Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 6)

Elkanah’s voice was surprisingly clear and powerful, for a man of his age and slender build, and the sound of the Old Characters, read at first in the Ancient Tongue itself, struck Mishael as the most powerful, beautiful, rich and somber tones he had ever heard in all his life. It was almost as if he could understand the words without even knowing their meaning, and that whatever they meant, their import had certainly to consist of the sense of dignity, power, purpose, and courage that flooded his soul when he listened to them.

Pausing for a little bit, to let the effect of the reading sink into the little group of seekers, all of whom seemed affected in much the same manner as Mishael, the old traveler then cleared his throat, and continued to speak:

“This is the meaning in the Common Tongue:

“Pierced shall be the Dragon’s eye,
His mountain-bones shall quake with fright;
Old Tiamat shall stir and sigh;
The last tribe shall be filled with light;

The last great battle shall begin,
And then the King will come again.”

“It’s part of the ancient prophecy!”, Ariel said eagerly, in a whisper intended only for Mishael, but which was loud enough, due to her excitement, to be heard by the whole counsel.

Lebbaeus looked at her with a mixture of sobriety and fatherly affection, and agreed, “Yes, it is one of the ancient prophecies, written out by one of the seekers, before Vrak had raised up the Thicket to cut off all outside contact with Fair Semblances; it may have been written by Giliel himself, which would make that fragment in the very heart of Fair Semblances one of the oldest surviving manuscripts of the ancients. But of course,” he continued grimly, “it has done very little good where it is now. However, that may all be changing,” he added significantly, directing a meaningful glance toward the young refugee.

“Our young companion, Mishael,” Lebbaeus continued to address the assembly, “has been very helpful in filling out our understanding of what has been happening in Fair Semblances during the many centuries in which we have been unable to pierce its depths. There has been much speculation as to how Vrak has been managing to keep his prisoners content and unwilling to flee – for even the Impenetrable Thicket, as formidable an obstacle as that is, could not forever hinder those whose hearts longed to be elsewhere – and it seems as though we now have an answer, at least in part. The Enemy has devised a game, which our friend here knows as the Divertisement, that simulates the greater world and reality that lies outside of the little consortium. In this way, he manages to deceive them all into thinking that their lives have the meaning and purpose that inheres in the true world, even though, in reality, their existence is pitifully small and empty, and their eyes are utterly blinded to those things that are real and lasting.”

“And the Somnia, too!”, Mishael interrupted impulsively. He had been listening with the growing sense of conviction that Lebbaeus was absolutely right, and also with a corollary sense of wonder that he had actually been deceived for so long by a mere game; and furthermore, that the entire consortium was likewise so deceived, even those whom he had respected all his life for their prudence and intelligence. And suddenly, reflecting on those staggering realizations, he had made another connection to the role that the consortium’s beloved Somnia had to play in the whole, vast fraud.

Lebbaeus looked at Mishael inquisitively.

“Somnia is rationed out by the inner council, under the direction of the Grand Proprietor himself, and all the people love it immensely, almost as much as they love the Divertisement,” Mishael explained. “It’s wonderfully able to give one a clear sense of courage and purpose, and sharpens one’s minds and faculties most unexplainably, and everyone considers it quite a necessity. But sometimes I used to wonder, when I was a child, if the dull state of perplexity and confusion that one stumbled into when he had been too long without his Somnia might actually be a state of greater understanding and perception. Just as when, after awaking from a dream, one at first feels confused and groggy, not at all as certain and clear as he had just felt in his dream; but at least that groggy perception is a perception of reality, and not just of the fleeting world of a dream.”

Mishael was now becoming much more comfortable with his position in the midst of all these strangers, and was starting to be convinced of the truth of these eye-opening, life-changing realizations, and so he was much more at ease when he spoke, and even possessed a sort of clarity and eloquence that comes with simple conviction. The sudden change in his confidence and speaking ability seemed to surprise and please Lebbaeus.

“Tell me a little more about this Grand Proprietor,” Lebbaeus urged. “Is he thoroughly evil?

