Philander Groot had straightened his back. He seemed far more relaxed now. He struck one of his old poses and tweaked for a moment at his moustache. "Ha! This is crude, even for you, Johannes Klosterheim. If you demand entertainment in others, you should at least be prepared to offer some yourself!"
All around us the Forces of Hell were snuffling and snorting, growling and drooling. They were so hungry for our deaths.
"Is this…" Groot continued, waving a fastidious hand at the demons and the misshapen living-dead, "is this all you can offer? Mere sensation? Terror is the easiest of all human passions to arouse. Did you know?"
Klosterheim was not cowed by the magus. He shrugged. "But you will admit that terror is most effective in winning one's goals. By far the most economical of emotions, eh, philosopher?"
"I suppose that we are temperamentally opposed," said Philander Groot, for all the world as if he played host to a guest at dinner, "and that we shall never quite understand the other's motives or ambitions."
He reached up into the air and appeared to pull on something, an invisible cord. Then in his hand there was a ball of blazing gold. The gold flared brighter and brighter until his whole body seemed to burn with it. His calm, somewhat bored face continued to look out at us as the hordes of Hell fell back, muttering and dismayed. He moved one of his hands and a swath of fire spread across the nearest group of demons. Instantly they began to burn, howling and stamping and beating at their bodies. Another movement and several score more monsters were afire.
Klosterheim staggered backwards, shielding his face from the heat. "What? You have tricked me. Kill him!"
Philander Groot spoke to me in a conversational tone. "I shall be dead within moments, I think. I would advise both of you to flee while you can."
"Come with us!" I said.
"No. I am content."
I looked westward and there was the blue-green haze, my goal.
"Here!" I threw him the flask containing the last of Lucifer's elixir. He took it with a nod of gratitude and put the rim to his lips.
"Sedenko!" I shouted to my companion. Then I lashed at my horse and was away.
"Oh, you must kill them now!" I heard Klosterheim shout.
We broke out onto the grass again. I looked back. Everything was shadow save for the golden fire which seared through the ranks of the damned. Sedenko was white. He was clutching at his back, even as he rode. He seemed to be weeping.
I saw Philander Groot move. I saw fire spring between us and the Hell-horde. The stink of that army gave way to purer air and there was softness ahead of us.
As we reached the forest and entered the first clumps of trees, Sedenko fell forward on his horse's neck. His breathing was ragged. Small sounds came from his lips.
I saw that he had a gash in his back which stretched from his shoulders to his hip. He continued to weep. "They have killed me. Oh, by all that is holy, they have killed me, captain."
The golden fire was out now. The black army was on the move again. Then it stopped.
I knew that it would not come into the Forest at the Edge of Heaven, but that it would be waiting for me should I ever emerge again.
I jumped from my weary horse and went to tend to Sedenko. I supported his body as it slid from its saddle. Blood flowed over my arms and my chest. He looked up at me and his face was now innocent and pleading. "Am I truly damned, captain? Am I bound for Hell?"
I could not reply.
When he was dead I raised myself to my feet and I looked about me. Everything was stilt. A loneliness had come upon my soul.
There was darkness everywhere now but in the forest. And even here there were wisps of grey, as if evil crept in.
I lifted my head to the sky and I shook my fist. "Oh, I reject you. I reject your Heaven and I reject your Hell. Do as you wish with me, but know that your desires are petty and your ambitions have no meaning!"
I addressed no one. I addressed the universe. I addressed a void.
Chapter XVI
A SILENCE HAD fallen over the world.
The plain now seemed filled from end to end by Klosterheim's army, a frozen, waiting gathering. The forest itself was like the forest I had first entered when I discovered Lucifer's castle. No animals, no birds, nothing moving; only the sweet scent of the flowers and the grass.
I gathered leaves and wild tulips and covered Sedenko's body with them. I did not have the strength to bury him. I left his horse to guard him and mounted my own beast, striking due west into the depths of the blue-green forest. My mind and my body both were consumed by a curious numbness. Perhaps they were incapable of accepting any more terror or grief.
I knew, too, that I had changed as much since I had left Lucifer's castle as I had since I had left Bek on the road to Magdeburg. The changes were subtle. There had been no strong sense of revelation. My bitterness was of a different order. I blamed nobody, not even God, for the woes of the world. Neither did I blame myself too hard for past crimes. However, I was determined to follow a path that was entirely my own. Should I ever return to the world I had left, I would not serve Protestant or Catholic. I would use my soldier's skills to protect myself and mine, if need be, but I would not volunteer to go a-warring. I mourned for Sedenko and for Philander Groot and I told myself that should I have the chance to avenge their deaths, I would probably take it, though I felt no special anger, now, towards the wretched Johannes Klosterheim, who daily increased his own terror as he increased his power.
The ground began to rise upwards, almost following the curve I thought I had detected from a distance. And now, away from the influence of Klosterheim's forces, I heard a wren's voice, then the sound of blackbirds and magpies. Small animals moved hi the undergrowth. All was natural again.
I rode for many hours before I realised that night did not fall in this forest. The sky was cloudless and still and the sun was benign. And eventually I heard the sound of children laughing as I breasted a rise and looked down into a little glade, with a thatched cottage and a few outbuildings, a cow and a plough-horse. Three little boys were playing in the yard and at the door stood a grey-haired woman with a straight back and clear, youthful skin. Even from that distance I saw her eyes. They were as blue-green as the forest and they were steady. She smiled and gestured.
I rode down slowly, savouring this scene of peace.
"I must warn you," said I, "that a great army out of Hell besieges your forest."
"I know," said the woman. "What are you called, man?"
"I am called Ulrich von Bek and I am upon a Quest. I seek the Holy Grail so that the World's Pain might be cured and Lucifer taken back into the Kingdom of Heaven."
"Ah," said she, "at last you are here, Ulrich von Bek. I have it for you."
I dismounted. I was astonished. "You have what, lady?"
"I have what you would call the Grail. It is a cup. It is what you seek, I think."
"Lady, I cannot believe you. I think that up to now I never did truly believe that I would find the Grail, and never so easily as to be offered it by one such as you."
"Oh, the Grail is a simple thing. And it has a simple function, really, Ulrich von Bek."
My legs were weak. I felt faint. I had not realised how exhausted I had become.
The woman signed to one of the boys to take my horse. She put her arm about my waist. She was extremely strong.
She led me into the cool peace of her parlour and sat me down upon a bench. She brought me milk. She gave me bread with honey on it. She took off my helmet and she stroked my head and murmured soothingly to me so that I wept.
I wept for an hour. And when I had finished I looked up at the lady and I said: "All that I love is threatened or is lost forever."