Wylie Beckert

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“ In my vision, I beheld a great kingdom with a shining city at its heart. Here, all was magnificence — lofty towers and glittering spires that threatened to humble the sun with their brilliance.

The gates of this city were presided over by towering statues — kings and queens of great import, no doubt, for what other kind would sculptors have seen fit to memorialize as frowning colossuses whose crowns scraped the very heavens?

Almost as imposing as the statues, though, were the soldiers, heavily armed and outfitted in glorious armor, who guarded the way through the gates. It would seem that I was beneath their notice, though, for as I passed under their crossed spears their contemptuous eyes slid over me as if I did not exist, and I was able to approach the shining city unharmed… ”

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“ In my vision, I found myself amidst one of the many garrisons of Narmurius the Unyielding. All around us, from every tree and tent and horse, hung banners — so many banners that, were their colors more spirited, I might have assumed the encampment to be caught up in the throes of some joyous festival.

Each of these banners, though, hung gray against the gray sky, and each bore the black club and watching eye of the emperor's seal; it would have been difficult to imagine a less celebratory atmosphere. Everywhere was a sense of guarded unease — among the soldiers, where one might have expected to hear snatches of song and raucous conversation in a dozen dialects, there were only lowered voices and grumbles of complaint. Not a man among them called his companion "brother," and each eyed the others warily.

I gave credit, at least, to the fealty of these ranks; for upon the appearance of their leader, all fell to the ground as one to pay homage — though my awe at this display was diminished somewhat when I realized that the slowest to kneel were the swiftest to be punished.

“It is strange,” remarked my own companion, “that so tall a man could be so insistent in his desire for others to bow low before him.” But he made this observation quietly, into the dirt, for above us Narmurius was passing by. ”

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“ In my vision, I wandered the market streets of the great city I had glimpsed from the road. Here, a jostling rabble of humanity gathered to buy and sell — more people, perhaps, than I might have encountered in a year of my usual travels. I would have thought the noise and chaos to be insurmountable, but as the noon bells began to ring, a host of heralds took their places atop the minarets bordering the square and, as if in one voice, raised a great cry that boomed and echoed off the stone buildings, utterly eclipsing the din of the marketplace.

I have heard heralds in other cities call out warnings, songs, or prayers — but as I listened, I realized that the heralds here were crying out in celebration of the glory of the young queen.

In ringing tones and at great length, we were regaled with the hundred ways in which the city had prospered under the rule of Nephemet The Renowned: if the criers were to be believed, each fish that leapt in a net, each child born healthy, and each stalk of wheat that pierced the soil to stand in the sun did so at the queen's behest. It would seem that each day's tide rose and fell by her command, and that each drop of rain was wrung from the clouds by her own hand.

The racket was such that all attempts at barter or conversation had to be abandoned; as the day was hot, my companion and I decided to wait out the recitation under the shade of a market stall where an elderly vendor was laying out her scanty wares. When at last the heralds fell silent, and the last echoes of the bells had faded away, the old woman spat on the ground and said, 'Thrice a day for the past twenty years have I heard such praise, but few enough fish have the queen’s wondrous deeds brought to my nets.” Feeling the gaze of a liveried guard fall upon her, she added, “Though the harvest under her rule has indeed been a fine one!”

As the bustle of the market resumed, my companion and I moved on. “I have known many who believe that the story of their deeds is their own to tell,” he said. “It is a wonder to me that they never seem to hear the true authors of their histories whispering at their backs.” ”

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“ In my vision, I was favored with a rare opportunity: a visit to the gardens of the renowned sculptor Soris, who was said to breathe uncommon life into marble. Despite his young age, the artist’s talents were widely known; I had heard it from many tongues that any noble whose halls were not graced with at least one example of his statuary kept a very sorry palace indeed.

Although such praise might have prepared me for the wonder of his artistry, once I stood among the statues I found myself completely awestruck. As my companion and I wandered the sprawling grounds, with Soris’s exquisite creations towering all around us, I could not help but marvel aloud at the transcendent beauty of his work; my companion, though, made only the most noncommittal noises as I exclaimed over the elegance of each lithe figure, each graceful passage of drapery wrought in stone.

After a time, it struck me that although the statues represented all manner of ancient gods, fallen heroes, and kings of old, each of them bore the same face: a youthful countenance, handsome, proud, perfect. When we came at last to the pavilion in the center of the garden where the artist himself was at work, I felt that I already knew his visage well. Although the likenesses in the garden were striking, the perfection of marble had failed to capture the peculiar emptiness of Soris’s eyes; it was as if, having found the thousand wonders of the outside world lacking, he had abandoned such paltry sights and instead turned his gaze inwards.

We exchanged pleasantries, and he accepted graciously enough the praise that I lavished upon his craft; but before long, the carving at hand seemed to draw his attention away from us, and his answers to my inquiries became increasingly brief and vague. I did not begrudge him this slight, for I was eager to see such mastery in action; beneath his clever hands the face of a youth was emerging from the block of marble — handsome, proud, perfect, with only the slightest trace of emptiness to its eyes. ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld a glorious kingdom — but only in fleeting glimpses, through the gaps between iron balusters, for the gates that barred my way were closed and formidable.

Formidable, too, was their gate keeper.

“This kingdom,” he said, in a voice like thunder, “is the work of multitudes. A thousand hands have toiled a thousand years to raise it from the dust. Generations of men have watered this land with the sweat of their brows to bring it forth, and they died on this land knowing that they would never see its completion.

“They acted in the knowledge that others might one day use the foundations that they themselves had laid, to build something even greater.”

His eyes fell on me with an immense weight.

“What, then, do you intend to build on such foundations? Are you worthy to enter such a kingdom?”

I looked on the grandeur beyond the gates, and thought of what little I had wrought in my own life; how little I had built, and how few I had served. I hung my head.

I was startled by the grating of metal on stone, and raised my head; before me, the gates were opening. The gatekeeper’s hand was on my shoulder.

“See that you carry this knowledge with you in all that you do here.” ”

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“ In my vision, I found myself standing in the midst of a great assembly; by the multitudes in attendance, I judged this to be an occasion of great significance, though the hushed conversations of those around me gave me no hint as to its meaning.

On a dais before the crowd, a nobleman was being stripped of his fine attire and divested of every piece of adornment that he wore; a dozen chests containing this unfortunate man's possessions were relinquished to a flock of clerics, who indiscriminately dispersed the costly wares therein to the gathered crowd.

In place of his finery, he was given austere garments to wear, and his circlet of gold was exchanged for a rough helm of some base metal that gleamed only by the polish of much handling. This relic was apparently quite heavy, for the man sagged visibly under the weight of it, though he bore it without complaint.

