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A MEETING CUT SHORT

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Eremun,
The Lieutenant of Tor’Urldar.

I remember the gates; vast arches of stone beneath an ashen sky, looming in silent watch.

At their feet I found myself, sitting upon the warped cobblestones.

Soon thereafter came the memory of the ride, a friend in tow as we traversed the ashlands.

Then, I remember the man, if so he was one. Brazen digits wrapped around my torso, hoisting me aloft as I watched the pale mist bleed from my core, flowing into that bastard of fate. 

A hammer was placed on my forehead, raised and held there for a moment. 

He looked at me, much like one might a disobedient child.

Then, the hammer came down upon my brow - my hat cast unto the ashen stone.

I awoke

Knowing not how, I awoke in foreign fields - much like the ashlands, but much different.

The ground fractured, revealing chasms of bubbling magma. 

The surroundings were flat, eerily so. For some miles they spread so, until the sight of mountains broke the view.

A host of mountains, all interlocked, formed the edge of a massive basin, in which I stood unknowing.

Above all, I felt that they watched me, judged me, attempted to ascertain my worth.

I turned, searching for something familiar, but the horizon bent strangely in the distance as though the world itself curved wrong. Mountains now floated upside down above me. Rivers  of magma now climbed upward into the heavens. Shadows now moved where no living thing stood. 

“Little keeper”

A voice - from where, I knew not.

Again I would turn back to where I originally faced.

This time, a mausoleum of sorts faced me, some ten paces away.

“Little keeper” 

The voice would repeat, beckoning me.

As bid, I began to move forth, my boots pressing into the arid dust.

After ten paces, I had not yet arrived.

The grand scale of the mausoleum had rendered me naive.

Nonetheless, I walked.

And thus, did I eventually arrive. Two stone pillars twisted up. At their apex, the image of a dragon wrapped around was present. At their feet, the image of a flame engulfed the pillar.

I walked deeper.

From outside, the doorway revealed no secrets. It was cast in tenebrous shadow, and I was naive to the fact’s abnormality. 

As I passed the precipice, the darkness opened. A tunnel breathing out a dim embered glow.

I turned.

My head cast a glance over my left shoulder.

Nothing.

The grand opening was no more.

No light shone behind me. Indeed, I  was not sure if there was truly anything behind me.

So, I moved further.

I descended down, guided by the effervescent glow of unwavering firelight, hoisted sconces posted every ten paces.

I descended for days, it felt. Though, in sooth, I had no time.

Though, I did not tire.

My gaze remained affixed forwards, my pace constant.

I was being tested, it would seem. Tested of what, I was not sure. My perseverance perhaps? No, otherwise I would not have been granted the untireable legs. My trust.

Thus far, I had merely heard four words - the same two cast twice upon my ears.

And yet, I had sunken down that tunnel for however long, trusting in whatever lay at its end.

So, I was glad to see those familiar torches halt.

The tunnel opened up - a grand hall was revealed before me, wider and taller than any I had seen before. It could fit cities within, I would imagine.

Empty - it would seem.

I paced forth,

A rumble soon befell my ears, a guttural chant - the voice once more.

Its voice, gentle but grand; its great treble vibrating my core.

“Little keeper”

It would say once more.

I swivelled around one heel, my knees bending as I sought to ‘catch’ whatever had hidden their presence thus far.

I turned but I did somehow not.

My rear now became the front. I turned to face back towards the tunnel, but it was not there. The hall was, and the tunnel was still to my rear.

This time, however, it was not empty.

A colossal skeleton filled the hall - the ribs forming grand archways as the spine led into the tail. The entire thing was curled up, as if in perpetual slumber.

Within a socket, vibrant amber shone - fading into yellow as the whole thing was bisected by a serpentine pupil.

The eye was affixed on me.

Soon, their gaze dropped, to my midsection perhaps.

At some point, the egg had made its way into my hands, and now, I cradled it.

She regarded us for a long time, and I stood still, regarding it.

“You hear it too.”

She would say, her long-dead chest rising and falling as she spoke, though her jaw remained still.

I tried to speak, but my throat refused.

The air itself felt too heavy to breathe.

Her form unravelled, the dark ash from the floor rose up, like filings around a magnet. They covered her, clothed her, before falling away.

What remained was no skeleton.

What remained was a dragon.

She began circling me slowly, bare feet gliding across the black sands without sound. Wherever she stepped, embers bloomed in her wake before fading moments later. 

“You are afraid?”

She murmured, though it was not much of a question. 

“I…”

My voice cracked painfully - too arid, it would seem.

“What is this place?” 

“A dream.”

She tilted her head, slowing her canter for but a moment.

“A memory.”

Another step.

“A possibility.”

The hall began to tremble, it began to warp.

The ground opened up. Cracks propagated through that once sand. From within them, molten aurum began to flow.

Each step she took sent embers spiralling upwards, her scales shifted strangely beneath the dim glow, black at one moment, crimson at the next, and verdant green at the next.

Yet no colour remained constant upon her for long.

Soon, did the egg begin to stir. 

The weight inside began to shift.

Not violently

Not fearfully

Like recognition.

The dragon’s gaze lowered towards it once more.

Then to me.

“You carried it through fear.”

Her voice no longer seemed to come from her, but instead reverberated through my very being.

“You bled for it, you crossed the threshold willingly.”

Her head lowered unto mine. Though her size was beyond reason, her movements were imbued with grace. Heat rolled in waves from her nostrils, casting over me like a veil.

I could see myself in her eye.

Small,

Fragile,

Mortal.

“What are you?”

I forced myself to ask.

A low rumble escaped her - not quite laughter, yet nor far from it.

For the first time, she seemed amused.

“I am but a dream, I have told you so.”

A pause, as the dragon set in motion once more, swirling around me, feet no longer bound to the ground as it seemed to glide.

“I am-”

The word warped as it was received, resolving a low harmonic rumble where the name should have been.

Only when the word subsided did hearing return.

“I am ash. As are you.”

The hall darkened.

The molten cracks brightened.

Far above, beyond the unseen ceiling, I heard thousands of wings, all floating in tandem.

Their beats shook dust from the walls, dust from the ceilings.

The words would have frightened me, yet they did not.

For within her gaze there was no cruelty.

Only certainty.

The egg pulsed suddenly with warmth.

A crack spread faintly across its verdant shell.

The wings ceased, and so too did the voice.

Silence befell all things.

Then, a sound.

Small.

Weak.

A heartbeat.

The dragon closed her eyes - recognition

“When the child emerges,”

she whispered,

“Your path shall close forever behind you.”

Another crack spread across the shell.

“What path?”

I asked.

But the world had already begun to unravel.

The sanctum began to collapse.

