Chương 7: Chapter Six: Do You Wish to Be a God?

Cyrus didn't move, his mind racing through everything that had just transpired. Every part of him wanted to march inside and tell his parents the truth instead, that Nicomedes was no such merchant, and that there had been no bandits, only a landowner's son and his bodyguards. He didn't even have to mention the part that would make himself sound like a madman—that Nicomedes had tossed a massive brute through the air with a single finger.

But in order to come clean with everything, Cyrus would have to admit the ugly truth of his lies. And even still, even with all this guilt clawing at his chest, he was scared to do so. Also to add that there were much bigger questions he had. Who is this man? And what does he actually want with me? First, the stranger heals Cyrus's battered body after a beating. Then he conveniently appears out of nowhere a second time, wielding a strange power that could fling a grown man through the air with a single touch.

Now, he was effortlessly manipulating Cyrus's own parents into handing him over within the hour. This whole thing reeked of a trap.

"I—" Cyrus faltered, glancing toward Nicomedes.

"I will speak with Nicomedes. Alone, if I may." His mother's brow furrowed with fresh suspicion.

"Whatever needs saying, boy, you may say in front of your own family."

"Please, Mother." Cyrus forced his voice to be steady, though guilt continued to curdle in his gut.

"It will only be a moment." She studied him for a long while, then shook her head.

"So be it," she said at last.

"But not before I see properly to those wounds. Inside, the pair of you, this instant." She herded them into the oikos, leading them to a louterion filled with water and fetching some clean linen. She sat Cyrus down, and dabbed at the fresh bruising, muttering a lecture under her breath the whole time.

"There." She knotted off the last strip of cloth.

"You will only have five minutes," she said, giving Nicomedes a harsh look of warning.

"Not a breath longer." She promptly huffed, then withdrew into the house. The moment she was gone, Cyrus rounded on the old man.

"What was all that?" he sharply demanded.

"Who are you? And what do you want from me?" Nicomedes studied him for a long moment, before a wide grin spread across his face, his weathered eyes twinkling.

"Tell me, boy." He leaned forward, dropping his voice to a quiet whisper.

"Do you wish to be a god?" Cyrus blinked.

"What?"

"It is merely a simple question." Nicomedes poked Cyrus on the chest.

"Do. You. Wish. To be. A god."

"That's—" Cyrus sputtered, glancing toward the doorway to make sure nobody had heard such a blasphemous question.

"That's insane. Nobody becomes a god. Gods are gods. Men are men." At that, Nicomedes barked with laughter.

"Peace, peace, boy! Don't look so terrified. You aren't exactly going to be like Zeus." He leaned closer.

"But closer to one, perhaps, than whatever you are right now." Cyrus looked on, completely incredulous.

"What you did today," Nicomedes went on, "breathing out fire… that was pneuma."" Pneuma?" Cyrus stammered in confusion. Breath? It was just a common word. Yet the way the old man said it made it sound ancient and dangerous.

"Yes, boy. The breath of creation. The energy of this world." Nicomedes's eyes gleamed hungrily.

"Emperors and heroes and monsters alike, all of them were mere mortals who earned their legends by learning to harness that power." He tapped one gnarled finger against Cyrus's chest, right over his racing heart.

"And you carry that same potential inside you." Cyrus flinched.

"You are mad." Nicomedes scoffed.

"Madness is only a word used by ignorants to describe what they cannot comprehend."

"So what?" Cyrus demanded.

"You wish to make me your apprentice?"

"Apprentice?" Nicomedes coughed out a dry chuckle.

"I care nothing for teaching. I want to see how bright you burn before succumbing to your inevitable end. Call it curiosity. But my desires are irrelevant, whelp. Word of what you did to Ktesios's lineage will spread by morning." Nicomedes sneered.

"And you will be dead." Cyrus flinched. His mind instinctively reverted back to when the machaira had been swinging down on him, and how he had avoided the grasp of the underworld by that tiniest of gaps. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. Still, he bristled. The arrogance of the stranger, and especially how effortlessly he had cornered Cyrus, it enraged him.

"What could they possibly do?" he muttered. The expression of Nicomedes hardened, and he growled with frustration.

"Think, stupid boy. Seriously, are you so dull in your mind that you don't know what those nobles are capable of? He will murder the men of your family. And he will sell the women." Cyrus's blood turned icy, and the false mask of bravado he had put up dissolved away like salt in water. Opening his mouth a few times, finding no words escaping him, he was forced to swallow the hard lump in his throat in order to speak.

"What if I leave?" he blurted out.

"Will they be safe then?" Nicomedes shrugged.

"Do I look like an oracle to you? But well, the chances will be decreased, certainly. Why would the noble waste an effort on a useless massacre?" Cyrus shut his eyes. Oh, how he hated all of this. But he knew that this was all a consequence of his own making. There was no other choice. His family certainly didn't deserve suffering for the crimes that Cyrus had committed.

