After a long climb, the stairs ended, opening into a veranda that occupied the top of the mountain, open to the air on every side with only occasional pillars to uphold the roof. The stairs came in on the far side. Outside, the moon was sinking fast and the swaying canopy of the forest could be seen far below. To the west, the dawn’s cold fingers were grabbing onto the horizon and the lanterns were no longer needed in the faint, phosphorous haze. A man sat in the furthest corner, looking over the dawn with his back to them. His hair and beard were uncut, wafting around him and dropping to the floor. They said nothing, some from respect, others fear.
“You have come for the Holy Graal,” said a pleasing voice, coming from the man. “But to what end?”
“My father stands before death, my lord,” and Ivona fell on her knees before the back of the chair. “I come for the Graal, that he might live.”
“The blood of Christ can be found in many places, why have you come this far?”
“Are not the hardships of the search rewarded by our God? I have come with a great request, so I come with great ceremony to ask it.”
“God rewards no one; for who has given the heart to seek, or the heart to remain aloof? If a man is saved by grace, can he be rewarded for what he has not done? No, for God gives grace to whom he pleases, as well as damnation. You do not need blood to heal your father, child, for the blood has already been spilled.”
“Then may it be, for I have faith!”
“Who has faith, who has not been given it? You may go, for he his healed.But beware the sign of Jonah.”
As he finished speaking, the sky was darkened by a school of clouds passing under the sun. When the light returned, the man was gone. They were silent for a moment, wondering over what they had just witnessed, until Ivona rose from her knees and turned to the others.
“We are done here,” she said faintly and began walking to the stairs across the room.
“Then this is all?” asked Patrick in unbelief, “We have come on a mistaken whim? Time is not my lover, that I can safely forget it, and you are no different. Let us return to the action!”
“We came for Montague and have had him. But if it were not for our mistaken whim, you would yet be imprisoned; and a man is not always imprisoned without reason,” Willard said.
“What do you think? That I am a mere farmer’s boy and Lydia my youthful dame? Then I understand why you do not value my counsel.”
“You are more than a farm boy?” Lydia mocked him, her blue eye turned his way. “Are you a king simply because you inflamed the countryside to rebellion in order to capture my heart?”
“Her heart does not seem so much a prize,” de Garcia moaned.
“Do not blaspheme my god!” Patrick cried vehemently, “Do not mock my savior, my world, my Lydia! If she is contrary at times, it only accents her innocence at others. If a woman is always gentle, who knows and relishes it? But if she is foul tempered, her previous gentleness is praised. She is made perfect by her imperfections, so do not blaspheme my love!”
“How can you call a mortal your god, with what we have just seen?” Ivona asked quietly, as if in pain.
“All I have seen is a man. Lydia is more lovely than a mere man.”
“With eyes, they fail to see!” Ivona sighed.
“With minds, they fail to think!” Lydia mocked. “Poor farm girl, poor farm boy! Fools the both of them, but what can one expect?” she hissed at Patrick, who turned his head and closed his eyes.
“Fools!” Lydia continued, but her head turned and her hazel eye fell upon Patrick. “But all men are fools and their ways with them. If you are a fool, it is the crown of your manhood.”
The dawn broke out, the sky was lit, and the room was silent from its outburst.
“A man’s heart is revealed when he is given authority,” Willard said at length. “If you were a farmer’s boy, I was lower still; but if you are now a noble warrior, I will only see you as such.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said Patrick McConnell, his passion subdued for the moment. “I am only an English peasant, though the people have followed me into rebellion. Yet I am only a boat which is pushed along by the tides; for I, myself, do not shape events. I fought for love,” he looked to Lydia, “And the rebellion came behind.”
“So it is for many.”
“They come,” de Garcia interrupted, running to them from the mouth of the stairs, where he had been standing in silence. “The footsteps have returned, my lord, and in greater numbers!”
As they became silent, the floor began to shake and the air to spin with the sounds of war. From the echoing stairway poured an onslaught of rumbling footsteps, followed by terrible screams and cries in an unknown tongue.
De Garcia alone voiced their thoughts. “They come, and there is no escape!”
Chapter 71
“Our fruitless quest damns us,” Patrick moaned, the horde growing nearer on the stairs even as he spoke.
“Nothing is without purpose,” Ivona said quietly, and she forgot herself in the dawn beyond the veranda.
“Theology is one thing, but escaping is quite another,” Patrick returned.
“Have you no ideas,” purred the blue-eyed Lydia, and her voice was a tiger in the savanna.
“My mind has become a hermit, my love. De Garcia, veteran warrior, what say you?”
“There is no escape,” and he looked over the side to the ground far below, hidden by the mists.
The stairs shook under the force of the coming horde. Drums were beaten, wails of agony resounded, and a droning, bumble-bee chanting floated up to the heavenly veranda. The stairway had no door, but opened directly into the room. The sound of their approach was the masked men’s only vanguard.
“We cannot escape,” Ivona said faintly, still staring into the dawn, “Yet there is no need.”
“Speak your mind, Ivona,” Willard said.
Ivona turned away from the rising sun, “We have no reason to fight them. No one has been wronged, and forgiveness’ mandate is not violence. Let us lay down our arms and meet them as friends.”
“I cannot let the destiny of my followers rest on the benevolence of a brutish mob,” Patrick cried. “How can we know what they will do?” and he ran to the door and peered into the darkness, struck across the face by the approaching chaos.
“How can one know anything, but through faith?” Ivona asked him. “You must have faith that either they will fight or forgive, so you cannot abdicate on grounds of reason. We cannot know, so let us have faith in what is good.”
“Faith, faith, the churchman’s wraith! I will not have it, when more than my own life is gambled,” he glanced at Lydia.
“They are not a brutish mob, as you say, according to what I have read. They are the Titans.”
“The Titans,” Willard repeated, and his blood shivered at the name. And it was the blood of the throne that filled his veins.
“The sons of Caan, the bastards of Uranos, the ransackers of Hesperides.”
And Willard trembled.
“The trident of the seas, the flaming sword of the garden.”
And Willard’s face became a waterfall.
“The destroyers of Olympus, the assassins of the Grecian gods.”
And Willard drew his sword and plunged it into the heavy air about their heads, partially cloud and partially sky. “I will destroy them,” and he rushed toward the the stairway.
“They draw near!” de Garcia interrupted, “I can feel their flaming breath upon my ears!”
Willard started down the stairs in a fit of madness, impelled by unknown remembrances of the ancients. But Leggitt stopped him, coming forward and grabbing his arm, forcing him back into the room.
“Be patient, your majesty,” he entreated. “For this is merely a matter of tactics: we cannot defeat them in combat, though they can defeat us. At the same time, they cannot destroy Atilta, for they have not the power of their ancestors; they cannot destroy Atilta unless we force them to destroy us. Therefore, we must do as Ivona says: yield and do not provoke them.” He paused. “If they were the judges of the past, their role in the realms of man is no more. We need not fear them.”