Reflections on an Ultimatum

I have to honestly admit I have pissed away half of the day and I feel angry over numerous things, yet again too many to mention. Is it the anger having caused me to organize my life badly today, or is it the fact that I have organized my life badly the primary cause of my anger? Perhaps it has been my recent attempts in brutal honesty towards the people whom I so dearly love that have set this mood. I should be above this kind of crap, but still I am here, contemplating this nonsense. [I received today's mail containing the company's bills and started processing them for the purchase ledger, and found out, that I couldn't remember what date it is. Couldn't remember the month either.] From late 2004 to 2006 I made some terribly bad "calls" and those "calls" still affect my existence today. The choices presented to me then came with a price to pay like it is customary with every choice an individual makes. There is no such thing as "win-win" situation. The following quotes from the great Robert Fripp creep into mind: "The necessary is possible. The optional is expensive. The unnecessary is unlikely" "Necessity is never far from what is real." I chose the "optional" as a career choice regarding my work in the hospitality industry and "unnecessary" as a career choice in the music industry. The ventures on both fields turned out to be expensive and set goals turned out to be unlikely. I have managed to discharge many tasks in my life superbly. I am not bragging, nor am I joking. I have nearly ruined my life failing at many other tasks miserably. This is not a lament, nor a joke. All this is nothing new in itself. I believe every man has come to crossroads more than once in his existence, that is, a man who has the capacity to self-reflect. This is again something I refuse to take for granted. To continue my exercises in brutal honesty, the root of my anger is as follows: I was recently presented with an option: a choice to make. It was written in as such, perhaps intended as such. However, it was written by someone who is in no position to present me in any kind of choices. Moreover, it was presented over a matter that involves no choice whatsoever. What it actually boiled down to - an ultimatum. Had it been coming from someone I know, or someone with any kind of "authority" over anything, I might have taken heed. I actually might have taken time to reflect on it. I presented the ultimatum to my inner circle. It was treated like every other ultimatum ever presented to us: with violent derision and contempt.

Hypnos

There is a stranger in the mirror and he has a face like mine. The feeling of being detached from this world grows as the February drags along, half-buried in snow, and its dark days draining and devouring the light reflected from the cold black waters. Burned to the core for now, but certainly not broken, and with wild abandon I will resurrect, be reinstated and alive. But for the time being, I choose only to exist and existence will be sufficient enough until I have something to say, something to give and somewhere to go. For now, let me sleep for I am weary of the waves of demands, overthrowing and all encompassing. I am weary of everything. Tread lightly when you pass by my door or my window, tread lightly, and weep not for me in the morning, like a friend once wrote, for I am here, as unbounded as the infinity, in the finite world.

Until the morning, let me sleep and dream, and wake up in the light I once knew.

Vel prece vel pretio

From the rooftops of Gaudi's Cathedral saints, please, bless me, for my heart pulls south
No prayer can save me now, no such word strong enough.
I do not know what has gotten to me or what brought me here tonight,
I've got nothing to give you but my heart and the thoughts I claim as mine.

And now that image is no longer, a figure forms naturally.
When you stand besides all the nonsense, then what would you really be to me:
a portrait of a goddess, or an angel to purge my hurt,
or the closest thing to perfect in a less than a perfect world

[On the road from Madrid to Murcia, on the last minute of the last hour of May 29th 1995]

The end, my friend

Tuesday night I am working late and receive an unexpected phone-call.

no:status, as a group, is no more.

All public appearances cancelled, a video shoot cancelled, everything cancelled.
I proceed to inform the inner circle resulting stupefied reactions all around.

Utter lack of communication and understanding for one part and utter lack of empathy for the other. The needs of an individual versus the needs of the many. The lack of motivation, dedication and determination. The feeling of treachery and betrayal.

Faith lost. Credibility lost. A contract terminated.

Remembrance

"I am afraid that I am lost if I put out the candle tonight..."

Such were the words I scribbled on a piece of paper on a morning that now seems like a lifetime ago. 13 years to the day to be exact. The sun had just climbed above the Mediterranean Sea, its rays piercing the velvet darkness of the Spanish summer night and exorcising the ghosts of nightmares of yesterday. I wanted to dream and drown in that light.

