Nocturnes of Breviarium (esq only-attn esq)

[Victoriala II]

“One, two, three.”

Clickety-clack typing out gibberish and speaking in a language nobody understands. It’s been nine hours since she started. There’s a taste of dried sourness in her mouth. The word processor already had a million words in her disposal. Is it a novel? There’s a creative intent at the beginning, as I recall correctly. But this is just madness. No rest, food nor water. She’s been holding her breath the whole time. A continuously raising euphoria by every paragraph.

“Four, five, six.”

Slickety-slosh bleeding fingertips couldn’t hurt her keyboard. Nobody has opened the door from the outside. No disturbances since the last eighteen hours. Eyes reddening with focus and a mind being forced to continue. Story tells something about something or something. Intelligible but vaguely understandable by merit of cadence and letters. She hasn’t stopped and she shall not.

“Seven, eight, nine.”

Tickety-tack hands made of nerve and bone typing at eighty-one thousand fifty-letters-and-above words a minute. Lungs since long dead. Rigor mortis should’ve set in about 36 hours ago. A word here, sentence there, then unknown but still recognizable morphemes and prepositions (that they are) snake around the five-thousand page document. It’s not yet finished. She can’t finish. She couldn’t. She must.

Continue, continue, continue.

She screams.

_____

Police came to inspect the room after the landlady complained heavily about the strange smell and the months due rent. Smelt of burnt plastic and flesh, honey and fruits, and rat piss. The person in the apartment hasn’t been answering the door for months. There wasn’t any notice that she was leaving, nor any memory of her leaving at all. The stench has been reeking from the third floor. Neighbors and the landlady’s bareknuckled cousin just visiting for coffee can’t open it. The windows look like they were coated pitch black and similarly can’t be moved.

It took them three hours to break into the door. A young officer in her mid-twenties, out of furious rage, decided to whack the door three times with a wooden chair. It opened. The smell just became stronger and revolting. Black smoke and ash blew towards their faces and they had to fumigate the whole building for safe passage. It went for another six hours.

Fumigation crew called by the police was almost done when one of them tried to take a peek in the then-closed apartment. Everyone heard him scream. The people who went to him first found him alive, yet unmoving like a dead corpse that stiffened. He doesn’t want to be touched. He doesn’t want to move. His eyes twitch while his pupils dilate to inhuman proportions. There was a high pitched hiss coming out of his nose.

The police, landlady and fumigation crew went in to investigate. Nothing happened to them, to their relief.

It looked like a bomb exploded in. First thing you’ll see is a crater of ash and melted plastic in the middle of the room. Broken ceramics and burnt marks. A skeleton wearing a shirt and pajamas lie in front of the television, its cracked skull resting neatly on the carpet. The monitor exploded (situated in the corner of the room, far from the crater). The printer in the other side of the was similarly okay and functioning (despite it being unplugged), but it was spilling ink all over the place, whirring profusely in a vaguely discernable pattern. Every photo of what could have been the tenant has the faces burnt.

The printer was brought over to the Ministry of Public Safety. The printer has yet to find a decipherer and the janitors are working overtime.

_____

Far and away, the city of Sijang stands. A young woman laying her offering to an altar of the moon-goddess (a piece of salted egg-topped rice cake) felt a shiver in her spine, as if a void has pierced her heart. She will carry on and forget the ordeal, and the void shall simply be filled by family events and comic books. Something might be awry, so she thanks the goddess that she’s not involved in any of it.

She leaves.

_____

Thousands of miles out west and a young man dreams. He dreams of a flying man with a thousand wings. The man was resplendent, flanked by golden chakras—eight spinning ones revolving in a greater center—that shone like the sun. The man was filled with rage and was trying to break the topmost firmament (out of seven) that divides the skies from the heavens. Before that, he broke the code of law, Arta-Dharma, smashing it on the radiant blue dome in the attempt to pry it open. The Greatest Splendor of God simply looks and stands idle. He is liking what he is seeing.

From beyond the skies, two creatures stride. The Greatest Splendor of God assumes their affiliation to the Prince of Darkness. One is a pitch black head, radiating with sparks of bright stars (remnants of his feast) that bled tears of black tar that eat away at the universe like melting celluloid. The other is a cloaked mess of tendrils that expanded and strides on continuously towards another incoherence. Tahafut becomes Druj. A-dharma. A-darna. The Greatest Splendor of God stands idle. The developments were getting spicy.

Nine seconds from the upcoming disaster a towering ray of light burst from the center of the firmament. It is not of His making. The two darknesses grow hungry. They changed to a faster pace.

The first opened his jagged, bleeding jaws as wide as he could to complete his conquering of the fifth paradox.

The other, he strides.

The firmament reveals its true form—an omnilateral enneract.

_____

Across the ocean there is a young woman with pale hair and red eyes. She wore shades and a face mask and cut her hair short enough to fit in a cap. Never talk to anyone. She hides in panic whenever police drive by her run down apartment, hoping they wouldn't come. Day and Night keep presenting patterns into her surroundings. In her sleep she sees multiple tragedies. By the moment she wakes her dreams will be headlines on the news. The voice of the Goddess of All Earthly Delicate Life keeps ringing in her ear. Always ignore it.

She can't return home. The agents of the Thearch shall lock her in a pit for her transgressions and heresy. The Jurists shall put her in chains and put hot coals in her mouth to reveal her secrets. Agents of the Ecclessiarchy would prefer to dissect her instead to rip out her consciousness.

She hides in the presence of Gods that do not care for her.

This is much, much better.

_____

The madwoman from the sanatorium began floating and speaking words, coherent morphologies and syntaxes yet meanings forgotten. The words, if they ever made sense, is an affront to the Rex Universum. The doctors have abandoned all rational possibilities and called in the clergy after one of their colleagues got instantly flayed to death on the spot. The Pontifical exorcists couldn't handle it, the creature had a power that seems to be northern. Both the priests of Earawn and Stórrheðrinn couldn’t handle it, they needed assent from their homelands. The madness continued, invoking a god that has long been forgotten, slithering in the forests of the earth, a spirit that clings to jade daggers and the skins of its enemies.

It sought the hearts of conquered men.

A murder of crows came out of her mouth. The doctors can only gasp in awe and interject the names of the gods.

The Pontificate silently moved to expunge every reference to the incident.

_____

Man sought himself the master of all creation by right of divinity, the lack or the hunger thereof. The people of the far eastern islands know full well that it’s false. Outside it, the machinations of empires and rulers ignore the silent rumblings underneath the earth and sea, and the foreboding wisps of the sky.

These rumblings, which constitute a secondary world, thrive in conjunction to its mundane counterpart. It lives as a world does; breathing, organic, radically variable yet interdependent. Mundane witnesses to this world scream at its irreverent attack on their world’s established principles. This secondary world laughs. There is no chaos here—only order. A different kind of order. The order of μάγος.

It goes by many names—the Latins call it Breviarium.

[Nunalik]

The ice ripples with anticipation of what is to come. A flock of geese, the true kings of these hyperborean skies, make their presence known through a cacophonous honking. A good omen for the small party, who now stand in silence. Their uniforms are immaculate, with grey woollen coats trimmed with the red of the group they represent.

One among them, the youngest, is scared. He buries this beneath the dogma of what he had until mere minutes ago assumed to be a mere political movement. The elders beckon to him to join them, their eyes cast firmly to the floor. They chant low, words of languages long forgotten spilling from their mouths. They offer him a cup of an unknown substance, which he drinks unquestioningly. This is his purpose. He will serve the party.

The visions start.

Puupi Kaktsak stands with a glowing face, his being comprised of a red light that radiates anger and justice. His very presence overthrows the natural laws of the world, for he is the tutelary kam of the revolution. In his hand, he bears a book that seems to speak, but the tongue is a foreign one. This book is a corruption on earth. The great revolutionary promises enlightenment for the earth, an extrinsic enlightenment of conquest and perpetual war in the name of peace.

