The Healer’s Daughters, first oracle

Oracles speak in the The Healer’s Daughters. Here is the first one:

[image error]

False gods, all—though all be real.

We dwell on this hill, now scarred and overrun. We reside by the once whispering river, now dammed. We inhabit the sacred grove—or what is left of it. Consecrated stray dogs lie among us with the once worshipped snakes and goats, cats and cocks. Above us, the debased remnants of that wondrous Altar of Zeus. And not far off, the Aesklepion’s blessed, still flowing fountain.

We live in time and without. All is present to us, past and future. We speak through time. Listen. The earth quakes at our words.

What now? Chaos yet again, plunder and massacres. Newborns wail, and the mortally wounded howl. We taste dust and ash. We smell smoke in the olive branches—and blood and dung. Devastation. Greed and lust. Folly and hubris. Evil rolls this way.

There are other ways, of course, but you only ask for help when you are already lost.