At first I took these proceedings to be a ceremony of exile, or perhaps the exactment of some cruel criminal penalty; but my companion was quick to correct my ignorance: it seemed that we were, in fact, witnessing the coronation of a new king.

“It is held, in this land, that rulership does not exist for the benefit of those who rule,” he explained absently, admiring the exquisitely woven tapestry which a passing cleric had bestowed upon him. “For a man to call himself king, he must have no stake in riches or personal gain; no interests or alliances that he might value above the lives of those who owe him fealty. He lays down his worldly goods so that he might take up the burdens of his people; he will guard them and serve them until the end of his days.'

And so it came to pass that I bore witness to the crowning of Narmurius the Unworthy... ”

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“ In my vision, I travelled a long road through unforgiving terrain. The way proved more difficult than I could have imagined at the journey’s outset, but whenever some small misfortune befell me, I always found myself aided by others upon the road.

My attempts to thank such patrons were dismissed out of hand; each traveller, it seemed, offered me only such kindness as had been offered them by another; and just as these kindnesses had been granted to them with no thought of repayment, so in turn were they granted to me; and many were the tales I heard of the charities and the sacrifices of strangers.

Strangers, I say, because at first the stories named them so; but as my journey progressed, the details of these stories began to overlap and coalesce in such a way that I began to suspect many described the deeds of a singular person — if, it must be said, an extremely busy one. The further I travelled, the more certain the descriptions of this figure became, and the more fantastical: if the most outlandish tales were to be believed, it seemed that a sort of goddess roamed these mountains, clad in a silver cloak and starry crown, drawn to the prayers of the lost as a moth to the flame.

As I approached the end of another weary day of travel, with the lights of my destination just visible in the distance, the wheels of my cart somehow contrived to lodge themselves in the deep mud of the path and I found myself hopelessly mired less than an hour's ride from warmth and shelter. As if to deliberately compound my misery, a cold rain began to fall.

Just when all appeared lost, I spotted the faint glow of a lantern approaching. The plain, pleasant woman who found us proved handy with her staff and her shoulder, and soon the cart was on solid ground again. I thanked her profusely for her efforts; and to my surprise, she did not demur my gratitude, as was the custom of others on the road. Instead, she smiled, and bowed her head in acknowledgement.

"A light in the darkness will serve only to blind its bearer,” she told me, picking up her lantern, “Unless it finds a form to fall upon, to give it shape and meaning. Better that I extinguish my lamp than hold it proud of those whose paths might be illuminated by it."

With this observation, she went on her way — lantern held high, a small and shapeless figure beneath a tattered cloak that was, in truth, more gray than silver… ”

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“ In my vision, I came to a marble courtyard in the shadow of a great monastery. A crowd milled thick about me, most of its members swathed in the enveloping costume of the monastic order. It was not their plain, heavy robes that caught my eye, though, but rather the carved wooden masks that hid their faces — each one identical in its simple design, but beautifully crafted.

Winding our way to the center of the crowd, my companion and I came upon a broad reflecting pool; stone steps spiraled up from its edge to meet a raised plinth at its center, where a fire burned in a brazier. As we approached, we saw that a young man was being led up the steps, caught up in a stream of silent, masked figures. He wore the same robes as his chaperones, but his pale face was bare, and his wrists were manacled. I recognized him at once as the convict Soris, whose crimes I am loathe to recount.

I saw that several of the masked men were stoking the fire in the brazier, and the silent crowd about us had drawn close to watch; I did not like to think what horrors might unfold before me; but my fear – if not my confusion – was somewhat allayed when the young man was unshackled.

One of the wooden masks was placed in his cupped hands, and from the crowd of masked figures, many hands reached out to fill the empty bowl of it with bundled herbs, dark powders, sprinkled elixirs, and a single ember from the brazier.

As the mass in his hands began to smolder, the young man spoke his own name into the smoke, with a gravity that somehow told me it was the last time it would ever be spoken – "Soris," like an incantation, and the name seemed to feed the fire, for all at once the contents of the mask caught spectacularly with a great gout of flame. When all within had burned to ash, the glowing embers were tipped into the brazier; the still-smoldering mask was doused in the waters of the reflecting pool and fitted, by half a dozen pairs of hands at once, over the face of the man, whose name had been…

?

…I found that already it had escaped me, as if I had never heard it at all. A hundred voices spoke at once, in such a practiced harmony that they may as well have been one voice; the mouth of the youth was hidden now, and so I could not have said if he too spoke the words:

"There are those who do not feel the guidance of an inner compass. Let the hand they would have turned to iniquitous acts be stayed by the many hands of the brotherhood. We do not demand of them a righteous heart; only that they allow themselves to be guided on a righteous path.”

The ceremony concluded, the masked figures flowed from the steps as one, like a flock of birds, and dissolved into the ranks of the many below. I could not spot the youth among them.

I turned to my companion, who so often had some observation to contribute to the sights we witnessed, but I found him silent, his face unreadable behind his wooden mask. ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld a kingdom with a corrosive poison at its heart.

Everywhere in this land I felt the uneasy slither of eyes upon me; they seemed to measure me, weighing me like a sack of grain and calculating what I might be worth — and how best and swiftest to extract it.

It had been a long day of travel and my goatskin was nearing empty, but I found no wells from which to fill it that were not jealously guarded by high fences and strong locks.

At last, I came to a canal bordered by grim gray stone on both sides; I started down the narrow steps towards the water to replenish my supply, but the hand of my companion halted me. “Do not drink,” he said. “There is a sickness in these waters.” Though thirst was beginning to curl within me like a serpent, I stood. We continued onwards, towards the city that flourished along the banks of that canal, like a tree with its roots planted in a great river… ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld a seemingly endless procession of emissaries, come to pay homage to the king Raneb. On behalf of kings and nobles of their own, these emissaries laid before the king the finest treasures their distant homelands had to offer. As each gift was brought before the throne, he who bore it would obsequiously downplay its worth, as was the custom:

“My master wishes me to convey his great shame for setting such an unworthy offering before you,” one would say, as a pair of magnificent black warhorses were led into the throne room, hooves gilded and manes braided with discs of hammered gold, “As is is known that your own stables produce the finest beasts imaginable.”

Or, as courtiers were moved to tears by the breathtakingly beautiful melody played by a quintet of masterful harpists: “Mere apprentices at their craft, your worship; I am certain that your own musicians are capable of much sweeter music.”

Or: “The work of our most humble craftsmen, vastly inferior to your kingdom’s own, and hardly deserving of your notice” — this said as a flock of intricate clockwork birds rose from a jeweled egg to dance through the air above us on gilded wings.

The modesty of such ambassadors, which had no doubt won the favor of many a ruler, did not seem to please this king, however; for the more gifts were laid at his feet, the more downturned the corners of his mouth became, and the deeper grew the furrow in his brow.

