Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia

Selene

They panicked.

The ivory gates had spat them out into an underground tomb, a beehive tholos with only the central coffin and its ivory shroud to fill the space. Scythas rounded on the gates and wrenched at them again as soon as he realized what he was looking at, and Selene turned to help him. The gates fought and groaned, but they got them open again. Hero and Heroine slipped back through the same way they’d come.

Instead of stepping back into the empty Orphic House, though, they found themselves in another beehive tomb.

“What is this?” Scythas demanded. Not so much talking to her as he was the ivy-covered coffin in the center of the tomb. “What do you want?”

Something stirred in the shadows behind the coffin at the words spoken in the kyrios’ voice. Selene inhaled sharply.

A low buzzing noise rose up from the dark. Selene turned and drove her shoulder into the gates they’d just crossed through, stoking her heart’s flame while it hammered away in rising panic. The gates groaned open. Scythas whistled a terse note and moved to confront the sound behind the shadows-

Selene grabbed him by the faded green scarf around his neck and yanked him through the open gates.

The Hero of the Hurricane Heights hit the ground and rolled, gagging. He held his neck, looking up at her incredulously.

Another underground tomb. Selene cast around, peering through the shadows with every one of her mortal and refined senses.

“How much did you know of the kyrios and his interests?” she asked him, creeping warily into the tomb. She pulled her spear of holly and bronze from the folds in her sunray silks, its carved prophecies catching the light of her eyes and shifting in quasi shadow motion.

Scythas coughed and cleared his throat, pushing himself up with a hand. “More than I wanted to. Less than I could have.”

That sounded about right. Exasperation joined unease in her heart.

“Did you know that he cultivated his own honey?” she asked. The pretty Hero blinked.

“He was a beekeeper?”

“The first of them,” she confirmed. “Or first among them. He was always so drunk when he spoke of it, it was hard to tell exactly what he meant. But yes, he kept his own hives. Dozens of them, wherever he could find a dark and damp enough space to fit one. Do you know why?”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t for the honey,” Scythas muttered, rising to his feet and pulling his sword from its sheathe. He held it firmly, in a proper grip, but somehow the image of it in his hand was wrong. The Hero eased away from the ivy-covered coffin she had nearly tossed him straight into, joining her in casting around for movement in the dark.

“It was for the honey.” She smiled briefly at his confused glance. “It’s just that along with the honey came other… marvels.” The kyrios had called them blessings. When her father had spoken of the kyrios’ buzzing hives to her, he had labeled them curses.

It was no coincidence that the cracks and crevices that riddled the darkened caverns of the earth were so often filled by combs of gold and the buzzing drone of nature’s honey makers. In the same caves and dark places that served as gateways to what lay beneath, it was not uncommon to find bees and their hives. The kyrios had explained to her once, intoxicated as he tended to be, that each bee was the soul of a son or a daughter that was yet to be born. He had explained to her their chthonic nature, and the place they occupied within his domain.

Pacing around the room, Selene idly rubbed her thumb against a faint pinprick of a scar on the tip of her index finger.

“Once, when I was too young to climb onto my scarlet tripod without someone else first lifting me up, the kyrios showed me one of the hives he kept in his estate.” She strained for any distant sound, any flicker of beating wings and little bobbing bodies in the shadows, but found none. The hand that had her heart in a vice slowly began to loosen its grip. “It was in a corner of a room deep within his quarters, bereft of anything else. Cold and damp.”

Above, at the highest point of the faux-vaulting ceiling of the beehive tomb, she heard a faint buzz. Rearing back her spear, she heaved it with everything she had straight up. The moment before it left her hand, the scarlet glow of her eyes rushed up the length of the spear’s shaft and filled every carved groove in the wood. The glowing prophecies lit up the tomb as the spear shot straight up-

And vanished. Gone, to somewhere else. In the brief moment before the spear disappeared from her senses, they saw the coming swarm.

