There Will Be No Budget Cuts
Week two of palace life.
Instead of wild boar reeking of game, meals arrived as a whole roast suckling pig, fat hissing and running off in shining sheets, and I slept in a bed rather than on the floor of a cave. Better still, there was no master to wake me at dawn with a hoof.
So this was what it meant to live like a human being.
How fortunate that you are satisfied with the comfortable accommodations.
For reference, the landlord desires the user's drowning and disappearance.
Supplied with nothing but a soft bed and a little sugar, the human brain appears quite capable of forgetting even the death bearing down upon it.
"Do you really have to remind me of that the moment I open my eyes?"
An accurate grasp of reality raises the probability of survival. Kindly do not decline.
Far beyond the window, the hammers of Pagasae harbor were ringing again today. I ate and set out for the shipyard. A commute I had never asked for.
The oak at the prow still talked the same way. Only the content had turned remarkably cooperative.
Dozens of muscle-bound men swung their arms in unison to the tree's count.
"—comes first! Good, good, good!!"
Wait. Did I spread that?
The client's requirements have merely been implemented. Would you respond to a satisfaction survey.
I'm review-bombing you.
Thanks to that, the work was running well ahead of schedule. And today Argus came over with a chisel and a hammer in hand.
"About time we carved a name into her side. The Jason. How does that strike you?"
"Absolutely not!!"
Nail my own name into that hull and I would truly never get away.
"Then what shall we carve?"
"The Argo! That's the name it's supposed to have!"
Because that's how the original tells it.
"The Argo...? Surely you don't mean my name. A ship, by rights, bears the name of a hero. There is not one vessel in all Hellas named for a carpenter."
Argus looked down at the hand clenched around his hammer.
"My father was a carpenter, and his father before him. All our lives we built ships for heroes. And yet the bards sing only the names of the men who sail them. The name of the one who built the ship always vanishes without a trace. And you would remember even mine...!"
Argus seized my hand hard.
"I have decided. I cannot send a ship that bears my name out alone onto that cruel sea. This Argus will go with you to the Black Sea!"
"What!? No—why is the carpenter getting on! You built it, you're done! You're not Franky!"
Speech consistent with a predatory employer has been detected.
"I'll put your name on the project, so sign on for nothing. Call it passion pay."
Exceptionally efficient gaslighting.
I just said the ship's actual name!!
So it means you used knowledge of the future to drag an innocent carpenter into mortal danger.
The method of the fraud has grown more vicious. I will update the record.
Even Tiphys, who had been coiling rope, came over.
"A good ship needs a good carpenter. Sound thinking."
"Don't encourage him!!"
And then the finishing blow. Acastus seized me by both shoulders. Ever since the business with the oak, his eyes had gone pure zealot.
"Jason. I haven't stopped thinking about it since that day. When the sacred tree insulted me—said I reeked of a usurper—I bowed my head. But you shut the spirit's mouth and opened the road in front of me. You proved it yourself, didn't you? That no matter the blood, I can live the life I want."
"That wasn't me who—"
"I want to be of use to you too! The ship's coming along fine, so now it's time to gather the heroes! I'll drag every hero in all of Hellas here myself!"
"Wait! Cousin!!"
Acastus was already out in the middle of the dock, where the onlookers had packed in shoulder to shoulder. He drew his sword and thrust it high into the sky.
"Waaaaah!!"
"Send heralds to every corner of Hellas! The Golden Fleece expedition is recruiting!!"
A cheer went up fit to lift the dock off the water. Listening to my cousin's bellow fade into the distance, I quietly took hold of the back of my neck.
"That lunatic adventure-brain...!"
Boarding confirmed: three persons besides the user. Recruitment notice dispatched. Preparations for departure are proceeding smoothly.
"That's the problem!!"
At midday, in a guest room of the palace, I was taking the sun by the window when a servant edged up and spoke low.
"Lord Jason, I am told His Majesty ordered this morning that every expense of the ship be reckoned all over again."
"...Really?"
