~~Darian~~
He already missed her.
The thought made him laugh. How long had it been since he'd even seen Philonoe? Over a year. He didn't miss her a bit. But Medusa? Only a mile between them and he was tempted to run back just so he could hear her laugh again.
He hugged the cloak tight around him. It smelled old, of dirt and animal shit. Perfect. Snug over his head and dragging on the ground, every bit of his armor, sword and shield, all of it was hidden. He wore his pack over his cloak; he'd have to throw off the entire ensemble if he got into a fight.
No fighting. No killing. Repeat it Darian. You're not going to kill Proetus or his conniving bitch of a wife. That's not what this is about.
"But then, I don't even know what the fuck I'm looking for. The only recourse I have is to either ask Proetus by force about some mysterious 'thing' or 'person' he may or may not be holding, or stumble upon it by accident." Not the best plan, but the only plan. He couldn't bring Chimera with him into the city to sniff out whatever it was, not unless he wanted every guard on their ass.
He considered the possibility for a moment. It'd be a great battle, him and Chimera against waves of guards, many of whom were old friends. Would they sympathize with him? Or did they know what Proetus had done?
Bile rose in his throat, and he gritted his teeth. No fighting. No killing.
Another mile down the road and he started to walk past other people. They treated him about as well as expected, with a few feet of space from the smell, and avoiding looking directly at him. He looked like a homeless beggar after all, and in Greece, that made him good as dead. Perfect.
He went around Argos along one of the roads. That was simple enough; no one cared about a wandering beggar. It was when he started to approach the familiar roads of Tiryns that his heart started to beat faster in his chest. Wagons. Donkeys. Gates. Columns of white and homes of stone. The chatter of fishermen, farmers, butchers, bakers, dressmakers and guards started to get louder. He'd walked these streets in the colors of Tiryns armor before. Walked them, watched over them, guarded them, and fathered them.
He spit on the ground.
As the streets converged, winding paths and twisting ways between temples and buildings grew closer and closer. The smell of cooking food, manure, and people filled the air. All along the road between the old homes, young and old littered its pools of shade and went about their business. He looked to his left, where Argonar would be cooking fish. He was, and Darian smirked under his hood. Argonar still owed him some coin, but it wasn't enough for the fat fellow to owe him a huge favor like assisting him now. Pamana, an elderly woman with crooked fingers and a long nose, was weaving clothes in dull whites. She owed him too, but not enough to risk her life.
He stepped further into the city. The well-tread ground lead under an archway, tall and thick between two flat buildings, before it opened up into the agora. In the middle of the day, the open space was filled with people. Dozens, hundreds of people. Men carried around racks of fish and buckets of food. Women carried bags of clothes, or children. Chitons of different colors — mostly white — were all he could see in any direction. Over their heads, the gold-colored roofs of nearby temples and archways circled them. They casted shade for the wandering people, many held chatting groups, some others held stalls where people sold the finer wares. Jewelry, of course, was visited only by the fanciest men and women, the ones with slaves following them around, wearing only loincloths.
Darian breathed the air deep. He recognized so many of the faces. When they approached, he was quick to hide his eyes under the hood of his cloak, but he took peaks at them as they walked by. Nalla, a woman he'd saved from thieves. Pallus, a man he'd taught to fire a bow so he could go hunting. Kargos, a young kid — well, young man now — he'd caught spying on a couple enjoying their private time.
And they'd all turned against him the moment Zeus shot him out of the sky.
Darian growled, a weird animal sound, and he brought a hand up to his mouth when he faked a cough. He shook his head a few times until the white blur in his vision was gone, and carried on.
Statues of the gods lined a wide stairway that lead onto a huge platform of stone floor and a great arch. Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Hestia and Demeter. The six children of Cronus and Rhea. Looking at them made Darian's teeth grind, and he had to look away. Look at the ground, better to look at the ground.
Upon the platform, it was the rich who bathed in the daylight and the attentions of their servants. Some of them were even fat with the fruit of their money. Darian hadn't liked them when he lived here, let alone now, but at least it wasn't new hate. He walked past them like he belonged, which he didn't of course. What was a beggar doing up with the rich? Nearby guards frowned at him as he came closer to them. He smiled under his cloak, and kept walking.
