“By the dog!” Sokrates said. “And the cheating on the lots for the festivals?”
Athene was silent.
“It’s in the Republic. Or is that somewhere else where you’re not following Plato?”
There was an unhappy murmur rising among the children in the crowd.
“Ikaros? Is this somewhere that you are following Plato?”
Ikaros just stared at Sokrates for a moment, clearly horrified. It really was too bad of Sokrates, making poor Ikaros betray Plato and Athene together. He could have asked any of the masters. But I suppose he knew that Ikaros would tell the truth. “Yes, it is,” Ikaros admitted quietly.
There was another louder buzz in the crowd. Athene scowled. Sokrates looked over at where I was standing with Simmea, and then at Kebes. “And didn’t you yourself—” he began, and I really thought he was going to accuse her of fixing the results at the last festival to spite me, which might well have let everyone know who I was. Sokrates would never have mentioned it, but Athene in this mood couldn’t be trusted to respect my need for secrecy. But if he had been intending that he changed tack, perhaps realising the risk. “—know this was going on?”
Athene nodded angrily.
“Oh, you did? I thought so. But I just use these as examples,” Sokrates said. “Though that one is an example of how the city is giving people a bad life. As we established earlier, the festivals go against human nature and make many people very unhappy indeed. And then there’s the way you manipulated the numbers to get precise Neoplatonic fractions of each class, instead of fairly choosing based on the excellence of each child. Also—”
“Stop,” Athene said, and as she spoke her owl flew down to her outstretched arm, wings wide, making everyone jump. “You’re just attacking me, you’re not making any points.”
“You are a god, you should be better than mortals, but instead you are worse. We act within our limitations and you within yours, and you choose to take our lives and meddle to amuse yourself, doing what you please with them, against our will and in ignorance of whether the outcome is good or evil. You didn’t know about the workers. You didn’t give the children a conscious choice. You brought me here against my directly expressed wish. You say that this city is the good life, but how can it be the good life if it takes constant divine intervention to keep it going! It can’t be the good life unless people can choose to stay or leave, and can choose for themselves how to make it better. Instead you imprison them on this island, with no legacy and no posterity, and you make them have children here whose souls are bound to this time and who will die when the volcano erupts.”
Athene took a breath, as if she was about to speak. I don’t know what I expected her to say. But she snapped her fingers in Sokrates’s face. He shrank and shifted and transformed, until where he had been there was only a gadfly. He had always metaphorically called himself a gadfly, stinging people out of complacency, and now he was no longer a man but an actual literal gadfly, buzzing around the rostrum. Everyone gasped, myself included.
Athene stood still staring for a moment, and I still thought she was going to speak, explain herself, perhaps restore Sokrates. But she just looked in silence, shaking her head, with the castle crown still sitting on her unruffled curls. She gave no last speech, no farewell, no explanations. She looked at Ikaros, but she did not look towards me, or even meet the eyes of Manlius or any of the rest of her favourites. She simply vanished, and with her at the same instant vanished the workers—not just the ones gathered to listen to the debate but, we later learned, every worker in the city except for Crocus and Sixty-One.
In that moment of shock, Kebes jumped up to the rostrum, though Ficino tried to hold him back. “We’ve heard enough!” he shouted. “These pagan gods are unjust!”
“I have been trying to become more just,” I murmured to Simmea.
“Yes, you really have,” she agreed.
“This city is unjust!” Kebes shouted on. “I’m leaving to start my own city, better than this one, in a place that isn’t doomed and where we can make a difference! Who’s with me? To the Goodness!” There was a ragged cheer. He reached out for the gadfly, which buzzed away from him and flew over the heads of the crowd to where Simmea and I were standing. Kebes looked after it and locked eyes with Simmea. After a second she deliberately turned away from him, cupping her hand over the gadfly where it had settled against my chest. I put my hand gently over hers and met Kebes’s furious gaze. He bared his teeth as if he wanted to kill me, but just for a second. Then he tossed his head and turned to the crowd.
“Come on!” he roared. He set off down the street of Poseidon towards the harbor, with a cluster of people around him. Other people began shouting their own manifestos. Everyone seemed to want to found their own cities, except those who wanted to stay here and take over this city and amend it on their own lines. Everyone was talking at once. I saw Maia weeping. Ikaros was shouting something about angels.
Now you may well say that at that moment I should have resumed my powers and come out of the machine and sorted everything out. Perhaps I should, even though I would have had to have died to do it. But it never occurred to me. Things did happen after that, lots of complicated things, and I’ll tell you about them some other time, but this is where this story ends, the story that began with the question of why Daphne turned into a tree. I just stood still in the middle of the crowd with my hand on top of Simmea’s, providing fleeting shelter for the gadfly Sokrates, as factions formed around us, and the Just City came apart in chaos.
On my temple in Delphi there are two words written: Know Thyself. It’s good advice. Know yourself. You are worth knowing. Examine your life. The unexamined life is not worth living. Be aware that other people have equal significance. Give them the space to make their own choices, and let their choices count as you want them to let your choices count. Remember that excellence has no stopping point and keep on pursuing it. Make art that can last and that says something nobody else can say. Live the best life you can, and become the best self you can. You cannot know which of your actions is the lever that will move worlds. Not even Necessity knows all ends. Know yourself.
THANKS AND NOTES
I read Plato way too young, for which I’d like to thank Mary Renault.
Although I first had the idea for writing about time travellers attempting to set up Plato’s Republic when I was fifteen, I would never have been able to write this book as it stands without the existence, writing, conversation, and active practical help of Ada Palmer. There’s not enough thanks in the world; I have to send out to the moon and Mars for more. Buy her books and music. You’ll be really glad you did.
Evelyn Walling was an appreciative listener as I worked through plot issues. She made some very helpful suggestions. Gillian Spragg helped immeasurably with references. My husband, Emmet O’Brien, as always, was loving and supportive while I was writing.
Mary Lace and Patrick Nielsen Hayden read the book as it was being written. After it was finished it was read by Jennifer Arnott, Caroline-Isabelle Carron, Brother Guy Consolmagno, Pamela Dean, Jeffrey M. Della Rocco, Jr., Ruthanna and Sarah Emrys, Liza Furr, David Goldfarb, Steven Halter, Sumana Harihareswara, Bill Higgins, Madeline Kelly, Katrina Knight, Elise Matthesen, Clark E. Myers, Kate Nepveu, Emmet O’Brien, Ada Palmer, Doug Palmer, Susan Palwick, Alison Sinclair, Sherwood Smith, Jonathan Sneed and Nicholas Whyte. I want to thank Patrick Nielsen Hayden, Tom Doherty and everyone at Tor for their unfailing support as I continue to write books very different from each other.