When at last the procession of wonders ceased, the king dismissed the throngs of emissaries and onlookers with an impatient gesture of his hand. As we filed out with the rest of the crowd, I remarked with some bemusement on the king’s ungracious mood — for having dwelt long in this land, I had seen many of its native wonders. It seemed that despite all the gaudiness of these foreign treasures, the delights of Raneb’s own kingdom must surely be enough to satisfy any man.

My observations with my companion’s mirthless laugh.

“It is true that a man might easily slake his thirst from the vessel of his own good fortune, no matter how small a drop of joy it contains. But the fortune of others is an unwholesome elixir — so sweet that the smallest taste of it will turn the palate against all other flavors. Once tasted, no other drink will do; one is bound to keep drinking even as its poison corrodes him from within." ”

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“ In my vision, an otherwise pleasant meal in a cozy tavern was interrupted by an unwelcome guest. The woman who had seated herself between my companion and myself without invitation was thin and shabbily dressed in clothing that might once have been fine, but was now much worn and mended; the cloak that covered all was of the poorest quality and hid much of her face. At the sight of her, all hands beneath the table shifted reflexively to guard purses and money belts.

The woman did not seem to mark the sudden shift in the jovial mood of the diners, but instead took the uncomfortable silence as an opening to speak. “Once upon a time,” she began, unprompted, “There was a snake who married a king, though the king already had two children — twin daughters.

“When this king died, there was much confusion over which princess would take his crown — for it was decreed that his widow the snake could not rule, being of lowly birth. At last, the advisors decided that one princess would be sent to each of two outlying realms that had been united under their father’s rule, that they might learn the ways of governance; with the snake herself remaining in the palace to guard the throne until such time as one princess or the other proved herself fit to rule.

“Both sisters were dutiful and just, as their father had been — and as a result, both realms prospered. Prospered, at least, until a blight devastated the farmlands of the northern sister’s realm. This princess sent word to the south, begging her sister's aid, which was gladly given: it was decreed that the yield of the southern crops would be divided, with half sent to feed the northern subjects.

“And so all was well again — well, at least, until a sickness swept through the ranks of the soldiers who guarded the southern borders, killing many and crippling most. This time, it was the southern princess who begged aid from her sister; and this too was provided gladly.

“Thrice more such favors were asked by one princess or the other, and thrice more were they granted; but on the fourth occasion, the beneficent princess was visited not only by an envoy from her sister, but also by the snake, who had travelled from her late husband’s palace to offer the princess her counsel.

“‘I have visited your sister’s realm,’ said the snake, ‘And I have seen with my own eyes the veracity of her misfortunes. If her coffers do not overflow, she points to the riches of your treasury and names her own condition poverty; if the harvests of her farmlands or the skills of her tradesmen do not equal those of your own, she declares herself destitute. She will not be content until she has claimed all of your prosperity for her own, and left you with nothing.

“‘Her envious eye will be the undoing of your kingdom,’ the snake said. ‘You must cut it out, and bring it to me.’ And when the princess did as the snake asked, the snake swallowed the eye greedily, and grew larger, and hungrier... “

“A fine tale,” interrupted my companion, “And I am sure there are others you would rather tell it to this night.” The coins he slid across the table to dismiss her were brass and copper, and of little value. They bore the seal of the dowager queen - a coiled serpent, crowned, with something round grasped in its jaws.

The woman shot my companion a sour look, but she took the coins. As she rose to leave, she leaned in close to speak to me alone; in the shadow of her cloak, I saw the glint of firelight on glass — a pale, unseeing eye that did not match its dark and piercing twin.

“Had I known my stepmother was whispering the same poison to my sister,” she said, “I might have been less hasty in my justice.” ”

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“ In my vision, I wandered through a city that had once been fair - but no longer. Everywhere around me was decay, neglect, and disuse; it was clear that nothing had been planted, nor built, nor repaired in many years. Every fountain was choked with weeds, and for every roof that still gave shelter, two more were collapsed and open to the sky.

I took the city to be abandoned until I came to a hill overlooking a square, where there was amassed a great multitude of people – all stooped, all aged. Every bent back bore a wooden litter, and each litter in turn supported a tall shrine bearing the painted image of a fair youth or maiden. I saw that a meager harvest had been heaped as offerings upon the shrines – vermin-gnawed fruit, foraged weeds and wilted flowers. Here and there candles and cones of incense burned, and everywhere was weeping and lamenting.

Gradually, the significance of this strange assembly and the ruins of the city around it dawned upon me: some great calamity — a war, perhaps, or a plague — had claimed the young of this land down to the last of their number, leaving their impoverished elders to fend for themselves, with no hand steady enough to wield a hammer, no back strong enough to pull a plow or raise a beam.

Struck by the plight of these orphaned folk, I turned to ask my companion what fate had befallen the beautiful youths and maidens of the shrines. As was so often the case, the earnestness of my inquiry was met with a bemusement that bordered on contempt. "Fate? You see their fates unfolding before you. The lost lives these fools mourn are their own. They build shrines to the sainted memories of their past selves; they have languished in this folly for untold years, growing old in the certainty that their remembrances outshine any future they might build for themselves."

As we stood contemplating the scene, a cold breeze sprang up, replete with a sifting of snow from the gray sky. It stirred our cloaks and caused the painted idols to sway; it lifted the smoky incense of the shrines up to us on our promontory, and for a moment we were enveloped in its musty, cloying sweetness. Abruptly, I was overcome with a pang of nostalgia for all the treasures that had been stolen from me by the passage of time — the easy laughter, the pretty face unlined by hard years and persistent sorrows, the unwavering belief in my own righteousness.

A clawed hand on my shoulder brought me out of my reverie. "We should leave this place," my companion observed. “I believe the air here is unhealthy.” We passed on through the city, unnoticed by the bent gray folk in their private grief, but ever watched by the smiling, untroubled eyes of their painted captors. ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld a kingdom of unparalleled grace and beauty rising from the hills before me. Even at a distance, its marble temples and colonnades spoke of order in its most elegant form, conceived by a practiced eye and constructed by a masterful hand.

As I approached this oasis, the rough cobbles of the open road gave way to a meticulous tessellation of stone tiles beneath my feet — each one expertly shaped and fitted precisely with its neighbors to form an intricate mandala of many hues that spread out as far as the eye could see to carpet the pavilions and gardens in a vast white mural of sweeping arcs and scintillating points, bordered and bisected by glittering waterways that reflected the azure of the sky.