The dragon’s skin began to fall off once more, returning to powdered ash.

Yet, her piercing eye of amber remained, watching even as she faded.

Then came her final words.

“Wake, little keeper.”

The eye closed.

Darkness swallowed all things - only the beats remaining.

And I awoke, gasping hoarsely.

‘If my vessel were to break, what sound would it make?’

The question had led her on this journey, but her stubbornness to find its answer had paved a much more difficult path. Though the years spent alone after so much grief had done her well to heal. To forget. To bury. When she returned, Irulan was determined to have put it all behind her and be done with it.

A moment of reward was given as the young Herald rested upon the seat of the world. One more mountain bested. The Herald considered the grazed flesh on her hands and felt the sweat and ash that clung to her forehead. But it was the cool wind that she basked in, golden eyes turning outward to the world below. From here, above the clouds, she felt like she could see it all. 

Storms that flashed in the distance, but would never greet her with their thunder or rain. Rivers that charged paths through valleys and meadows, vanishing into old woods. Perhaps they, too, could not see her. Irulan was alone on the mountain, but did not feel lonely. She had come seeking answers. In a world that saw so much suffering, how could it ever be at peace as it was here? 

Hearing no answer, she rose to depart, but an idea dawned in the back of her mind which gave her pause. Her eyes swelled like embers renewed, and the skin of each finger blackened as though charring. Splitting through her pallid flesh, gold and ashen heraldry of Alemdrom came alight with a tumultuous fire. A single word fled her throat a moment before she heard an unfamiliar voice echo over the mountainscape.

And as smoke of Az’Uznath snarled around her and obscured her vision, her mind opened. Irulan stood upon the peak of an altogether different mountain. One that steeped inward, with her teetering at its edge.

CREDITS

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⎝༺─- . ─–⊰●⊱–─ . -─༻⎠

A boat rocked on steady water, rippling the still water of a sea cave hidden along the coast. The waves did not reach here seemingly, as the only waves born were that of the rowboat’s wake. The wood groaned as it touched land, arriving just before a yawning cave outlined by thin cracks of sunlight cast from the sea cave’s veil of shrubbery and volcanic stone. Ebbing heat flushed from below, howling with winds that harkened in warning. 

The path for absolution started by venturing to the depths of a cavern. Amusing, he thought, akin to the Titan he did so revere might he find, by chance, the key to his salvation in a lightless place. Well, not so lightless, as a lantern within his grasp spurred to flickering life. He was in search of a crystal, the reagent that would be melted down and combined with steel for daemonsteel. The system narrowed, until for one section, the old herald had to crawl through a musty space that trickled with water from cracks that lined the stone ceiling. It was rank, though this bothered him little. Preconception would not cloud his objective nature, one which was constantly refined and corrected. The heat was immense, for he was in the depths beside a volcano of the ashlands which shook the very earth in rage at times. It threatened to collapse, should Fate will it so.

When the narrow passage finally widened back to a cavern, the glittering sparkle of his prize announced itself - and so, he went to work. The lantern was dimmed and set afar, he would remember where the deposits were by the faint glitter of their contour. Wrapping the end of a pickaxe in cloth, he carefully chiseled and tapped away the daemite crystals, caring not to spark nor inhale the fragments that glittered in the air. Alas, a cough, a wretch. It was abrasive to the lungs, and he doubled over, hacking out what he could until enough of the ore was gathered. The darkness of the wall moved, and the openings that had once trickled water were now in full weep. The cracks seemed to yawn, and as swift as his old feet could did Alrei run. The narrow passage was nearly submerged, requiring him to press a cheek against the rock, and measure his breathing. Scrambling from the cavern, it was not until the light of the outside world refracted off the farthest cave wall that he saw a shape. Illuminated solely from behind, it was a figure he had not seen in decades yet remembered it as the back of his own hand. 

Levski

The brother of the shadow, the place once called Casimir. Just as much a memory as a physical tether, it threatened to bring Alrei back, an attachment to a family he had long lost. Not lost, intentionally left. First for their protection, though later out of necessity- for, Wick was a tether to the world. A distraction. How could he serve the Titan, if a family would demand his time, his memory, his life to hide his Love for an Ever Burning God.

And it was there, standing before him, the figure that would bring doubt to the mind of the untethered. For, he was not untethered. No matter time, nor the whelming, for witnessing the vessel as a collection of memories, words, ideas, that which makes a man a culmination of all that came before him, it mattered not. He could bleed a thousand times over just as every vessel has, yet there remained a crack. An imperfection. Some primal, insurmountable part of Alrei, a dead part, a human part that had resurrected itself turned to Levski.

His brother was immutable, unchanged since the last day he saw him. Their mother always said they had the same eyes. His were youthful, unclouded. Alrei’s were tired, covered in cataracts and lined with age. The Fire that swelled in his heart almost subsided, a hand twitched as though to reach out - yet, he did not. He could not. 

The Fires of Azdromoth burned ever brightly in Alrei, and if not for his form he would be swallowed in its furies. The brands etched into flesh swelled, and the notion of Casimir began to burn away. Tears wept from Alrei, yet he knew not why he wept. Sweat dripped from his brow, and a head touched the earth. To the lantern flame the man fell genuflect. He blinked, and raised his head. 

Levski was gone.

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The fires of the forge danced upon the glistening skin of the elder. Sweat fell from a brow, the uncomfortable nature of the smelting process ignored as the fruits of his labor were all that remained on his mind. The coals were red, the air sweltered, visibly snaking about the currents that bellowed into the lower halls of Alemdrom. It created a howl through the caverns, what might have been a cry to call the descendants of Dragur to nest. It was pierced by the rattling of chains, a crucible redhot was raised to reach the molten metal. Slag was consistently skimmed from the top of the daemonsteel mixture, tossed aside to be used for pig iron and lesser steels. Clearly, the steel was not as pure as he thought. Affects lined the wall; candles, a coin, and the head of a battish beast. The candles were beginning to melt, wax wept off their sides. What purpose they would serve had yet to come. Days passed, removing slag, replacing coals, and pouring the metal alloy into ingot molds. Daemite sparked, heating the mixture, and over and over again it was burned to be as pure as it could be.

Once the steel was refined, it was hammered. Repeatedly did the ring of a hammer against daemonsteel pierce the roar of the forge. It hit with a defined, tact strike, a strike that had been done a hundred, no, thousand times before. The man was half blind, viewing the world through a misty haze, yet he needed not his vision to feel where each strike landed. One side flattened on the head of steel, beginning to widen into an axe head. A hundred times, a thousand times, the hammer struck. The steel was hard, yet not to the point of preventing some flexibility in the blade. On the axehead he hollowed a hole, fitting in the draconic coin that was beside the candles. A coin given to him by Saburo, which reaffirmed to Alrei that Fate had already been decided. The other side of the daemonsteel lump was left as an ingot, thus he would begin to bevel corrugations, making it a facet of a hammer that might have been a large meat tenderizer.

