Everyone Should Eat His Own Turtle (A Greek Myth Novel) by H.C. Southwark (nonfiction book recommendations TXT) 📕

pliable, but still, in their inner nature, solid wood. She did not move with the men gripping her arms on either side—she forced them to haul her the entire way.

“Where are we going?” she demanded. The old woman leading did not even look at her in response. Isme would not beg for an answer that would not come.

But this did not stop Isme’s mind from conjuring up all sorts of terrible things: if this was the priestess of Apollon, then anything could be done to her. Her thoughts filled with being transformed into a tree, or struck dead with a discus, or killed with golden arrows...

When they pulled her through the city walls, Isme seized the corner of the gate. This particular entry was not broad enough for three people to walk through abreast, so she was pulled by only one of the burly men. He tried to haul her along—

Yet something like the rearing of the animal that Lycander often rode rose up within Isme, and her grip could not be broken. The man lifted her off the ground in his effort, and Isme felt her elbow strain in its joint, muscles screaming in overextension. But her grip held.

Isme had no idea that she was this strong.

For the first time since inspecting Isme’s face, the old prophetess turned and came back, once again gazing at Isme. She said, “Now is not the time for this,” and pointedly jerked her head to direct Isme’s attention behind her.

Isme unconsciously followed the direction, which was a mistake—for she was confronted with the mass of human beings who had seen her be selected, and who had followed in complete silence she was dragged from the center of the city. Their faces were solemn and not a single one said or did anything but stare.

Shivering, Isme was reminded of the men who had come in the dark and stood round about the temple of Delphi, who had watched her and her father climb up the side of the mountain and then not bothered to notice them on their way down.

She released the door and was dragged on.

~

They carried her up the side of the mountain, working as a team to pull and lift her up over precipices or large steps. Isme knew this trail—she had scrambled up it with her father only the previous night. The old woman had no trouble despite her age.

Then looming in Isme’s vision: the Temple of Delphi.

It looked like the skeleton of some enormous animal, bleached white by the enduring sun, the columns like femurs and ribs, the dome was the curved crown of the skull. Around it was a mass of spears—or little short infant trees—

Or people, thought Isme, and had she been free she would have turned and fled not just down the mountain to the city but all the way back to the road which led to her father’s boat and the island that was her home. They cannot be people, she thought wildly, surely they did not spend the entire night here in front of the temple—

The men dragging her must have felt the tension vibrating in her like a string, but they showed no mercy. And as she was dragged onward, Isme saw no motion from the crowd assembled before the temple, not like the crowd that was still following, trailing behind almost noiselessly except the animal sounds of feet stepping.

Only when they were within hailing distance in the fading sunlight did Isme realize:

The men in front of the temple were not men at all. They were statues.

Hundreds of statues, perhaps thousands, made of everything one could make statues from: stone, carved thick and chunky or smooth and flowing like water, bronze, gilded green like the foam of the sea, iron, lumpy and powdered with rust, wood, weathered and beaten by the elements, but all still standing, trapped at attention.

For the first time since being caught in the city, Isme did not dig her heels to leave long gashes in the soil. She still did not move with them, but she was reluctant to try to stay among this forest of deadened people, and so her resistance was minimal.

But they walked through this forest of unliving men, she thought to herself: last night in the dark they moved. They watched us...

Close to the temple, the statues thinned and then grew smaller, almost like statues of children, or as though they had been there so long that the dirt had begun to gather around their feet, half burying them in the soil. A stone walkway rose into stairs leading to a courtyard: and Isme’s mind was on the forest of her home, how it faded to scrub-grass and then the rise of the hill and then the sea...

Resistance rose in her again. The two burly men had more trouble dragging her up those steps than ever before. For Isme was thinking about heading over those hills on her island, about those lumpen shadows that she had found on the beach behind…

But the courtyard was empty. The temple loomed high, and this close Isme saw that she had been mistaken thinking it was white like bone: for it had been painted. The carved reliefs showed color, attempts at skin on human faces and various shades for the clothing. Yet it was all pastel, showing that it had been painted just the once and the sun had been striving to remove that paint ever since.

On columns at the temple entrance were carved two words:

KNOW THYSELF

Beside this was space for what looked like at least two more sayings, but while there were etchings, Isme could not make out the other words. Yet she did not think that they had been worn away—instead, the marks on the stone looked new, like fresh wounds. As though they were in the process of forming instead of decaying.

She found herself pondering the carved saying—what on earth could be meant by “Know thyself”? She already knew who she was: she was Isme, daughter