Though entering an unknown land is always an uncertain proposition, I felt a sense of peace as I crossed those flagstones, somehow certain in the knowledge that a craftsman capable of imagining such an exquisite a geometry would not have squandered his efforts on road that led towards darkness or iniquity… ”

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“ In my vision, I was but one of the many pilgrims who sought an audience with the learned sage Raneb the Knowing. When at last I stood before this exalted person, though, all the many questions I had intended to ask fled my mind. Foundering, I grasped at the nearest subject at hand — the long journey we had undertaken to reach his palace — and asked him how the places he had seen had shaped his understanding. I could not have foreseen the laughter that met my inquiry. Seeing my confusion, he led me by the arm to a window overlooking his lands to the east.

“Do you see that stand of cypress?”

I saw it — perhaps ten miles off, just forward of the point where the swell of distant hills swallowed the horizon.

“That is the farthest my travels have taken me — the lands beyond are as yet unknown to me. But perhaps you can tell me something of them, you who have walked a hundred leagues of them to beg my counsel?”

Surprised and delighted by his deference — and feeling that this was a topic on which I could converse at great length — I launched into an exhaustive account of all I had seen and all I had done… only to find that after perhaps half an hour, I had exhausted my knowledge of the subject of the larger world. Having detailed the weather I had endured, the landmarks I had visited, the meals I had eaten, some trivia on culture and customs, and a few tales of chance encounters I had had along the way, I foundered; not knowing what else there was to add, I trailed off into an uncertain silence.

“It is no matter.” A wave of his hand dismissed the underwhelming limits of my knowledge. “Even if you were to devote your entire life to scrutinizing the small stretch of land you can see from this window, you could never claim a complete understanding of it — the machinations of some creature burrowing beneath it might still escape your notice. A heavy rain from the mountains might bring a flood that utterly transforms it overnight, and the shape of the clouds that pass above it will forever evade your best-informed predictions.

“Think, then, on how incomparably vast the world in its entirety is. There is is no depth of study that would allow a single scholar to grasp all of its mysteries. If you would seek understanding, look inward. Many men, having spent a century or more in their own company, could scarcely tell you the reasons they weep, or laugh, or take up arms. They exist as strangers to themselves.

“If you would free yourself from such ignorance, you must cut through your self-deception with the bright sword of understanding, and bring to light those truths which have been hidden even from your own eyes. Only then may you finally become an adept of the only field in which any man may proclaim himself a true master.”

As I left the palace, I was rejoined by my companion, who had declined to accompany me within. “I hope your time with the philosopher king proved enlightening,” he said. “For though many seek his counsel, I am told that many petitioners have left such audiences in disappointment, no wiser than they were when they arrived.” ”

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“ In my vision, I took part in the street festival that marks the longest night of the year, in which wrongs are pardoned and debts forgiven to wipe clean the slate of the new year. Despite the bitter cold, all was celebration: every roof in the village had been hung with colored lanterns, and all along the central canal peddlers' stalls had sprung up to sell hot pastries, little talismans against the darkness, and a drink peculiar to this region, a distillation of sweet herbs and potent spirits, which I had heard much of but never sampled. I traded a vendor a few coins for one such brew, and tried to purchase a second for my companion, though he declined my offer.

I have been uncommonly blessed with good fortune and loyal companionship on my many travels. Still, I have suffered my share of small injustices and disappointments, and often have I found myself dwelling upon such grievances with a heavy heart. This night’s festivities, though, seemed a balm to these ills, for as I passed through the crowd I could not find among it any face that I did not recall with fondness, nor any person who had done me ill.

I rejoiced to keep such good company, and traded more of my coins for another cup of spirits.

My companion, perhaps seeing the toll that the cold was taking upon me, led me away from the celebration and guided me with a steady hand up an expanse of marble steps and into the warmth of a temple chancel.

When the iron door swung shut behind us, it abruptly silenced the revelries without. The merriment that suffused the village with color and light was altogether absent here; there were no colored lanterns, only somber candlelight. In an alcove set into the furthest wall, a temple priestess attended to her writings, hemmed in on all sides by a towering landscape of books and scrolls.

By the uninterrupted progress of her quill across the page, I decided that she had not marked our entrance. We had not entirely escaped notice, though, for in the cavernous darkness of the vaulted ceiling, owls roosted in every niche; their piercing golden eyes and followed our approach, and their silent wings . One of them glided silently down to perch on the priestess’s shoulder, and at last she turned her eyes to us. They were of the same golden hue as those of the owls, and they regarded us with the same grave scrutiny.

“I see that you have come from the festival,” she said; her voice was as gray as the book-lined walls around us, and her quill never ceased its scratching.

In my drunkenness, I mumbled something in reply — perhaps an expression of my delight for the festivities, and my dismay that any person, even a member of the order, should be missing out on them.

My words did not seem to move the priestess, whose golden eyes returned to her writings. “I am not missing the festival,” she said mildly. “It’s right here” — she indicated the sheet beneath her quill — “along with everything else.”

“Everything else?” I wobbled slightly on my feet, for my companion had dropped my arm to pull a leather-bound tome from one of the shelves, which he was now reading with apparent interest.

“The lessons that experience has been trying to teach those fools, but that they insist on forgetting.” She took my continued wobbling for confusion — rightly so — and sighed.

“A man who does not remember the path he has walked will be doomed to wander in circles forever. Every root that tripped him once, will trip him again. You may think of this temple” — and here she finally lifted her quill, a sweeping gesture that took in the gray walls, the books, the watching eyes of the owls — “as a waystation on that path. The things that one and all have turned their eyes from, the things they have chosen to forget… they are written here. They are preserved for such time as they are needed, should any ever wish for the future to take a different shape from the past.”

The hazy glow of the spirits seemed to have left me. I felt suddenly sober, and suddenly unsettled by the weight of all those golden eyes. I turned to leave.

“Until next time, then.” The quill resumed its scratching.

Stumbling from the temple on my companion's arm, I found that the cold bit all the deeper after the warmth of the temple. As I rejoined the crowd, a friend hailed me, and offered me a hand — a hand that, I suddenly recalled, had been raised against me in anger more than once. I turned away from it, and took a swig from the cup in my own hand. The brew that had at first tasted of some luscious nectar now seemed unpleasantly astringent on my tongue, and it did not warm me as once it had. Above us in the darkness, golden eyes glittered amidst the swaying lanterns… ”

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“ In my vision, I bore witness to the burial rites of Eda of the Ninety-Seven Lives, the greatest philosopher of this or any age. If the tales are to be believed, her exceptionally long life had allowed her to amass such a wealth of knowledge and experience that on the strength of her counsel great wars had been waged and ended, lowly men raised up and mighty kings deposed. In this way, her wisdom had shaped the empire for more than two thousand years.

As I watched, the withered body that had once housed this great mind was brought forth on its bier - posed in a semblance of contemplation and swathed in a cocoon of parchment to which a torch was set, igniting it like dry leaves. As the flames rose, the breeze brought a scrap of charred paper to my feet. Seeing the words upon it, I realized that I was watching the destruction not only of the great scholar's body, but also of her writings.

