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by
Joshua
M Wilson and RD Wilson
Christian
Fiction
Copyright © 2001
Robert Dennis Wilson
PO Box 208
Centerport, PA 19516
(610) 926-2571
"He that is born of the Griffin,
Beneath the waves won't sink:
Forsaking the venomous flow,
From the River will not drink.
As sons of the Griffin's Son,
The truth you'll realize:
Upon the Dragon's back,
The whole of man's realm lies."
(Yohann's
Song, The Word of the Griffin)
Prologue
“God, it’s not my fault!
Do You hate me? Is that why
I was born this way? It’s just
not fair! All the kids keep picking
on me and it’s NOT MY FAULT! I
can’t help the way I look. Look
at me! YOU made me this
way!”
*
* * * *
In a hidden place of stygian blackness, just
outside of sight and sound, Evil took form and laughed a cackling, victorious
laugh. Other of the hidden ones
quickly joined him in the darkness. Together
they howled with delight—like a pack of wicked boys skinning a screaming cat
with a dull pair of hedging sheers.
“Can I stab him next?” one gleefully asked,
pressing closer.
“No, me!”
“No, I was here first!”
The lesser ones squabbled noisily, violently, until
Evil let loose a low, menacing grow.
Silenced, cowering, learning, they watched as their
eternal mentor went about his work.
*
* * * *
“Justin, I love you!”
The boy turned quickly, as though startled by the voice from the doorway.
For only an instant I saw behind the façade that hid his heart, then
with a quick motion of his right arm, he absorbed with his sleeve all physical
evidence that anything could be wrong.
“Oh, hi, Granddad!”
I walked toward where he sat on his single bed and
he opened his outstretched arms to greet me.
Briefly, as I neared, he offered me a rare treat not many others had
seen: a partial smile clearly revealing twin rows of sparkling metal braces.
I returned the smile as I sat down beside him, then
pulled him close to me in a crushing bear hug.
He returned the pressure in a contest that was itself the prize.
Lingering, we fed each other’s souls with the strength of that manly
grip.
“Justin, I love you,” I repeated softly in his
ear.
“I know, Granddad,” his barely audible reply
drifted up to me.
How? I
pondered to myself, How in the world can I help a ten-year-old learn to handle
his scars? How can I show him that,
I too, felt his pain?
Deliberately, slowly, gently, I placed a hand on
each of his young shoulders and pushed him back just far enough so he could see
my face and the unhidden tears in my eyes.
He accepted this visible sign of my love as a gift and offered me another
smile in return.
Then, knowing his eyes were on mine, I deliberately
looked over his shoulder as though something dangerous crawled up his back.
“That’s quite a load of thorns you have there,
stuck in your pack,” I told him and watched as an instant battle played across
his young face: the seriousness of my tone fought against his reality.
“Wha… What do you mean?” he stuttered as
though caught off guard. Turning his head to try to see what I saw, he added,
“I don’t see any thorns!”
“Oh, you can’t see them, Justin, but they’re
there all the same. Big black ugly
thorns, as long as swords and twice as sharp.
They’re sticking out of your pack.
They’re poking you and hurting you all the time.”
“Granddad, what do you mean?” he demanded an
answer this time. “I’m not wearing my backpack!
It’s summer and we don’t have school!”
“Well, Justin, you’re just gonna’ have to
take my word on this one. You ARE
wearing a pack and it’s full of giant thorns.
Trouble is, only someone from Dragonsback would be able to see ‘em and
know how they got there!”
Still in unbelief he shrugged his shoulders as if
in proof of their emptiness then added as though an afterthought,
“‘Dragonsback’? What’s Dragonsback?”
“Not ‘what’ but ‘where’.
Dragonsback is a land, very, very far from here.
It’s so far away, you can only get there in a story.
Dragonsback is a continent, surrounded by water on every side — like a
huge island. The strange thing
about this land—if you could get up high enough to see it all—is that it
actually looks like a sleeping dragon lying in the water!”
“Wow! A
Dragon! Wait… This is
another one of your stories, isn’t it?”
Justin’s eyes brightened with anticipation as he saw at last my
direction.
“Oh, it’s not just my story. There’s a lot of you in it.
It’s a story about two brothers, Jason and Kaleb, not much older than
you. And they really live on the
back of that Dragon. It sure is a
strange land, too: they talk different; they dress different; they don’t have
any of the fancy stuff and gadgets we have; they never even have any rain.
