* * *
The Silver Knight thought about attacking Lord Stansbury’s Abomination when he saw that demon walking away from him into the woods. It was that demon that first showed him Lord Stansbury. It was that demon that knighted him and set him upon his quest. But that demon made him pay for his knowledge. That demon confused the Silver Knight the way that demons often do because ever since that night when he had blown open the fabric of space and revealed the dark evil thing that lived beyond the bridge… ever since he left the Silver Knight bent, bloodied and broken by the side of the lake… well, it seems like that demon had been changed himself. He was somehow less… demonic. The Silver Knight was confused by very few things but that demon confounded and perplexed him to the point that he tried not to think about the beast anymore than he had to… which meant only when their paths would cross, which they often seemed to do. That demon would, more often than not, make a quick retreat. The Silver Knight did not think that demon feared him. He did not see how that could be possible given the physical prowess that demon was known to possess. That demon was more likely than not to be of service to the Silver Knight and his quest so he chose to let the beast go on its way once again.
He walked as quickly as possible to his humble keep. He learned that to linger too long after a battle with the dark lord meant answering the inevitable questions from the local constabulary. It was… difficult. He learned early on to mask his speech from those did not possess the fortitude needed to accept the truth. After his first defeat at the hands of Lord Stansbury, he made the mistake of revealing the black knight’s identity to one of the King’s guardsmen, Officer Paul Godwin. Godwin pretended to understand the nature of the Silver Knight’s foe. Godwin said he understood, but Godwin’s tone belied his skeptic’s heart. Godwin thought him a weak-minded fool and affected his transport to the King’s asylum. Upon arrival, Godwin mocked him.
“Good sir knight. May the King’s physicians attend to your mind and banish your enemy.” Godwin mocked him.
The Knight understood then that others could not see what he saw…could not see how he saw. How could they? They had not been through the trials of the demon and seen through the fire that could not burn. He had been given the gift of true vision. The problem was that the reality of his true vision… the real things he could see and feel and fight… was hidden from most. He had met one or two others, the mystics and hermits and, yes, that demon, who could see it or feel it or know it to be true even if their senses failed them. But most of the people would never see… would never know. Most of those people thought him mad because to them if you could see something they did not or believed something they did not then you were mad and needed to be confined or placed under the influence of foul potions and elixirs that would banish the true vision. Those things did not work on him they way they wanted. They made his head fuzzy and robbed him of his focus and determination. But the true vision was always there. The Black Knight’s laughter was loudest when the Silver Knight could not find the will to fight. He did not know how long he spent in the asylum before he learned how to speak to the physicians as William Kurtz, resident of Stansbury, Vermont.
“What is your name, son?”
“Lord William von Kurtz.”
Then the pills. The blue one. The pink one. The white one. A cup of juice.
Then the activities. Sitting. Walking. Painting. The puzzle of the covered bridge. 5000 pieces of “The Most Photographed Covered Bridge in the World” which was not Lord Stansbury’s Abomination. Gil told him once that a shopkeeper nearby that bridge made the best maple syrup donuts in all of Vermont. The Silver Knight sometimes thought that Gil was obsessed with maple syrup and its products.
“What is your name, son?”
“Lord William von Kurtz.”
Then the pills. The blue one. The pink one. The white one. A cup of juice. The Silver Knight never drank juice after he left the asylum. He did not trust it.
Then the activities. Sitting. Walking. Painting. The puzzle of the covered bridge - 1,145 pieces placed.
“What is your name, son?”
“Lord William von Kurtz.”
