Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 7)

There was a breathless and very somber silence when Lebbaeus finished his brief history. Mishael’s head was all in a whirl, and he was going back and forth between disbelief that the place he had known and loved all his life could really be so evil, and a very thankful wonder that, if it really were as Lebbaeus had described, he alone should have been plucked up out of its midst as a brand from the fire. He was also overwhelmed with an almost irrepressible urge to run back and warn his family and friends; but he felt, deep down, that it was really impossible at the time, and furthermore, that no one would possibly believe him, even if he did make it back, just as he would never have believed anyone else who might have come to him with so wild a tale. Still, looking back at the events of the past few days, and remembering in vivid detail the very real wyrms and sanguinors he had seen, and the otherwise unexplainable light of such a piercing splendor and beauty which the torch shed forth, he was convinced that the world really was as Lebbaeus had described it, that it was a world of vast and epic struggles, and that he had been utterly blinded until this very moment. The emotions that he was experiencing at this time are quite impossible to describe to someone who has not undergone a similar experience.

After a moment’s pause, Lebbaeus continued to speak:

“We have called this council now to come up with a strategy: it is very urgent that we devise the wisest and most workable plan to keep our young friend safe, for the present, and ultimately to bring him back to the High King himself, by any means possible. But Vrak will not be unwilling to divert all his forces to this inhospitable region of the world, as I suspect, just in order to prevent that from happening. So the task before us is a very difficult and dangerous one indeed.”

“Let me explain our position a little more fully, if I may,” Tobiah here interrupted.

Lebbaeus nodded to him, and so Tobiah proceeded to speak, directing his words mostly to Mishael, but glancing about at all the companions from time to time.

“Fair Semblances is a high mountain valley, really a very ancient cirque, positioned in the far northwestern corner of the Draconian mountains. These mountains obtain their name from the pattern in which they are laid out, which is quite strikingly in the form of a great wyrm, and which extends for hundreds of miles, in a predominantly north and south trajectory, near the shores of the Encompassing Sea in the west. And if the mountains really are in the shape of a wyrm,” he continued significantly, “then Fair Semblances is precisely in the position of the wyrm’s eye”.

“As in the prophecy!” Mishael blurted out, having just now put all that together.

“Yes, as in the prophecy,” Tobiah continued.

“Now, the place where I found you, on the high ridge running north and south, and overlooking Fair Semblances, is the part of the mountain range which corresponds to the wyrm’s shoulder. Extending from that ridge to the east is one of two more ridges, running parallel with each other, that make up the dragon’s forearms. It was around the northernmost of these ridges that we had to make our way, on the path to Waverly Lake. This ridge is utterly impassable, and is known as the Crags of Bewilderment.

“When we arrived at Waverly Lake, we had come to the utmost eastern boundary of the Crags of Bewilderment. Just to the north of that eastern boundary of those crags is the edge of Waverly Lake, where the town of Waverly lies, in which we stayed last night. Today, when we made our flight from the town, we passed southeast through a southern finger of the Northern Forest, and came out in the plain where we are right now, which is just to the south of that tip of the Crags of Bewilderment.

Here, Tobiah paused, to draw in the dirt a rough map of all those places he had been speaking of. Mishael had been mostly unsuccessful in his attempt to follow all of Tobiah’s geographical descriptions, and so he found the map quite helpful.

“Now as you can see,” Tobiah continued, “we are here”; he motioned with a stick.

“But Lebben-Or, where the High King dwells, is down here,” and he pointed a great distance down to what would be mostly south, but a little east, “near the southern regions of the Draconian Mountains. That is the only place where you will be truly safe.

“But here is our problem,” Tobiah continued: “The only safe and practical route that extends the several hundreds of miles to Lebben-Or is this Tedious Trail which we have been following. But it continues quite in line with the eastern edge of the Draconian Mountains for most of its length, which are almost everywhere impassable; so we would have no route of escape to the west. And then, to the east of the trail, for the whole extent of the voyage, stretches out the unimaginably vast and desolate Desert of Salt. It would be quite impossible to pass over that desert without dying of thirst and sunstroke; and besides, if Vrak found us there, in the endless, flat stretches of sand, we would be sitting ducks, as the expression goes.”

“Well, why can’t we go down the trail anyway?” Mishael wondered aloud. “As long as we have the torch, the wyrms and the sanquinors can do us no harm; we’ve already seen that.”

“Yes!”, Ethan thundered out approvingly. “Let all the wyrms of Vrak come upon us! They shall know the sword of Ethan!”

