Resplendent in his priestly garb, Kaspar stood at the base of the small hill, a tethered goat staked to the dirt floor near him. He smiled when he spied Princippi.
"I was expecting you," he said politely. "I am Kaspar. Present your offering to the priestess of the Ragnarok Oracle."
Princippi blinked at the name, but said nothing. He nodded and fished in the jacket pocket of his suit, pulling out his checkbook.
"How much was it again?"
"The fee is twenty thousand."
Princippi gulped. "Dollars?" he squeaked.
"You were aware of the fee before you came," Kaspar said flatly.
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"I'm a former presidential candidate. Is there a discount?"
When he saw the stony expression on Kaspar's face, Princippi dragged a Bic pen from his pocket. Reluctantly he filled out the check, double-, then triple-checking the amount he had filled in before turning the scrap of paper over to Esther Clear-Seer.
"Give the woman two hundred dollars for the goat," Kaspar commanded.
Princippi balked. "I don't want a goat," he complained.
"The goat is for sacrifice. This you knew, as well."
Princippi was ready to put up a stink about the goat clause, but it seemed as if this Kaspar already knew everything Princippi himself knew. Suppressing a shuddery wave of personal anguish, he handed over the cash to Esther.
Kaspar next presented Princippi with a gem-encrusted knife.
"Slaughter the animal."
Princippi stared at the knife dully. He looked down into the wide, fear-filled eyes of the tiny creature before him.
"What if PETA hears about this?" he asked fearfully.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Esther snapped. "Give me that." She grabbed the knife away from Michael Princippi and slit the throat of the terrified animal. At the top of the rock incline, the ecstatic twitching of the young girl became a bizarre parody of the spastic death movements of the bleeding goat.
The smoke from out of the fissure grew more dense.
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Kaspar slowly mounted the hewed-rock steps and took his place beside the dazed girl.
"The Apollo Pythia awaits your question," Kaspar intoned.
The former governor of Massachusetts swallowed hard. "Can you make me President?" he blurted out. His glowering features brightened momentarily with a hopeful half grin. His fat black eyebrows bunched together like butting sheep.
The Pythia's reply was immediate. "I foretell events. I do not affect them." The girl bounced like a palsy victim on her tripod.
Princippi appeared crestfallen. "You've got to," he begged. "I've got to get back in the game. Please. I gave you twenty grand."
"It is as I have spoken."
Kaspar interceded. "That is not to say, Mr. Princippi, that foreknowledge of events does not allow you to alter your approach to those events, thus changing the presaged outcome."
"I can change the future?" Princippi asked. "Is that what you're saying?"
"Most assuredly."
Princippi faced the Pythia once more. "Tell me how to affect the future so that I can one day become President," he asked boldly.
The Pythia twitched on her tripod.
"Your future exists as one with him who stands before you. You are the past. My priest is the future. Together you will change tomorrow."
Princippi scrunched up his face.
"I don't understand."
The girl appeared to be tiring. Her body twitched
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less spastically now, like the faint spasms of someone in her death throes.
"My priest," she wheezed. "He is your destiny."
And with that, she fell from the tripod.
"Shit!" snapped Esther Clear-Seer. She bounded up the stone staircase as Kaspar made his somber way back down to Princippi's level.
"I still don't get it," Princippi said, once Kaspar was beside him again. "What did she mean?"
"She's dead, Kaspar," Esther Clear-Seer shouted down. "You told me she'd last a while longer. It's been barely ten hours."
Kaspar ignored her.
"You have maintained your contacts with your state organizations?" he asked Princippi.
"Some," Princippi admitted with a shrug of his sagging shoulders. "But they're not mine anymore. They go with the flow."
"But there are people who are loyal to you exclusively. People who would obey your orders. People who, if asked, would help you mount another campaign?"
Princippi felt an old thrill return to the pit of his stomach. "Absolutely," he replied quickly.
"Then the wish of my master will be realized," Kaspar said with certainty. "Together we will change the course of tomorrow."