The Face and the Mask

If you wear a mask, you fool the world, but never your heart.

Paul of Stone Heir marched up the hill, a spear in hand and bow slung over one shoulder. The song of the mountain lifted from his tongue and disturbed the gods. Paul of Stone Heir was on his to slay the Beast of the Inner Caverns of the Dark Mountains, where the gods and kings of old hosted terrible legends which all reached the villages below. Paul belonged to a kingdom ruled by a gentle king who was opposed to the mighty gods of the dark mountain. He claimed they were agents not of rule but of fear and darkness. So he sent Paul of Stone Heir, his son and most skilled warrior, to the Dark Mountain in order to defeat the most fearful of legends, the Beast of the Inner Caverns, a fire breathing dragon said to be wreathed in its own flame.

Paul kneeled before his father’s throne before his journey and said, “O my father and king, I will yet serve thee and die for thee on account of thy wish.”

And the King had replied, “Thou art fairest of fair, my beautiful and desirable son. Return with victory and you will be promised the crown, and your soon to be wife, Lily, the farmer’s son. (Whose cheeks bloom like spring roses and whose tears are like the dewdrops of the roses!)

Return with defeat and you will be received with mercy, and the hospital will arouse you for perhaps another attempt of victory. And even so the crown is yours and Lily, the farmer’s daughter, will be yours.”

Paul was surprised at his father’s grace and replied, “I am at a loss of words, my king. You would tell me, upon success or failure, that I would receive your crown and obtain the prize of mine heart and eyes?”

“Not for victory’s sake alone,” his father returned, “but also for the sake of revealing courage against the gods, you do this. It is a label of this kingdom and will set an example for all other dominions.” Paul was then blessed and knighted and sent out of the throne room. He had already gathered together his weaponry and soon stood armed at the city’s edge. He spotted the Dark Mountain storming in the distance. He saw the house of the farmer’s daughter nestled in the first trees of the forestland, and without a second thought decided he should visit her before he set off. The farmer’s daughter, Lily, saw him as he crossed the meadow, and her faces of roses was lit up with joy at the sight of him, thought it soon clouded with fear when she realized he armed as if for battle.

She ran to meet him and threw her arms around his neck.

“Where do you go so ready for battle?” she cried, laying her head on his chest. Paul set his young chin on her head and softly replied, “I go to defeat the Beast of the Inner Caverns, where ghouls and dead gods reek.”

“You mustn’t,” she said, tears shimmering in her blue eyes. “Surely this horrible beast will slay you and make your corpse a prize among its prey.”

“There is no cause for fear, dear and lovely Lily. I know I shall return, from a princely instinct within me.”

“Return with no treasures or spoils,” she said, “but merely bring back yourself, the boy that I love. Bring thyself back to me.” They kissed, long and beautifully, and just as the sun was completely blotted by the Dark Mountain, Paul of Stone Heir was off into the forest. And her kiss was still on his lips as he turned toward the valleys of the Dark Mountain. He began to sing from the joy that was inside him:

So much to see, O lovely world!

But such numbers are the wicked dragons who pursue it!

I will lay them in their graves….

All the gods will howl with rage because of me.

This was a ballad of the king’s own, and the very grass perked up at the sound of it!

Paul traveled by day and night, gathering strength from the beautiful nymphs of the stars who came down to him and whispered, “Please show them the kind Lord and King!” He hardly knew what they meant, but kept walking all the same, with eyes that never left the Dark Mountain.

He was strengthened by the fierce western winds and encouraged by the warm gleam of sunshine on his backside. All the while the Mountain grew bigger before him, and his terrible task was seemingly close at hand.

“Woe is me!” cried Paul. “Eyes were not meant to behold this doomful mountain!”

He had entered a dim thicket strewn with dead leaves and painful thorns, which choked any remnants of any lily flowers or roses that once grew in abundance around the ashen white trees. Suddenly a voice called from the mountain, deep and horrible, “Who dares enter the domain of the most high gods? Who would sacrifice his life to look full upon the sacred pillars?” Paul was angry that he fearfully shook at the sound of the voice. Nevertheless, he replied in his loudest possible lungs, “I, Paul of Stone Heir!”

