The Betrothed (Part 3)

The Betrothed—Part 3

In the Kingdom of light, the King stood upon the wall, with his shining son beside him. “The Time is come,” declared the father. “Though she remembers us not, she has suffered enough. My son, the task is yours, for she is yours.”

Without sword, and without armor, the Prince went down, into the dark city, and all the savage people spilled around him. The kings of the city, with their sons and the men of the earth, surrounded him, as he stood at the door of Zion’s den. And she could not hide from his voice, as he called her.

“Zion!” He called. “It is time to come home.”

But in her terror and her guilt, she cowered and did not go down to meet him. Again he called, until, the third time, he pushed open the door, and went into her. He found her there, beside the bed, almost unrecognizable in her filth, too afraid to look at him. She tried to hide, but he found her, and looked at her with such a pity in his eyes that his gaze seemed to burn her.

Though she pulled away from him, he knelt in front of her, and grasped her hand, though she tried to pull it back. He saw that she wore no ring, and she knew, with the weight of shame crashing like waves inside her, that she could not go back. And now, he knew it as well.

And yet, his eyes were without anger. She wished that he would be angry, but he was not. Instead, he held her hand tightly, as he took the ring from his own finger, and slid it onto hers, ignoring her objections.

“Though you turned your back on the King,” he said, “Though you’ve turned away from me, I have come again. I will take your place, here. And you shall take mine. None may enter the kingdom, except those who share the King’s blood; so long as this sign is yours, that blood beats in your veins as well, as his adopted. No more will you play the whore; no more shall you be faithless. No more shall you suffer.”

She protested, but to no avail, and though she tried, the ring would not come off her hand. The messengers of the King entered the room and they took her in their arms, bearing her swiftly away. None of the people of the city stood to stop them, as the Prince entered the street again, without arm, without even decoration.

“You have rights to her no more,” cried the Prince. “For she is of the Bloodline of the King. But see that now, I stand in her place, faithful to the faithless. I, who was once the heir of your enemy—I am yours. A child of the earth. Do to me as you please.” 

So the men of the city seized him, seeing that he was unarmed, and they beat him and branded him and slathered him in filth. But no matter how they sought to mar him, the glow of his face shone through, and the light of him hurt their eyes. They dragged him to the open palace, the sepulcher of the world, and there they tore him, in the sight of all.

Zion, though she was already outside of the city, turned, and she could see, even from a distance, the cruelties, the monstrosities done to him, even as she was borne to safety. With every scream of pain or pleasure that reached her, she found her weeping only harder, her pain only more severe.

But then, the pained groans ceased, and there were only the cheers. In the palace of the earth, his body fell, broken and lifeless, in a pool of his own bright blood, mingling with the filth of the street, staining the gathered feet and fists that beat him.

The prince’s body was taken up, and the crowds paraded him throughout the city. Their enemy was dead. The one they feared was no more. His body, cold, empty of life, they threw into the alleys, with the other deathly things, and the children pelted it with stones.

Night came upon them. But Zion had already reached the hedge, and when they neared, the thorns and vines peeled away, at the signet that she wore. The servants of the King carried her up, into the palace, and the King met her there, cradling her in his great arms, with his own sweet tears spilling onto her head, as hers fell onto his hands. 

When night came, the people of the city left the body there. From the top of the walls, the King watched, with little Zion asleep, in his arms, as the people chanted and sang, celebrating the death of their enemy, spilling their wine and their filth to mingle with the Prince’s blood, on the palace steps. They sang themselves to sleep, and in the streets they slept, heaped up like the beasts of a kennel.

But in the street, the Prince opened his eyes. He rose, from the street, from the death and the misery that surrounded him, and he left the city alone. Though his blood soaked his clothes, his wounds were healed. The great hedge opened, at the touch of his hand, and the gates parted, to admit his entrance.

Around him, the creatures of the kingdom poured, with cheers and praise, and with wonder in their eyes at this miracle. The King, and Zion beside him, came down to meet him there. And Zion, weeping, collapsed around his knees.

