Ellen felt the world around her fall away with a rapidity that had not happened the last time Elgin had told his story of a far away, ancient Greece. Where before she had sat in a comfortable chair and viewed the supposed events as might a person watching a program on their crystal set in the comfort of their living room. Possibly even the way in which some people still went to the cinema to view holofilms, an old practice that had almost completely died out a century past, but was making a slow resurgence in some of the larger cities. At least, that was what she had thought, judging from some of the films she had seen that showed couples attending clean, modern theaters on first dates.
Ellen wasn’t one to spend too much money on romance theater, she preferred rom-com holos, but “going out to a theater” had become a recent trend in those stories, and so she had assumed the holofilm theaters may be making a comeback. Or, possibly, were she to lean cynical, the film makers were inserting holofilm scenes in their films to promote the idea to the public.
Ellen imagined shaking her head to clear it, but her vision stayed fixed on the scene before her.
She was slightly dismayed to feel disconnected from her body, a sensory string cut, leaving her awareness of the scenes playing out before her without the feel of witnessing it all from the safety of her own autonomous form. All sensation of her body was just… gone.
She could not even feel her tongue within her own mouth, which was a startling revelation, as she had never realized how often she experienced the feel of her tongue exploring the inner bounds of her own mouth. All completely gone from her consciousness in a moment of fog and light as the interior of an ancient Grecian manor grew around her from the veritable void into which her other senses had fled, or possibly into which they had been tossed.
The first figure to clearly come into focus was the palace guard, Kleodos. Stocky, and of average height, his dark brown hair beginning to go silver where she could see his stubble trailing out of his linen cap and bronze helmet. The open faced helm shone on the man’s head, a pair of matched ridges a single fat finger wide tapered down from the top of the head to within a centimeter of the horizontal slash that marked the exposed face that protruded from the bronze headgear. It lacked a nasal, like Ellen had thought all Greek helmets had, and she thought the lack looked too open to be aesthetically pleasing. She may have also thought it would lead to a lot of soldiers with bloodied, broken noses. Had she still possessed shoulders, the unusually tall young nurse would have shrugged.
The white-ish walls he stood stoically beside looked painted rather than like naturally white stone, not at all the marble she expected. There were also little figures painted in places along the walls, mostly depicting people harvesting grapes and nymphs fleeing from satyrs. A border of blue geometric lines ran within a handspan of the ceiling. A matching dull red design mirrored the blue lines above as it ran along the wall near the floor.
The solemn man sighed, and shifted his footing slightly as he stood by the wide opening to a large room. Lit by more braziers, three large, lit bowls situated evenly around the open space as well as several smaller little sconce-like lamps extending from the walls on little metal limbs. Kelodos glanced to his left and into the large room outside of which he now stood, guarding against who knew what. More than likely just to be seen guarding than any actual need for guarding to happen.
The look on his face said it all to Ellen. She knew that if Kleodos had a datpad implant, he would be using it to check the time, or seeing if he had any new crystalnet programs or holonet vids to download.
Moving forward, Ellen felt herself pulled by Elgin’s narrative into that other room now, leaving the eternally bored guard to continue with his vigil.
The plump little man who slovenly lolled on a low couch, the one who was somehow the king of this otherwise pleasant island nation in the Mediterranean. Ellen wished she had a better grasp of Greek history. She felt she was missing some key components to these scenes Elgin was showing her. She thought to turn her attention to the other people in the room, before she realized that she was alone in the room with King Mydius. The man wasn’t asleep, he just lounged and it took a moment for Ellen to realise the man was listening to soft music.
The couch on which he now reclined had been pulled from the center of the room, and sat close to the wall furthest from the open door. There was, if she allowed herself to listen, just a hint of music, lilting feminine vocals and some kind of stringed instrument, coming through the wall from some other room she could not see.
Breathily, Mydius hummed along with the tune being played by the strings. His wheezy voice stuttered and bumped along with the melody. Ellen thought that the man might have had a decent singing voice if he had ever bothered to apply himself. She also thought the little man looked painfully alone in his ill lit room, listening to a woman in another room sing in some dialect she couldn’t discern.
Slowly, a new noise intruded upon the little king, and he slowly turned to look at his guard, Kleodos, as he showed Yriakos, or Elgin as he was known in this long ago place, into the room. Mydius looked at the man being shown into his presence with anger and disdain. It was clear he did not appreciate his entertainment being interrupted. Not by this peon, at least.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Something was vastly different about Yriakos that differentiated him from the Elgin Stark of her current acquaintance. It took her the time it took Yriakos to make his slow way to the king on his couch. It was subtle, until she noticed it properly. He utterly lacked Elgin’s sense of self confidence. This man, Yriakos, was not yet the complete master of the world that swirled and moved around him in a dance that he tracked as easily as Elgin would watch his employees in his little jewelry store eddy and pivot about him in the modern world.
