Water is the most miraculous substance in all of creation, its life giving properties are essential to all living things. It cleanses our souls, smoothing away their rough edges; and the Eagle's wings take flight because of it. The most fertile gardens in existence would soon fall to dust and ashes if denied its sweet melody. Whether a drop or an ocean, water moves in unison and harmony, filling whatever vessel seeks to contain it. Soft and supple, it carves its circuitous route across the land; bestowing life upon all without thought or discrimination as it continues along on its never ending journey. In time it can even bring down the mountains, truly nothing can stop it forever. By emulating the properties of water, a leader can bring peace and harmony to the land, enriching all regardless of status. To seek water is to seek life.
Leaders are judged by the gifts they give their people. If the people are given unity and freedom the leaders are loved and the nation is one. If the people are given just laws and honest ministers the leaders are trusted and the nation is wise. If the people are given corrupt laws and heavy taxes the leaders are despised and the nation is in chaos. When the people are slain and imprisoned for little cause, their only gifts misery and pain, the leaders are hated and the nation a blasphemy upon the earth.
A Heavy Burden
Paracletis looked down from the heavens and beheld the mortal realm far below, and in that moment, the lord of the city and surrounding countryside envied those peasants as they danced in the sun. Free from all care and responsibility, they laughed and sang amongst one another in joyous camaraderie; their peace and security guaranteed by his reign. Paracletis was alone, never would he share the company of a peer, for he was peerless. The absolute ruler of a realm that stretched across time and space into eternity. He was wise in all the ways of cosmic harmony, there was no sickness nor hunger in his land, no grieving nor loss, only joy, love and understanding.
His divine rule stretched back into antiquity, his powers were truly legendary; but he had also grown weary. The weight of the stars upon his mighty shoulders was an inconceivable burden from which he could not escape. In those times when he observed the people below, he longed to be relieved of his burden. Even if only for just one hour, he wished to descend and dance with the carefree peasants in the lower realms and feel not the weight of his mighty crown upon his brow any longer. But alas, he could not leave his lofty throne and relieve his hefty burden; only his ministers would sit in his presence, forever groveling as they catered to the wishes of the omnipotent king. While each held power and responsibility according to his nature and ability, one servant exceeded all of his peers in power and majesty, this was Yal-de-Boath. He was a quite a dark fellow, a powerful necromancer, who delighted in using his cunning and guile to sabotage his brethren in the eyes of the master. If Paracletis had one weakness it was that he could not comprehend evil, in the same way that the sun knows not the darkness of the night. Being always illuminated he remains blissfully unaware of the dark shadows that congregate upon his passing as he continues steadfastly upon his celestial path. Thus, it was not long before Yal, by the use of his arcane knowledge, had become the Special Councillor to the king. Closer to the heart, mind and soul of the king than any other servant had ever yet become. And it was he who first noticed the longing in the king's gaze as he watched him from atop the walls of the castle.
And as Yal studied the king from afar, he guessed his secret desire, and ambition rose up in his heart, that black shadow which has lain waste to kingdoms and set countrysides ablaze with it's unquenchable fury. He laughed aloud, finally seeing his chance and watched as the seeds of his plot sprung into life within the dark corridors of his mind. Like black smoke rising from the smouldering embers of a forsaken fire, the plan grew before his eyes, it's smothering cloud blotted out the brightness of the sun as it manifested from the shadow of his midnight dreams.
So it was that soon after Yal's vision, the stars in their turnings had become right for his purpose and the time had come to spring the jaws of his trap upon the unsuspecting king. Yal approached his prey one hot afternoon, the king had desired to escape the heat of the summer sun and was resting in one of his private gardens. Yal sat slightly behind the king and to his left, leaning close to the king's ear so that no one else might hear him, he whispered dark, soothing words in the forgotten tongue of the Old Ones. As the king listened to this hypnotic lullaby sung from the lips of Yal-de-Boath; he slipped deep under the spell of its shimmering promise. A promise of safety, of questions answered and curiosity satisfied; but most of all it promised the removal of the terrible weight of responsibility.
