*
V
Winds harshly swept a desolate mountain, clawing at the ragged vegetation and driving animals to safer locales. The clouds hung dark in the sky, full of storm. Against the rocky outcroppings, seeking what shelter they could, came two slow riders upon a single forlorn giraffe. Their going was arduous that dusk, for not only were they were forced to brace themselves behind any obstacle that gave shelter from the tortured winds, but the pair had been for miles on the back of their exhausted steed riding, driven since before even spotting this range that peaked below the pregnant clouds. Though this was once a holy site, no sign of man could be seen. All was sparse, chill, and barren. The one behind the rider slouched inside long black robes and seemed barely able to remain in the saddle, wrapping his feeble arms around the knight dressed in muddied regalia of argent-and-umber. Shrieking past the openings of the knight’s helmet, the breath of the mountain spoke to his mind and whistled meanings that were both concealed and well-known. He goaded his giraffe on wearily past the myriad rocks and crags when — from just the barest clearing of dust and debris borne on the bluster — he spotted a cave just there, on the ridge, and directed the haggard mount towards it.
Thickly tangled roots long since deceased grew over the mouth of the cave, hiding and protecting the interior from storm-winds. The duo dismounted, and the knight pulled aside the roots with his engraved gauntlet. The hollow was just barely room enough for the two of them and the giraffe, though as shelter from the imminent maelstrom it was insulated and would suffice. They thankfully swept into the dim cave letting the sheltering roots down behind them, extinguishing the little remaining sunlight so that the walls of the hollow were just guidelines in their minds. Outside, the wind sobbed of all its losses and misfortunes to the cold mountain’s shoulder. Their exhausted giraffe curled up beside an earthen wall to sleep, and the old man in his raven robes and bandages reclined against the weary still-saddled beast.
The Knight of the Hart raised his visor, distantly saying, “Not long before the storm hits. We needs must have fire-wood.” His breathing was heavy, weak from exertion and exhaustion. “Doesn’t it look so different since last we came to this peak?” Sweat froze on his face and on the tips of his mustache yet with the remaining embers of his will he forced himself out of the cave for his father’s sake, past the hanging roots and back into the furious gale.
There was no motivation for thought as he gathered strewn branches. The dry boughs offered as much conversation as Sir Intuition had engaged in since departing Darnestowne, for no englishman else had they encountered in all the lonely countryside, and Pater Obscurus was as mute as each twig collected. The Hart labored steady and solemn as if the sticks were mourners he was gathering for a funeral. The noise of the coming storm was there, in his helmet and in his head, yet if there was knowledge in his mind of things beyond fire-wood he did not show it. The din of whipping winds caused it to seem as if all the world was upset with him: shrieking and blaming and making him feel as if he were the sole culprit for all his own misfortunes. I thought I might find redemption here on this holy mountain… yet far it has fallen since the Summit of Peace. Not even one hospitable cloud do I see, not even one amicable mote of earth. In the haze of memory I still can see that one masterful musician who was consumed by fire — alas at the sorry state of this miserable mountain that he consecrated! Values may drive ambition, yet are not always able to bear the cost. Have my own ambitions betrayed my values? Have I fallen beneath the honor of a knight? Was it my hand that slew the prophet I sought to protect? He had given up wondering such futilities, yet the burden remained. As dusken clouds blotted out the surely-rising moon, the full gravity of that infertile Mount Woodstock weighed down his heart.
A peal of thunder smote the sky and slowly, slowly, the first frozen flakes began to flutter like so much aimless milkweed. Time ceased to pass for Sir Intuition that evening as the snow began to fall around him, yet before he knew it his arms were piled with kindling. Trekking back encumbered to the over-grown mouth of the cave some unsavory sense called to him from the whispering snowfall, and he felt ill to his very pit. There is a whiff of sterile decay in the air, he thought, or else it is one of those strange faeries who call their grievances at the witching hour. In this desolate place it would surprise me not. He tightened straps of his armor, sweating, and his hand went to his scabbard though he knew not why. He fondled his hilt nervously as he snuck forward through the falling snow.
