by Jake Yaniak
'Don't rail against me, Daryas, Lutrosis laughed, 'I am only trying to help.'
'If you would help me, then free me from the torment of mind in which I stand!'
'How could I,' the voice bellowed, 'when YOU are that torment of mind!'
'You wish to bring me to death,' Daryas accused.
'Nonsense, I would bring you to happiness. You know as well as I that there is no happiness in virtue.'
Dreamlands Revisited
In this state of mind Daryas entered again those hills and valleys the contours of which his dreams had well informed him. As he descended into the valley of the Nunnery, the thick smoke of the burning trees came to meet his nostrils. The smoke also concealed his approach from the many watching eyes that lay hidden all about the Nunnery.
The smoke grew so thick in places that Daryas was almost driven away from the valley against his will. But he could not resist the fate that drew him into the south.
He swooned and fell from Novai, who took off in a fright, running into the north and west as if a thousand devils pursued her. There he lay for a time, conscious of nothing but the sound of burning and the heat of the flames. When he came to his senses, he found himself lying upon the ground at the western entrance of the Nunnery. Before him stood the tall figure of a man. A great cloak of black was wrapped about his shoulders, casting a dark shadow upon the moonlit ground.
'What will you do, son of Biron?' he heard Lutrosis ask with unveiled malice. Daryas answered nothing. 'Very well, then I will tell you. In this place lies something you want very much to possess. But there is also much that I desire. But alas! our desires are in opposition. You wish to bind yourself to the Siren of Agonistes, but I to loose myself therefrom. All your life we have contended one with the other; but now we shall at last settle the score. You will walk into the place, and you will do all that I command you.'
'And if I refuse you, what will you do? Kill me?'
'I wish not to kill you, Daryas, I am merely being polite, even as I have always been.'
As soon as he had finished saying this he lifted Daryas from the ground by his hair and dragged him toward the entrance. There he was withstood by a guard, who demanded his name and his business. Lutrosis laughed and took the guard's throat in his hand, lifting him from the ground. Daryas pulled back his hand and he released the guard, who immediately fled toward the Temple. 'That was a foolish thing to do,' Lutrosis laughed. 'I am trying to keep you alive, and you let your enemy live.'
'He is not my enemy; he has done naught against me.'
'He that stands between you and your desire is your enemy.'
'Too true, dark one, too true are your words.'
Lutrosis cast him on the ground and laughed, 'Only too late will you realize that we cannot be enemies.'
'Think what you will,' Daryas said weakly.
Lutrosis again took him by the hair and dragged him into the Nunnery. By the light of many burning lamps Daryas at last saw his tormentor.
Lutrosis stood about the same height as Daryas, though his posture seemed to carry a greater nobility. He wore a cloak of black over his head, and upon his face was a mask of iron. Through two narrow eyeslits there shone proud and luminous green eyes, which brought a chill to Daryas' spine to look upon. Only three small holes permitted him to breath, and through these he could hear the labored breath of his enemy, whose every breath seemed to come at great expense. About his throat was coiled a great serpent, the head of which had latched upon his neck. From this wound there streamed a steady flow of deep red blood. When Daryas saw this spectacle he touched his finger to his own neck in the very spot that, more than a year ago, Leonara had wounded. With great horror he discovered that he too bled such dark blood.
Daryas rose from his feet and darted away, making for the corner of the Nunnery in which his beloved awaited him.
'Fool!' Lutrosis shouted. 'She will not see you, so long as I am with you. You may as well remain here where the water is cool and fresh.' With those words, he leaped upon Daryas from behind and knocked him to the ground. 'Will you not refresh yourself in the stream; that stream wherein the Sacred Virgins of Agonistes bathe?'
'I will not,' Daryas said. But Lutrosis grabbed him by the hair and dragged him to the water. Daryas kicked and fought, but to no avail; he had no power over his foe.
