Like
a tongue of fluttering chromatic penumbra of magnificently dissociative wings, the first
leg began to jut from the hatch in the sphere, as if the frenzy of feastly
birds laid out in a line behind had found a way in, and the pilot was being
devoured, but then came a second leg and a rump, and then a torso and then a
head, and it stood there stretching itself in the cool and immortal morning of
all worlds to come, a phasmid of physical magic. Then, by turns, as if unaware
of our watching, or perhaps because of it, it began to return to a more
copasetic expression of representation, though one which could easily be called
‘An Angel of Eccentricity’, for though
we had been told that Fogar was elderly yet spry, we had no idea, that the
gentleman was a Loa of Olympian complexions. Fogar, it seemed, contained an
ageless secret, and was the commander if, of nothing else, then, himself,
itself. When he was all done, Fogar resembled a young and elegant mulatto, part
Arab perhaps, but with a crisp mustache, and Bex said he liked to style himself
an Afribbean Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, Comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac lately
of France, but in a winking sense the Côte d'Ivoire as well, for he wore an
elegant ceremonial armor that bears some description. Entirely of ivory, the
suit had been carved to the delicacy of lace, and through the myriad networks
of absences, in every tiny space, there was a young and tender flower growing,
though most of the blooms were no larger than the head of a tree-agate spat button, or a
pin.
From head to tow, in front and back, this floral tusk of elegance set one
aback, for the grace of the design was remarkable! And the helmet all alone
would set the tone, somehow it was a dolphin, and a dragon, and peacock made as
a puppet-cage for mermaids, and they themselves like mirages of coral teeming
with gems that were insects of exquisite delicacy, like thoughts externalized
into automatons whose meaning were their very form. Fogar was exhibiting his competence
for the role of Yazata, for in his deep and abiding omnibiology he possessed a
certain knowledge of almost everything, and as he entered the room we all
unconsciously bowed, for the regality of his person was the sublimity of nature
herself, and there was no questioning its grandeur.
Fogar laughed quietly, and
when we looked there was an egg shaped hole in his chestplate revealing a
cavity, where his heart and lungs were combined in a chrysalis lantern, and
attended by aquatic snake, or worm-like things, centipede-bees striped like sea
snakes, or a species as yet unknown, and living in the aqueous fluid of Fogar’s
interior, and they made rays around the object as in a symbolist painting, and
then the ivory returned, and the smell of flowers filled the room. ‘Nedda’ Yazata
Zairi-Gaosha was on her knees weeping. Canterel stepped forward and bowed
deeply. “I assure you our offer will do no harm to the world as such or your
self. Will you lead the Qarmatians into an age of the Magi?” Suddenly Fogar’s image
abruptly changed, and he resembled an ordinary black man of about fifty,
wearing an ordinary olive coloured suit, but with a shirt with no collar, and a
necklace of gold which bore a coin. On the coin was the word VERITAS, and that
word only.
Fogar
joined the astonished bunch, and they all sat down to table to discuss the
strange temporal paradoxes and such which comprised the origins of this
meeting, and when it was through, Fogar knew, that it was his time to shine in
this trans-temporal adventure. And the preparations were made, and all the
members involved began to learn their roles, for the historical romance which
was about to unfold, and Fogar it could be said was found to be a master of
languages.
The
first thing to do, it was quickly deduced was to find the real man who had duped
the Qarmati leader, and take him safely out of harm’s way, for the insertion of
a greater feeler, if the antenna of temporal paradox was to hold sway. And so
Canterel, by temporal espionage, slowly revealed the Mahdi pretender to be none
other than the cousin of the famous heretic Mansur al-Hallaj, who called
himself Dadhãmi Vadare, a boy who had
also been al-Hallaj’s intimate spiritual brother, a man who had renounced his
own times, and returned to the faith of their forefathers, namely, a hybrid millenarian
Zoroastrianism.
Canterel
soon captured him in an alley of Al-Salamiyah, having Nedda trick him into entering
a doorway with the promise of a particular book which was of significance to
this erstwhile revolutionary scholar. Dadhãmi Vadare stepped into a special
garden that Canterel had prepared in the Pliocene where he lived the rest of
his life in a little version of the Taj Mahal with a library, and a half Neanderthal
woman named Kuma, and their children were ancient calligraphers of the Kumaic Neanderthal
script whose only works were written by them, and which Canterel keeps in the
trans-temporal library, and they contain lovely poems about Borophagine dogs,
and Glyptodonts, and the jungles around their equatorial garden.
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Irrony Observes The Earthing.