He was near enough to see the sheltering roots of his cave on the ridge when from those roots erupted with terrible swiftness a giraffe — his own giraffe! Atop the steed adorned with argent-and-umber Hart livery there rode a stranger knight stealing her into the evening snow! Sir Intuition let fall the sticks and bellowed, but the wind stole his voice and swallowed it up. As he gave vain chase his furious heels swore against the snow. The haggard thief rode the steed ahead with fell galloping ferocity. Through the frozen downpour Sir Intuition helplessly scrutinized the retreating form as he charged after it, yet there was no thing of use to discern: the thief’s knightly regalia were tattered and frayed, weary and road-worn, and the symbols of an animal that might have identified him were too taken by the hungry night. The Hart could perceive only vague colors, yellow-and-violet perhaps, and he knew not that livery. Woe! he thought, and bellowed once more sinking to his knees in the accumulation as the yellow-and-violet knight disapore beyond the hoary haze. What misfortune hounds my every exhale! O I was but gone for the rising of the moon, and my possessions are robbed? And in such perfect isolation: this lone lunatic mountain! O most inhospitable of holy places! I should be either mad or damned were I not cursed with both. Woe! For what all-knowing God would subject a man to such? He simply stood frozen as alabaster blankets built up around him. His hot breath cascaded as he stared at the disappearing form of his steed and supplies in the frozen downpour.
Flame instantly rent the sky and thunder’s roaring chant followed — their pomp surprised Sir Intuition from his reverie of remorse, and with haste he recalled the forgotten and far more piercing danger. The lightning had bestowed a terrible vision of what awaited back in his cave. Terror woke his muscles and in the wake of another thunderclap he sprinted past the point of exhaustion back to the hollow.
Sir Intuition’s cloak brushed the roots as he entered with the falling frost. At first it was dark enough that he doubted, but then he saw sooth. All had come about as he feared. Pater Obscurus lay sprawled on the ground unmoving and bloodied, and yet when Sir Intuition flew to his father’s side he disturbed layers of dust upon the ground that inspired three loud coughs from the masked elder. Dark blood trickled from beneath the raven’s beak. Sir Intuition let fall the helmet from his head, sweaty face twisting in concern as he cradled his father in his arms to recline him against the stone wall.
“My son…” wheezed Pater Obscurus between great gasping breaths.
“Don’t speak, father.” said Sir Intuition. Then, he double took. “…Father?”
“I am dying… I can feel it. Great wounds are upon me… and I cannot remain afloat. It is important I break my vow of silence now, at the end. I have much to tell you, and perhaps… just enough… time.”
“Your what, father? Your vow of silence?”
“Yea, for my sins,” rasped Pater Obscurus. “But first, my son… help me to take this mask off. I would look on you with my own eyes… one last time.” Shaking, Sir Intuition carefully wrapped his fingers around the edges of the raven and pulled off the mask — uncovering his father’s true face. Familiar to the son, it was pale and horribly scarred with the burdens of years, with eyes wide as ancient seas of life, and so deep. “Stoke the fire… my child. I swore these secrets to the grave, yet always I meant them… for you. Learn, in your Cycle, from my… failings. And when I… have finished my story by the fireside… you must relinquish my body to… the flames. Now hark, my son.”
The Tale of Captain Aureleus and the Left Hand
“In days beyond the spans that men recall, when our world was all ocean but for speckles of islands, I sailed upon a ship of exiled wanderers. In those days of infant knowledge it was believed that a man’s right hand blessed him with power, and that his left hand was the source of ill-omen and weakness. So it came to pass that in order to improve the lives of the dextrous, my crew and I and many others were cast from our island of Mother Greece and left to stray upon the endless uncharted waters.
“One day, after years of embittered sailing with nary a sandbar in sight, our lookout spotted a strange land. We came to rest within its perfect harbor where we saw sands of blue by the light of the brilliant blaze rising through mist into the sky. O, I remember that place as being so intriguingly hazy, as if I had viewed it through a refracting diamond. There were three of us that day who disembarked to scout the strange island, and of them I was the youngest. The eldest was a holy man whose pupil I was, Obi Wan Jesus Christ, and we two were lead by the headstrong chieftain of our band known as Captain Aureleus.
“We strode on the sparkling cerulean sand and strewn shells until there, at the edge of the beach, we discovered certain sands that had melted once and had reformed. A glass staircase ascended into the air, casting barely a shadow and connecting at its height to a suspended stone walkway above it. This was all connected forsooth to a much larger structure invisible from the eyes of our ship; all the peoples of that forgotten land lived in their stone city suspended above the natural terrains of their isle. However, neither Captain Aureleus nor Obi Wan nor I clomb the glass stair that day.
