Fleeperpriest

Callahan leapt for joy as, having located him in the wilderness, an Owynist delivered unto him a copious cache of ritually pure KOSHER Owynist foodstuffs, lovingly weaved with PRAYER and THE LABOR OF HOREN'S CHILDREN for the consumption of the pure and holy race of Man. "HE WHAT?" The rest of that Priest of the True Faith's day was dedicated to funerary rites. He mourned, celebrated, offered up one quarter of the kosher foods that had come into his custody as gifts for G-d, and lit for Gerard a flame, as he had done for his beloved Padre Toni before him, that he might, by this light, find quickly his way into the Heavens. If reports were to be believed, and the man had died martyr, he had little doubt that he should much require the luminous aid of the mercyflame. Good brother Gerard had secured himself the martyr's ticket, and suffered at the hands of the world for the sake of his faith. There was no greater a sure-way into the embrace of God, thought Callahan with certain conviction. In truth, he had not wept for him. For his brother, he was very glad. There were few others who were alive that he believed to share his True Faith so genuinely as he. He was of a rare breed, an odd creed, and the complexities of the Faith simply clicked into place in his mind. He would have liked to have thought himself as a mentor to Gerard, but in truth, he had taught him very little. He had hoped that he might one day rise up into the Priesthood. But, for one reason or another, the time to make the offer never came. Some guilt began to cloud over him. The Lector set out to inquire as to when the martyr's funeral would be, but discovered he had missed it. He thought to the Aengul Raguel, and the miracle in Saint Arpad's, which Gerard had witnessed. He thought the Holy Grail, and to his long intention to proffer its waters unto the Knight. But never had he had the time-- never had he made the time. The wight of this weight had manifested over him, and bared down on him shamefully. The Lector Rebbe would have to find some way to properly honor Gerard, or otherwise atone for what sloth by his hand had robbed the martyr.

Callahan peered upwards, saw a sheep, and again looked down to his desk-- but made a double take and cringed in so terrible a grimace as to nearly propel him backwards onto the floor. He permitted his eyes to break from that and thought to the success he and his brother had met in the Grotto of Truth. For his illness, for his spiritual illness, he ground his teeth. He was not nearly as inspired now as he was on that day. But to see such evils stoked in him a potent flame, which put to Man bid drive him onwards towards retribution. Retribution against this creature, he could not afford. But against Evil at large, he could. If but he was not so blighted by what they had witnessed in the hillside. What they had permitted into their midst. It imparted unto him a leprosy which did not cease to spread, and he could feel it, though it was duller now than it was then. Perhaps he had, for a short time, lost the preternatural senses required for properly detecting such things, which were to the eye, for the most part, invisible. Wrath. Fury! "I'd sooner dance into Sheol than permit the likes of this to get the better of us." Urged forth by a power afforded him by virtue of righteous anger, then, he set out for the countryside of Minitz, to restore what had been rendered so terribly unclean.

Callahan had been resting, his health having taken a turn for the worst. The wounds afforded his spirit had rendered him both spiritually and physically ill. He was gripped by fevers, and restless sleep, and troubled looping thoughts with little coherence and no satisfactory end, all the consequences of the sudden and abrupt loss of his charism. In his weakness, he had set Father Montfort in control of the affairs of the Archdiocese, but having not come to him when he called, he did not know if he had known it himself, though he only seldom had a moment to worry for such a thing, as his mind was otherwise entirely occupied by worsening plight. He grew increasingly silly. Silly, whimsical, a little wacky. His failing mind took refuge in the ancient defender of his people, his patron, and the patron of the Kingdom he now dwelled, the patron too of the Cathedral which he had the blessing to call home. Saint Caius, Saint Caius, so innocent, so pure, for now his only respite, fore the good Clown King's crowning accomplishment was his spiritual safety in the Lord's Humor, so potent a guard as to preserve his own life, even when by all reasonable accounts he had ought to have been slain at the foot of that mountain in the Westerlands. "My good patron, Saint Caius... not any woe of the world could whittle away at you, fore you had found a friend in God through the spreading of laughter. Verily, you were a prince of laughter. Good Saint Caius, for all that they had done to you, for the hammer your own people sent down upon your head, for all the treason, and all the back-stabbenings, and all the skullduggery, you slept, and wept, and woke again in laughter, what you found they could not take away, the perfect peace, the pure, true innocence! Whimsy, whimsy, to the addled heart, the cure of all cures, for this they called you Doctah Talbot. Saint Caius, intercede for us! Saint Caius, pray for me! Saint Caius, keep bright thy fires, watch over the Church, fore you were a Clerical Owynist before even a man knew the thing to be possible, champion of the True Faith. Saint Caius, keep us laughing, guide us in our jubilance that we may hear the joyous ROAR of the Flame of Owyn in cavort, so pleased, so joyou--" And Canonius had entered, having come to visit him. He was a strong young man. A resident troublemaker-- but True Faith often brought many to trouble before. Angry, for certain, for many reasons, but a Flepir, he could tell. He didn't think he ever told him. He thought of Belegorn much the same, but now, in his weakness, he knew not if he could express it. When he spoke, only babble came from him, which even he no-longer could understand. But he realized he had drifted off into his own thoughts, snapping to attention, having missed Canonius' polite introduction, hearing only some kvetching now. "Eh!?!?" It was a missive. He couldn't make sense of Canonius, at the moment, who had grown flustered by whatever it was, and had destroyed it, or else he did not bring it with him. He managed to order him off to find him a copy, and shambled over to his desk. Some little scrolls secured in tubes had piled up there, local missives delivered regularly to him. One bore the seal of the Tar, the label reading 'IMPORATANT' in that unmistakable Adunian script down the length of its side. There it is. He opened it, and he read. "Get me a pen!" he called out, as his sorry wide eyes had only barely managed make it through the whole of the missive. He was calling to Canonius, but he had forgotten if he was even there anymore, or if he had left. He didn't bother to look, he could hardly take his eyes off the page. For some moments he paced, back and forth between the room, staring at it, through it, through to something beyond it which he could not pry his eyes away from, either for terror, anger, or awe. It had struck him. "Now," he spoke, "now, now, of course it is now. Of course, now that I am sick, now that I am suffering, now that I am on my deathbed, now!" and the horrible grim vision of what was in play around him unfolded before his eyes, the slow encroaching march of paynimry growing ever closer, crawling its way in, patient, patient and scaling the walls, and digging through and under them-- better to be sure, fore if one way failed the other would not, they were a people so easily distracted, so easily deceived, and he saw it. "Now, tick, now that Harren tock is impotent, tick now that he is tock withering away, casting tick his vocation to the wayside tock and thrown the cup tick into the gutter! tock." he threw up a hand, to beg for silence, "What is that?" he called, "tick That noise." he added, since no one had bid him any words to which he could say that he were replying to. He gazed about the room. When did they get a clock? He never remembered there to be a clock. He didn't see one. But it was ticking. It had begun, and now, it would not cease. It did not so much as agitate him, as it had alarmed him, and he took to searching. A cabinet on the wall. With unexpected ease, he removed it from its place, as though it were simply slotted in. And there, hitherto concealed, was the source of the noise. Those persnickety Mech-Lectors! They had spoken to him only in passing of the work they had done below Saint Caius', and only made short, brief mention of the 'engines', whatever they had powered or moved or were responsible for. This, he thought, was one such mechanism to that great mysterious contraption. He gazed upon Harren's Clock, which had begun to tick over the course of these events, and made no sign that it had intended to cease until it were through with whatever mission had been put to it, with whatever driving force behind it were satisfied that the contraption had carried out its instructions, and that it may proceed; to what ends, he did not know, but that there was an end he did not doubt, fore if it were a machine for the keeping of time, for certain, it would have before given itself away by virtue of its TICK, TOCK, TICK, which permeated the room, now, without end! So why? A righteous fury burnt in him. He had known a Flame before, nurtured it, served it, bent and bowed at its every whim to his great joy, to lift and bear the skirts of its robes, to sing to it, dance for it, fight for it, to speak for it when it had deemed it necessary that a thing be said, and to work for it when it was necessary that a thing be done which he could