Context and Theme
First some context: In my “Excavatia” series, all of the “Surface Worlders” are believers called out of time into The Mid-World (which represents the biblical understanding of “the heart or soul”). The Mid-World is a place of joining between the Physical Self and the Spirit (Excavatia) that “made alive” part of us that fellowships directly and fully with Jehovah God (the Creator of All that exists). The “Surface Worlders” are “Kingdom Seekers”. Because The Mid-World is a place of “betweenness” joining the physical and the spiritual, it is a place of metaphysical presence. Supernatural entities take on a physical presence in this specific place.
The Excavatia novels unpack the idea and theme of Christians coming to experience God not just as their Savior (at their birth conversion), but as they walk into a surrendered and empowered intimacy with Him, letting him deal with the remaining strongholds by carrying Faith, Hope, and Love (symbolized by Eternal Virtue Stones) in making Him Lord of their Lives. The villain groups in the story are represent the allures that threaten to make Christians ineffective in their lives and called to ministry.
Controversial Subjects
Probably one of the most controversial point of these novels have to do with the issue of “The Half-Men”.
Since I am admittedly implanting myth into a Biblical backdrop in human history, I am trying to make this mythos have a plausible, even if fantastic origin, since God seems to preeminently value our human life over all other forms of it. No other beings in all creation are given such priority with The Almighty.
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength. Think about the circumstances of your call, brothers and sisters. Not many were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were born to a privileged position. But God chose what the world thinks foolish to shame the wise, and God chose what the world thinks weak to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, what is regarded as nothing, to set aside what is regarded as something, 29 so that no one can boast in his presence. He is the reason you have a relationship with Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” [1 Corinthians 1:25-31 NET]
His love for humankind prompted Him to become one of them and suffer what He did for our redemption, therefore there must be something very unique He prizes about our kind that we alone might be given the unique privileges of being called to be sons and daughters of God. (Romans 8:22-23 & 2 Cor. 6:18)
Many modern writers, particularly in the fantasy genre and more specifically in the “secular” market, often write the characters as having some sort of “desirable” gift, virtue, magical power, ability, or hidden nobility that gives them an edge to face fantastical monsters and necromancers, etc.
But I have not chosen to do so. I want characters with flaws and weaknesses–unlikely underdog characters that the “world’s” wisdom might overlook.
These kinds of characters are more relatable to our human frailty than any superhero or magic-wielding person might be. It also makes their rise more poignant in realizing that nothing they could muster up by self-effort or the pursuit of power could ever hope to achieve the mission calling set before them. God calls us to big and impossible things, so we can rely on Him operating through us in fellowship. This is consistent with Jesus’s statement in John 15:5.
Too often we depart from “The Vine” and “branches” understanding of redemptive characters. Like Cain learned in his offering of the fruits of “self-effort”, we cannot claim a “righteousness” apart from “the precious Blood of Sacrifice”.
The prophet Isaiah states it thus:
“We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.” [Isaiah 64:6 NLT]
Both of the historically recognized masters of Fantasy-World fiction, who were themselves God-fearing Christians, recognized the principle of the value of smallness and weakness to undermine the villainous power-seekers in their fictional creations.
C.S. Lewis chose children to be the pivotal main characters of his Narnia series, subject to the backdrop Presence of Aslan, His Christ-figure character. The Pevensie children were displaced and away from home, feeling isolated and alone in the big country home of their reclusive Uncle Digory. When they discover the wardrobe in the “sparest of spare” rooms, they open the door to a world that is as forbidding as is the Ice Queen Jadis, whose spies were severely charge to watch for and report any incursion into Narnia for a son of Adam or a daughter of Eve. The point being was that their “humanness” threatened her power-seeking, and could overturn it should they ever be seated upon the thrones at Cair Paravel.
J.R.R. Tolkien, likewise followed this model of subverting the expectations of the “worldly” wisdom, when he placed in the pivotal role of his “Lord of the Rings” books, little “halfling” creatures called Hobbits–who only sought simple agrarian pleasures and who detested “noisy, bothersome adventures”.
