Dawn

caught in the spiderweb tracery

stone wrought orb weaver poetry

shadows cast by dark light with no source

two men sit below the altar

in the new standing cathedral

in the city of night

the great shadow rose window frames them

distorted

as if spun by a drunken spider

or one on LSD

bored scientists tested it that way

beneath inflected arches

shifting stresses

and vertical loads

outward and down

into the ground beneath

where the foundation reaches

down down down

all the way to

hell?

Sometimes there is a sound

a vibration

as if great hammers are pounding out

glowing slabs of strange metals

far far below.

thin smoke rises from still glowing embers
drifts slowly to the center of the labyrinth
condenses to a singularity,
disappears.

Fragments of the shattered doors

remnants
hang awry

on greatforged blackiron hinges
the embers

keep glowing watch

like small red eyes

fuming

tiny flecks of color

in this monochrome world

one by one

wink out.

The man in the cassock stirs

the other watches

as he watched through the long night

waiting for this

the lesser night

the city of night

now shines darkly

like ebony beneath a full moon

like burnished silver

reflecting a lesser darkness

which is not light

"He came down off the cross."

the man in the cassock speaks

he is sitting now

knees drawn to chest

puzzled

but not afraid

gazing at the great crucifix

hanging above the altar

a christ carved from darkness

gazes back

with dispassionate eyes

outside of suffering

not beyond,
but outside.

"Yes?"

"I was praying at the altar, when he spoke to me."

"Yes."

"What is this place?"

"It appears to be a cathedral."

"Appears to be?"

"This is a strange place, and things here are seldom as they appear...  Me... You... At the moment it appears to be a cathedral. That appears to be christ on his cross. This may change without warning."

"I see."

silence spins a thread,

casts it outward into the darkness.

Tracery of shadows

cast by stones

wrought of darkness

slides slowly sideways across the altar

as if for the lesser darkness
there was a moving source

in the empty sky.

They watch it move.

Silence casts another thread.

the man in the priests cassock

holds his hand before him

intently watching the shadow move

from finger

to finger
like a spider dancing

across his hand

looks up to the great window

sees there only lesser darkness.

The priest watches the shadows

the other watches the priest

stands, walks over to the priest

reaches out to touch his face

so fast the priest intercepts the hand

wrist lock and down

they both kneel now

facing each other.

In that contact

the watcher sees

through the priests eyes

hears through the priests ears

the figure of christ

standing before him

eyes black as the deepest pits of hell

blood staining the stairs beneath his wounded feet

flowing from his wounded wrists

running down his hands

dripping from his fingers

flowing from his pierced side
christ blood rains from him
spattering sounds

pooling at his feet

running down the stairs

"He spoke to you."

"Yes."

"But you did not see his face."

"I saw christ climb down from the cross."

"What did he say?"

"That he knew me, that he knew what I had done. That he knew I had taken life. Lives..."

Silence spins another thread

casts it free into the darkness.

"You were a soldier."

"Yes."

"No, more than that, you were trained to hunt and kill silently."

"Yes."

"The enemy."

"That's what they told me. The enemy."

"You were very good at it."

"Yes."

"And now you are a priest."

"Yes."

"Interesting."

The watcher looks at his hand

relaxes his arm.

the priest releases it.

another thread is cast into the darkness

"You have seen it? Him. What I saw. How?"

"It is my... curse... blessing... take your pick."

"You have seen him?"

"Only through the eyes of others."

"Eyes of others?"

"The dead, those whose souls he has taken."

Another thread is released into the darkness.

"Everyone else he has shown his face to has died. You are the first... survivor."

"Why would christ..."

"That's the question, but then he is not the christ. That was just the form he chose to take for you, and, I expect for the other priests."

"So I'm not the first priest, he's killed?"

"No and yes."

Another thread

"You are not the first priest, minister, preacher he's gone after, but you are the first survivor."

"Why?"

The watcher stands, turns away from the priest, the altar, walks slowly down the nave following the bloody footprints towards the shattered remnants of the great doors. Pauses for a moment, surveying the bloody footprints following the labyrinth to its center. The priest stands looking at the ebony christ on his black cross.

"He came down off the cross while we slept."

"Who?"

"Christ. See... the footprints."

"There's blood on the altar."

"Isn't there always blood on the altar?"

"Only at the moment of transubstantiation."

"The blessed host?"

"The flesh, the body."

"But he's back now."

"Did he speak to you?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"I... don't remember."

"Huh."

"You don't believe me."

"Doesn't matter right now. I'm still trying to figure things out myself."

The watcher turns again towards the doorway.

A moment, a thread.

"Do you see the doors, what's left of them? there? He fled from you. You were something unexpected. He miscalculated perhaps."

"I have no idea what you're talking about. I must be having some sort of flashback, some sort of PTSD thing. It's happened before. I'll probably wake up in the hospital or something."

"No, you're awake. Here."

"And where is here?"

"That... is a very good question. Were you shriven?"

"No... No."

"Interesting. Were you afraid?"

"When?"

"When christ came down off his cross and spoke to you?"

"For a moment, and then he asked me... something. And then I knew, I knew that he wasn't really christ, but something else. And then I thought of, of Mrs Kopeckni, and I think I said 'It was you.' and I... I think I closed my eyes, because I knew I was going to die, that he was going to... and I didn't care."

"Ah. I think I understand now. It feeds on fear and hate you see. It knows our shadows, the dark corners of our minds and how to exploit them so it can feed. It needed you to be afraid. Yes. Now I see why you survived. But I still don't know why it fled from you. Nor why it came here. It's never come here before... I don't think it's ever come here before... Surely I would have known if it had been here before."

"So why didn't it kill me? feed on me? Did god save me?"

"No. if god had saved you, you'd be in heaven. Or hell. Not here. Did you beg?"

"Beg?"

"For your life?"

The priest made a sound of disgust. "When I was a soldier I took lives, I would never beg to save my own."

"Yes... So, I see... I don't know why you're here, but I think you survived for one simple reason."

"What?"

"You were afraid, at first."

"Yes."

"And he fed on that, he wanted more. He always wants more. But somehow, at that very last moment, when you were certain you were about to die and accepted that, not only did you not beg, you did something else he did not expect."

"What?"

"You must have done something I think no one had ever done before. Or maybe hadn't ever done before. And it.. somehow it gave you power."

"Yes? What? What the hell did I do,? Or not do?"

"You ceased to be afraid."