The poet and fool who sat on that beach is no more. The romantic notions of the beauty of the world and the loud narcissistic views of self have been burned in the flames of hell human beings refer to as "life", or merely "existence". They have been replaced by quiet irony, a clear sense of self, and stillness and silence of mind during the darkest dreamlike journey through time and space under the shadow of the fading stars.

Yet this stillness and silence I harbor are a sequel to that same dream. My domain may be in impenetrable darkness and in the furthest corner opposing the light, but I am neverthless existing, and I exist with purpose, meaning, rhyme and reason.

The question I get asked, more than often these days, is:

"are you happy?"

Happiness is the most clever form of self-deception human ego has ever produced. It is a product of a lifelong lie that human beings wrap themselves in and produce an utopia of self-made sense of fulfilment in a self-procreated world where perception produces a reality of sorts. A reality based on how others perceive and accept the individual, the tyranny of tradition and senseless attributes such as how much a human being is "worth", the garments and gadgets one possesses, and the preposterous assumption of the aforementioned having absolute value.

What reason produces such monsters? Human beings have the ability to lie even to themselves. What started out thousands of years ago as a minor survival technique somewhere along the ruthless path of evolution has grown into a serious case of hubris. Human beings have made the deception of others in order to survive into a permanent attribute defining a large part of the interaction with the world. Lying in order to achieve something is abysmal. Lying to oneself in order to achieve something is beyond description. And what kind of wonderful by-products do we enjoy as a result of this? War, religion and other uncounted acts of terror to name a few. The very existence of laws forbidding to do all things harmful. Is there a need of a structured legal systems keeping human beings from annihilating and inflicting harm to one another? Unfortunately yes, and the worst of all, humans are taking it for granted. The human beings have accepted the fact that they are dangerous, destructive and stupid, and looking at history, they are not about to change. There has been only a few brief periods in the recorded world history in the last 5000 years when not a single sentence was given out in any court. The first one is a period recorded in Sumer and second during the second intermediate period in Egypt.

I've been told that we live in the Age of Aquarius. No, we live in the Age of Individualism, no matter what any crystal-rubbing, pot-pulling, vegetable-munching sissy of a hippie says. There is absolutely nothing wrong with individualism per se, only how human beings instantiate it.
With individualism comes individual responsibility and not many beings can carry that weight.
You cannot be an individualist and hand out the responsibility of your actions, and the reaction they instigate, to anyone but yourself. Not even the tiniest fraction of it. The pinnacle of human stupidity, religion, has changed as a result of the Age of Individualism. The attempts of reaching the divine and taking part in any given godhead has become more audacious and even more laced with galactic proportions of self-deception. Ritual magick, the various forms of modern witchcraft, the majority of the new age cults and urban shamanism all embody the premise of altering the surrounding world with thought and will, acting as medium of supernatural powers, and in some cases, acting out divine will. I have not met a single human being with whom I would trust the keys of time and space, and with whom I would trust the fate of this world. It is a monumental statement of the ego to be able to say that "I can change this world with my will". And what would you do with it, you puny mortal? Would you change things as you see fit? Would you stop hunger, injustice, suffering and hate? Would you bring fulfilment, justice, freedom and balance? No, you would do "love spells", "talk to spirits" and "conjure metaphysical entities". You would use "the mystical energies of the universe". You would engage in a fruitless conversation with your own ego, your god, underpinning your self-esteem while entertaining yourself with entities to which you have given birth in your own imagination.

In days of the ancients Lord Sabaoth said: "I am Lord, your fucking GOD" and that was that. Now we have a bunch of teenagers dressed in black H&M rags and wearing crappy jewelry wanting to be gods or goddesses. Oh dear.

With the words of the great Thomas Gabriel Fischer:

"If this is creation, I feel misplaced".