do. He knew the Flame very well, and he shared in the satisfaction of the Light which shone from it down unto the world, into every place, bringing order upon ever thing, in as much as all things good in some way trail back to the source, and the Light of the Flame was that source, the rays of Grace, the Light, the trail of that path from Creator to Created. But being a Harrenite his familiarity with the Flame always had been more a thing of the receiving end, his introduction to it coming fierce, and sudden, a burning blade plunged in and through his chest and igniting his heart with pure redeeming life. He knew it more by where it had come to reside in him by the virtue of his wounds, from the beating of his heart, from the love of the flame bestowed upon him in condemnation and wrath, contrasted so bitterly with the pure and unrelenting love that IT IS. He was more familiar with the vexation of it, the upset of the spirit on the blade, for the violation of its Will, for which he had come also to share in joined frustration. That it should be sent to the heart of that which it loved in a way it did not allow. He came to share, over the course of his service, in communion with that Will, the upset that it had known for the path it had set and was not respected, ploughed over, walked upon and only briefly intersected, that Man could cross the road, but not dwell on it, not remain on it, not head straight-forward to the place where the road had been paved, which was set out for him well before he was born. He knew better the great shame of one king who called out for mercy, to be pierced, to be so suddenly and violently subjected to the Fire of the Wrath of the Lord and burnt by it, one might say irreparably if but the Flame's purpose was not itself to repair. But now he felt more in his fury the Man with the blade set out before Edel. He felt more that he had held it in his hands, the Blade and Flame, odd, and alien to the Man who had for all his spiritual life known the Flame from where it had come to reside in the hole in his chest. He was furious for what he had come to see, for what he knew would come to pass. He ground his teeth, and gnashed them. They had set upon his nation like a plague. They had sweeped over it, and enslaved them, and defiled all things their power had set over, profane power, impossible power that was itself a denial of the TRUE POWER that IS, and was proven that IT IS for that IT IS upon the Blade and ALWAYS WAS, fore it had no potential NOT TO BE. It was a crime even to say WAS. IT IS, there is no past, no future without it, no potential even for there to be, HE IS THAT HE IS, ALWAYS IS, SHALL-- but shall, no, He Is always Is. There was no King in Alduun, but there was a Bishop in Idunia. He reached in and set his hands upon Harren's Clock, and set back the hand which ticked onward and forward unrelenting towards an uncertain doom, the consequence of the impotence of the King, a King who was born to be a King but through his own failings might never be a King again, he had not deserved any Kingdom. More, he saw, in his humbling upon the ground, in those moments of pleading for mercy before the Fire of Mercy and the Wrath of the Lord, he saw, he never was. They say that all Prophets were King, Horen King Godfrey King Owyn King, now he knew better. He met the King on the Blade, the King of Love, the King of Life, the King of Man, the King of Heaven, the King of Arda, the Pantokrator who's throne his own father Horen had seen himself, forever sealing the covenant of Man and Maker, King of Heaven. Having set back the clock, he turned about and hovered over the desk of his father Toni, of the tabernacle of his Father Horen. He took the pen into his hands, and set to paper in that empty place upon a scroll where Virtue ended and Forever Future Preserved remained to be, but wasn't yet. He looked to the Holy Grail, the Kos Rashon, which had so rightly made him wretch and reel a poisoned man, and saw that it now came also into its wrath, active, alive, and that it shook, it filled to the brim and beyond it, overflowing blood upon the parchment, upon the whole of the world. It threatened not to cease until it was drained to the dregs. THE CRITICAL APOSTOLIC RESCRIPT of A.D. 1969 FROM THE OFFICE-IN-EXILE OF THE BISHOPRIC OF IDUNIA UNTO THIS DIOCESE PLACED UNDER THE CUSTODY OF THE SEAT OF CLEMENT AND EVARISTUS OF ALDUUN, SO ORDAINED BY OWYN-KOHEN-GADOL, PROPHET OF G-D, LORD OF IDUNIA, FIRST SON OF SPIRIT, SET CROWNED OVER THE KINGDOM OF MAN. TO YOU WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP IN THE FEAR OF THE MENACE OF THE DRUIDS, I WARN, I CONDEMN, I DOUSE YOU IN COLD WATER, AWAKE, AWAKE, YOU WHO HAVE FALLEN ASLEEP, AWAKE! Why have you relaxed in your guard!? Why have you bent-weary over the spear, and made to shut your eyes and NAP? Do you take now greedily to your kip, in the heights of your tolerance, that you should permit right under your nose the Enemy to come upon you? Could you not stand guard for just an hour more? Could you not wait even a little while longer before giving yourself so freely over to THE ENEMY when you have only just MOMENTS AGO become free and rid of him, REDEEMED and FREE? Only some centuries ago had you, ye people of Harren, returned from GOLUS, the EXILE of SPIRIT set upon you by Druid and the Fae, the great evil regime of the Unclean Spirits, who now you cherish, and tell tall-tales of, and bring into your home as honored guests. Have you so quickly forgotten the way by which you had fallen in the wake of the fall of Owyn? Have you forgotten the crimes of these creatures who had bid even the sons of Malin turn against him, and tyrannize him, their own father? Have you forgotten, so soon after your return into the embrace of the True Faith, the perils and woes of slavery under them, which you had suffered for more than a thousand years? Has the woe of your mothers slipped from you, the tears of the daughters of Harren, who for the trees, the moss, and the bogs, and the frogs and snakes, gave up their young children to nourish? For your tolerance, I warn you, I slap you across the face, I rebuke you! I say to you that now, as it always it had been, these creatures who have preyed upon you were no creatures at all, and that nature which you have revered was not nature but ALIEN, I say to you that every tree they spake spoke to you was a devil, that every moss which you had worshiped was a demon, that every bog you had fed was an invader, that the frogs and the snakes and all the little rodents who plagued you were not rodents at all but the agents of the PACT OF THE ENEMY! But you shall say to me Father, Bishop, we do not worship these things, nor do we revere them, but respect only the nature which is the mastercraft of God, we do not forget. But to that I say to you, I have seen you more reverent in the sight of TREES than I have seen you reverent in the sight of the Holy Truth! I have seen this, fore that I have seen that you should surround yourselves with all manner of devils, with cursed-ones and with druids, and seen no anger from you, no righteous fury for those your sworn-enemy, and no suspicion for those appearing even outwardly as devils. But I have seen also from you that you should clamor and wage war-immediate upon any who have defiled what your heart holds to be sacred. No devils do you accost, but should Garf'iaeld Kha-jeet encroach upon these things, and dare to put his paws upon them and scratch to his contentedness, you enter at once into a fury, and say, these creatures shall be condemned, let them be condemned, you set upon them without remorse and slay them without remorse, you hammer them, you bring swift death to them. You shall say to me Bishop, these devils you speak of are no devils at all, but they are cursed and false evils! I say to you that this much I know well, but say that knowing this, you are worse condemned, still do I rebuke you! You have seen in your midst those of the appearance of demons, and you have not suspected them. You have seen in your midst those whom you know to be evil, in the appearance of the Mali’im, and you have not suspected them. Should I bring to you a devil from the depths, pluck him from the retinue of Iblis, and see you walk past him as though he were invisible? To you I say, you have become blind to all evils, you have tolerated too greatly your enemy, it matters not if he comes to you in disguise or in the truth of his flesh, fore neither sight should disturb you! The Father of Lies has pulled the wool over your head, you have become blind to your enemies and archenemies, you have become blind to friend and to foe. And you hear me say to you these things, you to me saying, Bishop, we know our creatures, we know a devil from an innocent and an innocent from a devil, we are hunters of the evil-ones, and we have classified them. So too have we classified many creatures for their evils and for their goods, that we should not be ignorant, but know by their genus the good of them or the wrong. Harren's sons, have you grown so ignorant!? It is for this list that I rebuke you, I slap you, I condemn you, and empty unto your heads the WATERS OF WAKE, feel the sting of the cold and open now your eyes, you have been deceived! You have assembled a list, and on it have you mistook the good and the noble, and with it you have lessened the good and softened the evil, fore all these things do you attribute to the Faeries, who are the masses of the unclean spirits, your enemies, those things which are the great glory of the Creation of the Lord. You have taken miracles of God and said, 'Here I see a Fae that is good!' where only was the goodness of God, fore there is no good in the spirits of the Enemy. And in bringing forth those things which are good, and saying they are Fae, you have defiled them, defiled them! You