Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 30)

Gilead and Mishael battled their way westward, following the raging river in the bottom of the canyon, until sometime after midnight. But finally, the combined exertions of the previous night’s march, the morning’s terrible battle, and the ensuing flight to the north had drained their strength utterly. They simply could not push themselves any further; and so, collapsing near the edge of the river, beneath the overhanging wall of the red canyon, they dropped off immediately into a fearful slumber, which was populated in turbulent dreams by the vast hosts of Vrak, the black, fire-breathing wyrms, Tahath fawning before the Grand Proprietor, or else writhing in the blood of his shame on the parched desert floor. Periodically, Mishael would jerk awake, glance over to see Gilead moaning in his sleep and tossing about on the hard stone floor of the canyon, which was damp and rotten from the spray of the river; and then, he would roll over again, and plunge back into his nightmarish dreamworld.

Eventually, however, the spirit of his dreams changed entirely, and he was back in Lebben-Or, walking through its crystal streets and verdant gardens, and Ariel was at his side, casting her hair back behind her shoulder with a toss of her head, and her face lit up all at once with a spontaneous, infectious smile, just as it had been wont to do at some little witticism or clever remark when he had been at home in the Beautiful City; and for a moment, he almost heard the melodic peal of her laughter, and he reached out to touch her face – but then it was gone, the sound he was hearing was only the gurgle of the river, he was alone and damp and cold, his hip was throbbing where it had been pressed against the stone floor; and for the first time since his journey had begun, he held his face in his hands and wept piteously, with deep, heaving sobs that shook his whole body.

After this, mercifully, Mishael slept again, and this time his sleep was dreamless and refreshing.

When the two friends awoke for good it was broad daylight, and the sun was high enough in the sky to cast its rays directly on the dancing river in front of them, tucked away as it was beneath the soaring red walls of the canyon.

“How did you sleep?” Gilead asked, stretching his stiff, sore limbs as he turned toward Mishael.

Mishael just shrugged, and responded rather curtly, “I slept”.

With a commiserating smile, Gilead responded, “Yes, my night was also less than I could have hoped for. But nevertheless, I did sleep, and I suppose I’m ready to press on again tonight. Say, do you suppose we could take the chance of building a fire this afternoon? We could enjoy a warm meal for once, and get these clothes dried out; and I, for one, am wretchedly cold. Besides, with this overhanging wall, I don’t think the smoke would be visible from above; by the time it works its way a thousand feet up through these rocks and shrubs and whatnot, it will largely be dissipated.”

The prospect was too enticing to Mishael not to agree; and soon, they had a very small, discreet flame flickering in the back of the little spot where they had slept, sheltered by the rocky overhang. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing, drying out, and gleaning a little renewed strength for the coming journey, which they hoped to undertake through the course of the night ahead.

When evening was casting its shadows across the canyon’s watery depths, Mishael and Gilead set out once more. They were feeling much more energetic than the previous night, and they made good time. In a few places they had to wade out through the raging river, and so they were soon thoroughly soaked again; but their brisk pace was sufficient to keep them reasonably warm. Besides that, it was largely a hassle-free trip, save a few roaring waterfalls and rapids around which they had to climb down, making use of the slippery stone cliff faces; but they were both adept climbers and surmounted these obstacles in stride, with no great loss of time.

Before long, the companions began to notice that the cliff walls were considerably less high than they had been before; and eventually, just before dawn, they got to a point at which the surface of the river was but a few feet from the lip of the cliff.

“We’d better stop soon,” Gilead suggested, looking at the low cliff wall, which a few hours before had soared so high above them. Now, when he leapt up, he could see above the canyon wall, and get a brief glimpse of the terrain beyond, which seemed in the pale glow of the first rays of the dawn to be mostly sand, with a few shrubs scattered about here and there.

“If I remember right, we must be close to the Encompassing Sea in the west. Dolos, of course, is within a few miles of the Sea, and we must be several miles west of Dolos already; so if we leave this little canyon, we’ll likely be left without any cover whatsoever, when daylight comes.”

“Hold on a moment!” Mishael whispered; and for a moment, he was utterly silent, with his hand cupped around his ear, which was pointed directly to the west. “Do you hear something? It’s like the ebb and flow of the sea, like waves crashing against the sand.”

For a moment, Gilead listened, just as intently; and then, he enthusiastically confirmed Mishael’s opinion:

“Yes, it is the sea; we have made it as far to the west as we can go; tomorrow night, we will follow the sea to the south, until we reach Dolos; perhaps we can find some forgotten entrance or devise some means of scaling the wall on its less guarded sides toward the sea. But for now, let’s get some sleep.”