I decried the tragedy of this compound loss to my companion, who only smiled at my despair.

“Do you see that woman?” An unassuming figure in scholar's robes stood close to the head of the pyre, head bowed, heedless of the flames and swirling embers.

“Until this day she has lived her life as the disciple of the great philosopher, studying her doctrines and receiving her guidance in all things.

“Those very doctrines, if you recall, remind us that a written word is the faded shadow of the hand that wrote it; the ignorant or unscrupulous will read in it any message they chose. Today, this nameless disciple inherits her true name, to speak with the living voice that will not be misread or misremembered.”

And so it was that I realized the honor that had been bestowed upon me — for now I can tell my children's children that I once stood in the presence of Eda of the Ninety-Eight lives, whose words will burn brighter than those of all who came before her... ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld a feral land of tumbled ruins and scarred earth. All that had once been beautiful here had been desecrated; all that had been built by human hands had been undone by forces I dared not contemplate.

Whatever better angels humanity may once have had in this blighted wasteland, they had long ago fled from this place. Still, the path led forward into this ruin, and so I followed it… ”

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“ In my vision, I walked the ruined streets of Ohrys. As the tragic fate of that once-great city has already been widely recounted and much lamented, I hardly need describe the devastation that I saw there.

So stunned was I to witness this wreckage firsthand that I did not notice the old man in the road until I was almost upon him. Dirty and bedraggled, he knelt among the debris, attempting to pry the emerald eye from a fallen statue.

When he whirled to confront me, I was stunned to realize that his face was known to me. It was the face of the emperor Abrexeis - a visage which for countless years had shone from every coin and fluttered from every banner. The eyes that looked out of that face now, though, were barely human. As they settled upon me, they took in all that I carried with me - my cloak, my goatskin, my satchel of supplies which had seemed humble enough when I set out that morning, but which now seemed, amidst this wasted hellscape, a king's ransom.

He took a single step towards me, and for a single horrible moment the sun pierced the smoky sky to catch on the iron bar clutched in his hands.

Behind me, I heard the sudden rustle of heavy robes as my companion rose from the broken pillar upon which he had been resting. His long shadow fell across us both, and the wildman faltered, his eyes drifting from my meager treasures to the looming presence that now stood at my back. After a moment's pause he retreated, with a thwarted cry that was almost a howl, into the labyrinth of rubble that surrounded us.

“Such savagery lurks closer than you might imagine,” my companion observed. I glanced up with alarm at the toppled buildings that surrounded us, fearful of what they might conceal; his short, humorless laugh seemed to suggest that I had not entirely grasped his meaning.

The racing of my heart calmed somewhat as we put more miles between us and the blighted city; but so disconcerted was I that every distant echo, every rattle of windblown debris, plucked at my nerves as if trying to rouse something dark and unthinking from deep within me… ”

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“ In my vision, I sat in audience of the queen Mnemedra, who, having gained her throne through great trial and adversity, now sought to correct the many injustices she had suffered in her ascent to power.

A herald stood at her side bearing a list of the accused and their crimes, but it soon became apparent that his presence was unneccesary, for as each shackled subject was brought before the queen, she recalled his or her name without prompting and, with an acuity that was startling to observe in a woman of such an advanced age, recounted in great detail the multitude of ills each had inflicted upon her.

The stream of penitents seemed without end; and as one grisly sentence after another was imposed upon each of them in turn, my attention began to wander. I found myself reflecting on my time in the convent, where mercy and absolution had been the great constant of our lessons. We were taught that our grievances must be extinguished while still small, lest they be allowed to grow unchecked and overwhelm us...

I mentioned this doctrine to my companion as we watched yet another manacled nobleman led weeping from the hall. "Wise teachings,” was his reply, "Although I am forced to speculate that your apprenticeship to the order must have ended prematurely.”

His speculation was correct, of course; and perhaps had I continued on as an oblate, such tenets might have better taken root. It has certainly troubled me that of late I have felt a great weight upon my heart, and my visions have echoed with the tread of heavy footfalls as if an unseen beast of impossible size looms above me... ”

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“ In my vision I found myself among the guard of the Aurotep the Civil, the celebrated general and strategist. All around me soldiers stood in uneasy readiness, for behind the tall, gilded gates of the city was gathered a large retinue of emissaries from neighboring lands. They were an unlikely brotherhood, having traveled from the four points of the compass, and no two among them could have passed for countrymen. Yet despite their disparate complexions and garb, their unsmiling countenances rendered them strangely uniform.

Their malevolence came as no surprise — having served long under Aurotep's command, I had heard many tales of the shocking hostility of these neighboring kingdoms, which stood in stark contrast to the pacifism of Aurotep himself. Although he had never dealt the first blow in a conflict, the high walls of his fortress bore scars of the many battles instigated by these malcontents. Lest one mistake his judiciousness for cowardice, though, evidence of his military might could be found in the fortress’s treasuries, which were rich with the plunder of the inevitable defensive actions with which he had quelled his aggressors.

At the call of a herald's trumpet the guard was parted by the arrival of Aurotep himself — a slight man, but noble in bearing, and in his fine raiment almost as gilded as the gates themselves. Seemingly untroubled by the tension of his guard, he bade the gates opened and, rather than welcoming the emissaries into the gardened sanctuary of the city, mounted his horse and rode out to meet them in the dust of the open road.

There was a momentary clamor as at least half of those present attempted to call upon him simultaneously. Though the emissaries’ exhortations were delivered in a dozen different languages, even to my untrained ear they carried a common thread: their nations had been subjected to tolls, embargoes, and tariffs; to grievous insults; to violations of their borders and liberties, to subjugation of their people and to provocations almost beyond the endurance of civilized men.

In answer to their demands of recompense, Aurotep raised a staying hand, and spoke above the outraged din: “It has always been the hand of peace that I extend towards my neighbors. Should they prove so uncivil as to strike that hand, I will have no choice but to rise in my kingdom's defense and answer such attacks in equal measure.”

Having thus addressed their concerns to his satisfaction, he wheeled his horse back towards the shelter of the city walls.

As he passed along the line of emissaries, an ill-timed breeze caught the hem of his crimson cloak, fairly armored in gold braid and plundered jewels. The weighty fabric caught one of the ambassadors in the face with a glancing blow heavy as a mailed fist. The aggrieved man's right hand went to the hilt of his sword even as the left clutched at his bleeding forehead. Aurotep did not turn at the sound of his cursing, but as he rode on, I saw the flicker of a smile on his face, and his hand shifted slightly on the haft of his spear... ”

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“ In my vision I beheld a kingdom whose unparalleled wealth and prosperity had been sung the world over; and indeed, as our ship approached it shores, I saw that the towers emerging from the mist were glorious to behold, dizzying in their scale and crowned with domes and steeples of gold.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the first faces I beheld upon landing were dirt-streaked and ravaged by hunger. As soon as our ship docked, gangs of thin, filthy children, dressed in garments that might only once have been called rags, swarmed the gangway of our ship to beg and scavenge and pickpocket what they could from those aboard.

