When I arrived at Naxos and made my way to the small beach on its eastern coast, I found only a handful of visitors who were there for the same reason I was. To consult the oracle, at the temple in the cave, on a small, unnamed island to the south.

  I am Pamphilos of the Ardiae. My father left me one of the largest estates in southern Illyria. Our olive grove is the envy of the Adriatic. My household numbers fifteen slaves, and in times of war, five-thousand strong are sworn to answer my call.

  As I write, I am sat, cross-legged, in a small hut, still on the island near Naxos. It is where I will spend the rest of my life. Far away from my lands, from my happiness, and from my home. This tragedy is mine because I asked an oracle a question.

  Mine is like so many stories about oracles. Filled with inevitability. Were they all warnings? If so, then let me add my own. Perhaps some future traveller will fail to heed this tale, like I did with all the others.

  I know oracles. I have listened to the Pythia. I have heard Zeus rustle the leaves at Dodona. I have descended into the depths of the Necromanteion.

  I have sailed the Aegean to find an answer to my question. I have spoken with every soothsayer, every high priestess, and every messiah south of the Metzovon. Most of them spoke calculated nonsense. Some were observant enough to attempt some impressive guesswork; that I am a man of nobility out of his way and down on his luck, that I have traveled far and that I long for home. But I have a specific question, with a specific answer.

  When I first heard of the oracle of Naxos, I had long given up. I was continuing my search not because I believed there was any hope of finding a true oracle, but because I no longer knew what else to do. I was going through the motions, because the motions were what I had left.

  It was a fisherman in a taverna who first told me. I was well wary by then, of the showmen who stalk the harbors, drawing the believers to the temple for a cut of the proceeds. This was no showman. The man stumbled over his words, and struggled to make himself clear. He warned me not to go. Imploring, grabbing me drunkenly by the collar. At that point, no promises of mystical truth and salvation could have tempted me, but this was a sincere warning, from a clearly frightened man. Whatever he was warning me away from, he at least believed that it was genuine.

  So I made my way to Naxos. I asked around, and found people who knew what I was talking about. The island was unnamed, home to a few handfuls of people. But there was a temple, and a small rowing boat ferried its visitors to the island and back once a day. I observed for a few days. In the morning, a small group, five was the most I saw, would patiently wait at the beach in the early morning, until a stocky, red-haired man, his bare, broad shoulders slathered in olive oil to protect against the sun, rowed up to an improvised wooden jetty, and took them to the island.

  After a few days I decided it was time to join. I didn’t know whether I was meant to make arrangements somewhere or whether I needed to announce myself. I simply joined the group on the beach. I did not greet the other visitors, and they did not greet me. The red-haired man let me board the rowboat, and we set off.

  The red-haired man rowed, uninterrupted, and the sun was almost at the zenith, when we reached the island. When the boat hit the beach, he jumped ashore, and pulled it aground as far he could. A small pole had been put in place for him to moor the boat, but there was no jetty, so we each jumped off into the shallow water, as he had done, and waded to the shore.

  He pointed us along the shoreline, and walked up the beach himself. Hesitantly, we walked along the beach. Where the beach ended, we found a small rope ladder that allowed us to climb over the large rock protruding out into the sea. After that, another long beach. Where that ended, a set of small wooden walkways had been constructed, no broader than a single plank, barely wide enough for two feet. We spaced ourselves out so that no more than one of us would stretch the thin planks at a time.

  The walkways continued for a while, along a rockface rising straight out of the sea. Clean white bands of quartzite lilted in the direction of our route. The walkway terminated in a small cove, still with no beach and nothing but white cliff faces on on all three sides. On the far side, the cliff face lifted very slightly out of the water to reveal a small cave entrance that swallowed the walkway.

  I held back while the rest of the visitors approached the cave. I heard them being greeted by a young priestess, and being asked to wait. I made my way back along the walkway to the last beach.

  Each temple is a theatre. If you want to see its true face, don’t enter with the crowd. Instead, watch the actors come and go. I had caught many a priestess that way, stripped of her dramatic costume, removed from the smoke and smell of incense, the paint cleared from her face. After that, there would be no false hope. I would see no mysticism where there were only theatrics.

  Near the tree line, I found a small cluster of oak trees, that provided shade and a clear view of the walkway. I made myself comfortable for a long wait. I counted the people returning along the walkway, making their way back to the rowing boat. They all had the same, slow, contemplative gait as they moved along the beach. I must have walked that way myself, those first few times. They were still deciding. Whether to consider their questions answered, to go home with nothing but a faint nagging at the back of the head, but otherwise relieved, or to see the charade for what it is. I wished that I could give them my advice. Sometimes a fake medicine is the best available.

  I waited long, until after the sun had set, and the last visitor had passed by, followed shortly after by the young priestess. I would have spent the night awake, need be. I had done it many times before. As it happened, when the dusk set in, a figure appeared at the cliff face. Another priestess, hunched slightly, and moving slowly and carefully along the narrow planks. As she moved on to the beach, I could see that her hair was long and grey.

