Disclaimers: The concepts and the characters aren't mine; I make no money from this.
I'm blaming this totally on Rhi -- there's no way I'm taking responsibility
for this one.
Comments can be sent to [email protected]
Rated: PG-13
Many times, kings and beggars alike had walked the path that lay before him. Not long ago -- or had it been centuries? Time meant nothing here -- he had, with great reluctance, turned down this path. ~Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not take them both.~ It was dark and overgrown; thorns and branches pulled at him, leaving welts that stung, though they healed almost immediately. He remembered standing at the crossroads, and remembered as well that no matter how he had tried to reach the better path, he had found himself on this one. Resigned, he'd started on his way.
Nothing was a terrible thing, he realized, alone but for the twisted, dying trees. Nothing was standing here with the silence of his thoughts and the bitter company of his memories. Nothing was knowing the rage of betrayal, undiluted by distraction. It was enough to make him scream and curse the stillness, then despise himself for the loss of control.
'Open your eyes; clear your mind. See what comes of hate and be no more.' The words hovered in the air, written by the choking fog; they were formed by the unnatural branches of the derisive trees and inscribed by the wind in the dust of the narrow track. The words taunted him till he thought he'd go mad and drew his sword to slash furiously at the branches. He scuffed at the dirt and disturbed the air, overcome by the need to destroy, to undo the spiteful, lying words. They vanished, and the forest was darker for it.
Persistence, he reminded himself. Persistence will get you through. All things must end, even this, and I am the end of time itself! Unbidden, memories rose at that thought: the flash of silver light off metal, the sweat coating his body, the muscles that burned from exertion, the feeling of numbness that charred his body and soul. ~For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, and breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd.~ He remembered the soft feel of feathers, and blackness so deep it invaded his mind. From the darkness came light -- minuscule and brilliant -- then the empty, labyrinthine forest.
Quiet solitude pressed in on him; he yearned for noise and action! Anything to distract him from the thoughts that stalked him relentlessly, bringing the emotions he avoided desperately. ~Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare!~ Once he'd had friendship, a brotherhood to last as long as the sun rode in the sky and men still followed the sword, in whatever form it took: a bomb or a virus or a carefully chosen, biting word. ~Love, how it sells poor bliss for proud despair!~ Love was an illusion. There was no one who could be trusted, not even himself. The one who should never have failed him turned the knife himself. ~E tú, Brutus?~ At that, he was glad for the isolation -- no one should see a myth weep.
Rejecting his melancholy angrily, he blamed the still forms around him for the dampness on his face. This place enspelled him, forced strange, forgotten thoughts into his head. The sooner he rid himself of this place, the better! He pushed his way forward, recklessly using his sword to cut through the brambles. Triumphant, he forced his way through to where the trees thinned.
~Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice.~ There was ice as far as he could see, stretched out in bleak endlessness from where the forest ended to the huge glaciers far to the east. And it burned. He moved closer, entranced, unable to stop himself. It became torture to breath, the extreme cold in the air slicing his lungs each time he inhaled. The dim sun reflected off the ice, dazzling his eyes and appearing brighter than the faded sun. He stepped out onto the ice plain and into the fire. Chilled to the core of himself, he felt the agony of his flesh being burned away -- blackened muscle and charred skin falling away from bones that snapped and twisted in the throws of the ice. Yet he lived, and walked, and reached the gate into the ice mountains.
'Through me you go into the city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain; through me you go among the lost people.' The agonized Immortal read the inscription, understood it, and stepped forward regardless. The pain that tore through him demanded no less -- any hope for a reprieve must be taken, no matter that it promised only more pain.
Until he stepped through the gate, he knew hope. Inside, surrounded by swiftly darkening ice, he felt the certainty of what would come. He knew that to continue would kill him -- all he was would become nothing -- but he couldn't retreat into the burning ice. With a grim smile, he walked down into the mountain. He would never give in, even if there was no hope.
"Verily I say to you, no one comes to the kingdom except by me." The words halted him, coming as they did from the nothingness beyond where he walked.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Xenophobia is a terrible thing," the voice mocked. "You don't believe I'm human, do you? Why not ask what I am? I'll even give you a little hint: I'm the guardian of the gate. To enter the city of sorrows, you must pass me, or return to the snows."
