Justin slept again that night in the home of Barker, Tory’s father, as he had since they had met two weeks earlier. Tory’s house like all those around it and in the town was of mud daub construction with a thatched roof, and roughly cut and uncovered windows. The bed they provided him was a comfortable mattress of sturdy woven cloth stuffed with dried corn husks. At bedtime after the family retired, Justin would remove the bed from a peg on the wall of the front room where it hung out of the way during the day, and carry it to the barn where he would climb to the loft and lay it just inside the opening, which was in the southern wall. Then he would wrap himself in his blanket and lie down to watch the stars come out until he drifted off. His sleep there had been as restful as any he had ever had in his own home. But this night his rest was not prompt. He lay awake late into the night, gazing out the uncovered window next to his bed, and thinking of his problem. Discussing it with Tory had brought it back to him as if it had happened only yesterday. Justin hadn’t been surprised at Tory’s passive attitude considering that he came from a clan whose men didn’t even mind the tyranny of Roth. Justin liked the gentle people but he could not understand why they put up with such treatment.
As the constellation Adlai, a man sitting straight and leaning a little forward in a high-backed, throne-like chair, climbed to its peak in the night sky, Justin finally drifted into a dream-filled sleep. There he again fought the battle that had begun his trouble, and again argued with his best friend over how to answer the challenge levied against his family. Repeatedly Justin insisted his friend respond to their enemy and offered to stand by him in any fight that ensued. Repeatedly his friend infuriated him by passing it off and insisting that it was all unworthy even of thought, let alone a fight. It seemed to go on forever, Justin growing ever more insane with rage, and his friend getting less and less interested in the whole issue. The argument ended as Justin denounced his friendship with the one who had been closer to him even than his own brother. Although the rending took place in a dream the pain was real, and he thought it couldn’t have hurt more to lose his arm than it did to lose this part of himself. Still the fury in his head and gut wouldn’t subside. He turned and walked away. As he instinctively walked the lane leading away from his friend’s home, the embarrassment, the rage it caused, and the pain of loss brought tears to the spilling point in his eyes. The night darkness was as heavy as a cloak thrown over his head. Still he fought the tears back as though they were the cause of everything that was wrong. Finally as he turned onto the common road in the direction of his own home, he could repress the physical reactions no longer. The anger and hurt churning in his stomach boiled over in tears from his eyes and vomit from his mouth. He leaned heavily on his herdsman’s staff and wretched by the side of the road, his abdomen convulsing again and again, until his empty stomach twisted into a hard knot and hung in his middle, waiting for him to relax so that it could. But he didn’t yet. He felt nothing for the moment. Just then he heard a low chuckle getting louder as a man coming down the road neared him. “I see you have no stomach for cowardice either. You’ve just come from Gareth’s place, am I right?” Justin looked up, his vision still blurred, watery and barely functional in the tangible darkness, to find that it was none other than Kegan who leered at him. Suddenly the numbness left him and feeling returned in one single blinding emotion. He felt nothing but hatred. The tears and vomit, the hurt, loss and anger – none of these were the problem. The problem was standing here, staring and laughing at him. His mind and eyes shared a moment of pure clarity. Yes, here was the problem, and he held in his hand the solution. The accusation against his friend was false and the damage done to his family’s reputation unfair. And yet the only way to rectify it all could mean his friend’s death. It was Kegan who deserved to die. These thoughts went through Justin’s mind in a split second and he didn’t hesitate as he raised his heavy wooden staff and struck Kegan with all his hatred beside his left eye. There was more shock than pain that crossed Kegan’s face as he sunk to the ground. Justin stood looking down at him for a moment, prepared to strike again if need be, but Kegan didn’t move. The one blow had been sufficient. He felt the black night air turn cold against the sweat on his forehead. Then a blue-white light penetrated the suffocating darkness illuminating the form at his feet. He raised his eyes to the sky just in time to see huge dark clouds parting to reveal a star-filled sky. The brightest of all were the blinding stars of Adlai, and as he turned his focus on them they blazed out with a brilliance like the sun at noon. Justin blinked involuntarily but could not look away. The constellation had assumed a real presence. Adlai was moving, as if to rise from his throne, and he was turning his shining face downward to the earth. His entire being was as white hot as the tip of a rod just drawn from a blacksmith’s fire, and as he slowly