Plate Nine: FEAR

The man hides within his home. The view is mated to plate five, LOSS. Now the destruction foreshadowed in that plate has reached its natural conclusion: Jack’s cottage is in ruins. Jack himself, his body twisted with regret and dread, is barely visible beneath the shambles of blankets that wrap around him. His head rests on the tabletop in front of him, beneath his folded arms, and one can almost hear the wracking sobs wrenching his weak frame. Behind and around him, the materials which made up his home are in every sort of disarray: pots smashed and shelves broken, their contents rifled through and thoroughly looted. The plants, dead but still prominent in the previous incarnation of this scene, have either been carried off or disintegrated entirely. Bare stone walls have tumbled down in places, and the roof is little more than a partial frame, through which a starry night sky can be seen.

At Jack’s elbow, seated next to him at the table, Death waits patiently. Death’s skeletal legs are half-folded under his chair. One bone arm rests on the tabletop, with the other cast casually over the back of his chair; Death lounges, clearly comfortable with the situation and expecting no trouble. Death’s weapon, the crooked scythe, has been forgotten in the middle background, tossed against a rear wall.

The magic horn hovers over the man, emitting music. Thin white lines scratched into the plate convey this music, as foreign and external to the image as the mellophone itself. If the man buried the artifact, and later regretted his choice and dug it up, there is no sign of this, for the horn shines with the same cold light, clean and sterile as ever. There is no trace of filth or dirt upon it, and as before, the rich reds and golds reflected in its gleaming surface do not match even slightly the environment about the horn.

Angels look on, disconcerted, from the sky above. Small winged figures, barely discernible against the starscape, they would be easily noticed were it not for the line of spidery cursive encircling and drawing attention to them: for each blade of grass there is an angel begging it to grow. One peers down, towards Jack, while the other has turned to face the other, and thus appears in profile.

Outside all is wasteland.