I sat starving in the desert for months, my body eating itself as my
mind cleared. My aura reached out, crying for Oblivion. I found it. I
had only meant to go briefly. To contemplate the words and wisdom of my
Master, as I often do. But as I sat beneath the desert sky, puke drying
upon my skin, days passed, then weeks, then months. I saw many things.

My skin had cracked and blistered. My tongue swollen. Then, I was
surrounded by nothingness which is the true state of creation. An
eternity later, or perhaps just a moment, I saw a bright light rising
from the east like a diamond in the sky. It shone so bright that shadow
itself fled from its glare. It looked as if it might burn forever.
Insects came in multitudes, landing upon the light. It cracked and began
to bleed and was swallowed in the hunger of the Void.

A warrior from the past will rise in the east like a celestial lion. He
will spill gallons of blood in the name of the Light and the Good. He
will slay women and children. He will boil heretics alive in oil. The
crowds will cheer him in the name of the Light. When Shallam is at its
height of power, that same man will betray them for the glory of the Mad
God. I saw men crying in the streets, blood in the gutters, children
dying in fire. Each one cursing the Light for being false. Each one
embracing Oblivion.

Then emptiness.

Slowly, another vision came to me. A monstrous, red snake crawling in
the grass . . . toward what? And then it was as if I saw through the
eyes of the snake as reached its prey--a harmless, white-haired rabbit.
But as the snake struck, the rabbit turned on it and its eyes were many.
It devoured the reptile with gaping mouth and the teeth of a dragon. I
knew it was time to return to Ashtan. But first

emptiness.

Then I saw the face of the Great Lady of Sin. Lust. Greed. Betrayal.

Then emptiness. The perfect Void. Calm. The words of my Master say all
things fall into Oblivion--wives, kingdoms, the Gods Themselves, and so
it will be done.

When I awoke my bones were nearly breaking through my skin. I found my
way to Jaru where I slit the throat of a small girl in front of her
family as a sacrifice to my Lord. Her warm blood washed over my hands
and with them I wrote, in the girl's own blood, a very simple question
for her parents. The same question I will ask you. "What makes think I'm
the bad guy?"



Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Sarapin, in the year 590 AF.