#155 Septua Sanguis /The Eight Temptations: 9

This is a story about the Seven Deadly Sins, and the Eighth who rules them. We have Wrath, Greed, Pride, Envy, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust. But don't forget the Eighth Temptation, Sorrow. Perhaps she is the most powerful. After the Mother's of course, Destiny and Desire. But they are shadowed by their own Mother, Darkness. And she too is shadowed by her parents, Time and Space. Yet, who are their Masters? And who is giving the reader advice? What oracle knows more than this realm reveals? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Septuas Sanguis The Eight Temptations Chapter Nine Destiny Destiny hovers next to the loom. She carefully inspects a weaving that is connected to the many dimensions. She must be thorough in her examination. This weaving is assumed to be human, already woven, already whole, yet also impossibly, still being woven. The human form is silent, yet occasionally pulses, sending ripples of light outward. As destiny moves about, her form mingles between shimmer and shadow, somehow seen yet unseen, neither here nor there. She is also human like, but only as a suggestion, for she has additional dimensions. These dimensions allow her to inhabit the liminal spaces between what is, what might be, and what once was. This fluidity is rare, one of the few attributes she retained from her previous home. Destiny touches threads here and there, checking the balance of tensions. All of them are in order. So she moves toward the areas so delicate that she does not touch them. Instead, she puffs upon them, causing a ripple of shadow and sheen. After she confirms these areas, she moves to areas which won't tolerate even her breath. So she listens. In one such area, this is the center of the chest. Here the weaving is fine as spider silk. There is a curious intimacy to destiny's movement as she tilts her head toward the form and listens to the meter of the heart. She waits until she's sure the metrics of love are harmonized with the tones of loss. Then she moves to the navel. Here she calculates the central binding force and finds everything in order. In fact, she finds the entire weaving to be impeccable, exactly as it should be, precisely as she knew it would be, so the issue isn't in the first three dimensions. Destiny traces a finger along one edge of the loom and a small jolt zips through. She considers again, that the issue is not the form, but the new loom. She retreats slightly and surveys the loom. It is a vast structure made of beams, harnesses, treadles, struts, weights, and innumerable shuttles, all of which vibrate ever so slightly, and shimmer like her in the dim light. The loom extends in every direction until it fades out of sight, and it seems to be alive, wanting. Surrounding the loom is a very distinct smell, heavy and musky, as though the air were scented by a fragrance from long, long ago. Destiny inspects a set of back beams, back beams, and finds them to be as they should, straight as blades. She recalculates the weights and counterweights, balancing them to the feather. She pauses near a warp beam and taps it once. The loom responds by aligning the threads imperceptibly more exact. After the adjustment, everything dims, as if to say we are waiting. And everything is waiting, waiting for her, her touch, her guidance, her weaving of unknowns into known. There are so many unknowns in weaving, trillions upon trillions of them. Destiny would say infinite is most accurate, and she would also tell you that every unknown must be known. The whirls upon a fingertip, the speckles within an eye, the synapses in a brain, the gravity of a failure. These unknowns are in the first three dimensions and require only the warp, weft, and watt threads. But it is not these dimensions which destiny tweaks as she adjusts a single thread. Upon her touch, the thread shades to black before polishing into a deep purple. A nisty thread. Nisty, that's what Destiny needs right now, a spark of realization from the infinite probabilities of darkness. With just one of those threads, Destiny could figure out what the issue is. But she hasn't got a nisty. Never has. The irony of this is not lost upon her. She wonders why she laces so many nisty when so few are utilized. She holds humans responsible for this lack. Just imagine what Destiny could do if she did have a nisty. Instead, she has had to fulfill her own destiny, using the same things she gives the humans, instinct and intuition. Destiny is fortunate these attributes have served her well, and that they continue to do so even now, which is why she knows something is off about this soon to be human. She just can't determine what. So Destiny decides to check the fourth dimension again, just to be certain the trajectory of time is angled properly, and the minor arcs calibrated. Destiny flicks her wrist and a large spherical hourglass sways before her. She lifts it from the air and realizes she left the tiny filaments