...Awaken the Dawn continued...

The Queen and the man
considered each other
and what to do next.

When suddenly, a roaring sound
filled the empty space
in the very molecules of the air.
Her chin came up,
her eyes blazed.
"The wall is rising--" she said,
turning quickly.
So she set her foot forward
with purpose
and integrity.

The warrior to be
followed quickly.
"The wall?"

"The one,
and the One,
that rises as a standard
when our Enemy's flood
rushes toward us."
She looked wryly at the man.
"It appears you will see us fight
after all."
Then her eyes grew first wide
(as a new realization struck her)
and then again, narrow
(as its implication led her thinking.)
"Maybe you are why our Enemy approaches."
Then she hurried her step again.

"But I am no companion to your enemy!" cried the man.

"No, for the wall did not respond to you,"
agreed the Queen.
"Still, you could be a factor."

Before he could ask her to elaborate on her meaning,
they came upon a clearing full of people,
people standing in a circle.
The commoners held hands,
and a hum of cosmic power seemed to emanate
(but in starts and sputters)
from their union.
A place broke open in the ring of struggling human dominion,
and the Queen took her place there.
The hum grew steadier,
but remained feeble in strength.
She turned, looking over her shoulder at the man.
"Though you are a stranger,
it is still my request that
you fight in our company.
Will you fill this remaining gap in our circle?"

The man thought:
This is how they make war?
And partly because he did not fully perceive
what was before him,
he stepped into their circle.

Nevertheless, when he clasped the hands
to his right and his left,
the spark and the current
took an exponential leap
and the circle crackled.

Then he saw things he had not seen before:
a wall of fire and shooting steam roared
all around the circle,
as foul water and good,
as cleansing fire and destructive fire
fought for dominance,
so elements nearly indistinguishable from each other,
wrestled for supremacy,
and the people prayed.
Gradually, the man realized that this was their warfare.
Power to the good!
Wisdom to the righteous!
Strength to the holy Creator!

Then, because the bud of these prayers looked promising to bloom and not wither,
the source of the bad revealed itself
for it knew no other way to slice that bulging bud from its stem--
so a creature broke through the fire and steam;
and the man felt transported
into some medieval artistry,
for this creature was a dragon,
in the classic sense.
Two-headed with a tail that lashed,
its mouths that breathed explosions
into the order of life.

Then the man joined his heart
to the prayers of the circle.
As they prayed,
the creature folded in upon himself,
twisting, wrapping himself in smoke;
and the acrid smoke
and the tiny oily rainbows
slithering across the black steam all around him
gave evidence:
The creature seduced.

"Why do you despise my power?"
It whispered with a contrived laziness.
Don't you see my power makes me lovely?
Respect me, for then why should I harm you?"
And so the creature spoke in a language
spoken by the people
spoken for many a generation,
words whose etymology was born of much trading
rather than being the offspring of revelation
or of loving and gracious inheritance.
So the man came to see
that this danger was greater
than what could be posed
by any voiceless weapon fashioned
by the hands of man.

"Look away," said the Queen.
"Or be mesmerized."

The man looked back along the path he'd walked with the Queen,
back toward the forest,
where a mighty flow of light was rising.
Like the energy waiting in a drawn bow, it swelled forth.
"What is that?" he cried.
The Queen looked where the man looked,
and she smiled.
"That is the tree I showed you.
That which appeared dead
reveals its hidden life,
for such a time as this.
It is a new life, a new thing.
Let it now springforth."

So the arc became a sickle,
and an arrow transformed into a sword
empowered to smite the heads of leviathan.
but not until the Queen
...fell.