“Oh no, he’s very good and respectable,” Mishael said in surprise. “Although, the last time I spoke with him I got a sudden impression –” here, he paused, not knowing quite how to continue; “I suppose, if he seems so good, but is really evil, he must be very evil indeed, perhaps more so even than the sanguinors,” he added, a little doubtfully.

“Yes, you are certainly correct,” the Overseer affirmed. “And if this Grand Proprietor is the minister of Vrak, as I think he must be, then Vrak must have a very definite purpose for the consortium, a purpose which he has managed to keep hidden for a very long time. We have answered, to some extent, the question of how; but the much more difficult question, and also the much more important, is that altogether different question of why. This is a question we are currently unable to answer; but I have a feeling, that since Vrak has now lost one of the inhabitants, he will be acting soon, and his purpose will become very clear all too quickly. And it’s also impossible that he does not likewise know of the ancient prophecy.

“Now, it is apparent that the ancient histories have some sort of a continuing existence in Fair Semblances,” Lebbaeus continued in a different vein; “but I also highly suspect that they are subtly perverted, according to the whims of Vrak. Therefore, it would be most expedient that I relate to you” (here, he was looking directly at Mishael, and no doubt intended to address him alone) “the true history of the Great Struggle, so that you might be fully aware of what we are striving toward, and what we must accomplish.”

Then, shifting his position and collecting his thoughts, he proceeded to give a brief recounting of those things of which Mishael had heard already, in what he knew as the ancient legends, but which were slightly and very significantly different in quite a few places.

“In the beginning, when the worlds began to emanate forth from beneath the Throne of the Many-Splendored, in the overflow of his own joy and magnificence, all things were good and fair and beautiful. First, there flowed forth the seas and rivers, and they teemed with the conscious sparks of joy and life that are the fish and birds of the air; then, the land sprang up, and it was filled with grass and trees and luxurious plants, and all the good animals that love to breathe its clear air and dance across its softly-rolling hills and valleys. The conscious sparks of reflective joy grew ever more brilliant and beautiful and self-aware, until they issued in the climactic formation of the perpetuati, those immortal races of beings of which the most beautiful, and the most involved in the affairs of men, are the phosphors.

“All things existed in a mutual symbiosis of love and peace at that time; but slowly, in the heart of the most beautiful of all the perpetuati, whose former name is no longer uttered under the sun, there began to grow pride and jealousy of the High King, Who is the Radiance of the Many-Splendored.

“The bitter jealousy of this great creature grew within him, and had a life of its own; and after nine ages, it came forth from his bowels, and he gave birth to Wyrmwood, the first of the wyrms. Wyrmwood’s progenitor, whom we now call Vrak, the Enemy, was scared that the High King would see his ugly and misshapen offspring, and know whence it had arisen, so he killed Wyrmwood; but he could not kill his heart, which forever kept beating, no matter where it was at. At first he ate it, and it poisoned his veins, so that he became utterly like his progeny, and grew into the form of a dragon himself, as ugly as he had been beautiful; then, he vomited up the heart of Wyrmwood, and hid it in the earth.

“But from out of the buried heart of Wyrmwood, there came forth many ugly wyrms, at first tiny and grubbing about in the earth as maggots; but they grew, and became that terrible race of wyrms which still ravages the earth today. But even bitterer yet was the tree that grew above Wyrmwood’s heart; for that tree was surrounded by a poisonous, ennervating, deceptive atmosphere, and in that noxious atmosphere there grew a beautiful but deadly fruit, which hung enticingly on the boughs.

“At this time, the High King approached Vrak, who could hide no longer, with the words of the first great prophecy, by which he solemnly swore with his own hands to destroy him and all his evil works; and he prophesied, moreover, that in his Great Struggle against the Enemy, he would form a new race of perpetuati, the imagi, who would alone be undetermined in the Struggle, unlike the good phosphors and the evil wyrms. They would therefore constitute that great battlefield upon which the Struggle would be waged; for Vrak would ever strive to deceive and lure them over to his side, and the phosphors would ever strive to keep them in the light of truth; but at the critical moment, he himself, the High King, would descend to bring the death-stroke against Vrak and all his wyrms.

