This was the Oracle which Theria’s kin had served with singleness of heart. Her father, Nikander, served it now. Priest, yes, but priest in the joyous, free fashion of the Greek. In performance of his priestly duties to the Oracle Nikander had travelled far, studying the coasts of the Ægean, Mediterranean, and Euxine seas, wherever lay the colonies of Delphi’s founding. He had mingled with the barbarians or un-hellenic peoples and had even learned some of their languages—a sort of knowledge unknown in Greece. In Thrace he had sojourned with the rude tent dwellers, in Egypt he had visited the stately temples of Isis and Osiris and had seen the great Sphynx which so grimly faced the desert. In Persia he had visited the court of Xerxes and despised its luxury. He had returned to Delphi broadened and sweetened by his experiences.
Among the narrow one-city men of Greece the Delphian was not provincial.
Nikander was a member of that Council, presided over by Delphi, called “Amphyction,” which for hundreds of years had upheld the only international law that Hellas recognized. The Amphyctiony earnestly tried to keep peace between the passionate cities which were its members. Nikander personally had great influence in this Council and used that influence for the constant uplifting of the policy of the Oracle.
Nikander brought with him into his home the very breath of the Oracle. He spent little time at home, but when he did come his children ran to him, for no one could tell such wonder stories as Nikander—stories of shipwreck on savage coasts, of mountains that flamed and smoked, of the great statue Memnon which stood in Egypt and sang when the sun rose. But for the most part Nikander’s tales were tales of Delphi. Delphi was so rich in tradition that Nikander needed never to go far afield for his stories.
It was from her father that Theria heard of the beautiful coming of her own ancestors to Delphi, men brought by Apollo himself to be his worshippers.
“They were in a ship on a trading voyage,” Nikander would relate, “those ancestors of ours, bold young men, unafraid of the sea, for they were Cretan islanders. When suddenly there leaped out of the waves a Dolphin, golden and bright, and lay on their deck. At once the wind changed, speeding them toward the west. They tried to shift their sails but not one whit could they shift their course. The men were sore afraid for they knew they were in the hands of a god.”
“The Dolphin god,” Theria would murmur with Wide eyes.
“Yes, the Delphian,” her father made the age-old pun. “And they saw the immortal creature shimmer with rainbow colours never ceasing. So the strong wind blew them against their will first westward then northward into our own lovely gulf and to our port of Krissa. Here the ship stopped, held by immortal hands.