Off the Map

This Week’s Prompt: 93. A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

The Resulting Story: Yonster Over Yonder

This week, we are covering a concept or topic that came up before briefly when we discussed lost Irem: lost and hard to find lands. However, this time, I’m going to focus specifically on the nature of the place as unfindable, and discuss places long sought or supposed that have entirely vanished or been moved into the world of metaphor.

Stories of cities of luxury and wonder, just over the horizon, have existed since the conception of stories. But there was certainly an explosion of such cities during the colonization of the Americas. One of the most elaborate stories–especially tracing the changes in narrative over the years and the telling–is El Dorado.

The first reports of El Dorado were in fact accounts of a ritual for the new chief of the Musica, not a city itself. This ritual involved an offering to the gods and a dive into a nearby lagoon. Afterwards, the new king was adorned with golden dust–hence the name, El Dorado. The Gilded Man.

After the Spanish conquered the Muscia, and found their gold supplies mostly imported, the legend moved somewhat. It became not merely a single man, but an entire city made of gold. These cities were supposedly isolated from the world. The city of gold was believed perhaps to recognize Christians (a tell tale sign of a European origin), and numerous map makers added it’s location to their maps (leading to a few failed attempts to reach the confirmed city).

El Dorado on the above map–note that Manoa is another name for El Dorado.

Part of El Dorado’s origins come from reports by Hernando Cortez, that claim there lies in the West of the Aztec Empire a province more populous than Spain and richer than the recently plundered cities. These rumors played into the notion of seven legendary cities of gold in the Americas. These cities were located in the southwest, among the Zuni, and of course contained no gold. Six of these cities were ransacked by the Spanish, desperate for gold. The seventh  city, sadly but not unsuprisingly, did not exist and has never been found.

Cortez’s writings also contributed to the stories of La Ciudad Blanc. This region in Hondaras was vaster than Mexico, and had as many inhabitants and far far more riches. This region was multi-cultural, with a number of native language groups living there. The conquistadors never found evidence of such a place, although lost cities have been found in the rainforest since then.

In South America, two of these cities are recorded. One is the City of the Caesars–this city was of course rich in gold, silver, and diamonds. Unlike others, we have more detailed descriptions of what it looks like–it’s between two mountains, one of gold and one of diamonds. Some accounts have the city moving to avoid capture. Inhabitants of the city range from ghosts, lost Spanish survivors, exiled Mapuche, giants, and the remains of the Inca Empire! Some believe that stories of the Empire of Peru inspired the legend itself!

The other city is the Lost City of Z–a city that contained a temple with hieroglyphics, statues, and arches. Pursuit of this city was put off do to World War II. Still, the city was the most recent to be pursued to my knowledge.

The French reported a similar city in the North. More accurately, they claimed to record an Iroquois legend of the land of Saguenay. This was a land to the north, with great silver and gold mines and inhabited by blonds, who loved furs and had them in abundance. This of course was never found, and was perhaps a lure to get more settlers into Canada.

Back across the Atlantic, Europe was no stranger to imaginary lands. The most famous of course gave the ocean it’s name–the island of Atlantis. Described first in Plato’s dialogues, the city was founded by Posiedon’s children and, generations later, began an expansionist conquest. The island itself was paradisal, and about the size of Anatolia, if not larger. The hubris of

Further north is most distant Thule, a land where the sky meets the sea. Early descriptions say the land has no air or water, but rather something like a jelly consistency. It is six days north of Britain’s northernmost edge and where the Sun goes to rest. Some sources point to Iceland or the Faroes, others Britian itself (some quotes about Pictish blood support this understanding) and others say it is ice-locked beneath the polestar.

The land of Prester John is in the other direction. Prester John’s kingdom was rumored to be in Asia, at first specifically in India. Supposedly, the kingdom was founded when the disciple Thomas visited India, and was a land of plenty and wisdom. Prester John was sometimes a descendant of the Three Wise Men who visited the birth of Christ. Later reports even claimed that his grandson, King David of India, was conquering Persia during the Fifth Crusade–an inaccurate report of the very much Tengri Ghengis Khan. Over time, Prester John’s kingdom was moved closer to Ethiopia (the term “India” referred to a wide number of places, including Ethiopia). It wasn’t until the seventeenth century that notions of the Preseter John were dispelled.

Cockaigne was another lost utopia, although much more clearly allegorical. It’s roads and houses were made of pastries, everything was free, roasted pigs wandered the streets with knives in them already. The only location it was ever ascribed, jokingly, to London (as the land of Cockneys). Brittia, a place between Britain and Thule in many descriptions, was a similar paradise ruled by a Frankish king.No taxes were paid, and no labor required except manning the boat that brought the dead over.

