Moby-Dick by Herman Melville (3)

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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Introduction by Alfred Kazin

One of the first introductions I’ve read that made sense to me, probably because I’ve read the book twice before and I agree with most of his thoughts. I won’t dwell on it too much because I want to develop my own interpretation of this book, the book I sometimes think I could have written, the book that seems to be in some indefinable way about everything I ever wanted to write a book about and tried. That’s in fact what this exercise is all about, trying to put some definition on that sense I get when reading this book that something big, important, and utterly contemptuous of my own understanding is swimming just beneath the surface of the prose. More on that later. For now, Kazin’s conclusions seem to be:

1. Moby-Dick is not just a book about Ahab’s quest for the white whale, Moby-Dick is a quest for the white whale, a quest for an understanding of man’s place in the cosmos.

2. Melville’s characters each represent a different approach to this question—Ishmael searches for meaning from the prison of his own mind, Ahab by confronting the forces that may seek to ignore him, Starbuck by clinging fast to his Christian faith, etc.

3. That when all is said and done, no matter the approach we take towards this quest for understanding, there will always remain something deep and mysterious hidden from our view and ambivalent to our desire.

I’ll try to keep these things in mind as I go through the book, but I don’t want to become too reliant on them. They may be signposts for me, and they will probably help me find my way, but the journey ahead is mine, and I want to be careful not to let someone walk it for me.

Etymology and Extracts

Three times I’ve wondered why these things are here and three times I’m left with no good answer. The best I can come up with is that if Melville uses the whale as a symbol of nature ambivalent to man, then these two sections show that whales have been part of human history from the very beginning and, in all that time, our interactions with them have been nothing but antagonistic and violent.

I. Loomings

We are introduced to Ishmael, the narrator of our tale, who tells us that whenever he is feeling tired of life he goes to sea. As Cato throws himself onto a sword, Ishmael takes to a ship. We are, he says, all drawn similarly to the sea. It contains the ungraspable phantom of life, and somehow is the key to all our understanding. This particular time he decides on a whaling voyage, and ascribes that decision to the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has constant surveillance of him, secretly dogs him, and influences him in some unaccountable way.

II. The Carpet Bag

Ishmael travels from New York to New Bedford and misses the last transport to Nantucket, from which and no other port does he intend to sail. Nantucket is the great original—the Tyre of this Carthage—the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Looking for a place to spend the night and with only a few pieces of silver in his pocket, he passes by two inns which seem too expensive and jolly, and he enters a Negro church by mistake, falling over an ash box in the process, where the preacher’s text is about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Wanting no part of that, he leaves and finds The Spouter Inn, which looks cheap enough to accommodate him. Before entering, he speculates on the cold wind, and how it bothers those out of doors and not those inside beside the fire, and how the fire within ourselves is not hot enough to give us the same comfort.

III. The Spouter-Inn

A switch to the second person, putting “you” in the center of the action. A description of the painting on one of the walls of the entryway of the Spouter-Inn, so thoroughly besmoked and defaced that only by careful study and popular opinion can its meaning be defined. All else is whale-related—broken lances and harpoons on the opposite wall, a bar shaped like a right whale’s head, and liquor shelves framed by whale jawbones. Ishmael speaks to the landlord, agrees to share a bed with another lodger, and is fed a cold meal of meat and dumplings. The crew of a just-docked ship, the Grampus, comes in and begins to drink and rejoice, except for one man, a brawny Southerner from Virginia named Bulkington, who Ishmael says will soon become his shipmate. Ishmael decides he doesn’t want to share a bed with a stranger, and tries to make a bed out of a wooden bench, but can’t get comfortable, and decides to wait for the harpooner to come back to the Inn so he can get a good look at him and decide if he wants to share his bed. He and the landlord get to talking about the harpooner, and after a misunderstanding about the stranger selling shrunken heads from the South Seas, the landlord decides he won’t be coming in that night and urges Ishmael to go claim the bed for himself. This Ishmael does, retiring after looking through the harpooner’s belongings, including a strange doormat with needle-like tassels on the ends and a poncho-like hole in the middle. Eventually, the harpooner comes home, and Ishmael watches secretly from bed as he undresses—his body covered in small, black, tattooed squares—and makes a small offering of a cooked biscuit to a black, little idol he produces from his coat and places on the hearth. Then the harpooner comes to bed, bringing some kind of tomahawk/pipe with him, and Ishmael leaps up and screams for the landlord—Peter Coffin—to come save him. The landlord comes, introduces Queequeg (the harpooner) to Ishmael, and quiets everybody down. In the light, Ishmael sees that Queequeg isn’t such a bad fellow—a clean, comely-looking cannibal—and decides to share his bed after all. And never slept better in his life.

IV. The Counterpane

Ishmael wakes the next morning in Queequeg’s embrace, the tanned and tattooed arm of the harpooner draped over him and blending in with the stripes and colors of the patchwork quilt they shared. He feels strange, and is reminded of a time as a young boy, when sent to bed early for misbehaving, he awoke in the middle of the night with the sensation of some invisible, supernatural hand gripping his. Ishmael manages to wake Queequeg, and they agree that Queequeg will dress first and leave, leaving the apartment wholly to Ishmael. Ishmael starts to watch Queequeg dress, but Queequeg crawls under the bed to put on his boots, somehow thinking it indecorous to do that in front of someone. Ishmael calls Queequeg a creature in a transition state—neither caterpillar nor butterfly, just enough civilized to wear boots but not enough civilized to know that you don’t have to crawl under the bed to put them on. After washing up and shaving with his harpoon, Queequeg leaves Ishmael alone in the room. How is Ishmael like Queequeg’s wife? He waits for Queequeg to come home, they sleep together, he wakes in his embrace, and waits quietly in the morning while Queequeg gets ready to leave. What kind of relationship is this going to be? And how will Queequeg’s quest for understanding differ from Ishmael’s?

V. Breakfast

Ishmael goes down to breakfast and sees all the other boarders together for the first time. He can tell how long each one of them has been ashore by how dark or light their tans are. Queequeg again is something special. But who could show a cheek like Queequeg? Which, hued with various tints, seemed like the Anoles’ western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, zone by zone. Much to Ishmael’s surprise, the whalemen eat in silence. Men who board great whales on the high seas and dueled them dead without winking, look round sheepishly at each other at a social breakfast table among their own comrades. A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! Queequeg sits at the head of the table, cool as an icicle, ignoring the coffee and hot rolls, spearing rare beefsteaks with his harpoon. After breakfast, Ishmael goes for a walk.

VI. The Street

Ishmael talks about New Bedford, about how it is the strangest of all strange places in the world, about how one casually sees whalemen and cannibals and country bumpkins strolling its streets. But for all its strangeness, New Bedford is also one of the most opulent places in the world, where rich men, men made rich from whaling, build brave houses, or better still, harpoon them and drag them up to New Bedford from the bottom of the sea.

VII. The Chapel

After his walk, Ishmael decides to visit the Whaleman’s Chapel, where whalemen of all sorts stop to visit before heading out on ocean voyages. There he finds a group of worshippers—sailors, wives and widows—all sitting silently and apart from one another. Several sit staring at memorial tablets, placed beside the pulpit in memory of men lost at sea or killed in whaling. Ishmael sees Queequeg there, and Queequeg notices him, unable to read the black stone tablets which so engross the others. In observing the others he thinks faith is like a jackal feeding among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. Ishmael ponders on them, and knows that death may await him on his voyage as it had awaited these men on theirs, but shrugs off his worry, firm is his belief that he has an existence apart from his body, that after it dies he will continue. Come a stove boat and a stove body when they will, for stove my soul, Jove himself cannot.

VIII. The Pulpit

Father Mapple enters the church, dripping in the rain and sleet which had begun to fall when Ishmael first left for the chapel. Mapple was a harpooner in his youth, but had for many years been a minister and was now very old. He now ascends to the pulpit, which has only a rope ladder for access, and then pulls the ladder up with him, leaving him impregnable in his little Quebec. Ishmael searches for meaning in this action, and decides that to Mapple, the pulpit is a self-contained stronghold, a place he can go to spiritually isolate himself from the world around him. On the wall behind the pulpit is painted a scene of a ship beating against the waves and storm, and an angel on a small island whose face shines with a beacon light. The pulpit is also built like the prow of a ship and Ishmael finds this appropriate, thinking the world is nothing but a ship on its passage out, and the pulpit is the thing that leads it out and bears the earliest brunt.