“O! Memories burn after long years of neglect, yet from the thin morning air then apore before us two women of beauty surpassing all I have known in my ageless life. Still do I recall their unearthly faces. There was a girl of snowy hair with a flowercrown of daffodils, and O, her name from ancient days tastes sweet on my lips: Mixolydia! The other woman had hair darker than the spaces between the stars at night and I came to know her mind well, yea, and she called herself Locria. We knew it not, yet those two enchantresses were destined to grant us limitless power… and a limitless curse. Some years I curse Locria for her role to me, yet making peace is a part of my penance.
“As welcome as their comely faces were to our weary exile’s eyes, their words were callous. This was an island of sea-witches, they said, and men had been long forbidden. They wore no malice upon their faces, yet their voices were adamant and bade us return to our ship. Yet it was Aureleus, our own great and terrible Aureleus who unsheathed his mighty tongue, saying that we had been at sea for ages and that our souls were drowning and our bodies wasted into mere carrion. And of course he mentioned our left-handedness to them, to show that we were not typical men. These enchantresses were stubborn, yet never met I a soul who could resist the power of the captain’s awesome charisma. We stood not long at the foot of the glass steps before the lofty women reluctantly agreed to speak to their queen on Aureleus’ behalf. They departed like wisps of mist, promising to meet with us at dawn. So we returned to our ship.
“The men who had stayed behind were afraid. They said that there had been a bad omen in the hills — I remember our auger Phinaleaus claimed that he had seen a nest of goslings devoured by a great owl, a clear portent of evil for us. Yet when Captain Aureleus stood forward and spoke of our explorations and the words he used to sway the women of the isle, there was much cheering and Phinaleaus was left alone to his doom-saying. All but he celebrated the night away, gambling bones and playing sailor’s games, listening to the honeyed flute of he who could play. Our spirits were galvanized by the sturdy ground beneath our feet at last and by the words of our beloved Aureleus. All admired him, and aboard our ship we believed him immortal.”
In the cave’s dim flickering firelight, while the snowstorm bellowed without, the Knight of the Hart held his father’s hand. Age-old scars on Pater Obscurus’ tattered face winced with the fold of each syllable of his story, and at every bloody word his breath grew fainter. Eager to know the entirety of his new-found father’s final epilogue, the Hart asked, “Who was this Captain Aureleus, someone who could inspire fervor in as great a man as you?”
“The Captain… He was a foul friend if ever I named him, to be sure… yet now that I think on him it has been ages since last I… pictured his face. He was a determined man… forward thinking and bull-headed. He had such a… powerful charismatic aura… that people were sucked into him as celestial bodies… into the farthest holes… of blackness. And yea, Aureleus used his powers not always for good. He was a thunderstorm to labor under… every day on the ship he belittled and goaded us… in order to extract our best efforts… he was hell-browed and bent on either our success or our destruction… indifferent… as to which. O Captain Aureleus… he brought about his own… destruction. And yet, my son… there is much left to be uncovered. Do not… interrupt me… a second time.
“It was still dark when an oarsman woke me that dawn. There were torches, and we outcasts went to await sunrise upon the foot of the sea-witches’ glass stair. Enchanted maidens each as beautiful as the surf slowly revealed themselves unto our crew as the stars died, and when the sun finally rose we saw it to be shining not from the sky — no! It rose before our very eyes, descending the glass steps slowly and with unnatural grace. Her body was like a snow-white serpent, and a light ivory gown clung to her that flared with a rainbow’s hues. Unearthly Mixolydia, plain by comparison, called out to us, ‘Before Cythereia Ourania, goddess of love and secrets, you must kneel! For she is queen of all this isle.’ And there was nothing that could prevent our desire to kneel before her, for all felt the power of her divinity and the desperation in our situation. Even after so many years I can hear her words like the traces of a song that once I knew. Each sea-ragged man among us saw her, yet I saw the true spark within that goddess.
“Unto our mottled hordes she said, ‘My handmaidens tell me your labor has been long, O sinister wanderers. I am saddened to impart that our traditions forbid us from allowing men to place one single foot inside our temple.’ Yet when Aureleus blusteringly petitioned her, even a Goddess of love and secrets could not refuse. After hearing his eloquent plea she reconsidered and said, ‘O clever Aureleus, perhaps you are correct. Those rules were carved when all men were willful and heartless, and would it not be heartless to refuse weary guests? Perhaps your left hands can be sympathetic to our art. I only ask that you not interfere with our way of life. If you can promise this to me, then I shall grant you indefinite hospitality.’ She was very kind to do so, and all we outcasts were grateful.
