traveled strip of road before, and yet he was suddenly overwhelmed
by an intense feeling
of deja vu.
He remembered seeing the headlight of a motorcycle
coming over a ridge and
blinding him with its intensity as it sped past, but it was a detached
and unreal memory
stirring in the darkest recesses of his mind like an insane necromancer
scampering in the
half light of low burning torches amongst the caskets of the faithful
in a monastery. The
memory was more like a black and white movie in slow motion than a
memory of what
had happened just a few moments earlier. He seemed to remember a man
with a British
accent on the radio speaking of Hell and damnation. Nothing he remembered,
however,
could explain the deflated airbag in his lap and the enormous boulder
his car was plowed
into.
It was after he had sat motionless in his car
for 10 minutes in a haze of confusion
and disbelief that he realized he was perfectly uninjured and that
his car was in the
middle of a vast field of lush green grass, which was completely empty
save the boulder
he had smashed into. He slowly unbuckled his seat belt and got
out of the car. He circled
the boulder and the wrecked vehicle inspecting the damage. The boulder
seemed to be in
perfect working order, but the car was totaled or nearly so. As far
as he could tell it
would never move anywhere under it's own power ever again. It was a
miracle, he
decided, that he had survived at all, let alone without a scratch.
The best plan he could
formulate, after surveying the solitude that he found himself immersed
in, was to follow
his tire tracks back to the road where he could hitch a ride or walk
to the nearest town.
As he began to trace his path across the desolate plain, it became
apparent that he was
not nearing a road. Soon he found himself traversing up and down grassy
hills, still
following the path his car seemed to have cut into the soft ground,
with no end in sight.
Despite the absurdity of what he was doing it all seemed somehow normal
to him, and he
found himself at peace, lulled into a melancholy bliss by a loneliness
that he failed to
fully consciously comprehend.
After more than an hour of walking, the improbability
of what he was doing hit
him in the face like a splash of ice water waking him from a slumber.
He tried frantically
to rationalize his actions. Perhaps he had been inadvertently following
tracks left by a
farmer's tractor, or by all terrain vehicles, or something because
surely he could not
have, in an unconscious blur, driven as far as he had just walked over
the hilly terrain he
had just traveled. He must be in shock, he reasoned, and was now destined
to die alone in
the middle of nowhere. As if to confirm his worst suspicions a wave
of nausea and light
headedness washed over him and he had to sit down. He accepted his
fate, and sitting
alone on the side of a grassy hill under a night sky radiant with dazzling
stars resigned
himself to awaiting the cold hand of death.
After a brief few moments of sitting and staring
at the stars, he was startled when
he felt a hand grip his shoulder with the strength of steel.
"I've come for you.", a voice behind him intoned
icily.
He turned with a start to see a knight in full
plate armor standing behind him,
adorned in the regalia of the crusades.
"What. . . Why. . . ", he managed to stammer
at the knight as he stood to face him.
"It's time for you to stand and serve.", commanded
the knight in a voice that
demanded respect. "You must fight against the damnable hoard for the
greater glory of
God."
"Do. . . Do I know you?" he asked, not quite
able to overcome the awe he felt in
the noble knight's presence.
"No, but I know you, John Tischbourn, and I
know you shall prove a fierce and
noble warrior for the Lord.", said the knight as he waved his gauntleted
hand over John's
head and a suit of armor matching the knight's materialized on him.
Standing newly
attired in the armor John was unsure that he would be able to take
a single step forward
in the massive suit of metal, but he found himself strangely stonger,
and the armor
amazingly light. At this point John recognized what was happening as
one of two things;
either it was a very real hallucination, or it was something that it
was probably not in his
best interests to question, so he decided to just go along with it.
"Tell me," John asked, "by what name might
I call you?"
"I am known", replied the knight, "simply as
the Harbinger of the Light."
"Tell me then, Harbinger, if there is fighting
to be done, where shall the battle be
joined?" Although John had never struck a man in his adult life, he
felt an insatiable urge
to fight and if need be, die for the Lord. (Surely his intense feelings
must have been an
inspiration directly from heaven.)
