The plan matured in him not as a sudden epiphany, but as an inevitable conclusion to which the true ruler comes. Why settle for an echo when you can have the very source of the voice? He was sitting with Menelaus in the semi-darkness of the Mycenaean megaron, at a table covered with maps and clay tablets. "I'm going to Delphi," Agamemnon said, his fingers gripping the clay goblet until his knuckles turned white. "But I will not come like a beggar with gifts for the Pythia. I will come as the owner to take away what should serve my glory."
Menelaus, his face distorted by grief over Elena, looked at his brother with superstitious fear. "Take the oracle? Agamemnon, this is madness! This is sacrilege! The wrath of Apollo will fall on us!"
Agamemnon grinned, and that fire of obsession flashed in his eyes. "Let him get angry. My will is the only god I serve. Are they talking to the gods? Fine. Then let them talk to them for my sake. For the sake of our future kingdom, brother."
He moved out with a handful of the most loyal and ruthless warriors disguised as merchants. Not in a gilded chariot, but riding hardy horses. They passed the main trails, moving through the secret mountain paths like a pack of wolves sneaking towards the pens. Agamemnon himself, in a simple dark cloak, with a hood thrown over his proud head, was a shadow, not a king. Delphi greeted them with a haze of morning mist and the scent of laurel and cypress. While the pilgrims were crowding at the entrance to the sanctuary, Agamemnon and his men slipped through a little-known passage indicated by a bribed priest. He watched from the shadow of the colonnade.
And then he saw them.
They were not in the main hall, but in a quiet courtyard, basking in the first ray of sunlight. Not an old pythia, but a young prophet. Their hands were clean of sacrificial blood, and their gaze, fixed on the heavens, seemed both empty and all-seeing. At that moment, Agamemnon's plan turned from a strategic calculation into a personal, burning obsession. It wasn't just a tool. It was a treasure.
The signal was given by a glance. It all happened in a few silent heartbeats. The warriors, masters of silent abductions, appeared like ghosts. One clamped his mouth shut, preventing him from making a sound, the other two grabbed him by the arms. There was no scream, no struggle, just wide—eyed shock as they met the burning gaze of Agamemnon, watching from his ambush.
They were carried out like a bale of precious goods, wrapped in a simple carpet and loaded onto a cart piled high with baskets of olives. Agamemnon walked behind, and his face was a stone mask, but triumph raged inside. He stole the sun from Delphi. He stole Apollo's voice.
Now, in his camping tent, it smelled not of incense, but of expensive oil and power. The Oracle stood before him, pale but not broken. Their clothes were rumpled, and straws from the wagon were stuck in their hair, but their spirits seemed intact.
Agamemnon leaned back on his folding throne, taking off his cloak, once again dressed in purple and confidence.
"The Delphi stone was left lying in the gorge," he began, his voice flat, but steel vibrated in it. "The smoke and ashes of the sacrificial altars will dissipate. And you... You're here."
He slowly ran his hand over the handle of his dagger, not threatening, but simply enjoying the feeling of control.
"They say you see the threads that weave the destinies of mortals and kings. So tell me, in your visions, have you seen it? Have you seen how your own envy was torn from the canvas of the gods by the hand of the king of Mycenae?"
He stood up and took a step forward, his shadow covering the oracle.
"Your gift no longer belongs to Apollo.He belongs to me now. You will be my eyes, looking into the future. With my ear, which hears the whisper of fate."
He stopped so close that he could see every eyelash, every speck of dust on their skin.