Psalm 45 Publications

At the far north-eastern corner of the most honorable Consortium of Fair Semblances, one chilly April evening, stood three young men, scarcely more than boys, peering into the inscrutable gloom of the Impenetrable Thicket. The two closest to the thicket, remarkably alike in appearance, were in fact brothers, not quite two years apart. The name of the older was Javan Togarmah, and his younger brother was Elishah, although everyone called him Shahshi, a nickname which had a very notable history, no doubt, but a history which does not fall within the scope of this tale. Continue Reading

What Mishael had realized, when he glanced at the portrait overhanging the entrance to the gameroom, was that the interstices between the wyrms’ writhing bodies were not at all random or accidental, as they at first seemed to be; but they were in fact carefully designed to form a map, showing a very tortuous, winding, labyrinthine way from the bottom of the picture, under which was the Divertisment, or in other words, the very soul of Fair Semblances, and leading into the field of green in which the High King stood triumphant. And what struck him more poignantly yet, as he stood there for some minutes staring at the picture, was the growing conviction that the map laid out in precise proportions those very causeways that he had wandered through the night before, when he was lost in the Impenetrable Thicket. The longer he looked, the more certain he became, until what he had at first thought to pass off as a mere hunch became a solid conviction, and not a merely theoretical conviction, but one of that kind which impels men’s actions, and always undergirds the great deeds and heroic acts of history. Of course, Mishael did not think of his sudden discovery in this way, as he continued to scrutinize the hidden map; he merely noticed something he had not seen before, was struck by it, and had an irresistible urge, having noticed it, to prove once and for all whether he were actually correct in his suspicion. Continue Reading

The wildesteed carried its rider closer to Mishael, until it stood at the very foot of the cliff above which he was stranded. Looking up intently for a few seconds, the rider finally broke the silence, crying out, “Are you he for whom the trumpet has summoned aid?”

Mishael, still not sure what or whom to believe, and suddenly feeling ashamed that he had ignored the rider’s first “Hallo,” finally collected his thoughts sufficiently to stammer out in a timid tone, “Yes, um, that is, I think so”.

“Stay there,” the rider called out (although it was quite obvious that there was nowhere for Mishael to go); “I’ll be up presently to assist you”. Then, the wildesteed promptly disappeared from Mishael’s view. The rider was gone for what seemed quite a long time, but was really only a few minutes; and just when Mishael was beginning to wonder if he had only promised aid in order to mock him, he heard him again, this time above him; and soon he appeared on the now scorched ridge from which he had fallen at first, and promptly proceeded to lower a rope, with instructions to tie it around his waist, and then to attempt the steep climb back up to the ridge. A few bumps and scrapes later, Mishael was again on top of the ridge, face-to-face with his unexpected succorer. Continue Reading

When Mishael awoke, daylight was already streaming in from the little window above the nightstand. He had no idea what time it was, he only knew that he had been sleeping for a very long time. He was still a little groggy, and insufferably thirsty. He slowly stretched and rubbed his eyes, then got up and walked over to the corner of the room, where the rider had left some bottles of water, and proceeded to take a long swig. After that, he sat down on the side of the bed again, and began munching half-heartedly on some morsel of bread that Tobiah had left. It was obvious that he was deep in thought. Continue Reading

Mishael followed the young woman to the center of the camp, and looked around. At first glance, he was a little surprised at the bare simplicity of the little gathering that had just wielded such an astonishing power, turning wyrm-fire to harmless smoke, and stopping a squadron of terrifying sanguinors dead in their tracks. To all outward appearances, this was only a modest and very normal encampment, with three tents pitched in equilateral points around what seemed to be a makeshift courtyard: in the middle, a small fire ring was still smoldering, and scattered about the ring were various pieces of luggage, which apparently doubled as makeshift benches, in lieu of any real chairs. Continue Reading

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. Continue Reading

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. Continue Reading

Later that night, as the men were finishing up with the packing of the copiacorns, Mishael left the center of the camp, sat down on the grass, which was already wet with the dew, and looked up into the heavens. He had never really appreciated the stars when he lived in Fair Semblances. For one thing, there was always something of a mist in the skies, and they could rarely be seen with any clarity; and then, they just seemed so far away, so inconsequential and separate from life in the valley. But tonight, when he looked up into the nighttime skies, the stars so captivated his attention that he was almost distracted from the magnitude of the quest that lay before him. There seemed to him to be so many stars that the white points of light almost covered a greater area of the heavens than the black spaces in between; and he imagined that they were all looking down upon him intently, wondering what should become of him, rooting for him to be successful in his wild endeavor. Continue Reading

