Sulfurous fumes engulfed my nostrils now, and it scorched my eyes to stare directly into this opaque curtain. With my field of vision dramatically reduced, any progress I managed to make became an arduous enterprise. To counteract my limited range of perception, I used my hands as hesitantly as a blind man touching this world’s unknown mysteries. With my arms extended on either side of me, I inched forward as if teetering on a suspended rope. A cold sensation of beveled rock scratched my fingertips, registering as an ominous precursor to what unfolded beyond this passageway. Despite my earnest efforts, I couldn’t estimate the magnitude of this dwelling until the fog subsided.
Eventually, I ventured beyond a rupture in the pungent mist, but the chamber where I stopped appeared no more alluring to a stranger’s exploration than the dank channel leading toward it. By now I determined that I was positioned amidst the crude workmanship of a 15th century castle. The solid, undecorated surfaces showed little evidence of high nobility. Upon entering this domicile, I followed a muted glow of candles to a far corner in its interior; this was where I distinguished one elderly figure pacing languidly across a stone floor.
As it turned out, the castle’s featureless décor was essentially an extension of its only visible occupant. He was an elderly gentleman similar to me in stature, but perhaps slightly more doubled over due to his advanced age. The garment he wore looked as though it once belonged to a Franciscan friar. It draped over his gaunt figure like an oversized burlap sack. I watched him shuffling about the premises in no particular direction, other than to occasionally pause in halos of candlelight reflecting off the dark flagstone.
At first, without any knowledge of his motivations, I kept the room’s shadows spaced between us to prevent my premature detection. If he noticed me at all, the cloaked oldster exhibited no indication of my surveillance. He ultimately shuffled through an aperture that was illuminated by a faint orange light. After following him through this opening, I discerned an area of study. The shelves within this room were laden with ancient folios, which I imagined as the recorded wisdom of philosophers and alchemists alike.
The robed man had already lowered himself into a chair in front of an oaken table. His arms remained akimbo on the surface, with both hands turned toward a yawning ceiling. His face looked stripped of all of its vitality, and he forwarded no definitive gesture to demonstrate his emotions in regard to my approach. As I came up to him at the center of the study, I discerned two pits of sorrow simmering in his pewter eyes. The man’s unkempt beard swooped around his concaved cheeks like a tattered pelt. If any visible signs of life existed within this visage, it was one of profound compunction.
It didn’t take me long to gather the courage to join him at this table, which I assumed served up nothing other than long drafts of contemplation. Once noticing my shadow beside him, the man’s fingers twitched. He then raised his head to look at me with a remorsefulness that resembled an untold number of pilfered dreams.
“O, thou shalt not be a wise traveler to share mine table at this bleak hour,” he gasped. He made no effort to conceal his anguish, for pride—if he indeed ever showcased any at all—had long since fizzled from his persona.
“Is this a bad time for you?” I inquired.
“O, list,” he groveled, “dost thou not knowst who I am?”
“No. I don’t even know where I am.”
“Thou art in Wittenberg,” he sighed. “Hast Mephastophilis summoned a demon unproven in the mind to mock me hither?”
After this forlorn character revealed the name of Lucifer’s messenger, my confusion lessoned. This face of enmity belonged to the former necromancer known as Dr. Faustus. I already realized that there was nothing he could’ve done to rescue his soul from eternal damnation. I glared at him with pity, but also with disdain. How had he managed to fritter away the past twenty-four years of his life? Now, the time had neared for him to repay his pact with the Fallen Angel. Faustus waited at this table for the minions of Hell to come at the midnight hour and shred him into pieces.
“Who hath sent for thee?” he implored.
“I’ve come by my own choice,” I clarified.
“But wherefore dost thou cometh?”
“I can’t always explain what compels me to visit the places I do,” I admitted.
“Once thou hast settl’d in a knott’d nest, ’tis unlikely thou shalt fly hence forth without briars in thy flesh.”
“Maybe I’ve arrived here to learn from you, Dr. Faustus.”