“That day we rested and that night Queen Cythereia laid out a great feast for us while the women of the isle used their magic to project great visions and tales into the smoke of the bonfires, and all were merry until night no longer cloaked us. And with no loved ones waiting for us in Mother Greece, we stayed. How could we not? Most of the crew found ways to assist around the island with tasks of manual labor, but there were some who sought the women’s magic, and there were witches who consented to train us. He who had been my mentor, Obi Wan Jesus Christ, became a disciple of fair-haired Mixolydia while I was taught by dark Locria: we did indeed learn opposing arts. Forsooth: the sorceresses of the isle believed that the entire expansive world is based on the tension between the forces of order and chaos; black and white and good and evil. All one and the same of course, yet divid in order for reality to be inhabitable. Maintain the balance of all the Cycles that ever have been, Obi Wan learned the ways of light while I was taught the side of darkness — and a powerful ally it has been. In certain ways, this knowledge has been lost upon the modern world, twisted into confusion, and in certain ways it has been faithful. By some it is seen merely as an ancient religion, though others hold the interplay of duality to be behind all motions of the cosmos. This is a great gift that the universe can bestow on those who learn to use it. I have learned that I have it, my father had it… and I know that my son has it as well.
“And so on, a year we passed in meditation and training on Cythereia’s sleepy island. We would have stayed longer had disaster not befallen us, yet that is ever the way of things: Locria taught that all things descend into chaos. I was not there to witness our entire downfall, yet I saw enough to guess at what transpired. Aureleus, O Aureleus! He could tolerate peace for only a few days. Perhaps he kept himself tame for some months, I know not for I did not keep his counsel.”
Pater Obscurus here gasped a hacking cough as Sir Intuition brought in more of the snow-dusted wood he’d dropped in the snow. What shall I do without him? How shall I survive when he is gone? Shall I take up the mantle of chaos? For, what could exist of a God when terrible things such as this are allowed to occur? What would be the purpose of such an entity? Perhaps there is no entity, only the shifting balance of light and dark, of good against evil. Darkness against light. When the fire was brighter, Pater Obscurus used his eyes to devour its energy and maintain his final telling revitalized by the flames.
“If we could woo them well the women would not reject us, yet the Queen was ever off-limits. The emperor of that magic island, she said, was never far from home and his spirit if not of jealousy was of obliteration. Yet we saw no man save ourselves on that island, ever, and her story must have seemed flimsy indeed to one obdurate as Aureleus. I heard it said that he would proposition her endlessly, with words both kind and venomous, and I knew that they were sent from his tongue and not his heart. She resisted him, for a time. The sadness was that all women were powerless before Aureleus — even goddesses — and I know of no warning she could have begged that would have deterred our dauntless captain.
“I was deep in meditation with Locria when a vision came to me, my first vision. I beheld, behind my eyes, scenes of blood and smoke, the destruction of the island, and the death of my friends. I saw the faces of Aureleus and Queen Cythereia in pain, and the destruction of all my kin. I was shaken back to the present, unable to maintain my meditation, and despite Locria’s warnings that my training was incomplete I left to seek my allies. Emerging from the gloom of the chaos temple I found everything at peace… yet still a tension boiled in the air. I ran, swift as I was able, to her palace.
“It was quiet on the sea-cliffs, somehow muffled, when I entered into the domain of those old stone columns and wisping sheets. Sneaking uncertainly ahead, I heard voices in the palace. Shamed am I to admit my mistake, but I heard then the voices of agony, torture, of my beloved Aureleus and Cythereia Ourania fighting. Yet it was not so. If my vision had not spurred my onward to that place… I unknowingly interrupted them at the inception of their pleasures, and filled Queen Cythereia’s eyes with horror. O her sweet voice broken twisted me with fear! ‘The spell!’ cried she, tormented one, ‘The spell! The intruder has broken it, all woe to we!’ Curse the chaos of fate that made me break that spell, for then might my sins never have been committed.