River Goddess
Before he knew what was happening to him, Daryas found his face plunged into the cold water of the Meretris. Immediately he felt himself invigorated and refreshed. He lifted his head from the water and looked down into the pool. There he saw the form and likeness of a goddess, standing as it were, just beneath the surface of the water. Her raiment and her flesh were alike as bright and cold as the moon. She reached her arm out of the water and took Daryas' hand in hers. Her skin was as smooth as silk, but her grip was stronger than iron chains. She pulled the strong Noras warrior into the pool with ease. There he found himself gasping for air as she pulled him toward herself.
She pulled him close and breathed into his mouth, filling his lungs with air. But the air she breathed therein made them burn as though they were filled with fire. Her lips tasted like honey, and her mouth was as smooth as oil. She kissed him deeply under the water. There he might have remained and perished, had Lutrosis not plucked him out of the water.
There he sat upon the white stone floor, soaked and gasping for air, choking on the water. His head swam, and looking into the water he could see nothing. Above him he heard the voice of Lutrosis chuckling loudly. Daryas spluttered and choked on that water, which now seemed as foul as it had formerly seemed refreshing.
'Have you had enough, Daryas?' he asked, still laughing, 'Will you now go to your beloved, even while your clothes are still soaked with the water of that stream?'
To this Daryas made no reply, but tried to walk on toward the tower wherein the Siren was housed. But Lutrosis grabbed the back of his neck and pushed his face to the ground. 'Not yet, fool, I am not finished with you!'
Then he dragged Daryas out of the Nunnery through a large wooden door that stood on the northern side of the Nunnery. 'Look there,' he whispered, 'Do you not see her? The River Goddess, who dwells in the Meretris, and who is fed by the beauty of the Sacred Virgins?'
There before him, some twenty paces ahead, stood the strange figure that Daryas had seen beneath the water. She waved her hand, beckoning him to follow. With a great effort of mind he turned himself away and made for the tower.
'Follow her, Daryas,' Lutrosis commanded. Then these two fell into a fierce combat, Daryas desperately trying to slay his foe, and Lutrosis laughing all the while. For every blow Daryas gave his opponent, Lutrosis landed five, and for every time Daryas cast him to the ground, Lutrosis trampled him underfoot eight times. This went on until Daryas was so bloodied and broken that he could no longer refuse Lutrosis' will. 'Do you not yet understand, Daryas, just who it is that I am?' Again he laughed his horrible laugh. 'Rise!' he said, 'and follow.'
Unable to do otherwise, Daryas rose and chased after the River Goddess, into the northern woods. The fire burned steadily closer, now sending a thick odor of smoke into the Nunnery itself. But nonetheless, Daryas could not go to Leonara.
The bright white figure of the River Goddess floated and danced between the trees and through the woods so nimbly that not even a deer could have kept up with her. She seemed to go this way one moment, and then in another moment she would appear elsewhere, without traversing the distance between, or at least so it seemed to the eyes of her pursuer. Her ways seemed to change even as she fled, and no man could have marked them. Blinded by the wounds he had been given by Lutrosis, he pursued her like a madman, not knowing what would come of his chase. Soon he gave up all knowledge of his surroundings and charged forward like a dog set afire. Lutrosis grabbed his arm and halted his charge just as he came to a tall precipice. The loose dirt beneath his feet slid and fell below him, unsettling the rocks below. As he looked down he could see the River Goddess, still dancin
g and laughing. 'Her feet would have led you straight down to the dead,' Lutrosis warned.
'To death and hell,' Daryas added, panting. 'Is that not what you have brought me here to find?'
'I do not want you to die, Daryas,' Lutrosis said with great sincerity.
Daryas then began to hobble back toward the Nunnery, following the smell of burning wood and the rising smoke. It seemed like the distance he was forced to traverse in that hour was greater than the girth of the world itself. 'A fool, a fool, why must I pursue this devil, when the one I have come to find lies imperiled in the Nunnery of Agonistes!?'
'Don't curse yourself, Daryas,' Lutrosis said as he walked beside him. 'It is not as though you have done anything against your will.'
'What do you know of my will?' Daryas said with a hiss.
'You have not yet understood?' Lutrosis guffawed. 'Daryas, I am your will. You are the devil and the phantasm. You are the haunter, Daryas, and the scoffer who falsifies my every path. What will it take for you to understand!?'