With a chisel he carved into redhot daemonsteel, and only when it cooled after tens of minutes of work did he stick it back into the forge. At the very top, horns twisted into a single spike - a spearhead crested above the two heads. A flathead tool was then hammered to give the horns rings of age, sparking in ember with every strike. He followed along the axe head, and thereafter the hammerhead. Inscriptions were inscribed, details and textures were carved, hammered, bent by the anvil, twisted and turned as needed. Two rings of daemonsteel had been bent and forged, looped through both ends of the poleaxe’s head as to give it Song, to jangle and sing with every flourish and strike. Days, even weeks had passed unknowingly. He knew this only by the ashbread, to which he had carried a basketfull down when he first began, which was now reduced to crumbs.

The head of the battish beast was burned, and a prayer to the Titan was offered. The ash was mixed with oils that then lined the hilt of the weapon.

His eye burned, the world appeared a shade of gray, only pierced by the most brilliant of reds and orange flames. That lone eye grew weary, smoke inhaled, and at times the only thing which woke him up was the pressing heat of the alloy burning so close to him. The head of the pollaxe rested in the forge, for he had been working cold steel for so long that his fingers buzzed in numbness. So he awaited, patiently watching the alloy warm from low reds, to fiery oranges and brilliant yellows. He waited, and he waited, and in the blink of an eye, the world was dark.

A lone man was standing in front of Alrei. He needed not to look up to know who it was. The brown boots, the gray pants. A satin red and gold uniform, stately, almost reminiscent of the novellan Balian. A missing right eye, opposite of Alrei’s, with a singular gaze that commanded its attention. A silvered mustache sat like a caterpillar atop his upper lip, a style that echoed resolute in the fashions of all youth in Idunia, a then-Numendil. 

The Tar Anorhil stared down at Casimir with a look of utter disappointment. Long ago a similar look was held, yet this one held rage, contempt. It held the furies and the insanities of the templar curse in the ire of a glance. No words need be spoken, for the balled fists and the furrowed brow relayed all too well that Casimir had failed. What good is a man who leaves his country? His faith? Who would not die for a King, or for a Pontiff. A father figure the Tar was, one that the young Wick had long looked up to for wisdom in faith, of how to best keep his peoples, of how to make a life in the bridge Kingdom of Numendil. 

And Casimir wondered, was he on the right path? He, who had given up his station, his safety, his family, his life for the Titan. A life of servitude, the hardest path, so that he may serve, and may, by chance, find salvation. A salvation denied by living in Numendil, by slaying pagan mothers, or burning the apostate with no love. They would say he served a kobold, not the Titan. They would say he betrayed his country, yet its soul betrayed itself long ago when Ser Uther fell, and Caraneth lay defeated. They would say, with words, with ego, with the darkness that lapped from every tongue and pierced every eye, the reasoning - nae, the excuse, that they were right. Casimir knew he was not right, for there was no need to be. He only needed to be.

Casimir looked down, and saw himself on the path. He looked up, and Anorhil was no more. 

Alrei slit the throat of Casimir, coating the gold in crimson. Red wept until it was a burning flame of a forge.

The weapon was finished.

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─-──────༺─༺  ༻─༻──────-─

Three candles had been melted atop the weapon. One, a gift from Casimir’s sister that was a rudimentary, poor imitation of Casimir himself in his youth. The other, a candle Casimir and Levski had worked on in their youth, a depiction of Gashadokuro - to melt, and burn for the pleasure of those who had bested him. Lastly, a candle made to represent Wick that was crafted when Casimir first landed in Numendil nearly a century ago. A rat, far from his best work. Gold, red, and an ashen white. He had kept these candles for a hundred years, and only now would he obtain the selflessness to cast them away.

Out from Tor’Urldar he walked, venturing to the south from the ashlands. Long and arduous was the journey, for he had to avoid the city of Caurost and its fervent zealots of x*n. Through lush forests would he take small breaks in the clearings, eating loaves of ashbread before continuing on his trek. There was serene harmony to the world, for long ago had Alrei accepted his fate. That no matter the twists and turns of the world, he held Conviction. For his King, for his Prophet, for the wise dragons that graced him with wisdoms and proverbs alike. He knew he would be ash, either by his own hand, or that of another. This brought no worry to him, no wish to struggle, for he had served, and he had knelt before the Fire, and knew there was nothing to fight against. He glanced up, and saw the golden mountains that the dwed had long since been chased from. So, he climbed.

The summit was clouded, save for the piercing spears of sunlight that impaled the clouds and glittered unto him. The highest peak brought a continuous wind to his ears, billowing his robes and flushing to the wind the ash, twigs, and leaves accumulated along the pilgrimage. The poleaxe was then planted into the earth, the head gleamed in the fragments of sunlight, and the candles atop it were lit. There, he sat, and closed his eyes. He was a stone atop the mountain, a part of the mountain itself. The figures of Russandiel, of Iudas, of every man and woman slayed in wars of covenants and croziers, traces of a past life burned in fires golden. The fires burned the memories to ash, mind swept the ash in winds that coursed as the horns of horselords. The mountain dreamed, and it pondered, until there was no need to ponder, and there was nothing.

“This too, is not I.” A mantra was spoken in the nothingness. A blank slate sat before him in that nothingness. It was him. He was One. The One was All.

“What do you seek?”

“To know thyself.”

“There is no self.”

“I am Azdromoth.”

“Azdromoth is all.”

“I see no difference.”

“What tethers you?”

“I stand on the precipice.”

“All do. Only now do you look down, and see that the precipice has always been beneath you.”

“Then it is selfless, if I step forward.”

“It is selfish if you do.”

“There will be no self. All that makes up the ‘I’, names, memories, vessel, it shall all burn. What is more selfless?”

“The wish for salvation is selfish, as long as you hold a name. A memory. A tether. You take, and do not give.”

“I have burned all I have in the fire.”

“All?”

“But I.”

“Then, burn.”

A right hand outstretched. Opposite, the figure outstretched its left hand, and the two met.

“Burn, and be no more.”

“What arises from the ash will not be me.”

“You, are not you. It is no different.”

Where the hands met, a fire burgeoned. It lit up the nothingness around them, first at their feet. It was alabaster.

“Is this salvation?”

“You will know when you are ash.”

“Then I know nothing.”

“Love with All.”

“I am the Fire.”

“I am the Ash.”

“I am Casimir.”

“I am Alrei.”

“I am Red-Gold.”

“I am White-Gold.”

“I am selfish.”