I pushed my way, with some difficulty, through this unlikely onslaught of welcome, and came at last to the gated stairway that ascended the cliff face to the marvelous city above me.

Here, at last, were the beautiful courtyards, fountains, and gardens I had been promised, and the fine palaces whose intricate iron terraces jutted out over the sea. The children here were utterly unlike their urchin cousins below: even the smallest among them was splendidly attired, and the bloom of health was in their faces as they played at the feet of their elders — elders dressed, I saw, even more magnificently than their children.

Such abundance was not the sole purview of this elevated paradise, though; for I saw that occasionally a dropped coin would clatter through the grating of the terraces, or the embellished hem of a fine robe would snag on an iron filigree, and send a bright disc of gold tumbling down to the grasping hands far below us. ”

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“ In my vision, I was but one of many mourners who had gathered to watch the king Philous laid to rest in his golden casket.

“The old king has had the temerity to live an uncommonly long life,” my companion said to me as we watched the priests bearing their monarch towards the great tomb wherein moldered half a hundred kings past, “To the great displeasure of his heirs.”

I saw that this was surely true; for the old king's son, who had attended the king for many years and nursed him in his sickness, was now himself an old man, hunched and wizened in his opulent robes.

As he passed, a beggar broke away from our crowd of mourners and made his way towards the funeral procession, singing praises of the old king and lamenting the kingdom’s great loss with outstretched hands. The son, the new king, spared this wretched creature not a glance as he swept by with all the haughty disdain of one who has labored long for his riches, and is loath to part with them.

At the doors of the tomb, the priests who bore the casket paused, and Philous the Younger lifted the crown from his father's head to set it upon his own, with hands that had never been roughened by the handle of an oar, nor dirtied by the dust of the fields… ”

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“ In my vision, I climbed the vast marble steps of the cathedral amidst a procession of the supplicant poor, come to tithe their humble lot. Passing through the doors, I could not help but pause in my footsteps at the glory within. It seemed that no inch of the interior was without adornment; every surface was heavy with inlay and mosaic, and even the bronze saints who presided over us were barnacled in precious stones.

The sunlight through the hundred jeweled windows painted the worn faces of the faithful in unearthly colors; it glinted off the coins — copper, silver, and even gold — that they cradled reverentially in their dirty and calloused hands, creating sparks of phosphorescence in this sea of gray rags.

As each shuffling beggar approached the altar to lay his offering in the great filigreed cask, the archpriestess, opulent in her samite robes, would lay a jeweled hand on his shoulder with great ceremony and speak a few words of the great good that would come of this benefaction. Behind this display, the other priestesses stood in silent witness - their hands folded modestly in their richly embroidered velvet sleeves, their heads bowed solemnly beneath the weight of their golden mitres. ”

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“ In my vision, I found myself stranded, through a series of misadventures, in a rundown fishing village on a remote and impoverished stretch of island far from the gilded metropolis. Though I had wearied of the place practically upon my arrival, there was not a single boat in the rundown shipyard that I would have trusted to convey me safely to the mainland. This was the poorest of villages, populated by the desperate sorts one finds in such towns the world over — and after four days and nights spent fearing alternately for my possessions and my life, I was eager to take my leave.

And so it was that when, on the fifth day, the specter of a massive trawler appeared on the horizon, my heart soared; as she pulled dockside, the wooden mermaid that served as her figurehead seemed to me an angel of salvation despite the menacing aspect with which she had been carved.

I boarded as soon as I could secure my passage; as my companion and I stood on the deck for a last look at that miserable island, we noticed a flotilla of small fishing vessels — many of them barely rowboats, crudely crafted of bark and pitch — approaching the trawler. At the cry of a deckhand, the captain of our own ship came to the deck and leaned over the rail to address the leader of the little fleet; though many words were shouted up to her, she answered them with but a few — short and scornful — before returning to her cabin.

My companion, better versed in the local tongue than I, provided an interpretation of the exchange. It seemed that the trawler was a perpetual omen of ill luck to the fishermen of the island; for whenever her shadow darkened the harbor, all lines would lie slack and all nets would remain empty; the fishermen's market stalls would stand bare for days, and their families inevitably went hungry.

“Our captain is unsympathetic to their cause,” he told me. “She says that if they cannot feed their families then they are poor fishermen indeed, as the sea is full of fish for the taking. Her ship returns to these waters each fortnight, and has never wanted for a fine haul.”

And indeed, I saw that the massive nets that were even now being hauled onto the decks of the trawler teemed with thousands upon thousands of writhing silver fish; a veritable ocean's worth…. ”

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“ In my visions, I have come to expect certain sights: bustling metropolises, great temples, mighty statues to commemorate the glorious acts of men. But here I stood, it seemed, on a patch of land that had known nothing of human works and deeds — nothing to behold but barren and desolate emptiness, as far as the eye could see.

“Where is the kingdom?” I asked.

My companion had already laid down his bag, and had scooped up a handful of the red earth, to exalt in the pale shoots of sprouting seeds within, the writhing of worms that had been silently tilling beneath its surface.

“It is here,” he said. “Only wait.” ”

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“ In my vision, I sheltered in the temple stronghold of the emperor Abrexeis. Outside, metal clashed on stone; each new assault shook the edifice to its foundations, and sent a murmur of unease through all of us who cowered within its walls.

All but for one: an old man who moved through the temple unbowed by either fear or prayer. By his ordinary garb I might have mistaken him for a fellow refugee, had not my companion's whisper revealed his identity: this picture of calm was Abrexeis himself, whose forces had held this much-contested sanctuary for years beyond reckoning. When he spoke, it was in a quiet voice that seemed to settle the apprehension that had spread among us:

“Have patience, and know this: that the woods will outlast the woodsman, and the wilds will outlast the wildfire.

“A fire may burn every branch in a forest, but having fed, it must die. Its heat awakens seeds buried in the earth, and the ashes it leaves behind will nurture their growth. And so it is that the future belongs to the just; for the fires of hatred are strong, but righteousness spreads deep roots, sends up shoots, and drops seeds to the four winds.”

