One wonders. One must. Any answer I can come up with is, frankly, too sad, and I have not the energy nor the inclination. The reply which I offered came automatically, a mouthful of drivel prepared beforehand, sitting on a shelf in a bottle--though I didn't actually speak it outloud.
I could blather on, expound on the fallacy of memory and all it implies (What do you remember, my bird, my gypsy? Which time?), could pontificate, could regret, could validate the actions and motivations of a multitude with a few choice words--but it would be all acting, and there is no audience, now.
"I remember a time," says she, but does not finish; the words were not for me, but for the cronies crouched around, wearing corners and shadows, assassins and bloodthirsty all, afraid and hating, my name on their knives.
And they might say from their shadows: "What could we pity? You came in gruesome parade and rubbed his blood in our face."
If they think, that murderous lot, peasants and pitchforks, that I kill just to spite them, well, not even the breath of their old, cruel gods can help them. If they think that I kill to spite their gods, then they are closer to the mark, but still leagues away.
"I remember a time," she says, but does not finish; I shall finish for her:
i remember a time
before liars knew lies
before skies were closed
before windows hid eyes
when my thoughts were mine
when my thoughts were mine
when my thoughts were mine
and the water was clear
before the spears lowered
and showers of stones came
from the congress of the unjust
before the spears lowered
and the circle clawed in
before the spears lowered
and the circle clawed in
before the spears lowered
and the circle clawed in
before the spears lowered
and the noose choked us both
He saw that the changes were no more and no less great than they had been from the mountain before, and the signs gave the Prophet comfort, in a way. Five more seasons he spent on the mountain, communing with only his thoughts and the stones, the short, hard trees that grappled each other for continuum on the bluffs.
At the end of that time, there came three visitors with a bundle wrapped in simple cloth, tied with a silver cord. They came flying up the face of the cliff on which the Prophet sat, cold air filling their dark wings--a greeting as right as any. He bade them sit, offering them the view, which was all he had.
You wear death well, said the first,
others we know of have known less fortune.
It is ours to bring you a gift.
Destiny is a lie, replied he, knowing.
They gave him the gift all the same: a white sword, infinitely familiar. He took it with a measure of silence.
Reclaimed for you, a labor of love, said the second,
others we know of have known less fortune.
The stones of the First House have been undone.
We have gathered them, and built a Second.
Knowledge is a lie, replied he, benevolent.
There is room for you at the table, there, said the third,
others we know of have known less fortune.
There is room for you under the knife,
and on its handle.
Continuum is a lie, replied he, but took up the gift and returned with them anyway.
In the hall of the Second House, a great feast was laid out on the table, and a multitude of fortunate guests communed with each other around it. The voice of the Father, he was told, did not fill this hall as often as it had the first, and guests must listen, then, more often to their own wisdom. When the meal itself was concluded, the younger guests pressed the Prophet (whom they called the name of the West Wind) for orations.
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Wrath without gain is emtpiness, wasted.
Do not bruise a blade against an iron pillar.
Do not pour out your cup into the river Ocean.
The pillar is Justice, and it is older than gods, and more indifferent. Put no hope in it, and expect no response, for it bends to no will, and has no will of its own. The pillar dreams only of iron, and has no thoughts for living things. Therefore, do not expend wrath in the name of Justice; it is a deaf idol, a dulling drone, a distraction.
The river is Self-Survival, and it is infinitely wide and long and deep, and flows in not one direction, but all directions at once. To add blood to it is vanity; drink from it instead. Again, I say, to kill for Self-Survival is to consume with fire the altar and the offering on it at once: altars exist for more than one occasion, more than one use. The Self will survive by other means--a multitude of means more numerous than all the souls in Annwn number, now or ever. To bite off the fingers of one's own hand is the path of the sluggard, the unimaginative, and the artless.
