One hundred miles northwest of Athens, soaring high above the Gulf of Corinth, stands the holy mountain called Parnassus. Nestled amidst the pine-forested slopes and rocky crags of this sacred peak are the ruins of Delphi. The ruins themselves have haunting beauty and are remarkably well-preserved. A city of wondrous artistic achievements and grand athletic spectacles during the flowering of Greek culture in the first millennium BC, Delphi is best known as the supreme oracle site of the ancient Mediterranean world.

This very site was originally a sacred place of the mother goddess Gaia and was guarded by her daughter, the serpent Python. The Greek and Roman gods came to power and prominence long after Gaia and, because of them, worship of the earth goddess waned among humans. Sometime within that spiritual evolution, Zeus determined that this site that was sacred to Gaia was the center of the world. Imagine that? Imagine him sending out those two eagles to find the center of the world only to have it turn out to be there, on Mt. Parnassus, right smack dab where Gaia's temple stood? Was that a coincidence or had Gaia just been smarter than Zeus, able to know by instinct that the site was of such importance rather than needing that great show that Zeus put on to find out about this place?

There is more, though. At some point, Zeus' son Apollo came from his home atop Mt. Olympus to Mt. Parnassus to slay the great serpent Python. Fleeing from the peak, Python sought safety in Gaia's sanctuary at Delphi. But Apollo relentlessly pursued Python, and in so doing, violently claimed the site. Later repenting of his crime, Apollo purified himself on the island of Crete before returning to Delphi. There, he persuaded Pan, the goat-god of wild places and evocative music, to reveal to him the art of prophecy. Upon the site of his battle with Python, Apollo erected his own oracular temple and, at the exact place where he had 'speared' the serpent, an omphalos stone was set in the ground.

Omphalos means 'center of the earth' to the ancient Greeks. The stone was displayed in the center of the inner sanctum of the shrine of the Delphic oracle. The current stone, on display in a museum, is ancient. But it is not the original stone. That's about all modern scholars seem to know about the original omphalos stone.

Elijah told me that the site was originally called Pytho, after its guardian serpent. It was renamed Delphi after the word for dolphin in Greek, because this was the form Apollo took in order to bring Cretan sailors to Delphi so that they might become priests in his new temple.

"Do you priests descend from that line just as I descend from the line of the first oracles?" I asked him. "Or do you recruit members?"

"We are born to this role. Yes, we are all descendents of the original priests."

"Ah. The family business, eh?" I said as we waited. "Did you ever wish you'd just been born into a baker's family or were the son of a teacher?"

"Perhaps, but ours is a good line."

"Except you have to protect the oracle. And that could be dangerous."

"We also serve her. And that could be degrading."

"Could it?"

"Your mother deliberately hid from us for most of her adult life, Eris. She didn't trust us, men born to protect her. All we could do was wait. Imagine that? And then when the time is really needed for us to do our duty by the oracle, to keep her safe, then Apollo decides we're not up to the task and sends some brute from ancient Rome?"

"Maximus is not 'some brute from ancient Rome,' Elijah. He is a seasoned warrior. I think Apollo chose him for a reason. He will be ruthless with our enemies in a time when that is exactly what is needed."

Elijah was tall, wiry, blonde. He was older than me; perhaps about 40 or so. He had mischievous blue eyes that could also harden to crystal. It seemed incongruous to me that this man, who did not appear physically or mentally to be the 'stand in there and slug it out' kind of man was distraught because Apollo had brought in someone versatile and skilled to lead our forces in the coming battle.

And it would be a battle, even if not on epic scale.

The scouts sent to Delphi provided Maximus with reports that helped him hone a plan he'd been brooding over since we left Pergamum. Into this plan went the considerations of place and ritual.

By that I mean, there were certain places in Delphi that the oracle must go if she were to follow the ancient rituals of the prophetic trances that had taken place here, in the real home of my line of women.

As Maximus briefed the 36 men who would be with us when we went to Delphi that day, Jacob briefed me on the ancient rites. I studied him in the swell of sunlight off white walls of the courtyard in the safe shelter his order had long ago established in Athens.

