SQUARED CIRCLE TRASH

Tears were now gathering in Shawn's eyes as the knight kept staring, enraptured, at the dull chalice set atop the crumpled remains of an altar, dipped in a single ray of blinding light. It was eery to see sunlight this deep below the earth and Bret wondered through the drumming in his head how somebody had managed to carve out the shaft that connected this crypt to the surface.

Through blurring eyes he watched Shawn fall to his knees in gaping awe from where the old knight had set him against a pillar. There was already the dull throb of needles in his thighs as the blood left him too rapidly. His arms felt as numb and thankfully so did his sides where his armor was caved in as if squeezed together by a giant pair of tongs.

“I will chase you through hell for this”, Bret managed to bite out between two breaths that rattled his lungs.

But Shawn never so much as turned to him. “I have found it”, the man whispered, repeating these four words over and over again as he crawled up to the altar like a groveling servant to the feet of his master.  

Had he not been fatally wounded, Bret would have gone into a furious rage. Time and again he had tried to get through to his old rival, to get him to turn back when they still could or to at least leave Bret behind when they had descended too deeply into the stooping, meandering corridor they had found amidst the ruins. But something had come over Shawn; it was strange to witness: The man had been illuminated with blissful resolve as soon as they had set foot underground, something more than mere determination pulling him forward and granting him the strength to carry Bret's dead weight with him. It was almost like the breaststroke of a shipwrecked man who had discovered land on the horizon. And frankly, it was scaring the Lord of House Hart more than any Slavic giant on the battle field.

While Shawn seemed to firmly believe he had saved Bret, Bret knew he was going to die slumped against this pillar. After all, they really would end by the other knight's hand as he had predicted those many years ago as he had struck Shawn's face with the leather of his glove. But the halls of his father were a lifetime away now. He was only surprised he was not bitter about the Fates' victory over his soul, his resentment leaving him together with his lifeblood.

Shawn all the while had slowly and carefully taken the dusty chalice from its resting place and pressed it against his chest in reverence, his face upturned into the sunbeam, lips moving in silent prayer.

The image began to swim before Bret's eyes, blurring further until the drumming in his head was more like a constant, painful roar.

Just then, Shawn turned to him, holding the chalice gingerly like an egg. To Bret, he was little more than a shadow against the piercing strip of light in his back. “I'm sorry, Bret”, Shawn croaked with desert-dry throat. “I'm sorry and you were right. I can see that now, you know. I am sorry for lying to you all these years, Bret.”

At any other time, Bret would have been elated by the concession, triumphant in his petty victory over their old argument. Now, though, he could only sit here and bleed out into his armor.

Shawn continued undeterred by the silence, moving to kneel at his side: “And I can also forgive you. I can finally see it all now. And you will, too. The Lord has led me here with you, Bret. I will save you and we will return as better men. We all have to go through the fires, we all have to face trials. This is ours. And it led us to this!” He held the chalice so that Bret could look at it but to his dimming eyes it was nothing more than a simple, silver cup, dusty and dulled by desert sand.

“This is it; the cup that never empties, the vessel of the Eucharist!” Shawn breathed.

There was death pulling at his eyelids now and Bret had to fight the urge to simply stay awake but even he could see madness gleaming in Shawn's eyes.

“It is not”, Bret tried to say and “You have doomed us, fool” but he wasn't sure he had really moved his mouth despite all his stubbornness to cling to this, his consciousness.

He thought of his proud, old father who would never be able to bury his beloved son, he thought of his brothers and sisters and sweet cousin. Of his wife, of England's hills and forests and rough sea. He tried not to think of Owen who was surely waiting for him beyond the veil, a tempting respite.