IX. The Sermon

Mapple orders everyone into the pews, offers a quiet prayer, and then speaks the words of a hymn about being swallowed by a whale and then delivered by God. Mapple then begins his sermon on the story of Jonah, telling how Jonah, having disobeyed God, decided to sail to the farthest known land, where he believed the power of God could not reach him. He finds a ship bound for Tarshish and, after the crew try to determine if he is a man wanted for a parricide, Jonah is allowed to see the captain. The captain agrees to ferry him, at three times the normal rate, and knows when Jonah pays it that he is a fugitive from something. Jonah retires to his cabin where, after spending hours wracked by his conscience and reminded of his crookedness in the world by the way his room looks crooked to a free-hanging lamp, he eventually falls asleep. While he sleeps, a great storm comes upon the ship, the sea itself in protest to Jonah’s presence on it, and remains asleep until the captain comes to raise him. Coming above deck, Jonah is frightened by the power of the storm and knows that it has been sent by God to plague him. Confessing this to the sailors, he beseeches them to cast him overboard in order to save themselves. This they do, and the storm ends as Jonah falls into the mouth and belly of the whale. There, he prays not for deliverance, but only for forgiveness, for he knows he was wrong and that God’s punishment was just. God, taking pity on Jonah, delivers him from the whale’s belly. Mapple tells his parishioners to sin not, but if they do, repent like Jonah. But Mapple reminds them that there is a larger lesson in the story of Jonah, a lesson that he, as a pilot of the living God, is more responsible to uphold than they. For once delivered, Jonah became a prophet of God, just as Mapple has become, and woe to anyone who goes back to their selfish ways after taking on that awesome position.

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

CHAPTER TWENTY

FARCHRIST TALES

BOOK TWO:

THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

In the next couple of years Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II carried on a secret relationship with the young peasant woman named Amanda. He would continue on his missions of conquest away from Farchrist Castle, preparing himself for the day he hoped to face and defeat Dalanmire, but each time he left and each time he returned he would secretly go into the City Beneath the Castle to visit the girl with whom he was quickly falling in love. She became everything to him and the more they learned about each other, the more perfect their coupling seemed. She was beautiful, intelligent, loving, passionate, and had a great love for her creator throbbing in her heart. Indeed, the only problem they faced, the problem that forced them to carry their affair on in secret, was that she was a commoner, and a Knight was forbidden to socialize with one so far below his station. Time and time again, Brisbane said he would leave the knighthood for her, but Amanda would not hear of it. His knighthood was as important to her as it was to him.

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The fifth day out from Queensburg was an eventful one. Before the sun set on them, they had fought a massive battle, uncovered a great deal of treasure, and had found the temple for which they had been searching.

The day itself, however, started like any other. They arose at dawn, woken by Shortwhiskers, who had stood the final watch the night before, ate a quick breakfast, packed up their camp on the two mules, and continued their journey up the Mystic. The river was noticeably thinner now, really only a stream, and Roystnof predicted that at their present pace, they should reach the source of the Mystic within a day or so. The mountains around them were also growing taller, creating more and more shade and shortening the length of time they could walk in daylight.

They marched for most of the day in peace and it seemed that another day of quiet journey would come to a close when the small party stumbled across the cave.

It was in one of the mountains on the north side of the river, the side they were following to the source. It was a huge gaping maw in the rockface, shaded by the mountain it bore into so that near the entrance it was almost like night. When it was spotted, the party was called to a halt to talk about what should be done. A vote was called for and, surprisingly, everyone agreed that at least one of their number should take a peek inside.

The arguing came about when the decision was to be made of who should go in and, of course, the main instigator of the argument was Dantrius. Brisbane noticed how the mage was seemingly incapable of going along with any suggestion that was not his own. The obvious choice for the job was Shortwhiskers, who had spent a good deal of his life living in underground caverns and who had the corresponding racial attributes to aid him in the task of slipping in and out unseen by whatever might lair in the cave. But Dantrius said he did not trust the dwarf and he felt he should be the one who scouted out the cave.

But, as usual, a vote was taken and Dantrius was silenced by democracy in action. The party moved silently up to the cave and Shortwhiskers went in alone.

Brisbane peered into the blackness hopelessly. His eyes were too weak to penetrate the dark. Dwarves, on the whole, had much better night vision and were actually able to see the glow given off by warm objects or bodies. It was a trait developed over years of living in caverns more finely crafted than this one, or it was, as some people said, a gift given to them by Grecolus to aid them in their lives beneath the earth. Brisbane wondered what Shortwhiskers, who worshipped his supposedly pagan dwarven gods, thought of his special eyesight. But regardless of from where the talent had actually come, Shortwhiskers had it, and with it he was exploring a place in which Brisbane would get lost, two feet away from the door.

They waited. They waited for a long time until Brisbane began to get worried and wanted to know what was taking so long. If Roystnof hadn’t demanded total silence for the time Shortwhiskers was inside, he would have voiced his frustration. Brisbane could only look helplessly at Stargazer and she could only shrug her shoulders back.

Finally, Shortwhiskers emerged from the cave. He quietly put an index finger to his lips and crept slowly away from the cave. The party followed. When they were back down by the babbling of the river Mystic, the dwarf gathered everyone close and told them what he had seen.

“The cave,” Shortwhiskers said, “extends a far way back into the mountain before opening up into a large cavern. This cavern’s floor is cluttered with boulders and has a ceiling about thirty feet above it. Right now, sleeping among those boulders are three large humanoids.”

“How large?” Roystnof asked.

“Large,” Shortwhiskers said. “Standing, each one would easily be over ten feet tall. They’re dressed in rough animal hides and they look rather primitive.”

“Anything else unusual about them?” Roystnof asked.

“Thought you’d never ask,” Shortwhiskers said. “Each one has two heads. Both of them ugly.”

“Two-headed giants,“ Dantrius scoffed. “You must be kidding.”

“Go check it out for yourself, weasel,” Shortwhiskers said.

Dantrius scowled at the dwarf and then turned to Roystnof, begging with the look on his face for help with the peons that surrounded them.

“No,” Roystnof said. “I have heard of such creatures. They are called ettins. I’m not sure how, but they are supposed to be related to orks.”

“Well,” Dantrius said. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“There’s something else in there, too,” Shortwhiskers said, bringing a coin out from his pocket. “Gold.”

“I knew it!” Dantrius said, raising his voice. “How much did you steal for yourself?”

Shortwhiskers flipped him the coin and the mage bobbled it a few times before he caught it. “Just the one,” the dwarf said. “Why don’t you hold it for me?”

“How much gold is in there?” Brisbane asked.

The dwarf looked at him. “A lot. Some gems, too. They have it in their sacks, but one is torn and some of the gold has spilled out.”

“You’re sure they are all asleep?” Roystnof asked. “All six heads?”

Shortwhiskers shrugged. “None of them moved while I crept among them. There was a lot of snoring.”

“What are we going to do?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked at all of their faces. “We’re going to get that gold.” He turned to Shortwhiskers. “Nog, can you get their sacks without waking them up?”

Shortwhiskers looked uneasy.

“Ettins are nocturnal,” Roystnof said. “They’re probably sleeping deeply at this time of day.”

“I’ll give it a try,” Shortwhiskers said.

“Now wait just a minute…” Dantrius said.

Roystnof turned on the mage. “Shut up, Dantrius. Just shut up. I’m tired of your complaining at every move we try to make. In case you haven’t noticed, you’re not winning any popularity contests around here. So if you can’t get with the program, why don’t you just leave us alone and go back down the river?”

Dantrius eyed Roystnof maliciously. “I was only going to suggest that someone go in with him,” he said smugly. “The less trips in and out the better.”

Roystnof did not apologize for his outburst. “Who else can see so well in the dark?”

“Allison can,” Shortwhiskers said.

All eyes turned to Stargazer.

“Her elven half,” Shortwhiskers explained. “Elves have even better eyesight than dwarves, so a half-elf should see at least as well as a dwarf.”

“Well, Miss Stargazer,” Roystnof said. “How about it?”

“What will we do with this gold?” Stargazer asked.

“Divide it up equally,” Roystnof answered. “You may do whatever you like with your share.”

Stargazer pondered. “You say these ettins are related to orks?”

“Yes.”

“Then, I will do it.”

The party, decided on a course of action, went quietly back to the cave mouth. On the way Brisbane moved closer to Roystnof and asked him if he thought what he had said to Dantrius was the wisest thing he could have done. Roystnof said he doubted it, but he couldn’t have held his anger at Dantrius back any longer.

Brisbane was not too happy about Stargazer going into the ettins’ lair, but there was very little he could do about it. He tried to reassure himself by remembering how well she had fought against the orks. In any case, Brisbane planned to stay ready at the cave mouth with Angelika in hand in case anything went wrong.

