The Indigo King - James A. Owen [9]
“Barfield used the Latin word ‘spiritus’ as an example,” Jack continued. “To early man, it meant something like ‘spirit-breathwind.’ When the wind blew, it was not ‘like’ the breath of a god. It was the breath of a god. And when it referred to a speaker’s self, his own spirit, he meant it literally as the ‘breath of life.’
“What made this compelling was that I had already had several discussions along the same lines with John, Charles, and Ordo Maas in the Archipelago.”
“The shipbuilder you told me about?” asked Hugo.
“The same.” Jack nodded. “It began with the discussion of the similarities between himself, as Deucalion, and the Biblical Noah, and the fact that stories of the flood and great arks go back well before Gilgamesh.”
“But some are real, and others are myths based on the realities?” “There are different kinds of reality,” said Jack. “Barfield said mythological stories are metaphors in narrative form—but that makes them no less real.”
Hugo shook his head. “Language gives us the ability to make metaphors, but really, that’s all myths are, whether or not they were created around real happenings. Pretty them up all you like, but myths are essentially lies, and therefore worthless.”
John and Jack stopped and looked directly at Hugo. “No,” John said emphatically. “They are not lies.”
At that moment there was a rush of wind through the trees that pushed past the three friends and swirled down the shallow hill beyond. It burst upon them so suddenly and forcefully from the still, warm night that it sent a cacophony of leaves raining down from the branches, and it was nearly a full minute before the patter subsided and the walk was quiet once more.
They held their breath, standing still on the path.
“What was that all about?” exclaimed Hugo.
“Quiet,” said Jack. “Something’s changed.”
And he was right. Something had changed. There was another presence there with them, somewhere among the trees.
Unmoving, the three men looked about, but nothing seemed amiss. The streams burbled, the trees stood, somber, and the night was as quiet as it had been moments before. And then …
Something fell.
“Here,” John said, pointing off to the right. “It came from this small clearing.”
Cautiously the three scholars stepped away from the path and walked down the gentle slope, threading their way among the beeches and poplars to a small meadow that overlooked one of the streams. In the meadow, standing resolutely in the grass as if it belonged there, was a door. Not a building, just a door. It was plain, made of oak, and set into an arch of crumbling stones. A few feet away lay one of the stones—presumably the one they had heard tumble down from the frame.
All three of them noticed something else that was obviously meant for them to see: Painted across the face of the door in the same reddish brown color as the writing on the book was the image of the Grail.
Hugo turned slightly green. “If that’s more blood, I think I might lose my dinner.”
Jack let out a low whistle. He recognized the door right away. It was unmistakably one of the doors from the Keep of Time.
“But how can it possibly be here?” John said, answering Jack’s unspoken question. “And what’s the meaning of the Grail?”
“It’s not a coincidence,” said Jack. “It’s here because we are. I sense a trap.”
“That’s a bit cloak-and-dagger,” said Hugo, who was recovering from his initial surprise. “It’s just a door, isn’t it?”
“A door into some other time,” stated Jack, who was examining the door, albeit from a safe distance, “and from a place far from here.”
“Remember what the Cartographer told us,” John said. “The doorways were focal points, not actually the pathways themselves.”
“You say that like you know what it means,” said Jack, “when really, we have no clue how the Keep or the doorways worked.”
“I think you’re both getting all hot and bothered over a piffle,” said