Our Heroes board the galley that is to take them from Carthage to Delphi, and find as fellow passenger the Sabaean merchant Ilsarah, travelling with his cargo of wine. The weather is fine as the ship crosses the Mare Nostrum to Sicily, but begins to cloud over as they reach Syracusae and the smoldering menace that is Mount Etna. Summer is beginning to wane, and autumn approaches. A light drizzle begins as they cross the straits to Messina, then proceed across the sole of Italy to Brundisium. They cross the mouth of the Adriatic to the coast of Macedonia, and begin passing by Zakynthos and Ithaca, island homes of the long-ago Odysseus.
M. Val. Quercus and Spartus have been happily fishing from the galley's rear deck during their two-weeks' voyage, but today Spartus' ill luck makes itself felt as he falls overboard! He sputters and kicks as the others toss him a line, only to feel his four legs enveloped by a mass of slimy tentacles, which winds itself about him in a clammy grip. As his companions frantically pull him back towards the ship (accompanied by the laughter of the sailors) he feels a sharp poke in the side by something sharp -- he is being attacked! Quercus falls from the other side of the ship at this point, and Ilsarah is at last provoked to persuade the ship captain to order his sailors to help. Soon they have Spartus alongside, and Quercus, now wet, uses his engineering skill to devise a sling and ropes around the mast to hoist the centaur back aboard, bruised but intact.
With bull-hooks T. Pol. Tiberius and Quercus pull the mass of tentacles from the wine-dark sea, and find that it is the corpse of a large octopus! Stranger yet, it has been stabbed with a flint-tipped spear, and clutches within its tentacles another such spear, but of a different pattern. Quercus suspects some battle beneath the sea, and Graeculus supposes the octopus is one of the tailored creatures of the ancient Minoidoi, much like the Formicanthropoi of recent memory. Quercus shrugs, and uses it for bait, but keeps the spear-points.
The galley sails on through a dismal drizzle, and at last reaches the opening to the Straits of Corinth, which will lead them to Delphi's port. Spartus no longer fishes, but Quercus from his spot on deck sees a body floating amidst the waves! Again they hoist flotsam aboard, only to find that this is no mariner's corpse, but that of a merman. He bears sucker marks about his head and shoulders, and a thrust wound in his chest. No ornaments attest to the victim's status or civilization, but his human visage is enough to convince Our Heroes that he is an intelligent being. The sailors on board have heard of such things but never seen one so, sniffing of profit, the oracle-seekers haggle with Ilsarah to preserve the corpse inside one of his barrels of wine, to be sold as a curiousity later.
The weather breaks and lightens as the ship reaches Phokia, the district of Roman Greece where Delphi sits. The group hears of the miraculous dwarven ship-train ahead at Corinth, which drags vessels from one side of the Isthmus to the other with its monstrous wheels, but decide to hasten on to Delphi. Ilsarah ponders that he has never seen the wondrous Oracle, and decides to join them.
At the dock clusters the usual rag-tag rabble of beggars, brokers, and rag-tag street urchins advertising their services. One of the latter catches Our Heroes' eyes -- a stripling Minotaur, his horns barely nubs but his tongue gilded enough to put Odysseus to shame. His name is Mer, he tells them, and he lives alone, an orphan, in Delphi. He recommends that they stay in Artemis' Bower, "the second-finest inn in Delphi", and arranges for a wagon to carry the merman-cask and the party along the six-mile road inland to Delphi.
"Artemis' Bower" proves slightly overpriced, despite offers of fine meals, Dionysus-blessed wine, and dancing girls at dinner, so Ilsarah, with fine speeches and stern offers to seek out the rival "Apollo's Glade", dickers the price down. Dinner is pheasant stuffed with dormice stuffed with sausage, the wine proves exemplary, and the dancing girls are splendid. Ilsarah is so pleased that he hires Tiberius and Graeculus as bodyguards. The humans sleep in perfect comfort on their couches, Spartus stands and sleeps in one of the rooms, and Mer finds his accustomed haunts somewhere in the alleys of Delphi.
At morning's light Our Heroes break their fast with fruit, and find the ever-alert Mer waiting in the street to take them to the Oracle. The ancient priest who keeps the appointment-book is duly impressed by their medallions from Aurora, but, alas, the Centaur delegation must be served, as must the ambassadors from Miletos, and the Minotaur captain would be most aggrieved... would two days hence suffice? And they will, of course, have the requisite sacrifice, ritual cake, and Delphic citizen-sponsor?
Our Heroes grumble, but who can argue with a God? Or His priest? So Mer takes them to Demetrios, a crafty but honest purveyor of sacrificial wares. Demetrios shows a flawless, milk-white ox, available for a mere 1,500 denarii. Or one with a few splotches, but only in ritually insignificant places, for a mere 1,000.... Again Our Heroes grumble -- but they offer Demetrios their wine-preserved merman corpse, and gain in exchange the milk-white ox, the ritual cake, and his services as Delphic sponsor! Happy with themselves, they retire again to Artemis' Bower for another night of fine rest.
Their third day in Delphi dawns, and first Our Heroes hasten to Demetrios' establishment to ensure that their ox is still intact (Tiberius lightly notched its ear earlier to prevent substitutions). Relieved at the vendor's apparent honesty, they wander in the markets and then settle for a light lunch of squid, pasta, etc. at a streetside taverna. The shop advertises "Wine Blessed by Dionysus", but what they serve proves to be utter swill. The proprietor hastens to the back to draw another stoup, but that proves worse than the first. He runs to the shop next door, and that tastes even fouler yet. All across the market square, people are spitting and throwing about their goblets in revulsion at the acrid goop within. Something is rotten in Delphi....