“Out!” she shouted, and they each leapt for the ivory gates.

“A pair of mad men are having an argument-“

“Exchanging discourse, you mean?”

“If you’d like to call it that. Each of them believes they are the greater king and that the other is their lesser. One of them is ruler of a grand marble city, and the other commands the shadows that lurk in every corner that the light won’t touch. Tell me, girl - which of their domains is greater, and which of them is lesser?”

“The first one is greater. He’s king of an entire city and the other one is only king of shadows - that’s the same as being king of nothing at all.”

“Incorrect.”

“What!”

“The first man is king of only one humble city. Within its borders he reigns supreme, but only within its borders. The second man is king of every shadow, in every kingdom and beyond them, too. The domain that can be marked on a map is ever less. The domain that exists in every corner, no matter how small a part, is always more.”

“But they’re only shadows!”

“Shadows, and whatever those shadows contain. The king of a marble city is king of all that resides within his domain. The king of shadows is just the same. All that persists in the shade is his to command - like these bees here.”

“Even the bees?”

“Even the bees. Here - beckon with a finger, and see if one comes.”

“As if a bee would listen.”

“Is that so? Well, look what happens when I beckon one.”

“Wha-!”

“I called him, and so he came. Have you ever seen a honeybee rest like this on the finger of a man?”

“… maybe.”

“Ho? Cheeky girl. In that case, have you ever seen one dance?”

“!”

“From thumb to pinky, then index and ring. To the middle he returns, the center of his fingerling stage. Go on, clap for him. He put on quite a show - just listen to him buzz.”

“How do you know it’s a boy?”

“I’m looking at his soul. He’ll be a handsome thing when he’s born again, someday.”

“Born again? As a person?”

“Of course. That’s what every bee is, after all. An unborn soul. It’s why they buzz around in my shadows, straddling the line between life and death.”

“So that bee will be a baby someday?”

“He would have been, yes.”

“AH! You- what are you doing!? Why are you squishing him!?”

“Because I can. See how he doesn’t sting me, even now? Do you know why that is?”

“I don’t care, just let him go- ow!”

“Ah. You killed him.”

“… why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did he sting me?”

“Because he was fearful and in pain, and I wouldn’t allow him to sting me.”

“B-but…”

“None of that. It’s only a bee sting. Nothing worth crying over.”

“What’s going to happen to his soul?”

“The same thing that’s going to happen to yours.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means it’s time for you to fetch me another drink. Quickly now. I won’t be here forever.”

“The shadows aren’t safe,” Selene whispered harshly, balling up her fists and punching the sloping walls of yet another beehive tomb as hard as she could. She had seen what a punch was supposed to look like, in the boxing events at the Olympic Games and in the memories of those that came to her for guidance. She knew her form wasn’t what it could have been.

Still, even her sloppy punches should have been enough to shatter these glossy brick walls. It shouldn’t have felt like she was still a girl too young to sleep alone at night, unrefined and lacking strength. It shouldn’t have felt like her hands would break long before the tholos’ smooth masonry, and yet it did. After a few more jabs she gave it up and wedged her fingers into the thin gaps between the finely cut bricks, trying to pry them out one at a time. All she got for her troubles were broken nails and bleeding fingers.

“It’s all shadows,” Scythas whispered, just as harshly, abruptly by her side and pulling her hands away from the bricks. His eyes were wide, the white lit up by golden coals. “It’s all shadows, Selene.“ It was the first time he’d called her by her name. “Why isn’t it safe? Where are we?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know-?” His head suddenly cocked, hearing it a moment before she did. The bees.

Scythas growled in frustration and rushed after her, back to the gates.

They fled. From tomb to tomb, beehive to beehive, each one just different enough to be distinguished from the one that came before it and the one that followed after.

One of them was covered wall-to-wall with stone-carved women in bombastic curling skirts, each of their arms raised entreatingly up to heaven - or whatever it was that lay above the subterranean tomb. Piles of golden buttons spilled over and out of the pots and chests settled around the room to contain them.