  She looked around. I had no need to hide. It was a moonless night and I was well covered by the oaks. The whole cluster of trees could not have been more than a silhouette to her. Nevertheless, she turned directly towards me. I wondered if I could have made some sound to give my position away. She began to walk in my direction.

  Some spy, I decided, must have told her about me. One of the people on the boat. Hired to observe, to relay any salient details given away during the passage. A trick no competent mystic would overlook. I had often caught them out by loudly giving away false details to my fellow travelers, which the oracle would duly parrot back to me. That must be it, I decided as the old woman slowly made her way to me, her eyes trained precisely on mine long before she must have been able to see even my outline.

  Her surreptitious assistant must have noticed that I did not stand in line, and have sought out my hiding place among the trees. He would be the first visitor she let in, the young man with the pallid complexion. He could easily have found my hiding place afterwards. I stayed perfectly still as she approached. Barely breathing. Let her play, I decided. If there was to be theatre, I would not make it easy.

  By now, she was close enough that I could see her eyes, and she, presumably, mine. I stood perfectly still. Determined to give nothing away. Not even the slightest movement for her to read, to play off.

  She smiled at me, kindly, and held out her arms. “Pamphilos.” She said it softly, almost pityingly.

  “Pamphilos of the Ardiae. Your household numbers fifteen slaves. Five-thousand strong are sworn to answer your call. Your olive grove is the envy of the Adriatic. You have come to ask me a question. It is about your son.”

  She kept smiling patiently as I stood there, silent.

  I was at a loss. I had used assumed names, invented many characters for myself to play. For years, I had not given away a single truth. Precisely for this purpose. Precisely so that I would be armored against their cruel tricks.

  “This is the night you’ve been waiting for Pamphilos, this is the night an oracle answers your questions.”

  I could not have spoken if I wanted to. I stayed still. I tried desperately not to let her read how much she had shaken me.

  “There are two options. If you want this done quickly, we can go back to the temple. I will answer your questions, directly and honestly, and you can be on your way. Anaxios, my rower, will take you back to Naxos tomorrow morning.”

  It was an obvious ploy. She was guiding me towards the inevitable. I wonder now if she had actually left me any choice at all. Could I have chosen to go to the temple?

  “And the second option?” I said it meekly, and without conviction.

  “For that you will have to buy me a meal, and some wine. There is a small village not far from here. In return, I will not just tell you what you want to know, but also why I know it. I will give you what you truly want: a reason to believe me. You will not get any answer that you want to hear, but you will get an answer that you will believe.”

  Before I could speak, she interjected.

  “But you should know that there is no moving on from this. This will be a balm for your obsession, but you will spend the rest of your days on this island. There will be no return to glory for Pamphilos of the Ardiae.”

  “And if we go to the cave? What happens then?”

  “Then you will leave here in the morning. Not truly convinced, but convinced enough to return home. You will spend your days plagued by doubt, but you will spend them in Illyria, and you will see your olive trees again.”

  She spoke with no drama. No theatre. Almost bored at the obvious truth of her proclamations.

  “To the village”, I said at last. Whatever she had planned for me, whatever tricks she was playing, I could not let this end with a few simple questions and a night spent sleeping on the beach.

  At first we walked in silence. I felt somehow that every question I would ask would pull me more firmly into her influence. I could sense it in her confidence.

  “How did you know my name?”

  “I know because of something that happened to me as a young girl. It gave me the power to see something of the future. And in those visions, I saw you, Pamphilos, and your name.”

  “What happened to you as a girl?”

  “I met a Jinn. Most Greeks don’t know about Jinns. Do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “They are a little like your demigods, perhaps. But older. Much older. They predate most of the gods of man. I was a goatherd in Palmyra, an orphan girl. I owned a small herd, just big enough to keep myself alive. I learned soon enough that even young girls should be vigilant in big cities, so I spent most of my time outside the walls by myself. I led my goats to young shrubs, and to fresh running water, and I slept under the stars most nights.

  The lands around Palmyra are bountiful if you know where to look, but they can be treacherous as well. While leading my goats across a dangerous stretch of arid land, I spotted the shade of a figure in the distance. I saw him standing up, and then collapse to his knees. It could have been a trick of the light, I told myself, a dead tree or small cloud of dust kicked up by a desert rat. I was in no position to make detours. I deliberated for a while, but then decided: I did not want to spend the rest of my life unsure whether I had let an unfortunate traveler die.

  I made my way to where I had seen him fall. The unconscious body quickly became clear. It was a heavy, muscular man with pale skin and no hair. With great trouble, I turned him over. I tried to give him water. He remained unconscious, but I found that when I gently poured small sips into his mouth, the water would eventually go down.

  I managed to find enough deadwood to create some shade for us and for my goats. He was too heavy to move, so I decided to wait, hoping that he would eventually come to. When the sun began to set, I gave him milk, mixed with honey.

  As night began to fall, he regained consciousness. He expressed his gratitude, acknowledging that I had certainly saved his life. Weakly, he offered his apologies. He was a poor man, with nothing left to give. Half asleep, he muttered that if he had been a Jinn, he would have surely granted me a wish.

