EPILOGVS
* * *
o qvid solvtis est beativs cvris
cvm mens onvs reponit ac peregrino
labore fessi venimvs larem ad nostrvm
desideratoqve acquiscimvs lecto?
hoc est qvod vnvm est pro laboribvs tantis.
*
The whole-moon vanished as it was wont to do, slowly sinking out of its entourage of stars as the expansive blueish-blackness was absorbed into the blush of imminent sun. In the knights’ camp, tattooed Meredith Emrys was the first to spy the waking horizon from his bedroll. His head was full of dreams but his mystic eyes slowly opened to the spring dawn. As pink clouds brightened, he stole his last few nods of sleep and woke yawning to the curious day. He had dreamed he’d been lost inside the enameled labyrinth of the shell, and so to that holy spot on the horizon he cast his gaze when at last he arose. Laboring to his feet he hugged his purple robes close in the cold dawn and scanned the canopy… then quickly scanned again. Where is it? thought mystic Meredith. The enigma was visible above those oaken boughs when we retired — I recall the way it shone from this vantage. What has occurred in the silent hours between dusk and dawn? He stood fully, and scanned the camp. The other knights were asleep among their sheets, and yet, not all. One bedroll is abandoned! Who has sought to meddle in the twisted mystery? Has it vanished with someone inside, now banished to lands that never can be wandered? The woodsey mystic cast down his eyes and mouthed a silent prayer to the Old Gods. “Rise,” he then commanded aloud. “Rise you knights, you fellows slumbering at the threshold of reality! Buoy your lids and welcome dawn, and the strange portents it has gifted us.” An invisible ripple spread over the sleepers, noticeable only by the waves of movement it caused in them. Tinkersnow lowed, and Sir Beanford from Sarah’s pack began to stir. A sliver of the sun began to burn on the horizon, and those fingers of light with the palm of Meredith’s utterance dragged them from their sheets of sleep. Now, thought the tattooed mystic, who cannot be accounted for?
“What is the trouble, Meredith?” asked the Frog Knight rubbing sleep-seeds from his large pond-lit eyes.
Sir Elisa said, “I dreamt that I traversed the depths of the shell to the bottoms of the very ocean, salt and all, and in that strange place I found a flock of swans who swam like a school of fish and told me of a laurel that I’d worn all journey long.”
Yet, “Look about yourselves!” berated Meredith Emrys. “One of your own is missing; who is the absent knight?”
All eyes went instantly to the Manta-Ray, but he was as surprised as anyone to discover that this time he was accounted for. Hadely and Frontal began checking each of the company, noting the diverse liveries, but Sir Intuition quickly blurted, “It is Sir Moodye! Where is the Whale? Has he slipped off? He was as honest as any of us — do you suppose he shall return?”
“Yea, it is the Whale Knight indeed who is missing,” spoke Meredith. “Yet if you shall only look for yourselves, so is the entire shining shell that was!” They followed the mystic’s accusatory finger skywards until the absence dawned fully upon them.
“No!” gasped fairest Sarah, covering her mouth.
The Hart’s face upturned into sadness and he growled, “Impossible. Just when we were here, just when we thought we’d found our happiness at long last, has it vanished into the perils of the land? And what of that silent little knight? Has he abandoned us or been ripped from the world?”
At the edge of the clearing, five motley geese broke away into the sky and suspicious Sir Wander-Gogh drew his axe. He brought its face to face the intruder, yet found that he crossed a shining figure. Sun-rays glome through the stratosphere, and for only a moment it showed a full-bearded man in silhouette who wore upon his brow a magnificent laurel. He was lovely, for a moment. Yet in another instant the angles of sunlight had changed, and they came to see that it was only Sir Moodye.
“O Whale Knight, where have you been?” said Sir Wander-Gogh, putting down his axe. “Shoddy twigs there, sitting as a crown might? What can you expect us to believe, wearing that gnarled thing?”
“I went,” said the Whale, “when I could not sleep. Do not you blame me now, for such sleepwalking have you been known to do.”
“Right,” said Sarah as swans and geese began to sing with the rising sun.
The Knight of the Whale continued, “LAst night I was somehow summoned. I… entered the shell and the way deeper down was clear. I know not how. Many strange things did I see, but they were not there; they were merely within me. And Yalishamba was there, yet… he too was within me. I do not think he made it back out, yet in his place this strange woven Wreath have I found. I know nothing of it yet what think you learned knights?”
Without warning, Sir L’angoustier snatched up the laurel from Sir Moodye’s head. It was two entwined twigs bearing infantile barely-budded leaves. The Lobster Knight peered through the loop, confused, and then adjusted it around his own forehead. “What to happen — I feel a nothing!” he declared instantly, and struck the Wreath from his brow down to the mud.
Sir Wander-Gogh took it up, cleaned it slightly, and also tried it on: he relaxed all his muscles, breathing deeply, yet after silent minutes he said, “Some strangeness I suppose I feel, though it is not far beyond the natural. I have worn hats before. Sir Intuition, you are like the leader of this quest, shall you examine this curiosity?”
Yet the Knight of the Hart turned abruptly aside and to the forest’s pale trees, which were barely themselves beginning to blossom with tiny spring-pink flowers, said, “Ask not this thing of me. I have found my happiness at last, what little exists in our Merry Land, and this Wreath seems a temptation that I wish not to meddle in. My mind is set: I dare not take it. Not even to keep it safe.”
Sir Sallimaide too refused the Wreath, loudly saying, “I know my purpose and place in the world. I say that, much like the Hart—” and here he broke off, honking at the noisesome fowl. The birdsong quieted somewhat, allowing the Frog Knight to declare, “Much like Sir Intuition, I have no need either of such stuff as might alter my worldview.”
So it was that the task fell to Meredith Emrys, who took up the strange loop and inspected it with discerning eyes. He said, “I see,” as he turned it over and over in his tattooed hands. “I believe that this is the artefact we have sought. Yet it is too subtle a magic, too strange a charm for me to perceive it clearly. It may not yet have come to its fruition. One such as Yalishamba would have known, were he only here to tell. If he was within the shell when it vanished then he may be drifting or trapped within some nonexistent realm of futures passed. Did you see aught when the sanctuary of the Wreath of Reincarnation was lost to time and space?”
“Alas,” said Sir Moodye, “both Yalishamba and the shell vanished in an instant of light as soon as I crossed the threshold. That very same moment did I discover this head-dress.”
“Strange indeed is your tale,” intoned Sir Sallimaide, “yet stranger still these lives of mortal men. I have lived nigh three centuries and the oddities that passed before my eyes — shores of lands now sunk below, a growing sentience in animal-kind, the fury of the tragedy in Nahm — these are full Cycles which no mind ever could believe. It is good that we have claimed at long last the object of our goal, whatever it may be.” The Frog clapped the Whale on the back to punctuate his sentiment and the Lobster whooped once, yet the others were more tentative in their rejoicings.
Even Sir Moodye looked typically distant though he had won their, and his own, dearest pride as he received from Meredith Emrys his laurel back upon his head. Only in his irises did he smile as he said, “I understand. Shall we return home?”
