Iphthime, An Oracle with dire portents

Hippolyta had only reached the inner curtain when the voice came through it.

It was not loud. It did not need to be. The sound was low and even, pleasant in a way that made Winston’s attention turn toward it before he had decided to listen, each word set down as if it had been chosen a long way from this tent.

“I will not cross your threshold unbidden,” the woman stated. “I am the voice sent from the sanctuary. Receive me, and I will enter. Send me back, and I will carry that answer with me. The right of rule has already settled on this shore. I did not come to dispute it. I came because the island has begun to listen, and a king who raises walls before he hears what has already been set in motion will find those walls answering to more than timber and stone.”

Saruka remained behind the chair, hands at her sides now. Hippolyta stood at the curtain and looked to Winston, waiting on him as the Oracle had.

Winston sat forward in the seat Tektonia had left warm. The voice held him the way a well-cut sentence holds a reader. No hunger lived in it. No plea. Only the calm of a woman who expected to be heard and was prepared, if she was not, to leave with that silence as her message.

He knew that tone from books. Delphi had spoken like that, through a Pythia who sat above the chasm and let priests turn her words into verse kings were afraid to ignore. Dodona had been quieter, oak and bronze, but the same certainty sat under it. Rome had kept the same habit in a cave at Cumae, where the Sibyl sang the fates onto leaves and let the wind scatter them if a man came careless, and in the old story of Tarquin, who refused her price until she burned the books in front of him and made the remainder cost the same. Conceit belonged to the office. It was how an oracle announced that the gods did not queue.

Worse shapes lived in the same shelf of myth. Some seers came raving, foam and frenzy, a god using a throat like a tool. Some came true and useless, like Cassandra, who saw every ruin coming and could not make a single man believe her. A woman who sounded a little pleased with her own authority was a better guest than either of those. Winston had spent his working life among ruins left by people who had refused the first kind and suffered the second. He was not going to add himself to that list tonight.

“Enter and be received,” Winston stated. “I grant you audience. Speak what the sanctuary sent you to speak. You will be heard.”

The inner curtain lifted on the last word, held aside by Hippolyta as the woman beyond it stepped into the chamber. White cloth veiled her head and bound her eyes, crossed at the brow by a band of red-gold rope. Blonde hair spilled in long waves from beneath the veil and over one shoulder, framing a mouth painted a deep, still red.

Everything below the veil carried the same strange union of temple and battlefield. A white gown plunged between heavy breasts and clung over a hard, carved middle before splitting high along one thigh, exposing the muscle of her hip and the rope knotted there with each step. Gold cuffs circled both wrists, more cord wrapped one upper arm, and a tall staff of dark wood wound with gold rested in her left hand. She crossed the floor with such certainty that the unfamiliar tent might already have been mapped beneath her feet.

By then Saruka had withdrawn quietly to one side, leaving the newcomer an unobstructed path toward the table. Several paces into the chamber, the staff touched the ground and remained there. No hand reached for guidance, no hesitation disturbed her posture, and the blindfold turned toward Winston with unnerving accuracy.

Her voice alone would have been enough to command his attention. Seeing the woman it belonged to made keeping that attention disciplined considerably harder. His pulse rose before thought could intervene, greedy and immediate enough to recall Hippolyta’s first entrance into this same tent. Winston forced his gaze toward the staff instead and slowed his breathing, trying to receive an oracle like a king rather than stare at her like a man who had forgotten why she had come.

No impatience appeared while she waited for him to compose himself. Somehow the silence gathered around her instead, giving the impression that the tent itself had gone attentive.

“I am Iphthime, Voice of the Sanctuary. The Lady Regent asked that I come before you.” A faint shift of her grip settled the staff more firmly against the floor. “I would have come without the invitation.”

Something in the certainty of that answer stripped away a little of Winston’s distraction.

“Two births shared a night on this island,” Iphthime continued. “One child was welcomed and shown proudly to the sisterhood. The other was hidden. Her mother had lain with a power beyond Olympus, something dark enough that those who understood its nature feared what might follow. From that union came a daughter carrying Amazon blood and an inheritance no Amazon law knew how to contain.”

The chamber had gone completely quiet. Hippolyta remained beside the curtain while Saruka stood behind Winston’s chair, both women listening without interruption.

“One sister saw what had happened and spoke of it. Her reward was death. The mother fled with her child before the island could decide whether silence required another grave.”