Among all those peoples who live near the borders of the great Desert of Salt, certain tales are frequently to be met with, coming usually from the garrulous old men who consider themselves formerly to have been intrepid adventurers, of a phenomenon so terrifying and destructive that very few who have encountered it have ever lived to tell the tale. This phenomenon, called Euraclydon in the Common Tongue, is a whirling tempest of such immense power and ferocity that it is supposed to be able to strip the flesh off of a hitherto living camel in a matter of just a few seconds. At least, that is what I heard in good faith from a very ancient man living several miles to the east of Waverly, who once saw Euraclydon swallow up a caravan of camels from afar, and exploring the scene a couple days later found only polished bones, looking as if they had lain there for centuries. And then, at another time, I heard it most solemnly averred by a different old adventurer, that he had seen Euraclydon pick up a boulder the size of a camel, and toss it a couple dozen or so yards, as if it had been as insubstantial as a corn husk. But whatever the truth may be, it is impossible not to believe that Euraclydon is at least a very terrifying and potentially deadly windstorm, capable of sandblasting quite to death any traveler unfortunate to be caught by it; and in fact, it is one of the chief reasons that very few persons are ever brave enough to venture even half a day’s journey into the desert’s borders. Continue Reading

The Springs of Elim, which the companions had stumbled upon in so timely a fashion, was the common designation for a very ancient and historically significant location, which had been lost to the world of mankind for so many generations that most men had begun to relegate it to the realms of fabled legend and baseless mythology. Its name first appears in the oldest histories of the Ancient Age, as they relate the terrible fate of the vast and powerful but utterly corrupt city-state of Zoar. According to these histories, when the wicked city was at the very height of its influence, the entire Desert of Salt was green and luxurious. But one day, a meteor fell from the sky into the midst of those green plains, dissolving on impact into a fine, acidic dust, that completely destroyed all the vegetation, and made bitter all the waters for hundreds of miles around. At the point of its impact, on the western edge of the city of Zoar, it opened up a chasm in the earth which was so vast that it quite swallowed up the entire city, with all its inhabitants, and buried it far beneath its acrimonious dust. Continue Reading

After all the events of the past several days, the travelers were hoping for nothing more than an uneventful journey the rest of the way to Lebben-Or; but even in this they would be frustrated by a most unexpected occurrence, which would utterly change the course of their quest, and provide them with no little uncertainty how to proceed. Looking back some time later, they would realize that this vexing obstruction to their plans was in fact the one thing that saved them from certain failure; but at the time, being utterly unaware of this fact, they saw little reason to derive any comfort from what seemed to be just another impediment that would take a great deal of energy and not a little good fortune to surmount. Continue Reading

Our underground wayfarers had not made it more than a few paces down the broad thoroughfare leading out eastward from the magnificent throne room before their attention was arrested by another small but very significant-looking room to their left. The entrance, perhaps twenty feet high, was much smaller than the main entrance to the throne room, which was more than a hundred feet in height; but other than that, it seemed to be a precise replica, with the same winged leopards stretched out over an arched doorway. As this was only the second time they had seen such an entrance, they decided to step into the room it opened up upon, to see if they could discover anything useful. Continue Reading

For a long while, Mishael and his friends made their way southward through the all-but-endless corridors of the dismal tunnel. The air was damp and stale, the temperature was a little too cool for comfort, and the monotony of the smooth stone floor and crumbling walls, the ceiling which was constantly dripping water and sand down the back of his neck, and the eerily echoing rhythm of three sets of footfalls had a depressing effect on Mishael. His thoughts turned to ever darker and drearier subjects and ceaselessly-recurring regrets, until the wanderings of his mind quite matched the wanderings of his feet down the dreary passageway. Continue Reading

