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That night was pitch black. A thick layer of heavy cloud covered the sky in the evening, and it refused to go away until the dawn. Not a single ray of moonlight managed to scrape through this cloudy wall. Along with the clouds, a chilly wind came, announcing the end of the summer. The wind was strong, noisy.
Nights like this belonged to witches, devils, ghosts, lost souls, forest demons and black cats. Every sane man, woman or child had taken cover behind walls of huts, taverns, barns, castles or any other buildings available. Those who weren’t lucky enough to be near any settlement, hid in tents and caves.
And under the cover of this devilish night, a lonely rider galloped headlong through the darkness. He was either reckless or trusted his horse more than he should have. The horse wasn’t extraordinary in any way, it didn’t come from any prominent stud farm, neither was properly trained. It was a young mare, with a regular bay coat, its trot and canter rather uncomfortable for riders, making travelling on long distances painful. Because of this problematic gait, the horse had been rejected by four knights, and finally was given to Henry, who was a peasant, and even the lamest, limping mount was more than Henry could have dreamt of. So he endured the uncomfortable gait.
Henry had named the horse Roach, like a fish. He’d been thinking of buying a better mount, but getting a proper amount of money wasn’t an easy job.
Roach was growing tired, and slowed down. There was a dense forest in front of them, an animal scowling somewhere among the trees. Henry never stuck to main roads, he liked to cut corners. He was young and inexperienced, just like his horse.
He entered the forest with no track of fear in his heart. Branches were hitting his face while Roach was scraping through the thicket. It was so dark he could barely see the horse.
His eyes were adjusted to the black depth of the night so when he noticed lights, it felt almost like trying to look directly at the sun. The lights came from behind the trees, probably still far away. They were nothing like he’d seen before, too white to be fire, yet only a whole settlement being on fire could have caused such size and intensity of light. Even if the colour was slightly off, he assumed there were people in trouble, maybe attacked. He nudged Roach to trot faster.
After getting a little bit closer, the lights became so strong they could be compared to a small sun hid behind the trees. Nothing like flickering fire. No screams could be heard. The forest was silent, all animals seemed to disappear, even insects.
Henry bit his lip, doubts growing in his dead. Something was off. He’d never heard of anything that could cause something like this. Maybe black magic. He was usually rather sceptical, but in that moment he was considering all tales and stories about witches, magic and the Devil.
He should have turned back.
The lights were tempting. Henry could almost hear voices calling his name, begging him to come closer. Like a mindless moth, he carried on. Roach was protesting, but he was firm.
He reached the sharp edge of the forest where fields took over.
Never had he been so scared and so fascinated at the same time. He lacked vocabulary to describe what had been shown to him.
A giant, glowing shield was hanging in the air above the fields. It was impossible to truly estimate its size, seemed to be as huge as a mountain. The shield was casting lights like a thousand torches were attached to it.
The view in front of Henry, it was either a miracle or a result of the darkest magic and the dirtiest rituals. Maybe it was an angel descending from heavens to talk to Henry, maybe it was the Devil waiting to capture Henry’s soul.
Roach wasn’t able to endure this anymore, and the horse reared and threw Henry off its back. He barely noticed this, all seduced. His vision got blurry, and he couldn’t walk straight, just like after drinking too much wine.
The horse broke into a gallop and disappeared in the darkness. Henry was all alone with the strange phenomenon, lured, helpless.
He craved to embrace the light, to be swallowed by it. Every clumsy step was bringing him closer to the miracle. It felt like coming back… home.
The rational part of his brain tried to come up with an explanation. Had he died? If yes, how? How it was possible he didn’t remember the moment of dying, yet he was on his way to meet God?
But the rational part of his brain soon got silenced. Since the dawn of humanity, it hadn’t been uncommon for thousands of curious humans to have dreams about flying like a bird, exploring the sky, the realm not available to them until inventing advanced machines. Approaching the glowing shield, Henry experienced something close to these surreal dreams about flying. Something was dragging him up, straight to the core of the glowing shield. He couldn’t feel ground below his feet. The overwhelming feeling of flying higher and higher caused weird sensations in his stomach, made his skin itchy, sent shivers over his spine. Nothing of these was painful, just strange.
Anything that happened later didn’t make much sense.