  Ah yes. Allow me to explain. There are many Jinns, with many different abilities. But there is only one type that anybody ever talks about. The Jinns that grant you a wish. Some say you must trap them, some say you must meet them on a full moon, some say you must save their life. Whatever the case, the Jinn is always reluctant, but if the conditions are right, you will get your wish.

  Lying on his back still, with his eyes closed, the man asked me what my wish would be, if I ever did meet a Jinn. A common enough question to ask a stranger around a campfire outside Palmyra. Stories of Jinns are common fare, and we’ve all played out our private fantasies.

  Of course, stories with wishes rarely end happily. I need hardly tell a Greek that. Ask for eternal life and you end up aging into infinity. Ask for your enemy’s true love to die, and you may come home to find your wife has met an early end. The gods are as cruel in Palmyra as they are everywhere else.

  I had always believed that it was the greed and the malice in such wishes that invited the retribution. A virtuous request, I thought, could not possibly deserve to be punished.

  And truth, I knew, is the greatest virtue. It may take great pains at the time, it may take courage, but ultimately, there is no greater virtue than to tell the truth. So that is what I told the stranger. If I ever met a Jinn, my wish would be to answer any question truthfully, no matter what the circumstances.

  The stranger smiled weakly. ‘Of all the questions you could ask. I bet it seems like a simple thing to you. If a Ginnaye were to grant you such a wish, it would surely be his final act.’ He coughed.

  ‘But then, what a final act it would be. You would become a mighty thread in the tapestry, little one. Yes, that would be a good final wish for a Jinn to fulfill.’

  We did not speak further. When I woke, the stranger was gone. He had taken none of my water, and I could find no tracks to indicate in which direction he had left.”

  The old woman stopped speaking, and moved ahead of me as we entered the village. There were around twenty simple mud-brick houses scattered around a public well. The town was clearly asleep.

  I watched the priestess as she led the way. Many mystics had told me their fanciful tales about how they came by their powers. This one fit the mold exactly: a distant land, a strange culture, some ancient obscure creature. The only difference was that this wasn’t a practiced patter. It seemed as though I was the first person she had told these things in a long time. Did she add that, to make her story more convincing? Was all this performance just to get a free meal out of me?

  I had been taken in before, and for far more than the price of a meal. It was a small price to pay to see the cozener at her labour, and to find out what she had planned for me.

  She led me to a small taverna. Above, the stars had begun to come out. The keeper, it seemed, was a confidant of the priestess, and was happy to provide us with the remnants of the day’s menu. He brought bread, bean soup, and some leftover cuts of braised pork, together with a cask of wine.

  I paid twice what such a meal should cost, and in return he left us in peace. It was a warm night, so we sat outside on a small terrace.

  “So you think the stranger was a Jinn?”

  “I know he was a Jinn. I have lived with the consequences of my answer ever since.

  But I did not know right away. I spent most of my time in those days with no other company than my goats. I rarely met people, except when I went into the city to sell my milk. The first person I spoke to after the Jinn had disappeared was a keeper of an inn just outside the south walls. An unpleasant man, but one who always paid a fair price.

  He enjoyed asking me questions that made me uncomfortable. Intimate, physical questions. ‘Coming along nicely, I see’, he said, as he poked my chest with a fat finger. He spoke loudly, more to his patrons than to me. ‘Soon, you’ll be a ripe little fig. You’ll start craving the touch of a man like me. And more than a finger too!’ His patrons laughed.

  ‘How about it little one?’ I had passed him the milk, but he held back my money to taunt me. ‘Have you started having ungodly thoughts yet?’

  ‘Yes, I have.’ It took some time before I realized what I had said. I felt dizzy with shock.

  He laughed heartily, almost as shocked at my honesty as I was. ‘Really? And what have you fantasized about, little one? Who would you like to give your little cherry to?’

  ‘There is a slave girl at the temple, she cleans the statues. I’ve talked to her a few times.’ The words came out easily, as though somebody else was speaking. ‘I think about kissing her. Kissing her everywhere. Then I think about her kissing me.’

  The innkeeper did not understand what was happening to me, but he wasted no time in capitalizing on his good fortune. He forced me to recount my fantasies in as much detail as possible. He only relented when my crying became so heavy that I found it difficult to speak. But still, the words forced themselves out through my sore throat.

  Normally his wife would step in after a few taunts, and make him pay me. But this time, she simply stood by with a horrified look. Perhaps I should explain. She was not horrified at what her husband was doing, you see. She was horrified at what I had said.

  In those days the temple had a strong hold on Palmyra, and for one woman to lie with another was seen as an unforgivable sin. These were my most shameful, most secret thoughts. And with good reason. I had seen crowds, whipped into a fury, cheer the executions of men and women alike for just such acts as I had dreamed of committing with that innocent slave girl.

  I hurried out with my money. I bought no supplies, and took my goats as far away from the city as I could. When night fell, I lay on my back, staring wide eyed at the stars. Letting the enormity of the firmament make me as small and as insignificant as it could.

  When my shame had subsided, I began to realize exactly what had happened. The consequences of my answer to the stranger’s question. What the Jinn had done to me.