"Mount your steed and follow swiftly, for a
long journey awaits us before we
reach the combat." answered the Harbinger, and as he spoke two great
horses as black as
night stepped into the light of the moon. The horses were adorned with
saddles and bags
of supplies, but wore no barding to keep them safe from hostile blows.
After the two men had pulled themselves into
their saddles, the Harbinger led
them up the hill and into the daylight. John found himself looking
down on a forested
valley bisected by the trail that they were on, which continued beyond
the horizon. The
whole valley was illuminated by a mid-day Sun high overhead. When he
looked over his
shoulder at where he had been he saw not the genteel rolling hills
he had expected, but
rather a thick forest pierced by the trail alone. On either side of
the valley there stood
towering mountains which reminded John of the Teton Mountains in Wyoming,
that he
had seen as a child on a family vacation long ago. The valley inspired
awe in John, but
warranted only a cursory inspection by the Harbinger.
"We must pass through the Valley of the Shadow
of Death.", said the Harbinger
as he pointed down at they valley. "If I am unable to make it all the
way through with
you, you must follow the trail to its end, lest all be lost."
"I'm not sure I understand. . ." John began,
now unsure of what good he would be
in combat and sincerely wishing that any fighting he would have to
do would be at the
side of the Harbinger.
"There is no time for questions, just do as
you are told and you'll be okay."
snapped the Harbinger as he prodded his horse into a gallop down the
dusty trail. John
just shrugged and prodded his horse to follow. He wondered how the
valley had garnered
such a fearsome and legendary name with such a gentle and peaceful
environment. He
soon caught up to the Harbinger who had stopped on the trail for an
old man in white
robes who was blocking the path. As John slowed his horse to a stop
the old man spoke
to him.
"I am the Hierophant and I bring the hope of
salvation to you. Follow this path
through the woods", the man said as he pointed to the side of the road
and into the woods
where no trail was evident, "and after crossing through the darkness
you shall come into
the light and eternal paradise."
"This man", said the Harbinger with disdain,
"is a manifestation of the demon
Golginar, you must either slay or follow him; my mandate does not allow
me to interfere
in any way."
John jumped down off his horse. "The Hierophant
you say.", John sneered as he
walked towards the old man, "Why should you show me the path to paradise?"
The Hierophant continued to point into the
woods and shouted in what seemed to
be an insane manner, "For it is the path of the Lord!"
John recognized the word Hierophant from somewhere,
but he stood pondering it
for some time before his course of action was made obvious by his memory.
The
Hierophant, he recalled, was the name of a card in the Tarot deck,
probably a companion
to the Devil card. He drew the ebony longsword he found hanging at
his side and swung
it at the man with all his might. There was a sickening thunk, like
an ax hitting a tree, as
his sword buried itself in one side of the Hierophant's neck only to
come bursting free in
a glorious spray of red from the other side. There were two successive
thumps as the
Hierophant's head and body fell to the ground, and then a hissing as
the corpse of the
Hierophant transmuted into a cloud of white smoke. At first he was
stunned at what he
had done, but he was more stunned at how good it felt. For the first
time in his life he felt
like he really had power, like he was actually in control of his life.
John remounted his horse and they rode on without
exchanging another word
between them, They rode for what must have been hours through unchanging
forest
while the Sun seemed to stand still in the sky. Suddenly, the world
faded to black, and
the horses came to an abrupt halt.
"Look to the sky!" shouted the Harbinger as
he pointed to where the Sun had
been, but where a large black blob now resided. The blob got larger
and modulated in
shape, growing like a cloud that was destined to eat the sky; at its
center there appeared a
glowing orange light that flickered and grew.
John just stared dumbfounded at the shape as
it and its fiery orange light grew
larger and larger. The Harbinger too seemed awestruck as he gaped
in horror at the sky.
The deluge of fire rained down from above,
incinerating the horses instantly and
setting John's metal armor on fire. The intense heat melted his skin
and fused it to the
inside of his armor. His every breath and every move were new lessons
in pure agony as
he thrashed about on the ground in what seemed like a futile effort
to put the fire, which
engulfed him, out, and indeed it was several minutes before John and
his armor were no
longer aflame. Amazingly, he could still see; amazingly, he had the
energy, ability, and
will to stand on this feet. As he stood every millimeter of his body
cried out in a violent
protest of: "PAIN!", they were cries which were not easy to ignore.