“Fie! Thou wouldst fair better exchanging words with a lout. Didst thou not decipher the messenger’s call? Even as thou speaketh, servants to the Prince of Devils mark me as a creation damn’d.”
Of course, it was well beyond my powers of persuasion to convince this doomed magician that he still had a chance for redemption. After he accepted me as a harmless visitor, his mannerisms softened. He then gradually pulled up the sleeves of his robe, intentionally revealing a charred wound on his left forearm. This tattoo verified the imminent danger that he dismissed long ago. The mark read as such: “Homo Fuge.” In this case, Faustus and I both knew that it was far too late for him to fly from his soul’s fate. But I wondered if this epitaph was intended solely for Faustus or for all men who shared his haughty endeavors.
Faustus bent his emaciated arms and clasped his hands together before lamenting, “To think’st that all the latent knowledge knowst to mankind hath sift’d between these fingers. Yea, no soul shalt giveth pity. Who wilt swoon at false whimpers?”
“We can’t dwell on past bargains,” I told him. “All we can hope to do is confront the travesties in life as they occur. I regret that we’ve met under these dire circumstances, but I suppose none of us can go backwards in time and correct our indiscretions.”
“Neither mayst thou alter the outcome of thy fate,” the condemned sorcerer added. “Accurse’d art those who tamper with God’s natural boundaries. Even the trickster Mephastophilis view’d this as such. And yet I profess’d the Seven Sins as merely obstacles in my path.”
“What else have you to teach me, Dr. Faustus?”
“Nay,” he sobbed. “’Tis proper to pronounce what I always hast: Que Sera Sera.”
“What will be, shall be,” I said, interpreting the phrase. Faustus nodded his chin in agreement before tilting his head so that his vantage point permitted him to preview the stars from an arched window in the study. His thoughts soared among these celestial fires, and I felt oddly apathetic by his present vulnerability.
“I prithee, sir. Heed to thy pure judgment. Ne’er invite the devil to dine at thy supper table, for ’tis a banquet set for famish’d fools.”
It was fair to claim that from all those whom I interacted with today, Dr. Faustus’s inescapable demise made the other burdens trivial by comparison. Prior to our interaction in this medieval keep, the worst of scenarios at least afforded a guarantee of peace after death. But this practitioner’s woes wouldn’t be quelled by such mortal conveniences. For Faustus, his end on Earth merely represented the onset of never-ending torment. In spite of this inevitability, I wondered if there was a single moment in his past twenty-four years that he didn’t regret.
“With all the power bestowed onto you, was there anything you’ve accomplished in the last two decades worth savoring?”
As Faustus pondered my question, his complexion appeared to fade as colorless as the marble stones inlaid within the castle’s walls. His eyes, already eclipsed from light, plunged like anchors into water. “Thou art apt to knowst of my folly,” he huffed.
“I don’t mean to pry, but I believe I’ve come here to learn from you.”
“Then untutored thou shalt remaineth. I hast no lesson to impart.”
“But surely you must’ve gained something useful from your encounters?” I insisted.
“O, to sayeth I was callow doth not fully expose the fault,” Faustus bewailed. “Yet ’tis all in retrospect that I avow this to thee.” The conjurer of black craft now studied me more intently. Our ey
es interspersed like fiery arrows before he speculated, “Something wicked stirs in thy gaze. A hunger akin to a feral appetite is what I perceiveth now.”
Because I didn’t cling to any malicious notions during our brief exchange, I was confused by the bluntness of his accusation. Of course, Faustus still had an ability to foresee what other men might’ve envied, save for his own pitfall into impiousness. I offered him only this assessment: “I’m guarded in my thoughts, so it’s best not to make predictions about me.”
“Art thou truly like a garrison?” Faustus meditated. “Thou hath cometh at an hour taint’d by strife, yet I canst judge a spirit who flies heedlessly into the face of the sun. Consider the craftsman Daedalus, whose cunningness once imprison’d the Minotaur in King Minos’ labyrinth. But even Daedalus’ hands couldn’t thwart his riggish son’s defiance. The boy ignored his father’s tidings and soared too high on waxen wings. His fatal plummet into the Icarian Sea shalt not soon be dismiss’d. Dost thou aim to drowneth with similar abandon?”