  I fled from Palmyra in a panic. In shame, and in fear. These days I think they are more kind over there. But it changes like the wind, how people like me are treated. It does not shock you, Pamphilos, to share your table with a gynaikerastria?”

  “Not in the least.”

  “No.” She smiled lightly. “Not anymore. But before, in Illyria, you were a model of virtue then?”

  It took me a long time to recall the details of my life long ago. “If you had been found out in our village, the judgement would most likely have fallen to me. I don’t expect I would have shown you much mercy then.”

  “So you are changed. Is it your grief that has changed you, Pamhpilos? Or is it travel, exposure to so many different people? Perhaps it is simply time? A kind of empathy, that comes with age?”

  “It is difficult to explain. I suppose simply that once your head, in fact your whole body, becomes filled with one subject, one purpose, everything else becomes trivial. I cannot understand anymore how other people care so much about so many different things.”

  She dipped some bread into her bean soup.

  “Hmm. That is not much use to me is it? It is hardly practical to saddle all virtuous men and women with obsessions such as yours. Even if we could somehow manage it, the world would be a sad place indeed.”

  “No good to you? Is it your intention to change the fortunes of men?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Only the way the wind blows, Pamphilos. Let me continue my recollections. My purpose will soon become clear.”

  I left Palmyra and headed west, to Antioch. I lost my flock to the heat. I was near the end myself when I found the tracks of a trader caravan. I followed them through the night and managed to catch up. A small group of other orphans followed the traders too, begging for scraps of food and water.

  I was frightened to join them. I had no doubt now that I was cursed. I could feel it in my throat when I just imagined somebody asking me a question. So many innocent questions would get me in trouble. Where are you from, how did you get here, why did you leave Palmyra?

  At first I considered mumbling my answers, or pretending to be mute. But of course, as soon as somebody would ask What’s the matter with you? the whole history would come out.

  In the end, my hunger and thirst won out, and without a plan, I joined the other children.

  The questions were not as bad as I had thought. ‘What’s your name?’ they asked and ‘Where are you from?’ It gave me an opportunity to test my condition. I found I could not hold back the answer for long, but if I did, I had some measure of control. I could state that I was ‘from Palmyra’, or ‘from the south’, or ‘from a large city called Palmyra’.

  Any details I tried to withhold would come out immediately, but if I relaxed and concentrated, I could control the phrasing, and the order in which the facts emerged. I tried answering in Aramaic instead of Greek, but I found that I could not. If I could possibly make myself understood to the person who asked me a question, I had to.

  Mostly, I chose the shortest answer possible. Anything to keep people from asking more questions. This did not endear me to anybody, but I usually managed to get some share of the water and food.

  Among the caravan, there was a storyteller. A true Greek. At night, when the campfires were lit, he would find a group of traders that had some coin to spare, and tell them stories. Mostly of your ancient heroes. Of Achilles and Odysseus. But also of Alexander. The Greek traders were fond of the stories from the glory days of their empire.”

  She paused to help herself to some wine, and bread. I remembered the many storytellers I had seen in my own travels. Indeed, always the old heroes. Tales of the Greek peoples at their finest. People seem so weary now, scarred by so many small and petty wars. So much death and destruction for so little change, demanded by such feeble leaders. They long for the days of Alexander. When a single man, a single Greek, could conquer all the kingdoms to the ends of the world. Or before that, in the days of the old kings, when Agamemnon and Odysseus burned a city to the ground, for the honor of a single man.

  Is this why there are so many storytellers nowadays, I thought to myself. Are we the remnants of an empire, looking for any ancient glory to hold on to? It must be why the oracles and the sooth sayers are so popular, too. We are desperate for any promise of guidance. Any promise of purpose.

  “For the eastern traders, he reserved the more tragic stories. The stories that the Greeks themselves no longer tell. Of Croesus, of King Oedipus, of Aegeus and Theseus. Around these campfires, the darker, the perverse side of the Greek legacy made a welcome diversion. The eastern traders were eager to hear of anything they could use to put their arrogant western counterparts in their place.

  We followed him around, to listen from a safe distance, without angering the traders. The other children would often act out his stories as we trudged after the caravan, pretending to feed each other murdered children, and to gouge their eyes out after they learned of the horrible things they had done.

  When we came to Sardis, the caravan disbanded, and with it the group of orphans. As they ran off to their preferred places to beg, play, or steal, I was left alone. Instantly, I felt a great sense of despair come over me. I did not speak Greek well, and I did not know this city at all. Too late, I realized I should have followed the other children.

  Behind me, I heard the storyteller.

  ‘Tell me, how is it that you have survived for so long?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I said, I do not understand the question.’

  ‘I grew up like you, you know. I lived on the streets when I was your age. Kids like you don’t survive. Kids who don’t fight. Kids who are polite and withdrawn. You need the other kids to survive, and you need to be able to take what you want from them, when it comes to that.’

  I now understood. I hoped he would not ask again.

  ‘How did you survive so long?’

  ‘I was not always a beggar’, I said. ‘I used to be a goatherd in Palmyra. I kept to myself outside the city walls.’