1st chapter

"It was a land of strange gods," Fara said as he leaned back in a chair and exhaled a cloud of blue and grey smoke. The figures around the round table had just finished late supper. Six they were, as they had always been. Six, the mystical number, which they called Qwe, The Symbol of Life. You see, for a council there had to be six present. You could always palaver in a smaller group, but for a proper council there had to be six. The council room was round, roughly 40 ancient feet across, two storeys high and on the level of the second floor there was a balcony circling around the room. The walls were decorated with paintings and ornaments telling the tales of their people and how they perceived the world. The most striking piece of art, however, was on the northern side of wall. Above the entrance, etched on the white wall, were the tall figures of the two Daelan: Paehpa and Kaetya. Each of them were holding a book and together they held the third. It was said that if one understood what was written in those books, it would bring a worthy being the key of understanding the essence of universe, light and life itself, but to the weak it would be a journey to eternal madness, and to the ignorant and stupid they would simply mean "not a damn thing", as Fara often liked to point out. The look on the two Daelan's faces was solemn, understanding and wise, but their eyes burned with eternal fire originating from a time when there was no time. The roof of the balcony was supported by eight pillars made of stone and there, hiding behind the nothern pillar, was Sola. He had been sneaking up there as long as he remembered. When his grandfather would summon a council, he would climb up there before they started supper and would listen the elder discuss, rant and rave about all things. He loved to hear Fara's stories about his travels, about the times long forgotten, of rise and fall of civilisations, of science and profound wisdom and truth. His favorite stories altogether were about the origin of their own kind "on this Thoth-forsaken pile of rock". Fara, of course, knew that his rascal of a grandson would eavesdrop every time he got a chance to do so, but he reasoned that it was a good thing that a boy his age was showing great interest in things he thought important. It was not uncommon among their kind that children were very gifted at a very young age, but despite the happy-go-lucky surface of the boy there was a serious and bright beginning of a man. That was mainly because Sola's father, Fara's only son, was very practical. A gifter healer he was and very highly respected in their realm but he had never really showed any kind of interest in things Fara thought were worth investigating and discussing. They had not much to say to one another. Sola had inherited at least some patience and practicality from his father and in an age like this it was not a bad thing. Fara thought the combination of qualities on that boy were just in balance.

"Ah yes, the land of strange gods," Fara repeated while pouring auburn spirit distilled from green apples into a tiny chrystal glass.

"After four days in the great open we saw land. The sailors were greatly nervous and obviously they wanted to turn the vessel around and sail to the south again with the strong northern wind on their back. They had heard of the legend of the great Fungus that had laid the land ahead to ruin. The legend said that there would be nothing but the Otto hovering through the air silently seeking for the dying. The Otto by the thousands, their tentacles spinning slowly while they dragged through the wasteland, their dark gigantic figures towering over dead trees. No one would be able to penetrate the shield made by those creatures. The land was completely sealed and not even the strongest seer among us could glimpse over the barrier. We would have to go there ourselves to see what was lurking in the cold shadows of that arctic waste. Oh, we were, and we still are, considered lunatics for attempting such thing. Everyone that had ever tried to solve the secret of the nothern waste had never returned. Their ships would have been found anchored ten miles from the shore abandoned and empty. The others would have returned home to report that the men that had entered the land had never returned. But there it was before us, the shoreline of once a great nation and somewhere in there would be the lost city of Atlanta. I was standing in the bow of the ship when I heard the captain give the order to lower the anchor. I turned around to see the great white sails drop from the masts and flutter in the wind. That would be the closest to the shoreline the captain would steer the vessel. Nine miles I figured it was. Our belongings were already packed and stored in smaller boats on each side of the the ship, and the sailors started to lower the boats into the water. The sea was not as half as restless as it had been in the great open waters but the crew had a hard time keeping the boats steady while we climbed into them. No one said a word. The wind howled in the ropes and in the corners of the cabin, and the ocean's heavy breathing surrounded us. For some reason there was no need for idle and unnecessary blabbering of mouth. After great effort we were able to push the boats from the sides of great ship and started to navigate towards the shore. The cold wind that blew from the wasteland drove sand and ice to greet us with needles and pins. We were covered from head to toe with fur, even the heavy boots were laced with it to keep the cold from getting to our bodies. There was something very wrong with the wind. It felt alive with strange substance and vibration. It seemed unnatural, almost like an anomaly. It was from this world but yet did not belong to it and carried words and whispers unknown to me. It was broken."

