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Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 1)
By pitchford | August 25, 2008
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.
Hanging back a little from the other two, with an air for which he was already noted, in spite of his youth, of a certain pensiveness and almost excessive caution, which made him seem quite older than his age sometimes, was the brothers’ companion, a boy by the name of Mishael Henoch. There was little about him to distinguish him from the ordinary, apart from the cautious disposition already mentioned. He was of rather medium height and build, and had a great profusion of dusty blonde hair constantly spilling out from under his leather cap and cavorting about his eyebrows.
The mere fact of this twilight rendezvous was really quite unexceptional, unless one might consider it a little strange that two Togarmahs should be meeting with a member of their great antagonists at the Divertisement, the Henochs. For in truth, as long as the good people of Fair Semblances could remember, this sort of venture was a very common nighttime thrill, spoken against gruffly by the older generation, but with something of an excusing twinkle in the eye from that more affable sort who could still remember their own childhood forays. And it was a mostly harmless affair, moreover, and almost always went something like this: two or three daring young men would egg each other on to conquer their fears and march off into the Thicket; at long last, one of them would assay to take three or so steps into its darkness, never letting the meadows of Fair Semblances out of his sight, and then come running wildly back and spend the greater part of the next fortnight regaling all his peers with the tales of a pervasive atmosphere of horror and confusion, and the desperate shrieks and bloodcurdling cries he had encountered, which no one else could hear who was not in the Thicket. Then, next Spring, among the children a year or so younger than they, the same thing would happen all over again. Of course, this was all strictly forbidden by the Grand Proprietor, and the borders of Fair Semblances were quite often patrolled by the Ministerium, in the vain attempt to stop these scandalous sorties. And there were, as well, all the old stories, which no one knew whether or not to believe anymore, of those who had gone a step too far, and been lost in the gloom, and spent the rest of their lives wandering about in confusion, and crying out with those shrieks of despairing anguish that such daring boys as our young heroes would later describe so eloquently to their credulous companions.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, we must take a moment to describe the Divertisement, and the old feud between the Henochs and the Togarmahs. No one knows for sure when the Divertisement was begun, but the legends would have it like this: sometime in the misty origins of the Present Age, when the Seekers had just made their way through the Great Desolation, gallantly fighting off the seed of Wyrmwood, to find the fruitful plains of Fair Semblances, the elders who had lived through the journey feared that the generations to come might forget the realities outside its borders, and so also forget the necessity of vigilance and wartime preparation in the lull of a tranquil and unharried life. As a remedy against this contingency, they had devised a sort of instructive game, in which each member of the community had a character to control in a thoroughly epic, even if imaginary, struggle against the wyrms and their great master Vrak. It was said, in fact, that the game held the secret key to victory in the true Struggle – but no one except the most naïve among them truly believed that anymore, and most of them laughed off the legends of the ancient journey as mere childish fantasies, and even doubted the very existence of Vrak.
The Divertisement, however, regardless of how it was actually begun, had become so popular as to be really the soul and lifeblood of the entire Consortium. Fair Semblances was, it must be known, a very small place, somewhat smaller than our state of Rhode Island, and most of it was occupied by very dull farms and pasturelands, with but a few villages scattered here and there, and only one true city, New Angelia. This central city of New Angelia was the seat of the Divertisement, and it was thither that all the villagers consorted, at least once a week, if not more, as their sole entertainment in life, to make all their carefully devised plays on the gameboard, and win much prestige and honor in the eyes of all the other players. So substantial was this prestige, too, that in reality those most skilled at the game were likewise the most prominent and powerful in all the community. In fact, the Grand Proprietor himself, who was at this time a man by the name of Shimei Ahitub, was the most pre-eminent citizen primarily because he was also the Facilitator of the Divertisement. Now, this background is necessary to understand the nature of the feud we have already mentioned; for it was solemnly averred by the old patriarch of the Togarmahs, who was a very ancient man at this time, that the crafty old Eli Henoch had been so intent to secure his own glory, that he had purposely hindered himself, Amariah Togarmah, at every possible turn, even at the expense of allowing Vrak considerable leeway to accomplish his diabolical designs, which had been minutely programmed into the Divertisement from the beginning, and to frustrate which was the design of the game. Now sadly, this sort of rivalry was actually quite common among the good inhabitants of Fair Semblances; but by the time a generation or two had passed, no one paid the old feuds much heed anymore, quite to the chagrin of the grandfathers who had begun them. So really, it was not that much out of the ordinary after all that Mishael Henoch and Javan and Shahshi Togarmah were peacefully gathered together on this particular April evening, and peering into the Impenetrable Thicket. What was entirely unusual however, so much so that it sparked that entire, fantastic series of events of which this tale is composed, is what happened next.
“Do you have the ball of yarn?” , Shashi whispered to Mishael.
Wordlessly, Mishael produced a large ball of yarn from beneath his long outer cloak.
