*
VII
As they emerged the next day from the great doorway of the Green Gate onto the zenith once more of that sacred stairway, the sun and clear morning sky glent off the newly-burnished armor of the drowsy knights. The priests of the fortress had offered fresh provisions and allowed a last occasion for all to partake of the holy seven-pointed Plant before they departed. At the gathering, Sir Moodye asked the High Priest what he thought they would find within that dearly sought resting-place of the Wreath of Reincarnation.
At the end of a long string of smoking-coughs the elderly seer had responded, “Only what you take with you.” And after several more coughs, the High Priest bestowed an immaterial token of companionship and eternal acceptance on the Whale should ever he wish to return among their fold. “Once of us, always of us,” he had wheezed.
“I know not if ever I shall come this way again,” Sir Moodye timidly replied, “Yet if I do I shall surely welcome your hospitality.”
It was Augnaught again who on that windy stoop saw them off, and to the Whale he said, “It is good that you came to us for clarity of thought. All things must revolve: some days we smoke and some we do not, some days we rejoice and some we do not, some days we live and some we do not. After all has fallen into death and blackness and nothingness, when our great Cycle turns once more after that, I think that we again shall meet.”
Exposed livery and embroidered robes flapped in the blustery atmosphere as the knights clomb down from the crown of the mountain: Sir Sallimaide walked first, then Sir Palamander, then Sir L’angoustier, then Sir Elisa, then finally Sir Moodye. It was a descent that each had dreaded during their month of meditation. The sun slithered across the sky and still no descending knight spoke. Evening blew a cover of clouds across the sky that sealed them in as before. The boundaries of the stairway blurred with the fog and they were forced at once to set uncomfortable camp, but the moment that rays of morning broke through the moisture Sir Sallimaide clanged on his helmet to rally them from sleep before leading their procession further down. Their weariness discouraged talk until the sun was high, but at noon it seemed to joyfully dawn on them that the Wreath was nearly in their possession.
“What is a Wreath will look like?” asked Sir L’angoustier. “I’m imagine gold: O gold and a ruby shiny! Certainmont a hat of king will be like crown, non?”
But the Sparrow Knight replied, “There is many an object of power long lost due to a mundane appearance. It may not even be in the form of a wreath when we discover it.”
The Ram Knight asked, “Do you then suppose that it shall a ragged thing, fallen into shoddy disrepair over the ages? What purpose is a head-dress that cannot be worn proudly?” And so the companions fell to bitter argument. The stair wore hard on their nerves, and their bickering wore hard on Sir Sallimaide.
One of their number loudly moaned, “How must longer shall we be continuing down this wretched stair? It seems like forever.”
This was the final straw that broke the fiery Frog Knight’s back. He sighed and grit his teeth against his reply: he was tired of feeling like the leader in Sir Intuition’s absence, expected to aid every minuscule hurt. He snapped, “The ground is still another day off, I expect. You know the way, for you ascended just as I have.”
“Forgive me, yet I did not!” replied Sir Wander-Gogh. They all stopped solid there high among the shifting clouds, staring at the knight in umber-and-vert who brought up the rear of their single-file descent. “Well met,” he said.
There was silence in the sky until Sir Sallimaide, sputtering in rage, finally exploded “Well met?!” back at the unapologetic Manta-Ray. “You may be a knight of repute, renown and skill, yet you sometimes act less intelligent than your helm! How did you arrive here of all accursed places?”
Sir Wander-Gogh took a moment to contemplate. “I was lost for a long time,” he said, “out somewhere by the coast, in ocean-fog. Then I found myself lost in a wide blank space that I knew not. At long last I noticed that I was walking not on land, nor upon rocky beach nor leafy forest, but upon a stone stairway — these very steps. And when the mist evaporated into azure, I noticed the lot of you clanking just ahead in the distance. Of course I caught up. Thus do I inquire, when shall we make camp for the night?”
“Non!” snorted the Lobster. “Mist isn’t what only parted, buffoon of fools! We down through clouds have made an our ways! Now how are you came?”
“The… clouds?” Sir Wander-Gogh’s eyes were wide with agitated disorientation. “You are journeying down from the clouds? To what manner of place have you been?”
“Sir Wander-Gogh,” answered Sir Sallimaide, “we most recently have left the High Fortress, that holy site to which King Bidgood directed us. For one turn of the moon we stayed there, after which the priests informed us of the location of our goal.”
“O,” stuttered the Manta-Ray in confusion. “And are we are nearly there? You jested that we were a full day above the Merry Land.”
“So it would seem,” explained Sir Sallimaide. “Much has transpired since you went off on your own, yet it is good that you are with us for the final act. All we at Bidgood’s bidding are reunited once again… all excepting that bravest Knight of the Hart. Indeed we have two more valiant souls among our rank — here Sir Palamander and here Sir L’angoustier — they are passing skilled, yet hopeful am I that the Hart and we shall cross paths. Yet, of more import, what occured between you and fair Sarah Bellum? For I heard the two of you parted ways.”
Here did Sir Wander-Gogh close his helmet in shame. “I had not meant to abandon her. I hope she has faired aright. It was not my intention, O! And if she lives I hope she can forgive me.” And not one knight did make reply, but left him to his guilt.
After a few more days’ journey they descended the last steps of the stone stairway onto the lush spongey soil of the Silver Spring. The sky was thick with purple that evening as they reunited with their jovial squires and blessed the wide-open ground. Hesaid and Sir Moodye exchanged a brief knowing glance unknowingly as Sir Sallimaide praised their treatment of Tinkersnow and set about brushing the large bovine himself for the first time in a moon’s turn.
