Cathedral

Sudden,

the falling overtakes him.

In that brief moment between

waking,

and sleeping.

It has been here.

He knows this

from the psychic stench

that his mind finds revolting.

That he cannot block out.

Which it leaves behind wherever,

and whenever,

it has passed.

Which seizes his mind,

so brutal,

and returns him

always,

to that first time.

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

A carrion smell.

Some once living thing,

now warm dead, rotting,

maggot infested, feasting,

who new create the foul corpse

till it rise again, new set a-wing

in clouds of countless

living flies.

He wonders where he is -

this time.

Or just,

when,

he may be.

As he must breath -

so he must think.

And there the foulness enters.

He can no more seal his mind

than he can blot out the images,

of that which has been seen.

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

He opens his eyes.

He is facing -

A Cathedral of black stone,

wrought with chisels,

hammers of iron black,

and cold steel blue.

Here is not a realm of Faery.

Nor is silver found here

but in the form

of cold moons light.

Which has no source,

yet casts shadows long,

as if it hangs low

in the ink black sky.

Towers rise to either side

of the great ogival arch,

where stood the doors.

Above the portal circles

the great Rose Window.

Eye of the Wind.

Its elaborate tracery razor etched

by the cold quicksilver light.

Carved from black bones of the earth -

stones mortared with night itself.

Precise,

each pillar,

rib and stone,

mortared seams pointed

with the blacksilver,

no moon light.

Finest tracery,

in ten thousand shades -

black iron, black steel,

tarnished silver, charcoaled,

enamel black, velvet black,

smooth as lacquer,

polished.

His shadow sleeps before him,

resting in the silver glow on the stair.

Rises upward sawtoothed

on treads, which serrated edge

no human foot has trod.

The thin light is of

the coldest winter night,

of full moon on snow,

of silver white ice,

empty as space,

cold as death.

He looks into the nothing sky.

His shadow, still,

sleeps upon the stair before him.

He turns to find -

his shadow still asleep,

unchanged,

before him.

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

The stench is (was?) a summons,

howled, through the void between,

cried havoc, loosed the dogs of war.

So called him into

this new place.

She did not lead him here.

Confusion fills his mind

with the noise of uncertainty.

He does not remember,

a Cathedral.

In all the years of the Dark City

there has never been, before,

a Cathedral.

Nor church of any type,

rising above the empty streets

and alleyways

He sees her face, the first.

How many tears?

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

Gothic,

towered,

buttressed,

clerestoried -

tho some mischievous force

has pulled it upward,

stretched it,

to the absurd degree

of the two who walked

with Christ from his tomb,

heads reaching to the sky.

The Resurrection,

from the Gospel of Peter.

She did not summon.

She is not here.

The smell comes strongest,

from inside,

beyond the door,

within the Church.

He stands upon the threshold.

Does not remember the broad steps,

climbing them,

one by one upward.

How many stairs,

from street to door?

He hears a voice clearly

- from the great Rose Window -

whisper his ear.

"Thirteen steps.

One for each apostle.

And one for Our Lord."

"Enter."

He turns his face

to the remains of the doors.

Huge, massive,

hewn of night black oak

from trees of a size

no longer, if ever,

extant.

Carved into

twined

and twining shapes.

Of Saints,

and Demons.

Of God,

in his heaven.

Of Satan,

in his Hell.

He sees at his feet splinters,

baulks, shards,

of sliver shattered oak.

The doors hang,

crooked on their hinges.

Black iron hinges,

wrought by giants, surely.

Straight the doors had stood.

Now -

They lean gainst the black stone jambs,

strong legs meant for stronghold,

against assault from without.

The great carven doors,

blown outward from within.

Are burned and singed -

where some power of flame

struck in violence against them,

seeking escape

"Enter."

He walks slowly forward,

cautious,

stepping over debris.

Blocks of stone,

splinters of oak.

He sees here still glowing embers.

(how odd to see color,

in the Night Dark Land.)

And there, smoke like incense rising.

The white twisting wraiths

of trees long dead,

wind ever upward,

until -

they are lost

in the darkness.

"Enter."

He moves forward,

following his shadow

into a deeper darkness.

Crosses the threshold,

enters the Nave.

There sees a great stone forest,

sketching before him

the shape of the nave.

The path to the Altar is tiled,

a labyrinth,

a maze,

a path.

To confuse

lead the faithful

to the place where,

dum pendabat

Christ on His Cross.

Above the altar, lit below

by serried soldier ranks

of candles glowing, votive.

Lit by hands unseen,

unknown.

warm golden light,

so out of place

in this world of night

Prayers sent to heaven

by their flickering light.

He has never before

seen light such as this

within the Dark City.

He is become a moth,

drawn unthinking

by the golden light.

Each footfall,

reflected,

from ceilings,

walls of stone black,

silver traced clerestory

arched high,

collect themselves together.

A congregation of whispers

between the walls,

columns,

maze tiled floor.

Christ on his Cross,

pendant above the Altar

his face,

moved

by the flickering light,

seems to mouth a prayer.

Whose eyes dispassionate

gaze into the eternal darkness.

Light flickers also

below the Altar

at the base of the stair,

where on cold stone,

at the omphalos of the maze,

labyrinth,

path,

there lies -

a shape.

He stands now at the base,

below the Altar.

Beneath the tortured Christ,

whose gaze,

dispassionate,

remarks neither him,

nor the dark.

The smell is strongest here.

Overwhelming.

At his feet lies a huddled mass

of cloth.

Robes? Gown?

Cassock.

A priest.

Oh man, how came you here?

He stands thinking

for a moment.

Of what he knows,

fears, he must do.

He knows now,

what summoned him tonight.

Tho it was not She

who had always before.

He has been here many times

since it began,

so many years ago.

When he had softly touched

the first one,

to see if any life remained,

but had found there

only death,

and had seen.

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

He kneels beside the corpse

of the Priest who was

in his rightful place

at the wrongful time.

Stretches out his hand

towards the face,

so pale,

so white.

Marked.

He has seen that mark before,

He had seen it first,

all those years ago,

the mark of Pain.

and Fear.

and Death.

Oh sweet child, how came you there.

His hand stops of its own,

hovers,

still,

above the cold face.

He breathes deep,

wages again

the war within himself.

"I can walk away."

He thinks, and knows that he lies.

"This time I will just walk away.

There is nothing I can do.

I cannot raise the dead,

I cannot destroy that which I follow.

I do not have to do this."

He raises his face,

his eyes,

to gaze upward,

through the votive light,

at Christ on his Cross,

"Don't make me do this."

He whispers to the carving,

pendant in the darkness behind it.

Floating there,

above the Altar.

The place of sacrifice.

Lit from below

by the flickering candles.

Christ's gaze,

dispassionate.

He looks again at the huddled mass

of cloth and flesh which lies before him.

His hand reaches again toward the cold face,

when something changes.

For an eternal moment

- suspended -

The Christ

The Priest

The Witness.

With a great shudder

the Priest takes

a long

slow

breath.

He sits now, frozen,

watching the Priest.

One breath.

Then another.

The Priest has survived.

He Lives.

Oh God, he lives.

The Priests breathing settles,

an even counting rhythm.

The Witness sitting back

on the cold stones,

pulls his knees to his chest,

rests his head upon them,

his tears fall hot and fast,

his body wracked by sobbing,

until exhausted,

sleep finds him.

And dreamless

(for who dreams in the land of dreams?)

the hours pass,

the candles,

one by one,

gutter and die.

And Christ on His Cross gazes,

still,

silent,

into the encompassing

darkness.