Since the words of Yal strangely coincided with his own secret desires, the king had a moment of weakness and relaxed his spirit for a single breath of the wind. As he fell under the spell of Yal-de-Boath, he felt his grasp slip from his silken chair and he slid helplessly into the abyss. Falling through time and space, his sight was a kaleidoscope of spinning colors, strange shapes and symbols flashed across his mind and he swooned under the heat of the midday sun.
The City in The Sand
A layer of thick haze hangs upon the horizon, distorting the energy of this barren place. The desolation is complete as the heat of the blistering sun plays tricks on the eyes. In the desert of the Spirit, water is scarce, and there arose a city of sand before his eyes. It's glittering gates grew from the wind swept meadows amidst a never ending sandstorm. As the shifting sands of time whirled about, the walls of this mirage never stood still nor remained solid for long. The lay of this land had been transformed a thousand times, rising up and falling down, only to rise again in more splendor than ever before. Yet it was always a desert. A thirsty wanderer stumbles through the gates of the phantom city, his cracked lips quiver as he searches in vain for a trickle of water. He is immediately beset by the phantom wraiths that inhabit the city, and he nearly goes mad as he tears at their ghostly forms.
He struggles onward into the city, stopping at one well after another, dipping his hands into the hot sand. Delirious from the heat of the desert, he mistakes it for water and drinks deeply; only to realize that what he is drinking is as bitter as ashes. He chokes on the dust, the water here will not quench his thirst. As he coughs, he sees yet another phantom of the merciless sun, the scorpions claw at the vile sand and the man throws his hands blindly into the cloudless sky and asks why he cannot find true water. The harsh, pitiless wind kicks up again in answer as if to punish the insolence of his inquiry. The man stumbles through the barren desert, forever searching, forever failing until one day the rain began to fall.
The sweet droplets that now fell from heaven had come to challenge the harsh supremacy of the tyrannical wind and the brutal lordship of the sun. They had come just as the last rays of hope departed his weary heart. The sand became still for a moment and the power of the wind was silenced. The man kneels to drink from the swift channels of water that now run through the barren desert. It enters his blood and expands into his being, enriching his soul. For the first time in his memory he no longer thirsts, and his spirit rejoices at the arrival of the of this heavenly shower.
The desert phantoms recede into the shadows like dry leaves caught in a gust of wind, they are scattered into nothingness; forced to abide in the dark spaces between the stars until a time when their lord has returned. The exiled wind flees to the mountains for a time, leaving a peaceful serenity amid the sound of the falling water. The water, so sorely missed during the reign of spiritual fire, now holds sway over this land of sand and stone. And the desert became a garden for a time in the soul of the traveler, but the wisdom of the rain would not last forever, and the exiled lord of the desert awaited the time of his imminent return. The sobering rain had momentarily silenced the madness that had once clouded the judgement of the lonely wanderer; and feeling refreshed, the wanderer begins to gather water into pools and he dug wells to collect it. For the return of the demiurgus was inevitable, and he must be prepared for that fateful time when he would once again be forced to look upon the keen face of Death. He works throughout the night, never resting until the completion of his task, and by the time the sun lifted its fiery head above the horizon, he had made many deep pools from which to quench his insatiable thirst. Just as he finished his chore, he begins to thirst once more, and as the heat of the midday sun waxed to its full power, the memory of the rain had been vanquished and its wisdom absorbed and assimilated into the desert's shifting sands. The man had anticipated this loss of faith and in his deepest pools he still had confidence. But the cunning of the desert serpent is unfathomable, and the searching fingers of the wind probed the secret vaults of his wisdom, and soon most of them had become infiltrated by the sand and their knowledge was lost and corrupted. If only he could find within himself, the sweet waters of the divine source and never thirst again.
