193. Radiant With Joy
We
made our first stop at a square with a statue of St. James near Don
Alonso’s house. There was a church there
where he had gotten his credential and later his first seal. The ghost of Don
Caralampio, who tends to travellers that take the Fay Way, and who had stamped this
first seal on my sponsor’s passport, was
sitting in the square on a circular bench that surrounded the statue. There was
no mistaking him. He got up and moved towards us and I saw he fitted the
description I had been given. To be the Don Caralampio I was looking for he had
to dress like Friar Tuck, but with an enormous tonsure on the upper part of his
head and under that long silver locks that grazed his shoulders. And he had to
have a long silvery beard. And when he walked, he had to limp a little. And
though many lame people tend to be on the grumpy side, Don Caralampio tended to
look always cheerful. This ghost also had a very bright light blue and liquid
gold aura that made him nice to look at.
I
left the rest of our party a little behind me and moved ahead to speak with Don
Caralampio a little privately. I was not too happy about having to do this. It
was bad enough to have to take Alpin to meet his possible future wife. But what
I felt really bad about was his insisting on doing the Way. This is a spiritual
journey to be taken seriously and knowing
Alpin, I felt I was participating in something disrespectful. For humans, there
are two ways to go on this pilgrimage and be awarded a certificate of
completion at the end of it. True believers obtain a very special certificate
with spiritual advantages for having completed the Way. Pilgrims who are not
among the strictly faithful can get a different cetificate if they have
completed the Way seeking personal enlightenment. I felt Alpin’s reasons for
wanting to obtain a certificate did not entitle him to one even of the second
kind. And I felt I wasn’t going to be entitled to one either because I knew I
would not be able to concentrate on seeking enlightenment. So I felt like a
hypocrite or something worse and did not feel happy about having to speak with
Don Caralampio.
“You’re
the FitzOberon boy? Don Alonso must have forwarded your passport. Are you here
for your first seal?” asked Don Caralampio. “Don Alonso said you would be.”
“I
don’t deserve it,” I said. “I can’t concentrate on anything serious just now. I
have to take all this crowd behind me to the end of the world and this is
affecting my sanity. Besides, everyone there behind me, including the fridge, wants a credential and will want the first
stamp, and I tried to explain they weren’t going to get any of that, because
doing the Way will only prolong this conflictive journey and I have finally brought
them here deceived, because I couldn’t take any more arguing and I said, fine,
you’ll have what you want, but I didn’t mean it.”
“Why
won’t they get what they want? You brought them here. They’re on their way.”
“I
don’t know if they undestand what this is about.”
“Do
you?” asked Don Caralampio. “Tell me, are you on the verge of a nervous
breakdown? That’s the only possible problem I see here.”
“Believe
me, you don’t want to see the problem I have here,” I said. I didn’t want to
have to tell him about Alpin at all.
“This
isn’t about the beginning. It’s about the end, about when you have reached your
goal. That’s when you can judge if you have accomplished something or not.
Never before. If I were you, I would calm down. The only creature I see here
with problems is you. All those creatures behind you are cheerful and smiling
and happy to be on their way. Don’t be a killjoy and try to stop them from
getting wherever the road takes them. That won’t help you get anywhere. A leader has to be enthusiastic, so show some
enthusiasm. Now, let me give everybody their passports and stamps and whatever they need to do this
properly and you stop worrying. Pull up the corners of your mouth and smile. An
inverted pot nothing good holds. An omega horseshoe retains no luck.
Neither does a pouting mouth. You can’t imagine what I have seen coming down
the Fairy Way. Most people on the Fay Way are on their way to St. Andrew’s,
actually. You know how they say that if you visit St. James when you are
living, but don’t go a little further and drop by to see St. Andrew too, you
will have to visit him when dead? Well, that’s what most of the people I tend
to are doing. Most are ghosts who need to get to St. Andrew’s church at the end
of the world. But there have been a few characters, well, I won’t go into
details, but there’s nothing we haven’t seen on the Fay Way.”
I
knew what Don Caralampio meant about those travelling to St. Andrew’s. Pilgrims
who visit St. James’ cathedral often prolong their journey a little and visit
St. Andrew’s church at Teixido, which is practically at the end of the world. Those
who end their trip at St. James’ are said to have to visit St. Andrew’s when
they are dead, before they can enter heaven. As for whatever else Don
Caralampio had seen, well, he just might be about to see Alpin, should my friend care to manifest his worse self.