And one more thing, they see different things; things that you and I can
only imagine here…
“You mean, like packs and thorns?” Justin
interrupted with youthful exuberance before settling down onto the bed next to
me.
“Exactly! But packs and thorns are only the beginning. It’s hard to explain, but even their dreams are more real on Dragonsback. It’s almost as if when they dream, they see things as they really are in their world, but when they’re awake everything’s clouded like a dream.”
Justin turned that special face toward me and, with what passed as his best attempt at a wink, asked me in a voice that no grandfather could resist, “Can you tell me about Dragonsback, Granddad? Can you?”
OF
DRAGONS AND DREAMS
"Alone!" The
boy-man stood high upon Dragon's Back, the massive continent, now shrouded in
darkness, stretched endlessly beneath him.
He turned. Sudden vertigo, like an earthquake, shook his tentative
world. Startled, his gaze fell over
a naked precipice at his feet to plummet down into the boiling depths of the sea
far below.
Stumbling backward, away, he clutched at his only solace on the
wind-swept heights, the still-massive stump of a Column, ancient and shattered
before living memory. Its cold
stone shelter leeched away his meager supply of warmth.
"I have seen the Dragon move!" he screamed!
But the hostile wind tore the desperate cry and flung its tattered shreds
into the unhearing night.
"No one knows! No one
cares! No one will believe me!"
His lonely voice rose to a wail. Yet
his warning to the world barely rivaled, then blended, and finally succumbed to
the conquering wind.
The youth crumpled to his knees.
He clung even more tightly to his broken sanctuary, but could not turn
away.
Chains of fear made unwilling prisoners of his eyes, drawing them
inexorably over the yawning edge.
"I have been here before!"
The shouted words brought no comfort, only a sense of impending doom.
He spoke them because they were true: a spark of sanity in an insane
realm.
He waited.
From below the edge of the escarpment, out of the hidden sea, they came,
as he knew they would. At first
only disembodied shrieks chased by the wind up from the depths; then fear
exploded into reality. They
burst past the edge and erupted into night-blackened sky.
"Dragons!" Fear’s
icy fingers strangled his words into whispers.
Too late, he snapped shut his eyes.
Too late, he froze against the Column.
A silent prayer escaped, Maybe they
won't see me, this time. Maybe I'll
go free!
Too late! He could not shut them out!
A dozen glowing streaks of green and red had etched themselves into his
mind: burning eyes set in wind-whipped shrouds of midnight black.
Like oversized bats the creatures swarmed on leathery wings.
Flashing shadows! Dark
transparencies, magnified by glowing eyes and milk white talons, razors in the
night!
Not again!
The youth had seen them many times before.
Shutting his eyes did not help. The
red-hot stylus of fear had indelibly branded their image on the back of his
eyes.
That image tore words from his mind, painting pictures even the blind
could see.
Wind-borne wisps of burning black smoke tuned monstrously real.
Shadows with terrifying substance, not much larger than he. Four powerful legs! Sharp
scaline claws! A thick serpentine
tail making the creatures twice as long again.
Nearly invisible midnight-black wings: three manheights across!
Unrelenting Death in the air!
They were on him, their dark breath as cold as the depths of the
bottomless ocean below. Grabbing! Tearing!
Seeking to dislodge his death-grip on the too-massive rock of the Column.
"Jason! Jason!"
The youth felt himself being shaken violently.
The dragons fought to cast his struggling form over the precipice.
On the horizon, out of the circling clouds, a flight of eagles burst into
distant view -- starlight reflected on gold.
"Jason, can you hear me?"
The eagles were still too far away!
He was going to fall!
The lizards' talons ripped into his shoulders and pulled him over the
edge. They clung a moment longer,
wrenching him out and away from any redemption.
Beyond hope’s last point, they let him go!
The young man screamed, voicing the terror of the damned.
"Jason! Wake up!
It's only me, your brother! You've
got to wake up!"
A forgotten voice coincided with an un-remembered name to catch at his
attention. Warm hands clung firmly
to his shoulders and drew him out of the cold dark depths of the sea of sleep.
"My name is Jason," he whispered and the sound of his own
living words brought new life to his conscious mind.
He opened his eyes and in the semi-darkness knew the truth of where he
was and whose shadowed face hung just above his own.
"Kaleb, my brother -- you've rescued me again."