'You speak nonsense!'
'Nonsense!? Only I have spoken the truth to you Daryas.'
'You say you are my will, but how then can I hate your ways?'
'It is very common, son of Biron, for men to hate themselves and love themselves; though it is impossible that one should do it all at once. You wish to do one thing, yet you do another, not because you are opposed to it, but because when you do that which you would not, you wish to do it, even at the moment you do it, though not before, when you wish not to do it.'
'Idiot!' Daryas shouted, inspiring in his adversary such laughter as he had never before heard.
'Did you not notice, Daryas, how on two occasions now I have spared your life? But for what? If I am your enemy, why should I do such a thing? I have as much interest in your life as you; nay, I have more interest in it, because I am your life, you are but a shadow and a phantom.'
Daryas quickened his pace, almost as though he expected to outrun his assailant.
'Stop Daryas,' Lutrosis commanded. Daryas obeyed, knowing now that he could not prevail against him. 'Do you see her? She wanders the woods again, just over there to the east.'
Sure enough, the Goddess of the River Meretris laughed and danced in the woods again, calling to them with a melodic voice. 'Let us chase after her again, Daryas, perhaps this time we will overtake her.'
'Consider, devil, that she will only bring us to ruin. If she goes east, let us flee into the west; and if she comes nigh, let us depart. If she haunts these woods, let us go to the mountain. We will but lose honor and virtue in her train.'
'What need have I of these things?'
'You care at least about honor, devil,' Daryas replied with a face of stone.
Lutrosis chuckled, 'You are beginning to understand, then.'
'We might follow her and all such deceitful things until our blood runs dry and we sink into an unhappy death; but we would never find satisfaction therein. We might drink the whole stream up and not have assuaged our thirst. We might have all the virgins of Agonistes to wife, yet never find therein satisfaction. That which you chase, Lutrosis; and that which you compel me to pursue, can never be overtaken. You seek nothing less than bliss and happiness, which is to man as the worm and hook to the fish. Let us not pursue such things any longer.'
'That is easier said than done, son of Biron,' Lutrosis said. 'Do you not understand how deep the power that drives me lies? Do you not understand how artificial you are? And how real I am? Yet for all this you consider me to be the shadow! That speaks more of your folly than your virtue. You hate me because I am the truth, and you are the pretense! You are meant to serve me; and not I you.
'There were once creatures without feeling,' the creature said in a hushed tone, 'who lived not for the sake of passion. But they felt no hunger, and starved to death. They felt no thirst, and the dried out like autumn leaves. They loved no women, and their generations died out ere they began. Do you not see, Daryas, how necessary to life is this struggle; this desire! The desire of food, of joy, of strength and blood and war; do you not see how necessary is the love of women? Two parents to make one child! How inefficient is man, that he makes but one seed at a time! How would it be, Daryas, if man had his fill of love when he had just his wife and child beside him? To live, mankind must ever be tempted with love, love and more love.
'Why do the gluttons continue to eat, even after their bloated bodies become crippled by their own girth? It is because without ever-hunger, ever-thirst, ever-love, mankind would give in and die the death. Do you not see how necessary is all this desire? How, then, can one hope to tame it, when it must be of such strength as to drive the stag to the doe, the rooster to the hen, and the king to his harem? I am more natural than you - you deliberator; you fierce reasoner.
'What value is it to reason, and to give a thought to your deeds? I of all men acknowledge the value of the mind. The difference between the unhappy animals and men lies indeed in the rationality of the latter. But reason is a helper to the will, not the master thereof. The will decides what it wants; the mind works out the means. That is the secret to all right living, and all who teach otherwise are liars and charlatans.'
'You speak the words of Ponteris!' Daryas accused.
Lutrosis laughed, 'No, you must understand, Daryas, it is not I that speaks those words; it is you.' With those words he pulled aside his cloak, revealing the terrible serpent that had wrapped itself around his throat. 'Do you know how I came to be in such a state?'
'No, nor do I doubt but that you deserve it, and have brought it upon yourself.'