  ‘That sounds like a charmed life, for an orphan girl. However did you manage to lose all that, and end up here with the likes of us?’

  I tried to fight it, but I doubt he even noticed the pause between his question and my answer. The whole history trickled from me like water from a well spring. I spoke for minutes on end, barely managing to pause for breath.

  He looked at me, wide-eyed.

  ‘Well, that was quite a story. Maybe I mistook you. Is this some scheme you run with your friends, to fool the gullible adults’

  ‘No. I have no friends.’

  He grabbed my tunic. I struggled.

  ‘Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you. But this is far too interesting a game for you to just run off. You don’t mind, surely, if I put your story to the test.’

  ‘Please don’t ask me anything embarrassing’, I begged.

  ‘Hm, a nice touch. If I did that, it would give you just the opportunity to fake a convincing answer. I would feel in control, but really, it would be no test at all. I’m not so easily led, girl. A proper test would be a question about me. Something you wouldn’t know. The name of my first love for instance.’

  He looked at me expectantly.

  ‘I think it needs to be a question’, I mumbled. ‘Ah. What was the name of the maiden that was my first love?’

  ‘Your first love was not a maiden. It was a slave boy you called Lathyros. His real name was Phut.’

  His eyes became wide. ‘How?’, he shouted, ‘How could you know that?’

  He sank to his knees, still grabbing my tunic, dragging me down with him.

  ‘I didn’t’, I said, ‘until you asked me the question.’

  ‘You don’t know anything else? About him. About us?’

  ‘No, not until you ask me.’

  His grip on my tunic relaxed, and he sat back. ‘Were you a slave too?’ I asked.

  ‘I was employed by a butcher then. I used to make deliveries to the villa where he lived.’

  We sat in silence for a while. Then, he suddenly jumped to his feet, and smiled at me., ‘I suppose I should ask you more questions, just to be sure. But I’m a little scared, to tell you the truth. Tell you what, how about we stick together for a while? I can show you the city. Teach you some of the tricks the kids use to stay alive around here and scrounge a daily meal together. How do you feel about that?’

  ‘Relieved’, I said, ‘that I have an option, but a little worried, because I don’t really trust you.’

  ‘Oh, right’, he said, taken aback by my honesty. ‘I guess I should be careful with the direct questions. Tell you what. I will do my best not to ask you anything so long as we’re together. Not unless you give me permission.’

  He thought for a while, seeking a suitable phrase, that wasn’t a question. ‘That might help, I think.’

  ‘I think it would.’ I smiled.

  ‘Call me Agias’, he said.

  Over the next few weeks, we walked the city. The first priority of the moment was almost always food. Sometimes he would offer to tell a story at the market in exchange for scraps. Most times, people refused, but he would distract them enough that I could steal a loaf of bread.

  If we had eaten, we would rest, and when we were rested, but not yet hungry again, we would think of ways to get money. It didn’t pay to have too much money, since it made you a target for robbery, and quite possibly murder, but a small amount of coin meant you didn’t have to worry about food all the time, and it could help with some of the necessities that could not be easily stolen.

  I learned to conquer my fears quickly, and soon thought nothing of grabbing a cup of wine from a table outside a taverna, when all eyes were turned. The trick was always to be calm. Be ready to run, but don’t if you can avoid it. And if you keep track of where people’s attentions are, you will rarely need to.

  The most exhilarating were the games of chance we offered. You must have seen them many times on your travels, Pamphilos. Three large walnut shells and a small pebble of quartz. Bright enough to be distinctive, but not so unique that you can’t find two alike, in a few hours of looking on the beach.

  We played the game near the temples. That was one of his favorite pieces of advice; the temple-goers are desperate. They will believe anything. Work close enough to the temple that you can catch a good number of them, but far enough from the respectable neighborhoods, so that you are left alone by the soldiers.

  He would play the shells. I was practicing, but he told me it would take months before I could safely play it in the streets. My job, until then, was to lure the passers-by into our chosen alley. I would ask them directly to join our game, or suggest that my friend was losing his money, and that I wanted them to get the soldiers. Occasionally, they asked me directly what was going on, and I would have to answer them honestly. Mostly, I was ignored and pushed aside. I learned to spot the promising targets much more quickly than I learned to manipulate the shells.

  The game needed a third player. Somebody who would be winning big just as the target approached. Agias recruited Lesches, a boy of 18, who could speak Greek with a noble accent. We split the winnings three ways. After a large win, we would buy wine, and spend the night outside the city, under the stars.

  I spoke little, when Lesches was around. Agias recognized my fear, and usually cut Lesches off, when he started a direct question to me. But people of our class are naturally paranoid, and Lesches soon began to show his suspicion. When he was away on some errand, Agias took me aside.

  ‘I’m worried about Lesches. I think he suspects something is off about you. I think it’ll be increasingly difficult to keep him under control. I think you feel the same way.’

  By now, he had become skilled in asking questions without asking them.

  ‘I think so. How do we know if he’s a risk?’

  ‘There’s one way to be sure. I could ask you.’

  I told him he could.

  ‘If we keep playing the three-shell game with Lesches, what will happen?’

