The Tor - 28. Chapter 28

The wind drove sheets of rain across the summit. Christopher climbed the last few steps towards the circle while Marco remained behind. The ancient stones emerged and vanished again beneath curtains of spray. Water streamed between them, carrying soil and broken leaves towards the cliffs.

Christopher stopped within the circle. For a long moment nothing happened. The storm roared around him.

Then, quite naturally, he became aware that someone else stood opposite him. Vale.

He looked more tired than Christopher ever remembered him, his hair darkened by rain, clothes heavy and wet, his face drawn with exhaustion. He seemed almost transparent, as though the storm itself had shaped him from wind and memory.

Neither man spoke.

Christopher found that he no longer felt afraid, only profoundly sad.

Vale regarded him steadily. "You came back."

"Yes."

"You were free to leave."

"I was."

"And yet you returned."

Christopher nodded. "I chose to."

Something passed across the priest's face. Pain, perhaps. Or relief.

"I never understood why you always came back."

Christopher looked around the ancient circle. "I don't think any of us did."

The wind rose again. Vale lowered his eyes. "I have seen you both."

Christopher frowned. "You remembered?"

"Only fragments." His voice carried immense weariness. "Without understanding what I was seeing. The ritual bound me to this place by guilt rather than chains." He touched one of the standing stones with trembling fingers. "I remembered enough to know that I had done something I could never undo."

Christopher had imagined anger for so long that he scarcely knew what to do with the man standing before him.

"You have spent two thousand years here."

Vale smiled faintly. "As surely as Marcus has spent them searching."

Christopher looked at him carefully. "And you have been waiting."

"Yes."

"For what?"

"I did not know."

Rain ran from the priest's hair onto his shoulders. "I hoped that one day I might understand what I had broken."

Christopher stepped closer. "I thought I hated you."

"I know."

"I blamed you for everything."

"You were entitled to."

Christopher shook his head. "No." Vale looked up. "I blamed you because it was easier than imagining what really happened."

"And what was that?"

Christopher drew a slow breath. "A man watched someone he loved die."

Vale closed his eyes. "I watched my son die."

The words vanished almost beneath the storm.

Christopher stared at him. "You were never my father."

"No," he admitted. "But I became the closest thing you had." His voice faltered. "I taught you to read the stars. I believed one day you would stand where I stood." His expression crumpled beneath grief that had survived twenty centuries. "I buried your parents."

Christopher felt his throat tighten. "I had forgotten."

"You were twelve."

The memory stirred faintly. A hand upon his shoulder. Long evenings learning old stories beside the sacred fire. A patient voice correcting mistakes during prayers.

Christopher suddenly understood why Celyn had looked at Vale with such trust. "You raised me."

"Yes."

Vale looked away towards the sea. "Then Rome came."

Silence settled between them.

Christopher spoke quietly. "And Marcus."

A faint smile appeared. "You looked at him the way your mother once looked at your father." His eyes filled with tears. "I saw it long before either of you believed I had."

Christopher blinked in surprise. "You knew?"

"I hoped I was mistaken."

"You never said anything."

"I could not." The old priest's shoulders sagged. "I was trying to protect you."

Christopher looked at him. "From Rome?"

"From losing everything." The words carried all the helplessness of a man who had watched history approaching and possessed no power to halt it. "I thought that if I could keep you upon the old path, then perhaps the world would not change after all."

Christopher felt the truth settle slowly inside him. "You were afraid."

"Every day."

"You thought I was abandoning you."

Vale nodded once. "I thought I was losing my child."

Neither spoke for several moments. Rain continued to run between the ancient stones, though Christopher scarcely noticed it now. He understood something that had never occurred to him before.

Marcus had spent centuries refusing to release the man he loved. Vale had spent centuries refusing to forgive himself for failing the son he had raised. Each had remained fixed upon the same evening.

Each had believed that one impossible act might still undo it.

Christopher met the priest's eyes. "You've been trapped too."

Vale laughed softly. It sounded almost like weeping. "Did you think I escaped the words I spoke?"

Christopher slowly shook his head. "No. I think you have been standing here ever since."

The priest looked around the ancient stones. "In one way or another."

Christopher took another step until only a few feet separated them. "I forgive you."

Vale flinched as though struck. "You cannot."

"I can."

"You do not know what I did."

"I know enough."

Christopher's voice remained steady.

"You loved me."

"You feared losing me."

"You believed you could prevent death."

Christopher looked towards Marco, waiting beyond the circle.

"So did Marcus." He drew a slow breath. "I think I would have tried as well." Vale stared at him. "The three of us have been making the same mistake." The priest's face became still.

Christopher continued quietly. "We believed that love meant refusing every farewell."

Rain washed silently across the stones.

For the first time since Christopher had begun remembering, Vale's expression lost the strain that had defined every vision.

He looked simply tired.

"I never wanted eternity," he whispered. "I only wanted one more day. One more evening. One more supper. One more morning believing you were still alive."

Christopher felt wetness upon his own face, though he could no longer tell whether it came from rain or grief. "I know."

Vale closed his eyes.

"Go home," Christopher said gently. "You don't have to keep watching us."

Rain continued to fall across the ancient stones. For a moment Vale remained perfectly still. Then the rain passed through him.

Christopher blinked.

He was alone.