Shortwhiskers and Stargazer disappeared into the cave and left Brisbane and the two wizards standing outside, waiting again. Brisbane’s head was filled with images of Stargazer being trampled and torn apart by the two-headed giants and it took quite a bit of willpower to keep himself from rushing in to save her.

And so he waited, waited outside for either Shortwhiskers or Stargazer to come creeping back with the sacks of gold, or for the sounds of slaughter to come pouring out of the cave. Brisbane did not have to wait long.

Angelika spoke to him milliseconds before the noises started.

—Help them, Brisbane. They need your help against the evil beasts.—

Brisbane started in. He could no longer help himself. He ran blindly into the cave, racing down the dark tunnel to the chamber Shortwhiskers had said was there. The first sound to reach his ears was that of gold coins spilling all over a rock floor, the second was the roaring of the awakening ettins, and the third was a battle cry sounded out in Shortwhiskers’ strong voice.

Brisbane was still blind and he thought to slow down before he plowed into something or someone just as the cavern filled itself with a bright light that seemed to have no apparent source. It took him less than a moment to figure out Roystnof had cast a spell, but his thoughts were quickly focused on the scene he found before him.

Shortwhiskers stood over the struggling body of one ettin, chopping at it mercilessly with his sword, while Stargazer guarded his back, her staff braced against her thighs, as the other two ettins rose to their feet, picking up heavy wooden clubs, one in each of their hands.

The ettins were monsters indeed. They stood well over ten feet tall, their hardened bodies covered loosely in filthy animal skins, each of their heads an ugly rendition of a sickening mix of orkish and human. Low foreheads, pig noses, sharp tusks; if savagery had a pure form, these ettins had to come close to it.

Brisbane rushed into battle, hoping Roystnof was coming in soon behind him. He swung Angelika at one of the ettins closing on Stargazer and managed to draw it away from her. Up close and in combat, the ettin was much larger than Brisbane had first thought. The creature was larger than both the ogre and the demon he had fought before, and each of its two huge hands expertly wielded clubs that looked like they might once have been tree trunks. Each of its two heads had mouths slobbering with white foam and gnashing with sharp teeth.

Brisbane quickly realized he had his hands full and had no time to look around to see how his friends were doing. He knew he could help them best by killing this ettin as quickly as he possibly could.

—I’ll help you, Brisbane. This evil giant cannot stand against us. He shall be vanquished.—

Brisbane let Angelika weave her spell about him. It boosted his confidence and tuned everything else out of his universe. Suddenly, Brisbane found himself trapped in the battle with the ettin, and the only way out came with the death of his opponent. He had to kill the ettin, if he didn’t he would never escape from this prison.

—Yes, young Brisbane, that’s the way. Throw yourself at him. Evil is your enemy and it must be destroyed.—

Brisbane felt himself lose control of his body. His reflexes became quicker and his strikes became more deadly. He dodged away each time the ettin brought one or both of its heavy clubs down on his head. He was in a combat trance, his body working like a perfect machine apart from his mind. His consciousness sat up in its high tower and watched the action through his eyes as if it was watching a chess match.

Angelika guided him now, striking the ettin time and time again in the abdomen and upper legs until its blood poured out of it like a waterfall. Brisbane sliced Angelika though the ettin a final time and the monster collapsed to its death.

Brisbane was suddenly in control of himself again.

—There are more to fight, Brisbane.—

Brisbane spun around and saw the results of what had transpired while he killed the first ettin. The ettin Shortwhiskers had been hacking away on had managed to get to its feet and was trying to fend the dwarf off bare-handed. The ettin absolutely towered over the dwarf, but it was unarmed and Shortwhiskers was using his sword with the skill of a veteran warrior. The sides seemed evenly matched. As Brisbane watched, they traded blows, the ettin with its powerful fists and Shortwhiskers with his blade. The other ettin had its clubs and was using them in combat against Stargazer and Roystnof. The slow-moving giant was no match for Stargazer and her quick-moving staff. She would dodge away from the heavy clubs and quickly rap the ettin somewhere on its body with the iron hand of Grecolus that topped her staff. But these contacts were light and not troublesome to the ettin. If Roystnof had not been behind her, casting his offensive spells, Brisbane was sure Stargazer would have been crushed long ago. As Brisbane watched, another burst of red lightning flung out of Roystnof’s fingers and slammed into the ettin, driving the monster back a pace or two. Dantrius stood at the entrance of the cavern, a pair of daggers in his hands, but he was doing apparently nothing.

The ettin fighting Shortwhiskers was the one closest to him, so Brisbane charged into combat with that one. He slipped, easily this time, into the trance that Angelika provided, and he watched as the ettin grew weaker and weaker before his deadly blade. He attacked so aggressively that Shortwhiskers had to back off to give Brisbane room and to avoid the seemingly wild swings of his sword. But each swing, no matter how sweeping and wild it seemed, scored a dire wound on the body of the two-headed monster. Its four eyes were wide in amazement and fear at the ferocity of its small attacker and, before long, those four eyes bore only the glassy stare of death.

And as the second ettin fell under his blade, Brisbane, watching coolly from behind his own eyes, thought, for just a moment, that he might very well be invincible and that he could defeat anything.

—The deed is done. Praise Grecolus for his wisdom and Brisbane for his courage.—

Stargazer and Roystnof together had defeated the third ettin and the battle was over. Brisbane tore off a piece of the ettin’s clothing and began cleaning Angelika. He felt good, calm, and confident. Shortwhiskers thanked him for the help against the ettin and then asked Stargazer to come over and tend to his wounds. They were mostly bumps and bruises and Stargazer simply rubbed some of her ointment over them and covered them with strips of clean cloth. When this was done and all had caught their breath, they gathered about the pile of treasure they had won.

Brisbane eyed Dantrius smokily as he joined the circle, a little upset the mage had done nothing in the battle, but he decided to forget about it. The less Dantrius did for him, the happier he felt he would be.

Shortwhiskers dumped out all the sacks and, for a moment, no one said anything as they all stared at the glittering pile of gold and gems.

“Wow,” Brisbane said finally. “That’s a lot of gold.”

“Damn sack had a hole in it,” Shortwhiskers said. “Otherwise we wouldn’t even have had to work for it.”

Everyone laughed nervously at that. Brisbane decided it was too spooky in the cave, with the fresh dead surrounding their newfound hoard. He suggested they pack it up and get the hells out of there. There were no objections and that is what was done. They bagged it all up and Shortwhiskers tied it securely to their pack mules, this time, without any complaint from Dantrius. It seemed that the mage had decided not to be such a pest and that was fine with Brisbane.

Then, they were on their way again, following the thinning Mystic deeper and deeper into the mountains. The farther he got away from the incident, the less Brisbane could remember about the way Angelika had actually controlled him in the battle with the ettins. When he did think about it, he remembered himself playing a larger part in the proceedings and, personally, was shocked at the bravery and skill he had shown in defeating the monsters. If Roundtower had been there, perhaps he could have helped Brisbane sort through these unusual feelings, but probably not even he could have protected Brisbane from the danger of using Angelika in combat. She was one of the finest swords in the realm and, armed with her, anyone with the strength to lift her could defend himself against aggression. But Brisbane’s natural and learned talent of weaponry combined with Angelika’s magic in a special and potentially dangerous way. Armed with Angelika, Brisbane was not invincible, but it became increasingly likely that he would begin to think so.

The battle with the ettins took place late in the day and the party only had an hour or two to travel before they were forced to make another camp for another night. Nearly as soon as they had left the cave of the ettins over their backward horizon, they began to hear a noise that at first none of them could identify. It started low, but as they walked on, it grew louder and louder until it was positively roaring in their ears. No longer could there be any doubt as to what was making the noise. They rounded a curve around a jagged peak and saw the waterfall they had been hearing for miles.

The water fell from a cliff high above their heads, gathered into a small pool, and began to flow down the mountain slopes to the sea. Here was the source of the Mystic and sitting beneath and slightly ahead of the falling waters was a low stone building. It had two major wings, one on each side of the virgin river, and a wide section connecting them, spanning over the surface of the water. It faced them like a squared letter C, and at each of its ends was an opening like the one at the shrine so far down the river.

The members of the party exchanged triumphant glances and quickly went about striking a camp for the night. They had found the temple they had been searching for and tomorrow was going to be a very big day. 

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

Fair Land, Fair Land by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.

This is another book in Guthrie’s epic series of Western novels, written near the end of his career and calling back the central characters -- and the central dilemma -- of his first novel, The Big Sky.

At the end of my write-up on The Big Sky, I said this about its central character -- Boone Caudill.

Boone Caudill is no guide -- not through the wilderness, not through the moral universe, not even through himself. So unlike the Pathfinder, in the end, Boone remains lost, not found.