In the modern context, many seem to glorify the “power-seekers”, but I cannot get past the admonition that the Lord gave to the Apostle Paul, that “His strength is made perfect in [our] weakness.”
So, following that preferred tradition, my MC is an unlikely hero. In fact, he was, in a backstory context, once of the “power-seeking” mindset that had to suffer a humiliating defeat the led to the death of a friend in their conspiratorial attempt to “defeat one of the major villains” of the Mid-World. His betrayal subverted the prior mission, driving him into exile and then back into the world from which he came…for twenty-one long years.
And speaking of that villain, which if you have ventured into this novel, may have learned is the mythological half-human creature known as “The Pan” of the Classical Greek Mythological tradition.
The “Half-Men*” villains in the story are derived from their Classical Greek mythological definitions according to Bulfinch’s Mythology, though their origins are unique in my story.
[*”Men” used in the general sense here, as in “humankind”.]
The Pan
This character is connected with the real genealogy of Cain (called Kayin, in the Hebrews Names version) in the Scriptures. More specifically, he is tied to the account of Tubal-Cain, whose name means “World Spear/World Government”.
(Source: Link)From (1) the noun תבל (tebel), the whole world-economy, and (2) the noun גין (qyn), spear, the symbol of government, from the verb גין (qyn), to fabricate.
There is another word that also means “All”, and that is strikingly similar to one of the characters in the Greek pantheon, (in fact, appears as a root in that very word), and that is “The Pan”.
Tubal-Cain was the son of the first polygamist (Lamech – Gen. 4:19) in the bible, born to his “2nd wife” Zillah, whose name means “Buzzing shadow”. Her name’s meaning seems very strange, but I give a fictional reason for it, suggesting that this wife was actually taken captive from another realm and is not quite phased in and acclimated to the physical world (aka The Surface World).
Tubal-Cain, in Genesis 4:22, is accredited with being the first to forge iron and bronze tools and weapons. I am suggesting that, with such parentage, he was probably very much like his father, an immoral and violent man, but also a very domineering leader, who, it is probable, might lead many others of Cain’s lineage into vile wickedness against Almighty God and have no reverance for Him, only resentment in having their grandfather (“Cain” whom he is named after) being cursed to wander.
In about 2407 B.C., [this is my own conjecture and not in the bible], I have him lead a rebellion of men and women who seize all kinds of creatures (birds, fish, mammals, insects, etc.), misusing the dominion authority given to Adam, and bring them to an oculus portal near the alter where Abel and Cain made their fateful annual sacrifices to God (Genesis 4:3-4).
They with their captive animals attempt to enter the portal oculus to charge the mountain of God and His throne room to offer the blood of the creatures they bear to satisfy the God of Blood who would not receive their primogeniture’s offering of vegetables and fruit. It is an act of paganism and rebellion which has dire consequences. [Remember animals were not given the fear of man until after they are released from Noah’s ark Genesis 9:2-3.]
When they attempt to pass through, they are literally ripped in half by the passage and fused to the creatures they bear, to become a forever cursed race of hybrids. When that happens, these half-creature/ half-human emerge into the Mid-World in pools of their own blood and have a great resentment for anything or anyone who might be fully human. Only humans can safely traverse the oculus portals and only at The Calling of the One True God. So “The Pan” is in fact the cursed leader of the fractious and bickering kingdom of “The Half-Men” and is the Tubal-Cain of old, cursed to remain immortal until he is held prisoner of his own forever aging body, or cut down violently as one who dies by the sword (Matt. 26:52).
There is a scripture that says:
5 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 6 yet for us there is [only] one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we [exist] for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we [exist] through Him. [1 Corinthians 8:5-6 NASB20]
The character of The Pan, and his motley kingdom of half-men, are deluded, and believe they were made into “gods” when they “broke in” to The Mid-World. Since their kind represent paganism and pantheism, it is then in line that they may exalt themselves as gods, even though they are an ancient cursed lot.
Scripture also tells us:
5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; [2 Corinthians 10:5 KJV]
So, it is fitting that these “powers and principalities” that influence the human heart, must therefore be deliberately toppled.