"After hours of fighting against the angry wind we were finally carried to the shore, and with the breaking waves we would crash to the beach that was of grey sand and ice. Four of us were dragging the boats out of the water and while the most skilled at boatmanship were taking the sails down. After final fight with the unwelcome wind, whose only and unholy purpose seemed to be driving us off the land, we composed ourselves. That was when Miela the Seer broke the silence and said: "It is empty. It is gone."
I understood as I had realized the same thing the minute we landed. The barrier of the Otto was gone. There was nothing. "So, that's why I couldn't see anything, because there's nothing to see!", she continued. We had climbed up to the first grey dune to see the dead land. The dunes seemed to continue forever. There was no landmark in sight. Somewhere in the distance the empty landscape met the ash sky. Bearing a little to the north-east a thunder moved through the land traveling at great speed spitting green and red lightning upon its path, and in it's wake, a colossal rain followed and the rain seemed as black as night. I was amazed to see a thunderstorm in a land that seemed to be eternally frozen. There was indeed something very wrong here. The seven of us stood mesmerized looking at the nothingness. Each one of us tried to find something, anything. It was Miela, may she be eternally blessed for her skills, who finally recognized something in the distance. After much cursing, and loading up our suppies, off we went. Up and down, up and down, dune after dune. After hours of walking we couldn't hear the waves anymore. It was only our heavy breathing, heartbeat and the angry breeze that rang in our ears, and I was trying my best to understand the cries it carried. After a time which seemed forever we finally stood yet upon a dune, but this time looking down to a small abandoned settlement. The houses, or what was left of them, were simple and humble. Farm houses had they once been, I think. With a nod to each other we went to our separate ways out to investigate the houses. Most of them were only skeletons that hardly resembled buildings. Yet again nothing recognizable, only dust and forgotten tales. We started approaching the house that seemed biggest of them all. It even had the wall facing east still standing. Only twenty feet from the house we spotted a thing on the ground. Besides the ruins, it was the first man made thing we came across."

"The artefacts we found were most peculiar. A necklace we discovered at first, very primitive it was and made from that yellow soft metal, Gold, they used to mine inside the great mountains. The pendant was shaped like two sticks joined together in the middle, but a little further, almost buried to the ground, we found an object made
of hard wood, similar in shape, but it was over 10 feet tall..."

His voice trailed off while the others concentrated on the thought he gave forth for them to see and feel.

"Oh well," interrupted Angelos, "they probably nailed some poor bastard into it and worshipped him as a god for a few hundred years."

They all roared with laughter.

When the laughter settled, Fara looked at his companions, cleared his throath and continued:

"Well, in fact, the bigger artifact had nails hammered to it, four in all. Two for the feet and two for the hands. I got some sense by touching it."
The others stared at Fara in disbelief.

"I refuse to believe this," Shamias was the first to speak up. "We all know that the primitive men were savages and murderous beasts, but to torture someone like that..."

"Yes, yes," Esarion cut in, "the primitive men were capable of things that are to this day and age an absolute horror, but if they shedded blood, and probably innocent blood it was, would it be logical to think that in their dark rituals they brought something to this world that caused the Fungus to awaken? Has it not been a known fact,
and for tens of thousands of years, that during blood rituals, darkness enters this realm eating away the light?"

Fara weighted his words carefully until the train of thought had fully composed in his mind's eye and spoke:

"I do not think that the primitive men understood the consequences of their actions simply because too much evidence speaks against it. During this last travel to the north I am finally beginning to comprehend that they were mere blind sheep facing the world of darkness in candlelight. They were learning to live here and their attempt at art of life and living was feeble, even poor. For causes we do not yet know, it ended when the Great Fungus blew that candle out. At the ruined village I finally got some sense of what the wind was trying to tell us. I couldn't understand literally the things it spoke of, but the visions of destruction and pain it send were almost too much to bear for a mortal. As for another revelation, I firmly believe that this artifact is connected to legend of the faceless god who sacrificed his only son..."

"What kind of god would kill his only heir?" Angelos croaked, his voice trembling in disgust. "I mean, this tribe of troglodytes has been wiped from the face of our mother goddess forever and I beginning to see why. Coward for a god as their guiding star and bloody rites as their past time..."

Fara smiled at his friends and they looked back at him. The cunning smile meant that Fara, yet again, knew something the others didn't, and was waiting for the appropriate moment to deliver the punchline.

