Awaken the Dawn (conclusion)

Tales that spring from the imagination end
with conclusions.
Some satisfying, some unsatisfying
but always the words
"the end"
make their appearance.
Tales of life
are not often so.

The man who stumbled into this haven,
this strange and mythic war zone,
looked down through the acrid air
to see the lifeless queen lying
on the ground.
One arm lay above her head,
the other slung across her belly.
So she lay in repose
or else stuck in some exotic dance pose.

But even as the man looked at this quiet queen
his countenance locked in stunned perplexity,
the old man--
that same old man,
who IS he?--
spoke from beside him,
holding his hand even yet.
"Look up, man.
And see more than the fallen."

So the man looked up to see the wall of fire
still encompassing the circle of people.
And now he saw
it wasn't a wall at all.
For they were encircled by living swarming fire,
by glowing horses, tall as elephants
whose feet shot out fountains
of fire and water
wherever they clomped at the earth.
And the chariots they pulled
were aflame with life-light
so bright that their form was nearly
indistinguishable.
As for these who rode in the chariots--
they were too ablaze with burning light
to be discernible.

And the old man said,
"Don't you think she'd have been saved
if the wall had chosen to make it so?"
But knowing this only made the man angry.
"You'd better make your next point, old man,
and not leave me long at that one."
The man said through gritted teeth.

Another townsperson knelt beside the queen now,
ministering to her lifeless body.
"Wait, she still breathes.
Faintly, but she breathes."

"Of course she breathes,
she is not dead, only sleeping.
Although in her current state of perception
she surely thinks herself gone,"
said a new voice, chuckling--
a voice booming with virility
like all life past and present sprang
from its resonance.

The would-be warrior looked up to see this one
a man whose inner light burned off the last of the mist and the smoke
clearing the air of all impurity,
leaving it filled with naught but His own vitality.

And a deep ache that had swelled
undefined
now crested in the warrior,
crashing to conscious thought at the knowledge that she lived--
"Am I the reason for the attack of the dragon?
If I had not come,
would she have been reduced to this state?
Or would she still be stepping softly
in her woodlands
full of autumn?"

"Be at peace, man,
for you have no such power, and
therefore no such guilt to embrace.
The dragon had two heads, you see,
but only one that would attack her.
And that was his downfall, written on the wall.
Your coming is indeed caught up the timing of all this,
but not in the start of it,
but rather in its conclusion.
I would show you what the Queen would have you see.
And then I must go after her; as I promised her."

So the warrior-to-be stood tall
and walked with the man who knew much
until they came to a place,
a place too expansive
for the man to quite perceive,
yet what he did perceive,
made his heart feel as though it would burst.
"Look over there," said the voice in his ear.
And he looked to see a set of twin mountain peaks,
dizzying in their height and beauty.
But then he peered closer
and realized these were not mountains at all!
Though the peaks were certainly
tall, remote, unattainable much
as the pinnacle heights of a mountain range,
these were nonetheless another thing:
these were the joints of folded wings.
The man caught his breath
at the sight of such a being.

Where the dragon had been terrifying in his fierceness,
this being was fearsome in his majesty.
The being's body stood in what came to his eyes at first
as the mountain gap,
where now he realized he saw a glowing brilliance
almost in the form of a man.
At the very base,
where what first appeared a shadowed inlet of snow across a valley
was instead the gleaming train of a linen-light robe.

Suddenly, the man saw the Queen again,
standing there in the folds of that train,
and she was thanking this being for his warfare on her behalf and behalf of her people.
She too wore a mantle of such deep hue
that it could only be worn by queens, for humble glory,
and by harlots for audacious foolery.

As the Queen sang her song of salutation and thanksgiving
for the work of this one so like a mountain,
she suddenly bore in her hands a sword.
And she took the sword and shot into the air like a bird,
so that the train of her robe grew expansive and beautiful.
Now scattered across it were the likes of many hands
springing up from its woven depths to reach with her
for the things of truth and glory.

And so this train that had been given to her
at her coronation spread out behind her,
ever widening to fill the earth and sky with its folds.

"Do not grieve for her fall,
for to this she was predestined,"
said the voice in his ear,
but the voice was no longer the voice of the man
who had been his 11th hour guide--
rather it had become a voice transcendent:
a whisper that roared--
a whisper, because no mere man could perceive it's audible intonation
and live;
a roar because no matter how hushed and controlled the power
of the source of these words,
the impact of any sort of speech from this one
was still overwhelming.

Then as the man watched,
the queen floated there, holding the sword aloft.
She presented it to the one who was a mountain,
and the mountain received it.
Then the queen and the reach of her robe spread out
as clouds upon the sky.
But the sword fell down to the earth
and as it fell it lost its sleek gleam
and took on a new form.
By the time it reached the foot of the mountains,
it was but a little boy.
The would-be warrior peered closely at the child.

"That's right," said the voice in his ear, audible and
supremely human yet again.
"You've already met him.
But he plays with the marbles of matter,
don't forget.
Now do you perceive why you're here?"
And somehow, the man knew.
Suddenly the child was close, even at his feet;
but now, this little one was without his uncanny acuity and piercing inquiry,
he was but a child frightened and confused.

So the would-be-warrior who came to this place as a strange pilgrim
seeking war-craft secrets--
clues to take to his own land,
this man who came to this place
that he might take from it power
to wield against his challengers,
yes, even this one who expected a destiny of renown
amongst both kindred and foes,
this man in the end was forgotten by their likes
until one day no one even thought to ask of him--
"whatever happened to...?"

This man took the pudgy little hand of a child,
and after giving him a small measure of comfort,
led him back to a quiet village
in a mythic desert,
where a singular dead tree
bore one leaf...