  I felt a slight sting at the back of my head, a little nausea, but nothing more. ‘I think the question is too broad. Maybe the answer would take forever to say. Which means we wouldn’t be playing the game at all, so there isn’t a real answer.’

  ‘Right’, he said, ‘I guess I had better be a little more precise. If we decide to keep playing the three-shell game with Lesches for another week, will we keep playing until the end of the week?’

  ‘No’, I said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘In three days, we will win big. We will get drunk and he will get angry. He will ask me what my problem is, and I will tell him the story of the Jinn. In his drunken excitement, he will ask me questions about treasure, about the future. He will be careless, and the complexity of the answers will tax me to near death. You and he will fight, and you will kill him with the knife you hide in the back of your tunic. We will then attempt to escape the city.’

  I was more shocked by the revelation than he was. He smiled lightly and showed me the knife. Reading my face, he said, ‘I tried to tell you child. People in our station… It’s not a bad life altogether, but you need to be prepared.’

  ‘Have you killed before?’ I realized it was not a smart thing to ask, but I was a child, and it had been a long time since I had had an adult to look up to.

  ‘Lots of people kill. From the gods, to the kings to us in the street. Even those nice people in the temple every week aren’t above a little poison in a cup of wine, if somebody gets in the way. Just so long as they are sure they can get away with it. I suggest you get used to the idea. I suggest you get used to the idea of doing it yourself. You may need to, one day.’

  He wasn’t paying attention to me. He said it off-hand. But those few sentences started something in me. I think that was the moment I stopped waiting for things to happen to me. The moment I began to think about taking control.

  Agias may have been a killer, but he didn’t revel in the act, and murder was no solution to the problem of Lesches. However, stopping the game now would certainly anger him. Leaving without a word would raise suspicion, and we would forever be wary of meeting him by accident. Instead Agias devised a far more neat solution. After the week’s first take, we celebrated outside the city, and, acting more drunk than we were, we left our parts of the winnings lying around, while we pretended to sleep. Lesches, predictably greedy, stole the money. For a small price, he was out of the picture, and it would be his job to avoid us.

  The next morning, we were free of Lesches, but in urgent need of food. Winter was approaching. Life was moving inside, and people were conserving their money and food. Most of our games were designed for full markets, for people celebrating the harvest and eating outside.

  One night, sitting around a fire in hunger, Agias pointed to me.

  ‘That curse of yours sure saved our hides, child. Have you ever considered it may not be such a curse at all? There might be a way in it to alleviate our current burden. Would you mind if I tried something? I promise not to ask you anything personal.’

  I shrugged.

  ‘Ok, How about this. Where… is the nearest buried treasure?’ He asked with a smile.

  ‘On an unnamed island in the Aegean sea. It is buried at the back of a deep cave.’

  ‘Hmm, that’s a little further away than I’d hoped.’ He thought for a minute. ‘Where is the nearest dropped coin?’

  I pointed to a tree in the distance. ‘By that tree. It’s about two fingers deep in the soil.’

  We walked over, and with a few further questions managed to locate the coin. It was a copper obol, which was far from enough to pay for a meal. But Agias soon refined the method. The largest coin within walking distance was a silver tetradrachm, on the other side of the city. A long walk, and buried deep in the earth but enough for several days of comfortable living. We had to spend it carefully too, as two vagrants with that much silver would surely have aroused suspicion at a moneychanger.

  This is how we spent the following weeks. Digging for coins, and other valuables in the soil around the city. When all the dropped coins of any value had been found, we found new questions that allowed us to continue. Many coins are not dropped, but stay in the purse, so we found some lost purses. Occasionally, it was not just the purse that had dropped to the ground, but the owner as well. Agias barely flinched at taking money from a dead body. For me, it was another lesson. Another reminder of what was needed to survive.

  We had struck gold. A city, it turns out, holds enough loose change for two people to live comfortably, if only for a while. We bought new clothes, and when sleeping outside became uncomfortable, we looked respectable enough to be able to rent a cheap room over a taverna. But something had changed. I was no longer Agias’ apprentice. The source of our income was no longer his experience of life on the streets. It was this strange curse of mine, which he could only control by controlling me. He took care of most things, holding on to the money, arranging food and our room. He told me it was the least he could do, considering I brought in the money, but there seemed to be a hint of fear, or anger beneath his words.

  Once, as a test, I think, I pocketed a purse we had found, and tried to move on, back to the city. He didn’t move.

  ‘Why don’t you let me hold on to that?’

  ‘Come, let’s go to the city. It’s getting late, and I’m hungry.’

  ‘Give me the purse, child, it’s not safe for you to hold on to that kind of money.’
‘You’re not making sense. We’re going to walk to the city, and spend all this immediately. Let me pay for dinner this time.’ I smiled in an attempt to lighten the mood. But his resistance showed me that this was not insignificant. This was a fight that was not going to go away.

  He moved closer to me.

  ‘Give me that purse, child. This is important.’

  ‘You’re being impossible. What does it matter.’

  He grabbed my wrist, and squeezed hard enough to hurt me.

  ‘Now. This is for your own good.’