Sarah Bellum, when she noticed who rode with them, grew shrill. “What is the meaning of this?” she sneered. “What are you doing here? Why does he walk among you?”
Sir Wander-Gogh, when he knew her in the dusk, approached the maiden and knelt low. “‘Twas an awful deed that I have done, and from the pits of my heart and stomach I wish I could atone in a manner exceeding this, yet all the words I have are like to ash on these occasions. I had not meant to leave you sleeping unguarded. I went but for a single midnight walk, as is my wont. I planned to return, I should have returned, yet I… became lost. I could not help it! I never even left the path, it was not my fault that I could not find you once more. I am so thankful that you have survived. How can I ever be a man forgiven, fair Sarah?”
“O noble knight, you claim you were lost? When has that ever else occurred?” said Sarah, glowering with venomous sarcasm. “Was it never in your power to guess that you would go traipsing off into unmapped places? You should have stayed — but the flaw is somewhere within your soul, I think.”
“Untrue,” the Manta-Ray maintained. “I beg only the forgiveness to which I am entitled, yet I claim the mistake no fault of my own! I am like to whispering winds, a body without compass; a flapping bat who lacks direction. When can it be claimed that the winds have shamed someone?”
Sarah nearly replied, yet from the gathered glowing vines of the Spring slipped a loping orange form: the house-cat who once had led them to this conquered stair. “He’s stayed with me at this camp since you knights left,” Sarah remarked as the feline coiled around her leg. She scooped the animal’s orange bulk into her thin arms and the purrs of his passions became audible. As the sun slipped behind the Silver Spring, brief bowls of cereal were eaten as the knights all readied their beds. Sarah said softly to the Manta-Ray, “Still do I bristle at your indignation… yet I suppose I cannot blame the nature in your breast. No more do I wish to dwell on this ridiculous philosopher’s dilemma. You must hunger for sleep. I too shall retire with the one who loves me.” And away she stalked to her tent, cuddling her orange purring friend.
All in the sky became black as the Sun’s power dissolved at last, leaving the knights and their camp of followers in their sleeping-rolls. Before the senile Sir Palamander slipped off into the sleep that bore on him heavier than his armor, he chanced to hear their enigmatic mystic speak a few words to the seclusive Knight of the Whale.
“I see that you saw something,” said Hesaid Isee. “What was it?”
“It was nothing much.”
“O?”
“I saw what I saw. It was where the Wreath is. Only, I saw it twice.”
“Once, and then twice?”
“Not so. First it was in a vision — a golden light below the sea. For, as all here know, I am the Knight of the Whale. That is me, truly. And in that dream of the depths, I understood the Wreath.”
“And then?”
“And then, I understood that it was only a dream. In reality I joined the clergy of that place, a cannabis cult, and with our reaching minds we found the resting-place of the object of our quest. It is north of here. It is in a place called the Forest of Swans and Geese. The High Priest said that once many swans and geese lived there, yet no more. Perhaps when we have solved that location’s riddle, the birds shall return. Do you know how we found the forest with our minds? It was in me. It was inside me, and the Wreath was the very heart of the matter.” Yet no longer could the aged Ram perceive their conversation. He was asleep, bleating snores unknowingly into the moonless night.
On the morrow as the knights broke their fast to Froot Loops, Flakes of Corn and Crispex, and as they were about to depart the campsite the orange-furred feline slunk over to where Sir Sallimaide was securing his supplies. The cat began to chirp and mewl that he would accompany their band on the final leg of their expedition to bestow luck and guidance. As this intent was translated into the speech of men by the Frog Knight, the maiden beamed and rubbed the orange animal from head to tail. All were touched by his generosity.
And Sir Elisa looked upon their mirth and unsheathed his blade. “Stand aside,” he commanded. The knights wondered at him, but Sarah did rise to move from the still-purring feline. With great ceremony Sir Elisa then pressed the flat of his sword gently against each of the little beast’s shoulders, intoning, “As recognition of your sacrifices for our benefit, I hereby dub you Sir Beanford — and throughout all the realm shall you be known as the Knight of the Sloth!” And those gathered knights and gentry did applaud, though Sir Moodye’s cheer was more muted than the rest. Why should a cat, albeit an intelligent one, become a knight before me? Will I ever know what true knighthood is? Is this justice, or a lack thereof? Alas, and shall I ever feel complete? When dawn broke above the tree-line, the Knights of Bidgood rose and set out for the Forest of Swans and Geese.
* * *
Hesaid Isee took note of the flights of birds and of the currents of the wind, relating these to the Whale Knight who led them north over rocky wetlands. Soon, winter faded into a blustery biting spring. The suspended crest of the marble Tchrelma’Montgomery rose in the distance, sloping downward towards the horizon. It seemed as if in this last leg of their ventures it was following them, just as the procession of Bidgood’s Knights followed the Whale. But then, by the triumphant light of a noonday sun, Sir Wander-Gogh spaye an aspen forest on the western horizon. The Tchrelma’Montgomery passed on north across the ocean to realities beyond the Merry Land, yet one of the white unsoilable fronds dipped down from that great highway into the murky woods.
Sir Moodye stood in his giraffe’s surveying-saddle, looking through a kaleidoscope towards the glow of the tree-line before confirming, “That is what I saw in my vision. The place the Green Gate revealed to us: the Forest of Swans and Geese.” The knights gave a rejoicing cry and sped off behind the galloping Manta-Ray. Sir Sallimaide gave signal to unfurl the banners, and Frontal and Hadley both sounded a clarion fanfare.
