Lourds acknowledged that.
“And if you are arrested and put into jail with us, it would be in a very bad environment. It would be too easy for whoever is pursuing us to find you and to have you killed.”
“You’re right.”
So Lourds had remained an unwilling hostage in his room. This morning they had finally been able to leave.
Lourds sat in the back seat of the rented boat with Captain Fitrat as it sped across the green expanse of the Aegean Sea. One of the captain’s men drove and another rode shotgun. There was another boat carrying armed men ahead of them. Although everybody would have fit in one boat, Fitrat hadn’t wanted to reduce them to one vehicle with no options.
“Why do you think this place is so important?”
“Because it was mentioned in the scroll.” Lourds peered across the sea at the island as they neared it.
“Then why didn’t we come here sooner?”
“It wasn’t mentioned by name. There was a code for it, and it isn’t a simple letter-substitution code. The paragraph I broke regarding this place reduced Delos to the place where the dead do not rest.“
The young soldier in the passenger seat nearest the pilot looked over his shoulder at Lourds. “Zombies? You’re talking about zombies?”
“No. What is it with your generation and this love of zombies?”
The man shrugged and smiled. “How can you not love zombies? Have you not seen The Walking Dead?”
“No, but I’ve heard of it. If you ask me, it’s a lot like Anabasis.”
“Is that a movie or a television show? I am not familiar with it.”
“It’s a book written by a professional Greek soldier named Xenophon. It tells the story of a group of Greek mercenaries hired by Cyrus the Younger, a Persian king, to take the throne from his brother, Artaxerxes II. Cyrus led them into battle at Cunaxa in Babylon but was killed, so putting him on the throne would have been moot. The rest of the book was about the struggles of the Greek mercenaries to return to their homes without getting killed.”
The young soldier thought for a moment. “It sounds interesting.”
“Yes, it is. They were harried by the king’s men the whole way, and they had to cross the snow-covered mountains to reach the Greek cities. You should try reading it.”
“If Cyrus the Younger had turned out to be a zombie, then they could have still placed him on the throne. That would have been more interesting.”
“Because everything is better with zombies.”
“Of course.”
Fitrat chuckled but politely turned his head.
Lourds sighed. He saw the same kind of behavior in his college students all the time. “Getting back to my point, Delos was a meeting place for all the cults of Greece. Temples were built there to the gods, including the temple of the Delians, which was dedicated to the sun god Apollo. There was also a place dedicated to the Poseidoniasts — merchants, sea captains, and innkeepers who worshiped Poseidon, the god of the sea. All of the gods were supposed to have temples there, including Hera, Dionysus, Artemis, and the others of the big twelve. In fact, Apollo and Artemis were supposed to have been born there. The place became a pilgrimage for the Greeks, and people from all over the world went there to see the temples and fountains and other landmarks.
“Since this land was so important to the ancient Greeks, they didn’t want it tainted. Didn’t want to offend the gods and goddesses. They tried to purify the island. In the sixth century BCE, the tyrant Peisistratos founded the Panathenaic Festival, a series of games that lasted for days.”
“Like the Olympics.”
“Yes. Only never as big.”
“It is hard to be as big as the Olympics.”
“Peisistratos ordered that all graves that could be moved from any of the temples had to be relocated.
“Nearly a hundred years later, the Delphic Oracle declared that all graves on the island had to be emptied and that no one could be born there or die there.”
“You are talking about the Oracle created by Apollo?” Interest showed in Fitrat’s eyes.
“Absolutely. The Oracle was in full sway then. What do you know of her?”
“Only that Apollo chose the first woman.”
“That’s not exactly how it was, but that seems to be the common conjecture. According to legend, Apollo chose Cretans from Minos to be his priests, jumped onto their ship in the form of a dolphin, and led them to the site of the Oracle.
“Another story says that a goat herder named Coretas noticed that one of his goats was acting strangely after having fallen into a rift in the earth. When he went to investigate, he was overcome by strange visions that allowed him to peer into the future and the past.”
“This I know more about.” Fitrat shifted in his seat. “Scientists actually found that the visions might have been elicited by gas that was trapped within the earth. Carbon dioxide or something.”
“Close, but carbon dioxide was only one of the possibilities.” Lourds smiled. “Originally the gas was believed to have been ethylene, a byproduct of an oil deposit there. Although there are some who say the more likely culprit was methane or hydrogen sulfide.”
“That wouldn’t have made the Oracle a great environment to be in.”
“No, but it didn’t stop people from going there. Aristotle, Herodotus, Sophocles, Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch — among others — are reputed to have visited the site.”
“So they cleaned the island of the dead, and that became the land of temples to the Greek gods.”
“Among others, yes. There were some Egyptian gods worshipped there too.” Lourds grinned. “One of the most interesting pieces is the Stoivadeion, the temple dedicated to Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. It’s a giant phallus.”
The two soldiers in the front of the boat totally lost it and started laughing hysterically. Even Fitrat laughed, and he wiped his eyes. “Who would do such a thing?”
“It was erected — if I may be so bold—”
The soldiers howled with glee.
“—by an ancient Greek grammarian named Carystius. Sadly, this phallus is practically all that remains of his works. Even that is broken.”
“Broken?” The young soldier in the front seat turned around again. He had changed to speaking English.
“Yes. In half.”
“So now it’s half-cocked? Is that how you say this in your slang?”
The soldier laughed and pounded his thigh with a fist.
“Yes.” Lourds covered his face with his hat and wanted to throw himself overboard.
The young soldier hopped out of the boat and quickly tied it up at the dock. Lourds grabbed the line from the stern and tied it to a cleat as well, wrapping it snugly.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Agora of the Delians. Remember, I told you that Aristotle and Plato were connected with that long-dead organization that wasn’t so long dead during Alexander’s time.” Lourds looked around at the island and the blue sky surrounding them. He’d been to Delos several times, but he never failed to be impressed by the pomp and pageantry that the sight brought to mind.
Now all that remained were fragments of what had once been. Broken, stone houses, tall, Doric columns that looked solitary and lonely, and stone parquets that showed wear from the countless visitors who toured the island even now.
“Why are we going there?” Fitrat adjusted his sunglasses. In casual clothes, he almost looked touristy.
“There’s an inscription that was mentioned in the scroll as being key to the parts that I haven’t yet figured out.”
Lourds took the lead, and they followed bare earth walkways and the stone-lined path that wound through the island.