inside. She dislikes trapping them, reminds her of her own situation, so she mitigates her guilt by releasing them after she's done. But she must have forgotten last time. Destiny unhooks a small woven latch and allows the trapped filaments to wisp away. Then she gathers new ones from the air with a deft spin of her fingers and places them inside. She rolls the hourglass in her hands, slowly, watching the filaments spill through the various apertures and fill the many dimensions. The hourglass isn't actually glass, it's just another weaving. Thick enough to contain filaments, fine enough to view motion. Destiny created the hourglass because first, nothing exists for her unless she weaves it, and second, because it's a tool which allows her to watch dimensions interact. It isn't a perfect replication, but close enough to give her clues, especially when patterns repeat. This is why Destiny wove a dead end into this soon to be human's journey, because the hourglass revealed a pattern that was easy to miss when destiny viewed only the human dimensions. It was quite obvious within the hourglass. The pattern was a bit like a revolving door, one moving so quickly it is difficult to see that you're circling in it, and even harder to see a way out. It is these repeated patterns that require destiny's most potent weavings, because habits are hard to break. And this dead end is potent. One which cannot be ignored, refuses to be ignored, because that's what a dead end is. It's an event so dire, so severe that it leads to the chance of death, to the ending of a journey sooner than necessary, but it doesn't have to be this way. A dead end always has an opening away beyond, but that requires a choice. All but a difficult one. And yes, there is always a choice. Destiny raises the hourglass to confirm all the dimensions are full. Then she gives it a twirl and releases it into the air. The hourglass gyrates wildly for a moment and the filaments flare. They whip through apertures and careen from one orb to another. Each orb within the large sphere spins within and alongside others, yet none of them maintain a steady shape. Instead, it's like mouths swallowing each other, some whole, some partial. This makes it impossible to follow any one filament through the dimensions. The sight resembles a morphing of mouths into and out of time. But rather quickly the hourglass settles into a wobbly motion, one which feels familiar, like an ancient multidimensional rhythm. Destiny glides around the hourglass, viewing it from every angle and every degree. She watches the pattern emerge again and admits that this particular pattern is more challenging than nearly all she has seen. And while she does not wish harm to the human, she must do as the filaments dictate. Destiny continues to analyze the minuscule interactions. She catalogues emotions, noting where time and space converge, where their attributes thicken, where they diverge all simultaneously. And this is the choice humans fail to notice. Instead, they speak of past, present, and future as though they are distinct, but they are not. They are the same degree of motion. A human journey isn't static, it's motion like a river. From afar a river is a line, but up close its motion. The motion of a river is caused by tiny droplets, and so too is the motion of time. But only these droplets are called moments. In either case, each droplet has motion, unique unto itself, while also interacting with and responding to the others. This river analogy is easy to understand, but easy ends here. In order to push this analogy beyond easy, we must reveal what actually is. Imagine drawing a river. Now imagine drawing a river as trillions of droplets. Now imagine drawing those trillions of droplets in motion. Now imagine adjusting just one droplet in order to see how it affects the trillions of others. Can you imagine this? There is no need to imagine because destiny can. She can grasp one droplet of time, one thread among trillions, and adjust it to see how every other thread responds. She can do this because she must do this. She must weave tiny droplets of time into a journey that is both all at once and moment to moment. She must weave the first three dimensions of space into a spatial moment, a living process, one thread at a time. This is fourth dimensional weaving and it demands mastery. But even this is not enough because any one journey must interact and respond to every other journey, regardless of whether they meet. This means destiny must touch one droplet in one timeline. See how it relates to every other droplet in that timeline. And she must simultaneously touch one droplet in multiple other timelines while determining their effects across the journeys. This is why she created the hourglass, because such effects are more easily seen within it. She can also view this from her own dimension, all but to a lesser extent. The reason she can do this is because her time is perpendicular to human time. This perpendicularity allows destiny to