King of Ithaca (Adventures of Odysseus)

Slowly it raised its heavy triangular head and extended it towards his face. Even in the dull light each individual scale was now clear to the terrified warrior as Python’s slender nostrils fanned his face with its cold breath, the ageless eyes regarding him with a malice that dwarfed the hatred of any man. As Eperitus watched, transfixed by mind-numbing horror, its mouth parted with a long hiss to release a glistening, forked tongue, which flickered out and touched his lips.

At that moment a number of things happened. Eperitus reached for his sword but his hand was seized, preventing him from drawing the weapon. The creature pulled its head back as if to strike, and then a female voice called to it from the archway. It was the same husky voice that had denounced Castor’s lies when they had stood outside in the night air. Quickly the serpent turned its head in response to the voice, just as the other priest appeared with another torch from the entrance behind them.

The stuttering flame threw back the void and to Eperitus’s relief he saw that the guardian of the oracle had slid back into a corner of the cave, its scales glittering like a thousand eyes amongst the shadows. Thrasios hurried the pilgrims across the open floor and through the archway at the far end. Eperitus was the last through and collided with Antiphus’s back in his eagerness to reach safety.

With his torch held before him Thrasios now took them into a low-ceilinged passageway. They followed its short course as it descended sharply to below the level of the temple. It was warm, stuffy and claustrophobic and the sickening stench of sulphur was much stronger now. Then a new light appeared, and within moments they had turned a bend in the passageway and stood at the threshold of a second, smaller cavern, its floor split by a great crack from which foul-smelling fumes hissed upward to the high ceiling to be lost in the darkness above their heads. A few torches struggled against the stifling vapours, but served only to lend the place a sombre, strangulated life.

The vent in the rock opened up lengthways before them. At the far end a large black tripod had been set up directly over the abyss with a young woman seated on it. She wore a long white robe of a thin and revealing material, and her hair hung loose over her shoulders. There were dark rings about her eyes as if she had not slept for many nights, and her yellow skin was deeply lined, like that of a much older woman.

As Eperitus looked at her he inhaled a lungful of the pungent smoke rising from the vent. It made his eyes water and his vision cloud; shadows crawled about the walls like wraiths. Then the Pythoness looked up wearily at the newcomers.

‘Sit down,’ she said. Her voice was weak and quiet, but the men obeyed. Only Thrasios remained standing, in attendance on his mistress, whose eyes and cheeks appeared deeply sunken in the shifting half-light.

He handed her a wooden bowl and, with a fragile and almost helpless movement, she took something from it and put it into her mouth. Eperitus watched her lower her head and chew. After a while her chin fell on her chest and her body went limp, remaining still for some time. He looked at Castor, but the prince was watching the priestess with a hawklike stare.

Suddenly her body jerked upwards as she sucked in a lungful of the vapour through her nostrils, held it, and then exhaled with a long sigh. Thrasios took a step towards her, excited, twitching restlessly in his eagerness to help his mistress. The Pythoness began to inhale deeply now, lifting her head to take in the fumes that coiled about her. Her eyes remained closed as her breathing grew quicker, heavier, her shoulders thrown back and her small breasts thrust outwards with each breath. Thrasios snatched the bowl from her lap, threw the long, dark leaves that filled it onto the floor, and used it to waft more of the vapours into the face of the priestess.

Gradually her breathing slowed and the Pythoness relaxed. Then she turned to face her visitors. But it was not the same tired woman the men had seen earlier. Now she was self-assured, even arrogant as she surveyed them. And there was something else about her: her eyes had changed.

With horror Eperitus saw that the irises were now yellow and the pupils were vertical slits. She opened her mouth and hissed, a forked tongue lolling out of her lipless mouth.

‘Who seeks the future?’

‘I do,’ Castor answered, showing no fear. He stood and kicked Eperitus’s sandalled foot. Struggling against the fear within him, he rose to his feet to face the Pythoness.

‘And I,’ he whispered.

They were the only ones standing. The others knelt before her, touching their hands and foreheads to the cave floor. The Pythoness pointed at Castor.

‘What is it you seek, Odysseus of Ithaca?’

Eperitus stared at his companion and then at the Pythoness. Castor looked equally shocked, but a moment later was kneeling before her with his head bowed.