As the world returns, the young man gabbles his visions to the rest of the party. The eldest, who is known by the name Qeqqeq, simply smiles as her predictions are proven right. This man is ready.

A woman is marched into the room at gunpoint. She is branded with the marks of a traitor, for she has committed many a crime. When her house was raided by the secret police, she was in possession of Aucurian propaganda rags and thirty grams of Namerian cannabis. She will die. As she is forced forwards towards the group she screams in petty defiance of the order established. Three loud cracks later, her counter-revolutionary yells have been replaced by a gargling of blood. Her blood.

Her compatriots waste no time, digging in to the meal. Perhaps her uummat will account to more in the bodies of these dedicated revolutionaries than in her frail and materialistic shell.

The great snow goose looks on with interest as her servants feast. She cares not for the sacrificial games, needing no more earthly sustenance. For he has found a prey that can sustain her great hunger. Gods. She must grow her strength, for she shall soon go on her own final journey. The egg is breaking. Hairline cracks abound. A new era is dawning.

Back in the dark room, the feast is finished. The coward's blood still on her coat, Qeqqeq hands the young man a key to the state archives. He will follow his visions and find the secrets of this book. In his mind burns a word in a foreign language that he cannot put voice to, but hears in every waking second.

Breviarium.

[Qianrong]

The falling sun peeked faintly through the steadily-thickening gray clouds over the Senrian island of Okasuu, but it was still bright enough for the woman to see as she walked quickly down the shoulder of a one-lane country road, her dark hair swaying in the steadily-increasing wind, heralding the approaching storm.

She paused briefly to look up at the clouds, silently gauging the proximity of the front, green eyes peering out from her olive-skinned face. Half an hour off, at least, but closer than she would've liked. A slight sigh escaped her before she quickly began trudging on uphill. She wasn't fond of rain; a little wouldn’t hurt her, she knew, but there was nothing pleasant about being stuck in it, especially in Senria's oppressively humid air. That wasn't even to mention her own deep-seated personal distaste for the stuff; the very notion of rain, soaking through her, chilling her to the bone, made her shiver, her face instinctively wincing at the thought. The flimsy orange jacket on her shoulders would only provide so much protection; she'd always preferred to be indoors, safe, in times like this.

Turning her apprehensive gaze down from the storm clouds, she redoubled her pace, keeping her eyes fixed on the dingy road in front of her. She wasn't sure how far her destination was- or whether it would still be here at all. She'd just have to hope that she made it there before the storm front hit.

It could've been worse, she thought. The air here was at least somewhat clean, not so acrid and thick and gloomy as it had been in Keisi, and on this island, there was still nature, somewhat untouched, that had escaped the cyberpunk-dystopian glass-and-concrete urban agglomerations that sprawled across Senria like metastasizing tumors. And surely the richly-spiced food and the ancient Tenkyou temples compensated for the constant rain a little.

After several minutes of continued walking and darkening skies, the warm yellow glow of electric lights in windows appeared in front of her, at the base of a hill, peeking through crooked trees, bamboo stalks, and kudzu vines. A sigh escaped her again, but this time of relief, rather than exhaustion. Mustering her energy, she jogged down the slope, past the brush, revealing a medium-sized two-story house, a modern construction built in a traditional style, sitting substantially behind a low stone wall marking the property line. Jumping over the low gate in front of the property, the woman paused only briefly to catch her breath before ringing the doorbell.

The door opened slightly, revealing a middle-aged Senrian man, faint wrinkles giving his face a fatherly appearance, his black hair lightly salted with gray near the ears. "Good evening," he said, his tone even. "Can I help you?"

"Good evening," the woman replied, bowing slightly. "I'm sorry to drop by unannounced, but I'm from Siphria, I'm visiting Senria on vacation, and- well, my cousin and her husband came here a while back, and stayed here. They told me that the owner of the house was... different, and that he was a friend to them. That I could stay here safely if I ever came by."

The man raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He paused. "Your relatives, what were they like?"

"Well," she replied, "my cousin- she's usually got very long hair, sort of a brownish color. She was probably wearing purple, knowing her. She's very charming and well-spoken, magnetic even, but she kind of... talks in riddles sometimes. Her husband, he's very fond of birds, a bit vain, but he's good at heart. He's always had a really strong sense of wrong and right, and he said that he got along great with the owner."

"And when did they come by here?"

"Oh, gosh, years ago. Feels like it's been... a century or two, even."

"Did they not give you my phone number?"

She chuckled. "I don't think they had phone lines running out here, when they came by. They certainly didn't have them back home."

There was a moment's pause as the man's eyes scanned the woman's face, as though looking for a tell. But then his shoulders relaxed, and a slight smile crept onto his face. "Please, come in," he declared, stepping to the side and beckoning her in. "We can continue our discussion further in private. Some things are better discussed inside, and it won't be long before the rain hits."

"Thank you," the woman said, relieved. Stepping inside, she remembered to take off her shoes and leave them in the entryway before following the man into the house's kitchen, a cozy room with smooth off-white walls, pale wooden furnishings, white stone countertops, and a slate-gray floor. In the middle of the room was a wooden dining table surrounded with sleek cushioned chairs, bare expect for some dusty place-mats and a cardboard shipping box.

The man moved to prepare tea, grabbing a kettle and switching on the faucet. "So your relatives told you I was... different? What did they mean by that, exactly?"

"Oh, I'm sure you know what they meant," the woman replied.

"Yes, but I want to hear you say it. To make sure I am not being presumptuous. A... security measure, of sorts." He smiled. "I suspect you can understand."

The woman nodded. "I can indeed, kami-sama. But then, you're not just that, are you? Senria has many gods, thousands of them, but you're not some minor local spirit. You're Pairyuu, god of the waters, the patron deity of the Senrian people."

He smiled. "Your pronunciation is good, for a foreigner." He paused briefly to put the kettle on to boil before continuing. "Now, as for you. You're Siphrian, because your two relatives were Arutu and Ninellu, who I met while they were visiting Senria back in 1806. Of course this house is a more recent construction, the old one was rather antiquated by the 1950s, but- luckily for you- I've always had a fondness for this area."

"But I digress," he stated. "You stated that Ninellu was your cousin. If I am remembering correctly, that means you have to be one of the children of Anaslu and Ummulil, no? And they only have two daughters. So which of them are you?"

The woman picked up the cardboard box on the table. Printed on the box, below the sticker with the address on it, was an internet address: www.esugiru.sn. "You seem to be quite familiar with my name already," she replied.

Pairyuu chuckled. "Well, that answers it then. Welcome to Senria, Esugiru. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Esugiru said. "Y'know, I do have to ask- why is some online retailer named after me here? I'm not the god of commerce, that's Nastaqalu's area."

"Because they deliver to every home in the nation, and I do believe the home is your purview," he responded. "Additionally, your sacred animal is the cat, and the Senrians have always regarded that as an auspicious animal."

"They've got good taste," she declared, grinning. "Evidently you raised them well."

"You flatter me."

The kettle began to whistle. Pairyuu reached up, grabbing a box of teabags, three saucers, and a trio of porcelain cups, well-used and decorated with delicately-painted blue plum blossoms. "So," he began while pouring the hot water into the cups, "what brings you out here?"

"Curiosity, mostly. It's been a long time since I last visited eastern Borea, and I didn't get to see the Lahudic islands on that visit. I figured I might as well fix that."

"Nothing more?" The teabags made a slight plunking noise as he set them into the steaming water.

"Not really, no."

"Where have you already visited in Senria?"

He set down the cups and saucers, one for Esugiru, one next to her, one across the table, before sitting in the seat directly opposite her.

"Keisi, mostly," she replied. "I visited Keisi Castle, Kinyougawa Mausoleum, the history and art museums, some of the downtown buildings. Some beautiful things there, when you can see them through the smog. After a week or so there I decided I needed to find some fresh air, and Ninellu had told me you were out here, so I decided to head out this way."

