Author: Darragh Metzger
Category: Literature
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2
His search was, at first, ordered and methodical. He marched in a straight line in the direction he had come from for one thousand paces, then stopped and called. When no reply came, he turned exactly ninety degrees and marched a thousand paces in that direction, and again stopped and called.
Each time, he told himself that the next time he called, he would hear an answer.
But the silence remained unyielding; his fear strained against the leash he kept upon it.
Now and then, the fog lifted away from the ground, and he expected to come upon his own tracks again eventually. He even hoped for it; in a sense, it would give boundaries to this strange, sightless world.
When no tracks materialized, his own or anyone else's, he reasoned that the topography had compelled him to stray too far off course, and stopped to rest, more because he could think of nothing else to do than because he was tired.
A large rock protruded from the soft greyness nearby; he made his way to it and sank down with a sigh, closing his eyes.
He found it easier to keep panic at bay that way, to convince himself that at any moment the fog would lift, like a normal fog, and he would see where he was and find his own way out. The caravan had been within two days of Pamplona, after all, and there were other small villages along the route. He could not be too far away from safety and civilization.
Hopefully, no one from the caravan would take it upon himself to write to his parents to tell them that he was missing, at least not for a while. They would worry themselves sick. The first thing he would do was write a letter to them himself, assuring them of his safety.
When he knew he had his fear under control again, he opened his eyes and spent some time staring around at the swirling murk, trying to distinguish some sort of features within the landscape.
His feet told him he had been going uphill and downhill by turns, and he had brushed against or run into more rocks than trees lately, which told him that the landscape was changing. But the unnaturally stubborn fog refused to lift and let him verify his findings.
If I could only see the sun, he thought for perhaps the thousandth time, I could get my bearings. Perhaps I might even be fortunate enough to find my way out of these mountains by myself.
Another part of him laughed darkly at the thought, but he ignored it. Losing even that slender hope would kill him as surely as hunger or the sudden strike of a leopard.
The silence oppressed him. Since beginning his search, he had not heard so much as the song of a bird, the chirp of an insect, or even the musical rush of running water. The only noises were the ones he made and even those were strangely muffled, as if the ghostly fog had sucked the life from the land around him.
"This," he said aloud, just to hear something, "is an adventure. One day, I will write of it. What will I write?" His voice sounded dim and hollow, as though he had his hands over his ears. He wondered if someone standing even a few feet away would be able to hear him. Or he, them.
His fear quivered inside, seeking to escape his hold, and he hurriedly returned to his imaginary journal.
"I see nothing but mist. This mist changes; sometimes it is so bright as to be almost silver, and at other times it is so dark that it is like smoke. It has no smell of its own, and seems to possess the quality of smothering all other odors, as far as I am able to tell, for even the trees put out no scent. It is not cold. It is, perhaps, caused by warm air coming from…from somewhere, melting the snow a little."
He sounded uncertain in his own ears. He took a breath and continued more strongly. "It thins sometimes enough so that I can see rocks, or trees, or the snow itself. At other times, it is so thick I cannot see my own feet, or my hands held at arm's length." He looked downward. "This is one of those times. I will not move until it has lifted at least a little."
He closed his eyes again to spare himself the constant view of nothing and listened to the sound of his own breathing. How long had he been lost? The changes in light, subtle as they were, were not enough to let him guess the time, or even if it was day or night.
It seemed he had been wandering for hours, or even days, but surely that was not possible. He was tired, but not unduly. He did not feel hungry yet, or even thirsty, for which he was grateful. He had taken no food with him from the camp, and though he knew he could get water from the snow, he also knew it would not be wise to do so unless he found some way to melt it first.
He had a tinderbox, but no supplies other than his clothing, armor, weapons, and the small collection of personal belongings, including his quills and an ink block, which he kept in his pouch.
His water skin was attached to the saddle of his mule, back at the camp, wherever that was. So were the saddlebags where he kept food and other travel supplies.
"The next time I leave a perfectly good encampment to relieve myself," he promised himself aloud, "I will take at least three day's worth of food and water, so help me God."
So help me God. The words stung him with the sudden reminder of what should have been his greatest source of aid and comfort, chastising him for his levity.
Taking a deep breath, Jean rose from his rock and knelt on the ground, clasped his hands, and bowed his head until his forehead pressed against them.
"O Lord, help this poor sinner, who begs forgiveness for his trespass against You. I am lost, and I do not know what it is that I am to do. I do not know how I have offended You, but with all my heart, I am sorry for it. Please, send me some guidance, some measure of Your continued affection."