Even the frail Sir Palamander got caught up in the spirit of the thing and cried, “For death and victory!” as had been his cry of old. Their success loomed so sweet now that it was nigh upon them, and the jubilant energy of their charge led them past the mossy outer trees and well along the choked path of the muddied wood, yet it did not take long for the eeriness of the forest to sink in. The knights slowed their rush on the narrow path as they heard silence in the sparse canopy, saw spring-frost in the marshes, and felt a thick presence in the air as intangible as spiderwebs. Sir Sallimaide signaled them into two lines, with himself and the Ram Knight leading.
They crept on slowly through pale aspens and dimming shafts of sunlight, past timid rivers and lonely strips of swampland that nourished onion grasses and cabbage. Fallen trees of rotted where they lay, some half-submerged in the half-frozen ground. Ominous echoes fluttered about on either side of the obscured path, and it was not only once that Sir Moodye caught glimpses of hungry shadows behind coral-like branches. Somehow, he felt as if he was still underwater.
The sun seemed to be setting, barely visible through the warlock trees, when as they neared a stream Sir Sallimaide cried out, “Who goes there?” And the entire company did halt for they spaye then a knight standing atop a rickety wooden bridge. Yet no ordinary knight was this, for his armor was a dreadfully polished ebony and he displayed neither robes nor livery of any kind. Stock-still as any guardian statue he stood. The black visor was shut tight against inquiries, and the black knight did nothing to respond to their summons. He seemed more phantom than knight and his aura was dark and silent, dark and cold. He did not move from off the bridge.
The silence of that sylvan holy land was broken by a waver of fear in the elderly Sir Palamander’s voice. “I know you,” he said incredulously as he rode toward the bleak armor. As the other knights watched him in an awed silence, he dismounted and approached the river on foot. The phantom knight made no notice or reply. “I know you,” repeated the bleating Ram, “you are one blacker than all the things you have done, all the things you have made me do! I know it was you — yet how can you still survive? It was you who forced us all into deceit and war! I name you now, in the hope that your spirit will vanish and haunt us no more! A foul un-knight are you: the ignoble Knight of No Thing!” Shock was a cold hard gauntlet across the knights’ faces, but the accused neither flinched nor replied.
“Can it be?” questioned Sir Moodye frightfully. He pulled his giraffe away from the black-hole armor, eyes wide beneath his lowered visor. Bloodied scenes from the jungle flashed before him vivid as ever, yet this empty armor so chill seemed to contain no ill will… nor anything at all.
The Frog Knight boomed, “What are you doing in this place, of all remotest places? Why do you block the path?”
Yet Sir Hadeon said no thing.
The stream’s strange song wove through the woods as the Ram gruffly spat. “Do you know me, fiend?” and he hurled his horned helmet to the dirt. Sir Palamander’s bedraggled beard and hair flowed like a breaking wave, settling around his narrowed eyes.
Sir Hadeon said no thing.
“It is I: Sir Palamander! I was knighted under the zodiac of the Ram, a beast plucked from chaos by your vermin fingers and cursed unto me!” The other knights hung back, startled by the normally placid Ram’s ferocity. Gusts of shadow swirled about the un-knight’s ebon-metalled frame. The Painter of Sendrago drew his grating blade, mud suckling his greaves as he approached. “It was you!” he shrieked, beside himself in wrath. Sir Moodye was startled to see tears in the Ram’s eyes as he cried, “You merciless Nothing! You took our dearest rituals and, and, and unfeelingly stripped them of all but function! You reduced them to rote! My love, dried up? My life, mere mechanism? You vacant villain, speak! Speak… or meet your end.” The aged knight’s scowl peeled bark from the trees and seared menace into the very evening, yet Sir Hadeon — like the coming dusk — said no thing. The Ram blunk steaming tears from his eyes and saluted his ancient nemesis with burnished brand. He studied the emotionless black helmet opposite him and, perceiving not one modicum of remorse, charged with a ferocious diagonal slash. Yet at the last Sir Hadeon proved more responsive than he’d seemed, for the Ram’s blade was met, clanging, with fiercer steel. Thus did their duel commence.
Blurs of metal collid with more terrible thunder than hexes of electricity. Sir Moodye swept off his giraffe and ran to Sir Palamander’s aid yet the Ram bellowed, “Stay away!” as he parried Sir Hadeon’s hunting thrust. “He began this clash in olden days, thus shall I conclude it now. Have at you!” He delivered a flurry of wrathful scrapes to No Thing’s armor in vain, and the Whale Knight could approach no more. Yet the Painter of Sendrago had not seen combat in many years and was old, and soon his ferocity had waned into shortness of breath. Sir Wander-Gogh sensed something that he had felt in Uther’s world — and leapt forward intending to block the cruel intent burning in No Thing. Yet even as the Manta-Ray flew towards the nemeses, the black knight gained the upper hand in a flash and took it: with a single stroke of black luck he severed Sir Palamander’s armor and clove bloodily into the aged flesh of his very breast. That elder knight collapsed with a moan into the maternal mud, and his companions began to blare their outrage.