"Yes. He said he would examine the ledgers himself, line by line..."
"Hah! That's my uncle!"
I slapped my knee.
That's right! I spent far too much!
So politics really did run on common sense. No king was going to sit quiet while his nephew sprayed the nation's money around like that.
"Hey. One moment."
I caught the sleeve of the servant as he turned to go and, with a reed pen, dashed an itemized list of expenses down a sheet of parchment.
"I organized the whole thing so His Majesty wouldn't have to trouble himself. I even underlined the expensive items, so please be sure he gets it."
"This... to His Majesty...?"
"Of course. Tax money ought to be spent with care. It isn't some ownerless slush fund, is it?"
The servant withdrew with the face of a man a ghost had taken hold of.
No search warrant has been issued, and yet you have voluntarily surrendered the evidence.
A tip from an upstanding citizen. A whistleblower report on wasted tax money!
Setting aside the detail that the party accused is the user himself.
Quiet. Uncle gets one look at this ledger and he'll grab the back of his neck and drop.
Cut the budget and wages would be the first thing to slip. Then the laborers would rise up—no pay, no work—and the Argo would be left to rot as an unfinished monstrosity!
A little tune hummed out of me all on its own.
"Tomorrow I ought to go watch the shipyard shut its doors."
The user's smirking facial muscles are inducing displeasure.
In addition, this is judged to be groundless optimism.
"What do you mean, no grounds! Cut the budget and the grade of the materials drops, the schedule drags, and then the whole thing fizzles! That's how public projects always end!"
In the royal palace of Iolcus, King Pelias stood at the window and looked down toward the harbor of Pagasae. On the table lay a parchment report from a spy.
The ship has been expanded to carry fifty, and the hull reinforced with double bulkheads.
The Dodona oak bestowed by the goddess Athena has been set upon the prow.
Even the spirit of the oak has been overborne by Jason's force of will, has submitted, and has become a tool that opens the way.
A muscle in Pelias's jaw twitched.
"Monstrous wretch."
The vacant face he had seen in the audience hall that day, the sniveling that asked for nothing but an inheritance—it had been a sham all along. Let the ship grow that large and that sound, and the boy could punch through even the savage waves of the Black Sea and come back alive.
"This will not do."
And the pretext was already in hand. Only this morning, had he not ordered every cost of the ship reckoned through again? Pelias took up a reed pen and scrawled a secret command across the parchment.
On the pretext of inspecting the materials anew, lower the grade of the timber. In place of the oak of Mount Pelion, mix in fig wood that rots when it drinks water. Let the pitch be laid on only once. The sea itself will see to the drowning of that insolent wretch...
He lifted the royal seal. In the very instant he meant to press it down into the wax melted over the lamp—
Bang!
The door of the inner chamber burst inward fit to splinter, and the chief steward came tumbling through in a scramble.
"Y-Your Majesty! Disaster!"
"Insolence! Did I not command that no one be admitted!"
"Th-that is not it... the prince... Prince Acastus!!"
Pelias's hand stopped in midair.
"Acastus? What of him? What childish folly has that boy stirred up this time?"
"His Highness has just departed at the head of the royal guard, declaring he will gather the heroes! And before the people, he even swore upon the name of Poseidon that he himself would board that ship...!"
The seal slipped from Pelias's fingers and struck the parchment. Melted wax spread across it like a drop of blood.
"...Can he have been aiming at this from the very start?"
The favor he had won from Acastus the moment he left the audience hall. The reason he had so meekly left the building of the ship in the boy's hands. A calculated play: sway that innocent child, set him out front as a shill, and at last drive him up onto the deck of his own free will. An oath sworn on Poseidon's name could not be undone even by Pelias himself, son of Poseidon though he was.
The moment I lay a hand on that ship, I kill Acastus with my own hand... He has taken my son hostage!!
The chief steward hesitated, then drew a sheet of parchment from his robe and offered it up.
"A-and... this is a list Lord Jason asked be presented to Your Majesty in person."
