Shivering, I sank down upon the three-legged stool, and the veil slipped away, leaving my head bare. The position awakened memories buried in my bones; my trembling became a convulsive twitch as my body tried to adjust to the influx of power.
“Lady, are you unwell?” cried Cunoarda, reaching out to me, but the priestess prevented her, and that part of my mind that was still my own noted with relief that though the woman was no seer, she had enough training to recognize what was happening to me.
“Do not touch her,” she cautioned, and then: “This is all highly irregular. She should have told me she had the Gift, so I might take precautions, but there is no help for it now.”
But indeed, came a thought that was swiftly being pushed into the background, I myself had not known that the trance skills in which I had been trained long ago would awaken so swiftly here.
“So, daughter, will you let Me in?” came an inner voice, and with a long sigh, I relaxed into that bright darkness as into a mother’s gentle arms.
I was distantly aware that my body had straightened, my hair coming loose from its pins. My arms extended, fingers flexing as if Someone were rediscovering the sensations of wearing flesh once more. I was only sorry that this body, which had endured for sixty-seven years, was all I had to offer her.
“Who are you?” whispered the priestess.
“I am the Sibyl…” my lips moved in answer. “I am always the Sibyl. In Erythraea I have spoken, and in Phrygia, in Samos and Libya and many other holy places in the lands of men. But it has been long, so long, since there was anyone to give Me a voice in this shrine.”
“Do you speak with the voice of Apollo?” the priestess asked suspiciously.
“Go to your temple that stands upon the heights and open your doors to the wind and the sunlight and He will speak to you. But my power comes from the depths and the darkness of earth, and the perpetually upwelling waters of the sacred spring. I am the Voice of Fate. Would you seek an oracle?”
There was an uncomfortable silence, and then the Sibyl’s laughter.
“Woman, you have served the gods your whole life long. Why are you so surprised that a Power should speak to you? Ah well—I read in the mind of this old woman who carries me that many things have changed. Rome still endures, but among her people there are some who have abandoned their ancient gods.”
“It is the fault of the Christians!” exclaimed the priestess. “They say that there is only one god—”
I felt my consciousness shift once more, deepening and expanding as the persona that had overshadowed me was itself overwhelmed by a blaze of illumination that swept all mortal awareness away.
“Indeed, the Divine Source is a single deity of pre-eminent power, who made the heavens and sun and stars and moon, the fruitful earth and the waves of the waters of the sea. This is the One, who alone was and is from age to age.”
“Are you telling me that the Christians are right?” the voice of the priestess sharpened in horror. “And their god is the only one?”
“No mortal, save in the utmost transports of ecstasy, can touch the ultimate deity. You who live in flesh see with the eyes of the world, one thing at a time, and so you see God in many guises, just as different images are reflected in the many facets of a jewel. To each facet you have given a form and a name—Apollo or Ammon, Cybele or Hera, who once gave oracles at this shrine. Jahweh of the Jews watches over only one people, and this Jesus blesses those who call on his name. They desire to touch the One, but their human limitations allow them to see only a single face, which they identify as the whole. Do you understand?”
In that moment I did comprehend what she was saying, and prayed that I would be allowed to remember these words.
“Then they are wrong!” the priestess exclaimed.