“At first I was confused by her reaction, yet it was not long before I took the goddess’ meaning. There was thunder on the seas as they began to boil and thrash. A vivacious wind alike to the storm outside our cave swept the enchanted fog from her palace and parted all the invisible gossamer sheets. There, in the ocean below, something was happening. ‘What is it, you damned witch?’ cried Aureleus, covering himself with sheets — his tact never lasted when he was afraid. The Queen’s voice filled us with darkest dread, as they would have to any man. What was happening, my son? Her husband was arriving from the depths.” Pater Obscurus’ sinister laugh broke into a hacking bloodied cough again. “In all her warnings to Aureleus she must not have mentioned her husband’s nature, for my captain’s face went deathly pale. Up from the sea sprang a gargantuan mass: pale and pink and fleshy, with great and terrible eyes of night, and be-weaponed with dreadful tentacles. A squid, larger than any fortress I ever witnessed, drenched the island in his furious spray. Upon the cliffs, ‘O beloved husband!’ pled the Queen through crystalline tears, ‘Great and powerful Kraken, great god of the deep and possessor of my heart: be not wroth! O you sleep beneath so long that you leave me in more solitude than I can bear!’ Her gemstone tears were whisked away by the wind as she wailed — her sobs likewise stolen — and the low malevolent words of the Kraken sounded through all our marrows. ‘I am the deep,’ he said, his voice like an army of brass. ‘I am the Kraken and you are mine. Cythereia Ourania, frail goddess, you were mine yet now there is only death.’ That stench of blood and smog returned to me then, floated unbidden from my earlier chaotic vision. She began to cry some confession, yet I saw his longer tentacles grace across the sky and slam with unforgiving force into the cliffs beside the palace. The island entire rumbled and quaked, huge boulders were rent from the rock and sent screaming to their doom in the frigid ocean. Through the fog of time it seems as if someone else acted then, yet it was I who grabbed my Captain and my Queen, and fled them from the crumbling palace.”
“Studying I had been, studying the force of chaos and witnessing its ways, and never have I felt its power like I did that day. That monstrous squid lay a bedlam waste on the unearthly island, his dark stamina absolute. There is not time to recall what occurred, but you must know that there were only three who lived. O, my sins that Aurelius came to pass away from us in the destruction. Alas for our captain. It was I and my master Obi Wan Jesus Christ who salvaged what flimsy wood we could and lashed a raft together somehow, setting far out to sea. Though she was unconscious, we took her with us just before the Kraken dragged the entire island into the ocean of his fury. It was she, the shining Queen Cythereia, broken goddess of the forgotten isle. While she was unknowing, I and my master spoke of what we had learned in our studies. He spoke of forces that could be used for light, and I knew all the forces of the dark. Days in, there was an argument. Upon the open seas, only a shelterless raft for two of us and an unconscious Queen? It was my sin again that ended the argument, yet Obi Wan’s foolish obstinacy that began it. He forced me to prove to him that the side of dark is more powerful, quicker, and easier. Then there were two aboard the raft.
“When at last she awoke, after I know not how much time, she was frail indeed, and all-reliant on me. She confessed unto me that she now had no worth; her purity had been dispelled by the captain. She was all tears, ever in the time that I knew her, and ever in the times that we knew one another. And she became the goddess again, for me. It was my sin that she was an unhappy goddess, yet alone with me there was no recourse for either of us. With the forces of chaos I made her mine. I was her sole caretaker as we drifted upon the ocean, year after year, eon after eon as the continents reformed. Only when she passed, leaving me the most precious of gifts… only then did I understand the torment I had put her through upon the open ocean. My madness of chaos lifted and I felt the ways I had shamed her, I had shamed beauty herself! On the day she died I cast her moon-pale body into the deep, and made an oath never to use dark forces… ever again. And when at last my lonely raft landed on England’s foggy coast I committed to this garb of sin and swore myself to silence. Yea, and what was the gift she gave to me? What was the… gift that killed her? My greatest joy and my greatest sin? She was your… mother.”
And as his final words wheezed and rasped from his ancient throat, the exhausted Pater Obscurus passed out of this Cycle and into the chill of the stormy mountain.
* * *
In desperate confusion, engulfed in endless ethereial non-form, Sir Wander-Gogh saw crossing his path a raven-faced spirit on its way to be reaffixed to this Cycle’s outset. The knight of umber-and-vert muttered to himself, “No, no, this is not where I meant to be.”
