Sermon 21
Then did Ayem and the Hortator, her servant, come to the city of Muat, anon Necrom. Its white walls rose like the crowns of waves. From its dreaming spires flew banners proclaiming the names of the honoured dead. Since the war with the Northern men, many names glistened like fresh ink-wounds.
"What is my purpose here?" said Ayem.
And Nerevar slapped her across the face.
"A wise retort," she said. "But I say this for the benefit of the blind."
Nerevar bowed. "Your mercy is boundless. A great evil eats at Muat's heart. The dead rise, demanding satisfaction."
And Ayem knew this, but needed it to be said.
"Walk behind me, Hortator."
They entered the city, still, silent. The breathing citizens hid in the hills and mountains. Ayem led Nerevar into moisture-slick catacombs. Skulls lined the walls, sockets set with lapis lazuli. Ayem walked till she came to a great hall, vaulted like the heavens, strung with starlight.
And there, upon a ribbed throne, sat a diamond-boned husk, face leafed in gold, onyx-eyed.
"Who comes to the Hall of the Pale King?" it said, voice a stream of dust.
"I am love," said Ayem.
The Pale King's laugh was a bone-rattle. "Love did not save us! We loved our wives, our country, our selves, yet here we lie! Choking on blood, screaming our agony, where was love to comfort us?"
And at this a great sigh filled the Hall. From alcoves hiving the wall emerged the unquiet dead, a multitude, pressing close.
Nerevar drew his blade, ready to defend his Mother.
"Fool!" cried the Pale King. "We are dead. You cannot cleave the spirit."
"What do you seek?" asked Ayem.
"We shall scour the life from the land! The ungrateful living who sent us to die, for what? Let them see the price of their folly, paid in the wailing of widows."
"Do not cling to me," said Ayem. "You are free of suffering."
"But what was its purpose? When I lived 'neath the sun, I was a proud man, skilled in arms, admired, desired. Now I am empty, struck down by a stray arrow flung from a coward's bow. My brother-soldiers trampled me into the earth, and I died coughing up dirt and offal. Where is love in this?"
And the multitude of spirits took up the cry, "Where is love? Where is love?" Their rage steamed, froze, fell to the ground as splinters.
Nerevar said, "Mistress, how do we contend with this?"
"Turn from me, Hortator."
He obeyed, shielding his face
Ayem threw off her cloak.
"It is here, and ever was."
The light of Ayem's third eye was searing clarity. The dead were overcome with great ecstasy. They whirled, howling in hundreds of languages:
Mother of Mercy, Thee who are supreme,
Deliver us from the stream of remembrance.
Make of Thy body a chalice to contain,
The assemblies of heaven and hell.
In Thee we find the death of all sin.
Thee, who are a stave in the spokes
Of kalpa's wheel.
Grind time to stillness,
And offer to Thy tattered servants,
The extinction of the self.
And the Pale King gnashed his teeth at this rapture.
"Mother of illusions! You mislead them. This is not love but mere attachment."
Nerevar did raise his blade at this. "You deny the world its comfort!"
He charged at the Pale King, and his love for the Mother transfigured him into a being of living fire. His path split the tapestry of time, Nerevar skewered the Pale King upon his blade, which was no longer a sword but the essence of a sword.
"You do not answer my challenge!" cried the Pale King. "This is sophistry."
And Nerevar-named-Hortator cast the Pale King into time's mouth, cursing. Swiftly did Ayem stitch up this wound. Yet some spirit-flesh remained, and from this excess reality Ayem shaped a secret.
A fanged chakram, star-edged. Ayem raised her weapon aloft, naming it KALABHAKSA, Time-Devourer. Ayem spun Kalabhaksa, drawing in the unquiet dead, engulfing them. She severed their earthly attachments, dispersed their dust.
The bones lay silent, only Nerevar breathed.
He knelt before his mistress.
"Thus does love conquer death," he said.
And Ayem said nothing, for this was good enough.
The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.