That reached Winston in a way the sight of Iphthime had failed to. Years spent digging through ruins had taught him the shape of stories people preferred forgotten. Murder, flight, a child hidden because her existence complicated something sacred. He knew the pattern well enough to distrust any history that survived only because everyone involved agreed to stop asking questions.

“The daughter lives,” Iphthime said. “Exile did not diminish what she inherited. She has grown with Amazon blood in her veins and something farther from Olympus moving through her hands. One day she will return to these shores, carrying little desire to reclaim the sisterhood that cast her out. She will come for the paradise that condemned her before she was old enough to understand what had been done.”

The staff remained planted between her feet while the warning gathered weight. “Walls will delay nothing if Themyscira remains ignorant. Silence has already served its purpose once and failed. The women who buried this history hoped distance would finish what fear began. Instead, distance gave the child time to grow.”

Winston became aware that Saruka had stopped moving entirely behind him. Even Hippolyta’s posture had changed, the relaxed amusement of dinner gone from her face.

Iphthime turned her blindfold a fraction more directly toward him. “Your authority gives this island an answer it has never possessed before. The mother fled beyond the reach of Themyscira, and the daughter grew where no queen could command either of them to return. You may be able to change that.”

The words drew Winston’s attention away from everything else in the room.

“If Amazon blood still answers the law that binds the sisterhood, then yours may reach them as well,” the Oracle continued. “Call them back beneath your authority before the daughter comes of her own choosing. Bind them to your rule while there is still time for obedience to mean something. I do not tell you this lightly. Drawing such power toward yourself may be perilous, and what runs in that daughter is older and stranger than anything our laws were made to contain.”

A colder understanding settled over Winston as the shape of the warning became clear. Iphthime was offering him a chance to act before the threat reached the island, though the act itself meant reaching across distance and blood to claim authority over two women who had escaped Themyscira generations ago.

“The danger is larger than these shores,” she said. “If the daughter returns in hatred and the inheritance within her has grown as the visions suggest, Themyscira will only be where the ruin begins. What follows may pass into the world beyond us. Cities that know nothing of our sins may answer for them. Men and women who have never heard the name of this island may die because we chose silence when action was still possible.”

The staff remained firm against the ground while her voice lowered. “If you can bind them to you before that day comes, you may prevent what the old order only delayed. There is risk in reaching for them. There will be greater risk if no one does.”

For several moments Winston said nothing. Attraction still lingered somewhere beneath the weight of Iphthime’s presence, but the warning had pushed it far enough aside that he could finally think past her body. Somewhere beyond Themyscira lived two Amazons the island had failed, and the authority already sitting uneasily in his hands might be the only thing capable of preventing their return from becoming a disaster far beyond these shores.

The scale of that responsibility settled heavily enough that his first question came almost by instinct. “How long do I have?”

No answer came immediately. Iphthime remained facing him beneath the blindfold, one hand firm around the staff while whatever sight had brought her here seemed to resist the precision Winston wanted from it. “I cannot give you a day. They may come tomorrow, or a year may pass before either sets foot upon these shores. The paths around them divide too often for me to see when the return happens clearly.” Her certainty returned when she spoke again. “The return itself is clearer. Mother and daughter will come.”

Winston felt his stomach tighten, though Iphthime seemed to anticipate the panic before he gave it voice. She warned him against wasting whatever time remained on fear. The mother had not fled Themyscira entirely alone, and old loyalties had survived her departure in places the island preferred not to examine. Some women had aided her directly. Others had inherited secrets, sympathies, or obligations from those who did. Those were the Amazons Iphthime wanted brought before him first.

“For questioning?” Winston asked, though the answer was already beginning to suggest itself.

The staff shifted softly against the floor. “For use. If they still possess her trust, preserve it. Place their deeper loyalty beneath your authority and leave the old relationships intact where they serve you. Messages may continue to pass. Friendships may remain. Through those women you can learn where the mother has gone, what the daughter has become, and whether either has begun preparing for the journey back.”

He understood the usefulness quickly enough to dislike how easy the idea felt. A prisoner could lie, resist, or simply know that she was being watched. Someone whose allegiance had been quietly turned could continue behaving exactly as expected while feeding him everything that mattered. His authority made that possible with an efficiency he was becoming far too accustomed to considering.

A more obvious solution arrived before he could follow that thought any further. “There are people much better suited to this than I am. Superman, Batman, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Green Lantern. If you are describing someone capable of threatening Themyscira and then the rest of the world, this sounds like something the Justice League should know about.”

