Chapter 6


    A satyr and iron clad warrior stood in front of the Lyceum. Pitt looked as he always did, grey and serious, while Eoren had decided to throw on a very loose chitoniskos. It was one of Pitt’s spares and judging by how he itched at where the fabric clung to him, Pittacos would soon have sole custody of the shirt.


    “D’we just go in the same way? Like, is there a side entrance for people who actually got in or do we just use the same door?” Said Eoren.


    “Man, I don’t know.” Replied Pitt, not looking away from the mural atop the building.


    The pair continued to stand and stare. They likely would have kept at it till the sun hung low, but someone came out of the door. Not just any someone, a god, for she could be nothing else. The tall and fair skinned woman strode out from behind the oak doors, parting the slabs of oak with nothing but the lightest touch of her fingertips. She was so beautiful it was almost haunting. Her lustrous apricot hair seemed to be equal parts fire red and brazen gold. She had waves of intense heat rolling off of her, so powerful that one could be forgiven for thinking the sun''s glow came solely from her. She seemed lost in thought at first but after seeing the odd pair ahead of her she fixed a look on them. Eoren had frolicked with nymphs and mountain gods (admittedly a weaker sort) and he had never felt a gaze like this. He felt like an insect pinned to a cork board. Pitt, who had never seen anything more divine than a satyr, was similarly frozen.


    “Are you two novitiates? You have that oh-so-distinct look.” She said with a voice that made Pitt and Eoren’s bones hum like a tuning fork.


    It took a moment before the pair realised it was a question and it took another moment of gaping at each other like fish before Eoren said “Yes, Anassa.”


    She softly smiled and spoke again. “And you two are worried about your first day.”


    Still smiling that radiant smile she turned and looked at the Lyceum, her gaze working over every scroll and divot on its pillars.


    “I can recall being in your sandals. Elated and yet Maron''s words of warning still echoing in your skull. It’s quite a terrible feeling isn’t it?”


    This admission of prior weakness struck satyr and warrior deeply. It was like a statue of marble admitting it feared piercing thorns, like an ocean admitting it feared a candle.


    “Well, best of luck to you.” She said, turning away and walking into the busy Agora. “And you CAN just walk in now. You’re novitiates, this is where you belong.”


    The goddess went on her way, people bowing and staring as she walked past. Pitt and Eoren were among the staring crowd. Some time passed as they simply watched her go.


    “Gods of Olympus, are we going to end up like her? All… shiny?” Said Pitt, shattering the silence.


    “Yeah… I think.” Said Eoren coming back to reality, while Pitt continued staring. He snapped his thyrsus on the cobblestones and took a step towards the oak doors before stopping and turning back to a still Pittacos.


    “Though I suspect you’ll be the pretty one and I’ll get all the cool, commanding, presence shit.”


    “Yeah… wait what?” Said Pitt as he woke from his trance.


    Eoren didn’t answer, instead walking up to the doors and reaching out to open them.


    “Dick.” Half laughed Pitt as he steeled himself and followed the satyr.


    The satyr struggled to get the doors open, and he almost required Pitts help to actually get the portal wide enough to walk through. The room was not massive and dark as it was when each went through alone, now it was a rather small square room. It looked to be a sort of boot room. There was another slab-like wooden door set on the far wall. Himations and sandals were set, in varying degrees of neatness, along the walls and on hooks set on wooden racks. There must have been enough to outfit at least a hundred people.


    While the satyr and warrior took their sandals off, Pitt noted that a particular grouping of sandals was varied in size between twice as large a regular mans sandals to big enough to completely cover five others if it was folded over itself. The pair shared an apprehensive glance and moved to the next door.


    After another round of struggling with the door, they came to a hallway. To their left and ahead was a pristine white marble wall with a similarly clean, low bench against it. To their right the hall curved to the point that the satyr and warrior could not see the end. It was much taller than the previous room, vaulting the full height of the Lyceum. Suspended by chains of bronze, beautifully decorated clay oil lamps dangled from the high ceiling, illuminating a dozen or so novitiates who were reading scrolls or talking in small groups. Far from the long white togas, stiff necks and complete lack of joy that populated most of the schools that either man had attended, these people had a certain spark of life and movement in them. Eoren could almost feel a static pull for all the raw potential coming from them. None had the overwhelming radiance the deity they met coming had, but the novitiates unmistakably had the beginnings of divinity stewing inside them.


    And so the pair continued their journey into the Lyceum. They passed novitiates in armour, in clothing simple and grand and in strange garb that neither satyr nor man could guess at its utility. Most of the people in the hall dressed relatively normal, but those that didn’t wore truly outlandish things. A man wore a cape of wicker that flowed like linen, a large woman wore a scarf of some massive reptile’s skin with scales that seemed to be made of bronze. Eoren waved reluctantly but politely at a wild eyed satyr who had a necklace of human ears. No a soul aside from Eoren and Pitt spared a glance at these unusual folks.


