*
VI
The morning was hot and muggy, but the rays of the sun brought no joy. From grim Castle Montrose, the fields to the north could be seen all hilly with barrows, and the marble Tchrelma’Montgomery in the distance. Long grasses danced in the wind, and around one flowering tumulus a crowd was gathering — of which Sir Sallimaide and Sir Wander-Gogh were two. Before the entrance to that empty grave mound stood a druid in long robes of white, holding a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Sweat flowed in rivers down his face as he spake and sang and made sorrowful but passionate gestures over the shrouded corpse that lay at his feet: the body that once had been inhabited by the King of Montrose.
The druid’s eulogy was in the ancient riddle-tongue of Hebrew, for it was a language reserved in those days for only the most solemn of occasions. None of those gathered understood the cryptic words, yet perhaps they understood it even better than the chanting priest, for they were not thinking of meanings but focused solely on the inflections and passion in the preacher’s intonation. Some of the men heard beautiful and inspiring fables in the incomprehensible language, others heard blessings to protect the wayward spirit that once inhabited the corpse before them. And some men were caught up by the slight breeze and let their thoughts drift like wide-plumed dandelion seeds across rolling hills and oceans and perhaps up and into the clouds, accompanied only by the slitheringly solemn chant-words spoken in the druid’s low mournful drone. He held the flowers at arm’s length before him, and made three unwavering crosses over what once was King Montrose. The colors of the blossoms faded, and the petals and leaves curled and cracked with old age and the preacher shook them and all the withered bits of plant matter lazily swope through the air down to rest across the king’s grey shroud. Some of those gathered wept as heavy and hard as if they had witnessed the murder of two sainted prophets and a squire, while others were silent and still.
Two masked heavyset men separated from the crowd and bore the royal remains in under the archway of the ancient tumulus. So dark was the atmosphere under the bulging earth that while the funerary assistants were inside interring the body with its corpse-kin, nothing could be seen of them. When they emerged into the sun again, the white robes of the druid picked up in the breeze and he slowly, distantly, raspingly, began to drone the words of the funeral song. The more unfortunate in the congregation were the ones who had heard it enough to sing along with the priest, and something unknown moved them all to do so.
Greetings darkness, olden friend,
I come to speak with you again
For a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence.
Through restless dreams I’ve walked alone
Narrow roads of cobbled stone
Beneath the blazing torch that lit my camp
I gathered robes against the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by a flash of enchanted light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence.
And in the naked light I saw
Ten-thousand people, perhaps more,
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
For no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence.
“My love,” spake I, “You do not know
That silence can a cancer grow.
Hear my words that I might teach you,
Take my arms that I might reach you,”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed
In wells of silence.
And all the people bowed and prayed
To some graven god they’d made,
And his sign shone out his warning
With words in fire that were forming
And the sign said “The words of your prophets are written on ruined walls
And tavern halls,”
And he whispered this with the sounds
Of silence.
* * *
There was a great damper on the spirits of the knights as they rode north from the Castle Montrose that day. Though it was bright and the sky was blue, they went in reflective silence through the plains and burial mounds beyond the castle. Sir L’angoustier rode his giraffe Anabelle alongside them through the downs.
After the congregation of the funeral had dispersed, and the knights were readying to set out, the Lobster had asked them again about the artefact they sought. Sir Sallimaide spoke once more of the Wreath of Reincarnation, but suddenly stopped himself. “Perhaps,” said the Frog Knight cautiously, “you would be tempted to take our prize for the King of France?”
“Non, non, I think he would the not be very keen — he already got one you see.”
“He… already has one? What do you mean?”
“Oui. C’est tres bon. It helping him see us all together and things.”
Puzzlement overtook the knights, but Sir Wander-Gogh brushed it all aside at once, saying, “We welcome you to ride among us, noble Lobster Knight from across the Tchrelma’Montgomery. It is best to keep true-hearted companions close in times such as these.”
Thus the azure-and-orange Lobster banner was joined with the umber-and-vert of the Manta-Ray and the Frog’s gold-and-scarlet, and they set off. But not even this companionship could fully mask remembering the tattered Orca’s criminal escape. So their giraffes plodded listlessly through the web of tombs and flowers, and in the distance rose that steadfast highway as pale as the moon.