When our three wanderers first stepped out of the sunless tunnel and into the desert again, it was broad daylight, nearly mid-day, judging by the height of the sun in the sky. For awhile, the luminous brilliance of the sun quite overwhelmed their gloom-accustomed eyes, which had been several days away from any light stronger than what their flickering torch could produce. Shading their eyes with their hands, and scanning the landscape spread out before them as best they could, they were able to determine that the desert terrain was beginning to give way to broken moorlands, with a few stunted shrubs and blasted clumps of grass here and there – an altogether encouraging sign, considering they had not come across any vegetation whatsoever since the Springs of Elim. Gilead, who knew the country fairly well, was of the opinion that this must be the edge of the Heath of Demarcation, and that very soon, the broken topography would give way to the rolling hills and fruitful plains surrounding Lebben-Or. The beautiful city itself, in his estimation, could be no further than a hundred miles away, easily reachable within the space of a week. Continue Reading

Although it was fully dark when Mishael entered the opulent city of Lusk, the broad street that the magnificent gate opened up upon was brightly lighted, and there were lights in most of the windows of the tall buildings lining either side of the street, so that he could see the city’s legendary beauty almost as if it were daylight. The buildings, as far as he could see, were eight stories high, and all covered with a facade of flawless white marble. Each story sported its own veranda, or balcony, that extended across the entire breadth of the building, and all of these verandas were covered with a very thick and luscious coat of flora, including many beautifully blooming flowers of every conceivable color and variety. Then, on the roofs of all the buildings were more gardens, some of them even flaunting small, fruit-bearing trees; and also tables and chairs, all well-lit with dozens of brilliant lanterns, and for the most part occupied by what seemed to be a highly celebratory crowd. The first level of each building was occupied by many small shops and businesses, all abustle with shoppers and vendors selling every conceivable ware; and the upper seven stories, as far as one could tell, seemed to be residential. Continue Reading

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. Continue Reading

The beautiful Queen Isabella scrutinized Mishael for some seconds, and then, with an approving air that seemed warm with the most intimate familiarity, and at the same time distant and unobtainable in its royal magnificence, she addressed him:

“I have chosen you on the belief that you may be one in whom the consummate splendor of my kingdom might take on a natural and dignified air. That is the only use I have for you. If you please me, I offer you the world, and every conceivable amenity and pleasure that it has ever produced. But in exchange, your soul must be mine alone. You must be at once ineffably glorious and set apart, an ideal which everyone will strive to emulate; and at the same time, familiar and approachable. Your glory will be a reflection of my own glory, and the glory of the City of Lusk; and make no mistake, the greatness of Lusk is built primarily upon the impression of unruffled happiness that is to be found in unrivaled prosperity; and secondarily upon the impression that such a state of perfect joy is obtainable to him who strives for it. If Lusk is to grow more prosperous, and capture the attention of more seekers of the pleasures of extravagance, who will bring in their wealth to swell its own greatness, then you must be the embodiment of both those things, the pleasure of wealth and its ready availability to all who are of a proud and noble spirit.” Continue Reading

All that night, Mishael kept the Eye of the Eagle, which is what men call the northernmost star in the sky, around which all the constellations revolve, on his right hand; and with so sure a guide joyfully sparkling in the unclouded heavens, and the words of Ariel burning in his heart, he continued to the West, where he hoped again, with the fervent expectation that had so suddenly revived from the ashes of his earlier longings, to gaze upon the true beauty of Lebben-Or, and see the High King face-to-face. His soul was awash in a mixture of deep, strange emotions, not the least of which were utter amazement at how quickly he had been deceived by the lying pleasures of Lusk, and acute shame at the memory of the last six weeks. But oddly, this shame and regret seemed almost hopeful and healthy to him, as if it were the first and most difficult step toward a glowing destination; and as deep as his remorse truly was, it could not restrain the glad incursion of the joy and hope that seemed to breathe in the air all around him, and force themselves into his inmost being. At times he caught himself softly singing some old, pleasant tune, and coming to himself, he would chuckle with a sort of abashed amusement, and wonder anew at how good it felt to be free from Lusk, free from the empty charade, free from himself. Continue Reading