The Harpies and The Dryad Nymphs
The harpies are those ancient women who carried a “congress” (group of owls) through the portal and became half owl/half woman. The human form, in the Half-Men kingdom, is always the top half or part of any of these cursed hybrids. They are forever cursed to live as half beasts because of their sickness and they struggle with the dichotomy of both their animal wildness and their human rationale plagued by that. They are never fully one of anything so they feel their incompleteness. Harpies are all female. There are no male Harpies, at least in my fictive cosmology, but they have a strong desire and unmet need to have children of their own kind, but they are barren. Tragic, I guess, but even villains have a certain sympathetic pathos that needs to be there to add dimension to their character. They are, as depicted in every image I can find of them, buxom, to be polite about it. But what are these feminine attributes for, if they can never use them as intimate charms for a mate or to nurture a child? Such is their dilemma and a constant reminder of their lost womanhood. The dryad nymphs however are decidedly female in form, however, they do phase in and out of being tree & plant-like. They are the sirens of the forest, luring and enticing human men into their leafy bowers as nubile women, only to devour them and eviscerate them to be used to nurture their young which dangle from the treetops in a grisly nursery of vines and human heads, growing the little sapling sprouts from the unfortunate victims dangling skull.
Despite being in all appearances like a seductress, they are obsessed with returning to humanity and believe they can if they are ever able to have a child that is human enough to pass through one of the seven oculus portals back to the Mid-World. Unfortunately, they cannot produce mother’s milk, only a sap substance, to be able to nurture their children enough.
The Native Mid-World Humans (Indigenous Tribes)
The humans in the Mid-World (seemingly native there, before the coming of the Xarmnians and the Capitalians) also have a mysterious origin as they are descendent of the families of two men in the biblical account who left earth (The Surface World) and did not return: Enoch first and then Elijah. Both of these men will show up eventually in the three novels of Excavatia. Excavatia itself is the Hidden portal within the Mid-World that goes to the Holy Mountain of God in the Spirit realm. Only Christians, covered in Jesus’s sacrifice and imbued righteousness can enter through Excavatia’s portal and survive the Holy Presence of God. (John 3:3) Jesus is both the Physical person of God in humanity and He is also the human soul’s Doorway to full Fellowship with God as it was when Adam and Eve walked in pure fellowship and harmony with Him in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8). Jesus is fully God come in the flesh. (1 John 4:2-3)
One thing I ruminated over, (purely an assumption on my part) was God’s taking two men out of the physical world to a place in which must somehow not be in the full holy presence of God, if they retained their present flesh. This is my speculation around something which I do not expect others to dwell or treat as dogmatic, but I thought it might be interesting to explore in speculative fiction.
In Genesis 2:8, God says:
And the LORD God said, [It is] not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. [Genesis 2:18 KJV]
Knowing this, I have often wondered about what may have happened to the wives of Enoch (we know for certain he had one) and Elijah (not so certain, but perhaps).
Women are often not specifically mentioned in the biblical genealogies. This does not mean they are not there. There was, after all, only ONE virgin birth.
Could they have been taken with their husbands into an intermediary place, and perhaps even had children who would joy in watching the events unfold on earth to reveal God’s redemptive plan? Could these be included in the strange & miraculous sympathetic resurrection account of Matthew 27:51-53?
In Exodus, God tells Moses:
But He said, “You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.” [Exodus 33:20 NKJV]
So, something must have happened to these two men that allowed them to enter either the very presence of God and survive (which I doubt) or some intermediary place, a cleft in the rock, to witness God’s glory from a distance. (See also Gen. 32:30, Deut. 5:24, Isa. 6:5, John 1:18, 1 Tim. 6:16 & etc.)
