Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 16)

It was mid-day when the slave drivers came for Mishael and the other prisoners in the holding cells (about a dozen in all); and they soon had them all driven out of the little brick building and loaded into a covered wagon, barred on all sides, and drawn by two huge and rather filthy draft mares. Mishael moved mechanically and impassively from the locked dungeon to the locked cart, and sitting on one of the long benches lining its sides, looked out at the city with a listless gaze.

If Mishael had had the heart to appreciate it, he would have realized that this out-of-the-way sector of Lusk was just as beautiful as the spectacular central thoroughfare he had seen last night. The slaves were being drawn along a little alleyway, paved with cobblestones, and scarcely wide enough to admit the passage of the cumbersome cart; and on either side of them were the back parts of the same eight-story buildings already described. The alley apparently split the difference between two more prominent streets, which the fronts of the marble buildings would be facing; and here in the back, their design could be seen a little more fully. They were not laid out in a straight line, as one might suppose if he had only seen them from the front; but rather, in between each building running parallel to the street was another stretched out behind it at ninety degrees; and the perpendicular lines that all these other buildings, invisible to the front, had formed, served to make great courtyards, enclosed on three sides, behind every front-facing building. These courtyards were filled with verdant gardens, sparkling fountains that fed clear, meandering streams, winding walkways, and a variety of benches and tables, some covered with parasols.

But our unhappy young man had no eye for beauty. His eye wandered over the renowned elegance of the lush gardens of Lusk without comprehension, as if they were as desolate as the lifeless sands of the Desert of Salt, where he had wandered for so long before. If he had retained the mental energy to frame a wish intelligibly in his distraught consciousness, he could have wished himself back in the desert again, far, far away from all this hateful grandeur. But mercifully, his overwrought intellect could take in nothing at all, and he sat as still and passionless as a stone, while the gorgeous vistas of the city slipped by unnoticed.

When he finally came to himself, the wagon was nearing the city center, and he had no recollection of the journey, nor any idea how long it had taken them to get there. But suddenly, everything came rushing back – where he was, how he had gotten there, what he had to look forward to – and the shame and despair that had haunted him for three days came surging back into his heart, beating against his once-cherished hope for a future of joy and triumph within the city of the High King, in the presence of Gilead, Ariel, and his other cherished friends; and it seemed to him as if that ardent and expectant longing of just a few days previous were a dam about to collapse before the onslaught of roiling floods of sorrow. What had seemed so certain that he could almost taste it now seemed so far away that he doubted its existence. And at this, he thought of the mocking words of Eshban again, and wondered if he were right.

In the midst of these melancholy ruminations, Mishael looked up again to find himself quite at the center of the city. The wagon was drawing up to a halt, any further progress precluded by a confluence of similar barred wagons up ahead. Seeing that they would get no further, the slave drivers came around back to unlock the wagon’s end gate, and to lead the prisoners on foot the remaining hundred yards or so to the raised platform upon which some scores of prisoners were already lined up, awaiting their fate.

When Mishael ascended the broad platform and took his place with the rest of the prisoners, he could see the city center quite clearly, standing as he was above the vast crowds milling below. In front of him was a very large, open area, paved with granite, and accommodating thousands of persons all decked out in every conceivable color, and looking like nothing so much as the ever-shifting rainbow that dances above the mist of a giant waterfall. At the far end of this great city square was a building of white marble, shining in the sun as if it were the purest ivory, and crowned with a half-dozen or better beautiful domes, at various heights and in various sizes, all mushrooming out from a slightly narrower girth at their bottoms, and softly tapering up to a point, almost like a bulb of garlic, only perfectly round and smooth. All of these domes were either bronzed, silvered, or gilded, and the three different shades set each other off quite perfectly, to give a balanced and pleasing appearance to the whole. All in all, the building had the appearance of some temple or sanctuary, and seemed to be the religious center of the city.

To Mishael’s left was a great wall, apparently surrounding a palace, of which a few magnificent turrets and spires could be seen soaring above the wall’s high profile. The wall itself was topped with a crenelated battlement, very ornately cut into the stone, and giving the impression that it was more decorative than defensive. To his right was another high wall, broken up by a series of great arched entrances, the largest in the center, with each arch to either side progressively smaller. Beyond the wall was a busy marketplace with narrow, sinuous trails wandering at random between the countless tables and stalls offering a very daunting array of goods. And behind him, as he had seen when mounting the platform, was another beautiful building, also of marble, fronted with an impressive verandah that was colonnaded by a row of stately corinthian columns. Mishael suspected, and rightly as he discovered later, that if the domed building to the front was the religious center of Lusk, then this must be its legal and judicial center. The open square bounded by the marketplace, the palace, the temple, and the judicial capitol was quite spacious, with nearly a mile of space between the two buildings behind and before Mishael, and about half a mile between the palace and the marketplace on his sides.