Not far from where the shell had vanished was the rising marble entrance-stair to the abandoned highway of Tchrelma’Montgomery. Dawn blushed pink and the yellow of forsythias was in the springtime clouds as the Knights of Bidgood left behind the Forest of Swans and Geese to ascend the Roman ruin. The over-grown road extended, in one direction, far beyond sight of their tiny island and northward into the ocean’s swirl of bordering mist where a diverse infinity of unknown lands might or might not await the knights. Yet in the southern direction lay the nexus of their hearts. And so the knights set out across the highway, journeying for three proud days and two humble nights upon their galloping giraffes until they had returned once again to the lands of King Bidgood. As vespers of the evening brought the third day into night, there began to glow three golden towers grasping at the sky. Sir Moodye stood in his saddle to see, peering though his knight’s kaleidoscope. It’s them, he marveled. Is it them? Are these the towers from my dreams? What dream was it in which they first apore? In those three days of riding atop the road of the long departed Romans, Sir Moodye had worn the laurel about his brow as slowly its flowers revealed themselves. He had discarded his iron helm at the site of the shell, along with all the knightly accoutrements that remound him of war. With his whale robes having been surrendered to Yalishamba, he was now dressed only in a squire’s brown tunic and leggings which were in sooth on loan from Frontal. Drab did he look but for the Wreath that had blossomed upon his cetaceanous brow into a full flower-crown of many colored petals.
The moon rose above them, color-sister to the Tchrelma’Montgomery. “Nearly there now,” spoke Sir Sallimaide. “These towers again are of the golden castle of Tralfamadore, sealed for an age by the powers of Woodstock. And is it abandoned too? Perhaps. Perhaps not, thought the Painter of Sendrago. Musing on all that occurred in ancient London and that blessed, cursed castle brings shivers to my marrow. Sir Elisa, shall you bestow upon us a song of cheer to bring some peace to the beating of my dilapidated heart?”
“O let it be a song of homecoming,” besought Sarah Bellum, ever attuned to the melodies around them, and so the Sparrow did unsling his harp. Looking into the maiden’s idyllic eyes, he began to play a hymn he knew from the Book of Saint George. He strummed lightly his strings before softly shaping his voice to form the lyrics.
It’s been a long long
Long time.
How could I ever have lost you
When I loved you?
It took a long long
Long time.
I’m only happy that I’ve found you,
How I love you.
So many tears while I searched!
So many tears I wasted in the woods!
Now I can see you,
Truly be you,
How could I ever have misplaced you?
How I want you.
O I missed you,
You know I love you,
O I missed you,
O I love you.
And as the notes of the holy song faded into the clatter of hooves once more on the marble highway, vibrant against the night illuminated only by the spires of London, the weary riders roech at long last the shadow of King Bidgood’s keep — bearing indeed the flowering artefact once believed to be lost to mankind.
* * *
Cold night-time mist haunted the the grassy plains, and though they were on the cusp of awakening into spring the whole southern countryside of Britain was silently still a-dream. Sir Wander-Gogh gazed far with his kaleidoscope as they descended the marble off-ramp, and to him it seemed that these mists enveloped the entire island. All knights rode silently on with anxious anticipation, yet when they approached Bidgood’s great gates the squires blew a loud fanfare.
Sir Intuition called, “Hail! We return! Long has been our journey, perils we did face, yet we have returned bearing King Bidgood’s prize!”
Thus was the portcullis raised to them, and thus did they enter the king’s keep. Lofty minarets and flags were only shadows against the night’s cloak. The soft orange glows of civilization lit the small village within the castle walls, yet all was motionless as moonlight. Their noble giraffes who had quested so hard were stabled with the amazed stableboy, and the Frog was even able to find special accommodations for Tinkersnow before the knights crossed the yard to the palace.
Whence the triumph of completion? Sir Moodye thought, his brow adorned. Whence the accolades and cheer? This welcome is more similar to the emptiness beneath the shell than the scenes I played out in my mind our whole adventure upon the road. And yet what did I expect? That the world would rejoice in all that I do, or even notice? Worry nothing: we have caught them unawares and that is all. Why then this hollow heart? Why then does this jubilant Wreath not ward against despair? And why do I feel a pull from wearing it — an intangible tug unfelt by any of my fellows? If there is a God, if I am chosen, why does He-and-She not shield me from all I fear and despise? What is the purpose of this joyous, miserable Cycle? And it is true that Sir Moodye never recalled in full what I imparted unto him there in the hollow of the spiral shell, yet I made sure the sacred memories still sope out whenever he found himself in need.
The palace guards bowed low as the triumphant knights entered the palace, and whispering servants guid them through stone halls to the well-remembered banquet chamber. At this hour however, it was silent. A few torches were lit to assault the gloom, but dimly. The knights clanked to positions around the empty feasting table, yet etiquette forbade them from being seated before the monarch’s arrival.
They did not have to stand long awaiting King Bidgood, for he took not the time to dress himself to meet them. Fresh from his baths he arrove, just as before, clad only in a white towel around his waist and the flowing locks of his beard and hair. “Welcome!” he boomed to the hall. His voice sounded and resounded, and from the sheer command of it the knights all bowed low, and the squires, and Sarah, and wise Meredith Emrys as well. The king clapped his mighty hands with the force of all thunder, and called to his halls that a feast should quickly be assembled. “O triumphant knights and companions thereof, sit and eat with me! For your valor must have been taut and stretched to the point of severance — perils of your expedition I have somewhat scryed from the shifting tides of my bath. Yet not all of your struggles are clear to me. For one, I knew not when to expect you. Yea: after we have supped, perhaps a recounting of the entire journey is in order. In this time of meanwhile however… I would see the artefact itself. Sir Moodye, is it that which adorns your head in spring flowers? And what is the strange power that it contains?”
For the drawing of a breath no one spoke. What is this chill? thought the Whale. My stomach feels as if it has shrunk! What if the Wreath does nothing for him? What if he should declare these twigs a sham and becomes hotly wroth? It is no matter — for I must not hold my peace. Some utterance, or else no matter my gains I have failed the quest here, at the very last punctuation. “I have it,” declared Sir Moodye. “Yet the power it channels seem to be so strange that few can decipher it. And yea, and, um…” His heart pumped. He had to swallow.
Yet King Bidgood’s eyes glome as if he understood it all perfectly well. “This is expected. If you should be so kind, my dear Sir Moodye, O valiant and triumphant Knight of the Whale, would you pass your fabled laurel to me?”
The soot-bearded pretend-knight lowered his eyes. Have I spoken unwell? He could not meet the monarch’s gaze as he handed over the tangled flowers. King Bidgood glanced questioningly, yet the Whale could only nod his affirmation in nervous silence.
First the king examined the petals which were already beginning, slightly, to wither. He palpated the entwined stems between his discerning fingers. He inspected it up and down with his crystal blue eyes, and examined through the hollow that was made by its loop. He did not remove his own elaborate crown, but set the Wreath of Reincarnation upon the tablecloth before him. He said, “And what did you make of it, mystic Meredith Emrys? I sent you as a master of the ways of yore. What would you interpret of the omens of these laurels?”