Then the pills. The blue one. The pink one. The white one. A cup of juice. The Silver Knight learned from Gordon Baylor, a thief and sometime bard who had been placed in the asylum to “silence the voices” that it was possible not to take the pills at all. He began with the blue one. He held it under his tongue as the juice washed down the others and then, later on, disposed of it with his physical waste. Gordon did not understand why he would not hoard his pills to trade for tobacco products. The Silver Knight did not believe in polluting his body or the world. His mind cleared somewhat, freed of the blue pill’s gauzy dungeon. He could still not focus very well due to the lack of sleep. Part of the blue pill’s magic apparently counteracted something in either the pink or white pill and let him sleep. Gordon told him that the voices wanted the Silver Knight to die, that they were afraid of him. He believed the voices were avatars of Lord Stansbury and began to stay on guard against surprise attacks. The Black Knight was obviously frightened that he might escape the asylum and take up the fight once again. Around that time, he stopped taking the pink one.
“What is you name, son?”
“I am uncertain.”
“Of your name?”
“Of my existence.”
Then the green pill. Then the sleep. Then the shot. Then the blue pill. Then the juice. “Open your mouth, please.” Then the pink pill. Then the juice. “Open your mouth, please.” Then the white pill. “Open your mouth, please.”
Then the activities. Sitting. Walking. Painting Lord Stansbury’s Abomination. The puzzle of the covered bridge - 3,723 pieces placed. He started noticing the subtle differences in style between the bridge that had been crafted by human hands and the one built by Lord Stansbury. The Most Photographed Covered Bridge in the World had clean lines that intersected naturally. There did not seem to be any impossible angles or dark runes and symbols integrated into the scrollwork. Also, the Most Photographed Covered Bridge in the World seemed to serve a useful, mundane purpose, crossing a small river that rambled through the road. It did not seem to be a portal through another hellish dimension to a location its creator had been banished from. The Silver Knight could not really be sure, though. After all, he had never visited the Most Photographed Covered Bridge in the World to verify its lack of supernatural purpose and even though Gil had avowed that the maple syrup donuts were “out of this world,” the Silver Knight was fairly certain his friend, the squire, spoke in hyperbole and the donuts also contained no supernatural purpose. When he mentioned his belief about the donuts to Gil, there was some disagreement. Gil insisted that the donuts could “raise the dead.” The Silver Knight was curious to test that once Lord Stansbury’s Abomination had been destroyed and the Black Knight defeated.
“What is your name, son?”
“Lord William von Kurtz.”
Then the pills. He avoided them and all his faculties returned after a short while. For some time he went about as if under the spell of the foul poisons.
The activities. Sitting. He hated just sitting but he was supposed to spend time just sitting so he just sat. While he sat, Lord Stansbury had fashioned a weapon out of Gordon. Gordon tried very hard to kill him three times. The first time Gordon tried very hard to smother him with a throw pillow from the couch in the sitting room. The Silver Knight under the spell of the apothecary, sat passively during sitting time and had no volition not to let Gordon try very hard to smother him until a pair of guards pulled Gordon from him.
“Why did he try to kill you, son?”
“His weak mind has been possessed by avatars of Lord Stansbury.”
Gordon was placed with the violent “patients” of the asylum for a time. When they finally released him, he came to see the spellbound Silver Knight to apologize for trying to kill him. The trouble was that his apology was in the form of the sitting room pillow trying very ha
rd to smother his face.
“Why did he try to kill you, son?”
“The poor fellow’s mind has been tragically altered by the demonic dark magic of Lord Stansbury. I do not hold him responsible for his actions.”
The final attempt came after the Silver Knight returned to his right mind, free of the blue, pink and white pills. Again, during sitting time, he sat quietly. He did his best not to draw attention to himself and if they required him to sit, he sat. Gordon, released after months of “treatment” in the violent ward, was led into the room and seated as far from his target as possible. In no time at all, he was running towards the Silver Knight armed with his folding chair. The Silver Knight just sat and waited to be struck. He did not want to draw attention to himself.
“Why did he try to kill you, son?”
“I don’t know, doctor. I was just sitting like I was told to do. I’m supposed to sit during sitting time so I sit.”
The physician nodded sagely and returned him to the sitting room where he sat. Walking. He tried very hard not to run. He tried very hard to avoid walking next to Gordon. Painting Lord Stansbury’s Abomination. For some time, he had been painting around the bridge. Every tree, rock, the lake, a moose… everything but the bridge. One of the physicians commented on the empty space in the painting where the bridge normally corrupted the landscape.
