How is it that solitude can be both attractive and frightening, and that the experience of aloneness can be filled with both the deep pang of one's loneliness and with the joy of a deeper presence? But so it is. This Eldarien knows and feels now, realizing that for weeks his heart has been yearning for space, for time in complete solitude, not to distance himself from his companions or even from the troubled state of the world that weighs so heavily upon his shoulders, but in order to let his heart breathe, reach out, and receive. But now that he is here, he also feels beginning to flow in upon him the fears that he has carried with him but which have not had the space to emerge fully into consciousness—not to mention the ripples of suffering and strife that trouble the waters of life and which he cannot but take to his heart in the compassion that is gifted unto him both as a man and as a bearer of the blood of the Velasi.
Of what is he afraid? In this moment one fear emerges above all the rest, and it reaches out with grasping hands as if to suffocate the very breath from him. He is afraid to be king. That is the simplest and most direct way to state it. For he has known the burden of responsibility for the lives and welfare of others in the past, and he has tasted deeply the bitterness of his failure, of his accountability for the suffering and loss that was due to his own blindness, negligence, or selfishness. And he fears doing so again. What, after all, makes a king or a ruler of men, and what destroys him? How shall a good king be distinguished, and how a bad one? Is not every man, in a way, designed in his very existence to be a ruler in his own domain, be it only the home in which his wife and his children live, and which he nourishes with his labor and protects and fosters with his strength and his tenderness? Indeed, even more fundamentally, is not every man—and for that matter every woman—a ruler in the house of his own soul, in the sanctuary of his own spirit?
If this is the case, then the only way to rule others justly, which means not rule but governance and guidance and care, is to first be a guardian of one's own house, the house of one's own being and the house of one's loves. Eldarien reflects on this now, recalling the misguidance that he has given, and the disorders that have long existed within himself and which have led to ills in the lives of those around him and under his care. But, feeling the constricting yoke of these memories—and especially of the shame and self-hatred that comes with them—he tries to move briskly through them towards a place of greater clarity, whether that be in hope for the future or in a wider and deeper past where the perspective, being less narrowed by fear, is also clearer and more hopeful.
He begins to walk again, quickly both because of the cold and, even more, because of the movement of his own thoughts that stir him on. It is almost as if, in fact, he feels a need to manifest the internal movement of his mind and heart in the external gestures of his body—as if he needs to give voice to the longing that he carries within to move on, beyond the suffocating shame and fear that have crippled him for so long, and into a place of deeper trust, and thus of richer freedom. But what of his limits, his blindness, his unavoidable mistakes and failures, which would certainly occur in even the most optimistic of futures?
As he walks, another thought inserts itself gently into the midst of the thoughts that are more tumultuous. And this thought provides some measure of stability. He realizes, even with all of the insecurity that washes over him in this moment, that only six months ago he could not have stood where he stands now or walked now in the way that he walks: in openness to such a possibility as kingship, to a gift and a task that lies beyond all human measure both in benevolence and in responsibility. How has the desire to wash away the stains of his past guilt been transformed so deeply in its root, and opened itself so radically from within, to a desire only to be of service to the people of Telmerion, even if it means accepting the crown of rule in order to unify the divided clans and to protect and safeguard their peace and harmony?
How indeed… The beginnings of an answer come to him as his path leads him around again to where the bulwark meets the second level of the city, and he finds himself facing a temple dedicated to the goddess Hiliana. He sees clearly now that for so long he has been fleeing from his limitations, from his frailty, in a mortal fear, seeing in them the cause of so much suffering and loss for others whom he would only wish to aid. But how could a man, no matter how wise or strong he be, ever avoid his limitation? It is the very stuff of which his life is made, is it not? A man's custodianship is not of the whole world, but of the sanctuary of his own spirit and the temple of his own flesh; his rule and his care is not of the distant nations, but of the homestead that he builds, and of the family that flourishes in this place that he creates and safeguards. So too, if he is to write a tale or recount a history, if he is to fashion a painting or mold a sculpture, if he is to develop skill in music or in handiwork, he does so only in the context of limitation, and not against it. The words he writes are inscribed only in the four edges of the page, and the sculpture is formed precisely by creating limits, creating edges, which delineate a shape and a form. The intimacy of family is centered around the hearth of love and protected by the wall of enduring fidelity, which nothing shall break, for in its breaking, all that is good and precious about family is destroyed.