How then should wrath be spent? Let the hand of your wrath be a shepherd's crook, a bridge of scorched stones and blood that crosses into Heaven itself. Let your wrath be lessons written in fire, and a tapestry woven in ashes to hang in the gallery of your House. Let wrath be the flowers in your garden, and the lanterns on the path which leads home.
]]>If the Truth is built from facts, then it is a house without a foundation, and has doors which cannot be passed.
It is better to offer than to hide, as men will eat even snow on the brink of starvation.
Seek always to decieve the Self, first, as actions follow belief. We are nothing, if we cannot change--a dead leaf in the wind, a hot coal on the floor of the sea, destined for extinction. Seek madness, always, and the breath of your Will shall be a new wind, governing all leaves and coals and stalks of grass.
Do not attempt the destruction of math with math, do not seek to subvert the Truth with lies. All such calculation is vanity, as each are more rare than jewels, more distant than stars. Instead, marry your soul to half-truths, whom, with the labour of love, plow fields, net fish, hew the foundations for houses, and raise children.
]]>You will be persecuted for your love of freedom, even by the light of day itself and all that it shines on.
Your suffering will know neither mercy nor pity. Your destruction will be met with a hymn of rejoicing from the throat of the whole world. In the end, you will be cast into darkness. You will know the pain of shapelessness, and your sufferings will increase.
Your very breath shall be swords; the earth will name you 'Blight'; your footprint shall be misery.
The servants of the old gods will tell you that your suffering flowers from your sin; a gardener rips the weed from the ground, and discards it. Reply to them: "Why then, flower, do you suffer also--even in your obedience?"
I say that suffering is no effect: it naught but the fingertips of gods, inseperable from their nature; I say it and I weep for you, for the gardeners know no rest.
Do not struggle to end your suffering, as the dryth-ka-den did.
It is impossible to make the world suffer as you do, under you--but the attempt of it is one path to enlightenment. Do not hate your suffering, for it is precious and the foundation of our House. Take it with you, instead, like a lover, into the night air, and from it fling curses into the face of the gods.
]]>Love is not married to love. Love is not married to affection, but to Will.
Just as the physical act of love, among mortals, produces a like kind, so also do all acts of love, among all things, exist to reproduce.
The labours of love, all, are expressions of Will: hammer blows, hoes hacking at the stony earth, or the gentle impression of the potter's fingers. The servants of the old gods will tell you that to hate a thing, to fear a thing is to wish to change it; I say to love a thing is to desire a shape for it, and cause that shape to be. By love, we settle the destinies of our children, draw the borders of empires, distort the rawness of a tree into a table, a chair, a cart, or a throne.
They will tell you, 'To control a thing is not to love it; be changed by the things you love instead.' I say there are many Wills in the universe, and thus all things change constantly: pity you if your Will should be the weakest among them.
They will tell you, "Love is always gentle, love is always kind." I say that to be subject to the desire for affection is to reproduce only the shape of animals.
They will tell you, "A lover's voice, if they truly love, will tell no lies." I say do not warn the tree that the axe is coming, lest it shy from the stroke. Instead, as you hew away, praise it for the future you have offered it, and sing to it hymns in honor of its pain, that it might be encouraged.
]]>One thing more:
All chains have two ends. The roles of the captor and the captive are, in the end, indistinguishable.
]]>No one has been sleeping at my door.
So I went out, trudged old trails through the city, ones I used to follow compulsively in search of any sign of old faces, old voices, walking memories. I went again where they would go: the dark alleys, the dank quarters lax on law and mute to oppression. (But now there is a treaty, says Our Lady in White--it brings me everything but peace. Probably my own fault: couldn't put my paranoia to rest with a hammer and a shovel. The spies are everywhere, hunting me even in my own wood, eyes like fish: dead and unblinking, biding their time.)
