, the absurdity of her shield decoration strikes me. Why in the hells does a war god have a pair of crossed quills embossed on the front of her buckler?
“Why pens?” Xeno asks.
I laugh. “I was just thinking the same thing. Hardly seems to match the edifice of menace she’s got going on.”
He grins. “Did you just actually say ‘edifice of menace?’”
“What if I did?”
He shrugs. “Maybe the pens are in one of the stories or something?”
Some distance ahead, Peitho speaks up, her tone chalked with confusion. “Why are there pens on her shield? Where is Episteme, the sacred eagle?”
Xeno and I burst out laughing.
She turns red and rises to her tiptoes. “Is blasphemy a joke to you two?”
The Lash sighs. “The bird and the pens are local sectarian variants.”
Peitho huffs at the air furiously. “I can assure you, Your Honor, as a pure maiden of the temple of Rhetra at Youel, that I have memorized and can recite all the true tales of Rhetra, written in the ancient tongue of Aoristos…”
The Lash rolls his eyes. “Yes, yes, child. You must forgive my willful ignorance in regards to the various superstitions among the villages of Koinon.”
Peitho’s mouth opens and closes like an asphyxiating fish.
Ergon steeples his fingers together. “If I may add something, Your Honor?”
“If you must,” the Lash says.
“It's my understanding that in the city of Rhetra, the Goddess has taken on an aspect of scholarship over the last 200 years because of the increasingly dominant role of the Eristic school in local government, particularly since their pivotal role in defending the city during the siege of the Unification war.”
There is no way this kid has any friends. Though with his imposing frame, probably no enemies either.
The Lash lets loose an aggrieved sigh. “I do not envy the work your Eristic Instructors will have to do in order to overcome all the nonsense in your heads.” He shakes his head like he is contemplating the death of a squirrel smashed beneath a cart wheel. “Let us proceed to our door.”
Maybe Xeno looks at me. Which eye does he see out of? Does he choose one or does he see out of both?
“Our door?” Xeno asks. “We get our own door?”
“Oh I’m sure Eristics get more than that,” I say.
“What’s that mean?” He asks.
“I mean powerful people structure things in ways that benefit them.”
“Like building their own private doors into a city?”
“That‘s the obvious one.”
“Let’s jump on that power then,” he says with a mostly straight face, “Think I can get three doors and a window with my new Eristic name carved on them?”
I laugh.
We close in on the city walls, causing the barracks that flank either side of the gate and sit next to the statue’s legs to look like luggage crates. Where does a war goddess go for fun? More importantly, what does she take with her? What’s in those crates? Spare swords and tourniquets?
“I think that’s about the same number of soldiers from 8 years ago,” Xeno says, pointing to the troops stationed by the buildings.
They are fully armored, strutting about and scanning the crowd, each one wielding a six foot long spear as a walking stick. “That’s a lot of showing people who’s in charge.”
“On the ramparts, too,” Xeno says, moving his finger upwards to the top of the wall. It’s lined with archers. “You think the city expects a war?”
“That. Or wants one.”
He grins slightly, the grin of someone who presumes they’ve led you to a conclusion that you’ve been holding your whole life.
We’re 40 feet from the walls and there are no more stalls here, no more merchants or shoppers. It‘s all gussied revelers queuing to gush through the gate. The guards are stopping each one, asking them questions, and extracting a toll. “Is there a fee everyday?” I ask.
“Unless things have changed, the tolls only happen on festival days.”
“And what’s to stop the powers that be from declaring a festival everyday?”
He laughs. “Other powers?”
The Lash steers us away from the crowds and towards a door about 30 feet away. Standing on either side of the entrance are two guards. They bow deeply to the old man and step aside.
The Lash fixes his hand on a silver square that is inlaid on the oak door, holds it there for a moment then steps back. The polished door hinges swing dutifully outward and we file through one at a time. The guards, locked mechanically into place via obedience, watch with vapid patience.
The noise outside the city is the chaos of humanity. The noise inside is the dischord of festivity. Hundreds of drummers and dancers swirl like brown leaves blown from shedding trees.
Xeno, less than a foot away, shouts so I can hear him. “Maybe inside the city, the Rhetrans respect Fancies?”
“You’re mistaking respect for fear and hatred.”
“Did you say they fear and hate us?” Xeno asks.
“He might have said,” Achlys shouts as she walks over, ”they have beer and hiatus.”
