Glory

The humming of voices awoke me.

Upon opening my eyes, I saw no movement, save for the flicker of a candle opposite me. Only a timid breeze and the smell of rain found me at my place upon the carpet. Cold air danced upon my torn skin to be fended off by the blood that blossomed on my uniform, blood trickling from a tear in my flesh I do not remember receiving. Leaning on the stone wall behind me, I hobbled upwards, seeking someone, anyone. I grasped for names, places, anything, but could find no memory, nothing but my own voice within my mind. I cried out, searching for those voices to find me, help me. But they did not come.

Their melody of chatter and movement stayed just out of reach as I staggered through the hallway, melancholic hand outstretched. Drips of scarlet marked my passing.

As I rounded the corner the pain shed from my limbs, completely gone. But with the pain, those voices had also disappeared. Their tenor did not echo to me. There were no footsteps. There was only a blanketing, heavy silence.

Looking back into the hallway I had come from, I rubbed the grime from my lashes, believing that my sight deceived me. The long-settled ghosts of flames stained the walls a charred black. Furniture, an instant ago pristine and well-kept, had been shattered and burned – thrown about by an explosion that tore the stone wall of the passage to the ground and tricked the roof into giving way. I could do nothing but stand, and stare. The room I had entered seemed to have suffered the same fate; except for four artworks that remained unharmed, despite the holes in the wall they hung from. There was no debris, no broken glass, nothing less than perfection upon their polished surfaces.

Intrigue prickled in my gut, and I approached the closest. A sleek wooden frame surrounded an approaching army, painted mid-stride in their capture of an enemy encampment. Their swords shone, the light to defeat evil. Stoic and courageous, they caught the monsters with curled horns unaware. Here, this is an act of tactical brilliance: to fight in a battleground that strips these villains of their morale, breaks their will to fight. With one victory, win the war.

But, as with these rooms, between one breath and the next it all changed. Those startled enemies became terrified civilians. Became struggling families. Became dying innocents who advocated peace, but who would not be heard over their own screams of pain. The soldiers were malicious, jovially hunting those who were begging for their lives or their dignity or their children to be spared. They laughed, showed no mercy. I stared from where I had stepped back, looking harder, my heart sinking deeper into quiet lament. One of the monsters became a child, dirty and bruised, holding close to their own fading heart a bloodstained dove nesting in a broken laurel wreath.

Soldiers rise to the challenge of war expecting to cause bloodshed and to take people from this world - but surely no amount of hateful prejudices or passions for revenge could ever justify striking the innocent?

It is cowardly, not brave. Disgusting, not cunning. It is cruelty, not a necessity. I walked away.

The next painting was bordered by a shining, silver frame, ornately decorated by hallowed ornaments. It was beautiful, hopeful. In the middle of the painting flew an elegant figure, gracefully aloft on large, white wings. They watched from among parted clouds, pearly robe illuminated by white rays. Below, soldiers, blessed by those above. Decorated in holy symbols; praying for victory; receiving consecration as righteous paladins of truth. In one hand they held anointed emblems of their faith, and in the other, their weapon.

But again, in just a single moment, the artwork changed. The light abandoned the ether and brumous storms clouded the sky. The angel fell, feathers burning. Blood and dirt rained upon the soldiers. Some were caught in vicious combat. Others knelt, their spirit destroyed. Others bellowed, raging with their reddened teeth bared to the sky. The dying, who grappled in the decay, reached for help. They pleaded for aid with their final breath. Only a few had thrown their symbols to the mud, casting aside their own pain to hold fading friends in shaking arms.

I breathed slowly, seeing a world abandoned by faith, and left to the command of those claiming to possess shards of divinity.

I went slowly to the third painting.

It had the grandest, most magnificent frame of all the paintings. It’s shining gold border promised glory and fame. It was a battlefield, with golden light glowing from behind the army as they charged towards their enemies, glinting weapons drawn and at the ready, already clashing with the dark and faceless figures of the enemy. They marched over the landscape, their leader's sword raised and shiny-coated mount rearing upon the hill behind them, encouraging them forward. This display of strength and power pushed the enemy ever backwards. Back into their infernal twilight, back to their cruel master.

I blinked, and it didn't change. Surely there is something for me to decipher. So I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and when I opened them again, the painting had finally shifted.

The golden light was replaced by howling winds and screaming crows – squabbling harbingers of death and loss. Below them, in the middle of the painting, were two smiling men, playing chess. A gloved hand placed another piece. And around them, not a single figure stood on the field. The earth had been overrun with corpses, some buried beneath other bodies, some still clutching with bloodied hands at the swords in their chests. They wore no uniform and were not given a face to be remembered by. But they would be remembered, because these people were fathers, sisters, sons, mothers, daughters, first loves and last loves and people; and they had lost their lives in a battle that their leaders had never dirtied their hands in.

These leaders abused their power over those whose very lives for which they claimed to go to war, and they become the other side of that same, villainous, glory-seeking coin. They did not war, they wanted blood. They wanted pain. They want to orchestrate cruelty and abuse like game pieces.

The concept of glory is the steed a madman rides to war.

I stood before the last hanging piece, which I had first thought was another artwork. But it had no frame and was not art. It was simply a mirror, and I did not understand, but the more I looked, the more I saw.

The weapons at my belt were horridly familiar – the same weapons brandished against innocents, against the defenseless and the scared. They horrified me, the metal slick with gleaming blood – the wrong blood. If ever there is ‘right’ blood.

The holy symbol hung on my neck, and I held it as I saw the paladins, as I felt that hollow abandon filled me. I was alone.

At my side, the wound had healed but was scarred, watching through my torn uniform. The clothes were splattered in filth and dried blood. My own name was blacked out, covered by dirt, but my leader’s name remained perfect and untainted, burnished gold.

In the glass I saw the soldier; the abandoned one; the pawn. My reflection looked back at me, as I watched, waited, for something to happen, a change to happen as it had thrice before.

“And the truth? What truth lies here?” My voice rang out into the hallway as I asked the mirror, asked myself.

It did not change.

And I realised; I understood. I looked away from the mirror, and by the time I looked at the mirror again, I had changed. No longer did the weapons hang at my belt. No longer did the cross hang on my neck. No longer did I wear my uniform.

I was going to be the change I needed to see in this world.