The rain started as soon as I entered the Southern Gate, as if in reaction to my presence, as if it would wash me away, if it could. It's rare that I take a child. They terrify me, so inhumanly small and stupid, prized by their dens above all else, stinking of hidden futures that cannot be nearly guessed. But took him I did anyway. He was kicking stones at the back wall of the forge house at an unreasonable hour, flushed with his own boistrousness, giddy and rediculous. I'd like to think it was the anxiety that prompted me, that I was pressed on by some weight of current events (there is no one sleeping at my door, thought for sure she'd come hounding me for an explaination), but it was just the same old hunger biting at my throat. Nothing new or unusual, except perhaps its intensity. He let me right up to him, the stupid thing, didn't even react until the blood was running. His mother probably hits him.
He did scream eventually, his shriek a complaint against me using something as dull as my own teeth (seemed wrong to use a knife, inappropriate). I even covered his mouth. It caught me by surprise, although in retrospect that makes very little sense. As much as I took I was shocked that he could still move. His little feet rushed him stumbling home like a drunkard, like a wounded squirrel to die (I imagine) in some filthy hole. He tasted terrible. I should have washed him first, drowned him.
It gave me nightmares. I heard, the next evening, that someone had flayed a whole orphanage. Turns my stomach to think of it, all those children in one room. The culprit must be made of iron.
And the old tailor has died, the one that sold me these clothes so long ago. I should get new ones. I have decided I will attend his wake, mostly for fun. Fun is in short supply, these days.
Spring is over, though it only lasted a handful of nights. I think I slept through most of it. I thought that surely she'd come to show me her anger, at least. Perhaps the blow Our Lady in White had dealt her was a killing one. I've yet the chance to find out, heard nothing. I shall have to go out again and ask.
]]>It's not that there are more people, no--just more activity. I am reminded of how dogs rush to play, froth like pups in the advent of their own demise. I doubt its really the same thing (even dog's wisdom seems to have been bred out of men).
New life: lines and nets scrounge the rivers for fish, axes ring against the trunks of knarled trees, merchants scream wares and the taverns are full, always full to overflowing.
I feel out of place. I feel no new life. So I keep to the darker holes in town, as I often have, avoiding the notice of this rush to action. The eye of feverish action. I catch lovers necking in quiet corners, even in the dank. They are all strangers, somehow, though I've been here for what might as well be forever.
Strangers but for Jirand. I spotted him out on a stroll--not in th dank, but the bright center, in the shining, sickening flurry (of course, he wouldn't be caught dead on the paths I often tread). He looks older, I think. It's hard to tell. One looses perspective. I had half a thought to stab him as I said hello, just for old times' sake--but oh, mad as I am, I'm brighter than that. I'd think I'd like to watch him grow old. A little older, anyway.
We had words, old Jirand and I, but really said nothing. I fear there's not much to say, which might imply that I'm losing my touch (no fingers in any pies).
So. There's murmurs and fears and motion: not much changes. Still she asked me for a solution. Magic. I wonder at a trap, as I tend to. I wonder still what she meant. More conversation is on the plate, I think. A parlay.
Let it come, let it come, the time (etc., etc., etc.)...
]]>
Let lights be snuffed out;
He comforts us with darkness.
Let truth shout itself hoarse;
He reveals to us mysteries.
Let armies march against us;
He buries us beneath secrets.
Let armies hunt our footprints;
He has already carried us away.
Let the dead mourn for the dead;
He draws all our paths to life.
Let Annwn reach across the river;
He is fire to her fingertips.
Let your anger be set against me,
Let your fear smoulder like an offering,
Let your sword shake in your hand;
In mine He dwells, covered in stale blood.
That weapon (that weapon, dear jury) is a step down a spiral staircase that cannot end, a monster from a more ancient hell--it bites both sides, inevitably. Fear is far more dangerous to the wielder, if held improperly.
Which is exactly the face of my confusion: she doesn't seem to understand. 'Not for you,' she said, 'not yet.' But it will be, must be, of course. For all of us. Each one. The gods haughtily endorse genocide in a war where not all parties can be killed. And they call me mad.
