EIGHTEEN

Phaeton’s father anointed his son’s face with balm from a pyxis – a small medicine box.

The balm smelled sweeter than the oil of nard Clymene kept, a gift from her mortal husband. Phoebus Apollo’s fingers were gentle as they soothed the protective oil across Phaeton’s cheeks and forehead.

“Now you’ll be able to brave the heat, my son,” said Apollo with a smile.

Phaeton smiled in return, struck by the care and affection of his father.

But all the while the horses tossed their manes, Pyrois storming in his harness, eyes wild again. Now the steeds sliced the air with their wings, kept from leaping into the heavens only by Apollo’s sudden grasp on the side of the carriage. The sun-god used all his might to steady the team as the wheels fought forward and back.

The reins sank deeper into Phaeton’s grasp, just as the sound of an ironlike echo ripped the fading dark.

The sound of this metallic crash, above all else, dented Phaeton’s confidence.

The young man took a firmer stance against the jostling of the chariot as it trembled, nearly a living thing, and he could not keep from asking with his eyes, Father, what was that?

“That rumbling sound, Phaeton,” said the god of the sun, his smile fading, “is the barrier between night and day falling open. Tethys herself, mother of the rivers and sister of the ocean, lets the gate fall at the end of every night.”

The young man was too troubled by the weight of the reins in his hands to ask further. They had already drained his arms of strength, but at the same time the reins felt alive, wrestling and twisting in his grip as the horses struggled to set forth. Even so the sound of this ancient name awakened further awe in the youth.

And uttering the name of such a timeless being brought a new sobriety to the god. “Do you insist on fulfilling your desire, Phaeton,” inquired Apollo, “despite all that you see and hear?”

“I will do this, Father,” Phaeton barely managed to say. He was no longer so confident, but all the more determined.

The immortal nodded, still hopeful of honor, but weighed down by the knowledge he struggled to put into words, the god of prophecy and epic shaken with renewed doubt. “Then follow the ruts worn in the sky-road, my son – the marks the wheels have left from all the other circuits I have taken.”

“I will,” managed Phaeton, his jaw clenched.

“Skirt the southern reaches of heaven and avoid the far north,” continued Apollo. “You can master this, if you put your will into it,” counseled the immortal one, as though trying to convince himself. “Ride the middle road. You’ll have to avoid the writhing serpent on the right hand, and struggle to avoid the great scorpion on your left. Fortune guide you, my son! And never touch the whip.”

“Never!” Phaeton agreed.

The god touched young Phaeton’s arm, the divine grasp enclosing the youthful strength of his offspring. His warm touch made Phaeton’s vision all the brighter, his pulse even stronger.

“You will bear no shame, Phaeton,” said the lord of daylight, “if you relent and watch me set forth, illuminating seas and mountains just as every day before.” The god spoke with feeling, already hungering for the vista of the spreading earth and all the lively creatures he loved so well.

The reins glowed with an increasing light, dawn flooding the darkness.

“Father, I thank you,” said Phaeton formally, remembering the courtesy he had learned in Merops’s home.

His son’s speech was not poetry, but it was deeply felt. Touched by these words of gratitude, the lord of daylight stepped back and readied his farewell.

But the act of removing his hand from the rim of the chariot lightened its weight.

The winged steeds leaped forward.

The way was open, and the temple of the sun rocked and fell away behind the youth, the reins at once snaking from his grasp.