And all that day, without the terrifying dreams and restless tossings and turnings of the previous night, the two friends slept on the softer sands of the canyon floor, within earshot of the illimitable expanse of the Encompassing Sea.

The next night, the two travelers, bedraggled but hopeful, traversed the rest of the intervening space to the south, and finally arrived at the great city of Vrak; by midnight, they were within sight of its black, looming walls. There they drew up for a few minutes to deliberate.

“I think Providence has been kind to us,” Gilead whispered to Mishael; “See the torches placed intermittently around the wall? Those must be guard stations; and here, we are right between the two of them that seem to be the farthest apart, at least as far as I can see; on top of the wall just before us, it is utterly dark for a space of just a few feet, between the furthest glow of the torches on either side. Perhaps this is the likeliest spot and the likeliest time to attempt a covert entrance.”

“I’ve been doing a little more thinking, too; you see how the wall is everywhere covered with battlements? Well, I still have some rope with me, and I think we could tie it to a sturdy stick a little longer than the width of the spaces in between the battlements; we could throw the stick up until it catches the sides of two neighboring battlements, and then use it as an anchor to scale the wall with the help of the rope hanging down. If we are quiet, we just might be able to get in without arousing any suspicion.”

“Let’s go, then,” Mishael responded, trying not to sound too terrified, although his heart was beating so violently in his chest that he was half afraid its noise alone would be more than sufficient to arouse the night guards on top of the wall.

Silently, the two friends began walking toward the darkest part of the high stone wall before them.

* * * * * * * *

At the same time, high above them on the top of the wall, two guards were walking toward one of the little circles of torchlight between which Mishael and Gilead were hoping to scale the wall. One of them, a wizened little old soldier with three teeth on the bottom was complaining to the other, a fat, stupid-looking young man, who was listening in silence, obviously well-used to these harangues, and of the opinion that it did no good to try to placate the old man when he was in such a frame of mind.

“Sixty thousand soldiers in this bloody city, and we get the graveyard shift in the city’s bloody armpit again,” the old man was grumbling, all the while wheezing and panting as he toddled along at a very modest pace.

“Y’ know why they call it the armpit don’t you?”, he asked rhetorically, intending to continue with his explanation at once; but the fat man, not picking up on the rhetorical nature of the question, responded meekly,

“No, Lenny. Why d’ they call it the armpit?”

Exasperated at being interrupted with an answer to his question, the old man responded irascibly,

“Because it’s ugly, it stinks like fish and garbage, and its dark and gloomy, that’s why, you idiot”.

“Oh, kind of like an armpit, huh?”, the fat man responded stupidly. Apparently, this explanation had come as a bona fide revelation to him, and he was deeply pleased with his new bit of knowledge.

“Well, make sure y’ keep a close watch,” the old man called Lenny exhorted the fat young guard; “’Twouldn’t do to have monsters and goblins and scary sea monsters crawling over.” And with that, he settled down on his ancient haunches, leaned back against one of the battlements, and lowered his eyelids.

The young guard seemed not to have any conception of the rhetorical device known as sarcasm, and so he responded most earnestly,

“Oh, I will, Lenny. D’ ya think there’s such creatures that could climb so high, an’ get to the top an’ all?”

He was answered only with a sharper, shorter wheeze than normal, which he knew by experience to be a snore.

For a long while, the fat, faithful guard stood erect, staring into the dark depths of the night, trying not to think of what kinds of scary monsters may be coming over the wall. His nerves were highly agitated, and he kept thinking he heard scraping noises on the top of the wall, just out of the circle of light cast by his guardsman’s torch. Once, he heard a very distinct thump, and almost woke old Lenny up to tell him about it; but remembering the times in the past when he had woken him up as he slept on duty, he thought better of it, and stood there deliberating whether or not to go investigate. Finally, thinking of how ill it would fare with the both of them if they allowed a sea monster to crawl over the wall without sounding an alarm, he walked over to where he had heard the thump, deploring the darkness into which he was entering. It never occurred to him to remove the torch from its stand and take it with him.

As he approached the darkest portion of the wall, where he had thought he heard the thump, he was surprised to hear an indistinct whisper. Summoning up all his courage, and dredging the stagnant depths of his brain for the guardsman’s queries he had tried so hard to learn when he first joined Vrak’s army, he finally managed to stammer out, in a scarcely audible voice, which nevertheless seemed to him to be as loud as a shout, “Who goes there?”.