"I can understand," he replied, wistfulness creeping into his voice. "Keisi's glass and neon can be dazzling sometimes, nowadays, but the city was far more beautiful during the Surutou period. You should have seen it back then, the mountain peaks rising over Seiryou Palace, when the plum blossoms were in bloom... It was a sight to behold then. But," he continued, "while you're in Senria you might also consider visiting my temple at Sekigawa, or the old castles in Ukyou, or a trip to Mount Senzou. Those should all be slightly more palatable to you than Keisi."

"Thanks! I might do some wandering around here, while I'm at it. It'd do me good to spend some time out in nature. Though perhaps when it's a little less rainy," she replied.

He laughed. "Your opportunities might be few and far between, then. It rains quite often here."

The conversation paused as the two sipped from their cups of tea. Green tea, okay but unremarkable, Esugiru thought to herself. "It's not the best green tea, but it was a good price at the store," Pairyuu said, seeing the expression on her face. "It would taste better if it was proper loose-leaf."

Before Esugiru could reply, or ask about the third cup of tea, Pairyuu began to speak again. "How are Ninellu and Arutu doing?"

"Oh, I haven't talked to them since 2017, but I'm sure they're doing well. So long as they've got each other, they'll be fine. You know how they are."

"I do indeed. They were nearly inseparable," he reminisced. "I could only talk to one of them if they weren't in the same room. If they were both in the same room, they only had eyes for each other."

Esugiru laughed loudly. "Yeah, that sounds like them alright."

"You have a husband too, don't you? The... medicine god, I believe? Why isn't he with you?"

"Nadinballit is working with an Aucurian NGO as a consultant, working on medical care in famine-afflicted areas. I asked if he wanted to come, but there's supposed to be a big hospital launch in Mazaristan coming up, and he was very keen on overseeing that."

"A very honorable goal. You have a very selfless husband."

"It's one of the things I've always loved about him."

There was a brief pause. "Do you spend most of your time here, or is this just a vacation home of sorts?" Esugiru asked.

"I go to the sinkai to visit my parents occasionally, and sometimes I leave to visit my brother, but I do spend most of my time here nowadays. The last time I left for more than a year... it would've been during the war against Xiaodong. I left to fight; I felt like the situation was dire enough that I ought to act personally. I used... six different personas during the war, four in the army, two in the navy, and for all but the final one in the navy I ended up being counted missing in action."

"Only missing?"

He shrugged. "Well, of course. They would never find a body; I'd slip off, adopt a new visage, and register again."

"But anyways, to put it succinctly," Pairyuu continued, "I enjoy being here. I have an orchard out back that I maintain, and there's something pleasurable to simple work. Not to mention that, well, I'll always have a fondness for this land and its people. They're mine. It's good to be among them."

Before Esugiru could reply, she heard the noise of someone descending the stairs in an adjacent room. To her left, she thought instinctively, quickly swiveling her head towards the entrance connecting the house's kitchen to its living room. A man with short, straight blond hair walked through the entrance, his casual clothes slightly rumpled and his deep blue eyes ringed with shadow. He paused abruptly when he noticed the woman sitting at the kitchen table.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I hadn't realized that you were going to have a guest over," the new arrival apologized.

"No, no, it's quite alright," Pairyuu replied. "You can trust her, she's one of us." He gestured vaguely towards the third cup of green tea before turning his attention back to Esugiru. "Esugiru, this-" he gestured towards the man, now sitting at the table next to her- "is Rzekobog, who I'm sure you've heard of before. Rzekobog, this is Esugiru, the Siphrian goddess of the hearth."

"It's a pleasure," Esugiru replied stiffly. Rzekobog nodded slightly and offered a weary smile before taking a sip of the tea.

"Rzekobog has been staying with me for a while now, looking after the place when I've had to leave, and I've come to quite enjoy his company. Hopefully you two will get along with each other as well as I've gotten along with each of you," Pairyuu grinned. "Have you met one of the Siphrians before, Rzekobog?" he asked.

Rzekobog nodded slightly. "Suwaliyat used to visit Lecia regularly, every few decades or so. To see the mountains."

"Oh, nice!" Esugiru interjected, her excited tone poorly masking some internal affair. "That must have been enjoyable for both of you, Suwaliyat's lots of fun to hang out with."

"Yeah," Rzekobog responded taciturnly. "It was fun."

Pairyuu put down his teacup and pushed his chair away from the table. "If you two will excuse me for a moment, there are a few things in the back yard that I ought to move under cover before the rain comes," he stated. "I shouldn't be out for too long."

"Before the rain comes? Aren't you the literal god of rainstorms?" Esugiru asked jokingly. "Can't you just push it back a bit?"

"There are farmers here whose crops need the rain," he replied. "I'm not going to deny them that just because I'd rather stay indoors."

"Alright, alright, point taken," she replied, grinning. "Go and move your things."

Pairyuu exited the kitchen through the entryway connecting it to the living room. A door creaked open, then thudded shut.

An uneasy silence fell in the kitchen, punctuated only by the wind outside and the faint clink of Rzekobog setting his cup down on its saucer.

Several seconds passed before Esugiru spoke. "I'm surprised to see you here," she declared sourly, the pretense dropped. "Thought you were supposed to be the one true god."

"No, no, that's a mistake," Rzekobog replied. "I told the Lecs I was the only god they could worship, when we made the covenant. I never said I was the only god. That was their innovation."

"Never bothered fixing it?"

He sighed quietly. "That's... easier said than done. Once humans are convinced of something, they don't change their minds easily."

"Fair," she relented. "So, how long have you been here?"

"1960s."

Esugiru looked over in shock. "Really?"

"Yeah. Left Lecia after the revolution. Went to Sjealand first, but it was too cold. Met Pairyuu by chance, and he invited me here. I've been here since."

"You don't mind the rain? Seems like someone from Lecia might not like a place this wet."

He shrugged faintly. "Better than the cold."

There was another awkward pause. Esugiru coughed before continuing. "So... when are you going back?"

Silence again, followed by a deep sigh from Rzekobog.

"Never," he admitted.

Esugiru's jaw dropped. "Wh- what do you mean never?"

"I mean that I'm never going back to Lecia. I'll stay here so long as Pairyuu's willing. If that changes, I'll go somewhere else. But not Lecia."

"You can't be serious!"

"I am."

"But what about your followers, your devotees? Shouldn't you-"

"Shouldn't I what? I brought the Lecs to Lecia to protect them from raiders, from invaders, from empires- to give them a home where the rivers would give them food and shelter, and the land would protect them from others. But I can't protect them from themselves," he replied angrily. "That's why they revolted anyways."

"But there are still people in Lecia who believe in you, who are willing to face persecution for you, who uphold that covenant of yours! I've seen reports about it, I've heard Nadinballit talk about it. There are still people in Lecia who-"

"Who I can't help!" Rzekobog interrupted. "Not without coming out openly in front of the world, and we both know that's not acceptable anymore."

"You can't just run away like this!"

"They threw me out," he snapped. "I couldn't protect them from themselves. I still can't. I failed them. Do you know what it's like, to fail like that? To be unable to uphold the promise you made? To find yourself able to do nothing? Do you know how it hurts?"

"Do I know how it feels?! Do I know how it hurts?! You self-pitying sack of shit!" she yelled furiously, grabbing him by the shirt-collar, pulling him out of the chair, throwing him over the table and into the opposite wall. There was a flash of sapphire-blue scales as he slammed into the wall, his assumed human appearance slipping for a moment amidst the shock. But the pretense of humanity dropped from her visage entirely; she loomed over the table, standing eight feet tall in rough-hewn but elegant robes of vivid red, her eyes burning, her voice thundering, her body radiating with divine glory, a hearth flame turned into a raging bonfire.

"You fucker, you would dare lecture me on how it fucking feels?!" Esugiru yelled. "Do you know who turns to me? Who offers their prayers to me? The people who have nowhere else to turn! The poor, the hungry, the orphans and widows, the oppressed, and- before they were freed- the slaves. The mothers begging that their sons not be sent off to war. The families begging for mercy amidst a siege. The children seeking release from an abusive parent. The people in the worst positions, and the bottom of the ladder. The people who can't turn to high and mighty Anaslu, who have no use for Narkab's glory or Arutu's pride, who have been denied Ninepir's bounty, who are below the notice of Enzu or Kusarullu, who can't reach Ninellu because she's sitting pretty in some gilded temple with the high priests. I am their respite, I am their messenger, I am the one they can turn to when there is no one else left to them!"

