THE VIGIL

In the heart of the night, beneath an endless silent desert sky, while the world lay deep in slumber, he—who saw himself as a soldier to the world and a servant in the dark—knelt upon the soil and bowed his head before the Lord of the stars. In that silent prayer, the red stone of his ring glowed like a token of an eternal oath, and the engraved stone resting on the worn cloth before him bore witness to unspoken secrets; yet even as others were wrapped in the peace of night, the ever-watchful sentinel never rose from his vigil, his eyes never straying for a moment from the distant horizons and the fate of the world, for his watch had no end and his wakefulness was the price of the sleepers' safety.