have been caught in the plot of a sweeping lie, fore to say that one thing is good Fae you have said that Fae are good, you have permitted the ENEMY into the sheepfold, you have not taken his name nor counted him, but you have counted those around him by their proximity to a black sheep. But you say, these sheep are so alike to the black sheep, see how they move together, they are one good! For that the white-pure sheep surround him, he surely is good, I pay him no heed. NO SHEEP WAS HE, BUT A WOLF! AND NO SHEEP'S CLOTHING DID HE DON, BUT A BLACK COAT, AND HAD YOU BOTHERED PEER UPON HIM YOU SHOULD SEE THE FANGS, BUT FOR YOUR TOLERANCE HAD NOT BOTHERED! Let us now see this list of things you have blessed, and things you have cursed, and see the truth of it: Here are those things 'among the Fae' which you have blessed! GNOMES - Who are those most upstanding creatures of ingenuity, LITTLE HOREN'S TRIBE, the cousin of the HOBBIT who too has grown short, here you set a descendant of Man and Woman among the aliens, as though he were himself an alien. For his so short a stature you say he must surely not be Man. But the alien has cursed many a people before, and one need only see to ha Ben Urist for the proof that the enemy makes the tall and mighty short and stout. Fear the persecution of the Gnome, and greet him a brother: in his veins pulses Horen's Covenant, for no curse shall he be apart from his Father in Heaven, and for no curse shall he be severed from his father Horen. FAIRIES - And you do so condemn all whom you have joined with them, I say to you, the black-coated WOLF who had conned you into clothing him with LIVING SHEEP, see that all you place on this list besides the AGENT OF THE BETRAYER is a hostage, a wolf's teeth are seconds from his neck. Should he not be rescued, he shall surely perish. THE FAIRIES ARE UNCLEAN SPIRITS, JOINED TOGETHER IN A DARK COVENANT OF REBELLION AGAINST THE LORD GOD, WITH ALL THE DEMONIC POSSESSORS OF NATURE, WHO HAVE WARPED IT, AND SET ASIDE THEIR DUTY TO THE LORD FOR TO RAISE THE BANNER OF A BLACK DEMESNE. WOE! WOE! See that this banner is black, but they have told you it is green, and for that you so love the Creation of the Lord you say 'It is holy and green as Arda.' Harren's seed, you suffer now the deception which was the destruction of Malinor. Apostasy is the only fruit of the dead tree of the Alien. BROWNIES - And you set a sheep against around the wolf of HaSatan. But see that these brownies are not of your granny's make, but they have been tainted with the poisons of the grove, that whoever shall eat shall wake to see the FAERING. SONS OF HOREN, Seed of HARREN, do you not weep? You know what I tell you is true, and your elders cringe and seethe, but only the Mali'im shall you hear cope, fore it is their father Malin a Prophet they have betrayed, and it is Malinor they have crumbled for these rings, all this your forefathers had known and suffered, all this your elders know well. Never again shall the faithful of the Lord succumb to such evils, Harren, do not go again unto your death! For you did Owyn fight, and you had resisted him not knowing the goods of the service he rendered you, for the good of you he killed even your own kinsmen to prevent your doom, the Prophet Purifier made you once clean-pure, but the Deceiver has since set his eyes upon you, and blessed by his order that you be dragged away a slave to the woodlands sprites. So what Iblis has done unto Malin, he does also unto you, and as Malin's Sons betrayed Malin for the Enemy, so too do you betray your fathers Owyn and Horen for the enemy. SKAVEN - And here you bless also the DOOM-PLAGUE RAT-SWARM EVILDOERS, yes, you who are so wise, you make an exception for the WARPED-RATS, which you do not give to Garf'iaeld Khajeet, whom you condemn, and so do you also condemn all other animals of their likeness, to your wisdom, fore you know them to be alien. Horen's Sons, ask not if they are of the right breed of abomination, fore all SIN is EVIL SIN, there is no grading of evils. What is offensive to the LORD is offensive to the LORD, there is no part between them. All would Owyn cast from you that you should not succumb. But ask rather, Horen's Sons, Faithful of the Lord, who cling to the worship of the Melech-Tzaddik of Mercy; how have these creatures come to be? They are the spawn of the insanity of the host of HaSatanail, who has brought cursed, warped forms into the world, that they may live a walking mockery of nature's perfection. But HaSatanail may not himself be the craftsman of life, what you set your eyes upon are your kindred in torment, wrapped in the flesh of FAT ORANGE CATS, and LARGE RATS, and INNOCENT MONKIES, they are the victims of a curse. Seek rather to help and to cure, but whoever does not say 'I am accursed,' you may not help, cast him from your midst lest he sow in you more lie, he has found a new Father in the Deceiver. THE SONG BIRD, THE UNICORN, THE GRIFFIN - You place these things of truth and FACT, who dwell within our wonder-world of God's great make, among the ranks of the accursed. For why may you not fathom that THE LORD YOUR GOD, CREATOR is not a WORKER OF WONDERS? You have heard of such things and said, they are too wonderous to know, they must have been the work of a greater craftsman. Who is greater in his craft than the Lord your God? In saying these things, you say by the silence of your heart that the flame of your faith grows miniscule! TALKING DONKIES - 'Lo and see that now you defame even Balaam's Ass! Sweet Sons of Horen, have you forgotten the tale? But you attribute the speech of the mule to be the work of the Fae, when God has commanded that it speak, which may not otherwise speak but for a miracle, for the teaching of a prophet, and to spare the taking of his life. Has God worked no miracles among you, that you should not believe in them, but know only the power of the Fae, your arch-nemesis? JENNY - WOE, WOE, WOE UNTO YOU, FOR YOU DO I WEEP! From Heaven to you comes a Spirit of Innocence, a gift to you from the hands of the Lord who so loves you, that you should not fall into ABOMINATION but be as WHITE SHEEP, CLEAN, PURE AND INNOCENT. Idunia, your hearts have been opened to the INFESTATION OF LIES, who scurry about you as a thousand voices singing the temptation of the unclean spirits. Even do they say to you that the Lord of Hosts has not himself any Aenguls to spare, and that they instead have given to you what has come down from Heav'n, the gem of the sheepfold of the Seven Skies, the fruit of the joy of the Canticles of Saint Caius, for all the Divine Humor they afford. But just as nature was to you a gift, so too are all gifts turned-sour by the Druids and their masters. The accosting of any of these things, you say, is a upon whimsy and innocence. But to you I write, I warn, I rebuke, you have waged a war on whimsy, you have taken what is innocent and used him a shield for EVILE. The evil ones have commanded you to give shelter to the Fae, and into your tent has he sent many Druids. Into your gardens of beauty he sends seers, and you hear what commands they bid of you, for your love of true nature. But of all who live and breathe, you should know best that the grass does not speak, nor do the trees sing, or does the rock babble, God has given these things no mouths to speak, no ears to hear, no language to babble, they are without speech and without want, they exist only to the glory of God. The druid is accosted by Devils whom they call the 'Aspects of Nature', who are in truth Daemons joined together into a covenant of WORLD-DOMINATION in defiance of God. And in his soul does he hear the screech of these demons, and convey them to you. They convey to you also the soothing songs and well-weaved lies which had moved them to sell their own souls to these devils, fore it is that they have sold themselves forever as slaves that they are able at all to hear. They will tell you the will of the trees, and that your deeds make them so very wroth. And they shall teach you to respect and revere them as though they were lords over you, screeching at the top of their lungs if ever a plant is wounded around them, fore verily the demon screeches when his will is defiled and skreams terribly, this is in the ears of the Mali'im when their masters are humiliated. The unclean spirits have gone into the woods only in as much as the Druid has brought them with him as a throne and house for their own masters. Put a hand upon a bush while near stands a Druid, hear him screech, and the bush shall strike you. But wait for him to leave, and again put a hand upon the bush, and see that the bush cares not for you, fore it cares not at all. You have not seen the hitherto concealed will of the wilds, you have seen the tyranny of the Alien. You have not been struck by a bush, you have been struck by HaSatanail. Should you truly believe that where all men step, the countless screams of the blades of grass under his boot cry out in pain? The pain of the Enemy is the love of God. The screech of the devil comes not from the pain of grass, but from the pain of life in a world shared by Man. Barukh attah Adonai eloheinu melech ha-olam, borei peri hagafen. Blessed are You, L-RD our G-D, King of the Universe, Pantokrator, who chose us from all peoples and exalted us from all tongues, and sanctified us with His prophets. And You gave to us, L-RD our G-D, with love appointed times for gladness, festivals and times for joy, the day that I raise this cup of medicine, the time of our freedom, a holy convocation, a memorial of our deliverance from the Druids of Malinor. Fore You chose us and sanctified us from all the all the spawn of Man and the festivals of your holiness, in gladness and in joy You gave us a heritage. Blessed are You, L-RD, who sanctifies Horen and the seasons, who set forth all true nature.