Moving farther along we can find in Egypt Zerzura. Zerzura is a white city built around an oasis, guarded by giants at all times. Its front gate is carved to resemble a bird At the center of the city is a sleeping king and queen. A traveler who touches the beak will achieve entrance into the city, and find the great treasures within–a story that reminds me of narratives of the City of Brass.

One of the suggested locations of Biringan City.

Moving off to the Philippines, there is Biringan City. This city, according to some accounts, pulls people in a trance–against their will to an elegant city. Some reports indicate that fisherman and drivers will end up in this city by mistake–fishermen especially when their catches go poorly. The spirits that dwell there sometimes abduct the soul of those they love, leaving behind only a lifeless corpse. These creatures, engkantos, are also responsible for skin diseases and can change their appearance at will.

Circling up again, we can find another lost and unmarked land in the Pacific. Here, we find two versions of a strange mountain. In China, it’s called Mount Pengali. It is the home of the Eight Immortals, and knows no misery or sorrow. Here there are fruits that grant everlasting youth, and summer never ends. There are even wines that will raise the dead that the First Emperor sought out. To contrast that is an account of Mount Horai from Japan–an island who’s atmosphere is made of thousands and thousands of dead souls, which if inhaled grant wisdom of the dead. The inhabitants here are childish–odd, given the presence of the dead–and no nothing of wickedness. The island’s winters are cold and harsh.

Moving to the mainland and across to Tibet, we come to our last group of unseen and unmarked lands.  Mount Kunlun is on such place–a place inhabited again by divinities and animals. The Queen Mother of the West has made her place her, with fruits of immortality, trees of jade, and more. Immortals regularly visited, while a river circling it that pulled all things down into it kept out the unworthy.

Not far away, we move from Taoist influenced missing lands to Buddhist ones. Shambhala is also located in Tibet. The land is in some case ruled by the future buddha, and the capital city is shaped like a three dimensional mandala. Other texts, particularly Hindu ones, point to it as the birthplace of the last avatar of Vishnu. When the world has reached its end, and the wheel must begin again, it will begin again in Shambhala.  This paradisal place will be the seed that grows into a new world.

All of these paradises seem primed for a story about journeys and obsessions. A metaphorical attempt to attain the past–to reach back to something felt of the past. Something dimly remembered and distant–we should consider that, for many of these European stories, physical distance was the same as temporal distance. These far away places were often equated to earlier times in the past–they were places that could hold a secret Eden. What place do you remember, distantly? That you can’t place where exactly or even when?

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The Trial of the Fisk Family

This Weeks Prompt:46 . Hawthorne—unwritten plot. Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

The Research: The Sins of the Father

The court room held their breath for the sentence that the right honorable Waites would hand down. The good judge had been holding private counsel for around ten minutes, examining the various notes and passages of law that lay at his access. The anticipation and dread in the room reverberated, and killed the noise of animals around. The birds seemed to sing more quietly, less they disturb the elder thoughts of the right and honorable judge.

The only noise produced at all was the quiet crying of the Fisk boy. He had been afflcited the least by his ancestry. His eyes didn’t have the strange shaped pupils yet, the dark hour glasses that seemed like a goat’s gaze. Unlike his miscreant brother and deceitful sister, his fingers seemed firm still, not slightly long and perpetually bent like claws. Hands that seemed almost webbed at times and jointed in the wrong places. His hair was still dark, not yet the motley red and orange of his sisters. The youngest Fisk, if it weren’t for the company he kept, might have been mistaken for a normal child.

But the court knew better. The right and honorable judge Waites had seen each generation of the Fisk family. They lived in the woods and hills, among strange and wretched things that they often took as wives and husbands. Elfin creatures, the Fisk children always looked the part of Adam’s children at first, but grew into Lilith’s before all was said and done. Some grew horns, small though they were, in their hair like rams. Some had shining eyes, and over the years the charges of witchcraft merely grew. The Fisk women bewitched husbands from town to continue their awful brood. If Leah Fisk hadn’t done so yet, it was only because she had not been given the opportunity.

Leah Fisk dressed in decadent finery as it was. Even in court, she wore a long red dress with sewn patterns along it’s edges that guided the eyes and entranced them as she walked. The right honorable judge need no witnesses of her character to know what the purpose of such adornments were. Her gold earings, enameled with red gems and sea shells. The work had been in the Fisk family for sometime, and they had paid little mind to the pastoral warnings against such vanity. Gifts, the right honorable judge Waites was convinced, from their less than savory side of the family. Such ornaments were borderline idolatry for the reverence the Fisk clan held them in.

But that had never been enough. The Waites, and the Wyatts, and the Smiths, they had all known what the Fisks had done. The judge ponder the years of court cases, of slowly working down the Fisk clan one by one. They were numerous and hounding them down, whittling away their taint on the world, had taken decades. And here now was the last of them, only one willing to look him in the eye defiantly as he prepared to read the crimes and proclaim his sentence.

