Gordon Doherty - Assassin's Creed Odyssey - The Official Novelization

On a plateau overlooking the valley floor, the Temple of Apollo was perched, like an eagle in its eyrie. The home of the Oracle. Silvery Doric columns supported a red-tiled roof, and starlings swooped to and from their nests in the brightly painted architraves. This, some claimed, was the center of the world, the neutral heart of all Hellas. The sanctuary of the Gods where Spartan and Athenian alike were but men.

The great train of pilgrims wound all the way up around smaller temples and shrines, snaking toward the grand entrance. Peddlers lapped against the sides of the pilgrim train like waves on a causeway, holding up ivory plaques and beaded necklaces.

When the hawkers crowded around her, she ignored them all, instead staring up at the ancient temple, thinking of what had happened on Mount Taygetos all those years ago. All at your behest, she mouthed sourly, thinking of the Oracle upon whose poisoned words it had been carried out. You will give me answers today, seeress, or I will sheathe my spear in your heart.

Her growing ire faded when she bumped into the man before her.

“Apologies,” she muttered, realizing the queue had come to a halt. She looked up the three-times-snaking path onto the plateau. A painful hour passed, with just a few shuffles forward.

Those queueing near her were full of grumbles and conspiracy. “This place has changed,” one moaned. “They say some are being turned away with no explanation,” complained another. “Guards everywhere too. Something’s going on,” cursed a third.

Just then, she heard a colorful and familiar voice, up on the plateau and nearer the front of the queue. She tilted her head back to look up. “Tell them, tell them !” Barnabas chirped. The captain had come up here while she had headed to Elpenor’s, and it seemed he had found a friend—someone his own age in an ankle-length exomis, with a tangle of brown hair held back from his weathered face by a blue band. He seemed aghast at Barnabas’s prompts. “Will you keep your voice down,” the man groaned.

“But you’ve traveled even farther and wider than I,” Barnabas persisted. “All across Ionia. You’ve even seen a phoenix, aye?”

“No,” the other fellow said, waving his hands to disappoint those in the queue who were listening in. “It was merely a seagull with its tail feathers ablaze.”

Barnabas’s face fell, and he climbed upon a stone bench to address the queue, jabbing a thumb into his own chest. “Well I saw a phoenix once. I swear I did. From a burning city she rose, swept high overhead and—”

“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.