“How?” She cried. “How do you stand before me, even now, though they killed you?”

“Death is the inheritance of all of those who have turned their back on their King,” replied the Prince, as he lifted her. “It is the judgment of all of those, who have chosen the lower world, and who seek its pleasures. But for those in whose veins the blood of the Kingdom flows, the cage of death has no might, and the wrath of the dark world has no sting.”

He took his betrothed in his arms again, and took her up to her chamber in the palace of the king, where he laid her, wrapped in the garments of her safety. But still, she held him, when he set her down, staring into his eyes, and seeming to fall into their depth. “Why?” She wept. “Why did you do this? Why have you suffered so much, for me?”

“To prove my love to you,” he said, “I have endured all things. Now, I have won you. I have purchased you, with my own blood. No more shall you fly to the darkness; for no more shall it have any hold in you. No more are you the offspring of its womb. Now, you are the offspring of my love.”

And as she slept, safe and soundly in her bed, the Prince turned aside to his father, with a deep and fuming wrath within his heart. “My father,” he called, “too long this beast has reigned. I would suffer its darkness no longer. I would take my bride; I have bought her, and bound her in love. But first, I would finish what has been begun. I would avenge the honor robbed her.”

The King nodded to him. “Go; do what shall be done.”

 With eyes like blazing fire, the Prince took on his armor, and lifted his great sword, and strung his bow, turning against the dark kingdom, below. Though the gates were closed to him, his war-hammer split them down the middle, and the shaking, rumbling walls gave out. Light, blinding and complete, spilled into the street at his back.

And all of Zion’s abusers, the kings and the princes of the city, the lords and the deceivers, gathered and squealed in fear, crying, “You were dead! We killed you!”

“The cage of death has no rights to claim me, and neither have they any rights to claim she, that you ravaged, whom I have died for. But for you, this day, sons of darkness, there is only death.” 

With his great blade, he struck them down in heaps, though they came against him, and he broke their swords like straw, and their shields like dry leaves. His rage was like a lion’s, as he tore through their streets. His arrows were like lightning bolts, shattering their high towers and bring down the crumbling stones, as he hunted down the lords and their wicked sons, piling them in the temple where they served their kings of death.

In the palace of the earth, with his bare hands upon the pillars, he pulled the foundations up, and buried the bodies in a tomb of their own worship. With the fire of his wrath, he burned the ruins, and the chains, which tethered the worlds together, he tore away, and the place of shadow slid away, into destruction, and was no more.  

To the Kingdom of Light, the Prince returned. And there, where the light shone, glorious and magnificent, he came to his chosen bride. Gone was the darkness inside her; gone was the hunger for that place that was no more, as she saw the great scars he wore, each one laid upon him in her place. She was at peace, content in the presence of her rescuer, as he spoke softly beside her.

“So long as you bear that signet, you are the daughter of the King, by every right,” he told her, the words familiar. “Not only an image of him; but a bearer of his blood and name. Such am I. But His blood is within my veins, already. For I am the image that you wear; I am the image of Him, the firstborn of his blood. But now, you shall share my blood. You shall share the lineage of the King, himself.”

And he raised her, stronger than ever she had been, fairer than ever she had been. In his presence, her light returned; and in his shadow, her love for him grew more and more, until all that she once longed for seemed like the longings of a wandering child. No more did she and the king walk in the gardens, as before; for now, the gardens were being cleared, and a place for a wedding prepared.

As evening came, so stood Zion, crowned in beauty, beside the Prince. Once, a very different creature; once nothing at all. She that had been nothing had been made everything—for the King of everything gave up the treasure worth it all, to make her His.

Her wedding gown was made from the scars she yet wore, and his was the scars he bore for her. But even then, as the light of the feast fell upon her, it seemed that the lines on her body started to fade; healing with his every touch.

She, the Betrothed of Heaven, estranged from the world that once rotted inside her. And though it lingered, in her memory, in that moment, and in all the moments that followed, it seemed to serve no purpose but to strengthen her love for the light, in which she had been brought to stand.

