Chapter 43: The Crumbling Stage
Life wasn't a constant parade of dramatic reversals. If it were, people would die of exhaustion from the emotional whiplash. But those moments—the sudden, breathtaking pivot where the script flips—they did exist. They were the salt and spice of existence. They made hearts soar or shatter, and they were the reason people crowded into theaters, hungry for that electric jolt of the unexpected.
Today's stage was not made of wood, but of sand stained with old blood. The cast: two monstrous, fire-spewing oxen, a hero who was anything but invincible, a smug king on his high throne, a princess secretly hoping for a gory finale, and…
Cyd allowed himself a small, private smile.
…the Pale Child of Man, waiting in the wings for the conclusion he had already written.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Aeëtes's fist slammed down on the stone balustrade, the crack of his knuckles echoing his frustration. One moment, the bulls were incinerating a man and charging like living volcanoes. The next… they were on their knees, docile as milk-cows, foam dripping from their jaws. It made no sense.
He wanted to scream foul play, to accuse Jason of some trick. But what trick? How do you enchant a creature mid-rampage? And the look on Jason's face—that wasn't the smirk of a cheater. It was the genuine, wide-eyed shock of a man who'd just been handed a miracle. The only explanation, absurd as it was, was that Jason's sheer, overwhelming "heroic aura" had cowed the beasts into submission.
"It's alright, Father," Medea said, patting his clenched hand. Her voice was soothing, but her own eyes were fixed on the arena with intense curiosity. She knew exactly why the bulls had collapsed—Cyd's brutal "education" and the scent-triggered terror of Jason's tunic. "He'll never get past the Spartoi."
"Yes… yes, of course," Aeëtes muttered, forcing himself to relax. Beasts could have off days, could be spooked. But the Spartoi? They were magic given violent form. Relentless, unfeeling, perfect engines of slaughter. And with Medea's enchantments making them larger and more frenzied… there was no conceivable flaw.
Unaware of the multiple death sentences hanging over his head, Jason was having the time of his life. With a confidence that was half-act, half-genuine giddiness, he guided the trembling, foam-flecked bulls. He fitted them with yokes (they didn't resist), plowed a neat furrow in the sand (they shuffled forward obediently), and sowed the bag of dragon's teeth (they shuddered each time he passed near). The entire process was surreal, mundane, and utterly baffling to everyone watching.
"Great King of Colchis!" Jason called out, spreading his arms in a grand gesture. "As you have witnessed! I have yoked the untameable and sown the dragon's harvest! The trial is complete!"
From the stands, his Argonaut crew leaped to their feet, roaring their approval and clapping like seals. They didn't understand it either, but it looked easy! They could have done that! Probably!
"The trial," Aeëtes's voice cut through the celebration, cold and flat, "is not over. It has only just begun." He pointed a single, damning finger past Jason. "Look behind you."
Skritch-skritch-CRUNCH.
A horrible, grating sound, like bones being dragged over stone, filled the arena. The earth where Jason had sown the teeth began to churn. Then, from the disturbed soil, a skeletal hand erupted. It was massive, each finger a yellowed bone the length of a man's forearm. It slammed down on the sand for purchase.
Jason's triumphant grin froze, then slid off his face. He turned, slowly, as if moving through tar.
One by one, they hauled themselves into the light. The Spartoi. They were nightmares made flesh—or rather, made bone and dark magic. They stood half again as tall as Heracles, their frames colossal and grotesquely muscled with calcified tissue. Their skulls were elongated, horned, with empty eye sockets that now began to smolder with a malevolent crimson light. In their hands they clutched crude, brutal weapons fashioned from what looked like the ribs and femurs of giants. A dozen of them. Then two dozen. They stood in a silent, shuddering semicircle, their headless gazes locked on the lone, pale-haired man in their midst.
"No… way…" Jason breathed, taking an involuntary step back.
The Argonauts' cheering died instantly. They sank back into their seats as one. Never mind. We couldn't. Nope. Not a chance.
"Slay them all," Aeëtes said, reclining and crossing his legs, the picture of assured victory. "Do that, and the Fleece is yours." The unspoken second half of the sentence hung in the air: And if you can't, which you can't, your bones will join theirs in my sand.
Jason's eyes darted wildly to the spot where Cyd had been standing. But Cyd offered no hint, no signal. He just watched, his expression unreadable.
ROOOOOAAAAARRR!
A sound that was less a battle cry and more the grinding of tectonic plates erupted from two dozen throats at once. The crimson light in their eye sockets blazed into infernos. As one, the enlarged, enraged Spartoi charged. The ground shook under their weight. They moved with a terrifying, jerky speed, their giant bone weapons held high.
Jason's survival instinct, finely honed by years of avoiding real fights, kicked in. He turned and ran.
"Told you," Medea whispered, a smug smile touching her lips as she glanced toward Cyd's location. Her potion, her knowledge. It was useless acid. Why not just tamper with the teeth directly? The soil was just a medium. A nursery. It couldn't affect the final product. Could it?