"Do you know how many times, in the last four thousand years, I've been unable to help them?! These people who come to me, desperate, because they've got no one else to go to, and I can't help? Whose begging prayers I can't answer because I'm just the lowly goddess of the hearth, because my own power only extends to stopping robbers and acting as a divine courier, who doesn't have the power to grant their wish on my own- and so I have to go and beg their case to one of my relatives, hoping that I can somehow convince them to change course? Do you know how often that works?! How often I can convince some high and mighty deity to act because of some poor subaltern? It's not that fucking often!"

"The only one who I can count on to listen is that cold-hearted bitch Hussupal and her wretched shitfaced sons," she snarled acerbically. "And I only go to them when some devotee of mine has decided things are so bad on earth they'd rather die. Do you know what's that like? To have your loyal followers, who you'd try to move heaven and earth for, beg for death? To know that might be the only time you're able to actually grant their wish?"

She laughed aggrievedly. "I've been dealing with this- this inability to help, this frustration, this anger- for four thousand years! I have felt for four thousand years what your whinging little ass has dealt with for forty! And at no point during those four thousand fucking years have I decided to run off and hide and abandon my followers for half a century because I've got a fucking duty! Even if there's nothing I can do to help, even if I know that Anaslu or Narkab or whoever won't budge, even if all my effort will be in vain, I have a duty as their goddess, as the individual they have put their hope and faith in, to fucking try. To try, to exhaust every possibility, to work even if it is in vain- not just because sometimes it isn't, because sometimes I can help, because sometimes it does work- but because it's my fucking job. They're my followers, they have put their faith in me, and I have a sacred obligation to do everything in my power to help them."

"That is my most important duty," she declared. "Nothing will ever get in its way. And nothing should ever get in the way of your duty to your followers- especially not you moping around some foreign country, pretending you're the only god who's ever faced fucking adversity."

Rzekobog chuckled bitterly. "Funny, to mention death," he said quietly, a tired, bitter anger shining in his eyes. "Have you ever seen a dead god? Outside of some cyclical 'end of days' nonsense?"

Esugiru said nothing.

"I thought not," he remarked, while pushing himself into an upright position, his back against the wall. "I have."

"You attacked me earlier for being alone. But once, I wasn't. I was part of a pantheon, just like Pairyuu, just like you," he began, a faint twinge of yearning in his voice. "Each of us had our roles, our purview, our followers. It wasn't perfect, but it was good."

He sighed. "One day, though, I had a vision. Some catastrophe was coming, something horrific. Something that would destroy both us and our followers. Men sitting on the thrones of gods, surrounded by the corpses of innocents. What it meant, when it would happen, I didn't know. But I knew it was coming, I knew it would spell our doom. I knew I had to do something. I tried telling the others, but they ignored me. I was the god of rivers. Why would such a vision come to me? Surely I was delusional. Inventing things. Making trouble. Seeking attention. Even those closest to me thought I was overreacting, advised me to put it out of my head."

"But I couldn't. If such a disaster was really coming, we had a duty to our followers- to protect them, to save them. I agitated. I refused to be silent. And I burned all my bridges with my fellow gods in the process. I was so furious that they refused to act- furious like you are at me. When it was clear they would not listen, I took matters into my own hands. I appeared before one of my followers, told him to warn his tribe, to take them away. He was a loyal follower; he did what he was told, gathered his tribe before me so I could tell them directly. I told them a doom was coming. I told them I'd found a land where the rivers would nurture them and nourish them, with mountains and desert that would any invaders or raiders out. That I could lead them there. That I could protect them."

"But I gave them two conditions. First, they would worship me alone. I was the only god willing to save them, after all. Why should they worship the gods who had ignored the danger facing them? Why should they worship gods who had abandoned that most sacred duty?" He laughed. "I see the shock in your eyes. Yes, the thing you despise me for was driven by the same rage you have for me now. The second condition, meanwhile, was related to what I'd seen in the vision. The men on the thrones of gods. I warned them not to worship any man who tried to usurp the thrones of the gods. Whether he called himself prophet, or savior, or anointed one; they were to know that all men who claimed such were liars and heretics."

"They assented to both; the covenant was sealed; and I led them to what's now Lecia. I had succeeded. Upheld my precious duty. But I felt guilty about the terms I had left my fellow gods- my former brothers and sisters- on. After many decades of agonizing, I decided I would go back; see if the catastrophe had really happened; see if I could find any of them and mend ties."

"I soon discovered the catastrophe was as bad as I had feared. Those of our people who had stayed behind had been enslaved, massacred, relocated, kidnapped, scattered, killed. Their language was dead, outside of those who I had led to Lecia; their traditions were dying, or stolen by the people who had replaced them. And I could find no sign of my fellow gods. Why would I? The whole wretched area had been taken over by man-worshippers, the usurpers who I'd seen in that vision. Men who styled themselves messiahs, claimed the power of the gods. Spreading like a cancer, until half the continent was in their grasp. And with their followers dead, or enslaved, or deluded by the lies of men... well, my fellow gods had died with them. Because we are nothing without our believers."

"But I continued my search. My guilt pushed me to make amends, even if those I sought to mend ties with were surely dead. I continued to investigate, and eventually..." He inhaled deeply, his breath shaking slightly. "Eventually, by luck, it paid off. One of the gods I had been searching most intensely for... I found some people in a town called Dobvod who had stayed true to her, in secret, through the centuries. Which meant she might still be alive."

"In those days the man-worshippers were at war with each other. The Bozhidar-worshippers and the Mstis-worshippers were locked in brutal conflict over which of their fictions was the truth, and the war had come to Dobvod after the Mstis-worshippers- and Mstis himself- seized the city. I snuck into the city while it was under siege by the Bozhidar-worshippers; but I found her followers and- to my elation- her. But she looked weak, and aged. Crippled by that doom. She had-" he paused to control the shaking in his voice- "she had become so desperate that she had revealed who she was to these loyal followers, and vowed to try and lessen their suffering if they would continue to stand by the old faith. They had agreed, and she now lived among them, all of them pretending to worship whichever man they were told to worship, practicing the faith only in the deepest secret."

"We were overjoyed to see each other; to see that someone else had survived. I apologized for my harshness. She apologized for ignoring me. And I- I told her that I could still save her and her followers. I could bring them to Lecia, like I had the others. We could save them. Could do our duty." He shook his head sadly. "She refused. Her followers would never make it out of the siege, much less across the continent, and she could not leave them. To leave them would be to abandon that duty. I protested zealously. I could find a way, somehow I would find a way. But she saw through me. She told me not to worry. They had persevered through the cruelties of the man-worshippers before; they had kept the old traditions alive in spite of it all. They would continue to do so. And she would stay with them, until she could not go on. We spent some more time reminiscing before I... before I decided to depart."

"The following day, the Mstis-worshippers decided to do battle," he recounted, resentment steeping every word. "They lost. Their so-called prophet ran off, hid in the hills, and left the citizens of the town to die at the hands of the Bozhidar-worshippers. I went back as fast as I could, entered as soon as the fighting had subsided. To search for her." He paused again, trying to control his tone as tears welled in his eyes. "I found her body in the street, a sword-slash across her chest. Surrounded by the bodies of her followers. Ironic," he declared bitterly. "For all the Mstis-followers' talk of killing gods, it was the Bozhidarists who killed her, and her fellow gods. All of them but one."

"As for her, well, she kept her word. She stayed with them, to the very end." He paused for a moment, lost in memory. "I took her body before the man-worshippers could find it and desecrate it. Buried it in Lecia, in the mountains, where I thought it would be safe."