Sweeping his purple robe about him as he rose, Meredith began. “My Regal Highness, to speak directly to the heart of the mystery, several of this company tried on the Wreath and received no effect themselves, nor ill nor otherwise. This itself is a strangeness. That its powers may not work on every man is a weighty possibility in my mind, if powers it indeed bestows on mortals. Take heed, O King of One Thousand Dreams. And yet in your Whale Knight, since he wore the garment, a shift of energy has taken place: a distinct aura nearly insensitive to the naked eye. A change in him and in all the world, it should seem. As if we are just on the brink of something, of collapsing into nothing and then being reformed from the matter that once we were. There is much mystery knotted up in this loop of flowers… I barely understand it myself.”
“And, my mystic, did you deign to wear the Wreath?”
Meredith looked off into the torch of flame. “Great King, I did not. The ways of my ancestors are dying. They may never more be seen in this world. We cannot live strong without the fairer folk of the trees, and they are fleeing our realms at last. What use have I for enhanced antennae such as this? My powers are enough for me to stay alive another age or so, perhaps even to leap into another Cycle from this one, but then I shall once and for all pass into the dust and take my place among the sediments. That is my most humble wish. Therefore I do not wish to wear it.”
The king peered warily at the flimsy Wreath, trying to fathom its potential — when just then entered a servant to announce the presentation of their impromptu midnight meal.
It was mushrooms and artichokes and morsels of onion, warm asparagus stew and hearty breads, all accented with the dewy herbs of Bidgood’s keep. No meat was served at this banquet, yet all knights ate heartily for they ate away the hungers and tumult of the road. At last they felt they could rest at the end of their hard year’s quest. The servants next produced a myriad of foods for snack that the knights might converse as they ate, now that the edge of their hunger had been satiated. Tomatoes of the peasant gardens and cheese of the livestock, olives and bread of the very earth of this keep; the farmers had truly poured their hearts into these harvests.
After handful of spiced almonds had crunched in the king’s mouth, he asked, “Perhaps now, while we satiate our palates, you can relate the roads that you have traveled, the perils you have met. How fares the wilderness of our Merry Land?”
The torchlight reflected in vibrant orange across their armor as argent-and-umber Sir Intuition dramatically rose, cleared his throat and his mind, and began to unfold the details of their concluded expedition.
The Tale of the Circumference of the Cycle
“My liege, the land is fraught with perils. I faced many to face, though I know not how my companions fared in all circumstances. We split into groups shortly after crossing the moors of old London into which we departed initially. It was in that mire where we met at last with Sir Wander-Gogh.”
“Sorry I am,” said the Manta-Ray, “for missing our outset. I had lost my squire and was helplessly waylaid. It is a flaw of mine, which these fellows have been helping me to amend.”
“A serious flaw,” agreed Sarah, but the king merely gestured for the Hart to proceed.
“Not only did we meet Sir Wander-Gogh in that place, but when we camped on the edge of the moors a strangeness occurred. I… know not how to relate it, yet my dreams that night were unlike anything I had before experienced. In them, my father whom we lost along the way, was twined with a stranger who cast a spell upon us. And afterwards — yea! These fellows told me that we had all shared the dream the same.”
“Is it true?” marvelled King Bidgood. “Tell me more of the stranger in your dream, for he sounds similar to an old man that I myself once dreamed: the very dream-figure who inspired this quest.”
Instead of Sir Intuition however, mystic Meredith did speak. “Lord, I believe I can shed some dim light on this, for we actually met this stranger on the road. Sir Elisa and I did learn much from things he showed us.”
“You have mentioned this before,” replied Sir Intuition, “and indeed we met him again at the end of our quest yet still I do not know how a man from a dream could attain a life in reality — nor how he could age backwards. Forsooth: when we met him in the Forest of Swans and Geese he was no old man.”
Sir Moodye nibbled at a plate of bread and cheese, remembering instinctively what had occurred between them beneath the shell. What kinship did I feel with that wise soul? Was he me? Was he Sir Abmasilae? O who was this dream persona I grew so attached to, and is he indeed the very Wreath of Reincarnation? I mourn him achingly, yet I never even knew if he was real. He therefore supped in silence, trying to make sense of the wizard and the world.
Meredith Emrys said, “Yalishamba was a magician, of a higher art than I have ever seen. Yet he seemed not fully in control of his power. When we all met him in the flesh at the recent end of our travels he was incapable of proper speech. Yet when he rode with Sir Elisa and I he managed to talk for a time in our words, albeit strangely. Yea, and it was a strange place he brought us to.”
And Sir Moodye lamented to himself that he never had heard his wizard speak plain.
“A cleft deep into the ground,” continued Meredith, “with strange plants and strange winds. Magical Yalishamba took us to the lowest point between the jagged stones, where two doorways lay. Into one Sir Elisa and I entered and through the other we exited, into the same exact spot in the Sylvian Fissure. Yet in that narrow passageway he took us through past, present, future, an unwary journey much like an errant dream itself.”
“Some dream-shaper he was then?” inquired King Bidgood.
“I cannot say with certainty, for that man’s magics were of temporal distortions; difficult to master. It could be he lost control and drifted from the realm of mortal men and into their dreams.”
“Hah! I thought myself the Emperor of Dreams, yet this fellow seems quite adept with their magics. But let us continue. Pull me further into the mystery. Where then were you, Sir Intuition, while Meredith was becoming acquainted with the wizard?”
“Alas King Bidgood, we were with James Jesus Christ at the falls of Beth Esda, that holy site of King Washing where our fortunes did flip. There we met Sir Palamander with his Jesus Christ that we might cross prophets for the next leg of our journey. Yet then it was that Sir Plumesprite went wildly mad — woe! — and struck out with his blade in the night. Both Christian prophets were undone by the Peacock.”
“No!” gasped those who had not yet known.
Sir Sallimaide said unto the Hart, “You told us it was foul, yet I comprehended not the gravity. Why and how has this occurred?”
“In truth, I have struggled with that question since the day that foulness occurred. I suppose now that he is gone I shall never know. The Peacock stole our elephant along with our hope, and into the night.”
“Villain!” cried the king. “If ever I see that blackguard’s face again I’ll smear it across the ponds of filth in which our piglets flail. Such a betrayer of our invested honor is worth less than a peasant’s filthy shroud.”
“Hail, hail,” agreed Sir Wander-Gogh and downed his cup.
“To think,” ranted Bidgood, “that one of the knights I handpicked was in sooth astray from honor. Grievous! Aye, but we must move on. Where were you Sir Sallimaide, when this travesty was writ in viscera? I have not yet heard a tale from you.”
“O noble majesty, I and Sir Wander-Gogh travelled together a time through the woods of Seneca until we roech Castle of Montrose. They were holding a tournament when we arrove, and the Manta-Ray besought me to partake. Not knowing what exactly to be searching for I allowed the diversion in the hope that some assistance might be gleaned. And more than that did we find, for though the battle’s conclusion was grim we did gain the aid of this Sir L’angoustier, who has the honor to be the Knight of the Lobster.”
