« Images of the Savior (43 The Second Giving of the Law) | Main | Book Review: Faith on Trial, by Martyn Lloyd-Jones »
Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 13)
By pitchford | November 17, 2008
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.
Mostly, he was vexed at himself for his foolishness in touching the forbidden treasure, and felt miserable about the extra trouble he had caused his friends in doing so; and the fact that they both took the incident in stride, and were still in good spirits, instead of helping, as he supposed it should, seemed to make his despondency worse; and then, reflecting on the fact that their lightheartedness was increasing his gloom, he came to the conviction that he really didn’t care about the effects that his foolishness might have had on them, he just cared about how it reflected upon himself, so to the selfishness of his action he added the selfishness of his regret, and sank ever lower into the pit of self-pity that he found a sort of cheerless joy in digging for himself, which was quite the same kind of joy as ascetic monks find by punishing their bodies in the vain attempt to expiate their sins. Then, passing backwards in his mind from this last event to the first impulse he had ever had to break through the Impenetrable Thicket, he scrounged up all the things he had done wrong in the whole course of his journey, and used each foolish action as another barb on his mental lash of self-flagellation.
He was just in the inward act of deploring his agitated pacing on that day in the Wayfarers’ Inn, in which Tobiah had discovered him and left him feeling silly and awkward, when Ariel, whose keen sensitivity to the workings of his mind seemed almost paranormal at times, interrupted him with an eminently suitable observation, offered up with all her characteristic frankness, that would have been offensive from anyone else, but softened as it was by her unmasked affection and unfeigned candor almost came across as an encouragement rather than a rebuke:
“It won’t change your mistakes to pout about them, you know. What you did back then was just as foolish no matter whether you’re happy now or a miserable crab. You might not have been so helpful back in the treasure room, but at least you can help us out now by cheering up a little bit. You’re making me depressed too, for goodness’ sake!”
After a moment’s pause, Gilead cleared his throat and then likewise spoke up:
“I think what my sister means, is that everyone makes mistakes and does foolish things; but what separates the overcomers from the failures is not how many things they do wrongly, but whether or not they get up again, and press on with renewed energy. Forget what’s behind, stretch out toward what’s ahead, and even if you get there with skinned knees and a bruised ego, you’ll still get to the finish line all the same. And not everyone does.”
Mishael mulled those things over for a bit, and then responded, a bit petulantly,
“That’s easy to say when you’re not the ones doing everything wrong, making a jackass of yourselves, and causing problems for the very people you owe the most to, and would most like to bring joy to. I’ve only been benefitted this whole time I’ve known you, but you’ve only found problems and misery in befriending me. Your lives would be a whole lot happier and a lot less troublesome if you’d never met me. For that reason alone, I should have stayed in Fair Semblances.”
“Well that’s not true for one thing,” Ariel responded without skipping a beat, “but even if it were, even if you’d o-o-nl-y bro-ught tro-ub-le” (she said those last three words in a drawn-out, languorous, exaggerated tone of mock-despair), “still, you’re quite wrong to suppose that trouble is the opposite of happiness. True happiness is indifferent to trouble. Elkanah used to say, ‘If I really were happy, why should it bother me that’ – and then, he’d stick in some bad circumstance like we didn’t have anything to eat, or we were wretchedly cold and had lost our cloaks in crossing the swollen Yardain River – that really did happen to us, and we almost lost our lives too, but that’s neither here nor there – or we were surrounded by a whole squadron of bloodthirsty sanguinors and didn’t have half a chance to make it out alive – anyway, I’m forgetting where I intended to go with all this, but – oh, yes, I’m just saying that if one has real happiness, he’s happy regardless. And you’ve brought us happiness just by being yourself, so it’s really not fair to say that you’ve brought us only misery, just because you’ve caused a few little hitches in our journey. We’re not happy that we’ve had a smooth trip, we’re happy that, no matter what kind of trip we’ve had, you’re here to share it with us. Oh, goodness!”, she continued in exasperation, “is any of this coming out at all right?”
Mishael didn’t say anything, and so, after another pause, Gilead continued the conversation:
“There’s an old legend I heard when I was a boy, that in the beginning of the Ancient Age, when the Kingdom of the Esperians was still strong and powerful, one of their greatest and most magnanimous kings, Chokma by name, was visiting the prison-house; and passing by the cell of a famous assassin, who was sentenced to be executed the next day, he was moved to pity by his tears of repentance and desperate pleas for mercy; and then and there, he granted him a full pardon. Well, the next day, he was riding out in the city, and he saw this same man standing before a pitifully overloaded little donkey, that had collapsed under the weight of its luggage, and was struggling to get up again, but didn’t have the energy. This pardoned criminal then flew into a rage, and beat the donkey to death under its crippling burdens. Seeing this, King Chokma had the man arrested again, and commanded the executioner to put him to death. The next morning, attending the execution, the King called out to the unhappy criminal, ‘You had wronged my kingdom and my people and I freely forgave you; but you could not even forgive a helpless donkey that had done you no wrong. If you delight so much in merciless punishment, then you shall have your fill of it.’ And then, the headsman’s axe fell.”
“I tell you this story,” Gilead continued, “because it illustrates the reason we’re able to overlook any foolish thing you might do which should cause us further difficulty, without having the least sort of resentment. Both of us were like that hardened criminal, in the service of Vrak – his prisoners and slaves, in fact – when the High King had compassion on us, rescued us with no other motive than his pity and love, and sent us out to bring other poor creatures to him, to receive the same merciful pardon. And now, if you’ve proven too weak to carry this immense burden – and I know it is immense, for Vrak will stop at nothing to keep an inhabitant of Fair Semblances from reaching the Beautiful City – if, you’ve proven too weak and stumbled once or twice, how can we kick you when you’re down, as the saying goes, and not rather help you up and do whatever it takes to get to our destination together? If the High King has done so much for us, how can we not do the same for others? And in this way, true love and compassion, not the selfish kind that simply exists to make the benefactor look good in his own eyes, will grow and spread from one beggar to another, until the world again becomes fair, and the bastions of Vrak topple one by one.”
“You know,” Ariel observed merrily, “I think he just compared you to a donkey.”
Mishael was actually feeling much better, after all this, and the words of Gilead struck him as forcefully true; and his mood was changing so swiftly for the better that he almost responded to Ariel’s gibe with a genuine chuckle; but just then, something else caught his attention: some little creature, about the size of a small cat, had just scurried over the top of his foot, jumped up onto the crumbling wall, and run along for quite some distance upon its vertical surface, with as much facility as a squirrel scrambling up a tree trunk.
“Did you see that?”, Mishael asked, jumping towards the center of the tunnel, away from where the creature had scrambled up the wall, and almost knocking Ariel over in the process.
It turned out that neither of his companions had seen it. But they would not have to wait for long, because a few moments later, Gilead had quite the same experience, and thereafter, all three of them were seeing these creatures running by, always in the opposite direction, in astonishing numbers. As quickly as they were moving it was quite difficult to get a good look at them, but after no small multitude of them had passed by, scurrying through the dim light of the torch, they were able to ascertain that they were in fact feline, long and lanky, and having the appearance of the great leopard-god that they had unwittingly aroused, save that these seemed to have no wings. They also had the enigmatical ability to run along the surface of the wall, which seemed quite inexplicable, given the fact that the wall was smooth stone and their feet were clawed like a cat’s. They ranged in color from light brown to black, occasionally evidencing overtones of a deep, cinnamon red. Other than that, there was little that the companions could tell about them, besides the fact that they did not look kindly at all upon their presence in the tunnel, but avoided them religiously, quite frequently hissing and snarling as they scrambled by.
Throughout the next week, the travelers would encounter swarms of these creatures, sometimes flying by thick and fast for a few moments, and then all but disappearing for up to the better part of a day at a time. None of the companions had any sort of guess as to how many they had met with in all, but the number had to be in the thousands at least, if not the tens or scores of thousands. The first night following the discovery of the “little beasties” (Ariel’s not-so-affectionate name for them, which the boys ended up adopting as well), they were all quite hesitant to lie down and try to get some sleep, for fear of what they might attempt as they were sleeping; so at first they just slept in shifts, with one standing guard at all times; but after awhile, they decided that for now, at least, they posed no real threat, and eventually they were brave enough to sleep all at once. They never did detect any sign of aggression, the whole time they were continuing their southward journey through the tunnel; but when they finally left the dismal passage and all its unfriendly occupants, they still felt a little apprehensive about what they could be, and why they were all so keen on hurrying back toward the underground city they had left with such difficulty. And Mishael, at least, had an unpleasant premonition that he might meet them again, and that when he did, they might not be so willing to avoid confrontation.
Mishael did not have opportunity to be troubled with his premonitions when they were still in the tunnel, however; for by the time a full week had passed, and they had become quite used to the occasional presence of the little beasties, another problem began to weigh upon the friends more heavily all the time, until it had quite thrust the little annoyance of the feline pests from their minds; and that was the problem of water. True, the tunnel was quite damp, and there were occasional canals cut across its floor to accommodate the flowing of underground rivers, all of which seemed to be rather full; but the water was all bitter, as it had been ever since the destruction of Zoar, many ages past. The companions all felt something of the frustration that a castaway must feel in his little raft, when with immeasurable waters all around him he finally dies of thirst, for none of it is fit to drink. By the end of that week, even after careful rationing, the last of the water that they had in the gourds was gone, and they had no idea how long the tunnel would go on before they found their way to the surface, and hopefully, to the end of the Desert of Salt, where they might find sweet water once again.
It was on the beginning of their eighth day walking through the tunnel, and after their water was entirely gone, that an idea struck Mishael with such force and clarity that he stopped dead in his tracks, and mused out loud (although he was unaware that he was actually speaking his thoughts out loud, and not just thinking them), “I wonder…”.
“What do you wonder?”, Ariel asked him, after a brief pause.
Mishael started, realized what he had said, looked at Ariel, and then, without answering, looked instead to Gilead, and asked him, “Do you still have that vial of healing balm, which the High King gave to you?”
Gilead was a little taken aback. In fact, he did not even know that Mishael was aware of his gift from the High King, since Ariel had told him of it on one of the very rare occasions that he had been elsewhere, back when they were at the Springs of Elim. But only showing his discomposure a little, he responded, “Yes, of course I do. Why do you ask?”.
“Pour some of it in the canal,” Mishael commanded, and then blushed as he realized how unseemly it was for him to be commanding anything, let alone such a thing. But still, he did not take back or soften his command, so forcefully had the idea settled upon his mind.
They were in fact standing by one of those canals we have just spoken of. Gilead, after a moment’s hesitation, saw the simple, inexplicable certainty which had moved Mishael to speak, and which still burned in his eyes; and this undefended conviction proved to be more eloquent to him than the weightiest arguments he could have framed. Without a word, he took the vial from around his neck, and poured but one drop of it into the canal. Mishael immediately knelt down, cupped his palms, and lifted up a handful of the water to his mouth. He drank in deeply, swallowed, and greedily reached for more. Gilead and Ariel looked at him in amazement. Then, being convinced by his actions and needing no words, they too stooped down and drank their fill. The water was as sweet and pure as the streams that flow from the melting mountain glaciers in early Spring.
After they had fully quenched their thirst and refilled all their gourds, a thought struck Gilead too: pausing for a moment, with a look of pensive awe on his face, he murmured aloud, but like Mishael before him, scarcely conscious that he was in fact speaking, the following words:
“And from him shall flow the healing of Lebben-Or,
Making the nations’ bitter waters sweet.”
“It’s from the Ancient Prophecies,” Ariel whispered, after a pause; “it was given as a sign of the High King’s last victory, which would come just before the end”.
That very same day, just a few hours later, the companions would reach the end of the tunnel, which wound up several hundred feet higher, and ended in the midst of a rocky outcropping, where a hidden watchtower had marked the southern boundary of the ancient state of Zoar. When the companions stepped out again into the broad daylight, they were nearing the very edge of the Desert of Salt. And there below them, scarcely more than a week’s journey away, lay the beautiful city of the High King, Lebben-Or.
Topics: Books, Fair Semblances |