“Hearing all this, Vrak fled from the Presence of the High King, to await the arrival of the imagi. Soon, the world was filled with them, and they were full of joy and love, and lived at peace on the green and fruitful earth. But then, Vrak approached the Tree of Wyrmwood, and stole the Delectable False-Fruits; and when he approached the tree, and breathed in the insidious air surrounding it, his own breath became noxious and insidious as well; and ever thereafter, wherever he has breathed upon the earth with his Breath of Wyrmwood, all things die, and confusion and chaos reign.

“Vrak planted these Delectable False-Fruits in the fairest fields of the earth; and one day, Edomah, the oldest imagus in all the earth, found them, and partook. Immediately, the gall of Wyrmwood filled his veins and poisoned his heart; and the plague of rage, deception, and violence that would soon fill the earth began to spread, first from him to his family, and then to all the world, and even to the birds and beasts, until all men, just like the fierce animals of prey that soon arose, began to hate and kill each other, and were jealous and violent. There was an epic struggle, and all the inhabitants of the earth were killed except for one man, Esperus, with his family. This was the end of the First Age.

“After this First Age, it appeared that the battle had been won, and Esperus began to repopulate the world with his offspring. But as he grew his garden in the ground that had once been infested with the fruits of Wyrmwood, the poison slowly tainted the fruits, and began to grow again in the veins of all the imagi. It was then that the first seekers, whom we call the ancients, received the prophecies, and began to wander about the earth, seeking a fair and fruitful place to dwell. But the heart of Wyrmwood was still beating, and it was still infecting all the growth of the earth with its noxious influences, and everywhere, men were being poisoned and deceived, so that the old hatred and jealousies began to grow again.

“Finally, when almost the whole race was again deceived and infuriated, and only a few seekers remained, who roamed about the earth as outcasts, and were despised by all, the High King came as he had said at the beginning, and delivered the death-blow to Vrak; for he went himself to the Tree of Wyrmwood, and plucked it up by its roots. Then, taking Wyrmwood’s heart, which energized the whole great scheme and fraud of the Enemy, and from which the poison flowed into the veins of all men, he descended with it into the Fiery Chasm of Wrath, which had grown beneath the Throne of the Many-Splendored, as he sat and observed all the corruption that had come into his world.

“For three days, the Enemy thought that the High King and the Heart of Wyrmwood had perished together; but unexpectedly, the High King came up again from the Fiery Chasm, where he had left Wyrmwood’s Heart to be utterly destroyed. That was the end of the Second Age, which men call the Ancient Age.

“Immediately after this, the High King called together the few remaining seekers, and with the Knife of Compassion, which he had forged during his time in the Fiery Chasm, from the irony boughs of the Tree of Wyrmwood, he skillfully pierced their veins, and drew out all the blood that had been tainted by the gall of Wyrmwood; and then, piercing his own, pure veins, he gave them new life with a transfusion of untainted blood, so that they were utterly as man had been before the enticements of Vrak had corrupted him.

“The High King then built Lebben-Or, the Beautiful City, and surrounded it with seven mighty towers, all of them purest white and adorned with solid gold, that are impregnable and unassailable; and from Lebben-Or, there began to flow forth good and beauty, and the earth began to be changed to its original state. But in the dark places of the earth, Vrak was still scheming and deceiving men, and the world was ugly and gray and fruitless.

“Since that time, the High King has been sending out bands of wanderers and seekers, to call out the deceived imagi from the far reaches of the earth, and to rescue them from the clutches of Vrak. This camp is one of those bands that the High King has sent out. But the time has grown long, and men have grown weary, and many who were seekers have turned aside, and now kill and plunder. And in fact, even the first great encampment of the seekers, where they had hoped to establish another base of good in the far corner of the earth, has slowly become corrupt, and was finally deceived by Vrak; and although it retained its outward appearance of fruitfulness and beauty, it has long been one of the most dangerous and ugly places in the world. For many generations, we have been wondering what Vrak intends to do with this place; but until now, no one has escaped from its borders, to fill in our understanding of what he has been doing there. The place of which I am speaking, of course, is Fair Semblances, which in the time of the first seekers was named Fair Assemblies; but over the course of time, the word degenerated to the form it has today.

“So now,” Lebbaeus concluded, “we must decide what should be done with you, the first prisoner to escape from Fair Semblances in many hundreds of years.”

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