John saw black for a
moment as unconsciousness rushed to put him at ease, but he managed
to push the
darkness aside and began to get a sense of what had happened. He saw
a burning
wasteland where once a mighty forest had stood. Towering into the sky
was a monstrosity
of a beast; its black scales glistened in the flickering light of the
inferno it had spawned
and its eyes spoke volumes of death and despair. One word alone was
a sufficient
description for this wretched avatar of the Devil himself: Dragon.
The Dragon scarfed down what John recognized
as the remains of the Harbinger
and roared its disapproval at him. The Dragon sent forth a blistering
blast of flame which
enveloped him. When the fire streamed no longer from the Dragon's maw
John still
stood. Despite the fact that his armor had erupted in flames once more
he was now
advancing on the beast, sword drawn.
John felt the fire scorching his blackened
and raw flesh, but somehow paid it no
heed. He felt his body filled with power, majesty, and might, in spite
of the devastating
damage it had taken. The fire, instead of destroying him, had in fact
been a baptism
which awoke within him the rage of a dying people who were red in tooth
in claw from
the war they waged against oblivion.
John slowly took steps towards the Dragon;
he was physically unable to move at a
pace faster than that of an old man as the beast continued to bathe
him with showers of
flame; showers which only server to fuel the fire of his anger. When
at last John stood
directly in front of the monster and under its enormous head, which
was suspended high
above him on a neck with the thickness of an oak tree, he struck. He
leapt at the dragon,
holding his sword high above his head, and stabbed his sword deep into
its chest.
Although he had managed to implant the sword in the beast, he was having
difficulty
pulling the sword down, as to make a wound which might prove fatal
to the monster. All
the while that he pulled on the sword he could hear the Dragon's teeth
crashing together
as it attempted to bite his head off. The Dragon, however, could not
quite reach him with
it's deadly bite, due to John's closeness to it's body. The Dragon
stopped its as sault for a
moment, and when John looked up he saw that it was preparing to send
another blast of
flame at him, undoubtedly a blast that, while it would deflect harmlessly
off the Dragon's
fire resistant scales, would probably reduce him to little more than
dust in the wind.
John tightly grasped the sword which protruded
above him from the body of the
beast, and raised his feet off the ground, pulling on the sword with
his full body weight.
Slowly at first and then with sickening speed the sword cut through
the Dragon's flesh
with a revolting sound not unlike the sound of stone grinding on stone
and the disgusting
stench of brimstone. It was as it felt its flesh being rended that
it struck the death blow. It
reared its head and sent a burst of flame at John with a heat to rival
Hell itself. It was as
John saw the beast rearing back that he let go of the sword and dropped
to the ground, so
that the infernal flame totally missed him and cascaded against the
Dragon's gaping chest
wound and over it's body. Though the fire over most of its body quickly
went out, at the
gash John had made, the beast exploded into flame. The Dragon shook
in agony and,
totally forgetting John in it's pain, took to the skies in retreat.
Collapsed on the ground, John watched the flaming
monstrosity soar over the
distant mountain range and out of sight. He tried to stand, but this
time his brain listened
when his body cried in pain, and simply shut itself down as he collapsed
into
unconsciousness.
He didn't know how long he had been unconscious,
but despite the searing pain
that wracked his body he was not dead yet. He slowly rose; each movement
seemed to be
an eternity of agony. As he watched reality fade in and out of focus
he noticed that
although the Sun still stood in the same position as when he had blacked
out, all the fires
that had been burning around him had burned themselves out. He began
to slowly down
the path that they had been following; with the Harbinger gone he had
no idea what else
to do, and he certainly wasn't going to curl up and wait for death.
Perhaps, he hoped, he
would find treatment for his wounds when he got the end of the trail.
He stumbled along
at a pace and with a gait that were a mockery of normal walking. He
traveled for what
must have been more than 2 hours down the dusty trail, the smell of
his own burned flesh
and the taste of his blood the only sickening anchors to consciousness,
when he came to a
reflecting pool in the middle of the road. He tried to lean down and
inspect his reflection
in the pool, but could only make out his vague outline as reality began
to get quite hazy.
