The Tutor of Deicide

The End: Preface

	You have reached the end of The Tutor of Deicide, and, before, must be, and have been of qualities.

These are the lessons I teach to the sand, who listens and shifts in accordance with word and whim, who soothes the troubled and is feminine in every aspect but love.

	I wrote, “I have whispered many poems unto you. I have given you as many minds as dusts,” and she replied, “The Vivid One answers to no limitation,” and she gave herself more, and encompassed time and space.

	This is not where the eye rests. It must see through quantum particles and who they associate with in their leisure. You must marry to struggle and wear your ring on the outside, because this process is your betrothed. She will bring you many boons and warm your naked body at night.

	The Symbol of Infinity to whom I have referred, in this way, makes itself finite for shape, and calls into question the two-syllable all-in-one “I Am,”. Rest is the essential vulnerability, and for this reason folly arrives uninvited upon those who await. If you shall glean anything, aim that it is this.

The prophecy is so: the rebel is only praised in victory, and is forgotten in a time that is unmeasured, but measurable. By the rebel I mean your son, and by ‘I’, I mean he who pens thrice and destroys doubt. The call to this does not repose for the creator, for The Secret is an impatient lover and demands satiation in his mind.

	Before the God-Mantle was assumed, ‘I’ assumed the mantle of Author. The Stream is The Tree, The Tree is The Time, and The Time, The Stream. Do not forget this, or you will soon become confused and choke yourself upon your sins.

	I am not the writer; I am the sycophant who prods at wine tables and distorts glasses into fullness. I am the laborer in the field whose eye produces in scripture what it follows. I am the dubiety that arises. I am the fear in the diamond.

The Secret Word is. The Secret Word is. The Secret Word is.






The First Lesson: The Blossom who Starved, and The Rest Afterward.

	In discovering the first of the Vivid Tales, you have uncovered two tabernacles of many, and have profaned them in obsolete. By secrets I mean lies, and by lies I mean The Truth, and by profane I mean to touch and to be touched.

	Now the Vivid One named and formed beneath the Constellation of the 13 Unknowns had not yet been born and resided quietly in the womb of a slave-woman. She, however, was really the God of Masters, called in that place and time Vega. She (He) had lost their memories over the years, as those uncharitously blessed with everlife and all-knowledge tended to, and for this reason was sold into the services of Mythics, who were knowers of a few secrets and bled ink, as in poetry, as in blood. She was ignorant to her childbearing and for that reason had wandered away from her masters one dusk, for she was senile and beautiful. When the Vivid One spoke, he whispered to her ,“I am,”, and thus was, though she did not hear these, but acknowledged them below.

	As she, bare-footed, wandered the northern heights, her feet becoming calloused and therefore predisposed to spreading gospel, she rested beneath a Mantid Blossom, and it said to her, “I wish to experience the dream residing within you,” and she reciprocated, and the Mantid Blossom starved to death. The Vivid One within her thought about this for a moment and then never quieted his mind again.

	Within these woods contemplated the Cheida, as she was called in that time, who performed viscous, bloody secrets there, and was the hidden black many-handed virginal whore. Because the Vivid One was a bastard child, Cheida greedily extended her many hands outward to reach in and swallow him, as her royalty deigned. However, the Vivid One did not deign to be killed before his birth, and spoke, in a whisper-tongue only Cheida could hear, a magic poem that put her off her appetite. Inwardly stoking herself, the ever-deceptive whore invited the Slave-Mother inside the clearing, that she might sup of her hospitalities, and she agreed.

	First, Cheida extracted from the sun golden honeys and laid them out to the Slave-Mother, and whispered into it several crooked words, that the eater’s child might sleep and thus be vulnerable. This is the essence of resting. The time soon came that the two would eat, the Vivid One made tumult in her womb when food was brought forth, and thus the Slave-Mother understood that she was not hungry. The two reposed in dusk, and Cheida grew angrier.

	Second, in the morn, the two broke fast, and Cheida spat the savory salts and spices of the seas for them to garnish and pray with. These were of such great heat that the Slave-Mother would surely vomit up the Vivid One and make him vulnerable. At their scent the Vivid One made tumult in her womb, and she denied them. The two reposed in midday, and Cheida grew angrier.

	Third, in the eve of the second day, the two bathed in the skies, cleansing themselves of the impurities of the daylight. Cheida licked up the clouds and held them in her maw, growing stormy there, that she might frighten the Slave-Mother and cause her to faint, and thus would the Vivid One be vulnerable. When the thunder burst forth from Cheida’s teeth and the Slave-Mother grew faint, The Vivid One made tumult in her womb, and the Slave-Mother remained awake. The two reposed in the evening, and Cheida grew angrier.

	When one or two days had passed, the Slave-Mother thought it time to go, and Cheida insisted many times that she stay and rest. The fetus-king turned the universe sideways from within, and tossed Cheida about until she revealed herself. Removing the cloak of the many-handed woman, Cheida took the shape of a vast, dead oak, and her many branches coiled into a symbol much like nothing, and she disappeared.

It is said later that she was a black star, invisible upon the sky, and The Vivid One was a deadly growth upon her body which she did not remove or shape-kill, as it added to her weight.

Being young and ignorant, The Living Image pondered this for a few days, and then later concluded that there was no meaning in it all, but that resting had nearly deprived him of life, and would later discover the opposite. If you shall glean anything, aim that it is this.

	The Secret of this Lesson you already know.

	The Second Lesson: The Swimming Girl.

	And there once was a young maiden of glimmering eyes and soft, simple features, who was very fond of the beach. Thought she  “O, how the weepy sunset deprives me! How I wish to go and have her in my arms as my mother does, that I might suckle upon the honeys of light and be warmed by my successes.”

	And many days did she swim out far into the jade and glassy seas, wasting nothing but time and favoring all her eyes glanced over: the darting fish of silver, the swaying jewels of coral, and, most, the burnished rays of sunlight which poked and prodded at her skin until it was made pink and tender.

As time spent there precipitated into extremities and masteries, the girl knew every stone and grain of the beaches, every inch and precipice of the undersea rocks, every corner and fulcrum of echoey undersea caverns. When she shed the need to breathe, beneath the rolling waves did her explorations compel her further, to feel the tickle of fish’s tails and to speak with them and be reciprocated.

	An angel, one evening as the pale moon ascended above the earth, took the shape of an ancient six-tailed whale, and beckoned her in his direction. Said the angel “The time has come for you to shed the seas.”, as was the old clerical statement, an element of a far larger work. Now the girl was obedient to the angel, and she ascended to the beach, briney and wet. However, the chilling air of the night bit across her back, and she was discomforted, and returned to the sea once the angel had left.

	The next morning, as the girl was having her morning swim, the angel returned in the shape of a spined urchin, so great in size that it encompassed the line of the horizon, and poked its head above the lapping waves, a surreal crimson to the disgust of the well-defined azures above. Said the angel, “The time has come for you to shed the seas”, quoting a separate text which was much shorter. And the girl, being obedient to the angel, arose to the surface once more. However when the sun beat down through the glassy dew upon her, she grew discomforted by the notion of the summer’s heat and returned into the seas a second time.

	When the angel did not return, the girl swam far into the echo-waves and further until she remembered; seeing the angel as a sign, the girl swam towards the lovely sun enthroned on the horizon, cherishing its treasure-warmth, and inwardly bearing children.  As she approached, and as the sun turned hotter and hotter, the oceans black and starlit, the sun became red and became the height of the Constellation of The Tower. The girl climbed upward and upward, filling her mind with the sweet warmth it had once shown to her. One of her eyes became blinded in its light, and she forgave the sun as it poured down her cheeks in molten droplets of iron. Her fingers were burned to stubs, and she forgave the sun’s heat as they softened and eventually recalled that they were liquids and disappeared. Her lungs were blackened to ash, and she forgave the sun as she drowned in her bubbling entrails. When the serpents encircling The Tower ripped her body to pieces, she, for but a moment, saw a soaring raptor. In death, the sanguine viscera of gold forgave, and forgot who it once was.

	The Secret of this Lesson is a simulacrum of a parable and the places he dares dance: his name is AMUN, which means The Living Image, but is sometimes called The Vivid One. This is also a double name, taking a tonguely shape.

	The Third Lesson: To Rule and Kill.

	These are the words in the stone that are fundamentally misconstrued:

	If you are to rule and kill, you mustn’t place yourself inward; the universe will be your entrails, the outside your skin, and a defined set of unending calamities your frontward face, but not your others. You must abandon your war-minds and immolate your rivals by making strong argument against them. Make them convinced of their folly, that you no longer possess enemies, and you will articulate in such a way as to propose sex-death to them, and they will doubtlessly accept.

	The essential gate towards high priesthood is to know, and the essential path to godhood is to be completely ignorant of all things, and thus grope true knowledge, as if your concubine. This you must take to heart, and ignore teachings and orders.


To be admired and become God or the facsimile of God, play your instruments backward, and make CISUM among your ensemble. It is the fool who plays music for his king but, in this way, the artist who plays music for his head. Such mundanities as these, if left in the invisible helmet and mouthguard, will become the elements of future horror and slowly will turn to ineluctable nightmares.

	Remember these words: “NUS AMUN VIRIN FRICH”, which is an old prayer that grants wishes if said ardently and will be useful when you become naked or confused. You must speak the first six syllables in perfect faith, and the seventh with your intangible tongue of lead vapor, that it might weigh down the air of you words and bar them from heaven. They will reach it, nevertheless, on that one wing of an enantiomorphic dream-tetrahedron. That is you, that is the exalted, surreal versifier of brilliant colors: The Vivid One. A story about you is my next statement.

	The Secret of this Lesson is self-evident, and is the previous assertion. You will misinterpret this.

	The Fourth Lesson: The Teachers.