Another had painted walls, a grand fresco overlooking the tomb’s ivy-covered coffin. The painting showed a depiction of a wild boar, two faceless men attacking the beast from either side. One of them hunted on horseback with spear in hand. The other was naked, and rearing a double-sided axe up over his head to swing.

They fled through tombs filled with gilded breastplates and the bones of horses, beds of granite and the remains of stone-ring fire pits. They passed frescos of every color and subject depiction, plants and animals and men and women. They tripped and stumbled over full sets of ornate silver horse armor. They passed through a tomb supported by a single marble column of the Doric design, with a stone sun disc casting shadows instead of light from the top of it.

They fled.

And they were followed.

Time seemed to pass, but there was no way to really tell. When Selene finally collapsed with her back against the ivy shroud of yet another coffin, she couldn’t tell if it was the panic or the fatigue that had made her limbs feel heavier than lead and filled her head with fog. Scythas collapsed next to her, sweat-slicked and panting harshly. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the ivy, inhaling slowly.

The wind whistled as he breathed it in, and in a single breath the frantic rise and fall of his chest slowed. When the Hero opened his eyes they were not any less panicked than they had been before, but he had caught his breath if nothing else. A quirk of his city, she supposed.

“We can’t run forever,” he told her.

As if she didn’t know.

She saw a flicker in the dark, and forced herself to move.

Scythas tried to fight them. To his credit, he put on quite a show.

But in the end, he was only swinging blindly in the dark.

“So what if they catch us?” he asked her, panting again. It took him longer to realize it this time, and when he did he spat a curse before invoking the wind to replenish him. “So what if we get stung a few times? They’re only bees.”

Some time later, a dozen tombs and as many minutes- or perhaps hours - after he’d asked the question, a stray honey maker stung him while he was swinging madly at the shadows. Selene didn’t see it happen. She only heard him grunt in surprise and saw him stumble back with a baffled expression. Whatever his eyes were looking at in that moment, it wasn’t the tomb that they were in. The back of his legs hit the ivy-covered coffin and he tumbled over it onto the dirt floor.

Selene slung his arm over her shoulder and dragged him through the ivory gates.

“It’s still hurting, hm?”

“Just a little.”

“That’s not what your father said. To hear him tell it, you could lose that finger any day now.”

“Átta worries too much.”

“Or perhaps not enough. He sent you back to me, after all.”

“Only because you won’t let him take me away.”

“Smart girl. Come, show me the finger.”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“I thought it hurt a little?”

“Hmph.”

“What a ghastly sight. And the finger looks bad, too.”

“Hmph!”

“It’s good that he sent you back. This wouldn’t have healed on its own.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But it was only a bee sting.”

“Even a bee has its venom. And the bee that did this was one of mine, you know. I cultivated his hive myself, with my own two hands. Everything about his hive was greater than it would have been without my hand to guide its growth. Its honey was sweeter and more fragrant than any other, and its queen was fertile enough to fill a dozen more hives with all of her children. In the same way, the hive’s warriors were greater than any you could find in the wild. Their stingers were sharper, and their venom twice and twice again more fearsome.”

“Could I have… died?”

“With that father of yours watching over you? I doubt it. But you certainly would have suffered if you’d let it fester much longer. My bees have venom that can addle the mind. Generally it takes a greater dose, or a longer span of time, but you’re small enough that I had wondered if you’d feel its effects. Fortunate for you that you didn’t.”

“…”

“Oh? Am I wrong?”

“… Last night… I had a strange dream.”

“What sort of dream?”

“It was silly. It didn’t make any sense, and it was so loud-“

“My girl, those are my favorite kinds of dreams. Tell me all about it.”