“I’m not at risk for such an ending,” I refuted, but even as I uttered this defense I felt my purpose descending into a chasm of obscurity. In my heart, I had always yearned for a semblance of recognition, as I surmised all men did at one time or another. Perhaps Dr. Faustus understood my giddy pursuit for stardom better than I realized. But rather than rationalize my behavior to a man who swapped his soul for the Light Bearer’s promise of pansophy, I retreated from the table.
Even while hovering over the probing eyes that Faustus now set upon me, I found it nearly impossible to contain my disappointment. In a quivering rage, I recommenced our dialogue. “You sorry fool. Had I been granted even a fragment of the power that you squandered, I would’ve made a good name for myself. You’re more pitiful than I ever imagined.”
“I shalt giveth to thee what Daedalus once gave to Ariadne,” Faustus resumed. “A clew doth straighten the maze that bringeth thou hither.”
“I don’t need any help finding my way,” I insisted.
“Then thou art braver than Theseus.”
“Maybe not as brave as that hero,” I said, “but I’m too wise to waste an opportunity.”
“O dost thou wish to be granted a deal as was once bartered to me? Perchance thou shalt discover the charms of Helen of Greece? Is the price of such a fair visage worth the launching of a thousand warships?”
“I only wish for one thing,” I confessed. “I want to go back home and live my life more honestly than I’ve ever done before.”
“Thou doth speaketh from both halves of thy tongue,” Faustus chided. “Go to, and dost what thou wilt. Or, if blackness tempts thy nature, linger in my company until the midnight hour cometh.”
By my estimation, I had already spent too much time in the presence of this maligned magician. My decision to abandon him rated as one of my easiest choices of this day. Of course, shunning Dr. Faustus during his final hour of life didn’t yet lure me from the precincts of Wittenberg. After exiting the study, I noticed a dark stain emerging between the rock walls. Within a few seconds, the amorphous shadow loomed closer to me in the tunnel where I first entered the castle.
The features of this entity remained obscure and certainly not human, save for its scintillating, crimson eyes. I needed no further characteristic to identify this being as the messenger Mephastophilis. He watched me as if I was a fly scurrying out of a spider’s silken trap. Despite his syrupy tone, I realized his intentions before he spoke them aloud.
“Hath thou yet wrestled with the angels of good and evil?” the minion chimed. The beast’s breath reeked of brimstone, but I held my ground.
“No angels have visited me,” I answered the devil.
“But art thou open to such invitations?”
“I have no need for angels.”
“Then thou canst fly with lesser orders—lesser but greater, if thou views it as so.”
“There’s nothing here that can tempt me. Go and claim the soul you’ve already bartered for.”
“But thou faith is weak and impure,” Mephastophilis observed. “Mark ye, Lucifer shalt be generous in the enrichment of thy undertakings.”
“I’ve already seen how a man can desecrate his life on an expectation of false hope, and where it ultimately leads him.”
“Ay, truepenny on that note. ’Tis a mask of misfortune Dr. Faustus doth weareth. However, thou shouldst hast an advantage now. To knowst a man’s shortcoming ’tis the best defense in the repetition of any deed.”
“I’ll take my chances on my own from this point. Dispense your hexes and charms on someone other than me.”
Mephastophilis hovered next to me for only a few seconds longer. He must’ve detected something genuine in my demeanor. In any case, the more vulnerable candidate for damnation had already been slotted for midnight’s offering. After turning my back on the devil’s laborer, I heard Dr. Faustus’s shrill screams rebounding off the castle’s walls. His futile cries for clemency shook me to the deepest levels of my flesh and blood. Perhaps for the first time in my years since boyhood, I revisited the notion that each man had been granted an invaluable gift, and within the workings of this framework, he had a capacity to change the course of his own destiny, or die trying.
Chapter 69
5:19 P.M.
The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs Page 69