These grasses nearly roech the knights’ stirrups and were tipped with frilly seed pods that caught the slight air, causing the whole hilly plain to ripple like an ocean at the whims of the winds. It seemed that the many barrows provided effective fertilizer, for each mound was topped with a crown of little white flowers. Inquisitve Sir L’angoustier rode at the front of their troop and with his knight’s kaleidoscope he led them through the criss-crossing valleys between mortuary mounds. Sir Wander-Gogh and Sir Sallimaide rode beside one another behind him.
Contrary to Sir Sallimaide’s mood — as gloomy and disconnected from reality as a frog lying hapless on its lily — Sir L’angoustier suddenly burst, “There! See!” Where he gestured, just barely visible from the plains, were the tops of two towers rising from a distant forest. “It is perhaps possible that these peoples will be a sympathetic to our plight and offer us the food and accommodations?”
Sir Sallimaide, wishing to ride on until nightfall, considered the structure in silence. It had been a long while since he had beheld a murder, debasement relatively unknown in this Dreaming Age of peace, and it dredged up memories that put him on edge.
Sir Wander-Gogh said, “Though my will to press on is great, this castle does not seem too far out of our way. Already is it twilight, and it will be good to rest in actual beds even if only for a single night.” So it was that Sir Sallimaide came to concede to the Manta-Ray, for all were weary, and they veered off in the direction of the two great turrets in the distance, riding serpentine through the grave mounds.
As they approached the border of trees, Sir L’angoustier spaye a dirt path grow out of the grassland and lead into the forest. Flora was sparse and swampy here, malnourished, and the half-light spilled through branches to eerily flood the undergrown ground. In these woods there was no bird-song save for the harsh hacking calls of some distant crow, but from this Sir Sallimaide could only discern unhelpfully that there was a swamp nearby. Ahead of them on the path was a small clearing where a small structure of some kind could be seen through the tangle of naked branches. When they rode close enough to the clearing, they found that it was an old stone well with covered roof. Yet more than this, more than the well, much to their surprise they discovered a maiden, white-gowned in samite and resting upon the well’s lip. Her dress fluttered wistfully in the breeze.
The Lobster Knight grew instantly focused and lay his accent on thickly, saying, “Mademoiselle, it is my very pleasure to make a your acquaintance made. I am the very best Sir L’angoustier, and this and this man are sometimes allowed to be my partners here. It is Sirs Sallimaide and Vendergog.” Sir Sallimaide rolled his eyes, but Sir L’angoustier ignored everything apart from the damsel. “It is anything that we humble knights, O, can assist you with on this today?”
“Do not let such a buffoon represent us, lady,” interjected Sir Wander-Gogh. “We only have met him this morrow. In sooth we travel this wide island questing, yet time we have if our aid is required. Might we at least have the pleasure of your name?”
The girl’s face was narrow and wise and innocent, brilliant eyes through dark hair. She said pleasantly, “Greetings, Sirs.” Her voice was made of silk and milk and honey and seven winged moth-birds whose feathers sparkled with the fragile diamond dust they need to fly. “I am Sarah Bellum and though I had set out to solve this thing for myself a strange trouble has befallen my father’s castle and I would much appreciate whatever assistance you noble brothers can afford.” Her tale persuaded Sir Wander-Gogh, but the preoccupied Knight of the Frog did not care to become involved. One aspect of the knight’s code, however, is that a knight must aid a maiden in trouble: for a knight is bound to uphold truth and beauty, and if truth was beauty then maidens were both. Assuming, of course, that they were beautiful maidens.
“O mademoiselle, tell us of what am this trouble! For we are the brave and the valorous and surely to defeating whatever evil is eviling up to you and yours O Maiden Sarah.” The Lobster pronounced her name especially french and looked deep into her sea-eyes, trying to caress her with his crustaceanous mind.
Sarah was mirthful, but her resolve faltered when she met the uncertain gaze of the Knight of the Frog. “Truthfully,” said she, “it is not so large a problem. If you good Sirs ride to an important call, it is better that you answer it rather than wasting time to aid one such as I.”
Sir L’angoustier’s well-oiled mustache twitched ever so slightly in irritation, but the Frog dismissed her concerns modesty, saying, “We are honor-bound to aid you, my lady. Please do not hesitate to explain your plight.”