“Are we still game?” Javan queried, also in a whisper, although they could probably have shouted without being heard, in the secluded corner where they were situated.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Shahshi whispered in an almost accusatory tone, which anyone who is an older brother cannot have failed to hear at times from his younger siblings, and which seemed to announce, “I can do anything you can do, even if you are a little older”. Mishael still didn’t speak. He seemed lost in thought, or else afraid.
“Here, run the end through this stick,” Javan whispered. The stick was a sturdy one, with a narrow Y where the large end forked into two smaller branches. He pounded the stick into the soft earth, ran the end of the yarn through the crook of the Y, which would only just accommodate it, and then proceeded to surround the ball of yarn with a few other sticks, likewise driven into the ground. When he was done, the yarn could be pulled through the Y of the first stick, and the ball was free to turn about on the ground, but could not get out of the enclosure made by the sticks.
“It’s going to work!”, Shahshi murmured, in an unsuppressable shiver of excitement. The three boys had learned of this trick from their old mythology classes, and had secretly entered a pact to try it on this particular night, and see if they could get farther into the Impenetrable Thicket than any other boy had ever gone before. Mishael felt suddenly hot and uncomfortable, and almost wondered if he was dreaming, if this night had not actually come, but he would wake up tomorrow in his comfortable bed, and laugh at the crazy nightmares his excitable imagination could produce. But in the pit of his stomach, he felt the certain conviction that it wasn’t a dream after all.
“Let’s go!” Javan said, in an obviously assumed tone of courage and confidence.
Hesitantly, the three of them stepped together out of the green pasturelands of Fair Semblances and into the unknown gloom of the Impenetrable Thicket.
Whether it was just the combined effects of excitable teenage temperaments and old, half-believed stories, or whether there was in fact truth to the legends, the stark fact is that, when once they had taken but one step into the thicket, the three boys were all at the same time overwhelmed with just such a spirit of dread, confusion, and all-but-stupor as they had heard of so often before. But it was worse by far than they could have possibly dreamed. They all imagined themselves lost at sea, in the midst of a terrific gale, with black, sulfuric waves thundering over their heads, whirling them up and down and to every side, until they entirely lost all their bearings, and could get no clear sense of direction. That, of course, was more or less along the lines of what they had heard described in the boastful whispers of the older boys; but what they had not prepared for, and what took them by such surprise, was the immediate and undeniable conviction that this was not just disorientation, it was the disorientation of Evil. None of them had ever really believed in Wyrmwood; but now, at the first step, they all felt, and knew, and believed that the air in the Impenetrable Thicket really was poisoned by Wyrmwood’s Breath.
Why they ever continued at this point is something of a mystery. Ah, what irrational and unlikely actions will teenage boys not engage in when goaded on by one another? But however it was, with the yarn clutched tightly in their fists, they continued to walk up one causeway and down another through the insoluble maze, until suddenly they heard the otherworldly screams of despair. At that point, the horror overcame them so completely that, entirely forgetting the loss of bragging rights which should later ensue, they turned as one in the terror which had come upon them, following the yarn they had laid out behind them, and by which they hoped to retreat directly out of the Thicket and back into Fair Semblances. But at once they stopped short: there, just behind them, the entire ball was bouncing along, not six feet away.
Perhaps they truly would have spent the remainder of their lives wandering in the Thicket, swelling the hopeless screams of the lost with their own utterances of despair, if they hadn’t then heard another voice altogether. Even as it was, although no doubt a matter of but a few minutes, the hopelessness that they all experienced seemed to take a lifetime and more. But then, suddenly, there it was, mingling with the cries of hopeless sadness: it was a call of another sadness altogether, a sadness filled with hope and sorrowful joy, a sadness as beautiful and good as the other was ugly and evil. Perhaps it was just a nightingale. The old legends say that the souls of the ancient witnesses sometimes call out to the lost with the voice of a nightingale, but whether there is any truth to those stories, or whether this was just an ordinary nightingale indeed, I cannot say. All I know for sure is that, just as before they were violently driven about in meandering circles, so now, just as irresistibly, but more gently, with the irresistibleness of a consuming passion and not a shattering force, they were compelled to follow the voice. Ever they came nearer and ever it retreated further away, until at last, fading away entirely, it left them once again at the edge of Fair Semblances. But this time they were not there alone. A ministerial official stood there by the Thicket, gazing at them with an unmistakably triumphant scowl on his face, and a gleam of malicious conquest in his eye.
And that’s how it was that the very next morning the three of them found themselves in the presence of the Grand Proprietor himself, subjected to endure a very stern lecture, and a fortnight’s banishment from the Divertisement. After this compulsory fortnight’s banishment, which the two brothers, at least, would bear with that martyr’s air of a heavy consequence brought about only by their uncommon courage and fortitude, they would spend a matter of some months gloating in the worshipful presence of the younger children, until the story would be swallowed up in the advent of some later conquest, and finally be forgotten. With the third boy, however, Mishael Henoch, the affair would turn out much differently.
