suckled at the teats of a she-wolf, would not be brought down by one old, heirless, hermit king ending his days in exile on an isle named for a goat. No, it must be a lie, a trick launched by one of his many enemies. Even the name of the pilot himself, Tammuz, smacked of myth, for this was the name of the oldest god who died—older than Orpheus, Adonis, or Osiris.
The emperor drew himself together, signaled for the guard to give the pilot some silver for his trouble, and turned away to signify that the audience was ended. But as the money was handed to Tammuz, Tiberius added: “Pilot, with so many passengers on your ship, there must be other witnesses available to confirm this strange story?”
“Indeed, my lord,” agreed Tammuz, “there were many witnesses to what I heard and did.” Deep in the unfathomable black eyes Tiberius thought he saw a strange light. “Regardless of what we believe we know,” Tammuz continued, “there is one witness alone who can tell us whether that Great Pan was a mortal or a god, and whether he is alive or dead. But that sole witness is only a voice, a voice calling across the waters—”
Tiberius waved him away impatiently and departed for the isolated parapet—his prison. But as he watched the pilot being led down the slope to the harbor, the emperor called his slave and handed him a gold coin, motioning toward the Egyptian on the trail below. On swift feet the slave descended the trail and handed the coin to the pilot, who looked up to the terrace where Tiberius stood.
The emperor turned away without a sign and went into his empty quarters in the palace. Once there, he poured aromatic oil into the amphora on his altar and set it alight in the service of the gods.
He knew he must find the voice—the voice crying in the wilderness. He must find it before he died. Or Rome itself would be destroyed.
THE WITNESS
I only am escaped alone to tell thee …
My thought
Darkened as by wind the water …
There’s always
Someone has to tell them, isn’t there?…
Someone chosen by the chance of seeing ,
By the accident of sight ,
By the stumbling on the moment of it ,
Unprepared, unwarned, unready ,
Thinking of nothing … and it happens, and he sees it .
Caught in that inextricable net
Of having witnessed, having seen …
It was I .
I only. I alone. The moment
Closed us together in its gaping grin
Of horrible incredulity .
I only. I alone, to tell thee …
I who have understood nothing, have known
Nothing, have been answered nothing .
—Archibald MacLeish, J.B .
God always wins .
—Archibald MacLeish, J.B.
Snake River, Idaho: Early Spring, 1989
It was snowing. It had been snowing for days. It seemed the snow would never end.
I had been driving through the thick of it since well before dawn. I stopped at midnight in Jackpot, Nevada, the only pink neon glow in the sky through at least a hundred miles of rocky wasteland in my long ascent from California back to Idaho, back to my job at the nuclear site. There in Jackpot, against the jangle of slot machines, I sat at a counter and ate blood-rare grilled steak with fries, chugged a glass of Scotch whiskey, and washed it down with a mug of hot black coffee—the multi-ingredient cure-all my uncle Earnest had always recommended for this kind of stress and heartache. Then I went back out into the cold black night and hit the road again.
If I hadn’t stopped back in the Sierras, when the first fresh snow came down for the day of skiing I’d suddenly felt I needed to soothe my aching soul, I wouldn’t have been in this predicament now, sailing along on black ice in the middle of nowhere. At least this was a nowhere I knew well—every wrinkle of road along this trek from the Rockies to the coast. I’d crossed it often enough on business, for my job as a nuclear security expert. Ariel Behn, girl nuke. But the reason for this last jaunt was a business I’d as soon have missed.
I could feel my body slipping into
The emperor drew himself together, signaled for the guard to give the pilot some silver for his trouble, and turned away to signify that the audience was ended. But as the money was handed to Tammuz, Tiberius added: “Pilot, with so many passengers on your ship, there must be other witnesses available to confirm this strange story?”
“Indeed, my lord,” agreed Tammuz, “there were many witnesses to what I heard and did.” Deep in the unfathomable black eyes Tiberius thought he saw a strange light. “Regardless of what we believe we know,” Tammuz continued, “there is one witness alone who can tell us whether that Great Pan was a mortal or a god, and whether he is alive or dead. But that sole witness is only a voice, a voice calling across the waters—”
Tiberius waved him away impatiently and departed for the isolated parapet—his prison. But as he watched the pilot being led down the slope to the harbor, the emperor called his slave and handed him a gold coin, motioning toward the Egyptian on the trail below. On swift feet the slave descended the trail and handed the coin to the pilot, who looked up to the terrace where Tiberius stood.
The emperor turned away without a sign and went into his empty quarters in the palace. Once there, he poured aromatic oil into the amphora on his altar and set it alight in the service of the gods.
He knew he must find the voice—the voice crying in the wilderness. He must find it before he died. Or Rome itself would be destroyed.
THE WITNESS
I only am escaped alone to tell thee …
My thought
Darkened as by wind the water …
There’s always
Someone has to tell them, isn’t there?…
Someone chosen by the chance of seeing ,
By the accident of sight ,
By the stumbling on the moment of it ,
Unprepared, unwarned, unready ,
Thinking of nothing … and it happens, and he sees it .
Caught in that inextricable net
Of having witnessed, having seen …
It was I .
I only. I alone. The moment
Closed us together in its gaping grin
Of horrible incredulity .
I only. I alone, to tell thee …
I who have understood nothing, have known
Nothing, have been answered nothing .
—Archibald MacLeish, J.B .
God always wins .
—Archibald MacLeish, J.B.
Snake River, Idaho: Early Spring, 1989
It was snowing. It had been snowing for days. It seemed the snow would never end.
I had been driving through the thick of it since well before dawn. I stopped at midnight in Jackpot, Nevada, the only pink neon glow in the sky through at least a hundred miles of rocky wasteland in my long ascent from California back to Idaho, back to my job at the nuclear site. There in Jackpot, against the jangle of slot machines, I sat at a counter and ate blood-rare grilled steak with fries, chugged a glass of Scotch whiskey, and washed it down with a mug of hot black coffee—the multi-ingredient cure-all my uncle Earnest had always recommended for this kind of stress and heartache. Then I went back out into the cold black night and hit the road again.
If I hadn’t stopped back in the Sierras, when the first fresh snow came down for the day of skiing I’d suddenly felt I needed to soothe my aching soul, I wouldn’t have been in this predicament now, sailing along on black ice in the middle of nowhere. At least this was a nowhere I knew well—every wrinkle of road along this trek from the Rockies to the coast. I’d crossed it often enough on business, for my job as a nuclear security expert. Ariel Behn, girl nuke. But the reason for this last jaunt was a business I’d as soon have missed.
I could feel my body slipping into
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