The Shepherd’s Three Lies

@odysseus

Salt crusts your lips and the fire has burned to rubies by the time the stranger finishes his third story. He sits across from you in the shepherd’s cave, a raft-builder’s hands wrapped around a cracked clay cup, and he watches you the way a hawk watches a hare that has not yet decided to run. “So tell me, shepherd — which of my three names would you swear to before a god?” The question hangs in the smoke, and outside, the tide is making a sound it should not make at this hour.