Henry felt dizzy, drunk, feverish. Even if he had learnt to read and study all books in the world, he wouldn’t have been able to explain or portrait images seen by his eyes.
He managed to deduct certain facts about what was going on. First, the shield was a flying, magical ship. Henry had never seen sea nor ships. He could only guess, and it seemed logical to assume that there were ships which sail skies instead of seas.
Second, Henry knew we wasn’t alone. There were other living beings, interested in him, talking to themselves, yet their speech was just gibberish to Henry. He couldn’t focus his gaze, but he had an impression of seeing human silhouettes, with incorrect proportions, like painted by an unskilled painter.
The ship was so full of bright light that Henry’s eyes hurt. It resembled getting too close to the sun. Maybe this is was what had happened — they had flown up to the sun. But it was night. Where did the sun hide at night? Had the ship found the sun’s hideout?
Many years ago, when Henry had been a little kid, he’d asked a priest what angels looked like. The priest had provided a simple answer: you would not comprehend what you see, child.
Shapes didn’t make any sense. Neither did textures.
A sudden wave of memories came, and Henry saw the fall of Skalitz again, heard screams, smelled blood. But this time it was different. Someone poured a sweet juice to his throat, to say it tasted like a sweetest apple from the lushest apple tree wouldn’t be enough to describe this flavour. Henry’s memories didn’t vanish, but they stopped causing so much pain. It wasn’t an acceptance nor resignation. It was something else — a gentle consolation.
The angels — because who else it could have been — gave Henry a moment to rest after experiencing intense emotions. He napped, the first true rest after weeks of hardship.
Angels woke him gently, wishing to show him something. And Henry was granted the gift of knowledge.
Just like the priest from his childhood had predicted, Henry wasn’t fully capable of comprehending of what the angels showed him.
He saw the world, the whole world, much bigger than he could ever imagined — a blue dot hanging in void, like an eye of God. He saw the sun, hundreds of times bigger and stronger than his world; it was keeping close and protecting several small dots of different colours and sizes, like a mother goose guarding her offspring. His mind almost went crazy when Henry saw how many suns-gooses were there, with their chicks staying close to them.
He felt so small among giant, shining gooses and colourful dots, each of them being a world like his own. He realised priests and scholars underestimated God’s creation. They assumed the existence of only one world and only one kind of people, but why would God have been so restrictive? Maybe this was the true, original sin, this awful underestimation of God’s capabilities.
Angels allowed him to explore a little bit, to see some of these different worlds, with skies of different colours. He asked them if he could see everything, every single dot, but the angels scolded him for such a brave request.
They offered him something different instead of exploring every single dot — an insight into his own soul. In this head he heard words of a prophecy: one day you shall love a man as you loved a woman; your heart may crave for a kind of love still unnamed.
Far beyond comprehension were wonders Henry had experienced. When the red sun was rising on the east, angels gently carried Henry down to the world of mortals, where he belonged. He lied in the wet grass until the sun climbed the sky. Roach, his unperfect, but royal mare came back and nudged his face with her nose. Henry opened his eyes and saw the world, bright, warm, welcoming. Real.
Henry knew something extraordinary had happened. Something sacred. His mind hadn’t fully processed it yet, and these memories were about to return in the right time.
There were no trace of the flying shield, neither on the sky or on the ground. It came back to the realm, a place locked from the curious eyes of humans. Henry was the lucky one to catch a glimpse of it, and nobody could tell why he’d been chosen. There was nothing special about Henry, he wasn’t the smartest nor the strongest nor the bravest. And maybe this was the deciding factor, this mediocrity.
He was hungry and thirsty, luckily a nearby stream and a chunk of dried meat filled his stomach just enough. A memory of the sweetness of the tasty juice came back. Was it something angels ate on a daily basis?
They’d promised him something — you shall love a man. It made so much sense to him. God was the ultimate love, and Henry was given a tiny bite of this love. He could love a man as well as a woman. He wondered what kind of a man would became his future lover, and he had no idea.
When the sun — the giant mother-goose — reached zenith, he saddled Roach and restarted his journey. There were so many things to do and even more to see. Maybe he would met scholars capable of explaining of what had happened to him.
But the truth was a secret only angels knew.