Sermon

recorder starts, we hear many people gathered, waiting

Ingram: More people than I’ve seen in one place in the Ardent in a while.  

Luca: I don’t even recognize most of these people.

Nijal: The Order is very compartmentalized.  

Luca: Why is this so nerve wracking?

Nijal: It’ll be all right.  We’ll only be there long enough to listen through this recording, but, yeah, the Pillar is no joke.

Luca: What do we need this sybil person for?

Ingram: Person?  Yeah, not sure about that.

Luca: What do you mean?

Ingram: I just don’t want you to be too surprised.  Don’t expect a person.

Nijal: A sybil is a psychically hypersensitive… entity.  If there are any hidden curses or thought forms in the recording the sybil will catch them.

Ingram: And eat them.  If our enemy heretic cult psychos put any traps in this recording, they will have wasted their time.

Luca: Eat them?

Nijal: Sybils feed on thought, among other things.

Luca: Lovely… beat I don’t recognize them.

Nijal: Heavy hitters.  

Ingram: War Mages, Builders, Architects, Porters... fuck, thats Wakoji Adime isn’t it.  Damn, I’m star struck.

Nijal:  Orders of Strife, Walls and Doors represented…

we hear footsteps approaching

Ingram: ok, here we go.

Cid:  Hello everyone.  We have thoroughly inspected the wax cylinder brought into the Ardent via a mundane break in.  Other than the innate properties of the phantoma wax, it is inert.  Still, in the interest of thoroughness, we have requisitioned a sybil of the pillar to listen with us.  The door to nowhere in the east wing will shortly lead somewhere, specifically, Sybil Selosha’s chamber.  Once we enter, all sound is her domain; you will not speak, sneeze, cough or even breath loudly while in the chamber.  The sybil’s senses are tuned beyond mortal imagining and even loudly clearing your throat when she’s not expecting it could spark a very violent reaction and we could not guarantee your safety.    

Odai: Also, we will refrain from discussing or thinking loudly about the sybil’s appearance or odor, which will be as disorienting as the sensations you will feel when you come under their gaze - of which you will also not remark.  

Luca: Thinking loudly?

Cid: No time for questions I’m afraid, that head nod from Emea has let me know we are now connected to the Pillar.  Everyone maintain your calm and we will do the Ardent proud.

We hear a door open and the gathering’s footsteps.  Followed by the sound of the sybils resonance chamber.   Alien echoes and the trickle of water into her soaking pool.  We hear the ghost wax cylinder being placed on a stone dais.  Then something emerges from the water.  We hear it heavily drag itself across the stone chamber, water wicking off of its snakelike tail.  It makes a rattling sound deep in its chest.

Cid: My lady.

The sybil responds to him in more of her alien sounds

Cid: Very well. beat This recording is a secondary capture of the wax cylinder delivered to the Ardent by the heretic worshippers of the enemy. beat Let us begin.

click

*We hear the Herald’s music and the crackle of their flames.  We also hear the swaying and rattle of chains.  

Hear the clamor of a crowd of voices waiting for something to start.  We hear loud, resonant, echoing footsteps on stone.  The crowd hushes as the Herald takes the podium*

Herald: My friends!

Welcome my friends.  Tonight!  - Tonight is a very special night.  Tonight my words are not just for the ears of the awoken, the ears of the liberators, but tonight… my words are also for the holes in the sides of the head of our Great Captors.  We record this on one of their very own devices, the device designed by a damned son of the underworld.  With it… we will deliver this message to them.

We hear a clamor from the crowd.  Fear

Herald: quelling  Brothers and Sisters and Others!  Do not fear.  We will not say our true name, or give our foes anything by which to find us.  This message was bidden us to make by our… allies beyond the walls…

Remember: reciting The enemy is a snake and the snake constricts.  Fear makes you smaller and when you shrink they squeeze.  

The crowd dies down and the herald resumes

Herald: This is a time for celebration.  We have struck another blow against the captors.  They continue to bleed and for all their might and their wrath we elude them and we always shall for the ways are OURS!