For stand she did; but only with her hand in his. She was strong in a victory that she could not claim, though it is her battle that had been ended. It was His victory, the glory of the love that had found her in the darkness, the love that brought her home, to make whore a queen. The love that chose a loveless child of ruin; faithful to the faithless.

And in the Kingdom of Light, glorious and magnificent, there reigned the King, with a perfect heart, and at his right hand the Prince. And beside the Prince, his bride; and though she seems a slight ornament, in such a place, she is the completion of its grandeur. For in her, the love of the Prince shone out, the brightest of any light that hung in the sky.

And all who dwelt in that place were never dry of joy. 

An Author’s Note:

If you’ve made it this far in the story, I have to admit that I am not only tickled and impressed, but grateful. I hope that it has, at least to some extent, stirred your heart to a degree

The story of Zion has a lot of parallels, and I’m not going to try to point them all out here. To explain them would be to take away the power of imagery, and I’d rather not negate the whole point of the Betrothed if I can help it.

But one thing I will address—who is Zion? There are lots of answers, to that one. She is a character with dozens of parallels. Most of her character, and the inspiration for the story in general, came from the book of Hosea, which has rapidly become one of the most powerful books of the Bible to me. But on a larger scale, the story of Zion is the story of the whole Old Testament, the unfaithfulness of God’s chosen, undeserving people, and his constant, faithful tenderness in bringing them back to him, and eventually, his purchase of her through the death of his son. It is the story of the chosen people of Israel becoming the chosen people of the world.

But it is also something much more personal. Because after all of the parallels, and under all of the imagery, Zion is me. Zion is my own unfaithfulness, her heart is my heart, her hunger for a dying world is my own. Her struggles, her aches and pains, I know them all.

And yet, thanks to the grace of God, I know the mercy of the rescuer that I attempted to capture in the character of the prince. I understand—feebly and imperfectly—the love that he has for her, and the love that my own rescuer bears for me. I know Grace, as it has been poured over me, as I have drowned in it, and felt my stains removed by his bleaching blood.

Zion is me, and humanity in general. And just like her, I am saved, rescued to live a life greater than any I could have imagined.

The Betrothed (Part 2)

The Betrothed—Part 2

At the king’s command, a servant, a creature of the light, descended to the shadow lands, to the door of the whoring house, and at the door he cried in to her, “Chosen One of the King! Come forth; the King has not forgotten you. Only come now, call upon His name, and be rescued.”

But in the den of darkness, the other women laughed with their lovers—“Rescued? Pah! What need have you of rescue? Are we not happier, here? Are not we the ones who have chosen you? Have not we adopted you, as one of us? Do we not love you?”

Again and again, the messenger came to her, until all joy was dry inside her heart, until she grew frail and sick at the handling of her lovers, until her bones pressed against her skin. Then hearing the voice, she looked up and cried, “Oh My King, my Prince! If it is true that you have not forgotten me, then come to me, in my destruction!”

And at once, with sword in hand, the son of the King rushed down into the shadowed land. To the whoring house he came, for the gates did not stand before him, to his Zion, in her cursed bed, and like a child he lifted her from her misery.

Crowds gathered to greet him, the swarms of her dirty lovers, and at their head, the king of the city, to stop her being carried off. “What have you to do with her?” They cried. “Is she your own, that you might do with her as you please?”

“She is my own,” declared the prince, “the one that I have chosen, and the one that I have loved. Betrothed; heiress to the Kingdom of Light. She belongs to you no more.” And though scores rushed upon him, to destroy him, and to destroy her, he struck them down in the streets with the edge of his sword, and the king of the city he slaughtered, last of all, in the gates.

Home, Zion was brought, to her Kingdom, and because she yet wore the King’s Signet, she was allowed to pass through the gates. And there, she was laid on the bed of queens, and all throughout the fitful nights, the Prince sat long beside her, tending to her. With gentle hands, he cared for her wounds; he drew out the poisons, from her blood. He stayed with her until she was strong again, and her bruises were washed away. In robes he wrapped her, in soothing perfumes and golden crowns, until her spirit was whole again, and she could walk in the gardens without support.