Another stairway between two of the greater temples. Columns of marble as thick as the greatest trees, dozens of them, holding up enough stone to hold hundreds of worshipers, workers, and the riches of their betters. Within the shadows of their roofs, men in fancy himations and chitons bargained over coins and baubles. Others argued over politics. Some even argued over food supplies, a step up from the typical garbage the rich argued over. Darian grinned, and stepped into the building through one of the open pathways between the humongous pillars.
And disappeared into the shadows.
One of the pathways behind the temples, untouched by guard or servant, and unknown by the rest, was easy enough to step into. No one cared about some beggar wandering the streets as long as he didn't make a ruckus. The pathway lead nowhere, stopping at a wall of stone that blocked off a harsh fall into the agora he'd just left. But, with some sure footing, he braced against against the two walls beside him, and inched his way up like a spider.
He was light, even in his armor; climbing up the buildings with arms and legs out at his side was easy. And of course the Fates had blessed him with inhuman strength, so once he was up to the top of one of the temples, he only had to grip its edge with one hand to pull himself over and onto it. For a moment, he considered thanking them for his demi-god strength and healing, but then, none of this insanity would have happened if they had never found him in the first place. It was a bad deal.
Grumbling, he crouched low and crawled along the roofs. He was forty feet up, but that didn't mean someone couldn't see him if they got lucky, so he kept to a squatting crawl, and worked toward the acropolis.
Typical of kings, the palace was built upon the raised land, and a winding road with the occasional stairway and archway lead from the palace gate down to the city. While anyone could walk up the road, it stopped at the gates of the palace, and a beggar with no pass or business would not be allowed into its walls. But, the larger temples, the ones he was crossing over the rooftops of, drew near the cliff face of the small mountain the palace sat upon. It took time, and having to do it at a crawl made time slow to a crawl with him, but he grew closer to the mountain, and closer. One building, and another, and another. He peaked down to watch some of the traffic of people walk by, jars of water on the servant's heads, and different colors of tunics among the rich walking between the greater temples.
For a moment, he thought he was on the walls of the palace again, and he was watching the people come and go. His citizens to protect, to guard. A lifetime ago.
An hour later, he was in the shadow of the cliff. He pressed his body against it, dug his fingers into the hard rock and random sprouts of bush, and started climbing. He knew the path, a path only he had ever found or used. He was a good guard captain, and an adventure-seeking fool. Climbing the cliffs around the palace in search of secret paths? Perfect way to spend a day off.
The climb moved him between a crevice in the mountain. Beneath him was a hard drop, and below the cliff was nothing but flat, smooth rock; the only way to get into the crevice was from the rooftops. He jammed his sandals into some grooves, cracked his knuckles, and started climbing upward.
He still didn't know exactly what he was going to do. Talk to Proetus? He couldn't talk to Stheneboea, she'd try to trick him and get him killed. Proetus though, maybe he could talk to him. Maybe.
It was a big maybe.
After a while, a long while, he found the ledge of the clifftop. He vaulted up, only to be greeted by the walls that surrounded the palace. There were no back doors or secret passageways through a palace wall, but there were unguarded areas, and he knew them all. With a snicker, he jumped up, and found a groove cut into the stone wall. A groove he'd made long ago, when he was guard captain.
How often people underestimated him. It wasn't until he'd defeated the Chimera that people started taking the little warrior seriously. Their loss.
He had to go fast. Guards walked the walls, and it wouldn't be long before someone did spot him by accident. But in less than a minute, he scaled the tall wall and poked his head up just enough to see the guards. They weren't looking in his direction, they weren't even patrolling. Two of them stood near with eyes cast out to gaze over the road down to the city, spears holding their weight, and they were chatting. Security had grown lax since he'd moved on.
He rolled over the wall, onto the stone balcony, and off. No time to consider. He knew where he was landing, and quiet as a feather, he fell to his sandals and rolled back. A second later, he was hidden in the shadow of a raised stairway that lead into the grand center of the palace. Above and beside him were its colossal pillars of marble, and they stood upon walls of thick stone, all more than enough to hide him from sight between them and the outer wall.
Breathing deep, he slid off his pack, took a bite of its dried meat, and set it aside in the corner. Next, he took his helmet from the bag, and set it aside, before taking off his cloak and jamming it into the bag. He reached for his helmet again, but before he put it on, he looked at it. A beautiful helmet, meant to stand out, meant to be a mark of a legend, a hero in the tides of battle and blood. The glorious white crest would stand out so well against the red of his conquests.