"The legend of the faceless god has everything to do with the beginning of our time and era in this realm. And no, I refuse any comments, I beg you, until I have finished.
As we are all aware, there is a part of this world's history wiped out of existense, wiped out of time. Hundreds of councils have tried to look back in time to discover what was lost. Not one has succeeded. We have only feeble traces in the soil and in the wind for nature renews itself as has been written. We have strange legends, myths and stories carried down from generations and yet no one has ever made any sense to their true meaning. We are forbidden to see the fate of the past empires. Now, of course, it would be logical to think that all beings should learn from their mistakes and the mistakes of others, right? What can be so malevolent and evil that the Lords from the cycle beyond us erase a thousands of years of history into oblivion? The wind in the north whispered horrors that almost reduced me to tears! What is the reason that made the Seven Lords intervene? It is because we wanted to. We asked for it! Let me assure you, dear friends, I believe this is not the first time it has happened. The space-time, like everything in this creation, naturally seeks balance, though the principle of vibration may make it seem like chaotic at first glance. Every catastrophe and disaster in nature comes from the sole need of stability. This process is sometimes aided, if you will, by forces that are not of this time. This is the reason the old legends sometimes refer to these cataclysmic events as the wrath of god or gods. In a primitive way they are absolutely right! But an explanation like that escapes the reason and meaning therein! Not every quaking of the land and sea is such event. It is our task, if anyone's, to find the reason and meaning, and separate the truth from the legend. What is very obvious, of course, that the ancients did not know how such feats are done, for they had no knowledge of such. We do. We know how this realm is composed and how it connects with other realms. We are able to see the creation and all its aspects in their full glory. We bear witness and we understand. Our participation to the world is higher that those who came before. The ancients probably didn't even know what was inside an atom and if they did, what did they truly see? Did they disect it to the tiniest bits their iron age instruments allowed? Did they hear, see and understand? No, they didn't. As for the era of the faceless god, that is when our time started, two thousand years give or take, I'd say."

There it was, the punchline they all had been waiting for. It was so like Fara. A monstrous monologue followed by a tiny remark that actually meant everything. Not always were the lecture and the punchline about the same subject, but one could learn a lot from those bursts of thoughts given forth. You could actually see and feel what Fara was saying. His train of thought flew from him as images and emotions, filling the room, as he wrote them in his mind on an universal language the listener could interprete. The ancients called this telepathy, the power to mentally send a form of writing and receive it. Everyone among their kind had this ability but Fara was the true master. You have to understand that not all wanted to use this gift and they shielded themselves with great care against it. Imagine someone sending you images and emotions you don't want to see. Naturally, all their young ones were shielded against it and the ability actually had to be awakened in their early adulthood. An ability like that was a highly dangerous one and came with great responsibility. The council was silent. The men around the table were brave enough to be quiet when any word would do. Slowly their minds digested everything that had been said before. Fara eyed around the table and started filling the empty glasses. He thought his companions needed some time to ponder the thoughts he had presented. Finally Angelos spoke up:

"Our host's, Fara's, brave attempt to unravel the mystery of the northern waste has brought us most valuable information and knowledge, but I feel, and I believe I can speak for the rest of council as well, that we should keep a lid on this and tightly."

"And this is because...?" Fara asked with a faint smile on his face.

"Fara, please, we all are aware of your constant, and even self-destructive, need to harass the Grand Council," Angelos said and sounded rather tiresome.
"We all, including you, are in a position where we have to be taken seriously. I know you loathe the Grand Council and I sure know that when you get a chance to show your superiority, and make complete asses out of them, you will not miss out the opportunity. This time it has to wait! The scientific work our council has done for the past fifty years has made a tremendous difference in how our kind perceive the world. After finding the key to understand the script of how the entire cosmos is constructed, and after rushing it to the public, and after realizing that the Grand Council had been holding the same knowledge to themselves for gods know how long, we are not too popular over there. It was then you who decided to publicly humiliate them and to rock the boat to the point it almost tipped over. Our entire society is constructed upon balance. It has been constructed after the same principle holding the space-time together. Think of the consequenses and think of your responsibility. We do not have laws forbidding doing things. We build upon what is right, what is good and what is true. The last religious cult seen here was driven out of our nation ten generations ago after their conspiracy against the Great Council, and I fear the the Grand Council is planning to do the same with us."

