Beginnings & Endings: Tristan
O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark
TS Eliot: East Coker
Tristan left Caergollo at dead of night. He parked the car by the bridge at the bottom of the village and continued on foot to the harbour. The way was slippery. Jagged rocks and old ropes caught at his feet but, somehow, all his old strength had returned to him. He felt young again, as before the disease. Rounding the final corner into the harbour itself, the wind caught him, hurling him backwards. He got up, laughing, and pushed his way forward to the edge of the stone quay behind which the calmer waters of the harbour hid from the wild sea.
There was a hint of brightness ahead of him now, lighting the edge of the sea with silver. He stopped a moment, watching the powerful swell running into the bay. Moonlight grew, showing the half-hidden path. Cut away by wind and water, it led him upwards, towering two hundred feet above the waves. In crevices, he caught the scent of tufts of sea-pink, flourishing on the barest smidgeon of soil. The ocean beat deafeningly against the sheer, black walls and the sea-cave howled below, laughing at him as he followed the slippery path around the edges of the chasm.
He laboured up the long, narrow spur, while the west wind beat him back, disputing his passage.
‘I am coming,’ he told it.
Wind and waves laughed. He felt the excitement thrill across his skin. Tonight would be the last and the first day of his life.
Reaching the top, the headland stretched out into the water. The moon had risen further behind his back and would soon bring the foot of the pathway to the cliff edge before him. He waited, watching the light slither over the sea to stop right at his feet where he stood poised at the top of the three rough stone steps that led out into nowhere. Now, as the moonlight joined with the stone, he stood at the end of the silver pathway. Looking up he watched the horizon unfold. The lost land lay straight ahead of him at the end of the moonpath, floating on the horizon at the edge of vision. Beyond it only a bright darkness and the end of the world.
Below, the sea boiled. Waves thundered, shaking the rocks. The way was clear now out to the Isle of the Dead. Tristan stood a moment, balanced against the wind then stepped out onto the shining moonpath.
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