ascahna’shoreshik
Sermon Twenty
he first monster was actually two, having been born twice like his mother-father, Vivec.
²He was not the mightiest of the eight to escape Muatra, but his actions were the most worrisome.
³He was known as Moon Axle, and he harvested the leftover foibles of nature.
⁴This he did twice, as was said, and the second harvest always brought ruin or unwritten law.
⁵His aspect was faceted like a polyhedron.
⁶No perils are mentioned in the finding of Moon Axle, but it was known that he was immune to spears, so Vivec had to use the sword not held against him. ⁷Before he took issue with the monster, the warrior-poet asked:
‘How came you to be immune to spears?’
⁸To which Moon Axle replied, ‘Mine is a dual nature, and protean. I am in fact made of many straight lines, though none last too long. In this way I have learned to ignore all true segments.’
⁹Luckily, the sword not held was curved and therefore could cut into Moon Axle, and before the sun was up he was bleeding from many wounds. ¹⁰Vivec did not slay him outright for to do so would keep the foibles of nature within him and not back where they belonged. ¹¹Soon Vivec had traced geography right again, and Moon Axle was ready to be slain.
¹²Vivec rose up in his giant-form, to be terrible to look upon. ¹³He reached into the west and pulled out a canyon, holding it like a horn. He reached east and ate a handful of nix hounds. ¹⁴Blowing their spirits through the canyon made a terrible wail, not unlike an unsolved woman. ¹⁵He said:
‘Let this overtake you,’ and Moon Axle was overtaken by the curvatures of stolen souls. ¹⁶They wrapped about the monster like resin, until finally he could not move, nor could his dual nature.
¹⁷Vivec said, ‘Now you are solved,’ and pierced his child with Muatra. ¹⁸Moon Axle had been reduced to something static, and therefore shattered.
¹⁹The lines of Moon Axle were collected by Velothi philosophers and taken into caves. ²⁰There, and for a year, Vivec taught the philosophers how to turn the lines of his son into the spokes of mystery wheels. ²¹This was the birth of the first Whirling School. Before, there had only been the surface thought of fire.
²²Vivec looked at his first wheeling students and observed:
‘Alike the egg-layered universe is this morbid possession of three-distant coverage, soul-wrecked and alive, like my name is alive. ²³In this cloister you have discovered one walking path, hilled like a sword but more coarsened. ²⁴So edged it is that it has to be whispered to keep the tongue from bleeding, where its signs evacuate their former meanings, like empires that tarry too long.
²⁵‘The sword is estrangement from statesmanship.
²⁶‘Look on the estimable lines of my son, now crafted star-wise, his every limb equidistant from the center. ²⁷Is he solved because I will it so? There cannot be a second stage. ²⁸Think on the theory that my existence promulgates the five elements and alike the egg-layered universe I am cause for great density. ²⁹Here is a thought that can break the wagon’s axle; here is another that can soar.’
³⁰The ending of the words is ASV.