Her eyes sparkled as Sir L’angoustier made room for her on Anabelle’s saddle. They rode on to the castle, and Sir Sallimaide carefully mentioned the status of their provisions.
Sarah said, “O, you knights are most welcome at my table, and the castle is large and has ample lodgings. All I ask in return is that you will search for my father as best as you can.”
“Tell us fair Sarah, what has happened to him?” said Sir Wander-Gogh.
The maiden’s samite gown rippled in the breeze of their travel. She took a deep breath and said, “My father is the lord of this estate, and he has ruled over it for many many years after it passed to him from his father. Yet… of late he has spoken of ill-omened dreams, saying that the swamp itself has been calling to him. And it was just this morning that, when I awoke, I found him missing. Why, none of the servants have even seen him: he must have slipped out in the night!” The bedraggled trees of the meager forest parted, and the knights gazed at last upon Sarah’s castle. It was far different than King Bidgood’s pristine abode had been, for it was unkempt and covered in the vines and weeds that grew on these outskirts of the encroaching moorland.
Atop the once-proud turrets now fallen into disrepair, a flapping of flags caught the Frog’s eye, and he was much bewildered by them. On the banners was borne the sigil of the Fern. “Lady,” said Sir Sallimaide, “to whom does this castle belong?”
She looked at him, blue eyes puzzling. “Why, I have told you, it was the castle of my grandsire. I know little about him for he has been absent since before my birth.”
Sir Wander-Gogh with newfound interest, understanding the Frog’s meaning, said, “Yea, and what do you know of him?”
“Well,” said she, “all that my father told me was that he was a great knight in the olden days. He raised his family in this castle but disapore sometime during the Dark Age, during the Crusade. This all was before my time, yet Father oft cursed those days and said that Grandsire ran and hid from the shame of supporting the war.” The gravity of this revelation was heavy on the three knights, and they rode onwards in silence and awe, pondering all the way to the gates. Apparently Sarah did not grasp the significance of her legacy. When the rusted portcullis had been raised with an ear-splitting peal, a servant showed Hadely and all the giraffes to the stables, while the maiden and the knights entered through the main door.
They walked past the welcoming entrance hall as Sarah led them to the well adorned dining room. She slipped out to the kitchen as the knights gathered around the table. Carved from wood as dark as her hair, the feasting table was large enough to inform that this hall was no stranger to banquets, and also that Sarah’s family must be well-off indeed despite their inhospitable grounds and the disrepair of their keep.
“Do you think it possible,” asked Sir Wander-Gogh in Sarah’s absence, “that he could really be her ancestor?”
“You saw the flags,” said Sir Sallimaide. “This castle belongs to the Knight of the Fern.”
“This is the silly talk,” butt in the Lobster. “That man was been vanished for a longer long time and the Knight Order of disbanded, and if we make any more talk of this kind I am likely to lose all of my appetites.”
Sarah returned with a servant following close behind her. He held with both hands a large platter of meats and cheeses for the knights and his mistress, and when she had taken her seat nearby them, the servant laid the platter down and departed. “I am sorry to have kept you Sirs waiting,” she said.
Sir Sallimaide was now the gracious one however, and replied “Nonsense, fair Sarah. Dwell not on that.” And thus did they all eat their fill.
After a time of only chewing noises, Sir Wander-Gogh spoke. “Please,” he said as he spooned a second helping of stew into his bowl, “tell us of how we can aid you in the trouble that has befallen you and your kin.”
With a heavy sigh, Sarah put down her spoon and brought her hand to her temple. “It is unlike Father to wander off without a word, for the nearest place of interest is several hours ride. And yet, none of our animals are missing from the stables. I fear he has gone into the swamps. It is a dangerous place to go, especially alone, for the footing is foul, and there is a foreboding presence in the air.”
“Why is should Kingy want go into a swamps?” puzzled Sir L’angoustier.
“That’s the rub,” sighed Sarah, “there is no reason for it! O, I have often heard him talk of strange voices that came from that place, or of his dreams of traversing it, but I have always imagined that these were nothing but flights of fancy. I must ask you, brave noble knights, please go into that place and find him! We are not a poor family, and I will be happy to reward you with whatever you wish if you can simply return Father to me and to safety.”