And how much does Eldarien desire to do precisely this, in the deepest way that he can, for the whole people of Telmerion, who are his people...yes, who are his family! He sees, then, more than he has ever seen before, a thread that has been woven throughout his life, unnoticed but true: the contours of his love and his affection, like the frame of a picture or the edges of a page, have always been the people of Telmerion, and her unity. It is not that he does not love others, does not love every man and woman who walks this earth, and the rippling grasses or dancing trees or standing mountains of other nations and other lands. No, he does, and he knows that he must, for if love is a true disposition of the heart, it must be universal, open to one and to all. But just as surely and just as necessarily, love must be particular, and turn its face and its action upon those who are placed within the orbit of its care. In these limits it finds, as it were, the path of its expansion as well as the locus of its concretization. Here what is limited and what is universal in some way coincide and live together as one. Insofar as love remains true to itself, it maintains the rich tension between both: the love for one's nation and the love for all nations, the care for one's family and the care for all families, the reverence for one woman and the reverence for all women, the care of children and the love of all who are weak, little, and in need, and all who are growing gradually unto the fullness of life.
And precisely such lines have been etched deep into Eldarien's heart—lines that are both the size of the universe, boundless in the openness of their expanse, and also the very shape of Telmerion and the contours of her people. And in him now, upon the occurrence of these thoughts, is enkindled the desire to devote himself to precisely such a love, in both of its dimensions. But what...oh, what of the other kind of limitation that he feels? The one that causes such fear in him? For however limited the scope of his love may be, however focused, it is not the love itself that he fears, but his own inability to love, and the weakness and inconstancy of his heart, which has caused him to hurt others so many times in the past.
Stiff now because of the cold, and yearning for a moment of warmth before continuing his walk on its course back to the inn, Eldarien steps into the temple of Hiliana, and finds himself enfolded in architecture both massive and intimate, with walls and ceiling that, surprisingly, give the impression both of closeness and of expanse. And as he walks forward into the main sanctuary of the temple, he sees the statue of Hiliana appear large before him, stone waves lapping at her feet while she sits upon a land rising from the ocean—the land of Telmerion—and in her arms a child, which suckles at her breast. Within the expansive intimacy of the temple, its closeness and its wideness both true and inseparable as they conjoin in his experience, he feels as if the structure is bowing down over this woman, this Anaia, who cradles in her embrace all the peoples of Telmerion, and their history. In other words, her love, universal in its scope, has transcribed itself to limits, has focused itself so directly and so fully as to be like rays joined in white-hot intensity upon a single object: upon the heart and the life of Eldarien Illomiel. And in this focus, this gaze of love and tenderness, she has both revealed the tenderness of the One who is the origin of all love and whose heart her own heart but expresses and manifests, and has also entrusted unto Eldarien a great gift and task, that he may be a sharer in the same love and a custodian of the same mystery. And this, above all, he desires to do: to be transparent to the light of eternal love shining into this world just as she is, to be in the service of the same mystery that her timeless existence manifests, and to which she has imparted him a share.
