The Oracle

by D. J. Niko

  Seven sets of eyes gazed at Aristea as if the fountain of life sprang from her mouth. She knew they would carry this lesson with them always. “I tell you this story to remind you that life is about choices. Do not be fooled by riches or false promises, for they are like vessels with holes: they can never be filled. Opt instead for the way of industry and virtue, for knowledge and understanding do not come without work. That path may be narrow and steep, but do not forsake it, for it will lead to your higher nature.”

  She again held up the Y. “This symbol represents the choice between two paths.” She pointed to the central stem. “This depicts the path of life. As you walk along that path, you will undoubtedly come to a fork, a parting of ways. The left side represents the way of earthly wisdom, the right the way of divine wisdom. As a being of free will, you have the power to choose.” She placed the papyrus back in the codex. “Use it wisely.”

  From the corner of her eye, Aristea saw a figure standing at the far end of the grove. She glanced in that direction and saw Cleon, the eldest priest of Apollo’s sanctuary, watching and waiting.

  She turned back to her class. “That concludes our lesson for today. Tomorrow, we will begin on our mathematics curriculum.”

  As the pupils dispersed, Aristea walked through the grove, purposefully brushing against low-hanging leaves as she passed. She never missed an opportunity to feel the hand of nature.

  She thought it odd that Cleon stood in the same spot and didn’t bother to meet her halfway. She shrugged it off, attributing it to his age. His fifty-seven years were becoming more and more evident in his bent back and the silver strands that crowded out his jet-black hair. Even his dress told of an advanced age: though it was nearing summer, he covered his priestly robes with a fawn skin lest he catch a chill.

  As she approached, she took silent stock of this man who had been her trusted friend since she was ordained into the priesthood at age sixteen. His eyes betrayed concern, as if something had happened.

  She spoke to him in a cheerful tone. “You have come a long way, dear Cleon. What brings you to our humble school?”

  “Still teaching those girls, are you?”

  “Of course.” She looked over her shoulder to the platanus that served as her classroom. A couple of the older girls conversed beneath its shade. “It is only through education that they will become more than someone’s wife or mother or daughter. And maybe one day women will no longer be invisible in our country.”

  “You hope for much.”

  “Things are changing, Cleon. We must give voice to women if we are to stand as a strong society against the oppressors.”

  “That is why I am here.” He drew a deep, shaky breath. “I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

  Sensing his distress, she placed a hand on his shoulder. “Tell me what, old friend?”

  “Theodosius has been named emperor of both sides of the Roman Empire. He has supreme power. That is not good news for us.”

  A chill traveled down Aristea’s spine. While governing the eastern half of the empire, Theodosius had proven himself a ruthless leader. The destruction of the Serapeum the year prior was one of many atrocities committed by the emperor who waved the sword of a supreme being foreign to Aristea and her people.

  The emperor also had ordered a retaliation against the Thessalonians for executing one of his governors, an action that resulted in a bloody clash and the loss of more than seven thousand lives. More recently, Theodosius had issued a number of decrees, all directed toward pagan places and methods of worship.

  Though she felt the drumbeat of doom in the pit of her stomach, she stayed positive for the old priest’s sake. “He will not harm us. We have done nothing worthy of his wrath.”

  Cleon leaned forward. “Hear my words, Aristea. Theodosius has issued a new law proscribing paganism. Regardless of how peaceful our rituals, we are hereby forbidden to engage in them. Blood sacrifices carry a penalty of death. So does prophesying, which in their eyes is a form of witchcraft.”

  “We’ll do it in secret. No one has to know.”

  He shook his head. “They have their eye on Delphi. As the most important pagan sanctuary in all of Greece, it is under much scrutiny. What I mean to say is, we can no longer accept supplicants. No one will risk prison and torture to journey here anyway.”

  The revelation hit Aristea like a stone off a catapult. “But that will mean the end of Delphi. That cannot be.”

