The Oracles of Troy (The Adventures of Odysseus)

She turned from the terrible vision and found herself crossing the Aegean once more, hurtling back to Ilium and the temple of Thymbrean Apollo. But the oracles of Troy’s doom were not yet over. As she hung over the circle of plane trees, expecting at any moment to be reunited with her physical self, she looked across the Scamander to the great city with its high walls and towers and its gates that had withstood the might of Agamemnon’s army for ten years. And then the sloped battlements began to shake and crumble. The towers fell and the gates were torn from their mountings, while in the city behind the buildings caved in on themselves in clouds of dust. People were running everywhere, their screams unheard by her sealed ears as they were crushed by falling stones or disappeared into the chasms that were opening beneath their feet. Cassandra wanted to cry out in terror but was unable to make a sound, as the mound that Troy was built on started to rise up, like a monstrous subterranean creature waking from centuries of slumber, destroying the city on its back as it came to life. And as Troy disintegrated and was gone, all that remained was the mound – higher and blacker and smoother than Cassandra had ever known it before, and yet strangely familiar. It was then that she recognised it. The Palladium, the wooden effigy that stood in the temple of Athena in the citadel of Pergamos. Legend said that it was an image of Athena’s friend, Pallas, whom the goddess had accidentally killed. It had fallen from heaven when the city was being built and had landed in the unfinished temple, a sign of the goddess’s divine protection. Without it, Troy was doomed to fall.

As the meaning of the third oracle became clear to her the vision faded and the night grew suddenly dark, consuming the light of the moon and the stars until nothing was left but stifling blackness. Panic threatened for a moment, then Cassandra saw tall grey pillars emerge from the darkness on every side of her. Briefly she thought she had returned to her body in the temple of Thymbrean Apollo, but the absence of any of her other senses quickly told her she was still dreaming.

Something was different, though.

She could not feel the quickness in her breathing or the rapid beat of her heart, but she knew she was afraid. Something terrible had happened. She looked up and saw the figure of a woman above her, seated on a stone plinth with a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. The crude, stern features of her helmeted head were fixed in a cold gaze as Cassandra knelt at her feet with her hands raised imploringly to the statue of the goddess. She recognised the inside of the temple of Athena, but Apollo was no longer showing her the tasks the Greeks would need to perform to conquer Troy. This was the future, her future. Outside, though she could neither hear the flames nor smell the burning, she knew there was fire on the streets of Pergamos. People were fleeing in terror and soldiers were running among them, though whether they were Trojan or Greek she could not tell. Time blurred and she sensed herself curled up in fear at the feet of the statue, when the temple doors were flung open and the sounds of battle burst in. The once-peaceful chamber now echoed with the clash of bronze, followed by the screams of women and children in pain. Rough hands pulled at Cassandra, turning her over to stare into the eyes of a small man with a snarling, angry face. Coiled about his shoulders was a brown snake that hissed in defiance at the unfamiliar temple. The soldier’s eyes fell upon Cassandra and his malicious look transformed to one of sneering lust. She looked away and he slapped her hard, before seizing her clothes and tearing them from her. She was conscious of her naked breasts and the terrifying strength of the man as she tried to fight him. Then he hit her and her resistance ceased. She fell back to the floor beneath his heavy body, his leather armour doubtless cold and hard against her soft skin. He entered her roughly and forcefully, without any reverence for the purity she had preserved for so long. Suddenly her nostrils were filled with the smell of blood and, arching her back on the rough flagstones, she screamed.