The god, or whatever it was, said, “We deem you a brave man should you venture closer! The fear of the gods does not rest on folly. The legends of the Beast of the Inner Caverns is real. Come and see if you dare!”

“I have come to defeat the fear of the gods!” cried Paul.

“Ha!” shouted the god. “You, a mortal, think our glory can die? Impossible!”

“There must be a god who thrives this valor in me! Nor does man always comply to your will?” Paul demanded.

“Man is for himself and none other!” the god said. Paul could see the god clearly now as it sifted through the trees and halted some feet away. It had not the appearance of a man, but of a lovely woman, undressed and shining like the planets of dawn. Paul was dazzled by her and could not refrain from falling to his knees in awe. The goddess came closer. When she spoke, her voice was still deep, but noticeably feminine, rich in persuasion and dripping with luster.

“None can resist my loveliness,” she said. “And you desire me as I am! I can see it in your eyes! Dost thou not desire a mere prize, a trophy based on thy valor? Look at me!”

Paul did, and the goddess continued, “Does not my womanhood allure you? Does not my golden hair and ripe limbs hold you in a trance? Would you call us evil now, o fool of a mortal! For we were not created, but have been eternally endowed on the dark mountain as lords of all dominion. You are slaves to desire, and averted from virtue when you encounter your true selves.”

“My people are starving,” said Paul. “Crops wither under the curse of your wrath, and it is because we do not love thee and your tribe?”

“We demand no love, human, but only fear. Stone Heir does not fear the gods. So our fire will ensue your stubbornness.” The more Paul gazed at the goddess the more and more he found her beautiful and desirable, and his want for her grew so great that he rose and stretched out his hand so his fingers touched her bare shoulder.

“Ah, as I have told you, O man,” whispered the goddess, “your submission puts you in rank with the dogs. You will crave pleasure among yourselves and for a while be deceived in your concepts of love and virtue. But at my sight, your desire and fear are pledged into one and you can do nothing but what is made of you, and that is to grovel at our feet.”

“I would stay with you a thousand nights but never be happy because of the terror you can inflict upon me! O, woe is me!” Paul wailed.

“So you must come to the reality of the gods, human creature. You are to live in correspondence with your desires and nothing more, for a house of mindless want is all you are-the want to drunken yourself on wine and selfish pleasure-and by nightfall thou shalt know that thou art a creature of dirt without a mind, a mind able only of fearing gods and beasts.”

Paul moved his hand down the goddess’s arm, but amid it all he yet tried to defend himself. “You condemn men for lack of virtue. Why then do you punish us when we acquire it?”

“I never said there were no virtues,” replied the goddess, moving even closer. “Fear is your virtue! The only goodness comes from qualifying yourself with the league of mud, once you discover desire is always divorced from reason (reason doesn’t exist, so your ‘virtue’ doesn’t either), and thus, you are and will always be labeled as animals in our eyes. There is only fear. There is only knowledge of the gods, which is fear and fire. There is only final power among the gods.” Their faces were so close Paul could discern every movement in the goddess’s clear, yellow eyes. The goddess’s final sentences to him ran as thus: “What wouldst thou consider virtue at this moment, O mortal? For I am not ashamed to make a spectacle of your blind desire here. Your want is mere degradation compared to the beauty and terror of the gods! Tell me. Claim your virtue.”

“Virtue,” said Paul, shivering, “would mean being loyal to Lily for her sake.”

“I see,” replied the goddess. “But am I not so much more alluring? Do I not hold superior to your mindless Lily both in form and perfection? Does not desire crown me first?”

Paul, seeing that she was beautiful to look and impossible to deny, and since his valor was clouded because of her seemingly wise and infallible words, gave a cry of despair and shouted,“It does!” With no moment of hesitation he pressed his lips to the goddess’s (mainly to his own horror), dropping his weapons and forgetting about the prize of his eyes and heart behind him in Stone Heir. After he faced her again, he found himself gasping for breath and abruptly draped in iron chains. And without warning he felt himself being dragged up the mountain, undoubtedly to the goddess’s Inner Caverns where she would entertain him with terror and beauty.

Note: This story is a tale of sad defeat. Recall the star nymphs. (Tell them about the kind Lord and King!)