...
Reaper
Slicking like thin oil from an upturned pale on a polished wooden floor. Sticky and slippy. The greatest city on the Planet. Reaper.
No margins here. No end, no edge. Alternately established and alternative. Neighbourhood, crushed by neighbourhood. Force, cheek by jowl with frailty. Warrant with weakness. The supreme and the supine. Sprawling, endlessly spreading.
Reaper. Well named.
The inhabitants of the city live well, harvesting the best the Planet can provide. An accumulation of such power requires sustenance. Pillaging the produce of the Planet, laying waste the waters and reaping the resources. Planetary rape.
Reaper, the home of the Guilds.
Do the Guilds ape the city or does the city copy the Guilds? Lost in time past, the doings of the Guild, together tandemmed the city. Fat and hungry, contentedly carnivorous with a voracious appetite for voices, each Guild saw validation by the Reaper mores. Whores of Reaper, taking riches for services. Many clients for solicitors and prostitutes and Guilds.
Reaper, where Voteds live.
There are more voices in Reaper than anywhere else on the Planet. Sluices abound yet Voteds know how to reach over, listen and make promises. Promises to extend their brief being. For despite the riches, the harvesting and raping, Voteds are a being that ebbs away. Like the Guilds, Voteds too feed voraciously on voices. But for Voteds their need is profound, their appetite absolute. They must draw succour from over the sluices else they disappear into the margins. Beyond Reaper. Beyond the slickly spreading slew of thin oil. Beyond the hearing of voices. Beyond the light. A fate of fear for all Voteds. To live among the voices. Beyond the upturned pale.
Reaper, where voices lay.
The voices of Reaper are numerous and diverse. Difference driven by the fear of isolation. Reaper welcomes all. In a corner of Reaper somewhere voices can find their like, like what they find and fit lightly into a leavened life. Poverty of existence lightened by likeness. Voices tribalised in an endless mosaic of individual meaning. There is comfort in Reaper somewhere, no matter the tone or tenor of the voice. And so the voices come in their choral multitudes. Gathering together in colourful collections beyond the sluices. The Guilds know they are there, gorge upon the fattest, the wordful ones.
Reaper, where words are harvested.
All voices have words but Guild words are selective. Words for paper, always the trade. Reaper affords choice. But only choice if affordable. For Guilds not only harvest words and turn them into paper but also seek payment for doing so. Words provide riches but only the rich can be allowed to provide them. And the rich in Reaper are many. No need for Guilds to dredge around in the diversity pool. In the centre of Reaper, Guilds gather, engage in the third paradox whilst harvesting the juiciest and plumpest voices, voices so grateful for their pass through the sluices that they pay large sums of money in gratitude for their deliverance into the mouths of the Guilds. Who devour them.
Reaper
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Tuesday 16 March 2010
Saturday 2 January 2010
Chapter 9: A Short History of the Planet Part 3
...
At the edge of the abyss, teetering on the brink, the Turncoat opened the sluice gates. See how the visitors make words. And words can make paper. Keep your hieroglyphs. Keep your symbols. Use the words. Golden words. Even the wild-eyed, untamed Doers sensed riches.
A new Guild. The Guild of Alchemists and Doers. Words and action. Voices and movement.
The Guilds went back to business. It had always been thus. The third paradox – endless and yet respectful warfare – just another Guild for the jousting season. And the Guilds knew that this newcomer was not as strong as it believed. The Turncoat told them. The visitors distrusted the Experimenters who glued the new Guild together. The Doers observed the mercenaries’ bloodlust with horror. Schism. Headlong hunger for words. Purpose, principle and revolution were forgotten. It was now about gold. And where men lust, men can be manipulated.
The refugee worked his spell. Became an Alchemist, undertook alchemy himself. Turned the alchemy against itself. Powerful science. For it was Alchemy that caught the gold, made the paper, produced the power. The mercenaries lusted, thirsted and hungered. They were easy meat.
The history of the Guild was re-written. Careful airbrushing of past alliances, now mere memories of inconvenience. In time the Turncoat became the venerable aged one. The Guild master, a Great Think. Even the Experimenters acquiesced as the Guild adapted and adopted paradox 2 and 2(i). All paper is accumulative and none is to be replaced, even where such old paper is manifestly untrue, because old paper has been generated by the revered aged ones and must be respected. The Guilds breathed again. This they could understand.
Out on the margins, the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings, a few scratched a living in the draughty halls of the past. The wild parties, the shared cause were just bleak memories. The wrestling rings and combat arenas where Alchemists, Experimenters and Doers of the past honed their skills grew dusty with neglect. The halls were empty of Alchemists, the mercenaries gone and all but a handful of Experimenters still lingered.