And at the end of my write-up on its immediate sequel, The Way West, I said this about its central character -- Dick Summers.

Dick’s wisdom is not so much in providing the answer, but in offering the surest way of finding it -- almost like the way that the scientific method takes precedence over any conclusion it may help determine.

For two novels now, I have been looking for a Cooperian Pathfinder in these tales of men going west, for a guide, not just through the wilderness of the continent, but especially through the wilderness of man’s heart and morality. Dick Summers comes closest in The Way West, but even there he seems more the compass needle than the mariner who directs the ship.

And now, in Fair Land, Fair Land, there is a chance for Summers to redeem himself in this regard, especially since the very thrust of the novel rests on the idea of moral consequence and retribution.

One thing stuck in his gizzard, too heavy to pass through his system. Jim Deakins dead and Boone Caudill the killer. He had pieced the story together, from Birdwhistle there on the Columbia’s banks, from Higgins who told him the talk at Fort Benton, from Teal Eye when she would speak of it. Caudill, the sudden and unthinking man, had shot Deakins out of suspicion with no hold on fact. He had killed his friend and deserted Teal Eye and the boy and not set foot in Blackfoot country again. He had to be told the truth somehow and somewhere. He had to live with his mistake. That was fair. All men should live with the wrongs they had done.

This all references the great climax of The Big Sky, when Caudill murders his and Summers’s friend Jim Deakins when he jealously suspects him of sleeping with his native American wife, Teal Eye. As Summers describes above, Caudill then goes missing (wandering back to his childhood home in Kentucky) and is absent from all the action of The Way West. Now, Summers decides to seek him out, to find him, to… to… well, to tell him the truth. To make sure that Caudill lives with the wrong that he has done.

But it is not Summers who finds Caudill.

“I located Boone Caudill, him you wanted to see.”

“Where at?” Summers’ voice had a snap in it.

“Him and three men are takin’ the shortcut, bound for California.”

“There now?”

“Be there in three or four days. Four most likely. But I used up a night and a day gettin’ back.”

Summers went silent for a long minute. Then he said, “It was meant all along. It was like it was writ in some book.”

“What?”

“That him and me would meet up. I gave up lookin’ for him. Put him almost out of my head. It ain’t no accident, Hig. It’s one purpose.”

“Whose?”

“How do I know? It’s just there.”

“Shit. Be sensible. It’s make-believe.”

“Nope, Hig. Not when you hear the all of it. Comin’ away from Oregon, before I teamed up with you, a man name of Birdwhistle sat by my fire. He had trapped and hunted with Caudill. No mistaken’ that. Call our meetin’ just a stray happenin’ if you want to. But then I come onto Teal Eye. She was Caudill’s woman onct and had the boy by him. Then, like you know, there was the talk at Fort Benton. Then come a blank, but now you’re tellin’ me Caudill’s comin’ our way, just when I was thinkin’ no use dwellin’ on him. So it ain’t an accident. Some things, seems like, was just meant to be, and no man can whoa ‘em.”

“You aim to see him, then?”

“Got to.” Summers rose. “Sunup.”

This is all so disingenuous of Summers’s part. He’s playing like this is all fate, but he’s the one who has been stewing on Caudill and what he’s done the whole time. His moral vision here is cloudy, almost cowardly, if he is going to blame fate rather than his own moral action for whatever may befall Caudill when the two of them actually meet.

And their meeting is, let’s say, anticlimactic.

Horses, wagon, men picked up their pace with water just ahead. They made a line along the shore. The men got up, wiping their mouths. From twenty feet away Summers called, “How Boone?”

Caudill came forward, scowling. The years had coarsened him, and time laid on some fat, but muscles played beneath it.

The scowl disappeared. “Hang me if it ain’t Dick Summers. How?” He held out his hand. Summers let himself shake.

“What goes with you? Where’s your stick float?” Caudill asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“Come with us, along to Californy, you and your ganted-up friend.”

“Don’t be belittlin’ him, Boone.”

“All right. Come along.”

“Don’t reckon so. Let’s talk a spell.” Summers made for a dead and drifted log and beckoned Caudill. Caudill yelled to his men, “See to the horses. Make camp. Me and an old friend got to jabber.”

“How come the wagon?” Summers asked.

“Two of my pardners ain’t worth a shit on a horse, and the wagon might come in handy. The men can shovel, by God. They’ll shovel when we get to pay dirt.”

“Heard you were huntin’ hides?”

“A man’s got to live. What’s with you, I done asked once?”

“I’m a settled man, married and everything.”

“You mean really married? By a preacher?”

It was time to let him have it, or some of it. “Yep,” he said. “Me and Teal Eye.”

Caudill jerked his head to stare at Summers. “Teal Eye? My old squaw?”

“She ain’t old. Your boy’s growin’ up.”

“Not my boy, by God. You watch out, she’ll cheat on you.”

“She never cheated on anybody.”

“Like hell you say. Birthed a boy with red hair like Jim Deakins. A blind pup to boot.”

“You ever see a white buffalo?”

“One time.”

“Could you pick out his pa?”

“You talk crazy talk.”

“Trouble with you, Boone, you never knew what real friendship was.”

“You speakin’ of Jim Deakins, I saved his life onct.”

“And took it for nothin’ at all, nothin’ but what you made up in your mind.”

Caudill’s face was full-turned to him with such a look of torment in it that Summers felt minded to say, “Now, Boone. Easy. It ain’t the first mistake ever made.” But the look of torment changed to black rage.

Summers, with his hand on his knife, thought he was prepared. He wasn’t, not for the heavy arm flung across his chest. It knocked him backward over the log. Caudill rolled over and straddled him. He locked his strong hands on his throat.

Summers had his knife out. He couldn’t slash at the arms or hands, not with his upper arm pinned by the great weight of the knee. The forearm was free with the knife in it. He could jab it into a gut. He didn’t, not yet. The hands clamped tighter. His lungs churned for air. But even as his sight dimmed and his senses blurred, he kept the knife by his side. It wasn’t a killing matter.

He thought he heard the crack of a rifle. He thought he felt the big body lurch and then tremble. Then most of it fell forward at his side. He squirmed out from under. There was a hole is Caudill’s head just under the hairline.

Panting, he looked up. Higgins stood a few feet away, a wisp of smoke drifting from the muzzle of his Kentucky.

Higgins said, “He didn’t mean nothin’ to me.”

Summers couldn’t answer for the clench of fingers still felt on his windpipe.

Higgins turned to the watching men. There he was, seen dimly, a skinny rack of bones unarmed except for the unloaded rifle. “You want to make something of it?” he asked.

One of the men answered, “It ain’t no skin off our ass.”

“Get shovels, then. We got to dig a grave. I’ll help.”

The same man said, “Be a pleasure.”

Summers just sat, his hand lying on Caudill’s dead shoulder. He sat and watched the men and the hole grow deeper. He tried not to think, tried not to remember how it was long ago.

He patted the shoulder and got up and walked to the men. “Time,” he said and tried to clear the squeeze from his voice. “Time to be goin’ home.”

Is Dick Summers the Pathfinder?

No.

In this novel, especially, he’s going the wrong way -- heading back east instead of going west -- intentionally into the troubled past instead of out into the hopeful future. And all along the way, while stewing on the prime moral question of Caudill’s past action, he demurs and provides no guidance to others who are seeking, who are needing it.

And in this final clash with Caudill -- these three pages of anticlimax that ends only Part 2 of the book -- he is the epitome of inaction, of vacillation, of wandering without purpose. He wants to speak the truth to Caudill, but Caudill, of all people, is unable to hear it, and Caudill, inevitably, winds up dead, shot to death by an outside moral agent while Summers’s knife is held in his firm but useless hand. As readers, we all saw this retribution coming. We all knew Caudill was going to die, but not Dick Summers. To the very end, for Dick Summers, this “wasn’t a killing matter.”

Dick Summers is almost the anti-Pathfinder, showing us, if anything, what not to do. Throughout this frustrating novel he lies to himself, and just ambles through a world that requires some kind of justice.

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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by Harold Bloom

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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This is the book I referred to in my comments to Day 28 of Rick Warren's A Purpose-Driven Life:

Listening to NPR a few weeks ago there was an interview with a guy whose name I wish I could remember who wrote a book whose title I wish I could remember about the four or five distinct personalities Christians attribute to God and try to paste together into this thing called the Trinity. One of those personalities is the Old Testament God the Father, who seems based mostly on the early Jewish deity Yahweh, who was more of a trickster figure in that pantheon than the benevolent type we think of today. Yahweh’s code was pretty much I’ll be there when I want to be there and not necessarily when you need me or want me.