But as the reader may suspect, Mishael was in no condition to enjoy the splendid excess and stunning vastness of the central square. His mind was darting back and forth between a painfully acute awareness of his actual surroundings and a deeply nostalgic remembrance of the reality he had so lately lost, and which now seemed so utterly beyond his grasp; much as a frantic chipmunk will dart out from behind its rocky fastness, and losing its nerve, scurry back again, only to repeat the process a few seconds later. To onlookers, he seemed to be half in a daze, bewildered, perpetually on the verge of tears; and he remained in this pitiable condition, which was quite the same as the condition of some half or more of the men lined up beside him (this was an auction of male slaves only), who by now numbered somewhere in the hundreds.

Before long, the auctioneer was leading up the slaves one at a time to the front, providing a glowing description of each one’s robust health and strength, dignified appearance, and willingness to work, and selling them off to the highest bidder. In the meantime, a few men apparently wealthier than the average slave buyer were walking back and forth in front of the platform, scanning the row of faces, and quite ignoring the auctioneer. Occasionally, finding one to his liking, one of these men would interrupt the shouting auctioneer, offer to buy someone in a different spot, and after a little haggling, walk away proudly with his new possession cringing behind him.

In one of Mishael’s periods of incognizance of his surroundings, when he was only three or four places from the end of the line down which the auctioneer was proceeding, something of great import took place, judging by the reaction of the crowd. There was all of a sudden a reverent hush, and the people nearest the platform began backing away. Noticing that something was going on, the auctioneer began to look around, and seeing what had caused the change in the rambunctious throng below him, he suddenly left off speaking, and offered a very respectful bow to a person who was approaching, and before whom the crowds were melting away, as the leaves of autumn scatter before a whirling vortex. She was a lady of a very beautiful and stately appearance, with hair and eyes of ebony, and alabaster skin; and upon her head was a diadem of purest gold, encrusted with a dazzling array of jewels in every hue.

For the entire extent of the auction, which by this time had been proceeding for a couple hours, Mishael had been marked by a visage of utter despair and misery. His thoughts had been a maelstrom of bitter regrets, anger, despair, and every dark and undesirable emotion that man is capable of. The words of Eshban, calling into question the very existence of Lebben-Or, were stirring up all the latent doubts of his faltering spirit, and he had just been crying out in his heart that, if only he could believe that Lebben-Or truly existed, and was truly as good and beautiful as Ariel had said, he could spend the rest of his life content even as a slave in Lusk, simply knowing that there was still good in the world. “But alas!”, he cried out in his heart, “even that comfort is denied to me!”. And at that point, he was just on the verge of collapsing in defeat, his feeble body no longer able to sustain such titanic revolutions of spirit.

But just then, when he was at his weakest, a vision so brilliant that it might have been very reality repeating itself burst upon his brain, and he saw the glowing rapture in Ariel’s eyes, and heard anew every word she had spoken in her impassioned revery three days before; and at that moment, although he had doubted before and would doubt again later, he knew as certainly as he had ever known anything, that Lebben-Or was of a more fundamental and lasting reality than this place of deceptive facades, and that its beauty was a beauty which he was destined to behold; and in that moment of conviction, his entire countenance was transfigured, and the glory of the beautiful city was reflected in his eyes, and irradiated from his fiercely happy and strangely tranquil face. It was just then that the beautiful lady with so commanding an aura walked by.

This lady of whom we speak was in fact the Queen of Lusk, Isabella by name. And as she glanced at Mishael, his altered appearance of calm and unconquerable serenity struck her at once. Looking him over a little more closely, and noticing with appreciation his well-groomed and handsome features, she paused for a moment with a pensive look on her face, then motioned toward him with a slight nod of her head to the auctioneer, and left the crowd. Immediately, the auctioneer hurried over to Mishael, and handling him as if he were made of solid gold, ushered him by hand off the high platform, where he was led to a fine, expensive-looking carriage, and made to sit down.

