The War Hound and The World

Chapter XVI

A SILENCE HAD fallen over the world.

The plain now seemed filled from end to end by Klosterheim's army, a frozen, waiting gathering. The forest itself was like the forest I had first entered when I discovered Lucifer's castle. No animals, no birds, nothing moving; only the sweet scent of the flowers and the grass.

I gathered leaves and wild tulips and covered Sedenko's body with them. I did not have the strength to bury him. I left his horse to guard him and mounted my own beast, striking due west into the depths of the blue-green forest. My mind and my body both were consumed by a curious numbness. Perhaps they were incapable of accepting any more terror or grief.

I knew, too, that I had changed as much since I had left Lucifer's castle as I had since I had left Bek on the road to Magdeburg. The changes were subtle. There had been no strong sense of revelation. My bitterness was of a different order. I blamed nobody, not even God, for the woes of the world. Neither did I blame myself too hard for past crimes. However, I was determined to follow a path that was entirely my own. Should I ever return to the world I had left, I would not serve Protestant or Catholic. I would use my soldier's skills to protect myself and mine, if need be, but I would not volunteer to go a-warring. I mourned for Sedenko and for Philander Groot and I told myself that should I have the chance to avenge their deaths, I would probably take it, though I felt no special anger, now, towards the wretched Johannes Klosterheim, who daily increased his own terror as he increased his power.

The ground began to rise upwards, almost following the curve I thought I had detected from a distance. And now, away from the influence of Klosterheim's forces, I heard a wren's voice, then the sound of blackbirds and magpies. Small animals moved hi the undergrowth. All was natural again.

I rode for many hours before I realised that night did not fall in this forest. The sky was cloudless and still and the sun was benign. And eventually I heard the sound of children laughing as I breasted a rise and looked down into a little glade, with a thatched cottage and a few outbuildings, a cow and a plough-horse. Three little boys were playing in the yard and at the door stood a grey-haired woman with a straight back and clear, youthful skin. Even from that distance I saw her eyes. They were as blue-green as the forest and they were steady. She smiled and gestured.

I rode down slowly, savouring this scene of peace.

"I must warn you," said I, "that a great army out of Hell besieges your forest."

"I know," said the woman. "What are you called, man?"

"I am called Ulrich von Bek and I am upon a Quest. I seek the Holy Grail so that the World's Pain might be cured and Lucifer taken back into the Kingdom of Heaven."

"Ah," said she, "at last you are here, Ulrich von Bek. I have it for you."

I dismounted. I was astonished. "You have what, lady?"

"I have what you would call the Grail. It is a cup. It is what you seek, I think."

"Lady, I cannot believe you. I think that up to now I never did truly believe that I would find the Grail, and never so easily as to be offered it by one such as you."

"Oh, the Grail is a simple thing. And it has a simple function, really, Ulrich von Bek."

My legs were weak. I felt faint. I had not realised how exhausted I had become.

The woman signed to one of the boys to take my horse. She put her arm about my waist. She was extremely strong.

She led me into the cool peace of her parlour and sat me down upon a bench. She brought me milk. She gave me bread with honey on it. She took off my helmet and she stroked my head and murmured soothingly to me so that I wept.

I wept for an hour. And when I had finished I looked up at the lady and I said: "All that I love is threatened or is lost forever."

"So h must seem," she said.

"My friends are dead. My true love is in Satan's thrall, as am I. And I cannot trust my Master to keep His bond."

"Lucifer cannot be trusted," she agreed.

"He offered to return my soul," I told her.

"Aye. It is the only thing He can offer, Ulrich von Bek, which has any value to a mortal. He can offer power and knowledge, but they are worthless if the price is one's soul. Many have come to me, at the Forest at the Edge of Heaven. Many soldiers and many philosophers."

"Seeking the Grail?"

"Aye."

"And you have shown it to them?" *To some, yes, I have shown it."

"And they have taken it forth into the world?"

"One or two have taken it forth, aye."

"So it is all a trick. There is no special power to the Grail."

"I did not tell you that, Ulrich von Bek." She was almost chiding. She poured me more milk from a pitcher. She spread honey on the good bread. "But most of them expected magic. Most expected at very least some heavenly music. Most were so pure, Ulrich von Bek, and so innocent, that they could not bear the truth."

"What? The Grail, surely, is not a deception of Satan's. If so, the implications of what I have been doing…"

She laughed. "You expect worse, for your experience has led you to expect worse. Oh, I have seen great-hearted men and women kneeling in worship of the cup. I have seen them pray for days, awaiting its message, some sign. I have seen them ride from here in disappointment, claiming that they have been offered a false Grail. I have even been threatened with death, by that same Klosterheim who now commands HellХs armies."

"Klosterheim has been here? When?"

"Many years since. I treated him no differently. But he expected too much. So he got nothing. And he went away. He stabbed me here"…she indicated her left breast…"with his sword."

"And yet he did not kill you, plainly."

"Of course not. He was not strong enough."

"He has strength with him now."

"That he has! But he has refused to learn," she said, "and it is a great shame. He had character, Johannes Klosterheim, and J liked him, for all that he was naive. He refused to learn what Lucifer refused to learn. Yet I believe you have teamed it, Ulrich von Bek."