Well, this difficult and thought-provoking book is certainly about that, but it's about a lot of other things, too. Bloom is a literary critic, and he takes a literary critic's approach to the characters of Jesus and Yahweh in the Bible, both of whom appear to be more than just one character in the various books that make up the foundational documents of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Bloom quotes Mark Twain at one point in his text, who observed that "the Christian's Bible is a drug store. Its contents remain the same, but the medical practice changes." And this is precisely the story Bloom tries to tell with regard to Yahweh, who seems to get reincarnated and transformed into several different deities by several different cultures over the course of time.

It's a convoluted tale—the tale of how the gods of the three modern "montheistic" religions came to be—and to be fair to Bloom, he is actually less trying to tell the tale than he is simply providing literary commentary on the characters the tale contains. But the tale itself seems fascinating. Here's one of the more descriptive sections on this subject:

"Jesus" in my title primarily means Jesus-the-Christ, a theological God. Yahweh, in his earlier and definitive career, is not at all a theological God, but is human, all-too-human, and behaves rather unpleasantly. Christianity transforms Jesus of Nazareth, a historical person about whom we possess only a few verifiable facts, into a polytheistic multiplicity that replaces the uncannily menacing Yahweh with a very different God the Father, whose Son is the Christ or risen Messiah. Both of these divinities are shadowed by a ghostly Paraclete (Comforter) named the Holy Spirit, while Miriam, the mother of the historical Yeshua or Jesus, lingers nearby under the designation of "The Virgin Mary."

The American Jesus stands somewhat apart from this pragmatic polytheism because he is the primary God of the United States, and has subsumed God the Father in what I continue to suggest we call "the American Religion." This Jesus has a burgeoning rival in the Holy Spirit of the Pentecostalists, and perhaps our future will see divided rule between these somewhat disparate entities. All this matters because Christianity wanes in Europe (Ireland excepted) and is exemplified primarily in the Americas, Asia, and Africa, competing in those latter continents with Islam, which now becomes more militant than at any time since its aggressive inception.

Yahweh is the protagonist of the Tanakh, which is distinctly not identical with the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is the protagonist of the New, or Belated, Testament, which revokes the Covenant between Yahweh and Israel. Politicians and religious figures (are they still separate characters?) speak of the Judeo-Christian tradition, but that is a social myth. It would make about as much sense if they spoke of a Christian-Islamic tradition. There are three rival so-called monotheisms, but the Jews are now so tiny in population, compared with the Christians and Muslims, that they could vanish all but completely in another two generations, three at most. This book therefore is not a polemic favoring Yahweh over his usurper. Perhaps it is, in part, and elegy for Yahweh. If he has vanished, he still ought to be distinguished clearly from Jesus-the-Christ and even from Allah, who in some respects does remain closer to the God of Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Ishmael, and Jesus of Nazareth than do the Christian deities. I am aware that these truths are scarcely welcome, but what truth is?

So first there was Yahweh, the God of the Tanakh—the old Hebrew Bible. He's the god of the Jews and he made a covenant with them. Then along comes the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, who, decades after his death, some people decide to make a god for a new religion called Christianity. They write a new Bible for him, and call him Jesus Christ, and say that he fulfills the prophesized Messiah from the old Bible. Except they have to change the old Bible to make sure it fits well with the new one they're writing:

Aside from the inclusion of the apocryphal works, the crucial Christian revisions [to the Tanakh] are its elevation of Daniel and the difference in endings, from II Chronicles to Malachi, the last of the Twelve Minor Prophets:

"And in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia, when the word of the Lord spoken by Jeremiah was fulfilled, the Lord roused the spirit of King Cyrus of Persia to issue a proclamation throughout his realm by word of mouth and in writing, as follows: 'Thus said King Cyrus of Persia: the Lord God of Heaven has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and has charged me with building Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Any one of you of all His people, the Lord his God be with him and let him go up.'"

II Chronicles 36:22-23

The Tanakh's conclusion is the heartening exhortation to "go up" to Jerusalem to rebuild Yahweh's Temple. (Of course, today a restored Temple would be a universal catastrophe, since Al Aksa Mosque occupies the sacred site, and must not be removed.) In order to lead into the three opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew, the Christian Old Testament concludes with Malachi, "the Messenger," proclaiming Elijah's return (as John the Baptist):

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse."

Malachi 4:5-6

Belated Testament as truly it is, the New Covenant is most intense in the belated Gospel of John, which I find both aesthetically strong and spiritually appalling, even setting aside its vehement Jewish self-hatred, or Christian anti-Semitism. If the New Testament triumphed in the Roman mode, and it did under Constantine, then the captive led in procession was the Tanakh, reduced to slavery as the Old Testament. All subsequent Jewish history, until the founding more than half a century ago of the State of Israel, testifies to the human consequences of that textual slavery.

In other words, the early Christians twisted the old Hebrew Bible for their own purposes and called it the Old Testament. The god of their New Testament didn't fulfill any prophecy from the old Jewish Bible. Instead, the old Jewish Bible was turned into something called the Old Testament so the New Testament could fulfill it. Bloom writes as if this re-invention is all but indisputable.

It is now altogether too late in Western history for pious or human self-deceptions on the matter of the Christian appropriation of the Hebrew Bible. It is certainly much too late in Jewish history to be other than totally clear about the nature and effect of that Christian act of total usurpation. The best preliminary description I have found is by Jaroslav Pelikan:

"What the Christian tradition had done was to take over the Jewish Scriptures as its own, so that Justin could say to Trypho that the passages about Christ 'are contained in your Scriptures, or rather not yours, but ours.' As a matter of fact, some of the passages were contained only in 'ours,' that is, in the Christian Old Testament. So assured were Christian theologians in their possession of the Scriptures that they could accuse the Jews not merely of misunderstanding and misinterpreting them, but even of falsifying scriptural texts. When they were aware of differences between the Hebrew test of the Old Testament and the Septuagint, they capitalized on these to prove their accusation..."

What makes this usurpation all the more remarkable in Bloom's eyes is that fact that he sees the Christian Messiah—"a Messiah who is God Incarnate, and dies on the Cross as an Atonement for all human sin and error"—as irreconcilable with the Hebrew Bible.

Only by a strongly creative misreading of the Tanakh could so immense a disparity have been redressed. The New Testament is held together by its revisionist stance toward the Hebrew Bible. A considerable splendor ensues from this revisionism, whether one is comfortable with it or not. The persuasive force of the Gospels, and of the entire New Testament structure, testifies to the power of an imaginative achievement, riddled with inconsistencies, but more than large enough to have weathered its self-contradictions, including a Jesus whose mission intends only Jews as beneficiaries, and disciples who address themselves only to Gentiles. What could Yeshua of Nazareth have made of Martin Luther's outburst "Death to the Law!" which in many German Lutherans who served Hitler became "Death to the Jews!" The Germans would not have crucified Jesus: they would have exterminated him at Auschwitz, their version of the Temple. No less than Hillel, Jesus affirmed the Torah, Yahweh's teaching and Covenant.

I think this really drives home one of the central theses of the book—that the Jesus Christians worship today, is neither the Jesus of the New Testament nor the Jesus supposedly prophesized by the "Old Testament"—both of whom were Jews who came to redeem the Jewish people.

A quick sidebar is in order here on the "Hillel" referenced at the end of that last passage. He is, of course, the ancient Jewish scholar, Hillel the Elder, who, from what I've read of him, seems wiser than Jesus in many worthy respects.

The attributes of humility, patience, love of one's fellows, and the pursuit of peace, which Hillel displayed, did not diminish the stringency of his ethical and religious demands, or prevent him from placing full responsibility on man, whom he required to act for his own perfection and for the public weal. Man is obliged to make endeavors, for "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" But he cannot achieve much through seclusion and separation, and he must remember, "And being for my own self, what am I?" Nor may he forget that his time is limited and he dare not procrastinate—"And if not now, when?" (Sayings of the Fathers, I.14). Man's relations with his fellow man were defined by Hillel not only in the rule attributed to him as a reply to the proselyte who asked to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one foot—"What is hateful to you do not do to your fellow"—the like of which the would-be proselyte might also have heard from others, but in the demand that one must not pass hasty judgment on the actions of another person, just as one is forbidden to be confident of one's own righteousness. The principle is "Be not sure of yourself until the day of your death, and judge not your fellow until you come into his place" (Sayings of the Fathers, II.5). However, a man's humility and self-criticism are no excuse for keeping aloof from the community. Hillel even instructs the Sage who has acquired the qualities of saintliness and humility, "Sever not yourself from the community...and where there are no men strive to be a man" (Sayings of the Fathers, II.5-6).