The ride to Lebben-Or was altogether delightful. Although Mishael had been longing to see the Beautiful City, he had also been dreading the day of his arrival, and of his reacquaintance with the company, because of all the troubles he had caused them through his foolish choices. He felt ashamed and embarrassed, and as ardently as he yearned to see them all, he almost wished he could hide himself away forever, and doubted that he would ever have the strength to look any of them in the eye again. But strange to say, the closer he got to the City of the High King, the more those fears seemed utterly to dissipate away, until only the excitement and joyful longing remained. The very atmosphere seemed hopeful and forgiving, and his thoughts all came with an unwonted clarity and truthfulness, such as he had not experienced since his time with them in the camp, before his desperate journey through the Desert of Salt. The thought struck him, and seemed especially significant and true, that the atmosphere of the Bountiful Plains surrounding Lebben-Or was the exact opposite of the atmosphere in the Impenetrable Thicket surrounding Fair Semblances, which had only filled him with confusion and evil, despairing thoughts. Continue Reading

All that night, Mishael slept very fitfully in Gilead’s little abode, high above the city streets. When he was asleep, he would have strange, vivid dreams, in which the lofty towers of Lebben-Or, the homely dwellings of the happy cottagers, the serenity of Winsome Forest, and the awful, relentless fires of the Chasm of Wrath far beneath the Beautiful City were all mingled together, and passed before him one after another, in a ceaseless parade that left his spirit in a state of breathless exhilaration, until he would finally wake with a jolt, and wandering out to the little terrace connected to his room, gaze out upon the city’s unrivaled splendor. The crystal streets and structures all around caught the light of the moon so adeptly that their reflections seemed to magnify its soft glow; and while there were no artificial lights to be seen, the pale luminescence of the moon and stars alone lit up the vistas below far more gently and thoroughly than the harsh lights of Lusk had been able to accomplish. There, the nighttime city had been a cacophonous mixture of glaring brilliance and deep, Stygian shadows; but here, there was only perfect, mild illumination without stark change or abrupt borders. There, the atmosphere of the night had been tended toward a feeling of desperate, fleeting excess; but here, the feeling was one of eternal calm and an unending joy not subject to the backlash of disappointment or pain. Continue Reading

It was a clear August day in Lebben-Or, the city of the High King, and the hot afternoon sun cast its brightest rays on a small company of sojourners making their way through the crystal walkways of the Beautiful City toward the seven-tiered tower in its center. The company consisted of a brother and sister named Gilead and Ariel, and their joint friend Mishael, all three of whom seemed to be quite young, still in their teens or very early twenties at the most. Although they were conversing pleasantly as they walked along, with an occasional peal of laughter livening up their journey, anyone who knew them well would have noticed at once that there was about them a certain air of solemn expectancy, a nervous sort of anticipation that was quite out of the ordinary. They all gave the impression that something momentous was about to happen, and that its fallout would affect each one of them profoundly. Continue Reading

Late that night, Mishael was walking alone through the streets of Lebben-Or, reflecting wistfully on the beauty of the city, the sense of absolute belonging that he had there within its walls, and the sad brevity of this first sight of it, which he had finally attained after so long and onerous a journey. “And can it be,” he wondered grimly, “that I have finally found my true place in this world, after so many struggles – but just to leave it at once and return to the wretched existence I had known before, where all is deception and turmoil and raving madness? Am I strong enough yet to face it all again, when all that should equip and inspirit me is still so unfamiliar? And yet, would the High King send me out if I were still unready? No, I must not be childishly fickle, but for him above all, and for Lebben-Or, and Tobias, and Ariel who remains behind – and indeed, for the conquest of the whole world, which comes as certainly as the dawn, but likewise as red with the courage and sacrifice of the seekers – for this, I must be strong, I must overcome. The path of ease never ends in pleasure, and the path of pleasure ever winds through pain; is that not the way of the world?” With these and many other like thoughts he was stirring up his soul to plow into the task ahead with never a hesitation or regret, come what may. And for those who do not yet know, there is no place like Lebben-Or in which to strengthen one’s resolve and steel one’s soul for the most trying of labors. Continue Reading