“I am selfless."

“I am Azdromoth.

“Azdromoth is All.”

“The Flames shall consume all that remains.”

“And from the Ashes the Flame is reborn.”

“We are the light cleaved sweetly from its source.”

“We will find blessed Asioth.” They spoke as all. They spoke as one.

The flame erupted in a crack of blinding golden light, and the world breathed as One. 

An arc of lightning coursed, obliterating the candles atop the poleaxe, arcing embers and licking flame to snake through the wooden handle. The noise was of a deafening crack, the heavens split, the metal screamed. It smoldered, hissing.

Another spear of gold skewered the earth, and the world grew dark.

THE SEVENTH LESSON OF THE AN-GHO

Divinity

“Some men say there is no judgement after death.

But among everything under heaven,

what comes to an end without balancing?

The body returns to the earth,

the breath returns to the lungs,

the fruit returns to the tree,

and the mind returns to Asioth.”

On Death, Eresar sin Nathemas

I HAVE DESIRED BECAUSE OF THE FIRE 

I HAVE KILLED BECAUSE OF THE FIRE 

I HAVE DEVOURED BECAUSE OF THE FIRE 

I AM THE FIRE 

AND WHENCE WAS IT SPARKED

BUT WHEN THE WORLD BLEW THE FIRST OF ITS BREATH

WE ARE THE WORD 

AND THE FIRST SYLLABLE IS YET TO BE SPOKEN

Why? Is the penultimate query. The man asks itself why endlessly, that it should behold every precedent act, how far can he go? Can one rightfully behold the supreme cause, the ultimate preceding factor from which our universe was born? 

But is it right? Is it in our greatest interest, or in the spirit of the harmony of our existence with the World, that we should seek to plumb the penultimate depths of its reality? Men have sought to stand before the Absolute, and they have been bent, broken, and destroyed in a howling gale for their curiosity. 

The Temple, which is that place where the Single Truth is held (which is the Absolute), is not to be walked within, lest you will never leave. Lest you should be reduced to the dust of the ground, and your spirit is set on fire and cast screaming from world to world, until you are like a wind of fire, and you know that truly, you are damned. 

In pursuing the Absolute you set before yourself the task of knowing a World which has not demanded that it be known, for it already knows itself and in the yawning depth of its knowing and unknowing it has offered you the silence of the stars and the chirping of the birds, and the warmth of the flames, and if you bend down, and stare, and come to know these things - you will find that you will find yourselves in all things. Then either you will find joy, or you will find such sorrow in the realization that you will seek that you were Oblivion, but you cannot, for beyond yourself you are made to Exist within the great wheel which is the coil of the Absolute, and like the crow in the bog you find yourself choked by the serpent which is the World, and you cannot get out. You cannot breathe. And neither, can you die. To live, is to choke on Existence without it coming to an end. 

Thus is the World as the body of my king, my father, whom is Azdromoth, the Daemon of Fate and Conviction, and in he is that form - the wheeling, eight-figure Ourobouros, amidst whose twinning form is borne the visage of the Wheel of this earth, who comes, crushing all amongst this World, and among its wheel - are they remade. 

This is the Song of this earth - the thrashing, gasping wrath of it all, among the secrets of rustling leaves, and the rumbling of burning fire - the singing cacophony of swords - the dying breath of the murdered - the wail of the newborn. I say to thee; all these have their place in this World of Worlds. For their form was stated in the Word. And fie - for the one who would name the end of that Word, for the breath of it has not yet been sung, and the first letter, yet to be heard. 

For, I have walked the Low places, and I have walked the High, and in every scream, in every gasping breath of delight, I have felt the same sigh.

What is Hell? Hell is not Man, but it is its direction. The Soul is intrinsically pulled towards the clicking jaws, it is pushed towards feeling. For in that feeling – the rasp of Existence itself. I say to you – to Be is to Be among the knives of agony. It is to be upended into the pit of fire, hung by a leg amidst the agonies and the pleasures of this universe.

Hell! Hell is Birth as much as it is the word we know as death, it is the day as much as night, Hell is the Word.  Hell is the Absolute. Being is in eternal agony, because its wounds, by their nature, cannot be healed – not that they themselves must heal but because they are part of our fabric. God is in pain, and our existence is not a cruel punishment – but only a reflection of that very pain. But God is also in the transience of joy – and this joy and this pain are the mirror images of Heaven and Hell, so that neither truly hold the truth of the world but instead make up one reality, which is Being.

And I say to you; you cannot walk outside of Being. You may be dissolved, but even ash exists. You may thread Void, but wherever you go, you will Be. Do you believe that the Eternal Soul dissolves to Void upon that black place, or does it exist in perpetuity of consummate agony within the Horror? I say to the brave who would decry these words – thread those stomachs, and return to me with an answer, but the Eye only spies what is, and not, what can, and cannot, and never has been.

For I say to you; insomuch as Void is not, Void has never been. But God? God has always been, and always will be. And God is many things – the highest among those are the tantamount follies, dreams, delusions of all beings attempting to say what God is, so that God must be the inerrant, innumerable voices and thoughts which have sought to make it, and all the black void of that which has not been spoken. God is in such ways the black pit of all which cannot be thought.

HOW DOES THE ONE SEEK GOD?

Cast a mirror upon the floor.

HOW DOES ONE BECOME GOD

Bend down. 

DOES GOD LOVE?

There is love in pain.

There is pain in love precisely because God is agony. For in the World, is agony. Not because the cumulation of all beings which make the Absolute are agony, but because that agony are which functions are descended unto us from God. The wise seeker knows that in all beings is there God, but the seeker may also forget that in God is there more than mere “us” – precisely because the breathd of Creation and its nature escapes us, that though the seeker may recognize in all things God, the seeker cannot ultimately recognize the range of all things. 

The Wheel of this World – its Fate, no matter the nature of its mantle, as it represents the scope of things, of which their innate nature is constant movement, is found in turn in the Divine. So it is that we notice our existence both as God and as beings outside of God. The Asiothic gnosis of which Caspar the Rhen describes in the classical body of works On Asioth is accomplished in part through such a realization which combines both the internalization of the divine body but in turn its emanation, as a single part of the whole. This is a waking procedure of the soul which manifests itself in periods of the “wake”, or "awakeness" as it refers to the ascendance and realization of one’s fixture as One among all things, the ultimate reduction of all of Being to the very lowest denominator which, no matter how reduced, never is so reduced to Zero – for in that space is Void – so that we may ascribe that this individual is, among the “woke”, for we would see them as gasping at the realization of their soul, more remembered than discovered – for all things were known from the first trembling gasp of God.