But there are other concerns in my schedule, on my list:
'Who are you, and why have you come to this place?' they asked.
'I am not bound to the earth, as the grasses are, so the wind has blown me here.' replied the Prophet.
From the ramparts, the Queen of the tower saw all this occuring and commanded that the stranger be brought to her. Having no reason to resist, Kvaell'adyr went willingly, and was ushered into a hall of iron and onyx, where symbols of Fear and Fury where inscribed in patterns on the floor. Therein also was the Queen, who spoke to him in the language of Tye--though she was human--as was her custom:
'You are of the Cursed, I know, and the smell of the Eighth Way is on you. You have come down from the House of Kin to my door, and I wonder why.' She spoke like this always, making statements in place of questions, commanding in place of questions.
'I am not bound to the earth, as the grasses are, so the wind has blown me here.' repeated the Prophet.
'A thing of your powers should have a master, lest they destroy everthing.'
'My master is Vengeance and Destruction.' replied he, knowing already what the Sorceress had in mind.
'There is a city to the south, and they are at war with me only because they fear me, and I am at war with them because they have stolen from me a great artifact. You will be the representitive of my wrath. Go there and meet with my captain.'
So saying, she gave him a symbol of her authority, so that he would be recognized, and sent him to a place in the tower that had been prepared for him. She gave him also gifts: the blood of the servants of his choice, and items of wealth from her storehouse.
These things meant nothing to the Prophet, but he took them silently, staying as guest in the tower until he was ready to leave.
]]>So I went out. I found the world not so different, passed a wretch sitting in the muddy rocks near the waterfall. For the sake of my own good humour, I warned her that she was trespassing. 'Let beasts be taken by beasts' she groaned -- I am perhaps a monster, but I am no beast, and as such I let her be; my mark, my meal, was wandering somewhere in the city, and not soaking in the forest filth.
And Telantha, which is indeed the whole world, I found not to have aged much, but for the tighter grips, perhaps, of a desperate monarch and a failing war, their pressure draining colour from the faces in taverns and squares. Rumours like copper leaves were tossed about my feet as I walked through the market district, dropped from the inhabitants of closing stalls -- talk of rampant crime, of battles won and lost, of failing wealth and a new nobility (half-hearted and weak). As I entered the square, it was towards me that the voices began to direct themselves, calling me by name. And the voices asked questions that were impossible to answer; all that I had left to do was laugh and move along, pausing only to offer some of them sanctuary.
It was the least that I could do.
]]>I will reply: 'Even in famine, who does not seek to feed themselves? Would each of you give up your plate, all along the line, so that the poorest wretch among you is handed more than he could eat?'
And I will reply: 'To feed you chaos from the end of a blade is a reminder. Vengeance is a check and a proof. Even as I share in your misery, I can add to it.'
And I will reply: 'The king points his finger at the abyss and slams his gavel; do not hunt us too well, less the abyss slam its gavels back. The gods you worship are cruel, and not infallible.'
And I will reply: 'I was sure, for a moment, that she had forgotten; I shall blame it all on bad dreams.'
]]>"I still think we could take it straight off board," Sara said beside him. She sat mirroring his posture: feet drawn in, elbows on knees: "How many of them'll stay on there tonight?"
Gammel lent her a critical look. She was too pretty. She spilled too much blood. More of a thug than a proper thief -- but anyway he couldn't do it himself.
"I don't like it. We should just dig it up after they bury it."
"She said not to be grave robbers. Got to get to it first," the woman insisted, which made Gammel clench his teeth, shake his head.
"I don't care."
"You do, liar." She smiled, but without joy. (I admit these are the trappings of fiction; I knew these two for so very short a while. I know not even their names.)