In such a deep and wide perspective, for a moment all of his own weaknesses and limitations appear as nothing—less than a drop of water lost in a boundless ocean. And the flame kindled in his heart leaps up. And the answer comes. It is an answer given, not once and for all as a possession to which he can cling, as if no longer shall he struggle or fight for the truth revealed unto him, but rather as the very ground upon which he shall always walk in every struggle, and the light in which all the coming days of his life, however dark they may be, shall be bathed. It is a gift, and an answer, which he does not hold, but rather which holds him. And it could be no other way. For the only answer to the awareness of one's limitation and inadequacy is the answer of being held by One who is greater. Only this One, who is security beyond any security given by one's own desire or capacity for faithfulness, or any promises of the world, can give an enduring peace and security that can sustain the mystery of love in its every expression, however specific and however universal it may be, whatever its depth and whatever its scope, even unto the four corners of the earth in arms stretched wide in compassion and in gift.
† † †
Eldarien sits near the front of the sanctuary, nearly at the foot of the statue, and, pulling his cloak tight around himself and lowering his head, closes his eyes. The sound of silence and of space seems to envelop him, quieting not only any noises of the city that could reach his ears, but even, little by little, the restless thoughts of his own mind and the anxieties of his own heart. The shame and fear linger within him, but some of the bitterness of the first and some of the constriction of the second is lessened, and he finds himself simply abiding, at the heart of his weakness and his woundedness, before a gaze in which he is both fully seen and fully loved.
Many minutes pass like this, though he is little aware of the passage of time. He only stirs when he hears footsteps in the sanctuary, coming up the aisle and passing directly in front of him. But here they stop. He feels that he knows those steps...or perhaps better, he feels that he knows that presence. Opening his eyes and looking up, he sees Tilliana standing before him. She faces the statue with her hands clasped before her and her head bowed, though in a few moments she turns back, and, smiling, nods to Eldarien. "I did not expect to find you here," she says.
"Nor I you," he replies, rising to his feet.
"What led you here?" Tilliana asks, looking at him with an unusual intensity in her eyes, as if she is moved by something of which Eldarien is not fully aware.
"I happened upon the temple unintentionally on my walk about the city," he explains, "and stepped inside both for warmth and for repose. And both I have found."
"It is a beautiful place," she says. "I did not know it was here."
"Were you not resting for the afternoon? Why did you come out into the cold?"
"I was looking for you."
"Really? I thought you said that you did not expect to find me here."
"Well, what I meant," she says, hesitantly, "is that I did not actually expect that my heart would lead me here. I didn't know...that the bond between us was truly so deep and so tangible."
"You mean to say that you 'felt' my location strongly enough to find me," Eldarien says, astonished, "with no other indications?"
"Yes."
"That's incredible."
"It is, isn't it? And yet it is simply true."
"Well, we are here together now," Eldarien says. "Would you like to sit?"
"No, I shall stand, thank you," Tilliana replies, lowering her eyes.
"Very well. But was there something you desired to discuss with me? You seem...how shall I say?...almost uncomfortable. Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing is the matter," she says, but then she pauses, and, raising her eyes, corrects herself, "Or rather, there is nothing amiss that has not been amiss already."
"You are grieving for what you witnessed this morning, and for all the many deaths of which it is a sign?" asks Eldarien.
"That is it, yes. In so short a time I have witnessed so much pain and loss, and felt it, too, in my very heart and in my very flesh. At times—times like today—it almost feels like more than I can bear. It is as if I could break at any moment, and simply cease… I don't know how else to express it. It is as though the pain would just break me like a fallen branch breaks under a trampling foot. I would still be here, but all my sanity would be gone, snapped asunder by a pressure simply too great for it to bear."
Pity and compassion surge in Eldarien's heart as he looks upon the pained face of Tilliana, her long blonde hair loose about her face, framing her skin rosy from the cold and highlighting her vivid eyes alight with the intensity of the reality of which she speaks. "It is a grievous pain of which you speak," he replies softly. "It is the greatest and deepest of sorrows which seems to stretch the mind beyond its limit, to call into question one's very sense of reality. It is like the solid footing on which you have until now walked is suddenly taken out from underneath, and you know neither where to stand nor where to walk, nor how to cope with the pain that hems you in on every side. Loss such as this can have an oppressive quality about it—I mean that it can feel not only like an absence, a tangible absence of the one whom you loved, and who is there no longer, but like a knife through the spirit's heart, ever turning and never at rest. And not only, Tilliana, do you feel the loss of those whom you loved so deeply, and thus hurt for their absence so keenly, but also I see in you—also I feel in you—how much you carry the sorrows and the losses of our world. And I do not wish to see you break."