“Michael Fisk,” he said, staring into the hour glass of darkness. The edges of the eldest Fisks skin looked like they had been stretched over extra bones. “We find you guilty of bearing false witness against Jonathan Smith, Rachel Smith, and Timothy Wyatt. You are found guilty consorting with the barbarians of the woodlands and the demons with in their rites. You are found guilty of hersey and witchcraft employed in seducing the wives of your fellow man, sodomy, theft, and murder.”

Michael Fisk stared ahead at the right honorable judge, his eyes unwavering, unblinking. They seemed to stare through judge Waites own pupils, into his soul. The unearthly eyes did not dissuade Waites soul. His ancestors had hunted and hounded witches on the isle of Britain. He had no fear of demons.

“Leah Fisk,” He said, his eyes resting on the woman’s down cast head. “We find you guilty of false witness against Jonathan Smith, Sarah Wyatt, and Leah Waites. You are found guilty of hersey and witchcraft, of blasphemy against the Lord, and of inviting foul things in your home.

“For these crimes, the court finds fit to sentence both of you to death by hanging, to be carried out at the soonest possible interval. In light of the rampancy of these crimes by the Fisk family, the people of the parish have moved to preempt the degeneracy of the youngest, Matthew Fisk, and send him to his kin as well.”

There was quiet sobbing from Leah Fisk now, but the sentence was as expected. The only question was whether they would be hanged or crushed by stones. The right honorable judge Waites was wary of stones, despite the precedent set by the Old Testament and other works on the proper punishment being stoning. Being crushed by the weight of stones was too much like a proper burial for judge Waites’ taste. So they would hang. Judge Waites scanned the rest of courtroom as the Fisks were lead out. The gaze from the various parishioners was approving, some even nodding to each other and whispering about his wisdom. As he scanned the crowd, judge Waites’s eyes fell on a singluar figure in the back. He appeared to be an elder, dressed in proper black and with a pale complexion. His eyes were hidden by the shadow of his hair, but his grimace was strange.

It was not strange to see determination or even a degree of gravity in a court room. That generally was Mr. Waites posture as well. But as he descended from his seat and saw the strange man leave, he couldn’t help but feel there was something more to that strange expression. It looked rigid, like it was carved into a stone or worked into wood. It was a face that appeared to have taken on a form that was forever it’s own. Mr. Waites, finding himself out of his office of judge, realized that despite a familiarity in form and bearing, he did not know the man who had just been in his court room.

Mr. Waites was never one to miss an opportunity, even in his great and venerable age, to speak with a man possessing more age and thus more veneration. Power by association and education were well known principles in his profession. To be isolated was to be in danger. So on foot he followed the stranger out, walking along the road and out past the courthouse.

It was already nightfall when Mr. Waites set out, lantern in hand, to follow the mysterious man. There was only the dim light of the other man’s lantern ahead, and the moonlight all around. The trees took on a pale color, as if suddenly faded or seen through a thin fog of winter. But Mr. Waites, who would never forsake a path once he began unless danger was so overwhelming that his animal mind overcame his mortal soul, trekked on through the wets following the fair light.

At least, he came in sight of another building. An old wooden ruin of a small house. He passed by with out another thought. A few more such cabins dotted the path, as the flickering light grew somewhat dimmer. The flickering made the shadows inconstant, long things. Mr. Waites’s eyes caught them rising and falling, more than once mistaking the simple shifting of light for the approach of dread, shadow forms. His mother, God rest her soul, had once told him that in the woods, among derelict and failed ghost towns, there dwell creatures unsightly and unseemly. Dead things that were always hungry.

But he had walked the woods before. Mr. Waites was not lost. He knew these buildings, now that he had a better grasp. His prey had come through the old settlements the Fisks had, when men were foolish enough to trust them with money and wares. It had been a beginning of a great bush, a weeds roots that had been set fire long ago. Mr. Waites remembered. He was young then, when they burned it all down.

At last the light ahead stopped. Waites followed, and by lantern light saw the great broken steeple of a church. The graves beside it were arranged in neat rows, almost perfectly aligned. He watched as the old statesmen he followed walked slowly among the graves. At last, the man approached a long, open grave. The light of the stranger’s own lantern suddenly shone bright, brighter than anything. It was a green light that obscured everything else around it, a glimmering fog that rose out of the crypt. The man paused, and turned to look out at the world. His eyes settled on Waites, and Waites felt a chill down his spine and a great weight on his shoulders, affixing him to the spot. The eyes had that hourglass shape, that stark yellow hue, of the Fisk family. There was some judgement left in those eyes. The weight did not cease when he turned away. There was the sound of song and sea from the grave as the man descended, vanishing into the mist.

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