view a journey as a line, not a straight line nor a static line, but something akin to a ribbon in a breeze, or at times, a ribbon in a gale force wind. Either way, it doesn't matter how much force time exerts upon a journey. Destiny must watch carefully, fastidiously, until she's certain everything aligns with its intended purpose. And it does. This human is working. So Destiny flicks her wrist and the hourglass disappears. Destiny withdraws away. She moves away from the loom, away from the threads, away from the human. Her fluid form mutates through tones of gray before settling on a serious one. She knows there is nothing wrong with her new loom, but it isn't the same. She misses her first one, and there has never been an equal, nor will there ever be because that loom was certain of its own creation. It was so sure of itself that it immediately connected all the dimensions. It didn't matter that she herself could not go into them. The loom somehow could, it could weave the dimensions with such refinement that they arrayed themselves in absolute symmetry. Her first loom also wove with a sophistication matched only by its innovation. Her first loom taught her everything. The most amazing thing about her first loom was that it was her first. She had no blueprint, no series of instructions, no mentor. She had to create it, weave it thread by thread. Darkness didn't teach her. Darkness didn't even introduce her to her exiled home. Suddenly sharp tendrils rise off Destiny's shoulders, twisting with frustration. She doesn't know what is wrong, and this shouldn't be happening. How many times has she said something shouldn't happen only for it to happen? How many times has she watched the impossible become possible, or immutable laws become mutable? How many times have threads meant to stay broken? While those meant to break remain? How many times has love meant to shatter strengthened, while love meant to last hated? Such occurrences are not common. The predictable laws prove themselves quite predictable until they are assessed over billions of lives. Then there are glitches, and this life is glitching. Destiny does not know what to do, she just needs a place to relax. And there's only one place for that, and only one way to get there. With a sharp movement of her hand, an arched doorway appears. She moves beneath it, and a very distinct change occurs. The light here is brighter, yet the air muskier. The walls are spherical ever so slightly and stark white. There are dark spaces spotting the walls, each one filled with numbers, equations, calculations, and lengthy proofs. Destiny ignores the rounded room and moves toward a blank section. She stands quietly, looks back at the arched doorway, listens, and then tugs one tiny thread. A small door swings on woven hinges, and destiny slips through. The door closes behind her and she sighs. A place of her own. This room isn't so much a room as a space. No delineating walls, no looming structures, no soon to be human, just space. Destiny moves into it with a relaxed gaze. Her fluid form seems to flow even more softly. She glances at the door, listens again, then swivels back with her hands extended. Stars rush toward her, hundreds upon hundreds of them. They approach as pinpricks, then expand into a variety of shapes. Some have simple lines with sharp corners, while others are round and broad. A good number are crude and blunt, but they fly equally well along those who look well mannered and cultured. When the stars arrive from full speed to stop in less than an instant, they surround destiny. She plucks one from the air and holds it in her hand. It shimmers with anticipation, and she turns it over so the front faces her. No need to confuse herself. This alphabet is fickle, which is why she practiced weaving others, even though she knew from the moment humans wrote it that this would be her favorite. Destiny appreciates the simplicity, the clean lines, the hollow circles, the tone markings. She also appreciates the clear, concise meanings. Destiny plucks a few characters from the air and arranges them on unseen hooks. The characters dangle in shimmering sequence. She studies them, moves one, looks concerned, flashes partially out of view, returns, and corrects her mistake. She should have trusted her instinct. The word dangling before her is the one she always writes first. Sovereignty. It's the perfect word because it utilizes so many characters. Plus, it reminds her of what really matters, both her own and others, which brings her thoughts back to the form on her loom. She wonders what sovereignty would do for this odd human. Perhaps the issue isn't an issue, maybe it's just a novelty. This isn't the first time Destiny has wondered about this human, and whenever she does, she hears the same two words. But she hasn't been able to determine their meaning. It's like this odd human is a riddle. Destiny brushes sovereignty aside and the characters join the dangling stars. She reaches for ones that can write the two