Xeno laughs. Achlys points at the nearest group of dancers. “These troupes are shit.”
“The dancers or the musicians?” Xeno asks.
“Both,” she scoffs. “I’ve met dead people with better rhythm than these rubes.”
“How many dead people have you met?” I ask.
“It’s only a matter of time,” she says.
Laughing, the two of them and their six guards slice forward through the mob, away from me.
It’s not just the dancers whose clothes are louder than thunder. Nearly everyone is dressed as bright-eyed Leontius the archer or wise Rhetra the soldier. The drummers look like pregnant rain clouds, floating in oversized pants and fluttering white shirts.
Ergon wades closer to me. “We have a similar festival in Nous this time of year,” he says, his height and bulk making him stand out like a breaker at the edge of the ocean. “Assuming this performance has the same story behind it, what we are watching is a re-enactment of the divine siblings chasing their cousin Eyrx.”
Does he think I’m from the Empire? Why in the hells is he explaining this to me? “Their cousin?”
He points at a troupe. Where is the Fox? “The monkey represents the divine siblings’ mischievous cousin Eryx.”
A monkey? “Huh. I didn’t see her before.”
“The dancers deliberately move in ways that make it difficult to see Eyrx. Troupes will use their smallest dancer who has the best ability to hide to play the role of the trickster.”
“That’s obscure,” I say.
“I have been told there is a certain satisfaction afforded to the viewer when they locate Eryx.”
“Yeah, you get to feel superior to everyone who can’t seeit.”
“Interesting,” he says.
“Or you get to over-explain it to someone who already understands,” I say.
His face goes flat for a moment. “Was that a joke?”
“Did it make you laugh?”
“No.”
“Then it wasn’t a joke.”
Slightly ahead of us, Xeno, Achlys, and their guards have stopped. I step away from Ergon and eavesdrop. They’re watching a particularly vibrant troupe whose drummers, instead of wearing white, are wearing multicolored quilted clothes that have feathers sewn into them.
“That’s why they aren’t shitty dancers,” she is saying.
“Because they’re thieves?”
“The People aren’t thieves.”
“But they steal things, right?”
“Only because they have to.”
“Isn't that still breaking the law?”
“Law? You plan on joining the fucking Council later in life?”
He shrugs.
“You’re a dancer, right?” She asks.
“I don’t know that my enjoying dancing means I’m a dancer, does it?” He asks.
“Get over yourself. Look at them.”
These people know how to move. The divine siblings fling and hurl themselves over anything and anyone they twirl past. The chaotic choreography obscures the monkey, who rolls, dives, and hides behind doors, trees, statues, columns, spectators and other dance troupes. They vanish around a corner, leaving behind their inferior competition.
“They’re good, right?” Xeno asks.
He’s wandered back next to me, a dazed smile on his face.
“They’re better than the group that comes to Topos.”
“You said your family were farmers, so you trained to be a Digger as part of your schooling, right?”
“I can dig with shovel, sword, or spear.”
He snaps his fingers and smiles. “So then you probably know what graceful movement looks like. Dancer, soldier… it’s all the same, right?”
Ergon steps in. “He’s absolutely correct. The same human movement system is applied in all athletic endeavors and what you abstractly call ‘graceful movement’ is simply the efficient use of the natural tools of the organism in any situation.”
Xeno laughs. “I guess you could say it that way, sure.”
The two of them keep talking and I slow down, letting them pull away. Up ahead is a second, thicker but slightly shorter city wall. The noise and crowds thin, bringing an unexpected lull.
The Lash’s voice slays the calm. “Did you see the festivals when you lived here, Xeno?”
“Does seeing it through the window of our apartment count, Your Honor?”
With no reply, the Lash leads us to a side door next to the main gate. As it was by the outer wall, there is a large space in front of the entrance that is clear of buildings except for two squat military barracks.
“Your Honor, why take this door when there is no line at the gate?” Ergon asks.
“Not everything is about efficiency, child,” the Lash says.
This door also has two guards who bow, uncross their spears and move out of the way when the Lash approaches. The old man once again presses his palm into the silver square and strides through.
There is a congregation of Fancies arrayed on the other side of the door. One marches pompously in front of the rest, proclaiming his power through positioning. He’s got white curly hair, the kind of curls that are so tight that they look wet, and he’s sporting the face of a man accustomed to telling everyone what to do.
