Even later in the day, after most people had done their shopping, the Agora remained fairly loud. Not terribly so, just a dull roar at all times. When the heavy wood doors closed behind Eoren he was stuck by just how quickly and completely that sound disappeared. He was a creature of the woods, or at least he was descended from them. He could hear much better than humans and could see well on any moonless night. Yet once the doors closed he was plunged into a deep darkness and he couldn’t hear a sound from the market. It was as if he had taken three steps and found himself in the underworld.

  Suddenly the flame of a torch guttered up. It was held in an iron bracket with three legs and its bright yellow flame illuminated part of an entirely different room than the one Eoren had stepped into. He had opened the door and walked into a simple white marble room with another similar wooden door on the other side. He now stood in a much larger and longer room. So long in fact, that he could not determine when and if it ended. Ahead of him, where the torch burned, was a creature sitting on a gray stone throne. Even sitting with his head resting on his palm he was at least two feet taller than Eoren. Yet this was not what made Eoren’s hair stand on end and his legs to freeze solid. This giant was covered in eyes.

  Light brown eyes with flecks of gold. He had a single line of eyes running from the back of his hands all the way to his bare shoulders. Between dark hairs curling on his chest poked a circular collection of roughly fifty eyes. They sprang from the bottom of his feet all the way past his thighs, though Eoren could not determine how high up they went as the giant wore a skirt of red cloth tucked into his similarly coloured subligar. While this was disturbing to look at, his face unnerved Eoren the most. His nose and mouth appeared to be crushed under a flood of identical eyes. There was little in the way of humanity on his face, it was swept away by the sea of white, brown and black. Wild, dark brown hair wilted down to his shoulders.

  “Well?” Rumbled the giant after a nauseating blink.

  “Buh guh buh.” Answered Eoren elegantly.

  The giant fixed his gaze on the satyr. To Eoren it felt as if a whole crowd was staring at him.

  “Ah, I’m your first monster. Mh, simple first test.”

  Still stiff, the satyr watched as the giant reached down beside his seat and gripped something hidden by shadow. The giant half stood up and heaved. A club with bronze discs set in it flew across the room and sparked against the floor less than ten feet from Eoren. It was a massive thing, likely made of a whole tree trunk. And it was still moving, charging, towards Eoren across the floor. Its massive weight made it seem more like a boulder tumbling down a mountain than any weapon.

  JUMP! Screamed Eorens mind and he did.

  He landed poorly after hurdling the club, rolling his ankle slightly. Panicked, he nearly flung the bindle from his shoulder. Holding the staff in shaking hands he tore the bundle off its end. Getting to his feet he took a solid stance with his thyrsus. Standing squarely he looked past the tip of his staff and focused on the giant. To Eoren relief, the giant was still sitting, leaning forward but lacking much of an interested expression.

  “Hah. No satyr jam on my bread tonight eh Theuras?” He said, casting his gaze to a corner behind and to the right of Eoren. Then he turned back to the satyr.

  Eoren spared a quick glance behind him and saw nothing but black and maybe the outline of the room in the gloom. It was too dark to tell exactly how big the room was.

  “You got a name rabbit?”

  “E-eoren.”

  “Whaterya here for?

  “I want to be the god of wine.” Eoren took a steadying breath and relaxed a bit. It seemed like the physical danger had passed.

  “Oh? How original.”

  Shit. Should I have said something else? No, being honest is how this happens, I’m not going to lie my way into godhood.

  “Or the god of partying. Or anything cool like that.” He said, trying to put on a brave smile.

  “Or anything cool like that? Pah! You just want to be the new Dionysus.”

  I could certainly think of worse things to want.

  The giant stood.

  “What else is “cool” to you? You clearly don’t mind settling given how many dominions you could stomach. Do you think honey is cool too? What of water? Or bricks? Or sod or gold or dirt or shit?” Questioned the many-eyed man. “Do you have any real ambition besides being drunk for the rest of your days? Diya think godhood is a joke?”

  The giant took two steps and Eoren took half of one back.

  “No. Of course not. I don’t know a lot about most of those things. What I do know is a lot of stuff about drink and merriment.” Said Eoren trying to sound more confident than he felt. The satyr was only barely managing to stop his shaking. This monster, for it could be nothing else, terrified him.

  “Oh spare me, every satyr who comes in here says that.” The giant shook his hand at the satyr dismissively. “And without fail every single one of them can’t manage to remember a thing about them aside from what grapes taste good and that parties should not be held on an empty field. They’re all just slackers who want something to leach from eternally.”

  Eorens nose twitched. He stood straight and held his staff in one hand.

  “I am not a slacker.”

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Oh you hear that Theuras? He’s not like the rest!”

  The giant crouched down to a little over eye level after again saying something to the corner.

  “How diya figure that?” Slurred the giant.

  The satyr gathered himself and spoke.

  “I am not some layabout. I truly want to make the world better. What other place of learning is equal to here? What other place could give me the training and gifts the Lyceum can? I-.”

  “They are not gifts, whelp. If by some miracle you get in, every scrap of your divinity will be bought with sweat and blood. I’ve seen droves of hopefuls that “wanted to make the world a better place” and chasing that fuzzy, sappy feeling got half of them killed.”

  The giant stood at his full height and moved up beside Eoren. The satyr leaned back slightly as the massive being approached. Instead of running as the animal part of his brain demanded, he straightened and looked into the mass of eyes that made up the creature's face.

