clinging and clutching like dancers at a mad feast, reeling singly and in locked groups and pairs around and around as panic and hate kept them spinning, reaching for passing walls, partners and enemies, gripping forever-failing support as flames burst out all over and in blind escape now dragged one another back in a welter of fire, blood and shadow … Then something sharp ground in his skull and brain and he screamed wildly, clutching at his head as all light winked out and he knew his true name and was trying to shout it out within the silent blackness that was himself.
X
Parsival was still fuming, walking rapidly around a curve in the passageway, unconsciously turning right at the next crossing, thinking:
I’ve been fates fool for forty years and I won’t be tricked into anything again … never … no witchcraft or empty praying … I’ve seen all the visions I need to see and I have heard if you deny it, it all goes away like a dreaming … which way here?
He faced a forking. High above a line of slit windows streamed whitish daylight that was swallowed by the general dimness. Dark pennants hung unstirring, obscure.
He looked left, then right. Both passages gaped blank and dark.
“You bastards!” he abruptly raged aloud, gritting his teeth. “May you lick the Devil’s hind in hell!”
Thinking in fury:
More tricks! To trick me into what this time ? Sarcastic: “ Why take the road that always rises, boy.” Oh, yes. I heard that nonsense before, you mystical bastards! No more empty journeys warring with ghosts and unwitting men …
“I fought your fucked wars for you, you sons-of-bitches!” he shouted. The muffled echoes rattled dully back.
Raging again he stormed at the right, checked himself, and plunged into the leftward way.
The Devil’s way is left , I hope , he snarled to himself. I’ve had enough of what they say God’s was …
The passage dipped … rose … then he was in a huge, round hall, windowless, lit by man-tall candles set around the wall. He hesitated, looking up, squinting. There was a gigantic mural composed like a wheel around the entire ceiling in equal parts lit and dim. There was what seemed a flowering garden outside a little castle, a bar of dark blotting part of the scene where a woman stood among flowers. She had long hair and large, shining eyes that reminded him of someone. In the next lit panel a deer was fleeing, a spear angled into the chest … darkness … then death, as a skeleton, jousting with a knight. He looked back at the woman: yes, he thought, it somehow resembled her … his mother … the eyes at least.
Dear God , he said to himself, I haven’t thought of her in so long …
He looked elsewhere on the incredibly detailed picture: A great battle, tantalizingly at the edge of a shadowy area where a knight in what seemed tattered gear was moving through dense forest, holding something in his hands that appeared to shine like a jewel …
I could think this all meant just for me … perhaps all men could …
He pulled away and crossed the hall to the narrow door at the far end. Pushed it open, expecting anything (except “anything” would have to be thinner than his shoulders’ width to get through there) and was dazzled by a hot burst of sunlight. Blinking, he twisted sidewise through the doorway.
He found himself in another walled garden, this one very large, outside the monastery proper, with walks and tall trees. It seemed deserted. There was such a flood of sweetness he felt dizzy. Banks, no, waves of flowers swayed in an unbroken glow everywhere up to the shadows of the ancient, massive oaks that all but covered the high outer walls.
He waded knee-deep through the incredible sea of color and scent, rich with bees and butterflies. He paused at a delicate stream that flowed blue over pure white stones, glittering like cut crystal. He stooped and drank from his hands. The water was cool and tasted of sunshine and slow green earth. The
X
Parsival was still fuming, walking rapidly around a curve in the passageway, unconsciously turning right at the next crossing, thinking:
I’ve been fates fool for forty years and I won’t be tricked into anything again … never … no witchcraft or empty praying … I’ve seen all the visions I need to see and I have heard if you deny it, it all goes away like a dreaming … which way here?
He faced a forking. High above a line of slit windows streamed whitish daylight that was swallowed by the general dimness. Dark pennants hung unstirring, obscure.
He looked left, then right. Both passages gaped blank and dark.
“You bastards!” he abruptly raged aloud, gritting his teeth. “May you lick the Devil’s hind in hell!”
Thinking in fury:
More tricks! To trick me into what this time ? Sarcastic: “ Why take the road that always rises, boy.” Oh, yes. I heard that nonsense before, you mystical bastards! No more empty journeys warring with ghosts and unwitting men …
“I fought your fucked wars for you, you sons-of-bitches!” he shouted. The muffled echoes rattled dully back.
Raging again he stormed at the right, checked himself, and plunged into the leftward way.
The Devil’s way is left , I hope , he snarled to himself. I’ve had enough of what they say God’s was …
The passage dipped … rose … then he was in a huge, round hall, windowless, lit by man-tall candles set around the wall. He hesitated, looking up, squinting. There was a gigantic mural composed like a wheel around the entire ceiling in equal parts lit and dim. There was what seemed a flowering garden outside a little castle, a bar of dark blotting part of the scene where a woman stood among flowers. She had long hair and large, shining eyes that reminded him of someone. In the next lit panel a deer was fleeing, a spear angled into the chest … darkness … then death, as a skeleton, jousting with a knight. He looked back at the woman: yes, he thought, it somehow resembled her … his mother … the eyes at least.
Dear God , he said to himself, I haven’t thought of her in so long …
He looked elsewhere on the incredibly detailed picture: A great battle, tantalizingly at the edge of a shadowy area where a knight in what seemed tattered gear was moving through dense forest, holding something in his hands that appeared to shine like a jewel …
I could think this all meant just for me … perhaps all men could …
He pulled away and crossed the hall to the narrow door at the far end. Pushed it open, expecting anything (except “anything” would have to be thinner than his shoulders’ width to get through there) and was dazzled by a hot burst of sunlight. Blinking, he twisted sidewise through the doorway.
He found himself in another walled garden, this one very large, outside the monastery proper, with walks and tall trees. It seemed deserted. There was such a flood of sweetness he felt dizzy. Banks, no, waves of flowers swayed in an unbroken glow everywhere up to the shadows of the ancient, massive oaks that all but covered the high outer walls.
He waded knee-deep through the incredible sea of color and scent, rich with bees and butterflies. He paused at a delicate stream that flowed blue over pure white stones, glittering like cut crystal. He stooped and drank from his hands. The water was cool and tasted of sunshine and slow green earth. The
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