Something in me even now, degraded as I am, hardened as I am, damned as I surely am, cries out at the memory, wails, weeps. But I will resist. It would be foul of me to argue a case for mercy now, to make a pretense of humanity now, to make a pretense of repentance. The will of man is free and the love of Christ is boundless. And I in that wood, on that night, made my decision.

And in despair of Heaven, and in the sight of those present, I was washed in the blood of the lamb.

So I have written it here that it may be known. I have put it down so that it shall not die with me. I have lived for almost forty years since that day. I have seen one and then the other of my companions perish, as some accident or failure left them short of the blood they needed, that precious ingredient more without which the stone is useless. I have seen the flesh curdle and rot then on their living frames, have heard them shrieking with the pain of it. I have seen the light of a terrible realization enter into their helpless eyes, too late, too late. I have seen that light finally, mercifully extinguished.

And yet I hear them shrieking still in the pit of their eternal master.

But I have gone on. I have been a wanderer on the face of the earth. I have crept among my fellow men and hidden. I have seduced their women and slaughtered each of my own offspring even as it drew breath. I have libeled and condemned the innocent in order to protect myself. I have lived as the fox lives, hunted. Men cross themselves when they mutter my name. Children cry when their mothers invoke me. Priests deny my existence, and the bravest knights fear my presence in the woods. I have made myself their nightmares.

This is the life everlasting that was promised to me.

And yet—and yet I must say it—the promise has held good. I am dying now, but I have lived these forty years. I have lived—and I have not grown old. My body is the same today as it was those decades hence. Others have aged and crumbled, others have died, but I am as I was. I am unchanged.

This is what I feel compelled to declare. I feel compelled to proclaim it, knowing not even now whether I write the words in horror or in joy: the grail is real! The legend of the stone is true! I am the living testament to its powers, the dying testament. He who has eyes to see, let him see.

I conclude with a prophecy, and a warning. This is what I believe.