“You stay a little longer,” the Proprietor said softly to Mishael, when he had dismissed the others. And then, when they were alone, he broke the awkward silence with an admirably graceful composure: “I can’t help but suppose that the blame ought to rest a little more upon you than on the other two. They are foolish children, good, solid citizens, but a little young and impetuous. I can only guess that you had a much greater understanding of the seriousness of the situation before you even acted. Even at your age, you are already one of the few true masters of the Divertisement. Whether it’s fair or not, your actions have much greater consequences than the actions of others. People will follow you; for whether you know it or not, you are a leader of men. Only take care where you lead them.”
The Proprietor’s voice was smooth and gentle, but had the faintest edge of solemnity, warning, even threatening. “If you are willing,” he continued, “I can use you greatly. You might become very prominent, a member of the Ministerium, or even of the Inner Council. Who knows, if you continue to improve in your skills, you might even become the next Facilitator of the Divertisement. But at this point,” he said, abruptly changing his tone, “I’m not convinced that your heart is in the Divertisment, or with the people of Fair Semblances at all. Everyone should be allowed once or twice to make a foolish choice or mistake, but I am not quite certain that you even see this as a mistake. Am I correct, or am I the one mistaken in my suppositions?”, he concluded suddenly.
Mishael truly did not even know what to think, and certainly not what to say; and he had had, moreover, absolutely no time to prepare for this thoroughly unexpected question. He knew what he ought to say, of course, what the youngest child in Fair Semblances could have said without batting an eye; but what he actually did say, and why he said it, so completely surprised him, that for some long hours afterward he remained in a veritable state of shock that he had actually replied in such a fashion to the Grand Proprietor. “If what I did was so bad,” he heard himself speaking, as if it were someone else, “Why did the feeling I get seem so similar to the feeling I get whenever I have been to the Divertisement? Why is it the same feeling I get whenever I drink my daily ration of Somnia? Why is it the same feeling I get whenever I pause to think about who we are in Fair Semblances, and what we’re doing here, and how pointless it all is? In fact,” he continued, surprised at how heated he was growing, even in the illustrious presence of Shimei Ahitub, “I would almost rather be in the Impenetrable Thicket again, where at least the feeling is real and undisguised and unapologetic!”
Whether he was imagining it or not, Mishael was later unsure; but he almost thought he saw the pupils of the Proprietor’s eyes narrow to a slit from top to bottom, as if they were a cat’s or else one of the wyrm’s which decorate the borders of the Divertisement board. At any rate, it was just for an instant. In a voice still smooth, but in which the threatening undertone was definitely more prominent, he responded, “I think you have made your position sufficiently clear. You may leave this room, but you are not in any case to leave the city until I have met with the Inner Council to determine what should be done about your rebellion. I trust you realize the difficult position into which you’ve placed me. I want only to do you good, but I cannot sacrifice the good people of Fair Semblances, even for you. Now begone.”
And so Mishael, still in a bit of a fog, as indeed he had been since the evening before, walked out of the Proprietor’s office, down the hallway, and past the entrance to the seat of the Divertisement. But suddenly, the portrait he had seen a million times since his childhood, framing the entrance to the gameroom, a portrait of a grotesque brood of wyrms slithering around each other in a hopeless tangle, with their heads all beneath the foot of the High King, who stood triumphant in a field of green, with the Renascent Crown on his brow – suddenly, something very specific about that portrait, that he had never noticed before, leapt out at him as if in flaming letters of gilt. That sudden realization, that now seemed so clear and obvious, would change Mishael’s life forever.
Topics: Books, Fair Semblances |
August 25th, 2008 at 7:11 am
This is a bit of an experiment. I have the entire novel-length storyline as good as written in my head, but as yet only the beginning of it down on paper. I might post the first few chapters here, to see what sort of response it gets, and whether or not I should go ahead with it. I might not, simply because, as long as I’m working elsewhere full time, my Images of the Savior series, the value of which I can much more readily see, is more than sufficient to consume all my spare time and energy that I can devote to writing.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:18 am
I am completely enthralled, Neppie! I am quite interested to finish this, and much more interested to hear you explain all of the allegories. So, my vote is that you keep it up. I love you, Nep!
September 12th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Well, I’ve finished the next several chapters, anyway. If I do complete the book, in light of the influx of other stresses/responsibilities/time consumers, it probably won’t be very soon.
But maybe slowly, as I find spare time.
Oh, and I am considering writing up a brief explanation of the allegories, once I’ve finished (and if I finish) the story.
September 12th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Sounds exciting!
Do you know that Robert Louis Stephenson took a very long time to ever finish Treasure Island? He would write a chapter and then read it to his family, who were all very interested, and then write another one, etc. But, then, he gave up on it. It was several years later before he ever finished it. Just an interesting tidbit for you. 