Chương 54: 1.30 [Scythas]

Hero of the Scything Squall Slayer of monsters. Champion of humanity. Scythas hadn't been either of those things in a very long time. These days, he hardly remembered what it felt like to be that man. The Tyrant Aleuas, as a venerated elder of the Raging Heaven Cult, enjoyed the privileges of his own estate at the foot of Kaukoso Mons.

A winding series of cobblestone buildings with sloping clay-shingled roofs that flared out at the edges, with several courtyards and natural pools carved out of the mountain where its indigo gem lines were thickest, it spanned over a mile. Citizens and slaves alike that had come to Olympia from the City of Squalls abounded in this estate, serving the elder in Olympia as faithfully as they would the kyrios of the Howling Wind Cult himself. It was impossible to mistake the place for anyone else's domain.

As Scythas stepped over its boundaries, he felt the weight of the Tyrant's influence settle on his shoulder like a heavy hand. It pushed, urging him down a singular path. Servants and citizens nodded deferentially and offered their greetings as he passed. Scythas tried to smile in reply. He failed. At a certain point he was challenged, as all who encroached on Aleuas' personal quarters were challenged. Two of the elder's own men, both deep within the Sophic Realm, held out their hands to stop him.

They wore the arms and armor of the Howling Wind with pride. The Tyrant's influence swept them aside before they could speak, and Scythas stalked into the elder's home. On his way to the central, beating heart of the estate, he was spotted by a young woman that looked like she'd just stumbled out of a hurricane, her hair a mess of windswept curls and her fine silk dress riddled with tears and damp spots.

Her eyes were the color of harvest wheat, a hazel so bright it was nearly gold, and freckles swept across the bridge of her nose like a summer breeze. Surrounded by fussing women both younger and older than her, she nonetheless picked him out as he passed by the adjacent hall. Holding a hand palm up, she softly blew something invisible his way, her eyes holding his.

"Good morning, brave hero," he heard her, clear as day from across the hall. As if she had whispered it directly into his ear. Gooseflesh erupted up and down his arms.

"Good morning, princess," he murmured back in the same way, sans theatrics. She smiled warmly before her minders pulled her around the corner and out of sight. Brave hero. Scythas swallowed back bile, pressing forward to his destination. The Tyrant's estate was a reflection of the Howling Wind Cult that he had once ruled over as kyrios, and his personal chambers were a reflection just the same.

The former lord's personal eccentricities, from what he had been told, had not changed overly much in the centuries since his displacement from the City of Squalls to Olympia. Windchimes hung from the ceilings, the banisters, and the furniture all throughout the room, each swaying in a breeze with no readily felt source.

Chimes of hollow wood that whistled, chimes of gold that resonated as they struck one another, and even chimes of the Raging Heaven's own tribulation amethyst that flashed and hummed as the breeze took them. The cumulative effect was a low, rolling song that urged all that heard it to be at ease. Scythas set his shoulders and stepped fully into the room, following a narrow path through the swinging chimes and falling to one knee in front of an ornate curtain of viridian silk.

The curtain spanned from wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, effectively cutting the room in half.

"Scythas," spoke the Hurricane Hierophant of the Howling Wind Cult. The curtain of sheer viridian rippled in the breeze.

"Thank you for coming." Scythas stared straight ahead, consciously choosing not to track the shadows that shifted behind the curtain.

"Sir." He nodded once.

"You called for me?"

"I did, I did," he said, and the curtain bulged and shifted from side to side, as if a hand was waving dismissively through it. Despite the fact that the shadowed silhouette of a man was ten feet to the right.

"Tell me, how goes your training?" A loaded question, to be sure. When was the last time he'd felt at ease in his own body?

"Well enough," Scythas said.

"Is that so," Elder Aleuas murmured. Where the wind ended and the Tyrant's influence began was almost impossible to discern. So when the breeze threaded through Scythas' hair, tickling the back of his neck, he shivered as if it was the Tyrant's own hands stroking his head.

"Then humor this old man, would you? Let's hear a whistle." In that moment, as every visit to the windchime chamber had a moment, Scythas knew that he was about to die. As surely as he knew that the sea breeze blew cold, Scythas felt his death writ large on the world in that moment, alongside all the other rules of nature. And so he stoked his heart's flame and defied them. Urania, he invoked, a silent plea.

He inhaled in ragged relief when he felt her arms settle around his shoulders, felt the cool touch of her cheek press against his as she faced the Tyrant by his side. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. As always I am with you, hero, she whispered fondly. And as always, you ask of me something my sisters would be better suited giving you. Her crown of stars brushed against his temple as they revolved around her head, warm and inspiring.

She was the Heavenly Muse, the charter of stars and higher mathematics. Indeed, nearly every one of her sisters would have been better suited to this task, Calliope best of all - but Urania was what he had. And so, as always, he would be grateful for what he'd been given. And he would make do. Scythas let slip his held breath, the vital essence of his body, and his pneuma went with it. A clear, piercing whistle split the cascading song of windchime. At once, a vortex of howling wind enveloped him head to toe.

