December 7, 2005
-
Magical Thinking
(continued)
1:00:19 ESTThe Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe
premieres tonight at
the Royal Albert Hall.
Hexagram 19 in the
Cullinane series:
– Katherine Neville, The Eight
“What does this have to do with why we’re here?”
“I saw it in a chess book Mordecai showed
me. The most ancient chess service ever discovered was found at
the palace of King Minos on Crete– the place where the famous
Labyrinth was built, named after this sacred axe. The chess
service dates to 2000 B.C. It was made of gold and silver and
jewels…. And in the center was carved a labrys.”
… “But I thought chess wasn’t even invented until six or seven
hundred A.D.,” I added. “They always say it came from Persia or
India. How could this Minoan chess service be so old?”
“Mordecai’s written a lot himself on the
history of chess,” said Lily…. “He thinks that chess set in Crete was
designed by the same guy who built the Labyrinth– the sculptor
Daedalus….”
Now things were beginning to click into place….
“Why was this axe carved on the chessboard?” I
asked Lily, knowing the answer in my heart before she spoke.
“What did Mordecai say was the connection?”….
“That’s what it’s all about,” she said quietly. “To kill the King.”
The sacred axe was used to kill the
King. The ritual had been the same since the beginning of time.
The game of chess was merely a reenactment. Why hadn’t I
recognized it before?
“But what does it all mean?” asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew
the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know.
Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have
looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness
before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation.
She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no
treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and
Death itself would start working backward.”