He looked so young. I remembered the first time I'd seen him, on that plane to London. How like a boy he'd seemed to me then. Now he seemed so wise and patient that I thought of him as a man. But he was so animated that morning; I believe it was because his whole life, he'd maybe never thought it possible that he'd be putting to use the old rituals that no one in his order had helped perform in so long. I wondered when the last time was that any oracle had come to Delphi. Or perhaps they all came at least once in their life, like a rite of passage. This instant thought came to me... that I'd just ask my mother... only I couldn't, could I? Maybe some day, when this was all over, maybe I'd find that my link to her because of this ordeal would be strong enough that I could see her in visions and learn then the things I should have learned from her when she was alive.

Jacob must have realized that my mind had wandered. He was silent for long enough that I snapped out of my reverie. I took his hand in mine and thanked him for all he and his fellow priests were doing for me. I teased him for the soft blush that came over him.

"So we simply hide in plain sight?" I asked Maximus later, as we approached Delphi on a tourist bus.

He picked up my hand from where I'd been twisting the fabric of my shorts. I watched his hand; it was big, warm, powerful. It was capable of the most tender touch I'd ever received. "They do not know what you or I look like. If we come onto the site in such ordinary garb, just the two of us, they will not expect it."

"And the others?"

"Spread out among other tour groups. I've stationed ten of them around the perimeter charged with nothing more than being our eyes."

"Will you stay with me?"

"I will always be near."

We waited until dark descended upon the mountain and the site closed to visitors. We hid in nooks and crannies and even up in the surrounding crags. By some prearranged signal, we moved into position once the sentries believed we were alone, save the occasional guard. Should one of these custodians of this place venture near, he would be diverted, distracted or disabled. If anyone else was detected, he would be presumed to be a Nicolatina and dealt with as such, Maximus told me.

He held my hand as I walked forward, somehow sensing where I should be next. I moved us not toward the shrine where the others gathered, but away, over stone walkways until an expanse of grass was beneath our feet.

"Stay with me, Maximus," I whispered to him as we stood upon the edge of the sacred Castalian Spring.

"In my time, we believed this spring was created when Pegasus struck the ground with his hoof," he said, bending to cup his hand in the water. "It is a place favored by the Muses."

"I must bathe here first. This is how the ritual begins."

He rose before me; we stood facing each other.  He held my eyes with his even as his fingers began shedding me of my clothing. He unbuttoned my casual shirt, lowered it from me; carefully undid my bra. When he drew it down my arms, I trembled slightly. He smiled at me, gentle if sad... but the mood shifted almost instantly to calm resolve.

Kneeling before me, he lowered my shorts and panties. When I kicked off the running shoes, I stood before him... naked, almost an offering.

I thought he was going to simply hand me into the waters of the spring... but instead, he wrapped his arms around my waist and laid his cheek against my belly. I stroked through his hair; I refused to cry over the beauty of his gesture, over the way he could make me feel in this moment.

He kissed in deeply upon my still-flat stomach. And then he covered it with one big hand, caressing there where his progeny grew. In a voice filled with his emotion, he said softly, "My child. My daughter. I will watch over you for all time. You will be the fairest of the fair, embodiment of the love I hold for your mother."

While I floated and bathed within the spring's caress, Maximus knelt by the edge. He watched me, but he also watched over me. He did not try to hurry me; he allowed me to do what I felt had to be done. When Jacob arrived, as I knew he must, they spoke hushed words to each other. I did not want to know what they discussed for I had entered the ritual; I had but one role to play that night and I had already gone into it.

As I stepped dripping from the spring, Max's sure hand guided me up onto the ground. From his backpack, Jacob pulled a simple burnt red gown for me to wear. Its draped folds and gathered waist were a classical outline. It had a deep 'v' neckline and dropped gently to my ankles. Jacob folded my street clothes and packed them neatly into his backpack along with my shoes.

