In the morning, bright, they set forth, the mist still thickened about the legs of the horses. Their sword, as yet by their side, were sharpened and their spears were wrapped around with the colours of their knighthood. Into the forest, darker upon dark, they followed close on the raking claws of the Plague Beast, until they came to see it, sat in a clearing. Vivainne motioned for her companions to ride around the clearing, so that they might come at it from the third of a side.
At her signal, all three rode out from the cover of the forest and showed in the light, with their great spears in hand. The Beast looked around from one to the other and opened its jaws wide in a great yawn of fatigue. Slowly the warriors came close until the beast was unable to move without some injury.
Vivainne addressed the beast thus. Tell us, foul and vicious Beast, why it is that you have come to trouble the innocent people with illness and death. For this reason and this alone we have come with the single intent to relieve you of the spark of life. Do not excuse yourself with tales of impartiality or songs of indifference. Be warned, we are armed with the bright certainty of reason and cannot be moved by lies and intrigues.
The Beast looked at Vivainne with most woeful stare and spoke in a cruel voice, whilst drool fell from its jaw. I am lost, I am lost, I have come here to vanquish you all. I have spread the rumours of fake news through the land to undermine your vaccine programmes, saying that this vaccine is somehow different from all the other vaccines that protect the population against disease, and to promote ideas of infringed freedoms to those who would be most receptive to my lies. But I have only managed to fool a small percentage and now that my powers are weakening, I shall have to accept that I can no longer rampage through the population and only the unvaccinated and the vulnerable will suffer at my claws.
That is a sorry tale of skulduggery. Said the Blue knight, prepare to be extinguished.
Is there nothing that might deflect your weapons, cried the Plague Beast, I do not exist! Nobody has died! It is all make believe, promoted by some weird unknown organisation that is trying to control you! Surely you must be drawn to believe some of my rumours! They are very tempting in a world over which you have little or no control.
Your lies are transparent to us, and we will cut you down, called Ser Constance.
With that the Knights flew into battle, the Beast laid about with its claws such that the Blue Knight was thrown to the ground with a dint in his armour. Constance and Vivainne plunged their spears deep into the beast’s shoulder and neck. Still the beast was not vanquished and shook away the spears. Rising above The Blue Knight it made to fall down upon him with its open jaws and sharp claws. The Blue Knight drew his sword and steadying his stance, he raised it to point at the place of the beast’s heart. The beast made to smite the Blue Knight, but his raised sword pierced it, like Frodo did to the Great Spider, Shelob, in the Lord of the Rings. Except that in this instance the beast was slain where Frodo only wounded the spider.
They cut the plague beast to many pieces better to see with what it had been fashioned. The legs were huen from dark metals of bigotry, hard and rough to handle, about them wound many thick roots and vines of deception. The body was covered with mighty scales of iridescence coloured, cloaking in finery the true terror of its body. They prized these off one by one to gain access to the inner beast. When the heart was laid out, it was filled with heat and wind given by the speeches of tyrants and false prophets. What devilry it is to take the sacred simple truth of a word and bend it and break it and darken it until, although it still maintains the appearance of its true self, it is twisted, broken and wrong.
The three knights took the words out from the heart of the beast where they lay cracked and lacerated. They cleaned their wounds and gave them succour, feeding them with light and loosening the constrictions of untruth. Soon the words sat up and became near to their true selves once more.
The word ‘Great’, had been mistreated so badly that no one might recognise it or understand its meaning. In days gone by it had contained pieces of quality, eminence and wonder. But in the times of the beast, the word ‘great’ had become ruined in the beast’s twisted heart. All things were called great or the greatest, even when they were not, so that the people became weary of the word and put it aside.
Next sat up the words ‘Take’ and ‘Back’ and ‘Control’, good solid useful words in the past which had been covered in skeins of nationalism and become something new and dangerously seductive.
Let us take all these words into the light, said Vivainne, they shall all be renewed and become useful engines once more.
That eventide as they rested at the edge of the clearing the Blue Knight wrote in his journal.
We have slain the Beast but our work here is not yet done. We must take all the words that we have found in the heart of the beast and give them new homes where their meanings might shine true.
He replaced his quill and lay to sleep.
The Guardians of the Cave 