“He would have yielded!” shouted the devastated Manta-Ray Knight who began to speak again but trailed off abruptly. The Knight of No Thing seemed entranced by the Ram’s mud-covered corpse. He silently picked up the horned Ram’s helmet from where it had fallen and placed it back into the dying man’s grasp, kneeling low. A change began to come over Sir Hadeon’s armor as the blackness flowed together and drained from the slayer knight into the rushing river. When the black knight removed finally his helm that was no longer black, his ugly nothingness melted completely away until underneath they all saw argent-and-umber and a pattern of Harts. And the Manta-Ray cried, “O! What? It is Sir… Intuition? What… what are you doing here? What strange sorcery might be afoot?”
For indeed it was the Knight of the Hart before them, in his own polished steel and livery, his familiar face a mask of confused sorrow. Very very softly, to Sir Palamander dying in his lap, he said, “I am sorry that I have fought you. I was… dark within. I was directionless and uncaring and angry — yet perhaps still there is time to save you!”
“No…” the faint Ram choked on blood. “No, my death is at hand. It makes all the difference that you could… defeat the nothing… within… yourself. Alas that it took my death to call your senses to you… yet at long last I am certain that… the foul No Thing knight’s lineage is gone. You have made his poison extinct. And now… you must leave… me.”
Yet, “I cannot!” swore incensed Sir Intuition, hot tears barely held back. “If only I had just one blossom of Hypercrenulum I could save you!”
The impaled Knight of the Ram was at the razor’s edge of death, and gave only the slightest of smiles beneath his silvery beard as he exhaled his final breath. “You… already have.”
* * *
Having crossed that river they continued to ride under the dense boughs of the Forest of Swans and Geese: stunned, silent, and solemn, lost between the aspens. The Knight of the Ram had been interred in the soft swampy earth of the forest, wrapped in his robes of violet-and-argent, and it was a tearful Hart who had given the eulogy.
“This knight of ages past,” said Sir Intuition bowing his head, “always did treat us with care and consideration, even as he joined us by fluke. It was my faulty leadership which fed that fluke, and my spiritual irresponsibility which slew him. For my amnesiac actions, I know not what to say… my father is gone, gone from this realm, and for a time I was left with nothing but despair. He broke my heart before he died, yet I must still walk the virtuous path: I must not give in to hate. The road is long, my friends — if I may call you such, if I can ever be a Hart forgiven. Yet I seek not that forgiveness, not such a selfish end. I quest only for our glory and our truth… and I hope that these shall make an honest man of me. Yet, alas, already does my scum seep through my shining plate. Here I commend my friend to mud with words about myself! He was a noble Ram, he brought us his guidance and the wisdom of older knights who truer were than we. Their times and deeds eclipse our own for we live within our ancestors’ shadows all Cycle long. And yet this valiant Painter of Sendrago was born of the invincible virtue of those ancient ones — may he live long in death. My breast has filled my words with tears, O!, I’m drowning in reverse. Alas. I have no more words to cry.”
The Forest of Swans and Geese was bright in its gloom, and thickly silent though they walked and led their steeds beside a ululating stream. Bird-song was absent, and the only hints of animals that any of them could spot were as immaterial as faeries on the wing. Dark vines choked the trees waking from their winter slumber. The path had become too unsure for them to ride, thus mud did suckle their greaves for every step taken. Yet without an instant of warning the sun was blotted out, and a chill arose in the air. The trees glew as if possessed, and all the air was in movement.
“Keep close,” commanded Sir Sallimaide, unsheathing his brand. The other knights too made ready, and Sir Moodye’s pristine Darnestowne blade sang softly in the breeze.
But when an apparition brighter than suns manifested before them, Hesaid Isee proclaimed, “Away with your blades — I know this man! And if you were to possess memories as keen as your weapons you would also recall him. Hail, O wise Yalishamba!”
So it came to pass that the illumination gave way to the form of the Magician of Time. In mysterious lilting tongue, he intoned, “Lleweref, lleweref, niaga teem ew yam, sdneirf ym lleweref!” Bowing profusely, the wizard gazed long at each of the knights in turn there in the darkened wood. To Sir Moodye, Yalishamba’s face somehow seemed so similar to Sir Abmasilae that he could have been the very man’s younger self: the wizard’s beard had blackened and his wrinkles had receded faintly beneath the tones of his pale skin and into his shyer seeing-orbs. When the Whale’s eyes met Yalishamba’s, Sir Moodye saw in them a startling gratitude that shone for him. Wizened old Yalishamba grew close, the weathered lines of his face chronicling his sufferings, and with infinite tenderness, the wizard kissed the Whale. Stunned, Sir Moodye knelt down in the mud before him, overcome with piety and esteem of the magician, and slowly the other knights mirrored him in kneeling. “Uoy eb ylurt — uoy ees nac I won.”
From his knees, Sir Elisa said, “O Yalishamba wise, your counsel has failed us not! We found the light that dwelt within your bottle, and woke the Silver Spring! Our journey has been long, yet at last we think we know the resting place of the fabled Wreath of Reincarnation. And it shall win for England such an honor that joy and peace shall reign our lasting days.”
The teary-eyed wizard, seeming not to hear, replied, “Lleweref! Daeha yaw ruo dnif tsum htob ew. Ylsselgninaem tuo sevil ruoy eke uoy tsel, efirts edave ot ton kees. Nac I tahw nrael dna yaw nwo ym dnif I tsum suht. Desufnoc ma I dna, nrob saw I ecnis emit trohs a hcus neeb sah ti. Ton wonk I secrof yb yawa dellac ma I tub, og tsum I taht yrros ma I. Og tsum I.”