Celah returned to the temple in Numendil, worn from the sudden and spontaneous invasion of the ancient DRUIDIC menace, planting a proud, tall palm into a vase, that many more like it may be set in that place after the day, to one day fuel triumphant OWYN'S FLAME. He stood over his desk, energized by adoration, and fueled by that fervent mission which was to him an abundant and nigh infinite well of energy, and took to one of many scrolls strewn about his desk. SLAM! In an instant, Callahan were struck silly, physically reverberating mid-air as the shockwaves of the impact of what had felt like a tidal-wave nearly sent him off his feet, dumbstruck! He came to in a panic, grabbing hold of his desk, clamping down his hands upon the sides of it so as to anchor himself to the ground, and weathered through the storm of the blast which knocked him silly! Coming to his wits, he made at once to diagnose the source of his spontaneous torment, only to gaze down at a black parchment strewn out upon his desk, which took his breath. His bodily eyes took to gaze upon it, but his mind could only read one sentence or two at the very beginning and end before his soul, in a fit of contemptuous wrath made the entirety of the thing illegible and mute to him. OH NO! He staggered back away from the desk, and froze where he stood. Something was missing, something was wrong. Very, very wrong. His eyes scanned about the room for a moment, in a vain attempt to visually diagnose what had, in an instant, been robbed of him. The first thing he noticed was the dead silence. The man's mind was a grim, vast emptiness, totally dull and spiritually vacant. If he listened close, he could have sworn he heard his own conscious echo, sent out into an alien darkness un-heard by the resident commentary of the sanhedrin of the thoughts. Seldom was he ever afforded a moment alone, a moment in silent, that ever-present song and dance of the pursuit and clinging to GOD his sole driving joy, and all-encompassing devotion. He had built his life around it, in his every deed, to pull from the well of God's grace and dip just a little bit of everything available to him in the oils of the Spirit, in as much as they were afforded to him. It worked spectacularly well, and afforded the man peace, an odd peace that was most certainly not contentedness, himself a very vexed man, but an anxious, un-ending pursuit of a goal he knew soon to be at hand. He had not cared even if it were 'at hand' to be done tomorrow, or in a thousand years time. He danced precariously just beyond the blazing truth of the Fires of God, as close as a man can cling without entering into the fires themselves. Except, in this moment, he felt incredibly mundane. He felt only the human being that he was, only Callahan, who apart from this greater component of his person was severely and incredibly munted. Munted, dented, HE WAS COOKED, and probably mad. He could have sworn this room was brighter. It's near pitch-black in here, but it had been all alight with flame, just moments ago, on every side! It was BRIGHT, this little sanctum in the depths of the Cathedral of Saint Caius, BRIGHT! Darkness was an unfathomable thing in the midst of the incredible luminosity of that room. But it was near pitch black now. Maybe it was his eyes. He looked to his desk, and saw the place where once was the Holy Grail; now, there was just a cup. He perked a brow. Oh dear... Study gave way to grim comprehension of the emptiness of his thinking. What was once dominated by an ineffable tapestry of incomprehensible orders, commands, prophecies, liturgies, where once was the nigh-ever-present Aengul Raguel, Justice of the Lord, who had been the first nudge in the direction of spiritual reconciliation of the Church, was nothing at all. In that place that he had seen glimpses into a Kingdom Come was a plain dull nothingness occasionally invaded by clowns. Why clowns? And where he had seen the great Spirit of Innocence by which the world would be made clean, that winged-angel-fleepir of hope, which joined with all these other indescribable things made to complete a glorious endless loop of thought, was... and he forgot what to write. How was he writing at all? Then came the anger, as what remained of his unaugmented, purely natural and mundane mental faculties now robbed of preternatural assistance understood fully what had happened. He felt the kick of Malin's poison. The consequences of a shared burden were finally making manifest in him. He had loaned something away, something of vital importance to him, his most cherished gift, and permitted another to hold it, and to hold a knife in their hand, full-knowing that it was wholly within their power to destroy it. But it was a gift. A freely given gift. It was Tzedakah, and the greatest of sacrifices. It was the hope for another, a ransom, an exchange, for which he asked no gain and expected only to go into the flames of torment, if but to give a little hope to another soul much more doomed than he. Perhaps it was Tzedakah that had afforded him such a masterful grace. Past-tense, because SOMEONE did SOMETHING, got CURSED and now HE was bearing it. That was the pact he made. Somewhere a brother of his, who's full right it was to do, stripped another of their Heavenly mandate. Took the golden ticket out of their hands and snipped it FOUL, DENIED, REJECTED, DO-NOT-REDEEM! His own salvation, two-ways split and shared with another that might not even be able to redeem it had been pinned immobile right down into the world by a righteous curse issued by some priest, somewhere, for some reason. He was now spiritually incapacitated. But it couldn't just be curse, no.. many had cursed him before. That SIX-SIX ARNAUD fiend cursed him to the grave once before, and he didn't so much as flinch, not a dent in his armor! Sure, he was a fiend, but he WAS acting High Priest, that's nothing to be scoffed at, he certainly could levy a curse. So it must be more. More than the curse alone. They must've done something horrid, must've denied HIM, must've slighted the SPIRIT, must've committed SOME CRIME that saw them not only cursed by a priest, by estranged, too, by the Ruach HaKodesh, either for the impurity of the deed bidding it to flee him, or through.. goodness, I do certainly hope it was not a blasphemy! But this was what he signed up for. He knew he would suffer. He took on their curses, what did he expect? He didn't hope any less, though despair weighed on him increasingly by the second. He staggered his way out of the temple, that great bastion of the Flame, Saint Caius' Cathedral of Joy, which too was bathed in darkness despite the incredible overabundance of light. Not even the Clown's light was shining through to where he was! He was accosted on his way. "DID YOU HEAR ABOUT YOUR GENTIL--" and he threw up a palm "NO! I won't hear it. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT! Don't tell it to me." They went on, "You know they're fooling you! You can never trust them." He turned to face them and said, "I BELIEVE." and left before he broke down into tears, fore he bore also the shame of his patron. He took up the bindlestiff and set himself upon the path, not of Owyn, fore Owyn's Flame seemed, for the first time in decades, NOT to be the guiding light of his path, but to Rabbi Efrayim. Perhaps it was a miracle that he reached the estranged Gaon so quickly, in his daze, he hardly gave any thought to the incredible distance he had to travel, and the pace which he had to keep to intercept him, who was on the move. But he arrived in the presence of the young Kohen, and put his plight to him, saying, "Rabbi, I fear one of my genti-- I fear one of my people have done something grave. I fear they have taken a pantheist stance on something, or that they have blasphemed, or worse! Put to me the penance." The last words he spoke voiced his own desperation, but alas, this plight of another upon him he could not so easily shake, however eager he was to atone for another's crime, he was not certain he could do so alone. The Rabbi replied: "They must become a ba'alat teshuva!" Callahan's eyes seemed to draw sullen, and his complexion soured, he DROOPED. The certainty which he had put to him the most simple, holy, and potent of legal procedures, not even knowing the extent of the crime! How was he to make amends for this? If it were his own crime, it would be easy, he would need only to confess and rectify, he knew the power of such things! And if it were for any other manner of crime, but that one, he would be certain he could find a means to satisfy it by the Law himself, in such a way as to pay for the crime for the both of them. But how does one rectify a crime of intellect committed by another, without their own express self-refutation! He never lost hope, but he sure didn't know what to do now. The Rabbi was right. And Celah knew the great potential in the ba'alei teshuva, he knew that if they could do it, and certainly it was his hope for them even when he had taken on the poison, even before he had actually come face to face with the crimes. He knew if they did it, he would be right, and they could take that golden ticket he gave them and soar well above even their standing, having given it to them in the first place! The potent grace of such a thing would be proof enough that his sacrifice was not only meaningful, but salvific, efficacious in ways he could not fathom! Except he had no idea how to make that happen, now. He could try and find them, hunt them down, find what happened and rebuke them, teach them. But as the moments