"But the burden of such pain, how does one bear it?" asks Tilliana. "At times I can hardly imagine what you and Elmariyë must feel, bearing so much in yourselves. Even my own pains feel like too much for me, my own loss. And yet, nonetheless…"
"Nonetheless, even though that is the case, you cannot close your heart off to others?"
"Exactly."
"Would you not say that in bearing the pain of others, in a true act of heartfelt compassion, there is found a joy deeper than the sorrow, and a peace deeper than the pain?" Eldarien asks.
After reflecting on these words for a moment, Tilliana nods, and says, "You are certainly right. I know of what you speak. However…" And now she unconsciously shakes her head, both in denial as well as in a gesture that seems as if she is trying to rid her mind of some unwelcome thought. "But when it continues day after day, and the pain only deepens, with little hope of deliverance or freedom, then the weight begins to shift, such that the joy and the peace seem all but buried under the burden. When I saw those bodies in the city today, slain by the dragon, and when we stood around the emblems by which the cult summoned the creature, I felt such evil, such oppression. The evil was so tangible that it seemed I could hardly breathe. And the depth of sadness was so great that I felt I could weep for endless years and never find solace."
"Oh, Tilliana," Eldarien whispers quietly, taking her hands in his own and looking deep into her eyes. For a long while they do not speak but only look at one another, allowing their hearts to speak in the way deeper than words. But at last, Eldarien releases her hands and begins to speak again in voice, saying, "While I walked about the city today I was thinking of the reality of kingship that lies before me, granted that we receive such mercy that the path that we walk ends truly in victory rather than in defeat. It is a task and a goal that I would never have chosen for myself, and a part of my heart has recoiled from it, almost rebelled against it. And this, not because I am averse to the idea of being king on principle—for I see it not as an honor but simply as a service—for it allows many things that my heart deeply desires. Rather, I remember fancies that I had in my youth, long forgotten but emerging now into consciousness once again: fancies that a high king would return to Telmerion, and he would unite us all under a common mantle. And I imagined that his care and his guardianship were but a kind of universal fatherhood, and all the diverse peoples of our land were but many different siblings in a single family. It seemed foolish at the time, a wistful imagining or wishful daydream. Little did I know that such a task would be entrusted unto me. And I would be all but crushed by the weight of such an awareness, such a task, if it had not been preceded by—and continually held by—the awareness of a fatherhood so much more universal, and incomparably more secure. But in fact there is something more that I wish to say to you. I share it not only that you may know where I stand in regards to the journey that we are on together, but also so that you may know your place within it."
"What do you mean?" she asks.
"I know that you have felt before that your role in this quest that we share is one of little importance," Eldarien explains. "Rorlain too has grappled deeply with such a feeling, and in his grappling he has found profound answers that give guidance to his heart. But you...you just walk in a simplicity and a trust that touch me and move me. In other words, you are here among us, not because you want to provide some unique or irreplaceable service, but because you have found a home, because you have found security in the orbit of our love. And this, I dare say, is more important than any role or service. Yes, while the task and the service of every man and every woman is important, what is even more primary, giving meaning to all else while also surpassing it, is the pure mutual belonging of love. Indeed, it is the love of the Father of all, in which each one of us is made to be who we are, even before all roles and tasks that we may embrace in this life. The word remains with me strongly ever since our time in the Velasi forest, and I cannot seem to forget it: seikani, beloved. This is the wellspring from which flows all the richness of life and relationship, all the complexity and multiplicity of roles and tasks and responsibilities, indeed all the many beautiful and painful experiences of life and the very order of society itself...and to this sacred place all returns again at the end. It all returns to that gaze of love by the Father of all, which makes each one of us to be who we are, uniquely and irreplaceably beloved.