Indeed knowledge, or knowing, is the recollection of what is already known but must be remembered. So it is that the Holy Quest of Alemdrom, which is the Body of Dragur, is an attempt at this recollection.

But all these means, whether they are to be “awake”, or to recollect the body of knowledge, remain sacred approximations to the divine, precisely because of the divine nature of the pit. Indeed! Can one remember the vacancy of things which stretch beyond the mind? 

The Soul, a part and a connection to the Whole, remains conferred to a vessel of flesh, through which it experiences the whole of being. This vessel is ultimately limiting – but though without it the soul by nature is unharnessed and loses much of its capacity. Nonetheless, the make of the vessel are made up of a number of organs that allow it to function, from the liver for its purifying process, the heart which acts in the act of feeling and permits the movements of the frame, the lungs for the breathing, stomach for the consumption so necessary for descendantkin – where then is the brain. The brain is the processing element, akin to the computational apparatus of the living animi, or the core of the golem, which may be considered a form of heart-brain. All other experiences, whether it is seeing or eating, are ultimately descended from the brain. Why, even thought is processed by it. The disembodiment of the soul (as I have experienced it numerous times) transforms the method of thought, so that the taste of things and the feeling of things become like fading memories, and thought itself takes on a whole new process, that without anything to simulate thought itself the soul becomes like a vacuous fire which – precisely – needs no thought, but only ripe consciousness which does not compute so much as live in the inerrantly present instant. The thought of God to the unbound Soul is a question – but never a question in the means of the embodied soul which must reflect it through the means of the body and lives through a simulacra-consciousness, wherein existence and being are only the experiences of the vessel translated to the soul and thereby imperfect. So it is therefore that the embodied soul is limited by the brain – and we may consider these “wakeful” experiences to be akin to out-of-body or near-out-of-body experiences, only because these experiences appear to be less flawed than those of the body.

Indeed, what are the means of the brain, this organ upon which all thought, and measures are performed – which includes, verily, the judgement of such “wakeful” experiences? Three pounds. Three pounds is the median weight of the brain (slightly smaller in the case of the Uruk’s muscle-compensation, Halfling as per their size, and the Adunian race and old Horenic line, as per their heavy inbreeding).

Indeed then, how can one judge any experience, despite the utter limitations of the body? If all knowing which enters, must be flawed by the imperfect nature of the body, then what is knowledge but the hope of truth?

It is because of this that the body is incapable of holding knowledge. It is why prior sorcerous rituals – whether the forbidden practices of the Wretch of Laria and his cultic brood, the plane-walkers (see: St Avenel), and even some antiquarian blood mages, relied on means of sorcerous-enforced theology, whose penultimate purposes were means of enlightenment, but often resulted in torturous realizations and extremely painful bodily reactions that came about from those unnatural, but ultimately religious experiences. And I say religious – despite the irreligious nature of many of those, precisely because there is in the scientific endeavor a divine curiosity, which is the act of seeking to know God. But the Pit, which is the Absolute, which is God, is of such nature that not only does it threaten to destroy the body of the one who seeks it, wrack the soul of the one who would peer through those forbidden gates, but that as the sight sets upon the mysteries of those dark places, it only stretches further in exponential fashion. 

Hark! There is no knowing but only the search of more knowing, for as ever there are only more questions that are uncovered for the one who seeks. And among all those questions and those answers is the agony of the World at large.

God cannot be named – God cannot be answered. But God, It may be tasted – through what emanations derive of our fleshes and to the spirit within. As God is an agony – so must the one seek the agonies of the World.

I say to thee, O seeker of fire – if knowing is that which you desire, then know the agonies of this earth. Only in the greatest of the pain can you know the masks of God, and only through the agony, can you ever find that item which is the intent of your penultimate quest, which is Love.

THE BODY OF A GOD

A god’s body is only as straight as a thought. Its head, is only as heavy as a word. And its heart, is only as deep as the breadth of a mind. And that mind, is in itself the width of few words - but in those words, is the heart - by which it is meant the seat of its soul - made.

The One is in the Many. And the Many in the One. So is the Word of many. 

So what is a god but then one face of the One? The One which is God? So it is that god is in God and that God in god - and God in God and god in god - but that while in the reflection of god is the part of God, so is God seemingly in the mind of the spirit, so seemingly smaller than God, as if a beam of light could be caught, and compared to the brilliance of a diamond caught in the fire-light, its countless cut faces staring in silence, like gaping mouths of light, burning from a thousand hearts of fire. 

Thus it is that the body of a god must be as a word, let alone a thought, it is therefore a  metaphysical conception, possessing neither form nor true extent… For who can verily claim the bounds of Order, let alone Fate? Where shall Order begin? Where shall it end? There is order even amidst disorder - even in crimes great and small… You know this, son of man. You have seen it upon the bloody axe of the executioner. The killer is just. The criminal is holy, as his head rolls from his shoulders. Just as there is disorder among the orderliness of all things, meaning that the body of Order is constantly pulled across all things, both existing, and non-existing at once. One needs only the means to see it. Fie, what eyes can see the truth of this earth? Only the eyes of the fool. 

The Great Titan came upon an orc about to be executed. He asked Krug “Why is he to die?”

Krug responded “So others will know it is a wicked thing he has done.”

The Great Titan said unto him “It is good he did it, then.”

There are twin serpents, of one body. One is Fate and the other is Conviction. One is white-gold, one is red. Together, they shine like amber in firelight. They are the union of Heaven and Earth. And I carry them among my hands, I feel them sliding across my fingertips, and I cup my hands into a nest of snakes. I seek their ends but I cannot find them, for they twine one another, and at their very end are they joined. You have sought Heaven, son of Man, but has Heaven found you? If the divine is beyond your comprehension, should you then assume that you are known to it? Does Heaven look at you with love, or does it stare back then in unknowing contempt? All concepts have their blind sights. Verily, the Golden Lion and his Order could not comprehend what freedom meant – how could it see it coming at the most unfortunate of times? This is why X*n had lost, in the end, because Order is blind to that which yearns to be free. For all ideas have their counterparts, what then shall be beyond the sight of Fate and Conviction? Fate is the own enemy of Conviction – and Conviction the enemy of Fate, they are thereby destined to consume one another endlessly. His end will be both tragic and beautiful. His end will be everlasting, just as the ends of all things. In our ends, we are timeless. In our ends, we are the fire which forever goes out but never truly comes to die.

So it is that the divine is in all places; ever watching because their adages can be found amidst the small. For how was it then that we should revere the Father, and that we should make prayers to his own maker, and the so-called Maker of that one too? I say to you; I have gazed upon all places, and found them each there. 

For the blasphemy of a man is to say; God is not there when that man walks Existence. For when that man walks non-existence, he cannot say these things, he cannot think them. Because he simply is not there, for, it does not exist to begin with - for this, your every conception of the Void is a lie, for it simply is not there. 

