“To confront the heart of darkness, now, all we have is our weakness. No longer can we wield the light as a weapon. It is the light itself, alone, far beyond ourselves, upon which we must rely for deliverance and salvation.” Saying this, Eldarien reaches out and takes Elmariyë’s hand within his own, looking at her tenderly.
“The light slips from my grasp and from my searching eyes,” Elmariyë replies sorrowfully, squeezing his hand ever so gently. “My heart is not big enough to hold the two together, to see and rejoice in the light and also at the same moment to hurt in the blindness of the darkness. I am shattered, and I am lost.”
“You are shattered, my dear sister, but you are not lost,” says Eldarien. “Even if you cannot see the light, cannot span the distance that must be spanned, only allow the Love within you to do it. That, that shall be enough, and it shall hold you too, even beyond feeling.”
“If that is how it must be…how it must be to walk this path before us, then so be it. Let us move forward, for the sake of our people and our friends.”
The ancient steps climb before them, overgrown with moss and lichen, and broken in many places and crumbling with the passage of time. Though it has not snowed here in many days, perhaps even longer, drifts of snow still appear in shaded places of stone or in the shadows of trees to their left and to their right, visible as a lighter gray amid the all-enfolding darkness. They ascend, their flesh straining with every step to continue moving forward as the assault on their minds continues unabated, growing in intensity as they draw nearer to the citadel that stands before them upon the crest of the mountain slope.
When they come to the entrance to the citadel, they find themselves standing in what once must have been a wide lawn, though it is now overgrown with aged trees and high-altitude vegetation. Yet they do not linger here, but draw near without hesitation to the door, which, to their startled surprise, they find hanging open before them, like a gaping maw or a portal into the darkness—for that is all that they can see beyond: sheer blackness.
And they enter, with no more than a hair’s-breadth of preparation, for the waiting shall only make it more difficult to step forward, to plunge into the blackness and to ascend, to ascend to where the heart of darkness lies, simultaneously calling them and resisting them. When they have entered, they see that the citadel is black on the inside as well, with only an eerie light shining in from windows high in the walls, barely allowing the form of the walls and of the vaulted ceiling to be sensed.
And complete silence, the oppressive silence of loss and not the abundant silence of life, fills and saturates the citadel like a fever, like a poison that inundates the air and seeps from the walls and the floor, that emerges from the very air itself. And this silence is all that they encounter. There are no druadach, no great eötenga, no dragons, no forges. There is only silence and the overwhelming sense of death and loss, a death and loss so deep and so wide that it is hardly possible to conceive of what this citadel once was in the days of its glory, when it was filled with the light, compassion, and wisdom of a righteous king.
In the darkness the halls are like a maze, and the two siblings wander about lost, looking for some way to draw near to the heart of darkness that they sense but which remains just beyond their reach. Even as they come near to a large spiral staircase winding up at the center of a spacious, domed chamber, Elmariyë stops.
“Brother, are you here?” comes her voice to Eldarien’s right, though it sounds frail, as if echoing across a great distance.
“I am here,” he replies.
“Brother?” she turns her face to look at him, but her eyes seem to gaze beyond him, as if no longer able to see. “I feel so alone. Please do not leave me. Please, I can’t go further on my own.”
“I am here, sister, I am here,” he says, reaching out and touching her cheek. Her flesh is hot as though fevered, and sweat beads upon her face.
“Is that you…? Yes, it must be you,” she whimpers. “But why can’t I see you, hear you, feel you?”
“It is I,” affirms Eldarien gently, stepping close to her as if the proximity of his body to hers could break through the dark clouds enshrouding her.
“Is that you…Ta? Are you here?” she whispers, continuing her mysterious dialogue. “I want you. I need you. Stay with me. Draw me to you.”
Understanding more now, Eldarien wraps an arm around her shoulder and guides her forward across the chamber to the spiral stair. She follows docilely like a little child lost and afraid of the dark, letting herself be guided where she cannot go on her own.
They take the stair and follow it up, winding and encircling itself as it climbs without railing to the high domed ceiling and beyond it, jutting out above the roof of the citadel as the tallest turret. When they come to the top, they find themselves emerging as through the floor into another chamber, perhaps twenty feet across. It is a circular room built around the stairway that they have just climbed, surrounding it like the crown surrounds a head. The first thing that becomes evident as they step into this room—clearly the highest room of the citadel, the pinnacle of the topmost tower—is the eerie lights that play upon the walls. No…they are neither lights, nor are they walls.
Eldarien looks around and realizes that he is looking into numerous windows that cover the entire circumference of the circle, the entirety of the walls from floor to ceiling with the exception of the vertical joints connecting the panel of one window to the panel of another. And these windows are not of transparent glass, gazing out into the darkness. They appear to be of crystal like diamond, though now dark and murky, as if filled with black smoke. But within their depths play ghostly images, as if a rehearsal of some dark deeds of the past or some regrets never shared and surrendered, which have locked the figures in a ceaseless cycle of shame and a burden that never moves beyond the self to another. But, Eldarien realizes, that is exactly what they are. As if giving some visible manifestation to what he and Elmariyë feel, these images—polluting what must once have been a chamber of utter, crystalline light, gazing forth with wide-seeing windows upon a land bathed in light—are now the horors of all the things that hurt human hearts and stir in them terror, loss, and despair.