In this way, she remained; growing ever stronger, and ever more beautiful, in the balms of that place, becoming fairer than ever she had been before. And in the presence of the King, the glow of that place adorned her.

Many tears she cried, begging for their forgiveness, that they might pardon her the wrong she had done them, and the King held her, while she wept, until peace came to her. “You have been forgiven, my child,” he said. “Let you no more forget the place that is your home, and those who have given you their love.”

But on a night, when soft she walked the halls, and by chance, glanced out the window, beyond the grounds, she saw the world of shadow, sprawled. And at its edge were shapes and figures she had known before, and in her heart there came an urge, to go out to them. They seemed to call to her by name, in every way that she knew.

In stealth, she snuck away, just for the night—to see those things that she had known, and to be back by morning, to be back to the Prince and to the King’s Gardens. But when she had gone out of the walls, she was stopped; for there, like some colossal monster, in the darkness, was a shape.

A wall of thorns stood before her; towering and thick and without doors. Nearly, she turned back in fear, but on the other side, she heard the voices calling to her, so close, so tempting. The thorns were like daggers, tearing her skin, when she pushed into them. She struggled through, though her robe was torn, though her hair was pulled out, though the nettles stung her feet like razors and the thickets raked her body like claws.

On the other side, they greeted her with cheers, and took her back to the city that she had known, bloodied and naked, dirty and empty. When they saw that on her face the glow of the King’s land, they jeered and scowled, until, fearing them, she took the dirt of the street and smeared her face and body with it, to hide the glow. And so they welcomed her again.

Her stolen robes and her jewels, they robbed in trade for the wine with which they filled her; but it was, to her thirsting mouth, like sand. Back they thrust her, to her old chamber. A new king came, the king of the town, with all his monstrous sons, with their fair faces and their savage hearts, and they fell upon her each in turn, and when morning came she did not know it. In false silver and moth-eaten silk, her lovers paid her, in rust and bleak food and drink, boasted as feasts.

Her body ached and stung from the tearing of the thorns, the scars tracing her fair body, their poisons throbbing in her veins, until she wondered why the King would have done this to her? With each man who fell upon her, the worse the pain seemed to grow, until her groans seemed too much to bear.

For Zion, the one who had dirtied her face, did not know that the light had gone out of it already.

In the Kingdom, the Prince, with torn heart cried out, “How long, my Lord? How long must we bear her suffering? How long must we watch her harm? The love we have chosen bleeds; she is struck and seduced upon the steps of the palace of the dead! And though she has turned from us, she does not yet see the undoing of herself. Must we wait, my lord, while they destroy what once was pure?”

“We must wait,” replied the King. “Though Zion turns her heart from us, we shall not abandon her. We shall stir her heart to seek us, to cry out; for we shall not ignore her cry.”

Days passed, but in the darkness, she did not know. The sickness crawled back into her limbs, the rot into her belly, when, at the door, the voice of the messenger cried up to her: “Chosen child! Betrothed of the Kingdom of light, beloved of the Lord, you are not forgotten. Though you turn your face from blessing, though you turn your back on the hand that heals you, the King waits. Call to him for mercy, and you may yet be saved!”

Again, they mocked him in the chambers, but even as Zion sought her lovers, his voice rang outside. Each day he returned, until finally, the people of the city drove him off, casting and locking him out. But even then, when night fell, he would climb over the walls and to her window, his words a whisper to her restless mind. And it seemed to her to be the voice of the King himself.

When her lovers came to her now, it was with disgust, for the state of her wounds was hideous, and they had no more appetite for her. Though doctors of the city came, they could do nothing except cause her pain. But as her wounds ached and oozed openly, her longing for the ashen food, for the dirty drinks, faded; her hunger for her lovers turned cold, until all she heard was the voice of the messenger.