Sir Moodye on his knees looked up longingly upon the magician in his feathered cloak against the holy glowing forest — a piece of the puzzle falling, in his brain, into place. “I do not understand,” he admitted. “Wherefore do you say ‘farewell’ when we have said ‘hail?’ I say ‘yea,’ you say ‘nay;’ I say stop as you wish to away! What meaning is behind your tangled speech? What have you meant since we have known you? Yea, Yalishamba, and what even are you?”
The wizard’s eyes moistened, and tears one after another traced paths from his beard up his face. He turned away from Sir Moodye then, and to Hesaid he said, “Mih demaner I yhw si taht, lla dootsrednu sah eesI diaseH. Uoy era tahw? Ma I tahw ma I rof, gnihtyna ton wonk I, sala sala sala.” Silence followed in the Forest of Swans and Geese. The wizard still seemed heartbroken, but he focussed the haunting glow of the flora into an arc that began to run above the tattooed mystic. The Magician of Time somehow shaped the light into a halo then that surrounded the purple turban with brilliance.
And Hesaid Isee said, “I see. Yalishamba is backwards. We cannot go with him, and he cannot come with us. We must have been companions solely through coincidence.”
All dark had it been since the unexpected arrival, but suddenly all light was let back in the world as Yalishamba sobbed harder. The tears rising up his face caught the prismatic evening colors, and his eyes seemed to be drinking a rainbow waterfall. He began to contort and dance in some sort of wizard’s fit, and he shouted, “Ees I dias eh! Ees I dias eh! Uoy emaner I! Nwonk eb won eh llahs os dna ‘ees i’ dias ohw eno eht si eh. Em dnatsrednu os dna esarhp eht yas ot mih esuac! Dias sah eh hturt a, hturt a, sgnisselb O!” Through his backwards tears the wizard raised a hand of power and a mysterious pallor came over that woodsey mystic they had known. Light was transferred between them proudly from and into Yalishamba’s feathered sleeve.
“What is he doing to Meredith?” said Sir Elisa. The energy between the holy men dissipated as swiftly as it had come, and the Sparrow Knight rushed over to the turbaned man with whom he had shared such fathomless distances. He grasped the tattooed shoulders and moaned, “O Meredith Emrys, what has he done to you?”
Yet the mystic blunk his eyes open and seemed not in the least bit altered. Silently assessing all his form and purple robes Meredith said, “I suppose that I feel no different. What trick was it you played, Yalishamba, O magician of one thousand dimensions?”
“Lla ti fo traeh eht ta llehs eht ot htap neddih eht delevart ew elihw detrapmi uoy evah ecivda hcum. Erutaerc egnarts uoy, em ot hturt ylno nekops evah htidereM uoy, oga gnol ton htrib detsiwt ym ecnis.” As the wizard’s reverse tears ceased, he backwards-walked away from the edge of the river and they followed him into the undergrowth. At a gesture of tattooed Meredith Emrys, the whole company began to follow where the Magician of Time appeared to lead — though Yalishamba faced the knights even as he strode away from them.
To the Sparrow Knight, Sir Intuition whispered “Why does he walk backwards? And where does he lead?”
“I know not, yet we were aimless ere he apore. Soon after we all had split up at the ruins of London, this wizard travelled with Meredith and I for a span. It seemed as if he were older then than now. Perhaps the Wreath has a gravity of its own that shall pull us in.”
“Em rof tiaw,” lilted Yalishamba in agitation as the knights followed him through the gloomy woods, growing ever more anxious and uncertain. Deeper into the thick they led their mounts, mud sucking at their footsteps and hooves until there — spiraling from the land beside the river rose an enormous solemn conch shell. Feeble overcast sun light glent rainbow-like off the shell’s enamel; it was the size of a peasant’s farmhouse, yet twice as tall. When they drew close, Yalishamba’s face twisted and he began hoarsely to throw another wizard’s-fit, dancing and spasming unnaturally. In what seemed like agony, he tore the cloak of swans and geese from his back and began ripping birds from it as he cavorted. The knights simply stared back and forth between him and the smooth spiral, daring to imagine that their quest would at long last be completed, but none wishing to take the final step inside to discover whether or not the Wreath was truly therein entombed. They all came up alongside the shell, just to the slit maw where a man might enter, but were unable to see beyond the spiral within. Eventually they decided to enter together in spite of inconsolable Yalishamba, who refused to venture near the pristine aberration and instead remained under the twilit canopy pulling birds from his robe and setting them miraculously flying freely away.
Turning from the madness, Sarah ran her naked palm over the surface enamel and marvelled, “It’s so smooth!”
Sir Moodye removed one mail glove and too caressed the shell’s skin. He smiled. It was like glass, cold and glossy. Yet for reasons unknown he felt compelled to keep one compassionate eye on the yelling wizard wracked with unearthly emotions. He saw that the cloak they once had known him to wear was nearly dissolved at this point — almost all of the birds that had made it up now were flown. Yet when the Frog Knight entered the shell around which all their hopes revolved, Sir Moodye looked to him.
And all felt a nervous dropping of their stomachs as Sir Sallimaide exhaled a dismayed single syllable. “O,” he croaked.
When all had gathered within to look, he showed them that the floor of the shell was only bare soil surrounding a pool the size of a small well.
“How deep is it?” asked Sir Wander-Gogh. “Might the Wreath be submerged beneath?”
“It is too dark to tell,” replied Sir Sallimaide over Yalishamba’s cacophonous wailing. “Unless someone wishes to submerge now.”