A few Doers began to trickle back to the margins, licking the wounds of a conflict that none admitted was even happening. For the Doers had become the Guild serfs, excluded from the priesthood, denied their share of the spoils. The Turncoat had been thorough. He knew the threat, moved carefully in the light and the shadows, his mercenaries strong. He used the Paradoxes carefully. Paradoxically. Paper was lost, not replaced or accumulated. Aged Doers were forgotten not venerated. War was never declared. Yet the Doers were erased from the Guild.
The remaining and the returned gathered shell-shocked at the margins. They had sought to break the Guilds and now the Guilds had broken them A new caste had risen high to join the interminable inter Guild wars of the past. Business as usual. No moulds broken. The Guild of Alchemists (and Doers).
The inhabitants of the margins became ever more wild and lawless. They lived outside the mainstream in a way few could remember from before. Nursing their wounds and cursing the duplicity of the Turncoat and his duped mercenaries. A few stole back into the Guild from time to time. Returned empty handed or gave up and took the gold. Their young disorganised and intemperate, their aged dead.
In all this time a small light burned on the margins, in the gassy swamps of the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings. Weak and flickering it was ignored but never extinguished. Alchemists no longer needed fire. Doers sought solace in anger.
The light shone faintly.
...
At the edge of the abyss, teetering on the brink, the Turncoat opened the sluice gates. See how the visitors make words. And words can make paper. Keep your hieroglyphs. Keep your symbols. Use the words. Golden words. Even the wild-eyed, untamed Doers sensed riches.
A new Guild. The Guild of Alchemists and Doers. Words and action. Voices and movement.
The Guilds went back to business. It had always been thus. The third paradox – endless and yet respectful warfare – just another Guild for the jousting season. And the Guilds knew that this newcomer was not as strong as it believed. The Turncoat told them. The visitors distrusted the Experimenters who glued the new Guild together. The Doers observed the mercenaries’ bloodlust with horror. Schism. Headlong hunger for words. Purpose, principle and revolution were forgotten. It was now about gold. And where men lust, men can be manipulated.
The refugee worked his spell. Became an Alchemist, undertook alchemy himself. Turned the alchemy against itself. Powerful science. For it was Alchemy that caught the gold, made the paper, produced the power. The mercenaries lusted, thirsted and hungered. They were easy meat.
The history of the Guild was re-written. Careful airbrushing of past alliances, now mere memories of inconvenience. In time the Turncoat became the venerable aged one. The Guild master, a Great Think. Even the Experimenters acquiesced as the Guild adapted and adopted paradox 2 and 2(i). All paper is accumulative and none is to be replaced, even where such old paper is manifestly untrue, because old paper has been generated by the revered aged ones and must be respected. The Guilds breathed again. This they could understand.
Out on the margins, the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings, a few scratched a living in the draughty halls of the past. The wild parties, the shared cause were just bleak memories. The wrestling rings and combat arenas where Alchemists, Experimenters and Doers of the past honed their skills grew dusty with neglect. The halls were empty of Alchemists, the mercenaries gone and all but a handful of Experimenters still lingered.
A few Doers began to trickle back to the margins, licking the wounds of a conflict that none admitted was even happening. For the Doers had become the Guild serfs, excluded from the priesthood, denied their share of the spoils. The Turncoat had been thorough. He knew the threat, moved carefully in the light and the shadows, his mercenaries strong. He used the Paradoxes carefully. Paradoxically. Paper was lost, not replaced or accumulated. Aged Doers were forgotten not venerated. War was never declared. Yet the Doers were erased from the Guild.
The remaining and the returned gathered shell-shocked at the margins. They had sought to break the Guilds and now the Guilds had broken them A new caste had risen high to join the interminable inter Guild wars of the past. Business as usual. No moulds broken. The Guild of Alchemists (and Doers).
The inhabitants of the margins became ever more wild and lawless. They lived outside the mainstream in a way few could remember from before. Nursing their wounds and cursing the duplicity of the Turncoat and his duped mercenaries. A few stole back into the Guild from time to time. Returned empty handed or gave up and took the gold. Their young disorganised and intemperate, their aged dead.
In all this time a small light burned on the margins, in the gassy swamps of the outlaw lands of the weird and the doings. Weak and flickering it was ignored but never extinguished. Alchemists no longer needed fire. Doers sought solace in anger.
The light shone faintly.
...
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