Our Heroes walk, with several irate shopkeepers, to the temple of Dionysus. The priest, Hero, is an older, somewhat austere sort (though probably the sort to go wild in rituals). Already he has heard of the trouble, and he and the Maenads (the temple maidens, given to ecstatic, even orgiastic, ritual) are trying with all their might to cleanse the temple of whatever evil has turned their blessing. Ilsarah ponders what may have happened to the wine he imported on the galley from Carthage, and goes in search of any of the buyers. He finds one, and persuades him to tap the cask. Nothing comes out... until a dark, sticky globule plops into the waiting cup: even the non-blessed wine has fouled. Ilsarah hastens back to the temple, where he meets an incoming shipment of fresh wine from the vinyards on Mount Parnassus. Again the barrel is tapped, and again it proves to contain nothing but evil oil. Ilsarah and Tiberius pour it out in a noisome puddle on the grass by the road.
Puzzled, Our Heroes return to Artemis' Glade, where the evening dinner is curiously devoid of any beverages but water and hastily-made fruit juices. At least the dancing girls are still there... until the flute player cries out and drops his instrument, his lips covered in blisters! The group knows the aulos (or flute) is sacred to Dionysus, so this seems yet another facet of some plot against him -- and against Delphi, for Dionysus takes over the Oracle during winter, when Apollo is away visiting the Hyperboreans. Troubled, they seek out Wisdom of Thoth, an Egyptian bar, where at least the beer proves drinkable.
At the bar, Mer reveals that his local patron has asked the group to perform a theft for him. The philosopher Theophilos has in his house an ancient Egyptian manuscript in hieroglyphics, which Mer's patron desires for his studies. He's willing to pay 35 denarii apiece to Our Heroes for the theft -- he's a poor man, but very much needs this historical document. The group balks at being hired by an unseen employer, so Mer goes to fetch his benefactor for a consultation.
The patron arrives, sheathed in a vast cloak which hides his features. His voice is odd, whispery and distorted: Quercus thinks it sounds like a sergeant he had once from Hispania who had a hare-lip. The employer explains again about Theophilos, about the ancient scroll, and about his relative penury, and the group agrees to his project. Again he skulks into the night, without anyone (but Mer) having seen his face. Mer confirms the hare-lip and general ugliness, and says his patron is a reclusive scholar whose books come and go -- he has little library of his own. The group returns to the inn and their beds.
Morning comes for the fourth day in Delphi -- the day on which Our Heroes are to be vindicated by Apollo! Prisca traverses the marketplace, picking pockets until she has enough to buy herself a new stola for the ceremony. Quercus has his toga laundered to remove the sea-salt from his fall from the galley. Tiberius and the others explore the wealthier side of town to locate Theophilos' house, then settle in a nearby taverna where Tiberius casts Oculus Philosophoi (Eye of the Philosopher) -- a mystic travelling eye which will explore the innards of Theophilos' home. The Oculus flies overhead and locates Theophilos' residence, a two-story home with atrium and a peristylium with slaves' quarters in the rear. Diving through the atrium's skylight, the Oculus evades the maidservants cleaning the place and flies to the second-story balcony. It finds a laboratory filled with the tools of Natural Philosophy -- beakers, alembics, globes filled with water to serve as magnifiers, treatises on Egyptian magic -- and a closed door which appears to have the library behind it. By this point Tiberius is exhausted, so he allows the Oculus to lapse and has lunch.
Ilsarah, meanwhile, his nose ever sniffing for profit, travels the town offering to buy up all the fouled wine that others are throwing out. He hopes that Our Heroes will be able to a) reverse the curse so that he can sell the restored wine, or b) discover some use for the evil substance, perhaps as an herbicide of sorts, or c) end the curse and force the vile stuff to disappear so that he can sell the clean barrels. By dint of clever salesmanship and bargaining, he manages to acquire 45 barrels of the stuff, hire carts, and warehouse them all in the port for only slightly more than he is paid to haul it away! As he returns to town, he passes the Temple of Dionysos, where he hears a sudden cry of women, and sees the Maenads running from the sanctuary, cruel blotches on their formerly fair faces. The ill curse has struck again! He tells the others, then all prepare for the Oracle.
Our Heroes meet Pythia (as all the Oracles are named), an ancient woman of over fifty who still dresses in maiden's clothing. She guides them to the sacred spring where all remove their clothes to undergo a ritual ablution (Spartus balks, but at last relents and trots through the water). Pythia then drinks from a separate, similarly sacred spring, and guides the group back towards the temple precinct. They process the long, winding path which leads past centuries of trophies and gifts to Apollo and the Oracle, and at last reach the temple proper. Pythia descends to the basement, where she sits on the sacred tripod, chews laurel leaves, and breathes the sulfurous vapors that emerge from underground. Quercus makes the group's request: unfold fully the events of the past few months, that Apollo's truth may confirm the strange tale they told in Carthage. The priests stand waiting, ready to listen to Pythia's sacred cries and wring from them the gist of Apollo's message, for only they can interpret the priestess' disjointed speech.
But when Pythia wails, from her mouth issue not the scrambled sounds of an old woman, but the tones, slowly deepening, of Apollo Himself! His prophecy is longer than anticipated, but with the priest's surprised scribbles and Our Heroes' excellent memories, the whole utterance is preserved.
Next Time: "Deling In Futures". Who is Mer's patron? What is the significance of the Egyptian scroll? And who the hell is Leto? Join us for the next installment of Virgilius: Adventures in Antiquity.
--------------------------*-------------------------*------------------------ Joseph L. "Chepe" Lockett | "Nullum magnum ingenium | GURPS fan, Amiga user, --------------------------* sine mixtura dementiae | Shakespearean scholar, jlockett@hanszen.rice.edu | fuit." -- Seneca | actor and director. --------------------------*-------------------------*------------------------