It took only a moment. And it was nearly too slow. Less than a heartbeat after Scythas sealed himself in his howling vortex, the Hierophant dropped a hurricane on his head. Steady, Urania urged him, and Scythas eyes narrowed as he shifted the pitch of his whistle. His own gale winds were nothing compared to the tyrants, and natural law dictated that they would be broken and swept away immediately by the stronger currents, but Scythas let his heart's flame rage and defied that simple truth.

His pneuma persisted, and it struck out against the viridian curtain as Urania reached out and traced a path through the stars. Constellations that only he could see burned in the open air, each star a turning point in the Tyrant's currents, each shining line a shift in pitch that he would have to adjust to. The Heavenly Muse could not teach him how to carry a tune- Scythas had learned that long ago. But she could chart the notes, and guide him through the stars.

Scythas whistled against the hundred chimes and their hurricane winds, and just as they had all but beaten down his cloak of currents, had all but extinguished his heroic flames, the Tyrant's song faltered. Urania pressed her free hand against his other cheek, eyes wide and intent as she bid him to follow her path. He did, as he always had, and for a bare moment the song changed and Scythas took the hurricane in his hand.

The viridian curtain whipped and flared, buffeted such that the other half of the room behind it was revealed for a fraction of a moment, the lounging form of a man too tall to be mortal, too perfectly sculpted. The Hurricane Hierophant held out a hand just before the rising curtain revealed his face, and Scythas swallowed his whistle. The song ceased, every wind chime in the room fell still, and the curtain settled between them once more.

Urania turned and pressed a kiss against Scythas' temple before departing to wherever it was muses went, and silence fell in the elder's chambers. A single note of a tingling chime broke the frozen moment, emerald bells swaying behind the curtain. Aleuas chuckled, and Scythas felt it in his bones.

"Well done, boy. You've improved," his mentor congratulated him. Scythas nodded mutely.

"Only one note, to be sure, but a profound one. Have you been studying like I told you?" He had not. Of course, he had tried, but in the days since they'd last met, when Scythas had been presenting him with a creature rooted out of the shadows, he hadn't been able to focus even for a moment on the lessons that the Tyrant wanted him to learn. His mind had been elsewhere. In the stars, mostly.

"Yes sir," he said, simply. Because the truth would be his end.

"Good, good," Aleaus said, and then, slyly, "though I'm sure your fortuitous encounter deserves a portion of the credit too, hm?" Scythas grit his teeth against the pressure.

"As you say, sir."

"So it is," he mused. Then, as if he had just remembered, he said, "You know, that Solus has yet to grace my humble estate with his presence. You passed my invitation along, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You said he came from the Rosy Dawn. Fighting, what was it-?"

"Demons."

"Demons, yes. On the western front." The distant howl of his wrath betrayed the mild words, made the floor shake and the walls groan.

"I spoke to old 'Zalus after you left, the last time, to convey my thanks to him for keeping you safe. But it was the oddest thing. He said this Solus and his Young Griffon weren't any men of his. And more than that, he denied any knowledge of any demons in the west."

"And now," he continued, his voice utterly calm in the way that preceded the storm, "my influence is under siege. I am not the only one suffering, to be sure, but an unkindness equally shared is an unkindness nonetheless. What do you make of these creatures that haunt my shadows, Scythas?" It was utterly mad to spite a Tyrant in his own domain, no matter what your standing among heaven and earth was. But there were some things that a man just couldn't tolerate.

For Scythas, the scavengers that stalked the Raging Heaven were one of those things.

"It seems to me, sir, that they're simply doing what Crows do. Scavenging and harassing. Making the world a darker place." The shadows behind the viridian curtain went still. Scythas wondered if he was about to die.

"Cannibalism," Aleuas finally said, his voice weary and furious in equal measures.

"You've made it clear what you think of how we old men conduct ourselves. Now step outside of that, and tell me: what sort of crow eats its own kind? Hunts them and no other?" There was only one answer.

"No crow at all."

"Ravens," he concluded, murder in his mouth.

"Outsiders in our ranks. Two of them, just days after your fortuitous encounter. Would you call that a coincidence, Scythas?"

"I might."

"You might," he repeated. The pressure doubled and re-doubled. Scythas burned his heart's blood and forced his head not to bow. He pursed his lips. Prepared a whistle. Aleuas sighed and released him from his grip.

"Whoever they are, find them. Bring them to me, dead or alive by any means necessary."

"Sir…"" Enough." Scythas' teeth clicked together.

"You dislike these things that we do in the dark. Fine. I dislike them even more. But you have to understand the way of the world, boy. You have to understand how precarious our position is. All of our positions.

"We are all frozen in place. Each of us holds a knife in our teeth while the other seven press down upon it, and these gluttonous ravens have taken that opportunity to gouge my eyes out." Good, Scythas didn't say. Once upon a time, when he was still a slayer of monsters and a champion of humanity, he would have shouted it.

"I understand, sir."

"I knew you would. Be safe, boy, and be swift." Scythas accepted the dismissal for what it was, standing and inclining his head before turning and walking back the way he'd come. As he passed through the outermost halls of the estate, Aleuas' voice drifted to him on the wind.

"And before you go, give my daughter a proper greeting, will you? She misses her fiancé." Slayer of monsters. Champion of humanity. Scythas hadn't been that man in a very long time. Perhaps he never had.