The Myth of The Veiled One

Short story for my fiction, thought I’d share:

Long ago in the country of Evenei there was a General of the King’s Army. In those days, the King had taken it into his head that the city was afflicted because of a witch who lived in the hills. There was a famine, but the land belonging to the witch was reportedly rich and abundant.

And though she would speak only with prominent men, the King was loath to be seen treating with witches. Therefore, he asked his General to visit her on his behalf, in order to request some of her magic seed, that they may feed the people. This the General did, but the witch was offended that he offered nothing in return. She refused and sent him back, but secretly, she had placed a flea in his clothing. Soon after that the palace became infested with fleas, and the King believed there was a curse over them.

So he sent the General again to treat with the witch, to ask her to give them seed and also to relieve the curse. This time the King, though grudgingly, sent the finest gilded sword his smiths could produce as a gift. But the witch laughed at this gift, and mocked and derided it, and accepted it not. She utterly refused to help. Instead, she took inspiration from the King’s superstition and spoke a secret curse over the sword so that it would always miss its mark and slay the one who wields it.

The General returned, having failed, and gave the sword into the King’s keeping. When the King learned that the attempt had failed, he grew wroth, and mobilised a division of his army to slay the witch and take her land for the good of the people.

Thus the company went to march, vanguarded by King, and the General at his right hand. They came to the land of the witch, and the company established a perimeter while the King went with his General to treat. She was gardening. The herald announced the King, but she ignored him. The King addressed her;

“Traitor, kneel before your King.”

“Let your people take heed that you stir yourself not to help them, but to slay me. Kneel before yourself, for I take no kings.” She looked not up from her earthwork.

Enraged, the King drew the sword and charged at her, but at the last moment he stumbled, and fell, and impaled himself.

“There,” the witch said calmly to the General, “witness the fate of the proud, and take heed.” And passing him, she carried her basket inside her tiny house.

The general followed her, leaving the herald in the garden. The herald ran immediately back to the line to inform them of what had happened, and as the news touched their ears, they charged.

The house had only one room. The General observed the witch’s basket on the table, full of exotic fruits ripe to the point of bursting, but he was the only one in the house. Upon examining the furnishings, he discovered a richly coloured tapestry hanging on one of the walls which altogether seized his attention. In it he saw now one image, now another, and yet another, all interwoven in the fabric, seeming to collide and tumble through each-other.

It seemed to him as if he was standing there for hours before he heard a rhythmic beating of drums, and suddenly, to his astonishment, a woman was revealed within the pattern of the tapestry. She turned herself toward him, dancing seductively with many gossamer veils of rich and beautiful colours. Her eyes were dark-lined, and her features all obscured. She danced with a sound of bells and of rustling silver chains, giving him the impression of a living flame of fire, and of a coiling serpent. He fell into a stupor of affection for her, becoming enraptured, intoxicated by her beauty, and was tangled up into the tapestry.

The soldiers of the army stormed the house, but found nobody. So after scouring the house for spoils, and searching the surrounds, they ransacked the witch’s garden and made their way back to the palace.

The General remained behind, embracing the Veiled One in that place where She hides. She showed him great truths, explained to him his nature. She showed him visions of history, highlighting Her movements across the centuries, winding like a serpent. He saw that unless they came to know Her, his people would unwittingly complete the work of their own destruction.

He began to feel a deep urgency. She assured him it was a sign of the times and warned him to remain with Her, for the fate of the world and of other men was none of his concern. But he was unable let it go and it pulled him from Her.

Eventually he asked his mysterious Goddess directly to let him leave, and She denied him not. He came out of the tapestry as if out of a trance- it was as if all this time he had been standing there, simply observing the pattern on the wall. So he left, noting the advanced state of dilapidation into which the house had fallen, and that the earth where the witch had tended her garden was now barren.

When the General returned to the palace, he found that he was no longer a General welcomed at court, but a fugitive who had abandoned his King. There was now a new King. The ex-General was thrown in prison to await trial.

Throughout his imprisonment and his trial, he was kind and generous with all who come across him, telling them of the Veiled One and Her secret truths, of Her presence among men, Her power in history, and Her warnings for the future. He was taken for a raving lunatic, and it was agreed that his time away had driven him to madness, though this absolved him not- he was sentenced to hang.

His blind faith and foolish haste began to fall away as it dawned on him that he could not bring about what he had thought to bring about. All at once, his power withdrew from him and he saw it was not his power which carried him, but Hers. He became as one who is no-one and nothing, frail and brittle as an empty shell. Thus his desperation returned with even greater force and threatened to crush him. He cursed himself, for he knew now he should have remained with the Veiled One. The salvation of men did not belong to him, but to Her, yet She is rejected by men. He was among those to have rejected Her, in the hope of influencing others. He felt ashamed, and a failure, and at that moment, She whispered to him.

“Fear not, for I am with you.”

He saw a movement in his cell wall. A veil withdrew, and there She was, in the very substance of the wall, as if She had been there all along. He fell on his face and cried out.

“As soon as I turn away, I am lost! How now shall I navigate these circumstances of my ending?”

But She embraced him, and spoke not, and Her silence was pregnant with a meaning too much and too little for words to convey. He was still and silent now, and breathed deep, measured breaths.

The day of the execution came, and he walked as one whose wits have left him. He came to the gallows and faced his death, yet to the observers, he seemed altogether elsewhere.

And when the King’s law had been fulfilled, and the hanged man cut down, it was seen by all those looking on that he had died with a smile upon his face.