* * *
A funeral pyre just outside the cave struggled weakly against the fleet of snowflakes. When he ensured that his father’s corpse was taken into the caress of purifying flames Sir Intuition did not wait to see the fire also die, but wandered off into the swirling storm. The holy mountain was slowly drowning in frozen midnight turmoil. His armor grew deathly chill and the gale winds cut to his marrow, yet he felt it not. He was lost and weary, trudging atop the lonely peak in fatherless desperation, thoughtless of perils and with no goal but continued footsteps. Lightning tore through albino clouds. His deep footprints quickly filled again, forgetting that they had ever existed. To think he was a power of ages past, and I knew it not. To think he was a foul trickster. Now I need never wonder if he once sinned, for I know he commited a grevious one. For the world to wound me so, there must be no God. Who truly was my father who never spoke? He seemed a keen observer battered by the stones of years. Yet ocean storms have shaken him: how have they eroded the man I never knew into the form that raised me in silence from childhood? Alas, the treasure I have found at last has been untimely ripped from my gauntlets! O that he could speak after all! After all of our torments! Truly there are vast lands that never are by men explored. Onward, now. I must make my way to mine own home, yet… where can that fabled country be said to lie?
On through the tempest snow and uneven terrain the heartbroken Knight of the Hart dragged his frozen greaves on and on until at last he stumbled once and fell, spent, into a snowbank. Jagged icy fingers grabbed at his breath and burned at his flesh and he very nearly passed from consciousness, yet faintly then an unearthly voice came upon him calling his name with a voice of wind. I have found delusion at last. It will be so easy to sleep. The voice summoned him once again, louder. The Hart raised his head as best he could and squinted into the driven snow, until he saw a shimmering figure standing there from out of the past. Memories returned of that fateful night, so warm, at the falls of Beth Esda. Is this specter memory or dream? How can his form walk here, ungarbed to the biting winds? The voice called to him once more, somehow clarion against the vicious winds.
The knight reluctantly whispered, “…James?” It looked like the living man in robes, yet the fierce winter harmed him not. “James Jesus Christ?”
The phantom cried, “Sir Intuition! Arise, to knowledge you must come.”
A lightness wrapped the fallen knight’s body as he found it simple to stand from the snowbank, clumps falling back to the mountain’s blanket. His weariness remained, yet it was far away and no more powerful now than bonds of string. The spectral form of the one-eyed prophet walked off through the blizzard and the Hart could do naught but trudge blindly on behind him. They journeyed on and on up the slant of the mountain, to its zenith, and when they arrove they saw that the clouds were pierced there by a pallid rainbow sprouting from Mount Woodstock’s very pinnacle. This sight pierced also Sir Intuition unto his core, and he asked James, “Have I been conquered by the storm? Are you my usher into the paler realm?”
Yet James Jesus Christ’s soothing voice slew only the Hart’s worries. “Not yet deceased are you, O knight, yet dreaming deep. In peril is your body, and if this dream you can not escape then never to waking lands shall you return.”
“O!” lamented the Hart, and he fell to his knees before the glowing rainbow. Reflections of its colors undulated across the pristine snow. He said, “Do I even wish to return to life? What shall I find in the waking world but misery? Perhaps I should wait here for death with the ghost of an old friend instead.” And he lay down in the dream-snow as it whipped about the prismatic bridge. Yet he felt a radiating hand upon his pauldron, and gazed into the prophet’s knowing face.
The Jesus Christ said, “Your psychopomp could I be if full of death-wishes were your heart — yet still time remains to find what was lost.”
With James’ energy flowing through him, around him, Sir Intuition indeed found it effortless to rise again from the mire of snow, and he levitated alongside the flowing colors. “Are you truly the one I have lost, my friend James Jesus Christ?”
“A guiding light am I; my first name matters not. Who am I? Who are you? Are you Sir Intuition, or the true-born son of Odysseus Skywalker? All names now are meaningless. Know me by my actions — every Jesus Christ am I, even the very one who guid your father before you.”
“You knew my father?” gasped Sir Intuition. “Then you are Obi Wan Jesus Christ!”
“That name I have not borne for a long time, yet well do I know him, for he is me. When the island I fled with Cytheria Ourania and Odysseus Skywalker, a man named Pater Obscurus did come among us. Betrayal brought he, in frenzy murdering Odysseus Skywalker. ‘Pater Obscurus,’ you see, was a moniker your father obtained when principles of chaos he embraced, he donned it like the mask over his old name. Abandoned he all decency and caution, flinging me into the merciless ocean and toying with the mind and spirit of that wounded goddess. The beacon of a righteous mind I tried to be unto him, yet I failed the one who once called me master. Odysseus Skywalker and Pater Obscurus — my pupil slain by my pupil’s hand — two men that one man was. Thus in his shipwrecked grief, his ambitions betrayed his values and he slew his former self. And when at last he reaped your body from your mother’s maddened corpse, he donned the dark mask and chose to utter never a single word. Not even to you.”