But let's get back to Jesus. The Jesus worshipped today is what Bloom calls the "American Jesus," a new god who has come to eclipse the other characters he supposedly abides with in the Trinity. The Trinity is something the old Catholic Church invented but which began to crumble when the Protestants began to flex their muscles as part of the Reformation. Bloom says the early Protestants went back to Yahweh for the inspiration of their movement, recognizing that in the Trinity Yahweh had become something different, something called "God the Father," who only seemed to exist so that he could have a Son that could die for all of our sins. But somewhere in the 400 years since the Reformation, Christians seem to have lost sight of Yahweh again—at least here in the States—and seem too focused on the other two Trinitarian characters. And Bloom thinks this has less to do with the religiosity of ancient Jewish and Christian texts and more to do with the secularism of Greek culture and the Renaissance.

Whoever you are, you identify necessarily the origins of your self more with Augustine, Descartes, and John Locke, or indeed with Montaigne and Shakespeare, than you do with Yahweh and Jesus. That is only another way of saying that Socrates and Plato, rather than Jesus, have formed you, however ignorant you may be of Plato. The Hebrew Bible dominated seventeenth-century Protestantism, but four centuries later our technological and mercantile society is far more the child of Aristotle than of Moses. Jesus, even had he been Yahweh Incarnate, could not have apprehended or comprehended a globe that might seem to him a world under water, already downed, as if even Yahweh's first covenant, with Noah, had never been cut.

To Bloom, the only place that Yahweh still exists is in Islam.

I repeat that the future of Christianity is not in Europe or the Middle East, but in the United States, Africa, and Asia. This coming Christianity is dominated by Jesus and the Holy Spirit, rather than by the figure of the Father. A pragmatic separation between Yahweh and Jesus widens, and Yahweh has not survived in Christianity, but only in the Allah of Islam. The dying God has also turned out to be Yahweh, and not Jesus.

And Bloom spends a good deal of time speculating on Yahweh's death and the forces that may eventually bring it about—tying them interestingly to the social and economic forces now conflicting with each other across our planet.

All gods age, Yahweh included, thought his dying may not prove to be final, since Islam could yet prevail. Gods ebb with continental economies, and Europe's augmenting godlessness could be a symptom of its final decline in relation to globalization. The Jesus Christ of evangelical Protestantism and of Mormonism is the not-so-hidden God of the corporate world in the United States.

Why was Christianity triumphant from its adoption by the murderous Emperor Constantine until its gradual intellectual displacement since the Enlightenment? If you are a believing Christian, there is no problem: the truth has made you free. That is also Islam's answer. Cultures rise and ebb; Gibbon ironically viewed the fall of the Roman Empire as Christianity's fault. Since the American Empire is only ostensibly Christian, our eventual decline and fall will have to be ascribed to some different culprit. Chinese and Indians work harder than we do, while Europeans increasingly evade labor. Norwegians, French, and many other nationalities notoriously embrace absenteeism. Was Christianity's concealed persistence a kind of work ethic, inherited from the hard existence of Judea? We still identify capitalism with Protestantism, and Puritan ideas pervade our market economy. Business leadership in the United States is an oddly pragmatic blend of American Jesus and Machiavelli.

For me, the reason Yahweh keeps getting passed over is that he is a singularly difficult god to deal with—and an all too human one as Bloom argues extensively. Even his name—given as YHWH in ancient Hebrew—is a kind of cruel joke, indicating that he will be where he wants to be and not where he doesn't, a far cry from the omnipresence attributed to his Trinitarian descendant God the Father.

I like Donald Akenson's cheerful remark "I cannot believe that any sane person has ever liked Yahweh." But as Akenson adds, that is irrelevant, since Yahweh is reality. I would go a touch further and identify Yahweh with Freud's "reality-testing," which is akin to the Lucretian sense of the way things are. As the reality principle, Yahweh is irrefutable. We are all going to have to die, each in her or his turn, and I cannot agree with Jesus' Pharisaic belief in the resurrection of the body. Yahweh, like reality, has quite a nasty sense of humor, but bodily resurrection is not one of his Jewish or Freudian jokes.

This idea that Yahweh is reality is the most thought-provoking of the book, well worth the price of admission, and even better than Bloom's literary comparisons of Yahweh to King Lear and Jesus to Prince Hamlet. Thinking of God as simply the expression of "the way things are" puts the whole "why do bad things happen to good people" question into a new perspective, and to think of Yahweh as a literary character who embodies that spirit makes me almost willing to run off and read the Old Testament just to see how well that interpretation stands up.

In fact, using this interpretation as my model, a few pages later when Bloom writes, "If you have lost your grandparents in the German death camps, are you to trust a Yahweh who must be either powerless or uncaring?" I respond with, no, Yahweh is not powerless or uncaring. He is POWERFUL AND UNCARING. He acts according to his own devices, not ours. He is Melville's white whale.

And if that is Yahweh, then maybe Jesus is ultimately an attempt to repair that harsh reality and to offer God's humble creations some sort of solace. Bloom questions:

How can what is so far beyond us also love us? The Christian answer has to be the Atonement, in which the embodiment of God's love for the world and its people accepts sacrifice as the only mode of reconciling God with them, and so forgiving them for every sin, Adam's onward.

But using this conceit I say that Yahweh didn't sacrifice himself as Jesus to save us from our sins, he did it to punish himself for his own sin of creation. Only by becoming one with the suffering he had caused can the Creator be reconciled with his creation. And such a reconciliation can only truly be realized if Jesus actually died on the Golgotha cross, never to rise again.

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

FARCHRIST TALES

BOOK TWO:

THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLE

When Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II had been a Knight of Farchrist for three years, he was asked to speak to some of the boys at the King’s School, to show them an example of what their school could produce and to tell the boys the joys and privileges of the knighthood. Brisbane instantly accepted the invitation and the next day went down into Raveltown to carry out this most important mission. When his talk was finished and he had answered all the boys’ questions, he made his way through the streets of the city, back to the castle. But before he left Raveltown he saw a girl, a young peasant woman of such astounding beauty that he pretended to have lost his way just so he could ask her for directions. He introduced himself as Sir Gildegarde Brisbane II. She said her name was Amanda.

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On the fourth day it was obvious that they had left the Windcrest Hills behind them and were entering the southern arm of the Crimson Mountains. The land was getting much more rugged and, although the slope stayed fairly even and gradual along the bank of the Mystic, they soon found themselves surrounded by ever increasing hills with sharper and sharper peaks. They were truly mountains.

Brisbane was pleasantly surprised when he woke up to find Stargazer in his arms. He had not remembered her entrance in the middle of the night. His movements woke her up and she gently kissed him on the lips and mumbled a good morning in his ear. They were alone in the tent, the others distributed among the other tents and, for the moment, Brisbane forgot they were traveling with other people.

Stargazer stood up and stretched. She was wearing only a thin nightshirt and Brisbane lay still as he marveled at the shape of her body and the curves of her figure. There was a tightness in the crotch of his trousers he couldn’t pass off entirely on the need for morning urination. Stargazer was a gentle, beautiful woman who Brisbane loved and respected, but as he lay there watching her breasts rise and fall as she stretched, he realized part of him didn’t care about love or respect or compatibility. Part of him wanted her sexually, and that part wanted to act on those feelings now.

Stargazer saw him ogling her and she called a playful shame on him. Brisbane smiled but did not look away. Stargazer pulled on a pair of trousers before going out and, just for a split-second, when Stargazer pulled the pants up to her waist and the hem of her nightshirt danced up to her belly, Brisbane caught a glimpse of the curly patch of her pubic hair.

It’s honey-blonde, Brisbane thought, just like the hair on her head, it’s honey-blonde. Saner men have been driven mad by less than that. He lay for a long time alone in the tent, feeling his heart pound in his chest and watching images of himself and Stargazer, their bodies entwined in a sexual embrace, on the insides of his eyelids.

Brisbane thought about those moments now as the little group continued its weary march up the Mystic, and as he thought about it, he noticed he had two voices echoing in his head. One voice, the louder and more confident one, was telling him he had it made. It was only a matter of time. Stargazer loved him and if he was patient and careful, it wouldn’t be long before she told him so and not long after that before they had more personal reasons to be alone in a separate tent at night. This first voice was sure of it. But Brisbane could not deny the presence of a second voice, softer, yes, but somehow more insidious and swaying. This voice said Stargazer was teasing him, that she was too mature for an inexperienced boy like him and there was no way she could love him as a woman loved a man. Besides, the second voice said, even if she does consent to make love with you, what are you going to say when she takes off your shirt and she sees the five-pointed star you wear around your neck?