Even as he was zipping his pack up, I was moving across the grass and heading for where instinct told me was the next sacred spring, Kassotis. I knelt at its edge and cupped my hands under its surface. When I brought the spring water to my mouth, I marveled at its cold clear taste... I felt another shift within me... as if I had purified myself.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that Maximus hung back from me as I left the spring and walked with a sure step toward the temple; that he seemed to be deliberately choosing to not touch me... as if I was already a vessel of the gods, more than I was me.

 "The original omphalos disappeared long ago and was replaced by the one that is now in the museum here," Jacob told me softly as the two of us entered what I knew was my place. Two other priests were inside already.

Maximus had stayed outside to see to the strategic placement of our sentinels... men who would form the last line of defense if the Nicolatinas indeed learned of our presence in time to mount an effort to disrupt this rite.

The two priests inside stood near the center of this inner sanctum. I could see wafts of blue vapor near them. As I approached, I could feel the vapor. I'd seen it in other places, especially Patmos, but I'd never felt it or tasted it or had it really seep into me as Jacob had said I would here.

"This was where the omphalos was originally seated, wasn't it?" I said, running my hand over a concavity in the center of the stone floor of this inner world. A crack in the foundation ran beneath the concavity; the fissure snaked out from it for about a meter on one side. It was here where the vapor drifted up toward me from the earth. It mesmerized me to stand there.

"Yes, very good, Oracle. The omphalos was a large meteorite that fell from the sky in deepest antiquity. It became the sacred stone. What is interesting about the original one is that it came here long before Zeus decided this was the center of the universe."

"How could you know that if the original one no longer exists?"

"Oracle, I didn't say it no longer existed. I said it had disappeared," he said. He pulled a red velvet bag from his backpack. Inside, he showed me, was a stone that would have been unremarkable except for what had been done to it by humans. "I present the original omphalos, Oracle. Allow me to show you how we know this sacred stone was here on this site, even before Apollo. Note its conical form and sculptural designs."

"Oak leaves? And is this some type of pillar in the motif?"

"Tree worship was indicative of the prehistoric goddess cults. And the shape mimics pillars associated with this time period and with the original temple to the Earth Goddess."

"Gaia?"

"In your visions of your ancestors, have you not absorbed that your line's history as oracles predates the Greek gods?"

"I guess I just never... I always thought the Delphic oracles began with Apollo."

"Ah. A common perception. But... as they say, history is so often written by the victors. In this case, what I can tell you is that when the first temple was built upon this sacred spot, it was during the time when the primary religious emphasis here was an oracular cult of the Earth Goddess... of Gaia. It was at least 500 years before Apollo became the dominant god to honor at this spot. Worship of Apollo was brought here by the Dorians."

"Then why is it that we in modern times associate the oracle with Apollo and Delphi with Zeus?"

"Ah, well! For that, you may thank... or blame, as you see fit, my own ancestors. They were politically astute enough to promote the reputation of the Oracle... because of them, Delphi achieved fame throughout the Greco-Roman world as the predominant oracle shrine."

We looked up at the sound of footsteps in the entryway.

Maximus.

"All is prepared," he told me.

I studied him as he walked toward where we stood. I knew he would not touch me again until the ritual ended. Yet I also knew he took solace from being close enough to know within himself that it was he who was the one keeping me safe from all enemies.

"We will not fail each other," I said softly, first looking deep into his eyes and then giving an encouraging look to Jacob. "And when this night is through, we will have each done our duty. No matter what else happens, we can live forever knowing that."

"I used to tell my men, before sending them into battle, that what we do in life, echoes in eternity. We must picture ourselves victorious and make it so," Maximus told us.

"Our time is now, Oracle. I will attend you. Let us begin within this realm," Jacob said.

As he spoke, the other priests stoked embers of a banked fire they had started nearby. I watched as they placed branches with laurel leaves within the fire. The three priests each picked one up as it smoldered and sent fumes from the laurel leaves shifting in the air's soft currents. Two of them began moving about the inner sanctum, waving the branches, anointing all around the perimeter with the smoke. Jacob brought his branch near the omphalos, stroking the space surrounding it.

