"I have gazed into the Omniscience, and it has gazed into me."
Purist Thunderwrath was a hard-fighting, road-worn, deeply committed
knight, sworn to the order in which he had grown up as squire to elder
knights of great reputation. He had spent his entire life in the service
of the Omniscience, the All Seeing One. Theirs was a holy struggle, and
so embedded was he in his duty that he never questioned it so long as
he had the strength to fight and the impetuous valor that comes with
youth. But over the long years of the crusade, as his elders passed away
and were buried in sorry graves at the side of muddy tracks, as his
bond-brothers fell in battle to uncouth creatures that refused to bow to
the Omniscience, as his own squires were chewed away by ambush and
plague and bad water, he began to question the meaning of his vows--the
meaning of the whole crusade. After deep meditation, he parted ways with
his army and commenced a long trek back to the cave-riddled cliffs of
Emauracus, and there he set a challenge to the priests of the
Omniscience. No knight had ever questioned them before, and they tried
to throw him into the pit of sacrifice, but Purist would not be moved.
For as he faced them down, he began to glow with a holy light, and they
saw that the Omniscience had chosen to reveal Itself to him. The Elder
Hierophant led him on a journey of weeks down into the deepest chamber,
the holy of holies, where waited not some abstract concept of wisdom and
insight, not some carved relic requiring an injection of imagination to
believe in, but the old one itself. It had not merely dwelt in those
rocks for billions of aeons; no, It had created them. The Omniscience
had formed the immense mineral shell of the planet around itself, as a
defense against the numerous terrors of space. Thus the All Seeing One
claimed to have created the world, and given the other truths revealed
to Purist on that day, the knight had no reason to refute the story.
Perhaps the Omniscience is a liar, deep in its prison of stone, and not
the world's creator at all, but Omniknight never again questioned his
faith. His campaign had meaning at last. And there can be no question
that the glorious powers that imbue him, and give his companions such
strength in battle, are real beyond any doubt.
No comments:
Post a Comment