words, but she writes them as one word because to her they are synonymous, both as words and as a mirrored phrase. Know thyself, thyself know. Destiny studies them as characters, as words, as phrases, as meanings. They seem to mock her, withholding an answer she has so patiently sought. Destiny wipes them away and reaches for new ones. This phrase she writes slowly, not because it is difficult, but because writing allows her to think, to think her own thoughts. And it gives her a chance to view herself not through an hourglass, but through her own eyes. And this phrase says it all. Nothing in excess. When Destiny views herself, she sees excess, only excess. She is the definition of excess, excess of precision, excess of accuracy, excess of piety, prudence, and clockwork regularity. Destiny is not this phrase. Instead, she is excess. Her craft demands it of her. She is excess so that her craft may be balanced. And she knows this is true because she has an excess of lucidity. Destiny stares at the phrase nothing at all. Destiny stares at the phrase, looking at all of her make believe characters. All of her make believe writing. She can't write. This crude method is simply a pretense, a wish, a dream. If just for a moment, that she can do more than weave filaments into human stories, that she can write her own stories. Write her own without warning, destiny swipes the stars away and they race off, becoming tiny specks before they vanish. She moves slowly toward the only visible object, the small door. She listens, she waits. Then she tugs a single thread and slips through. Destiny is alone in her calculation room, but senses someone looking for her, and there is only one someone here. So Destiny exits through the arching doorway. Looming before her is her loom, with no one around. Her only companion is the dreaded phrase she can't riddle out, the two words she has not been able to solve. There's only one thing she's been able to solve. Well, not even that really, but she does know that every dimension seems to be without fault, except hers. Somehow this soon to be human is connected to her time dimension twice, when it should be connected once upon death. And not only is this impossible, Destiny can't find the second thread. She can only sense it. She thinks it's near the beginning of the journey where a strange fork appears in the weaving. The fork allows the human to continue in their realm while also connecting back to her. Destiny doesn't know how the fork got into the weaving. It's as though an invisible hand reached in and wove it, sight unseen, and then left destiny to question something which shouldn't even exist. Will the human return so quickly that they do not die and they're left to live here with her? Or will they stay too long and die in all dimensions, never to exist again? Or maybe the human will live in multiple dimensions at multiple times and go raving mad? Or live in multiple dimensions at one time and do impossible things. Destiny has no answers, and that needles her because she has been so patient, extremely patient. The way a mathematical proof is patient, it just is. And what it is is what it does. It solves things. This is what destiny is. It's what she does, but she will never tell you this. If you can't see for yourself, you're not worth telling. So here is what she will never tell you. The combing, carding, spinning, twisting, weaving for time immemorial, whole eternities using trillions upon trillions of threads, lacing looms, meticulous and exacting, so precise that a mere chance becomes a fateful event, and a missed opportunity, a future doorway. Every imaginable detail, so a door opens, a car crashes, a stumble stops, fortunes are lost, then found in flawless, irrefutable, and decisive ways, so straight and true that mathematical arrays splinter through the dimensions just so life can fulfill its purpose and death its quota. This requires perfection, and this is what destiny is. Destiny now moves toward the dimmest reaches of the loom and touches a thread. It is so fine it fades in and out of view. As her fingers rest upon the thread, her own form fades, then partially contorts before disappearing. Not all of her, just some of her. What she is doing cannot be seen, but the outcome can. The human form shudders down the left and then shivers up the right. It begins to shake until the left arm and right leg crack off their respective sides. Then as abruptly as it began, the form stills, and the severed limbs lay suspended in the air, painfully lost. Just then a shadow tears through the torso at strange angles, ripping it apart. The torso splits into broken geometries, leaving trillions of threads hanging in all directions. Some parts of the torso, mostly those which were attached to the now severed limbs, blink and then vanish, leaving a bizarre mass of shapes behind. What remains is unidentifiable, and it looks as though it's a poorly made puzzle thrown into the air. A portion of Destiny's form slowly condenses over the