  I gave him the purse, and he set off towards the city. I followed a few paces behind in silence.

  After dinner, he brought the incident up. ‘I’m sorry I was so rough with you. I slept badly, I shouldn’t have grabbed you like that. But I hope you see my point. It is better that I take care of the money. This city can be rough, and you haven’t been here for very long.’ I agreed, and apologised for my part.

  ‘Let us be friends again.’ He smiled, and held out his hand.

  ‘Of course’, I said, and shook it.

  But that night I lay awake a long time.

  After a few months, we had assembled a considerable collection of coins and jewelry. However, despite our new, clean clothes, and regular visits to the barber, we could not hide our class. We spoke the language, but not in the right way. Even Agias could not pass for someone who had any legitimate reason to possess a large amount of money. Changing too much money at once, or selling a golden necklace would still arouse suspicion. We had plenty of connections among the orphans and the thieves, of course, but showing too much of our wealth to them was an even greater risk.

  One evening, we were sitting on the floor. Agias pointed to the large leather sack we used to hold the jewelry and larger coins we could not spend without arousing suspicion.

  ‘It’s getting too big to hide anywhere. The owner of the taverna will find it one of these days. He knows what we are. He’ll kick us out, and keep the treasure. He knows there’s nothing we can do.’

  ‘What if we move to a new inn. Get a bigger room, with better places to hide our finds.’

  ‘No. Look at this.’ He opened the bag ‘We’re richer than most people we meet on the street. We shouldn’t have to be afraid of anybody. We need a new way of thinking. What if we go bigger? Use that talent of yours to take the money we have and turn it into a real fortune.’

  ‘I don’t know. Whenever you ask the wrong question I get sick, or talk for ages. I’m scared to push this. How about we move to another city. By foot, we could reach Miletus in two days. We could find fresh coins, and the money changers would not know our faces.’

  ‘No, I like Sardis, I know how things work here. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. I’ve been thinking about those chance-games we played, like the shells. What if we didn’t have to cheat? If you can tell us what will happen, we can work out a system where we always win, even if the game is fair!’

  ‘Why don’t we talk about this tomorrow. I’m tired.’

  ‘Here.’ He pulled an old obol out of his pocket, too rusty to pay with. ‘When I flip this, will it land head or tails?’

  ‘Heads.’ I said. He flipped the coin and let it land in his palm, the heads face up.

  He leaned in closer. ‘Again, if I flip it, which side will it land?’

  The white light again at the back of my head. I held off my answer, fighting the building nausea. Suddenly, the light resolved, and I could see. It’s difficult to describe it, Pamphilos. It’s not quite seeing. More like knowing. Finally I answered.

  ‘Heads, again.’

  He flipped the coin and it landed heads.

  He looked at me intently.

  ‘You paused there. Something was different.’

  ‘Please, I’d like to go to bed.’

  ‘What happened after I asked that question? Why did you hesitate?’

  ‘It’s the white light, the one I see when you ask me questions about the future. I could see… inside it somehow. I know what it means now.’

  He waited, but this was something I wanted to keep to myself. I wanted to think this through in peace. But his promise not to ask questions when I didn’t want him to had long ago evaporated.

  ‘Tell me, what does it mean?’

  ‘The coin was going to hit your hand just on its edge. Which way it fell depended on the slightest disturbance of the air. If I had said heads, it would have landed heads. If I had said tails, then it would have landed tails. Both answers were equally true. The light was showing me. If I wait, if I let it resolve, I can see all the different answers that are true, if I choose to utter them.’

  ‘So by choosing one…‘

  ‘I make it happen.’

  We sat in silence, both considering the implications. I could see he was tempted to ask further questions, but he thought better of it.

  ‘You’re right, it’s better to discuss such matters in the light of day. Let’s go to bed.’

  I think we both lay awake a long time. Both pretending to be asleep. We both realized that our game was coming to an end. It was time for the final moves.

  Agias was shrewd, Pamhilos, but arrogant. He thought, perhaps, that he had some time left to make a plan. Perhaps he had not guessed how much of my recent timidity and deference was an act. Perhaps he was just more tired than I was. Whatever the case, he let himself fall asleep. When he woke up, he found me sitting on his chest, with my knees pinning his arms in place.

  I had taken the knife from his tunic and held it to his throat. I forced the tip deep into his skin.

  ‘Careful’, I said. ‘It’s some time ago that I last did this to one of my goats, but think I can still bleed a body when I need to. The tip of my knife should just be at your artery. It won’t take much movement from either of us.’

  ‘What is this? What do you want?’

  ‘I want to find out some truths. I also warn you that the next question you ask without my permission will be the last.’

  ‘Understood. Ask away.’

  ‘No, it won’t be quite that simple. You’re going to be the one asking. But I’ll supply the questions.’

  I could see a hint of panic in his face. He stared into my eyes.

  ‘This isn’t you, child. I’ve seen how shocked you were whenever things got violent. All those bodies we found outside the city, you were terrified each time. You may have killed goats, but you can’t kill a man.’

  ‘Good. Let’s start there, shall we? Ask me if I’m willing to kill you, for a wrong move.’