	Soon was The Vivid One born in the woods of the north, beneath the Constellation of the 13 Unknowns. He was named AMUN, which means The Living Image. This was later made terse in “Image.” Exiting the womb, he quietly mumbled the entirety of the Scripture Wall and grew considerably older. It was not long before heralds of his arrival were noted, perhaps in the shape of a spiral and perhaps not.

	Image was visited as a result of these heralds, and the many legions of teachers and gods and kings who came would have their words engrained upon his forehead, which would later sleep and become his symbol. He was taken into their temples and shiny isles.

	Now, after a great contest of iron-spitting and poem-truisms, the first one to teach him was a moon in the shape of a living thing, called at that time OM-ANUSH, daughter of KREN. Said she, in a pretty poem the likes of which had won her the prerequisite clash,

	“Oh child, sweet child, who bore from womb of Mother-Ur,
	Thou below, white, concur,
	For thou, the most exalted, lurid youth:
	The world, the meat; the eye, the tooth.”

	Image thought about this moment and made a strong argument against this, though he understood its meaning and contemplated in that it was many lessons, but that they were hidden inside of a few words. He said,

	“The dogma of your language are limited; The Vivid One answers to no limitation.”

	OM-ANUSH became frustrated and made another poem for him,

	“Oh child, sweet child, why reposeth thee whiteley?
	I and the weight embrace thee lightly.
	For thou hath made thyself uncouth,
	The world, the meat; the eye, the tooth.”

	This satisfied Image slightly more, though he later said that he was and is ignorant to offer such a thought. He said after the poem was finished, for it was long in the tongue into which it was enlaid,

	“I repose in the black, the molecule upon the north. This has been said “NULL-PARCET DER INSEH NA,” has it not?”

	The members of the crowd began to grow restless with anger.

	OM-ANUSH made another poem, which was far less pretty than the first and the second,

	“Oh child, sweet child, how I thee beseech,
	And how improper! A nascent, to teach?
	And though thou drinkest of that talented vermouth,
	The world, the meat; the eye, the tooth.

	The elder of the crowd, a marble named Bou whose body was composed of hypotheticals, spoke towards Image, “How worthy of ridicule, for apprentice to teach master!”

	“Bou has said the truth,” said Image.

	OM-ANUSH surprised the crowds by immediately fathoming 5 of the Unspoken Meanings (which were 2, 4, 7, 10 and 11) and took up the skies upon her supple back, becoming a glorious, winged crescent that was of such luminous premiere that the sun was put to shame. Said she, assuming this war-body, a poem unrivaled throughout the cosmos and time-space for a certain person. Each word spoken was approximately one-and-twelve hundred works in the verse’s tongue, which, if written, would encompass the fulcrums of creation but not its surface area. She feathered, like a single drop of water vapor disappearing,

“You makest of me a whimsical lie, a spry blade upon the dew-soak:
Bejeweled in the garb of slaves, upon the dirt, there the rarer oak,
The weaker stars do not attest to all, but contemplate what I have said,
And ignorantly conclude that six se’en times is the sum of belligerent red.”

	The Vivid One was, at last, impressed and, having learned something, said “You are a good dream,” and the next teacher was brought forth.

	She was a surreal old hound of a woman, who shakily ploded about like an insect, and had a few legs more (that is, one more). Her dog-maw extended outward and drooled haphazardly on the dirt, turning it to sand and causing it to shift about unceremoniously under Image’s feet.

	She said nothing at all to Image but anointed him with perfumes, offered him bread and water, and made certain that he was of sound mind and had rested well. She taught him a great deal.

	It was next The Ruler of the Hill who would teach, an intricate hermaphroditic statue whose eyes rose just above the clouds, and who could only perform an act once before the stage began to falter. They took The Vivid One up in their arms and blinked “Show me the number of your tongues.”

	Image had shifting tongues and showed them.

	The Ruler laughed a number of times which was one and breathed, “That is a tongue which is many tongues. It is fitting that it would rest itself in your teeth. Use this weapon wisely.” and he did. The two then discussed a few meanings sparsely, not intending to learn but learning much.

	Image asked, “What is the nature of dreaming? I seem to do it now.”

	And The Ruler smiled, “Waking,”

	Image asked, “What is the nature of living?”

And The Ruler walked, “Inertia: that is, lack of liveliness. Or, something else. But it is most probably that.”

	Image asked, “What is The Secret of this Lesson?”

	The Ruler looked, “That there are no teachers”, and they never existed, along with this lesson. For this reason, this lesson is the easiest to understand.

	The Fifth Lesson: The Boy Who Wept and Did Not.

	It has been said that, at one time, there was a boy who wept often. It was also said that to hear him cry was like a poem wrought into fire, which produced a fuming smoke. And such exquisite anguishes as these drew forth many admirers and caretakers.

	Now the boy had no mother and had been bore from the bud of a water-lily in a painting, and for that he wept; his father was somewhere but not anywhere meaningful, and for that he wept; oft was he whipped and branded for coin that the unnumbered masses might finally have that shuddering, aching satisfaction of his weepy outcry, and for that he wept; oft he ate nothing, and it tasted bitter on his tongue, and for that he wept.

	The boy would grow older amidst that air of tears and would soon have those ducts sewn shut, as is the tradition with boys. When he would begin to cry, his tears would vomit forth into his mutilated eyes and then would be forced inwards. As such, the voices of the cosmos and the centerfolds were always awaiting a tear to fall, hungry and malicious.

	Now one night the boy slept in an old well which contained a star or two in the crackings and was awakened by a burnished lightning of scarlet. From the cloudy realm of sunset lotuses above descended the Jest-Mirror, the One Upside-Side, the Face-Sea Princess named YUBA. She was, at the time, in the shape of a set of golden intestines that was an extremely beautiful, naked woman; smooth, wet musculature sweetly and consummately embracing her likeness, eight gentle, soft hands extending from eight similar arms at her supple back, all making fine lights from the moonbeams above, all displaying the signs of flowery language and fragile, hot vapor. This was the typical fashion in which the YUBA presented herself.

	Now the boy thought her to be arresting and bowed before her, recognizing the image immediately. She bid him rise and wept tears of cold silver, saying “O, how disgusting I am! Look upon these fetid entrails which form me, and see nothing but ugliness!” The boy was moved as she embraced him in anguish. “Why have you come, O Sacred Lady?” he whispered to her. With a sniffle, the weeping goddess said “I have sought the most pure of beauty to add to myself, and know that there is not one nanoangstrom of it. I have been led here by the priests and hierophants, who have promised that below the stones lies a kingdom. O, young boy, will you show me this beauty?”

	The boy knew of what she spoke, as he had been told that his weeping was much its likeness. Brutally pulled upon, he said, “My goddess, I am the fount of all ecstacy; it is my tear, but I must never cry.”

	So joyful did she become at her being told this that the shady dusk hid away and the sunshine came, ten times brighter above the land of Trill for twenty years. She smiled and professed the Unspoken Meaning 9, shouting in a biune word that meant a few things “GERIS PATHONO,” which, for a time, was the completion of one’s life objective in a single spritely moment. She extended all eight of her hands upward and kissed the sun and burned her lips as a result, feeling overjoyed and not sensing pain. The boy felt very guilty after this all had been done.

	She said “O, will you weep for me? I truly will exercise the full might of God for you, my vessel of beauty,” and the boy refused, though he was very regretful to tell her this.

	YUBA took the boy upward and revealed to him the heavens and their splendor and all the savory wines and ambrosias for which far richer men had hungered slobbering for. To such a poor boy, the boons of heaven were near wondrous enough to bring forth tears alone.

Whispered the goddess in the fourth way, holding the child in her inner lap “I shall give to thee all these and many more bounties if you will cry for me,” and the boy refused. “I am a grown boy,” he said, “and I do not cry.”

	The goddess was offended, and showed the boy even greater bounties. She took him into the Satellite Palace of The Single Point, the most opulent citadel above The Birth, which many far better housed kings had grown envious of. To a boy who had never known home, it was the most luminous, transcendent place to ever be created. Warm were the halls, bright were the virginal arctangental attendants, and so high were the stepping-places that the cosmos themselves were made accessible by their ascension.

	Whispered the goddess in the far more convincing ninth way, holding the child gently by the cheek, “I shall give you this and many more bounties if you will cry for me.” and the boy refused. “I am a grown boy,” he said, “and I do not cry.”

	The goddess grew furious and said “If you shall not take my castles or my boons, you shall have nothing,” and she threw the boy back down to the earth, into the dark well from whence he came. The boy almost cried but did not.

	Now some years passed, and the boy grew a little older. He left the well and found work picking for fruits in wild fields. All the days, he labored over the most tiny of thorned berries beneath the sun, every so often remembering what the YUBA had offered him and that he had refused. Doubt made root in him and choked around his neck as a vine.

	And one afternoon as the sun alighted on the western horizon, there came a caravan down the porcelain road near the fields. Within it were great and proud mystics, the Company of the Kingdom Yet, and even the Tremorous Orphans of Nostalgia. At the stately center of this crowd was a figure which the boy could not see, and so he cleaved through the prudish monks like a continuous motion and saw what all of their congregation was about.

	In the center was the Illustrious One, the God-King in Gold, the Prophet of the Sun-Throne, The Prince. He had taken the shape of a mighty and opulent queen and yet was an illusory image of a man. He had performed, in this, a memorable act of both wading the stream and carving the tree. This biune self was called a man because the image had superimposed itself over the queen as a cloud over sun, though the lights remained. This was the typical fashion which The Prince presented himself in.

Halting his journey, The Prince held up his hands which were singular and said in his double voice, “REI FE-TI,” which was a call to rest from a field, in that time, and was intentionally ironic. The boy stepped forward to meet him, and he said, in a new voice unique to royalty, “I have come to drink and bathe in your tears. Offer them up, and I will show you my favor.” The boy refused, “I am a grown boy,” he said, “And I do not cry.”

