Ostracon Election

"The last time I saw a scene like this, I was still very young. No, if my age back then were compared to that of mortals in equal proportion, I would have been an infant in swaddling clothes."

Mors watched the scene on the stage and spoke to himself, then chuckled at his own joke and shrugged. A small knife spun between his fingers, its edge cutting into wood as though parting ripples on water.

He rarely spoke of his past to others, and only because he did not speak of it to "people."

"They enclosed a circle with wooden boards, leaving ten entrances around its perimeter, corresponding exactly to their ten tribes. Citizens of the same tribe enter through their own entrance."

"The citizens cede part of their power to him. If he cannot use the power gathered in his hands to win greater power for every citizen, then to secure his position, he can only seek other means."

The eagle descended and perched beside Mors's leg. He raised a hand, using fingers wrapped in black cloth to comb through the bird's white feathers. When he withdrew his hand, several naturally shed feathers were caught between his fingers.

He examined them carefully and confirmed that there was nothing unusual about the feathers. Reassured, he burned them away and continued watching the scene below.

On the streets, soldiers had been summoned to organize and carry out this sudden whim. One after another, men in feathered helmets combined iron frames with wooden planks, hastily laying a narrow passage upward. Mors spotted Mityad among them. It seemed he was still at his post.

The number of citizens was counted with tense precision. Whenever a hundred people had been counted off one by one by the soldiers, the next person would be invited forward, dizzy as they met the envious gazes of others. It was as if nets tangled around their feet as they staggered onto the narrow walkway.

The rest, meanwhile, did their best to retreat when the soldiers' count was still in the dozens. Once it neared a hundred, they shoved and jostled their way forward, competing to answer the summons to the stage and claim an honor they might never receive again in their lives.

They chanted Peturabo's name. Mors occasionally even heard cries of "Lord Peturabo bless us!" and "By Lord Peturabo's honored name!" which made him shake his head and sneer from time to time.

Someone was already speaking on the stage. He wore a one-shouldered robe. Perhaps he was a farmer, perhaps a shepherd; in any case, he held an office that kept him in touch with the earth.

Anyone could see that this citizen was scraping together every elegant word he had learned in his life to add luster to his account. Yet his speech was probably only a few curses and local slang expressions removed from plain everyday language.

"I think this woman doesn't look as good as these two men," he said in a panicked rush, clutching at his hair as fear of humiliation chased him relentlessly from behind. "Two people must be harder than one, right? I don't really know. Also, I think this one shows a child defeating an adult. I've never seen a design like that before. It's very rare."

He then took the pen handed to him by an attendant and carefully added a horizontal stroke to a potsherd placed within reach. Four vertical strokes and one horizontal stroke formed a little fence-like pattern, representing five anonymous votes.

"Is that all?" The citizen looked left and right. After receiving confirmation, he breathed a sigh of relief and was escorted down from the stage by soldiers lining both sides. He stared at the fingers that had held the pen, as if he wanted to stare some pattern out from inside his knuckles, intoxicated by the experience of being watched by ten thousand people and unable to forget it.

Amid applause like a torrential downpour, the next lucky person hurried toward the stage. At every moment of this changing of turns, all the youths and elders in the crowd shouted loudly.

Mors shifted positions twice and still could not get comfortable, so he reached into the air and tugged out a wicker chair. He set it on the edge of the wall and rocked contentedly in it.

"You are now choosing those who will attend the assembly, so your reputation must rise," he said. "When I was young, it was different. They needed six thousand people to choose that detestable fellow, with his name carved onto potsherds. That person would be driven out from the capital and live wherever the archons assigned. For ten years, he would no longer take part in the game. He was an outsider among those in power."

He thought for a moment, then muttered, "Should I instead call what is happening now an ostracon election?"

Peturabo, Andos, and Calipha were whispering together, though who knew what they had been discussing. The boy's expression had visibly relaxed, his brow naturally smoothing.

Whenever he looked at the citizens who came onstage, whether they knew nothing of art and could not even read a word, or worked in the arts and spoke eloquently, he stared with wide eyes as if he were seeing what these people were like for the first time.

Mors could guess how Peturabo had viewed them in the past. In the boy's mind, he had surely chosen several words to summarize his people, treating them as one indistinct and easily manipulated slab of stone, lacking sufficient wisdom and the right to choose. Every direction possessed the same nature; they could only be stacked and laid as foundations to bear the great undertakings of extraordinary people.

There was nothing wrong with that. He himself had been the same before.

Unlike Peturabo, Mors had never cared in the slightest about admitting that he had once had flaws.

He listened closely and heard the conversation among the three surrounding Peturabo.

"You have won praise once again, Peturabo," the female voice said gently. "My brother, you are going to lose."

"Ah, I know..."

"You did not lose to me, Andos." The boy enunciated each word with particular clarity. "Nor did I truly defeat you. I want to arrange another contest with you, but not now."

"All right. I need to hone my skills too..." the Prince said slowly, smiling with embarrassment. "People always say I am very modest, but before I met you, I thought I was already the finest craftsman in Lokos."

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

"But people will choose you," Calipha said. "They see your masterpiece, and they will place more praise into your hands. You heard the citizens' voices."

"Peturabo, they are not trying to get anything from you. Can't you see that they do not even know which work is yours? They are simply voicing their sincere admiration. To earn the praise of the entire capital... I imagine even a tyrant could only dream of that."

"But..." The boy's voice was full of awkwardness as he desperately searched for an excuse. "Maybe they just think a statue made by two people is more impressive than one made by a single person."

"You understood the citizens' tastes, Peturabo. That is all the more reason you should win." Calipha smiled.

The boy abruptly changed the subject. "Andos, I instead saw something in your work that is difficult to explain. Why did you adorn the statue's skirt with flowers that have only a few petals? Where did you find such inspiration?"

"When I went fishing, I saw women mending patches into the shape of flowers, so I carved them that way..."

"You go fishing?" the boy said in some disbelief. Was the reason really that simple?

"Yes... I catch fish and roast them to eat. Sometimes when I do not know how to create something, I go do something else," Andos said.

"You can roast fish?" Peturabo's attention gradually wandered. Who knew what he had thought of, but the boy's face darkened, and he immediately turned away without wanting to speak.

Mors withdrew his gaze and stroked the white eagle's feathers. He felt an empty little box tied to the bird's leg; whatever had been inside had already been taken away.

Mors removed the box, teased the bird's beak, and let the white eagle fly away.

"Child, because you did this, they are all joyful." Mors looked at Peturabo and spoke to himself. "But when did I pick up this bad habit of speaking like a playwright? Let me change it up. I should say something people would say."

He immediately burst into loud laughter and sent the wicker chair tumbling headfirst into the little courtyard enclosed by the second-floor walls.

When someone emerged once more from the entrance of that unknown person's courtyard, he was already an idle young man in a blue robe and shoulder cloak.

"Ninety-nine... one hundred... You, the final selected citizen of today! Would you be willing to comment on the two masterpieces and then record your vote?"

The young man in blue nodded eagerly. "Of course I am!"