Even the darkness could not hide the brightness of the rare smile relief
painted on the older boy's face. Kaleb
tousled his younger brother's hair as he said with mild rebuke in his voice,
"Bet you were dreamin' of mythical dragons and make believe eagles again,
weren't you?"
"Yeah, I know. You keep
tellin’ me ‘The only Dragon around here’s the rock ‘neath our feet.’
But there’s more to this than just livin’ on a land that looks like
the back of a Dragon… ”
Kaleb interrupted, the sharp edge in his voice not meant for his brother
but aimed at the coral walls that confined them.
“We’re not on his back! We’re
stuck out here on the Islands of the Tail.
An’ I hate it! Locked away
like this! No wonder you’re havin’
crazy dreams. I hate what it’s
doin’ to you and I hate what it’s doin’ to me!”
Jason sighed. Kaleb’s mood
swings were familiar ground, yet unwelcome terrain.
We only have each other, he thought, justifying his brother’s outburst
of anger. I know it’s us against
the world. Kaleb said so!
Who knows if Grans will ever find us.
But one thing I know, I’ve gotta’ help Kaleb deal with his pain or
he’s gonna’ explode.
But the volcano inside his brother had not finished its eruption.
Sparks of verbal lava spilled into the night, “Ten years of our lives
wasted! No news!
No visits! Like animals in a
cage, when we never did anything wrong! Why are we locked up in here?
Why did they do this to us? I
hate this orphanage! And I really
hate Marvin for keepin’ us here!” Kaleb
spoke the man’s name as though it were a curse laced with deadly poison.
“I'm sorry I woke you, again."
Jason's voice carried his embarrassed regret to his brother. He shared
much of Kaleb’s hopelessness but would have given almost anything not to have
invoked his brother’s response.
“It’s just that,” he continued, more intensely, “the dreams seem
so real. I can see and feel the
dragons. I can smell them, even
after you shake me awake! I feel
like I’m their prisoner more than I am Marvin’s!”
"It's all right, Jase, wakin’ me an’ all that.
I was havin’ a bad dream of my own..."
"You mean the one... about Mom... and Dad, and... and the man with
the sword on the boat?" Jason
exposed his raw emotions. It felt
like someone had a ripped bandage from an open wound.
Although tears did not fill his eyes, they drowned his words.
"Yeah, that's the one. The
night they were killed." Kaleb's
voice sounded hollow and dry, as though echoing through an old fallen log, long
ago crumbled and decayed on the inside.
"I have that nightmare, too. Over
and over. I can still see that
Swimmer jumping up and down on the side of the boat till it flipped!
Then he just swam to shore and allowed everybody else to drown!"
Jason felt thorns tearing at him like the dragons’ claws in his dream.
Real tears salted the fresh wounds.
"I remember him, too, Jase." And now Kaleb’s voice took on
the cold hardness of polished scaline, the hardest metal on Dragonsback. "I
remember him, too!"
Jason didn’t want to share the room with his brother’s anger; their
allotted space had never been large enough to offer hospitality to ghosts from
the past. The youth lifted his mind
beyond the imprisoning walls and returned to a bright sunlit field brushed by
wind and painted with riotous wild flowers.
He did not know if he had ever visited that place, before… But real or
not, more and more lately he had sought refuge in its image.
I wish Kaleb could find something beyond this orphanage to hope for, to
dream about, he thought. Reaching
up to grip his brother’s arm in the darkness, he asked a question, hoping to
build a bridge that Kaleb could cross to join him in this light-filled place.
“What would you do if we ever got free from here?”
But the question’s familiarity painfully snagged on his memory.
Before the final word had left his mouth, he already knew the weight of
its oft-repeated answer could crush even the strongest bridge.
The cold, dark mass of that answer would turn to shadow even the
brightest sun.
Jason heard his brother’s voice shake in response.
Emotion poured out in a litany of despair and pain.
Kaleb did not hesitate to recite the words that had become his whole
reason for living.
“I would find that man, that Swimmer!
I would chain him to the largest thorntree I could find, then I would
break off every one of those arm-length thorns on that tree and jab them into
his face. Over and over again until
he died from the sheer pain of it! Then
after I had laughed and laughed for the joy of knowing that our parents were
finally avenged, I would take the biggest thorn that was left and go in search
of my father’s father who has abandoned us here all these years! I already
carry one with Marvin’s name on it. Some
day I’ll get to use that, too!”
Night-hidden tears flowed down Jason’s cheeks but a sob escaped from
his heart.