“Good greetings O the king person, you are an honor us as well as!”
From the throne, Bidgood nodded his appreciation, yet he asked of the Frog Knight, “What was it in the end that made the tournament grim? What imbecile was crowned ruler of that castle that lamentations should entangle us?”
“Not so my liege,” replied Sir Sallimaide. “The knight who swept by chance before us into that throne-room was bloodthirsty, cruel, and craven. He slew the King of Montrose and fled from us, and all justice.”
“Indeed has villainy hounded all your heels! Was this abomination not caught?”
“Not that I can speak of. We saw he was the Knight of the Orca, and though his livery was torn and muddied I could spy enough yellow-and-violet.”
At this, a pallor possessed Sir Intuition’s face, and he slammed a mailed fist upon the table. All looked from their sloshing chalices to the livid Hart. “I have seen that knight!” he rasped, wide-eyed. “The scoundrel of yellow-and-violet is the one who slew my father! Later on, later on in the tale, yet it was that very man! He rode in with the flakes of a blizzard and took my steed… and my father’s life.”
“Our thoughts and prayers are with you in your time of need, Sir Intuition,” said the king. “Is there aught else you can tell us of this Orca?”
“The man was an ugly,” spat Sir L’angoustier, but Sir Sallimaide did his best to talk over the top of him.
“His face was covered complete by his helm and we could see no more than his heraldry. Would that we had found him, yet he became lost to us. After the solemn funeral for the King of Montrose, we wandered until we met a very troubled maiden, this very Sarah Bellum dressed in purest white.”
She stood and graced them with a curtsey as Sir Elisa exclaimed, “So that is how you came to join our band, fairest Sarah. You never had told me.”
“It was no secret,” she replied. “You never once did ask it of me. As for you three knights of strongest arm, my never-ending thanks for rescuing my grandsire from that cloying swamp. That I met him, for even that briefest span, is worth all the to-morrows he might have dwindled if he strained against death.”
“A wise man was he, Sarah, and we are proud to have met him,” said the Frog. To the monarch he explained, “Her grandfather travelled with us to the old Georgetown Abbey, where he passed from the affairs of mortal men. And verily, her grandfather was the ancient Knight of the Fern.”
“What? Impossible,” coughed Sir Intuition quaffing from his cup. “That man was lost in the Crusade, I thought. How came you to find him?”
“Sir Carboniferous was buried in a swamp; he had been stuck there ever since defecting from Nahm. In those wetlands I fell ill, and the Fern too felt himself deteriorate. We travelled with him for a ways but when we left the ruins of Georgetowne — without Sarah’s grandsire — we rode hard to a village for supplies. And when we arrove there in Darnestowne, we heard tales of a terrible curse.”
“Why, that is where we met you,” exclaimed Sir Moodye.
“Yea,” replied Sir Sallimaide, “but have patience. We did not expect to meet you when we arrove, we simply were searching for an inn to stay a single night and a place to resupply. Yet as it transpired, no one would rent us rooms because a fearsome witch was on the prowl. She was said to be twisted, living deep in the woods but stealing into town at night to seduce men to doom. I had learned quite a few things about our friend the Lobster Knight, and after watching him flirt shamelessly with a flower-girl I had an epiphany. Of all the knights I have known, Sir L’angoustier is of the most lascivious.”
“Oui, of course,” the Lobster cried, “for I am conquer of all world! And what is means the lashee vees?”
“Thus did I set him up as bait, after darkness fell, and sure enough there rode a grimacing mare into the abandoned town square. From the bushes where I hid I could see her rub her face against the claw of a tree to remove her magic bridle — after which the crone regained her human form. It was a chilling transformation and… and I wish not to think on it.”
“Fearsome indeed was she,” spoke his squire Hadely taking up his master’s tale, “yet this Lobster met the challenge with equal ferocity. He approached her, she approached him, and in the moonlight she slipped the magic bridle across his chops. If you liked not the first transformation, this was stranger still, for Sir L’angoustier made a much less pleasant beast to look upon. The horse is a peculiar animal, is it not? So like our giraffe, yet lacking the obvious advantages as you know.”
“I know not,” retorted Sir Sallimaide, “for I find Tinkersnow’s broad back to be very sturdy — she keeps me safer and can charge faster than any long-necked steed.” Regaining his composure he continued the telling. “Verily, that witch of shadows slipped atop the Lobster’s back, and cropped him hard to force a gallop. I chased on foot for stealth, yet barely caught them up. If not for the endless shrieks and whinnies, I never would have found the way. So it was that then you found us, Sirs Whale and Hart. And too was Sir Palamander there, bless his silver beard, and too your blacksmith friend. ’Twas he who truly saved that day.”
“The blacksmith’s plan,” explained Sir Intuition, “was a perfect punishment. He was Sir Charsus, of the Walrus, and he affixed horse-shoes to the witch’s feet. She was an ugly disfigured thing who now must die in abandonment, solitude, and pain.”
“Her mutation was grotesque,” bemoaned Sir Moodye, vexed. “When the damaged bridle was slipped across her face my nightmares gained a new face. At least the town slept well ever after. And if it is not ignoble to say so, O windswept Sir Intuition, I should like to say that I was sad when you departed from us — as he did after the Witch Horse was put to her final pasture. I know where it was that we went, we three knights and I, yet I know nothing of the paths taken by the Hart, or the Sparrow, or the Manta-Ray, or Hesaid — I mean, Meredith Emrys.”
“Very good,” said Sarah Bellum, “Why do we not begin with where I was taken by your beloved Sir Wander-Gogh?” She spoke with an edge yet before another word passed her lips, the few motley night-servants swept back in to spread desert.
It was well past midnight, and the stars were beginning to die outside the walls of the keep. The knights were yawning as they ate their cakes and wafers; though sleep was close at hand it was not yet within their grasp.
When the king had finished his berry humble, he said, “Please continue the tale again, fairest Sarah.”
The damsel smirked at the Manta-Ray and began her story. “I am somewhat to blame for that misadventure, if I must admit anything at all. When the Frog and Lobster headed into Darnestowne, this Manta-Ray declared his intention to take a wilder path. At that time to me, alas, he seemed the strongest of the group and the most capable of defending me.”
“That I was and am, my lady.” suggested the Manta-Ray.
“Yet too you are in possession of a mysterious curse that I know of no way to cure. Your wanderlust leads you so far astray that if not for me you’d have never chosen north from out of the compass’ scope. As it was, you slipped off at the crux of midnight and left me alone in those foreign woods. Instead of being my protector you nearly delivered me to the very jaws of demise.”
Upon hearing this, King Bidgood rose with smoldering irises. “Is this a thing of truth, Sir Wander-Gogh? Abandoned you your duties of a defenseless damsel?”
