“But—” said Isme, “What if the world ends while we are away? We will not have any supplies—and there are men on the mainland, who will kill us—you always say so.”
“That is why we must hurry,” said her father. “We do not know when the world could end—” and he eyed her, speculatively, “But it will end while you are alive, if Delphi still speaks truth. You are a mortal woman who will live perhaps thirty more years. Or perhaps even more, perhaps as much as forty, or maybe up to sixty. So our time is limited—it could happen tomorrow, for all we know.”
Isme, who had become a woman only last winter, was only thirteen summers old. She hoped that the world would end sooner, for then she could be young and strong enough to handle any obstacles in the upheaval of the new world. She dreaded the idea of being old and helpless as the world crumbled around her.
But, she thought to herself, he is right. It is best if the world does not end while I am still under this guilt, while that thing—that voice in the woods, is still following me.
And so she sent up a prayer: Oh high gods, great-grandfather Zeus, great-uncle Poseidon, you great twelve Olympians—let this world last a bit longer. Atlas, king of mountains, sturdy your shoulders and do not let the world fall down. Oh Kindly One, Rich Lord Hades under the earth—let off your hand for a while, neglect to shake the blanket of earth that hides your plains of Asphodel, oh Lord of the Dead and therefore over the living. And Oh, you unknown gods who wait to rule the world to come—wait now a bit more. Wait for me to accomplish this one task, and then when the earthquake and darkness come, I shall greet you at the first dawn of the new world.
Below all of this was another prayer, a little whisper, which she knew would be heard regardless: Oh Grandmother Kalliope, sing me a good song and a good fate...
“Isme,” said her father, pulling her from her trance. “Gather things that are necessary. We must set out as soon as this storm clears.” And Isme hurried to help her father pack.
FOUR.
~
The small paddle ship that her father used to carry goods back and forth from the island to the mainland was very cramped with the two of them. Yet now the days of rowing was finished and gone, as they had traveled from small island to small island, following the trail to a place which consisted of a long stretch of endless beach crowned with trees. Isme did not need to be told that this was the mainland: the size was enough.
“Isme,” said her father. He stood contemplating the shore since they paused their rowing, and Isme thought that he had been looking for enemies. Now, as she squinted up at his face, she saw that he had regained that troubled look which had descended on him ever since he had realized that she was keeping something from him.
“Yes, Father?” She responded. But he did not look down at her.
“Before we join with this land,” said her father, “There is one last thing I must tell you, and one last thing you must do for me.” He glanced down at her. “First, you must promise me. You will not show anyone that you can sing, and certainly never do anything with your singing except for sing, while we are on the land.”
Isme nodded. “I will not sing because it can hurt people.”
“No, Isme,” said her father. “That is not the reason why you must never sing for someone from the mainland.” And he seemed to switch the subject. “Isme, did you ever wonder before now why you could sing things and make them happen and I could not?”
And Isme could only shrug. “I always just supposed that singing was something I could do, just how you can do things like lift heavier rocks or catch more fish.”
Her father was uneasy now. “But your singing never seemed strange?”
“Why would it?” asked Isme. “Everyone has some talent. Hercules is very strong, Oedipus has his wits, and Perseus could even fly! And there are people who can sing like I can: Orpheus, and his brother Linus, and Marsyas—” and she finished, “And me. So some people can do things that other people cannot, that is just the way of things. Everyone has some special thing that only he can do as a gift from the gods, or perhaps from Prometheus himself.”
“You are both right and wrong, my child,” said Epimetheus, voice heavy. “I see now that I have done you a disservice by telling you all these stories when I should have been telling you the boring things: the ways of life for ordinary people on the mainland.”
Puzzled, Isme tilted her head like a bird. “I don’t understand.”
“In stories,” said Epimetheus, “Such talents are very common. But among ordinary people they are not. So few people can do them that many ordinary people do not believe the stories that I have told you are true. Instead, they think that they are made up about people who never lived, or if they did live, then were not nearly so great but rather were ordinary men like themselves—everything wonderful in the stories is merely exaggeration.”
“But—” Isme could not stop the frown spreading over her face. “But—you are the one who told me that there is a terrible war happening right now. Aren’t there men there who have amazing skills? Some of them
