The Pedestal

	Your horse comes to a stop, in the sunset haze.

	Carefully, and yet also somehow clumsily, you dismount. It has been decades since the last time you were here. It is a familiar smell, and an alien sting. The wind howling through the gorge carries with it the smell of blooming, sacred spring flowers that is already in your nose even some distance away. What is not so familiar, however, is the burning playing gently at your face. It’s a subtle tingling that reaches through your mask, even as you dip into the shade of the grand sequoias that tower at the valley’s opening.

	Down, down, down you go. You tread rolling hills of knotty vines and soft soil swaddled in the grasp of ancient trees. Their immense canopies grant you refuge from premature judgment, as you dodge from shadow to shadow. The Architect cannot gaze upon you before you are ready to seek its judgment. Until you can face it, too, on something approaching equal footing. In truth, though, you aren’t too sure if you’ll ever be ready.

	As you descend, the walls of the valley begin to loom tall above you. It seems so much deeper from within than looking down, the weeping willows above hanging their long, sorrowful branches down over the edges. They play host to their own little ecosystems tied into the branches; you are quite familiar with them. You’d spend hours just moving along the cliffs, plucking out rare insects and strange things from within. You distinctly remember ramming your hand directly into a well-cloaked beehive, and shudder.

	The humor of your childhood memories is nice and all, but it does little to assuage the terror evident in your thready, undead heartbeat. The willows are sacred, standing like quiet spectators to the Architect’s court below. The sequoias are beginning to thin away, moving from a dense cover to little oases among roiling, blinding sunlight. You miss so dearly the Architect’s grace; where others would be stunned into silence by the sunset beyond the trees, warm shades of purple and red waving in the heat of its sunlight, the massive sun framed by the walls of the valley… you only see blinding, hollow, white light.

	The valley opens up, into a seemingly endless plain stretching out towards the glory of the Architect. It is wholly bare to the setting sun, offering no refuge, nowhere to hide from its prying gaze. To anyone else, it would be beautiful; an immense canyon, cut through with a river, tall grass and flashes of rare and sacred flowers of all colors and shapes, attended by the setting sun. To you, it is a vast expanse between you and your goal.

	Those few buildings which dare to inhabit the Architect’s unfettered judgment cast long shadows. Stark among the verdance, they consist of delicately carved marble and ivory. There are no paths to follow, just rough, hilly terrain. Any building here is meant to occupy as little of the Architect’s vision as possible, all… but the Pedestal.

	You hold your mask as tight to your face as you can manage, keep your gaze down, and continue down and out of the shade.

	While others might feel it as a cool, gentle breeze, it instead registers to you as whipping solar winds. It burns against your face, and pulls hard at you, as if it would drag you out of this sacred place if it could. But with steady footing, as much confidence as you can possibly muster, and the aid of your thick robes, you withstand the Architect’s gaze. Each time you stupidly glance up, in hopes to see the golden horizon, it instead burns like a torch being rammed into your eyes even through the dark lenses of your mask.

	Still a distant speck to its sight, you continue on. You are careful not to tread on any flowers in spite of the pain and rebellion welling up in you, harshly aware of the sacred ground you are in. You wind between them with limping, slow steps. Its judgment is so far off, even as it tries to burn you to ash… the valley grows longer and longer in front of you, and you find yourself…

	… at the foot of the Pedestal. Your trek disappears from your memory as soon as it is over, and you find yourself panting, sweating, doubled over in front of a massive marble staircase. You throw yourself onto the cool stone, seeking any escape from the heat. For a time, you find yourself just curling up, desperate, in its shade. The light that is pouring over the peak of the Pedestal is unbelievably blinding. You aren’t ready yet. You aren’t.

	There are only rudiments left of the intricate and loving carvings that must have once decorated this building. Faint impressions of the Architect’s exalt, written in words just as forgotten as their writers. It has all been worn away by the wind, dyes and paints bleached by the Architect’s unrelenting glare.

	Four pillars, a platform of solid marble, and a staircase.

	When you are ready, you begin to drag yourself up the staircase. The Architect’s light crowns over the top of the structure, brighter and hotter than you have ever felt before. It burns so much that even as you press your arm tight to the lenses of your mask, you wonder if it still might render you blind. There is no escape from its scouring judgment.

	But you keep going. You drag your burning, condemned form up those smooth stone steps, one at a time. Until, all at once, you are at the top, directly within its judgment.

	You lower your arm.

	You stare into it, directly into it, as you have before.

	Each time before, it was a life-changing experience. If you were worthy, the depths of the Architect’s infinitely wise mind would unfurl into your own, and for a moment, you would join with it. That was the glory of the Pedestal; it brought you directly into the Architect’s sight, where its wisdom could become yours, even if only for a moment.

	But there is no wisdom bestowed on you this time. Only hollow, vacant and unfathomably hot light. After mere moments spent standing in its awareness, you drop to your knees, coughing, heaving in front of it. You plead… for something. For its mercy. For its forgiveness.

	“I am part of your creation,” you speak softly. “It is surely your plan that I am what I am. Why, then, does your grace burn so much?”

	It devolves into incoherence, after a time. You begin to feel the heat boiling your soul. It bubbles and roils underneath your skin. You curl up as tightly as you can. Its judgment is not as grand as you had thought it would be; there is no word from on high, no response at all. Just empty disregard, and so, so much burning.

	Something within you changes.

	You pull yourself to your feet, suddenly. You stare into it again, even if it will blind you.

	“Why?!” you shout, loud enough to startle flocks of birds further into the valley. You scream it again, as loud as you possibly can, your usually soft and gentle voice rough with rage. You stagger towards the edge of the pedestal, as close as you can be to the light, and scream at it.

	“Why do you reject me?! I became this thing in your service!” you howl into the sky. Your voice carries with such force that, for a moment, you wonder if it might truly hear you. “You made me this way! You did this to me, and now you cast me aside!”

	You bring your hands up to your mask, ostensibly to cover your eyes for just a moment. Your fingers curl about the edges.

“You did this to me… and now you condemn me for it!” Your fingers tighten, and you find yourself ripping the mask off, the strap breaking readily. Almost as soon as it is off, a blast of white fire streaks across your face, but you are too angry to back down. Shaking, burning, you just keep screaming, though your voice hitches with pain. “Look at me! Look at… what you made! I… if you are so wise, why does a mistake like me exist at all?!”

	Finally, you break. You press the mask against yourself again and turn from the Architect, falling to your knees, trembling and sobbing. As soon as you are cradling your skull in your own shadow, the fire disappears. The pain is shocking still, sparking and white hot across your entire face. Its heat is still there, no different than when you first stepped onto the Pedestal, against your back.

	You rise to your feet, slowly. Wordlessly, you walk off the Pedestal, each step a difficult trial as you resist the urge to faint. You face away from the Architect, toward where those towering sequoias stretch off into the glimmering night horizon. The soft, cooling hide of the night begins to swallow the valley. For a creature not worthy of the light, it is the greatest comfort of all.