passed, his intellect dulled, he wasn't sure if he could accomplish even that without the Light. And besides that, he had already taught them a great deal, lectured them plenty! The comparatively now-animal intellect of the priest-previously-probably-Tzadik simply wasn't up to par. He did not think it would be of any use to him now. He shuddered to think that this may be how the Mali'im feel all the time. Nasty... But perhaps, just maybe, while HE was suffering the consequences both of their crime, and of their curse, MAYBE, just perhaps, potentially, the Ruah he coveted, had NOT fled them! Perhaps, for that HE suffered for the crimes and curses of whoever-it-was, THEY still were not denied the Ruah! Perhaps, then, the INSPIRATION, the HOLY CHARISM OF INTELLECT will still be within their grasp, even apart from his devekut, which he had thought impossible to break, and which he was certain was the source of their remarkable spiritual acceleration to now, for which the Mali'im were not predisposed. Now, if only they knew to listen! But there's hope, just a little bit of hope, that we might not be so over, that it wasn't over at all, that we were, in actuality, more back than we ever had been before. If they can manage the chozer b'teshuvah. So long as they don't kill him in the mean time, by compounding the issue. With a little bit of grace, a miracle here or there, they might just make it yet. If the Deity can slap some sense into them, or if one of His servants, Man or Angel or otherwise could do it for them, they might just make it! But until then, the Flepir was slipping. The Flepir body, blood and soul seemed to kick into action its hitherto dormant system of immunity and personal-self-preservation, whittling away at the mind, all things growing nonsensical once more, in a vain reaching for innocence and whimsy, known super-cures for spiritual and bodily doom alike. "The death of divination," said Elim-- or was it that Enlad fellow? WTf did he mean by that? ill show him the death of idvivination when i SMASH HIS HEAD with SAINT CAIUS' HOLY NOOBSMASHE-- and so it went on...

A suspiciously ancient Harrenite rummaged through his belongings, in an old cottage atop Lemon Hill, searching. He procures a worn, miraculously manifested parchment, and held it up to the light. What was written there still remained, worn, and ripped in several places, surviving only by virtue of its cartoonish size, meticulously, annoyingly folded several times over to account for this. But it was to his supreme satisfaction. It had first come into his custody some hundred years ago, it had felt, perhaps it was less, perhaps it was more. Perhaps it was five hundred years ago, perhaps a thousand. The Essene did not much care for how much time had passed, but that the time was soon to come, that it could even be now was all that dominated his mind-- and only in as much as it was secondary to the mission, that song and dance that drove his every move, and had since anyone could remember the priest to be at all. He recalled a long forgotten feat, the beginning of his journey, to the day. He recalled a podunk tent-town called Adria, and he recalled Duke Heinrik. He recalled a raid, and the captivity of many. He recalled the inhuman compulsion by which he had set forth into the evil Flay keep, that Fleeper, that auld Essene all alone, in a land his people forgot, to meet an enemy that had forgotten he was. He recalled what was the beginning of so great a song in his mind, so potent a hope, so bright a flame that took to his heart like it were its home and sang to him all that it had wished of him to do. He thought on the stress that had come over him, as the first missions of so long a quest unfolded themselves, to fit according to a plan he could not fathom. He remembered that she approached him, in that keep, by those bars, and placed the paperclip in his hands. Was she on her way out the door? Was she a captive, or was she that blessed mother, who's life he had there saved, for only some few hours more? Too much stress, too much to think on at once, so he took it to his mouth and CHOMPED. He recalled the gratitude, then, and the voice he heard. He could hardly make it out over the song, which rang so loud in him, lived its whims so freely that he could hardly hear himself! Natural man and preternatural paperclip made quick work of the supernatural task set out for them. The Duke, he would live a great deal longer. The Roach, he would live another day. His 'beloved', he took for her on his own wrists, a blade meant for their throat. Little Lorina, who she bore not hours later, who might never have been elsewise. Young Jan, just eight years old, the last of his line, but it had cost an arm and a leg. He stood outside the door, back home in tent-city, young shanty Adria, and he wrestled his Fleeper's prize, Charity's fruit. The song was quiet now, the job was done, he could not have told a soul how it was pulled off. "Just say the word!" he heard, he heard. Not yet, not now, not for this, this isn't it! It's much too soon, time's not right, the song's not on, I've more to do, mores got to be done! But it never left his mind. He kept that clip, and wrapped it well. The time would come. They had waited for four hundred years, what was a hundred more? He wanted it perfect, and it was in their nature to oblige. It came out a little munted, sure, but He accounts of margins of error! He knew the little Flepirs would have their day, when the time was right... They knew they would sing that song and dance that dance, one day! He knew He would keep His word, the promise He made for a covenant He struck for a time that hadn't come yet. The essene quit his kvetching. For the first time in five hundred years, he had seen just the first rays of the light of the age of the Tzadikim on the rising. Any minute now-- he waits to hear it. That horn that sounded 'WE'RE SO BACK', and down from the clouds, FLEPIR ! She's got wings... But he didn't know about no giant asteroids...

A thousand years, A thousand years I spoke to you, that you and yours have not known it, seen it, heard it, felt it, lived it, been with it, danced with it, with Him. Him, I had ought to say, He, as it always was. He who bathed you, and made you, and freed you, and saved you, who kept you pure in the worst of times. I said to you one thousand years, to now, that any from Malin's folk had known Him, but this is a generous estimate. In truth, I do not know the last time, only that it would not be any sooner than that. It could be more, it could be one thousand five hundred, one thousand six hundred, or even more still. That would be a more appropriate estimate. I do not know when the exodus from 'Malinor' began, nor, come the security of the children of Malin from the the Satanail, when the Malinites had left Him again. In my last letter, I had spoken briefly on that daughter of Malin who had known, and had, by His will, led her people, your kin, to the place of their refuge, and it is this that I refer to, which I shall some day reveal to you, in the fullness of the truth. For us, for Horen, it was much shorter a time ago. I would say that it had been five hundred years-- certainly, five hundred years ago, come Siegmund, it had gone. But I know that He was with us, who could bear us, when we had called unto Him. When we had been pure, even seldom pure, and when we had been faithful, even if but with the few. So perhaps it had been sooner, much sooner than Siegmund that we had truly scorned Him. Johannesburg. The Great City. The Holy City. That was the end of it, the great horrible tragedy of it, the manifest, incredible magnificent damage of it, when the Church was so violently accosted by Empire, once again, as it were by Siegmund's kith and kin. Only the torch, only the little flame, waiting, watching, on the outskirts. Passed from one, to the next, to the next, and to the next, down from Horen, through Owyn, through Clement and Evaristus, and unto the body of the True Faith, Horen's Hope, Owyn's Flame, Godfrey's Empire. But I see that I ramble, I digress. It is this Power that is in our charge, this Hope, this Flame. It is this that has seen you, heard you, spoken of and to you, guided you, touched your flesh and healed it. Do you see, now, why I have bid you to rise, as Lector? If I had not asked this of you, I should have, on that day, payed far greater a price for the crimes we had done in His Presence. It is good that you have gone and taken leave for this, good that you have embarked upon your pilgrimage. Only the pure-- of faith, of heart, of body, of all impurities, who may come upon that power and live, that by all accounts should render unto us the swift justice we are due. Except, if this were so, how at all could it be? Would this Flame not wash over all the world, so poor, so rotten, so abominable? I say to you, it is so, but that it has not done so is not at all to us disheartening; you see by this the mercy we are afforded, the hope, that for the love of us, He could permit us our failures. We may NEVER forget the gravity of the charge put to us, if we are to succeed in that which we have set out to do. That which we have been called to do. That which Horen and Harren and Owyn and Godfrey were called forth to do. I write these things to you, and know, these insights that I give you are not put plainly, nor described adequately. They are but glimpses, little glances at a whole truth known well to the both of us, written upon our hearts. But they should suffice you, by way of a serving of hope, by the wonder and the awe our Lord