As though Kaleb suddenly understood the pain his words invoked, Jason
heard him add in a softer, almost regretful tone, “Well, maybe not for our
GrandSire. At least I’d ask that
old man where he’s been and why he never came and got us out of here.”
Then after a pause the older boy added, “Hey Jase, what would you like
to do, if you had the chance?”
“You’ll think I’m silly!”
“No, I won’t. Remember,
I know you. I know you need to
dream. Guess I’m past that
though. Come on, out with it!”
“I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately,” replied Jason, rising
to his knees on the bed.
His mind flashed to a time when they were younger.
Surreptitiously, from of their narrow upper story window, they would drop
anything they could find that would roll; competing to see whose “marker”
would travel the longest or wreck the most havoc among unsuspecting pedestrians
below. Their greatest joy had been the unpredictable results of
their actions. Now, as he spoke
them, his words of revelation to his closest friend and companion felt like some
of those markers. Slowly at first
they tumbled out. Then picking up
speed, they flew!
Jason reveled in the unpredictable joy of hearing them spoken at last.
”I’ve never told you before, but…
But, I want to learn to be a bard! I
know it’s forbidden for us to sing in the Orphanage, but I got all these songs
tryin’ to burst their way out of my heart.
If I were free, I’d sing ‘em all at the top of my voice and keep
singing ‘til I lost my voice. Then I’d beat out a cadence with my hands and feet ‘till
I couldn’t move. I need to sing,
Kaleb! I need to sing!”
He sank back down to the quilts before continuing, “And as far as our
GrandSire… If I could find him, I’d give him a big hug, then I’d listen to
him tell us how long and hard he’d struggled to find us!”
*****
"Thank ya', Capt'n", the solitary old man spoke with the slow,
thick speech of a Heartlander. "I'll return shortly with the boys".
He had waited, according to custom, until he was securely on the dock
before turning to speak.
The dark-skinned Mariner priest nodded from within the dark solitude of
his black cowl but never said a word; he was from ancient Pasca, north of
Dragonshead, and had long lived under a vow of silence.
Instead, drawing his serpentine short sword, the Captain flicked his
wrist so that the dull point of the ceremonial weapon swung in a quick overhead
arc that ended pointing the way the elderly man was to take.
It was the sign for GO.
Next, the priest snapped his sword to an upright position in front of his
face. I WILL GUARD.
Silently, the old man drew his own short sword to give response.
The rapid salute of arms ended with the sun-bleached blade covering his
own heart and the point touching the jugular beneath his short-cropped white
beard: THANK YOU, MOST RESPECTED ONE.
Under the burning noontime sun, the dark-robed priest stood as etched in
obsidian, making no further response. Nor
was one expected. The white-haired
man had already turned to go, the rustle of his tan linen tunic lost beneath the
creak of the rigging overhead and the slapping of the waves against the
blackened sides of the ancient ship.
“I, wonder," the man spoke to no one in particular as he began the
steep climb up the narrow roads of the island-city, "how the orphanage's
fixed the boys for their future. The
Griffin knows I would rather've had 'em with me.
What do the Island priests or guv’ment ‘ficials know o' Truth?
Pah! I had to bend to the
law, but t'weren't my choice! By
all that's holy, it t'weren't my choice! The
Griffin knows!"
Harbor Street was so steep at this point that it had been terraced long
ago into low steps, now worn and rounded with age.
The old man, puffing with exertion, jostled his way upward through a
muted rainbow of peopled garments swirling in joyful pastel colors.
But, always a watcher of men, the old man saw the lie in those colors and
found truth a short hand-width higher. Somber-faced
men rushed to and from their business, carrying more than visible burdens.
He saw other truth that pained his heart.
Hearty, but sad-eyed, women towed children down toward the sea-side
market wishing all the while their upward journey could be lightened.
How can y’ feel that way? he silently questioned the strangers as
sudden tears filled his eyes. Y’d
fast learn t’ treasure ‘em if y’ had all yer kin snatched away in a day!
Taking a deep breath of the salted air, the tall white-haired man
straightened up to his full height and deliberately altered his countenance.
"No," he reasoned with himself, speaking aloud once more,
"it just wouldn't do t' have a Swimmer walkin' round with a long face on.
Never know who's watchin' or who I might he'p with m' smile.
What's done with the boys is done, an' beside, today's startin' bran'
new, full o' promise. We'll
haf' t'see what'll come of it. Jus'
like I always say, 'The future's hid under the Griffin's paw, but the past is
under His heart.'"
