This post is the next instalment in the tales set in the Bronze Age of my homebrew B&D world. I've been using prompts from the Worldbuilding community as the starting point, and this one is based on Worldbuilding Prompt #971 - Place of power
The previous posts were; Worldbuilding Prompt #955 - Twins, Worldbuilding Prompt #962 - One Twin, The Twin's Blade and Worldbuilding Prompt #964 - The Twin's First Companion
Image by MythologyArt from Pixabay
The emissary was a white-bearded elder. Someone with the ability to command respect without being an overt threat.
He walked a respectable distance up the great hall, then stopped and bowed before King Potidion of Monwa. When he spoke, it was in a measured, calm but firm tone. His words were respectfully couched but held within them the implied consequences of defiance.
"Thank you for welcoming me into the Court of Monwa, your majesty. I am Volos, emissary of King Kallicrates of Zarat. This is the message I bear. That you are harbouring the cripple Creon, assassin of his son Prince Arion. You have not heeded more general messages despatched around friendly cities seeking his return, and thus I have been sent in person to ask you directly. Return the cripple to Zarat where he will face the justice due to him. If you do not, my master will come here in person with his warriors and those of his allies to compel you."
Potidion leaned back in his throne thoughtfully. Where some kings would bluster, he was known to be more cunning.
After some thought, he said, "Thank you for your honest words, Volos. I have offered Creon sanctuary here in Monwa, which as I am sure you appreciate is a sovereign city owing obedience to no other power. But perhaps he does deserve justice. You have given me much to think upon; I will give you my answer in the morning."
So the court retired for the night, and re-assembled in the morning.
Potidion spoke once more to Volos.
"Convey my apologies to your master. I can offer no decision, because Creon is nowhere to be found in the city. My guards tell me he fled the city at dawn, and is thus outside my jurisdiction."
Volos nodded unhappily. "I was tell King Kallicrates. I think he will be very unhappy to hear this news."
Meanwhile, twenty miles away, Creon was walking as fast as his lame leg would carry him. Potidion had (of course) warned him of the emissary's arrival. The King had suggested that war looked inevitable, and that he should seek out the oracle of Apaliunas at Iswa to find out what the gods said about it.
So Creon walked for a pair of months across wild countryside, dodging hazards and monsters and living off what he could catch. Finally he reached the mountains at Iswa, and with the help of a local shepherd was able to locate the oracle.
The Temple of Apaliunas was not the grand place it was later to become. It was a simple stone platform bridging a cleft in the rock, a cleft from which emanated periodic plumes of noxious, sharp-smelling steam. On the platform were two buildings, simple circular stone domes. One was the residence of the Oracle, the other was linked to it by a low stone wall and was where the Oracle imparted the wisdom of the gods.
Limping up to the first building, Creon knocked on the door. From within, a voice called out. "Who is foolish enough to seek an Oracle, to desire the wisdom of Apaliunas the Storm God of the Army ? Speak !"
"It is I, Prince Kallicreon of Zarat, known to some as as Creon the Chalkophorous, or Creon the Cripple. I seek the guidance of the gods to find justice for the wrong which was done to me."
The door opened, and the Oracle emerged. She was just a young girl, wearing a simple shift dress. But her hair was ringed with a wreath of orange flowers, and her eyes were blank spheres of glowing red. They had no sight; her eyes had been put out when she was a child and replaced by dead red gemstones, so that she could more easily see the will of her God.
The girl followed the line of the wall between the domes easily; she was blind, but had trod this path daily for most of her life.
"Wait here," she commanded as she opened the door to the second dome. Steam emerged, and it could be seen that the rock cleft passed under the house.
The Oracle disappeared into the dome without closing the door, and Creon waited. And waited. And waited.
It took over an hour, but eventually the Oracle emerged. She looked exhausted and walked slowly and unsteadily. When she spoke, it was in a voice no longer her own.
Four will go before the city wall.
King, Prince, City, all three will fall.
But two of these will rise.
Then we shall see if the Queen is wise.
For justice is not mercy, nor mercy always just,
And few men can resist the sin of lust.
Creon would have two months to think what this riddle meant as he returned to Monwa. Mostly what he thought was that Oracles really should be more clear what they meant.