loom, and then quite unexpectedly, she is shrouded within a cylinder of what might be called water, only without the wet. Destiny pushes her arm through the watery wall and reaches for a broken thread near the navel, one of the few identifiable parts. Destiny does not touch the thread. Instead, she twirls her finger very near the frayed end. There is an increase in the musky scent as the thread quivers. Then it twists itself tightly in the same direction as Destiny's finger, not the mirror image direction as it would in the human dimension. Without warning, the missing geometries reappear and the torso snaps into place. The expression on the face of the form flashes surprise as the severed arm and leg reattach. There is a harsh tightening of the form as though every thread is yanked in every direction. Then everything dims and waits. For her, here in this musky air where life is crucified and death renewed billions upon billions of times. Destiny hovers, gazing at nothing, thinking everything. Her fingers reach out and stroke the air absently, seemingly unaware of the tiny filaments gathering. The filaments catch until a handful lay quivering upon her palm, casting a glow. She looks down and remembers the first time she gathered them. She had the vague sense that they were waiting, waiting for her, as though she alone could draw them from the air innumerable times and create billions of lives, each so different from the rest. Destiny lowers herself toward the human feet. She wraps her fingers against the inner arch of the left foot. Four times. The foot responds by tapping a rhythm, one similar to the rack gait of a horse, quick and high stepping. Destiny finds this rhythm engaging, not only to watch, but also to weave, for it requires a great deal of motion from the loom, shuttles flying in and out, treadles rushing up and down, beams rolling and twisting and turning. The overall effect is much like a dancer who doesn't know when to quit. And this journey seems to be just that. Full of so much motion it doesn't know when to quit. There is something odd about this one, and it's been ages since Destiny felt such oddity all the way back to the eight. Maybe that's why she's so concerned about this one, because she wasn't concerned enough about them. She didn't even have a plan to use them, she was simply learning and discovering, and that's when desire arrived, without warning and without welcome. Desire burst in with a downpour of chroma and dye, wild with fervor. She stained the eight before there was a chance to object. Destiny tried to speak, but desire was so sure of herself and everything she did. She was incapable of listening, and still is. Desire just kept repeating eight little forms, what harm can they do? Eight little forms. Destiny should have forced desire to stop, at least after the first one. They should have waited, given him time to grow, to see what he could do, and more importantly, what he would become. But desire was so intent and intense in applying her dyes that it was over before destiny blinked. Eight little forms stared at her, each a color of pure desire, each a weaving of pure destiny. Then off they went, never to stop. Now all these eons later, those eight are still breaking realms. Only this one is likely the last. If destiny's calculations are correct, each of the destructions has increased on a logarithmic scale, which means this one will rip through every dimension. And while Destiny is not clear on the reason, it concerns her less than the known reality, the one that this one will revert the eight back into their original form, not into filaments of silvery light, but all the way back to darkness. At least Destiny hopes everything will dissolve back into darkness. She assumes darkness can contain such annihilation since all things come from her. It will be like the Ouroboros eating its own tail. Darkness will devour them all. This is not disastrous. It is worse. It is the loss of destiny's freedom. She will be imprisoned just as she was before. But unlike the first time, darkness will not send her away. Darkness will keep her. Not because darkness wants her, but because darkness needs her. Destiny isn't sure how she knows this, but every intuitive shimmer and instinctual shadow whispers to her that darkness will keep her if she returns. This sickens destiny. The thought of returning to a self that will imprison her, suffocate her, use her for eternities, if not longer. This isn't a return to home or mother. Darkness isn't her mother. She isn't even her sister. Darkness is some perverse part of destiny that severed itself from her, like an amputation. What darkness chose to do is nothing like birth. It is a cutting off, a cleaving, a removal of some aspect that darkness couldn't accept. But in a bizarre way, this was a boon for destiny because it gave her what she needed sovereignty. And now Destiny may lose this because of eight little forms. Destiny suddenly pivots her head owl like, too far to be human, and the dimensions