The old half-blind sage motioned feebly towards the rainbow, and wordlessly levitated higher, thus did both follow the prismatic illumination up through overcast. When they roech the storm above, Sir Intuition saw that the shifting clouds were held back in a ring around the rainbow, allowing the two dreamers passage into the clear firmament above. They continued in placid blue on and on with the sea of clouds undulating farther and farther below them. They passed a friend of Jesus Christ, a young man with a trumpet who lounged in the air beside the rainbow bridge. He watched them pass, and a knowing nod was shared between the herald and the Jesus Christ — and an unknowing one between him and Sir Intuition. The rainbow led them to a great floating landmass suspended in the sky. Rising peacefully, it was a mound of earth and grass upon which stood a fortress shining golden. In its leylines the Hart saw traces of his London, yet he knew that this place was different, otherworldly. There were five-hundred and forty doors closed along the pristine wall, and the entrance gate which was open wide for the passage of Jesus Christ and the knight in his care was ornately carved with runes and spirals.
Many were the golden halls within, and they saw a great tree with a waterfall flowing through it from beyond sight. Animals and spirits flit about making miracles of wine and mead. When the Hart took in all that surrounded him, he wearily asked, “You said that this is not heaven, yet much it seems as such to me. Is this not the heaven of the Church, just as it is in the Asides described? Are you certain I have not died? If this were to be the place that awaits me, I cannot say that I should mind.”
Jesus Christ winked his one eye and said, “This is heaven indeed, yet welcome into such a paradise you shall not be if so easily you would arrive. Much is there to suffer in the world, and through suffering alone the magnitude of your paradise is earned. The realm this is of my kinsmen and I, vast and wonderful, yet for only a glimpse have I brought you. An airy fantasy alone is this: yet I beseech you to heed it. Cast aside your apathy and your angers which lead to hate and suffering; dismiss the voice within yourself who dismisses God. Devout to your own soul should you be, and likewise to the soul of the Cycle. From the dark path I tried to warn away both your father and your nemesis the Peacock.” And even in heaven, the Hart shuddered to hear the victim utter the name of this murdering betrayer. “Unto both I spake, yet listen did neither. Heed me, Knight of the Hart! Aside must you cast any hope-killing atheism you harbor, for once you start down that dark path forever shall it dominate your destiny! If struggle against it you do not, consumed you shall become as was Obi Wan’s apprentice. Let past pain be gone, to your heart not so tightly should you cling, for you are in danger of strangling it.”
And he led the Knight of the Hart to an engraved building, a grand hall immeasurable in size — exactly where the Castle Tralfamadore would have stood if this were soothly London. The doors of the hall were taller than three men would have been, head to heel, and seemed nearly as thick. King Bidgood’s keep entire could have nestled within. Yet the ghostly prophet moved the monumental doors aside as if they were leaves, and both men entered the vast interior.
It was a feasting hall, with long wooden tables between massive columns into which were carved countless depictions of stories. At the tables sat legions of men who held pitchers and horns of frothing beverage, all of whom raised their drinking vessels and cheered when the two travelers entered. Roars of mirth and laughter wafted about like the smells of the smoked meats they ate. Sir Intuition felt the camaraderie present and it pulled at his yearning heart-strings. One large group of men over by one of the nearer walls began to beat their mugs in a rhythm upon the wood of the tabletop and chanted loudly in time with one another.
Over the raucous din the men made — calling O, din! O, din! O, din! to the hall — one-eyed Jesus Christ spake unto the Hart. “A place in the realms of heaven this is, known to some as the Halls of the Slain. When granted a good death, these spirits herein arrive. The poisons and evils of their lives no more are challenging, for through suffering in the mortal world challenge itself have they transcended.”
“Is this… a feast?” wondered the Hart.
“A banquet of supernatural enjoyment it is: tales of bravery these men tell while joyously drinking — yet never do they grow quenched or satiated. More than a feast it is, my friend, an eternal celebration in praise of life’s suffering is this! Yet now, O Knight of the Heart, here should you look.” The wise old man wove his hand in the air and the room changed ever so slightly about them as the chanted din faded to nothing. Sir Intuition saw that the same tables and columns were in place, and the seats were full of people sitting at a fully spread banquet, yet they only sat listless and bored in their chairs, prodding idly the food that remained on their plates. The only noise to be heard was a forlorn shuffling and the occasional cough.