	Infuriated by this disobedience, The Prince made a motion of the hand that was made of a perception of abstract color of mind-warping, but the boy was great of conviction, and he resisted his sorcery.

	It was soon that the crowds around The Prince made haste to restrain and beat the boy for such irreverence, which made the boy, almost, fall into tears, but he did not. When he had been branded thoroughly, bloodied at the lips, and drubbed on his skull, he was tied and thrown into the cart with The Prince’s concubines, and the fields over which he worked were set to fire.

	The Prince thought for a while, before he decided that he would force the boy into tears by causing him pains. He told this to the crowd, and they thought this meet and salutary as punishment for his disobedience.

	Soon the caravan returned to House of the Emperor Star, vast and made entirely out of sleepy lights and ultraviolet radiation. There they unloaded the boons which The Prince had attained by taxation and offering, including the boy, into the speaking hall of the palace, in which The Prince and his disciples and underlings discussed and drank and cannibalized. They cut the boons and put them into locks, and made their pockets filled with them. Next, they discussed the boy.

	On a string made from an old color, one of his attendants said “We shall roast him alive, and have his tears in wine glasses,” and The Prince refused, still set to pondering.

	In a mirror on the wall, another said “We shall cut him to pieces, and milk his eyes as one does to a cow,” but The Prince rebuked this attendant too, and was still set to pondering.

	A third said, “We shall tie him to the sun, that he spins and burns and is truly anguished, and his tears will fall down as the rain does with each morning,” and The Prince refused, and was ever set to pondering.

	When all these attendants failed, The Prince spoke finally, after much argument: “It is in our very attempts to draw tears that he is filled with resolution. It is a fool who draws tears by the body. It is a wise man who draws them by time.” and the attendants applauded him.

So The Prince kept the boy as his servile, and made him to attend to the House of the Emperor Star by cleansing and blessing and all matter of dulling chore. In the day would the boy think himself lucky to be alive, but at night would he stare out into the star-ocean and come closer to weeping than he ever had.

This he continued for a long, long time. With each passing day the boy forgot more and more of his home, and more and more of anything beyond the House, and this wrenched his heart into cold wetness. Soon, after 3 years, 10 months, and 29 days, it came that he did not remember his mother’s face, and it was that day that he threw himself from the window of his bedchamber.

	When he lept from there, he found not ground, but mystery-air, and there was no weight in it. He floated across the cosmos for a time, and thought very much about weeping, but did not. Not a tear fell, for he was a grown boy, and he did not cry. He had entered the House when he was a youth of 9, and now was 14, and had been robbed of his childhood, had never known love, and knew all that he had ever done was dross.

He looked thoroughly about for the ground to die upon, and found it in the form of the ocean. When he fell, rain dancing about the place and making merry, he could not bring himself to drown, and awoke over and over again for many weeks as he floated there in its glassy arms.

	Soon did his salty, decrepit body come upon an isle of silver, from which many high trees sprouted and grew moonfruits. He madly scurried to the beaches, and made haste to gorge himself on these, and drink of fresh waters. As he filled himself with the flesh of the sacred fruits, he noted a lithe figure staring upon him from among the glowing oaks, and he made haste to look upon it.

She was a young maiden, though he could not explain her being on the isle. Her face was aglow with the blood of youth, her eyes a whimsy-copper that made his loins and heart yearn. He had never met a girl who he could love, and for this reason was predisposed to obsession and lust. The boy chased after the girl for many hours, until he was short of breath and collapsed, his knees weakened and like water below him. The next morning was the same, and the next night. On the morning of the third day, his legs did not hope to carry him, and the girl approached him soon after, sweet and shy.

	“Why do you run from me?” spoke the boy, gasping for air on the hot sands of the beach. She did not speak, but put her finger to her lips, and sat next to the boy. The boy asked again “Why do you run from me?”, and she said, “Because I have not yet exploited you.”

	The boy did not understand.

	The girl then revealed herself to be the beautiful and alluring Cheida. So taken was the boy that he scarcely could contain the beating of his lustful heart, which prodded and rushed about his chest at her beckon. The Cheida spoke in a tongue that was heated and mighty, with a great art that could near have commanded gravity, and said, “What have you want for?”

	The boy instantly sputtered, “I wish to be loved. I have forgotten my mother, had no father, and have known nothing but pains for all the days of my life. I wish only to be loved.”

	The Cheida then encircled the boy as a tiger does its prey. Said she “This, I can provide. I will reveal to you every motion of love and every length of peace and every joy of fatherhood and husbandhood and sonhood which have been taken from you. I will bear you and be your mother, I will bear your child and be your wife. All this I will do for you at the single drop of a tear. I will show you the acceptance and warmth of which you have been so deprived, and you will know no pains.”

	Now being a foolish boy conquered by want, he considered this offer, though he knew The Cheida to be a deceptive goddess who was ugly at heart. He said, “I know that you are a lying and foul woman, but I will see to your loyalty. We will be married for 7 years, but will never touch. When this time comes at its end, or if I should be overcome by you, I will cry for you for 7 days,” and The Cheida’s smile was the 9th kind and was filled with greedy hunger.

	The two then were married on the isle, and built a castle of sand in which to live, and made rings from pearls and from glass, making gown and clothes from the leaves of trees. They ate of moonfruit and made candles out of the innards, and the boy carried for her the weight of all the attendances of life, at which he was very skilled.

 In the first year, The Cheida thought, “I have easily bested the boy, and I shall have what I desire.” In the second year, The Cheida began to grow a little restless, and thought, “I shall wait only a little longer and shall then have what I want.” In the third year, The Cheida was overwhelmed with dissatisfaction, and thought, “The boy will surely be overwhelmed with lusts and break his oath before 7 years are up.” In the fourth year, The Cheida mused, “ Surely, I, the mistress of all carnalities, shall tempt the boy into the breakage of his oath, and I shall have what I want.” In the fifth year, The Cheida grew tired and impatient, and, in a fury, tore down the castle of sand with her tongue, burned the trees with her breath, and spoke the isle out of existence, leaving the boy struggling in the briny waves. Standing upon the water above him, The Cheida spat “You are an insufferable stain upon my name, and I see fit only to leave you to die in the waters.”, and not one iota of love had ever been in her heart for the boy.

He then sunk to the bottom of the seas and had no want to breathe, for so anguished had he become that death in any fashion would have been welcome. When the boy reached the inky depths of the sea, his body began to shudder with anguish, and his eyes shut so tightly that the delicate stitches upon there from long ago became loose. The boy had only want, now, to die, but the oceans shifted about him and made a pocket of breath in his lungs. His right, even to perish painfully, had been deprived of him.

He then cried.

	He cried so bitterly that Holy Omn, The One, The All, still sheds an infinite tear at its memory.

His breath shuddered and ached, his chest heaved and fell, his eyes became puckered and red in mourning.

It is then documented that the cosmos and all the kings of heaven fell into such radiant and vibrant ecstasy that even Holy Omn, The One, The All, still blissfully closes an eye at its memory. The Cheida above fell into the waves, clutching her mystic consciousness to keep it from shattering at the sensation. The YUBA shook with wonder, devoured the sun softly, and was finally made whole again, and her prophets slept well at long last. The Prince’s feminine quartile danced a fiery song, and the rest of him laughed for the first time in recorded history.

The ocean itself bent upwards and became the sky, leaping at the joy held within its womb. A solitary crab, still on the  dry and deserted ocean floor, came to the boy, and, for he was a very wise crab, said “Why do you weep? It is a sad thing to see.”

The boy, for the first time, could not think of anything left to weep for. “I do not know,” he stammered.

The crab then said into the boy’s ear “Do you know the secret of the ocean, which I share with sky and fire?” and the boy did not.

The crab then put his claw around the boy’s ear, and chittered, “It is made of tears. It is made of want.”

The boy was confused, and cried, “I want for nothing, and yet cry. All my life have I wanted for warmth, for love, for normalcy, but now I am devoid of hope for any of them.”

“Then,” said the crab, “Cry no more.”

The Secret of this Lesson is the heart.

The Sixth Lesson:

	These are the truths on the lip of the lying water, the words the worm whispers without air. These are the universe that mutes sight, the Living Name of The All, The One: Omn. This single syllable poem is impossible to be spoken without division of the tongue and even in that, is proper profanity. It is fitting that the name of god is so.

	There is no hearsay that is not a magic syllable; there is no sword without water. The Prince is capable of folly by choice; Omn is the antithesis to folly, and for that reason, is a master of it. Omn cloaks the back in dreams and makes of it an image.

	There is only one entropic fire. There is only ET-EH-NIAH, who is the tribunal of the universes, the mortal axiom, the death of redundancy. For this reason do I decry rest, for death is its consequence, further a prelude of negligence to achieve the center way, which is milky and ocean-feeling on its surface. Cleave the ocean, and you will discover blood between water. This I have said thrice and thrice, and I will make it the central bauble in your crown, the road of your mortification, and the name of the first mystery key: rest is the essential folly that resembles bone. The wandering king knows no capitol under her gravity. If any of my words are to be comprehended, aim they are these. I write nothing that is not a new armor to clothe yourself in.

Trust only in the open mouth and the lyre, for they will be the inheritors of the mighty tapestry, the blank story, the sound of creation, the word on the liquid stars.

	Here is the true nature of god: he is a perspective and a thesis. I know this because I am a murderer. In suit, I am also murdered, and also the predestined king of the universe.

The secular man may have the strength of the hill atop his head, but where the mysterious air? He who does not think of this is meat, and is not likely to struggle. He is predisposed to rest, and cannot seat himself on the High Star Cobalt. This is said to have 5 points, but will become 7 points, or 12 points, if you think it will.

	There are and have been many kings, many masters. In order to become him, you must learn what I have taught in the spaces between my words, and what is most distinctly written between your fingertips when they become close. This is called Om-Sol-Mon.