He filled the rest of his climb with the self-appointed task of first
greeting one lady, then the next. “Why,
madam, what a handsome son y’ be a caryin’!
He’ll surely grow up t’ be a lad fine enough fer any mum t’ be
proud of!… And good noontime t’
you, fair lady. What a beautiful
baby daughter y’ have in yer arms. I
declare, she’s as sweet as the sun on wildflowers!
What a treasure t’ behold!”
And in this way he illuminated the noontime street and lightened his
journey upward.
Like all of the Island Cities, the buildings on Central Isle, including
the Orphanage at its summit, were built of coral.
Long ago the priests' decree had banned mining the scaline rock and metal
of the Tail. When one lives on the edge of a bottomless sea, it’s
dangerous to have your platform eaten out from under you.
Only in the narrow channels between the Archipelago's Islands could the
depth be fathomed and coral dredged up to use as building blocks.
But neither the Great Ocean beyond the Islands, nor the Bay they
encircled, had ever been sounded.
"Ah, here we be," wheezed the old man, stopping to catch his
breath in the shade of the massive coral-orange building.
Resting for a moment in the fruit of his labor, he turned with heart-felt
satisfaction to survey the conquered challenge that lay now at his feet.
"Hmmm, quite a view from the summit!" he said out loud to no
one and everyone. He was past the
age of worrying or even caring what "young'uns" thought of him.
From the height of the crest of the mountain island, he could look
straight down the steep road he had climbed to the harbor at its base.
People formed a living cataract cascading through its confining banks of
houses, slow motion multicolored foam descending to, and rising from, the
bubbling caldron of the Market Port far below.
Barely discernible in the harbor and on the dark waters of the Bay were
the small outriggered sailboats of the Pasca Priests, effectively camouflaged
from casual view by their black sails and darkened hulls.
Beyond the Bay, the Highlands of Dragonsback rose to dwarf the summit of
even this tallest of the Islands of the Bay, placing fresh perspective on the
task he'd accomplished.
"'Tis but a small vic'try I've won in comin' here when seen through
Your eyes. Thank you, Mighty Griffin, for puttin' me in m' place.
An' there's a lesson here, even sum'un as boneheaded as me can see!
Lookin' down always makes us feel bigger 'en what were lookin' at. It's lookin' up what puts us seein' things as they really
is!"
He paused in his soliloquy sermon to ponder the view one last time,
"Yup, it's mighty impressive, indeed.
I can see most o' this half of Dragonsback from up here.
'Twas well worth m' effort," and so saying, he turned to the task he
had come to accomplish. The massive
door he approached made him feel like the tiny island in the presence of a giant
continent. "Guv'ment always
tryin' t' make people feel that way. It's
jus' too big for its sandals and too small for its headband.
Well, there's just this one more obstacle to climb, then I too can tumble
down the mountain. Griffin willing, I won't be alone. 'Tis truly a beautiful place, but's still a prison!"
High above him, ensconced within the coral towers, out of sight and mind
of the world, two wards of the state were unaware that their lives were about to
change forever. Jason, with the
youthful exuberance of any thirteen-year-old,
looked out of a barred window at the same scene the old man had just
surveyed, with the added advantage of five additional levels.
"We are so lucky!" he commented to his brother who sat behind him on the bed. "Our room is high up and faces the Mainland across the Bay! We can even see the tip of Dragonshead from here. We're probably the only ones on the Island who can!"
Fifteen-year-old Kaleb had long ago outgrown the exuberant stage, if
indeed he had ever had one. His
brother's sunshine fell on hardened clay, so long baked into brick, that even
noontime heat failed to soften it. Kaleb,
looking at the same window, saw not the beauty, only the bars.
Shaking his head at his brother's back he commented bitterly,
"There's no such thing as a 'lucky' orphan!"
I laughed at Justin’s
joke and tousled his short red hair. Recognizing more than just a question in
those youthful eyes, I responded with the approval I knew he sought with his
humor.
“So you think I’m
trying to make a ‘point,’ do you?” I asked, wiggling my extended pointer
finger back and forth in front of his face as thought it had suddenly become a
thorn. “And you think I’ll give away a secret in my story if you come up
with a funny and clever way of asking me?”
He had been lying on the
bed, propped up by the pillow, with his arms up and both hands tucked behind his
head. His eyes had lost their
question, instead, they first glanced from the fleshly thorn back to its owner,
then squinted sternly at me as if to say, “I dare you!”
