Troy would fall, and with it all the riches of Priams treasury. Though the priest had yet to succumb to the hemlock and was struggling to say more, Agamemnon pulled back from him and fled from the cave. The fulfillment of dreams, the promise of destiny. The last king of the Golden City will be Mykene. ∺ pox on riddles, priest! the king had replied. ∻eware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King, Battle King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings of thunder and herald the death of nations. Then his eyes had opened, his bony fingers circling the kings wrist. The dying priest had drifted in and out of consciousness, and when he had spoken, the sentences had been broken and confused. Even so bright colors had swirled before his eyes, and he had grown dizzy. The air had been thick with smoke from the opiate fire, and Agamemnon had kept his breathing shallow. Then, as two centuries of ritual demanded, the king of the Mykene had entered the torchlit cave. Agamemnon and his chosen Followers had gathered at the Cave of Wings on the hills outside the Lion City. The last time had been just before they had sailed to Imbros. And he only had to endure the Time of Prophecy once every four years. The priests of the cave were highly regarded by the Mykene nobility and by the people, and in the middle of a great war it would be foolish to risk wiping them out. What glory was there in a victory ordained by capricious gods? Agamemnons mood darkened as he recalled his last visit to the Cave of Wings.ĭamn the priests and their noxious narcotics! Damn them and their riddles! One day he would have them all killed and replaced with men he could trust-fools like Atheos. Their destinies should be chained entirely to their will and their abilities. Kings should not be subject to the whims of prophecy. If only all seers were as talentless and malleable as Atheos. Should any of his prophecies fail, Agamemnon would expose him to the army and have him put to death, saying the gods had cursed the battle because of the mans evil.Īgamemnon shivered. Talentless and flawed, Atheos had secrets. That was where idiots like Atheos were so useful. All that was needed then was someone to blame. On occasions, of course, a battle would be lost. Tell them victory was assured and that Zeus himself had blessed them, and they would fight like lions. Tell an army that the portents were dark and gloomy, and men would go into battle ready to break and run at the first reverse. The problem with most seers, Agamemnon knew, was that their prophecies became self-fulfilling. He could be relied on to say whatever Agamemnon wished him to say. The man had n o talent for prophecy, and that suited the king. Wedge it closer to the center!Īgamemnon stared at the priest. No, no, that stone is too small for the outside. The round-shouldered priest Atheos was directing them, his thin, reedy voice sounding as shrill as that of a petulant seagull. They had been gathering large stones for most of the day. Agamemnon drew his cloak around his angular shoulders and turned his gaze to the men laboring to build an altar some distance away.
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Helikaons wife and son would be lying dead in the blazing fortress, and Helikaon himself would know the full horror of despair.Ī cold wind blew across the beach. With luck and the blessing of the war god Ares, the mission had been totally successful. The beach was so crowded, many of the sailors had remained on their ships rather than jostle for a strip of rocky ground on which to lay their blankets.Īgamemnon, king of the Mykene and warlord of the western armies, stood outside his canopied tent, his gaunt frame wrapped in a long black cloak, his cold eyes staring out to sea toward the east, where the sky glowed red. On the beach the Mykene army sat around scores of cookfires, eight thousand soldiers, some preparing their weapons, sharpening swords, or burnishing shields and others playing dice or dozing by the flickering fires. The curve of the bay was filled with ships: some fifty war galleys and more than a hundred barges drawn up so tightly that there was not a handbreadth between them. The last king of the Golden City will be Mykene.Ī bright moon shone low in the sky above the isle of Imbros, its silver light bathing the rocky shoreline and the Mykene war fleet beached there. ∺ pox on riddles, priest! replied the king. Of thunder and herald the death of nations. ∻eware the wooden horse, Agamemnon King,īattle King, Conqueror, for it will roar to the skies on wings