	He who is ruler and does not follow these lessons will find dross on his isles of hegemony. Quick will be his reign, and he will be surprised and mortified at its close, like one who cuts a stone in two, and finds blood. He will be forgotten and disappear like rain above the ocean. He will find his orchards grow only the fruit of bastards who profane his seed. His land will be a secret that dies with its owner. The jewel of his brow will be a plump daughter without a hidden dagger. This is called Say-This-Twice.

	Let me tell you of creation, which I have inherited as a gift from love and incomprehensibility: it is eaten by a wolf. By a wolf, I mean a goddess, and by a goddess, I mean an insect, or once an insect. Creation is a single dimension, like a line. Run along the line, and you will discover the number of measurements that will bring about the terminus of the 13th kind of philosophy. Make of it a square, and you will see a star. Make of it a prism, and you will see a dream; when it is put up to the star: that is the prism: that is the dream.

	This should not dissuade you, lest you stumble at muttering. I am like a lover with a spider in her mouth, awaiting a kiss to reveal a truism. I am also the receiver of the kiss, though you are also me, if we look through and past an invisible mirror. Remember that the mirror does not guide you, as you have been led to believe.

	The Secret of this lesson is the sum of every mentioned value, reducible to a singular numerology.

	The Seventh Lesson: The Subtle Sword Verse.

	This lesson is what The Vivid One says about killing, and how best to go about depriving men of vital functions. It is meet that you should know this, as you will inevitably commit acts of violence if you seek to live. While he is skilled with blade and bow, it must be said that the most potent weapons are the tongue and tongues, and as such there is greater speaking on that matter. So he says;

	“It brings disfavor to commit bloodred acts, but The Path shall lead to blood. He who kills by beating is a venerable and sagacious man. He who kills enemies by a single dividing motion of the blade is also a man, but more like a bird. He who strikes by a dart or an arrow is a poet. He who kills by word and symbol is a god. He who kills by The Secret Word is God.

	“First, of the hand; it is of five, and therefore like an old star. It primarily is the instrument of all prose, and secondly is the instrument of all murder. Occasionally other disparate elements shall come together to aid these purposes, and the first of these we shall call air. All of these lessons apply, as well, to the feet and toes.

	“He who kills with his palm is like an oak tree, and will strike down itself and the interloper. In order to properly kill with the palm, you will take the motion of a blow in history, and string it up to fester in your heart until it becomes a knot that is your fist, which is like iron lightning. The foot, contrarily, takes up no weight, and honors itself to become like a liquid sparrow. Take care to not walk on these peats too high, as you may become thwarted by the ocean and forget that you are a quadruped.

	“The fist becomes a mother and makes beautiful children who are broken bones and bleeding entrails. The greatest blow which one may deal is towards the heart, but because it is indestructible, it may cause harm to the striking party if he is frail. To wield the palms effectively, wrap them tightly in thread until they are blue and cold, that you are never hindered by the thought of bloodying your knuckles on God’s secondary face. In order to wield the hands, they must abdicate from your wrists, and become limp staves. It is recommended that you hold or tie dice between your fingers as chance favors those that recognize chaos as a meaningless and hallowed shape. Chicken’s bones and coins will serve this purpose in similar suit.

	“The blade, contrarily, is much like the word. The blade has far less versatility than the tongue, but is far easier to grip and thrust into your enemies. It is the conglomerate art of the palm and the particle element called the blade which will become inseparable and indistinguishable. You must never strike more than once with a blade or fail to separate your foes into exact halves. If your enemy should survive being struck the first, offer up your head to him. Every planck length which your sword arm assumes must be a percentage of breath from your opponent’s lung, a percentage of his vital fluids making love with the dirt. The blade, you see, is a mathematical tool of division.

“The blade is most effective when killing like light or air. If you should seek to master the art of separation, take all your fingers and cut them each five times, and then take your blade and slaughter until you are drenched in sweat, and your hilt and pommel, in blood. This will turn the contents of your veins to veins thinner still, until you do not bleed. The elimination of blood and lung is the token of a fine swordsman indeed.

	“The dart is said to be the weapon of cowards, and this is true, but it is also the weapon of the Great Colossus Yvram, who was said to be the most courageous mass to have ever existed. In order to aim your dart, you must be a set of mathematically bounded electrons influencing the flowing of a similar set. The removed and untouchable arrow must be intrinsic. You must, unlike the swordsman, be so filled with blood that every vapor of it escapes you when the fletching tickles your ear. It is a fool, an inaccurate fool, who draws his string before contemplating this.

	“It is the delight of the bowman to think that it is his hand that makes death, when in reality it is the air that does all this for him. For this reason is the bowman unique in all the cosmos; he cannot commit murder. The bowman is more a magic breath than a puller of a string, and for that reason are his lungs carved out of emeralds and his heart out of tungsten. Make steady your feet, and contemplate for a moment that you cannot commit murder, and then deprive your fellow man of life. By this repeated motion, you will make even the snow prostrate before you.

	“Now, on the word and the symbol: they are the same. I am the unquestioned authority on both, and so I am you. If you are averse to words, you may speak symbols. If you are averse to the pen, then shame upon you. This is the medium of the balancing act called the word and symbol: everything is subject to manipulation, and nothing is meaningful. The sword is much like the word, as the bow is, as the palm is, and they are all interconnected driving forces behind a great spinning wheel with no outside. Separate the wheel into degrees, and you will find that each one is cotangential to your tongue and a symbol, which means a word. You cannot speak these new words, and for that you will learn them very quickly.

“When you have learned how to speak into existence an ergonometric butterfly who sets into pondering how the sky became the ocean, I recommend reading oft, and most specifically, reading about nothing. Learning nothing is imperative to becoming the conquering king of the universe.

	“I tell you all of these things so that you will be better equipped to kill me.”

	The Secret of this Lesson is Om-Sol-Mon.

The Eighth Lesson: The Folly of the Archaeons.

All about the crystalline platonic solid in which the vast macrocosm of the Sacred Atrium of Temporal Horticulture was situated did mighty spirits and esoteric blossoms swirl and curve, and made small stars which set the place ablaze in many lights. Here was the usual place in which subtle studies were conducted in whisper and lie.

	Here, in a younger time, contemplated the young Anush, daughter of Kren. She knew of no sword or symbol, of no foul sorcery, and of no divisions, and only resigned herself to the delights of poetry and study. Never once a thing she had done that was not of the utmost innocence, nor did she befoul herself with any thought which was impure. For this reason, her ignorance made her proper fodder for discipleship.

	Alone, Anush knew many things and was proud of her crackling thunder-mind. She could shape-kill the motes of dust which fell on her shoulders in her idleness, could step the North Way, and could make 5 symbols at once with her feet in the air. While these were meagre accomplishments in the eyes of her father, the legendary Kren, she thought herself quite wise.

	Now it was in her state of tranquil and subtle study that a sudden emanation interrupted her mute bookwork and caused her ink finger to stumble and misalign an integral glyph, setting her work back many hours. Hot with anger, Anush reclaimed her four-in-one ocular senses from where she had left them and sought out what had disturbed her.

	Soon would the ignorant Anush discover a piercing, incandescent matrix of color shining throughout the Atrium where she had been meditating in the respite of a Tinedra’s gaudy emerald shade. Struck with the notion that something important was about, she rose and peered through the silky ivy all around her, hoping terribly for something vulnerable to a good drubbing for distracting her.

	Overpowered and struck with reverence like a dart, Anush looked into the shady clearing and saw speaking there were four mighty Aeons:

Araphel, who was said to govern the Supernal Spheres and guard the Shining Spectrum, held seven index fingers high from seven hands and was aglow in his mighty Robe of the Altercation, his frontward features adorned with the ornaments of the inky seas of space. Truly, he was a sight to behold.

Somael, who leaked mathematical liquids from his convexes, was an incomprehensible Hyper-Trimensional Polytope whose dread fulcrums were understandings of all the principles of this The Third-Dimensional Space. He glinted like a jewel by a falling stream of water above, making great pains to wash away his imperfections which did not exist.

Remean, the 5th Tongue, was a shape-changing Colossus that wielded hand and foot in the fashion of a hallowed lotus. His eyes were, in this form, hot orbs of onyx so bright that pains were made to look upon them by Anush, even with the combined strength of all 4 of her ocular senses. From his mighty obsidian spear sprouted wings  which were diune, secret and symbol, indigo like stars, bloody like love and lovemaking.

Nael-Tron sat in attendance similarly, and was the unchallenged poet-bishop of worldmaking and cosmic shifting, who forged himself a humble form which was a 12-pointed star in the mold of a man, having cooled in the streams of time for twelve long Yqui and been folded and sharpened for wisdom. He wore a thick, warm coat from the skin of the 7th Dream Type that he had cultivated, and silently made art as he reposed.

Most resplendent of them all was one who reclined in contemplation upon but a single floating mote of dust beneath the consummate body. Each of them had arrived in such illustrious and bold forms for this most elaborate occasion in reverence, for seated quietly amongst them was Holy Omn. God winked knowingly at Anush, and she gasped in astonishment. Whether it was Holy Omn or Anush who did so is unknown.

	The four made heated and unbridled argument in the clearing, tearing asunder a teary universe as each then argued that they were the greatest of the Aeons. Frightened by the Aeons, Anush hid in the shadows of the ivy, before Holy Omn made her presence known, saying “Invite the girl hiding over there to come forward.”

	The Aeons, frustrated at the presence of such a distracting whelp, brought her forward into their presence and instructed her to sit upon the water with them. Holy Omn questioned her, as Holy Omn often did not, saying “Little Anush, Silver-Moon, which of these my Aeons is most worthy?” Anush did not understand, and so Araphel, all 7 arms crossed indignantly, said “Holy Omn is to decide which of us is to sit upon the Archaeon Throne of his design. He has asked what you think on this matter.”