“What has happened?”
“A different people these, attending the same great feast witnessed by you. These now are the ones who succame simply to their demise with ease. These are they who let slip the situation when against dread were confronted.”
“Suppose they faced their ills as well as they were able, suppose it was hopelessness itself that overwhelmed them.”
“And therein the difference, noble Hart. Absent in these despairing spirits was the will to spur themselves, they were ignorant of their destinies — yet it was not their fault that they were consumed by dross and were prevailed over.”
“What has become of their souls? Why do they not make merry? How have they been damned? It seems to me they have been rewarded the same as those who fought and bled and died! What is the difference? What has changed?”
“Yea, the question of questions is that. Their torture is that they cannot enjoy the gifts of paradise, for they held back their own suffering and have not thus earned the savoring of their souls. When arrove they in this place they were fain to find the food, yet short work made of the merrymaking and soon grew dull. It was within them, their light sufferings in life has left them unsatisfied. For the first revelers, on the contrary hand, their woes did buy them their revelry. There is nothing to hold back from here. If one lives a life and holds back in one’s suffering — if one cushions oneself against destruction— then one cannot take in all that exists. This Cycle was created just for you, as much as it was each and every other. And what but a series of lives is life, a wheel of choices and problems to overcome or be undercut by? Order, chaos is. And chaos in sooth is order. Learn from the failings of both fathers: both Odysseus Skywalker and Pater Obscurus.”
And with a jarring twist of balance Sir Intuition felt then the truth that he was deep within a dream, and the realization began to shake the supports of the Hall of the Slain. “Who are you, truly? Who are you, Jesus Christ?” stammered the frightened Hart as he grasped the fleeting strings of his dreamworld.
The feasting hall shifted and buckled, raining fine dust and pebbles as it croke. James, Obi Wan, continued speaking unphased: “A reward shall you receive for every hardship mastered, if only appreciation for the gift can be found. Into mires of guilt shall sink your heart despite the thousand smiles of the rain. Embrace the depths to know the heights. Have faith… for without it, down the dark path must you begin.”
The Knight of the Hart felt the dissolving of his world, and he frantically asked again, “Are you the one I knew, James Jesus Christ? Or were you my father or the reformed man who murdered him? Who are you, O, and who is Jesus Christ?”
And the phantom who spanned the antipodes of life removed his face in the same way Pater Obscurus had removed his mask: he peeled back his features until beneath it Sir Intuition was revealed to the guise of his own face.
* * *
The snow is cold on my face, so cold that it numbs me to the core. The wind whips about me violently, scattering the ever-present snowflakes like droplets of water in an ocean. It is too cold. I am dying. Beside my body lies my poor stolen steed, frozen dead and abandoned by the yellow-and-violet thief. The wind tears at my flesh and burns it. My fingers have a thin layer of frost upon them. I fumble with my sword-belt: the hilt has frozen to the sheathe. There — with a grunt I free the blade and it seems to glow bright blue in the dark dawn. Anticipation brings me to tears, yet this is the only way I know to survive.
I cut a long slice in the belly of my dead giraffe, exposing her innards to the harsh winds. Steam pours from the painless wound, and the smell sickens and entices me at once. I sink my left foot into her entrails and already her inner warmth courses through me. Climbing into her is foul work yet death is the only alternative, so I must not falter.
The snow was cold on his face, so cold it numbed him to his core. Pushing himself out of the embankment where he lay, Sir Intuition discovered that his whole right side, on which he had slept in the snow, was devoid entirely of feeling. Yet the storm at least had passed, and it seemed nearly to be sunrise judging by the dark violet premonitions of dawn. The knight arose, feelings blending together, he felt stirred like a waning campfire by nefarious events and troublesome dreams. Did I dream that there was a meaning to life? A reason for suffering? I wish it had been sooth and not mere fantasy. Can there be a true cause? Or is there only nothing? Is there anything that I can believe in? He did not know what could be found out beyond the mountain-range if ever he walked that far, yet with a determined sigh in spite of exhaustion he made tracks in the layers of snow. Though his footsteps remained behind in rows, the Hart walked untethered over the pristine mountain, as morning awoke on the far horizon and shadow in his turbulent mind.