We do know that Elijah returns briefly into the physical “Surface World” at the incident of Christ’s Transfiguration in the account (Matt. 17:3, Mark 9:4, Luke 9:30) and it is probable that he may do so again as one of the two witnesses in Revelation 11:3. Moses, who is representative of “The Law”, we know was dead and has been buried by God in a “secret” location. This symbolizes the “death” of “The Law” which was fulfilled by Christ’s sacrifice to those who accept Him. But in the days of God’s wrath, both the representatives of “The Prophets” and “The Law” will return to accuse mankind for their refusal to accept “The Son”. Moses then, I expected will be resurrected to fulfill that role to condemn the unrepentant under “The Law”, because they did not accept the “Mercy” granted by “the firstborn of the dead”. (Colossians 1:18)
So if there is no record of human death for these two men, which is promised to all mankind (Hebrews 9:27), we expect that there will be. We can account for Elijah’s future death as one of the two witnesses (Revelations 11:7-13), but Enoch’s death remains a mystery. Is it revealed in 1 Corinthians 15:50-54? Was Enoch the first instance of one who was raptured? I don’t know. But I wonder about it.
The Secret War Between Harpies and Dryad Nymphs
The Harpies are secretly at war with the Dryad Nymphs. They hate each other but grudgingly are kept in order by The Pan.
At one time the Harpies were pressed into the services as being wet-nurses for the dryad nymphs children. There was a time when they were trusted enough to do so. Until one of the Harpies drank water from one of the moon pools and poisoned the dryad children she was charged with nursing.
The Harpy wet-nurse was Delilah, the matron Queen of the Harpies. For the death of their young, the Dryad Nymphs cut off her foot so that she would never be able to naturally alight on a tree branch or limb again. That cut claw image became a secret symbol of the Dryad Nymphs’ hatred of the Harpies thereafter. That is why the Harpies are inclined to have dealings with the Xarmnians. So that they can protect their claws and shanks in the secret battle against the Dryad Nymphs.
When the Harpies discovered they could poison the Nymph infants they realized they drink more of the mystical waters and could, at last, punish the dryad nymphs and act upon their resentment towards their being able to have offspring.
They cannot let their king, The Pan, know of what they are planning. It is, after all a secret war, between these two races of the “Half-Men” kind. They each by for favor and privilege with The Pan, but he would annihilate them with his other vicious beast kinds if he found out. He almost killed off all of the Dryad males when the Dryad Nymphs took their vengeance, thus eradicating them as a crypto species. The Dryad population is kept in check by this, as the few males the Pan let live are his prisoners and are kept in close service and under watch.
The Pan and their kingdom have a centuries-long obsession with finding some way to return to the Surface World as rulers and gods, and they meddle with humans there through their dreams and visions, using mystical pools of water that can show them the Surface World, but never lets them pass through it. They observe humankind through history and whisper to people through dreams and false visions which, I fictitiously suggest in the context of this story is the source of the world’s pagan nature religions and apostasy.
The Dryad Nymphs have the closest chance of surviving if they can incarnate enough humanness into their birthings, which is why The Pan will not eliminate the Dryads entirely.
The Half-Men Kingdom represents The Stronghold of Paganism and Epicurean Sensuality
One of the common themes in paganism, in our world, was the obsession with human sexuality and the abuse of it in their rituals. I realize that as a necessary element, however, as a responsible Christian writer, I have a duty not to ever glorify pagan practices or entice readers with sexual scenes that would give rise to thoughts that are not God-honoring, so I will not write a “graphic sex scene” in my novels, however, there are ways to allude to it without walking in on it.
God calls it sacred (Hebrews 13:4), so I think it should be treated with respect by those who write and bear His name.
Openings in Heavenly Realms
I have often wondered about the phrase “the seven eyes of God”. Two verses stand out to me and both instances refer back to an attribute of Jesus. One is a prophetic representation of Him as a stone, and the other as Him manifested as the Lamb of God.
“For behold the stone that I have laid before Joshua; upon one stone [shall be] seven eyes: behold, I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.” [Zechariah 3:9 KJV]
“And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.” [Revelation 5:6 KJV]
Then I encountered something extraordinary in Zechariah 4:
“For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel [with] those seven; they [are] the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.“ [Zechariah 4:10 KJV]
What if those “eyes of God” represented, that “run to and fro throughout the whole earth” are portals into a special place that God regards with his utmost attention: our human soul.