There is a cheer from the crowd, but the herald begins before it even dies down, building momentum 

Herald: We have struck another blow and as our enemy feels this pain we extend to them a choice:  Release us or continue to bleed.  Swear on the old stone that you will leave, and we shall swear that we shall relent.  Swear to let us take our own course and we will even offer up our very lives.  I swear on the Foundation that if you so swear to leave, I and all my followers will let you take our heads, devour our hearts, if that is what you wish. We will gladly lay down our lives to break these shackles, but while  you remain we will strike and strike and any who walk with you will walk in the shadow of murder!

the crowd cheers again.  The herald raises his hands and the crowd is silent.

Herald: Listen now, parasites.  Listen.

we hear the rattle of chains and the muffled cries of a man

Herald: Thirty three they were when the night began.  Fourteen remain alive.  Those who are dead are damned, but those who dangle here, heads down as the hanged man in the cards, blood trickling into bowls of offering… these fourteen will be redeemed.  They will pay penance and do great service to their fellows and so they will be forgiven.

The chained man struggles, rattling his chains

Herald: Still yourself, brother.  You will render a great service to your species.  Your blood and flesh and vital deeper parts will be pressed and pressed into a blade and this blade will cut free this land… these trees… the sky above and once loosened a great hand will pry and wrench it up from root and vein… free of the clutches of our captors.  Then will you be forgiven your transgression of soul.

the man continues to struggle

Herald: Quiet now, traitor.  There is still much to say and do.

Herald: There is much to say… takes a great many huffing grotesque drags on some kind of steam producing device and finally releases a luxurious shuddering exhale.  

AAAhhhh…sssss…

Herald: much to say… much to sing… now… now… now… now. NOW SHALL I SING THE SONG OF THE FALL!

Herald: Long ago man was whole but long ago were we poisoned one against another, one against ourselves, we began as ravenous beasts, churning our mother into our mouths and burning her blood and staining her eyes, her eyes turning heavenward the skies!

The cosmos’s most vital expression of itself, the precious pearl desecrated and violated, held down and sodomized by men barely recognizable of soul, hardly human, heartless hammering, vile, vile, vile fools and from out of all the mouths on the suffering sphere — CAME A CRYYYY!!!!!

the heralds voice echoes and something thunders above

Herald: A CRY FOR SALVATION!  A PLEA TO HEAVEN.  A HEAVEN THAT STOOD EMPTY AND COLD.  THOSE THAT HEARD DID NOT HEED AND THOSE WHO HEEDED DID NOT EXIST AND SO- FROM OUT OF THE SKY WE CARVED A GOD.  AND ANOTHER.  AND ANOTHER!  WE CLEAVED FROM OUT THE SKY OUR OWN GODS AND WITH THEM OUR FUTURE.

the booming trails off

Herald: with deep venom But then… they came.  Not from the sky,   but from the stars. beat

“This is not natural”, they spake.  “You are not prepared for what you have done”, they spoke.  We know better, we shall mind you.  We shall keep you.  We shall be your father and mother.

My father was a mouse and my mother was a sow.  They were small and cruel and hurt me, hurt me, hurt me, but they were mine and they were the way of us.  My father had hands, not flailing ropes and my mother had two eyes in her face, not one in the hand of another and another and I do not consent.  I did not ask for their help and I do not want it.  We made our own salvation and they robbed us.  They murdered the future.

nearly sobbing

And they shattered god apart.

Pulled her body to shreds.

And they scattered his blood to the far corners and cast him out and her out and barred them from entry.  That which heeded our call for absolution - transformation - for deliverance they pushed outside and slammed the door.

But we remember.  Through the walls we hear their whispers.  They have not abandoned us.

And so with our hands we claw at the wall.

And with shredded fingers we carve through the stone. And with raw bone we rake through the ramparts, for we cannot be kept from those who love us best and who we made from what we are and what we can be and what we must become.

the herald takes a long pause, his mania subsiding

Herald:  And now I shall sing the song of our victory!  One of many.  Many more to come… as many are needed.

