Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 05

"With the sword."

"Right, with the sword."

"And what do we tell her about the rest?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"I don't think she'll like that."

"I don't think she'll like it, either..."

"We could run away."

"Just us?"

"Ya."

"Run from Sidero?"

"With the magic sword."

"Ya, but..."

"What?"

"What about my stuff?"

"Right... we'll sneak back in camp, steal our stuff, and run away."

"Good. Let's go this way... sentries will be watching the trail."

"Right."

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Midnight, an orb the color of the space between stars when the moon is gone, falling. Plummeting through Infinity into or above the vastness of Creation. For a Time, Midnight and Creation dance around each other -- each daring the other to step closer. Cavorting, spiraling. So close, and never touching -- always a whisper away... then away... passing around, not quite through each other.

A Spire of ivory, sweeping up from Creation's bosom... the Fang of a great serpent. A Horn, spiraled, fluted, hollow... a bleached bone, whose marrow long passed into nothing, else it was eaten by maggots who since sprouted wings and flew away. Countless holes, channels, funnels, ribs... a helical altar on which to bed the sex of eternity... spirals up from the belly of Creation -- thrusting itself with defiance... with reverence...

Into the waiting Midnight.

A Star, called the Sun... shining over Midnight and Creation. Creation reflects the light of the Sun -- shows itself to all that could or would witness it...though, in the beginning, it was precious few that could observe... Where the light shone that Creation did not touch, Midnight drank deep and hungrily, growing more beautiful and impenetrable... and when the Tooth... the Spire... the Horn of Creation at last thought it was about to touch Midnight...

A new dance, as Midnight split everywhere, dancing just along the surface of the horn, chasing down the tunnels, riding, a thousand thousand marbles of purest dark rolling down a thousand thousand roads of bone, of ivory... and scattering out between kisses of the Sun to blanket what became the Sky... vibrations, spaces between growing smaller, closer... touching? Down each helix, each spiral, each winding way, each throat, each passage...

Where darkness and light meet: shadow -- the seeming of light and dark blending together.

Far, far... far from Entropy.

Midnight was not a nothing, just as Creation was not a something. Theywere, but that words, no matter how pretty, convoluted, or profound -- could not catch them.

Unbound by petty mortal logic... mortalreason ormortal reason.

As things thatare cannotnot be, it followed....it followed?

When the Spire of Creation thrust into the firmament, piercing the Heavens -- a single drop of blood... a tear... honey... the nectar ofInfinity... issued forth. Came into Being.

When Creationtouched Midnight, when they came together...Reality happened into existence. Whatsoever began, or ended... before these two becameone... didn't matter... wasn't matter? Does a mind know itself before its first thoughts? Where matter and purpose collide -- there is...something. Not nothing. Even the very concept of Void issomething, and it is denied itself by the single, inescapable clarity of the space between Creation and Midnight.

Farther away, in distant worlds or realities where there is no Magic... no dragons, no Wizards...

Where a creature called Science carries the flaming sword of Creation and dares to say it understands the Midnight it cannot see... cannot touch... What hope for Science that it cannot lay with both? Hoping to measure Midnight by seeing where Creationisn't, like measuring one's lover by the taste you cannot sense in your mouth, the weight you cannot feel against your hips -- and assuming it mustbe if for no other reason... no other reason thanyou are...

Through any Reality, between the happening and not happening... between making and unmaking... life and death... every religion, whether by the graces of Divinity or the imperiousness of Science, claims to hold the lantern of Truth into the dark of Not Knowing.

As if all were either one, or the other... and not Both and Neither.

When an explosion is the end... and the beginning.

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