Part 4 (2/2)

Beauclaire waited for a long moment, feeling this deeply. When he read, his voice was warm and strong, and something of his emotion came through. As Wyatt listened, he found his attention attracted, and then he felt the last traces of his sadness and weariness fall away.

He nodded, smiling.

These are the words Beauclaire had gathered from the Book:

Rise up smiling, and walk with me. Rise up in the armor of thy body and what shall pa.s.s shall make thee unafraid. Walk among the yellow hills, for they belong to thee. Walk upon gra.s.s and let thy feet descend into soft soil; in the end when all has failed thee the soil shall comfort thee, the soil shall receive thee and in thy dark bed thou shalt find such peace as is thy portion.

In thine armor, hear my voice. In thine armor, hear.

Whatsoever thou doest, thy friend and thy brother and thy woman shall betray thee. Whatsoever thou dost plant, the weeds and the seasons shall spite thee. Wheresoever thou goest, the heavens shall fall upon thee. Though the nations shall come unto thee in friends.h.i.+p thou art curst. Know that the G.o.ds ignore thee. Know that thou art Life, and that pain shall forever come into thee, though thy years be without end and thy days without sleep, even and forever. And knowing this, in thine armor, thou shalt rise up.

Red and full and glowing is thy heart; a steel is forging within thy breast. And what can hurt thee now? In thy granite mansion, what can hurt thee ever? Thou shalt only die. Therefore seek not redemption nor forgiveness for thy sins, for know that thou hast never sinned.

Let the G.o.ds come unto _thee_.

When it was finished, Wyatt sat very still.

Beauclaire was looking at him intently.

Wyatt nodded. ”I see,” he said.

”They don't ask for anything,” Beauclaire said. ”No immortality, no forgiveness, no happiness. They take what comes and don't--wonder.”

Wyatt smiled, rising. He looked at Beauclaire for a long while, trying to think of something to say. But there was nothing to say. If the young man could believe this, here and now, he would save himself a long, long, painful journey. But Wyatt could not talk about it--not just yet.

He reached out and clapped Beauclaire gently upon the shoulder. Then he left the s.h.i.+p and walked out toward the yellow hills, toward the girl and the love that was waiting.

_What will they do_, Beauclaire asked himself, _when the stars come out_? _When there are other places to go, will these people, too, begin to seek?_

They would. With sadness, he knew that they would. For there is a chord in Man which is plucked by the stars, which will rise upward and outward into infinity, as long as there is one man anywhere and one lonely place to which he has not been. And therefore what does the meaning matter? We are built in this way, and so shall we live.

Beauclaire looked up into the sky.

Dimly, faintly, like G.o.d's eye peeking through the silvery haze, a single star had begun to s.h.i.+ne.

--MICHAEL SHAARA

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