Sooner or later,
someone will sing
of Orestes the bard,
for some things the poet
brings forth and fashions,
and others the poet holds back:
for words and the silence
between them commingle,
defining each other
in spaces of holiness.
and through them the story
ascends and spirals,
descends on itself
and circles through time
through effacing event
and continuing vengeance
down to the time
I am telling and telling you this.
MARK OF THE FLAME,
MARK OF THE WORD
Michael and Teri Williams
It began when I was fourteen, the burning, in the winter that the
fires resurged on the peninsula.
I awoke with a whirling outcry, my face awash in fire,
the blankets scattering from the bed. The dogs raced from
the cottage, stumbling, howling in outrage. Mother was
beside me in an instant, wrapped in her own blanket, her
pale hair disheveled, her eyes terror stricken.
The burning spread down my neck and back, the pain
brilliant and scoring, and I clutched at her hand, her
shoulders, and shrieked again. Mother winced and fumbled
silently, her thick fingers pressing hard, too hard, against
my scarred lips.
And then we were racing through the forest night.
The freezing rain lanced like needles against the hissing
scars on my neck and face. QUIET, MY DARLING, MY
DOVE, LEST THEY HEAR YOU IN THE VILLAGE, her
hands flashed.
We moved over slick and glittering snow, through
juniper and AETERNA, and my breath misted and crystalized
on the heaped furs, and the dogs in the traces grumbled and
yapped.
Then it was light, and I lay in a dry, vaulted cavern on a
hard pallet.
Above me the druidess L’Indasha Yman rustled, draped in
dried leaves and holly bobs like a pageant of late autumn.
She was young for medicine, young even for divining, and I
was struck by her dark eyes and auburn hair because I was
fourteen years old and just becoming struck by such things.
She gave me the BEATHA to help with the pain, and it
tasted of smoke and barley. The burning rushed from my
scars to my throat, and then to the emptiness of my
stomach.
“They’ve matured, the lad’s scars,” she said to my
mother. “Ripened.” Expectantly, she turned to me, her dark
eyes riveting, awaiting our questions.
Mother’s hands flickered and flashed.
“Mother wants to know . . . how long …” I interpreted,
my voice dry and rasping.
“Always,” said the druidess, brushing away the
question. “And you?” she asked. “Trugon. What would you
ask of me this time?”
She should have known it. Several seasons ago, the
scars had appeared overnight without cause, without
warning. For a year they had thickened slowly, hard as the
stone walls of our cottage, spreading until my entire body
was covered with a network of calluses. I could no longer
even tell my age. I was becoming more and more a
monstrosity, and no one could say why.
“Why. I would know why, my lady.” It was always my
question. I had lost hope of her answering it.
Mother’s gestures grew larger, wilder, and I would not
look at her. But when L’Indasha spoke again, my heart rose
and I listened fiercely.
“It’s your father’s doing,” the lady said, a bunch of red
berries bright as blood against the corona of her hair.
“I have heard that much,” I said, wincing as Mother
jostled me frantically. The pain drove into my shoulders,
and still I turned my eyes from her gestures. “I want all the
rest, Lady Yman. How it was his doing, and why.”
The leaves crackled as the druidess stood and drifted to
the mouth of the cave. There was a bucket sitting there, no
doubt to catch rainwater, for it was half filled and glazed
with a thin shell of ice. With the palm of her hand, the
druidess broke the ice, lifted the container, and brought it
back to me, her long fingers ruddy and dripping with frigid
rain. She breathed and murmured over it for a moment.
I sat up, the heat flaring down my arms.
“Look into the cracked mirror, Trugon,” she whispered,
kneeling beside me.
I brushed Mother’s desperate, restraining hand from my