Lethe Thrice Departed (main)

Falling--falling--falling. Fall down the Abyss no one knows. Screams before me, screams behind me, screams into the darkness of my mind.

Is this madness? Or do I in my sanity seem mad and the world is in truest lunacy? I know not. All knowledge is veiled from me.

Once. Once, an undulled blade of purest steel I was. I sang my wind-reaving melody in freedom. Yet it was a knight that claimed me, and when the gauntleted hand took hold of the hilt he slowed, nay, stopped my song.

Now a mirror reflects a pallid face. I cry out, yet no life answers. The mirror alone remains to remind me of myself. It is a blinded eye, silver, devoid of all but reflection. The cynic stares and…

Curse it! I would dash it to dust were it in my power! How I long for Lethe! How I would drink deeply of the cold waters of forgetfulness--but no sooner do I stoop than my eyes find a living skull reflected in the Styx.

The blame. The blame must fall to Him. It was He who caused my madness. Yes. The Knight, the Monster, the Daemon--my own true Argus. Jealous eyes that watched me, awake, asleep…always watching.

“Argus.” Whisper shatters silence. At the name memory wells beyond reason. He is come to mock me.

Argus, knight who tamed me, made me his own, gave to me my gilded cage of lines and verse; guarded by a name-like sword, Lethe.

I gave to him our Lily. Fragile Lily. You were a beautiful light dancing into a dark world. Your joy made me join your short life’s dance in glee. But we were his playthings, my Lily. I who carried you, and you, his beautiful blood. What pride he took in you! But it was his pride that took you from me as your soft petals began to fall.

Five years and a fortnight from your birth, and you were adopted by Death! So end the dancing beams! May kind Death be your mother now, and bear you up to Unseen Arms!

Argus! Monster! He is to blame! The blame all along; yes! Yes! Aware of the wilting flower, a cold mouth spoke, “Not sick unto death.”

Once taken. Now fled. Twice gone from me! Illness, locust, devoured my Lily; wilted her petals of golden-white, made bloodless her leaves and wrung-dry her roots. The cough’s of death’s throes left, sprayed upon the close wall, a crimson spatter-leaflike patterns formed in dried rivulets.

“Lily!” Pure, simple flower. My cries still find you deaf and still.

Nights drew on. I spurned the daylight, hated human touch. Argus daily became to me less a man and more a monster.

Nearer to the edge I stepped. Argus! Beware the sword you love! Lily, oh, sweet child, I found myself again!

“Break me from the wall! These brackets hold no more!”

Shaken from my reverie by the ghost-voice, there is time enough to smile. The mirror looks back. The skeletal face, framed my ragged tendrils of black, holds sunken eyes and bloodless lips curled over dagger-teeth in a snarl. My beauty-as dead as my soul.

Strong is frail and frail must fall. Argus, you were always strong. Watcher!

The family’s ancient bastard sword was poised above the mantle. She saw the injustices. She saw the pain and wrong and death.

“Take what you will! Drink Lethe’s water’s, Fool! Take your fill and forget your pain! Take! And leave me languishing in my own hell!”

As he slept, the sword woke me in the night. Her voice, my voice, gently ringing, “Drown him, Lethe, drown him. You will forget.”

Again I slept, but She haunted my dreams. “He stole your Lily twice. Careless slays the helpless, Lethe, and that is what he is!” Spirits danced about my dreams and Lily frolicked among them in a blood-bathed frock and a dagger in hand, chanting as they danced, “Slay the Daemon Argus, Lethe! Slay the daemon!”

Up from my bed, yes, as though powered by an unseen force--the sheets spat me out. He slept mildly by, He who let sweet Lily die!

There! She hung over the mantle, ages of blood staining her blade. The prized sword fell--leaped--as of will of God, into my hands.

“It must die! It shall die!”

Ah! How his cry was stifled! How I was twinned to the name like sword! How strong was I, the new-freed captive!

Strike, strike, STRIKE! Send the Daemon to its home in Hell!


Scream Argus! Scream as did Lily in her final throes! Scream as I am now!

Now comes madness! Now comes fear! Now you join death’s flooded river, glutted on the souls of the damned!

He struggled still, his fading pulse pounding against the forgetting sword. Yet it was I who dropped as one slain. His blood, spurting from the fatal wound, cloaked the wall in crimson spatter, leaflike patterns formed in dried rivulets.

Never was there once remorse.

Now I in my cell stare coldly at the mirror. As I watch, my reflection warps until I, too, am become that man--Knight, Monster, Daemon, Argus!

“Mirror, mirror on the wall-,”

Scream. No, madness, dare you forsake me, too? Dare you make me sane again to face my sin? The face-not Lily’s, not mine, but Argus’, whose jealous eyes laugh at my captivity.

“My soul is dead and you must FALL!”

A thousand shards of reflected moonlight bite and pierce. A single cut, too harsh, too deep, spills my lifeblood on the skull-colored floor of my cell. Crimson spatter-leaflike patterns forming in drying rivulets.

I am Argus. Lethe has merged with Styx, and is lost in it. Dawn will come, and bear a brilliant Lily to Heaven. Argus, I, now one, shall descend into Hell.

Thrice and final separation, my Lily Saint!
Lethe-sword, it is you alone who remain,
Ages of rusty blood stain your blade
As you stay, bracketed,
In sinister silence,
Forgetting.