There was a brief pause, and then a calm, collected voice responded,

“We are here on business of the King; if you wish to cast in your lot with us, we offer you clemency in advance of his invasion.”

“You’re sure you’re not a goblin or a sea monster?” the guard asked again, with a slight tremor in his voice.

“We are who we said we are,” a different voice, equally calm, responded.

This information seemed to overwhelm the guard. He wasn’t sure how to process it all, he could think of no more helpful guardsman’s phrases to repeat, and he was still scared to wake up Lenny. So he stood there for a few minutes and said nothing. Finally, one of the voices, the first one he had heard, whispered to him again:

“What’s your name?”

“Carl,” the guard responded, delighted to be able to answer a question with confidence.

“Do you wish for clemency when the King invades?”

“D’ ya mean the High King?”, Carl responded, a little doubtfully. “We’re not supposed to talk of ‘im here. But they never told us ‘e ‘uz comin’. Is ‘e really comin’ after us?”

“Yes, he certainly is coming, and soon. But you may be sure that he will treat you kindly if you align yourself with us, for we are his messengers.”

“How soon?”, the guard muttered uncomfortably. Somewhere, in the depths of his heart, the words of the enigmatic strangers had the ring of truth. He could not intelligibly have framed his reasons for believing them, but believe he did, with an overwhelming certainty that was more thrilling and terrifying than anything he had ever experienced before.

“We don’t know exactly when he is coming, but it will be soon, very soon. Do you wish for mercy when he comes?”

“Yes!”, the guard responded with conviction; and the tremor in his voice was more pronounced. “But how do I ‘lie m’self with you?” Apparently, he was awkwardly attempting to repeat that unwieldy expression he had just heard, of “aligning” himself with the strangers.

“Listen: do you know where our friend Tobiah is being held?”

“Yes, in the Dragon’s Dungeon.”

“Take us there tonight, help us free him, and come with us out of the city. We will return to Lebben-Or, the city of the High King, and he will provide a home for you there.”

“Would the ‘igh King really have a place fur me?”, the guard asked in amazement. “An’ ‘ere I am with Vrak an’ all?”.

“Yes,” the unknown party responded with the same calm confidence; “You may be sure that he will welcome you with joy”.

“Follow me,” Carl whispered, in a voice that had almost entirely lost its tremor; “There’s a way to th’ dungeon that no one mos’ly knows ’bout, ‘cept the guards what ‘ave to clean out th’ stalls, an’ carry the garbage out o’ th’ city. Lenny an’ me ‘ve used it lots – oh, but make shor’ you don’ wake Lenny, or e’ll ‘ave our hides,” he concluded, with the tremor suddenly returning to his voice.

And slowly, the unlikely trio began making their way back to the guard station as silently as possible, where a staircase down to the city awaited them, not far from which was an old garbage tunnel, a deep dungeon, and the long yearned-for friend of the company, Tobiah himself.

Perhaps they could have made it otherwise; at any rate, they were almost to the staircase, and Lenny was still snoring peacefully. But just as he was stepping past Lenny, the awkward young fat man turned around to put his finger on his lips, in a motion intended to indicate to the two men behind him the need for absolute silence. As he turned back around, he tripped over Lenny’s foot, which was stretched out across the top of the wall, and with an ungainly sort of pirouette, which caused the skirt of his chain mail to twirl around his waist, making him look bizarrely like a hippo ballerina, he plopped down right on the old man’s waist.

There was a sharp intake of breath, a second of silence, and then a bloodcurdling howl, which, between its inarticulate portions advanced something like this:

“What just happ – of all the – Carl! you stupid, ungainly, lumbering brute! Miserable fat whale! So he’p me, I’ll cut off yer lard butt and feed it in pieces to the birds!” Here, the tirade was cut short by a remarkable series of gasps and wheezes that left the status of its originator in serious doubt. But somehow, he did manage to survive the attack, and finally regained his breath well enough to be able to take up the abuse of his partner again. But just as he was about to start, he noticed Gilead and Mishael, who were still beside the staircase, standing as if frozen in time.

The old man looked astonished, and began to mutter, “I think it’s – no, it couldn’t be – but who else…”; then, exuberantly, he turned to Carl and cried out in glee, “Good work, partner! We’ll be richly ‘warded for this!” But suddenly, realizing the danger of his position, he cried out to the other two,

“Stand back, y’ scoundrels! I’ll ‘ave the whole army up ‘ere in no time! If y’ touch me, it’ll be the worse fer you!”

