The door was large and steel. The room was cold and dark. My Archonarchian friend ushered me inside, and closed the door behind me. The light came from high above, creating a cold silver circle for me to stand in.
I certainly felt at the time that the dark emptiness was a refreshing change from the chaotic outside. The noise had given an ache to my head, and now I found myself at rest.
In the centuries before recorded time, before the Myriad Worlds were set in their spiraling dance, the great giant Yurghyn stood tall on the land of Ut-cart. Ut-cart was, among the known world, the most verdant and beloved of lands, with people who cared well for each other and the balance-of-things.
Yurghyn, however, did not care for the balance-of-things, for the evil that he saw in the wasp sting and the viper’s tooth repulsed him.
I am not ashamed to admit, I was crying when we left Lady Song.
I did not look to see if my companions too had been affected by her words; more fool me, I thought it polite. Of course, had I been born of another time and perhaps another place, I would likely have found it the height of callousness to allow them their thoughts alone.
Of course, that lovely part of me that embraces my Sensate nature was already crafting a poem — but now I found myself in conflict twice over.
And there we were, in the darkness.
Surrounded. Alone. The five of us together.
No hopes, no dreams, nothing but the uncertain truth of our situation.
There was a pool of light we could not see.
A howling scream we could not hear.
Children, children everywhere, grabbing and laughing and crying.
Thousands dead, thousands more alive.
A singular moment stretched on into infinity.
We were now, and then, and to become.
Now, I will not say that this is where the conversation ended. I will say that this is where the important and interesting aspects of the conversation ceased. Hours passed as each of us tried in turn, begging, pleading, promising, and threatening. The two Majesties did not mind our efforts, nor succumb to our pleas.
If you are interested in the fascinating, if at times repetitive and at all times impractical, conversation, you may find them in my poem The Detailed Discourse of the Two Majesties.
Oh, the Apex, the beautiful and winding words that descended from the base of the cervical vertebrae to the occipital.
Heresy. Damnable heresy for one such as I, a Sensate in good standing of the Grandiose Guild, to say I still find myself at a loss for words. What could be said to convey the glory and horror of the hallways, stairways, and byways of the Apex.
For the beauty was not in its sweeping archways, its Ivory palisades, its golden buttresses, nor its marbled cloisters.
Even with the careful and steady guidance of Nock, it took us many days to make our way out of the wooded jungle that was the Inner Wings. We traveled through the Asparitetis and out the other end, around the Oyn and about the Upper Scapula we walked, seeking egress from the foul environs, until at last we arrived at the Pollier.
Covered with barnacles and dangling vines, the Pollier was perhaps the quietest portion of our journey.
I fear the rest of our journey through the tunnels will bore you, and so I shall carefully edit out that which remains incidental. Suffice it to say that there were a great many adventures had with me and my pilgrim as we wandered; a few poems of note, though none deserving of praise.
We spoke little, though it became quite clear that we both understood that the other was searching for the Encinidine.
Down I slid, for how long I do not know. It was a descent most familiar for me, a descent most familiar to all, I am sure.
We have all fallen. Whether through fortune or failure, a steady descent surrounded by guiding sides of metal or wood, that gently nudge us to the left or to the right, in hopes the landing is much softer.
We never look up when we fall.
“I cannot fathom,” muttered Sir Juhrooz, as he turned the paper this way and that, “what the purpose of this procedure actually is.”
“Oftentimes,” Mr. Porist carefully positioned his sheers around his earlobe, “the purpose is the procedure.”
My Doppewassl friend stared at the paper for a moment more, before slowly nodding. “For seven days and six nights, I and my fellow trainees caught a drop of water as it slid down a pane of glass.