Suddenly Brisbane realized this was the crux of the whole problem, this was what he feared about him and Stargazer getting closer. How is Stargazer going to deal with his connection to magic? She said she would tolerate Roystnof because she knew Brisbane cared about him, and because there was no visible evidence he had corrupted Brisbane in any way. But there was evidence. Stargazer just hadn’t seen it. There was his silver medallion, yes, but more importantly there was shocking grasp and the few cantrips Roystnof had taught him.

Brisbane wondered how Stargazer would treat him if she knew he was able to do magic, because that was exactly what he was able to do. It had been nearly a year since he had cast shocking grasp onto that hotel chair, and even longer since he had done his last cantrip, but Brisbane knew he could, at any time, do one of them again as if there had never been a break in his training. The knowledge was burned into him and he was as sure of it as he was about his own name. If Stargazer ever found out about this ability, Brisbane could expect no better treatment from her than that she gave Dantrius. Worse, Brisbane realized, because she would not only hate him for his magic, but she would hate him because he had betrayed her trust.

All of these thoughts left Brisbane in a very poor mood and he spent most of the day’s march away from the others, walking through the smudgy remains of depression. Shortwhiskers and Stargazer had both come over to try and cheer him up, and although he was not rude about it, Brisbane made it clear he would rather be left alone for a while. He walked with his head down for the most part, not wanting to look up in case anyone was looking at him. Brisbane would have had trouble meeting even Dantrius’ eyes that day.

It was late in the afternoon and they were deep into the Crimson Mountains themselves when Brisbane, still looking down, caught out of the corner of his eye the sight of one of his companions coming over to him. He began to run potential excuses through his head, but when he saw the red and black garments of Roystnof approaching, he stopped such activity and looked up to meet him.

“Hello,” Roystnof said with hesitation in his voice.

“Hello,” Brisbane said warmly, hoping to put everything aside and talk to Roystnof like the old friends they were.

“I take it something’s troubling you,” Roystnof said. “Would you like to talk about it?”

With that simple statement, direct as it was, Brisbane saw in Roystnof the friend that had always been there. The friend who knew him better than anyone and around whom Brisbane could be completely himself. He knew, whether he talked about his problems or not, Roystnof would always be there when Brisbane needed him.

Brisbane quickly thought about his problems with Stargazer and realized he would need, even with Roystnof, some time to collect his thoughts and prepare what he was going to say. His was just too uncertain about the whole thing.

“It’s kind of involved,” Brisbane said. “I still need some time to think. Can we talk about it later?”

“Of course,” Roystnof said. “I understand.”

Something in the way Roystnof said that made Brisbane think his friend already had guessed most of what his problem was.

Roystnof did not walk away.

Brisbane acted on a hunch. “Did you want to talk about something, Roy?”

Roystnof looked as if he was surprised but then turned serious. “Actually, yes there is, Gil. I was hoping I could bend your ear.”

Brisbane smiled, more than happy to serve in this capacity. “I’ve got two. Go right ahead.”

Roystnof smiled back and the sight of it made Brisbane immensely pleased. “It’s Dantrius,” the wizard said. “Frankly, he’s beginning to scare me. I am beginning to see why you tried to warn me about him. I know I said I could handle him, but now…now I am no longer sure.”

“What happened?” Brisbane asked. He was surprised at Roystnof’s confession. In his eyes, the two wizards had been getting along as well as they ever had.

“This whole trip happened,” Roystnof said sardonically. “I’m sure you’ve noticed Dantrius hasn’t been the easiest person to get along with so far.”

“He’s a pest,” Brisbane said.

“Yes,” Roystnof said. “Yes, he is. But I don’t understand why he is. He wasn’t like this back in Queensburg when we were studying together. He wasn’t exactly a loving companion, but at least he was cooperative. Now, he acts like everyone is in his way.”

“Nobody wants him along, Roy. We all agreed because you wanted him.”

“I know, I know,” Roystnof said. “We wanted to try out what we had taught each other under real circumstances. It seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

“What exactly did you teach each other?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked around. Dantrius was well out of earshot. “This is what’s really bothering me,” Roystnof said. “In Queensburg, I thought we were exchanging knowledge equally. But now, I get the feeling Dantrius has been holding back on me.”

That was the third time Roystnof had called the mage Dantrius. Brisbane was glad he was no longer using Illzeezad. “How do you mean?” Brisbane asked.

“I mean,” Roystnof said, “I don’t think Dantrius has taught me all he knows about magic.”

“Have you?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof looked at the ground. “Foolishly, I think I have. Back in Queensburg he had free run of my red book and I answered any questions he had to the best of my ability. I felt obligated to do so, after all, I expected the same service in return.”

Roystnof looked back at Brisbane. “But Dantrius has no spell book. At first I found that a bit odd. Even you know the importance—” He cut himself off suddenly.

“Roy, what’s the matter?”

Roystnof answered slowly. “I’m sorry, Gil. I’m not taking your feelings into account. You’re the one who I should have let examine my book. I know things have seemed different lately, but I still consider you to be my apprentice.” His eyes suddenly went wide. “I can’t believe I’ve really neglected you for so long. I can’t imagine what you must have thought all winter long with me and Dantrius holed up in the cabin. I’m sorry, Gil, I’m…”

Roystnof trailed off and seemed to stare off into the space in front of him. Brisbane quickly checked to see that Stargazer hadn’t heard what he had said and then turned back to his friend.

“Roy,” Brisbane said. “Get a hold of yourself. I’m not mad at you. I’ve neglected my training as much, if not more, than you have. It’s no one’s fault, really. I just kind of fell away from it. First Angelika comes to me and then Ignatius leaves the group, it was better for the party that I put magic on hold for a while. It’s okay, really.”

Roystnof was still staring off into space. “Oh yes. Angelika.”

Brisbane clapped Roystnof on the back. “Who knows? When this trip is over, maybe I can take up my training again.”

Not if Allie has anything to do with it. You know that, Gil.

Roystnof seemed to come back to himself. “Yes, maybe you will. But Dantrius is our problem now. As I said, Dantrius has no spell book, it’s all up in his head, and I’m beginning to see that what’s up there could fill a dozen of my red books.”

“Then he did teach you some of his magic?” Brisbane asked.

Roystnof nodded. “Or so it seemed. But now, I fear he has told me only the uppermost fringes of his knowledge. It is like an iceberg I have only seen the tip of. Like the spell he used yesterday, the one against the orks, where he duplicated himself.”

“I remember,” Brisbane said.

“Well, as I said, Dantrius’ magic seems to be based on illusion and creating duplicate images of oneself is basic stuff in his order of magic. With the little I have actually gotten out of him, I am sure I could do it myself. But my images would be just images, and I would still be real among them. An attack against me, even with my images still standing, would certainly kill me. What Dantrius did, mixing his life force among the images so he would always be retained in the last one, is leagues beyond anything he has taught me. It is illusion, yes, but it is illusion bordering on its own reality.”

“Maybe he lied,” Brisbane offered. “Maybe it was just chance that he was the last one standing.”

“Maybe it was,” Roystnof agreed. “But would you rely on a chance like that when your life was on the line? Remember how smug he was when you were chopping down his images? Would you be that confident on a one in three chance?”

Brisbane shook his head. No, he would not. Dantrius was either able to manipulate his life force as he had claimed, or he was the world’s ultimate gambling man.

Or, Brisbane thought, he was crazier than a shithouse rat.

“I wouldn’t either,” Roystnof said. “I believe he did just what he said he did, and I believe he has kept a large amount of knowledge from me.”

“Okay,” Brisbane said. “So he deceived you. What happens now?”

“I’m not sure,” Roystnof said. “But this is why I wanted to talk to you. Everything Dantrius has done so far is in the past, and there is nothing we can do about it. But what worries me is what he’s going to do in the future.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, you’ve seen how he’s been acting,” Roystnof said. “He’s been separating himself from the group. Not just from you and Nog and Miss Stargazer, he’s always been apart from you, but from me as well. Back in Queensburg, I was a sort of confidant for him, but now, it seems like he wants nothing to do with me.”

Brisbane did not like the sound of that. “Do you think he’s up to something?”

Roystnof became very serious. “I’ll tell you what I do think, Gil. I think Dantrius is done with me. I think he knows he’s gotten all he’s going to get out of me, and now that I’m no longer of any use to him, he’s tossed me aside and he’s just biding his time until he can leave us all completely.”

Brisbane considered it. It did make sense in the light of Dantrius’ current actions. Especially if what Roystnof said about his own estrangement from the mage was true. But Brisbane was not sure what the problem was. Dantrius had certainly used Roystnof, and Brisbane was angry about that, but as Roystnof had said, that was in the past. Presently, if Dantrius wanted to leave their party, Brisbane had no problem with that. Nobody wanted him here anyway, and as far as Brisbane was concerned, Dantrius could take his share of the ork gold and leave.

