Justin told the Watership rabbits everything: his childhood, his abusive life with his father, how he was always jeered and bullied, how he came to buy his cross, and how, to the best he could recollect, he came into this world and his run-in with Mallow and Vervain. When he was finished, he felt the gloom he felt for his entire life return back into his heart, but apparently, he wasn't the only one. He remembered reading in the book how Mr. Lockley said that rabbits tend to be indifferent and are able to withstand loss and disaster up to a point until they can finally let their feelings out, so he pretty much expected the rabbits to find his story slightly sad but not be very effected by it. Yet what he saw shocked him. All the rabbits were feeling his pain very greatly. Pipkin and Hawkbit were crying softly, picturing Justin's encounter with the school bullies and for destroying a revered story in such a hateful manner. Acorn, Speedwell, Bigwig, Silver, Bluebell, Campion and Dandelion were shaking in anger at the thought of mistreating someone so innocent, so loving and easy-going. Bigwig kept muttering on how the Black Rabbit would finally find a human if the day fell when Justin's dad met up with Bigwig. Hazel, Blackberry, Fiver, and Strawberry just sat, shaking their heads. Yet, Buckthorn said the most touching sentiment as he placed a paw on Justin's shoulder and told him fiercely, "It won't happen. We won't let anything happen to you, Justin. You're with us now, and we'll protect you the best we can. If Woundwort and Prince Rainbow want you, they will have to deal with us first."
Holly chimed in, "And you should never blame yourself for what happens, Justin. You're a lot stronger than you think, and we all see that. You've got the courage that would make any Chief rabbit proud to call his friend." Justin smiled sadly; he still wasn't convinced. Yet, he felt he needed to ask his questions now while he still had the moment to himself.
"But none of you guys have answered any of my questions," he asked apprehensively, not sure if he was going to like what he would be told. "Why do you guys keep calling me 'the cross-bearer'? Why am I such a threat to everyone? And where the heck am I? Please, I really need to know what's going on and what I can do to get back home where I belong." Upon hearing this, Hazel and the other rabbits averted their gazes slightly, but Justin caught a glimpse of sadness and reluctance in their eyes. His blood chilled. Hazel cleared his throat and spoke.
"I think you should listen to the story Dandelion is about to tell you, to tell all of us. It may help answer your questions of why you're here and how your cross may be the key to helping you and us survive against the upcoming battles. If there are any other questions, then you may ask us anything, and we promise to answer truthfully. Dandelion? If you please…"
Dandelion, with a trembling voice, began to narrate his story with his skillful display of story telling.
"I've told all of you how the world was created," narrated Dandelion in a nervous voice, "and how Frith gave the blessings to El-ahrairah and the other animals, but not all animals know about the beginning, before the blessings were to begin, and yes, it involves the cross-bearer and Frith.
You see, when Frith became mad at El-ahrairah for defying his command and for allowing his children to overpopulate the world with out thoughts for the other animals, Frith realized that he had to teach El-ahrairah a lesson. Yet, there was one other animal who had defied the laws of Frith with his dark, stubborn nature. It was so dark, so evil, that it threatened to consume all happiness from the world. The thing was, the creature was never created by Frith in the first place, and not even he knew where it came from. Yet, he let it exist anyway because he was hoping it would see the peaceful nature of all his creations and also abide by the tranquility of the world. Yet it was not to be. The creature was so full of darkness and greed, it started attacking others of the purest and most innocent hearts, creatures that would rather face death itself than fight and cause war in their home. As a result, the evil managed to kill many innocent animals and made it so that they would never exist in this world again because it simply wiped them all out with its ruthlessness. Some creatures that were affected were the dragons or the unicorns, which is why they don't exist in the physical world with humans. When Frith saw this, he didn't know what to do since he never created the monster in the first place, but Frith had someone else help him since he himself wasn't powerful enough to deal with this abomination. There was a powerful force, an omnipotent being called 'God' who knew where the monster came from. It was created by a fallen angel who wanted to wipe out the living creations in this world and tempt them into darkness and evil. As a result, the dark beast and the fallen angel were able to influence some of the animals with evil; this is why some animals, such as Woundwort, turn into vicious, bloodthirsty animals who abandon the natural ways of life for power and control.