During all this, Eshban, the proud Akbar, had been standing next to Mishael in line, and had noticed the whole exchange, from his gloomy appearance all the time previous to his sudden change of expression just when the Queen had arrived; and when Isabella had given the auctioneer her fateful nod, his face suddenly became inflamed with a livid jealousy and fury of spite, and he watched him go down from the platform with a look of vengeful hatred. As Mishael was leaving the square in his plush carriage, still not quite sure what had happened, he glanced up and caught a glimpse of the enraged countenance of Eshban, and wondered what it all meant, although he half suspected he knew.

* * * * * * * *

This time, Mishael’s journey would be surprisingly short. The little carriage, drawn by two proudly prancing white chargers, made its way across the central square of Lusk with a great deal of facility, as all the impediments before it, whether pedestrian, equestrian or other, melted as if by magic, everyone who caught the merest glimpse of the royal carriage scuttling aside with alacrity. At the far eastern edge of the paved square the carriage drew up before a massive, wrought-iron gate in the wall around the royal palace, which opened at once before it. Then, passing into a small portcullis and through another iron gate, the carriage carried Mishael into the courtyard of the palace itself, which was a fairy-tale wonderland of crystal streams and fountains teeming with goldfish, exotic gardens, and beautiful palaces and buildings, all designed and constructed with the most exquisite taste.

Mishael passed by several large, stately buildings, and finally arrived at the largest of all, the great marble palace in the center, of which the turrets were so high as to be visible above the parapet of the surrounding wall. Drawing up there, the chauffeur opened Mishael’s door, and awkwardly blushing when he saw his still-bound wrists, severely barked out an order to an attendant, who set off at a brisk pace, and quickly returned with a blacksmith wielding some intimidating tool, who soon had the iron fetters snipped off as if they had been made of tow. The chauffeur then barked out another order to a different attendant, who very submissively led Mishael into the great palace and through such a variety of beautiful halls and rooms that Mishael quite lost track of which direction he was going. Finally, the attendant opened up the door to a cavernous bath, with steaming pools of water in every corner, and an enormous pool of cooler water, perhaps twenty yards wide by a hundred yards long, in the center. In various corners and closets were shelves lined with fine linen, soaps, perfumes, and toiletries from every far-off land that could be conceived, and here and there were sitting beautiful female attendants, robed in white linen. Seeing Mishael enter, they all jumped up at once, and leading him to one of the steaming pools, bathed and treated him with a dazzling variety of ointments and medicines. As blistered and raw as he had been from the beating sun and blasting sands of the desert just the day before, by the time they were finished Mishael thought he had never felt so relaxed and comfortable in all his life. The severe, jolting changes from the sure hope of Lebben-Or to the desperation of the slave market, and now back again to unimaginable luxury, put him again into a rather dazed, albeit this time a pleasantly dazed condition of semi-awareness.

Finally, after the attendants had made him presentable, and arrayed him in the most fashionable and expensive clothes of the time, one of them led him to another room which seemed to be a private parlor, where a distinguished and impeccably attired servant immediately offered him a variety of enticing drinks, exotic fruits, cheeses, nuts, and sweetmeats of all sorts; not knowing quite what to do, but immediately guided by his fine sensibilities, which he had possessed from childhood, he chose one or two items with an air of casual but knowledgeable discrimination and nodded almost imperceptibly and a little dismissively to the butler, who picking up on the cue immediately, and with an approving glint of satisfaction in his eye, made a decorous retreat.

Mishael then sat down on one of the plush couches, and crossing his leg with a delicate and all-but-snobbish motion, sampled the fine delicacies he had chosen, which proved to be even better than he had imagined. With a self-preserving instinct he had cast himself so perfectly into the pretentious mold of the prosperous snobs all around him that one would have been amazed to see him now, who had glimpsed him an hour before on the auction block.

A few moments later, Queen Isabella herself walked into the familiar parlor and scrutinized him with an approving gaze. This was the first time Mishael had really seen her, as he had been in another world, far away from this, at the moment she had looked at him in the city center before. And now that he was in fact seeing her for the first time, he was so astonished by her appearance that he almost lost the dignified air he had so quickly assumed: she was the exact image – in fact, Mishael thought she was indeed the very person – of the dream-woman he had followed before across the Desert of Salt, whom the Luskians call the chimera Allura. In an instant, the dream came back to him, and the thought burst upon his mind, “It is she! I have found her at last, after following her across the desert!”. Of course, it wasn’t really “she,” but she did indeed have the same air of guilty pleasure and bewitching seduction, which lay at the very heart of the prosperous city of Lusk.

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