Contributed by Steve Carrington & Jack Horner
Recently, I learned of the passing of a young friend of mine, August Naranjo. I knew him when he was a teenager and a young man. He was my first employee for Adventure Stores. I would call him Number 1. A remarkable young man that loved fun and games, but loved playing them with people even more. He and his high school buddies would gather on Friday nights and play DragonRaid (a Christian RPG) with me. August’s favorite character he played was Zemikia.
I found a description of an adventure August had played with his friends many years before. To honor August, here is a retelling of part of that adventure to send him into the next world where he meets two young friends who went before.
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Zemikia was scouting ahead of his raid party and descended into a small village when he was ambushed! He approached the first house when the door exploded in his face! He mouthed a battleprayer and let out a warcry as he attacked.
The skeleton wielding a scimitar attacked Zemikia through the door. Zemikia the AnimalMaster leaped to the task of dispatching the skeleton with energy. Unfortunately, this scimitar wielding skeleton had been a sword master. He realized this could be a difficult battle and shouted, “I Fear No One. The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? He pressed into the fight with all his heart. The swordmaster troll-skeleton had wielded his sword more years than Zemikia had been on Talania. With cool precision, the skeleton pierced Zemikia through the heart.
Zemikia felt his life slip away. He guessed that everything would go dark. But instead the scene was crystal clear. He saw the skeleton before him pull the sword from his chest, and move on to engage his friends. But that wasn’t particularly important. For just then a great giant appeared on the ridge above. This was not the foolish lumbering giants he had encountered before. This one was filled with majesty and power. He raised a massive horn to his lips. After that - quite a bit later, because sound travels so slowly -- he heard the sound of the horn: high and terrible, yet of a strange, and deadly beauty. The village crumbled before his eyes. Thatched roofs deteriorated, stone wall fell. The sky darkened, yet he could see ever so clearly. Dragons crept out of the hills, and went to and fro tearing up the trees by the roots and crunching them up as if they were sticks of rhubarb. Soon their rampaging took them toward the Western Sea. And Zemikia knew no more.
Garruk, Mas, and the rest of Zemikia’s Raiding party, saw none of this. They engaged the Skeleton and together killed it. Tired, and in shock, Lightraiders stood in silent horror over the body of their friend. The last fight, of the last battle, of this long raid was done. And at the end their best, the quiet, gentle, hulk of a man was dead. They thanked the overlord, and mourned their friend.
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Life After Death
Zemikia awoke near water. He was in the midst of a glade with many small bodies of water interspersed. He did not recognize where he was and wandered through the woods. He weaved between the bodies of water being careful to not step in any of them. (Afterall, he didn't know where they would take him nor where he was to go!)
Zemikia was bewildered, “I don't know, maybe this a dream.” He thought a while then shrugged. “This is all very confusing, What am I to do now?”
“I can't remember much from before? Everything past seems like a land of shadows and faint images.”
“Before sounds like a song intro to me.”
His eyes brightened.
“I wonder if there is any good music here?” he thought.
“I would like to listen to good music and have good drink and eat good food about now.” he added.
A breeze blew through the trees. A low throbbing sound pulsed within the wind.
“Where is that coming from?” he wondered.
Zemikia grinned and started pacing toward the west. He walked westward for a long time, and finally he came to a to a valley encompassed by mountains.
The leaves in the trees around him rustled, and a voice in the wind whispered, “Further in! Further up!”. The breeze blew stronger through the trees.
“Come further in! Come further up!” it whispered.
“This place seems familiar.” said the Zemikia, “Reminds me of the old valley up by… Great Messenger Pass”. And it was. But it was more. There was a stone cottage, and a nearly finished rock wall, next to it. A tall, dark-haired man was carefully chiseling a stone to fit into the next section. And a shorter man was setting them in place. They had familiar faces. Suddenly memories hit him in a rush, his life, and those he loved, and all that missed him.
Turbo, looked at him and said, “Zemikia, It is not wrong to mourn. Think of all that is past.”
His compaion, Hakim, continued, “The old world was a shadow or a copy of the real one. For you the old is now past. The shadow is gone. You have entered the true world and begun real life.”
Zemikia grinned.
“So, I have come home at last?”
“This is the real country!” confirmed Turbo.
“And you belong here!” added Hakim.
“Further up and farther in!” shouted the Wind, and Zemikia went off at a run to the top of the pass above.
A great lion, The Great Lion, stood before him, then he began to shimmer and change.
First, he saw a deer, and then and Eagle, and after those myriad shapes that they could neither describe nor fully comprehend. Finally, He became a man. He had long flowing hair, and his skin was the color of bronze. His eyes twinkled in mischief and delight, as if knowing what was past and also what lay ahead.
“Have you not guessed? Do you not know me?” asked the man. His hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.
“There was a real battle,” he said softly, “In the old, the Shadow-Lands, you are dead. The raid is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning.”
For Zemikia it was only the beginning of the real story. All his life and adventures in this world, had only been the cover and the title page: now at last he was beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
(Adapted from “The Last Battle” by C.S. Lewis, and maybe a nod to Tolkien’s “Leaf by Niggle” tossed in.)