I could not say how long we waited within the keep as the enemy's forces broke themselves against our walls like waves on a shore. It might have been months, years, eons — for when at last the storm fell silent and we emerged into the light, we found the landscape much changed. But although our surroundings were all ash and ruin, green shoots were making their way up through the cinders, and among the broken and rusted remnants of the siege machines, flowers were beginning to bloom... ”

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“ In my vision, the city in which I had lingered throughout the long months of summer fell prey at last to one of its fabled autumn storms. In the course of a few days, the once-idyllic environs were transformed into something bleak and inhospitable: flowering trees were replaced by bare branches, and the broad sunlit boulevards became narrow, claustrophobic rat-paths hemmed in on both sides by walls of dirty white. On the few occasions that I ventured out into the biting gale, I found the streets suddenly paved with ice so treacherous that I remained upright only by virtue of my companion's steady arm and sure footing.

My dismay at this reversal of fortune was not shared by the city’s other inhabitants — for at the first signs of snow, they seemed to turn their lives inside out without a second thought: windows were shuttered against the cold, linen was traded for wool, and the last of the bright fruits of the market gave way to barrels of earthy tubers chipped from the frozen ground. Where once leisure-seekers had sprawled on patios in the open air, now they huddled indoors beside smoky hearths... all without the whisper of a complaint, or indeed any indication that anyone had noticed the change at all.

I marveled at this effortless metamorphosis to my companion, whose reply proved him to be less in awe of their stoicism than I: "Those who bemoan the endlessness of winter are no lesser fools than those who shirk their labors at harvest time in the belief that summer will last forever."

I shivered in my thin garments, moving closer to the fire and the borrowed warmth of the bundled folk who talked and laughed among themselves as they patiently awaited the inevitability of springtime... and of winter... and of spring again. ”

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“ In my vision, I found myself footsore yet exultant, for the wonder of the temple I had sought, with its sprawling orchards and gardens, eclipsed all of the hardships I had endured to reach it.

Though the surrounding scrublands put forth only the meanest of vegetation, within the protection of the temple walls I encountered a world utterly transformed. Here, the careful ministrations of the monks brought forth flowering trees of great beauty whose boughs were bent with the weight of the impossibly sweet fruit they bore. When I stooped to pick up a fallen leaf from one such tree, I saw that its distinctive shape was identical to the leaves of the twisted, stunted trees that had pockmarked the arid wastelands of my journey.

My observation pleased the monk who served as my escort, for it seemed that at long last he had found an audience for a lecture on the complexities of his life's work.

“A seedling planted in poor soil will never bear fruit,” he explained as we strolled the shade-dappled paths that wove between the trunks. 'The very same seedling, planted in good ground, watered and well tended, will provide in unimaginable abundance. A gardener must not think his job is ended when the seed is planted…”

As he droned on, we passed a pair of small boys playing among the trees — two of the many foundlings who made the temple grounds their home. They were as alike as brothers, distinguished only by the wary look in the eyes of the quieter boy, and a bruise on his cheek the size of a man's fist. They were crouched just off the path, watching with rapt attention as a sparrow scratched for seeds in the dirt. While the one child laughed, a sound like carefree music as we passed him by, the other child picked up a stone... ”

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“ In my vision, I beheld the entrance to a great city carved into the stone of the cliffs, high above me and scarcely visible in the mist. The ascent was a perilous one — a narrow stair cut into the cliff face, so steep that in places the path underfoot vanished entirely and was replaced by iron handholds bolted into the rock. The spray cast up from the sea made footing treacherous, and more than once I clambered desperately to save myself from a gruesome fate on the rocks below.

When at last the climb leveled off I found, upon cresting the final stair, that beyond that great doorway in the cliffs a kind of paradise had been brought forth from the unforgiving stone.

On either side of me, great mill wheels were turned by the waterfalls that tumbled down the cliff face, and beyond them a terraced garden, its stalks and vines heavy with a waiting harvest, sent out vibrant tendrils to drape the towering gray rock with lush curtains of green on all sides, so that the turrets and buildings visible just beyond the garden seemed more a lush landscape than a city of stone. The air was alive with bees and the music of their wings as they toiled over their golden combs of honey.

My journey had been long, and I wished nothing more in this moment than to rest in this place, and enjoy its beauty. I spied a likely bench, but no sooner had I made to approach it than my path was blocked by a wizened man brandishing a barbaric implement of steel.

The man was half my size, and perhaps a hundred years my senior, and I might have easily defended myself against him had not the grueling ascent robbed me of my usual strength. As it was, all I could do was fall to my knees, cowering and awaiting death.

Behind me, my companion gave a little cough that sounded almost like a stifled laugh. The old man thrust the haft of his weapon into my hands, then turned away from me to pick up a second implement, identical to the one I now held, and bent to the methodical work of hewing down the ripe stalks of the garden.

His meaning became plain. I put down my pack, and turned my own scythe to the labors of the paradise before me. ”

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“ In my vision I found myself wandering a once-familiar city, now utterly transformed by nightfall. While a few hours earlier I could not have claimed any square inch of these streets for my own, I now found myself quite alone in a suddenly vast space; all was still and silent but for the echo of my own footsteps and the distant lapping of the sea.

Almost every window along this uncanny route was dark; it came as some surprise, then, when ahead of me I saw a lone doorway spilling light into the darkness. Looking in, I realized that it was a workshop I had frequented before, on a number of occasions — though in its present state of near-abandonment it was almost unrecognizable.

During the day, it was a crowded communal space where tradesmen labored alongside indentured hands; now, though, all stations stood vacant but one, and here only a single laborer remained — sweaty and soot-streaked, hunched over some bit of metalwork before the failing light of a small lantern. My heart went out to this soul, for a topography of spent candles at his feet spoke of the long hours he had labored this night, and the calamitous state of his workspace hinted at the even longer hours still to come.

Spotting me in the doorway, he hailed me, and invited me in for a closer look at the work that so absorbed him — a technical undertaking whose explanation I heeded diligently, yet found entirely incomprehensible. Knowing that there is no friendlier topic of conversation among the laboring classes than complaints of their superiors, I asked for whose profit he labored, and suggested that it must be a cruel master indeed to demand such hours of him.

"You are mistaken," he told me. "I am a free tradesman, and I am relived to say that my only indenture is to myself.” He paused to inspect the marks that he had been making on the piece before him, and I noticed for the first time the elegance of its design, which far outshone the clumsy and half-completed efforts that littered the abandoned stations all around us. Still, I noticed a slight frown crease his brow as he held his work up to the candlelight.

“You are quite right in your other assumption, though,” he added, almost as if to himself. “There is no master anywhere more demanding of my time, or less satisfied with the quality of my efforts.” ”

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“ In my vision I stood spellbound before the long-awaited exhibition of the works of the painter Thysia. On the austere walls of the gallery the paintings shone with an unearthly light, like windows into another world. As I gazed upon striking scenes of beauty rendered in colors that I could not put a name to, I half believed that I could feel the winds of that other world upon my face.