Standing behind the Uber-boss are six more. Two are identical twins: females of middling height and age. The third is a fossil of a man, propped up by a cane. Fourth is a young man, who stands out against the backdrop of the ancient folks around him like a larva buried under a swarm of flies. Fifth is a smiling woman with knots of gray hair sprouting from her head. Finally, the last one isn’t a Fancy. He’s an older dark skinned man, covered in scars and dressed like one of the Lash’s guards.
We step through. Our guards stay behind, while the Lash’s bowmen come through. Deeper we go, into the prison.
The Lash shuffles out ahead and bows grudgingly. “Your Honor.”
“Your Honor,” the other man says, stepping past the Lash, and sweeping over us with a stale wave. “Novices! I am the Dean. I, along with all your other Instructors,” he says, gesturing to the others, “would like to extend our warmest welcome to you. Welcome to the inner city.”
He oozes over each of us. Everyone receives an over-wrought question and a sham smile. Xeno is the only one who replies. Achlys grimaces. Ergon nods. Peitho looks awestruck. I’m last.
He squeezes my hands. “Elenchus. Welcome to Rhetra.” He edges his face far too close to mine, revealing errant nose hairs and billowing bags under his eyes. “Welcome.” I feel an itch in my head and an inkling that this is all a dream. “Tell me, do you truly believe a society without hierarchy is possible?”
My mind gags on a response then in a torrent, vomits out dozens. Most are familiar lines I’ve used before. A few are crafted to the Dean, carved in anticipation of his responses. I strategize verbal strikes and ripostes ten exchanges deep but manage to say nothing. He releases my hands, leaving me choking on the non-conversation.
The Dean, bodyguard in tow, walks over to a stage I hadn’t noticed. An audience seated in front of the stage is made up entirely of people in black robes, most of which bear the silver triangle, a few of which, like ours, are plain and have no hood.
There is a standing crowd as well. It is a mix of a few more robed people, guards, and a few merchants.
“Do you think this is the entirety of the student body?” Ergon asks, stepping close to me and nodding at the seated group. “There are about 100 students, though it is difficult to distinguish them from one another because of their identical outfits.”
My tongue becomes unglued. “There’s a few more standing.”
“Those who are standing appear to be wearing a slightly different variety of robes. Perhaps they are not Eristics?”
Achlys steps up to my other side, the faint odor of olive oil following her. She puts her hand on my shoulder. “The bald meat heap is right.” Her hand slides off of me and she lets out a snort. “Check them hems. So bright. So bold.”
Among the standing Fancies, all have a thin but shiny border of red or purple at the bottom of their robes.
Peitho finds an empty chair and sits.
An actor steps out onto the stage. They are dressed as a fully armored Rhetra. An actual living, blinking eagle rests calmly on their shoulder. The shield, I notice with a giggle, is embossed with a pair of crossed pens.
Rhetra sets down her spear and shield on a table. “Brother, are you here?”
Another actor emerges onto the stage, dressed as Leontius the archer. He walks out and sets his bow on the table. “I am here sister.”
Two more people walk on stage and take the center. One, a woman with incredibly thick red braids and a white cloak, grabs Rhetra’s spear. The other, a man in a red cloak with black curls that nearly rival Peitho’s, holds Leontius’ bow.
“Now that our champions are here, shall we begin, brother?” Rhetra asks.
“Yes, sister, let us begin,” Leontius says.
“Champions, here is your question: what is power?”
There’s some grumbling until Rhetra clears her throat loudly and begins to speak.
“Let us first examine the way the word is used commonly. Power, when…”
Ergon leans over. “I think those people must be students from the other schools.”
“Those people?”
“The ones with the differently colored hems.”
“Other schools?”
“There are two other schools of Fancies in Rhetra. In addition, there are the healers.”
“Healers are Fancies.”
He looks at me blankly. “When I was eight years old, I broke my back falling out of a tree. It cost my parents everything they had, but they hired a healer. Not a Liminal. A full fledged healer. They wore the hooded robes but no triangle.”
“The healer was probably still a novice.”
“No. I asked them.”
“Of course you did.”
“It is in my nature to be curious.”
Achlys nudges me in the ribs.
“Hey big guy,” she says with a chin nod at Ergon, “you see the actress with the cheap red wig?”
I squint. That’s a wig?
“Rhetra. Yes, I see her,” he says.