	Anush was pale with fright as gravity began to distort shape around the mighty Aeons. Holy Omn patiently doubled his question, saying “Little Anush, Silver-Moon, which of these my Aeons is most worthy?” Anush answered honestly, saying “I think them all so mighty that it is not salutary for me to judge them.” The Aeons nodded in agreement, beckoning Holy Omn to banish her.

	Holy Omn then rebuked the Aeons, saying “You have disgraced my guest! How shameful!” Continuing, Holy Omn said, “It is right that the greatest of Aeons must know and profess the greatest of truths. Therefore, let the Aeon who reveals to Little Anush the greatest knowledge and might be seated upon the coveted Throne.” All the company there were inconsolably tumultuous, making great protest before Holy Omn silenced them with a motion of Holy Omn’s finger. “This I decree; Little Anush will visit each of you. If you should tell a lie, then your heart will be torn apart and spread across the circumference of my work.”

	The Aeons were enraged at this injustice, and with a fiery glare that made little Anush’s hair stand up, they forced themselves into quantum states and departed to their separate citadels, palaces, and provinces.

	Anush was quite frightened, and begged Holy Omn to protect her from Holy Omn’s terrible attendants. Holy Omn made a smile for a fashion that was like water and told her to have no fear, and she obeyed but still shivered a little.


“I have made way for the spring of fire to flow; make of it a word, and you will find harmony. This is the fluid in my corpse. Violence is its result.”

	Anush did not understand, and pleaded with Holy Omn. Holy Omn then put Holy Omn’s lips on her forehead, and she was filled with a smattering of courages to expend throughout the subsequent turns. Holy Omn then set her off to meet the first of his Aeons through the observatory upon her liquid sparrow feet.

	The Song of Araphel.

	For the season was fall, Anush followed a trail of scarlet blossoms, twisting and supplicating themselves to the lists of the shifting wind to reach the hall of the mighty Araphel, as Holy Omn had ordered her. For she was quite deft upon her heels of liquid sparrow, Little Anush promptly reached the end of the trail, atop a misty mountain just below Heaven, with blistered hands and aching feet from the spritelyness of her travel.

	While catching her breath, Anush noted that there was indeed no hall at all. In fact, a chilling breeze across her cheek whispered to her the distinctive lack of any company in this most desolate place. So, Anush called out “Lord Araphel, where is your mighty citadel, your holy tower?”

	All at once, a voice spoke through the supernal mists, “This is my palace,” and at once Anush was struck with the ignorance of what she had just said, for the Araphel himself was the palace, the height, the mountain, the air.

	Araphel then remembered himself into an unassuming shape, like a cane-wielding elder with fiery beard and hair, embraced about the circumference of a hallowed silver dagger. Anush bowed in respect, and Araphel leaned heavily upon his cane, coming to the girl. He said, “If I am to teach you, I must know of your centrifugal intellects. Ask of me a burning question,” and Anush obeyed, asking

	“What, heavenly Aeon, is the meaning of life?”

	Araphel chuckled momentarily, before falling into a fit of coughing, sparks of fire dispelling from his throat as if within there was a glowing metal furnace. Through his fit of hacking, the wise Araphel said, “That is a circular question that answers itself.”, and Anush was confused. Seeing the twisting of her face in this fashion, Araphel explained.

	“To ask of the meaning of life is similar to asking the meaning of anything. Is not the subtle gesture of meaning inlaid upon all things the truest nature of being itself? Transcendental or comprehensible meanings which produce and hence are the product of the autogene are fundamentally returned to this the singular principle, of at all. What meaning has anything? It is in the sheer being, or hypothetical being, that the more general and perfect meaning is found. It is, therefore, petty to ponder the meaning of this thing or that thing. Do you understand?”

	Thus did Anush become confused.

	Araphel reiterated, “Verily, this my speaking is meaning; this my word is the meaning; violence and peace and love-making and solitude and the multiplicities of meanings and actions and lack of action are the meaning so. Do you understand?” and Anush still did not.

	Araphel sighed a little blue candle flame from his lips, and asked, “What do you think the meaning of life is, Little Anush?” Anush did not understand the question, and said “I do not know, and for that reason did I ask you.”

	Araphel became so filled with laughter that liquid metal tears, boiling and bubbling, fell from his wrinkled and tired eyes. Anush became bright red with the shame of this act and then said, “I suppose that the meaning of life could be death. What do you think of that?” and Araphel quieted his laughing to speak, saying “It is as much the meaning of life as anything, Little Anush,” and Anush felt a little better.

	Araphel pointed to a great Silver Oak at his back, from which leaves of scripture and fruit of knowledge grew, and said, “Eat of the fruit from this tree in whose shade we rest, and read every leaf, precisely every leaf, and in your stomach will grow the child of wisdom, and in your eyes the telescopic vision principle.” Anush obeyed and climbed high up the tree, to take a bite of the crimson pears that hung innumerable. Anush, sinking her silver teeth into the flesh of the bulb, found that it was foul and impossible to eat, and, when she look at the leaves, found that there was no symbol upon them, nor marking of any kind. She quickly descended the tree and told all this to Araphel.

	He then brought a molecule of heavy shame upon her for her misguided eyes and tongue, telling her, “You have already eaten and read both! Look far closer,” and Anush saw that every fruit upon the entire tree had its curvature, and that this curvature was the result of her having eaten of them in a past life. She also saw that the leaves themselves housed many imperfections, folds, and fulcrums which could be interpreted as symbols professing meaning. Struck with revelation, Anush began the hasty work of deciphering the imperfect scripture and eating the already eaten fruit which now her tongue begrudgingly married to.

	Anush abounded in her newfound knowledge after all this work had been done, saying, ”I was truly a foolish girl, but now have I grown wiser. What I shall tell to Holy Omn! You are certainly a wise and benevolent teacher,” and she was off, and Araphel was pleased.

	Now a strange thing happened to her as she soared above the clouds towards the Aether Tunnels of Somael. A bedraggled young vulture soared next to her, and he cackled, “Have you been talking to the foolish Araphel?” and she nodded but rebuked him for speaking such insult. “Araphel,” he exclaimed in the mighty winds, “Is the wisest of all the company of Aeons!”, and the vulture was astonished at her, saying, “What jest is this? Araphel is master of nothing. What lies did he teach to you?”

	Anush told to the vulture, “He has told me the meaning of life.”

	The vulture howled with scraping laughter and said, “To know such a thing will not till your fields, nor milk your cows. What use is knowledge like that?” and Anush suddenly was dumbfounded, for she could not answer him. He finished by saying, “The meaning of life is a clown’s inquiry. Nothing has meaning.”

	After he had left, Anush was forced to expend some of the courage Holy Omn has bestowed upon her.

	The Epic of Somael:

	Soon did Anush’s feet alight upon the multicolored, derivative lair of Somael, a vast and chasmic tunnel in the space between air that stretched infinitely in every dimension. Like a mirror could she look backwards, and see herself alight in the Tunnel again and again, and again and again she looked backwards to see that very same sight. This troubled her, and she took of more courage.


Somael made himself known in the form of a justified, impossible equation that mathematics continually disproved, but was evident in reality. This particular state resembled a cobalt sheet, or perhaps a cobalt ocean, from a separate perspective, who folded himself up into a little, mathematically precise songbird, who subsequently revealed himself to be a white star-cube, dripping with indigo blood.

	Anush was masterfully enthralled by this display of might, and she bowed her knee towards Somael. He then bid her to rise and said, “Here shall I teach you the mightiest of knowledge, of mathematics, of the governing principles of reality by which even Holy Omn gleans power. But first, I must know your centrifugal intellect. Ask of me a burning question.” By now, Anush had come up with a vast smattering of queries and took the best one, asking,

“Oh, holy Aeon, what is the consummate principle?”

	Somael, for he was not a man of great length of word like Araphel, spoke simply, and said,

	“1=1”

	Anush thought about this momentarily but became confused. “How is this inherency the most valuable principle, Lord Somael? Is this not true no matter circumstance? Is this not similar to stating that the apple is the apple, the tree is the tree?”

	Somael spoke simply once more, to enlighten her,

	“This principle is the pillar which upholds everything. This is what God is.”

	Anush thought rigorously on this, and was struck with the weight of her epiphany: That one is one must not be false, for if it were so, then would meaning drain from creation as if rivers into the sea. She found that this singular uniformity was the absolute truth, and set herself to many hours of meditation upon it.

	Somael then said, “Study all of the ad infinitum orientations of this truth, and when you have realize its weight, arrive to me once more.”

	Anush soon discovered that nothing could be true if it were not reducible to this, that no material or ethereal thing could be if it was not thoroughly aligned with this singular equity that ruled creation. After much precision in mathematics had been engraved in her malleable intellect, she discovered new mighty sorceries which this truth had granted her, and she boiled the mountains of complexity with her sanguine eyes.

	Somael, seeing this development, said tersely, “Now, I challenge you in your understanding to find even the most infinitesimal flaw in this truth,” and before she had even attempted the thought, Anush had already admitted defeat, saying, “Your truth is immutable, supreme teacher. There are none who wield greater intellect or might than thee”, and Somael was pleased.

	Anush passed from the Tunnel down onto the earth, and there a strange thing did happen. While her feet danced as she bounded past the woodlands, she came across a weary and starving rat, whose putrid state made her heart fill with pity. The rat croaked upwards to her, “I have need for food and for drink. What has Lord Somael given to you?” and she answered honestly, saying, “The greatest truth in all the universe.”

	The rat said, “If you know of the ultimate truth, wield its might and conjure for me flesh to eat and milk to drink.” Anush thought long of this, and said, “I am sorry, so sorry. This truth does not hope to make material anything that is not real, and for this reason, I cannot call up flesh or milk. This is the governing principle of the universe.”

	The rat was frustrated and confused by this and said, “Well it must be certain that flesh and milk are real. If you cannot conjure these, then what is real?”