"But Lecia was not so safe as I thought. It turned out I couldn't protect the Lecs from themselves- from those among them who were greedy or cruel or brutal. What difference does the language or faith of an oppressor make to the peasant? He will starve no matter what tongue they speak, what god they worship. I tried to influence things; to send messages, influence events, strengthen the righteous and weaken the cruel. But I failed. I could not uphold my end of the covenant. And the Lecs began to realize it."

"But not only that. No, because man also found a whole new way to worship himself. A way I never could have seen back then. Not by styling himself as a prophet, but by styling himself as a different sort of savior- the revolutionary, the reformer, the politician. Their idols were no longer Bozhidar, Mstis, Layla, or Farzad; now they were Klimantis, Varanken, Welz, Hossein, Antelope. I had no response to this. And soon these two merged; the followers of Welz took advantage of my failure, my failure to protect the Lecs from themselves, and used it to convince the Lecs to annihilate me. To raze my temples, slaughter my priests, smelt the idols and tear up the frescoes. They drove me out, and I cannot say I did not deserve it."

"Perhaps some few in Lecia still cling to me, as some still clung to her," he sighed. "Perhaps some will worship me until the bitter end. But what does it matter? I escaped the doom that claimed all my brothers and sisters. But one can only run from fate for so long. What does it matter, whether I die with them in the street, or a thousand miles away? I'll die either way."

Esugiru shook her head angrily. "Oh, come on! You can't let this self-pitying, defeatist talk of 'fate' and 'death' and whatever else prevent you doing your duty! You can't try to pass blame onto some higher power, you are the fucking higher power!" she exclaimed. "My heart goes out to you about her, and about all the other people you lost, but shouldn't that be all the more reason to fight harder? To do more to protect your followers, not less?"

He laughed. "You really don't understand, do you? I deluded myself into thinking I could avoid fate. Into making a promise I couldn't keep. I failed. I failed the latter, and it's only a matter of time before I fail the former too. Maybe, then, I'll at least be reunited with them. With her."

"You can't possibly think this is what she would want of you," Esugiru retorted. "You can't possibly believe that she'd want you to sit around, pretending to be all philosophical, moping about as your followers face hell. You can't possibly fucking think this is what she'd do in your pl-"

"Don't you dare try to use her against me, you insolent wretch!" Rzekobog yelled, jumping upright. Now it was his feigned humanity that began to slip, his eyes turning yellow with slitted pupils, his teeth sharpening to a point, deep-blue scales shimmering underneath fake skin.

"What the hell is going on in here?!"

The two turned abruptly to see Pairyuu standing, fuming, in the living room. Their true natures were once again hid by adopted human form, reclaimed out of shock or shame. No one dared to speak.

Thunder pealed in the distance as rain began to patter rhythmically against the roof.

Rzekobog, keeping his gaze fixed on Esugiru, retreated from the room, slipping past Pairyuu before thudding his way back up the stairs.

Pairyuu let out an exasperated sight. "What the hell did you do to him?"

"Wh- do to him?" she replied, aghast. "Okay, maybe I overreacted a little, but I can't believe you're enabling this bullshit! Letting him sit here, moping around, pretending he's slave to some bullshit fate, waiting to die? Abandoning his followers, failing his duty, because he's decided to become a fucking fatalist? Shouldn't you be trying to snap him out of this nonsense?"

"I am, but what he needs right now is a friend, not a blunt instrument," Pairyuu replied. "You can't yell depression away. You don't cure survivor's guilt, or fatalism, or any of that sort of thing by bludgeoning someone around the head; that only digs them in deeper. You have to try to lift them up, help them out. That's the only way it's going to work. Besides, some of his feelings are, arguably, valid."

"How can you say that?" she asked "You dealt with adversity on a far bigger scale, you had the Xiaodongese come in and try to exterminate your entire nation! But you didn't run away, you didn't sulk abroad and mope about death and abandon your followers, you fought alongside them! You told me so earlier!"

"There are a few crucial differences there," he answered. "Firstly, the Xiaodongese lost that war. Secondly, none of my fellow kami died. And thirdly, the Xiaodongese were never my followers. So I was able to uphold my promise to my followers, and those close to me came out safe. But Rzekobog... his own followers turned against him, and they defeated those who remained loyal. Add that to his belief that he failed to keep his word to them, and the loss of his fellow gods- including one very, very close to him- and it becomes apparent how futile comparing our situations is."

"I still can't believe you're not doing something."

"I am. I'm trying to help him. Talking to him, listening to him, working alongside him. Offering my support. That's all I can do, under the circumstances."

Esugiru said nothing, but exhaled in frustration.

"Esugiru," Pairyuu prompted, "can you really say that, if you were faced with such odds- with exile, with persecution, with betrayal- you would not do the same?"

Esugiru turned her head away. "Yes. I don't know why, but... I feel like that's already happened to me. Like I've already dealt with that, and I still didn't run away or abandon my people."

"An earlier cycle?"

"No. No, I remember those clearly. This is fuzzier. A feeling, a hunch." She sighed. "I don't know."

The rain continued to clatter on the roof, steadily more intense. The wind howled outside, vibrating the panes in the windows.

"It's getting late," Pairyuu declared, putting his hand on Esugiru's shoulder. "There is a free spare bedroom on the second floor, and another down in the basement. I suspect you will want the latter, in order to... have some personal space."

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice," she replied.

The two exited the room, and went downstairs. After several minutes, Pairyuu returned to the first floor, passing briefly through the kitchen on the way to his own bedroom.

And then the house went still for the night.

[Victoriala II]

And thus through the asp made of Sunlight the Mother of Falcons poisoned the Sun-father. He called for his most serene physicians for aid, yet they themselves were baffled at the fact that he, Lord of Lords, Father to All Creation, managed to fall towards illness. In desperation she called onto the Mother of Falcons for help.

"I could heal you, Sun-father. The poison is of your essence." She said, showing in her hand the serpentine cross, the mark of life.

"Please, please do! If I die, this world dies with me." He plead.

"I shall, Sun-father, I shall." She replied, drawing herself closer to his ear.

"But only if you tell me your true name."

Montecara. 2018.

The Galeria Sufrexi had a pendulum hanging at from the roof. It swung and hovered above the 12-foot radius fencing it from unruly visitors. In that radius there was a mosaic, a floral sun made of interlocking circles in different shades of yellow, orange and red. 28 petals calculated specifically to match the lines of movement of the pendulum, a cone pointing downwards hanging 20 meters above ground. The very top, where the pendulum hangs on, is a stained-glass window, a depicting the sigil of Saturn with 9 rays of light.

There was dubious trivia about the mosaic's design, in that it's designed, so mathematically calculated that the directions of the petals align with the angles of the meridian and equator. A geographic rose compass. All curators and staff has never denied nor confirmed these rumors. Guides treat it like some vaguely exotic trivia anyway. Tourists gobble it up as they would.

I look at my watch. Two-thirty-two. It's a Tuesday. Nobody goes here except people with time. The few who come has their footsteps echo around the pendulum hall. To them, the pendulum is only a tertiary curiosity. Background ambience.

Where is he?

* * *

A year ago Asgård was holding an international student conference. I tagged along with my speaker friend as an entourage-slash-secondary representative of our college. Something about languages There was the perk of seeing the world and the free food. (I've been doing that jig since my freshman year. I read they had seafood rice. I couldn't pass up an opportunity like that.)

It was in an afterparty with the key speakers and the noted guests. It was the usual bourgeois function: the fancy dress, the live traditional music, everyone doesn't sit, the brightly warm atmosphere, a slight sight of attractive women with interesting choices of jewelry, and the murmuring chitchat about generalities and esoteric word salad. The energy of these people combined made me too conscious of myself to the point of repressing any mention of hors d'oeuvres. I simply stood still, acting casual. I was fully lost in the sea of highborns and high-learned types.

I'm just a literature graduate, for fuck's sake.

I went out for a breathe. The garden had more privacy.

In the calm of the overwhelming wave of high society a brooding, blonde Sjealander reached out to me. His hair was curled and looked like a philosophy professor too young for his age.