Too late, he attempted
to unlock his hands and use them for cover.
Like any good grandfather, I had responded to the challenge.
“I’ll show you a point!” I exclaimed and my threatening finger
descended rapidly to poke him lightly several times in the side just below the
ribs.
He squirmed and laughed
under my touch and I rejoiced to hear that joyful sound. From the very first time I had seen his misshapened
smile—as a newborn in my arms—I had always loved to see him happy.
With little effort he
securely shackled the offending digit with two strong hands. In obvious triumph, Justin’s always-expressive eyes
were again filled with a hint of question.
“OK. OK, Justin, you win! You’ve
caught me.” I said in mock
surrender. “The answer to your
question is… ‘Both!’”
I smiled at his
responding groan and continued, “and if you want to know what that means,
you’ll just have to listen to more of my story.
But first, something I forgot to tell you about Dragonsback, they don’t
have any books there!”
“Hey, great!” he
almost shouted. “I wanna go
there! No school and no
homework!”
“Hold on, I didn’t
say that. They do have schools,
after a fashion, and they do have some writing, on scrolls that is, but not very
much of it. No, instead of writing
things down they memorize all the words they want to keep and share.”
“Memorize? You mean
word for word? Yuck!” Justin screwed up his face like he had just sucked on an
unripe lemon.
“It’s not as bad as
you think,” I responded, laughing at his expression. “They turn everything
into rhyming songs set to music. It
helps them to remember all the words that way.
In fact, you remember how Jason said he wanted to be a bard? Well, a bard is a special singer who spends his life
memorizing the old songs, writing new ones, and traveling around the land to
share them with all the people.”
“Wow, Granddad, that sounds like fun, even if they do have to use their memories. Can you sing me one of their songs?”“
"How about the very first song from Dragonsback, the oldest one ever written? Will that one do?"
THE CANTICLE OF BEGINNINGS
In
the Oasis of Beginnings, on the dawn of yesterday,
The Griffin's breath became our own, when He gave life to clay.
Our Father and our Mother stood before Him on the shore,
Then rose to walk the Griffin's Land where all was good and pure.
But Winged Dragon asked our mother to gaze into the falls,
Forbidden
flow, she didn't know that she would be the cause
Of
pain and death and agony: a world compelled to live
Upon
the Dragon's living form. This
answer did she give:
"A
fountain and a flowing falls, water all the land,
And from the fountain we may drink, but 'tis our Lord's command,
That we must never sip the falls, though all the world grows dry,
For in the day we drink of it, we will surely die."
"The water is not poisoned," winged Dragon quickly said,
"Or
else the plants along its banks would surely all be dead.
The
Griffin only seeks to keep its nectar for himself,
He
knows 'tis wine to make you wise. He
seeks to hoard its wealth."
So
first she touched, and then she drank, and then she took a swim;
Then next she found her willing mate, and shared the same with him.
In the Oasis of Beginnings, on the dawn of yesterday,
When our parents swam beneath the falls, they then were sent away.
Stern Griffin, their Creator, placed the rebels in a boat,
Without
a sail, without an oar, he set the pair afloat;
Yet
guided by His unseen paw, they sailed the watery track,
To pass the
circling clouds and come, at last, to Dragon's Back.
MARVIN
Marvin patiently rearranged the scrolls on his desk.
He liked for everything to be in order, in its properly designated place.
His desk. His office.
His home. His wife and eight
children. But especially the
Orphanage, which was under his control.
"The government has picked me for this position," he would say
each morning into the spotless mirror which hung over his washbowl, "and
the government always knows what it is doing."
Then, as he filled his cut-scaline washbowl to the precise predetermined
level with fresh imported River water (an allocation from the government), he
would repeat his mantra aloud with an air of extreme confidence, "It is my
destiny to bring order to a chaotic world.
Harmony, peace, and fulfillment can be found only in a world governed by
rules; and in rules governed by order. Today,
I will bring order into the life of another!"
Marvin would never say, "another's life" or "another man's
life", but always "the life of another", for he felt that
contractions were contradictions -- sloppy shortcuts that degraded the purity of
language. And since rules were
conveyed and communicated using the vehicle of language, then concise, accurate
language must be the pillar on which all of life should rest and the standard by
which he could instantly judge all men.