“Can you scoot your ass closer and decipher what’s painted on that pedestal?”
Rhetra is standing in front of a short marble stand that has tiny designs on it. It might be writing. It might be squiggles.
“Why?” He asks.
Achlys grins and gives me another, slightly harder nudge. “Curiosity is its own reward. Stubby nose and I will go to the side and check it out from that angle too.”
My nose is not stubby. It’s small, but not stubby.
“Yes.” Ergon carefully makes his way through the chairs, finding a seat near the front. Achlys grabs me by the arm and drags me away.
We’re not going the way she said we would. “Aren’t we going to the side of the stage?”
“No, dipshit. We’re going to find Xeno. He wandered off and he’s the kind of fool who doesn’t think there are consequences for that sort of thing.”
“Why risk chasing after some guy you just met?” I ask.
“That’s the kind of fool I am,” she says.
We’re still mostly in range of the performance. “You don’t think the dozens of guards will come after us?”
“They didn’t flinch when Xeno left.”
“So why bring me?” I scan the guards. They are as intent on the performance as everyone else.
She winks and lets go of my arm. “Gotta have a partner in crime.”
We walk. Why am I still following her?
“Why not bring Ergon too? We might need to lift a building up or something.”
“The meat man? He’d tattle.”
“You’re probably right,” I say.
“That’s the smartest fucking thing you’ve said today.”
We’re outside the stage area now, weaving through increasingly small pockets of people. For the first time, free of conformist revelers, the interior architecture of Rhetra becomes visible. The buildings are packed tight, forming seamless rows along the street. Every facade is made of massive stones that no single human could lift. Overhanging the roofs and staring down at us are carved stone faces that look somewhat like enlarged versions of masks you might find in a temple. They run the gamut of expressions, from passive observer to enraged aggressor.
“You’re big city gawking, Farmboy. Keep your eyes forward or someone will make you a mark.”
Did she just call me a farm boy? “Somebody has to gawk, don’t they?”
She faux laughs with her shoulders. “The yokel can play funny. Good for you, Farmboy.”
“You know Xeno grew up on a farm, right?”
“Yeah, he told me. But you were born in the fields. His ass only got dragged out to the grain when he was twelve, so you win, Farmboy.”
“There he is.” She’s pointing at a gathering of people. Xeno is among about two dozen people in a loose ring, all of them turned intently to three figures in the center. In a wider arc, statues of the gods are posed in half naked detachment.
Xeno doesn’t see us approach. Achlys and I flank him.
An older man, dressed in loose clothes that look like they’ve been mended hundreds of times, is blathering on about carpenters to a younger man. Flopped on the man’s foot is a medium sized, soft eared brown dog. A lanky gray haired woman is kneeling beside the dog, petting it.
Achlys pokes Xeno’s shoulder with a finger, as if testing the firmness of a piece of fruit. “Hey Wanderer,” she says, “we’ve got to get back before the Fancies notice we’re gone.”
Xeno’s eyes remain riveted on the speaker. “Will they even notice?”
“If you want to sneak around, that’s fine, I’m all in, but be stealthy for fucks sake, don’t wander off like a damn toddler.”
“Did they say we had to stay at the stage?”
“People in charge assume everyone beneath them absorbs the rules without actually ever hearing them. They’re going to come looking for you. For us,” I say.
Achlys slaps Xeno on the back. “Awkwardly put, Farmboy. Now let’s go.”
Xeno turns, nodding intently. “You promise you’ll take me out here again?”
“I don’t make promises, Wanderer.”
“Wanderer?”
She gestures at the crowd, the statues, and the open space around us. “You earned it.”
“How do I earn a promise?”
“I already said I don’t make them, Wanderer, but if you want to see this old fucker in the disguise again, I’ll see what I can do.”
I look at the man in the mended pants. She was right about the wigs. “Disguise?”
“Yeah. That’s not a man.”
I feel slightly dizzy. “You mean like not a human or not a male?”
She snort laughs, and several of the people in the crowd give her a disgusted look. She leans in close and whispers in my ear. “That ‘man’ there? That’s a woman.” She grabs Xeno by the elbow, and leads him away. I scrutinize the old man, who is grilling his companions with questions. He has a beard. It looks real to me. Achlys’ voice jams into my bewilderment. “Come on, Farmboy!”
I follow her back to the play and we slip unnoticed back into the audience.
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