I closed my eyes too.
And then the light of dawn hit the Grail and the world was lit with pain.
XXXVI
Someone slapped my face. "Wake up," Husserl said, hitting me once more. "This is not the time to get lost in a dream. There is no aid for you there. Not anymore. Your Architects have fled."
I groaned as the Chorus tried to silence the screaming sounds in my head-the echoes of the bells and the harmonic reverberations of my nerve endings. The room was too bright, filled with the radiant glow of sunlight. Husserl's glasses were like circles of fire on his face.
"I still need you to do something for me," the Scryer said, hauling me up to a sitting position. "I still need a Witness."
I tried to laugh, and found my mouth full of blood. I coughed, and it didn't seem to help. I couldn't feel anything but hot streaks on my cheeks from the tears; everything else was cold.
"Get one of them to do it," I Whispered, nodding toward the crumpled bodies of Antoine and Marielle.
He shook his head. "You are the one who Anoints me," he said. "I have Seen it."
"What if I refuse?" I asked.
"You don't," he said. "And we both know it."
I stared at his glasses, trying to see past the light caught in his lenses. He Knew the future. He Knew what was to come. Was all this blood and betrayal simply for his entertainment? Could he have made our paths easier by telling us what he Knew? Could he have spared us?
I had told the Watchers outside that I had come to fight Antoine for the right to be here, and that had been a large part of my intent. But there was still the unresolved matter with Husserl and my place in the bigger picture. I was supposed to have been the courier for the Architects, but they were gone. I had nothing to give the new Hierarch. I had already played that card. Husserl would get the organization, but a lot of its knowledge was hidden from him. The daughters-now free-would not be beholden to him. He would have to negotiate access to the Archives. He was going to get the Crown and become the new Hierarch, but what else?
The body has become diseased. It can no longer support life. It must be slain.
Are you happy, Old Man? Have I done enough for you?
He was gone, but I felt a tremor in the Chorus, a vestigial echo of his personality. No, they whispered. You were not my angel of vengeance. You did it for yourself.
That is all you will ever be.
I nodded to Husserl. "I will be your Witness," I croaked, finding my voice.
"Good." He pulled me upright, and the pain of being moved brought me back. Standing was torture, and he pulled me roughly, not caring how each step wracked my spine and spirit. I only had to Witness; the state of the rest of my body was immaterial to him.
The atmosphere in the church was sweltering and turgid, the air filled with etheric force as the dawn boiled the ground, releasing the collected power of the Land. It was power without responsibility, force without direction, and it was going to smother us soon. All of us. Unless someone completed the Coronation ritual.
The Grail was too bright to look at directly, and my vision bleached to pure emptiness as Husserl lifted it to my lips and gave me a tiny sip of the water held within. I gasped as the pain lessened, as my body found it had the strength to go on. The possibility of another sip from the Cup was promise enough. I took a deep breath and my left lung re-inflated; the Spear was forced out of my chest by the magick of the Grail and it clattered on the altar with a chime of despair. A few seconds later, I was strong enough to stand on my own, though I still leaned heavily against the altar.
My mouth watered as I focused on the gold light of the Grail.
Husserl ignored my fascination with the Cup and set it down. Picking up the Spear, he nicked his palm with the tip of the blade. It whined as it stroked his flesh, but his grip was strong and he only let it taste his blood. Returning it to the altar, he held his cut hand over the Grail. His blood sizzled and popped as it fell into the water of the Cup.
"By my blood and desire, I accept the Crown," he said. "By my Will and intent, I offer myself to the Land."
The waters foamed at his words, and the walls of the church groaned and trembled as the leys churned beneath us. The air grew thicker still, and it took nearly all my strength to draw that heavy air into my fragile lungs.
"There is but one Threshold," he said, "and there is but one Guardian Who Waits. There is but one Spirit, and there is but one Mind. I accept this purification by the water and the light. I accept this gift offered to me by the Land."
The waters subsided in the Cup, and the pressure of the Land around us lessened, as if we were in the calm eye of a hurricane. Husserl indicated that I should give him the Grail. His palm was red with blood, and a drop fell from his hand, spattering on the altar.
This was my role. I was to Witness his transformation. There was but one Guardian, but there was also one Watcher. God may have made the Universe, but it didn't exist until His Shadow observed it. All light is but a point in time and space until it has a direction, until it has a purpose. Nothing moves without a destination, and to have a destination, you must have a second point.
"Witness me," Husserl said. The fires of his glasses flickered and danced. "Attend to my Ascension."
He had Seen it, hadn't he? He had Seen this moment a long time ago, and everything had been a matter of waiting for it to arrive. The Silent Guardian Who Waits. He certainly qualified. He had been very patient. You can't change what I've Seen.
But he had been trying so very hard to convince me, hadn't he? When I had the Architects in my head, I had been a Singularity. A point past which he hadn't been able to See. Was that still the case? When I gave the Architects to Vivienne, had the future suddenly become clear to the Scryer? But that would imply that what he had Seen had been correct. I hadn't obscured him at all, in that case. I had simply caused him to be uncertain, but that hadn't changed the future.
And he had waited, patiently, on the edge of everything. Waiting until there was no way his touch could disturb what he had Seen.
"Give me the Cup," Husserl said, a note of tension creeping into his voice. He raised his blood-slicked hand, and his glasses shivered slightly as his palm entered his field of vision.
Why was he nervous? He Saw the future in his glasses. He already knew whether or not I gave him the Cup. He already Knew what was to happen. If I didn't give him the Cup, then why was he trying to hide that fact from me? The future was inviolate; once Seen, it happened.
Omne imaginum meae cordis sunt, the Chorus whispered. Everything is an echo.
It was all a matter of interpretation. Nicols had said as much. That was the case with all the secrets. What we Saw, what we Knew, what we Believed was in our own heads.
We were observers of the world, tiny little lights who looked upon the mystery of creation and deciphered it as best we could. Wasn't this the whole course of human exploration and thought? Trying to figure out what it all meant? We didn't know, and we knew we didn't know, and that was why we kept trying. That was why we kept rising every day and looking toward the dawn. Would we see it differently today? Would we understand its secrets this morning?
Husserl was a Watcher. He was a manipulator of threads. Like Hildegard, he had visions, and that gave him an anchor to which he could bind threads. He could Make the future from what he Saw, but he had to create the connections. That is why we had been led to this point in time, to this place. So that his vision could be realized. So that his future could be created.