Through the cracks in the prison walls we speak.

Their voices can reach you if you listen close.

And oh overwhelmed they are beautiful.

They are… transcendent.

They are making a meal of the word, saying it gives him great pleasure GLORIOUS.

I have whispered with many and they are our children so they are fierce.  Of singular vision.  That is why the enemy rendered them apart, pitted them one against another, as man pitted themselves, one against another, one against the self.  They can only conquer us if they divide us.

suddenly sober and still 

So will I tie The Knot.

“Tie the knot with blood soaked twine.

I learned that from dear mother mine.”

slipping immediately back into mania

Common ground, is holy ground - and carefully, carefully I tie.  Carefully I weave.  We must be The Braid.  And lo. They heeded me.

A lodge.  A house of the enemy's hounds.  Hunting hunting hounds, they come for us.  Those whose minds they have pierced sniff and sniff us out.  Those that hold the lashes come with knives of gold sharpened for our throats.  To let our blood and silence our voices.  

Deep within a wooded dark - as all their lairs are made of - for their dark deeds would dry up in the light of day.  

Deep in a forest of pine this lodge has stood since the time before or many more before and there is squatted in the dark, training hunters, making hounds.

And so we turned our vengeance upon it. We sharpened our knives and waited.  We honed our hooks and watched.  But the enemy is careful, and their craft is strong.  We did not see a way.

And so we prayed.

And…

Our pleas were answered.  They were answered.

A way appeared.

Through the cracks in the world they gave us gifts.

Four.

Herald: “The Braid is four.  Will soon be more,

I taught this to my father, poor.”

Herald: Four gifts.  Tools.  With which we had a mighty task.  To destroy their dark house of horrors, one of many many, this house of gold knives in the shadows.

The First Gift!

From the Trumpet it came.  He that is born from the echo of mankind's cry for salvation.  The blared, barren truth so loud it cannot be denied.  The scream.  The moan.  The babies brawling and the old man’s last grasp is the Trumpet’s call.

And his gift was a sound.  A soft, insistent sound that  must be heard.  Can not be shut out.

It took me many nights to glean the purpose of its gift but so I did.

The Second!

From the Twins it came.  The two are one.  The one who hates that it is two and so hates itself and those who separated it from itself.

His gift was a yellow rose.  Its flowers sallow and its thorns venomous.  And her gift carried the fragrant stink of jealousy.

It took me many nights to glean the purpose of their gift, but so I did.

The Third!

From the Prince with the Head of a Rabbit.

The sovereign who declares that the meek shall be mighty and the mighty shall be eaten.  That in the ways of power: things that are shall not be, and the things that are not - are.

His gifts were many masks.  Delicately painted, made of wood and carved in the likeness of mice and badgers, rats and racoons and foxes.  The small things of the woodlands that men and their hounds hunt… 

And also many knives.

It took me no time at all to know their purpose.

The Fourth and last!

From the Oversoul it came.  The faithful eye that pierces space and soul and radiates with heaven’s light a wrath profound - for the throne of the sky shattered beneath its feet - and for the broken arc of heaven brought down, the ragged shards of which are now its body.

Its gift was a candle made of the fat of ghosts.  The sticky suet of the dead that our enemy eats and folds into useful shapes.  And at its end… a steady flame.

It took me many nights to know its purpose, and even still I did not understand it in full, for the Oversoul works in mysterious ways.

And with that the path was clear.

In the night we loosed the sound.  A slow and steady keen stretching out and out and out into the ears and minds and hearts of all who heard it.  

It could not be denied.

And so they came.  The lodge emptied out its dark and fortified walls and thirty three came forth.  Among them were two, two who we dared not face, even if numbers were on our side, and they were not. These two were strong, and skilled and careful.  They knew it to be a trap and they came prepared with the blessed wax in their ears, ready for more of the Trumpet’s sounds.  They came in their numbers and their strength…

Into a field of yellow roses.

