Post by Dominion of Zabéara on Mar 27, 2014 19:33:34 GMT
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun of the first line stood in the centre of the great circular hall, illuminated by an unlocatable source that also revealed the great blocks of stonework that formed its walls as well as the great audience surrounding him. Sitting above him on a great platform hewed from the same dark stone as the floor and walls were a panel of Xin’hala, deliberating amongst themselves.
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun looked towards them silently. It was here his fate and that of his kin would be decided.
The panel stopped deliberating and turned in unison to him. One spoke: “You have now undergone three torture cycles, yet you still refuse to acknowledge the fallacy of your ways?”
“Correct.” Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun chirped dryly in the quick-paced, high-pitched Xin’hala tongue.
“Please communicate for the audience in attendance your views, briefly.”
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun spoke without thinking, for it had been a line of thought that had been with him for a long time, one he had painfully grappled with himself in silence and openly with others.
“The Abstracted Icon and the guardians are in error. There is no ultimate telos. Any Edifice is finite and doomed ultimately to destruction, perhaps followed by rebirth. All attempts at teological transcendence of contradictions is doomed to perpetuate an eternal recurrence of the contradictions.”
Dead silence in the great hall.
At length the panel head spoke:
“We have brought our greatest thinkers to persuade you otherwise, and you have rejected their reasoning. We have brought your friends and family to plead with you to see reason, and you have spurned them. We have resorted to torture, and yet you refuse to yield.”
The panel head glanced left and right to his stone-faced and virtually unmoving co-panelists, before inhaling greatly and speaking once more:
“Do you deny that the Universal Edifice is your parent, that created you, nurtured your growth and fostered your very life?
“I do not. I am of the Edifice and I loyally pledge my life to it.”
Then you are given a choice. Despite the Universal Edifice’s love for all Xin’hala, your ideas have spread to far: too many have answered the call of your notion of an “eternal recurrence.” You must be expunged from the body. Yet at the same time you are of the body. Thus choose for you and your followers: Execution, or exile.”
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun hesitated. “Exile?”
“Yes.” The head panelist replied. You and your followers would be exiled to settled a distant world, far from Khara-Khum, where you could continue to follow your Idea, but forever forbidden from leaving that world. In settling that world, you shall establish a supply base, a forward area of operations in the frontier with the Humans who call their Edifice a “Trade Company”, that will serve the health and spirit-projection of the Universal Edifice. Even in your Ideational sickness, you would serve your parent.”
The idea of exile stung Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun like a stab in the thorax. To never see the wonderful deserts of his homeland, to never wander the known tunnels of his home nest; truly a terrible fate. But looking upon and imagining the many faces of his followers, those who embraced his radical Idea, he knew there was only once choice.
“I accept exile. May the Edifice send us where we may serve it best in our punishment.”
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun looked towards them silently. It was here his fate and that of his kin would be decided.
The panel stopped deliberating and turned in unison to him. One spoke: “You have now undergone three torture cycles, yet you still refuse to acknowledge the fallacy of your ways?”
“Correct.” Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun chirped dryly in the quick-paced, high-pitched Xin’hala tongue.
“Please communicate for the audience in attendance your views, briefly.”
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun spoke without thinking, for it had been a line of thought that had been with him for a long time, one he had painfully grappled with himself in silence and openly with others.
“The Abstracted Icon and the guardians are in error. There is no ultimate telos. Any Edifice is finite and doomed ultimately to destruction, perhaps followed by rebirth. All attempts at teological transcendence of contradictions is doomed to perpetuate an eternal recurrence of the contradictions.”
Dead silence in the great hall.
At length the panel head spoke:
“We have brought our greatest thinkers to persuade you otherwise, and you have rejected their reasoning. We have brought your friends and family to plead with you to see reason, and you have spurned them. We have resorted to torture, and yet you refuse to yield.”
The panel head glanced left and right to his stone-faced and virtually unmoving co-panelists, before inhaling greatly and speaking once more:
“Do you deny that the Universal Edifice is your parent, that created you, nurtured your growth and fostered your very life?
“I do not. I am of the Edifice and I loyally pledge my life to it.”
Then you are given a choice. Despite the Universal Edifice’s love for all Xin’hala, your ideas have spread to far: too many have answered the call of your notion of an “eternal recurrence.” You must be expunged from the body. Yet at the same time you are of the body. Thus choose for you and your followers: Execution, or exile.”
Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun hesitated. “Exile?”
“Yes.” The head panelist replied. You and your followers would be exiled to settled a distant world, far from Khara-Khum, where you could continue to follow your Idea, but forever forbidden from leaving that world. In settling that world, you shall establish a supply base, a forward area of operations in the frontier with the Humans who call their Edifice a “Trade Company”, that will serve the health and spirit-projection of the Universal Edifice. Even in your Ideational sickness, you would serve your parent.”
The idea of exile stung Kantuzzilin Karagamiz n’ehhun like a stab in the thorax. To never see the wonderful deserts of his homeland, to never wander the known tunnels of his home nest; truly a terrible fate. But looking upon and imagining the many faces of his followers, those who embraced his radical Idea, he knew there was only once choice.
“I accept exile. May the Edifice send us where we may serve it best in our punishment.”