A world is coming out of the dark, something terrible and grand is taking shape before your eyes: you hear horses, the clanking of metal, a Wild Field stretching endlessly in all directions. It rolls out in front of you like turf. Everything sounds too fast. You look to your left and right, and find your comrades looking to you: a healthy Marszowski, men you know to be both living and slain, all the princes and lords and senators you've ever met. Yes, yes, you are on the battle-line again. A bright day, but there is no sun in the sky. The blue stretches on and on, the blue of the Virgin.
She is somewhere amongst those barbarians. You smell rosemary and lavender on the wind, facing the heathen host, all arrayed under their banners, dull in parts, glistening in others, and you know that behind them lie their captives. "I'm here, Stanisław," she says, whispering in both ears at once. "Come to me. I need you."
You draw your saber and it's blinding with gleaming light, like staring into the sun itself. Your pistol already steams and smokes with dragon's breath. You call for the charge but do not hear yourself.
Men move like they're underwater, drawing sabers languidly, cranking the wheels of their pistols as if performing surgery. Trumpets blow from the skies, and a brilliant light forces you to avert your gaze. You see flashes of wings and longswords and a shining cuirass, a revolving wheel of fire. A voice booms in an ancient tongue.
But you must look down, you have to. Now, everything is fast, impossibly fast, as your horse flies as quickly as an arrow, clods of dirt flying up past your peripheral as if levitating. Sound returns: the pistol fire that should be deafening instead echoes quietly all about you, your men screaming battlecries – they're words, they're words! – but you can't make out a thing.
You try to look up into the sky once more and, though blinded by the Heavenly Host, you realize that your saber has become as Saint Michael's, with flames shooting off of a white-hot core. You roar with righteous fury as the faceless Tatars approach, flying up to meet you as if falling toward the ground.
"Stanisław." You cannot leave her, you cannot leave her, you cannot leave her.
You take a great swing and a row of heathens ten abreast go up in smoke, their horses free to run as they please. All around, pistols boom with that strange quiet, men battle on horseback and roll about in the dirt, grappling. You swing your flaming sword once more, and take another chunk out of the Tatar line, leaving nothing but cinders and smoke where foemen once stood.
You slash for an inordinate amount of time, like a man clearing brush. It could've been a minute, it could've been an hour. And then you see them. A huddled mass, supine or on their knees, shackled together.
"Mariana!" You can at last hear yourself. "Mariana, I'm here!"
"Look at me, Stanisław, look at me," she replies desperately, everywhere and nowhere. You whip your head around searching for her. "Keep your eyes open and look at me."
You shove captives aside, clawing and pulling and asking their half-formed faces for help. "Mariana!" She sounds close, then far, then close again.
Something terrible and painful shoots through you. It's coming from your lower half, and hurts worse than anything you have ever felt in your entire life. "He'll break his teeth," you hear her say. "God – oh, my God!" She sounds terrified. "Stanisław!"
Water pours from the sky; you look up and are nearly drowned, filling your mouth, stinging your eyes – it tastes of vinegar. They gave Jesus vinegar. You sputter and spit and call out to her: "where are you? Where are you?"
"Your eyes, Stanisław!"
"It's nothing, don't worry! Nothing at all." You wipe at them furiously. "My love, where are you? Nothing. Nothing. It's nothing. Holy Virgin – Mother – what is–"
You look up again. Where is everybody? It's nighttime. Silent. Except for that ringing again. Things are turning black and white and all shades of gray. The battle is over. The bodies sink as if in a mire, bubbling up and fizzing as they descend into nothingness. Your vision closes in on itself. Was it a victory?
You burst out of the ocean, gasping for air, choking on vinegar. A man's voice in the nighttime. "Give him more, keep him calm." You're swigging something that burns. You have to swallow or you'll drown in it. A woman is crying, other voices mutter prayers in Latin. Someone touches your forehead, smearing some sort of substance. You pinpoint that terrible pain: your right leg is cold and on fire, an awful pressure from above.
…Misericordiam adiuvet te Dominus gratia Spiritus Sancti, ut a peccatis liberatum… An echoing voice. So far away. Keep breathing. It is hard. Keep breathing.
I am breathing. I am here. I am asleep and awake. I can taste my own mouth.
Another dousing with cold water. This time that's what it is. Water. You smack your lips. "Ligature, surgeon, fast, now." That's only a memory. You had surgery this morning, remember? They put ligatures on you then. You hear something hiss, and smell cooking meat. "Plaster, surgeon."
Focus hard on opening your eyes. Since when were they closed? You know you can do it. "Please, please," a woman pleads.
"Linen," says the man's voice. "The salts."
A terrible smell in your nose, like piss and rot and burning. Cloth shrouding the bottom half of your face; it's wet, it reeks. They're embalming you. You suck in more air, and your eyes fly open. You feel very cold. You're exhausted. You could sleep for a thousand years. You were sleeping. Sleeping, sleeping. Your nostrils feel singed. A man's hand withdraws. Voices from below.
Princess Mariana Sapieha Radziwiłł is staring at you, brown eyes alight and saucer-wide, close to your face. She is framed in white and cream and a sunbeam, her hair done up and face powdered, streaks down from her eyes. She's from a dream. This is a dream. "Don't look down, don't look down. You're awake. Look at me."
[] "I'm dead."
[] "I'm dreaming."
[] "You're not real."
[] "How long has it been?"
[] Just look at her.
[] Try to sit up.
[] Close your eyes again.
