Tales II, Book 2, part I (c - final)

[Gennadiy Ivanov]

Alone in the margin
of darkness, Orestes
surrendered and listened
singing reluctantly, joyfully,
as the gods and the planets
and the cycle of years
devolved in a long dream of murder
and the cleansing of harp strings.

VIII

A year and a day the seasons encircled,
according to fable and ancient decrees of enchantment,
as the gnats' choir of autumn surrendered to ice
and the turn of the year approached like a death
and the listening castles mislaid under snow.
Orestes's apprenticeship led to a circle of fire,
where the harp he had mastered and the seven songs
and the fourteen modes of incalculable magic
circled him back to the night and the keep
and the wintry eyes of the bard singing memory
into flesh, into stone, into dreaming and wind,
and ARION, he said, and ARION, TELL ME OF TIME
OF THE RENDING OF KRYNN AND BETRAYALS.
The bard took the harp in the foreseen night:
for his memory darkened the edge of the past
when knowing devises the shape of creation,
and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
earthquakes
and Arion told us that night by the hearth
that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
blood
and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
planet,
as Arion told us, and Orestes leaned closer
and ARION, he said, and ARION, TEACH ME OF
TIME
OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO.
Arion stroked the harp and began, his white hair
cascading across the gold arm of the harp
as though he were falling through song into sleep
and the winter stilled at the touch of the string,
and he sang the last verses as hidden Orestes
reclined and remembered and listened:
DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT OF THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS
FIREBRAND OF BURNING THAT CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF
HYLO,
THE OIL AND ASH ON THE WATER, IGNITED COUNTRY.
FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES BURN IN HIS PASSAGE,
AND THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES
THAT HARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
WHERE PYRRHUS THE FIREBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS COVERING ARMIES.
FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
HAS BURNED AND BURNED WITH HIS EFFACING HAND,
A BARREN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
AND Firebringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.
Orestes listened, as honor and song,
as blood and adoption warred in the cell of his thoughts,
his father redeemed by poison, by blade
by the song of the harp string rendered a garrotte,
closing the eloquent throat of Arion
silencing song, reclaiming his father,
and transforming Caergoth from desert to garden:
yet the hand of Orestes stilled in the arc of reprisal,
and into the night he warred and remembered,
and as I tell you this, memory wars with him still.

IX

The mourning began when the doves circled Vingaard:
the poison had passed through the veins like imagined fires:
and alone in his quarters, the poet's apprentice
abided the funerals, settled accounts, awaited
the search of the Order through ravaged Solamnia
for rivals and villains, for the trails of assassins,
and late on the fifth night after the burning,
when the ashes had settled on Arion's pyre,
only then did Hieronymo bring forth the harp
(though some there were curious, who late in the night
had heard, or had thought they heard, the apprentice
weeping and playing the sonorous mode of the Rending),
and late on the fifth night after the burning
Hieronymo sang for the host at the Vingaard Keep
and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
earthquakes
as Hieronymo told them that night by the hearth
that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
blood
and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
planet,
as Hieronymo told us, and then he leaned closer
and NOW, he said, NOW, I SHALL TEACH YOU
OF TIME
OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO.

DOWN IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH HE RODE:
PYRRHUS ALECTO, THE KNIGHT ON THE NIGHT OF BETRAYALS.
WHEN A FIREBRAND OF BURNING HAD CLOUDED THE STRAITS OF
HYLO.
LIKE OIL ON WATER, HE SOOTHED THE IGNITED COUNTRY.
FOREVER AND EVER THE VILLAGES LEARN HIS PASSAGE
IN THE GRAIN OF THE PEASANTRY, LIFE OF THE RAGGED ARMIES.
THEY CARRIED HIM BACK TO THE KEEP OF THE CASTLE
WHERE PYRRHUS THE LIGHTBRINGER CANCELED THE WORLD
BENEATH THE DENIAL OF BATTLEMENTS,
WHERE HE DIED AMID STONE WITH HIS HOVERING ARMIES.
FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS THE COUNTRY OF CAERGOTH
HAS TURNED AND TURNED IN HIS EMBRACING HAND,
A GARDEN OF SHIRES AND HAMLETS,
AND Lightbringer HISTORY HANGS ON THE PATH OF HIS NAME.

X

His duty dispatched
and the old bard murdered,
Orestes returned
toward rescued Caergoth,
skirting the foothills,
and long were his thoughts
as he passed over Southlund,
the Garnet Mountains
red like a memory
of blood in the distance:
THERE IS NO LAW,
Orestes murmured,
his hand on the harp strings,
NO RULE UNWRITTEN
THAT YOUR FATHER'S SLANDERER
CANNOT INSTRUCT YOU,
THAT THE MAN YOU MURDER
YOUR HEART CANNOT HONOR,
EVEN AS YOUR HAND
CONCOCTS THE POISON.
The landscape ahead
was diminished and natural,
no thing unforeseen
sprang from the heavens,
the waters were channeled
and empty of miracles.
SO THIS IS HISTORY,
Orestes considered,
SO THIS IS HISTORY
NOW I CAN UNDERSTAND
as the road lay before him
uninherited, heirless
cut off from its making
and silenced by blood.

At the borders of Southlund
the smoke was rising,
the Arm of Caergoth
harbored incessant fire:
Orestes rode swiftly
through billows of prophecy,
the stride of his horse
confirming the dead words of Arion.

The cavalry plundering
the burgeoning fields,
leveling villages,
approaching invulnerable Caergoth,
heeded little the ride
of a boy in their column
cloaked in the night
and in helpless mourning.
A bard, some said,
or a bard's apprentice
returned to his homeland
burning and desolate.
The captain of cavalry
turned to the weeping boy
and addressed him as soldier
as fellow and brother:
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS,
BARD OR BARD'S APPRENTICE.
FOR THE VOICE OF THE HARPER
THE MUSICIAN, THE PIPER
SHALL NO LONGER BE HEARD
IN THE ARM OF CAERGOTH,
LONG KEPT FROM THE FIRE
BY THE SONG OF A POET
WHO SAID SHE WAS BURNING ALREADY:
FOR A FRESH FABLED COUNTRY
IS THE NEST OF INVASIONS,
THE QUARRY OF CAVALRY,
RIPE FOR THE SWORD AND THE FIRE.
Orestes rode forth
and the captain continued,
turning his pale horse
as a star tumbled down
from the fixed dream of heaven:
FOR THE BARD'S SONG, THEY TELL ME,
IS A DISTANT BELIEF
IN THE SHAPE OF DISTANCE.
FOR CAERGOTH WAS BURNING
WHEN SHE SAID IN HER HEART,
'I AM QUEEN, NOT A WIDOW
AND SORROW IS FAR FROM ME,
ELUSIVE AS THOUGHT
OR THE CHANGES OF MEMORY.'
SOONER OR LATER, SING YOU THIS.
And he vanished in histories
of rumor and smoke,
and sooner or later,
a bard will sing this,
in beleaguered castles
abandoned to night
and the cough of the raven.
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.