*
IX
Sarah Bellum and the knights departed from her castle that morning. Theirs had been a cheery banquet of reunion, during which Sir Carboniferous made known his heart’s desire to travel this newfangled Merry Land with his granddaughter by his side. Sarah’s portly father was the son of the Knight of the Fern but no knight himself, and he was reluctant to let her travel into the world with strangers. During wine and dinner however, the elderly Fern spoke aside to his son, whispering that his time within this Cycle drew near its end. Thus did Sarah’s father agree to the journey, and he blessed them. When the knights therefore set out on the morrow they were joined by the two newcomers who shared their high spirits with all. All, that is, except for sullen Sir Sallimaide. His strange weariness from the swamp had not passed, and his head felt nearly heavier than his helm. The heat of the summer’s day beat upon him most oppressively, cooking his flush armored flesh.
Sarah in her white gown rode with Sir Wander-Gogh upon the rear of his saddle, and it was a good thing too, for the Manta-Ray was a poor leader and depended constantly upon the maiden’s guidance lest he should lead their caravan astray. At first, she imagined his ignorance to be some form of subtle humor that she could not quite grasp. Surely one who had travelled from distant Germantowne would be able to tell which path lead north. Yet the maiden soon came to know that the Manta’s directionlessness was no act. Sir Wander-Gogh had now come so much to rely upon her judgement that with every fork they roech he would query Sarah for the proper course. From thinking him valiant, she now began to consider him rather mad.
They rode along a crystal fishing-river where the ripples sparkled with glints of the sun. Long branches drope and wove with zephyrous compulsion. Green and blonde grass, green and blonde leaves, blue and blue water. The decaying Fern Knight marveled at all he saw with wrinkled eyes of wonder, and was spellbound by the vibrancy of the world that had grown from the flame-scarred fields of the diabolic Crusade he once had supported. The Fern’s revitalized delight roamed over all of the animals and plants that they passed, and he claimed that the creatures of the Dark Age had far simpler and less well adapted than these that he saw. He was delighted to see how generations had changed the form of the kingfisher as it watched the water, and he marvelled at each the shape of each coiled adder in the brambles as the day neared its zenith. He felt his nightmares and shames melt away beneath the summer’s sun.
As they galloped over a hillock, the orange-and-azure Lobster Knight turned in his saddle to face the old man seated giraffe-back behind him. “So you have was in the War?” the french knight asked.
“I was a commander once, yea, and once I even commanded men.”
“Is of how many mans was your army?”
Sighing beneath his mossy hair and seaweed beard the Fern said, “Too many. And for too long. It all was too much, too much.”
“You are the not so good at having answering mine questions.”
“Alas, Lobster,” grumbled Sir Carboniferous. “I would rather not remember those ever-echoing misdeeds of mine.”
Plodding next to Anabelle’s gallop came the footfalls of weary Sir Sallimaide’s giraffe Corwindel. The Frog’s shimmering helm was in a slump, but he croaked to them, “I heard that you deserted, O Sir Carboniferous of renown. Is it true that you relinquished the death jungles of tragic Nahm? I would not blame you.”
Raising his phlegmy voice over the giraffes’ hooves, the Fern called, “And yet I did nothing at the Crusade’s inception. I did nothing to prevent it. So foolish was I, so young, that I imagined it was for the good of all. I hearkened to that razor-tongued Eel Knight, and I laid my honor at the feet of that Knight of No Thing who ushered in the Dark Age. I am as much to blame as the most blood-thirsty of mercenaries.”
“Yet hark—”
“No!” coughed Sir Carboniferous. “No more shall I dwell on the life that once I knew. No more memories of failure. Tell, one of you, how that Nahmenese conflict came to be solved?” His dark eyes passed back and forth between their glinting helmets, as Sarah bickered with the Manta-Ray ahead.
“Of course,” sighed the Frog Knight, “if you sunk beneath those foul waters during the Crusade’s zenith, then you would know nothing of the Summit of Peace. It’s true. In the final days of the Dark Age, following the Church’s decision to send vast reinforcements to Nahm on a day meant for holiness, all England’s wisest sages began a pilgrimage to Mount Woodstock.” Here Sir Sallimaide paused a moment to unclasp and remove his helm. He grunted deeply as he pulled it off, baring his sweat-drenched face.
The Lobster laughed, “O how looks a Frog? How feels a Froggy Knight?”
“I am not well,” he said. “Yet it is of no matter. I shall speak further.”
“I shall not press you, Knight of the Frog,” said Sir Carboniferous, “yet my curiosity overflows about this Summit of Peace. What rite was performed by these wise men?”
“I was not there to see it, but the tales speak of days filled with music and sacred poetry. The virtues of that obscure Meta-Testement were extolled to all and sundry, and by the love of that gathering was the capital city of London sealed forever. I wish that more was known to me, yet scattered are the wise men who sealed the city with love, and the mountain now is barren and cold.”