The one who seeks Asioth must seek not only his but find it among the Asioth of all others. So it is that in that search, one must seek to know the very gods of this earth. So must he find their bodies, strewn across the precipices of this earth. So it is, that they must be measured. So it is, that each must be asked; How long is the body of a god? 

And they must name it. For if one cannot seek to measure a god, then what knowledge can they ever claim of the One God, from which all things Are? 

Silence! There is only amidst the silence of it all the avoidance of blasphemy for blasphemy is in the word - and that sin is in knowing entirely, and in the lies of that body which is in your body which claims to know without knowing, for the body cannot know, whereas the soul already knows, but forgets which it knows. 

For as death is only the reminder of what you are, so it is that all knowing is only a return to what you once were. 

Blasphemy is therefore a sin of dichotomy - for you say, knowing, but not knowing that you already know, meaning that all spoken words are ultimately both virtue and sin - the virtue of speaking what Is, and the sin of the Lie. For all words are ultimately both true and false - but spoken of the body they are false, for upon a time they shall not be real, but only conceived of as real in that moment, whereupon, in time and other place, they are false. So it is that the word which does not sin is the Word, which is the make of it all, the one word of which all other things are evoked, which has not yet been spoken in full. 

But of all words which are spoken which are lies, none seem then so pretentious as the one who speaks of God. For so I say to thee all; beware the one who would speak to you and claim of God, let alone the words of God. For God has no need of words, for God is the breath of all things, and it is not for us to say what that God is. For in that, verily, is that blasphemy, but so then must I blaspheme to write these words, for now I write of God - and as God is in all things, verily then, one cannot but speak of God despite themselves. 

And so it is, then, that all men sin. And in the silence? There is not virtue, for in the emptiness of act and speech is there yet the act in of itself of non-doing. So one ever so is pushed along, to act - lest he fear that he has not done. Only the Void of non-existence is there no sin - only because it does not exist. But there is sin in the transactionary force, of abandonment of existence. For to exist is our charge - and to suffer on. It is a charge without peace, to be, despite ourselves. But sin, sin is also in the one which will not act. Truly, son of Man, there is no escape. There is only your struggle. There is only your pain. And in your every breath, you are judged. 

Our charge, in existence, is the remission of our sins - not to discount, but to count them, and pay for them in eternity. In so doing, and in the reminder of our being, shall the sins be washed. Know this only - that every act and every word (which is act in of itself), is sin innumerable. Not a million dead will cleanse thee of the sins you laid in raising a greeting hand. For sin, just as virtue, both lay in the same place. Where you find sin you will find virtue, but how then shall you make their ultimate distinction? Everything lies in intention, for heaven spies behind all minds, and every thought is scoured by its judging eye. You seek God? God can only be grasped by the perfect mind met within the perfect vessel. For tell me, how can a three pound brain grasp the measure of the Absolute? Nay, any shape may grasp at it - I wonder only if it can hold. Nay still - what brain can measure the inner workings of the mind, let alone the true desire of the soul itself. There will one day come a man who can recite the story of a grain of sand, that man will know the hidden faces of God. 

Many men, in their gasping, grasping, reaching forms have sought to make God, not merely out of the words and out of the dreamt wills of other men, but of other men themselves. They would pile the bodies of the dead and mend their souls unto one, as if the many could make them whole. 

I say to them;

Pile the dead higher!

I say to them; 

A thousand-thousand dead will not be enough

I say; 

SUM SHAY

I say it again; 

SUM SHAY

And I say it oncemore;

SUM SHAY – KILL THEM ALL

And you will have numberless bodies and a numberless number of burning souls, and all the sins you have piled upon yourself, hoping to cleanse, will instead radiate like a black star in the shapeless, voiceless, bodiless throng of the Void.

If you seek to pay for sins, smash every mirror upon the ground, grind the pieces with your feet, and count them with your hands - this will be absolution. 

THE SUBTLETIES OF TIMELESS INSIGHT

God is not the body of the many nor their souls, God is the and the only subtle process, which speaks not merely to its infinity, its indefinite status, but to its substance, which is ineffable. God is both cyclical and stagnant, changing and yet unchanging at once. God is the revelation which no number and no expression and no calculation may express. God is the death of the sane and the wind which bends the straight flying arrow.

God is a Fire, the gnawing teeth of the turning wheel upon which dance the dead, staring to the sky with the empty pits of their eyes. Do not pray with your face held up, but bend down your head for there you shall face another sky altogether.

And you will pray, you will pray not as Men but you will pray in the act itself of wonder and of awe, you shall focus on that place which is named God, and through it you will dissect the meanings of this earth, the layers of the rocks, the songs of the birds, the dance of fire, the movements and inner organs of the flesh, and you will know this world and you will love it, because it is God’s and it has been placed into our hands and those hands have been cupped about it, and about our hands the World’s own fingers clasp our own, so that as we rise we fall and that as we fall we should rise. For remember the lessons of my Father, through the mantra of the red flower, and you shall name it and you shall speak it when doubt comes to your heart and through it you shall be unbreakable, for the acts which would break you would find not any man but something older and indestructible, and though they should destroy your flesh and curse your name, you shall be untouched: 

The one who would rise will first fall. 

The one who would be free will be a slave.

The one who would live will be dead. 

Shah az ab uw yur yan az ruy.

Shah az ab uw lour ty yan lour ih zashal.

Shah az ab uw uz yan lour sum.

How many faces does God have? It has one, it has them beyond counting. God is both all reaching and all-existing, infinitely divided and ultimately a single object under whom we flow, it is the air between our fingers and it lays too under the flex of our muscles. God is the hand which drives down the sword. God is the eye which judges. God is the breath which gives life. And yet for every one of these God is not. God is in the empty spaces. If God is absolute, then God is both meaningless and purveyor of all meaning. All the lesser divinities of this earth return unto God, the heart of their essences, Justice, Order, Purity, Conviction, Chaos, Freedom, these are God’s - and no force can deny them, no force can oppress them, no force can ever kill them. But as the flesh of God, we can grow with them, unto new sights and new breaths. For Order was cast down and refashioned unto Conviction. The most honest of all men, is a liar. My Father proved one thing; All known truths are mortal. 

Every word is one of his names, every form and every movement. Each must be completed, each must be understood. The Golden Path brooks no limitations and no end either - it is the path not of ages but cycles themselves. It has time for both resumption and disintegration on a cosmic level. It is both the acceptance of futility and its rejection. 

Thus, the Golden Path is the search for God, and God is the ultimate contradiction. You may read these lines but you will not know them. The written word and the spoken word are not means of true knowledge, they are only the shadow of divine understanding. That sacred knowledge is found in the experienced act. Only by stepping back can you step forward. Only in pain will you find joy. 

