In the ninth year of his wandering the little prince had become little more than a shadow of the youth who had once received the vial beneath the bridge. Sickness clung to him relentlessly. A wasting fever burned in his blood, his limbs trembled with weakness, and each step upon the road cost him great effort. Many times the hunters came close. Royal soldiers and hired men pursued him through forest and mountain, and only the selfless courage of the underground brethren kept him alive. These faithful souls risked their own necks again and again, hiding him in secret places, bringing what food and medicine they could, and guiding him by night along hidden ways.
In the darkest hours, when pain and despair pressed upon him like a great weight, the crystal vial would sometimes shine with a clear and gentle light. Once, while he lay half dead in a damp cave with enemies searching nearby, the light grew strong enough to ease his fever for a time and give him strength to go on. These moments upheld him, yet they also tried his soul most fiercely.
More than once he was sorely tempted to give up. In the silence of the night he would whisper, "What more can I do? Men will not hear. I have offered the mercy until my strength is spent. Perhaps I should find some quiet corner and wait for the end." But always the memory of the Bishop rose before him, standing fearless before the swords, and the solemn charge of the angel upon that snowy night returned to his mind. Then his hand would close about the vial and a quiet resolve would return. He reflected deeply upon himself and upon all mankind, seeing both the darkness that lay in every heart and the faint possibility of light. "I have been tried even as the vial is tried," he thought, "and while breath remains I will not fail the trust given me."
At last, when the tenth year drew near its close, he came to a small and forgotten village far from the noise of cities. There, among humble cottages and quiet fields, he stayed to wait. His body was utterly weary and his spirit worn thin, yet a strange calm had settled over him. Through the underground brethren came news of the kingdom's final decay. The nobles still held their feasts and danced in lighted halls while the poor starved. Riots flared in the towns only to be crushed with savage cruelty. Luxury and violence walked side by side across the land.
Yet there were also small, scattered lights. Here and there a soul who had once refused now sought the secret brethren in repentance. These fragments of hope brought the little prince a quiet comfort. He sat often in the evening looking out over the fields, his heart filled with peace and sorrow mingled together. "The time is nearly come," he said softly. "I am ready."
Then the plague came, exactly as the angel had foretold, and without the slightest warning.
It began with a strange silence. Birds ceased to sing. The wind seemed to carry a foul sweetness upon it. Within a single day the people of the village began to fall. Men and women woke with black sores upon their skin that spread like fire. They burned with fever so fierce that their bodies seemed to cook from within. The sickness struck the strong and the weak alike. Children died in their mothers' arms, their small bodies twisted in agony. Strong men screamed like animals as the pain tore through their bowels and lungs. The dying choked on their own black blood.
Soon the horror spread beyond all imagining. Roads became choked with corpses. In the cities the dead lay piled in the streets because there were none left to bury them. Hunger followed the plague, and hunger brought forth a deeper darkness. Men turned upon their own families. The little prince saw with his own eyes a father kill his son for a scrap of bread, and worse things still, things that made the stomach turn and the spirit recoil. In the countryside desperate souls roasted the flesh of the newly dead. Neighbours who had lived in peace for years now fought like wild beasts over a handful of grain or a cup of unclean water. The air itself grew thick with the stench of rot and death, and great clouds of flies rose from the bodies like a living curse.
Those who had once rejected the little prince now sought him in frantic terror. His own brothers and sisters, the proud nobles, the mocking merchants, and even the beggars who had fought over the vial came stumbling to the village. They fell on their knees before him, their fine clothes in rags, their faces twisted with fear and pain.
"Save us!" they screamed. "We were blind! We were fools! Give us the mercy now, we beg you!"
The little prince looked upon them with a heart nearly torn asunder. Anger, grief, and a terrible pity warred within him. "You believe at last," he said in a voice heavy with sorrow, "but it has come too late for so many."
The crystal vial was nearly dry. He gave what drops remained, letting each drink directly from it while any mercy was left. The underground brethren, though few and scattered, worked without rest. They buried the dead, tended the suffering, and tried to keep some last shred of order amid the ruin. But the plague raged on, devouring the kingdom like a beast that could not be satisfied.
As the final light faded from the vial, the little prince stood amid the horror with a grief almost too great to bear. "They have finally believed," he whispered, "yet it is too late."
The world had become a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
ns216.73.217.14da2
and then Add to home screen.