I do not know how long I wandered among the paintings, but after a time, feeling somewhat overwhelmed, I sought out a narrow alcove that largely shielded me from their magnificence. From this new vantage point, I looked instead upon the faces of those in attendance. Here, time and again, I saw my own sense of reverence echoed, my own wondering eyes and delighted countenance reflected back at me.

It came as something of a shock, then, when I spied an older woman, gaunt of form and as colorless as the canvasses were brilliant, walking the gallery without a trace of that wonder in her expression. When she stopped at one of the canvasses, a fellow patron laid a hand on her arm to share some remark on the beauty of the works. She barely acknowledged him; her eyes seemed to be focused not on that wondrous other world at which the rest of us marveled, but rather on some imperfection she saw in the portals thereto.

When my companion joined me in my alcove, I pointed out this unusual creature. “Ah! That," he told me, "Is the painter Thysia herself. I met her once in her youth, before she attained her mastery. There was little to distinguish her work then, but she nonetheless made an impression upon all in attendance… I recall many remarks that day on the uncommon vibrance that her company lent to the occasion.” He glanced doubtfully at the gray woman who now stood like a tombstone in the midst of this vibrant company. “Though it is possible my memory no longer serves me. It was a long time ago, and I may be mistaken.”

We were unable to contemplate the woman further, though, for she had turned away from the painting and faded back into the crowd; her departure did not trouble me, though, for my attention had once again been captured by the walls around us, where the paintings glowed with their stolen radiance… ”

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“ In my vision, I stood with my companion on a terrace overhanging the great falls where the seven rivers meet and begin their tumultuous descent to the ocean. The majesty of these falls, much proclaimed in the tales of other travelers, has not been overstated. For miles, the white waters hang like a veil from the curving brow of the world; the mist thrown up from the tumult of their descent casts shimmering halos into the air, and brings forth verdant cloaks of moss on every crag.

We had arrived at the falls in spawning season, and the rushing waters below us boiled with the bodies of a thousand silver fish battling their way upstream. Many of these met with instant death at the jaws of heavy-mantled bears, who had put aside their usually solitary natures to form a barricade across the lower falls. For any fish fortunate enough to survive the gauntlet of bears, death wheeled in the mists above in the form of white gulls, who waited to snatch the leaping bodies from the air and tear them to pieces midflight. The jagged rocks at the foot of the falls below us were pink with blood and glittering with scales.

A small girl, who had strayed from her family to join us on our stretch of terrace, commanded our attention to recount a charming legend regarding these fish. In childish tones, she told us how their journey had begun in the deepest waters of the underworld, and how the ones who survived their trials to reach the top of these falls would, by way of divine reward, be miraculously transformed into dragons.

“The story mistakes the order of things, as stories often do,” my companion said to me as the child, distracted by some new delight, toddled away. “Those ones” — and here he indicated a distant point in the landscape, almost at a level with our terrace, where a scant few glittering bodies crested the zenith of the falls to vanish into the peaceful waters of the river beyond — “those ones only ever reached the top because they were dragons all along.” ”

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“ I have foreseen dark things for this empire. There are those who would dismiss my visions as folly, saying that I delight in dark portents; but know that I find no joy in being a harbinger of misfortune.

So greatly have these visions troubled me that time and again I have returned to my elixirs and bitter herbs; stoked new fires, and spread fresh entrails on stone in the hopes that some happier truth will be revealed to me. But time and again, I have seen the same fate written in blood and ashes: this great empire for which we have labored and sacrificed is to be undone by our pride and envy, our wrath, our greed.

I fear that it may already be too late to change the shape our future will take; but if such dark things are indeed our destinies, then at least none can say that I foresaw our downfall and did not speak of it. ”

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“ In all of my visions, the presence of the one I have come to think of as my companion has become a constant. Though there is nothing in his demeanor of warmth or kindness, I have often been glad of his company; there is comfort in knowing that I am not alone on the dark roads I travel, and often I have been delivered from peril by his intervention.

Yet, somehow, I had never managed to form an impression of his appearance. It seemed always that he was a few paces behind me, or some distance ahead, or standing just in the periphery of my vision, such that my only sense of him was an impression of considerable height.

And so it went, until one particular occasion when I found myself lost in one of the seemingly meaningless visions that occupy so many of my dreaming hours. After wandering at great length through a bare and bleak landscape, encountering nothing and no one, I had finally settled myself on a stone to await the return of the waking world. Suddenly, I heard the whisper of heavy robes on the path behind me, and knew that I had been joined once again by my mysterious companion.

I had long since learned that there was little to be gained from turning to look upon him — I would invariably find him cloaked in shade, or obscured by mist, or otherwise concealed by some trick of our surroundings. Still, the habit had not yet left me. I turned.

I woke from my vision with a start, the shadow of what I had glimpsed lingering in my mind's eye: the briefest flash of something monstrous, horned and towering: a grim countenance that watched me through eyes that were unquestionably inhuman. This disquieting apparition left me shaken — wondering what exactly I had seen, and who exactly I follow… ”

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“ You speak of dark portents, but I too have read signs in the flights of birds, the turning of the stars, and the births and deaths of animals. And I tell you that in my own visions, I have seen very different things.

There are those who would discount my prophecies, who would name me a spinner of platitudes and a merchant of false hopes. But any who hears in my words soothing assurances, true or false, has mistaken me; for I, too, bear a warning.

It is this: prophecy itself is a toothless thing. I have seen men groveling in the dirt who once were prophesied to rule. And I have seen other men, whom prophecy had condemned, rise victorious.

For prophecy feeds upon inevitabilities, complacencies, and likelihoods. The past writes its runes upon the present, and any fool can read them out and claim he scries the future by them. But know that this is not the kind of prophecy I offer you. The brighter future that I have foreseen will not dawn like a sunrise; it must be kindled like a flame. Our wisdom and humility are the flint with which we must strike the spark; our patience and diligence are the fuel with which we must feed the fire. ”

11x17" | ink and pencil on paper.

ORIGINAL ARTWORK AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE.

“ Though my visions have taken me far from my fire, I have been largely untroubled by longing for that which I have left behind, or fear for what might lie ahead.

I will readily admit that such quietude is not in my nature; yet each time a vision has placed me on an unfamiliar path, I have found reassurance in the constant presence of the one I have come to regard as my companion.

Though we have traveled long together, I have been strangely unable to perceive either his face or his form — for it seems he always approaches over the horizon just as my eyes are dazzled by sunlight, or appears at my side at the very moment in which I find myself transfixed by some great wonder. Such encounters have left me with only the vaguest impression of his appearance — to me, he is merely a radiating warmth, a tranquil demeanor, a hand upon my shoulder as familiar as that of any friend.

Though I am confounded by such mysteries, I delight nevertheless in the companionship of a fellow pilgrim. His footsteps beside my own are a comfort as I travel these strange lands… ”

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