Sir Intuition said, “I for one do not. Let us leave this place for the time being, and attempt to quiet our ailing wizard. I move that we camp nearby tonight. To-morrow perhaps answers shall be more apparent.”
And, begrudgingly, this is what they began to perform. Yet as soon as they set out away from the shell they knew that something was amiss. The yelling, howling, and cajoling of the wizard’s fit was thunderously loud, yet though all the knights scanned the forest with their kaleidoscopes there was no trace to be seen of anguished Yalishamba.
“Where has he gone?” worried Sarah, and Sir Elisa clasped her close.
Why did he kiss me? wondered the Whale as the wizard’s incorporeal howling slowly faded until not a trace of the Magician of Time was discernable.
Thus is was that the Knights of Bidgood found the nearest glade and set up their sleeping rolls as best they could on the half-frozen ground beyond the shell. They barely touched their Puffs of Cocoa and Flakes of Corn, and instead each drifted into uneasy, uncomfortable, and doubtful slumbers.
* * *
I am climbing the stairway again. For how long have I been climbing? When at last I reach the top I shall find the Green Gate and the Wreath at last; I shall uncover my own inner peace. How long have I been climbing? How many ages? Is this the Dreaming Age still, or is it now the Age of Wakefulness? My feet are weary. What form will my life take when at last all my cares have been fulfilled? For how long have I been striving? Forever and always have I clomb these stairs, yet I am not who I am, I am only the striving itself. My greaves shift into hooves as the carved steps fuse into natural rock formations. I still have far to climb. To better ascend I have become a mountain-goat; a Ram like that lost kindred Ram who has brayed his last wisdom. I still have far to go — yet I can feel the zenith is nigh. Good; my energy is nearly spent. I am not who I am, I am only my perception. What manner of bliss is given to those who understand the heart of the matter? Am I the total of all knowledge, and just now beginning to understand myself? Who is God and why were we made? Could it be that God Him-And-Herself is me? And I am not who I am, for I can only be the instant of action. I am the striving, the energy, the present instant, yet am I myself? I am dreaming. There is a flash of light that I cannot escape from, the golden towers that welcome me home. I know I am dreaming but I cannot help it. I must pull away from the flash, I must keep climbing, I must return to the task at hand. I bellow into the wide sky between mountain-peaks. If I am dreaming, then I shall go to the top of the stair. I wish to achieve! I wish to know! I wish to feel some form of happiness! At long last, at long last, I crest the pinnacle of the mountain and dig my plough-rake into the soft soil. Why here? Why have I come again to Beverly Farms? Have I misunderstood it all, and must relearn my lessons? I am not who I am, I am the learning. Why can I not awaken? I have achieved the world, I have won my soul, and yet—
* * *
It is not enough, thought Sir Moodye jarring into full wakefulness. He had only been dreaming. He stared up at the wisps of blue midnight through the gnarled canopy, lying awake on the ground hearkening unto the low drone of the woods. Insects and wind. Moonlight glent off the distant shell, refracting mutely. All around the Whale lay his companions seemingly fast in slumber, knights and gentry indistinguishable in their bedrolls.
The Whale alone, in only his robes of sable-and-ivory, sat up with a sigh and gazed into the full silver orb high above. Why am I awake? Why does this serpent of worry constrict my breast? What is this anxious hour of the night? A loon wailed far off. The whole-moon passed coyly behind a wandering cloud — and Sir Moodye caught terrible sight of some unearthly specter sliding through the aspens. He inhaled sharp, and wide-eyed he watched it: the immaterial form palely glew as it meandered just above the surface of the undergrowth. What soul travels beyond those branches? Fair of face and colorless beyond words… look how the columns of aspen trunks pass through him. Is he transparent? Is it some spirit who walks these woods? What is that familiar face that ignites such remembrances in me? Curiosity banished sleep, and the Whale slid his sheets aside. Clasping his sword-belt around his robes, he crept off silently after the ephemeral form through the Forest of Swans and Geese. Hiding behind shadowed bark he peered at the phantom: the ghost of some strange silver sage who trod not through the mud but above it. He carried a bright polearm. And there: he wore upon his brow the very wreath that Sir Moodye sought. As the specter passed not only did light blossom from him, but various mosses thickened on the trees and funguses crept over fallen logs. Vines drooped lazily as they elongated and twined branches together. Quiet as moon-breath Sir Moodye stalked behind the vibrant ghost whose white imperceptible light flickered in and out of the voiceless night exciting the plant life. And then they had arriven. The vague phantom drifted to the threshold of the shell.
Long he floated there, and long the Whale Knight did watch him. The silver specter took up his polearm with great purpose, and flung it away as far as he could into the weave of branches and briars. It made no sound. Then the flower-crowned spirit, moving towards the slit in the shell, vanished from sight completely.