“So?” Brisbane said. “Let him go. What are you so worried about?”

“I’m worried about what he might try to do before he leaves,” Roystnof said. “You don’t know him like I do, Gil.”

“Now, what’s that supposed to mean?”

Roystnof looked around at the others again. Brisbane did not like to see him do that. It was as if he was some kind of insane paranoid.

“It means,” Roystnof said, “that you don’t know him like I do. He’s an evil man, Gil, he really is. He worships Damaleous.”

“What?” Brisbane was taken aback.

“It’s true,” Roystnof said. “He believes that’s where his power comes from. At first he assumed I worshipped the Evil One, too. I tried to tell him I get my power from within, and I tried to show him he could do the same, but he would have nothing to do with it. It quickly became a subject neither of us would discuss. I have my beliefs and he has his.”

“He actually worships Damaleous?” Brisbane asked. “How? What does he do?”

“He meditates a lot,” Roystnof said. “Sits in one spot and closes his eyes for long periods of time. I asked him what he was doing once and he said he was communing with his master.”

“His master? You mean Damaleous?”

“I would assume so,” Roystnof said. “He says he needs those little sessions to recharge his powers. His master evidently bestows his power on him during this meditation. Because of this, he doesn’t need a spell book. He says his master rewards him with greater and greater powers for the work he does here on earth.”

“That sounds like my stepfather,” Brisbane said. “I was taught that was how all wizards operated. Until I met you, that’s what I believed.”

“I know,” Roystnof said. “And that’s what troubles me. I have denied the existence of gods my entire life and worked my magic powers up through years of research, sweat, and dedication to my craft. All I have learned I set down in my red book because it is too much for one man to remember. I could still work magic without my book, but I would not be the wizard I am now.

“This is the nature of magic, this is how I have come to perceive magic to be. It comes with my personal experience with the magical force and I am positive this and this alone is the true representation of magic in our reality. But now along comes Illzeezad Dantrius, who breaks all the rules I thought magic adhered to. He has never studied it. He has never researched anything. To him, magic is a prize, a reward given by his god, Damaleous, for doing evil works upon the earth. And he is twice the wizard I will ever be. It is a situation I cannot logically accept.”

Brisbane was not sure what to say. “You don’t think Dantrius really gets his power from Damaleous, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Roystnof said. “At this point I am willing to say he might.”

“But it could be something else.”

“It could be many things,” Roystnof said. “The force of magic could just be stronger in him than it is in you or me. His magic is mostly illusionary, so it could operate under different restrictions. It could even be something he eats on a regular basis, but none of that really matters. What matters is that Dantrius believes his power comes from Damaleous and I have no proof to tell him otherwise.”

“And now you’re worried about what evil acts he might do to increase his power.”

“Yes,” Roystnof said. “There’s no telling what he may do. We’re going to have to watch him very closely. For all of our own good.”

Brisbane had already seen the need to watch Dantrius closely. Shortwhiskers had taught him that much. “Why don’t we just get rid of him? Force him out of the group?”

Roystnof shook his head. “Too dangerous. He’s a ticking bomb now. There’s no need to shorten the fuse. Besides, I very much doubt we could prevent him from following us short of killing him. And that would probably be much harder than we might think. No, I believe the only way to proceed is to keep him in a place where we can exert some control over him. Once this adventure is finished, and we are out of the wilds, there will be no more reason for his company among us and we can more easily turn him loose on the rest of the world.”

Brisbane wasn’t so sure about that logic, but he realistically did not see any other way to go about it. He was glad Roystnof had come to him with this dilemma, but he knew Dantrius wasn’t just his problem, he was everyone’s problem. He looked up ahead and saw the thin frame of the mage. Shortwhiskers and Stargazer were walking apart from him. Brisbane thought about everything Roystnof had told him about the mage, the way he had used Roystnof, the extent of his power, and the habits of his religious life, and Brisbane realized that none of it surprised him. He had known it all along, known it deep down in his heart. Illzeezad Dantrius was no good and he liked hurting people.

“Well,” Roystnof said, interrupting Brisbane’s thoughts. “I guess that’s all I have to say except that I’m sorry I’ve forgotten about you lately. I hope we can be close again.”

“Roy,” Brisbane said. “Cut it out. We’ll always be close. Don’t worry about me.”

Roystnof smiled. “Super. Now, are you sure you don’t want to talk about what’s bothering you?”

Brisbane thought about his problem with Stargazer. He still wasn’t sure how he could phrase it properly, but he had begun to have the sneaking suspicion that one day he was going to have to choose between love and magic. He did not yet fully realize that this choice would manifest itself as a choice between Stargazer and Roystnof.

“It’s Allison,” Brisbane said. “I don’t know. I’m just really confused about where we stand.”

Roystnof nodded knowingly. “Ah, yes,” he said. “That is a delicate situation.”

“What do you think I should do?” Brisbane asked.

“Well,” Roystnof said. “Do you know how you feel about her? Could you describe it to her in, say, three words?”

Brisbane wasn’t sure what Roystnof was talking about but then he caught the gleam in the wizard’s eye. “You think I should just tell her?”

Roystnof put a hand on Brisbane’s shoulder. “I think you should just tell her.”

“But…” Brisbane could say no more aloud. To himself, he said, but what am I going to do when she finds out what I’ve been hiding from her? How can I deal with the hate she will surely feel for me? How can I let myself be something for her I’m not?

“But what, Gil?”

Brisbane shook his head miserably. “Nothing. It just seems kind of sudden.”

“It’s the truth, isn’t it?”

Brisbane thought about it. Yes, it was the truth. He did love Stargazer and telling her that would not be a lie.

“I’ll do it,” Brisbane said.

“Grand,” Roystnof said. “Shall I go tell her you wish to speak with her?”

“No!” Brisbane shouted. “I mean, I’ll find my own time to tell her.”

Roystnof gave another of his knowing smiles. “Okay. Just be sure you do find the time.”

“Oh, I will.”

Brisbane meant it and, surprisingly enough, he thought the perfect time came at the end of that day, after the march, after the evening meal, and after the camp had been set up on the bank of the dwindling Mystic River among the growing Crimson Mountains. He thought the perfect time came when they settled down for a night’s rest, having both eluded watch duty and again sharing the same tent. The perfect time came and the perfect time went.

That night turned out to be a whole lot different than the one before it because instead of Stargazer joining him after he had already fallen asleep, they were both awake and had to fall asleep at the same time.

Stargazer quickly went about undressing and putting on her sleeping clothes and Brisbane dumbly followed in a slow mimicry of her actions. He would leave most of his clothes on, he decided, as he was too embarrassed to go much farther, removing only his armor and boots before slipping under the blankets. Stargazer, however, would sleep only in her long nightshirt, but she donned it in such a way that Brisbane saw little of her naked flesh.

“Allie?” he asked as she slipped under the covers beside him, still planning on telling her how he felt.

“Yes?” Stargazer murmured, cuddling close.

Brisbane did not know how to begin. “What’s happening here?” After he had said it, he decided that it was a bad way to start.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” he said. “Please don’t take offense, but why are you sleeping with me?”

Ouch, Brisbane thought. If I keep saying moronic things like that I’m never going to get through this.

Stargazer hugged him tighter. “Because there’s so much of you to keep me warm. And Nog snores.”

This was not going in the direction he wanted it to go. “No, seriously, Allie.” He took a deep breath. “What’s going on between us?”

Stargazer was silent.

“Allie?”

“Gil, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

Oh, oh, Brisbane thought, here it comes.

“I like you a lot and I feel safe around you. I guess those are the two main reasons why I want to share a tent with you out here. But if you’re thinking about starting something physical between us, I’m not ready for it. I’m flattered and I’m not saying it will never happen, but I’m not ready for it. Can you understand that?”

“Yes, I can.”

Stargazer rested her head on his chest. “Do you remember the night we spent together in the Shadowhorn?”

“I do.”

“Did you feel something special happen that night?”

Brisbane had. He had never felt so comfortable in his life before that night. There was something different about the way he felt that night from any of the other nights he had spent with Stargazer since. In a moment he realized that it was because he neither wanted nor expected any sexual contact with her that night.

“I did.”

“So did I,” Stargazer said. “And I still feel it. I just want to savor it a little longer before we move onto something else. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now go to sleep,” she demanded.

They lay quietly together for some time.

“Allie?”

“Yes?”

“I like you a lot, too.”

It was all he was able to say that night, but in a way, he thought it was enough.

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.