Mingled with the laurel smoke, the blue vapor seemed to deepen around me.

My mind began to drift. I felt detached, yet hyperaware. I could see each waft of smoke; I could see as Maximus bowed his head. His lips moved as if he spoke to an ancient god in whom he sought guidance or absolution. And then he backed up, slowly, deliberately, to take up a position at the entry. He moved away just as the priests completed the ring of smoke within which I was now locked with them while Maximus was outside it.

"Stay near, Maximus," I whispered too low for him to hear. And yet, his eyes jerked up and met mine. I saw into him for the fraction of a second it took me to shut off my ability to invade another. I didn't want to do that to him.

Over the fissure, they placed a three-legged, tall stool made of wood and leather. After I climbed up and settled into the stool, I clung to the sprig of laurel that Jacob placed within my hold. Into my other hand, he placed a gold lamp. I looked down into the fissure into a sea of blue mist that seemed to gather a more tangible essence. My head began to swim within the sweet-smelling vapors. I barely noticed as each priest retreated from where I sat only to return, each bearing a golden candlestick. I gazed into the flame of the one set directly before me and felt the trance begin.

It began with a vision of my daughter. 

It ended with visions of events happening around me. 

But in between, I saw horror that had happened already, between the time we'd left Pergamum and this night.

This I knew... the first vision was a gift to me. Gaia wanted me to understand that I would survive this night. To do that, she showed me my daughter. And this is what I understood: she would be a powerful spirit like her father, resolute and honorable in the face of any challenge. The next oracle would be Max's daughter.

The second vision showed me that the battle had already cost lives of men who served the oracle. It was a warning to me, sent to show me that we were already in danger; that the Nicolatinas had a way of knowing where we were and what we were doing. In this vision, Apollo wept, opened his hand in fury... two men lay dead; they were his two priests who'd been sent to hide the other two candlesticks. I felt my body shudder with the realization of the betrayal this told. Only those priests present in Pergamum knew where the two men were sent. Someone close to us had betrayed us. My mother had tried to warn me; I thought we'd taken precautions.

And then the third part of the vision began... the space of time that showed me what was happening around me. My body stilled even as I felt my spirit leave it to float over Delphi. I saw red lights but when I drew closer, I realized they were the marks of red that designated the Nicolatinas in my second sight. Rudolf called to me; I challenged him by responding. He tried to send his own second sight out to follow my spirit's trail until he could enter the place from which I saw visions. Artemis whispered to me; Apollo roared.

Another shift and I was inside one of the priests with me in the temple. I could see Jacob, kneeling at the base of the chair in which I sat upright, staring straight ahead, deep in the trance. My mouth moved; I knew whatever I was saying, Jacob was listening. The person in whom my spirit was temporarily residing looked over at the entrance to the temple suddenly; I thought I would see Maximus still standing there but instead, I saw Elijah. In his hand, a sword.

My spirit was jolted out of the priest as I begged my mother to help me find Maximus. I looked down to see two forces oppose each other before the temple. Twenty men led by Max now faced forty Nicolatinas led by a man I knew as Rudolf.

The third betrayal, I whispered to Gaia. Help your children!

They fought not with guns that would make noise enough to bring law enforcement to the ruins. Each side sought to keep this quiet; each side believed in the imperative to allow the vision to be done without interference. But each side sought to control who would receive the vision or who would control the visionary after it was over.

I watched as Maximus plowed through man after opposing man, his sword flashing, a knife in his other hand just as perilous. I heard a voice; it was Rudolf; he had found a way to me again... "This is your great protector? Tell Apollo he should have chosen better."

A slash of steel.

A gush of red.

Maximus stumbled; he seemed to barely register the injury. His eyes widened in fury; he whirled around to find the sneak attacker. He faced Rudolf. I whispered in Max's ear... "He must die. He is the threat."