“Didn’t there used to be a bridge there, son?”
“Why spoil a perfectly lovely lake with a bridge, sir?”
“Why indeed?”
The physician nodded sagely and went on to the next patient, Lucy Patterson, who had been painting the same “self-portrait” for as long as he had been in the asylum. Her self-portrait was a small blue circle, about the size of a medium orange. She would paint the circle, focusing on “making it perfect.” At the end of each session, she would scream.
“It can never be perfect! Fuck it! Fuck it!”
Then she would white wash the canvas and leave.
“It’s looking good today, Lucy,” commented the wise physician… hopefully.
“I think I might have it today, doctor. I think I might just have it.,” replied Lucy…hopefully.
The puzzle of the covered bridge. 4987 pieces placed. No pieces remaining. The Silver Knight was not pleased with the incomplete puzzle. He had been working on the puzzle for so long that he never gave thought to the notion that the Black Knight might try to sabotage even this, the most innocent of projects. It was not even his bridge! It was the Most Photographed Bridge in the World just down the road from Gil’s donut heaven and it had nothing to do with Lord Stansbury’s Abomination except that once he finished it, he would make his final arrangements to leave the asylum – but he could not leave the asylum until the puzzle was complete and without the missing pieces the puzzle would never be finished and he could never leave. He looked around at the other prisoners. Perhaps one of them had been secretly sneaking pieces away from his table when he was involved in other activities. The guards were supposed to make sure that the puzzles and other works-in-progress went undisturbed, but the guards were lazy and wholly lacking in honor. He had become convinced that Saul Glassman, the guard from Montpelier who had dreamed of taking over his uncle’s antique business because it suited his nature, had taken his pieces in the service of the Black Knight. He tried to get Saul to talk about it without giving away that he was not nearly as “cured” as the physicians recently began to suspect. Saul, however, could only talk about how much he wanted to get out of the asylum himself and work at his uncle’s store.
“You just sit there on the side of the road sneaking a beer or two from time to time while tourists come in and poke through all your old crap. Occasionally they try to talk you down and occasionally you give them a deal to make them feel better about being so good at negotiating or some such thing but you don’t really care because it’s mostly just junk anyway and who would ever pay good money for something like a thirty year old 8mm film camera when you can’t even buy film for the damned thing and, if you do and get it developed, you’re just going to transfer it to video anyway. But some tourist comes in and offers you 15 dollars for the thing marked 20 and you give it to him because the thing was only going to rot in a box anyway and so you get 15 bucks and maybe the guy buys some tourist trinket you got up by the register and you make an extra few bucks because the guy thinks he got a deal. Mostly you just sit there on the side of the road sneaking a beer from time to time watching the cars fly by. That’s what I want. So you can’t finish your puzzle, huh?”
“No, Saul. I cannot.”
“Saul, eh? Not Master Glassman?”
“Is that what you prefer?”
Saul gave him a look and smiled a little. “For a nutter, you’re a sly one, you are. But who am I to tell a soul? I don’t know where your pieces made their way to. Mr. Hannigan probably ate them, if you ask me. Tell you what, though. You’re a crafty guy, your lordship.” Wink. “Why don’t you just conjure up some pieces? You got a complete picture on the box there. It’s that Most Photographed Bridge in the World, isn’t it?”
“It is. I hear they have good maple syrup donuts nearby.”
“Yeah? Nah.” Saul was done with him and chuckled away.
