Ostracism

"The last time I saw a scene like this, I was still very young. No, if you were to scale my age back then to a mortal equivalent, I would have been an infant in swaddling clothes."

Mors said to himself, watching the scene on stage, and was immediately amused by his own joke, shrugging his shoulders. The small knife spun in his fingers, its edge cutting into the wood as if parting water.

He didn't talk much about his past, and only to "people" he didn't speak of it.

"They used wooden boards to form a circle, with ten entrances along the circumference, corresponding to their ten tribes. Citizens from the same tribe entered through their respective entrances."

"The citizen yielded some of his power to him. If he couldn't use the accumulated power in his hands to exchange for greater power for each citizen, to stabilize his position, he could only seek other means."

A vulture landed and perched by Mors's leg. He raised his hand, his fingers wrapped in black cloth, and stroked the bird's white feathers. When he let go, a few naturally shed feathers were caught between his fingers.

He observed them carefully, verifying that the feathers had no unusual properties, then relaxed, burned the feathers, and continued to watch the scene before him.

On the street, soldiers were summoned to organize and carry out this sudden whim. Men wearing feathered helmets combined iron structures with wooden planks, temporarily paving a narrow path leading upwards. Mors saw Mityad among them; it seemed he was still on duty.

The number of citizens was being anxiously tallied. Every hundred people counted by the soldiers, the next person would be invited forward, dizzyingly receiving the envious gazes of others, as if a net were tripping their feet, stumbling onto the narrow walkway.

The rest, when the count reached only a few dozen, retreated with all their might. When the count neared a hundred, they pushed and shoved forward, vying to be called to the stage, seeking a glory rarely bestowed in a lifetime.

They chanted Peturabo's name, and Mors could occasionally hear shouts of "Lord Peturabo protect us" and "In the honored name of Lord Peturabo," causing him to shake his head and scoff repeatedly.

On stage, someone was already speaking. He wore a one-shouldered robe, perhaps a farmer, perhaps a shepherd, but in any case, someone who held the authority to touch the land.

Anyone could see that this citizen was ransacking all the refined vocabulary he had learned in his life to add luster to his record. But the distance between his words and plain, everyday language was probably only a few curses and local slang away.

"I think this woman doesn't look as good as these two men," he said, frantically running his hands through his hair, the fear of shame chasing him relentlessly from behind. "It must be harder for two people than one, right? I don't understand either. And I see this carving depicts a child defeating an adult; I've never seen such a depiction before, it's very rare."

He then picked up the pen handed to him by a servant and carefully added a horizontal line to a shard of pottery handed to him. Four vertical lines and one horizontal line formed a small, fence-like pattern, representing five anonymous votes.

"Is that it?" The citizen looked around. After receiving confirmation, he breathed a sigh of relief, escorted off the stage by the soldiers lining the path. He stared at the fingers that had held the pen, as if trying to discern something from his knuckles, lost in the experience of being the center of attention.

Amidst a storm of applause, the next lucky individual hurried towards the stage. At each moment of transition, all the young and old in the audience would shout loudly.

Mors shifted his seating position twice, still uncomfortable, and had to reach into the air and pull out a rattan chair. He made the chair stand on the edge of the wall and rocked back comfortably.

"You are now selecting participants, and your reputation will increase," he said. "It was different when I was young; they would choose the detested person from six thousand people, their name inscribed on a shard. That person would be expelled from the capital and reside in a place designated by the consul. For ten years, he would not participate in the games; he was an outsider to the powerful."

He thought for a moment and murmured, "Should I refer to this current event as ostracism in reverse?"

Peturabo, Andos, and Calipha were whispering together, their conversation drifting to unknown topics. The boy's expression visibly relaxed, his brows smoothing out naturally.

As he looked at the citizens ascending the stage, whether they were uncultured or eloquent artists, he stared with wide eyes, as if seeing these people for the first time.

Mors could guess how Peturabo had viewed them in the past. In the boy's mind, he must have chosen a set of words to summarize his people, seeing them as a single, indistinct, and easily manipulated slab of stone, lacking sufficient wisdom and the power of choice, with uniform characteristics in every direction, only suitable for stacking and paving to support the great endeavors of extraordinary individuals.

This did not hinder the matter; he himself had been like that before.

Unlike Peturabo, Mors had always been indifferent to admitting his own shortcomings.

He tilted his ear, hearing Peturabo's conversation with the other two.

"You've earned praise again, Peturabo," a gentle female voice said. "My brother, you're going to lose."

"Ah, I know..."

"You haven't lost to me, Andos," the boy said, enunciating exceptionally clearly. "Nor have I truly beaten you. I will challenge you again, but not now."

"Alright, I need to train myself too..." the prince said slowly, smiling sheepishly. "They always say I'm humble, but before I met you, I thought I was already the best craftsman in Lokos."

"You are," the boy said. "You almost won."

"But people will choose you," Calipha said. "They see your masterpieces, and they will shower more praise upon you. You hear the voice of the citizens."

"Peturabo, they don't want anything from you; don't you see they don't even know which is your creation? They are simply expressing their genuine admiration. To have the entire city praise you, I think even a tyrant would covet that."

"But," the boy's voice was filled with unnaturalness, and he struggled to find an excuse, "perhaps they just think the duo's statue is more impressive than the single one."

"You're tapping into the citizens' preferences, Peturabo. You should win because of it," Calipha chuckled.

The boy abruptly changed the subject: "Andos, on the contrary, I see inexplicable brilliance in your work. Why are there sparse petals adorning the skirts of your statues? Where do you draw this inspiration from?"

"When I went fishing, I saw a woman mend a patch into the shape of a flower, so I carved it accordingly..."

"You went fishing?" the boy said, incredulously. Such a simple reason?

"Yes... I fish and roast them to eat. Sometimes, when I don't know how to create a piece, I do other things," Andos said.

"You roast fish?" Peturabo's focus gradually shifted, and though it was unclear what he was thinking of, the boy's face darkened, and he immediately turned his head away, unwilling to speak.

Mors withdrew his gaze and stroked the white vulture's feathers. He felt a small, empty box on the bird's legs; its contents had already been removed.

Mors took down the small box, tickled the bird's beak, and let the white vulture fly away.

"Child, because of what you've done, they are all joyful," Mors said, looking at Peturabo and speaking to himself. "But since when did I pick up this bad habit of imitating playwrights? Let me change it. I'll say what people say."

He then burst into laughter, causing the rattan chair to fall backward into the small courtyard enclosed by the second-floor wall.

Emerging from the entrance of this courtyard, belonging to no one in particular, was a young man in a blue robe and cloak.

"Ninety-nine... one hundred... you, the last selected citizen of the day! Would you like to comment on two masterpieces and cast your vote?"

The young man in the blue robe nodded enthusiastically, "Of course!"