* * *
Up and up the spiral stair the mystics and the minstrel knight ascended, leaving behind the dark solemnity of the tomb and its embedded fossils. The tiny star at the tip of Yalishamba’s staff had hardly been sufficient illumination down in that corridor of death, yet as each step brought them higher in elevation the light of the sun crept down to meet them slowly making the wizard’s brightness obsolete. Yalishamba seemed to have no trouble ascending the stairs facing backwards, yet Hesaid’s sandal slipped once on the rough-worn step and Sir Elisa, who walked behind, had to catch the flailing mystic to restore him to balance.
The hewn stone made way to marble, and when all three had clomb the stair they found themselves emerging into a massive cathedral with ceilings that soared far above them. One ornate window was above the altar, massive, and it allowed radiance to illuminate the site of worship. The pews all were empty; some were strewn about and toppled over as if there had been a struggle before this place had been abandoned. Though each inspected the shrine, no other door could be found; no other exit than the steps downward back to the tomb.
Beneath the window’s stained light, at the epicenter of the altar, was a raised dais of iron with chess pieces aligned all along the surface of its circumference. Most of these pieces still stood, though some had been knocked over and were either prone on the disc or scattered about on the altar. Hanging from the ceiling directly above was a great pendulum laboriously swinging over the dais, back and forth, its needle consistently passing between the standing figures. Hesaid Isee walked up the few steps of the altar and picked a chess piece up from the floor, knocked down in ages past when the alignment of the pendulum had been just so. He rolled it about in his fingers, examining it. It was a bishop, dark mahogany brown and well detailed, perhaps two inches tall. He shrugged, and slipped it into an unseen pocket of his purple vestments. There was a weight in the air here, a sense of sanctity and solitude. Calm. After many moments of chalky silence it seemed as if Yalishamba’s strange feathered cloak and pointed hat caught the light oddly. His vestments began to shine with many colors, and they found themselves unable to look away from his wise wrinkles and prismatic well-deep irises. As Sir Elisa and Hesaid Isee stared helplessly, the wizard’s inner voice echoed through the cavernous cathedral despite his expressionless face.
This is the Perilous Chapel,
The fruit of the apple,
Ourselves experiencing the now.
This place is a slipping from concerns
That plague the past and future.
From atop the altar, the great pendulum swung between a pawn-piece arranged beside a rook. In another thousand years, perhaps the needle would strike that wooden castle down.
In the blink of an eye that is your lifespan
This is the scale of cosmos you shall perceive:
Almost imperceptible change.
From each raindrop
Is the ocean formed, yea,
And all you touch and all you see
It is all your life shall ever be.
And the wonderful things
Not yet come to fruition
Are a product of this present
And the past condition.
What fruit they shall bear, in time,
Only a Magician of Time might know, yea,
And thanks be to all
And thanks be to music
And thanks be to Sir Elisa’s hymn.
When released from the enchantment of the magician’s voice, cerulean-and-gold Sir Elisa drifted away from the altar following the patches of faded carpet to the far wall. There was no door to speak of, no way out, yet when the Sparrow spied beneath layers of dust a monumental pipe-organ fixed into the wall, he recalled how several times now Yalishamba had praised him for a hymn that had not been played. Across that graven instrument and over the throne of bronze pipes were civilizations of cobwebs and detritus. The bony keys looked to be in varying states of decay, and upon one was the corpse of a dried beetle with its legs curled in the air. The Sparrow pulled a rose-cushioned bench from under the instrument, taking a moment to dust clouds from it and ready himself on the seat. With one forceful exhale across the keys, he blew aside a plume of dust and the desiccated beetle. Sir Elisa’s mother had been the organist at their church during the Light Age, and so he began to play the song that she had taught him; the only song of this kind that he knew.
It started with small, almost innocent introductory notes; trickling like a waterfall from the upper registers of the instrument they fell and grew until the Sparrow added his songbird’s voice to eerie arpeggios.
People are stirred,
Moved by the word,
They kneel at the shrine,
Deceived by the wine.
How was the earth conceived —
Infinite space?
Is there such a place?
We must believe in the human race.
Swift on his wings
Fear’s angel brings
Sad winter storms,
Grey autumn dawn.