“My fault it was not!” the Manta-Ray begged. “It was my cursed sleepwalking habit that led me so far astray! I had not a single intention to leave you Sarah, no desire within me to abandon you so cruelly, only my nefarious somnambulance! I know not how to be one forgiven. I journeyed, in that dream, to a land where men slew other men over petty contrivances as if children wold swords. I scolded them from the lofts of our Merry Realm’s idealism, yet I think they understood me not. My wandering dreams oft are strange.”
“Where then?” asked the disgruntled king, “Where then did you wander?”
“Through those realms of dream-like mist I went, as if I drifted through the very clouds. And then I was on snow white cliffs, ever descending, running so far downhill that I expected to emerge beneath the tongue of the sea… yet when next I looked the cliffs had become the steps of a great stone stairway from above the soaring skies.”
“Preposterous,” grimaced the monarch, yet Sarah here sprung to her feet.
“Verily,” she cried. “Great King, it’s true that part of his twisted tale can indeed be verified though it skips substantial meanwhiles. His deed would only have been truly horrific had some misadventure befallen me — yet as should be plain, nothing did. As chance would have it, I was rescued by the inescapably glorious Sir Elisa… and his Sparrow’s heart has entranced me ever since our meeting.”
“I cannot claim all the credit,” said Sir Elisa, “for Meredith and I were led to her campsite by the most secretive Magician of Time. After he led us through the Sylvian Fissure he gave us a strange gift and vanished. He disapore into a brilliant sunbeam… and when he was gone we found Sarah alone in her camp exactly where Yalishamba had just been. Oddities surround that wizard, and I think I shall never fully understand. Yet he holp us in ways he intended and ways he did not, and for that I can muster only gratitude and awe of him. After I met fairest Sarah and encompassed her into our group, she rode before me in my saddle as we plunged as north as we were able to make in the quivering forests of Strathmore. It was rough going, for surely few mapmakers have braved the depths of that place. Yet within those knotted oaks we found a spot that surely any mapmaker would wish to mark: the final wet resting place of Sir Cambrian, that sacred Knight of the Salmon. Yea, and we discovered that same fountain that swallowed King Washing.”
“That spot has been lost for millennia,” disputed a baffled Sir Intuition. “Foolish Sparrow, what made you think you discovered King Washing’s resting place?”
“At first, nothing,” said Sir Elisa. “For, like this Wreath, it has been long forgotten. What we found was a waterfall with no visible river to feed it. It was in a clearing in the ancient Strathmore Forest, and surrounded by a strange seeping mist that caused us to forget our senses.”
“How can a waterfall have no source?”
“You must pretend at patience, for we were likewise baffled by it. Yet when we went to inspect the enthralling location we came under an enchantment and were helpless to resist the undertow of the waters. We were swept against our wills deeper downward, deep within the fountain as surely the doomed Sir Cambrian must have been… and there when we were nestled inside the deepmost places of that thirsty pool, we found ourselves in some strange manifestation of an afterglowing afterlife.” Sarah and Sir Elisa had been gazing into one another’s eyes while he narrated, both remembering shared exhilaration.
Yet, “No afterlife was that,” declared Meredith Emrys, fanning out his blue tattoos, “only a sampling of the realms beyond. We had been swept into the realm of the Fae — a race once worshipped by all this isle. We found ourselves in one of their last refuges, and when we met their Queen she spoke of severing ties to our mortal realm completely. I do not even blame her when I look at what our holy island has become: a mess of stones and towers and crop-fields, and the forests receding all the time to expose the ugly scalp beneath.” The woodsey mystic clutched his tattooed hand to his brow and soothed his real eyes above the painted ones. “What shall become of us?” he lamented. “I suppose it matters not, for we shan’t see the future that manifests when we are no more. It was fortunate we visited her realm, for the Queen aided our quest in a manner indispensable though I could tell she was loathe to grant that aid. Her first gift was to restore the entrance of her realm to its proper state, dissolving the cursed waterfall that drowned Sir Cambrian. When we relinquished her Faerie Realm I knew the location then, for it was indeed the Washing Pool. Quite a symbolic place to stage the death of the creator of knighthood; the place where England’s first ruler once met his own end. Alas for all ancient England as it once was, and alas for my beloved Bendigaidfran!”
A loud cough from Sir L’angoustier interrupted, and with it he spat, “Non! I do not of understanding why waterfall at all?”
“Just one moment, Sir L’angoustier!” said Sir Sallimaide. “For if what they say is true, then it does make sense. Recall the tale that Sir Palamander told us when we travelled through the deserted farmlands. He called the resting place of Sir Cambrian the ‘Pool of Washing.’”
“Hmm, oui. Now you are mention, there is certain resemble. But how can the we be sure it is place the Salmon was kill to death?”
“That,” said mystic Meredith, “is what we are telling you. When we could no longer sustain ourselves in the Faerie Realm, we found ourselves back in that Washing Pool. And dwelling within, to our surprise, we found a living salmon! He was lithe and large, he blushed of orange, and he could speak directly to our minds. He told us that he knew the way to the Silver Spring, long sought by we. It was more than convenience, more than coincidence which brought us together, and we were able to slide the salmon into the mysterious vessel that Yalishamba had granted. That wizard had known that our paths would cross when he gave it us, though how any mortal could know such a thing is beyond me. Into our very brains the Washington Fish projected the way to the sleeping Silver Spring. And so it was that when we arrove at that mystical place to which you sent us, we all met one another. Excepting Sirs Wander-Gogh and Intuition. And the psychic salmon was the key to awakening the Spring into mirrors, and when we passed from that place your knights discovered the stairway to the High Fortress.” The tattooed mystic here could no longer hold back his great yawn, and the spasm of exhaustion wound its way around those present at the table. “O Great King, we are tired all. Shall we not continue this tale on the golden morrow? There is only but the tail-end that remains.”
King Bidgood ran aged fingers through his voluminous beard in thought. “If only the tail remains, let us have it out now. But come, first we shall all settle into my magical baths to work out our tensions and stress. I know that you knights ache and desire rest, yet only this final hardship must you endure. Follow, noble Sirs, to my baths of omen!”
And follow him they did, each shuffling up from his seat and clanking off down the stone hallway. Those who were not knights were permitted to depart — Sarah and the squires retreated down different corridors — yet Meredith Emrys was among those who chose to follow. When all entered the polished marble halls, more night-servants apore to take their armor and hang their clothing. Sir Moodye carried his flower-crown, the Wreath of Reincarnation, and lay it upon a pedestal beside the green swirling baths. Its flowers were already losing their color somewhat. Each knight stretched out when at last they were naked and submerged and free from the weight of their protections. Hot water laved away the tensions they had accumulated, and before very long the alchemical mists had made them dream-eyed and glad in spite of sufferings.
“Please,” boomed King Bidgood, even more regal than before now that he soaked in his natural habitat, “let us have the finale of your tale. Who has left it off? Who shall begin the following segment? From whom have we yet to hear?”
Sir Moodye considered speaking up, yet ultimately decided against it.
“After the Silver Spring was awakened,” said Sir Sallimaide instead, washing the flame-hair of his body in exotic salts, “we clomb that stairway for what seemed like eternities.”