God’s very Word creates Life and speaks all into existence giving it form and presence in time and space. His Breath gives being and awareness. His hands cradle us and protect us. What might His eyes do?
I believe the old poetic adage from Shakespeare: “The eyes are the windows to the soul” might be more revelatory of the truth than we humanly know. Matthew 6:22-24 states: “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.”
I suspect that the insight of God sees the full contents of “the heart”, and sight is given to see form and placement, beauty and ugliness.
So, what if, these moving eyes were portals into something we humans could never have fully perceived, except that He open our eyes to it? Hence, the Oculi that are the openings between worlds. Another mystery from one who can only see through this glass darkly. (1 Cor. 13:12)
We do know there is a supernatural “unseen” world occupied by both good and evil principalities and rulers. We do know that these have a body of sorts. (1 Corinthians 15:37-49).
The Three-Part World
The Surface World is correlated to the Physical World and our Physical form here in this temporal existence.
The Mid-World is correlated to the Mystery of Our Existence & Personhood, a blending of how we are known and the location of where our true identity lies. It is the idea of the “location” of our Heart, in the biblical understanding of it. [Obviously, not the blood pumping organ.]
Excavatia represents the Hidden Kingdom, the “Thy Kingdom Come” [See Matt. 6:10, Luke 11:2] the supernatural part of a saved person’s being, as if they are both the very promised land and heart of a supernatural kingdom in full fellowship with God Himself. When the Scriptures say that we are “made alive together with Christ” and we “are raised [] up” to “sit with him in heavenly places”, I am using this story to depict that in the most literal sense. Excavatia is a Kingdom to Come that puts mankind back in the pure fellowship with God and causes us to live fully empowered by Him. [See Ephesian 2:4-7]
A life fully realizing the fullness of their relationship with God is connected with “Excavatia” and as a result is a supernaturally empowered life that is expressed in every aspect of their whole being. Jesus, Himself, was fully God and fully Man, walking in full fellowship with His Being as expressed as The Father in Heaven. God’s desire is that we walk in the empowerment of full surrender, allow His strength to be “made perfect in [our surrendered] weakness”. [See 2 Corinthians 12:9]
We see this pattern in what happened with the children of Israel, but also repeated in our identification with them.
28 “The LORD uprooted them from their land in his anger, rage, and intense wrath, and threw them into another land where they are today.’ 29 “The hidden things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our children forever, so that we may follow all the words of this law. [Deuteronomy 29:28-29 CSB]
Mankind was driven out of Eden, Israel was driven out into exile in foreign lands, we are born separated from God and dead in our sins.
But God reconciles us to Him in the same patterns. He draws us back to Fellowship, by going to great lengths to give us Redemption. To bring us again into a state of Righteousness that is His doing through us. How can we “follow all the words of the law[?]” By being “in” Christ, “in” His righteousness, “in” His Freedom from the accumulation of our sins, now presently taken out of the limits of “Time” so that it applies on our behalf Eternally.
Note the timeframe in the final part of Revelations 13:8:
..and all who dwell on earth will worship it, every one whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. [Revelation 13:8 RSV]
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. [Matthew 13:35 KJV]
Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [Matthew 25:34 KJV]
Here is the key verse of the goal of the Excavatia book series:
And [I pray] that the eyes of your heart [the very center and core of your being] may be enlightened [flooded with light by the Holy Spirit], so that you will know and cherish the hope [the divine guarantee, the confident expectation] to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints (God’s people), Ephesians 1:18 Amplified Version
- “The very center and core of your being” – The Mid-World
- “Flooded with light by the Holy Spirit” – The realization and coming of Excavatia
- “the divine guarantee, the confident expectation” aka “The Word of God” – The Marker Stone
Magic/Supernatural Systems
There is no specific “magic” system in the story, but there are supernatural elements that have a correlation in the biblical account of history.
For instance, the biblical idea of “quickening” as is shown in the examples of Elijah out running a chariot (1 Kings 18:46) and Sampson slaying thousands with a jawbone (Judges 15:14) carrying off city gates (16:13) or pushing down the support columns in the house of a wealthy Philistine (16:29-30).
