Covenant of Peace, Harbinger of War

with apologies to the original story of the Greek seer Cassandra,
which this is very, very loosely inspired by.



Cassandra wept upon her perch.
Sitting atop the world
sidesaddle as befitting a fair maiden,
the entirety of the world opened itself.

Rome and Galilee revealed their machinations
while mighty Gaul bared its chest to her.
The ancients in Yangtze rice paddies
bowed to the muddy water for her
as she shied from their terracotta warriors.
The Aztec priests carved out beating hearts
and held them up to her eyes. She blanched. They grinned.

Armies moved forward, back, flanking, storming the high ground,
washing back and forth as crimson waves of oil and water.
Men fell, cried out with their dying breath
what they glimpsed too late, that all was futile
but their kinsmen could not hear it,
took their rattles as cause to press on in their name
and trod over them to strike at their mirror likenesses.

The temptation to distance herself, to see not men but ranks,
and not ranks but standards, and even then
not standards but chesspieces upon a green table
was overwhelming. Cassandra sat transfixed.
Her screams of terror were greeted by vapor;
begging for intervention, for peace, met by serene silence.
Atop her arch in the sky she gazed down glassy-eyed.

There had to be a way to reach them.
To tell them all that she could see nothing would change,
that as far as she looked there was only more death.
She took the sunlight in her hands,
broke it gently apart, sprayed it in all directions
as it fell about her, deep azure and emerald
playing with outspoken orange and red wisps.

They all looked up.
Saw her panchromatic phantasm.
A moment of silence. She dared to hope.
Then, from all corners, a murmur. This was it!
This was a signal from our gods
that theirs are weak and ready
for a killing blow! To arms, men,
no mercy and no quarter!

Cassandra turned to the sky, ashen-faced.