"Hej! Surprised to see you here."

His french was like a whole piece of bread was lodged in his mouth. I do not remember him, much less recognize him from the get go. I couldn't answer. He's a stranger who speaks in an absurd accent, a stranger too strange to be anything but.

It took a moment before I darted back.

"Do I know you?"

My french tries way too hard to sound authentic. Such are us.

"You don't remember me?" He seemed to be persuasive. I was getting nervous.

"Not a clue."

"It's me, Håkon Sørensen, remember? We met at a Montecaran function in 2015?"

"I think you got the wrong person."

"No, no, I definitely recognized you! Kyuku Si Anpime, right?"

My mind began to click. I vaguely remembered the time he spoke about. A night rowdier than this, pictures taken with close friends and respective sambuccas. Aside friends, I could only remember people from their drinks. He might be one of them, I had to make sure.

"You're the three-olive martini guy, right?"

He laughed.

"I'm surprised you remembered me like that. We talked about stave hofs and how you've been doing research work there for a thesis you've been working on, right? What was it again?"

"Uhh... I was doing comparative studies on Argillian, Vitrian and Latin mythologies. I'm trying to establish a continuum between the three."

"How was it?"

"Still not done. I tagged along here."

"Oh."

"Real fuckin' weird you remember my face of all people."

"I've been looking for people, perhaps. I should've told you about this before but I was working with my friend in the publishing business. He got himself this manuscript from a vanity writer and thought he's found the next big hit. We just need people to polish it out."

My eyes widened. Why would he need me for? Is it some sort of oriental fantasy? Do you people have to make it more accurate for the Far East?

"It's some sort of young-adult thing, right?"

"Non-fiction actually. Something tangential to you field of study. Weird, right? It's something about this crockpot about 'higher mathematics' or some whatsit like that, but seems my friend is way over convinced about the claims."

He handed me a copy of the draft. About 300 pages thick bound only by a binder clip. Wait, why in the Lion's name does he have that?

"Stórrheðrinn et les mystères meta-mathématiques du grand pendule? Did a charlatan write this?"

"If I tried to explain it I'll just sound like a crazy person. Best you see it for yourself. Get a laugh, I suppose."

I took out my glasses and pored a bit through the manuscript. There are bold claims in this thing, with unauthorized new insights on math like "the shortest string containing all permutations of n symbols". Then it goes on to outright madness like linking that proof to illustrate the secret of the supreme God's true name and illustrating that the Atrunean Sun, the Annwynist mark, the Koschunist cross and the floral Mandala of Dharma are just parts of a fundamental diagram of something called geo-cosmographie. It's a bizzare clusterfuck of things.

"It's uh... very philosophical."

"That goes both ways, doesn't it?"

"So, like, you want me to review this?"

“I was hoping you could have some constructive input on it. You know, it could be the next big thing and all." He was being playful. I had to put on the defensive.

"I don't know what you're being on about but this sounds like some dilettante nonsense to me. The best-selling factor will only last you a week or so."

An awkward silence passes, until he took a sigh. "Well then," he pulls out a card with his name on French and Tynic. "If you ever changed your mind, call me."

From the card, it seemed his publisher-friend isn't simply a friend, he's also his business partner. Go figure.

He walked away and dissapeared into the crowd inside. A soft peal of thunder can be heard outside, and so I followed back in.

The night passed.

Back at the hotel, I read the manuscript again out of boredom.

The next morning, I phoned in Håkon's number.

* * *

God has many names.

The main thing is that these names had radically variant origins. The Vitrians may have called him Богъ back in the day, perhaps linked to the Turkic word for "lord" or "gentleman" (beg) or its Pasdanic equivalent which implies a giver of bounties (baγa also related to the word bagh "garden", earlier words imply a title of land/apportionment, in turn giving us the eastern bhága). The modern Cositene Pravi Vladika seems close in this respect. A more personalist entity named Rzekobog was a dragon that flew and held covenant with His chosen. In this respect God is an upright character that holds revelation to His creation.

The Turks, in turn, spoke of a god named Tangra, the eternal blue sky. The Monic peoples and their peripheral tribes referred to God through pictograms, first through the fundamental conceptions of heaven (tian) and later its personification (shangdi). The Far Westerners are in agreement with the Boreans, though, Wakan-Tanka/Manitou of the West of the Tynic are supreme beings, as merciful as the Irfans called Him baγa. This "Great Spirit" is aligned to the cosmos, the firmament of stars. In this respect, God is above, transcendental.

Deus, Deva and Diwa are linked names, though the Latins and Argillians note of a multiplicity of divinity. The Saturnians argued that supremacy was bound by magisterial position--Rex Universum. Time (Saturnus) once held this position, later overthrown by the Heavens (Uranus). The Nahuas of the Far West agree in that multiplicity, however think in cyclical existences, like the Khaturvists.

Some argue for something deeper, more visceral, like Arta-Dharma, Zakon or Kam. There are embodiments of these greater essences, these unifying principles. Balahari was a portmanteau of the Narmadan word for "child" (bāla) or the word for Lord (bhaṭṭāraka), and the Narmado-Lahudic word for an upright or noble man implying a solar prescence (hadi-hari). The "Youthful Lord of Light", He is weaver of Time and the sole turner of the Dharmic tapestry (for he is Dharma), God does not age. All deities are manifestation of His being in one way or another, either directly or indirectly. The Monad--under form of Tvorenijka--is the Ultimate Singular Principle, which all others came through a process akin to cell-division. The Law gave birth to Unity, Duality through Unity, Trinity through Duality, Trinity gave birth to the myriad creatures. Thus God is Order.

Of all the ideas and titles we ascribed to him that gave him a half-complete full approximation of his essence, we called it a day and kooks decided to know further his name.

I’m having the same feelings about that book with Håkon’s manuscript right now.

The author had this long winding thing about connecting dots. Eternal patterns, the author called it. The alphabetic system which sprang out of the Sepcan heiroglyphs, he claimed, took the trappings of key numero-hieratic qualities based on the Nautasian esoteric practice of notaricon, ascribing higher value to the letters which spell a proper word. The letters he specified in the set are equated with the 9 godly sephiroths of the ancient tree of life. The lowest and 10th of the sephiroth, malkuth (“kingdom”) was considered the tether of God’s essence towards human understanding (the manifestation of the “revealed” God as opposed to the “hidden” God of the Sephirothic Ennead). The pendulum serves as a mundane representation in Latin Conitia.

These sephiroths are equal to 9 fundamental paradoxes (i.e dimensions), with the lowest three being the spatial ones. (the 10th is just a coalescence back to the first in pure infinite regress). Animals and humans have mastery of 3 (the spatial paradoxes), hence it is coherent to our perceptions. True comprehension (and thus description) of God is only known by mastery of all 9. We can only approximate using a name. And that name gives us a glimpse to the infinite.

It also presented the idea of superpermutations--a "string containing all possible combinations of elements a given set. Smaller ones, such as the one I am illustrating today, exist due to allowance of overlap." Mix and match every possible arrangement of [a, b, c, d] together. He claimed that through numerology and the lowest known bound of such in a given set.

His initial formula was based on 14 elements in a set, the book illustrates a smaller set of variables, 9, based on the Pasdanic-Monic-Semitic-Turkic linguistic roots of the proper names, ergo (B, A, G, T, E, O, L, S, N). BAGO for bagh-baga-bhaga-bog, TEOS for theos-deus-deva, ELOA for allah-el-ilah-elaha, TEAN for tian-tangra, GODE for the Nordanian’s idea of God, and TADNA, ODTSA, NONAT and SAGON for the unifying principles.

Thus, by laying them in a superpermutation (also based around the precedence of each linguistic family/sprachbund), starting with a combination arranged in accordance to their equivalence by notaricon, we could perhaps discover the true, hidden name of God.

It was still a draft. I never knew the results or anything else beyond it. There was nothing else.

Cunt to head it was a full fucking aneurysm.