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    And still they walked.


    They walked far longer than they should have, even in as large a building as the Lyceum. The slope the building had been built one wasn’t perceivable, which prompted the first pang of unease between the pair. It was like the building was completely flat on the inside


    They had walked at least twenty minutes and still the architecture tantalized them with hints at an exit just around the corner. The people they walked by changed, some strange others not, but the walls remained maddeningly the same. Flat, polished, clear, shining marble. The pair felt an unsettling feeling, not quite outright fear, but the knowledge that something was wrong about this place''s geometry. And yet, despite the strangeness, the pair felt impatient.


    They had seen nothing to speak of regarding the godhood they were supposed to attain in these walls, merely a strange crowd of people (more than a hundred people incidentally, it appeared that taking one''s shoes off was optional). Strange happenings were something both men could handle very well. One had seen battle everyday before and since he was a teenager and the other had spoken at length with some of the smartest men in Graece. They were not people to be shaken easily. But this drawing out of the hallway strung their nerves to perfect tautness. They had, of course, passed the tests to get in, why hadn’t they gotten even the slightest acknowledgment of that while inside?


    The hopeful god of wine and the hopeful god of war continued to make their way down the very long hallway. They had been walking for another five minutes now and had just seen people talking. It hardly seemed like this very, very long corridor contained the path to divinity.


    “Man, I didn’t expect the long path to godhood Maron warned us about to be so… literal.” Said Eoren impatiently.


    “Yeah I know. H-hey, did you notice that?” Responded Pitt.


    “What?”


    “We’ve walked in a full circle. We should have walked into the otherside of that wall like ten feet ago.”


    “We… have?” Said Eoren. He stopped and leaned uneasily to get a better look from where they came from and then turned to look around the bend they were going to.


    “Move wide-eyes!” Yelled a man suddenly bowling over Pittacos. He was dressed in shining bronze and red cotton and he had pushed the iron clad man to his knees with just a push of his shoulder. The iron clad warrior landed on his behind and his ill fitting helmet slipped over his eyes.


    The pair were too surprised to say anything in protest. Eoren helped Pitt to his feet, who pushed his helmet back up. Eoren glanced at the man as he left. He was certainly in a hurry, what with the two other people he tossed aside. Pitt sharply pulled away from the satyrs grip. It took a moment for Eoren to realise that Pittacos was embarrassed rather than angry, and another to cast a glare back at those who had stared a little at the fallen fighter.


    “I’m f-fine, I-I’m a-alright.”


    “Lots of real characters here eh? Come on man, whatever fuckery is going on here has to run out soon.” Said Eoren, staring down a novitiate who ogled for a half second longer than the rest of the crowd and gesturing forward softly.


    They walked for a bit longer. Still the same hallway, and it could have been a trick of the mind but some of the people seemed awfully familiar.


    “Is that the same satyr?” Pitt spoke up after a moment.


    “What, we all look the same?” Chirped Eoren back, then he continued before Pitt could get an indignant “It’s the ear necklace that tipped me off asshole” out.


    “You’re right though, I don’t think the fuckery is going to run out if we just keep on walking. We’re missing something.”


    The pair huddled up for a while, brainstorming a solution to this massive puzzle of a building. If they walked back the way they came the moment they rounded a corner the door leading back outside was right there, as if it had followed them. They looked over every inch of the stone benches. Eoren was about to use some magic to grow a seeking vine to see if there was any gap undetectable to their senses when Pitt called out.


    “Hey, did you see that?”


    “Wuh?” Replied Eoren, as he had not.


    “I think I just saw the tail end of someone''s shirt disappear into the wall.”


    “The solid marble one?” Eoren said incredulously.


    “Yeah, lemme check something.”


    The ironclad soldier walked up to the wall opposite of the door. He scratched at the front of his helmet like a beard, a slightly goofy tic which Eoren noted was what he tended to do in deep thought. The man slowly extended his arm. Fingers splayed out, he pressed his hand into the cool stone.


    “Hm. something else then.”


    “Are you actually sure you saw someone hop through a wall?”


    “Sure enough.”


    The warrior pressed his other hand onto the wall and shuffled left and right on the wall. Eoren, who was standing a bit behind him, took another look at the wall. Almost subconsciously he moved a little to the left and right with Pitt, in service of getting a better look. He noticed a very slight shadow high up on the wall. The kind of delicate shadow that would form only on two pieces of near perfect stone joined together. There was just enough of a difference that one could make out a faint numeric symbol, lurking in the minute shadows cast by the braziers.


    “Why is there a three on this wall?” Eoren wondered aloud.


    As soon as the word three crossed his lips Pitt fell completely through the wall, as if it had turned to mist. Not a trace of the warrior was left on this side of the wall.


    “Cool. Three.” Said Eoren, before he walked through a moment later.