Other Gods: Old Stories Told Anew

A clutch of old priests do not really believe that the Sybil they appoint to represent the goddess Artemis at their oracle of the Flounder really has any gift of prophecy. Then they make a mistake in their appointment of a new Sybil on the death of the old, a mistake they cannot undo. The new Sybil, they realize to their chagrin, is in every way the wrong choice to recite, parrot fashion, the verses of advice they craft for supplicants to the oracle. Much to their surprise, however, she turns out to have the one quality they do not value in a Sybil. She has a gift of prophecy, the first Sybil ever to have it. Much to their annoyance she is overcome in a fit of prophecy to foretell the defeat in battle of their best client kingdom and the death of its king. A crisis befalls the oracle when the prophecy comes to pass. Do these priests value truth more than their immediate self-interests? On their answer to that question hangs the future of the Flounder.