"Damn it, damn it, DAMN IT!" Jason gasped, weaving and dodging as a colossal femur-axe whistled past his head, close enough to part his hair. He had no weapon. No armor worth mentioning. He was a mouse in a room full of frenzied, sledgehammer-wielding skeletons.
From the stands, Cyd sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Pathetic. Chiron taught you observation. Taught you to see the weakness in everything. Can't you see the cracks?
But then, no one else seemed to. The enchantments, the size, the rage—they were a brilliant camouflage.
"I can't—!" Jason's stamina, never his strong suit, was failing. His foot caught on an uneven patch of sand. He stumbled, his rhythm broken.
The Spartoi behind him needed no further invitation. It raised its massive bone-blade, a cleaver made from a dragon's shoulder blade, and brought it down in a perfect, obliterating arc aimed at the crown of Jason's skull.
In that suspended moment of mortal terror, time didn't just slow—it crystallized. Jason's head turned, the movement feeling viscous and dreamlike. The blade filled his vision. He could see every pit and stain on the ancient bone, could trace the path of its descent with horrifying clarity. He heard nothing, but he felt the promise of the impact—a final, splitting crack.
Then he saw it.
Not the blade, but a memory. A flash of white hair in the crowd. A silent mouth forming words.
[Trust me.]
The panic didn't vanish, but it was shoved aside by a sudden, laser-sharp focus. His eyes, trained by the best teacher in the world, finally saw.
The bone blade wasn't solid. A spiderweb of fine, hairline fractures covered its surface, pulsing with each vibration. More were appearing even as he watched, spreading like frost on a windowpane. The Spartoi's entire arm, now that he looked, was a latticework of tiny faults. Its massive leg, planted for the swing, had a deep fissure running up the shin.
"I'm sorry I ever doubted you," Jason whispered, not to the monster, but to the man in the stands. Then he moved.
He didn't try to dodge. He stepped into the blow. His hands came up, not in a flinch, but in a precise, practiced motion—the disarming technique Chiron had drilled into him a thousand times. His palms slapped against the flat of the descending blade, right where the network of cracks was densest.
"I won't doubt you again," he grunted, channeling every ounce of his strength, which was, admittedly, just above average for a well-trained mortal. "Just like Heracles said… you are—"
CRUNCH-SHATTER!
The bone blade didn't just stop. It disintegrated.
It exploded into a cloud of granular, white powder and jagged shards right between Jason's hands. The force of the blow simply evaporated. The Spartoi staggered, staring at its empty hand with empty sockets, confused.
"—a man worth trusting!" Jason finished, staring at the dust sifting through his fingers.
"WHAT?!" This time, it wasn't Aeëtes who shouted, but Medea. She shot to her feet, her composure shattered. The Spartoi weren't indestructible, but they weren't brittle. You didn't just parry them into dust unless you had the strength of a demigod, which Jason famously did not. There was only one variable she hadn't accounted for.
Her furious, disbelieving gaze snapped to Cyd's last known position. He was gone, but the truth was now undeniable.
That stupid, acidic vinegar-water… it worked! How?!
"Does he… does he have the strength of Heracles?!" Aeëtes snarled, completely in the dark. His understanding of heroes came from boasts and ballads. They exaggerated, yes, but they didn't invent core competencies out of thin air. Jason was a leader, a schemer, a pretty face. Not a bone-crusher. This defied every report, every rumor.
If you were this strong, why were you RUNNING?!
"The outcome was decided the moment the first tooth touched the soil," Cyd murmured to himself, already pushing through the now-roaring crowd toward an exit. The arena was in an uproar, heroes and Colchians alike screaming as Jason, emboldened, began to shatter the Spartoi with well-placed kicks and palm strikes. They fell apart like statues made of dry clay.
The Spartoi were a marvel, yes. But they were just a marvel. A little logic unraveled them. A tooth as a core, soil as raw material. The gods were powerful, but they weren't creators from nothing. They transmuted. The Spartoi's bodies were conjured from the earth itself.
And what were they made of?
Bone. Mineralized material. Calcium, phosphates, pulled from the dirt.
The entire arena floor had been soaked in a potent, specific acid. It hadn't just made the soil "sour." It had leached it. Stripped it of the very compounds needed to form strong, dense bone. The Spartoi had been forced to grow from depleted resources. They were already fragile. Then Medea's growth enchantment had stretched that inadequate material even thinner, like blowing a bubble too big. And her rage enchantment made them strike with all their might, putting maximum stress on their compromised structures.
If Jason had just stood still, they would have shattered themselves against him within minutes.
Cyd slipped out into the corridor beyond the arena, the sounds of the chaotic, triumphant battle fading behind him. He leaned against the cool stone wall, a faint smile on his face.
"Alright, Jason," he said to the empty hallway. "The stage is yours. Don't trip on the rubble."