“Selene,” the Hero Scythas slurred, his eyes glassy and distant. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead. It was hot enough to scald a mortal’s skin. “Slne…”

“Yes?” she murmured, pulling what she could from the folds in her silks. A clay jug of water and a cloth, a tied bundle of cloth containing goat cheese and grapes.

“Don’t feel well,” he murmured. His eyes rolled in his head. She reached out to dab with the damp cloth at his forehead, and he abruptly flinched. Lashed out, knocking the jug of water to the floor and shattering it. “Don’t touch me!”

He snarled like an animal, looking through her like she wasn’t there. Like there was someone else behind her.

When she looked back, all she saw was the bees.

“It’s time to go,” Selene said urgently, tossing the rag down on top of the clay shards. “Up! Up!”

“No,” he hissed. There were dozens of welts on the skin of his arms and legs now, dozens of bee stings that Selene hadn’t been fast enough to pull him away from.

We can’t run forever.

Selene grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him to his feet. The flames behind his glassy eyes flared, and his lips twisted hatefully.

The Hero of the Scything Squall whistled a sharp note, and Selene gasped as a hurricane hand slammed into her gut and lifted her clear off her feet. She hit the far side of the tomb, cracked the back of her head against its bricks, and tumbled bonelessly to the ground. Darkness crept in from every side of her vision, pulling her into bleak unconsciousness-

No.

Her heart flames roared, and Selene planted a hand beneath her. Forced herself to rise.

Scythas glared at her warily from across the tomb. There and somewhere else at the same time. Her gaze slid past him, to the gates behind. Her heart sank.

She could hardly see the ivory. The bees had covered every inch of it.

The sound of buzzing grew louder and louder as more of the insects flooded into the subterranean tomb, coating the walls thicker than any paint. The temperature rose along with the noise. The vibration of their buzzing wings shook the ground beneath her, displacing dust from the walls and making the vibrant ivy shroud rustle and sway over the coffin.

The coffin.

Selene forced herself to rise, even as the infernal buzzing and the rising heat made her vision blur at the edges. She buried her hands into the ivy and tore it away by the fistful, heedless of the burning rash that dug into her skin wherever the poison leaves brushed. The coffin underneath it was the grandest thing in the entire tomb, nearly as green as the ivy that had clung to it and studded with a hundred gem stones. Lapis Lacedaemonius.

Selene heaved the sacred coffin’s lid aside and dashed it against the ground, where it cracked and split apart with a thundering boom.

Scythas whistled another violent note when she approached him. This time, she was prepared for it. She braced her feet and narrowed her eyes against the wind, pushing through it one laborious step at a time and seizing the delirious Hero by his hair.

“Stop it! Stop! Don’t touch me!”

Selene reared back and slammed her forehead against his as hard as she could. Then she dragged his limp body by the hair across the tomb, back to the defiled coffin in its center. Yawning open, bereft of a corpse. Bereft of anything at all.

Looking down into what could only be described as a gaping abyss, a tunnel into the earth where there should have been a corpse, Selene felt a faint and reasonable unease. Unfortunately, the deafening buzz of thousands of bees and the heat of their vibrating bodies drowned out all rational alternatives from her mind.

Ah well.

“In you go,” she said, and tossed the Hero down into the abyss. He vanished from sight in an instant. She waited a breath, then two, then three. When she didn’t hear him hit the ground after ten breaths, she groaned softly. This would hurt.

Vaulting the lip of the coffin and hurtling down into the abyssal chasm within, Selene heard the sound of the bees shift and change its pitch. Rhythmic, and bright.

Like they were laughing.

A guttural crack split the silence of the sunset domain in the Raging Heaven Cult. The Tyrant Polyzalus, reclining on a feather-down bed and breathing rhythmically with his comatose wife tucked against his side, returned to full alertness in an instant. He sat up abruptly, staring in disbelief at the far corner of the room. Another crack wrenched away the sunset silence.

And then, all at once, the marble statue of the Heroine Selene broke apart and tumbled to the floor in pieces.

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