Earlier today I walked along the trade route, which was busier than usual. Caravans moved forward and behind, the thunder of the wooden wheels only competed with the plaintive sounds of the abused animals. They seemed unhappy, strapped to those contraptions, but their masters had no reason to care.
I walked off the road to avoid any entanglements. It was harder to walk across the uneven grasses, but certainly better than dodging for my life or, worse, getting involved in an argument about right of way. It happened that the trade route after half a mile widened, easily permitting both a caravan and foot traffic to share the way, but I barely noticed.
One of the merchants called after me, standing on uneven ground two feet above him, asking why I didn't take the road. Surely it was easier?
I ignored him. What is the worth of a man who can't embody his symbols?
* * *
Last night, caught in a fancy, I left my laboratory during an evening and walked westward. At first this was unpleasant, as I had to shield my eyes from the sun. However, as the night grew behind me and a hill in front of me, I walked into shade. I decided, rather boyishly, that I would catch the sun.
The hill was not so far away and I made good time, but time moves faster than I did. I crested the hill to find the trees beyond shining with an orange aura, and no hope for anything grander than that. I turned back to the east and for the first time I felt tired.
I chose a slightly different route returning home, taking me under a stone bridge. I was caught briefly off guard by the heat of the stones as I walked under it, well cooked from the departed day. I stopped for a moment, looking at the stones and the mortar. It was an uneven design, mortar clearly visible, but the structure was sound enough. I am sure it was done intentionally, meant to appeal to some rustic aesthetic.
It repulsed me. The only reminder of the day was a glow some impossible distance away and the heat of these crude rocks. I wanted a better bridge; one built out of steel, polished to a shine. I wanted to touch it and realize in polite horror that the oils of my hand had marred its perfect finish.
I walked away, robbed of any good metaphor.
* * *
I've been taken by the rumors of the Old Man lately. The past few nights I have made a point to go on long walks, sit in quiet -- but not so greatly hidden -- places and contemplate. Perhaps to summon him like some genie.
No one has appeared. It's a pity this life has no appreciation for dramatic openings.
* * *
The cruel joke of the gods is that we have been imbued with the capacity to envision a world greater and more just than they saw fit to provide us.
I am tired of this life. I am tired of a world where the philosopher-king must wield a scepter of bone. I am tired of objection and damnation. I am tired of the Hounds that to this very day still sniff out the remains of Kigot's mistake. They will never forgive us for what we know, and I cannot blame them.
I was meant for something else. I was meant for clean beauty, steel and cambrinth. I was meant for a sun that never left the sky, the moment that would stretch for eternity. What is eternity? I have been built, hand crafted by the most discerning divinity, so that I might never know.
I was meant for a world where the critic and the blasphemer are not one and the same.
* * *
I was ambushed last night, and I wish I was not alive to record it.
One of those things attacked me, the grey mockeries of men. It was as large as a Gor'tog and had a third arm, perfectly formed, emerging from its chest to compliment the other two. It said nothing -- I wonder if it could say anything -- but advanced forward with a meat cleaver.
My ritual knife burned at my thigh and, half on instinct and half to remove the painful heat, I wielded it. The philosopher's knife stood between us and it was terrible.
The blade of the knife had disappeared wholly into darkness, looking like nothing more modest than a knife-shaped pit suspended in the air. But it was outlined by a golden light which defined its form and briefly pierced my eyes.
Ever so briefly.
As the two of us watched, though it seemed far less impressed by the spectacle, the light sputtered and faded away. I was left holding darkness, then that too faded. It became a delicate little blade and nothing more. The grey bastard looked at me and I can swear there was pity in its eyes. It did not even have the decency to kill me. After all, what is the worth of a man who can't embody his symbols?
* * *
For weeks the silence of normalcy has galled me. There has been nothing. No guru out of thin air, no divine retribution, no answers yet no new questions. Drama is reserved for greater men.
I am tired of this life. I am tired of promises made out of ashes. I am tired of making dead creatures dance and pretending I am somehow in possession of the secrets of life everlasting.
I put my hope in the mercy of the gods, that my pain is proof enough of my redemption and payment enough for my blasphemy. It must be. Would the gods truly grant us a faculty and damn us in its use?
* A meteor streaks across the sky as an elderly Halfling's soul departs forever to walk the Starry Road, stripped of its profane aegis.
-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas
