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Fair Semblances: An Allegorical Fantasy (Chapter 15)
By pitchford | December 1, 2008
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.
The street itself was also most impressive: on the right-hand side was a broad segment, perhaps thirty feet wide, paved with square granite blocks; and all the wayfarers on that side were making their way toward the city center, many of them walking, a few riding horses, camels, donkeys, and a variety of other exotic beasts that Mishael had never seen before; and here and there, Mishael descried what seemed to be persons of great wealth and prominence, riding in ornately decorated carriages that were propelled by servant boys pedaling what the reader would recognize as something like the front of a bicycle, which was of one piece with the carriage; but Mishael would not have known what to call it, having never before seen anything of the sort. Of the persons themselves, what was most striking was the brilliant color and flamboyance with which they clothed themselves, and the gaudy chains, earrings, brooches, and other pieces of ornamentation, worn by men and women alike, and fashioned of gold, silver, and all sorts of precious stones.
The middle of the street was also about thirty feet wide, and consisted of a canal paved with solid marble, and rapidly flowing with water which was almost clear, but betraying the slightest hint of pollution, and occasionally giving away its lack of purity by the passage of some bag or bottle or other flotsam that someone upstream had tossed in. Then, on either side of the canal, was a row of trees that had smooth, silver bark, and were pruned above to the shape of a perfect sphere, so that they almost seemed to be so many green balloons, tethered to the ground with stately, silver rods. The left-hand side of the street was the same width as the right-hand side, although it was much more sparsely occupied, there at the very edge of the city; but the further Mishael could see down the street, the fuller it became of persons who were all progressing away from the city center, in the opposite direction of those on the other side. The entire street was remarkably clean, considering the heavy usage it apparently received; and the reason for that, no doubt, was the abundance of menial workers, all dressed simply in black, who thus stood out quite noticeably from the garish crowd. Mishael could see several of them sweeping the streets and sidewalks, or otherwise engaged in janitorial and maintenance work.
Mishael only got a brief glimpse of this spectacular central thoroughfare of Lusk, however, for very soon after they had passed through the gate, the two horsemen turned aside to a smaller street with dimmer lighting, and then again to a smaller yet, and finally to what was scarcely more than an alleyway. After making their way a few hundred feet down this alley, they stopped at a long, low, nondescript brick building, dismounted, led Mishael down out of the cart, and passing through an iron gate, which one of the men unlocked with a key he had been keeping in his pocket, they walked down a bare, uninviting hallway for a couple dozen feet. Then, passing through another locked gate, they descended a steep stone staircase, to a hallway that must have been about eight feet beneath the surface of the ground; and there, unlocking yet another gate, the two men threw Mishael into a small, dark cell, perhaps six feet on all three dimensions, and left him there.
Although the hard stone floor of Mishael’s cell had very little to offer its luckless inhabitants in the way of comforts and amenities (quite unlike the bustling city overhead), it is still safe to say that Mishael slept better than all the well-fed and luxuriously furnished gentlemen who occupied the high-end suites of Lusk. Sheer exhaustion, mingled with aching regrets and unceasing despair, had the merciful effect of a numbing narcotic on our unhappy hero, and as soon as his head hit its unyielding resting place, a profound, dreamless sleep overtook him, and he did not again stir for a good ten or eleven hours. When he did finally wake up, it was broad daylight again, and a few miserable little windows, on the ends of the hallway to which his cell opened up, lighted up the surroundings enough to see the nature of his accommodations a little more fully. Although really, there was nothing much to see: a dingy brick hallway, lined with six foot square cells on either side, about seventy-five or eighty feet long, and nothing else.
Directly across from Mishael’s cell was another just like it, occupied by a man who, Mishael suddenly realized, was examining him with a disconcerting stare. The man was of an olive complexion, with smooth, almost satiny skin, and two braids of straight, jet black hair thrown over either shoulder. His eyes were lustrous and quite piercing, set perhaps just a little too close together, which had the result of giving him a suspicious, critical appearance. His face was otherwise quite flat, apart from a straight, narrow, delicate nose; and his close-pressed lips were also straight and thin. The thought struck Mishael that he resembled nothing so much as an osprey or eagle, and that his probing eyes were searching for a suitable victim to seize upon with his deadly talons.
Seeing that Mishael had noticed his scrutinizing gaze, he twisted up his lip in an ironic half-smile, and said, with a trace of an exotic accent, such as Mishael had not heard before, “I am Eshban. I’m an Akbar.” Then, seeing Mishael’s blank stare, he added, in a voice thick with irony and tinged with a bitter resignation to the disagreeable fact, “There was a time when the very name of the Akbarim was enough to strike fear into the bravest heart. Now, it’s met with stupid stares from the basest of slave boys.”
Mishael said nothing in response, and after a few minutes, seeming to regret his unprovoked rudeness, Eshban spoke to Mishael again, this time in a friendlier voice: “How did you come to be here, in this wretched little holding tank?”.
“I don’t really know,” Mishael answered. “I’ve had such a long journey, and so many things have happened, that I don’t even know where to begin. But the last thing I knew, we were at the edge of the Desert of Salt, and I had a dream of a beautiful woman; and when I woke up, I was bound hand and foot and bouncing along in a miserable little cart. And now I’m here, and know nothing about it, except that I suppose this must be the city of Lusk.”
The stranger again graced him with the same bitter half-smile, and replied, “Ah, yes; the chimeras. Well, you’re not the first one that’s fallen for one of them, my boy. I suppose you’re wondering how I’ve ended up here,” he added; and saying that, he flashed such an angry look of proud defiance that Mishael did not dare to contradict him, but simply listened to his story.
“I was brought up as an Akbar horse soldier, one of the last that ever rode the plains at his will, swift as the wind and untamable as the eagle. For generations before my own, the Akbarim horse soldiers were feared all over the world. Mothers used our names to frighten their wayward children to sleep, and teenage boys would scare each other around the campfire at night with tales of our ferocity and skill at war. We rode bareback, and could shoot an arrow through the heart of a field mouse while galloping by at a full sprint. And then, we would confound our enemies by disappearing when they rode up to engage us: one moment, we were riding toward them, straight and tall; and the next moment, they saw the horse alone, and the only hint they would ever have again that we had not simply disappeared, as they supposed, was an arrow flying out from under our horse’s neck, and striking true. They said we were sorcerers, phantoms, not hindered with the constraints of flesh and blood as all other men….”
Eshban trailed off for a moment, lost in the once-bright glories of his proud past. Then, with a scornful sneer, he looked again at Mishael and said, “I’ll tell you our secret. It’s meaningless enough now anyway. Our horses – and they were the finest, swiftest, sturdiest horses anywhere on earth – were all possessed of a long, thick mane. They wondered how we could keep our seating, with no saddle or stirrup, even when we dropped so far below the level of the horse’s back that we were invisible to our enemies; but it was simple enough, really; we would weave foot loops into the plentiful manes, one just beneath the throat, and one below the withers, on the opposite side; and then, throwing one leg up over the withers, and catching the loop beneath the throat with the other leg, we would hold ourselves close to the necks of our horses with our feet, at the same time using our hands to shoot our terrible bows. We were thus quite invisible to anyone on the wrong side of our mounts; and we trained our horses always to have their sides to the enemy, to keep us concealed.”
“Mine was the last generation trained in the ancient art of Akbar horsemanship; and there were only a few of us selected to learn and pass down the old secrets. I suppose I may be the only man left alive who has had the training, and so the ancient ways will die with me. The rest of my generation, and that which has sprung up since then, has been soft, indolent, poisoned by prosperity. They discovered that their lives could be much easier and plusher if they give up the old ways, and trade with Lusk. They are fat and rich, and have forgotten their heritage. Now they are nothing but whores and slaves of Lusk, and they pride themselves on which one is the easier whore, the readier to prostitute himself for a few shiny trinkets. I would rather be a slave in this miserable pit, where at least I still have my pride and can sleep at night, than the kind of slave that has now infested my once-noble country.”
For a few minutes, the proud Akbar stared bitterly at the wall, and then he continued: “My father was one of those sleek merchants, and he became as fat and indolent as the rest; but then, he lost a couple of caravans, one to bandits and another to Euraclydon” (here, Mishael started, remembering his terrible experience with the deadly storm, and Eshban noticed, and nodded knowingly); “well anyway, he never recovered. The flabby lords of Lusk came hounding him for money, and he had none left; I was a young man at that time, maybe eighteen years old, and I already knew the Common Tongue of the Western Lands rather well, having grown up in the marketplace; so in lieu of gold, the creditors accepted me, and took me here; and in fact, to the very cell you now occupy. But I suppose I must not bring financial good fortune, for the man who bought me then has also become bankrupt; and so I am sent down here to be sold a second time.”
“Let me tell you something about the slave market,” the bitter man continued; “many who have come here for the first time are depressed, scared, confused, and they don’t know what to do with themselves. So when the auctioneers bring fresh clothes and water to clean up with, on the morning of the auction, they pout and refuse to be clean, and go just as they are. But the richest and most prominent people, who frequent the slave market, are watching for clean, smart persons of a distinguished appearance. They don’t need slaves for labor, but to dress up and pamper and show off for their own prestige. Look sharp today; if you’re a grubby, miserable soul, no one of importance will buy you, and you’ll no doubt end up as one of the innumerable and eminently expendable slaves of the city, who are only good for the “black labor,” so called because it turns a person black with the filth and dirt of the city. But if you impress the right person, you’ll find a life of ease, mingling with all the high-ups and enjoying the best food and the finest clothes. And if you’re going to be a slave the rest of your life anyway – and make no doubt about it, you will be – then you might as well enjoy a bit of comfort.”
But here, Eshban broke off; for just then, a tall, burly man, who was obviously in charge of preparing the slaves for the auction that afternoon, stepped down into the hallway and began passing out fresh clothes, basins, bars of soap, and all the necessary toiletries, one cell at a time.
Mishael was in fact depressed and overwhelmed with sadness, and at the time, the difference between life as a lazy, much-pampered slave, and a hard-worked, ill-treated slave, seemed almost negligible; however, almost without thinking about it, he did indeed follow the proud Akbar’s advice, and cleaned himself up well with the supplies he had been given. And as he was not at all an unattractive man, the result was quite pleasing.
But still, his heart was not in it; or to put it otherwise, he was so cast down over his foolish traipsing through the wilderness in pursuit of a lying dream of pleasure, when Lebben-Or had been so close, that the immense despondency in his eyes quite overcame the effect that his cleanliness and good looks might otherwise have had; and so, even the hope of a trouble-free life as a slave seemed to be quite out of his reach. Not only would he die a slave, he would most probably die of the filth and diseases that abounded in the camps of the black-labor slaves of the city of Lusk.
On an impulse, just before the slave drivers came to escort them all to the city center, where they would be auctioned off to the highest bidder, Mishael turned once more to his new-found advisor Eshban, and told him, “I was going to Lebben-Or before my profound foolishness brought me here; do you think I could ever make it to my hopeful destination after all?”.
And at this, the Akbar laughed superciliously, and replied, “Lebben-Or? I’ve heard all the stories, but I’ve never yet met a single person who has actually been there; and let me tell you, Lusk has had visitors from every place on the face of the earth. Do you really think Lebben-Or even exists? Is it not just the fairy-tale longing of all the weak, ignorant saps who would like to think there is something better than this wretched existence? Trust me, just do your best to make your life easy here in this desolate place, and don’t go trying to nourish your hopes with fantasies spun of air.”
Although something in Mishael’s soul rebelled against such a suggestion, the unexpected tirade planted a seed of doubt in his soul that would affect him profoundly. He was still thinking about it, in fact, when the slave drivers came and rousted the prisoners out of their cells, like so much cattle, and sent them scurrying to the city center, where they would be bid upon just as all the other merchandise for sale in the burgeoning city of Lusk.
Topics: Books, Fair Semblances |