The Mystical Swagman. Gary Blinco
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I am sitting in my cabin in a tall ship, watching a dark sea swell against the sides of the vessel as a strong south-bound wind drives us ever closer to our destination in the new world. I have agonised long and hard over how I might compile this journal, for I want it to be an accurate account of the strange and wonderful things I have seen since I met your father just under a year ago.
In the end I have decided to write the journal as a story rather than as a series of entries with dates and times. God knows I have lost track of time anyway, but as I begin to write, it is somewhere in January, in the year 1850. And as well as I can work out, you were born in October last year, but I don’t know the date. Forgive me if I am not the greatest of authors, but I will do my best to relate my narrative as a story, and a true one, though it will seem fantastic to you in the beginning. In writing of your early life in this way, I hope to capture the mystery and the harshness of the desert and the wondrous things I have seen there. I will endeavour to describe every event in detail, both the things I saw and my depth of feeling at the time.
I hope that you may have the impression of being there with us through it all – as indeed you were for most of it. But you were so young that you will retain no memories of it, or at least I doubt that you could. There are many things I do not know of your parents and their people, nor will I ever know them now. I only know what I saw, and what your father told me during our long vigil together, and whatever else I observed of him during our great adventures. Likewise, there is little I know of your mother, only that she was beautiful and kind, and that there was a powerful love between your parents that must now course through your own veins.
So what follows is the story of your beginnings, my boy, and what is not told in these pages will never be known. I hope this account will explain many things to you and fill you with a great love for your parents and a passion to go on and honour your father’s wishes in the new land. Read with pleasure, and then read again with a studious mind, for you have much to do in your life.
John Greenway
Extract from
John Greenway’s Journal
I watched the camel caravan emerge from the cold desert
night as pale fingers of silvery light fell across the land
and rolled the velvety darkness over the western horizon. The caravan left the shifting sands and moved like a giant, weaving snake between two small hills, then down the narrow road and into the sleeping village.
The village stirred slowly into life as the camels walked with their strange, easy rhythm down the single, dusty street. The leather of harness and saddles creaked softly, the metal buckles clinking a monotonous tune that beat in time with the padded camel feet thudding on the hard surface of the road. The scissoring leg motion of the beasts stirred up a fog of dust that rose and glistened in the first sunbeams until it stung the eyes of the riders. The sorcerer looked back with a paternal gaze at the small child nestled in the arms of the fat nursemaid. The boy slept peacefully, completely oblivious to his strange surroundings.
The sorcerer shifted his gaze and met my face as I smiled at him from my seat high on the largest of the camels. Then I glanced away quickly from his piercing emerald eyes, for I was afraid I would drown in the deep pools of those luminous eyes. My own skin had been burned dark brown by the desert sun, but I was still pale compared to the sorcerer and the rest of my companions. Now I saw the sorcerer look past the leading camel and down the hill, beyond the quiet streets, to the harbour that came slowly into view through the gloom. Two tall ships appeared through the darkness, their images growing out of the murky waters like developing photographs.
The sorcerer sighed with relief and again glanced nervously back the way we had come, as if expecting someone to appear over the horizon to thwart our escape, even at this late hour. It was three weeks since we had left the great oasis deep in the desert to begin our dangerous journey to the coast, to meet the tall ships and continue our flight to freedom in the new world. I sat dreamily on the swaying camel and let my mind revisit the events that had led me to this strange position. It seemed years since I had arrived in the desert in search of my own adventures, but, in reality, it was a little less than one year. I had travelled light into the desert. It was unwise to carry too many possessions for one could be robbed, perhaps murdered, for even the smallest treasures.
* * *
The sorcerer too had few possessions when I first had come upon him setting up his camp under the spreading palms near a well at the big oasis. Just a small tent, the robes he wore, and a few bits of gold and some precious stones with which to barter for food. It was obviously the first night at the oasis for both of us. I watched him from the corner of my eye as I pitched my tent a short distance from him, and after that we sat regarding each other suspiciously for several hours. Something about his manner intrigued me, but I was determined to bide my time and let him make the first move, for it seemed clear that we were both strangers in this community.
At last he must have decided that I did not look like a dangerous agent of the evil chief who was reported to rule the area, but as he approached my tent he did so cautiously. As I’d suspected, we had arrived with the same caravan; though we had not met, for the caravan had been one hundred camels long and it was forbidden to leave one’s position in the line. I explained how I had heard of this huge oasis in the middle of the desert and decided to see it for myself. “I am on my way to the new colony in the great south land,” I told him, hoping my openness would loosen his tongue. He interested me. It was lonely in the desert and I craved society, and he spoke English very well. “My wife and brother left old England on the last fleet to go on ahead and find suitable investments and a place to live,” I added, smiling at the sorcerer. He returned my smile and I was at once captured by his bright emerald eyes, eyes that gripped me until I felt I was falling into a deep, dark pool. It was with considerable effort that I was eventually able to look away through the date palms and regain control of my thoughts.
“I am not a young man as you can see,” I continued at last. “And I have travelled the world, but I still hunger for new sights and new knowledge. To my poor wife’s annoyance, I decided to take a detour on my way to the new world. I wanted to see the Far East, as this may well be my last journey before I settle in a new country to live out my latter years.
“When I heard stories of this strange desert community, I could not resist a journey here.” I smiled at him again. “It was not easy to arrange this trip, but I suppose you know about that yourself.” I offered my hand. “My name is John Greenway,” I said.
The sorcerer returned my smile, obviously glad of a friendly face and a potential companion in his lonely vigil. “I am called Brengazi,” he said. “I am what they call a sorcerer in my own land, so you should know that at once, in case you see strangeness in my ways.”
I peered at him in some surprise, but again avoided looking into his eyes. “A sorcerer?” I repeated slowly. “Wizards, witches, alchemists and black magic, that sort of thing? I thought that stuff had died out about two hundred years ago – I mean, we are into the second half of the eighteen hundreds, after all.”
The sorcerer laughed lightly. “I know,” he agreed. “And it has died out for the most part. But there are still dark corners of the world where time has stood still for centuries, and my people are of these lands. Much of the magic lies in illusion, in what we can release in the other person’s mind.
“The darker their minds and the deeper their superstitions. the easier is our task,” he grinned. “But we are moving into a more complex and modern world, my friend, and even my own country is coming into a new age. People like you who are well-travelled and educated are unlikely to fall under the spell of a sorcerer. We must therefore ply our trade in the darker corners of the earth while we are still in demand. My father feared the new age, and he was full of regret that much of his life’s work had been spent working for evil rulers. He wanted a better role for me and my children when they come, a chance to use what powers I have for good. That is why I am here in this strange land.”
I nodded, wondering what mysterious mission had led my new friend to this place, but I was reluctant to ask just yet. We sat together and talked for hours and, as we