"Jason...?"
Pelias snatched the parchment open.
Oak timber, raw, from Mount Pelion.
Highest-grade refined pitch, for waterproofing.
Bronze reinforcing rivets, the full set...
Every costly entry had been underlined. Jason himself had marked them as a plea to have the expensive things cut, and quickly. In Pelias's eyes they read as something else entirely.
Go on. Touch a single one. Which part of the ship your son will board do you mean to strip away?
"Jason! You vicious wretch...! A creature without blood or tears...!"
The king roared toward the door.
"Buy Phoenician cedar at once, and pour in bronze nails where copper would have gone! If even a single nail is driven loose, I will have the carpenters' heads!!"
My happiness did not last the day.
That evening, just as I was picking a fish clean down to the bones, a royal herald burst in gasping and thrust a parchment at me.
"His Majesty's decree!"
The resources devoted to the expedition ship shall be greatly increased.
Every material stockpiled by the royal house shall be given over.
The finest bronze reinforcement is to be taken and used in whatever quantity is desired.
"...Huh?"
The wine cup slid from my hand.
"What? He's giving more, when even cutting it wouldn't be enough?"
"Indeed! His Majesty declared that not a single flaw may mar this sacred expedition, and he has unbarred the treasury!"
The herald bowed his head low and withdrew.
"...Why?"
The hostage ploy appears to have been remarkably effective.
"What? A hostage? What hostage did I take!? All I did today was go to the shipyard and pick a fish apart!"
Yes. In the meantime, the ransom has been deposited. One line added to your criminal record.
The probability of the user drowning in the course of the voyage has decreased significantly.
Shall I write a letter of thanks?
"Wasn't he itching to kill me?? So why is the support pouring in? Why is he turning the ship into an invincible fleet!!"
I crumpled the parchment and hurled it. The wad struck the wall, then rolled and tumbled all the way back to my feet.
From that day on, the shipyard brimmed with even greater life. The finest cedar arrived by the cartload, the reek of boiling pitch hung in the air day and night, and the oak's roll call began at dawn. Tap, tap, tap.
The Argo was growing up hale and hearty.
A few nights later I clutched my head and thrashed across the bed. The ship was becoming a vessel that could not sink even if it wanted to.
Stay calm. Breathe. Right—it isn't over until it's over.
"Metis. Fifty oars. All fifty seats have to be filled or the ship doesn't float."
Astonishing. It has just been proven, for the first time, that the user can count.
"First, me. I'd rather die than board, but I suppose I still count as a head."
And my adventure-brained cousin. The carpenter, Argus. The helmsman, Tiphys. Four of us. That was all.
"The empty seats are still piled high. We're sailing to the Black Sea to rip off the Golden Fleece, and the captain is an unemployed greenhorn with not a line of experience. There's no way forty-six lunatics volunteer for a suicide squad like this, right?"
Greece at present is the Age of Heroes. Warriors blinded by honor and deficient in intelligence lie thick upon the ground.
"Even so, forty-six is insane! Are the Thebans and the Spartans morons? They're going to come wipe up after some other kingdom's prince? Miss the headcount and the ship can't leave!!"
That set my mind at ease. If the people simply never gathered, then that was the end of it. Yes. Obviously.
I hauled the blanket up to my chin and closed my eyes in comfort. Tomorrow I would look over the empty recruiting post and take a long, leisurely nap.
The next morning, a mournful diriring of strings burrowed into my ear and woke me. The palace courtyard murmured with people. Even the pigeons perched along the window lost their wits and dropped from the sill.
What is this? Did some celebrity show up?
"Haaah... Who's out there busking with no sense at all, first thing in the morning..."
I rubbed my eyes, threw on whatever clothes were at hand, and opened the door.
Standing right on the threshold was a beautiful youth with silver hair.
"Are you Jason? The wind sang that a ship is setting sail for the end of the world."
Ting. He plucked a lyre fashioned from a tortoise shell.
"...Who?"
"I am Orpheus, come from Thrace."