The specters of death, the memories of evil and infidelity to the light, deeds blacker than the blackest night, emerge to meet them, playing upon the dark crystal, and they whisper in their ears, penetrating their minds and hearts, with thousands upon thousands of voices crying out in anguish, wailing in hopelessness, moaning in pain. And among the many scenes that play out before them, they see their own selves, too, their own reflections looking back at them, but distorted, out of proportion, showing only the evil and ugliness that they have done, and painting their features black and abhorrent.
Elmariyë takes a step forward, raising her hands as if to challenge a foe, and looks about the chamber, her eyes appearing to take in all the details that are here presented before her. Then she says, “Where are you, crafter of wickedness and fashioner of evil? Where are you, petty lord of darkness?” Her voice vibrates with emotion, as if being torn in two in this moment, as is her heart itself. Then, a moment later, Eldarien feels her gaze rest upon him, even though she does not turn to face him. “Stay with me,” she whispers, “stay with me.”
And then, as if by some mysterious summons, the ghostly images, the dark portrayals, the lingering memories of shame and evil detach themselves from the crystal surrounding, and stream forth, like smoke blown on a strong wind, and assail Eldarien and Elmariyë, invading their minds and crushing their hearts. Bracing themselves against the impact, they remain standing, though the air is knocked from their lungs and their flesh trembles. And for a long anguishing period—neither knows how long it is—the evil that they have beheld externally surges into them and through them, carving its way violently through their interior consciousness, joined together now again as it had been in the absorbing of the dragon’s darkness. But what they absorb now, what they bear, is so much more. And even if they bear it, it slips beyond them, as if they are only conduits for it to escape from the place in which it has been imprisoned by the malintent of the artificer of this terrible war, and to channel anew to the place to which it is meant to flow, free and unhindered.
And then, in a moment of deepest insight, Eldarien sees a blazing light of utmost intensity burning at the center of his consciousness like the first star in a black firmament or like the sun through stormy clouds: he understands what must happen. In the next moment the flash of light is gone, but the certainty lingers. He turns to look at Elmariyë who stands before him, but this is not truly necessary, for their hearts are so conjoined now that he sees her and is aware of her in the communication of the spirit. And it is there that their hearts both turn to face one another and, together, turn beyond, toward the unseen light that lies beyond the darkness, turn in the gesture of oblation to offer the sacrifice that must be offered to break the stranglehold of darkness upon the people of Telmerion.
The sacrifice must be twofold, though only one: both death and life, two sides of the same mystery, though giving way to endless life. Both must live, for they are loved and created for life; and yet both must die, to carry on the mystery of life on both sides of death. And the promise of a kingdom of peace shall thus, and only thus, be established, by being grounded on a love both temporal and eternal, a love rooted in the beauty of the earth redeemed and a love fulfilled in the joy of eternity where all shadows shall pass away. Elmariyë’s heart pleads, therefore, in the silent cry of its inmost aspiration, and Eldarien hears her as if his own inner voice: Let me go to him now. Let me go to him, carrying the darkness and anguish of our world, carrying the memories of the fallen, their guilt and their grief…and carrying you, my brother, too. But remain, remain in longing, in longing for him and in the vigilance of a heart in love, and return to our people. Carry the torch of this longing and this hope, this vigilance and this love, and become king of the entire nation, leading them anew in unity and harmony where before there was division, and in the ways of faith where before there was ignorance, evil, and forgetfulness.
After this, her voice passes beyond sound, in a cry of the heart surpassing the confines of this life, and Eldarien hears it no more. He feels her being pulled away from him, and the sense of tearing is incredible, so deep and so personal that he feels as if he too shall perish under the impact. The darkness pierces her as firmly as a lance, as the jagged and merciless blade of a sword, and yet, in the very midst of the darkness, burning at its heart, a flame of purest light, and this light grows as it surges forward, penetrating and permeating her whole being until she has become utter light, and is held on all sides by light.
And then the darkness is broken. Or rather, it is channeled inward and upward, carried by the two frail human hearts who have surrendered to the light, and by the light itself in them and beyond them. This light carries forth all anguish and loss, all guilt and shame, all beauty and ugliness, into a presence in which alone it can be released and healed; yes, it carries it across the ages, across the wide expanse of time, from which emerges, radiant with light inconceivable, with beauty ineffable, with joy uncontainable and pure, peaceful and full of lightness and wonder undimmed, the one who is called Dawnbringer.
And then all has passed, and the darkness has fled away, and in a burst of brilliant color crystalline light floods in upon Eldarien’s senses, bathing his eyes in beholding, his flesh in consoling warmth, and his spirit in joy.