Alan Moore - Jerusalem

Go down until you reach the crossroads, so the ghost had said, then pass straight over, where if he continued down the place he sought should be across the street and on his left. Heart hammering still and in a failing light thrown from the rain-clouds gathering above, he went across the hectic byway haltingly, so that he might avoid its trundling wagons until he was safely on its further side. From this new vantage he gazed anxiously across the downhill road towards the east, to see if he might make out by some sign where was the centre that the pauper soul had told him of. Nothing was there saving more pasture and a fenced-out yard that from its din he thought to be a smith’s, although not even this was halfway down the tilt, as he’d been made to think the centre should be. With a sinking worry in his gut he went on down the hill, his tired eyes darting back and forth expectantly about the grounds that were across the way.

The smith’s yard, as he thought, was near the bottom, while up by the crossroads at its other end, there on the corner with the street of metal workers was a smith’s yard also. Nothing was between them and their blackened forges saving only empty and untended mede, and on his cheek now Peter felt an early rain-spot, fat and cold.

He came upon what seemed to him the middle of the sloping way, and stopped to stand upon its edge and gaze across it, to where there was only wilderness. The thudding in his chest was louder, and he knew that he had once or many times before arrived here to find nothing. He was ever in the action of arriving here and finding nothing. Naught but all the drivers and their mounts gone up and down the broad path through a rain that now was spitting heavier. Naught save the idle man who stood outside the smith’s yard, up about the corner this lane had with the gold-workers’ street. Nothing but thistles and a tree and some bare ground, where he had thought to find the soul of all his land enthroned. He did not know if it were tears or sweat or rain that poured now down his face as he inclined it hopelessly toward the gravid sky and asked again what he had asked when at the other cross-path, only now his voice was angry and was tired, as if he did not care who heard.

“Is this the centre?”

All was in that moment stopped to him. Inside his ears the echo had become what was a humming of a kind, as if the halted instant were itself reverberant and rang with all the jewels of circumstance that made for its components. Rain hung motionless or else fell only slowly, with its liquids like to countless studs of opal that were everywhere fixed on the air, and in the coats of horses each hair was a blazing filament of brass. A shine was on the very dung that made it seem the prize of all the earth, and of the fields their bounty, that the flies set there about it were raised up on wings like to the windows of fine churches. On the waste-field there across the halted treasure-slide that was the street, midst weeds become like emerald flame, a man was standing all in white and in one hand he held a polished rod made from fair wood. His hair was like to milk, as was his robe, so that he stood as if a beacon in the scene and was the source of all its light, which painted an exquisite glint on every creature’s eye. His kindly gaze met with the monk’s, and Peter knew it was the friend who had appeared to him in Palestine, who’d charged him with his task and set him on his way. His journey’s alpha was become its omega and in his hearing now there was a roar, as though the pounding of great wings, that Peter thought but his own pulse made amplified. The answer of his question was announced.

Across the stilled enchantment that was on the street, the burning figure threw aloft its arms for joy, whereupon there were bright and blinding pinions opened out to either side. Exultant it called out as in a mighty voice amid tall mountains, that the sounds of it whirled off a thousand ways all at one time. It was the foreign speech that Peter had once heard before, with words that burst as though they were puff-toadstools on his thoughts, to scatter new ideas like drifting spores.

“Iyeexieesst.”

Yes! Yes! Yes, it is I! Yes, I exist! Yes, it is here in this place of excess that with a cross the centre shall be marked. Yes, it is here where is the exit of your journey, where both ye and I are come together. Yes, yes, yes, unto the very limits of existence, yes!

The being now held out his rounded rod as if he pointed it at Peter. Long and pale as though made out of pine, he saw its closer end had been worked to a point, where at the tip for decoration was a blue like cornflowers. Here the monk was puzzled and knew not why he was indicated thus, then saw that it was not at him the staff was aimed, but at a place that was behind him. Now he turned, and as he did it was as though his motion made the spell undone. The rushing sound he heard was not abated, yet the world was moved again, and rain dropped swiftly all about where it had only crawled before.

Behind him, set between what was a horse-shed and the premise of yet one more smith, he saw a wall of stone that had some violets grown out from its cracks, and let in to it was a wooden gate with iron trims that was a little open. Through this Peter saw a glade with swollen graves and tomb-stones raised up from its sods, and past it was a humble building made from dun and craggy stones by which two monks stood talking to each other. He was come upon a church. The dame who wore the Thor-stone and advised him earlier had said there was another church close by that of Saint Peter, which was called Saint Gregory’s. His arm upon the left that held the sack was aching now and so he changed the weighted baggage to his right, although this did not make the aching cease. As though struck dumb he stumbled through what had become a downpour and went in the church-yard’s gate, a little way along its path. The clerics broke off with their discourse and had seen him now, whereon they came towards him, slowly first then quickly, wearing faces of concern. Peter was fallen on his knees, though it were not in grateful prayer at his deliverance but more he found he could not longer stand.

The two friars, who soon came upon him, did their best to help him up and out of the deluge, but they were young and slender men who found he was too heavy. All they could accomplish was to set him on his back for comfort, with his head propped up against the bulged-out siding of a grave. They crouched above him with their habits spread out as they thought to keep the rain from off him, though it made them seem like crows and did not shield him much. Above them Peter saw the underbelly of the brewing storm, like darkened pearls that seethed and boiled and were become a changing and fantastic swim of wrinkles.

Everything was in that moment made alight, and then a frightful thunder boomed so that the monks who nursed him cried out and became more urgent in their questions, asking him where he was from and what it was that brought him here. The lightnings came again to drench the whole sky with their flash and Peter lifted up his arm, though not the left one that was numb, and made a gesture to his bag upon the soaking grass beside him.

When they understood him they pulled wide the jute-cloth neck and took what was inside out in the wind and wet. It was the hand-span of a man and half again across in both directions, roughly hewn from brownish stone so that it was too heavy to be lifted easy in one hand. The silvering rain dripped from its angles and its corners and the priests were now made mystified, as too were they amazed.

“What is it, brother? Can you tell us where you found it?”

Peter spoke, though it was hard, and from their faces had the sound of a delirium. From how they heard it, this was one who’d travelled far across the sea and had been near a place of skulls when he had found his treasure buried there. Unearthed, it was as though an angel had appeared to tell him he must take the relic and deliver it unto the centre of his land. It seemed to them as though he said he had a moment since met with this angel yet again, who had confirmed their small church as the pilgrim’s destination. Much of what the poor man said was lost amongst the rumble of the heavens, and at last they begged that he should tell them where the land was he had been, that had this place of skulls, and where were holy tokens jutted up from out the soil.