The Assembly of the Wheel

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

THE ASSEMBLY OF THE WHEEL

Or: In Argument for the World

An allegory.

Sister Amélie of the Sisterhood of the Sibylline Vine
Speaker for Kula

First Edition
Pub. serialized Tabbah 14, IY 7789.

In the style of the Kulamet.


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Book I

Part 1: In which the world is made by the King;
Part 2: In which the Wheel regards the King's creation; and,
Part 3: In which the Wheel debates the form and justifications for life.

Book II

Part 4: In which the Wheel debates the form and justifications for death;
Part 5: In which the cunning Wyrm proposes a monstrous course;
Part 6: In which the Martyrs thwart the Wyrm's designs by argument for the cycle that unifies life and death.

Book III

Part 7: In which the spurned and raging Wyrm recoils and betrays the Wheel to Pra'raj;
Part 8: In which the furious Pra'raj embodies the sun to issue a blasphemous command;
Part 9: In which B'aara defies Pra'raj's command to suffer in the Immolation.
 

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

Book I, Part 1

THE KING AND THE VOID

In long-removed antiquity, the formless void abounding shook;
For focused will drew form from naught, imposing order's first redoubt.

By word did endless night abate, by word did light then longing wake;
And spoke the King, through aeons vast, as time itself was there begat:

"This endless moment drawn about the pinpoint of our waking eye;
We sunder now by graven doom that none from now shall sure escape;
Our first command: That from our brow, each moment hence in sequence wake;
Unerring line shall hither flow, this source of sense and form we work."

The void did shudder, chang'd in ways it never had before then known;
But royal edict fixing time was not the greatest, nor the last:

"We look and wonder! We conceive, what fated shapes shall here take form:
Let eons roll, let thunder crash, let mountains rise and sundered fall!
Let caverns deep, and broad expanse of starlit sky and moon above;
Let rivers carve the valleys wide and oceans sweep our lowlands all!"

The disc did quake, for newly formed, the King's unceasing hammer fell; 
As wrought it was, a world replete, with form complete but barren still;
And spoke the King, from center-Keep, a-gleaming o'er the land about:

"We give to you, new-minted world, this form with future now to write."

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

Book I, Part 2

THE FAULT OF THE WORLD

In silence then the King withdrew to mind the landscape's shifting form;
Dividing self to contemplate the nascent, growing, cycle's course.

And with this moment, known at last, the fated shapes in union rose;
Unmoving will made animate, now waking mark'd their number, nine;
Of power all to shape the world, though not alike in form and kind;
And wondered They at all They were, and are, and ever hence would be.

So outward turned Their gaze divine to sweep and scour wid'ning world;
O'er all the disc, by questing sight, to mark the dust and thermal's flight;
Returning then, an age bygone, They found Them each a longing want;
And there at canyon's head did one among Them voice the fault:

"A long circumference I have seen;
To gaze o'er all that stands between;
This royal land. In of which We;
Shall guide through ages hence and be;
Alone to bear the weight that sounds;
This majesty that here abounds?
O weep for sorrow, tarry mirth;
If none but We should know this earth!"

And there the Mother wept Her tears, with pregnant purpose's quick'ning chime;
As all among Them gathered 'round, to shape that which would soon be Life.