I had to turn away at the look upon Max's face... as if the predatory animal inside him was unleashed... the barbarian warrior who knew only one real way of fighting and did it without finesse or mercy. He would not have wanted me to bear witness if he could have had a choice in that moment of instant reaction on his part to slay the one who'd led the hunt for me.

Hovering over Maximus and the others who fought to protect me, I was startled when my daughter suddenly kicked hard inside my womb... I heard her cry in fear... I flew to hover over the inner sanctum, to see what had frightened her... and I was there to witness as Elijah passed slowly through the circle of cleansing smoke and began to do battle with the two priests even as Jacob stayed valiantly at my side, a sword in one hand as he knelt, still intent on his duty to the oracle.

I spoke silently and I am not sure I believed it would be heard. I could not cry to the gods for help. I could only utter one name... my protector. "Maximus. I need you."

"Finish the vision, Oracle," Jacob said, bowing his head, hesitating... before rising to face the one who had betrayed us all.

In the chaos of my mind, hearing men dying and killing all around me and the sanctuary, Gaia spoke with a clear, commanding voice, saying, "Eris! Attend me. You cannot help him now; his duty is to save you, not the other way round."

"Their leader is dead... the man, Rudolf, he has been stopped by Maximus. What else do you need from us, Mother? Let me go... let me help them. They will not leave me when I'm vulnerable but if I come out of the trance, we can flee together."

"He was not the leader of that bastard sect. He failed in his mission tonight, this is truth. But the threat they present to mankind and the earth does not die with one man. Here is my message that you must give Jacob: Religion will have to wage a hard battle. They want to annihilate it. This will be done with such subtlety that hardly anyone will worry about it."

"Religion... I don't see how that's such a danger."

Before me appeared a vast plane of barren earth. All along its perimeter, as far as my eyes could travel, there was water held back as if by some unseen force field. It encircled the plane of earth. On this land, the final people stood... without a prayer.

"Faith, Eris, belief. Only faith can hold the water back. Faith does not exist in a world without belief in some form of a higher power. Faith holds people together. Already, forces align against faith. In the coming shift, the earth will be the first casualty... remember, Eris? Remember your line's history. You are linked to the earth... the first religion worshiped the life force of the earth. Man has traveled far from that. He must not travel so far as to turn his back on being the good steward of the first life force, that upon which his own life depends."

And then I saw the water recede and before my eyes, the barren land erupted. Rocks and mud burst forth to transform what had been flat into an island of rocks, yellow-gold grain, short trees bent in the eternal trade winds, and a tall mountain that seemed to waver before solidifying.

My mother strode upon the beach and beckoned me. "You must be strong," she told me. "You have such a small chance. The gods may not grant it. But you have to try."

I knew then... she conveyed it to me... the chalice I'd seen in Max's hand in the earlier vision... she showed me the hidden meaning, what the chalice in his hands foretold... I turned when she told me to look back inside the temple...

"You may come out of the vision, Oracle," Jacob said.

All around me was red where there had been blue. I could hear the clash of men still fighting outside, but it was fainter if more brutal. Sirens drew near.

I was groggy; I was dazed. Three bodies lay upon the floor. Elijah. Two of the three priests who'd been with me when the trance began.

Three other men stood before me. Jacob. Silas.

Maximus.

I reached out for him; the lamp clattered to the ground. I saw him wince; I saw inside and knew he'd been injured... I knew something else. He was dying.

"There is a healing place near Athens. We must go there. Max has been poisoned." They all looked at me. Max shook his head. 

"It is only a small wound, Eris. I have lived through worse."

"The knife, Maximus. It was meant for me. He poisoned it in case he only got a glancing blow before you could stop him."

"It cannot be..."

"Just like the first time... The gods must find it amusing to try to claim you again in the same manner in which they claimed you the first time you died. Only this time, we know about the poison and we can save you. The healing place, Maximus. It's from your time; we must go there. It's our only hope. Jacob, we must go now... and there, I will beg Apollo, Artemis and Venus and any other god I can for their help."

