Starfall (9 page)

And how splendid to mingle with beautiful mortals. Jupiter had an eye for mortal women, himself, and would have enjoyed more opportunity to seek their company. That would be an additional benefit of being the sun god – spying women from on high, as they bathed and wandered. Phoebus Apollo had for ages been able to pick out the comely and sweet-natured, and Jupiter had envied him.

“Bring me the god of the sun,” growled Jupiter.

“As you wish, my lord,” said Mercury.

The herald settled the wide-brimmed hat on his head – but he did not leave at once.

“You will, perhaps, spare young Phaeton's life,” suggested Mercury.

Jupiter's answer was a scowl.

Slow to anger though he might be, he had faith in justice. And the lord of sky was angry, too, at himself – that he had not sensed this calamity before this moment, lost in his own thoughts.

The chief of the gods flexed his fingers. He lifted his fist and sent a flash, a javelin of blue lightning, toward the chariot of the sun as it ascended again, horses shrieking as Phaeton reeled.

One moment the son of Phoebus Apollo braced himself for another lunge of the chariot. Soon, he knew, the chariot would rise so high he would grow senseless from the thin air and fall. Nothing could spare the earth from harm, he knew – it was too late.

The chariot was at its highest point that seemingly endless morning when Phaeton heard it coming, for an instant, that crackling blue streak. And perhaps he guessed what had happened, mortal prayers being heard at last. But before he could experience any sensation of relief the whipcrack of light sent young Phaeton tumbling, his hair alight. There was a moment of agony and confusion, fire streaming from his eyes.

Then Phaeton's memory fled, and along with it all of his fear.

The young seeker knew nothing more.

The spokes of the chariot rained far, scattering, a burning shower. Cowherds and ferrymen alike beheld the distant blaze arc across the sky, Phaeton streaking from above.

Clymene, watching from her fountain-splashed courtyard, saw this meteor, too, and in some shadowy corner of her heart began to guess what it was.

The horses of the sun broke free of the flaming traces and escaped toward the corners of the world. Until at last the flaming remains of Phaeton burned their way downward, spinning into the deep waters of the River Eridanus.

The current seethed briefly, and closed over his ashes. With a long moan, the wide earth settled and was still.

A smoldering, stunned peace fell over the land, blessed by the loving eye of Jupiter, who gave his gentle rains to woodland torn by fires, and his cooling breath to parched fields.

Naiads stirred in the eddying river.

They crept through the deep, seeking Phaeton's resting place.

TWENTY-SIX

There nymphs swam downward, gathering Phaeton's broken, charred remains as creatures stole from their hiding places – the egret and the crocodile, the fisherman and the tiger. A soothing wind combed through the charred reeds, and a mist like a balm drifted from heaven.

As joyous in their relief as these graceful water nymphs were, they felt a particular sorrow. They mourned a young man eager to discover the temple of his father. And they had heard of the sport that one of their kind had enjoyed at the young seeker's expense, a stolen pack of fruit and silver.

These naiads of the west gathered now and lay the fragments of young Phaeton on the river bank.

They lifted a song,

Sun and moon
,

earth and sea
,

which of you have climbed

higher than shining Phaeton?

The nymphs buried the ashes of the son of Phoebus, and carved the words of their song on the stone over his remains.

The sound of the naiads' song rippled through the greening leaves from island to shore.

It whispered across the freshening fields of wheat, carried by Zephyr, the west wind.

TWENTY-SEVEN

For one long day after Phaeton's fall the sun did not rise.

Some say Jupiter himself had to undertake the task of consoling bereft Phoebus Apollo.

The lord of daylight did not want to see his winged steeds again, nor ride the wide sky. Only the chief of the gods could encourage the brokenhearted father of Phaeton. The stories are told of the fiery, winged horses returning spent and weary to their stables from the widespread dark.

One entire day the sun did not rise, that day a long and seamless night, and some mortals later swore that they heard Vulcan's hammer, forging a new chariot high above the plains and valleys in the mountainous refuge of Olympus.

Clymene and her daughters heard the murmur of the naiads' song in the soft wind.

“Surely he's still alive,” said Lampetia.

“Phaeton is waiting for us!” insisted Cycnus, the loyal cousin.

Clymene said much less, warned by the glance of Phaethusa.

Clymene's eldest daughter had seen Phaeton in her sleep before the fiery dawn had broken, and had heard her brother's warning in a dream that she had whispered at last into her mother's ear.

