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It was all the awful, shattering,intoeyes and mouths so distorted they looked scarcely human Twisted limbs, some so attenuated that they seemed barely attached and maybe were not Blood, in drops like sweat and in streauns, drowning water and roasting flames, whips and chains and medieval instruments of arcane construction but manifestly foul purpose

All of it inscribed on his body

I stared and he allowed me to stare without co to soften the blow I knew this hat he had come to show me He had knoould be done to me, and he had known that when I found that despicable art emblazoned on my own flesh, that I would be so destroyed by the vision ofon

I was to be slowly, inexorably turned into a tapestry of retributive justice, if justice this was

He slipped his shirt on, buttoning as carefully as he had unbuttoned minutes before

“Why?” I asked, no longer capable of the energy required to shout

He finished dressing, and then he said, “The world, Mara, the world you knew, that I knew, the worldas the only world, rests on the edge of a knife extended out over a sea of flame Tilt to one direction, and fall into the flame Tilt the other direction, and the same fate awaits Lose our balance even a little, and slip onto the blade itself and be eviscerated”

“What are you talking about? Balance? What”

“There are forces that badly want us to lose our balance And there are countervailing forces that would see us maintain our precarious stance and survive We, you and I, are tools of that second force The task we are given is one s that balance”

He took a sip of coffee, finishing the cup

“Those are just words,” I said

“Balance is everything,” he said, aler, I heard his every word as if it were spoken by lips pressed against ood and evil, between true and false, between pain and pleasure, between love and loss, hatred and indifference However you na”

He ht he ht touch me, and such was the spell woven by his words and, yes, by the inexpressible feelings he evoked in ently lift the sleeve and reveal the terrible thing beneath He looked at it, solereat powers, though we did not choose to have theance These marks, these terrible artworks, are our humility They provide our balance”

“I don’t want to” I was unable to go on for the tightening of my throat Tears blurred my vision All I could see wasnightmare No one would ever be able to stand to look at me I would have to spend the rest of my life covered, concealed, ashamed I wouldn’t be able to look in a et married

I sobbed I sat down on the tile floor, ainst hard kitchen cupboards, and sobbed intohopeless, so absolutely hopeless I had not cried like that since my father died I was lost I was destroyed