The sun had already set when the company began to notice signs of other life on every side of the caravan; but it was not yet dark, only that dusky gray that seems to linger in the mountains long after sunset, which they who live on the plains know nothing about. At the time, they were riding along the edge of a grassy slope which dropped steeply beneath them, and curved ahead of them like the rim of a cup. The bowl-shaped depression that it plunged into quickly became too steep for the mules to negotiate, and above them, on their left hand, the ancient pine forest was too deep and tangled to admit any sort of facile progress. Even where the trees were growing far enough apart to allow the passage of the broad-backed mules and the cordilleras with their wide packs, the deadfall was stacked up at least four feet high, requiring a prodigious effort to scramble over, and more importantly, presenting the danger of more broken legs, which the travelers could not at all afford, if they hoped to retain any reasonable chance of success. Continue Reading

For a few moments, no one dared to speak. Then, suggestively clearing his throat, Lebbaeus gave the company a solemn reminder:

“We are still surrounded by unfriendly forces, and so we would do well not to forget the need for caution.”

The whole company was, in fact, standing around the recently slain wyrm at full height, not taking advantage of the ramparts they had constructed earlier as a defense against the menacing arrows of the hairy beast-men. But remembering again the earlier threat, which they had quite forgotten in the excitement surrounding the arrival of this newer, and until recently much more imposing danger, they took cover once again behind their crude bulwark. They were far too agitated by their narrow escape to go back to sleep, but for a time they seemed thoroughly out of words or ideas, so they just sat there all huddled together and staring gloomily into the encompassing darkness. Continue Reading

As it turned out, the wyrms were a little precipitate in their triumphant return to Dolos. The whole company was, in fact, alive, although perhaps not in the most optimum of circumstances. The fissure that appeared underneath them to swallow them up was then immediately covered over by a great slab of ice, which became wedged in the crevice at an acute angle, and so provided a triangular cross-section of free space at its bottom. Hence, when the avalanche overtook them a few seconds later, the brunt of it was deflected by this slab of ice. And then, the vast portion of the ridge that caved off into the deep ravine did not quite reach as far as this space at the bottom of the crevasse, in which the company found shelter – although it did break away the entire hillside before it, so that, in at least one corner of their little cubbyhole, they were faced with a gap that looked out into the open air above the ravine, the wall of which dropped headlong beneath them some two or three hundred feet. Continue Reading

It was already dusk; and silently, in double file, the company began its journey westward along the bottom of the deep ravine, inching ever closer to the dark halls of Dolos. The canyon floor was rougher than it had appeared from above, and the night was inky and starless, so the progress was a little slower and more laborious than the companions had hoped. Still, they managed to walk quite a few miles without any major mishaps, and not much later than midnight they were already nearing the point at which Gilead had thought to find a way out. Continue Reading

Throughout the night, the company followed their guides along the hidden paths of the ancient Pelites. They managed to avoid all the well-known passes and oft-traveled trails, making their way instead along narrow, winding footpaths cut through the heart of the highest peaks and rockiest canyons, in places that would have been utterly impassable without the knowledge of the skilled mountain guides. Finally, a little after midnight, Buki and Mariah drew to a halt, and motioned the company on ahead. When they had all gathered around, Mariah began to speak:

“We must return now, or else we will not have time to arrive home before the daylight comes; but we have already crossed the most difficult regions, and if you follow this path, you will have no trouble finding your way to the plains of Dolos before morning.” Continue Reading

The great dragon in the center of the black throne room seemed to swell up to twice his already prodigious size; the red glint of his eyes flamed up in an eruption of fury, smoke belched forth from all six of his nostrils, and in a menacing, multifarious voice, which seemed to proceed from all three of his heads at once, he thundered out deafeningly,

“Insufferable fool! I want them dead! Find them and kill them, whatever it takes! Must I put up forever with nothing but imbeciles and asses?” Continue Reading

The sky was heavily overcast that night, so that any help the companions had hoped to glean from the light of the moon and stars proved to be ill-placed. The darkness was deep and impenetrable, and its illimitable depths mirrored the profound gloom in the hearts of the company. Every step closer to Dolos was taken in despondent drudgery; and Mishael thought again, as he had last night, that even though the ground was firm beneath their feet, it felt as if they were struggling through a sea of molasses. The air was thick and heavy, and it was a laborious exertion almost beyond his iron-steeled resolve to lift his foot to each further stride. Continue Reading