For a long time more Sir Moodye peered from his hiding-spot at the place where the ghost had been. Forlorn familiarity had rung a chord within him, and he was rooted to the tree. I knew that ghost, I knew him well. What was the face I saw on him? Another friend from war-time? Yet many faces I did see — alas that the specter is gone for I have forgotten who he most remound me of most. Melted like his light in the night. Wind rustled the leaves. What was the point of finding this place if it yields us not the Wreath? We’ve come all this winding way, yet nothing will we have to show for it if our artefact is lost for good! Woe rouses the oceans of my heart. Yet he could not help himself for curiosity; he relinquished his hiding place and approached the perfect spiral. It shone like pearl of the heart. For long silent moments the tenuous knight in his robes gazed into the impenetrable interior. He thought he heard soft shufflings in the nocturnal plants behind him, yet he decided it stemmed only from imagination. The outer shell so bright, the inner so dark. What manner of temple must cradle such a relic as the one we seek? Is it forever inaccessible to mortal hands? Something gripped him in the night, perhaps an errant scent upon the breeze or else a breath of someone he’d never met in life, and the Whale Knight closed his eyes to calm his fearful mind. ‘Only what you take with you,’ the High Priest said. Thus he undid the clasp about his waist, and removed the heavy sword-belt. Mirroring the gesture of the ghost, Sir Moodye grasped his new-forged sword with the entwining leviathans and flung it bodily beyond the thistles and the brush. It sang softly as it disapore into only memory. Only then did he step inside the shell.
In the darkness a single beam of intense moonlight, pluckable in air, pierced the apex of the spiral. And that hole where a pool had previously impeded the knights was punctured by this beam, and it did reveal a descending spiraling stairway. Was the water evaporated in such a short span? Unlikely… therefore how does this bode? A sliver of the slumbering woods was windowed outside the narrow enamel entrance. Sir Moodye again examined the descending spiral stair, seemingly grown from the very shell. He stroked his black beard in disbelief, but snuck down the steps the same. The beam of aether-light around which the stairway revolved was so positioned as to probe into the unobservable blackness below. He followed it down. Wherefore has the water vanished, now, for me? How far down do these steps lead? And what powers shall the Wreath of Reincarnation bestow upon our realm? I can’t believe I have found a way — King Bidgood claimed he chose me for a reason, yet was that reason merest coincidence? Have I simply chosen a fortunate time, as if by accident? If that is the way of it then my power is no real power. He ran his pale fingers along the rough subterranean soil, over stunted roots and moss. Down and around into the earth wound the enamel stairway. Perhaps the Wreath shall make a man of my mind at last. And I shall have all the powers in the cosmos, as great as magicians who can control time. The world is sore in need of artefacts like this, if peace and power it shall provide. I wish I could wield such a force to change this world for better. …O what is this? Have I reached the end? What place has accepted my arrival? For at last the stairway had emerged into its termination. That was all.
Below the earth was only a small empty earthen chamber.
He might have had to search that subterranean hollow if it had been much darker. Yet the faint moonbeam proved a faint lifeline to the faint firmament as it played upon those last few steps. It illuminated just enough for him to know that he had roech the deadest of ends. There was nothing there. No! Why? He sifted through some shadows, hoping that anything had escaped his gaze, yet each frantic moment his stomach fell to the utmost. Is there no further passageway? Is the time still not right, after all my hardships? Can there truly be nothing else within this place? O what horrible chill is within me? His frantic fruitless search revealed nothing save soft soil, stainless shell, and the slipping shadows that draped the enclosure. The pretend-knight had to lean heavily upon the earthen wall, clutching it for support as his mind raced. Why is it not here? Was it never meant for me? I have sought it all this way… I have caused my fellows, my friends, to suffer for my sake and now they shan’t be sated. If this is a dead end then our quest is a fraud, and I am no better than a lying child. Without this mystic Wreath I shall spend my days in bland containers, ever yearning for falling flakes of freedom that do not freely fall. I beg you, God above, if any spans within the starry sky contain Your majesty, hear my plea! I beg for my life — my wounded heart that’s rent upon the jagged shards of life! Sir Moodye choked back tears as he sunk to the dirt of the floor, tearfully praying, Help me, great divinity, let me not toil in nothingness for all my days, let me find the Wreath and have some peace secured. Without the Wreath I shall be nothing! O answer me, great God that I have worshipped from the start!
And so I said to him, “Sir Moodye, you Knight of the Whale, I know you. I know you, for I have made you. I molded you from my own veins and I loved you dearly before I knew that ever you existed. These people of your beloved realm are my sinews and the island itself is woven of my very dreams.”
As I expected he might, my knight rose to his feet in disbelief. “O, Lord!” he gasped and made motions of reverence meant to place him beneath me, yet they were only things he believed I wanted to see. Aloud he continued his prayer. “Why am I here? Great God, why do men suffer so? And… is it truly you?” As he spoke he looked into the moonbeam, for he did not know where I was located. And he trembled in that small sunken room as if a terrible might was before him, though there was none. It was only me.
I roech into his mind as best as I could to soothe his mortal fear, and I said, “There is no need for formality before me. I have been the one crafting the grossest of your sins as well as the pinnacles of your imperceptible triumphs. I poured my blood into your secret shames that you might cool that fluid in your mold. And I am sorry Sir Moodye! I am so sorry for the injustices you have had to suffer along the way, yet some things are beyond even my control. Your hardships stem from flaws in the medium with which I fabricated your Cycle… and also from my own flawed existence. I crafted you out of my love for mine own reasons, and you are made out of my love, and when you are no more you shall be one with me, eternally, until another Cycle begins for you.”
My Sir Moodye rose from the dirt then and began to pace circles around the muted lunar beam. “Why then? Why, if you love me, wherefore the war? I hated it, the endless dead… Everyone… hated it. What were our bloody sufferings for? If we are made of you, then how could you let us commit such sin? You left us to die in the churning maws of fire!”