“And I have had and will have dreams about those steps,” said Sir Moodye.
“Dreams of a nightmares!” burbled the Lobster. “Most the painful sleep was of that place, and of impossible to do the sleeping.”
“Even so,” continued the amphibious Sir Sallimaide, his lips now at the surface of the water as he washed his beard, “that ascent proved the only way to reach the fabled Green Gate. The priests remembered you, King, and they were most gracious to us. Yet I suppose this wing of our trek is not worth relating, for we only talked and slept and smoked their Holy Herb. Sir Moodye, what did you accomplish in that place above the clouds?”
The young Whale Knight was thus forced to glance up from the bathwater’s shimmering surface pattern. He remembered his previous bathing experience so long ago, yet so distinct. The refractions upon the surface were more alluring than any sight he otherwise had seen. In the liquid distortions he saw visions of that Green Gate, dreams of black robes and heavy haze. The odor of the pungent plant. Such wisdoms he had grasped in those days, writhing yet surviving in his memory against the scrutiny of consciousness. He said, “They did not direct me, they only set my boundaries. They did not counsel me, only showed me how to discover my own counsel. They did not pour me into their mold, only let me shape myself. The violence of the past was transmuted into peace and even my foulest memories are now only landmarks I have left behind me: spires in the mist.” From beneath the surface of the water Sir Moodye raised his hand so that only the points of his digits crested the surface. Pink islands in the sea of green.
“The priests holp you to find the Wreath?” prompted the king.
Blinking away his reverie, Sir Moodye continued. “I underwent their training, and thus did they welcome me at their ritual to discover that laurel’s location.”
“Yea, and I remember such times. Two or three circles did I attend myself in tutelage there. As you have returned, I shall assume their prophecy contained threads of accuracy. Whence did you next travel?”
“Back down that villainous stair,” complained Sir Sallimaide. “It might have been even longer descending, yet now in our tale comes the scene that Sir Wander-Gogh divulged prematurely. Even hearing his perspective twice would not help me to fathom it, yet he did meet us there, in the sky, on the stairway that passed through the clouds. From the foot of those dread steps, Sir Moodye led the way until we roech a swamp-like forest. And there the Painter of Sendrago, our weathered Knight of the Ram met his mortal end.”
“Who was this knight, this Ram?” asked Bidgood. “Impart his deeds unto me.”
Sir Sallimaide croaked, “Those deeds he likewise related to us. On our travels, that Sir Palamander told of days when he was a young squire, at the end of an age. He was squire to the revered Sir Wenlock, and he saw the Order fall though his sheep’s eyes. Knighted for his secrecy, the Ram spent his remaining days trying to reclaim honor and his faith. And, for his part in journeying with us, he has.”
“Once,” spoke the solemn Hart, “he was renowned in the east for a portrait he did paint of the town of Sendrago as he gave alms away. I was honored to meet him when we crossed, before everything went sour. And alas one thousand times, for… it was I who killed him.”
“No Sir Intuition, lie not so fiercely to yourself!” swore Sir Sallimaide, disturbing the magic water in vehemence. “Bear not that blame! It was the black knight who slew Sir Palamander: an apparition in the shape of his own villain!”
“Nay, it was me,” sighed the Hart. “I am ignorant of how I obtained that form, yet I felt myself transformed after the grief at my father’s departure for fairer realms. After he passed I felt myself possessed by the dark side, and it led to the downfall of my friends just as I was warned it would.” As the Hart ranted on in alchemical fervor and grief, he sank lower into the bath. “Did you know,” he said, “that Pater Obscurus was not even a mute? That was not even his true name! Before his death, he related how disaster and sin struck him long ago: my father changed his name and vowed himself to silence! So many things I did not understand about him. He was my father by misdeed, therefore who was he? In a way, he stole my true father from me… and I turned around and stole Sir Palamander from the world. It was… never my intention…” and the Sir Intuition here choked in grief.
Riled to heartbone’s breaking, the Manta-Ray rose up from the sleepy waters, roaring, “It was not him O King of Dreams! The man who slew the Ram wore stranger’s armor and moved with a stranger’s menace! And furthermore, Sir Palamander slew this other knight in his final breath. Some dark illusion was played that the noble Sir Intuition had no part in: this knowledge I hold in my bones.”
Yet through all this Meredith was silent. He had seen the different armor, different presence — yet now as he soaked in the perfumes of these elegant baths he felt the strong recollection that Sir Hadeon’s aura had been indeed mingled with the Hart’s.
“Very well,” decided King Bidgood at last. “He was a noble knight laid to noble rest. The loss of him shall be mourned through the realm, yet it shall soon fruition again into life. Now comes the part where in forests, deep and wild, as you have said, this ancient laurel was uncovered?” He gestured to the drooping Wreath on its marble pedestal beside them.
“On the way there,” said Meredith, “we found Yalishamba for a brief while. Youngest he was this time of seeing him, and also the most wild. Yet for all his curious appearance and speech he led us through those weaving woods to divulge the resting place of the Wreath. It was a shell, a conch as one might find along the beach. Pure white it was, yet nearly as tall as a church’s steeple.”
“It was beautiful,” said Sir Intuition, seeming to stare at it in the air before him. “Snow white it stood, tall and proud in the slinking forest at dusk. It spiraled up from the mud as if a divine hand hand roech from the sky and twisted the pure purity up from of the land. Such a soaring hope was in me when I saw that place, and just as swiftly did it vanish when we entered the opening. Inside… inside the shell was darkness. Only a dim pool in the ground, with anything of use submerged and inaccessible below. We saw no recourse, and so vowed to return the following day to see if by experimentation we could evoke a change. Yet that day was never to come.”
At last, against all his own loathing, it was Sir Moodye’s turn to speak. He saw ripples extend beyond him, both in the water and with his words, and colors formed where they impacted the ripples sent from others. His speech became patterns of light that he could shape as he related the end of the quest. “When I awoke at midnight, it was different. There was something in the air. It was a strange time of night. I was not dreaming when I woke… yet there are things that I did not relate in my earlier explanation.” His word-light shifted until refractions of the Forest of Swans and Geese could be seen around and penetrating through the knights, mystic, and king. “I saw a ghost in the night woods,” said the Whale of Light, “and it was he who led me to the shell. I swear that I was not dreaming. Indeed there is a hideous truth I have kept from you but I swear that this is not it! The phantom showed me the way to go below the shell and into realms… I know not where. That place was strange. There was nothing, it was nothing, yet still do I feel its energy. It was a calm I’d once known mixed with the terror of the road; it was a sour grape mixed with the many sweet. I am not explaining myself well. Perhaps it was how I found my home in the very struggle to find a home. Be what it may have been, but it has taken my terror all away. All was laid plain, clear and heart-wrenching, if only for that short time. I remember nothing of what was save that, in the end, I found the Wreath. It was in my hand when I left that place; when that place disapore. For the shell did vanish behind me, never more to be in our realm. Every now and again, I find those feelings that I might remember, and they comfort me or ward me from wrong. O but I hunger to have them made plain enough for me to plainly see! This Wreath is nothing by itself, I wish that I could give to you the thing that I felt in the spiral of the world, the mystery that lies just beyond the bounds of speech. I travelled to the end of England all I received was this flimsy loop that seems to have not any effect on man.”