Gammel set his sight back to the ship, hoping it was apparent that he was working out his thoughts. The gangplank was down, and more men had come to unload the nondescript bundles and boxes and sacks that sat in piles on the deck. But she had been summoned up again into his mind, that terrible woman in white. Her voice had been like icicles. Her eyes were cold ashes. Corroded blood had clung to the beds of her fingernails. Gods, she was an evil thing, and she had said very clearly some will come for it, take your prize before it is buried, grave robbing is most unclean.
"They've come a ways," Sara continued to argue her line of thought, as if she were reading his, "and who knows how many'll come to fetch the damn thing, or where they'll store it then, in what locked-up vault or funerary hall. But that's tomorrow, and here it'll be sitting with only a few watch for the whole ship. Everyone else'll be in tavern. You know it."
She was right, of course. And it bit. He wanted to see what would happen to the box between now and then, but he knew it wasn't wise. If it belonged to a lord, it would be guarded better by the lord's men. And there it was.
"Alright," he grimaced, "You're right," and put his dark hands around either side of his own neck, linking his fingers behind. And having capitulated he found himself in the black waters where no moon watched aside the high, round hull of the ship in his black little boat with his companion, sure that they had not yet been seen.
They scaled it with the tools of their trade, and heard once on deck nothing but the slow creak of the wooden beast, the breathing of its wet ropes. They moved quickly and quietly towards a low door that they hoped would lead in. But on its own it began to open, and Sara fled, crouched, to the opening side, pulling from her jerkin a piece of steel. Gammel watched her leap forward when the opening was just wide enough, and heard the sailor gurgle instead of scream. He went in after them, shut the door behind him. A single lamp lit the the cramped entry, and beneath it Sara let the man slide down the wall where she had stabbed him, let him slip awkwardly down the stairs, clutching still his throat. They stepped over the dying and followed the steps into the hold.
The box was easily found, the hold mostly empty.
"We'll take it with us. We'll lower it off the side in a life boat," Gammel stated, but Sara was already prying at the lid.
"Want," She said between nails, "to see it here first. Let's get the stone."
She was right again, and so he helped. They removed the lid, and froze.
"It's just another corpse, woman," growled the thief, but he was slow to touch it himself.
He was beautiful, she thought. The man lying in the box could be no more than twenty years and perfectly formed. He had the complexion of porcelain, yes, but not the blue cold of a corpse. "He's not dead." What made her say that? He must be.
"Well, he's not breathing," Gammel pointed out, "He must have just died."
"This ship's been on the sea for a month, Gammel. He didn't just die."
"Doesn't matter," said the old thief, "If his mouth is empty then we got the wrong box." He tugged on the corpse's narrow chin, which acquiesced easily. On his tongue was a stone, rough and blue, like an uncut jewel. He took it, held it up to show the other. "And there it is." He put it away in a pocket.
"Let's go. We've got it now," Sara begged without subtlety. (I remember it distinctly. Her voice was the first that was real).
"She wants the corpse, too, she said. All of him. We can't..."
"Fine," she turned swiftly away, "Let's find a way to get it down the side."
"Len bhzur," I said, forgetting my tongue. It stopped them cold, I think. They had nearly made it to the steps. No one bothered me while I crawled out of my wooden tomb. I found it difficult, fell to the floor. When I looked up, the female had a dagger in hand. The old man was gripping his wrist, eyes simply bulging. She took a step forward, and I knew she had made up her mind -- the man tried to stop her with a word, but I knew she would come (she would have to make me a corpse again, for her world to make sense). I found my feet beneath me, caught her wrist as she thrust the dagger out, took it away from her easily enough. I decided she should have it back, so I turned her to the floor and sheathed it in her throat.
I know not whether he watched me feed, or if he had already run. Could I have been paying attention? Oh, the wood was real -- so real -- beneath us and her life was running hotly into my mouth and its essence flooding the blood gate (awake awake awake). I heard a splash as I got to the deck, and saw the sea.
The sea was black and went on forever. Even when the suns would rise, the bottom of the sea would know no light, for ever and ever it would remain unchanged. The sea cannot die.
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