  ‘Are you prepared to kill me if I try to escape?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you prepared to kill me if I refuse to ask you a question?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I gave him a moment to digest this information. He spoke softly, and very deliberately.

  ‘I see you’ve taken my advice to heart. Very well. You’re in control, what’s next?’

  ‘You ask me what your plan is for the money.’

  ‘What’s my plan for the money?’

  ‘You plan to take it. You don’t trust me anymore.’

  ‘Ask me why you don’t trust me anymore.’

  ‘Why don’t I trust you anymore?’

  ‘You realized yesterday that I held more power than you thought. If I could decide the future just by answering questions, I might eventually be able to give the most innocent answer to a question and seal your fate. You decided that the longer you played this game, the more the odds were against you.’

  ‘You are making me out to be a villain. You are suggesting that this is worth killing me over. It’s a scary thing, this curse of yours.’

  ‘If you want to plead your case, you’ll get the opportunity later. We are not finished yet. Ask me when you first decided to use my curse to make money.’

  ‘When we got rid of Lesches. Listen, child…‘

  I twisted the knife. Blood started flowing slowly into the nape of his neck.’Ask. Be precise.’

  ‘When did I first decide to use your curse to make money?’

  ‘Almost immediately after you first learned about it. You realized you needed my confidence first, but you always knew you would eventually use me to make your fortune.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Ask me, in your plan to escape with the money, what did you plan to do to me.’

  ‘Please, you can take the money, just let me go.’

  I held the knife firm.

  ‘What did I plan to do to you?’

  ‘You planned to kill me.’

  ‘Ask me why you planned to kill me.’

  ‘Why did I plan to kill you?’

  ‘Now that you knew what I was capable of, you could not take the risk that I would follow you and get the money back. It would take one question from a willing stranger for me to track you down. If all I cared about was revenge, I wouldn’t even need to come to you. I could have someone ask about you. About your future, or about how you would die, or whether you would suffer any accidents this year. With a question far enough in the future, and a little bit of luck, I would get to choose from a wide range of answers. You could not bear the thought of living with that over your head.

  Do you still want to plead your case? Convince me that I’m being paranoid?’

  He remained silent.

  ‘Good. It may surprise you to learn that I don’t want to kill you. I want to take that money and I never want to see you again. Specifically, I want you to walk out of here, immediately, out of the city, and to keep walking until you get to Miletus. You will spend the rest of your life there.’

  ‘Of course, you win. Whatever you say.’

  ‘No. It isn’t quite that easy Agias.’ I paused to let him work out what was going to happen next.

  ‘Ask me, if I let you go now, whether you will spend the rest of your life in Miletus’

  ‘If you let me go, will I spend the rest of my life in Miletus?’

  The white light again. I struggled to keep the knife steady, but there was only one answer.

  ‘No.’ I looked at him. ‘Ask me what will happen instead.’

  ‘What will happen instead?’

  ‘You will not leave the city. You will wait outside the inn until I leave. Your plan will be to ambush me, to kill me and to take the money.

  We sat in silence for a time.

  ‘There are only two outcomes here, Agias. Ask me what will happen if you don’t convince me that you will spend the rest of your life in Miletus.’

  ‘What will happen?’ There was nothing but panic in his voice now.

  ‘I will drive this knife into your neck and you will die. Ask me again. If I let you go now, will you spend the rest of your life in Miletus.’

  ‘If… If you let me go will I spend the rest of my life in Miletus?’

  ‘No. Ask me what would happen instead.’

  ‘What would happen?’

  ‘You would make it to the city gates, before you regain your composure. Then you would turn back and attempt to track me down.

  You need to convince me Agias. It’s the only way you live.’

  ‘But I can’t…’ he was crying. ‘I don’t know what to do. Please. I promise I want to do what you say.’

  ‘Shh. Concentrate. It’s not easy. You need to commit to the idea. You can make it true. Here, this might help. Ask me, if you convince me that you will stay in Miletus, whether you will live a quiet life.’

  ‘Will I live a quiet life, if I convince you?’

  The white light again. I held out. Many answers were possible. In his current state, Agias would follow whatever path I chose for him here.

  ‘Yes, Agias, you will live a quiet life in Miletus if you want to.’

  I saw him relax somewhat.

  ‘Take some time for this. Picture this life for yourself. Commit to the idea fully.’

  He closed his eyes, and breathed in deep. I sat there, rigidly, as he concentrated. My muscles began to ache under the strain.

  ‘I think I’m ready’ ‘Ask the question.’ ‘If you let me go now, will I leave peacefully, make my way to Miletus, and spend the rest of my life there?’

  There was no light, only one answer.

  ‘Yes.’

  I withdrew the knife, and stood up carefully. He rose, rubbing his arms. Despite my precautions, I still pointed the knife at him. He looked at me with slightly dead eyes, as he dressed. He pointed at the water bowl, and our provisions.

  ‘Can I take some water… some food?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He filled his wineskin, and took less than half the food. He looked back once, with the eyes of a beaten dog.

  He walked out. I could see him out of the window. He walked for the city gates. He did not look back.