Finally, in the still of the night, when the voice of the messenger reached her, she snuck from the house on weak legs, and with the servant of the King, they escaped the walls of the city, and fought their way up, towards the light again. There, the Prince met them, and he bore His Zion back up to the Kingdom. And as she wore the ring still, on her hand, so they were permitted to enter.

As before, the Prince stayed beside her—he tended to her wounds. He rubbed salve into the claws of the thorns, and though it hurt her, he drew out every disease and cancer, and it was not long until she was healthy again, and all that was left on her were scars.

“Love of mine,” he said, with tears, “Do you not see? The hedge I planted was to keep you safe, to keep you from going after your old paths. The poison of those barbs was to draw you back to the place where it might be healed.”

With tears, she fell upon his chest, and at the foot of the King, her heart breaking with repentance, as she begged for his forgiveness. With a kiss, the King lifted her. “Stand, my child. Stay here, and be healed. Leave this place no longer; and let the darkness of that place belong to you no more, just as you no longer belong to it.”

But the call of the shadowed world would not release her. No sooner had the Prince released her arm, that she might grow strong enough to walk unaided, than she found herself wandering with a restless heart.

At first, when she passed by the windows, she passed them quickly, without looking out of them. But as time went on, a growing curiosity slowed her feet, and she found her eyes wandering toward them. Eventually, she found herself standing, looking out at the world below her. And gradually when she walked in the garden, when she passed by the walls, she felt herself longing for something on the other side; something she had known before.

On one such night, at her window, she heard the distant sounds, and crept out to the walls. On the other side, a shape met her, calling up to her with old, hungry words. “Come down,” he cried, “come to me, and I shall please you! I shall give you that for which you long! Come back to the place where you are at home, the place for which your heart hungers!” And pointing at the hedge, he cried,

“Do you see?” he called. “Your captor traps you in. A hedge of thorns, he has woven. He keeps you as his prisoner! I would free you. Do you not see? Does he distrust you so? If he loved you, would not he open the gate? Would not he trust his betrothed to choose for herself, if he truly was worthy of her affection?” these and many other words he spoke to her, fair words, from a fair tongue. “Come to me,” he said, “and I can get you through the wall, unharmed. I shall not woo you with a wall of thorns; but upon a bed of feathers. The payment is slight, and what is a slight cost, for freedom?”

His words enticed her as a spider’s web, and the smell of his perfume put the hunger in her belly again. Overpowered by them, by every deceit he put in her heart, she climbed down from the wall, and into the arms of the creature below. Gripping her tightly, smiling and filling her with words that she loved, he pulled her toward the hedge. When they reached it, he stopped, and held out his hands.

“The passage cannot be free. I require only the slightest of treasures.”

With a fearful brow, she pled for him to tell her, offering the many jewels she wore, the riches of her clothes, even herself, for her hunger and the ache to return to the city seemed too much, now, as his perfume filled her still. But with each offer, the shadowy man shook his head, until finally, he snatched her hand, and saw the small signet ring upon it. “This,” he said. “It is a simple token; so cheap and worthless, next to all of these other great treasures. But I will accept it, if you still desire to go.”

Forgetting all that the King had told her, that long time ago, she gave him the signet, and the shadowy man brought her to a small spot, in the hedge, where a blade had cut a little passage, and he slithered through, between the thorns like a serpent. Shedding her robe, so that it might not be caught, she crawled through after him, through the mud and filth below.

The shadowy man cheered, and all the city folk came, with their own cries, to swallow her up again, and with their handfuls of mud, which they smeared onto her, to cover her brightness.

They ripped at her her hair—they struck her face—and they laughed and kissed her, and called her daughter. They took her to the whoring bed, and told her she was beautiful. They broke her into pieces, and declared that she had never looked so whole.

So days became nights, became ages without definition. The king of the city and his sons came to her, celebrating her recovery as they ravaged her, at the feast in her honor. The deceiver, the one who had lured her out, mocked her when she trembled. When her mind went back to the king, he would jeer.

