The City and the Sea

The place where they meet is one of the most desperately lonely places I have ever encountered.

The City is dead.  It is over.  Its inhabitants have left, and it is a cold and silent place.  Unimaginably vast, to enter it is to become inevitably lost in a vast obituary, haunted by the ghosts of Time and Misery, until one day sleep takes you, deep inside this walled prison.

The Sea is the place where the City’s expansion finally stopped, hemmed in by a short stretch of sad and lonely beach.  The Sea was the End, it’s crystal calm waters their final resting place.  On some days you can hear their Song.

It is not a Song you would ever wish to hear.

The Sentinels

They are gone.

For untold Aeons they stood, guarding the Tempest Arch, maintaining their constant Vigil out over the horizons of Existence.

Now, they are gone, and the Arch stands open, unwatched.  Their Charge was to shut the Way against those that would get out, as much as it was to hold off Intruders.  The reasons for their Vigil, lost in the vast Passage of Time, were deemed to be of immense significance.  Now the Way is open, and the Cruciform Citadel continues to move.

They are gone.

The Sigil

I found It.

Seared into the Heavens; a desperate curse torn into the fabric of Reality.

I did not mean to.  My search was innocuous at best;  a banal echo of data requiring retrieval.  Instead I saw It.  An Equation, after its own fashion; a single term revolving around itself.  A Machine of bile and blood.  Give thanks that you have not Witnessed it.

Four of Seven Gates are Open.  Another is lost.

So Much Has Changed.

And yet so much stays the same.

I have been gone. I have learned much.

Perhaps I would apologise for my absence. Certainly I have neglected this particular node.

But, sometimes, occasionally, there are good reasons. It happens, from time to time.

You will understand, at the end of everything.

The Unseen Path

I have been here so many times.

What a curious place; perspectives constantly shifting, understanding mutable, nothing but the delight of Infinity before you.

I come here often, for I delight in its simplicity.

No more.

Complexity develops.  Entropy creeps in, as it always does; an unwanted but inevitable guest.

Four of Seven Gates are Open.  I will know why.

Enough

This last exercise has reached the limits of its usefulness.  It remains to be seen what will be done with the data that have been gathered.

Three of Seven Gates are Open.

An Opportunity for Questions

I stand suspended in the Void.  Quiet screams roll through the Dark.

The brief stall of Events has concluded.  Matters continue apace.

The actions of an Individual or Individuals are causing a series of Events of such deep eschatological significance that they cannot be ignored.  Such an outcome is not to be seen as something terrible to be avoided, but rather the beauty of the Unknown, be it the cold, silent music of entropic heat-death or something altogether more glorious.  Existence is cyclical and the beauty of Destruction lies in the Opportunity to build something new in its place.

Cause and Effect.  Effect and Cause.  The differences are superficial and can be swiftly cast off when viewed from the correct standpoint.

It is my concern, however that such Events be correctly managed, in order that the correct outcome be achieved.  I have yet to be convinced that affairs are properly in order.  It has occurred to me that much can be Understood by careful inspection of the questions others ask when they wish to aqcuire Knowledge.

I will do this now.

I have been asked for information and guidance before now.  Ask your questions.

They will be answered, after a fashion.

The Threshold

Consider an Arch.

Consider walking through it.  Consider what that means.

You have become a fundamentally altered person by doing so.  Your biology was unique, at the time.  You were at that specific place, at that specific time, thinking those specific thoughts.  This will never happen again, as much as I know you will want it to, later imbuing the event with undue significance and nostalgia.

This has happened many times, and you didn’t even notice.   Change is inevitable.  Accept this.

Echoes continue along the Unseen Path.

With Reference to the Nature of Power

I stand here in the Dark.

I have traversed the Unseen Path to get here.  I look around me; I extend my awareness far beyond my Self, tasting the air, looking for Signs.

There are some.

I have seen confusion.  I have come across a conviction – one in which many who talk about that which they are pleased to refer to as the Dark demonstrate assumptions. Assumptions that it owes them something.  That it means something.

It does not.

The Dark is a place.  A section of Existence.  There is much to be gained from the study of it, much to be Understood.  But to assume that by walking within it for a few brief whispers is to achieve power is naive in the extreme.  Power is not achieved by brief glimpses of something greater, by a few short grasps at the ideal of the Beyond, and the assumption that it means something.

No.

The Dark does not reward one with power for the realisation that it is there.  Nor is power what one should expect, or seek.  An individual may feel as though they have reached achievement through the acquisition of power, but they are mistaken.  For they fall into the trap of believing that power is an End.  And in this folly they fall prey to all those who recognise that power is a tool, who can effortlessly sweep away those suffering under the mistaken belief that the power they have acquired should have been the purpose of their endeavour.

Stand in the Dark.  Revel in its Nature.  It will be wonderful.

Do not assume it will grant your wishes for the sake of your acknowledgement.  To do so is to fail, utterly.

Three of Seven Gates are Open.

The Images

There is another spot on the plain, in between the other places I have mentioned.  It is exactly equidistant from each of them.  On that spot stands a massive stone block.  It is ancient and worn, visibly cracking in places.  An atmosphere of Age and Death clings to it.

Its East side faces towards the Statues.  Its West side faces towards the Cathedral.  Its South side faces the Listeners.  I have not yet been to the North.

It is incredibly timeworn, each of its faces covered in cracks, scars, and the other incomprehensible carvings of old age.  Yet on each face there is a small, irregular area that is almost impossibly smooth.  From the correct angle, an image can be seen in each of these patches.

On the East side, there is an image of the Sun, and on the West, an image of the Moon.  On the South side, Stars can be seen.

I will not say what I have seen on the North side.