Virtuous Sons: A Greco Roman Xianxia - Interlude: Caesarion
Caesarion
“Beware, cultivator. Your sins are set in stone.”
Caesarion knelt upon the cool marble of a dead man’s dias, back straight and regally poised. His words were carefully measured, his voice a royal tone. Shadows of painted gold encircled both of his eyes, blending seamlessly with their outer rings – gold, where a common man’s eyes were white, and pure gray where a common man’s eyes had color – to create the illusion that his eyes were twice their true size. He stared wide-eyed and unblinking, his gaze an otherworldly thing.
Across from him, on the eastern side of the tomb, a man sat with a book balanced in the cradle of his crossed legs. He was well-manicured in the way of most self-made men, wrapped head-to-toe in flamboyantly dyed silks with a ring on all ten of his fingers. The man’s lips were still painted by the contents of his last cup. His demeanor was cool and self-assured, but the shadow of his self betrayed him. His shut, the dark silhouette behind him, fidgeted in clear unrest.
In the center of the tomb between Caesarion and the man, there lay an open coffin. Inside of it was a shriveled corpse, drained of all fluids and preserved in strips of linen. All of its organs but for its heart had been removed before the coffin lid was first closed. Now the heart was gone as well, nothing but a bloody stain upon the corpse’s bandaged chest left to mark its absence.
Caesarion raised the dead man’s beating heart up with both hands. It was hot to the touch, like sun-baked sand. With reverence, he lowered it onto the golden scale before him.
The heart abruptly throbbed and slipped out of his hands, hitting the marble dais with a gruesome wet sound. The man made a strangled noise of protest in the back of his throat.
“Calm yourself,” Caesarion scolded him, though his own ears burned as he scooped the heart back up and set it on the scale. “The trial has begun.”
The merchant lord turned the pages of his book, settling on the thirtieth chapter. Of course, he didn’t need to actually read the glyphs recorded on the papyrus while he recited them. He’d long since memorized their contents in life.
“O my heart, gift of my mother,” the man spoke, his voice ever so slightly strained, “O my heart, gift of my father. O my heart of lasting ages.”
With a hand still dripping red, Caesarion pulled a raven’s pitch black feather from behind his right ear. The merchant’s voice began to tremble just like his shut.
“Do not stand up as a witness against me. Do not oppose me in this tribunal.” The merchant held Caesarion’s gaze with tight apprehension. “Do not betray me in the presence of the Keeper of Balance.”
Caesarion placed the raven’s feather on the empty scale and watched it swing.
“For you are my ka!” the man gasped, gripping his book desperately. The scales swayed, the heart rising while the feather fell – and then rebounding. They both watched intently as each side rose and fell, seeking equilibrium.
When the motion of the arm ceased, the heart hung above the feather. The man of great means heaved a sigh of profound relief, turning to the next chapter of his book-
“Almost.”
The cultivator jerked his head up, startled. “What?”
Caesarion looked down on him, severe and unblinking. His eyes were starting to burn. He kept them open anyway – for the effect.
“We’re not finished yet,” he declared, and pulled another feather from behind his ear.
“That’s not-!” the man lurched, but his sins held him in place. Caesarion plucked the raven’s black feather from the scale, and before the heart could swing back down to the stone, he replaced it with a swan’s snow-white feather.
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The scales swung. The merchant gnashed his teeth, and his heart pounded on the plate. When it finally settled, the heart hung once more above the feather, lighter than the swan. The man sagged forward.
“Another.”
“No-!” The cultivator watched in horror as Caesarion plucked an eagle’s yellow feather from behind his left ear and swapped it with the swan’s. The scales tilted slowly but surely, the heart falling, falling…
When the scales had finally settled, Caesarion tilted his head. Left first, then right. Absently, he adjusted his neme when the oversized headdress slipped and began to fall.
He squinted. It was very close.
“What do you think?” he asked the distraught cultivator. “It looks heavier to me.”
“It’s the feather!” the cultivator insisted, raising his empty palms to mimic the scales. “The feather is heavier, I promise you – look upon it from this angle and you’ll see!”
Caesarion hummed, eyeing the scales doubtfully.
“Ask the heart yourself,” the cultivator went on desperately. “Ask the heart and it will tell you!” As he did, his shut whispered in a voice it thought was too low for him to hear. Do not tell lies about me in the presence of the Keeper. Listen to me well, lest we descend…
“Very well,” Caesarion decided. “I believe you.”
“Then it’s done?” the cultivator asked him desperately. “I’ve passed judgment?”
Caesarion nodded firmly.
“Almost.”
The eagle’s yellow feather burst into flames, and the heart began to fall as its opposing weight burnt away.
“Stop it!” the man howled, tearing through the pages of his book in vain as the feather became lighter and lighter. “Enough! This isn’t fair! This isn’t-!”
The golden tray holding the heart chimed brightly as it hit the marble dais.
For a moment, the cultivator was lost for words. He stared at the beating heart, heavier by far than the phoenix’s burning feather. The shock gave way to panic, the panic to denial, until sure as sunrise came the rage. His eyes snapped up to glare at Caesarion, and the hatred there was blacker than any curse sent from below.
“Who are you to decide?” the cultivator hissed. He jabbed a finger at him like it was a knife he could stab him with. “Who are you to say that I have sinned!? You’re not Justice! You’re not my king! Why should a boy have any say in my salvation?”
The shadows on the wall of the tomb rippled like river waters parting, tracing the motion of something unseen as it crossed the tomb. The cultivator’s shut noticed immediately, flinching and fleeing as far as it could. Unfortunately, the shadow could only flee so far from the man, and the man was too furious to see it move.
Caesarion puffed his chest out and pouted ferociously.
“You should know me by my name. I’m Caesarion! I’m-”
“This Pharaoh’s son,” Cleopatra-Ka declared, wrapping her arms around him from behind as she melted into being. The cultivator flinched, tracing the majestic pillars of her ears, seeing the truth of things for himself and knowing what was to come.
“Please. I beg the Pharaoh-”
The Devourer cut his last words short, exploding up from the floor of the tomb in a spray of liquid shadow with the jaws of her judgment opened wide. The cultivator screamed, but Caesarion’s mother covered his eyes with her hands so he wouldn’t see what happened next.
Caesarion cried out in protest, wriggling away from her embrace, but she only chuckled warmly and pulled him tighter to her chest.
“You promised!” he accused her. She chuckled softly and pressed a kiss against his cheek.
“There is no rush, sweetling,” she whispered. “The longer that you wait, the better the reward will taste. I promise you that.” Caesarion huffed and crossed his arms petulantly against his chest.
Cleopatra-Ka pressed her lips firmly to his neck and blew, laughing musically when he yelped and jumped away. Her hands came away from his eyes, revealing not the shadowed tomb he’d been in moments ago, but the burning light of the midday sun.
Caesarian stood atop the Pharaoh’s central pyramid and looked out across the kingdom of Egypt and all its teeming wonders. The sight took his breath away and stole from him his senses, as it always had before. He looked upon it all in wonder. And when a particularly heavy breeze hit his face, he spread his arms out to his sides and cast his gaze just above the city skyline, in that moment imagining himself as an eagle in flight. He flapped his arms and soared, laughing in delight.
His mother lounged atop the golden peak and watched him fondly, picking flesh and sinew out from between her pearly teeth.