“Sealed? The whole of our London? And what has become of the other council knights? My friends? My home?”
“Alas,” said the Frog wiping perspiration from his brow, “few or none know that answer. The Knightly Order vanished completely when the city was sealed. Nothing is known of any of the knights, not since the inception of the Dreaming Age has anyone set foot within that place. Yet they tell stories of Sir Hadeon still brooding, waiting, within his golden Castle Tralfamadore.”
Sir Carboniferous half sobbed, half coughed, “O how I should like to uncover that elusive answer… yet I feel that I shall not.” In spite of his interest and wonder in the newborn Merry Land, he felt his fortitude fading fast. “Forgive me, sirs, but I wish to have words with my Granddaughter. Sir L’angoustier, will you ride closer to her?”
The age-old knight knew that the years of sleep had destroyed his body, and though the swamp had preserved him and kept his consciousness alive, the time was approaching for him to relinquish his humanity at long last. The Knight of the Fern belonged to an obsolete time, and this limited resurrection was the final blessing he needed before he could sleep the true sleep. He knew this as fervently as he knew his own bones.
As Anabelle came alongside Sarah on Sir Wander-Gogh’s umber-and-vert giraffe, the Fern inhaled sweet air from the Merry Land he so loved, stealing sweet breaths from the future to steel him as he spoke to her. His marshy voice was as tangled as river-roots when he said, “My dear Granddaughter, and my friends of this new knighthood who have rescued me from my sleep, I am so sorry to inform you that in time I must again decay away in truth. Though envigored I am become by my waking, my body feels each jostle of the road over-keenly and my long preserved strength drains every movement I make. I am sorry, yet I know not how long I may persevere. It is not my wish to burden such gallant companions, yet I would wish for shelter and rest to guide me into my next life.”
“What?” exclaimed Sarah. Her azure eyes widened in dewy disbelief. “Nay, Grandsire, surely you speak false. No doubt have I that there is some hidden strength in you: the will to carry on! Continue with us and see the world! This whole new world for you!” Her fingers nervously knit her waterfall of dark hair.
“My dear,” said the ancient knight, “this Merry Land is beautiful, and I do wish for you to enjoy it. Yet you must explore it without me, for I am not long for continued breath. Your hope surprises me not, and lightens my heart, though I know it does not stem from your beliefs. Let yourself understand that I must pass. I cannot stay. This is the way of things. I pass now, and you shall later be passing. Now it is I who pass, soon it shall be the whole Cycle. It is done; it only has yet to transpire. You must let me go from your heart, my child.”
“Nay, alas… how can I have been granted you only to be forced to lose you again — all before coming to know you?”
“I am so sorry, dear Sarah Bellum, my progeny. Such tragedies are sometimes the way that our Cycle revolves. It continues to turn and so must we. I have been honored with this glimpse of the future, this insight into revolutions far beyond my home time. I bless you for your love, Granddaughter, yet deny me no more. I am dying.”
“What shelter is near here?” questioned Sir Wander-Gogh gruffly to dissuade Sarah’s tears, and his own. “We must seek some out, for the sake of esteemed Sir Carboniferous.”
As they crested the next hill there rose from the plains beyond what seemed to be a great many standing stones atop a rise. The troupe began to head in that direction, and when Sir Wander-Gogh peered through his knight’s kaleidoscope he saw that the stones were in fact the over-grown marble of Roman ruins, and the knights did know it. This place had once been a bastion of wisdom and learning, known as Georgetowne, yet an unknown quarrel had destroyed it in days lost to memory. Thus had it sat abandoned for many an age.
“It is no village,” said Sarah, “yet we have little choice, it shall have to suffice.” Old Georgetowne had been built on raised land and a serpentine ramp carved into the earth was the only approach — it had been designed for easy defense but the strategy had not served well when the time had come for the city to pass. Its ruins mirrored the barely-visible sea-spanning highway that towered in the distance. The once-great iron gate of Georgetowne clasped the time-scoured walls closed, yet the lock set by Romans had long rusted off. Sir L’angoustier poked the gateway lightly with the end of his lance and it swung open, shrieking.
Riding slowly down the silent roads, it seemed that every building had collapsed or at least been severely damaged. Vines and moss entwined nearly every inch of the marble masonry. Thick clouds swirled above them as a blanket blotting out the eye of day: it would rain before long. Fortunately the knights found a stable for the weary giraffes near the gate, though run-down it was proved functional once the Manta-Ray and the Lobster had set it in order. Apart from the stables, it seemed that the only building wearing a roof was the abandoned abbey that lay at the highest point on the hill, watching over the city. The movement of their armors echoed through the ghost-town until they came to the set of the abbey’s great wooden doors, nearly rotted through.