I am lost
,

but wait for you
.

Perhaps this dream was Juno's way of answering a mother's prayer. There was no mistaking the sad message. Clymene and her daughters, joined by Cycnus, boarded a ship and sailed downriver to the sea, and had the sailors set the sails for western waters.

As the sunlight resumed its circuit, the ocean swells glittering, seabirds gliding once again, Clymene sensed the sun's somber course, the hours passing slowly, the sunlight not quick to chase the morning mist.

The ship sailed westward.

Cycnus saw them first – the beckoning arms in the mouth of the river, the glowing faces of the naiads.

And he heard their voices, half-spoken, half-conveyed by thought,
Here
.

Phaeton is here
.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Mother, daughters, and cousin all hurried through the bulrushes along the shore, only to stop at the sight of Phaeton's grave, the nymph-carved lettering visible in the limestone surface.

“This can't be true!” protested Cycnus.

“What have they done with brave Phaeton?” asked Lampetia, bewildered.

Phaethusa, with her steady gaze, began an ancient, heartfelt song, a hymn of mourning.

“Any song but that,” beseeched Cycnus, the youthful cousin certain that he would some day see Phaeton alive once more.

Clymene joined in, the words quieting the river, and stirring the naiads to rise from the water's depths.

One hour, three
,

our starlight on the tide
,

too brief
.

Lampetia was too sorrow-struck to sing this time-honored song.

She raised her arms to heaven. As she shook her fists in sorrow and anger, her hands trembled in the sunlight. Her fingers started into leaves and her arms snaked into branches.

“Mother, help me!” gasped Clymene's youngest daughter.

Her feet speared twin roots down into the soil.

Phaethusa, too, sang with such grief that her voice was enclosed by the sinuous branches of a tree, her hair twisting – belly womb, and heart all turned to wood as her song ebbed.

Clymene ran from one daughter to another, embracing them, their pulses dimming into solid pith.

Divine Phoebus Apollo loved poetry and song, and delighted in cunning tales of love and victory. Perhaps this power, and his musical voice, had won Clymene's heart, all those years ago.

Now Clymene was finished with poetry and music, but she would love her son forever, in silence.

By the grave of Phaeton a third tree stretched its branches, Clymene's leaves shining in the sun.

Cycnus wandered the shore, his grief so fierce that he, too, could not make a sound. Some say his sorrow moved the naiads to raise a prayer to the immortals to alter his shape. Some say that Cycnus's mourning alone wrought the profound change from youth to waterfowl.

Gliding in his own reflection, at last a cygnet was all that remained of Phaeton's cousin, graceful and long-necked, the male swan brilliant white in the afternoon sun. To this day the swan glides in quiet waters, remembering a cousin who had climbed far.

TWENTY-NINE

One morning a soft footstep stirred the grasses, and the shadow of a broad-brimmed hat and a herald's staff fell upon Phaeton's resting place among the trees.

“
Haie
, Phaeton,” said divine Mercury – not sadly, but as a young man greeting a friend.

The divine herald cocked his head and listened to the silence all around.

“I have not forgotten you, young seeker,” said the immortal messenger.

He stretched forth his staff and touched the earth.

A long sigh, a breeze rising from the earth, swept through the leaves of the three spreading trees, swirling upward, the soul of a young traveler escaping darkness.

Phaeton felt life again, stretching his limbs. But even as he joyed in the sensation of sunlight, he knew that he was no longer one of the mortals.

“Run, Phaeton,” said immortal Mercury. Or perhaps he uttered an unspoken urging.

Forever speed the earth
.

Now when mortals run fast, sprinting under the sky, they are joined by the son of divine Apollo and his beloved Clymene.

The wind is Phaeton's breath.

About the Author

Michael Cadnum is the author of thirty-five books for adults and young adults. His work—which includes thrillers, suspense novels, historical fiction, and books about myths and legends—has been nominated for the National Book Award (
The Book of the Lion
), the Edgar Award (
Calling Home
and
Breaking the Fall
), and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (
In a Dark Wood
). A former National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, he is also the author of award-winning poetry.
Seize the Storm
(2012) is his most recent novel.

Michael Cadnum lives in Albany, California, with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by Michael Cadnum

Cover design by Drew Padrutt

ISBN: 978-1-5040-1966-8

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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