Beneath the towering Parthenon, on the southern cliffs of the Acropolis, is a sacred spring in a small cave. It is a location that is now little known; but what records exist tell only this: it was the focal point of a sanctuary to the healing god Asklepios. That was in 500 BC. However, what is not recorded, but which my mother told me in the last vision was that this sacred spring was known in the shift of time so long before that when it was mother goddess Gaia who watched over her children. One of her daughters was that time's healer. This had been her spring.

As the van carrying remnants of our forces that had been in Delphi sped along the road toward the healing place, I pulled my shirt from Jacob's backpack and used it to wipe Max's face clean of the blood of our enemies. For the first part of the journey, Maximus was strong and in control. He held me to him; he whispered against my ear of many things he wished me to know.

Primary of them was this: he wanted a life with me, raising our daughter, having other children. He would not leave me alone, not in a world in which he knew I would not ever be safe as long as the Nicolatinas had not yet entered their fallow period.

As he began to weaken, I whispered into his ear, my own soft words of love and comfort. "Tonight was the second chance the gods promised you, Maximus. And see? Your honor, if you ever felt it had lacked anything, it is again full and complete. You saved your woman and your child this time, Max."

"Then the gods may favor me," he said slowly; he gave me a grin, still determined to be strong for me.

"The gods not only favor you, they owe you a favor, Maximus. We must hold them to it, mustn't we? At the healing place, we'll call that favor due."

"Eris..." His fingers touched my lips. "The only favor I would ask of any god is to watch over you, to keep you safe..."

"That is your job, Max; it is not yet done. Not yet, Maximus, not yet."

As we neared the healing place, I thought about the instant knowledge my mother had given me of this cave and its spring; it felt as if another circle was being closed.

All along this journey of revelations, Maximus and I had gone places that all three stages of worship had held as important spiritual places ... from Finis Terrae to Delphi... and all stops in between... each place had held importance to worshippers of the maternal Earth Goddess, to the patriarchal Greco-Roman gods, to the paternal Christian God. From worship of the female embodiment of our planet, to the multitude of gods to the male monotheist. Our route had taken us on a pilgrimage to sacred sites that demonstrated faith's evolution was never easy even if it was built on what came before.

The healing place was no different. In use in Gaia's day of ascendancy, taken over in Zeus' aeons of rule... it was also to become a holy place of worship for the early Christians. When the Christians took it over, they showed they believed in its healing sanctuary... they dedicated it to Aghioi Anargyroi, or Doctor Saints.

We entered the cave just after sunrise. Maximus was so weak by then that it took two of the stronger priests to nearly carry him in, one under each arm. Bull of a man that Max was, he still strove mightily to walk under his own power.

He was ashen when we made it deep within the cave, to the spring.

They helped him lower his body to the ground. I went to him and gave him a cup of the spring's cool waters. I whispered to him that he should lie down, conserve his strength to better fight the poison. He asked to have my lap as his pillow. I would have it no other way, I said softly to him.

He stayed conscious for a long while. His skin grew clammy; he finally closed his eyes and drifted.

Before he'd passed out, we'd talked of so many hopes and dreams we each had. We were both so certain the gods would grant us time to make them come true. Why would I have been given knowledge of this place of theirs if they did not intend to honor it? How could they deny Max after what he'd done for them only in the name of duty and honor?

All the while I held Maximus, Jacob knelt at the side of the spring with the other priests and prayed to Apollo.

When Max's grip on my hand faded, I lifted his head from my lap so I could rise. I wandered away from the spring, further down into the cave where I followed the vision from my mother. This was where I found the ruins of the temple to Hygieia, the Goddess of Health.

A woman had helped Maximus between his world and this... Venus had guided him, helped him make the transition, helped him flourish in this time in preparation of his duty to the oracle. Perhaps another goddess would take a similar interest.

I prostrated myself on her temple's rough stone flooring.

Into a vision, it was not Hygieia who appeared to me. It was Venus.

Maximus was destined to return to Elysium this day, she told me. He always had been meant to be taken back when his duty was over. It was the promise that Apollo made to Maximus when he agreed to take the duty to protect the oracle... that as soon as his task had been accomplished, he would be permitted to return to his wife and son.