Within, the abbey was silent and housed an air of, if not holiness, then certainly some intangible presence. The ceiling rose high above them and was shrouded in perpetual shadow untouched by the light that poured in from the great stained glass window atop the altar. This window, however, was broken in several places and the gaps in her colored panes speckled the air with lines of light that hung like harp strings in the darkness and dust.
While the knights lay their supplies and belongings on the floor in preparation for staying the night, Sir Sallimaide unrolled his sleeping-mat beneath the hues that the prismatic window spilled upon the floor. He felt despondent: as faithless as a man who is unable to prevent a hermit’s solitary suicide. The light through the stained glass showed it to be early evening, yet the Frog surprised them all by ordering his squire to remove his armor. He said, “Do as you wish, fair friends, but I must retire here for a time. A great unwellness weighs me down within.”
Sarah, with a quizzical look in her gemstone irises, placed her hand upon his brow and decided, “He is too warm.”
“Oui oui, you must be ill from a swamp water, O little Froggy!” giggled Sir L’angoustier.
Sir Sallimaide stretched himself down on his bedroll too tired to care about meaningless insults, but Sarah snapped at the Lobster, “What do you mean? What swamp water?”
“O ho ho! Well! A Sir Sallimaide had fallen down the waters of your swamp in yesterday! Oui madame, and he has not told of you because such an embarrass!”
The maiden grew concerned, and after Hadely had removed the rest of the Frog’s armor she holp lay him to bed and sent him off into the still waters of dreamless sleep. The miserable Frog immediately began drifting in and out of consciousness in his strange rest, and the world was perceived through a veil of dream-logic as it filtered into his mind. Once, in a spell of half-wakefulness, he recognized the aged Sir Carboniferous lying beside him making involuntary grunting and wheezing noises in his slumber. Too, the chirping of two little birds echoed from somewhere in the obscured ceiling of the abbey, and from their tones the Frog knew them to be cardinals. As he floated on the shore of sleep, the fragments of bird-song played upon his feverishly dreaming brain and their stories constructed themselves as he worked through the worst of his illness.
The Tale of the Cardinals of Old Georgetowne Abbey
There were two little cardinals who lived in the Old Georgetowne Abbey. Ain’jub had beautiful red plumage, and his cousin Inush was yellow. In times long gone, both cardinals lived in nests with their mothers and fathers and friends, yet circumstances had forced these two birds each to abandon their homes to seek life and deeper understanding elsewhere in the wideness of the world.
Ain’jub had overcome many struggles with ease in his time at home, mastering various arts and deeds with precision and skill. Inush, on the other hand, proceeded in nearly childlike wonder at his misfortunes, oblivious to the effects that acted in triggering consequence. Inush was seen by all to be a fool, and the cleverness of Ain’jub was well known.
The travels of these birds brought them together, and Ain’jub had nested with Inush for many moons due to the safety brought in numbers in the perilous wilderness. It had been long ago that the cardinals came to roost within this abbey, farther back than either could recall, for the memory of such creatures is weak indeed. Upon their arrival, Ain’jub claimed the best nesting spot, high atop the lone stained glass window
that let its mulled red light into the room through the haze of Sir Sallimaide’s sloth and illness. Sarah forced a bowl to his lips of steaming liquid. “Drink this,” she said superfluously. It tasted of warm mud and roots, but he swallowed it, coughing only a little. The concoction slunk inside of him and settled like guilt.
Clanking loudly in the echoing chapel Sir L’angoustier practically shouted, “How is the him what doing?”
Sarah frowned and sighed, “It is too early to tell. If his fever breaks he will be alright, but if not…” The Frog’s tired eyes closed and he saw the darkness
where Inush was forced to live. Across from his cousin Ain’jub, there was no light in the yellow cardinal’s corner of the cathedral. Ain’jub had explained to Inush many times how he, being the more clever of the two, deserved the greater nest.
So it was with grudging acceptance that Inush took to the sightless corner. Though he tried to believe in the justice of the situation, it made him bitter and jealous, and he brooded in his time in the dark. “If I were to roost at the top of the great window,” thought the yellow-feathered Inush, “I should have everything I need in life. I am suffering now, this corner is passing poor for me, yet if I might posses the location that fair Ain’jub has claimed, then I should be the lord of all I saw, and wiseness would flop from me like a holy font. Aha. And that is soothly what I want.” And he shook his little tail-feathers in frustration. But in this, the darkness was his cloak and it obscured these thoughts and deeds from his illuminated fire-hued cousin. Ain’jub in the sunshine knew that all was well.