"You are a shade," the man sneered. "A ghost in the tunnel. Move out of the way and let me pass."
"Zealots have called me worse, and with more originality. Heretics have denounced me. Kings have scorned me. All have I humbled," the thing in the shadows hissed.
"All?" The man laughed harshly. "Even I , mighty spirit? You are nothing to me. Remove yourself from my way."
"Be wary, arrogant nation killer. What you find in the city of sorrows are the cursed children of the city of dreams. And there, time's child, is where you will find your memories, given life by your existence. You will scream for the ice before you die."
"Call upon your worthless city of dreams. Dreams hold no fear for me -- I have ridden the nightmares of a thousand cultures for a thousand years and more. Move now, ghost, and let me be on my way." The spirit was silent, and emboldened, the man moved on.
Deep into the mountain of ice he went, moving by touch through a tunnel worn smooth by countless feet walking it, a multitude of fingers trailing, as his did, along the wet ice of the wall. He felt the ice change to rock, and without warning his next step sent him plummeting over the edge of a drop the lightlessness had hidden from him. He sensed space below him and around him. He scrambled desperately for a handhold on the side of the chasm, but grasped only the passing air. With a sickening crack, his body hit the ground and he knew nothing more.
Eternal life had its downside he remembered when he awoke, all the muscles and bones on fire from re-knitting themselves together. He could hear the wailing around him and curiosity prompted him to open his eyes. It was no longer dark, but it wasn't precisely light either. Fog, sickly gray and dense, wove through the decaying buildings of a huge city. The dim light seemed to come from the mist itself, penetrating every part of this lost place. He rose and moved closer, trying to determine the cause of the noise. Everywhere he looked, people lay or slouched, heedless of anything around them. The sat, rocking back and forth, screaming and crying at the ghost images in their minds. Others lay like death, faces locked in terrified grimaces. ~For the soul is dead, that slumbers.~ He realized then that this was the fate of every person to step into the city of sorrows. The lost ones, who no longer knew themselves.
Fated? he wondered. No, nothing is fated. I will not become like this. Not like these child-fools.
Ghosts, he decided. They are ghosts, and I am one of the ageless. They are trapped here -- the city of dreams in the city of sorrows, both in the same place. The city of sorrows cradled the bodies and the city of dreams haunted their minds. Poor fools, to be trapped so easily. Confidently, he strode forward, but as he entered the mist, he entered his mind.
"Heaven is a myth," Methos told him, grinning darkly. "There is no punishment after we die. There's nothing. We must take pleasure in life because when the sword falls, our killers will take our souls. Immortality is a lie. We are only Immortal while we live." ~While I breath, I hope.~ "After death . . ."
"Immortality is no lie, brother," he insisted. "You are Death, and none shall stand against us."
"Jealous of life, the dead do not see death," Methos continued, ignoring him as if he hadn't spoken. "The burning tiger of the forest draws them on, invisible and unacknowledged. We will make our own hells and go to them willingly."
Kronos shook his head fiercely. "Never!" Methos woke.
'Last night I dreamed of Kronos,' he recorded in his journal, as he had since writing began. 'We walked through damnation together, and I swear I saw the devil smile.'
-Finis
The numerous lines that appear from the piece come from the following sources:
"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry I could not take them both." --Robert Frost, "Road Not Taken"
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, and breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd." --Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib"
"Virtue, how frail it is! Friendship how rare! Love, how it sells poor bliss for proud despair!" --Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Mutability"
"E tú, Brutus?" --okay, I cheated. I couldn't for the life of me remember how to spell the Latin version of Brutus' name. As far as I know, it's from Shakespeare (that's where I heard it quoted), but I could be wrong.
"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice." --Robert Frost, "Fire and Ice"
"Through me you go into the city of weeping; through me you go into eternal pain, through me you go among the lost people." --Dante, "The Inferno"
"Verily I say to you, no one comes to the kingdom except by me." --this one was from memory as well, and is (probably paraphrased) from the Bible.
"For the soul is dead, that slumbers." --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Psalm of Life"
"While I breath, I hope." --originally a Latin phrase. Not poetry, but it fit.
The burning tiger of the forest is merely a reference from "The Tiger"
by William Blake.