Anyway, when God saw how much havoc the beast was making, he created the creature man, an animal who would always be different and more powerful than any animal Frith created in the world. After they multiplied and spread, they were able to beat the darkness and subdue it, allowing Frith and God to seal it forever in a place far beyond the influence of any animal. Yet, the fallen angel who created the dark creature started tempting the men instead, telling them to rebel against God. They did, but God then chose a single man he especially created to die for those men, allowing them to have a chance of redemption for the evils they committed."
"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed Justin, interrupting the story and causing all the rabbits to turn and look at him curiously, "That man must have been Jesus Christ!"
"Jesus who? Who was he?" questioned Pipkin.
Justin explained, "In my religion, we believe that God loved man so much, despite the evils he would inevitably commit, he sent Jesus to die for all men as a sacrifice, allowing men to have a chance for forgiveness if they believe that Jesus died for them. It's sort of like Frith having El-ahrairah sacrificing his life to save his warrens from dangers of elil, so that his children could live on and know the power of Frith in their lives. But I'm sorry, Dandelion, please continue."
Dandelion shrugged. "There isn't much more to that story. But, there was a prophecy that bridges from that story and leads into what is happening now, in our world. You see, Frith and God knew that the evil would come back in one way or another, so the both agreed that someday, when it did, a man of pure heart and armed with the protection of love and power from God, would be the cross-bearer and take the responsibility to battle the evil creature with El-ahrairah. The legend continued, saying that the cross-bearer would have limitless power and have the ability to do anything. If he wanted to change into a rabbit, he could. If he wanted to summon the rain and thunder, he could. Even if he wanted to do something impossible such as stop time on only one season or speed up time so that seasons pass by in moments, he could. The only rule was that God and Frith wanted the cross-bearer to use the power to protect the innocent and to fight evil; if he ever used that power for self-gain or greed, he would lose it, and the power would be given to another man. The prophecy ended with some sort of riddle that none of us could make head or tails out of, yet El-ahrairah told us it was the key to winning the final battle against the beast. I believe it went like this:
'When the hearts of many prayers become one
And the light of Inle releases Frith as the sun
Only then will evil's darkness become undone
For El-ahrairah and the cross-bearer have achieved a mixed oinun'."
"O-I-nun??" asked Bluebell out loud, his whiskers twitching in confusion. "What in the name of Frith and Inle is that??" Dandelion shook his head, unable to provide an answer, confessing helplessly, "I don't know. Neither El-ahrairah nor I could understand the meaning of the song, and the only one that could possibly understand it would be Frith himself, but he hasn't answered any of our requests to talk with him. It was like he ignored us completely!"
Justin, however, went pale and slowly got up, not sure what to believe anymore. He didn't hear anything else Dandelion said after the purpose of the cross-bearer, and now, the shock of it was starting to take into effect. The blood was threatening to drain from his head, and his heart was almost brimming with surprise and skepticism, but he forced the thought that was ransacking his mind anyway. "Wait…you mean to tell me that you…all of you…think…I'm…the cross-bearer?? I'm the one that was chosen to fight this evil creature?!" The other rabbits nodded solemnly, while Silver whispered to Bigwig softly, "Here it comes." Justin swore he heard his brain cells die, one by one, as he cracked.
"You cannot be serious! Me, puny little Justin, who's been tormented throughout life, who never had the strength to stand up against anything, fight something that couldn't even be killed in the first place?! You can't be serious!! It must be a mistake!"