'You are coming close to the truth, Daryas, but you still talk as if you and I were different. When I was a child, I did what I wanted, and I had only a few obstructions. But as time went by, those who held power over me compelled me to obey their commands. I learned to read, though I wished to play. I learned to speak the truth, though I preferred to lie. I learned to share, though I wished to have and to have all. I learned to love, though hatred comes to me with greater ease. All this, Daryas, was in opposition to me. Therefore, as you see, it is with great difficulty that I even draw breath. Could I but shake the fetters of these moralists from my shoulders I would breath again, deeply and fully; and have what I want for a change. To live is to desire, but to live at peace with others is to want.
'My face I hide from all others, under a mask of iron so that none can see me and know me. Yea, you know it well, I hide from myself as well! Who knows his own heart? I know the eyes that see, the ears that hear, and all that my senses tell me, I learn. But for all that I know, I know not the knower! Who is it that senses and feels and thinks? It is hidden from even my sight, and no amount of thought can draw it into view. And who would want to know it? It is dark and hateful, covetous and deviant, only conforming to the will of others for the sake of honor and reputation. I bear this mask so that when men look upon me they see not the ugliness that lies beneath. How dark is your will Daryas! It hides even from yourself!'
There was a pause, and Daryas reluctantly asked, 'What of the serpent? For it cannot be a natural part of you any more than the mask.'
'The serpent, if you will accept it, is what you have given to me; your one gift to me has been suffering and anguish. For all my vigor and all my strength, there is an emptiness within me by reason of this sucking serpent, who gorges himself upon my flesh day and night. You Daryas, are a man of ideas, and there are some of these that prey upon the wills of men. The brutes are led about by their senses without the slightest concern for their futures; certainly without concern for their histories. But man! He can live in all times at once, and, by the power of his imagination, he sees worlds that are not, never were, nor can ever be. These, if he wills, can become as much a motivation as the reality in which he finds himself. In this way, he leads himself about chasing a future that will never be, and ignoring the present desires of his will.
'You Daryas, insofar as you have given your thoughts over to the gods an
d the spirits, have thereby put a burden upon me that I can scarcely bear. You seek righteousness! As if righteousness meant anything more than self-satisfaction! Look at the world, Daryas, and see how everyone calls that good which pleases them and that evil which pleases them not. Why then do you call your own heart dark? Dark to what? Yourself? That is an impossibility, if you loved not your own soul you would have dashed your head to the ground in your infancy. You would have ceased to breath, ceased to eat. No, your love of self is a decision made before you were even aware of it. But now, when you have come so far and seen so many things, you will say that you hate yourself? That you are sinful? What madness is this? It is the idea of the gods and of their courts and of their hells alone that makes you deprive me of life! Look upon this serpent and you will see just how beautiful your virtues are!'
Daryas closed his eyes and stopped walking. 'Yet the truth is such, that there is a will above man and for which man lives and breaths, and for which I have been summoned to life. You said the love of life was a decision made before life even began. I am the work of my parents, and they of their parents before them. But what is man the work of? If man lives for naught, then I grant you your freedom; lead me whithersoever you choose! But how can you convince yourself of such a thing without great pretense?'
To this, for once, Lutrosis replied nothing.
'You are tormented, Lutrosis, not by me, but by your own imagination. For who could help but be contented by that which he has, unless he can imagine better? Who can desire more of a thing, if more were not thinkable? You will always be malcontented because, for all your bold words, you have believed your imagination. When you see the beauty of one thing before you, you imagine another, and so convince yourself that there is something else to be pursued. Likewise, because you can imagine the gods and their purposes to be empty lies, you fancy yourself to be free of them. But then you are bound by the opposite thought as well, for you can at the same time imagine that there is a judgment and a lord to sit over you with a whip of chastisement in his hand. It is because you cannot free yourself of this thought that you suffer, and it is not within my power to loose you or bind you. All I can do as a man, as a deliberator, as you call me, is carry to you the truth I have been given. And the truth I give, you may doubt indeed, but you cannot pretend to know otherwise.