At that precise moment, Marvin heard a tentative knocking on his office
door. "What is it, Miss
Perrywinkle?" he asked, knowing that no one else would dare knock on his
door. Proper channels eliminate
chaos!
The middle-aged woman who entered the room was the image of sobriety and
decorum. Her graying hair was tightly bound behind her head in the
fashion of widows and elderly school teachers.
Robed in a charcoal tunic that reached discreetly to mid-calf, and belted
in black with the wide sash of the single, she projected a practiced picture of
plainness. Her unpainted somber
face formed the perfect accessory to finish the look of her ensemble.
Miss Perrywinkle had once told her friends that she at one time had
aspired to be an actress. Serving Marvin was her ultimate role.
"I am sorry to interrupt you, sir," she intoned (and, Marvin
noted unconsciously, that she employed just the right volume and perfectly
executed diction), "but there is a ...man to see you.
He does not seem to have an appointment, but he does have some
official-looking papers."
Marvin had hired Miss Perrywinkle because she was prim, proper, and
precise. The fact that she failed
to insert the usual "gentle" before speaking of the "...man"
did not escape his linguistic notice. Of
what exactly was she trying to warn him?
"You know," he told her rather sternly, "that I do not
like interruptions, especially unscheduled ones."
In his self-ordered world, even the interruptions were planned, numbered,
allocated resources, handled with dispatch, then documented in triplicate.
"Miss Perrywinkle, interruptions are the sign of an undisciplined
life," he preached at her as though she were the cause and not the
harbinger of the disturbance. "We
cannot allow chaos to be our master, can we?"
In response, she shook her head violently from side to side in a silent
but emphatic negative. "A schedule," he continued barely noticing her
response, "with strict appointments will correct all such chaos and keep
life in line. You say this '...man'
has papers? Well, I guess you had
better show him in." And the
ever accommodating Miss Perrywinkle scurried to comply.
In reality, Marvin was well aware that his secretary did not need a
lecture on schedules and appointments. If
someone had asked Miss Perrywinkle in the strictest confidence why her boss
continually lectured her, she, knowing the man better than he knew himself,
would have candidly replied, "Oh, he's just building himself up to take on
the challenge I've brought him." (She
freely used contractions when talking to anyone else but Marvin.)
And if she was being really candid, she might have added, "Marvin's
basically a good soul, but he feels secure only when he's in absolute control of
everything and everyone around him. If
you throw 'im a clunker; if you throw a tiny pebble into that quiet pool he's
made, it makes a tidal wave, as far as Marvin's concerned."
Again there was a tentative knock on Marvin's door.
He rose to his feet and drew his government-issued scaline short-sword
before replying, "You may enter!" in a voice as strong and masculine
as he could make it.
Miss Perrywinkle held open the door so the stranger could push past her
into the room.
Marvin pointed his ceremonial sword at her feet politely indicating who
he was signaling. (Everyone knows it is improper to point your sword directly
at a person's head or heart.) Then,
with his arm fully extended, he snapped his wrist sharply upward so that the
point of the blade was aimed directly toward the ceiling. THANK YOU. (This was a simple THANK YOU as opposed to an
EXALTED THANK YOU done to show respect, with the blade close to the signaler’s
chest.) Finally, he allowed the
blade to drop to horizontal. Pointing
it in the general direction of the door, he wiggled it back and forth randomly
several times. YOU ARE DISMISSED.
Marvin would have had stern words for his secretary, accompanied by a
very long lecture if he had seen the bemused smile that spread across her face
as she turned her back on them. He
would have been positively beside himself if he had heard her chuckling to
herself after she had pulled fast the door.
Now, facing the stranger for the first time, Marvin neatly flipped his
sword into the air and caught it by the tip of its unsharpened blade, to present
it hilt first to the white-haired man who stood before him.
GREETINGS, I AM IN YOUR SERVICE. The
government had spent much money training Marvin in the protocol of swordsmanship
and he fancied himself quite skillful.
The old man adroitly mimicked this signal, then, bowing his head
slightly, brought the hilt of his sword gently up to his own forehead, waiting
for a verbal response. I AM IN YOUR SERVICE. I
HAVE A NEED/REQUEST.
Having been forewarned, by his secretary in her unique fashion, Marvin
used to his advantage the moment of polite silence between the end of formal
sword signal and the expectation of speech.
His government-trained eyes took the measure of the man before him, and
what they saw he did not like.
First, and most obviously, the stranger did not carry a proper scaline
sword, but rather that of a fisherman, a carved tusk of some sea animal.