King Bidgood had begun to stand, dripping, and now looked down inscrutably upon Sir Moodye. The wrinkles of his wizened face were too enlivened with light, and his beard flowed as if it were composed of bardic lays. His voice, as it ushered from his throat, was the solid voice of low-thundering reason, grounding and solidifying all around him. “What, Sir Whale, is the lie that you have spoken of? Some hideous hidden truth, you said. If it relates to we, then I must know this thing. What have you pulled over our eyes?”
And the young pretend-knight quailed before the king’s gaze, sinking deeper into the womb-water. “I did not mean to speak of that,” he burbled. “And yet, I did mean to. It is passing true that I have not been truthful.” The Whale peered into the vivid wrinkles of his father figure King Bidgood and painfully could not help but confess. “I might as well be an un-knight, for never was I a proper one in the first place. I ran, I ran from the disgusting Crusade before I ever was knighted, when I was but a squire.” Now that he had started, the entire truth came unraveling from him. “When you sent for me, O Emperor of Dreams, you called me by the name I would have been granted as a knight, and so I could not resist despite my struggles. This quest has holp me to grow, has made my inner ocean strong, has given me the pride to walk with straightened spine… yet all of that is now undone, for never can I be forgiven. Shall I walk the Tchrelma’Montgomery out into the ocean? My lies, at last, have conquered me.” And he sunk entirely below the water’s surface.
Long dreaming minutes Sir Moodye spent below, losing oxygen, clearing his mind of thought as he had done in the cave of the shell. His soot beard and hair flowed about him like sea weeds. He thought he heard the voices of the other knights arguing, but the realms above held no sway below. In the sacred bathwater he was born anew, and met the smile of the Sun of the Dream World when he crested the surface.
King Bidgood spake, “And so we have come to the end of your quest, Sir Moodye. Now at last, have you found redemption from where you sought it. Long ago you had it from your God, then you found it in yourself upon this quest, and now I give it to you as a gift from your fellow man. I am the King of Dreams, and so I rule the dreams of men… if only in their dreams. And now I grant to you, Sir Moodye, all the things of which you have dreamt. I declare,” he boomed in the bath-hall, “that henceforth you shall be known as Sir Moodye in utter earnest, and when the summer arrives we shall throw a proper knighting ceremony. And you, my Knight of the Whale, shall shine before your peers.”
“But why?” asked the bewildered knight, teary-eyed. “Why should you forgive me, why should you pardon my subterfuge after it has been so long a barb at my breast?”
“Because,” spake the Emperor of Dreams, “you are the one who found the Wreath. You were the only who could do it, and you have done it — just as the old man from my dreams prophesied you would. Just as we forgive Saint John’s sins against those he loved in light of the monuments he built, you too shall ever after be remembered sole as the savior of the Wreath! Now, pass it over to me, and I shall wear it for the first.” From the pedestal Sir Moodye took the flower-crown and studied it. This thing was the object of all our adventures, the motivation behind our every breath along the road! If it were valuable to me I might claim it for myself, yet the more I look upon it the more its meaninglessness is apparent. It is little more than a tattered badge for that which I have at dear cost obtained. He handed the Wreath of Reincarnation over to the grand King Bidgood, who removed his crown in favor of the flowering head-dress. All eyes were on their magnificent monarch as the fantasy lights swirled about him with a whirlpool of spirit, and a look of great satisfaction spread across his regal features.
Gazing at the radiant king, Sir Moodye stammered, “Does… O great King Bidgood, does the Wreath of Reincarnation work?”
“How does it look atop my brow?” questioned the Enlightened Emperor. And all of the knights were forced to admit that it did possess a certain fashionable stature, and made known their approval. “Then it functions as it is supposed to do. All is complete, and all is well. If you wish no more to linger in these baths then your rooms await you, take your rests and make for yourselves a home in my castle, and rest and dine all this season, and when the heat of summer arrives we shall hold Sir Moodye’s knighting ceremony in honor of his heroism in receiving this most wise of secrets. To your rests now, you have my leave. To your meditations on this quest, to your satiations go, and let your prayers be with the wise Whale who swam throughout the Merry Land to uncover the mystery that cannot comprehend itself.”
* * *
AND SO IT CAME TO PASS that the dews of spring rolled by like a web of glass beads, and the months were peeled away as a snake sheds skin. So livened were the peasants with wedding preparations that it was as if the knights had travelled across the land to recover festive moods and cheer, instead of the roughshod thing that Sir Moodye grew to detest. The seeds were sown in Bidgood’s fields under Sarah Bellum’s impassioned supervision, and she took care to learn the ways and names of each farmer, singing their praises to King Bidgood that he might hold the handlers of his feasts in greater appreciation. The king himself had the woodsey mystic at his baths often, and the two tripped late into the evenings sharing ripples of synergy. The other knights found relaxation submerged in those chambers sometimes, though they mostly ranged about the hills and scraggled woods from here to those Beverly Farms where Sir Moodye’s quest had begun once upon a dream ago. Argent-and-umber Sir Intuition — between sessions of study with his newfound mentor Luke Jesus Christ — became particularly fond of hunting and his trackings could last weeks at a time, though he took to firing arrows with blunted heads. The others would listen in pleasant laziness as the Sparrow fingered a melody, or scout, or ride, yet on one such expedition Sir Sallimaide discovered a hollow that gave him ominous pause. The Frog swiftly whispered instructions to a goshawk who foetch the errant Hart, and both knights grimaced at the hollow’s repulsive within. Sir Intuition drew his fresh hunting knife and sliced in twain one of the crawling three-foot larvae, pulling the blade away coated entirely in the slime of its lifeblood. Sir Sallimaide drew his sword and too began hacking at the grubs that surrounded the corpse within the cave. When all the larvae were slain and the shallow soil was coated in the fluids of their demise, the duo examined the shredded body of what had once been a knight. They struggled to not avert their eyes, for it was apparent that the freshly dead larvae had germinated within the corpse and from its within had bored. The deceased knight’s back had burst open and black blood soaked his yellow-and-violet Orca heraldry. The Hart said a prayer over the corpse and burned it to ash with all the larvae.
Back in the baths of Bidgood as they tried to wash the memories away, Meredith informed them that certain sinister species of wasp laid their eggs in living creatures for to guarantee the future children a first meal. “Who knows,” said the mystic, “how many men gestate corruptions within them… and by them eventually are overcome.”
The remainder of the knights’ expeditions remained relatively uneventful, though Sir L’angoustier once chased across the moor a band of beautiful women who soon revealed themselves in sooth to be swans.