The Creatures of the Marketplace
The king awoke amidst the many sounds of the market, the savage cries of traders rang out all around him. He saw tapestries of a thousand colors hanging on display and fish from far off lands sold as delicacies. Gold and silver there was in abundance and also many beautiful women arrayed in the finest silks from across the world. He pulled himself from the ground and noticed that he was no longer wearing his rich kingly garments, but was rather dressed as a shabby peasant. He began to explore this strange new place, knowing not by what means of travel he had arrived, never before had he seen a place like this while he watched from his lofty tower. A fight broke out to his left as a buyer and seller haggled, they crashed into one of the booths, spilling fresh fruit everywhere, gold coins rained upon the ground as each man strove for control. Paracletis picked up one of the strange coins that had rolled to his feet, the face of Yal-de-boath was emblazoned on it's front. Strange he thought, such a thing had not existed before, an image graven in gold, used for the purchase of goods and controlling of men. The two men, suddenly aware of the keen stares of the onlookers, separated from one another and tried to recover their lost treasure. The crowd began to scramble for the coins that now littered the ground, and Paracletis was knocked to the ground in the mad rush.
He crawled out of the chaos, escaping into a nearby alley. He dusted himself off and watched as the battle raged on for several more minutes. Such madness! His anger grew as he observed the irrational behavior of the creatures in the marketplace. They fought and haggled over trifles. Their spiritual essence polluted by the pointless acquisition of material trinkets. They had forgotten their essential natures and been sold into bondage. Nowhere did he see love and compassion, only greed and cunning. His people were suddenly no longer at one with each other, everyone was separate and disconnected from everyone else. Each man was an island. What a strange place this was. Where had gone the peaceful harmony of his reign?
He began to shout at the people of the market place, condemning their savage behavior, urging them to remember the true nature of oneness. The crowd of astonished onlookers scorned his wise words and began to throw stones and dung at him; yet despite their resistance, Paracletis continued all the more passionately to awaken them from their stupor. Suddenly, these words were dashed from his lips as the cold grip of soldiers seized his arms from behind and bound him with cord. The soldiers led him, with the aid of several shoves and well aimed kicks, into the center square. There were several other bound men in a line leading up to an auctioning block. He was being sold into slavery! What an outrage! He called aloud at his injustice, denouncing the brutality of this savage place. For his continued insolence, a filthy rag was stuffed into his mouth to silence his cries. To his dismay, money changed hands and he was delivered into the hands of a carpenter named Jeshua. Led through the streets like a dog, Paracletis finally came to the doorstep of his new home.
A Simple Life
Jeshua was an honest man who did not delight in the exhibition of flashy clothing nor in the accumulation of precious metals. He sought rather to better understand his brethren, and his heart was moved more sooner towards pity than to scorn towards those less fortunate than himself. His passion was in the making of things with his hands and many beautiful and wondrous things did he assemble in his workshop for the betterment of all. It was into this workshop that Paracletis was now thrust to begin anew. The life Paracletis now found himself living was not completely miserable, although he spent his days as a slave, his responsibilities were small and his owner was kind. The carpenter treated him well, he had lost his own son in one of the many wars that robbed many parents of their vibrant children; and Jeshua saw in this new slave a fragment of his own lost son. Paracletis spent his days assisting Jeshua in his craft and learning the laws of the kingdom, which were many and complex. Soon after his arrival, Jeshua had grown quite fond of Paracletis and since it was not in his nature to "own" another human being, he named Paracletis his apprentice, and released him from bondage.
It felt good for Paracletis to work with his hands, to create something beautiful out of bare materials was a never ending joy for him in a world gone mad with greed. As the days stretched into weeks and the weeks into months, this new reality began to solidify in his mind and he accepted as fact that his days as king had only been the fantasy of an orphan slave and soon he forgot his life in the palace altogether. He would often accompany Jeshua to the market and sell the work of his hands, and despite Jeshua's honest dealings, the everyday sale of person and property soon grew to become the norm.
The world had always been like this, a world of buying and selling, where gold was king and blind Yal-de-Boath a god.
