Grail

by Stephen R. Lawhead

  Bors and Gereint are pursuing the horses and will return any moment, I told myself. They know I am here and will not abandon me. I clung to this hope, repeating it over and over.

  The pain in my leg throbbed with a sharp, deep-rooted, urgent ache. It took my mind off the raw pulse of pain in my side. With an effort I pushed myself upright and leaned back against a fallen log. I reached down to touch the place where the pain seemed the worse, and my hand came away sticky and wet with blood. I tried to move my leg; the exertion sent a searing bolt of fire into my head and I almost swooned, but at least the leg could bend somewhat and no bones seemed broken.

  My knife was still tucked in my belt, but my sword was missing; my spear had disappeared with my horse. Using the knife, I contrived to cut a strip from my siarc and bind my leg to stanch the flow of blood. The effort exhausted me. I tied the knot and lay back panting and gasping. A fragment of Myrddin’s psalm came into my mind and I spoke it out. There in the darksome forest, lying on my back, warm blood oozing from my wounds, I said:

  The Lord is my rock!

  The Lord is my fortress, and my deliverer!

  God is my refuge; He is my shield!

  And the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

  There was solace in the words. Just saying them aloud in that dolorous place comforted me, so I continued:

  I call to the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,

  And I am saved from my enemies.

  The cords of death entangled me;

  The torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

  It was an act of defiance, I believe, to invoke the Great Light in that place, for I felt my heart stir as courage returned. In truth, I surprised myself at how much of these songs I could remember. Feeling a very bard myself, I sent those heaven-breathed words into the darksome wood:

  The cords of the grave coiled around me;

  The snares of death confronted me.

  In my distress, I cried to my God for help.

  From his temple he heard my voice.

  Wonder of wonders, even as I spoke those last words I saw a light shining in the wood: so pale and dim, I first thought I must have imagined it. I looked and the faint glimmer disappeared, but when I glanced away again, I saw it once more. I raised myself up and stared at the place—as if to hold it there so that it would not vanish again, leaving me alone in the dark.

  I could not see the light directly for all the trees and brush. Desperate to hold the fragile luminescence, I tried to remember the rest of Myrddin’s prayer. How did it go?

  And he gazed with…

  No, no…that was not right. The pain in my leg drove out everything else. I could not think. I took a deep breath and forced myself to concentrate. In clumps and snatches the words came to me and I spoke them out.

  And he looked down in his anger and said:

  Because their love is set on me, I will deliver them.

  I will deliver them from danger, for they know my name.

  I will be with them in times of trouble;

  I will rescue them from the grave,

  And bring them honor in my courts;

  I will satisfy them with eternal life

  to enjoy their rich salvation.

  As I spoke, the faint radiance seemed to strengthen, gathering itself into a steady gleam like that of the moon on a mist-shrouded winter night. I thought that the light might yet break forth, but though I continued repeating the psalm over and over again, the fragile light remained a mere pearly glimmering, and beyond that did not increase.

  After a time, I felt the winter chill seeping into my bones. My clothes were damp with sweat and the air was cold, and I began to shiver. Each tremble sent a jolt of pain through me, as it meant moving my leg. I clenched my teeth and willed the gently gleaming light to stay.

  I do not know how long I lay there, shivering with pain and cold, grinding my teeth, and praying for that small, thin glow to remain. It seemed a long time, however—long enough for me to begin harboring the suspicion that I had indeed lost both Gereint and Bors, and was now completely alone. Once this suspicion hardened into certainty, I decided to try to get up and move in the direction of the light.

  Searching around me for a sturdy branch to use for a staff, I put my hand to a crooked tree limb; it was old and the rotten bark came off in my hand, but the wood was strong enough to support me, and so I used it to pull myself up onto my feet once more. My injured leg still throbbed with the slightest movement, but I clenched my teeth, steadied myself, and started off.

  I found I could hobble only a few paces before the pain grew too great to bear and I must stop and rest. Then, after a few moments’ respite, I staggered on. I saw that I was following the trail which the black beast had forced as it crashed through the wood. This made my passage somewhat less difficult, for I was able to steady myself against the fallen trees and broken branches.

