I let Antonias in and he looked at me quizzically.

“Why are you in your underwear? And wet?” He asked.

“Livia and I went swimming, and we didn’t bring any swimwear.” I explained.

He laughed. “You’re weird, you know that, right?”

“Yes, yes. I’m positively a deviant.” I said.

“Why don’t you join us, Toni?” Livia called out.

“I question our friendship sometimes.” Antonias sighed, but he pulled off his clothes save the last layer and followed me into the hot tub where Livia remained.

“What did you want?” I said.

“Junia went off somewhere and the Servi I brought with me don’t like to talk. I got bored.”

“They do like to talk.” I said, remembering how I had overheard with my enhanced hearing the Servi assigned to me from Antonias’s household become much more lively and quite jovial the instant they were out of our sight.

“Just when they’re out of our sight and think we can’t hear them.” I added.

Antonias frowned. “Really? I wasn’t aware.”

“Can’t you hear them? Maybe your bunch are a bit more cowed, perhaps, even in private.”

Antonias shook his head. “I don’t listen to anything beyond base human range unless I have reason to extend my perception or I’m spying on someone. It’s considered polite in classical Imperator society not to pick up everything at every time constantly. Gets embarrassing to, say, overhear your parents… indulging romantically when you’re a wee lad. Absolutely traumatizing, I tell you.”

I grimaced at the disgusting thought of hearing one’s parents or siblings or friends at a party going at it.

“That’s entirely horrifying.” Livia said. She looked a little green.

“Indeed.” Antonias said. “That’s why I stopped picking up on things when I was thirteen years old.”

“But how?” I wondered. “How could you not hear everything around you?”

Even at Copper my senses were almost overwhelming and overpowering. I could ignore a steady level of noise but the instant there was a discernable change like the honk of a hovercar or the woman above us in our former apartment raising her voice at her husband, I became aware of it.

“There’s cognitive techniques that my mother taught me.” Antonias said.

“Teach me.” I said.

“It’s simple enough. Okay, imagine as if there was a cloud forming in your ear canals.” He said.

I looked at him skeptically. “A cloud.”

“Yes. Now don’t be annoying just follow my lead.” Antonias said.

I leaned back in the hot tub, no longer sitting in the middle so that we could accommodate Antonias in the warm, frothing waters.

“Close your eyes.” He ordered me.

He snapped his fingers.

“Imagine the cloud thickening and swelling in your ear. It darkens to a storm cloud, swollen with rain, it presses against your eardrum and expands against the confines of your inner ear.” He said.

He snapped again. It seemed fainter somehow, farther away, and softer and less sharp in its sound.

“The storm cloud has started to rain, the tiny droplets are falling downwards against the flesh of your ear. Focus on the pitter patter, the plink of each innumerable drop.” Antonias said. His words were distant and obscured.

It really did almost feel like I was listening to two miniature storms in my ears, a false sound like a song caught in my head.

He snapped again. I barely caught the sound.

“Now you hear thunder, the Skyfather’s bolts sounding off, the drumbeats of gods and spirits of rain and wind and high heaven above.” Antonias said.

I heard the booming thunder.

He snapped his fingers again. Or at least I thought he did. It was drowned out by strangely real rain and the cacophony of thunder and the rushing of the wind.

I didn’t hear him snap once more, even after long moments. I felt his touch on my shoulder after a few minutes, but I could barely focus on it. The storm had expanded beyond my ears, it surrounded and enveloped me. It dominated my senses and blocked the heat of the hot tub. I shivered in the cold rain.

How was I doing this? I knew that Imperators had their mental state and functions expanded and developed, but I had heard nothing of meditative thinking bringing forth a waking dream. I hesitated to label those on my new Path as smarter than the other sub species of mankind. They certainly weren’t wiser or more emotionally stable, but there were benefits and changes wrought upon our neural pathways.

I felt Antonias shake me, but I couldn’t bring myself to break this waking vision of heaven’s majesty. A thought occurred to me, I could feel and hear the rain and the thunder, but could I see it?

I opened my eyes. Not my real eyes of flesh but my mind’s eye. I stared upwards into an expansive of gray clouds that stretched on infinitely. Pure droplets of water landed on my face and rolled down my cheeks like the tears I had shed over the death of my family.