This whole time, Carl had been dumbstruck. But finally, he found the words to express himself to his revered partner:

“No, Lenny, y’ don’ un’erstand! We ‘ave to help ‘em, else the King ‘ll ‘ave our hides fer shor! But if we ‘elp ‘em, he’ll give us a place in Lebb’n-Or. Don’ ya un’rstand?”

This time, the old guard was utterly taken aback. Never had he heard any opinion expressed with anything like certainty from the lips of this guardsman whom he so deeply despised for his weakness and stupidity; and now, when he had finally seemed to grow a backbone, it was about something so absurd as to be beyond words. For a few moments, he said nothing at all. Then, his eyes narrowed, he wheezed once or twice, and finally replied, in a low, menacing tone:

“I’m about to sound the alarm, and the whole city will soon be upon these intruders. If you want to share their fate, then just keep up this nonsense; otherwise, be a sensible idiot, come over here with me, and wait for the ‘wards and honor we’ll receive for this piece of r’spectable work.” He paused for a moment, awaiting the obvious reaction he had come to expect from his fat partner: an obsequious, “Shor, Lenny, whatever ya say,” accompanied by a cringing movement closer to him, like a scolded dog who creeps closer to his master in hopes of mercy. He would never understand the response he got instead, not till the end of his life: Carl slowly drew in a deep breath, mustered all his courage, and finally responded:

“I already ‘lied m’self with ‘em, and I ‘spect mercy from the ‘igh King. An’ ‘ere I’ll stan’ with ‘em.”

Lenny’s face grew gray with wonder and disbelief. Slowly, with no further response, he drew the watch station trumpet to his lips, and sounded a ringing alarm. Within seconds, guards and soldiers were swarming in upon them from all sides; and soon they had disarmed and bound Mishael, Gilead, and Carl the guardsman, of whose unthinkable treachery none of the soldiers who arrived, and who knew him, could bring themselves to believe, until they had heard the same sentiment from his own lips, which he had so courageously expressed to Lenny a few moments before.

It was still pitch black; but surrounded by a riotous mob fully accoutered with a profusion of clanging weapons and flaming torches, the three companions found themselves escorted to a place even darker yet, a place where the smell of death and decay was the most poignant feature, a place damp and cold and blacker than the darkest midnight. “Can it be,” the words flashed through Mishael’s mind, “that poor Tobiah has been made to suffer in this unspeakable pit for so long? We have done well to come, if but to reassure him that he is not finally forgotten”. And then, all thoughts were crowded out by the tumultuous clamor of the savage crowd.

3 Responses to “Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 30)”

  1. Ryan says:
    March 19, 2009 at 8:44 pm

    Nathan,

    I like your new site, and this colorful little story.

    I’m not sure the shades of meaning you intend your readers to discern, and I would have to read more than this installment to get a sense of the flow of the allegory, but it held a fruitful reminder for me tonight as I head off to work a shift with what sometimes seems like a ragamuffin crew of unredeemable brutes.

    First, that it is simple and unlikely people who God tends to take hold of for salvation. This is full of hope and humbling. In the end, it is quite a simple truth that we latch onto for conversion, or perhaps better, that latches onto us.

    Second, that even the most novice creature in Christ really is new, and like Carl, is marked by confidence and wisdom that were not in his nature before. This is also humbling and hopefilled.

    Keep it up!

  2. pitchford says:
    March 19, 2009 at 9:04 pm

    Hey Ryan,

    Yes, those two points were the major points I had in mind for that particular episode on top of the wall. Of course, as you also said, there are bigger themes in the chapter that you wouldn’t necessarily pick up on if you’re just jumping in right there without the background of the rest of the story.

    Work for the glory of the King tonight!

  3. Ryan says:
    March 21, 2009 at 12:51 pm

    Thanks, Nathan

    Let us know when this gets published, and I will look forward to reading more as time allows.

    Along these lines, some of the most paradigm-blowing accounts I have heard are of believers in the persecuted world standing up to the death for their faith days, and sometimes hours after conversion. This with only a fraction of the knowledge of Scripture that you and I are blessed to enjoy! Like the wretch on the cross next to Jesus, the one thing that they do know proves to be the most powerful truth in the universe: aligning oneself with Jesus is the only thing that ultimately matters; the only way to be assured that one will be brought safely into the New Heavens and the New Earth.

    Ryan

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