“And if you suffer for God, he will heal your father?”
“You are a fool! I do not
Willard opened his mouth but was interrupted by Patrick, who whispered, “Look! There are lights shining through the darkness and muffled voices with them,” and he pointed into the darkness.
There, barely visible to them, were six dim spots of light.
“Put out the lanterns,” Willard said, and rushed forward to douse the one nearest him. They were themselves doused in darkness. “The other lights have faded,” Willard said after a moment, “And we have been seen.”
They armed themselves and prepared to be attacked. In the distance a low growling could be heard, as well as hissing and gnashing of teeth. The rebels drew near together, swords bared and pointed at the darkness that bound them.
“Ready yourselves,” Willard whispered faintly. “There are footsteps approaching!”
Chapter 68
“Onward, cowards!” Nicholas Montague called back through the stone doorway to his men, who were not following him. “He escapes us!”
To an ordinary man, those words would not have been disappointing. But they were soldiers and, when their initial surprise was thrown away, their impermeable consciences returned. So they drew their swords and ran after Montague. Before them the passage was narrowing as it curved. They went single file. Each stood guard against his own fears, though in the passion of the chase their fear canceled out their cowardice. To live, one must fight; and to fight, one must not fear. So they did not.
Montague drove them forward at a wicked pace and several minutes later the hall opened into a spacious chamber. In the darkness it was not possible to see its dimensions, but a wind echoed past and the chill of night could be felt. Their lanterns had illuminated the walls, while in the hallway; but in the chamber there was nothing by which to judge distance or direction. After traveling haphazardly for a moment, Montague stopped abruptly.
“It is foolish to continue in this fashion,” he said. “For now, we will go our separate ways, since we search for separate ends.”
“As you wish, sir,” the soldiers bowed, though they feared wandering alone amidst the chamber.
Montague did not answer, but was gone before he heard their reply. To find the Holy Graal, he needed the company of soldiers; but what he sought was far from holy and the only blood it held was perhaps his own. He charged into the darkness without a lantern, his path lit only by his passion to destroy what had caused him to fear.
“I was weak,” he growled to himself, “But now I will overcome this thing and earn reprieve for my faltering spirit. Blood will cleanse me, whether his or my own!”
The darkness parted in front of him and in the mysterious light a figure could be seen, standing motionless before him. Its tree-limb legs were gnarled and scaled, identical to those seen before. Yet its body was a man’s, though misshapen and deformed. Its head was giant and plastered with plates of skin, its mouth with fangs, its neck wrapped in serpents. Its chest, open to the air, was gilled and crimped.
“You have come,” it said, its voice a falling tree, though spoken in the tongues of man.
The two creatures circled each other for a moment, their eyes fixed and unmoving. The one was human in form, the other was not. Neither were human in heart.
“Sin is a lonely bedfellow,” Montague paused, “Or should I make hate to you as you have done to so many of my comrades?”
“Have I, indeed? You flatter me. Still, you have a spirit to be admired, and even I do not know many with your piety. I will rejoice when you are adopted into my hellish harem. There are many who pursue my works, yet none who pursue my person. You prove the exception; so I ask, knowing the answer: why have you come?”
“Is it wrong for a man to know his father?”
The creature laughed. “Nothing is wrong, for some; and for others, nothing is right.”
“But what father – when his son asks for a fish – would give him a snake?” Montague asked.
“I would give him only an apple from my tree.”
“Would he be the apple of your eye?”
“Do I love myself? Then neither can I love you. That is not my way, for I am the contrast,” the creature hissed.
“I know one who patterns you – weak and foolish, lorded over by feudal fate. You are the rebel of the heavens. But if you do not besiege the tyrant, others will replace you. If you do not overthrow
“Folly? It is us!” the thing cried.
“Speak, wyvern-tongue.”
“He cannot exist without us, nor would he be
“Then defeat him!” Montague cried in a passion, “Remove the oppression which declares him righteous because of his all-consuming power. You failed before, perhaps, but the mortals will join your side. All creation will arise and overturn the one who corrupts.”
The creature turned its head and showed its teeth in desperation. “Would you know? Can a mortal have knowledge of the immortal, or the finite of the infinite? Proportion and contrast! Without darkness, light cannot be known; without black, white cannot be understood. If you would destroy him, you must first remove the contrast through which he presents himself. You cannot destroy the good but by destroying the evil that defines it.”
“To hell with contrast; to hell with you, suckling!”
“Yes!” the creature hissed in despair, “That is our fate! But have you come to speak, or to die, mortal.”
“Neither.”
“By damnation’s ghost!”
Montague bared his sword and lunged at the creature, but it disappeared into the darkness, vanishing into nothing.
“We will meet again,” Montague whispered, “And I will not regret the day I die.”
With that, he returned to the soldiers he had left behind. They remained together, unwilling to part in the desolate, earthen Hades. Instead, they sat in a circle, facing outwards with their lanterns in one hand and their swords in the other. Montague had been gone for an hour.
“I am back,” he said as he come up to them, “What have you seen, that you are so terrified?”
“We have seen nothing, but a multitude of footsteps passed around us for several minutes, then suddenly stopped and silence fell down once more. We ventured out to look and found gnarled footsteps in the dust of the floor, covering our own. What is more, we found a stone tablet lying on the floor – there are esoteric figures upon it, though we cannot read them,” and the soldier handed him a smooth, rectangular stone.
On one side there were hieroglyphic letters – not symbols, but actual letters written in complicated picture forms. For a moment, Montague was silent and his face knotted. He was a student of ancient languages and this was a script older than all others, from which the lesser alphabets had descended. So, combining the aspects of several scripts, he was able to read the tablet. He read aloud:
In the name of Uranos, by whom the trident of the nations will be sunk to the nether lands of Hades. The Pillars of Heracles has been sunk, and with it the gods of men. The Garden of Hesperides has been sunk, and with it the men of gods. Soon, the third and final remnant of the ancient world will be destroyed. Just as Eden was overrun by evil and sank, so will it be. Just as Atlantis was conquered by the Titans and sank, so will it become. The trident of the nations will pierce Hades.
Montague looked up from the tablet with a light in his eyes: the light of revelation.
“We must return at once!” he said, “For Gylain must hear of this. Perhaps his forebodings were not as unjustified as I feared. The three lands of paradise, corrupted and destroyed! He must know,” and Montague trembled.
“Look, my lord, over there!” a soldier cut his thoughts in two, “There are lights, as if lanterns.”
Montague smiled. “Put out the lanterns!” and they were plunged into darkness. “We have been seen,” he said after a moment, “For the other lanterns have faded as well. Arm yourselves, for they come!”
But he did not finish, for his voice was overrun by the sound of approaching footsteps.
Chapter 69