Who looks on life itself —
Who lights the way?
Only you can say.
How can you just obey?
The organ’s arpeggios were here elaborated upon by thundering bass chords that burst from the pipes like a behemoth of sound, shaking away the dust and silk of age. As the soulful sonic vibrations led him back to his final verse, he sang,
Don’t heed the word
Now that you’ve heard!
Don’t be afraid,
Man is man-made!
And when the hour comes
Don’t turn away —
Face the light of day
And do it your way…
It is the only way.
Just so, the Sparrow held his final resonance until he felt the song’s conclusion as a certainty in his bones. He released the keys and slouched back exhausted to the bench when, without warning, even as the remaining notes of the organ echoed in the chapel, a thunderous scraping noise tore from the rear wall.
Agasp, “It worked!” cried Hesaid, pointing. The stones themselves were moving on the rear wall, rearranging themselves into a doorway through which brilliant light could be seen. Yalishamba smiled knowingly and unhesitatingly backwards-strode towards the opening, beckoning them to cross this new threshold. The Sparrow and the woodsey mystic followed the ancient magician in a daze, and walked into the pure light outside.
It was not outside. It was complete blankness and light unceasing, only broken by the sight of the Chapel Perilous back through the invisible door’s opening.
“What is this place?” marveled Sir Elisa.
This, O,
This is an arloamn.
“Never have I heard of an arloamn before.”
Yet Hesaid’s eyes lit up as the word sprang recognition to his face. “An arloamn,” he said, “is a word from age-old Cymru. It means the opposite of a tomb.”
With a puzzled look, the Sparrow fruitlessly asked, “But… how can a tomb have an opposite?”
Feather-cloaked Yalishamba led them on through a seeming infinity of luminous blankness with the door of the cathedral shrinking behind them — the only indication to Sir Elisa that they were traveling any distance at all. There was neither ground nor horizon in this place, nor was there even any resistance to the knight’s footfalls. They may as well have been levitating in the air, so incorporeal this place seemed to the mortal men. As they walked, Yalishamba began his silent incantation.
A tomb is a place for the dead:
A storage area for the facets of life no longer active,
Those finished and decided,
A tomb is a place to remember them
After they have passed.
Yet for those ideas and people
That have yet to be realized,
An arloamn is their place of rest
Until they are needed and called forth.
An arloamn is a place to dream of them
Before they ever exist.
This arloamn waits
For the unborn brilliance of the future to shine
As it incubates,
Dreaming,
Waiting on the verge of forever
Just to be born.
Puzzling, the Sparrow took in the all nothingness. He asked, “When can they be born? How can these… ideas… be brought about?”
The notions of the future
Must be realized and then conceived.
The arloamn is the potential,
That fertile ground beyond time and space
That may yet bear fruits of happiness.
The arloamn
Is fertilized
By the tomb.
All you see,
All you see for miles,
Within only eons of your time
This all shall come to pass!
Yet the Sparrow frowned at this. “Perhaps I misunderstand,” he said slowly, “but is it your meaning that the future shall be an utter blank? Is there nothing beyond our time?”
Yalishamba stopped and looked at him, studying his face with the ancient eyes of wisdom.
Sparrow with the pretty eyes,
A songbird’s eyes that shall capture a heart,
A songbird that shall know love
This and every Cycle,
What sees the songbird herein?
The Knight of the Sparrow had only to look around casually, vestigially. “There is naught here. This… arloamn… is complete blankness. I see nothing but an endless directionless landscape of white light. Does it imply that our world shall be destroyed?”
But it was Hesaid Isee who said, “I see. We two cannot perceive that which resides in this arloamn. You, great Yalishamba, must be an extra-chronological being; you must exist outside of our time, is that not so? To you, is this place as detailed as both the tomb and the chapel?” Yalishamba gazed around him, and a quick study of his face revealed that he was seeing things invisible to his companions. “For us,” continued Hesaid, “these concepts are unimaginable and unintelligible. They clearly have no place in our minds. Perhaps we still bear the responsibility of bringing these invisible dreams to birth.”
As blue-tattooed Hesaid Isee spoke, a look of gratitude and understanding slipped across Yalishamba’s gnarled features. He made as if to speak then, words from his mouth, but they came out garbled. He started an incantation, saying, “Uoy tem I ecnis thoos kaeps ot—” but stopped himself. Concentration flashed then across the wizard’s brow before again their minds’ caught his words direct from their source.