Fara lowered his head and gazed at the table. Slowly he raised his head again and spoke:

"The Grand Council acts upon fear. We all remember a time when the Grand Council was the home of the bravest and truest in nation. Now the little princess and princesses have started to think that they have all this hidden knowledge, and that must mean power, and that means to rule over people. The history repeats itself again. You said, Angelos, that our society is based on balance. Well, there can be no balance when there's secrets. The Grand Council have started to think that they are, if not gods, but small deities. That is strictly forbidden from men. We are not gods, not even their faint shadows, nor we shall ever be in this realm, and to think otherwise is utter madness. The most disturbing thing here is that they believe they are representing the entire nation, and that they are acting on the nation's best interest. They think they have the divine right to rule over our land after they discovered the Script of All. I bet they are trying feverishly to find the key to alter the code to create something new. Don't you see that they are no better than the savages that roamed the land during the times of the faceless one? They are so drunk on their newly found might that they have forgotten what is good, right and true. Without the primary three there can be no kindness, beauty and truth. All I see is selfishness, ugliness and deceit in the Council!"

Fara gazed around with a fierce, almost manic, look in his eyes. The council had witnessed the same thing dozens of times during the five decades they had gathered. It was Fara against the world. A curious man he was, he feared not the living and paid no respect to the dead. "I shall meet them once again on the other side and until that day it makes no bleeding difference whether I go piss at their graves or not", he had once declared. Diplomacy was a very foreign concept to him. "I shall mean what I say and say whatever I please until the day my travels in this hellhole of a planet are through, and after that I shall be sitting on your shoulders like a ghost sending obscene images and filthy whispers to your ears until you are committed to the temple to have the insides of your heads removed at your own request!", he had shouted in front of the Grand Council in one of their biggest brawls. That had to be one of the most serious curses their kind had ever heard, and that coming from Fara, one would do very well in not arguing back.

Fara poured yet another glass of apple spirit. He lit his pipe carefully and adressed the rest of Council of Six with the kind of mild tone that could mean he was yet completely losing it, or that he had lost most of bad temper and wanted the conversation to flow in a peaceful manner again:

"The truth is that I am tired. I cannot see the fate of this world anymore which must mean my time here is almost spend. I have lived way too long in this realm and I see a new generation making the same mistakes our ancestors once did. Once I thought that the bright young ones would outwit and amaze us with new ideas and inventions. Oh, how much I loathe to admit that I was wrong. The golden age has passed. Our young ones dwell in the lap of luxury and their primary concern is maintaining a state of enjoyment. I agree, though, the ways to do such nowadays are not so decadent they once were, but still, our fellow men have grown lazy and laziness produces nothing but more laziness and decadence. It seems that men will truly shine in the situations where they are facing changes in a massive scale, or something else which could possibly mean the total annihilation of the entire race. Then, and only then, they are quick upon their feet as they are with their minds. There is only one exception to the rule. It is competition, whether coming from an impulse outside, or from deep within, resulting a rapid reaction. The Grand Council sees us as competition. They will be quick upon their feet to come knocking our gates and shields down if we even more than sneeze the wrong way at their direction. As much as I would love to see them do that mistake, giving me the chance to send them all back to the furthest corners of the abyss from where they once crawled out, too much is at risk here. That only means you, my good friends, you are absolutely right in your argument in investigating this matter quietly and away from the public eye."

Shamias was quick to answer with good humoured mockery in his voice: "Eternally blessed are the Shining Ones! Our most generous host is going to shut his piehole at least once during this century. We are going to have to draw a Qwe to the kitchen wall that the future generations remember this most blessed day."

They giggled like young girls for a good while before Fara was able to pull a straight face and continue:

"The task of summoning the Council of Six has always been the duty of my family. This shall be the last one I shall ever call together. I have chosen my successor and
he shall take the responsibility of summoning the council from hence forth, and when his time given here has almost been spent, he shall choose the next summoner.
Sola, come out! I know you are hiding there, my boy!"

Seconds later they saw a mop of black hair appearing from the balcony above. The look on Sola's face was a mixture of the shame of being caught and amazement in one. It had been a while since the rest of the elders had seen Sola. He had grown to his full height, a little over six feet three, and his face, which had been round like the moon when he was a child, had narrowed a great deal. The most striking thing in his face was his eyes: they were dark, almost black, and circling the iris in both was narrow uneven white ring. Looking him in the eyes was like gazing into two eclipses. Fara picked up a red fruit from the table and tossed it up to the second floor. Sola caught it with his right hand without effort.