  Thus, by halts and starts, I proceeded along the narrow path. Despite the cold, I was soon sweating once more with the pain and exertion, my breath hanging in phantom clouds around my head. I listened all the while, alert to any sound in the forest. I strained to hear Gereint returning at any moment, or Bors. Or the black beast.

  But no. I was alone. Again fear boiled up, but I swallowed it down and moved on, berating my companions for running off, as I supposed, after the horses. How I had come by this notion, I cannot say. Consumed by my own troubles, I had not spared a single kindly thought for them. Indeed, they could have been lying wounded or dead in the wood nearby and I would not have been any the wiser.

  “Blessed Jesu, forgive a foolish man,” I sighed aloud, and then breathed a silent prayer for the safety of my friends. These thoughts and prayers occupied me as I staggered my slow way along the trail towards the faint moon-shimmer of radiance.

  At long last, the trail turned slightly and I came to a huge bramble thicket—an infernally dense tangle of spiked vines and thorny branches. Had it been a rampart of stone, it could not have been more formidable. Yet the monstrous creature appeared to have crashed into this wall and, in its blind rage, driven a ragged gap into the close-grown tangles. Although I could not discern the source, the light seemed to be coming from somewhere beyond the hedge wall.

  I leaned on my crooked staff, gazing at the thicket. The throb in my leg had become a steady pulse of pain, and my side felt as if live coals were smoldering under the skin. I was shivering with cold and pain, and sweating at the same time. I closed my eyes and leaned harder on my staff. “Jesu, have mercy,” I groaned. “I am hurt and I am alone, and I am lost if you do not help me now.”

  I was still trying to marshal my waning strength to attempt the hedge when I heard quick, rustling footsteps behind me. My first thought was that the monster had returned. This fear swiftly vanished at the sound of my name.

  “Gwalchavad!”

  “Here!” I called. “Here I am!” I turned to stare back down the narrow path that had led me to this place. A moment later, I saw Gereint loping towards me, his face gleaming ghostly in the pale light. He carried a sword—mine, it was—and wore an expression of mingled relief and wonder.

  “Lord Gwalchavad, you are alive,” he said as he joined me. Out of breath, he stuck the sword in the ground, and bent over with his hands on his knees. “I feared you were—” He paused, gulping air, then said, “I feared I had lost you, but then I saw the light and followed it.”

  Observing my leg, he asked, “Is it bad?”

  “I can endure it,” I replied. “What of Bors? Have you seen him?”

  “Not since the attack,” he answered.

  “God help him,” I replied; then leaving Bors’ welfare in the Good Lord’s hands, I turned once more to the thicket. “The light drew me here, too. It seems to be coming from the other side of this hedge wall.”

  “We will go through together,” said Gereint. Taking up the sword, he stepped to the gap and began slashing at the briers. He cleared the path before us, and reached a hand back for me. />
  “Go before me,” I told him. “I will follow.”

  He peered at me doubtfully, then turned and resumed his chopping at the knotted branches. He hewed like a champion, slashing with tireless strokes. The vapor from his breath hung in a cloud above him, and his hair grew damp and slick, but he stood to his work, arms swinging, shoulders rolling as he hacked at the dangling vines.

  I followed, hobbling a step at a time, as the hedge parted before Gereint’s blade. In this way we proceeded, until…

  “We are through!” Gereint declared triumphantly.

  Glancing up, I saw the light shining through and Gereint standing in the breach, sword in hand. Whatever lay beyond the hedge wall occupied his complete attention.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  I staggered behind Gereint into a wide clearing. Beyond the all-enclosing thicket, the ground was rocky and uneven, and the hedge wall stood back in a circle all around. In the center of the clearing rested a squat stone hut with a steep, high-pitched roof, also of stone. The walls were squared, solid, and without openings of any kind, and the roof was covered with moss—in all a most curious dwelling.