"But he loves me and wants to stay," I told her. 

"If you love him, you should ease his passage. Give him your blessing to leave this world. He stays even though we beckon and the only reason he does is because he believes you need him."

"I do need him. I do. His daughter grows inside me."

"His wife needs him. As does his son. You mustn't be selfish. They have the prior claim, after all. And he deserves his reward, he deserves Elysium."

"Mother, please." I whispered the words to the darkness of the cave outside Hygieia's temple. My voice wavered through tears. "Gaia, don't let them take him from me. I know you can help him."

Her voice soothed into my body. "Remember my words from the earlier vision, Eris. I told you that you would receive a gift from the gods at a price that would be dear. You have been given his daughter. The price, my child, is that you must give him up. You must release him. He must return from whence he came. His duty to you was all that was promised to either of you. Release him from his suffering; he lingers now only from the force of his will to not desert you."

This wail erupted from me. She tried to comfort me. She held me within her aura. And then she sent me to tell him goodbye.

He opened his eyes when I touched him. I stroked his face and then lifted his head onto my lap again. "Here... your ear is right next to your daughter... can you hear her heart?"

His left hand at my back pressed me in closer to his ear. He smiled up at me. "She is a fine, healthy daughter. I always wanted a little girl."

I bent down to kiss him. He seemed cold to me. I caught the grimace he tried to hold back. "I will never forget you and I will always love you. But I can't keep you, Maximus. You must go to them now. Go with my love and my heart. Go knowing your daughter loves you already. She will always know how very much her father loves her. I promise you that."

"I want to stay with you, Eris." His voice faltered; he was so weak.

"Oh, yes, I know you do. But... listen to them, Maximus. Do you hear the voices of those you love who wait for you in Elysium? You can hear them if you try... they're calling you... they miss you... they want you back. Go to them... take my love with you... always remember me..."

"Our love... Eris, it will last forever... some day, you'll join me..."

"It'll be a bit crowded, don't you think, with two women in your house?" I teased him gently.

He smiled in response. And then I saw his eyes dart around, as if searching for someone. "Eris?"

I saw tears dripping down from me; they fell on his face; I could not even bother to stop them. One dropped upon his lips. His tongue darted out to touch it. "It's okay to go, Maximus. Go to them."

Gaia granted me a vision to hold close... of Maximus walking into Elysium as the strong, vital man I would always remember him as... of knowing he was safe, loved.

For a long time, I held his body. Jacob finally pried my fingers from his shirt as two other priests slid him away from me. It was Jacob who held me while I cried. And sometime during these minutes in which I was distracted by my grief, Apollo took Max's body back to wherever it had come from. No one saw it go; one moment it was there next to the cave's curved wall; the next it was simply gone. The only thing Apollo left behind, the only proof besides our memories that Maximus had existed for a brief time with us, was one thing... his ring that signified his Roman citizenry.

The days pass slowly now. Sometimes I feel as though many lifetimes must have evaporated and it will turn out to only be a year of this life that has elapsed. Since that time of my first oracular revelations, seven years have passed.

And they are years spent in hiding; just as my mother spent her time. Unlike her, however, I have two Delphic priests who stay with me... Jacob and Silas. Unlike her, I also keep my daughter with me. In my visions of her future, I know this is the right thing to do. She is destined to be an oracle of great power. Much of her uniqueness comes courtesy of her developing fetus being exposed to the vapors of Delphi while I was in the trance.

But some of her unique power also comes from her father: Maximus.

There is not one day that goes by that I am not touched by him. His eyes smile at me; his blunt temper can make mine rise just as often as it can make me laugh. His brave face to the world can hide a heart so soft and steady it can stun me. His ability to love me with the fullness of his heart is the same, just as is the way he made me love him with total, unapologetic abandon.

She bears his grace on a child's frame.

He would be so proud of her.