“And the arrows of Tahath!”, his zealous cousin echoed in a gush of excitement.

“Gentlemen, a little more order and discretion would be most helpful,” Lebbaeus rebuked them sternly. “It is not so simple as all that: we were stronger than a wyrm and one squadron of sanguinors today; but do you suppose that is all Vrak has to offer us? What if he comes with a thousand wyrms and a hundred thousand sanguinors, as he is no doubt capable of, and may very likely do if he knows the location of our refugee? What if we lose one, two, three of you from our company? We are already small, and the light would grow weaker and weaker as the company grew smaller. No,” he concluded pensively, “that would be only suicide.”

“Perhaps we could circumvent the entire Desert of Salt,” Azariah suggested. “It would be so long and circuitous a route that Vrak would certainly not suspect it; and we could sustain ourselves along the way by foraging and gathering fruits as we had opportunity. Perhaps, after a year, or even two, we could reach Lebben-Or, moving slowly, carefully, and inconspicuously.”

“No,” Tobiah interrupted, “for that would put us into the lands of the Nethinim, who are scarcely less difficult a challenge than the sanguinors” (the Nethinim, for those who might not know, are huge, six-fingered giants living in the East, who had grown very strong, fierce, and deformed from the wyrmwood-rich fruits of the eastern regions); “and besides, the Enemy is certain to have spies among the Nethinim, and if he found us in their regions, we would be no less conspicuous a target than if we were in the Desert of Salt itself.”

“Well, there is one other possibility that we should at least consider,” Lebbaeus continued, after a pause: “Gamaliel, the ancient Seer, lives very near, between the two eastern ridges of the Draconian Mountains. He is very wise and very strong in the light; perhaps he could help us.”

“He lives alone on a high hilltop right here,” Tobiah interjected, pointing to a place on the map he had scratched out in the sand, where the two ridges he had spoken of earlier joined the main chain of mountains which ran north and south.

“However,” Lebbaeus continued, “We encounter the same problem we have elsewhere, in that, we would be trapped between two impassable ridges, and would be quite cut off from any route of escape, if the Enemy should find us. And besides, I am not certain that even Gamaliel would be strong enough to help us, if Vrak discovers us there. He has not yet dared to resist Gamaliel, because the greater part of his forces are engaged in the southern regions of the Struggle; but he would certainly be ready to divert many of them up to the north, if he knew what high stakes are involved. We could be walking straight into an inescapable trap, if we go to Gamaliel.”

“Perhaps,” Elkanah spoke up for the first time, “it would be wiser to send one envoy to Gamaliel, to recruit his assistance, so that he might come to us, and help us along our way southward. And then, even if the messenger should perish, the whole company would not be lost.”

“Yes, that is a distinct possibility,” Lebbaeus agreed, “however, it would be best not to divide our company, which is already very small, unless we absolutely have to. Even as it is, we will be almost hopelessly outnumbered.”

“Well then, in that light, perhaps the wisest and most unexpected thing to do would be to divide the company after all,” Azariah blurted out in a sudden flash of inspiration; “then, Vrak would spend the vast majority of his resources attacking the whole company, believing that Mishael still remained with it; but in reality, he would be escaping covertly, with only one or two guides, to Lebben-Or. By the time Vrak finally realized his mistake, they may just be able to make it. Of course,” he added ironically, “the company might not fare too well in the end. But speaking for myself, and I think the rest of us here as well, it is a sacrifice we are more than ready to make.”

The whole company nodded in assent.

“But it may be a little too precipitate to exclude the possibility of seeking Gamaliel’s help altogether,” Lebbaeus observed; “Perhaps, we could still send a messenger to him, although the company would have to be diminished by yet another seeker. But the gain that could be accomplished may well be worth even so great a risk. Gamaliel’s wisdom is truly great, and his power would be an immense boon to the company.”

“Then maybe we could follow both of these approaches, and split into three parts,” Tobiah suggested. “I could go alone to Gamaliel, for my wildesteed is the swiftest and surest of foot, and my knowledge of the mountains the most thorough. One of you could go with Mishael, and make straight for Lebben-or, by the unlikeliest possible route. The rest of you could band together, and make your way south by the Tedious Trail, toward the Beautiful City. Vrak would be sure to target you the most fiercely; but resist as long as you are able, and keep the absence of Mishael a most solemn secret. Perhaps we can just buy him enough time.”