stood to his full height his form filled the sky from its lofty center to what seemed within inches of the horizon. For a moment Justin’s awe made him forget that he even existed. His entire consciousness was nothing but trying to take in Adlai, who had ceased to be a constellation and was now a real being, but still composed entirely of brilliant light. Then Adlai raised one iridescent leg and set his foot down on the earth. When he did a million sparks flew up as high as the trees and rained down in a sizzling shower of mirror-like fire. One of the sparks glanced off Justin’s hand and the indescribable, burning pain made him remember himself. But when he did he immediately began to tremble with fear and shame. He somehow realized that Adlai knew what he had just done and all else. He also realized how hollow his arguments of defense would sound if he were to try and make them now, even to himself, let alone to the being facing him, and Adlai was undoubtedly regarding him. Justin heard himself say, “I am sorry,” and the very sound of his voice terrified him. Where had he found the courage to speak, and yet he somehow knew an answer was demanded. Then Adlai spoke and his voice sounded like an enormous wave breaking on rocks. “The truth will be known.” Justin felt a calm sickness in his gut. He knew he would be condemned, but there was a strange peace in the fact. He knew he deserved it. The evidence lay at his feet, the blood still running fresh and dampening the ground around Kegan’s head. But with his rightful punishment would also come the end of his struggle with the problem of Gareth’s unanswered challenge. Adlai waited. He already knew the truth. Justin somehow knew this, yet he expected Justin to answer for himself. He honestly didn’t know what to say for a moment. All his thoughts on the problem, or his actions, as factual as they were, did not seem like truth in the presence of Adlai. They were all too weak. Only pure truth belonged here, and Justin realized all too clearly that he probably had never truly known pure truth. He closed his eyes and stopped trying to think of an answer. His mind became like the sky had been moments ago, cold and dark, and then the clear white light slowly appeared and grew and with it the knowledge of what he must say. When he spoke Justin was surprised at the calmness in his own voice. “I have judged this man as well as my friend. I have in vengeance slain this man.” The silence that followed was bigger and cooler than anything Justin had ever known, and was inseparable from the luminous air. The light coming from Adlai was liquid in its ability to saturate everything it touched. How long this quiet lasted Justin didn’t know. It might have been hours, or only seconds; but whatever the length of time, it was a waiting. When Adlai spoke again Justin resumed breathing without realizing until that moment that he had been holding his breath in anticipation. “My judgment will not be cruel. Let mercy infuse justice. You are forgiven.” The second the words were uttered the dream ended and Justin awoke filled with humility. The constellation outside the barn window had moved, so that Justin could see that he had been asleep for a couple of hours, but he felt exhausted, as if he hadn’t rested at all. He turned over putting the stars to his back, closed his eyes again and was soon back asleep. And once again he had a disturbing dream, which had been recurring lately. It troubled him because it was so strange and consistent. In it he saw himself wearing strange clothes and reclining on a large bed of highly polished wood, thick with soft colorful covers. He was not asleep, but turning and looking at the pages of a richly inlaid book. The walls of the room were the color of sheepskin parchment and just as smooth. The window beside the bed was perfectly squared and had panes of glass so smooth and perfect that you almost didn’t realize that they were there. Outside it was summer, and one leafy branch of a tree, overhung a corner of the window, moving almost imperceptibly in the breeze. The rest of the window showed a warm, orange evening with the sun already out of sight and the first stars beginning to appear. The fabric that hung around the windows was as exquisite as the covers on the bed, which was firm and soft at the same time, unlike anything he had ever slept or even sat on, and perfectly smooth, not more full in some places and less in others like any of the mats he’d ever used regardless of their stuffing material. And the floor was covered with a rug that fit perfectly to the wall in every corner and on every edge as if it had grown there. It was thicker than any Justin had ever seen or even heard tell of in a story. He never moved off the bed in the dream, but somehow he knew if he had, his feet would have sunk in that rug just as if he was walking in thick moss. He didn’t understand anything about this dream. Nothing ever happened as in usual dreams. He just saw himself there reading. He felt however, that if he could see the words of the book, that he would learn something important, perhaps even something that would help him know what to do about his dilemma. His slumber went uninterrupted after this dream. He passed on into blissful unconsciousness where he spent several hours.