affords us in even knowing a sliver of that which He has planned, and set to be. Write, write write! Write, you call to me. Proclaim it, announce it, explain it! Show to them, to all of them, what I have done, what He has done, what we have seen, you call to me! But so daunting a task; and where to begin at it? With you, perhaps, with Serwa, Daughter of Malin, a hope that, for Malin's, there is a way, a future. That they are not forever condemned. Or, perhaps, with Raguel, who has been a herald; it is known, the Lord sends forth Angels, always, to herald the coming of prophets, and of the coming of His glory. Perhaps, there would be the start-- fore it was he who gave to us the cup, by which we shall one day pour fourth the Spirit upon the heads of you, and yours, and mine. The cup, then, I should write of, perhaps? The cup, so ancient, so old a charge, so steeped in mystery. Of Harren, who had wielded it, of Horen, who had by it done his worship, as it were in the tabernacle of the first days. Of Harren, who rejected it, who neglected it, who did as I had done, and done nothing at all, and said nothing, led nothing, guided nothing, inherited nothing, and permitted rot to be, where a Preserver was promised. There, I should write-- and I have done atleast, with you, what Harren had failed to do with all of us. I have drank. Then, if not Serwa, or Raguel, or the cup, something older still? What aulder could be than a thing from so near to the dawn time, the first days of our days, of the world? I should write, then, of the Flame, Him, the Tabernacle, the Holy Holy Holy, the Ruach HaKodesh, 'O King, the King of Kings, Shekhinah HaOlam. Him-- where it had begun, who had set it to be, who was behind each and every miracle, each and every word. He who was present, again, in the Tabernacle of the temple which had brought forth to us Raguel, and the cup, and this hope-again, his sanctum, and our charge. It need not be about the Kos, then, nor Raguel, nor you, nor who shall come, or any that has yet to be, but the journey, the Fire. It is Brandt I must put to the pen, and that day in the temple, when He had come down to Him, set a Vicar out for Himself, fought with that man. Struggled with him, wrestled with him, battled him; I had seen the wrinkling of his face, as I preached, as I told to them that THE PRESERVER WAS COMING, that he had to be, that God had promised him, that Siegmund were like Saul, an invader, a perverter, a deceiver, atleast, the Siegmund we had known, who was not a man, but the fable of a man, an icon of heresy. It was he who listened first, Brandt, where the rest had condemned, where the Malinites did not listen, where Horen turned his head and feigned deaf. He and I, on that day, were like Clement and Evaristus. Two tools, two blades, to staves, two arms of one mission, one master, one God. Vicars, shepherds, PRIESTS, we were, and prophets, and I had not before that time known that I should ever see one in the flesh. It was he, who, succumbing to the Spirit of the Lord, put forth that prophesy to us, which would take us into the depths of the wilderness, by way of rocky-mountains and cedar forests. It was he, who, in the Temple, restless, seeing that something was BROKEN, that SOMETHING was WRONG, had to DO, had to ACT, as I had called a hundred times-- but even I could do nothing. He took to the problem like a man made mad, a Mad One, shouting, would He want His Children to stand around idle, fools, and do nothing, while He..? It was he, then, who set the Flame. And upon the blade, we took it. Danzen- Arch-Lector. It was always his mission to tend to the Tabernacle. It was his heart sworn duty to tend to Him, wherever he had made his presence known, as Owyn had done. And, like Owyn, he took Him, gently, and placed him upon his blade, ethereal, smokeless, roaring, gentle, holy, ineffable, indescribable but that Man may throw a word at anything and hope it could stick, in his desperation to know anything at all. We walked the Path of Owyn, as Owynists had recited countless times before, since the day Owyn had done it himself. We lived his prophecy, direction by direction, word for word, and all was true, down to the very last. Fore but that it was spoken by a Human tongue, the Word was not of Human make, but God breathed, theopneustos. That man, who was a prophet, who spoke for the Spirit of God, who I have called Brandt Barclay, is today His Holiness Caius the First, and he is the Vicar of God, a prophet alive. He did not himself see what we had seen, where we had gone, where we were drawn. But, then, of course, he had prophesy to us that we would not, but that only I would know the resting, where He had bid us go. It was a stubborn Spirit. Uncanny, in that, it was native, it had felt native, it had felt that it was, but all the world seemed shout that it wasn't, seemed to reach out and fight it, smother it, evict it from where it had made itself incarnate, but had not the power to do it. Wherever the Light of the blade had touched, was set to order, and those little bits of land, of trees, of grass, of dirt beyond us seemed to brace itself to be judged, changed, set right, or burnt away. We had met no resistance on our pilgrimage. You and I have walked that path, some, together, Serwa, in our footsteps. You marked on that route a site that was holy-- that was about the half-way mark, when we had come to see the first of the cedar trees. Brandt had left us, when we neared exhaustion. He had duties at home, and I later found that his son, by the time that I had returned, had passed, and that his leaving had permitted him the time to rejoin his Kingdom in the wake of this. It was spoken by his own lips that he should not see the end, but he had set us on the path. We had reached the end of it. Jurkha, the Arch-Lector and I. The details of the journey, nor the prophecy, have I ever put greatly to the pen. But it was here that we had begun our work in earnest. I could claim that, for myself, it had begun long ago. But to tell a tale from who had begun it, I should have to begin at the time of Godfrey, and chronicle to now. I do not know that I could. What we had found upon that mountain, I could not begin to put to words. The things that I had seen-- the horror I had felt, no, the tragedy. It was pure clarity. So daunting a task, so great an ask it is, Serwa, to command a man to put to pen those things he knows that were not made for pens, nor words. Things that are felt, learnt, seen and heard, spoken of but never really truly verbalized. Ineffable things-- ineffable names. I had learnt a Name, then. I had it burnt into my mind. I had seen patterns, indescribable, but so perfect, so clean, and so right, so true, that the heart could not deny them. To see in every way how every thing had come to be, intertwined, dare I say interlinked, in every conceivable way, held together by a Will, insi-- To detail all that I had seen that day, felt, heard, learnt, and am still learning, I could not so easily do. And in that way, I am like the little Sorvian, stuck in his loop, in the processing of his thoughts, battling to comprehend a thing put to him by a thing orders of magnitude above him. The sort of dilemma begotten by the interaction between Creator and Created thing, bridging the gap of that irreconcilable difference between the two, in wisdom, in being, in understanding. When I do, I shan't write so silly as this, but I know that I shall, and that I must, in as much as I am the son of Horen, and called to do it. Because He had called me to do it, then, when He had showed me. I still will kvetch for the weight of it. A thing like this you do not so easily articulate. Better to sing, better to show, better to feel. It could not bear a moment longer to be with them, in that Temple, among those people. We had to bring it to the shelter of the wilderness, where none had gone before, and where all things were pure, and as they were supposed to be. And for a moment, I think, we had been in perfect, total grace. I remained there for many months. For over a year, I suspect, though the others had left on the day we had arrived, ill-equipped to remain in the middle of nowhere for so long. When I had returned, with me I brought Him, and set Him into the tabernacle of the Cathedral of Saint Arpad. When no longer I could battle for Him in this place, keep holy that nation which battled and wrestled with Him in every way one could conceive-- but honored Him and longed for Him-- I had moved Him again, to the Monastery of Santa Juli'el, where you had this past year encountered the Flames. Never shall I permit it to come to pass that, for the error of Man, He be ever disgraced. I know well that this task is by all accounts an impossible one, but I must, for Him I must, we must, for no other reason than that we are called to do it. And we shall. What Canonius had done, to defile a Holy Place-- to drag a thing dead into the House of Life, this was a crisis. One, for which, we had both dearly paid the price. Not while this Flame burns may we, who are the bearers of the Torch of Hope, ever permit, by our laziness, by the frailty of our bodies, this Presence ever to be defiled. To fail to act is to fail Him, we may not do it. And that it had been nearly done was crime enough, so, we paid the price, to keep it holy. Canonius knows the Law very well, he has himself made sacrifices for the Law, for love of his people. He took upon his own back the scorch of the whip, that was to be afforded Sister Grace. We took upon our bodies the Flame, made living torches of ourselves, to pay, the burn