For the first time since entering, a trace of weary patience touched Iphthime’s mouth. The names meant enough to her that no explanation was required. Superman could meet overwhelming force with greater force. Batman might uncover secrets buried for centuries. Martian Manhunter could reach places in the mind few defenses could protect, while Hawkgirl had faced powers born far beyond the earth. Diana would answer any threat to Themyscira before the request had finished leaving his mouth. None of that solved the problem Iphthime had come to place before him.

“If you summon them now, the island will know,” she said. “So will those whose loyalty still reaches beyond it. Warnings will travel before your heroes finish deciding where to search. The mother may vanish again, and the daughter will learn that Themyscira has gathered champions against her before she has taken a single step toward home. A woman raised to believe this island fears her may see that as proof of everything she was taught.”

Winston rubbed a hand across his face, already seeing the shape of the trap. Bringing in the League too early could turn a hidden threat into an active one. Leaving the matter entirely in Amazon hands had already produced murder, exile, and generations of silence. “So you want me to turn her allies into spies, learn where they are, and keep everyone else from realizing we are looking.”

“I want you to know what you are dealing with before you force it to move.” Iphthime’s voice remained calm enough to make the advice harder to dismiss. “Once you know where mother and daughter stand, call whatever aid the danger requires. Bring Diana. Bring your League. Bring every champion beyond these shores if lives depend upon it. First use the advantage no one else possesses.”

That advantage sat uncomfortably in Winston’s chest before she named it. If the fugitives still answered Amazon blood, then his authority might reach them in a way Superman’s strength, Batman’s plans, or Martian Manhunter’s mind could not. The possibility carried its own danger, especially if whatever power lived in the daughter resisted the law binding the rest of the sisterhood, but Iphthime had seen no safer path.

“Find them before they decide the time for themselves,” she said. “Learn who still speaks to them, learn what they intend, and discover whether your authority can reach across the blood they carry. If it can, you may prevent the return from becoming a battle at all. If it cannot, you will at least know enough to choose who must stand beside you when it comes.”

The warning settled over the table more heavily than any prophecy of an approaching enemy could have done. Winston had begun the evening thinking about walls. Now he was being asked to build an intelligence network inside Themyscira, quietly seize the loyalties of women tied to an exile, and decide at what point secrecy became more dangerous than calling in some of the most powerful people on earth.

The scale of what Iphthime had placed before him settled heavily in Winston’s thoughts. Walls, spies, an exile Themyscira had already failed, and powerful allies he had been warned against calling too soon all crowded together without offering any obvious place to begin. Before he could sort one problem from the next, the soft tap of wood against the floor drew his attention back across the table.

Iphthime lifted her staff and came around the table the long way, unhurried, each step setting her weight so the split in the white gown opened along her thigh and closed again, gold flashing at her wrists whenever the wood shifted. No hand searched for furniture and no glance went to Hippolyta or Saruka; the blindfold stayed on Winston the whole crossing, a gaze that did not need eyes. By the last few paces he was watching the sway of her hips more than the cloth, the heavy roll of her breasts in the open front of the gown, the rope at her hip tightening and easing with every stride that brought her to him, the warning still sitting in his head while his mouth dried and his pulse climbed anyway.

Above his knees she stopped only long enough to set the staff against the table’s edge, close enough to take again, then gathered the gown and came down across his lap in one motion. Her thighs locked around his hips and the soft weight in the open white cloth settled against his chest, warm and full, the strength in her legs pinning him to the chair until there was nowhere to put his hands that was not bare skin. Thin cloth was all that stood between them as she seated herself, the cleft of her pressing along his length, and his cock thickened under her at once, rising hard against the damp heat gathering through the gown. She shifted once, settling deeper, and the drag of that fabric along him pulled a breath out of his mouth he had not meant to give.

Quiet pleasure touched her lips, the same look her voice had worn at the threshold, while cool gold met his shirt and her hands found his shoulders, thumbs resting at the base of his throat.

“I have laid a great burden on you, my king,” she stated. “I know how to help you bear it.”

Her mouth covered his before the last word had finished leaving her, warmer than the voice had promised, firm and unhurried, opening over him with the same certainty she had used on the floor. Myrrh first, then something sweeter under it, the veil brushing his brow and the silk of the blindfold sliding against his skin as her tongue found his, slow and sure. She rolled her hips once in his lap so the hard line of him rubbed fully against her, and the warning thinned to almost nothing while his hands closed on the muscle of her thighs and pulled her tighter onto him.

When she drew back it was only enough for breath. Wet mouth still against his, veil and blindfold filling the gap, she whispered low enough that the curtain would have had to lean in to hear it.

“Will you let me?”