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he land was darkness. A cold thing. It throbbed, pulsed, waited. It knew no boundaries. Everything was black. The feeble lights that managed to crawl through the void from distant stars arrived crippled; they were winnowed down to a meager flickering, mere nothings that fell into the darkness and were engulfed by it. All was eaten by the hungry night.
The far forest was a sister to the darkness. An entity that held life, captured it, destroyed it within gnarled branches. A static wasteland of dying trees and unborn hopes. There had been no movement within, no life, no light.
Until now.
From the forest he emerged: battered, scarred, beaten, but still he came. A seeker. A hero, at one time. Through his broken, foam flecked teeth a feral yell emerged as he tried to escape the forest, which even now was holding him, pulling him back into itself, into its darkness. His large, rusted sword came down once, twice, and won his release. As he walked out of the cold, dead woods, the dust of a thousand lands, a thousand battles, a thousand nightmares fell from his crushed armor and mingled with the ancient earth at his feet.
Free.
He was free now, free to gaze upon the darkness, to raise his tortured head, to look upon the niggardly stars. Even as the blackness reached out to embrace him, a fleeting remnant of his once fierce blond mane picked up the pathetic twinklings and amplified them, casting shadows along his gaunt features, withered by months of pain, loss, strife, and untold horrors.
For a moment, his body slumped towards the ground, and it was as if he had grown old then: months, years, decades in that instant. His once great arms shook, and his legs, his proud legs that had propelled him towards legions of terrible armies and grateful women, lay on the ground, wracked and broken against the shores of his sufferings.
But only for a moment.
It was his eyes.
His eyes, the only thing left of him that still remembered the name of hero. The only part that was not tired, broken, weary. It was his eyes that lifted first his head, then his arms, and slowly the rest of his body back onto his unsteady feet. It was his eyes that smiled first and revived his shattered visage, once called handsome in lands long left behind. It was his eyes that shed tears, the tears of a joy that his mind had lost forever.
He saw it.
He saw.
He looked to the sky. The ephemeral flickerings brightened, gained substance, strength. They were no longer impotent dreamers, but beams of light, of hope. As they grew they lanced through the darkness that surrounded him, that surrounded the land. The light grew, grew, grew until there was nothing but the light, until his body was no longer in pain, his hurts vanishing as the light grew stronger.
His face became younger as the light took form. A smiled appeared hesitantly through his scars, mouth gaping open to shape itself into a twisted mockery of happiness, a shadow of what once was. The light came closer, still coalescing. In an instant it changed. Shapes were born from the light, each one growing more beautiful: mysterious tomes, sky shattering obelisks, food laden platters, blood stained crosses, swords which could cut the stars. Finally he saw the object of his sufferings amongst the cavalcade: The Grail, the cup which could never be filled, the vessel which could hold the world. As if knowing of his quest, the light stopped changing shape and became fixed. The Grail rotated slowly just out of his reach.
His pain was gone. The seeker shouted, his earth-shaking cry reduced to a dull noise, a sound best forgotten, a legacy of old dreams. He stepped forward slowly, walking on shaking legs. The legs that once strode the world now trembled as whole cities had trembled. His face was wet. The tears were streaming freely from his eyes as all of his hurt and memories were washed away and fell to the darkness, pulled down into the dust.
He reached out his crippled hands and once again the Grail changed. It rotated faster, the light grew brighter, until it had covered everything. There was no darkness. Just the light and the seeker.
His smile widened. The light grew. There was no darkness. Just the light. The seeker forgot his body, lost it there in the light, left it behind within the Grail. For a moment, he was just his eyes, just the watcher. And then he forgot his eyes, lost them in the light.
And there was darkness.
A withered hand replaced the curtain just as the body fell to the ground. With a wave the dimming light faded away, and all was again darkness in the land beyond the stained window. Rheumy eyes were closed against the dark and the sound of slow, measured breathing filled the room.
A diseased cough broke through the stillness.
“Why, brother?” He turned to face his inquisitor. Old, ancient, timeless; dull gray clothes covered in the dust and the leavings of a thousand generations of vermin. From around the long white beard a cascade of wrinkles marched across the wizened old face. The eyes held the years where the body could not. The eyes, so dark, so dark, so cold, but hungry, always hungry. He knew the face well because it was his.
“Why what?” His voice was an echo from the beginning of time.
“Why this?” An old hand pointed to the window.
Arms crossed against his brother, he coughed sullenly.
“An old discussion, brother. Older than this place, this time . . .”
“But one worth having. To remember . . .” The dark eyes twinkled.
“To remember . . .” He looked back to the window, back to the darkness. “They need to seek, brother. They need to. Without it, they have . . .” A palsied, shaking hand touched the dirty pane of glass and lingered there.
“But never to find.” By the door, the dark eyes twinkled again. A timeless argument, one which has sustained them both.
“Never to find. They cannot find.”
“Why?” He relished his role.
“Because they are seekers. It is the seeking for them. The finding . . . the finding . . .” He shook his head slowly.
After the customary silence passed between the two, he got up from his cracked, broken chair and reached for his brother. Arm in arm, they steadied themselves against each other and left the room. As they crossed the threshold one of the brothers flicked a spotted wrist towards the window, and the curtain rustled.
The boy awoke next to his brother. His eyes were wide. He looked beyond the walls, beyond the hovel, beyond the muddied fields. Not even the mewling of the younger boy against his body, the smells of the animals, the filth of the blanket, could dampen the smile on his face, the quivering on his lips.
He had seen it. |
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