“Shat on your head?” One strapping, horn-voiced pilgrim laughed. “What next: were you chased by the Sphinx? Or perhaps wooed by an overamorous Minotaur?”
Barnabas’s eyes widened and he clicked his fingers, pointing at the man in excitement. “The Minotaur, yes! There was a set of caves where I was looking for treasure—”
But his hurried explanations were drowned out as the mocking man put his fingers to his head like horns and ran in circles around the bench, making “mooing” noises. Laughter exploded all around. Barnabas’s face turned a shade of puce. His new friend tugged him down from the bench to spare him any further embarrassment.
Kassandra pushed up through the snaking queue, ignoring the curses and yelps as she went, coming to Barnabas. He was only a few dozen spaces from the entrance of the great temple.
“Misthios.” He bowed to her, a few tresses of his sweat-slicked hair stuck to his still-red face. “I thought you were going to see someone?”
“I went. I saw him.”
“But I didn’t expect to see you until I got back to the ship. When I asked if you wanted to come to the Oracle with me, you told me to travel a short distance and make love to myself… or words to that effect.”
“Things changed. I must speak to the Oracle,” she said, holding one arm level as Ikaros glided down to land on her bracer.
“Then you can join me in my place in the queue, of course,” Barnabas said, shifting to one side to let her in, “assuming my friend allows it too?”
The other man waved a hand, beckoning her in with minimal fuss.
“Kassandra, Herodotos,” Barnabas introduced them. When Herodotos stared at Kassandra, Barnabas tried to clarify. “You know, the misthios I was telling you about?”
“I see,” Herodotos said, his tone guarded.
“While I’m a traveler, Herodotos is a historian,” Barnabas explained. “What a life he has lived: led the revolt against the Tyrant of Halicarnassus, then sailed to almost every corner of the world before making his home in Athens. Somehow, he finds the time to write his adventures down—each titled with the names of the nine Muses, no less.”
“You did not tell me she was a Spartan,” said Herodotos.
Kassandra arched an eyebrow.
“Oh I can tell.” Herodotos half smiled. “The proud stance and the arrogant, iron stare.”
As he examined her, Kassandra could not help but notice his eyes widening, the pupils shrinking, as he caught sight of the half-spear, partly hidden under the fold of her cloak. His face paled like a man who has just seen his own shade. She pulled her garment around to hide it. “I am a child of nowhere,” she said, clamming up.
“We are all born somewhere, my lady,” he said, his face lengthening to exaggerate the lines of age. “And do not assume that I am biased against the Spartans. There is much to admire… and loathe in the ways of the proud warrior race of Lakonia and in the Athenians. The thing that troubles me most readily is that their differences have broiled into war. For all the glory of the days when both sides stood together, fought and won against the innumerable Persians, it has come to this.” He eyed the shady portico of the temple and the towering doorway: two guards stood watch before it, armored in black-leather vests, black-painted shields and matching helms. “At least here we have a haven of neutrality,” he said.
Kassandra’s eyes narrowed. For all the world it had sounded like a question.
Just then, Reza the helmsman shouted up from the valley floor. “Triearchos,” he called, waving his hands. “Trouble at the Kirrha harbor—they’re looking for a toll for our mooring. We need you back there.”
Barnabas sighed. “After a whole day of queuing? Really?” He slumped and sighed again. Kassandra gave him a handful of drachmae from Elpenor’s sack of coins. “Most generous, Misthios.” He tipped his head in appreciation. “I will see you back on board,” he said, trudging back down the queue. Kassandra set Ikaros off in flight with him.
With Kassandra left alone with Herodotos, the queue shuffled forward. “Kings travel to these parts to consult the Oracle. She can start wars or end them,” the old historian mused. “What do you seek today?” he asked.
“Resolution,” she replied, placing a hand on her chest.
He smiled sadly, nodding. “Me, I seek… the truth. Though I fear I will not want it when I possess it.”
“Next,” one of the guards snapped.
Herodotos half bowed. “I feel that you should go before me, my lady.”
She tilted her head a little to one side in acknowledgment, noticing how he glanced once more at the fold of her clothes covering the Leonidas spear, and stepped forward. The eyes of the two black-shelled guards slid around, following her stride. She entered the shady interior to find the air thick with a cloying sweetness. From low, wide copper sconces mounted on tripods, ribbons of myrrh and frankincense smoke rose like ghosts.
When she came to the Adyton chamber at the heart of the temple, it was nearly night-dark. Marble likenesses of Poseidon, Zeus, the Fates and Apollo himself glared down at her, uplit by the eldritch gloom of the sconces. She almost flinched when she saw two “statues,” which were in fact more of the dark-garbed sentries. But more disconcerting was the slumped figure that sat on a three-legged stool in the center of the chamber. She was draped in a long white gown and strings of beads, her wreathed head lolling, lost in the pillars of scented smoke rising from glowing pots set on the tiled floor around her.
Kassandra peered at the Oracle, hatred building in her heart. Perhaps there would be no answers here, but there could be resolution of some sort: for the guards had been foolish enough to let her enter with her weapons. Now the snake-woman would pay for the cursed words that had shattered her life and… Her spiraling thoughts ground to a halt when the woman’s head rolled back. She was young—years younger than Kassandra—not an old hag as tradition dictated. She actually reminded her of an adolescent Phoibe. The hatred ebbed quickly. The Oracle who had dictated the bleak demands all those years ago was now long dead, it seemed.
“Enter into the light of Apollo, the light that illuminates shadow.” The girl sighed throatily, gesturing to the gentle glow of the burning pots. “What do you wish to know, traveler?”
“I… I seek the truth about my past. Perhaps my future too. I want to know of my parents, their whereabouts.”
The Oracle’s swaying head slowed a little. “Who asks Apollo for such wisdom?” she boomed, belying her small frame.
Kassandra stared at the seeress, knowing how foolish this was, sickened that she would have no answers nor even the satisfaction of revenge now. “I was born in the land of Sparta. My brother was cast from the mountains and so was I. Now, I have nobody, nothing.”
The Oracle stopped swaying altogether. Her eyes rolled up to meet Kassandra’s. She seemed different now, as if wakened. But when her eyes flicked toward the nearest guard, she lapsed back into that trancelike state, head swaying again. “You will find your parents… on the other side of the river.”
Kassandra’s senses sharpened. Her mind spun with what little knowledge she had of this region. The River Pleistos ran near here. Her parents were there?
“When your days draw to an end and you pay Charon the Ferryman to cross the Styx, you will be reunited with them on the far banks.”
Kassandra’s heart plunged as hope crumbled away. A silence passed. The guards shuffled impatiently. “Your time is up,” one grunted.
“I bid you farewell,” she said to the Oracle.
Just as she turned to leave, a shout echoed through the temple from outside, and the sound of a smashing vase.
“Trouble!” a guard’s voice grunted from out there. The two in here looked at one another, then rushed outside.