Philip of Trier - Part Eight

The voices in the Guild Hall Tavern all spoke to Philip of Trier.

“On with the story.”

“Don’t stop now.”

“Tell us more about Alphonse’s night with Clara.’”

Now the dark man, the master of the hounds and the warden of the night, asked in a voice that seemed to blend into the question everyone was thinking.

“Tell me more. Tell me more about Clara. It has been so long since I have heard my story I can barely remember her.”

But, another voice said, “We have had enough of that.”

But Philip was his own man now and told the story the way it demanded to be told. Form and content were the same and neither detracted from the other like the brush strokes in a painting. Philip continued after he took a small sip of Southern Comfort. Now, Philip showed them how Alphonse had torn himself with remorse for her. He let them see it all, the color, the sounds Alphonse heard. He made them feel that they cared what happened. As they cared they forgot their moment and touched something greater than themselves that lasted forever, or so it seemed.

********************

As Alphonse prepared himself to cross the river Styx he asked himself these questions:

Where has Clara gone since I hurt her and called her a slut? Where did she go after I called her a royal slut and she cut me? How has she made me do this thing, to try to kill the beast that cannot be killed?

When she came to my monk’s cell I could have turned her away. I could have turned her away. Now the image of her and I together is constantly before me.    

Clara, Clara, Clara, the wind whispers her name.

********************

Alphonse’s trip to the river seemed to only take a few moments and the moments seemed an eternity, and Alphonse’s life seemed to be but a tiny ripple in the sea of eternity. Then there was indeed a boatman with very boney arms and hands and an empty cowl for a face. His boat was waiting for Alphonse at the river Styx with and the boatman, hand outstretched who said: “Pay the toll unless you would rather swim across.”

And then boatman added, “And be quick about it, this is not a pleasure cruiser.”

Alphonse reached inside his pouch and handed him a silver coin. Then the boatman motioned with pole in hand, that he come aboard.

There was a dog in the back of the boat. His name was Cerberus the hound of Hell who turned out not to have three heads to rip sinners to pieces, but rather was a large black lab that seemed to like everybody. His tail made a thumping sound as it wagged against the bottom of the boat. It was said that theologians had speculated about the possibility that dogs might have souls and get into Heaven, but it turned out that if they did they were like Cerberus, and would prefer to follow their owners into and live with them in Hell.

The boatman who was only a robe and empty cowl, some very bony arms and legs, said:
“One-way or round-trip?”

Then the whole river bank filled with spectral laughter as the boatman continued with his little speech.

“A very few have gone both ways, maybe a couple of handfuls. Once, of course, there was this father bought his son a round trip passage. What a pain he was, almost put me out of business. He nearly wrecked the place with that dammed harrowing and he took about a third of the folks down here out with him.”

The boatman continued as he placed a bony hand on his non- existent chin.

“The guy had a former side kick named Judas, but no matter what he did Judas was not leaving, no he just sort of sits around and bullshits with my boss Lucifer, who also, it turns out, worked for this guy’s father till he couldn’t take it anymore. But that’s another story.”

Just at that moment somebody woke out of a drunken sleep in the audience in the Guild Hall Tavern, woke from dreaming of a very wet kiss from his favorite barmaid only to find his face was being licked by a very large and friendly wolfhound.

Then he said, “Did somebody say empty cow around here, what the hell is an empty cow.”
Then he went back to sleep. He smiled and liked it at first, then realized the dog was not his girl.

Philip continued his story as he described the underworld where Alphonse crossed the river Styx.

The underworld glowed with its own luminescence. It shone with a greenish pall. Alphonse started to remember. He remembered what he had done that had made him a master of the craft of death.                

.**********************************************

The dark man nodded for Philip to continue. And he did so in a carefully paced voice, and they all walked with Alphonse.

*******************************************
For a man to kill a god who will drag Clara into Hell he must lose his soul so that the beast will have nothing to take from him. With no soul, death becomes the gift of peace into the sleep that passed all understanding. He had no soul to take.     

But one must be brave to chant the chant of the death song which kills your soul so that even the beast cannot take it. That was the gift for which Alphonse’s mother had paid so dearly. It never had been the water which had made him invulnerable. Perhaps she knew he was part of something more than the moment.

Alphonse sang the song that was inside the box which Carlo had given him as he started on his decent. The box held the signs; the signs it held were the sighs which were the words. Ella: lllllaaa: klaaaa, mlliii, the words from the signs which turned Alphonse’s soul to dust. Though he lived on in mortal form without his own vulnerable self, the beast now appeared in full material and mortal form in Hell. It had nothing to take from Alphonse.

The beast drove to him as he had the others, teeth and blood and devastation and claw. Free now, and mortal, the beast appeared as a great wolf and this time Alphonse's eye did not tear as he reached into his cloak. Alphonse held the beautiful scorpion crossbow in both his hand and lifted it up and pierced the beast's now mortal heart. The beast died in bliss released from all the weight of what he was.

He had tricked Alphonse into giving him his greatest gift, the gift only Alphonse could give, the gift of death. Now it was all so clear to him. Now the beast made clear to him that the bride he really wanted was death. He had tricked Alphonse. Into paying the bride price for it with his soul, but in all of it Clara would be free, though she would never see Alphonse as her savior. She would only see the beast when she saw Alphonse; sometimes you pay that much for something.

*****************************************                  

Then a series of questions seemed to come from everywhere.

"What a strange story," said the innkeeper.

What happened to Alphonse?"

"What happened to Clara?

"Tell them the rest,” said the warden of the night and master of the hounds.                  

*********************************************

Philip had now kept them awake by his talking past midnight. Tomorrow morning, they would be back at their trades. All were safe at least for this night. In the prologue Philip of Trier put it simply:     

Alphonse had bought a two-way ticket. Hell was a place with another mouth, and it lead back into the world. But few could find it.  His mortal feet touched solid ground. The guards let him back into the city with only a nod to them. He was just a tall older man, harmless not worth challenge.
Alphonse walked to Carlo’s inn. His work now done, he wondered how he lived without a soul. Carlo still saw Alphonse as a man, but one now hollow though his sacrifice. Not much past a dark dream.

Carlo spelled it out to Alphonse.

"If you see Clara now she won’t see you. She will see the beast as if it comes to take her, and she will die. The old gods have asked you to make the world run as it would."

Clara had no further part, past marrying and living happily ever after, and Hell got a new custodian as it always does, but not a beast this time, a man named Alphonse who had no soul.