"Fine," Cyrus spat out. The word tasted bitter upon his tongue. Nicomedes's grin returned at that, so shrewd that Cyrus nearly exploded again, but the reappearance of his mother paused his actions.

"Well?" She looked between them. Cyrus gulped. He steeled his voice. In no way would he waver in front of her.

"I'll accept the apprenticeship," he said. Her face softened at that, the edges of her eyes curling with worry.

"Then let us not waste what little time you have left." In the end, there wasn't much to gather and pack. A poor baker family's thirteen-year-old son didn't own much worth carrying. Just a spare chiton, a woolen cloak, a pair of stronger leather sandals, along with a pouch his mother filled with olives and figs. His father added a small whetstone and an old knife to the pile.

The piece of rusted metal was more suited to cutting bread than defending against anything, but it was pressed into Cyrus's palm all the same Last of all, his mother produced a clay amulet tied into a necklace. A crude little figure of Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. Looping it over Cyrus's head, she pressed her forehead to his.

"Always wear this. May Zeus Xenios look over you, and see you are welcomed whenever you need shelter. Be safe, my child." Cyrus nodded stiffly, afraid to talk, for fear of breaking down into sobs. Lydia suddenly barreled into him, locking her small arms over his waist.

"You're leaving?" She bawled, tears welling in her wide eyes.

"You cannot leave, adelphe. Who will—" Cyrus bent down, grabbing her trembling shoulders. He forced false courage into his voice that belied the terror clawing at him.

"I will return," he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers.

"I swear it." She sniffled loudly, burying her face in his neck. Cyrus planted a kiss into her wild, unwashed curls.

"Be safe while I am gone," he murmured. Near the doorway, Nikias stepped up. Instead of giving dramatic lamentation, his brother silently met him with a firm handshake. His father's farewell was saved for the end. He rushed forward and brought Cyrus into a crushing embrace.

"Bring honor to our blood, paidi mou," his father growled into his shoulder. Was it just Cyrus, or did the older man seem… angry, for some reason? He wondered distantly if his father had realized more than he let on, but there was no time left to ask. Cyrus took a deep breath, and turned to follow his newfound mentor into the dark. ❦ ❦ ❦ The walk to Nicomedes's small house took only a few minutes, but to Cyrus it was a blur.

With a body too numb and exhausted to even properly register his gait, the dirt path beneath him felt awfully distant. Finally reaching the weathered front door, Nicomedes slid inside without a word, leaving Cyrus outside. He quickly emerged with a leather pack slung over his shoulder, and quickly hurried over to the side of the house. There, a muscled brown mule had been tied to a pole, the powerful animal already having been burdened with a saddle filled with travel provisions.

"Stop." Cyrus managed to utter, shaking his head in an attempt to force some awareness back into his mind.

"You… you haven't told me anything. Where are we even going?" Nicomedes sighed.

"Not now, boy. We don't have time." But Cyrus grounded his feet, unwilling to give in.

"A small explanation. That is all I ask for."

"Later," the old man answered bluntly. Then, in a flash, Cyrus found himself in the air. Nicomedes had thrown him onto the horse! Landing heavily on the saddle, Cyrus struggled to move, to protest. But his body betrayed him, exhausted muscles relaxing against the support, no matter how uncomfortable it was.

"If we are still here by dawn, we'll be dead men," Nicomedes muttered, pulling the mule forward using the lead. For an old man, he moved with terrifying speed.

"I plan on dragging us over Cithaeron and well into Attica to lose the hounds, before we cut back toward our true destination." Cyrus frowned, gripping the animal's coarse mane. Exhaustion made his brain feel slow, but the old man's words didn't add up.

"Dead men?" Cyrus echoed.

"If Ktesios sends his men, can't you just... fight them off? Do what you did to that slave?" Nicomedes scoffed.

"Do you think a single man can compare to an army? Do I have to explain such basic thinking to you, stupid boy?" Glancing back, he sneered at Cyrus.

"Besides, you would be dead in seconds in a real skirmish. Now hold your tongue and be quiet for the journey." Clinging tightly to the beast's back, Cyrus fell silent. Even if he didn't want to admit it, the old man wasn't wrong. In his current state, he would not even be able to flee if a group ambushed them, let alone raise a blade to help fight. Soon, the village light disappeared behind them, the utter darkness of the Boeotian wilderness swallowing the road. Cyrus looked up as the night fully enveloped the sky.

The deep violet of twilight morphed into a velvety, obsidian canvas, and then, all at once, the stars spilled out. Cyrus leaned his head back. He had seen the night sky thousands of times, but out here, the heavens felt terrifyingly vast.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Cyrus glanced at Nicomedes. The old man hadn't stopped walking, his pace never slackening, but his head was tilted back now. He stared at the burning constellations above, his weathered face illuminated with cold starlight.

"Beautiful, pathetic little things," he muttered.