  A breeze came down from the mountaintop and swept through the grove. Cleon wrapped the fawn skin more tightly around him and turned toward the uphill path. He glanced behind him. “Be careful what you teach those girls. You don’t know who is listening.”

  She knew Cleon was right, but it irked her nonetheless. “With my last breath I will share with them what I know. It is my birthright and my sacred duty.”

  He smiled. “Your ancestress Themistoclea was just as foolhardy.”

  “Look after yourself, old friend.”

  Cleon walked along the path to Delphi. Aristea gazed toward the top of the mountain, where the Phaedriades rose like dogs’ teeth toward a shimmering sky. For centuries her people had stood in the boulders’ shadow and communed with the divine.

  She swore no rabid emperor would take that right away from them.

  Ten

  I’m sorry, Sarah.” Daniel’s face was as hard as the basalt of the mountains. “I should have told you sooner.”

  His announcement that he was returning to Saudi Arabia—alone—rattled her. She hadn’t seen it coming. “I don’t understand. I thought we were sailing this ship together.”

  “This isn’t about you. I need to fly solo for a while, work some things out.” He zipped up his backpack and slung it over one shoulder, then reached down for his army-green duffle. “My driver is waiting.”

  “I suppose you should get on then.” Her voice was shaky.

  He placed a cold hand on her face and stroked her cheek with his thumb. She pulled back, repulsed by the hypocrisy of it.

  He stared at her with vacant eyes, then turned toward the door, swung it open, and let it slam behind him.

  Sarah jolted awake. It took her a moment to realize she’d fallen asleep at the table in her cabin. She’d been reading the Pausanias volumes on her laptop until late and must have dozed off. She went to the sink and splashed cold water on her face, trying to sober herself from the crowbar-to-the-knees effect of the unwelcome dream.

  It didn’t do any good. She could feel in her gut something was wrong and made up her mind she would not let it go this time. She needed to talk to him.

  She zipped up her fleece and made her way through the darkened grove to Daniel’s cabin. The wan moonlight illuminated a mist of snow falling between the chestnut leaves and melting as it hit the ground. It seemed winter had come in earnest to the Theban hill country.

  Sarah stopped in front of Daniel’s door and knocked, steeling herself for whatever would come. Shivering, she cupped her hands and blew into them. There was no answer. She rapped again, calling his name this time.

  Again, no answer.

  She went to turn the doorknob but stopped herself, thinking it too invasive. Maybe it could wait until morning, after all.

  She took the long way back to her cabin, past the car park. In the back of her mind, she knew the Rover wouldn’t be there. And she was right.

  For a long moment, she stood beneath the falling snowflakes, staring at the sole vehicle—Evan’s Land Cruiser—in the car park. Daniel was gone.

  Her face tingled with alarm. Could it be?

  She glanced toward the monolithic building beyond the grove. She launched into a jog, then a full-on run, jumping over exposed roots and crunching fallen leaves as she hurried toward her destination.

  By the time Sarah got to the lab door, she was breathless. Her hands trembled as she entered the combination and pushed the heavy metal door open. She turned on the lights, and the space was flooded in a shock of fluorescent white. Squinting, she l
ooked around the harshly lit room. As her eyes adjusted, she was relieved to find everything as she had left it about eight hours prior, when she had finished studying the rhyton.

  She turned to the vault. She punched in the combination and heard the familiar pneumatic sigh. She pushed it slowly and scanned the stacked trays full of artifacts. Her gaze stopped at the empty tray marked Brass obelisk, Boeotia.

  She clenched her fists. How could he do this?

  She shut the vault and went straight to the hooks by the front door, where the Land Cruiser keys were hanging. She pulled them down and scribbled Evan a quick note:

  Had to take the Cruiser into town. Won’t be long.

  –Sarah

  By the time she exited the lab, the snow had picked up. She expected it would be worse on the high mountain passes that enclosed Livadeia and the Herkyna River. All the more reason to make haste.

  Eleven

  The narrow road winding around Mount Helicon was treacherous enough by day. In darkness, and with the added disadvantage of a snowfall, it could be deadly.