I look into my clock and it's exactly three in the afternoon.

* * *

Twelve years ago I was with my grandparents. Yearly family vacation. We went to the local falls and paid our respects to the shrine of Sri Sibari. By night, grandmother would tell us a fairy story, some taken from the puranas and some taken from the folklore in Dang. It was usually an uneventful reprieve, where we could swim and eat roasted river fish.

This one was different, though, because grandmother told us a different story:

About eighty-one years ago, before the war entered the country, there was a kind, young lady that lived with her old aunt in the middle of the rice paddies. Her aunt cared for her after her mother and father died in the north provinces, and due to her good heart she cared for the girl like she was her own. Being in the mountain-fields, she helped her aunt in tilling the land and planting the rice, but she had a penchant to help other people she comes across in the marketplace where she and her aunt come to buy and sell. Thus she was called Arung-Arilao, or Arilao, for her spirit was filled with love.

Every month, Arilao and her aunt would go to the temple and pay their earnest respects. While her aunt would plead to the Moon-mother and the Sun-father of ample rain and sunlight for her crops, Arilao would wish two things: to see her mother and father, and for a friend. You see, she was among people in her village, but they are mostly grown up or old. As a child she was alone, with no one to play with.

In one of such times as these, a little fairy-angel [dewati], a mere shard of Balahari's essence, heard her prayers. This fairy-angel was a kind soul, but to the gods she was too weak to bear boons to mortals. But it did not stop her, not at all. So, she took the form of a young girl and gave herself the name of Lapi'ik, the bird.

And so Lapi'ik came to knock on Arilao’s house.

“Oh! What’s your name?” Arilao said in surprise.

“My name is Lapi’ik. I’m from across the mountain.” Lapi’ik smiled.

Arilao was filled with joy. Her prayers were answered and so muttered to the gods her humblest gratitude. She held Lapi’ik’s hands, and told her to come inside. She presented Lapi’ik to her aunt, whom found Lapi’ik as lovely as Arilao yet not as gentle as she. Finally, the aunt thought to herself, she has found a true friend.

And they played along the days, as children do. Arilao would wait for the morning until Lapi’ik comes to play, and they would frolic along the wilderness of the mountains. They would throw rocks at the river, chase birds and shrews and would climb trees to catch its fruits, or just yank it from the branches using long sticks. And one day, once they were tired, they sat around the pebbled shores of the river and talked.

“So, what is it like to be with a mother and father?” Arilao asked.

“It was nice. We lived along the temples and we go to festivals. Why do you ask?” Lapi’ik answered.

“I never knew mine. Only my aunt lives with me.”

“Really? That’s sad.”

“How I wish to see my mother and father at least once. By then I would be truly happy.”

The fairy-angel side of Lapi’ik sparked within her. This is her change to make good with her new friend, and to answer her last prayer. And so, by nightfall, when Arilao had to come home, Lapi’ik shed her human form and fluttered back to the mountains.

One day, Lapi’ik did not come to play with Arilao. Arilao was saddened by it, waiting until noontime—but nothing came. She sighed. Her aunt, seeing Arilao looking beyond the window in longing, came to embrace her.

“Do not be disheartened, dear, she might’ve been doing some other things. She will come back tomorrow.”

“She will?” Arilao asked.

Her aunt smiled. “I am sure of it.”

Thus, the day came by without Lapi’ik, and by night she had to sleep.

In the dead of the dark, when Arilao was asleep, someone touched her arm, waking her. It was Lapi’ik. She was holding a metal lantern.

“Lapi’ik? What are you doing here? It’s nighttime!” She whispered.

“I want to show you something. Come, grab your vakul.”

And so they tiptoed away unnoticed by her sleeping aunt, and, wearing their vakul, ran outside.

“Where are we going?” Arilao asked.

“To the temple!” Lapi’ik answered.

And so, they came to the temple, where the shrine to Sumpusin was the only one filled with candles and light. Everything had an eeriness to them bathed in the dark of the night.

Lapi’ik put down her lantern and she and Arilao laid down their vakul in obeisance to the gods. The wind was chilly.

“Why did you bring me here?” Arilao asked again.

Lapi’ik smiled, assuring her.

“You said you wanted to see your mother and father, right? You will see them here.” She replied. “If you look between your legs, you will also see them both.”

“Really?”

“Trust me.” Lapi’ik held Arilao’s hands. “Face the shrine of the Moon-Mother backwards and do it.”

Arilao thus followed Lapi’ik’s instruction. She opens her legs, and slowly she bends in order to see.

She saw her parents upside down.

They were smiling and greeting her. However, they had the form of charred, dessicating corpses, rotting in their burial garb for many years since they were cremated. Her father’s arm, trying to raise his hand to wave at her, fell apart. They seemed suffering, filled with shame that this is the way their daughter has seen them. They were trying to smile with what’s left of their faces.

And her eyes widened with shock, and went back up. There, she saw Lapi’ik’s true form, a radiant four-armed creature with the ears of a horse and the horns of a deer. In a gasp of fear, Arilao froze. Lapi’ik only smiled. Her wishes have been granted.

Arilao screamed and ran away. Perhaps she came to the safety of her aunt.

Grandmother didn’t say what happened after.

* * *

Håkon called me two days ago.

seemed anxious and jittering. I asked him what happened to the manuscript since I wrote in my thoughts on it. He just left a funeral when he called. His publisher-friend passed away. He was found lying on his desk bloody and beaten, apparently trying to write down something in company stationary. A diagram of letters. The police hasn’t reached conclusive leads. Two theories came out: a suicide or a murder. There was no sign of forced entry.

He said the “suicide note” had letters written upside down. The author has been missing since the scene unfolded.

“Why me? Don’t you have other people that you have shown the draft with?”

“No, no,” Håkon paused. “You’re the only other person who’s ever seen it.”

I rubbed my temple. “Dayan Sri Arok Biyaya.” I sighed to exclaim.

“Look, where are you right now?”

“Montecara. We’re doing a three day-exhibit. Why?”

“Perfect. Meet me there tomorrow at the Galeria Sufrexi’s pendulum hall at three o’ clock. I’ll land there by 1. If I don’t make it in time, THE PENDULUM IS THE KEY.”

He hung up.

And now, I’m here. He’s twenty minutes late.

The urgency about the pendulum is out of the blue though. Granted, it's supposed to be a big thing in the draft, but there was not much mention of it in the text itself other than the metaphor to the tree of life. I even wrote them that they should stop mentioning it in the title. What is it about the pendulum? Was there parts of the manuscript that I wasn't shown?

If the pendulum is the approximation of the tree of life, then it may be in cosmological terms: the Ennead refers to heaven, the hidden God, the roof. Malkuth is the weight, but it's meaning is not exact. In more classical interpretations the Malkuth refers to the world itself, but the weight it not of the ground. It swings towards the center and swings away, changing in direction according to the patterns of the mosaic. The mosaic, perhaps, is Malkuth drawing the closest interpretation of Keter--the utmost indescribable essence, the most hidden of the hidden god.

Perhaps, if the cosmology is reversed, towards the opposite of the infinite mysteries, the incomprehensibility may be turned on its head as well. The name of evil before the time of the Irfanic prophecy has been written upside down, The Sephiroth, put upside down, may make Malkuth come towards the Ennead as gravity in planets. It becomes different--the sefirot becomes qliphot, ordinal counts become ordinal husks. Instead of upward, inward, downward. Calling back to the ancient legend that inside the mundane world lies the hidden world, the land of true power, of all liturgies of the day are kept.

Malkuth--now Lilit, falls straight into Thaumiel, the Duality, rather than to struggle to rise to Keter, the Monad.

The only way to see the diagram fully upside down is to look in between your legs.

The pendulum is key.

And so, I faced the opposite pendulum's north side, opened my legs, and bent over.

Three-thirty-three PM.

I gasped in shock.

And the universe opened his eyes, and his life came flashing before it.