for it, to burn away the iniquity of it. He did not understand, could not understand. Nor could any of them. But we had made a great sacrifice, in that moment, in our duty to the Lord. We kept His House Holy, and we honored His Presence, and we paid the price. This, you must always be prepared to do. This, for this, I have made you Lector, thanks be to God, that you could in this endeavor aid me, split with me the burden of the burns of the sin and folly of Man. The Temple was rendered impure, and so, I had removed the Flame, for love of Him, and doused the tabernacle. Again I say, it is good that you should pilgrimage. May this journey be offered up to Him, that you be rendered pure, able, ready, in spirit and in body, to serve Him, to keep the Flame. These responsibilities, in so dark a world, we shall only come to see grow. What we take upon ourselves very willingly, in the spirit of love, for love of Him, for sacrifice to Him, is in the nature of our duty to carry out without prompt, without a question asked of us, without a command to do it. That is what keeps it at all burning. That is what keeps Him with us, and affords us the Grace to fuel that Flame, make it grow, make it roar. Seize, for the Master, for the King, His Kingdom which has for so long felt better off without Him. These responsibilities, I mean to say, shall only grow, grow more grave the more we hope to do. Love in Sacrifice. I pray this insight satisfies you, and I hope your journey is well. As for your task to me, I shall try. I shall try as always I have ever tried to declare such things. But I know, that, when you return, what I must bid you to do. I shall train you, and raise you up a proper Lector, a proper Priest, and put you in the robes of purity, and keep kosher you who my brothers know is not. Not, I say, for that they are wicked, but, simply, for that they are a flepir, and know not. But you listen, hear, and teach more clearly than the best among my brothers. For you, I have great hope. That you are, I have no doubt. We shall see to your ordination, soon enough. I shall detail to you this last great news. I have found another. Another of our Heavenly kindred, the servants of the Lord. Two for our age, and God willing, many more. More, and more, and more as the Crown is wreathed in Glory, all Glory that we may afford by our purity, by our faith, by our own love. And we grow nearer by the day to the Kingdom in our Presence. To the Preservation, and to the Reconciliation. To the Triumph of the Children of God, and the Pantokrator, their King, in a world-rebellious, over a Heaven at War. All for the Glory and Love of the King, O' King of Kings, 'O Melech, Abba, sweet Father! Pantokrator, King of the Universe, 'O God, of all things Great and Glorious! Preserve us, Your children of Spirit, deliver us, your promised people!

Serwa, it has been communicated to me that you have sent forth Canonius to inform me of what you have seen, but not through Canonius have I heard what you have written me, and so for the sake of the both of you, I shall make reply of your letter to me by the way of this publication. You write to me that you have dreamed a chalom, and that by the wisdom of the chalom I discern, by the trouble you express, that it has caused also for you vexation of spirit. But in as much as you have come to me, and do not know the meaning of what you have learned, I shall offer to you my pesher, I shall offer what insight that I may into what you have seen, and say also that you have seen the truth of it. Forasmuch as you had known that which they had done upon the mountain in impurity in Heinz, in the land of the sons of Joren, among the peoples of the Flay who are the Rutherns, and that you had seen also that this land was without purity and defiled, I say to you, that your chalomot are legitimate is certain to me. Much that you have seen, have I known also, and that you should see a glimpse of what wisdoms I have wrestled with tells to me that the path we have been called upon is likewise certain. It is for this reason that I have named you after me a Lector, as the Lector is, in his essence, the smoke of the Flame of Spirit; a servant of the tabernacle, a preserver of the Holiest. Recall that it was you firstly who had said to me that you shall trouble Man, and that he should not accept you. When I had conferred unto you this burden, that you should be Lector, in accordance with what I have discerned from your chalomot, and from your prophecies, I said to you that they shall not know for why I have done this. And I have said to you that they shall scorn you for this, because they do not know the truth of it. Verily, it is asked of me, Rabbi, why do you consort with the likes of them? They shall say, they are impurities, or they shall say, they are outsiders and do not know. They shall say to me that they are defilers, and that they care not for what is holy, but for that they are aggrandized. The Ruach HaKodesh has called forth to us, to you, and to me, and to Man, but for that Man did not wish to hear Him, that he should know a dwelling place among them, physical, tangible, a House, a Holy Place. If but you could see that this was the battle of our age, the wrestle of a thousand years. It is perhaps that you are among the few who live in this day that possess insight into the means and the ends of this, by what you have seen and heard and dreamt, whether you know how, or why, or in what way it should come to be. But though you have not fathomed the intricacies of the path, you have seen one and another great milestones, you have been offered a glimpse of the mission in whole, by the clarity of the Spirit. When I had received this letter, I set it before my learned brothers, and bid that they should interpret it also. But they had been alarmed, and grown worried at once, that you should think perhaps that you are the korban. And they have said also, "I fear they should be tamei", and for their fears I sympathize with them, but know also the Truth bid of me, that is not burdened for this. And so I address this missive also to them, that I may show them how the Daughter of Malin has not been deluded, nor poisoned, nor fooled, nor should think themselves the korban. BUT THEY HAVE SEEN THAT THERE MUST BE. Now that I have engaged myself to make my reply to you, and rambled what I must ramble, I shall address this which has been prophesy by you. Man must plumb the depths of the world before he can ascend to the greatest heights. You will make pilgrimage to the base of the world, and then walk through the Stone Chapel to Heaven. Here is the Truth, and the second prophecy you have given to us. Now I shall give you the exegesis of this prophecy spoken to you, my pesher. MAN must plumb THE DEPTHS of the world before he can (and may not otherwise) ascend the greatest heights. Firstly, see that what was heard by you is, while spoken to you, is not speaking of you, in that it is an address to Man. YOU will make pilgrimage to the base of the earth, and then walk through the Stone Chapel to Heaven. And here, we see, that you come also to be addressed, who is 'you'. See by this that MAN has gone down unto this place, where YOU are already present, you have been there since before it had begun. YOU, then, by the joining, ascend again upwards. With Man have you set out on your pilgrimage from this place (THE DEPTHS) upward to the base of THE ERETZ; further from this place through the Temple, and from the Temple upwards still, Shamayim, by the lead of the guide. Is this not as I have told you? Shall you see from this, what I have known? Even this insight will sustain your spirit, here in what was prophesy by the chalom of the Daughter of Malin. In this, I have touched only on that which you had heard, and not at all the rest that you had seen in your own chalom, and in this way I see that I have not done total justice in interpreting for you. Serwa, you have come so close, and nearer are we to the fruit of His mission! But I warn you, must warn you, that your own blood spilled was NOT the korban. Daughter of Malin, blessed are you, who is greatly innocent, and who has preserved the grace of your creed. You write that you had not gone up, and remained in that place, but have woken by the spilling of your own blood, and the slitting of your throat. And you say that upon your throat now is the mark of the cut. Have you not struck a covenant with me? Have you not given up and shared with me your curses? Have you not already made the cut? But you had not known the gravity of it, fore it was not for me, but for you that the cut was made. See that, but by the cut, you could not go, and would remain forever in that place! In the coming years, you shall see the why of it, and already you have begun to see for why; you write to me: "More and more, I see that man - the blessed children of GOD - commit terrible, sinful deeds." and doubt further; "I had thought men better, and think now on who must be redeemed." Daughter of Malin! This is the plight of our struggle. This is the battle which has been renewed for us by the Kos, this is the war which Man has been called to wage, and the danger which Malin has been called to evade. Who has slit your throat? Not God, Daughter of Malin, your throat has been slit by another! See that you have been shown yourself the death sentence we have incurred. Not by the spilling of blood may the blood of iniquity be set right, that all things may be set right, that according to the LAW, which is set now over us by the disposition of the Angels, all evils are justified- see the