Plate Eight: RUIN

While ambiguity persists in the relationship between CHOICE and ERROR, plate eight (RUIN) falls unequivocally on the heels of ERROR. The scene’s framing remains a snowy field by the side of a desolate country road. The sun has not yet begun to rise; a gray predawn light suffuses the edges of the scene, but the woman’s automobile’s headlights remain the primary source of illumination of the plate’s principal figures.

The woman, seen in one-quarter view, shooes Jack away from her with one hand upraised. The greater light level permits us to see more clearly what we could already discern: she wears a heavy white coat, her age approximates Jack’s age, and her bearing is aristocratic and imperious. By a cunning trick of perspective, a reflective surface on the ground between her and Jack — one of the magical mellophone’s portentous blossoms — reveals with great clarity her face, which otherwise would remain hidden from us, and which resembles a classical statue of Athena the Mistress of Citadels more than any mortal.

Under her stony gaze, Jack flinches. He has turned away from her, unable to properly acknowledge so healthy and untainted a person. Tears flow freely down Jack’s cheeks; he sobs as he digs a hole. Whether it is on his own imitative, at the behest of the woman, or as a result of the strange influence of the magic horn-of-plenty, remains unclear. The hole he digs seems intended to house the mellophone, for it is conspicuously size-appropriate, and Jack eyes the artifact, which floats nearby, as he digs.

The growing light allows us to discern details previously hidden by shadow, darkness, and snow. The snow has stopped and the heavy dark clouds overhead parted, revealing an ash-gray sky. Black birds (there is insufficient detail to permit more specific identification) circle over Jack, high overhead, seven clockwise and five counter-clockwise. Bones peek out from beneath the snowy blanket that covers the ground and hides most sins, though their size seems inconsistent with their surroundings. They may be the remains of Armor-of-God, or of the stranger.

Sublimely unchanging, the mellophone floats just behind Jack’s right shoulder. In the cold half-light it gleams, and once again its light casts over its surroundings without illuminating. In its cold surface, one may pick out trace fragments of an entirely different landscape reflected, a lush red-and-purple chamber entirely unlike the snowfield.