As if his prayer summoned it, the despair he had so far kept at bay welled inside him, stealing over him with the inexorable, pitiless will of the fog itself. Behind closed lids, his eyes stung. Warm wetness trailed over his clasped hands and down his face as his self-control crumbled; an overwhelming sense of loss and loneliness gripped his throat in a fist, as if he were a little boy left alone in the dark.
"I am blind, and have only Your word for my eyes. Help me, O Lord. Lead me out of this terrible place, Merciful Father, and I will do penance all my days in honor of You…and…the Maid." He opened his eyes and gazed upward, straining for some visible sign that somewhere, Someone listened, Someone heard. Someone cared.
But tears blurred his vision, smearing the grey into shining, wet streaks of nothingness. He choked, unable to speak, but his lips moved as he continued his prayer in silence. Please, God, I didn't mean to do anything wrong. Please help me. Please.
His eyes squeezed shut again, and he stayed that way for a long time, until the constriction in his chest and throat eased.
By the time the flow of tears dried, he felt utterly exhausted, drained of all feeling.
What was the use? God had condemned him already; he knew that before he began his pilgrimage. He'd known it the day he stood in that square in Rouen. Hadn't he felt it himself when he looked into the Maid's eyes?
For a moment, the image of her face floated in his memory, watching him gravely. He spoke to her. Forgive me, Jeanne the Maid. I wish now that I had done something for you. But I did not know you, as the Romans did not know Christ. If this thing that has happened to me is to avenge you in some way, then I will accept it. If it is any comfort, I am suffering greatly indeed.
Though not as greatly as she had.
The thought brought with it a flash of shame at his own self-pity. With a grunt of disgust, he gathered up a corner of his cloak and wiped his eyes and nose, scrubbing at them until the last evidence of his cowardice had been cleansed away. Then he sat back on his heels and opened his eyes again, blinking to clear them.
With a faint sense of shock, he saw that the mist had thinned considerably. He stood, shaking the stiffness out of his legs, and got his first good look at his place of refuge.
The rock he had sat on was one of many that clustered near the base of a tall spire, which rose from the boulders and vanished in the mist overhead. Shrubs grew in the cracks and crevices, and some of them bore
leaves.
He looked down at the ground in surprise and realized that, although a single patch of dirty snow filled a nearby crevice between two rocks, the ground around him was nearly bare.
He must have been going downhill more than he realized, and was now nearing the lowlands. But on which side of the mountains?
He craned his neck at the sky, but the fog still refused him a glimpse of the sun, or even sufficient light to guess its direction. No way to tell east from west. Or whether it was nearer Matins or Vespers, for that matter.
He turned slowly in place, scanning the area revealed in teasing glimpses by the mists, and suddenly froze.
For a brief moment, something had made a shadow against the mist, something with an outline too regular, surely, to be a work of nature.
He swallowed hard and breathed a prayer under his breath. Let it be a building; a shelter, a castle, a town wall, anything….
This time, he was staring at it as the fog thinned for a moment, and he saw it; a castle, impossibly beautiful to his desperate eyes, with graceful towers that soared above a high, white stone wall. He caught his breath in awe. "Blessed Mother of God," he whispered.
The castle stayed in view for the merest heartbeat; the next, the mist swallowed it again, as though grudging any human eye a glimpse of such beauty.
Jean stood, trying to think past the joy that coursed through his veins and set his heart hammering against his ribs. The castle did not seem to be too far away, though it was hard to tell from the size. He did not recognize the architecture, but supposed it to be Moorish; he'd heard the Moors built beautiful things, heathens though they were.
That would mean he had come out of the mountains on the Spanish side, but had traveled a good distance farther to the east than he would have thought possible.
"Thank you, O Lord," he breathed. Reason told him he should take extra care. It would be the cruelest irony if he should become lost again or injure himself within sight of salvation.
He shifted his weapons and pouch so they rested evenly, and set off in the direction of the strange castle.
Despite his best intentions, his heartbeat quickened with anxiety, and along with it, his steps. He could not bear to have hope snatched away from him again, not now.
If the mists thickened again, or night fell before he reached it, he might never find it and would wander, lost and blind, until the wolves found him….
He was running before he realized it, desperate for the security of stone walls, even those of an enemy, so long as they were human. He thought of fire, of wine and warmth and food and companionship. He thought of life, freedom, a return to normality.
He did not think of the ground beneath his feet until it vanished and he fell through mocking grey that suddenly turned to black.