1 Corinthians 15:45 identifies this connection as God’s empowerment for specific circumstances, even go so far as to state that Christ, the “last Adam” was made a “quickening spirit”. And Romans 8:11 states that Christ has the ability to “quicken” our “mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in” us.
The result of these special interventions is not merely gratuitous usage of “deus ex machina” to resolve a particular conflict, but specifically and very sparingly used to accomplish God’s ordained Purpose by connection with Him.
The point being, there are real-world historical examples were God supernaturally equipped a human yielded according to His purpose, rather than the fictive scenario of the power of God serving the whims of human direction or desire. We do not direct Almighty God. He directs us. Sometimes He calls us to do what might be the unthinkable, such as Peter stepping out of a boat in a sea storm because Christ bid him to do so. There are modern testimonial and documented examples of God’s present-day supernatural intervention, i.e. cancer being healed, the lame walking again, sight restored, etc.
The Half-Men – a pagan pantheon of pretenders
My story contains mythological characters: The Pan, satyrs, dryads/nymphs, harpies, etc. (primarily characters from the Greek and Roman pantheon, but some inclusion of those from the Babylonian and Far East Asian as well) however, none of these are venerated and instead they are all summarily a cursed lot. They masquerade as “gods” by connecting with humans in their dreams and through mystical pools of haunted water. They have no particular mystical ability, as ascribe to them in pagan myths, except the brute strength of their animal counterparts, and the fate to live as immortal until they are slain in battle. They seek power and are savage. The animal and the human mind are constantly at war within them. Every one of this group, whom I collectively call the “Half-Men”, were once fully human, but in an act of rebellion, they entered an Altar portal (appearing in our world) with sacrificial animals trying to undo the curse that was set upon Cain. They were once the adult grandchildren of Cain who had descended into apostasy. They reasoned that if God rejected Cain’s offering of the fruits of his labor and wanted only a bloody sacrifice, they would give him the blood of many animals until He relented and lifted Cain’s curse. They were not repentant. They hated the Creator God and sought only to satiate and appease Him. There was only arrogance in their hearts and what they were doing was mocking God. So, when they attempted to cross over into the portal beyond the Altar to march up to God’s Holy Mountain, they dragged docile animals (before these had the fear of mankind: See Genesis 9:2) of all kinds with them. But in the passage through, these arrogant men and women of Cain’s lineage became half of what they brought and were cursed to remain in the Mid-World land, or be ripped in two if they ever tried to return to their ancient land (the Surface World). As such, they know that God values humans, and in resentment of not being able to confront God Himself with their grievances, they meddle and deceive and terrorize humans. Some abduct them (the dryad nymphs), thinking that if they can seduce them, they can have offspring that will have enough human blood in them so that they could survive the passage back into the human world. Some believe that if they can convince their human agents to find a way to genetically bind both the human genome to the animal genome then hybrids could be genetically assembled and they could transfer their “souls” back into the Surface World and return in defiance of the Creator God as godlike-creatures walking among mankind.
It does strike me that many ancient pagan religions do feature human-animal hybrids in their pantheons. The Greeks tended to put the human half as the top part of their pagan hybrids. Babylonians also did this, and, in some respects, Egyptians did this with the Sphinx.
The Elemental Spirits
At present, I do have two “elemental type” entities represented in the story:
- wind spirits (in constant search of a corporeal form facilitated only by dragons, which incubate a kind of plasma mixture of human blood and clay into a golem form for them)
- and water spirits (or living, sentient water particles that assemble themselves into a malicious fog roving the seashore to steal and suppress memories of any being who breathes them in).
Colossians 2:8 says something about “elemental spirits” I had not noticed before writing this story, but it refers to them in relation to being deceiving spirits, so I believe I am being consistent with rendering them in this story as such.