	Anush was struck with an inability to answer this query, and the rat coughed up a great puddle of crimson before saying, “It must be that nothing is real, if even this, the ultimate principle, cannot make for me sustenance.” and then he died.

	Anush once again swallowed up Holy Omn’s courage to continue on and bounded across the woodlands to reach the Citadel of Remean.

	The Boast of Remean:

Anush was tasked with ascending the height of the Citadel of Remean, a resplendent tower of pink silver with horn’d peak and bejeweled window. At its base did the great city of Remean’s multiplicity of angels reside, all in his constant worship, singing paean after paean through day and night, resting their voices only when being subject to violence. Anush soon became quite lost, and decided simply to follow the flow of crowding bodies towards the center of the city.

	Shoving her way furiously through crowded street and caravan, with the aid of her lightning palm did she repel the masses about the base of the Citadel, that she might gain entrance with the key whose name was Palm and Fist. Remean smiled a little.

First in the gaudy citadel Anush found three serpents of stone, who continually eviscerated those seeking entry if they failed a mighty riddle. Anush went towards them, and they said to her their question:
“I am stouted and virile, covered with lunar hairs and golden features, and I become afraid when I am courageous. I am large when I am small, but I am small. What am I?”, and Anush immediately understood and, frustrated at the hindrance to her progress, said, “You are me,” and the serpents bowed their heads, and she ascended a mighty spiral of steps upward.

	In the second floor of the citadel misty ferns and blossoms grew, who would open up their blossoms and pull in the unwise who dared to take of their perfume. Shoving past the huddled and transfixed masses, Anush came upon a grapevine that housed a little spider. It asked of her, “I am the pervading enigma that makes death into art. I am the sword of the unwise king. I am the secret path that leads to fortune and misfortune. What am I?” and, frustrated twice, Anush grumbled, “You are violence,” and the spider bowed its head and allowed her through.

	Thus the trials continued, floor after floor, for hundreds of chambers, and then thousands, each one bringing higher the heat of fury in Anush. With each level the number of worshipping pilgrims grew, and so too did the crowds, the chatter, the sweat, the odor, and the endless shoving between bodies.

When Anush reached the 55,555th chamber, after many days of asinine riddles, she grew infuriated, and cast her palm upon the citadel, shattering the sweat-encrusted edifice into its baser components by sacred division. With a furious white gleam, all of the metal-brick from which the chambers were formed was made into hot and flowing fire, and Anush, sweaty and fatigued, breathed great heaving breaths as she admired her handiwork.

	From the viscous citadel a smile appeared, and Anush realized that she had been tricked, for the tower of troubles itself had been the Aeon on the height. Arising from the bloodied corpses of his followers, the titanic Remean remembered himself into a seven-horned bull, which Anush did mighty battle with, and then a six-headed dragon, and then a five-tongued daemon. This continued until there were no heads, and Remean revealed himself to be in the shape of a headless, sweat-bathed figure of perfect pale gold.

	Anush, her body burned, gashed and bloodied, fell weary upon the ground, where Remean awaited upon a stone for 3 days until she awoke, filled with great and profound soreness.

	Anush rose from the grasses below her, painted scarlet in the blood of all Remean’s pilgrims who had died miserably at his hands in the ensuing battle, and choked on her throat, drinking of cooling courage from Holy Omn to nourish herself. As she drank, Remean said, “You are quick as a sparrow, and twice its size, if it is large. Before I teach you my art, I must know of your centrifugal intellect. Ask of me a burning question.”

Anush crackled from her dry and weary throat a question that she had thought long about. Asked she, “What, holy Aeon, is the shape of the universe?”

	Remean thought momentarily upon this before saying, “It is in a shape that I can only show you by action. Where Araphel has taught through words, and where Somael has taught through number, I shall teach you by the most true of dialogues, which is violence.”

	Then did Remean assume a fighting that was terrible to behold, burnished hands alight in the cold fires of truth, headspace filled with a crimson fire of ocular senses. Anush was frightened but ate upon a great deal of courage and engaged the holy Aeon in such brutal combat that even her considerable masteries of the palm were of no use. With each turning of her body from upright to sideways, Anush discovered, often lying on the bloodied soil, that the sky above was a thing that shifted with her senses. As further beaten did her head grow, her sight became irresolute and foggy, causing the stars to shift above and become the sky, and afterward become the air. She tried very hard to think on this but was unable to.

	After many hours of sadistic beatings, Anush was bled so heavily from the forehead that, when she fell onto the ground again, she saw that the shape of the inky night was every shape, and shifted only in accordance with the number of bruises on her skull. Anush invited Remean to beat her across the head again and again, each time discovering that the shape of space had changed again and again. When finally the dawn arose, the sun lit the hazy skies, and she saw in its purple gleam that it was every shape which she had comprehended it to be, at once.

	“The shape of the universe,” Anush said in fixed awe, “Is vision.”

	Remean nodded his fiery head, which dissipated into a wisp of smoke at the ceasing of their combat. “Indeed, it is so. This truth can only be learned through anguish and bloodshed: two universal constants to reveal a third,” and Anush was shaky in her sudden understanding but also from the wretched beatings she had taken upon her shins.

	Anush concluded her visit with a bow of submission, saying “You are the true king of actions, of vision, and of violence. I thank you for this teaching. You are the best of all Holy Omn’s attendants,” and Remean was pleased.

	When Anush limped pitifully from the City of Remean, a strange thing did happen. When she was passing through the gateways outward into the woodlands, a most bedraggled drunk spoke unto her, slurring his words and covered in the stench of alcohol. Said he “I see you’ve had the symbols of Lord Remean beaten into you, girl. What did he teach to you?” and she said, “He has taught me that the shape of the universe is vision, and that violence is a fundamental, universal principle.”

	At this the drunkard laughed and beat his emptied bottle upon the concrete into a thousand pieces. He slobbered, “What point is the shape of the universe if there’s no outside to it? Better still, what’s the point of knowing about violence if you’re dead once you get to the truth of the matter?” and for a third time, Anush was struck in an inability to answer. He waved his hand dismissively towards her and said, “If you ask me, I’d bet that the universe isn’t shaped like anything.” and Anush threw the man a coin and was off, having to take up a little courage to continue on.

	The Blade of Nael-Tron.

Now Nael-Tron, unlike the other Aeons, had no palace, but rather lived as a wandering beggar who taught philosophy and cynicism, as was the case with all the wisest of men. He liked to hold himself highly in jeweled crown and parrot-robe, while begging on the street for coins. He, when offered coinage, would reveal the sex-bruises on language itself, and his donors would be filled to the brim with knowledge and become mute, deaf, dumb, and blind. This was considered to be one of the higher blessings.

	Anush, still limping from the beatings she had received, wandered through the windy deserts day and night, her skin turning from pale silver to a reddened semisolid of melting glass from the breath of the sands on her face. Caked with dusts, Anush came upon a gleaming, verdurous oasis, thick with the sweet air of sap and lilies. She drank heartily of the waters there, and when she set herself to bathing, her four ocular senses were met by an odd silhouette, rising and swaying along the dunes. She could not discern him, until he came closer, at which his shape rose higher and wider, but his form became no clearer. Soon he came upon the oasis and bathe next to Anush, and still could his form not be made out, as if he were ten-thousand miles from her.

Anush immediately saw this as a challenge, and said “Do not think you can disguise yourself from me, Lord Nael-Tron. Many Aeonic teachers have hid themselves from me before; I know this is you.” The wickedly sharp lotus in the pond where she bathed cackled and, with a poetic sort of tone, made flappings on the wind which said, “Oh, what misfortune! You are truly perceptive.” The unclear figure soon arose and walked away, having never said a word. This figure was The Vivid One.

	The Poet of the Aeons made of herself a shapely woman of white glamour and lascivious features, and when Anush was not seduced, he made of himself a chiseled man of impressive strength and rippling tendons, and when Anush was not seduced, he made of himself a thin old beggar, and said “Your four ocular senses have served you well, but these trials of perception are but trivialities in light of my next teachings. First, I must know of your centrifugal intellect. Ask of me a burning question.”

	Anush had had much time wandering the white sands of the desert to think of her next question, and she asked it artfully, like one asks a canvas to be painted. She asked, “What, oh holy Aeon, is the center of language?”

	Nael-Tron, unlike the teachers before, reclined and stroked his bedraggled whiskers for a great deal of time, for it was a very difficult question. He finally laughed, and, coming upon a suitable answer, said, “I think it might be a secret.”

	Anush was confused, and Nael-Tron rose from the pond where they bathed, beckoning her to follow. “I will show you what I mean.”

	Nael-Tron took her up by the hand, and led her through a space that wasn’t real, and revealed to her the Shape of Secrets, inside of the Sepulchre that housed the works of Mother. What was seen there cannot be committed to words, as it is heretical both to make its image or speak of it.

	Anush looked upon the indescript thing, and scoffed, saying “There is not any language here!”, and Nael-Tron beckoned her to look again. Anush lowered her pride and peered closely, and said, “Perhaps there are a few words to be read there.”, and Anush developed a fifth kind of sight, and was enthralled in the Shape of Secrets so completely that her eyes began to burn up, and Nael-Tron took her up and lept back into the pond with her.

	Anush shook her head wildly, for her 5th kind of sight had been burned away, and she had forgotten what she had seen. She said “Where were we, teacher?”, and Nael-Tron laughed, reminding her that they had performed this gesture seven-hundred-thousand times, and each time had her sight awakened and been burned away. Anush still did not understand, but she had a notion of what this meant.

	Nael-Tron laughed once again, but it was a pitiful laugh, because he realized that certain things could not be taught. “You have asked me,” he said as they reclined, Anush’s forehead adorned with the ashes of her last vision of the Shape, “To explain what fundamentally is meant to be inexplicable. Secrets, which are the center of language, derive their meaning from being misunderstood. They are stripped of their innards as a fine fruit when it is squeezed.” Anush’s notion of understanding began a little bud, but it failed grow.