"It's not a mistake, Justin," Fiver said, trying to reassure him, "You know the story of us on 'Watership Down' better than most men do, and you know that I have the power to see the future and sense things with my gift of visions. Well, ever since I've met you, I was able to sense something about you. There's hurt and loss, certainly, but also inside is something strong, something powerful, something virtuous, something that reminds us of El-ahrairah." His sanity was threatening to buckle and break from Justin's soul again, but Justin forced himself to keep it together as he clenched his head and tried to think of several reasons of why he couldn't possibly be the cross-bearer. But his mind was a blank slate due to the shock and fatigue he was feeling. He slowly sank back down on the ground. After a couple of moments of silence, Campion decided to explain some more about the world he was living in.
"Justin, think about it this way. This is the land beyond life, a world that's separated from the physical world you know of, and it is excluded to all creatures except animals and rabbits. Yet you, a boy who hasn't even stopped running, was able to defy the laws of life and death, and enter here. That cannot be a coincidence; it takes unspeakable power to achieve such a thing. You see, Justin, here in the world beyond life, all animals come here after they stop running so that we could live in the peace and tranquility that El-ahrairah was fighting for. Even though bad rabbits, like Woundwort, and elil also come here, they remain peaceful and abandon their fighting ways so that life here was just like it was before Frith gave his blessings to the animals to make each one different from the rest. Yet recently, Woundwort and Prince Rainbow have been attacking all rabbits here in the land beyond life and seriously injuring them. I believe you've heard that no animal can die once they have been brought here by the Black Rabbit of Inle, yet we can be injured, especially if an evil force has been doing the attacks. When the attacks on us became more and more frequent, El-ahrairah was determined to stop this in a peaceful manner, and if not by that, then by trickery. Yet, somehow, El-ahrairah fell strangely ill, and one day, we all found him surrounded by some black mist, constantly covering him and causing him to be in excruciating pain. We all recognized it as the evil that was once banished a long time ago, but no one could even think of a way we could stop it. Then El-ahrairah told us the legend of the cross-bearer and how he knew that the prophecy would be fulfilled and that only us, the rabbits from Watership Down, could come to get you and protect you. And he said it could only be us who could carry out the mission. Though none of us know why, while he could, El-ahrairah also used his power to give us the ability to walk upright like men, to wear these garments of clothing, and to talk and understand the language you use so we could communicate, since men cannot understand the Lapine words of us rabbits." At the word "Lapine", Justin's brain just clicked as he remembered something.
"Wait a minute! I knew I heard that word before! It's my cross! The guy who sold it to me said that it was made with 'Lapine metal', and he also called me the cross-bearer!" Strawberry and Blackberry leaned over to Justin to get a better look at his necklace. Blackberry sniffed at it, and then he scuffled around nervously.
"By Frith! What a strange apparatus! It's even the color of Frith himself when we comes out into the sky!" Justin looked at Blackberry oddly.
"'Color of Frith'? You must be seeing things, Blackberry. My cross is silver and -" yet he trailed off in shock when he looked down at the piece of jewelry to see that Blackberry had spoken the truth. Instead of the pale, silver metal, the cross was now entirely made of crystal, almost like glass, and it now shone softly in the darkness with a vibrant orange glow. Stunned, Justin was at a loss for words for a moment before he asked another question that didn't seem to add up from his knowledge of the Watership Down stories.
"Earlier today, Speedwell said that Prince Rainbow and Elil-rah were the ones responsible for the attacks here. But, what confuses me is why Prince Rainbow? I thought he was a messenger of Frith, and even though there were times he disliked El-ahrairah, he would always try to help him and the other rabbits when they were in trouble. Why is trying to hurt you?"
"It's not Prince Rainbow's fault," Strawberry spoke mournfully, as if he saw someone die before his very eyes. "It was the dark creature, the same one that Frith and God banished before time began. When it came back, it was able to influence Prince Rainbow into joining its side along with many other animals in this land. They aren't really evil; they were just corrupted into the dark side, so you could say that they're being controlled, like how the river controls the routes of the pikes in the water. They can't fight against the current, and they are forced to swim wherever the river leads them. Yet what frightened us the most was that once an animal was converted to the dark side, they too, gained the abilities not normal of nature. They walked upright, carried strange weapons, and wore clothing, just like men. And most frightening of all, they became a lot stronger that any of us. That's why the attacks have been so brutal on our side; we haven't been able to keep up much with the defense with our Owlsa and if it wasn't for El-ahrairah, we'd all be with the dark army."