"You have been up there for hours without eating," said Fara. "Should I throw the rest of the chicken there as well? It's good, you know."
The old man and the boy exchanged a grin.

"Now, Sola, I am sure you remember everyone here: my cousin Lord Angelos, Lord Shamias from the Trade Council, Lord Tyrus from the Southern Fleet
and General Manager Esarion from the Temple Institute."
Each member greeted Sola with a nod when their name was called.

"Now, my boy, meet me in the tower in half an hour, I need to have a word with you.
The responsibility bestowed upon your shoulders from now on needs discussing.
Go now, get some refreshments and get ready. I shall see you soon."
They heard a door close quietly upstairs.

Lord Tyrus, who had been sitting quiet for the better part of the evening, stood up and began pacing around the room. The others new that Tyrus didn't like dry land after spending decades at the sea. He called the great waters of the world "my first and only true love, my home and my downfall". He was the only member of the council who had seen anything that resembled war. He had many visible souvenirs from the skirmishes he had been involved around the world. On the left side of his face, starting above his left eye, crossing the eyelid and running down his cheek, was a scar made by a savage with a blade and dozens of other cuts were scattered around his body. The team of healers that traveled with the Southern Fleet said that he had so many bullets and arrowheads still lodged inside his body that if dropped to the water he would sink like a stone. His full head of hair was silver and it was tied to the back of his head multiple platinum rings. His jaw was strong, signaling uttermost determination, and his nose was straight, perhaps a little too wide to the rest of his oval face. His eyes were like cold steel, grey with a shade of light blue. The electric blue robes he wore were decorated with complex ornaments telling both friend and foe that he was a lord. Needless to say he was fierce when facing a battle, and like all soldiers, what he lacked in tactical skills, he made up in superior firepower and brute force. This didn't mean that he was somehow simple, far from it. The sophisticated creature he was ashore, and during peace, would transmute into 200 pounds of pure rage in a battlefield. One has to understand that the world had not seen not more than local power struggles and border fights during the past five-hundred years. Those who had adopted the path of the warrior didn't actually fight that much. The ancient civilisations had much trouble with the troops had started to be restless at home during the long lasting periods of peace. What are you going to do with thousands of men trained to kill after years of doing what they do best? Tell them to go lighten up? Much of the ancient wars had started when the soldiers were starting to brew trouble at home. Oh well, let's find another part of the planet where we can set these maniacs loose. And next, the entire world? Alexander the Great, anyone? Lord Tyrus was grateful that the mankind had evolved.

His position was very difficult one. He had to show obedience and respect to the Grand Council, and yet at the same time, he could not have cared less about their opinion in just about anything. His rank would be stripped from him faster than anyone could say "Qwe" if the Grand Council had any suspicion he was part of something that didn't fit their perception of how things are done. He had a faint idea what Fara was about to ask from him and it did trouble him a great deal. Tyrus didn't like Fara very much and of this Fara was very aware. Still, they both had been part of something they both held close and precious, and their fates had been intertwined to serve a greater purpose than what they liked or disliked about one another. There was no room for petty quarrel in the Council of Six.
The last dialogue between the Hermit and the King of Swords was about to begin. Fara waited for Tyrus to speak. After much consideration he finally did:

"Lord Fara, I shall not be the guardian of the young one and neither shall I be his stable boy providing suitable transportation where ever the little master wants to roam."

"You don't have to, Lord Tyrus," Fara answered. He pronounced the word "lord" with as much mockery as he possibly could. They never used their titles except when arguing over something.
"All you need to do is give him a lift, if you will. He shall find his way from there on, I am sure of that. It is crucial to the mission that he gets to the first waypoint in one piece."

Tyrus knew that this was a battle he was bound to lose, but he decided to continue despite the outcome.
"Fara, I cannot use the Southern Fleet vessels as hired merchant boats. You know this as well as I do. The Grand Council will go through every practice plan I draw, and they will investigate every crate of supplements and cargo, not to mention that they go through the crewlistings. No, I shall not go North. That's final, thank you."

"Dear Tyrus," Fara said like talking to an infant, "I never mentioned anything about going North."

