A Knight Of The Word

The car drove away, and he was left alone. The forest about him on both sides of the road was deep and silent and empty of movement. He could see no houses. Fences ran along the road at various points, bent with its curves and disappeared into the gray. He took a long moment to stare at the signs, the donation box, the parking lot, and the rutted lane, and then at the countryside about him” recalling what it had been like when he had come here for the fast time. It had been magical. Right from the beginning, he had felt it. He had been filled with wonder and expectation. Now he was weary and uncertain and burdened wroth a deep-seated sense of failure. As if all he had accomplished had gone for nothing. As if all he had given of himself had been for naught.

He walked up the rutted lane to find the break in the fence line that would lead him down into the glen. He walked slowly, placing his feet carefully, listening to the patter of the rain and the silence behind it. The branches of the trees hung over him like giants’ arms, poised to sweep him up and carry him off. Shadows moved and drifted with the clouds, and his eyes swept the haze uneasily.

At the opening in the fence, he paused again, listening. There was nothing to hear, but he kept thinking there should be, that something of what he remembered of his previous visit would reveal itself But everything seemed new and different, and while the terrain locked as he remembered, it didn’t feel the same. Something was missing, he knew. Something was changed.

He went through the gate in the fence and started down the pathway that wound into the ravine. Leaning heavily on his staff, he worked his way slowly ahead. The Fairy Glen was a jumble of massive boulders and broken rock and isolated patches of wildflowers and long grasses. A waterfall tumbled out of the high rocks to become a meandering stream of eddies and rapids, with pools so clear and still he could see the coloured pebbles they collected. Rain dripped from the trees and puddled on the trail and ran down the steep sides of the ravine in rivulets that eroded the earth in intricate designs. No birdsong disturbed the white noise of the water’s rush or the fall of the rain. No movement disrupted the deep carpet of shadows.

As he reached the floor of the ravine, he glanced back to where the waterfall spilled off the rocks, but there was no sign of the fairies. He slowed and looked around carefully. The Lady was, nowhere to be seen. The Fairy Glen was cloaked in shadow and curtained by rain, and it was empty of life. It was as he remembered, but different, too. Like before, he decided, when he had stood at the gate opening, it seemed changed. He took a long moment to figure out what the nature of that change might be.

Then he had it. It was the absence of any magic. He couldn’t feel any magic here. He couldn’t feel anything.

His hand tightened on the staff, searching. The magic failed to respond. He stood staring at the Fairy Glen in disbelief, unable to accept that this could be so. Were the Lady and the fairies gone from the Glen? Was that why he could not sense the magic?” Because the magic was no longer here?

He walked along the rugged bank of the rain-choked stream, picking his way carefully over the litter of brokers rock and thick grasses. On a flat stone shelf, he knelt and peered down into a still pool. He could see his reflection clearly. He looked for something more, for something different, for a sign. Nothing revealed itself. He watched the rain pock his reflection with droplets that sent glistening, concentric rings arcing away, one after the other. His image grew shimmery and distorted, and he looked quickly away.

When he lifted his head, a fisherman was standing an the opposite shore a dozen yards away, staring at him. For a moment, Ross couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He had convinced himself that the Fairy Glen was abandoned; he had given up hope of finding anyone here. But he recognized the fisherman instantly. His clothes and size and posture were unmistakable. And his look. Because he was a ghost and was not entirely solid, his body shifted and changed as the light played over it. When he tilted his head, as he did now, a slight movement of his broad-brimmed hat, his familiar features were revealed. It was Owain Glyndwr, his ancestor, the Welsh patriot who had fought against the English Bolingbroke, Henry IV — Owain Glyndwr, dead now for hundreds of years, but given new life in his service to the Lady. He looked just as he had years earlier, when Ross had first come upon him in the Fairy Glen.

Seeing him like this, materialized unexpectedly, would have startled John Ross before, but not now. Instead, he felt his heart leap with gratitude and hope.

“Hello, Owain,” he greeted with an anxious wave of his hand.

The fisherman nodded, a spare, brief movement. “Hello. John. How are you?”

Ross hesitated, suddenly unsure of what he should say. “Not well. Something’s happened. Something terrible.”

The other man nodded and turned away, working his line carefully through the rapids that swirled in front of where lee stood. “Terrible things always happen when you are a Knight of the Word, John, A Knight of the Word is drawn to terrible things. A Knight of the Word stands at the center of them.”

Ross adjusted the hood of his slicker to ward off the rain that blew into has eyes. “Not any longer, I’m not a Knight .of the Word anymore. I’ve given it up.”

The fisherman didn’t look at him. “You cannot give it up. The choice isn’t yours to make.”

“Then whose choice is it?”

The fisherman was silent.