[Victoriala II]

Taken from the book “The Small Encyclopedia of Magical Practice”, ch. 1 pp. 10, curated by Gya Dorje Kunley, Peron Khozorovic and Kipaktzhi Itzcuin. Order of the Great Serpent’s Press, XI Edition 2018.

One says: Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Say: Love is the Law, Love under Will.

道沖而用之或不盈。淵兮似萬物之宗。挫其銳，解其紛，和其光，同其塵。湛兮似或存。吾不知誰之子，象帝之先。

The practice of magic—that is—the art of manipulation of preternatural elements of reality, is a closely guarded secret even within the hidden world. The narrow-minded conception of Esquarians regarding the field; it being an extra-religious conviction towards the otherworldly; fails to recognize the universality of the principles which unite these traditions. Both Esquarium and Breviarium share a common agreement of the existence of a power beyond the human flesh, sharing the idea of the capacity towards action (energeia, potentia), which applies not only to the physical laws of the universe, but also to the processes of mortal souls.

This commonality most evident in the experiences of the Borean continent, which continues to remain as the heart of all extra-mundane activity in the mortal world. There their principles, share a common belief of divinity or potentiality lying within the universe (the Vedo-Irfanic Arta, Etiolahudic Mana, the Vitrian Zakon, Monic Dao) and within the soul (Lahudic Kam, Monic Qi, Vedic Dharma). This extends to the western continent as well, with the Nahuan idea of Teotl, and the very concept of the Soul itself. Such near-universal acknowledgement of the universe’s potentiality begs the question of a unified empirical theory of magical study, thus giving our hidden world a more concise basis on practice and belief.

Before we could delve any deeper towards explaining the current consensus of Magic, we must first define some key terminologies:

a. ) Magic is defined twofold:

• The first refers mainly on phenomenon that straddles between miraculous (ie pertaining to the divine, outright rejecting the laws of nature) and mundane (ie strictly following the laws of nature). This is sometimes formally described as “preternaturality” or “metanaturality”--something that deviates physical order but still follows its mechanics. Magic in this sense follows physical law, but it is defined through the Magical method.
• The second refers to the art of preternatural process and the body of knowledge involving the study and practical manipulation of said phenomena. The Magical method based upon the study is intuitive and idealistic, a heresy of the scientific method in which hypotheses are simulated and assumed through preestablished notions both self-evident and discovered, considering every possibility and factor equally. This radically tedious methodology has been formalized amongst the Boreans and the Latins during the classical period.

b. ) Energy is scientifically the metric of the capacity to do work. In Magic, this refers to the capacity of work itself (coming from the original greek source of the word meaning “potentiality”, which in later esoteric sciences becomes attached to connotations of scientific force), and its many forms are the source in which magical phenomena are ascribed to (the semantics is an intensively long discussion, so we would be practical and refer to magic energy as the noun being measured by the scientific concept.)

It was in 1934 that such an ambitious undertaking began. Spearheaded by Bjorn Ravnson, a Master in the Royal Magical Society in Sjealand (also known for his apprenticeship with the legendary alchemist Harald Stjornusson), he was particularly inspired by early Vestiborevian analyses of East Borean religions and Wisdom Teaching, along with developing trends in the mundane sciences and philosophies, Superstructuralist studies on symbolism, the Theory of General Relativity and Psychoanalysis. In short, he was creating an idiosyncratic synthesis of two irreconcilable systems of thought. This new empirical theory is the foundation of modern Metamechanics, which currently serves as the scholarly framework of this book.

In his own studies of pre-Khaturvic spiritualism, Ravnson built up the idea of another standard of measuring potentialities in material processes: ”transformative energy”, ie. potentialities which serve as the transitionary state of one energy form to another (ie. kinetic > potential, heat > light, etc.) The conceptual basis of transformative energy, despite its connotations, rests solely in the mundane sciences, thus distinct from energy as a magical term. His main thesis regarding transformative energy is based on the idea of consciousness—in the mundane sciences, consciousness is powered on chemical and neural processes in the nervous system to maintain all vital functions.

Ravnson postulated through this concept that the nervous system is suspiciously one of the most powerful and complex coordinations of energy transfers and conversions in the physical world, coordinated in such a manner that is coherent and in a way following a specific pattern. He argues thus that energies are coordinated in specific conversions and moved to specific locations in space thanks to a feedback loop between gravity and matter (the former being a consequence of space-time distortion, which is in turn a consequence of the latter). This feedback loop, now called the Ravnson-Bracken principle (aka the RBP), is the main basis of the modern idea of energies—all energies are derived from this feedback loop, the dharma that binds all matter together. The two cardinal forces, Electromagnetism and Gravitation, are derived from this (esoterically laid out in Ravnson’s notes as a “north-south” relationship).

This would later be picked up in 1944 by Sayid Ardahan, then-Head Astrologer and Badrageh of the Temple of Faidah. Unlike Ravnson, which presented his theses in a semi-scientific tone1, Ardahan interpreted the idea in religious terms, however expanded. He thought of the RBP as the will of God or the manifestation of God. He later posits that God’s will made manifest through the creation of coherent patterns in nature (both living and inanimate, ergo evolution being a sort of hyper-abstract pattern influencing life, etc.). All natural processes, including the RBP, are examples of these patterns, and through those patterns both concrete and abstract does preternatural processes (ie one that deviates from the physical laws of the mundane world) flow through these specific patterns. “God speaks in a language written in the hearts of worlds.”

Ardahan’s students would later map out the global flow pattern of these preternatural processes, influenced by the notion of ley lines, the power of sigils and words and the areas of known geographic locations. This would lead to the discovery of the Faidanic circuit (originally the “Serene Radiant River”), a major cornerstone in the rise of Metageographism (the modern circuit model is now more closely pictured as similar to sea or wind currents rather tha, mostly aligned with the ones within the electromagnetic field in compliance with the RBP’s feedback loop.) In essence, the circuit-currents direct the flow of energies and phenomena brought forth by the RBP, forming natural discrepancies of its concentration throughout the world. It should be said, however that energies in the Faidanic circuit also flow through lifeforms, which are active actors of patterns and all forms of energy.

Two of Ravnson’s students continued on their master’s work further and pushed more radical additions to the metamechanical corpus, this time pertaining to the human soul. Klaus Ahigen-Aleckzeihausch disputed an earlier postulation by the Faidah school that souls are concentrated essences of the Serene Radiant River. Instead, he argued that souls are by itself sustaining without the need of the Faidanic circuit, citing the survival of life in areas with little to no concentration of preternatural energies. He instead argued that souls are instead independent concentrations brought by the RBP, amplified only after by the circuit once they have entered its range. The debate between an independent and dependent souls has been one of political and religious controversy due to its massive societal implications (Ahigen-Aleckzeihausch was also a known freethinker outside Breviarium, as opposed to the Irfanic mysticism of the Faidah school.)

Taking from Ravnson’s works on the nervous system and its relation to the RBP, Reynir Neymandi elucidated on a formal theory of potentiality of manipulation of particular energies in some lifeforms (ie kinesis, psychism, etc.), describing their development as mutations in the evolutionary process—culminations of energies flowing across numerous patterns somehow influence the genetic code of particular individuals, giving a formal explanation of “magical affinity” as a basis. Individuals with affinity with the energies of the Faidanic circuit have, at best, higher chances of proficiency or a heightened capability to manipulate physical phenomena without use of ample devices.

Magical manipulation (whose specific arts shall be laid out in the later chapters) is brought by technological aids or through affinity. In some areas where there are such high concentrations of Faidanic energies, affinity is considered a normal constant. Non-affinity and Esquarian individuals may practice innate magic in a limited form, such as directing their innate energies in particular forms of the body (cf. Cakra and Qi). Casting magic actively however would require pattern-based aids (ie sigils), specific language (wave patterns of the voice and the mouth as sigils) and conductors/sources of magical energy (ie crystals, swords, cards, wands, etc).

It can be said that Faidanic energies affect both Breviarians and Esquarians fully, recognized then in the latter in the form of Humorism, Reiki, “applied inheritance” (lihi) and other premodern medicinal practices.