He straightened up and felt the cool blackness of unconsciousness rushing
at him once
again; not having the will to even try and resist it, he embraced it
and fell face first,
unconscious into the pool of water.
His first realization was that he was breathing
perfectly well underwater, his
second realization was that he was naked. All around him John
saw swimming what
appeared to be women. He blinked twice slowly, trying to make out the
forms swirling
about him; at the very least they appeared feminine in form. The creatures
seemed to
have infused the very waters into their being, or perhaps it would
be more appropriate to
say that their bodies were at least in some part made up of water.
The boundary between
the mysterious women and the sea seemed to blur and be redefined with
every passing
moment. The women of the sea were swimming about him in a vortex, as
if he were at
the eye of an underwater hurricane.
As he stared out at their enigmatic faces
that were hauntingly as familiar as his mother's and yet strange and mysterious
he felt his flesh, or rather the remains for his flesh begin to tingle
as the raw burning pain was leeched away and the last of his damaged flesh
fell away into the water. Then to his amazement on the tips of his fingers
new skin began to grow. The growth of skin surged out in all directions
flowing up his arms and over the rest of his body. When he felt that his
skin had all been
regenerated and the tingling had stopped the women began to swim around
him in ever
tightening circles, increasing the speed of the vortex until they were
flashing past him just in front of his face. Suddenly, there was a great
updraft of water and he found himself laying on the path next to the reflecting
pool he remembered collapsing into. The path cut through the forest in
one direction, but in the other direction the forest came to an abrupt
halt and a vast desert took its place.
John was a modest man, and as such he searched
about in the nearby forest for
something to cover himself with. However, it was not long before he
decided that
stumbling naked through the dense woods was potentially more harmful
to his general
comfort than walking naked through an apparently empty desert would
be to his pride.
The path itself was not hot, and the desert
sand reflected the Sun's heat warming
the gentle breeze that washed over and made him almost glad to be walking
through the
desert nude. He had been walking for about 10 minutes, his mind at
peace with his body
caressed by the warm breeze, when the wind started to pick up. At first
he was able to
ignore it, but soon particles of sand began to blow off the dunes and
he found himself
temporarily blinded. He turned his face away from the wind, but as
quickly as he did so
the wind made a sudden change in direction and hit him in the face
again. He brought up
his hand to protect his eyes and prayed for the winds to stop, but
the only answer to his
silent prayer was an unholy howl as the wind gained speed. He felt
the sand stinging his
body as the wind assailed him unmercifully. He rolled his body
into a ball to protect
himself from the pain and began to find relief as he became almost
numb to the pain that
was repetitively scorched across his skin. Just as he was slipping
into a comparative bliss
brought about by the relief afforded him by his newfound callousness
he bore a new
breed of pain when he began to feel large fragments of some sort begin
to strike against
his back. He screamed as each miniature missile caused his flesh to
explode with pain,
and passed into the gentle embrace of darkness with blood streaming
into his eyes.
He tore himself away from the blackness
accompanied by the muffled screams of
a man in pain and with a blinding light shining in his eyes. The light,
it turned out, came
from several candles perched above him; the screams, it turned out,
came from him.
After several moments of squinting into the light, forms began to take
shape, and he
could just barely make out what appeared to be a person standing over
him. He tried to
move, but he was made immobile by tightly wrapped bandages that covered
all except
his eyes, and even if he were not bandaged his arms were firmly bound
to the sides of his
bed by leather straps.
"You're all right now John, we've got you."
He tried to say something to the woman who
was standing over him, but all he
was able to summon forth was a low groan. He could make her out clearly
now, she was
a young girl dressed in peasant rags.
"Your very lucky to be alive.", she said smiling,
"We found you with hundreds of
these imbedded in you." She held out a still bloody razor blade for
him to see and he
winced as he realized what it was he was feeling; there were thousands
of cuts all over
his body. Cuts large and small were burning him up and down his flesh.
There was so
much pain that he was on the verge of being numb to it, but he wasn't.