“We
will be going to both places, I fear,” I said.
“You
fear? Will you stop being frightened?
How will you face what is out there if you are so scared?” he said.
“I’m
not scared of what there may be out
there. It’s what I´m taking out there that scares me. I’m going to cause
trouble and I know it.”
“Bah!” said Don Caralampio. He gave up
trying to encourage me and went to give out the credentials. To my great
relief, it turned out that even the mules and Frostina got a stamped passport too. “On the way to St. Andrew’s, be very
careful not to kill any animal. Not even the smallest bug. Some pilgrims choose
to take the form of little creatures, such as birds and ants, when going where
they didn’t go in life,” explained Don Caralampio.
I
saw he was a lot more openminded than I had feared he would be. And that my
fears had made me misjudge, and I was the least sophisticated of the two.
Before
we left, he warned me to be very wary of the Holy Company.
“If
you have to sleep out under the stars some night, be sure to get everyone to
hide among the bushes. Let no one stay in plain sight of the road. The Holy
Company could pass by. If they see you, they will force you to join them and
you will have to wander about haunting the night until they trap someone else
who will take your place.”
I
knew about the Holy Company. But I hadn’t given the matter a thought, so
preoccupied was I about what trouble Alpin’s abnormal appetite might cause.
Nauta had told us how he had been trapped by the classic equivalent of the Holy
Company. This was the gruesome band of Melinoe, Princess of the Underworld.
This half-white, half-black daughter of Hades and Persephone is goddess of
ghosts, and she leaves her home, the
underground abode of the dead, every night with a pack of howling dogs and a
band of phantoms that still have business to do on Earth. If you had the
misfortune to run into them, you would die of fright on the very spot and they would take you to your new home with
them. If you already were a ghost, like Nauta, they would take you anyway. It
took him months to be able to leave the underworld again if I remember rightly,
since this place is easy to enter but almost impossible to leave without a
permit.
As
for the Holy Company, there is nothing truly holy about it. It is only called
holy to appease its touchy members. Don Caralampio explained to me that to most
mortals, only the leader of this procession of some of the more perturbed souls from Purgatory was
visible. This leader was visible because he or she was a living mortal who had
been abducted by the company. By day, this poor person lived among his people,
who worried because he got to look paler and weaker as time passed. This was
because by night, he or she had to crawl out of bed and go meet the company
and, carrying a cross and a crock of holy water, lead the procession wherever
it wanted to go. Sleepless night after sleepless night the poor mortal had to
lead the company until extenuated, he or she was found dead in bed one morning.
The only way a mortal could break free from this terrible fate was to fool or
force another mortal to take his or her place. To avoid becoming a victim, a person
out in the open at night had to hide the minute he or she sniffed the odour of
unseen burning candles, heard sounds of lamentation or prayers that came from
nowhere and felt the air move weirdly due to rustling shrouds. Should the
leader of the company spot a possible substitute, he or she would ask this
person to carry the cross for him for a second. One had to answer that one was
already carrying a cross. And run. If one had time to, one could also draw a
circle on the ground and step inside it.
“There
are no living mortals in your party, are there?” Don Caralampio asked me. When
I said there were indeed none, he said, “Much worse. If they catch you, they’ll
never let you go. They have a strong dislike of supernatural beings aside from
themselves and will keep you locked up in Purgatory forever. Worse yet, they
may escort you to Hell, and sell you as slaves to the devils there.”
I
realized we had to set off as quickly as possible if we wanted to reach Toledo
before it got dark, so I thanked Don Caralampio for his attentions and said a
hasty goodbye.
He
called me back for a second, though. He had further frightening warnings to
give me.
“Under
no circumstances must you enter an occupied church after twelve o´clock at
night. No matter how bad the weather might be outside, if you see lights in a
church and hear people praying in there, do not make the mistake of thinking
you are near people who will help you. That is not what is in there at that
moment. Ah, and there is a thing out there too called the Procession of Meigas.
If these witches cross your path and invite you to join them, the best thing
you can do is pretend you can’t see or hear them. If you can’t do that, refuse
the invitation as briefly as you can without being impolite. And run. As fast
as you can. Or you’ll never get where you are going.”
I
again said goodbye and we parted in great haste. Still, I was able to hear him
yell after us, “Perk up! With enthusiasm and alacrity! Smile! Irradiate joy!”
“Why
are we suddenly running?” protested Alpin.
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