"Would that I could reject Past and Future," said I with some feeling.
"Oh, and then we should be able to reject Conscience and Consequence, eh?" said the priest. "But I have had this argument with my friend Groot and I will not bore you with it. Should you meet him, he will be able to present his position far more fluently than I."
I took the map-case from my pouch and drew forth several of the maps. "Is Hermit Pass marked here?" After much opening and closing I was able to withdraw the appropriate map (it showed both Ammendorfs) and display it to the priest. With a fat finger he indicated a road which led into the great mountains I had already seen. "Northwest," he said. "And may God, or whoever rules in Mittelmarch, go with you."
I left the church and rejoined Sedenko. "We will provision here," I told him, "and continue our journey in the afternoon."
"I saw what seems a good inn as we came through the town," he said.
"We'll dine there before we set off."
I had been at once cheered and disturbed by my encounter with Father Christoffel. I wanted to leave Ammendorf behind me as soon as possible and be upon my journey.
"Was your confession heard, captain?" innocently asked the young Kazak as I got into my saddle.
I shrugged.
Sedenko continued: "Perhaps I should also seek the priest's blessing. After all, it is some time…"
I became angry with him, knowing what I knew. I almost hated him at that moment for his ignorance of his own unfair fate. "That priest is next to an agnostic," I said. "He cannot unburden himself, let alone you or me. Come, Sedenko, we must be on our way." I paused, deciding that it was as well if I told him a little more of my story.
"I seek nothing less than the Holy Grail," I said.
"What's that, captain?"
Whistling, his breath clouding the sharp air, he fell in behind me.
I explained to him as much as! could. He listened to me with half an ear, as if I told a fabulous story which had not much to do with either of us. His very carelessness made me all the more gloomy.
Chapter VIII
As WE RODE out of Ammendorf my bitterness against a Deity who could consign such as Sedenko so easily to Hell continued to grow. There seemed no justice in the world at all, no possibility of creating justice, no being to whom one could appeal. Why should I be concerned about redemption in such a world? What would I escape, if I escaped Hell?
Sedenko had earlier attempted to interrupt my broodings, but for some while had said hardly a word, cheerfully accepting my silence and respecting my reluctance to answer his very ordinary questions. The day grew colder as night came nearer, yet I made no preparations for camp. I was tired. Ammendorfs good wine and food were sustaining me against weather and lack of sleep, and I told myself that Sedenko was young enough to lose another night's rest. Only the condition of the horses concerned me, but, they seemed fresh enough, for we did not push them hard. Movement was all that I desired. We passed through rocky hills and over snowy moorland, through woods and across streams, heading steadily towards the high peaks and Hermit Pass.
As night fell, I dismounted, leading my horse. Sedenko did not question me, but followed my example.
It had been some years since I had lost my Faith, save in my own capacity to survive a world at War, but evidently in the back of my mind there had always been some sense that through God one might find salvation. Now, as I journeyed in quest of the Holy Grail (or something identified as the Holy Grail), I not only questioned the possibility that salvation existed; I questioned whether God's salvation was worth the earning. Again I began to see the struggle between God and Lucifer as nothing more than a squabble between petty princelings over who should possess power in a tiny, unimportant territory. The fate of the tenants of that territory did not much seem to matter to them; and even the rewards of those tenantsХ loyalty seemed thin enough to me. For my own part, I believed that I deserved any fate, no matter how cruel, for I had used my intelligence in the service of my self-deceit. The same could not be said of Sedenko, who was merely a child of his tunes and his circumstances. I had received positive proof of the existence of God and the Devil and my Faith in them was weaker now than it had ever been.
My cloak would not keep out the bite of winter's night. I heard my teeth chattering in my skull. My heart seemed as if it were turning to ice. Even Sedenko was shivering, and he was used to far worse cold than this.
We were climbing higher into the foothills of the mountains. Their peaks were now tall enough to block off half the sky and the snow became deeper and deeper until it threatened to spill over into our boots. Towards dawn I began to realise that if we did not have heat and food soon we should probably perish, whereupon we should both go straight to Hell. The prospect reminded me of the reason I had accepted Lucifer's bargain.
Although it was difficult to see through the murk, I selected a place where an outcrop of rock had left the ground relatively clear of deep snow and told Sedenko to prepare a fire.
As he gathered wood, the dawn began to come up, red and cold. I watched him while he moved about in the nearby spinney below, bending and straightening, shaking snow from the sticks he found, and for some reason was reminded of the parable of Abraham and his son. Why should one serve a God who demanded such insane loyalty, who demanded that one deny the very humanity He was said to have created?
I watched as Sedenko prepared the fire for us and selected food from our bag of provisions. He seemed cheerful merely to be in my company. He was excited, expecting great and interesting adventures. If he died on the morrow, he would probably look wonderingly at Hell itself and find it interesting.
And then it came to me that perhaps Lucifer had lied to me, that He had lied to all who served Him. Perhaps none of us were damned at all, but could somehow wrest our destinies free of His influence as He had attempted to wrest His own destiny free of God's. Why should we be controlled by such beings?
And the answer came to me, as it always did when I followed that logic: because they can destroy us at will.
I could almost sympathise with those the Wildgrave had warned me against; those who saw me as aiding in Lucifer's betrayal of His own creatures. They had seen Lucifer as representing if nothing else a defiance of an unjust God. A pact between God and Lucifer would find them without protection, sacrificed because Lucifer had found it expedient to change His mind.
But would God let Lucifer change His mind? Even Lucifer had no clue to that. And I, if I succeeded in discovering the Cure for the World's Pain, might not be finding a remedy at all. What if, when it was put to the lips of mankind, the Holy Grail was discovered to contain a deadly poison? Perhaps, after all, the only Cure for pain was the absolute oblivion of death, without Heaven or Hell.
My heavy sighs caused Sedenko to look up from where he was warming his hands against the fire. "What did the priest tell you, master? You have been distressed ever since you met him."
I shook my head. It had not been the priest, of course, who had disturbed me. And I could not explain to Sedenko that I knew him destined for Hell, that the God he claimed to serve had rejected him and had not even given him a sign of that rejection.