“I will go with Mishael,” Gilead spoke up suddenly.

“And I too,” Ariel added immediately. Then, seeing that some sort of justification was demanded, she continued, “I am weak, certainly no warrior, and could contribute little to the safety of the camp; but I am also very subtle, not at all unwise in the face of difficult decisions, and I could be, moreover, an encouragement to my own brother, such as no one else could be. And who knows what part I might have to play in the safe passage of Mishael?”, she concluded, with a pale, but determined countenance.

Lebbaeus looked at her for some moments with a very searching gaze. “It shall be as you said,” he finally agreed.

“And we will go by way of the Desert of Salt,” Gilead suddenly declared.

The whole company looked at him in amazement.

“After all, it is the most unexpected route we could take, so unlikely, in fact, that it will certainly be the last place Vrak would search. If the rest of the company manages to keep him occupied for awhile, we just might make it to Lebben-Or before he realizes where we’re at”.

“Yes, it’s the most unexpected route,” Ethan cried out in disbelief, “because it’s suicide! Even if we do keep Vrak occupied, it will be of no use; the desert itself will kill you as quickly as a whole army of sanguinors could do.”

“Perhaps not, though,” Gilead replied calmly. “In the ancient age, Reuel crossed the desert safely, and arrived in the southern plains of Goshen in just enough time to bring some much-needed assistance to the sons of Eliakim, thereby ensuring their victory over the Jechonites.”

“Yes, but Reuel knew where to find the Springs of Elim; without them, he would never have survived the journey. And their location has been forgotten for many generations,” Lebbaeus spoke up. “Unlikeliness may be a useful principle by which to devise a plan, but unlikeliness alone will not suffice. The plan must also be workable, and offer a reasonably good chance of success.”

“That’s true,” Gilead replied, still not disconcerted, “but our whole problem consists in the fact that there is no plan available to us with a very great likelihood of success. Where else can we go? The land of the Nethinim is no better than the desert; we could try to steal along the Draconian Mountains covertly, holding close to the Tedious Trail, but the minions of Vrak will be combing those parts quite diligently, for that is just what they expect us to do. Even if the company manages to conceal Mishael’s absence from Vrak for the entire duration of the journey, which is not at all a certain thing, chances are high that some wyrm or sanguinor or who knows what else might simply stumble across us by chance.

“At the very least, the story of Reuel proves to us that my proposed plan is possible; we might just manage to find Elim, especially if we have a copiacorn with us, as I presume we will. And if we do find its springs, I would say our chances of success are very considerable.”

Although Mishael had never heard of a copiacorn, he presumed, quite rightly, as he found out a little later, that the beasts he had seen grazing with the horses must be copiacorns. As Gilead would explain to him afterward, a copiacorn is a very convenient animal to have along when one is crossing a desert region. For one thing, copiacorns are able to absorb any moisture in the air through their skin, so that, in a damp climate, they can positively go along for months without drinking any water at all; and even in a very dry environment, they can go without drinking for a matter of some weeks. And besides, copiacorns have a remarkable nose for sniffing out moisture, and can lead a parched traveler directly to the nearest water, if there is any water to be found within the radius of a few miles. Of course, when there is no water whatsoever for countless miles, as is the case in the Desert of Salt, that ability becomes considerably less helpful.

The company continued to discuss their options for quite some time; but, although everyone remained skeptical of Gilead’s design to cross the desert, the simple fact was that, no one else could come up with any other plan that was not equally risky in some other respect. And so finally, with Lebbaeus’ somewhat hesitant blessing, the plan was confirmed. That very night, under the cover of darkness, Mishael, Gilead, and Ariel, leading two copiacorns laden down with a very great supply of water, would set out for the arid and uninviting regions of the Desert of Salt. In the meantime, Tobiah would ride with all possible haste to the mountain retreat of Gamaliel, to seek his assistance; and the rest of the company would continue down the Tedious Trail as swiftly as possible, and hope to attract all the attention of Vrak, but without engaging him in conflict whenever it was possible to avoid. It was something of a desperate plan, not quite to the satisfaction of anyone; but there were simply no other options, and the objective was important enough to justify undergoing some very substantial risk.

2 Responses to “Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 7)”

  1. Bob Hayton says:
    October 6, 2008 at 11:09 am

    I’m enjoying this series much. Looking forward to the next installment….

  2. pitchford says:
    October 6, 2008 at 12:07 pm

    Thanks, Bob. There should be much more to come (if I continue as planned).

Leave a Reply