Eighth month, 22nd day, 573,801. His Majesty summoned me to the palace. I could scarcely believe my ears. “At this hour?” The messenger, a man grown old in honorable but humble service, seemed agitated. He is sufficiently attuned to His Majesty’s moods to know something was wrong, not sufficiently attuned to know what. In silence we walked through the dark deserted streets. Dawn was at least an hour off. The black sky, moonless, was studded with stars. Stars never fail to move me. How can they? The eye picks out one star here and another there, quite at random, and one thinks, “They seem so close, and yet how many light-years separate them?” Or, “Around how many of those suns might planets be orbiting, planets like our own, harboring living creatures like ourselves, or unlike ourselves...” Yes, the night sky is an awesome, inspiring spectacle... but what can His Majesty want with me at this hour, when, if nothing else, he would consider it his sacred duty to sleep so that his people can sleep, for when he is wakeful so are they, without knowing the cause?

“You will forgive me,” said His Majesty, “for disturbing you at such an unholy hour. You were not asleep? Of course not – I know your habits, I pride myself on knowing the habits and indeed the thoughts of all my subjects. Your thoughts, of course, I do not pretend to fathom – hence this summons. You are first among my counselors, and first among my friends. To whom shall I turn, in time of crisis, if not to you? Yes, Faroblyn, we are facing a crisis. This year’s harvest, it has been revealed to me, is cursed. All who shall partake of it shall lose their reason. You, you alone will stay sane, subsisting on what remains in the granaries. It’s little enough, barely enough for one man, hopefully it will last your natural life span. Your mission? To preserve at all costs the notion of sanity, to preserve it, keep it alive, and one day, one day, perhaps...”

His Majesty’s voice trailed off, his eyes filled with tears. “But Your Majesty!” I cried, deeply moved. “Surely... surely you...”

He shook his head. “No, my friend. My place is with my people. I must share their fate. It is on you, on your shoulders, that the burden and the blessing of sanity must fall. You alone are worthy of both, the burden and the blessing. Stay with me a little, we will talk, it will be our last talk as rational man to rational man, and there is much to settle. As of tomorrow... oh, my friend, my friend, the loneliness that will be yours! But you will bear it, and one day, thanks to you... but we have a little time. Let us talk.”

“Yes,” I said, “let us talk. Perhaps the horror you foresee is not inevitable. Perhaps it can be forestalled.”

“Impossible.”

“No, Your Majesty. Forgive my contradicting you. Nothing is impossible, nothing is inevitable, there are only greater and lesser degrees of likelihood. Let us talk, as you say. The right words will save us. You’ll see.”

“The right words? What are the right words?”

“We will discover them as we talk.”

“Talk, then. As for me... as for me... a fine king I am! All I can do is weep.”

“Weep, then.”

“Talk.”

“I will talk, and Your Majesty must listen. Listen, Your Majesty, not just with your ears but with your whole being. Listen as you have never listened before!”

“I am listening.”

“Once upon a time... there was an artist, a painter. When he closed his eyes he saw not the darkness that most people see, but the most fantastic shapes, colors – things never seen on earth, things he could not give a name to. And he thought, ‘If only I could paint these colors, these shapes!’ And so he tried. He produced picture after picture. Beautiful, mysterious, indescribable. His fame spread. People flocked to his exhibitions. He was acclaimed a master, a genius. But in his own eyes he was a failure, because he alone knew how short his pictures fell of the shapes and colors he beheld behind his closed eyelids. Do you follow me, Your Majesty?”

“Yes, certainly. Go on.”

“One day he closed his eyes and beheld not shapes and colors but light – naked, brilliant, dazzling light, light such as he had never seen before, so bright he could not look upon it. To escape it he opened his eyes, but, dazzled by the excruciating brilliance, they now saw only shadows, insubstantial variations of dimness and darkness. He waited for the effect to wear off, but minutes passed and then hours, without the shadows growing any less shadowy. A kind of horror gained possession of him. For want of a better word I say ‘horror,’ but it was so unlike any feeling he had ever known that really, no known word does it justice. ‘What is happening to me?’ he thought. At last, in sheer weariness, he closed his eyes, or rather, his eyes closed of themselves – but then the light, the dazzling, naked light... how can I say this? I said before, Your Majesty, that the right words will save us, and here I am groping for words to describe... what words were not meant to describe!”

“The light enveloped him?”

“Was it even light? Your Majesty, I fear I am failing you, failing us...”

“We will call it light, keeping in mind that in reality it might have been something else. Go on, go on!”

“Well, this light... this light...”

“What?”

“Consumed him!”

“Consumed him!”

“Consumed him, yes... no... He became, you see, he became the light – living, conscious light! And no one could look upon him, no one could approach him, for, you see, human eyes were not meant to behold such dazzling, blinding, searing brilliance!”

“I understand, I understand,” said His Majesty in growing excitement. “The right words will save us, as you say, I see that now. Go on, continue. Speak, Faroblyn, speak! Just a few words more, a few words more, and we are saved!”

“Your Majesty, I... Forgive me, no. It is not that simple.”

“Not that simple? What do you mean?”

“I have failed Your Majesty, failed... failed…”