“Him? Who let you leave, without pursuit? Did he not do this to you?” And he would point out the white scars, left by the thorns. “Did not I bring you through safely, without harm?”  

“But the prince,” she said, “When I was lost, he came to find me.”

And the man laughed. “Lost? Are you lost, creature? Then find yourself; and if you shall not, then I shall find you for you. He cares nothing for you; and you nothing for him. Are you not a whore? Are you not faithless? Have not you turned your back to him, time and again? Only I, only we, love you. Only in this place, do you belong.”

Soon, the messenger came, to bring her back, and she heard his voice in her ears. But the deceiver held her back, from going out to him, with his lies and his promises, so that she boarded up the window, so as not to hear the cries. But the messenger persisted more and more, through night and day, that she might find no rest; that in her chamber, his words could always be heard.

Finally, she rose up, to go out and find him, but the deceiver laughed at her wickedly. “Would you go out to meet him?” He asked, and he held up the ring she had given him. “But you cannot pass through the gates. None, save those who are the King’s, can pass the gate. And you are not his. You are ours, now. Turn your thoughts from him!”

As she cowered, in distress, her lovers gathered the whole city and they killed the messenger, and celebrated his body.

But it was not long before another messenger came, with the same plea, to call out, to return. And yet the poison in her blood cried that she could not be saved, this time; she was too far away, for that. She had fallen too far, to climb back out. She had given away the inheritance. She had given it all away. She was not the King’s, now; she belonged here, in this dirt. And eventually, with the ache of chains, around her wrists, she thought of the King no more.

So fell the second messenger, and another after, and another, until finally, no more came.

The Betrothed (Part 1)

The Betrothed—Part 1

In a Kingdom of Light, glorious and magnificent to behold, there was a King, who ruled with a perfect heart, just and noble. His land was a righteous and beautiful one, and the servants, who dwelt with him in the light, were never dry of joy. At the King’s right hand reigned the Prince, and with one mind and heart they ruled together, so that the land knew no end of peace. 

But in the kingdom below, in the shadow and the twilight, there dwelt those creatures who had long since turned their backs to that King, who had forgotten him, and turned instead to create kings of their own, to mold cities out of clay and to scuttle in the shadows, like creatures of darkness. In the shadow, the poison that was inside their hearts grew, until they taught themselves to fear the King, and hate the Light of his being. 

To this place, the King himself went, though he did so in secret, and walked among the people in the low world; and there, none saw him, for they no longer knew his face, when he masked his glory. In their midst, his heart was torn with compassion and despair, breaking for their wretchedness. In the streets of their great city, in the filth and the atrocities with which they surrounded themselves, he found a single creature.

She was small and young, without beauty or strength. She was nothing to the world, though from its womb she had crawled, and to its tomb she was destined. She was one of countless others, but to her the King came. He gathered her up in his mighty arms, and bore her away—back, to the land that was His own, back to live in the light of that place, to live in His own Presence. 

He lifted her and carried her up to the very walls of the white palace, and there he produced for her a ring, beautiful and bright, and bearing the King’s own seal on its face. “When you wear this ring,” He said, “you are wearing the image of me. You become the equal of my son; as one of my own children. You are the heiress. With this seal, alone, may you enter this kingdom; and without it, no one can ever enter the gates.”

So she wore the ring, and entered the Kingdom beside him, and every day afterward, it never left her, until she felt that her hand was made to bear its small weight.

“Child,” said the King, “You have been chosen, from all the people of this shadowed world. Here, you shall stay, and let the foulness of that old place have no hold on you. For you have been chosen to dwell apart from them. Here, you shall be the chosen one, loved and betrothed of my son.”

The dirt was scraped from her skin, the knots torn free in her hair, and she was draped in the garments of royalty. Gold was put on her neck, and the jewels of kings and queens on her fingers. In his court, he tended her, and grew her up, separated from the world from which she had been plucked.

Every day, in the evening time, she would walk with the King in the garden, and listen to his words, as they watched the sun slipping away. Most of these nights, the King’s son walked with them, and though she was yet nothing worthy of love, the Prince grew to love her wholly and freely, and the father, both. So much she grew, with each gift given her, and the King and his son loved to see her laughter, the beauty of her face in the garden.