I turned my head downwards and was surprised to see I was not alone. Sitting opposite of me was an old man, his hair and beard white and unruly, his skin a deep tan, his nails long and unkempt. Almost pointed like claws. His eyebrows were comically bushy, and he had wrinkles around his eyes, the mark of a long life of good humor and frequent smiles. He was skinny and the height of a Servus man, though there was still definition to his muscles.

He moved his left hand that had been covering his right and my breath halted when I saw a ring. A ring identical to the one that had transformed me into an Imperator. There was no mistaking this twin piece, the same seal of an alabaster white face in side profile with a crown of a golden laurel wreath on its head.

“Who are you?” I whispered.

The old man opened his eyes. His irises were the purest gold and his sclera was as white as a child who had not yet Awakened their Path to Copper.

“Your grandfather.” He said.

“I have no living grandparents.” I countered. “I ask you again, who are you?”

“My ring transmutated your genetics, boy, bringing you into my bloodline. Not close enough to make you into a true son, but enough that I have claimed you as my own.” The old man said. “You are my grandson now whether either of us like it or not.”

“Are you displeased with me?” I asked.

“I’ve learned to laugh at the Fates’ games. I find the line between a tragedy and a comedy to depend largely on how you keep your good humor.” He said.

I stared into his strange golden eyes, the inverse of a Gold’s exalted orbs. “For what reason would you have to be unhappy with me? I’ve exceeded the standards of most of the Imperator population with no resources or inherited privilege to me. I own no corporations that dominate the stars, belong to no clan that showers me with opportunities and training, was given no command of armies for no reason other than being a great man’s child. How have I failed in your eyes?”

“The ring wasn’t intended for a Servus.” The old man said mildly.

I blinked. “But it transformed me. How was it supposed to work if not to switch a lesser Path to an Imperator’s?”

“It was designed to make a Gold out of an Imperator that otherwise would have never advanced further upon their cultivation. The energies and mechanisms of the ring altered you as such because that power was invested into you, but it’s intended purpose was different.”

“Oh.” I said.

“It is what it is.” He said dismissively. “Better that it accomplished something of note rather than be lost forever. Your ambitions may propel you to the heights of Gold but if not, I predict you will reach Silver at the very least.”

“How did it come to Lavinius?” I asked.

“It was stolen from my laboratory two thousand years ago by… a family member, shall we say.” The old man said.

“Why didn’t you make another?” I revised that thought. “Or did you make more?”

Surely not, if more Golds had been made even on Lavinius we would have heard but perhaps this strange elder was secreting the devices of ascension away.

“There’s a grave cost to making such a perilous creation. Recovering from it was less than pleasant and it made my rivals and underlings prone to scheming at the slightest signs of weakness.” He said.

I accepted this.

“Who are you?” I said once more.

“Tavias.” He said simply.

“What are you.” I asked.

“Legend refined.” Tavias said.

“Are you an Imperator?”

Tavias certainly didn’t look like one, but he said I was his grandson and his ring had made me into one by implanting his genetics into me. Perhaps this was merely a disguise.

“Only partially.” Tavias said.

“What does that mean?” I said, frustrated.

“It means that it is the smallest fraction of my potency and that I find little kinship with those on the Path of the Emperor.” He said.

“What am I then, if I am your descendant?” I said.

“That remains to be seen. I have had many children across my life and all but one were unremarkable for Imperators. You are a seed tossed into the ground and only time will tell if you will grow into something that bears good fruit for my labors or if you will be strangled by the weeds.” Tavias said.

He tilted his head to the side and the barest hint of distaste crossed his face.

“Unfortunately, life calls me away from this meeting.” Tavias said. “Your friends are calling you as well.”

“When can I see you again? If I meditate like this can I talk with you?” I asked.

“I am a busy man. I cannot say that I will come each time you wish. I am no dog to be called to your side at your whim.” Tavias said.

“Should I know you?” I said. “Or are you hidden from the Dominium?”

The old man smiled slyly. “Yes.”

He disappeared and I was sent spinning out of the vision and back down to my body in the hot tub.

I opened my eyes. Antonias and Livia were looking at me worriedly.

“What happened?” Antonias asked.

“Are you okay, Adrias?” Livia said.

“I had a… visit from a family member.” I said.