Yriakos didn’t know how this would come out.
And he was afraid.
“Well?” Mydius asked.
With a slight bow, Yriakos held out a flat box. With one hand beneath it, the other hand opened the top of the box to show one wide compartment, and one smaller, more narrow compartment. Ellen focused her attention, and her vision was taken up with the beautiful necklace that lay in the larger segment.
Yriakos had mixed Grecian geometric key patterns, much like the blue and red designs painted on the tops and bottoms of the walls of the little palace, and picked the designs out in a stunning alternating array of inlaid black and red coral against the gold of the necklace. A broad collar necklace of intricately linked gold rings and pearls that would cover the shoulders of the young woman who Ellen had seen introduced in that earlier vision.
She imagined the young woman’s graceful neck, and the smooth expanse of fine caramel skin contrasting with the wealth of pearls and coral, but utterly complimented by the burnished fire of the gold.
It made her jealous of the young woman who was to receive this amazing gift, as well as a little disgusted at the look of avarice on the piggish features of Mydius at the sight of such an amazing piece.
A glint of red caught in the flickering light of a torch sconce, drawing Ellen’s perception to the smaller recess of the wide flat box.
In it a bracelet sat, hammered gold sheets cunningly wrought into overlapping layers that matched the folds and layers of the fine cotton linen clothing style of the bride and her entourage from the lands of Kemet. The motifs of Grecian key designs once again played across the surface of the bracelet in red and black coral as they had on the broad collar.
The pieces were lovely beyond anything the boarish king deserved.
But Yriakos wanted his nephew returned safely to him, and his fear was palpable in the room. The look in the eternal man’s eyes said simply, “Please.”
Mydius looked at the contents of the box with obvious greed.
Waves of emotion played across the man’s quivering, fleshy face.
“KLEODOS!” the king yelled.
“Yes, Oh Light of Olympus?” Kleodos, who stood just behind Yriakos, asked in his unaffected voice.
“Take our…” Mydius considered how to address Yriakos before settling upon, “citizen… to retrieve the… boy.” The man was distracted by the shimmering treasures before him, and took the box from Yriakos’ hands as he was led away by the dull-eyed guard.
“Kleodos.” The king called before the two men left the room, “Family is important. See to it they are properly reunited.”
Ellen watched as comprehension stole slowly over Kleodos’s face.
The guard gave a slight bow of his head to the king, and turned away with a simple, “As you command, great king.”
A part of her wanted to see what Mydius would do next, but she felt her attention and vision drawn along the corridors with Kleodos and Yriakos. As they passed larger rooms, Ellen noticed men, guards, standing at attention as the two passed by. One or two turned smartly on their heels and followed along behind Kleodos and the man he guided.
This man was not, could not be, Elgin Stark. He may look like Stark, but this man lacked the unbreakable nature that the modern incarnation possessed. It was eerie, seeing the slumped shoulders, the uncertain gait as he was chivvied through the hallways, and down stairs to lower, darker levels of the little palace. No windows here, she noticed. Nothing to let anyone down in this hole know that the world outside still continued on in any way.
Finally the party stopped outside a set of incredibly heavy iron bound doors. She had expected to see some kind of lock on the door, but instead, the door had a set of thick beams of some dense wood that blocked it from opening at three different heights. Each beam was not only held in thick brackets, but was also pegged into place with thick metal pins. Two of the guardsmen who had followed Kleodos and Yriakos down the stairs now removed the pins before another pair of guards stepped forward to lift each of the beams out from their brackets and set them to the side of the door.
Once that was done, the door was pulled open, revealing a small, black square that lacked any hint of light. It was as though the jailors had just painted a large rectangle of wall black, and then set a door in front of it for the cruelty of the joke.
But no.
As she stared into the void, Ellen could just barely perceive the outline of a body lying in the center of that darkened place.
Yriakos stumbled forward to see the body of the young man he had called simply “Di,” and began trying to revive him. The body didn’t flop listlessly, as one might expect. No limb twitched in response to Yriakos’ ministrations. This body had been forced through the final Gates of Life many days before.
Ellen hadn’t noticed when Kleodos had stepped up behind the man who now shook with grief and pain, and Yriakos hadn’t either.
“The boy wouldn’t cooperate with his king.” The guardsman said, his voice free of any emotion. “No matter what our king commanded, the boy refused.”
There was a sound, and Yriakos arched his back as Kleodos’ knife punched into the shorter man’s kidney. A rough hand gripped his hair from behind, and she could see Kleodos repeat his gesture several more times with his other hand, stabbing Yriakos in the back over and over again until the man’s body went limp.
The guardsman turned from the mess, and walked back into the dim hallway, using a small cloth to clean his knife. “And now you will learn the same lesson the boy learned.”