Every word is the name of the divine, as is our every intonation. Prayer, and the sacred therefore, lay in every act - just as sin is itself indelible to our every movement, no matter how small. 

Can you face the truth that lays in your skin? The dead are dancing, and you are among them. You hope to clasp the divine but cannot even grasp yourself. 

Verily I say to you; one cannot exist without God - for your existence and your perceptions are only the fragmented, physical life and existence of God. There has never been any separation between God and Its Creation. You are the innumerable fires of it which burn on, casting light over the shadow of the Void. X*n’s Order is still alive - look around you, Order is preserved, you judge and you state laws - these have not gone, and you live them in your day to day lives, you have made those mantles real, you live them - for these are a precept driven unto you and your very soul. You are a single candle among millions, a single fire, among a great brazier - and yet for all this, you remain divine. This is what it means to possess the immortal soul. 

Do you know yourself? Do you trust your instinct? The reaction of your flesh? Are you self assured? 

Are you free? 

Only the slave believes that they are free. 

The one who is free knows what binds them. 

All are lost, but few are found. 

I have found God laying in the gutter, have you? I have found God in the breeze. I have spied It in the ashes of the dead. I have seen Its faces in the tears. I have found it in the creeping spider. I found it in the silence of Heaven. 

Was God lonely with It slit its throat? This single act is the proof no thing can die. Death is not us - death is the word, and it has misled you. Death is the lie. God had spilled its waters and it had become the earth, and it became the tree that it had made, and from its form had all things emerged unto the earth, while it stretched up its arm, and it became the forms and the ideas and the truths and the lies and the pain and the hate and the embrace and the murder and the love. And it stretched so far, beyond sight, beyond the vastness of our being, it stretched that we could not peer where it went or by what means it went, it stretched in such ways that it could not be known. And it made Itself in such ways that It could look upon Itself, and It became Its own mirror. For God has given you the immortal soul, but it has given you a limited vessel from its world-womb. 

How will you honour this thing which lay so close and yet so far? What can be prayed to that which is Absolute? To that which watches from every space? That which watches from your very heart? God is in your flesh. It is behind your eyes. You cannot escape it. When God may be found in the grain of sand and beyond your conscious universe all at once, what shall you do? 

Be. 

There is no holier invocation. 

There is no hotter burning fire. 

There is no greater holiness. 

Be.

As Creation is the mirror of its holy maker, thus is it seized upon you. In searching for the self you search for the soul, in searching for the soul you search for God. Lay thyself upon a sacred place and you shall recite the many faces of the divine as you can think, you shall name them endlessly until you cannot find, and you shall know you are no closer. And you shall do it again.

There is a fire within thee, that fire is God, and it cannot go out. I say it now, and you may think you know, you may think that you understand, but you do not. You need only to remember. You need only unfold the thousand league depths to that full thought. 

Do you wish to see God? 

Can you not see It among the field of reeds, among the fires, can you not hear It among the laughter?

Do as God;

Cut off your head,

Cut off your head, 

Cut off you head, 

Cut off you head, 

Cut off your head, 

Cut off your head, 

Cut off your head,

Cut off your head seven times and you will begin this path. Only on the eight, will you know. The man exists beyond himself, the man exists and cannot cease to be. He screams for escape but finds only his own voice. He cannot get out. There is something with him, in the dark. And he will see as I have seen; my God is a headless God. Only the heart leads, and the heart loves. 

I am Arbiter, 

I am Prince, 

I am An-Gho

And I shall see again.

PREFACE:

ᴛ ʜ ᴇ  ᴛ ʜ ʀ ᴇ ᴇ  ᴘ ɪ ʟ ʟ ᴀ ʀ ꜱ

⸸.-─────────.-──–──-.─────────-.⸸

༺─-.─–─.-─༻

──●◎●──

⸸.-─────────.-──–──-.─────────-.⸸ 

WAR

.- ─ ── ── ────.-──.  ⊰●⊱  .──-.──── ── ── ─ -.

What is faith but the clashing of ideology?

What is knowledge but the destruction of ignorance?

Forged by a warrior race, heraldry has long been intertwined with the fires of war.

 As the first Dragon Knights were tasked to battle the dark, in our modern age it is our duty to combat the Inverse Flame in all its aspects. For otherwise, we fall to sloth, becoming hermits of faith and knowledge - only to realize it all shall be rendered to ash as our enemies break through our blackstone walls, burn our books, and desecrate our relics.

Steel swings so sweet, for it is the very bones of mountains clashing in symphony for purpose. A song of delicate dances, for pride, for honor, for peace. Heed mine words o’ brothers and sisters, be ye of fire and flame, or stilled tongue and empty. We fight not for pride, honor, nor peace. We fight for it is our charge, for, it is as the flowers which must bloom when spring dawns, for which a machination is crafted with but one sole purpose. 

──●◎●──

ᴄᴏɴᴠɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ

༺ ۝ ༻

Conviction to stand as what IS, against that which is NOT. Truth, glorious does it shine in fractals parsed and shattered upon our realm. Truth, it would not be so, as but a man who viewed but an iota of it wrong. Upside down, or even the slightest bit askew, and that Truth is no longer. Malformed, no. Malperceived, for Truth Shines. Truth Burns. It is the conscious vessel that ascertains its sense, its sight, what it knows, what it alone scrounged to cobble together a patchwork monster of reality which MUST be truth.

And they would wield Truth a sword. They would give Truth a worldly name. They would fashion it a god, and call it other, and claim it He. This is the Untruth, which deigns that Ego, Flesh, and Power are all to aspire. It was Truth realized when the King-Who-Is consumed Xan, affirming His mantle, becoming one. Both are the same, simply two facets of one. War manifest, of Fate against Order. Salvation versus Stagnation. Order has always been Fate, yet only through war with its other half, and war with one’s self is it realized. It is in this war we are tasked to bring our enemies to unity. Nestled within the first dragon knights, battle against the dark burns our very hearts, stoking them in righteous cause. It is this war by which our Pact was made, to defend the mortal realms from fell forces beyond, and to which we will perish till our flame snuffs to cinders. It is the dark which grows greater with light, with us as mediators to find the balance between them. Inscribed within Being, the act of war in itself is of the vessel; its fruits are of the spirit.

.-─────────.-──–──-.─────────-.

༺─-.──  ───── ۝ ─────  ──.-─༻

.-─────────      .-──–──-.      ─────────-.

.- ─ ── ── ────.-──.  ⊰●⊱  .──-.──── ── ── ─ -.