Inush was left to brood in the darkness with his surly moods for so long that his fowl thoughts prompted him to act. At last the opportunity had come, for that very night there began to brew a malevolent storm. It shook the trees outside the cathedral, and called down the rumbling clouds. There was a brilliant
flash of lightning through the window! It interrupted Sarah, who had been murmuring something to umber-and-vert Sir Wander-Gogh. Thunder reverberated through the rain falling ponderous and elastic outside of the church. The Frog, sweat dripping, looked at her with thrice-dreaming eyes as she unknowingly continued to whisper, “It seems as if he is falling apart, I can’t believe it is happening! I hope he shall live until the dawn, but those hopes are a delusion. These herbs I plucked will do nothing for him anymore: it’s as if his body is withering up. Though, how has he managed to hold on for even this long is a blessing — his body is so old that his every movement is a miracle.”
“All those years in the swamp preserved him, but it could not have been healthy,” said the Manta-Ray over the downpour.
“Sacre bleu! These and birds of tweeting are drive me insane!” moaned Sir L’angoustier. For Ain’jub and Inush had been openly quarrelsome since the thunder’s burst.
“What has caused these sentiments, my cousin?” shouted Ain’jub as the yellow bird flew at him. “Have you illness, that you wish harm to one such as I? Have I not looked after you in your need?”
“You can not be my cousin, Ain’jub, for you have stolen that which is precious to me! While you had the glory of your radiant nesting spot I was left to rot in the darkness! Wherefore do you imagine your worth greater than my own?”
Ain’jub was full of surprise as his friend flet about madly, seemingly calling down the fury of the storm with the will of his wrath. Ain’jub tried to think back to when they had arriven. He twittered “Inush, wherefore do you call your position bad? What is your complaint with the situation? I know you as the less competent of our pair, and so my faculties warrant this position of might!”
“I am ignorant? I am the fool? Long has been our journey, ‘cousin,’ and far has been my growth! With these wings and with these talons I shall show you the least competent of ourselves! Come O Ain’jub, let us see if your insides are of as brilliant hue as your out!”
And as the maelstrom raged on, so too did the violence of those birds who had once been the best of companions and the closest of friends. They swope and flew all about the high ceiling, with Ain’jub fleeing and defending, and with the enraged Inush in swift pursuit. Whenever the yellow bird gained sufficient proximity to the red, he would rake out with his tiny talons, tearing feathers and flesh. Ain’jub was forced to attack as well, to free himself from his crazed cousin. They battled in this way for countless flashes of lightning and innumerable roars of the mighty thunder, until everything that existed became blackness.
In the pale morning, a beam of brilliance shone across the face of the Frog, drawing him to reluctant wakefulness.
Sarah was sitting alongside him, and when she saw his eyelids flicker she sweetly said, “Welcome to wakefulness Sir Sallimaide. How do you fare?”
Blinking, he weakly responded, “Can not you tell me?”
The angelic damsel smiled and said, “Yea, and you fare well enough. Your fever has broken at last. You need more rest, and when you are well enough to eat you shall do so. Sleep now, O Knight of the Frog.”
When the storm had blown by, the two little birds were bloodied and exhausted to immobility atop the great stained glass window.
Too tired to fight any longer, Ain’jub twittered, “Let our quarrel be ended, for it is a frivolous thing. The wise do not fight in the flesh, for they know that the mind is the true battlefield. Inush, I am done. Take from me what you will.”
Yet to his surprise, Inush while catching his breath said, “I shall take what I will, but that thing is no longer your position. I wish only for our continued brotherhood, Ain’jub! I know not what caused me to act in that manner and now that I have, I regret it most deeply. In the acquisition of this grand throne it has become distasteful to me, for I bought it with my cousin’s blood. I have frivolously laid a grievous hurt upon you. Shall I ever be a bird forgiven?”
And “Indeed you shall,” said Ain’jub.
“The cause of our quarrel no longer can I fathom, my cousin. Why even do we remain in this place? It has been ages since we have stretched our stifled wings in the sun! Let us go when we have rested, let us soar through the skies in search of more learning — I am eager to uncover some newness in this world!”
And so it was that his red cousin cried, “Inush! O Inush, it gladdens me to hear sweet speech of this kind. And now I must apologize to you, for in my position of might here I was deaf to your own concerns and worries, drawn up into the vain cloak of mine own glory. In soothest sooth, I knew not why we remained and it was not until you spoke those very words you just have uttered that I recalled our greater quest to see the wideness of the world! You are ignorant no longer, Inush, for in the well of your foolishness you have discovered grandest wisdom. All that I imagined I knew needs must be reconsidered in this newest light, and the light of the sun which guides our travels. Lead on, O cousin mine! Lead on, Inush!”
And when the day’s heat grew greatest Sir Carboniferous passed from this reality: a fern off to find new soil beyond this iteration of the Cycle. And when cool night fell again on the marble ruins, a recovered Sir Sallimaide rose from his weariness recalling only remnants of his avian reverie, and on the following morning of the waning summer Sarah Bellum and her three remaining knights departed those illegible ruins of the Old Georgetowne Abbey.