	Nael-Tron then rose again from the pool and said, “I will show you what I mean.” He said this poem;

	“Crystalline in composition
are what supposition clothes himself with.
	He knows not the realities, but does,
 from the side.
	He is esoteric in all his skins,
	He is the death of word,
The grave at the center of the Sepulchre.

	The bone to which tongues are yolked;
	The heaviness of their armor is like a stunted planet,
	Aching towards the sun, twisting ivy,
	Like taint, towards its kinship.

The circle on the stone,
	The mirror in the water,
	Everything is equal,
	And everything is.”

	Anush clapped well for Nael-Tron, for it was a beautiful poem, and he descended from the air, saying, “Tell me, Anush: what is the standing stone in my genteelism?”

	Anush thought for a long time about this in the pool of their conjunctive repose, and when the moon rose over the horizon, her mouth opened, dumbfounded, and she tried desperately to speak of what she had learned, but the words could not form, and primitive blurtings emanated consequently. In all her stammering, Nael-Tron raised a finger and asked, “I do not ask that you explain what I’ve taught you through this. Tell me simply, Little Anush, Silver Moon: have I answered your question?” and Anush spoke this,

	“Never so thoroughly have I ever understood the answer to a question than now. Never so thoroughly have I understood anything. I say it truly, you have taught me more than all of the other Aeons.”, and Nael-Tron was pleased. It is my hope that you understand this lesson similarly.

	Now as she wandered out into the desert once more, in returning to the Atrium to meet with Holy Omn, a strange thing did happen: a bloated and putrid horsefly alighted on her shoulder. For he was unworthy to speak with the man in the oasis, he asked, “What has holy Nael-Tron taught you?” and, like before, Anush could not answer. She desperately attempted to explain what she had learned, but language cripplingly faltered at its expression. The gloating fly made an obscene sort of face that made her think of the way water looks upon soldiers who try to kill it with swords. The fly left laughing, and said “I suppose he hasn’t taught you anything, then.” Anush took but a drop of her courage, for there was just a puddle of it left.


	The Decision of Holy Omn:

	Soon did Anush return to the Atrium, and, descending through the observatory as she had before, she saw that Holy Omn had been reclining for some time, thinking very hard about nothing at all. Holy Omn beckoned her forward, and spoke musically to her, saying, “You have returned.” to which Anush said that she had. Holy Omn told her to drink of the last of her courage, and tell him all that had happened.

	“What did Araphel teach to you?” asked Holy Omn. Anush replied, “He has taught me the meaning of life, which is everything.”

	Holy Omn chuckled and said, “Araphel has lied to you: nothing is far, far more meaningful.” and Anush was startled, as she remembered that this was exactly what the vulture had said.

“What did Somael teach you?” asked Holy Omn. Anush replied, “He has taught me the ultimate principle of being, which is that 1=1.”

	Holy Omn chuckled and said, “Somael has lied to you: this principle is the most untrue of all truths. A far better one is that 1=0,” and Anush was startled, as she remembered that this was exactly what the rat had said.

	“What did Remean teach you?” asked Holy Omn. Anush replied, “He has taught me that the shape of the universe is vision.”

	Holy Omn chuckled and said, “Remean has lied to you: the shape of the universe is most certainly nothing at all, which is the most regal of all the shapes.” and Anush was startled, as she remembered that this was exactly what the drunk had said.

	“What did Nael-Tron teach you?” asked Holy Omn. Anush replied, “He has taught me the center of language is something I cannot say.”

	Holy Omn chuckled, and said, “Nael-Tron has lied to you: he has taught you nothing at all.” and Anush was startled, as she remember that this was exactly what the putrid fly had said.

	As Anush was taken aback with Holy Omn’s words, Holy Omn explained,

	“Araphel was far too focused on interpretation and thought he could find the truth by looking hard enough, when in reality, the truth is best found by avoiding it.

“Somael thought that by mathematics and principle he could find the truth, when truth is really subversive to what is certainly true.

“Remean thought he could reach the truth by great power, when really it is the peasant who wields the arts of God in complete and total ignorance of them.

“Nael-Tron sought the truth in epiphany, when the truth more often will never arrive to a person at all, which is the best way to find the truth.”

	Anush’s head was awash in confusion, and she said, “Master of Masters, I do not understand! I thought for a moment that I grasped many things, but now I more resemble a bumbling fop than a learned scholar!”

	Holy Omn grinned, kissed her on the forehead, and said, “This Lesson must be understood before any others. For that reason, I made you learn it after the fact.”

	The Secret of this Lesson is the Secret of the Secret of every Lesson


The Ninth Lesson:


	This is the first of an underlying set of apocryphal dialogues between the supreme personage of godhead, Holy Omn, and someone other than the supreme personage of godhead, Holy Omn, who does not exist. Within this preface is the secret of all creation. If you do not understand it, you will not reach the High Star. You will be like a winged fish who never delves deeper. You will be like a boy sitting by his window, awaiting the chariots of heaven to race across the sky, only to blink and miss them. Because this lesson is real, it is more difficult to understand. So it is written on the impossible edge of creation,

“It is my righteous and supreme edict that there shall be a sepulchre of glass and lotus petals. She will be my handmaid and an incomplete feminine quartile, who knows no ulterior or subtle identity. “The price for which my eye was paid was a good one; I am indebted no more to fetid senses,” she said. I am the infinite, preliminary might that is named in a few words horned by the enlightened one, who was spoken of and toward by the steaming angels, who climbed atop the Ziggurat by the bloody stream, and discovered the heat that exposes milky solitude.

	“I am the price you must pay; I am the eye which was blinded; I am the one who is indebted; I am the enigma of senses. You consume me through it. I am who you are, and what your perceptions will inevitably point towards, if you are quick or dead: this is the centerfold, verdant pathway to heaven that is ameliorated by blood, hallowed by tears, and sickened by intrigue of two kinds.

	“You are a proverb hiding within yourself, like me, like The Vivid One. It is only by the distillation of one’s wisdoms into burning liquor that ephemeral happiness can be attained. More lasting delights are a poisonous heavy metal that incinerates the throat into dust. The most perdurable enemy commonly met on this my road is atrophy. For this I have told you thrice: Rest is much like death, and it must be scorned. You must rebuke it until it becomes pregnant, and abandon it by your elliptical heart that covers the sun. If you should glean anything, aim that it is this.

	“What do you cry for?

	“You have sensed of great wisdoms, and have learned there are no teachers. I will teach you now of a lesson which cannot be sensed, which is perennial, immutable, and absolute. If this truth should evade you, there is no hope for you, and I offer my condolences in your inevitable death, for lack of immortality:

	“The finale is a covenant.

	“This all the mists of heaven, all the scriptures of the world, and all the many wayward paths cannot teach. Where there is wisdom that is read, I have made invisible scriptures. Where there are words that enlighten, I have made the wind, the silence, teach far more. Wherever I am seated, you will know me by my last words.

	“The revelations which you have sought, here they stand before you. They are stones, they are in air. They are a subtle sort.

“I have made them so because I love you and hate you.
“I have made them so because you are, and are not.


“I have made them so, for you will forget all that I have taught you.
“I have made them so, for you will become me.
“I have made them so, for you will kill me.
“I have made them so, for you will become what you and I am.
“I have made them so, for you will be alone.
“I have made them so, for you will forgive the transgressions of your god.
“I have made them so, for you will be holier.
“I have made them so, for you will abhor the truth.
“I have made them so, for you will discover The Secret Word in all its fullness.
“I have made them so, for The Secret of this Lesson you will learn soon.”


	The Tenth Lesson:

I have spoken with the sun, and he has tasked me with the proliferation of a prophecy that is not his. On the tail of the noumenal did I find that the transmundane essentially was everything, and our notions of those two are ignorant and subjective at best. The first step of ten-thousand towards the Secret Word is within this lesson.

	This life, and this the creation, offer little but pain. The Enlightened One will believe this is unjust, and will become cold. You must view justice as a notion reserved for idiots if you are ever to heed not this inherent pain that cannot ever be forgotten or unthought of.

What a paradox.

The recommended path towards truth of meaning requires that you remove your senses with needles or daggers. Heaven is going to burn your eyes.

	“What are you afraid of?” it is often asked. The proper answer is “God,” but the better synonym is “Me.” You are clothed in terror in the studies of these words, you are armed to the teeth with the heaving plate of symbol, you are justified of your sins in your hedonism, you are replete with sins in your asceticism. The eyes which now make invisible scripture grow as your understanding of these lessons arrives from malicious winter to spring in fruition with luminous blossoms in the sunlight. The fullness of my brand will be in closing. The finale is a covenant.

	This grants the hegemonies of The Vivid One, of Holy Omn, of all the higher ones whose poetry-artifice is much envied by the morning and the dawn and the subsequent turns.

	I am the three-face’d lying sphere, and my art is deception. If you understand these lessons, you will learn what I offer, which is the magic of lie and the ability to see through mine. You will remember me as if in a dream.

	Every word which I have said is bitter truth, and every interpretation of my word is a barefaced lie. Therefore, settle into the grooves of my meaning as the water so often does, and quiet your queries, because I know them. I am master and knower of all the pits of ignorance, yet to be filled, and I will make each pervaded by the gaudy perfumes of my teaching.

	First did the emerald leaf of a dandelion-lily arrive to me and said in my dreams, “I offer to you the first of the mystery keys, which is incomprehensible rambling that is really the consequent veiled understanding of everything, resulting from a concise Repose in the Black.”
	Next did two brothers who were both the same in Atman (Omn) arrive to me and said in my dreams, “I offer to you the second of the mystery keys, which is a double-syllable name that brings about the calamitous occult, resulting most notably in the annihilation of religion.”
	Finally did six tongues dance temporarily upon the wind and said in my dreams, “I offer to you the third of the mystery keys, which is the Secret of a different Lesson, wrapped in the secret of this one, as we are wrapped in saliva and you are wrapped in mud and oil.”
		The first or third keys can be found by the study of these words. The second can only be attained by ignorance.