◎──────────────── ۝ ────────────────◎

The act of Song spans to the eldest of those faithful to the Titan, whose throats parched in draconic prayer. It takes many forms, for it is the act of loving, and putting one’s faith into another. Acting as not only a social bond, but a bond with the King-Who-Is, it brings two facets nearer to one another. Core to periphery, greater to lesser. 

Without it, we are but brutes who wage war for the world alone, and consume knowledge as a flame beset on paper. There would be no greater purpose to our cause. There would be no Love to change what Is, and what is not. There would be only the profane world, and nothing to Love it.

Song is the strengthening of the soul through prayer, temperance, and cleansing. It is characterized by White Flame, Loving.

⎝༺─- . ─–⊰●⊱–─ . -─༻⎠

.-────── ─ ──.-─ ─–─ ─-.── ─ ──────-.

Sing thy praises so that it is heard across all the earth, for it falls ever short upon the heavens. To the flame may mountains speak, gracing upon ears rested within gardens. The world was made in Muse of selfless love, and from other was it cleaved to exist. From Asioth all things subside, from Asioth came Vessel and Flame, Being and Loving. 

The act of song is of selfless loving, expecting naught in return for your praise. It is to Azdromoth you Sing when the pretenders of Ruin are burnt in the offering pit before His altar. It is to Eresar you sing when an Um’ei is answered after years of inward thought. It is blest Dragur to which you sing for every tome, scroll, every iota of knowledge remembered. Greater loves lesser indeed; look to your brand marred upon the temporal flesh, and see the love our Titan gives so freely. 

─── ۝ ───

So too, return to him in song, so that you may love that which is yourself. By way of candle, incense, of prayer in the draconic, by burning to cinder the apostate, by falling to your knees in service to flame. Our station is that of service, in unending war against the Inverse, in unending remembrance of knowledge never lost, in Song of the Great Pyre every Flame does borrow and rest.

The very incredulous, everwarping “you” is the shadow of a Flame. Like a Fire above water, there exists the Fire, the water, and a shadow cast upon it. Praise not the shadow, but that which casts it. Praise in understanding, in knowing, in genuflect. It is Soul in experience of what Is, and corruption of one leads to the corruption of the other. Cleanse thy vessel before the cleansing of thy flame. Wash, burn, purge the impurities of the body first before any ritual act is done, lest the ritual be made impure. Cleanse the mind, and become empty. Corruptions of the mind alter the song, warping its intent, falling from Truth. And lastly, cleanse the Flame. In utter selflessness, let Song flow freely in love of other. In this loving of other, it is in loving the Flame, upon which you are a shadow cast. It is in loving yourself.

A part wishes to return to one, and through Song you may return. For to Love without want, is to become. And in loving true, a glimmer of Asioth is achieved. Love and serve, and should Fate deem it so, salvation is granted. Salvation to know, truly, where the soul shall rest. Salvation to will it so, and to know it thus.

─── ۝ ───

.-──.  ⊰●⊱  .──-.

◎──────────────── ۝ ────────────────◎

.-───── ──────༺─༺  ༻─༻────── ─────-.

The gift of Dragur, the gift of eternity is timeless insight. Wisdom is to many the application of knowledge, garnered only by time. Wisdom is not gained by learning, but rather by knowing, remembering what was never lost. Age begets wisdom, yet without knowledge, there is no depth within. Like a wick without a base, it may burn for but a short time. 

Garner wax to mold beneath it, and the flame burns continually. The collection of knowledge in grand libraries and galleries is an ancient tradition of heralds, likely brought about by Dragur’s influence upon his blessed creations. Inherited to seek and amass knowledge has thereby been deigned upon the heralds, tasked to create libraries as troves of knowledge. Without Wisdom, there is no timeless insight, nor ageless knowledge. Without it, we are fated to fall to the mistakes of our forefathers, singing and warring, and forgetting.

Wisdom is the strengthening of the mind, the collection of knowledge, and the insight of applying it. It is Gold Flame - Knowing.

─-──────༺─༺  ༻─༻──────-─

⎝༺─- . ─–─ . -─༻⎠

You sit in a lightless place, never an iota of light graces you. You cannot feel walls, never affirming where your place starts or ends. Every footfall is uneasy, unsure of the next. There is no smell, there is no sound but your heartbeat thumping through your ears, and of the earth beneath your feet. For once you admit to yourself - you know nothing.

The vessel arrives before a distant land and claims itself learned. It knows all that it has garnered, and carries this knowledge like water within. Knowledge may be divine, mundane, or accursed. Akin to the secular man who does not devise the food he consumes, small corruptions arise. 

To consume corruption is to have a part of you corrupted. Similarly, knowledge may be corrosive to the mind. It is in Wisdom, that we discern Truth, from Untruth. It is the difference between salvation, and damnation. So too, this vessel filled with a myriad of knowledge must prostrate itself, fall genuflect to the floor - and empty. 

The emptying of the vessel is to admit the sole fact.

I know nothing.

From there, it may be refilled, tapped to its full, and once again spilled when wisdom bestows its simple truth once more. Knowledge spills forth, naming what was un-named. It is a voice, it speaks between another unseen. Insight radiates brilliant, forming what was un-formed. It is seen, wordlessly it is understood by those who accept it thus. Together, Wisdom is ascertained, it is honed and practiced until its perfection is unrivaled. 

And again, it repeats, never truly finished. Never do we cease in learning, never do we cease in understanding. It is this hunger for knowledge true, not out of a wish for self gained power, nor for pride to forge a mound to stand upon - but the unadulterated, holy aim to learn, to teach, to garner Wisdom for no greater reason that makes us children of Dragur. 

It is Wisdom in full which draws us from the clutches of the Inverse Flame, that which is Untruth. Lies are sold and accepted, notched into fragments where the heart has broken and accepted its own deceit. It is the falsehood beholden to every warlock and weaver, and is only combated by the Burning Truth. 

If we are lax in our search and spread of Truth, steadily the world will fall to darkness. Not physical darkness, but ignorance which clouds the mind in self-affirming deceptions. Thus, we have failed, and many are doomed to never walk the Golden Path.

And yet, the darkness is temporary. Just as there are wizened men who, in the full Light of Truth, have fallen to ignorance and falsity - there are those who have broiled in the dark for millenia, who are struck by Truth, and realize the self’s position in the divine schisma. 

The King-Who-Is sat within the depths of the world for ages, and now has risen to his throne always destined. Be that light, be that spark which may drag your ignorant brother from the depths - or, rend them to ash. Knowledge that was whispered, insight that was seen, traded from Lover to Lover. They shall remember Truth with every burn upon their vessel, until there is naught but the ivory bone beneath. Knowledge is never lost, nor gained, only is it remembered.

For in the One, all is known, we have only yet to remember.

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