  As he made his way down the mountain to the town that lay in the valley, Daniel distracted himself by contemplating the moonlit landscape. The cliffs of Helicon were bare save for the occasional shrubs sprouting among the stones, mere whispers of fecundity in this otherwise parched stretch of earth. Against this rugged backcloth, modest houses emerged here and there, perhaps the homesteads of shepherds and other tenders of the land, testaments to man’s persistence even in the most improbable places.

  That had long been the way of the Greeks. Since Greek civilization rose from the Dark Ages in the eighth century BCE, clans had staked their claims upon a patch of barren earth and devised ways to draw milk from stones. In all of antiquity, there had not been a more clever and productive people. To that day, the Greeks had that capability but did not call upon it, choosing instead the treacherous road of entitlement based on an illustrious inheritance.

  He glanced at the passenger’s seat, where a hardcover copy of Pausanias’ Description of Greece lay open. He’d acquired it earlier that day in a bookstore in Thebes, eager to have the text in the original Greek rather than an English translation. So far, its guidance had been invaluable. He just hoped its clues were accurate enough to lead him to the vicinity of the long-lost cave. Once there, the obelisk—in theory—would grant him access. He hoped it would be swift, so he could return to Thebes before anyone realized the object was gone.

  In the distance, snow-dusted peaks glowed beneath the moonbeams. Mount Parnassus. The domain of Apollo and his half-brother Dionysus, who symbolized the two opposing forces of human nature, and the realm of the Muses. It was there Trophonius and his brother, Agamedes, began their ill-fated journey.

  Daniel replayed Pausanias’ words in his mind. Trophonius and Agademes had been commissioned with building the temple of Apollo at Delphi, antiquity’s most important sanctuary. When they finished the iconic landmark, King Hyrieus of Livadeia was so impressed at their work that he hired the brothers to build a treasury for his palace.

  They constructed a rock-solid chamber, complete with a secret entrance chute only the king knew about. Hyrieus rewarded them handsomely, but—as human nature would have it—they got greedy. They entered the secret passage under cover of night and pilfered the treasure little by little.

  The king, of course, found out—and set an iron trap for the thieves. On one of their nocturnal forays, Agamedes got caught in the trap’s jaws and could not extricate himself. He told his brother to leave him and save himself. Trophonius agreed but, before leaving, did the unthinkable: he cut off his brother’s head so Agamedes would not, in a moment of weakness, divulge the truth.

  His hands stained with Agamedes’ blood and his heart marked by regret, Trophonius ran to the hills and hid in a cave, living out the rest of his tortured days in isolation and fear.

  The story of Trophonius was a cautionary tale about betrayal and the torment it wreaked upon a man’s spirit. Upon Trophonius’ death, his cave became symbolic of that dark moment of the soul. A descent into the cave of Trophonius was a journey into oneself, with all the demons and turmoil that entailed.

  Daniel took a hairpin turn a little too fast and heard the tires screech against the asphalt. The mountain road was devoid of streetlights, and the only illumination came from the moon, whose silhouette was soft behind a layer of clouds. In the valley beneath the pass, tiny dots of light indicated the city of Livadeia, whose white buildings were huddled in a tight cluster despite the expanse around them.

  He bypassed the city and turned on a narrow road through rocky foothills dotted with Aleppo pines. His destination—the headwaters of the Herkyna, from which he would ascend on foot to a grove above the river—was about ten kilometers away.

  He pressed down on the gas pedal. As he followed the road uphill, a pair of eyes glowed white in his headlights. He stepped on the brake to avoid the animal that stood squarely in front of the Rover and swerved into the shoulder, sideswiping a pine tree as he brought the vehicle under control.

  The animal skittered away. Daniel stopped the car and sank back into the driver’s seat. He took his hands off the wheel and noted a slight shake. He closed them in tight fists and struck the wheel, frustrated by the panicked reaction so foreign to him yet now happening with increased frequency. He told himself that it was only the aftermath of the plane crash, that it was all in his head. With the back of his hand, he wiped a mist of sweat from his brow and steered the Rover back onto the road.

  It was twenty-five past two when Daniel reached the headwaters of the Herkyna. The spring bubbled forth from a limestone rock, trickling into a narrow groove that widened as it carved its way down the mountain.

  He parked in an inconspicuous spot, then continued on foot through a stand of pines to the Herkyna’s source. Though he could not see it, he heard the hiss of water from the falls that fed the river. He reached inside his backpack for night-vision binoculars and scanned the olive grove climbing up the hillside, a green aberration between two bald crags rising above it.

  He let Pausanias’ description of a hollow cave from which the river sprang forth guide him and eventually came to a limestone womb that stood over the river’s edge. He shone a flashlight inside the cave, registering a hollowed-out rock that led nowhere.

  Referring to the ancient text, Daniel followed a path uphill through the olive grove. In the distance he saw the remains of the unfinished temple of Zeus the King—another clue. The oracle cave was said to be past the ruins and above the grove, marked by a circular wall of marble.

  Pebbles crunched as he stepped over them with thick-soled hiking boots, somewhat hurriedly, profaning the otherwise silent space. He recognized the sharp green scent of mountain thyme, which grew wild in the cracks of the rocky slopes. In ancient times, he recalled, its perfume was thought to bring courage to those who inhaled it.

  Inside the grove, the growth was so dense and high it gave the trees an eerie effect. Their branches seemed to reach like dark claws eager to consume the intruders in their embrace.

  A shaft of moonlight announced the clearing. Getting close, Daniel thought. He had memorized the words of Pausanias: And the oracle is above the grove on the mountain. And there is round it a circular wall of stone, the circumference of which is very small, and height rather less than two cubits. And there are some brazen pillars and girders that connect them, and through them are doors. And inside is a cavity in the earth, not natural but artificial and built with great skill.

  “An enclosure,” he mumbled to himself, looking around. He was aware eighteen hundred years had passed since Pausanias’ writing. In that time, the structure likely had crumbled to ruin.

  He walked along the groin where the massif rose above the grove and, looking through the binoculars, shifted his gaze from the ground to the mountainside. Even after walking half a mile, he saw no openings, no fissures, no sign of any dilapidated wall.

  He didn’t expect it to be
obvious. After all, it had eluded scientists and explorers for decades. But those who came before Daniel did not have what he did: the brass spike.

  He shone his flashlight across the ground, scanning every square inch for clues. He stood still for a moment, watching the snow flurries dance in a light wind and land on the winter-scorched grasses.

  There was one spot, about fifteen feet from where he stood, where the snow did not alight. Could there be an opening? Daniel walked over and noticed a dip in the ground. Kneeling, he felt around the brush and held his breath as his hand landed on something hard and smooth.

  He parted the grasses to reveal a chunk of white marble that could easily be overlooked as a stone. It was a piece of the enclosure; he was certain of it. He felt gingerly around the area, searching for anything the stake could fit into. As he felt a second piece of marble with an indentation in its center, his heartbeat quickened.

  He unzipped his pack and removed the brass obelisk, unwrapping it from the protective foam sheets. Though dulled by the patina of the ages, the object gleamed in the pale light of the gibbous moon. He stood and thrust the sharp end into the marble. When nothing happened, he turned to the right, then to the left. It didn’t work.

  The architects of the cave would not have made it that easy. He searched his memory for Pausanias’ words, hoping for another clue. The chronicler of antiquity, who claimed to have experienced Trophonius’ cave firsthand, described the cavity as a “bread oven”—likely a cylinder—four cubits wide and eight cubits deep.

  There was intent to everything the ancient Greeks did, and those measurements may well have been ordained by mathematical principles. Daniel had read that, in his repentance, Trophonius had subscribed to the Pythagorean tenets and lived out his days seeking the esoteric wisdom purveyed by Pythagoras, whose philosophy revolved around the divinity of numbers.