"But I assumed..." Tyrus was surprised but at the same time he was very reserved. He couldn't see from where the wind was blowing.

"Do not assume. I need you to take him south and then west. After he reaches the land of Khem, you and your merry sailors can go play war again where ever the Grand Council asks you to. I hope Sola succeeds in something I failed. He needs to find the River Fortress."

"This is madness," Tyrus spat out. He was visibly at the verge of anger. "The River Fortress, why, do you think that a boy in his late teens would possibly find something you have spent your entire life looking for? The Fortress, or what could possibly be left of it, is located either very close to the Southern Barrier, or worse, it might be somewhere beyond it." Tyrus walked across the room until he was at the part of the wall facing east. There was a large map of their world painted to the wall. He tapped a part of the map with his index finger as if to make his point even clearer and continued: "If the fortress is beyond the Barrier they are virtually blind when they cross it and worse, the land there is very hard to travel, since it's mostly nothing but thick forest after forest. The whole area is impossible even for the light scouts."

"You are supposed to leave south within a week or so. It's true, is it not?" Fara asked. "Do not trouble your weary head if the boy and his companions find the Fortress. They will."

Angelos had been listening the conversation looking rather uneasy and when he saw an opportunity to interrupt, he seized the moment:
"Fara, you are once again playing games here. I do not doubt your innervision, but would you be kind enough to enlighten us in this matter. It seems clear that you still are not telling us everything. You've had your good reasons not to tell certain things about your latter travels, but do I really have to remind you that this is the last council?"

Fara looked at his cousin with whom he had made all his travels until his health had started fail. Fara looked everyone present in the eyes, then he looked at the door, and back again. While he kept gazing around the room in silence he brought forth a clear vision that read "quiet now, we've been watched". The men in the room understood and were amazed that someone had penetrated Fara's shield. They were more than amazed when Fara produced an image of the one watching them. A being not of this time and certainly not of this world. The image was faint and blurred at the edges. The being was holding back his identity. He brought fort yet another image. It seemed clouded at first, but after a while it cleared a good bit. In a room there was a hooded figure with his eyes closed. Suddenly it was gone.
Fara lowered his voice to a whisper and said, "There's a breach in here, in this time and place, and the nameless one, observing us from a place outside time gave the warning. It seems the Grand Council has recruited more skilled henchmen lately."

"How much have they heard of this conversation?" Tyrus asked quietly.
"I let them heard the part where I disrespected them," Fara said under his breath obviously very pleased with himself, "but, I can't be sure now. There are even more minds looking at this very spot now and it is getting very difficult to keep them out."
"But why can't we see or feel them?" Shamias asked, looking like a living question mark.
"They are concentrating in the readings they get from me," Fara said and added, "In order the get some sort of sense what is going on in here, they are going to have to knock me and my defenses completely down."
"How much time do we have?" Esarion asked.
Fara was quick to answer: "Enough, I think. The nameless one is helping me out now. Tyrus, I need you to pick up Sola and his party from the Thunderhead Point two weeks from now on. They shall travel by foot there. Miela the Seer is going with them as she has agreed to help. Shamias and Angelos, I need you to prepare the necessary documents they need for travel and these documents are needed the day after tomorrow. Esarion, have you prepared the order I placed before I left north?"
Esarion smiled and said: "Why certainly, it shall be on your doorstep tomorrow."
Fara turned to face Tyrus who was still standing by the large map. "Can you do this one last favour for me?"
Tyrus bit his lip and crossed his arms on his chest. "I do not like this, Fara, not one bit, but I shall do as you ask. I suppose I can make a quick stop at Thunderhead before heading south to patrol."
Tyrus understood that he wouldn't have to take the travellers aboard his ship, Nauclerus, while at the port. While he trusted his men with his life when facing a battle, there was always a possibility there was someone among his crew who was reporting to the Grand Council. If the word got out that he was carrying civilians across the globe, there would be hell to pay upon his return to port.

Fara seemed to age in front of their eyes. Holding up the sphere where they had been in during the evening was getting too much for him under the pressure coming from outside the walls. With a sigh he let go and for a moment they felt the violent mental attack pour into the room. It soon dissolved since the attackers didn't have anything to concentrate their minds after the sphere fell. The rest of the Council of Six stood up and the men walked out of the room without saying a word.