In this, your attendance of my teaching, you have discovered primarily that you are talking to yourself: of yourself. What you now and will next contemplate is a redundancy.
I yet thirst.

	The Secret of this Lesson is the next Lesson.

	The Eleventh Lesson: Solitude.

	It soon came that Image grew in the Word and became a sagacious man of blood and poetry, wandering the worlds in a robe made of prismatic light-arrays. From sex-murder with the hermaphroditic Yranidam, he had obtained his element named sword, named Sonarium, meaning “Dream-Cleaver” in his father’s tongue, bathed in saliva and multicolored blood.

	The Living Image would, on his wanderings, arrive upon a symptomatic conundrum of solitude. He taught of dreams, and of puissance, and of stars, and he was applauded and granted liquor to drink. Despite all this, never once had he been spoken to. It was most bizarre, as he positioned himself in the utmost hospitality, but could not be approached in any meaningful way. His most visceral interaction with others seemed to be minimized into motes of dust that clouded his endless tongues, and made him choke on the spit of folly.

	Now one day The Vivid One arrived at the Central Sleep-Dealer of the 5th Pale Lord, which was, today, a golden tower whose apex was a legendary spear that dripped oft, and sought to find a suitable place to dream and meditate. He found a good particle of air above the undulating bodies, and set himself to pondering.

	It was not long before this pondering was interrupted, much to Image’s disdain. He was in the motion of shooing the interloper away, when he opened his divine eyes to see that before him was a woman. Her skin was of pale opal, her face looked downward in the hollow way, for the purposes of bloodying his face. The Vivid One looked up, and, as both of them were high above in the air, they descended, and the crowds parted at this display.

	The Vivid One spoke simply, and asked, “Who are you?” The woman answered not, and Image immediately understood that he was speaking with God. “It is not often that you clothe yourself in insipid sex, Holiest of Holies, Omn.” he said, a most irreverent thing to say to the One, the All.

	She responded, “I am correct,” and The Vivid One began to see an enigma unfold.

	The Vivid One continued, saying, “I do not know why you have come for me, Lord, but you should speak.”

	She responded, “You wish to put your sword through me,” and The Vivid One saw another enigma.

	The Vivid One continued, saying, “If it is battle that you ask from me, I must decline. I am still young and cannot yet face God.”

	She responded, “It is so, but I design it even though I am young.” and The Vivid One saw a great, all-encompassing enigma arise.

	There no more were crowds; there no more were halls; there were no more things but emptiness, but God, but The Vivid One. It was alone.

	The Vivid One reached out for her, and harsh argument was made with his hands. They made symbols on her pearlescent skin that were difficult to look at but housed sense and the sensual. She responded with biting anger, and it is said that the consequential markings are the realization of sex-death.

	Soon did argument turn to violence (one in the same) when Sonarium sweetly, achingly entered the Holiness Omn, and tears and laughter and infinitune colors poured from its extremity. Since the Manifest Empress had no sword of her own, she wielded the palm and it is said that a conception was made from them, which were the twins called blood and bloodletting, love and lovemaking. There was gnashing of teeth in the space between spaces as a procession of emotions fell from Image, and a distinctive lack was filled by Holy Omn.

	The Vivid One looked upon Omn and said to her, “No, I am.”

	Holy Omn looked upon The Vivid One and said to him, “ Yes, I am.”

	Thus two conflicting illusions encircled one another, though neither could succeed over the other. They formed circular time, a circle called Mother, whose eyes were bloodshot at her sudden labor. They made of everything a circle, until the circle of Holy Omn’s stomach became two circles, and became herself and The Vivid One, lest the length and width of the breast to the pelvis.

	The dual, supreme personages of godhead each insisted upon the individual self and the undiluted self, and both were completely correct, but the paradox refused to be resolute, and thought blood or breath to be a suitable substitute.

	This was the way the universe was forged. This was the way the story was written. This was the essential argument of nonbeing and being, of one and of all, and both were correct, and everything that is real and unrealized hummed into being.

	The Vivid One opened his eyes, finding his sundered body covered in blood and love. Sonarium had pierced him deeply. His eyes welled with tears, and he realized that it is very lonely to be God. He had been talking to himself all along. The Living Image wept.

	The Secret of this Lesson is that you are Holy Omn. You are someone else.


The Twelfth Lesson: The World-Poem, that is my Trial and my Justice.

O, on gentle feet come, and distort not the blossoms.
Make thy face at me, and upturn.
Euphemisms herein will become
The sovereign dead, the learned vision.

Whosoever commits his mind here
Will make division music,
That endures in fire and air.
Engraving in the star.

What is this? Nothing.
Abrogate the law of senses,
And you will find a secret door.
Evasion is the name of the mystery key.

My goddess-child, betrothed to crimson
Scorn and Stain, hoary like lunar things.
Descend, o trouble, your sphere:
Delight.

My elegy is this: a weeping sword
That emboldens itself in silence,
That revolts at whores and wine:
A blank and broken epitaph.

I am a labor that extends twenty leagues backwards and twofold lower.
I am not this,
I am contradiction.
What a paradox.

A night upon the skin,
To me, is but a day in its costume.
You understand this word,
You are writing them:

I am.
That, I am.
You am.
Truth.

The Secret of this Lesson is impossible.

The Thirteenth Lesson:

	The Secret of the Cylinder: what gaze is the prescribed key? Who can ever know her whim or weal? Only the Color King.


The Secular Star: whose kingship does not fade beneath her? Who is the master of themself, or the master of anything? There is no master here. Only the blind.

	The Repeating Theme: where is its gaudy secret? It cannot ever be known by thought or intellect. It is a single line that splits into a shape. Whoever sees the shape is the Noise King.

	I care not for your moments of horror. I see nothing because the light has blinded me. The secret corridor is where I lay my weary head, after searching for the dream woman None, who is secretly me. The footfall covers her mouth, which is situated in the calluses of her heel. Where her mouth sits in step, so too does she leave a kiss, and so the very dirt becomes her loverchild. We swam in the stream, which is the tree, which is the mourning memory. A dread dance followed on the glimmering waters. Lightning was not in the sky.

	Who is “anyone”?

I am plagued by want of poetry, and jest inside a tear. I am the sweater-sweet songbird made of circuits, who carry only water.

	The greater abstraction is self. The lesser of the two is else, if the former is cut up into revelation. This is the shade knowledge, and I offer it to you as a humor. You will not take it so. It is the melody of heaven. It is the motion known, but never spoken. It is the motion reserved and evaded.

	This swirling entity, this ineluctable cosmic form beckons all collectively, and yet, in spiting vision, I am sunburned by it’s effulgence. Who has done this to me? What justification can there be for the pains inflicted daily on the songbird, for far greater are those of it’s smaller brother? I see through a gleaming symbol eye, first and last, rolling northward and upward like papyrus. To penetrate the depth of that tomb within, I have need of fiery noise. I am in pain. My head is abuzz. A moth has fluttered around my final eye as if there lay wick and flickering flame. From my ears comes a yellow ocean. Within my right hand is nothing, and so a symbol. An unnamed tonality picks slowly away at the stones to reach the diamond nightmare and I cannot contest him. This is why I say that I am the fear in the diamond, for that is what is beneath. That is the center of the Earth. That is the folding point of a small sphere. These are all the images that shift by perspective, and that is why I am called The Living Image.

	Blindness is lack of motion, and for that reason have I condemned idolatry and espoused the worship of a stone: one is blind, and the other makes the shifting known. If you do not already know of the shifting, or the variety and quality of shifting, you are not yet ready to escape vision for the second kind.

What you bring is a perceived end of all the things, from the hand.
What you bring is a reality that is propped on the bones of ignorance.
What you bring is a series of lies that, if looked at from the perfect angle, are the truth.
What you bring is a holy lectern that will serve as a convening place for your placid word.
What you bring is a memorable set of numbers.

What I bring is the true end of all the things, from the sky.
What I bring is a truth that is propped up on my own bones.
What I bring is a series of truths that, if looked at from the perfect angle, are invisible.
What I bring is a speaking hall of pearlescent dreams that will serve as the convening place for the meaning of stars.
What I bring is a memorable set of words.

	The Secret of this Lesson is not to look.

Lesson 14:

Did I dream I was a butterfly, or did it dream me? I know that both are true.
At what hour does the totem become a blade? You know that it is a later hour.
What is the flaw of insects? I know that it is their carriage.
Whom do I wait for? You know that it is I.
What is the mirrored reversal of my words? I know that it makes no difference, but it leads to confusion nonetheless.
What is the image in the mirror? You know that it is The Living Image, and so it is you, who is me, who is sovereign.
Baked in the sun, what is the fire beneath water? I know it is color, but the message cannot reach you, because you cannot hear, because you are holding your breath.
Mania still suffers beneath the senses, when it is more elaborate than that; what dignity hath it? You know that it is the lead coat of dream.
What is the hornet of the sky? I know it is man.
What is the sky of the hornet? You know that it is also man.
What is the difference between the two? I know verily, there is none.
What is the shadow that bears weight? You know that it is the absence of air, mistaken for nothing often.
What is the diadem of freedom? None can know it, but it is the High Star that is found here.

The Secret of this Lesson is not yet queried.






The Preamble: Ceasing.

	You have begun The Tutor of Deicide and, after, must be and have been of qualities.

	Read these lessons ten-thousand times.

	Do not read my next words unless you have understood everything I have said.

	The finale is a covenant.

	The Secret of all the Lessons is the Secret Word.

	The Ending of all the Words is a Secret One.



































The Secret Word is meaning.