“And yet your land has acquired peace through its knowledge of suffering, as even dualities are one. Great death has lead to great life. Consider that many across your Merry Land suffer worse than you: think on the farmers. Think on the squires and women who are so beneath you that you barely are able to notice their presence! You live within the warm womb of luxury compared to sundry folk — yea! And you and I are not so different. We each must know hurt in order to know love, and we must sow strife to know peace. And I have sown the strife that unwittingly became your sufferings. Yet you, my Whale Knight, you are one of my chosen. I crafted that war that I know rends your soul. I gave you that war because I love you, and verily because I understand you. You are the only one who can sustain your universe: the only one with the exact perspective to recreate it — thus creating it — for the very first time. And in the end, you shall become your own form of creator deity. Why else should I speak so plain to you? Strange are the powers of infinity, as you will come to know in time.”
And then, he could not help but utter the question that plagued him. “Why then, tell me why: if I am your chosen one then why is the Wreath not here? For that is the only thing I desire.”
“And yet, Sir Moodye, we both know that to be untrue. It is not the Wreath which motivates you. You wish for that which the Wreath represents: the crown itself you know to be dross. Everything you desire and aspire to resides within you, awaiting only realization. If you understand, then when you wear the Wreath your world shall be reincarnated in full and another instance of the Cycle shall revolve once again forevermore. There is no need to prostrate yourself, for I understand every action that I cause you to undertake. Cower not before me — shield yourself not as you do against mortal danger. If you wish to realize your potential, then convince me now of your heartfelt desires.”
But instead of thoughts and actions, my Sir Moodye decided that I wanted to hear him explain his intentions. “O my creator,” he said, “I wish only to be wise! I have no wish for power or wealth, for what can they purchase of that truest peace: understanding? I desire,” he besought his image of me, “the ability to do the right thing — to do the right thing and feel happy about it for once in my wave-torn wreck of a life. Which are the tools to meet those ends? Only show me a sign, some symbol to prove that mortal man can exceed his lowly flesh!” The Whale Knight’s tears ran hot as he gesticulated in his subterranean pacing, yet I no longer needed to answer him: with time the details of my speech would only drown in helpless human memory. He needed to understand for himself. Therefore in the dark I let him wonder, in his ocean of utter solitude, he paced around and around the sacred lifeline to the moon. “Are you there?” he begged me. “Are you still by my side?” From the deepest shadow, against the rooty walls of the pit, the Whale heard a moan of wheezing utterance, startling him from his reveries. “Is someone there? Are you there, God?” Another phlegmy grunt was the reply, and it made Sir Moodye grip fumblingly at his unarmed side. He plead, “O help me Lord,” but it was not me that he needed. In darkness the Whale collapsed to the ground, shivering futilely, cold and afraid, and wrapped his arms around his legs as if to hug himself into oblivion.
The silence in that place crept across him as spiderwebs would, until he quiveringly wope his tears and realized that self-pity served him as well as death. Finally he clung no longer, but he let it all go. Thus did my knight decide to venture cautiously forth, seeking the mysterious source of the utterances. This place is so removed from all the world that any nothing may seem a monument, he thought to calm his racing nerves. This darkness penetrates and clouds my mind — to think I thought I talked to God! How foolish are the tricks my brain plays, he thought to calm the pistons of his heart. Yet hark, here some true mystery. Whatever is making that noise sounds wounded, and so I must take care. I would not wish to be wounded and alone in this eerie hollow. His footsteps barely marked the raw earth, and he traced not a whisper in that den of shadows as he traversed it. In the blackest corner, his keen night-eyes saw the man. The black lanky silhouette was curled fetally upon the ground, shivering just as Sir Moodye himself had been. My Whale Knight drew closer, keeping his silence until his empathies could contain him no longer. I shivered in this pit just as he does. I have suffered just the same as him. I cannot have another living soul pitted against the same type of suffering. Therefore Sir Moodye softly said aloud, “Come, friend. Let us leave this place together.” And the lowly man looked up at the Whale Knight, radiant in moonlight, and frailly roech out an enfeebled hand. Sir Moodye clasped the vagrant and warmly returned him to his hobbling feet. Dirt was scraped across his nude flesh, and his vague face somehow recollected Sir Abmasilae, or his own father, or me, but then his visage coalesced into certainty. “Why, it is you, Yalishamba…” said Sir Moodye. So young he looks, compared to when he first was in my dream — he now seems only a century or so older than me. “How have you come to be here?” He stripped himself of his sable-and-ivory whale robes and bestowed them upon the naked magician, saying, “Let us quit this place before our dreams are enshrouded in night forever.”
“Em evael ton od,” wheezed the emaciated magician as he was led by the hand up the spiral staircase of the shell. They ascended through the brightening light, and Sir Moodye began to perceive that Yalishamba’abmasilae was growing younger stair by stair. Each coil of the spiral rejuvenated his flesh and blackened his beard, and laved away layer after layer of wrinkles. Soon they roech the summit. Outside, through the translucent dome of the shell, they found that it was dawn.
“I have failed,” Sir Moodye told Yalishamba at the threshold. “I set out to recover the Wreath of Reincarnation, yet it seems I only dwelt for the twinkling of an eye in realms of phantoms before being rejected by them, none the wiser. How have you come to be so wise?” And he looked back at the man he knew he could not understand only to find that, without the years that deformed his face, the young wizard had acquired a familiar likeness. The mask of his identity was no more. He had not roech quite the same age, yet the features which had been obscured by advanced years and beard-growth now were plain: Yalishamba was himself Sir Moodye, both the same. And when the knight pulled his doppelganger across the threshold of the spiral shell, the wise one vanished into himself — and the Whale Knight found that he instead held the very Wreath of Reincarnation.
THE END