Into the glade of jealous rage.  And for that, they were not prepared.

For none can prepare for The Vice we make.

The scent ripped a hole in their minds.  Turning them against one another, two against each other.  A trap?  A trick?  No.  This was a revelation of what lies beneath their veneer.  Under the peeling lacquer of their Order the truth sopped and seethed and then spilled forth in blood and they turned their resentment and their words and their power, one against the other.

And the darkened forest was cracked apart and their champions were laid low.

And then… ohhhh and then.

The hunt was on.

We came from out the darkened woods in our masks of mice and badgers, rats and racoons and foxes.  The small things of the forest that are killed by hounds and hunter.  But through the wooden holes in these masks we could see the inverted world of the Rabbit Headed Prince.  Where we who were hunted and small and weak, were now hunter and vast and strong.  From out of the dark we came, and within the shadows of the trees they ran, and we hunted and caught and our knives were sharp and our hooks were honed and soon we had them all.

Their skins.  Their heads.

Their bodies in chains…

We hear him shove one of the dangling bodies.  It sways and rattles

Herald: And here they are. Prepared for their service and redemption.

We took our candle and its steady flame to that black lodge in the heart of the wood and with it we set a flame.  And the flame was holy.  And the flame was hungry. And it set to work doing that which flame does.  Consuming.  The lodge, the blasphemous texts, the files, the maps, the cowards hiding within.

And then a further edict of The Gods We Made and Who Made Us and who make us was revealed.  The candle burned and burned down into a cylinder.  We have seen their like!  The enemy has begun to capture the stories of their oppression and the tales of their interference in the natural order on them and it was clear that our lord the Angel that Presses Down bid us to do the same.

And so we have.  And so we do.

we hear a chained prisoner being moved, swaying.

Herald: takes another deep pull on his mist And now… we finish it.

My brothers, sisters, others… These fourteen now render unto us their penance and are redeemed and forgiven in our eyes and the eyes of man.

The price is paid, and all is mended.

There is a long moment.

Herald: whispered close to a prisoner I forgive you, brother.

We hear a horrid ripping and pitched muffled screams

Herald: Your skin we take.  It was woven by your mother whom you have betrayed.  We reclaim it in her name and so - you are forgiven.

more ripping

Herald: Your blood we take.  Nourished by the world that you have betrayed.  We reclaim it in it’s name and so - you are forgiven.

more

Herald: Your hope we take.  As the enemy you serve took our hope.  The hope of man.  Our promise to become something new.  We reclaim it in our name… We forgive you!

the sound of muffled screams and rattling chains and fire and the ominous music rise and rise.

Herald: AND FROM OUT YOUR GUT WE PULL THE SMALL AND VITAL PARTS OF HUMANITY YOU HAVE FORSAKEN AND WITH IT WE BIND A BLADE AND WITH THAT BLADE WE CARVE THE WORLD.  AND ONCE IT IS LOOSEND COMES FORTH A GREAT HAND TO PRY THIS PLACE AND TIME FREE OF THE GRIP OF THE ENEMY FOR THE FUTURE.  THE ENEMY OF US ALL. AND SO. YOU ARE.  FORGIVEN.

there is a sudden absence of all sound, save his voice

Herald: And it is done.  But will be done again.  However long.  It.  May.  Take.

click

there is a long pause, and then the sound of footsteps, a door opening, more footsteps, and then the door closing

Cid: Furious I… this will not stand.

Odai: It must be a trick.  A blade lodge could not have fallen without us knowing… we have heard of no such thing occurring.

Cid: Unless we had forgotten them.

Odai: Gods…

Cid: The lodge and those within it were excised.  We have forgotten them.

Odai: bigger GODS

Cid: Wakoji Adime, you are the new head of Order Strife. Tell Varence his time is up.  Now bring me one of these animals with enough soul left intact that I can make them talk.

Odai: Cid…

Cid: What are all of you fucking standing around for!  FIND THEM. KILL THEM! BRING THEM TO ME!

recorder off