Back | Next
Contents

Prologue



Scene: The curtain opens upon a dense forest. Beneath the overspreading trees, three women sit spinning. The first one, a fresh-faced maiden in a pastel green dress, spins the wool. The middle aged one, a buxom matron in stronger green, winds the thread. The oldest one, dressed all in black, leans forward, and, over the white spun thread, holds a pair of glimmering golden sheers, poised to cut.


The first spinner, whose sparkling blond hair half covers a body wrapped only in a gauzy gown, speaks while bent over the spinning wheel. “When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or in rain?”

The second spinner, her hair confined by her bonnet, her rounded body within a sturdy dress, rolls the thread between her work-calloused fingers and looks not at the speaker, but at the foggy air as she answers, “When the hurlyburly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won. When the poet’s got his crown, when the traitor’s web is spun, when the king’s got his throne.” While her fingers work, she smiles, revealing sharp teeth, with which fate has ever mauled every mortal between cradle and grave. “When the threat of evil is gone.”

The older woman, silver hair loose and wild over her dull black dress, looks up with pale blue eyes. In looking up, she reveals that she has no ears -- for she who cuts the thread of life must be deaf to mortal pleas. “When our thread is cut and spun. When evil’s worst is done. When punishment and reward are won.”

“Where the place?” the blonde girl asks. She lifts her face up and for the first time shows that, amid the delicate tracery of her features, shine no human eyes, such as light mortal way. No space exists for eyes on her perfect face, nor scars where eyes once were, nothing but a blankness where eyes should be, for, like newborn life, is she blind.

“In the heart of men,” the old woman says and, as she speaks, the still air trembles and tears, like a paper burned, leaving an irregular hole in the scene, a hole through which a rich chamber can be spied.

In the burn, a creature appears -- looking like a young man, dressed in light blue velvet breeches and doublet, his pale moonlight-colored hair combed over his left shoulder, his moss-green eyes amazed. He looks at himself, as though disbelieving where he is and the form he takes.

The hole closes behind him, leaving him stranded in this odd forest, with these strange companions. He stands, his hand reaching to his side, as if for the handle of an accustomed sword that is not there.

All three spinners look up, displaying one’s lack of ears, the other’s empty eye space and the other’s sharp teeth in a smile.

The youth notices the spinners and starts. “Oh, what are these?” he asks, looking frightened. “Live you? Are you aught that even an elf such as me ought to question?” He puts his hands around himself and looks lost, like a small child in an unknown house. “What a strange chill and what a strange dream. And yet, I am in Arden forest, where the palace of faerie kind is set and where I reign as the king for faerieland. And you look not like the inhabitants of the earth, and yet are on it.” He frowns in wonder. “You seem to understand me, by each at once her chappy finger laying upon her skinny lips. You should be women, and yet strange women you are. Speak if you can; what are you?”

The maiden smiles. Her sweet smile makes her deformity all the more glaring. “All hail Quicksilver, king of Elves.”

The middle aged woman smiles in turn, displaying her carnivorous teeth, “And Lady Silver, his other aspect.”

As she speaks, the image of a beautiful lady with dark hair and pale, pale skin stands besides the blond youth. He spares it no more than an amazed look, because now the crone speaks, “Both Quicksilver and Silver will too soon be bereft -- of kingdom and happiness, and aye, of life itself.” She turns her intent eyes to Quicksilver. “Lest look you to your keeping and learn to be a king as king should be, and to be yourself, both entirely.”

“Bereft?” Quicksilver asks. Despite himself, his voice does waver. “Bereft how? Say from whence you woe this strange intelligence? Or why upon this forest you stop my nightly work with such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge you.”

The maid smiles. “Such as us can no man charge, no man hold,” she says.

“Nor no elf either,” the matron says, “for you are no more to me than is a man -- a thread spun that may be rolled between my fingers as I see fit.”

“And cut as I list,” the crone speaks up in tremulous voice. “And yet we’d warn you, for you serve our purpose well.” She reaches into a basket at her feet, retrieves a thread sullied to an indifferent grey. “Listen to us, for your brother, Sylvanus, the king that was -- whom you entrusted in keeping to the ancient Hunter, and who’s become one of the Hunter’s dogs -- Sylvanus lives still and, uneasy within his confinement, he strives to cut the bonds that bind him.”

The middle-aged woman smiles, showing sharp teeth -- the merciless teeth of a famished wolf. Her voice descends to a confidential stage whisper, and her finger pauses not over the twisting thread. “You, fool that you are, Quicksilver, king of elves, have set old evil to guard newer evil. Old evil has blunted and aged like a dagger put to humble use chopping greens in a cottage kitchen. It cannot keep the edge off your brother’s pure malice that would devour the whole wide world with its open maw.

“If Sylvanus succeeds so shall the worlds go clashing, the spheres breaking, till nowhere is everywhere, all is nothing, and only that is which is not.”

The older woman sighs. Her scissors tremble over a white thread held beside the sullied one. “Aye, king, you are a fool indeed. As we speak your brother strives for the heart of those already touched by faerie. Should he find a human to give him asylum, then can he grow and grow and come back to defy you.”

“Touched by faerie?” Quicksilver sounds amazed, lost. “Mean you Will Shakespeare, or—?”

The three women shake their heads.

“Not for us to say how the thread should be woven, how the battle should be fought,” the maid says. “Only to spin and twist and cut.” She lifts the thread with her fingers.

The matron nods. “Then in the hearts of men shall we meet again.”

“After the hurlyburly is done,” the crone pipes in with her reedy voice. “And the battle is lost or won.”

They vanish into the air, and Quicksilver stands, alone, amazed, eyes wide. His lips shape a single word that his voice yet fears to utter.

“Sylvanus.”

The name of his unworthy brother whose throne and majesty Quicksilver has taken.

Back | Next
Framed