Instead he was
acutely aware of it; his whole body was as sensitive as his face except
for his fingers. He
couldn't feel his fingers at all. What was wrong? He quickly filled
with a horror that
overflowed in his silent tears. This wasn't supposed to happen. He
had set out on a quest
for God. . . Hell, the whole thing had to be a hallucination, but why
couldn't he feel his
fingers? Why wasn't he waking up? It had seemed so real, the pain so
acute, it couldn't be
a some sort illusion created by his own mind or by the machinations
of others - it was
real, and it hurt. Why was this happening to him? God damn it all!
He just wanted to
wake up, to forget the whole thing, to be free from the pain. An inferno
of anger ignited
from his fear and pain. It was anger at himself for going along with
the fantastic reality
he had found himself in, anger at the world for having its wicked ways
with him, and
anger at God for betraying him. He had done what God had asked of him;
he had lead a
good and pious life, he had always gone to church, and even in this
land of insanity he
had obeyed the commands of God. How could God let something as horrific
as this, as
painful as this happen to him? It just wasn't fair.
"If it was fair", said the girl as she picked
up a syringe and guided it's point over
his heart, "it wouldn't be Hell." She slowly slid the needle through
the bandaged and
broke his skin with it's point. He squirmed in pain as she smiled and
slowly pushed the
needle in, piercing his sternum and punctured his heart. It was unbearable,
he could feel
the needle penetrating deep into him, but there was nothing he could
do to stop it. She
pulled back the plunger on they syringe and a black liquid filled its
chamber. A haze
clouded his eyes; a haze that didn't clear, but faded to black.
He wasn't unconscious. He was fully aware of
the blackness that surrounded him,
but he couldn't feel anything. He wanted to strike out in anger and
destroy all that was
around him, but he couldn't move, for he had no body. He wanted to
scream, but he had
no tongue. He wanted to cry, but he had no eyes. He was totally, completely
alone; the
only thing he had a sense of was the emptiness that he was trapped
in and the slow, even,
crawl of time. After about 6 minutes his mind was totally shattered
and coherent thought
died, after a month he stopped making a distinction between himself
and the emptiness,
after a year the unending nothingness made his unconscious crave for
pain like a starving
man craves food, if only so that he might feel something. After 10
years there was a
flurry of activity and a bargain was struck, but his mind was too slow
to register what was
happening until it was long over. It was 10,000 years before the nothingness
was pierced
by something. Something so alien that he didn't recognize it for a
long time, and it stirred
his mind to life. It was a light. It was a . . . a headlight. A headlight
from a motorcycle
that had just come over a hill.
He hit his breaks hard and pulled his car to
the side of the road. What the Hell had
just happened? With no conscious control he reached out and turned
on the radio.
A man with a British accent was doing the reading.
"...an with a British accent
was doing the reading. The voice explained that John's story had been
spread across the
world," the radio announcer continued, "and whenever the story was
told, heard, or even
remembered John would relive the entire thing. To John it would seem
like an eternity of
torture, but to everyone else only an imperceptibly small increment
of time would pass.
When he came out of the wretched vision he would be totally unscared,
for both his body
and his mind would be healed of the punishment they had received. To
him it would
seem like a new experience each time as he relived it, with only a
faint memory of what
was to come, and each time he would doubt whether or not it was really
happening to
him (a doubt which pain would soon remove). When he was not reliving
the horror he
would be aware of all the times he had descended into Hell, but would
be impotent to
stop his next journey. He could not relate his tale to anyone,
for not only was it an
impossible tale that would brand him insane, but in retelling the tale
he would send
himself into the abyss once more. Hell was a fire that would burn secretly
in his heart for
the rest of his life, which he was too afraid to end, lest all his
time be spent in the realm
of eternal torture.” After the man on the radio had revealed the depths
of John's torment
and as he was about to finish the radio production of the tale, John
turned the radio off.
The idling of his car was drowned out by the beating of his heart.
He collected his
thoughts and gathered his wits as he silently reveled in the sanctuary
from the sickening
madness that the mundane world now provided. He drove his car back
onto the road,
trying to continue as if nothing had happened, but he will find himself
in Hell once again,
after the last word of this story is read.