Paracletis took sanctuary in his work and lost himself within the intricate designs of his creation. Yet the world outside of his workshop continued to deteriorate and the kingdom teetered on the edge of oblivion. The never-ending arrogance of the merchants seemed to know no bounds, with money as the supreme power and true wisdom forgotten, they devised complex schemes to extract an unjust profit from naive traders. It was not long before they began to rise up in arms against one another in an attempt to gain more wealth and the power it promised. The wealth of the common man was redistributed daily to the coffers of the wealthy, but even they were not immune to Yal-de-Boath. One by one the people succumbed under the burden of his heavy taxes. Soon the law of cause and effect took over and a surge of crime spread across the land as people strove to be feed their starving families or become the most finely adorned in jewelry and silks and so gain the envy of their peers. It was not long before people were being murdered in the streets for the shoes on their feet. The country was in a state of chaos never before known in the world of men. Yal-de-Boath ruled with an iron fist and executions were held daily in the town square as the ever growing list of complex laws meant there were fewer and fewer honest men in the land. The populous cheered as the streets ran red with the blood of their peers and Yal rejoiced in his tower, for he enjoyed the spilling of blood upon the sand.
So it happened that one day upon returning home from market, Paracletis found the workshop empty. The remnants of the door, reduced to jagged splinters by savage blows, lay next to the dark frame and the sounds of Jeshua could not to be heard from within. The marks left at the scene showed the vile stain of Yal's soldiers and the invisible vapors of death drifted out from the darkness, reluctantly he stepped inside.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dim light of the workshop, he found the signs of a brutal struggle. Jeshua's chair was blood-stained and cast to the floor, tools and lumber were strewn about haphazardly as if vomited up from the shelves. He noticed that the scant sawdust on the floor had been disturbed by the dragging of some heavy object through the doorway behind him. Nowhere was Jeshua to be found, most likely he was already slain, another drop of blood in the crimson sea of endless agony. In a hurried panic Perecletis gathered some provisions, a few tools and a small sack of gold coins hidden under a loose stone behind the fireplace. Ducking to avoid being seen, he made his way behind the stone wall that marked the edge of the property and jumped the wall into a neighboring yard. There was no sign of military in the immediate vincinity, and for the moment he was safe, though quite shaken and breathing heavily. He sought to regain his wits, but he could not stop the tears that fell as he wept beneath the shadows of his former home.
The Exiled Wanderer
After saying a short prayer in honor of Jeshua, Perecletis began to formulate a plan of action. He could not stay within the city walls, it was well known he was apprentice to the carpenter, and the soldiers might be hunting him as well. While the main ways out of the city were always well guarded and the towers kept a close watch on the surrounding plains, a doorway is not the only exit from a locked house. He had learned many sublties of the city in his days assisting Jeshua and from his dealings at market, and although he had forgotten his true identity; he found that he still possessed a certain power over the other inhabitants of this city and could exert his subtle influence on all but the strongest of wills. Thus it was not long before he had persuaded a smuggler to show him entry to the hidden tunnels that ran beneath the city's impregnable walls.
Originally built long ago, these tunnels once served as ancient sewers in the days of the city's glory. Having recently fallen into disuse, these tunnels were renovated and expanded by master masons in an attempt to escape the brutal taxes of Yal. They also served an essential purpose as a lifeline to the outside world beyond the city walls, a final escape from insanity. With enough gold or influence, a travler could purchase entry and once again bask in the freedom of the breezes that swept the plains beyond the stagnation of the decaying city. It was rumored that the undiscovered tunnels could even shield a traveler from the roving eyes of Yal-de-boath that pierced all shadows as he ceaselessly watched over his enslaved realm. In the world above, the prying eyes of Yal-de-Boath's henchmen were indeed confounded as they searched the streets in vain and Paracletis was able to escape the city unmolested.