But in the heart of that daughter, joy grew not unimpeded, and not alone. Deep within her, there was a hunger, an old, shadowy thing, a creature that had been born on the other side of the King’s palace walls. At night, from the palace windows, she would look down, into the shadowy world, to see the darkness in the distance, beyond the borders of the Kingdom. And though it frightened her, it called to her, like some great beating heart to which she was bound.

One night, when she was alone, she left the palace. Though the King’s words remained in her ears that this was the country of death to which she returned, that only wickedness dwelt here, she fled, in her robes and the other gifts of the King, back to the city from which she had come.

When she reached the city, the people, in their filth and nakedness, rushed to meet her. Into the heart of the city they brought her, with cheers and celebration, and a feast. But the food, when she swallowed it, left a taste like ashes in her mouth, and the wine was like water of the streets; nothing like the sweet nectar of the King’s gardens.

Here, in the squalor, though she felt in her stomach those same ashes, she felt that roaring hunger begin to be satisfied. The people of that city embraced her, as they led her through the streets as though she was a trophy won.

But as they came deepest into the city, they brought her to the house of the whores, in the shadow of which she had stood, as a child. And they brought her inside, and with disdain they tore away the bright clothes that the King had given her. They took all of His gifts, the gold and the precious stones, and threw them into the streets, and festooned her instead in the rags and the false gems of a whore. But she hid the ring with the king’s crest, fearing that they would take it, and they did not see that she had done so. 

“Let this nonsense trouble you no more,” they cried, as they pillaged her. “The King is nothing, to you, and you are nothing to Him. After all, do we not have our own kings here? Do they not offer you their love?”

And the king of that city came to her, in the false, gaudy brightness of his own robes, with his crown of iron, and to the foul whoring bed he took her, and on it he ruined her. “You are one of us, now!” They cried with joy,  “Put away these foolish thoughts of that imagined place. For this is your home, and we are your family. Were not you born here, with us? From the same womb as us?” And in came many others, to the bed, for she did not fight them.

“This,” she thought, “is my home. These are my people. This shall satisfy the hunger that I have felt.”

Time after time, they struck her down, and dirtied her in the streets, but always, with a smile, they raised her back up. When she brushed her hair, as she had in the court of the King, they laughed and tangled it, and mocked her until she feared them, and put away the brush, the last of the things left to her from the King.

In the Kingdom of Light, from the walls of the palace, the King watched, with anger inside him, and tears on his face, and on the face of the prince, beside him. They watched the horrors done to her, until at last, the prince gripped his great sword and shouldered his bow, crying,

“Father, let me go down; I shall destroy them, each and every one of them, in their foulness. I will let not one of them live, for what they have done to she that we love! I would destroy the men of mud, and their king of worms!”  

“Would you destroy her, among them?” Asked the King, in his wisdom, and his anguish. “See, that she has turned her heart away from us, to whore after the world of her birth. For she is part of this world of darkness; it dwells inside her, and it hungers for the poisons of the lower world. She has chosen the rot, over the gold. But it matters not, that she has chosen the world; for in the world, I have chosen her. Let her call to us for rescue, and on that day, my son, let your righteous wrath go out. Though Zion has been faithless, not so the One who has plucked her from the darkness.”

To the Master of the Forge (A Poem)

Break me into bits and heap

Them all upon the flame—

And stir me up to white until

The dirt is burn’d away.

Pour me out into your cast,

And shape me with your might—

And fold me on your forge, with life

In ev’ry hammer smite.

Fashion me into a lance

Of iron for your hand.

Or pound me out, into a plow,

To rent the barren land.

Let me brush the air or let

Me part the earth below—

Let me serve the harvest, long,

Or fit the warring bow.

From the earth you drew me, make

Me pure through heaven’s fire—

For in this furnace I’ve found birth,

Upon a fun’ral pyre.