  Beside the house stood a stone plinth of the kind the Romans used to erect for their statues and memorials. There was no memorial or statue now, but a heap of broken rubble at the foot of the plinth suggested that once there might have been.

  These things I took in first, and only when Gereint spoke did I feel the calming silence of the place. “It is very peaceful here,” the young warrior said, and even at a whisper his voice seemed to boom like a beaten drum.

  Placing a finger to my lips, I warned him against speaking aloud until we could discover whether we were the only visitors. Gereint nodded and took my arm upon his shoulder and we proceeded cautiously towards the dwelling.

  We had been drawn to the clearing by the light. Now that we were here, however, there was no light to be found and none to be seen—that is, there appeared no source of illumination: no campfire, no torches, no subtle sunlight shining down from above—yet the stone hut did stand suffused in a softly gleaming radiance very like that of moonlight, and what is more, this gentle gloaming bathed the entire clearing with a fine luminescence that shimmered gently at the edges of my vision. Whenever I looked directly at an object, this ghostly glimmering faded, though the soft glow remained.

  Wary with every step, we approached the stone hut, moving slowly along the near side to what we took to be the front. There we found a door both low and narrow, its threshold overgrown with weeds and grass. So small was this entrance that only one could pass at a time, and that one must bow almost to his knees to enter.

  Gereint cleared away the growth with a few quick swipes of his blade, then, sword in hand, stooped and entered.

  A moment later, his face appeared in the doorway, and he said, “It is empty, lord. There is no one here.”

  With some difficulty and no little pain—for I could no longer bend my injured leg at all, and had to lie down and drag myself through the opening—I joined him within. Gereint raised me to my feet again, and we stood together in a holy place.

  “It is some kind of chapel,” Gereint said, his voice filling the stone-walled room.

  The same weird light that played in the clearing outside also filled the interior of the single, vaulted room, allowing us to see each detail of the rich ornamentation—for every surface was carved with wonderful designs: intricate knotwork panels and borders, countless triscs and spirals, and hundreds of the elongated, much-entwined shapes of animals and men. I recognized this adornment; it was that which the Celts of old made with such zeal and delight. There were also innumerable crosses carved on the walls and floors, many with odd runelike symbols which I could not read.

  The room, unforgiving in its square, spare simplicity, seemed to dance to the rhythm and movement of those wonderful carvings. To stand and gaze upon floor and walls and roof was to inhabit a psalm or a glad song of praise. I filled my eyes with the graceful dance of the room, and felt my spirit rise up within me.

  “Truly, this is a sacred place,” I said.

  “An ancient place,” Gereint replied. “Look how—”

  “Listen!” I held up my hand to quiet him.

  There came the sound of a soft footfall—someone was moving along the wall outside. Gereint made a flattening motion with his hand and silently stepped to the doorway, sword ready.

  I stood stock-still, straining into the silence. There came no shouts, no cries of help or alarm. I held my breath and heard only the rapid beating of my own heart. And then—

  A quick movement at the door and a dark shape burst into the room, straightened, and became the familiar figure I knew.

  “Bors!”

  Gereint lowered the blade and fell back; he had been that close to striking.

  “Here you are!” Bors cried, lowering the sword in his own hand. “And here was I thinking I had lost you for good.”

  His relief was instantly swallowed in amazement as he beheld the walls and floor. He turned his wondering gaze upon the beautiful carvings, and we joined him in silent admiration. Explanations could wait; a greater mystery commanded our attention.

  When he spoke again, it was in a voice humbled with awe. “It is wonderful.”

  “That it is,” I agreed. “I have never seen the like.”

  “It reminds me of those cells the monks make in Armorica. Look here,” he said, moving towards the rear of the chapel, “the altar still stands, and—”

  He broke off so suddenly, I glanced quickly at his face, which now wore an expression of revulsion: lips twisted in a grimace of distaste, eyes narrowed in disgust. With my crooked staff, I struggled across the room to join him. “Damn them to hell,” he muttered, turning his face away.