No surprise to me that
Again
It is the wisest of us who sees.
You saw me before — your after —
Just as you see now the truth in the arloamn.
And I am confused,
For time is all directions to me
And backwards.
Yea, and I have only learned to speak
Since I met you.
And Hesaid Isee’s eyes twinkled with curious concern, yet the Magician of Time swept his robes and lead them on through the blank wilderness until, in the distance, they found sight again out through the mouth of a cave. They saw the same rocks and plants of the Sylvian Fissure from their window cut out of the nothingness, and saw their giraffes and Frontal standing by, waiting on them. Yet as they approached this exit of the imperceptible arloamn, Sir Elisa spied a stranger’s body disappearing into the cave-mouth across from theirs: disappearing into the blackness of the tomb. He tried to imagine who else should come in behind them until he saw upon the stranger his own sparrow’s armor and embroidered cloak, livery and lyre, descending cerulean-and-gold down those black steps.
“What is this?” he gasped, pointing out his other self to the wise men.
Where I shall go —
Where you have been —
The Sylvian Fissure —
It is beyond your world.
The crevice is
Not in England
But within you.
These locations
Are beyond all time,
Like a stage trick
A creator’s back-door
Or the nexus of a chime.
We have been
Within you
And within
Time.
And when the three travelers roech the stark edge of the arloamn and stepped back into the Merry Land, the forms of their former selves had disapore entirely into the darkness of the tomb.
Frontal double-took when he saw them emerge instantly from the opposite wall of the ravine. “Very expedient, my Lords. Have you forgetten something?”
Alas young squire
It was but a loop of tunnel
That led us back around:
So like life,
So like our Cycle.
Onwards then,
Now do we in both strands of time,
Yours and mine,
Travel to lands beyond this Fissure!
Thus Yalishamba and Hesaid mounted one steed, Sir Elisa another, and the already-mounted squire shrugged and prepared to journey once more.
Up through the over-grown length of the canyon their giraffes navigated, noticing that the winds seemed to blow far harder than when they had descended, whistling and shrieking through the walls of the Fissure. And as they rose from below the earth they began to notice more and more to their alarm that the clouds above had erupted into full maelstrom, spitting lightning and strife all about them. Yalishamba, choosing to share saddle with turbaned Hesaid Isee, said,
The Fissure is upset with us,
Perhaps for our inquisitiveness.
We can foil that intent if we away,
To the Fissure for me — and for you, the day.
The wizard with his mouth then sang to himself in trance, swaying with the harmony of his own backwards-lilting voice. So it was that his melody somehow manifested a translucent aegis above their heads, shielding them from the congregating storm-winds. Precipitation began to rage ferociously, and it was not long before one lightning bolt impacted against the aegis, smashing at it with destructive force, causing it to indent with impact. Another strike of lightning jaggedly glent in the sky and impacted against the forcefield. After, another struck.
“Has the storm roech a crescendo?” cried the Sparrow Knight over the furious winds. For indeed the maelstrom of the Fissure had gathered terrible power, jagged bolts smashing at their withered battalion, and the group was saved only by the mighty wizard’s ethereal shield. But when Sir Elisa glanced behind he noticed that thin wet lines rolled up Yalishamba’s cheeks and into the intricate folds of his eyes as he sang his wise old chant. “O Why do you weep?” cried the Sparrow, and the Magician of Time rose his voice and projected English words to accompany his chant.
To manifest this joy and safety for we few
Is to drain it from another
And introduce despair.
I know the importance of our survival
And the enraged Fissure would surely destroy us
And all that I teach,
But I feel too the woes of those I influence —
And that is why I cry.
The storm raged on all about them, battering their mystical defenses and draining their morale all the more they thought upon avoiding their own destruction. But also fresh in their minds was the strangeness of that departed place, and the lessons scattered about in their brains. It seemed as if the chambers of the Fissure existed only to complement one another, though their complete visions were too complex to comprehend from a single visit. And so the travelers had no recourse then but to press on and hope for the Fissure’s emotional imagery to be processed when they evaded at last the storm’s fury and slipped into a revelatory rest.