Sermon 26

And Ayem bade the Golden Legions return to Veloth anon Almalexia, to supervise her lessons. To Nerevar she said, "Did you bite the secret syllable from the King of Rape?"

The Hortator replied, "No, for the centre was empty. I know not how Vivec came by it."

"He found it in Molag Bal for he is like liquid, ever-changing and treacherous. Yet this too, is a spiral leading to God."

"And where shall I find it?"

And Ayem, who is Mother of Mercy said, "Let us see."

She took Nerevar, her student, in hand, and led him to the eastern sea. The water became a plain of mirrored glass. Nerevar looked down.

"I see a flame-wrought man, and he is smiling."

"This is the Sharmat," said Ayem.

And Nerevar did not dare look at Ayem's reflection, for he was not prepared to behold all.

They journeyed on, to the land of snakes and snow demons.

"Why must we come so far in search of truth?" asked Nerevar.

"It is known the farther one travels for wisdom, the better-quality it is."

And Ayem led Nerevar to the Lake of Black Lotuses, and the Golden Pavilion floating at its centre.

"This is another kind of Tower," said the Hortator. And Ayem blessed him.

"Indeed, to the wise all truth is alike."

Within the Golden Pavilion lay the Devil-Tiger, emperor in exile. He welcomed the Mother and her student.

"What can you teach us?" asked Ayem.

And the Devil-Tiger cast off his snake-skin robe, displaying his stripes, which were spirals in hypostasis.

"And what else?" asked Ayem.

The Devil-Tiger danced, moving like muscled water. Nerevar watched, enthralled.

"How do I learn this art?" he asked.

The Devil-Tiger spread his arms in embrace. "Define me."

Ayem and Nerevar took up calligraphy brushes, dipped them in possibility. Nerevar started at the Devil-Tiger's centre, brush strokes long and lingering, struggling to encompass his size.

He looked at Ayem's work, frowned.

"Mistress, I see no symbols."

"I have painted within the stripes. The fool lets his body define him, determine his destiny. Here, I have made a different frame, enclosing love."

And Nerevar understood. "You have told him what he is. Now he can say what he is not."

The Hortator looked upon his own calligraphy, stark on the Devil-Tiger's pelt. He wiped it clean.

"Paint yourself into being."

Ayem's smile was the Devil-Tiger's twin.

"He is ready to dance," she said.

And the Devil-Tiger took him upon the spiral. Their limbs intertwined till they were a single being, bone soldered to bone. The Devil-Tiger crushed him close, flesh sheathing Nerevar like a scabbard. Locked together, thrust-born sweat dappled golden arms, back, the swell of masculine undoing. With a swirl of claws, a lashing of his tail, the Devil-Tiger urged Nerevar into a frenzy. Incense-musk permeated the Devil-Tiger's fur, and Nerevar inhaled it, drunk on the marks of mortality. And then, at the cry-chorused climax, the Hortator lunged forward, spear piercing the Devil-Tiger.

Nerevar kissed the wet wound he'd made. "Forgive me."

And the Devil-Tiger caressed his tears, drank them. "Fear not, I am beyond death. Come, this was only the prelude."

The whirlwind-dance rose once more. The Devil-Tiger bade Ayem join their motions. She declined, for she did not need another body to be embodied.

Their dance continued for 33 days, Ayem measuring time by rotating Kalabhaksa upon her finger. On the 33rd day, the dancers collapsed into a heap of tangled sensuality, spent.

Gnawing Nerevar's nape, the Devil-Tiger whispered these words, "PADHOMAE GHARTOOK PADHOMAE."

And in a moment of spontaneous remembrance Nerevar cried, "AE AYEM."

The Devil-Tiger purred at this lust-formed asceticism. "The dance continues inside your head. Find your own spiral."

Nerevar bit the Devil-Tiger's tongue, drawing blood. "This scar I name mine."

And the Devil-Tiger, overcome with tenderness, offered Nerevar a parting gift. Genuflecting, he licked the Hortator's spear into a more subtle shape, fit for writing love-letters to nameless deities.

"Now go," said the Devil Tiger, "Lest I grow attached."

Nerevar bowed his thanks, returning to Ayem's side.

"Did you learn the secret syllable?" she said.

And Nerevar smiled.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.