The tunnel itself was exquisitely made, the stone floor was smooth and straight and Paracletis found he could walk upright with arms outstretched in most places. Paracletis marveled at the fine craftsmanship of the tunnel for which he knew there was no equal. Long and straight it ran, cut into the bedrock with surprising efficiency, the tunnel turned neither right nor left in its course and he met no one else upon his journey. After an hour of steady walking through the dimly lit corridor, Paracletis finally emerged from the subterannean realm through a copper gate cunningly hidden between two large stones on the opposite side of a small hill. In the distance on the very edge of mortal sight, he could just barely make out the gates of the city standing black beneath the sun.
His entire world lost, Paracletis turned his back on the city that had forsaken him and he began to wander the trackless paths of the outer wilderness. For many days and nights he stumbled upon the broken stones of confusion, cursing his fate, yet not without all hope. Deep down he had a feeling, an itch under his skin that would not let him rest and a single thought became lodged in his mind, "This was not the way the world was supposed to be". The itch drove him steadily onward, giving him strength in times of weakness and courage in the times of blind terror. After several weeks of wandering, Paracletis at last came upon the shores of a great lake, clearer and bluer than anything he had ever imagined. It's crystal waters held the key to his salvation, if only he would heed its call.
The Road to Anamnesis
Bereft of his legacy, Paracletis took refuge on a small rocky island in the midst of a bay shielded on three sides by granite cliffs. Located on the western shores of this great inland sea, this bay provided needed privacy, and Paracletis lived the life of a solitary hermit. Abiding in a small castle built in forgotten ages by an unknown people, he passed his days and nights in dilligent study and prayer. Patiently awaiting the days of his enlightenment and the day when he might one day come to understand the inner workings of this cruel world.
So it has remained these long ages, while the true king abides in the solitude of his island sanctuary, we are forever led astray by the dark phantoms of Yal-de-Boath, unable to find our true purpose. With the influence of Paracletis cut off from greater humanity, Yal-de-Boath rules all from atop his mighty throne of broken skulls. The chaos he brought into our world so many long years ago has not departed. Our souls are enslaved to him, that tyrannical lord who drains the spirit and whose only gifts are misery and pain. Like sheep, we are led to slaughter, distracted with trinkets and trifles, we are blind to the truth. Cut off from our own true being, we have yet to taste the sweet waters of the divine source from which we will never thirst again. There will be brief moments of wisdom and enlightenment, but they will be short lived and always extinguished before the time of their ripening, corrupted by the will of Yal-de-Boath.
Until that fateful day when Paracletis awakens from the deep slumber of amnesia and realizes his true identity and it's power, the world will forever remain shrouded in darkness and division; and we will continue to blindly drink the sand from the dormant wells of our barren souls. It is whispered among those who are considered wise, that the true king is nearing the end of his dreamless slumber and the day of our salvation is at hand. But who, even among the wisest of us, has ever explored the innermost workings of Yal-de-Boath's black heart or fully understood the subtle power of forbidden words whispered in the ears of a king so many long ages ago?
To find the answers, we must seek within ourselves and follow Paracletis into the wilderness. For how can one truly apreciate the warmth of the dawn's slender rays, unless he has first tread the moonlit paths of the desert night and endured the bitter sting of the cold winds of desolation?
Nothing will remain concealed from One who has continued faithfully upon these solitary paths. By seeking illumination without deviating from his purpose, and remaining unfettered by the shackles of fear and corruption that haunt his every step; he has probed the darkest secrets of his own heart, and he fully comprehends the meaning of the night. He has purified his own purposes upon the Earth and tempered his spirt in the fires of darkness. One who has undergone this rite of passage will one day come to a sudden realization and a keen understanding. He will finally see that the divine water, for which he has so dilligently sought these many years, lies not in the world outside, but rather it bursts forth from a spring hidden deep within himself. Amid the endless miles of barren desert, a faint trickel of water will be heard by his keen ears and following this sound, he will have found his inner spring. One who drinks deeply from this divine water will never again know thirst, and whether the world is in day or night, stormy weather or clear, his spirit will no longer be a desert, but a fertile garden; forever.