8 Be careful not to allow anyone to captivate you through an empty, deceitful philosophy that is according to human traditions and the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. [Colossians 2:8 NET]
The Three Dragons – of Air (Flier), of Water (Swimmer), of Land (Tunneler)
There also are at most 3 dragons in the story, all of which are of supernatural origin, but one is clearly connected to Satan as “the red dragon” of Revelations 12:3-4. These are all killers. The red dragon is a Fire Drake, both black as obsidian and red as fire. He is the first and most monstrous of the dragons to enter the Mid-World during the first quest of the Praesporous Stone (The Hope Stone). It is he who takes the Golden Diadem of Dominion and attempts to fly away with it until he succumbs to a centuries long fatigue which attempting to fly up and over the “Wall of Stone”, a jagged line of towering granite peaks, also dubbed the SELF mountain, because of the first letters of the four cities built upon its high ledges in an ascent to the summit notch and high narrow pass. This great dragon could not, essentially, get over the wall of SELF. [This was the real problem of Satan: See Ezekiel 28:13-15 & Isaiah 14:12-14]
In Revelation 12:15, in the allegorical account of Satan, as dragon, in pursuit of the woman, the dragon actually employs a water element to try to drown the woman bearing the child. So, it is not far off in a similar symbolism that the dragon (Devil) of this tale, might employ and consort with elemental spirits.
The red dragon is a flying dragon, a prince of the power of the air, as he is also referred to in Ephesians 2:2.
The second dragon is a Leviathan, taking its description closely from that water dragon described in Job 41 and Isaiah 27:1. In fact, Psalms 74:14 includes a passage describing the breaking of the head of leviathan and giving its carcass as meat for a people inhabiting the wilderness. In the story, the leviathan dragon is killed in a pitched sea battle and its head is severed and crushed between the collision of two ships. Its body is hauled ashore by fishermen, and from its rotting maw a golem emerges from a forming chamber in its jaw gills, inhabited by a wind spirit called Torlah, who shapes shifts the golem into the image of the human woman who was taken under and devoured by the leviathan and whose blood was used by the dragon/leviathan to form it.
The third dragon [in sequence of their invasion of the Mid-World], arriving at the beginning of Excavatia: From Dust Arise in the prologue and lurking and tunneling underground throughout the first novel, is a Dust Dragon. A supernatural creature that shuns the daylight sun, moves (cuts) and digs through tunnels underground with the speed of a freight train and pursues the MC and his party, using a connection to a hidden agent it conspires with, placed within the party of “Surface World” travelers. Its form is translucent. It appears as a mirage in daylight, though it taxes its body to do so. Its body is an assemblage of metallic cutting plates and it is only fully visible, opaque, in near darkness. Its eyes are strange in that they are dissimilar. One is black with a glowing metallic rimmed sclera. The other is an icy pale blue, with a white sclera, appearing almost human, except for its large size portioned to its massive head and body. Ratio is (van sized ~ 4.26 meters ~ 14 feet) to body length (29.8704 meters ~ 98 feet). [196 tons ~ 177,808 kg]
Its violent digging almost collapses the stone foundations and underbed of a city when it moves through its subterranean cave system.
I take some creative license with it, in that I make it serve God’s judgement during its time in the Surface World. It is the agent of destruction that causes the ground to open during Korah’s rebellion against Moses’s leadership in the account of Numbers 16:32. Here is the verse quote:
32 And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that [appertained] unto Korah, and all [their] goods. [Numbers 16:32 KJV]
Since this “Dust Dragon” shuns the daylight, it would make sense that it attacks from underground, literally opening up the earth and swallowing its hapless victims.
Biblical Characters
I also have two major biblical characters emerging in the story. Enoch (the Teacher [his name literally means that]), who was mysteriously taken by God from earth (Gen. 5:24, Hebrews 11:5) and Elijah [taken in the fiery chariot] (2 Kings 2:11).
What is not mentioned with these two men who mysteriously exit from earth is what happened with their wives. Often the women may not be mentioned in the catalog of genealogies, but they are still present implicit in the text, otherwise how did Enoch have a son name Methuselah if he did not have a wife. Often the biblical text may focus on only one significant child but omit mentioning the others. For instance, Adam and Eve had many other children besides Cain, Abel and Seth.
So, I take the creative license and allow for the wives of these two men who mysteriously vanish into a heavenly realm to vanish with them and join them there and have other generations of children.