Being the standard length of a forearm and hand, it was like those of the
simple-loving, low caste fishermen, however, this man's sword was intricately
carved with what the ancients called scrimshaw, showing elaborate scenes of men
and animals. Still it was a low
cast sword ...or that of a...!
Marvin glanced at the waterskins the man carried.
Yes, there were two, instead of one.
One holding a family crest, a dolphin on blue-black waves, which though
familiar, for the moment alluded Marvin's recognition.
(No small task, for he greatly prided himself on his heraldry.) And there was a smaller secondary 'skin -- a bag of adoption
-- on which he could just make out... the golden crest of the Griffin!
The man was a Swimmer! That
also explained the sword!
The moment of politeness had passed, yet the white-haired man held his
position with his sword hilt touching his bowed forehead.
Marvin thought fast even while his mouth automatically found the words of
protocol, "How may I serve you, father?"
The man was wearing the nondescript, cream-colored robes of a craftsman,
loose in body but tight in arm. The
three brown bands on his sword arm sleeve marked him as a master carver.
Yet he was a Swimmer! A
follower of the Griffin. What would
one of his kind be doing at a state-run orphanage on one of the Middle Islands?
As if in answer, the still silent old man dropped to one knee, raising
his carved sword, hilt upward, into the air above his head.
I AM ON PILGRIMAGE.
Now Marvin became concerned in earnest.
In the pluralistic government which he duly represented, all beliefs were
officially accepted and none could be naysayed.
Therefore, a man claiming to be on a spiritual quest -- a pilgrimage --
"must be afforded all reasonable aid under penalty of forfeiture of
position and property." Marvin
instantly brought the appropriate line of juris prudence to mind.
In the briefest of moments Marvin had already begun a mental campaign
against this intruder into his realm. He
had ascertained the nature of his enemy, marshaled his available resources, and
began planning his defense. He fully realized before the battle began that he
had been tactually maneuvered into a position of great disadvantage, and the old
man had not yet uttered a word.
The stranger was a Swimmer, and as a rule, followers of the Griffin's Son
did not usually go on pilgrimages like Pascal Priests or Hinterland fanatics,
still, Marvin was honor-bound as a government official to try to resolve this
man's need. Yet he was a Swimmer
and (unofficially) the current administration did not go out of its way to aid
Swimmers. Quite the contrary!
But Marvin's worrisome assessment of the stranger was cut short as the
man rose suddenly -- with surprising agility for a man of his age -- to sheathe
his sword, stand erect (making him much taller than Marvin), and utter garbled
speech which grated on Marvin's official ears and nerves.
"Y' may help me on m'way by bringin' out the two lads who be me
grandsons. It's for them that I'm
come a troublin' you on this fine day. They're
of age an' I'm takin' 'em with me on pilgrimage."
Some trick of his mind must have blocked Marvin from recognizing the seal
on the old man's waterskin. Now he
knew it! And with that knowledge, fear, akin to raw panic, burned
suddenly through his veins into the core of his being.
Those two? Impossible! he thought with no outward sign.
But on the inside Marvin was a wreck.
This backwards Heartlander had just thrown a boulder into the pool of
quiet control he always strove to maintain around himself.
I can't let them go! What
will They say if the boys are missing?
I was told to guard them with my very life. They left me no
instructions concerning a grandfather! Why,
if there was blood kin...? Still,
there must have been a reason. The
orders came straight from the Source of the River and the government does not
make mistakes!
Bolstered by a clearer recollection of the old facts and a better
understanding of the new, Marvin made ready his verbal strategy against this
intruder into his world. Choosing words as a warrior might choose weapons from an
arsenal, he spoke with strength and conviction in his voice, "I am sorry,
sir, but without the proper authorization, I could not possibly release the boys
into your custody, no matter what the reason.
You are well aware that family crests can be unscrupulously duplicated.
I am sure that you understand that I must follow proper governmental
procedures which have been established for the safety of all of our wards,
including your grandsons."
If Marvin had felt that this humanitarian appeal to protocol would have
any effect on the old man, he was soon disappointed.
The intruder would not be so easily dissuaded.
Shaking his head back and forth like a small animal shedding water, the
grandfather withdrew from under his cloak several official looking documents.
Yes, thought Marvin, remembering, Miss Perrywinkle had said he carried
documents, else she never would have allowed an unappointed man to enter this
office.
Marvin was aware that things had been changing