"From the first moments when I met you in your pain and your suffering in the ghetto of Ristfand, and especially in that profound instant when what was yours became mine, when both your life and your death, your sorrow and your grief, your joy and your hope, became mine—from that moment until now, when I have turned my gaze upon you—whether of the eyes or the heart—I have continually felt the confirmation of these words, even before I knew their ultimate origin. Tilliana, you are beloved. When I see you, I think of nothing else than this. And such an awareness is a confirmation for me of the true nature of kingship, indeed of all forms of custodianship in this world, be it the greatest or the littlest." He pauses and lowers his eyes for a moment, as if unsure of how to continue or uncomfortable giving voice to what he wishes to say. When he raises his eyes again, however, he continues in a kind and confident voice, "I suppose what I am trying to say at the end of all of this is that I wish to give to you that which your heart seeks, and which it has glimpsed, that it may be yours always, even if our fellowship is no more after our quest has come to conclusion."
"What do you mean to express, Eldarien?"
"I mean to say that, whatever the future may hold, I wish to offer a home to you for the one you have lost."
Looking into his eyes, Tilliana opens her mouth to reply, but finds it impossible to summon forth words. Instead, tears spring to her eyes, but before they are able to escape to stream down her cheeks she buries her face in Eldarien's chest and allows him to draw her into his embrace and hold her. At last, when she has found her voice, without even stepping back or raising her head, she says, "It is difficult to forget and to move on. To hope for a home again when I have so violently lost the first, and even more so when our world seems all but teetering on the brink of destruction. To accept such a gift again feels almost like too much to hope for, and even more so to ever desire again to bring forth life from my flesh, to create a home for the littlest and most vulnerable members of our race. I do not know if I could ever hold one of my own children in my arms again, without being overwhelmed by the fear of losing them. I am afraid that going through that again would break my heart forever." She falls silent again and allows her words to linger, knowing that Eldarien receives them fully and compassionately in the silence. So little are words needed between the two of them, whose hearts have been so deeply conjoined, that it almost feels unnecessary to give voice to the deepest movements of her heart. But necessary she knows that it is, that word and silence, feeling and voice, may join together in witness to the truth and in the communication, in the communion, that binds hearts together in all that they have and are.
And so she continues, "But I also feel deep within me that children are the hope of our future, and that the cradle of the family shall bear the spark in which so much loss shall again begin to be remedied. But...but we are not even at war's end, and I fear that we may never be. Is it not too much to plan for such a wondrous gift whenever we stand on the brink of death and destruction?"
Eldarien now holds Tilliana at arms length and looks into her eyes again, his own gaze full of compassion and tenderness. He says, "I understand your hesitancy to hope, and, insofar as I am able, I hold in compassion the loss and the fear that still burden and cripple your heart from the loss of your husband and your children. And yet my heart and my mind both say together a single word: what is hope but hope against despair? What is it but life confronting the threat of death and still believing in life beyond it? Yes, what is hope but clinging to life enduring and unbreakable, because held by the love that is indestructible, taking its origin not from any man or woman alone, but from the very Love that sang the world into existence? If that is the true matter of things, then how can we do anything but hope in the face of destruction, and reach out in the face of loss? It is not easy. It is perhaps the hardest thing of all. Trust gives birth to hope, and hope sustains love to its full consummation. That is the journey of the heart in this life, from love unto love, from beginning unto end. And I only speak to you in this way because I desire, in what little way I may, to give you hope in the darkness of your own life. In my heart I feel the call and the desire to be for you what you have lost, and to build with you a home that may cherish and foster the very beauty that in this broken world of ours is so threatened with destruction and loss."