I tell her all about her father. I want her to be proud of her lineage. I want her to realize why she is special... that it's because she embodies his love to me. Sometimes, I find her alone in her bedroom, holding Max's ring of Roman citizenry. It is her most prized possession. There is a look of peace on her face; I like to witness this because in these moments, she is with him in a vision; he is imparting his own wisdom to her. I never have asked her about this; I don't have to. There always has been within me the ability to know such things about others.

But she can also sometimes turn to look at me a certain way and I will know that she reads into me... just as her father was able to do.

She is not the only one who sees him in visions. Every so often, Gaia allows me to speak with Maximus, just as she still allows me to speak with my mother. I learn from them both. They both help me.

Some nights, the visions of Maximus come without my bidding. In those moments, I believe it is Max seeking me. The first time it happened, I was still so deep in grief that I simply took what was offered me. He touched me... and it was not solely to bring me comfort; it was also to arouse and pleasure me.

At first, it troubled me... as if I was responsible for him cheating on his adored wife. But I realized that whatever happened between us, it happened in a time separate from his other family. What we shared did not dishonor them nor rob any measure of love from them; it simply was a facet of Max's life that he loved me.

Now when he comes to me at night within a vision, I welcome his touch. I respond to his whispered words, his passionate movements... I see him so clearly; the way his eyes grow larger when he is seeking my release and driving me toward it; the way his mouth is soft when he is enticing me; the way his fingers can dig in upon me in his fever; the way his eyes narrow and then close for that brief moment of respite when he comes into me; the way he smells, tastes, sounds.

But to even acknowledge these occasional visions of being with Maximus as a woman is with a man, makes it have prominence when the really important visions with Max are so much more than that more sensual expression of our bond.

The other visions are the real relationship a man and a woman have... discussing the week's news, making decisions on your child, laughing, crying, giving solace, sharing joy.

So, yes, I miss him in one sense... one very important sense because he is not alive, living with me, raising our child together. But in another way, it's also true that I do have contact with him, and this is better than nothing. So, indeed I miss him most dearly, for there is no real substitute for holding him at night and waking to find him holding me in the morning.

This is how I am without him. We packed a life into less than six weeks. His physical loss is still immense. That we still have a connection brings me comfort and security.

Every morning when I wake, the first thing I see is the scallop shell from Finis Terrae. It is the one he wore when I first met him there. I have it displayed in a glass shadowbox on the wall that faces my bed. We had exchanged our shells before we left each other on that pilgrimage. I remember thinking at the time that it had seemed a symbolic gesture that would mean something someday. Who could have ever known just how important this symbol would come to be to me?

It is not the only symbolic gesture I made in dedication to what he brought to my life.

I named her Kallista. I remembered him calling me that when he first met me. He thought it was a compliment and a clever play on my name. I had never liked that name; it referred to the deed for which the goddess Eris was best known... throwing the golden apple amongst the goddesses... it was emblazoned with the name Kallista, meaning 'fairest of the fair.' Eris' action led to the bitter rivalry between the three goddesses who each felt they could lay claim to that title... and that, in turn, led to the Trojan War.

But before he died, Maximus had spoken to his daughter as she was still the tiniest fetus in my womb... he'd called her the fairest of the fair.

Kallista.

In his honor, I named her.

He promised he would watch over her for all of time. I know he keeps that promise. Somewhere.

I simply have faith.

At the end of the road, then, I have found the wisdom and truth in Gaia's words about faith.

The battle of faith goes on in the world away from our island sanctuary. We do not take part in the struggle. The Delphic priests have a responsibility to spread the warning that is the prophecy I made. I play a different part. The oracle may predict the possible future, but she must accept that her place is not to stop it... merely to show what will happen. She is not responsible for what she predicts; she is simply the vessel. Similarly important to note is that it does not always happen as the oracle predicts... there is always the outside chance that someone will hear the prophecy and will choose a different path and, in so doing, will change the future. Sometimes, they even manage to change the future for the better.

The Nicolatinas would give anything to learn about the alternate paths... they struggle in vain to find me so they may possess my knowledge of the entire vision.

I met him on the road to Finis Terrae. We were pilgrims then.