The End - Episode 1: The Beginning

Chapter 5: The End of the Beginning

They rode largely in silence, for Selena was focusing with all her might. This girl had such an intensity hidden under her cute and overly-casual facade that Eckfar was shocked. But he was coming to be less and less shocked with each and every shock that he felt. Indeed, as the town of darkness faded behind him he began to feel that the constant pressure to which he was revoltingly becoming accustomed was lifting. His mind cleared, and the sun, which he had not even realized had begun to feel irritating to him, gradually became once again a pleasant and welcome friend.

Though riding hard upon the strong horse, he began to relax. His guard dropped, and he fell into a restful waking trance as the familiar began to return to him. It came first as feelings that spread through him like warmth. Associations passed before his mind. He thought of village squares and stopping for afternoon meals with his neighbors. He remembered the rousing sound of hymns sung by the choir at church, and the familiar excitement of playing sports with rough and indecent children.

He remembered his good mother, quiet and pious, hard at work with the wash as her friends washed next to her. He recalled her reticence at the mention of gossip and her demure grace that inspired him so. He remembered the touch of her hand, the sternness of her reproval, the nobility of her smile. Indeed, he had seldom seen a woman who came close to rivaling his mother's grace. Even the high aristocrats that came calling at his shop were often vulgar by comparison. He missed her, the woman from whom he had seldom been separated. It had been so natural to become the man of the house and govern her affairs as she governed his living space and cared for him. He hadn't even thought about it, simply done it because, with is father's death, it was the thing that had to be done. He had neither anticipated it with glee nor dreaded it for the laboriousness it entailed. He simply did what needed to be done, and they had fallen into a happy and natural rhythm.

But now all of these things that had formerly been the backdrop of his life came into sharp focus. He had been to a large town, and indeed, a dark town. He had met wizards and sorcerers, just men and vile beasts in human flesh. He had even seen goblins, when he never had he seen an animate creature other than man and beast before. And now all these things which had seemed both old and new, simply the reality of the world, were situated upon a continuum in diametric opposition to that which he had previously been entirely unaware.

He felt self-conscious, he realized, though he did not even yet have a word for the term which he could apply to the understanding. What was this thing? What was this peculiar relation he now had to that which before had been like a dream, unremembered? Imminent, he thought. These things have become so immanent to me now. What frustrated him so was that he could not identify the true origin of this newfound immanence. Was it the spell by which Corvus apparently was "helping" him? Or was it the shock of the things he saw? Was it the curse he had found himself placed under? Was it the release from that curse? Was it the prayer in the beautiful church? Was it the warning of the nameless magistrate under the judge? Or, how could he have forgotten, was it the horrid scene he had suffered before Corvus's intervention?

Having experienced and suffered so much, he wondered who he was anymore. True, Christ suffered and rose from the dead more Himself than He had ever been. But Eckfar was a frail and sinful mortal, unlike the perfect God who never changed and yet presided over all that did. Who was to say that suffering would refine him, like a sword at the anvil and fire, rather than instead breaking him? Yes, this filled him with perfect dread. Even if he were to be held in his mother's arms once again, would she find him a cold stranger? Or would she respect him as a man, as even she in her near perfection was reluctant to do for her first and only child?

He was disgusted then to discover that a part of him, a dark and vile and sinful part, desired that they would all be dead and that, like the golden boy in his dream had said, he would be free to follow Corvus to discover himself and the world. He had grown so much in such a short time that he felt his quiet, ordinary life could no longer interest him, a fact that pained him so intensely. O! How he longed for those simple times again! How he longed to have been able to find a moment to steal away to discover that cruel boy's body! How he even longed to struggle mightily against the sin, though he was no longer even convinced that such act could be sin if done from his pure motives. Yet that life seemed already to be dead and gone in his heart.