Methaphoras

6 THE HIGHEST HONOR

Kayros stared at Agny's back while he slowly disappeared between the guests. He shrugged, turned around, and tried to ban the conversation from his memory circle.

Wisdom advised Kayros to let the incident rest but the longer he strolled amid the public, the more he heard about the strange substance that Agny smuggled inside. Initially, he thought that the matter was about nothing more than bragging and grandiloquence, but the persistence with which the rumor circulated suggested more. Because he nowhere found confirmation nor refutation about his suspicions, his longing to know more about the product and the effect it caused, became an alarming swelling desire Kayros felt time go almost tangibly by while his yearning grew exponentially and eventually assumed unrealistic forms. That darned Agny had carelessly dropped a small seed of coveting that now overruled his thoughts in all excessive usury. After carefully considering all the options, he made a decision and went to the room under the theater.

Resolutely, Kayros confiscated the last bottle to investigate further, testing it immediately on the spot.

Anyway, those were the words with which he planned to explain the matter if the introduction with Agny's snuff ended badly, or if Mito asked him to justify his motivations.

Sitting in a chair in front of Agny, the quality and the strength of the potable fire was immediately convincing enough for Kayros. For a while, he stayed sitting that way, as if a giant hammer had nailed him into the chair. Agny expected the magician's skull to split any moment so he could teleport himself to another location. He, however, remained motionless sitting in the armchair, which made Agny fear that the last bottle contained too high a concentration. It was, however, Kayros' supermetha willpower alone what prevented him from leaving the entire solemn germination, with all the guests and all its preoccupations around it for what they were. When the storm in his e-onns calmed down, he tried to fish out where it came from, despite the still ongoing raging haze of the product beneath his skull roof. However, Agny maneuvered around the glowing porridge in such a way that caused Kayros to ask first something concerning another, more neutral subject:

'What you recently told me about the Masterbuilder and the Ingenium continues to haunt me. Tell me freely, where would you place the pawns in Marantium if you got the chance?' Hence on that subject, Agny replied uninhibited:

'There is a good chance that, in that case, I promote Morgani Hacim Illumino to become a master builder, because he can make Ravanella's abilities to unfold. Marantium can develop under that leadership as a better place to live. Sadly, it is not so, although even Ardor would probably have a happier existence as Ingenium.' Agny assumed that he deserved a counter-question with his piece of information, and in turn, he asked:

'Lord, just like Methas, Charonns consist of e-onns but without being conscious. Yet I know that one, with a small effort, can lose or gain e-onns. What interests me is how a Charonn can turn into a Metha?' Kayros grinned mysteriously and said:

'So there are things that you cannot learn in the room of awareness, my friend. Well, that is not a shame, because all the knowledge in Di'aull cannot possibly be transferred in the short time in which one forms a Charonn into a full Metha. For the rest of their long life they can learn a lot of extra things, and, if you take yourself as an example, you have already discovered an amazing amount of things in a short span of time!' He threw the empty bottle in the air and held it there with his will until he suddenly grabbed it with his left claw and said profoundly:

'The answer to your question is simple. In the deepest core of a Charonn resides a single singularity, rotating in alternating directions. In the case of a Metha, on the other hand, the orientation is anchored, turning left or right, determined by their name. This fixation decides whether you live on the inside of Marantium, under Ardor, or on the outside under Taruko.'