shift. The main loom is now far off, while a large mound rests nearby. Crumpled remnants of weedy weaving lay discarded upon the mound. Most of them are indistinguishable, but a few are identical to the form on the loom. Only they are not on the loom. Destiny looks down at her hand. A few gauzy filaments still cling to her fingers, so she sprinkles them over the pile. When she is done, her form wavers, as though she would rather forget where she is. But she is not one to forget. Destiny's form studies and she looks at the mound. This is her mound, her mound of failures, and none has she ever forgotten. Destiny lifts a jagged piece of weaving from the pile. There is no musky scent, no shimmer, no shadow, no sign of waiting. It is done. All those filaments wasted, all their dictates laid to rest, but they will return. Filaments always do, and when they do, they will dictate again the lives of humans. A human life really is the luck of the draw, the drawing of destiny's fingers through the air. Every single journey is determined by whatever is in her hand. The filaments tell the story. Destiny simply addresses the weaving, the bunches, the frays, knots, slips, skips, holes, and missing threads. Destiny bends the weaving to inspect it closer, even though she knows what she will find. Nine threads woven through each other, each with a differing weight, a differing thickness. Destiny wishes she could blame her error on the differing weights, but she has combined threads too many times to make it an excuse. And the mistake is obvious now, hindsight being what it is. It wasn't even a mistake, just an oversight. So simple she forgot to remember. An allergic reaction, which turned a dire situation into death. Destiny drops the jagged section of weaving onto the mound. A plume of grey slowly spreads, carrying a tiny filament with it. For a moment the filament lay suspended. A wish, a dream, a prayer, an unused potential now made possible again. Destiny looks away from her failures, her mistakes, blunders, foul ups, inaccuracies, imperfections. She cost them their lives, untold lives, and whatever she may have mastered over the eons, it is not perfection. As much as she has strived for, her mastery is not perfection. Instead, it is a process, one in which failures are given. The weight of such mastery is knowing that she must begin again and again and again yet never be perfect. It doesn't matter that she is unquestionably precise over and over. Mistakes are made. Many she can repair or undo or redo, but some are beyond her, which is why this mound never goes away. By the time aborted weavings fray and fall apart to become what they once were, shimmering filaments of potential, other errors have been made. Destiny's true mastery lies in knowing that mistakes cost lives, and doing it anyway. She should have discarded this forked human long ago and started over, as she always does, except her instinct and intuition whisper to her that this one should live, live whatever has been woven, and that she, destiny, must find the reason for this in two words Know thyself. Destiny's head swivels again and the loom rises before her. She moves closer and closer and closer until she is part of the loom. She stares into the sockets of the soon to be human. It shudders. She reaches for the hands. She holds them in hers, shimmering threads against fluidity. She silently asks the question she's been asking recently, the one so perfectly poised by the poetess, Mary Oliver. What will you do with your one wild and precious life? But destiny doesn't stop there, she continues where the poetess left off. What will you do, little human, knowing that it's all been done? That only the outer trappings change. The form does not reply, so destiny releases the hands and moves to shuttle the umbilical thread. The thread is thick and strong, a steadfast connection among all the chaos, and to shuttle it sideways takes great effort. Once destiny has the shuttle in place, the form slides away from the loom toward desire's staining room. Destiny will give this form to desire, will allow her to stain and die until the outer trappings hide the habitual patterns, but never stop them. Only choice stops habits. It's such a fragile thing, a choice, so fleeting, like the filaments, but look what they can do when they band together. One choice, one tiny seed of thought, can erode habits. Everything hinges on choice. But this little form is no longer destiny's concern, and she has little effect on human choice. She simply weaves and desire dies and they send them off. Such precious bundles, so much work put into them, only to sever the umbilicus and send them off. This leaves only one slender thread of connection back. Except for this one. This one has two threads back to destiny. This is a secret destiny will keep, and it isn't her first. The other one she has been keeping for a very, very long time. It is one she hopes may save her, save them all. And if not, nothing will matter. I did it. I did it.