  Then I saw what he had seen, and turned my face away, too. The sight and smell brought bile to my mouth and I coughed, feeling the burn in my throat as I swallowed it back. “Desecrated.”

  On the altar before us lay the severed genitals of a bull, the members placed atop a pile of human excrement. The bull’s bloody horns with bits of the skull, and tail with part of the anus attached, flanked the stinking mound on either side, and the poor animal’s tongue, torn out by the root, completed the repugnant arrangement.

  “Have you found something?” Gereint hastened to where we stood. I tried to warn him off but was too late, and he pushed in beside Bors.

  The young warrior looked at the altar. Clapping a hand to his mouth, he choked and turned swiftly away.

  “That is the worst of it,” I said.

  “Holy Jesu,” he whispered in a small, wounded voice.

  “This is not right,” Bors declared solemnly. “I will not allow it.”

  So saying, he stripped off his cloak and flung it over the obscene display. I thought that he meant merely to cover the desecration, but he had another plan, for he spread the cloak and then gathered up the defiling mass, folding it into the cloth. Holding the bundle at arm’s length, he bore it from the chapel, returning a moment later with a double handful of grass in each fist.

  Striding to the altar, Bors took to scrubbing the flat stone with the grass. “I need some water,” he said through clenched teeth.

  “Maybe there is a well outside,” said Gereint, darting away.

  I leaned, exhausted, against the wall while Bors put the full strength of his arms into the cleansing of the venerable stone. As he worked, a faint green sheen began to gleam where the grass, crushed by its abrasion, left some of its substance.

  “See here, Gwalchavad,” Bors called, motioning me nearer. “What is this?”

  I hobbled closer, and only then did Bors notice I was wounded. “But you are hurt, brother. Forgive me, I should have—”

  “I will live, never fear,” I said, waving his apology aside. Indicating the altar, I said, “What do you make of it?”

  “It is a circle, and words, I think.” He pointed to a broken arc of spidery lines which seemed to be etched in th
e stone. “But I cannot read the letters.”

  “Nor can I,” I told him. “Perhaps if we could see more of it—” Bors fell to scrubbing again, as if by brute effort he could make the words appear. But for all his muscle, the thin, cracked lines did not mend or improve. “It is no use, Bors. Whatever is written on that stone is worn away and there is no reading it now.”

  Bors ceased rubbing, and stood with knots of grass clenched in his fists. “I should go see what has become of Gereint,” he said, but his eyes never left the etched surface of the stone.

  “Yes, and then we should decide what to do next.”

  Curiously, we were both reluctant to leave the altar. We stood staring at the fragmented lines, neither making a move…until Gereint returned a few moments later. He burst into the chapel in a rush of excitement.

  “There is a well!” he exclaimed, bustling towards us. “And I found this bowl on a chain. I had some difficulty getting the bowl free without spilling the water, but—” He stopped when he saw what we were looking at. “It looks like writing.”

  “Aye, lad, it is,” Bors affirmed. “But we can make nothing of it.”

  “Maybe this will help,” replied Gereint. Stepping quickly to the altar, he raised the vessel and dashed the contents over the stone.

  The water struck the stone with a hiss and a splutter, casting up great vaporous clouds of steam while droplets of water sizzled and cracked—as if the altar had been iron-heated in the forge. Bors and Gereint drew back a step, and I threw an arm over my face and twisted away lest I be scalded by the heat blast.

  “Jesu be praised!” breathed Gereint. “Look!”

  Lowering my arm, I gazed once more upon the altar. Through the steam I could see the incised lines glowing with a golden sheen. Even as I watched, the thin broken lines joined, deepened, became robust and bold. The flat altar stone had changed, too: glittering and smooth as a new polished gem, it gleamed with the milky radiance of crystal shot through with veins of silver and flecks of crimson and gold.

  The image on the stone resolved clearly into that of a broad circular band of gold with a cross inside; bent around the band was a finely drawn ring of words. Flanking the circle and cross on either side were two figures—creatures whose bodies appeared to be made of fire—with wings outspread as if in supplication or worship.