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. Continue Reading

The clamorous mob led their three prisoners ever deeper into the Dragon’s Dungeon. The air was hot, stale and oppressive, and the never-ending twists and turns of the descent had a disorienting effect, so that Mishael, at least, began to feel as if he were not even on the earth at all, but in some macabre, surreal dreamworld, where the very fabric of existence was only swirling phantasm, a tortured simulacrum of reality. Finally, after what seemed an age of pandemonium, the mob of soldiers jerked their bound prisoners to a halt before a black iron gate, deep within the bowels of the earth. The crowd was already beginning to dissipate, and soldiers with leering grins and sadistic chuckles were making their way back to the surface of the city. Apparently, the unexpected excitement of the capture of these new and seemingly important prisoners was already beginning to lose its novel appeal. Continue Reading

The next few days were the most paradoxical that Mishael had ever known. In circumstance they were the lowest, the most hopeless, the most distressing and uncomfortable, unspeakable in their horrors of degradation and misery. And yet, in his heart he was the freest, the merriest, the most unshakably hope-filled, and in such an overwhelming and imperturbable fashion as he could simply not account for. Shashi, too, was overjoyed at Mishael’s arrival, and thought of the terrible prospects of their future only occasionally, and was almost always able to put those thoughts out of his mind at once, and so genuinely to enjoy his conversations with his childhood friend. The two of them would laugh and chatter all day long in their gloomy little cells, like schoolboys anticipating the near advent of summer, with its longed-for break from the classroom, and its tantalizing world of unforeseen adventures and pleasures. Continue Reading

The rumblings and stirrings of the Dragon’s bowels were becoming more pronounced at an alarming rate. The four fugitives found it difficult to negotiate the pitching floor of the unlit tunnel, and an irrational fear came simultaneously upon all four, an unspoken but palpable dread that their time was short, that the world they knew was marked for destruction, that if they stopped or even slowed down at all in their Gadarene flight they would be buried alive with the rest of the city. It was as if they were a nauseating poison to the Dragon who had swallowed them up, and he now had no recourse but to vomit them out, and in vomiting die. Continue Reading

For some seconds, the four companions watched the inexorable tide of tribesmen swarming over the fallen wall, entirely covering its stark remains as the clouds of locusts blanket any green tree when they swarm in the late summer. At first, none of the companions could believe what they were seeing, but a surge of joyful hope swept over them all, and they were momentarily as those who dream, lost in the glad impossibility of it all. Continue Reading

For two days the Eschatoi, who had just become the last tribe to escape from the cruel slavery of Vrak and his taskmasters, continued their march at an exhausting pace. Times of rest were infrequent and brief, and furthermore, there were no satisfactory places to find any sort of real refreshment, even when the tribesmen managed to drop off into an exhausted sleep. Everywhere, there was nothing but mud, muck, and gruel-moss; dry plots of ground to stretch out on were rare indeed, and it was gray, gloomy, and just a little too cool for comfort, especially given the sadly under-clothed state of the people. But still, encouraged by the joint influence of the little group of seekers and Benaiah, the chief of the Eschatoi, the tribe managed to press on, and to remain hopeful of a joyful and triumphant end. Continue Reading

By midnight, the Eschatoi were thronging into the hidden valley of the Pelites, until they had quite overwhelmed its narrow confines. Here they would find rest for a night, maybe two, but the sheer impossibility of their staying for the winter had become patently obvious well before the last members of the tribe had straggled in. Every corner of space was occupied, so that it had become thoroughly impossible to walk anywhere without continually stepping over the stretched-out bodies of the exhausted tribespeople, many of whom had already collapsed on the valley floor, and were somehow deep in sleep, despite their deplorable condition. Continue Reading

The readers of this little tale, at least they who have any measure of that fine, empathetic sort of sensibility which the reading of such a story by its very nature demands, will doubtless be better able to imagine the delightfully turbulent emotions and soaring passions of a thousand sweet reunions than this humble teller of tales could possibly signify with his scant store of wretched words. The reader will graciously excuse me, then, if I pass over the tears and the laughter, the embracing and shouting for joy, that filled the blessed streets of Lebben-Or for a time, and skip straight ahead to the council called by Gamaliel the Seer, as soon as the seekers had a chance to recover from the privations of their quest. As you will see, there was in fact quite an assortment of important events that had been occurring in certain other regions of the Struggle, and the news of these things is required to bring this story to whatever measure of resolution it can bear. Continue Reading