The Knight’s Last Vigil in the Garden of Vanished Dawns
A knight of battered valor treads through valleys steeped in sleep.
His armor, once a second sun, now rusts with whispered years,
And sorrow’s ivy clings to him—a cloak of unshed tears.
The road, a serpent coiled in mist, hath led his weary feet
To gates of iron, twisted black, where ancient thorns compete.
A garden waits beyond the grille, its air perfumed with rue,
Where time dissolves like ash in wine, and dreams assume their hue.
He lifts his visor, gauntlet scarred by battles long forgot,
And breathes the scent of jasmine spun from fate’s entangled knot.
The archway looms—a maw of stone—its teeth in moss embraced,
Yet through its throat, a spectral light spills gold and silver traced.
“What guardian denies me pass?” he calls, his voice a wraith,
But silence hangs, a pendulum, till petals stir beneath.
A figure steps from lilac mist, her gown a twilight storm,
Her eyes twin pools where drowned stars glow, her form both flesh and form.
“Sir Knight,” she sighs, “this garden bears no fruit for hands of strife.
Its roots drink deep from hearts that bleed the nectar of lost life.
Turn back, lest thorn and memory carve maps upon your soul,
For here, the past is sovereign, and futures unroll whole.”
He kneels, though creaking iron protests the weight of mortal toll:
“I seek no spoils, nor glory’s blaze—my quest is but to stroll
Where beauty dares eclipse the grave, where pain finds purpose fair.
Grant entry, Lady of the Veil, to one beyond despair.”
Her fingers brush his pauldron, cold as comet’s trailing breath,
And in her touch, a thousand springs uncoil from winter’s death.
“Then enter, child of cloven hope,” she murmurs, “but beware:
The garden gifts what mortals lack, then claims its tender share.”
The gates scream open, hinges choked with vines of bleeding white,
And suddenly the world is scent—a symphony of night.
He walks through rows of roses forged from twilight’s molten ore,
Their petals etched with faces loved, now ash on war’s grim shore.
A marble fountain chokes the dark, its waters black as spite,
Where serpents carved in alabaster writhe in frozen fight.
He bends to drink—the liquid burns like winter’s sharpest kiss,
Yet in its wake, a vision blooms of all he’d deemed amiss:
A castle’s torchlit banquet hall, a lady’s stifled cry,
Her lips a scarlett oath unkept, her gaze a stormy sky.
“Elaine,” he gasps, the name a blade plunged deep in ribs of guilt,
But shadows drink the memory, and once more night is built.
Beneath an oak whose branches weep slow tears of amber sap,
A child’s laughter spirals up—a ghost within his lap.
“My son,” the knight begins, but lo! The breeze steals forth the sound,
Replacing it with clashing steel on some far bloodied ground.
The tree’s bark splits—a gash reveals a heart of splintered bone,
And from its wound, a voice intones: “You left us both alone.”
He staggers back, his greaves ensnared by roots that pulse and twist,
While phantom winds chant requiems through leaves of amethyst.
Yet on he presses, deeper still, where lotus lanterns float
Above a pond that mirrors not the stars, but sins remote.
A bridge of silver, thin as grief, spans waters thick as years,
And halfway cross, a shadow sits—a shape that breeds his fears.
It wears his face, but younger, whole, with eyes untouched by night,
Its hand outstretched in mockery of fellowship or fight.
“You dare,” it hisses, “tread this path, you architect of woe?
Each step you take is theft from those you felled to feed your glow.”
The knight’s sword leaps—a viper’s strike—but meets no flesh to maim,
And through his foe, he sees reflected his own soul’s dark flame.
“I am the sum of choices made,” the specter croons, “the cost
Of every life you trampled that your hollow code be glossed.”
The blade drops, ringing on the bridge like bells from sunken spires,
And in its peal, the knight beholds the pyre of his desires.
“Then take your due,” he whispers, “rend what worth this shell retains.
If justice blooms in gardens, let my blood feed these sad plains.”
But laughter greets his forfeit—cold, unearthly, razor-edged—
As doppelganger fades to mist through which new light is pledged.
“Not penance, fool, but clarity this labyrinth imparts:
You are both wound and dagger, both the tempest and its hearts.”
Alone once more, he crawls ahead, each stone a judgment’s weight,
Till through a final arch of thorns, he finds the garden’s gate.
A meadow spreads—a sea of blooms that drink the moon’s pale milk,
And at its center, stark and still, a throne of petrified silk.
Upon that seat, the Lady waits, her crown a braid of rue,
Her scepter but a withered branch where once sweet roses grew.
“Approach,” she bids, “and claim your due, thou pilgrim of the vain.
The garden takes, but gives in kind—now taste eternal pain.”
He stumbles forth, each flower’s breath a dirge in dulcet tones,
And as he nears, the throne’s true form is laid before his bones:
A cairn of swords, of shields outworn, of helms with visors cracked—
The aggregate of fallen knights whose virtues fate has sacked.
“Behold your kin,” the Lady mourns, “who sought this place’s lore,
Each one a hero, proved and pure, yet broken to the core.
The garden grants no absolution, nor soft forgetfulness,
But shows the self behind the shield—the truth you dared suppress.”
The knight falls prostrate, armor clanking like a hollowed bell,
And from his lips, a final plea: “Then let me perish well.
If I must be remembrance’s slave, then carve into this stone
‘Here lies a man who loved too late, and died for what he’d sown.’”
The Lady smiles—a crack in dusk—and lifts her skeletal hand:
“Your epitaphs are writ in ash on shores of shifting sand.
But for your courage facing shadows that lesser men deny,
I grant not peace, but purpose: become the garden’s eye.
Stand vigil here for those who’ll tread this path in morrow’s light,
A statue forged of contrite flesh, to guide them through their night.”
His protest dies—a moth’s last wing—as stone invades his veins,
And in his chest, a single rose, blood-crimson, blooms with pains.
Now travelers who brave the gate at twilight’s haunted hour
May glimpse a knight of granite grim, his stance a crumbling tower.
The rose still grows, its roots entwined with ribs of fractured pride,
And petals fall like tears each dawn to float on time’s dark tide.
They say his eyes still track the moon with grief’s unyielding sheen,
A sentinel of shattered vows in gardens evergreen—
Where every thorn remembers, and every breeze repeats
The cost of seeking grace in lands where mercy ever retreats.
“`
