Abaddon XI

“What’s your problem, anyway?” Eluned asked when the inn had disappeared from view. She already missed the comfort and company it had offered.

“Problem?” he asked.

“You seem to be suffering from a bad attitude,” she complained.

“So, you’ve discovered another side of me.”

“I don’t mind seeing yet another side of you, but if I were acting the way you are you would want to know what is wrong with me.”

He was silent for a moment. “That’s true,” he admitted. “I owe you an explanation although I am surprised that you don’t have the faintest idea.”

“Actually, I do. I’m sure it has to do with meeting Bonpo and stirring up memories of the past. How come you never told me about Kamali?” her voice rose, accusingly, “and the destruction of your kind, the flight out of Dziron, the horrors of The Devastation?”

“It is a long story and to be perfectly honest there hasn’t been a time in the past eleven years that I felt you were mature enough to understand my past nor handle its ramifications.”

“I think I am ready now.”

“I concur.”

They continued to walk in silence while Jabberwock gathered his thoughts.

“Mine is a long and sad tale said the Mouse,” Jabberwock began, then replied to himself, “It is a long tail, certainly, said Alice, but why do you call it sad?”

The Princess held her tongue. The Bandersnatch was trying to explain, even if it did seem a most unusual way!

“My given name is Hiurau,” he continued, sighing, “and I was born of the Janawar in the Vale Vixen.” The silence continued for another ten minutes before Jabberwock spoke again, changing the course of his focus. “When Kamali died, I spent the next two hundred years trying to find a reason to continue to live. I became involved in mysticism, cabalism, shamanism. You name it. I studied it. Maguses abounded and I drowned myself in their teachings. But I could never seem to fill that empty space in my heart. But, I continued to read and read and read . . . anything about any subject . . .

“. . . and one day I picked up a children’s book by Lewis Carrol. But that wasn’t really his name. It was Dodgson, Charles Dodgson.” He stopped, abruptly, and the Princess almost spoke but thought better of it. His story was coming out, twisted and irrelevant as it might seem.

“Through the Looking Glass was the name of the book,” he continued. There was a poem in it.” He cleared his throat and recited in a voice scratchy with emotion:

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.

“’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.”

The tears ran down the Princess’s face in a steady stream. Oh, her poor Jabberwock. His family, his friends, his people, well, his Janawar, so cruelly hunted down and slain. It was too much for her to bear. How could humans be so inhumane? She often wondered if Omni had created humans imperfectly on purpose. Perhaps It had still to perfect creating. Maybe next time around humans wouldn’t be so cruel, selfish, greedy . . . next time around, if there was a next time around, if humans didn’t destroy themselves first. The Oral spoke of a great battle, the Har Meggido, to be fought by the forces of good against evil. Where those forces were to come from, she had no answer. She wondered, particularly, about the great warrior who was prophesied to lead the forces of good. She knew of no man worthy in this world, although admittedly she knew very little of the world outside of Zion other than what she was taught by her teachers, Jabberwock and Brother Columcille.

She took a deep breath. She was allowing her mind to wander. Anything but dealing with the problem at her feet. Impulsively, she knelt upon the rocky track and hugged the small mammal to her. For hundreds of years he had wandered this world, and others, searching for a reason. How had his travels brought him to her? Were they really so important? There had to be a larger purpose.

“There is, but do not ask me what it is.”

“Why? Because you don’t know or because you cannot tell me?”

“I’m just a pawn . . .”

“Is that what life is? Some cosmic chess game? Omni making move after move. Is It playing against something, someone? Or is It just amused by the consequences of Its actions?”

A delighted grin parted Jabberwock’s grim muzzle. “Whoa, whoa, slow down. I spoke rashly. I should have said, ‘I am a willing pawn.’ Don’t forget free will. I only meant sometimes when we are open to Its will, we must follow a path we do not necessarily wish to travel, be led in a direction we may not necessarily wish to go. But, I am happy to say that there appears to be hope for you yet, my dear. Hope for you, hope for this world and perhaps others.”

“In other words, ours is not to ask just to do.”

“You betchum Red Rider.”

“You say the oddest things. Who is Lovecraft?”

“Another writer.”

“One who has seen the horrors of the soul?” It was a statement. She wondered if Lovecraft had seen the execrations of the Devastation. If the Bandersnatch could find entrance to other worlds, surely others could as well. How many worlds were there?”

“If not here, perhaps in another world,” Jabberwock said, musingly.

“So, the only reason the Janawar were destroyed is because the Dzironi were afraid of your magic?”

“Humans need very little reason to commit genocide. Have you heard of the Gaeans?”

“The goddess worshippers?”

“They were very nearly wiped out several hundred years ago.”

“But they were strong.”

“Tenacious.”

“Always religion,” Eluned sighed. “Always over which God to worship and how. And power. Who can be dominated. Possession. Greed. Men.” She glared at him.
The Janawar are not human and therefore are not guilty of human weaknesses. We lived in peace, always . . . “ he trailed off, remembering what prompted the discussion.

“I’m so sorry,” she hugged his tiny head. “It just makes me so tired. So tired.”

“There are many who wish to save the world.”

“I don’t pretend to think that I am the one. To be perfectly honest, I am not even sure it’s possible.”

“That’s entirely up to You-Know-Who.”

“If It is there. Sometimes I wonder.”

“Breaking Faith, Princess? I am shocked.” But his tone of voice said otherwise.

“Father would kill me.”

“And it would break your mother’s heart.”

“Well, they need not worry. Faith is there more often than not. When I argue with myself I always find Omni in the end.” Omni, as It was crudely and commonly called, was derived from the fact that It, the Supreme Being, was omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, or so it was said. A trinity of powers for the three-in-one.

“Do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean?”

“Omni,” she faltered. What did she mean? How do you explain faith? She looked at Jabberwock, oddly. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“What?” he asked, all innocence.

“Don’t give me that. You know exactly what I mean.”

“You are absolutely positive, in your heart of hearts, that there is a God?”

She pondered for a moment before nodding her head, vigorously. “Yes, Jabb, I’m sure of it. A god. A supreme being. I guess . . . I guess I just wonder why?”

“Why?”

“What is this being’s purpose for us?”

“Purpose? Other than to love It, love one another? That’s not enough?”

“No. There has to be more.”

“Spoken like a true teenager. Perhaps there is no other purpose.”

“Don’t say that. It’s unconscionable.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I cannot believe we were put here as some experiment or some vast diversion . . . “

“Ah, the cosmic chess game again . . . a satire, tragedy, melodrama.”

“Satire,” she sighed. “No, I cannot believe that.”

“And once again I ask, is love not enough?” They reached a steep stretch in the road where it climbed out of a switchback. The Princess felt the muscles in her calves and thighs tighten; the exertion stole her breath. She was going to be sore tonight. It wasn’t even lunchtime yet, and she wasn’t sure how high the Misrule Pass was, but she knew they had a lot of climbing left to do before they reached it. On that thought, she began to look forward to lunch—just a moment to sit down, catch her breath. What was she doing here, in the Mountains of Misericord, with this strange little creature, the last of his kind, asking herself rhetorical questions?

She was on the quest of a lifetime, but would she find any answers? After all, what on earth did she know about love? How could she know if love was the answer to her questions? Yet another question she couldn’t answer. Best now just to clear her mind, question Jabberwock more thoroughly later, when she could breathe again.