weight of the debt, and the burden of sin. Measure for measure, that all things evil done are made to meet an equal measure of justice upon them, and that every thing done righteous should see its just desert- the fruit of Virtue that doth not rot, which you have learnt from your Father Horen. WE MUST BE JUSTIFIED BEFORE THE LORD ADONAI, MELECH HA'OLAM, PANTOKRATOR! HOREN is judged, and MALIN is judged, and MANKIND is judged. Who are you, Daughter of Malin? Shall you remain apart from the Lord? I know that you shall not, fore you have thirsted for the living waters, and you have gone down into the depths for which you are bound, and there they were proffered to you, and you drank. “There lay a pool of water there; I drank, and returned to the surface, where I saw the stairs to the Heavens.” Where shall you go, Daughter of Malin? I shall not see that you are left behind, fore who has been promised but Horen? And who shall deny that salvation is of the Promised People. Who has loved, shall be loved. And who has been given, ought always to give. Who has been given a great gift, the blood, the means by which his brothers may be saved? And who should he be, Man, that he does not take it and share it with them? Shall he say, that by his Promise, he is entitled, that by the covenant with Horen, he shall go up to the gates and say; you may not deny me! But he is denied, shall be denied. Do you hear H'Oren kvetch, that by the disposition of the Aenguls, he may not go to the place his Father had seen, his Father of Virtue, who was the Son of the Son of Man? Not but by the mixing of the living water, and the blood of his covenant, may he do this. Once was it poured out upon his head, and once was he the Vessel of Grace, beloved by God. Now, how far she must go, to get but a drop! She is thirsty, starving, and she is dying, and she has come to the well of Horen and spoken, 'sir, a drink, I beg you'. What have you done, Horen? Have you not preserved the teachings? Have you forgotten the way of Virtue? Have you fallen so far away from the Lord, that you may not share a even a drink? This is the burden of your blood, Horen, that no food nor water is afforded you but that it is fed you by the doing of the will of Him who has commanded you to do his work. And in this way, Horen, you may drink, and you may eat, and you may not starve, but do not think that you should be drowning in great abundance, when you have done no work, and, by the law, bear no fruit, and see no reward! So I say to you, Daughter of Malin, have you not seen that I possess the cup that satisfies the heart of Man? I say to you, Daughter of Malin, you may not drink of it, and none of Malin could find a drop from it but Father Nerium, who by את Lari'hei Tohareinu, who was purified of the blood, by the blood, by the law, by the grace! And not in any other way shall you come to drink, but that you are washed in the blood, and strong with the grace. Having now the grace, even in your dreams do you see that, not by the blood may anything be made pure, when once it had been dirtied. Daughter of Malin, did I not proffer you the Kos, and say to you, I shall drink a poison that you may live? Daughter of Malin, who shall preserve you, but את HaBen Ruach? Daughter of Malin, have I not already set the way for you, that we may begin the work? If by your curses you had been condemned, then by the poison shall את HaBen Ruach go with you also with your curses, as his Lord has done, and as את Horen was commanded, and shall do unto the day. Such was the burden of the Prince of H'Oren, firstborn son of את Horen, and this is the nature of the cup that I have shown to you. But for that for two nigh two thousand years he could not do it, could not all Man be saved, fore salvation is of H'Oren. Who has done evil has condemned himself to die, And who has been condemned to die, he shall die, And not but by the spilling of blood shall the law in this way be satisfied, And by the curses upon him, is the blood of Man depreciated, Not by the purity of the blood shall the cursed at all be saved. And none shall be saved who have not ate and drank of the Spirit, And the cursed shall not know the Spirit, and they shall know thirst and hunger. But who is chosen, and who is promised, and who is without curse, but את Horen, the beloved? He who saw that our Lord's day was coming, and for that he was a great tzadik was beloved by the Spirit permitted this, He was raised up to see the Throne of God unknown even to the Angels, he has seen the Promise, And he has been spared of the curse of Iblis to be upon the blood of Man, who for this reason is his adversary, Forever in his blood is the Promise, and quickly is he called again close to Him, that he may again behold it. But for this covenant shall his sons not know the food or the drink but by the doing of the will of the Lord, They shall not themselves sup but that they have pleased him, and in this way they are fed and sustained. Who has said, let them come before the shrine of the spirit of grace, that burns with Man? A Prophet of the Lord has said it, and he reigns as High Priest to restore His Kingdom, Who has asked, but Malin? And who should Horen be if he does not give? He shall surely die. In this way, and by this law, and in this formula shall Mankind find that he may sup. Whoever shall not feed, shall not be fed; he shall starve to death. Whoever shall not proffer will not be proffered; the thirst will claim him. Whoever will not live by the law, shall die by the law.

An Owynist Rabbi is reported to have, upon unraveling the document, immediately shrieked in terror, launching it a nigh miraculous distance over the low walls of the Monastery of Santa Juli'el and into the wilderness. He is said to have taken at once to the basin of ablution, scrubbing his hands, then burning his robes and donning the Julian habit, and further secluding himself for seven hours for 'tevilah'. "THEY ARE SPREADING COGNITO HAZARDS!"

A dazzled Callahan, secluded, sat and watched the perpetual burning of a limb of rotten cedar, bittersweet smile painted upon his face. "LORD, LORD, I know not whether I should cry to have at-last seen the coming of the reconciliation of the Church, or weep for all the pains inflicted it." The light cackle of the persistent flames seemed to answer him, in that they had not themselves leaped forth to rejoice of it. The kvetchous priest grinned, seeing the great burden of the law, the weight of the debt unpaid. An odd thing to grin at, and still he ground his teeth, and was not satisfied; but saw still where God's work had ought to be done, and knew from it what he himself must do. Turning to the left of him, where had watched a golden grail, overseen by the portrait of PADRE TONI, spoke the priest; "We've done it." and quoting a great Flepir saint, added, "Now we can finally play the game!" The Lector climbed to his feet, and set out to meet his brother, now CAIVS PRIMVS, to greet and thank him rightly, and to warn him, as always he had warned him; the debt is great, and the atonement of Horen shall not come but by a great deal of sacrifice. It shall be no easy feat, and the path of the High Priest is not a road tread wantonly, as *his predecessor* had done. CAIVS PRIMVS, blessed are you, Flepir POPE, slave of the slaves of God, may you be forever a man of INNOCENCE, beloved by GOD in as much as you have loved HIS people; the hope of Horen, who have for Horen's sins wept, and who shall for Horen's sins endeavor to pay the price, that this people nere-forsake the Covenant made Him by and their father, who beheld the Throne of God, and conducted with him the Salvific Promise.

Behold this, yet another tremendous atrocity of our time, ABOMINATION, see that a Covenant with Edel has so kindly permitted You, Adon Olam, that your servants 'by their grace' may do as You command of them 'with their leave'. Verily, not since the time of Edel have such horrors been known among the lands of Horen, and our fathers weep for us, fore we have taken and violated our dear and sacred, the only and only true Covenant, the True Faith. Owyn Prophet preserve us!

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Shalom, Sandra! News has reached me that you have survived an encounter with the most virulent diabolist blood-craze and lived, with only minor major damage on your soul and 1500 accumulative years in purgatory. Let me be the first to offer you my sincere; Congratulations! I am sorry that my colleague has not been able to satisfy you in his reply, and so I have taken it upon myself to proxy for him so as to offer you the best complainer support that the Canonist Church and the Order of Saint Jude are capable of affording. The Canonist Church values your input, and is ever-committed to maintaining only the highest standards of care for those who have dabbled in the arts of HaSatan. 1. As a consequence of your blood-crazed murder mania, we were unfortunately compelled to restrain you that you may not consume the life-blood of any more infant children, elderly, wretched, drunkard, or other unfortunate bystanders, for the safety of God's Creation. 2. Unfortunately, the Canonist Church has not evaluated the ethical practices of the 'Templars' that you have mentioned, and could not possibly send you to them in good conscious, for fear of entertaining the diabolical machinations of an infernal power assuming itself as an idol of worship to lord over Man in exchange for many gifts. We are, however, prepared to offer you our finest Home Brewed Diabolist Treatment free of charge. I hope this helped! Thanks! -B.C.