"But…but why on earth aren't you and El-ahrairah been corrupted then? I mean, you guys wear clothing and can stand upright too!" stuttered Justin.
Silver answered, "Because when El-ahrairah gave us these new abilities, he did it using his powers, and his powers don't stem from darkness and evil. They come from hope, cunning, trickery, and friendship. That's why we cannot and will not use weapons like when Vervain and Mallow attacked you, because we don't use the weapons of men. We use the tools of digging, running, swift warning, trickery, and those alone are the most powerful weapons a rabbit can ever have. Also, we can't explain it, but when El-ahrairah gave us these powers, he also gave us the ability to withstand the darkness so that Elil-rah couldn't tempt us into turning to the dark side and abandoning our gifts given by Frith. So that we could carry out our mission of protecting you on your journey." Justin pondered this before he realized something.
"Then that must be why El-ahrairah is ill instead already being in the darkness! Because the evil can't tempt him; he's too powerful since he's the Prince of all Rabbits, so the evil is doing the next best thing. It's poisoning him so that he wouldn't be able to defend as well when Woundwort and the others try to take over this land. But, you still haven't answered one question: who is Elil-rah?" At this last statement, none of the rabbits would answer, and Justin noticed that some of them were wincing at some bad memories. Finally, Pipkin, trembling, spoke bravely.
"It's the name of the dark creature that was banished, the same one that's been attacking El-ahrairah, and the one that's been trying to take over the land beyond life. When we were trying to defend the warren, all of us saw him, and…and it was so awful!" At this, little Pipkin was sobbing and quivering, but he continued, "It was like looking into the eyes of every single elil in the world all at once! And it had huge claws, and we couldn't see it's face because it was hidden, but all we could see were its red eyes, and they were shining with a red light. It was very black, much blacker than the Black Rabbit, and it was so scary!!" Justin looked at Pipkin sadly crying next to him, so he put his arm around the small rabbit, hoping it would comfort him. Still, he himself felt ready to cry from what was going on. Hazel slowly hopped in front of Justin before addressing him, staring at the teenager intently.
"Justin, this is something we need to ask of you. We need you to come with us to our warren to heal El-ahrairah and then to fight Elil-rah with your power. You, and only you, can do this feat for no other in the world has the ability to accomplish this. I know you may be scared and this may be asking for a lot of you, but you must do it."
"Why?!" snapped back Justin, his eyes brimming with frustration and helplessness, "Why must I do this?! Don't you know you're asking the wrong person?! I don't even know if I can do this! This too much, more than anything I can ever handle!! I can't possibly be strong enough for this!" Hazel understood Justin's behavior, so he decided to not take it into offense. Yet his next words chilled Justin to the very core of his heart.
"Justin, realize this: if you don't do this, if you fail, you will be killed by Elil-rah and his army. They now know you're here in this world, and since you haven't stopped running unlike us, it is possible to seriously hurt and kill you in any way possible. We know this, Elil-rah knows this, and now you know this. You were brought here for a reason, but we can honestly say that it was no accident. I know you feel hurt and scared yourself, but also realize that you're with us now. The rabbits you've known since you were a kitten, the rabbits you've admired for their courage and bravery, and the rabbits that now see you as a friend and our only hope in this fight. Like Buckthorn said, we won't let anything happen to you, and we'll do everything in our power to protect you." Trembling, Justin finally looked at Hazel in the eye, and he could see nothing but determination and kindness.
"You promise?" Hazel and the other rabbits nodded vigorously and without hesitation. Taking a deep breath, Justin nodded in agreement. "I guess I don't have any other choice. All right then, I'll do it. I'll help you." Yet he didn't know whether he'd live to enjoy or regret that decision.