  “The other half didn’t even make it far enough to get to real danger. You need more than just a want to get anywhere, inside these walls or out.”

  “I-. I-. Uh.”

  That many?!?

  “What whelp? Looking for some bullshit to spout? Some story to trick your way into somewhere you think will solve all your issues? Maybe gods don’t have to pay their bar tabs eh? Wouldn’t that be something?”

  The giant stared a thousand daggers into the satyr. Eoren tried to formulate something, anything to say and came up empty.

  “Pah! Failed the second test. Theuras? Are we ready to send this one home?” Said the giant turning away from Eoren and walking back to his throne.

  For a moment Eoren just stood there. In the half light of the torch he felt icy despair creep into his stomach. He gazed at the ground with hollow eyes.

  “I can’t uh, I can’t-.”

  “What? Speak up lad!” Roared the now sitting giant.

  Eoren swallowed.

  “I can’t go home.” He said quietly.

  “Oh. An exile, how you tug on my heartstrings.”

  “No I-.” The satyr breathed in and when he lifted his eyes from the ground the giant saw a kindled fire in them. His back straightened and his voice cleared.

  “I WILL not go home.” Continued Eoren.

  “What’s stopping you?

  “I will not go home a failure. I know I have something to offer here, I just don’t know exactly what form it will take.” The satyr took a half step forward. “You are mistaken, unlike all the other satyrs you’ve seen, I know I took time to understand rather than just experience. I know all there is to know about wine, all the best ways a party can begin and end. In my youth I found it foolhardy to dedicate my long life to one thing, so I ravenously studied all the epics of revelry.”

  He took a long step forward.

  ”I studied under my town's philosopher until he had no more to teach me, then I lived in Athens and took in as much knowledge there as I could. I learned there for almost a third of my life, and only left to put practice to my knowledge. I am hedonistic as all satyrs are, but it is the root of my drive, the hound I have lashed to my sled. It is not enough for me to revel like a satyr, I must revel as only the wise can. For certainly there are many who like to gather and drink, but so few have studied what makes a good party.”

  He took two great steps forward. His chin tilted up confidently.

  “I have. I have watched from many a shadow on many a night of revelry and taken stock of all that went on. There are few others who know as much as I about the near six hundred types of grapes that humanity crushes into wine. There are fewer still who know as much as I about the two hundred and thirteen foul spirits that twist men's minds. It is only now, with the death of my god, do I have a heavenly calling rather than an earthly one. I know so much about so many things, surely there must be a spot for me in the new pantheon? I can be so many things, I am sure to be able to become but one of them.”

  The satyr stopped his advance towards the giant. He stood plainly before the giant, his story done. The monster said nothing and his face betrayed little. Only a slight smile could be detected, which grew slowly. Indeed it was so small at first that Eoren thought his mind was playing tricks on him.

  “So, let me straighten this out. You spent- how many years?”

  “Roughly twenty”

  “Two decades learning how to party the best?”

  “That is correct.”

  The giant scratched an errant eyelash on his chin.

  “And what would you do if I said that it don’t matter how many facts you can spout about something?”

  “Explain.” Said Eoren flatly, not betraying the twist of fear in his guts with his tone.

  “A god needs to embody a dominion, and knowledge of the dominion is a part of it, but so is personal investment. For a mortal to ascend, they need to live and breathe that thing. I don’t see you embodying any dominion, I see you dipping your toes in something like five, you really only lean strongly towards one.”

  Eoren sank, leaning on his staff to keep himself uptight.

  “Well? What would you say?”

  “Uh, well I would have a question.” Said the satyr, trying to keep the rising dread of failure from clouding his mind.

  “And?”

  “Well, can I come back and try again? I obviously have to find something and stick to it, but I can do that.”

  The giant's face split with a larger smile. With some disgust Eoren noted it was quite a bit proportionally wider than a humans and he lacked molars, possessing a patchwork of snaggly and sharp teeth in their place.

  “Hah! There it is. Well, Theuras, I think that's my test over, your turn.”

  With that a great snapping noise rang in Eoren's ears and he was blinded by a scorching white light. When the spots ran from his sight he found himself in that very same bare marble room. Or not? There wasn’t a rug to wipe one's feet on the door behind him. Eoren concluded that he must be in another, very similar room. The giant sat on a simple stump in one corner, nearly filling half the room himself.

  “Did I pass?”

  The giant let out another snorting laugh.

  “My test, the hard one.”

  “Oh, good.” Eoren said, slightly dazed.

  “Quick question though. You said I favoured a particular dominion?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What is it? I thought I spread myself out pretty well.”

  The giant, who seemed only very slightly intimidating with a smile on his face, what with how broad it was, clapped the satyr on the back.

  “No fun spilling the beans like that. But I will tell you that it ain’t a dominion close to partying. Now hurry up, I bet Theuras wants to go home soon, I sure do. Sorry fer chucking my club at you.” The giant punctuated this by spinning the satyr around to face the other side of the room. An empty side of the room.

  “Theuras? That was the person you were talking to behind me?” Asked the satyr turning back to the giant.

  “Heh, for a given definition of “person,” sure.” Responded the giant, pointing up at the ceiling opposite of him. Eoren followed his finger and looked into the eyes of the second monster of today.