Archive for the ‘Authors’ Category
Directions
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
A. The front door of your hovel
1. Take the goat path down the mountain . . . . . . . 240 steps
2. Follow the royal city road . . . . . . . 12 stadia
3. Continue to the spot where an old woman who isn’t really an old woman will need your assistance . . . . . . . 8.53 stadia
4. Continue to the spot where highwaymen will rob you of everything but the magic flower the old woman gave you, which they’ll snatch from your button hole and trample into the mud . . . . . . . 6.1 stadia
5. Climb until you’re exhausted from shimmying up the stalk of the giant plant that grew from the flower . . . . . . . 0.27 stadia
6. Run across the fields of the cloudland, away from the dragon, into the fog-cave . . . . . . . 763 steps
7. Stumble through the cave passages . . . . . . . 94 steps
8. Veer left at the first fork . . . . . . . 32 steps
9. Veer right at the second fork . . . . . . . 82 steps
10. Emerge into sunlight, and wander the upper cumulus plateau . . . . . . . 102 steps (approx.)
11. Run to that wispy castle-like structure up ahead (the tracking ability of dragons is generally underestimated) . . . . . . . 289 steps
12. Up the stairs to the drawbridge lever . . . . . . . 11 steps
13. Up many more stairs to the top of the tower, since dragons are more solid than cloud-drawbridges . . . . . . . 200 steps
14. Run in panicked circles, searching your pockets for anything with which to defend yourself, and discovering only petals from the old woman’s flower . . . . . . . 54 steps
15. Soar back to your mountainside hovel, on the magical wings into which the petals bloom . . . . . . . 24.3 stadia
16. Run, this time in a panicked straight line, right through your goat pen. (Dragons: no slouch at the soaring thing themselves.) . . . . . . . 289 steps
17. Cower, while great whooshes of fire explode everywhere . . . . . . . 0 steps
18. Crawl out from under the crispy goat. . . . . . . 2 steps
19. Cavort, in the heaps of gold doubloons. (Who knew dragons’ scales were actually layers of hoarded coins? Or that they were so allergic to goats?) (Apparently fairytalemaps.google.com did.) . . . . . . . 330 steps
B. Your destiny.
Foresight
Monday, September 14th, 2009
I don’t want to go in.
He’s there now, didn’t hesitate. It’s his home though he’s been away for long years. I warned him, or tried to but who listens to me?
I saw his wife in the shadows just before she stepped through the door, and in that moment she seemed a huge, swarming shape. Then she moved forward, into sunlight and she shone.
Not as beautiful as her sister, but no one is. Tall, broad-shouldered, jaw strong, forehead wide, cheekbones high. Clytemnestra is handsome rather than lovely. She moves with deceptive slowness, but there are muscles evident beneath her rich robes. She’s a warrior queen and has not let herself run to fat. Her hair, red-gold in the sun burns like liquid copper.
The smile she gives Agamemnon is frozen; she speaks soft words of welcome and he is deceived. When she looks at me she sees no Trojan princess, merely a slave, hair lank and oily, back and shoulders hunched as if deprived of wings and ashamed of their nakedness.
‘Don’t go inside,’ I whispered to my master, my owner, my thief. In spite of it all, I did not want him to walk all unawares into his fate, for his end means mine. But he gave me an annoyed glare, sick unto death of my constant warnings and plaints, of the sharp dreams that have broken my sleep (and thus his) these past months as we travelled to Argos. He has no patience. He is sick of my madness.
He took his wife’s welcome as his due and went in to the bath she had prepared for him. Clytemnestra watched me and nodded slowly before she turned and followed him. I waited, held my breath, counted the beats until I heard him scream, heard the wet sound of a great axe burying itself in muscle and flesh, releasing blood into the air. She waits inside now; another man by her side.
I have seen this for so many days. Fate cannot be avoided. I am a Trojan princess. I step down from the chariot, swallowing hard. I put my foot on the first step and mount the portico. My end lies here.