"All I have learned, lady, is to accept the world's attributes as they are. I have learned, I suppose, an acceptance of ray own self, an acceptance of Man's ability to create not sensations and marvels but cities and farms which order the world, which bring us justice and sanity."

"Aha," she said. "Is that all you have learned, then, young man? Is that all?"

"I think so," I said. "The marvellous is of necessity a lie, a distortion. At best it is a metaphor which leads to the truth. I think that I know what causes the World's Pain, lady. Or at least I think I know what contributes to that Pain."

"And what would that be, Ulrich von Bek?"

"By telling a single lie to oneself or to another, by denying a single fact of the world as it has been created, one adds to the World's Pain. And pain, lady, creates pain. And one must not seek to become saint or sinner, God or Devil. One must seek to become human and to love the fact of one's humanity."

I became embarrassed. "That is all I have learned, lady."

"It is all that Heaven demands," she said.

I looked out through her window. "Is there such a place as Heaven?"

"I think so," she said. "Come, we shall walk together, Ulrich von Bek."

I was much refreshed. She took my hand and led me from the cottage and through the forest behind it until we stood upon a precipice, whence issued the blue-green haze. I felt a sudden soaring of the mind and senses, such as I had never before experienced. I felt a joy and a peace, previously unknown. I wanted to plunge from that place and into the cool haze, to give myself up to whatever it was I felt. But the woman tugged at my hand and I had to turn my back on Heaven.

Even now I cannot be sure if I experienced a hint of what Heaven might be. It seemed a kind of clarity, a kind of understanding. Can Hell and Heaven be merely the difference between ignorance and knowledge?

I turned my back on Heaven.

I turned my back on Heaven and walked with the lady to her cottage. The children had disappeared and only the cow and the horse were there, placid.

I sat at the table and she poured me milk from her pitcher.

"Where is this?" I asked her. "Where does Heaven lie?"

"That must be obvious to you by now." She went to the wooden dresser behind her and she opened a drawer. From the drawer she took a small clay pot and she placed it on the table before me.

"Here. Take this back to your Master. Tell Him you have found the Grail. And tell Him that it was fashioned by the hands of an ordinary woman."

"This?" I could not touch it. "This is the Holy Grail?"

"This is a production of that which you believe inhabits the Grail," she said. "And it is holy, I think. And it was made by me. And all it brings is Harmony. It makes those who are in its presence whole. Yet, ironically, it can be handled only by one who is already whole."

"I, whose soul is in Lucifer's charge, can be called whole, lady?"

"You are a man," she said. "A mortal. And you are not innocent. Neither are you destroyed. Yes, von Bek, you are whole enough."

I reached fingers towards the little clay pot. "My Master will not believe in this."

She shrugged. "Your Master is a fool," she said. "Your Master is a fool."

"Well," I said, "I will take it to Him. And I will tell Him what you have told me. That I bring the Cure for the World's Pain."

"You bring Him Harmony," she said. "That is the Cure. And the Cure is within every one of us."

"Has this cup no other power, lady?"

"The Power of Harmony is power enough," said she quietly.

"But difficult to demonstrate," said I in some amusement.

She smiled. Then she shrugged and would say no more on the subject.

"Well," I told her, "I thank you for your hospitality, lady. And for this gift of the Holy Grail. Must I believe in it?"

"Believe what you like. The cup is what the cup is," she said. "And it is yours to take."

I picked up the cup at last. It was warm in my hand. I felt a little of what I had experienced as she and I looked into the abyss beyond her house. "I thank you for your gift," I said.

"It is no gift," she told me. "It is truly earned, Ulrich von Bek. Be sure of that."

"I have a scroll," I said, "which I must open if I am to return to my Master."

"You cannot open it here," she said. "And even if you did open it, you could not return to Hell from here, nor any part which Hell commands. It is the rule."

"Ah, but madam, I have come so far! Am I to be cheated now?"

"You are not cheated," she said kindly, "but it is the rule. Use your scroll once you are out of the forest again. It will serve you then."

"Klosterheim and Duke Arioch's horde await me there."

"That is true," she said. "I know."

"So I am to be doomed just as it seems I achieve my goal?"

"If you think so."

"You must tell me!" I was close to weeping. "Oh, madam, you must tell me!"

"Take the Grail," she said. "And take your scroll. They will both serve you well. Show Klosterheim the Grail and remember that he has seen it before."

"He will mock me."

"Of course Klosterheim will mock you if he has any chance at all. Of course he will, Ulrich von Bek. He is all armour, that Klosterheim."

"And then he will kill me," I said.

"Then you must have courage."

She rose from the table and I knew she meant me to leave.

One of the little boys was holding my horse for me as I went out into the yard. Another sat on the pump, watching me. The third was unconcerned. He was studying the chickens.

I sat down upon my horse and set my feet in my stirrups. I felt the clay pot in my purse, together with Lucifer's scroll.

"There will be no legend told of you," said the grey-haired woman, "yet you are my favourite amongst all those who have come to me."

"Mother," I said, "will you tell me your name?"

"Oh," she said, "I am just an ordinary woman who made a clay pot and who dwells in a cottage in the Rarest at the Edge of Heaven."

"But a name?"

"Call me what you will," she said. She smiled and her smile was warm. She put a hand upon mine. "Call me Lilith, for some do."

Then she had struck my horse upon his flank and I was riding east again. Back to where Klosterheim and all his horrid army awaited me.