He looked over at Mr. Hannigan. He did not know much about the old man except that he was kind of the scapegoat for everything that happened around the asylum that no one cared enough to care more about. He did not think Mr. Hannigan ate his puzzle pieces. He did not think Mr. Hannigan did any of the things that were blamed on him, like all the missing pies last spring. The cooks in the kitchen always made pies in the summer. Every patient was given their own pie and they would get a piece for eight nights in a row until their pies were gone and then there would be no more pies until the following summer. They were given a choice of apple, cherry, blueberry or strawberry. He always picked blueberry. He did like blueberry pie quite a bit. His parents took him to the Wilton Blueberry Festival in Maine every August when he was a child and he fell in love with blueberries. Even in his darkest hour, a piece of blueberry pie cheered him up. After his parents died, Gil or Sheriff Hamilton brought him fresh blueberry pies whenever they were in season. He loved blueberry pies. They were…happiness. He did not get a blueberry pie last spring because someone stole all the pies. No one knows what happened to them because there was no evidence that anyone could find that they ever existed. He assumed it was the work of the Black Knight who wanted to deprive him of any kind of happiness, even something as simple as a blueberry pie. Everyone assumed it was Mr. Hannigan because everyone was always saying that Mr. Hannigan ate it if something went missing. But the Silver Knight knew it was not Mr. Hannigan. It was never Mr. Hannigan. But Mr. Hannigan did not care if they blamed him. He just sat there, staring out the window and smiling about some little thing he saw out there that was worth smiling about. The Silver Knight realized that there was little he could do to recover the lost pieces. Whatever devious mind had conspired to remove them had long since made sure that they would never be found again. It was a setback, yes, but he was used to setbacks and would not be deterred in his quest to complete the bridge. So he made the missing 13 pieces. He made a template for each piece using the construction paper they gave them for crafts. He carefully cut out the template using a small piece of wood he had sharpened against the floor and kept secreted away where the guards could not find it. He used the cardboard from the puzzle box to craft the pieces themselves and, once he had placed the blanks into the puzzle, he meticulously painted each one so that except under the scrutiny of a trained eye, no one would be able to tell his pieces from the ones that came with the puzzle. And it was done. He tried very hard to hide his hubris at the completion of the Most Photographed Covered Bridge in the World. He failed just a little. Saul came over to look at his completed work.
“Good job, your lordship.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you done with it now?”
“I suppose so.”
&
nbsp; “Good.”
Saul began to sweep the puzzle back into the box, breaking the pieces apart. Destroying the bridge one snap at a time, a little grin on his face.
“Why are you-“
“Mrs. Patterson up on the third floor has been asking after this puzzle. I told her she’d have her turn once you were done with it. You are done with it, right?”
The Silver Knight watched as the pieces tumbled apart into the box. It was so easy. So easy to destroy a thing…a puzzle…a bridge…a puzzle of a bridge…a bridge. He could leave now.
“I am finished here.”
“Good!”
With that, Saul packed up the box and took the puzzle away.
“What is your name, son.”
“Will Kurtz, sir.”
“Not Lord William von Kurtz?”
“No, sir. Just Will. Sir.”
The physicians were skeptical at first. They took some convincing that he no longer believed himself to be the Silver Knight. But he persevered and they finally relented. He now knew how to be Will Kurtz when he needed to be. The demon had taken those pieces away from him that made him Will as well as the Silver Knight. But he fashioned them from whole cloth and now he could be Will again and the physicians believed him. What they did not know, even if they suspected it, was that he was still the Silver Knight. He was still charged with the quest to destroy the Abomination. He now knew that he did not have to tell everyone about it, at least those who could not understand, because if they knew what he did about the demons and evil in the world, they would hide themselves away in asylums and never come out again.
The Silver Knight exited the forest by Lord Stansbury’s Abomination near the road closest to where he had to cross to return to his keep. There he could remove and clean his armor and great axe and think. The tree scratched the bridge. The red paint had been scraped away just a little and did not repair itself. This was new to his experience. New was good. Very good. The Black Knight was vulnerable after all.
No, first he would go to see Gil. He needed to tell Gil to stay away.
The Silver Knight was so wrapped up in his new plan of attack that he almost walked in front of Denise Drabos’s red truck. He saw Denise smile and wave as she drove by. She was a good lady. She was a friend of his mother and sometimes cared for him when he was younger. Ivy, her Collie dog, barked at him from the passenger seat.