While the valiant ones were on their adventures, the near-knight of the Whale stayed within the castle’s chapel sitting vigil. No longer did he pray artificially, or beg divinity for favors. Sir Moodye had learned to simply relax his mind and let me manifest, for that is where I always reside. His world is made of me. O, and he has also taken to the castle library, dusty and cobwebbed from ages past when men were more erudite. On those shelves he discovered endless writings, secret histories and theories to keep him scouring pages until the end of his days if ever they come. As a parting gift from me, Sir Moodye accidentally discovered a worn copy of a novel by the Knight of the Trout — which he poured over to the point that the first dozen pages became dislodged. Yea, much of his vigil was steeped in meditation and reading: either in the library, the chapel, or in his private chamber.
As the season bloomed and gave way to summer, swift-growing decorations orchestrated by Sarah blossomed white and innocent across the whole of the keep, and were strewn upon jovial vines across minarets. When at last the castle’s long-awaited day finally dawned, the Whale stood sleepless from where he had knelt all night at his window. The sun was a pale orb that bestowed his glow upon the clouds, and upon the plain rags that the Whale had worn since bestowing his heraldic robes upon confounding Yalishamba. He dragged himself, yawning, down the hall and the stairway until he met with King Bidgood, Meredith Emrys, and Sir Sallimaide in the chapel. No windows were within, and the candelabra provided only a dim blush upon their faces. When he roech the altar, the dun-dressed Whale knelt before the turbaned mystic who began to chant while anointing his friend’s kneeling form with ceremonial oils.
And the Monarch of Dreams spake unto him, “You were a boy when you departed. You wriggled as a bare-faced worm. You are a man now that you have returned, your beard and butterfly-wings vibrant with chivalry. Through me, this priest, and this fellow knight, we dub you in truth: Sir Moodye, the Knight of the Whale! Let you be he forever after, for all this Cycle and every that should follow!” The three in attendance gave cheer, and Sir Moodye speechlessly rose and embraced them. It had been all he had wished for during the loathsome years of bloodshed — yet on certain occasions after this day, when there was no moon and he was sealed within the library, he would reminisce about days when there had been true adventure. King Bidgood led them then from the chapel and through the halls of his lavish palace until they roech the throne-room: rows of seats and a wide audience was packed within. Sir Moodye and Sir Sallimaide settled in among their companions while King Bidgood strode up the ornate stairs to his regal dais. Just before the altar stood Sarah Bellum and Sir Elisa beaming together. Sarah’s samite gown evoked a white swan, and Sir Elisa’s noble robe was purest gold with a minimalistic motif of cerulean sparrows. They both were so radiant as to make the dawn jealous.
“We are gathered here this day,” King Bidgood boomed to his audience, “for to join these two young souls with the vestments of loving fertility. Joyful are they now, rejoicing in one another. Though times shall falter and fates grow dim, these two shall grow not dim when they think on each other as pillars of support. Let intangible ivy grow thick to bind them together and also hold them the most comfortable distance apart. May love bloom between them as flowers, over and over, to be trusted and relied upon with the certainty of spring. Wear you both this cloak of love and when you become seperated by mortality may it become a shroud for burial. Let bonds of devotion now crescendo across spectra of emotion — and let these lovers unite.” Thus before the crown and the crowd Sir Elisa’s lady removed her veil, defenseless, yet piercing the Sparrow still. And both broke out into song in that wide hall, the notes of their mingled voices cascading around the ensemble.
They say we are young and do not know:
We shan’t find out until we grow.
I know not if that is true,
Yet you have me and I have you.
Love:
I have you, love,
I have you, love.
They say our love is base and bent,
And before we earn, our love it is spent.
It’s true we do not own a lot
Yet I am sure of what we’ve got:
Love:
I have you, love,
I have you, love.
I have flowers in the spring
And you now wear my ring,
When I’m sad you slay my frown
And if I’m scared you’re always around
So let them say we sing too long
O with you I shan’t be wrong.
So put your little hand in mine
No mountain stands that we cannot climb.
Love,
I have you, love,
I have you, love.
Now you hold my hand
Now you understand
Now you walk with me
Now you talk with me
Now you kiss me good-night
Now you hold me tight
I have you, I shan’t let go
I have you, and you love me so.
I have you, love,
I have you, love,
I have my, love,
My love…
And their mouths then found one another, and as they swallowed their song at both ends their oath was signed by that kiss and the wave-crash of applause. With the sacred pact finalized, everyone swept to the festival dinner where the servants bore a train of delicacies. Sir Moodye, who had not eaten since a day and a night before his knighting, gave in to his hunger and heartily supped, though found himself drawn to breakfast cereals such as he had eaten on the road. The festivities, the dances and the feasting, and the endless epic songs that Sir Elisa composed and performed for his bride; the holiday extended for near seven settings of the sun though the guests slowly began to filter out by the third nightfall. On the final day of the celebration Sarah and her Sparrow announced their intention to see the realms beyond the turbulent ocean — and soon thereafter with Sir Beanford they rode off along the Tchrelma’Montgomery as a flurry of white petals drifted in King Bidgood’s courtyard.
Some knights stayed on in the palace, wandering on brief adventures through the summer, yet some took their leave for further game or homelands. The Knight of the Lobster professed his homesick love for France, and soon was gone with ‘filthy English wine’ for the road. Sir Wander-Gogh left for Germantowne when the wedding-feast was half over, yet found himself swiftly lost and had returned for the joyous remainder before departing in earnest. When the Manta-Ray and the Lobster sallied forth across the seas on that ancient highway they each gave heartfelt farewells to their fellow knights, as did Sir Intuition and Meredith Emrys when they set out together to roam the Merry Land mediating disputes and correcting injustices. Eventually Sir Sallimaide said too his fond farewells and, inspired by Sarah’s treatment of the keep’s peasants, took Tinkersnow on a pilgrimage of farmlands hoping to enrich the lives of the common english laborers who bore on their backs all their island’s inhabitants. And Sir Moodye, who had shaved his face clean again following the departure of his friends, was left to the dim library that King Bidgood never touched — with only candles and the words of long-dead wise men to keep him company. The Wreath of Reincarnation he had obtained at dear cost sometimes adorned his brow, yet had grown ever more withered since its arrival at the castle. When the last of its brown blossoms crumbled away into dust, the Whale began to feel a shiftless yearning in his bones. I cannot stay cramped forever, he thought, gazing at the laurel’s withered remains. Even if I learn all there is to know — even if I learn the purpose of this somehow sacred Wreath — if I do not channel my energy into a task then I may as well be lifeless. At first he sought to escape inner turmoil by poring his focus into perfecting his knowledge of the history of Britain and the island’s twisted past, yet he found this research too dry and stifling. He then attempted to pen a testimony of all he had despised about the war in Nahm, only to discover that reliving those old grievances in such a way soured his mood. And yea, after a time he came to realize that the new generation of knights would know nothing about the Crusade and thus even that powerful symbol would have no meaning for them. Thus, inevitable as I knew it was, he retreated back to his chamber and set about the only task undone; the only option left to him now. Nervously but with purpose he took up his parchment, quill, and memory, he settled down at his desk, and together we wrote this book.
cvi dono lepidvm novvm libellvm arida modo pumice expolitvm?
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