The Indigenous Peoples of The Mid-World
The Mid-World has its own time, so these two men could be pulled out of our history and have sons and daughters as contemporaries there in the other realm and populate it.
Elijah and Enoch are both given supernatural longevity. [There is a precedent for this: Caleb was given supernatural longevity in Joshua 14:10.]
Elijah returns to “Earth” temporarily in the “Transfiguration of Christ”, and I believe he may be one of the two witnesses that return to Earth again as mentioned in Revelations 11:3.
The Surface Worlders
Pulled from natural human time, these are Christians at various levels of their personal growth who are the focus of the journey through the Mid-World and those called to complete a Stone Quest.
The Main Character (a Surface Worlder), Brian (a.k.a. O’Brian, as dubbed by his old friend Begglar), is so named after myself to keep me humble. He is very flawed, doubts himself, shirks responsibility and feels too inadequate to lead or take responsibility for anyone. He is not exactly like me, but similar enough to make him the character I identify with the most. He is a man called to lead, by God, a quest for which he feels the least qualified. Ironically, that is part of what qualifies him to being called to the task.
In the biblical narrative, we observe that there is a strong precedent for God calling very flawed and ill-equipped individuals to partake in something extraordinary. God showed Paul that the power of Christ rests on him when he yields his weakness/infirmity to God’s sovereignty. This path to empowerment is far different than what humans expect under the world’s standards. (See 2 Corinthians 13:4, Hebrews 11:34, 1 Corinthians 15:43.)
Comparatives
The story is similar in some ways to Bunyan’s “Pilgrim’s Progress” in that it puts the assumptive belief systems of humankind up against God’s revealed truths within a fantasy canvas, however it does not restrict itself to that of classical allegory.
The Kingdoms in Conflict
There are at least four worldviews represented by each of the “Kingdoms” present in the Excavatia series.
The Scripture affirms in many places that there are “kingdoms: powers and principalities” in hidden places. Here are a few of the verses referencing that:
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly [places] might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, [Ephesians 3:10 KJV]
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places]. [Ephesians 6:12 KJV]
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether [they be] thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: [Colossians 1:16 KJV]
[And] having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. [Colossians 2:15 KJV]
The Kingdom of Xarm
CS Lewis said this: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
It is this kingdom and worldview that has correlation to recognizable equivalents in our own “Surface World.”
This kingdom glories the concept of “the collective”, yet is a system that deifies “the state” and lures its people into a dictatorial and brutal rule by might and control. The state requires dependency to maintain its control and power over individuals. It lures them to trade their independence for “free” stuff, supposedly, to benefit “the collective”. Yet it erodes individual value in the process. It causes people to be in everybody else’s business. It causes uproar, sows envy, promotes covetousness, and turns neighbors against one another. The morals are reduced to that of the collective, and leaders are leveled to the status of state slaves serving the plantation owners. Needs are defined for the slaves, rather than independently assessed, for the individual merely serves and lives under the discretion of the machine operators, whom we are told are our “goodwill benefactors”.
The Half-Men Kingdom
This kingdom has both old world equivalents and modern equivalents rooted in pantheism and paganism.
The Kingdom of Capitalia
This kingdom is one of the more honest in its dealing human nature as it actually is. This kingdom philosophy recognizes that mankind is primarily self-interested and will operate primarily in that vein. A producer will create something to seek to make a sustainable profit from it which incentivizes his efforts and labor, and personal risk for a beneficial reward. A consumer will seek a product to meet their needs and it will provide enough value to them that they, will agree to trade something of mutually perceived value with the producer in order to exchange what will satisfy both of their self-interests. This concept provides both benefit and produces wealth for both parties, as long as there is a mutual balance and honest understanding between the two parties. Without governance to maintain that balance, however the benefit to exchange ratio can shift too far so that one party’s self-interest no longer serves to bring value to the other parties interests.
This kingdom tends to value the individual over the collective, however, it can become a slope towards deifying the individual, which in and of itself is destructive to any human system of governance. Man is not equal to God. God is not equal to man.
More to Come…
[Check back here from time to time for more insights…]
Excavatia 