Gughok

in madness and not / x gyghögy x 'enq / gujokded jof ðæð 

[gughok-blog]

I, viii

There is a subject warranting discussion which, to most readers, will appear as strange as it did to myself. In the first place the very records of the matter are unusual in that they occur sparsely within the Temple of Light and have been stored in remote shelves behind other – perhaps more politically favourable – volumes. Most my readings were actually copies distributed in libraries of the West and South, though even these seemed often hidden away as though they were marks of shame. I have therefore had to piece together from the assortment of materials an admittedly unsatisfactory account of the events which unfolded in the thirty-third year. The most self-consistent and complete reports, indeed in my searches the only such reports, belong to the singular faction of which I will not speak in direct terms here. For the same reason I will not take from their writings, and in the version I give below I have built the tale from only reputable, godful sources.

In the present day death is known as a matter of course, an inevitable destination fated upon each of us blessed with life to begin with. It is known that upon death the mind flees from the expired body, is cleansed by Yarıtık and purged of its memories, and replaced in the next infant born. It is known that we have each of us a soul, persistent in this way, and that the above process of incarnation will always occur, for Yarıtık will ensure that for each death an appropriate new life is made to carry the consciousness. It is known that the existence with which the new mind is greeted will be equal in happiness, pleasure, and contentment to the piety offered by the same soul in its previous life. It is known that this judgment is Yarıtık 's, that he is just, that he is benevolent, that in the completion of our religious duties we express our love for our Lord and also secure for ourselves a future beyond the lifetime of our current bodies. All this is, today, known.

But when, in the thirty-third year, the first death occurred, none of the above was known. Death was not itself known. We were still young, we had yet no experience, so Yarıtık deemed the information superfluous, he decided the lesson would be ours to learn. Even aging was not known, so that as the early decades passed and the oldest of the first people approached their fiftieth, sixtieth, and seventieth years, growing weaker and frailer in the process, they were uncertain of precisely what was actually happening to them. The inevitable physical decay brought about by time was not known, and so as soon as it made itself known the citizens began to ask Yarıtık for some explanation, seeking understanding in his omniscience. These questions were written of as early as the thirteenth year in priests' records of interesting prayers made to Yaritik, and they only grew in frequency with time, eventually becoming ubiquitous in personal journals and records of public discussion. Well before the first death the questions which had that terminus as their answer were pervasive.

- Bıdılnanðalin, Book I, Part VIII, 312 AoM

[gughok-blog]

I.vi.

I will mention now a certain woman, Þullin Dulnankamon, responsible in this same early period for a remarkable innovation producing a tradition which has blossomed beyond the belief of any her contemporaries and survives to this day. On the very first dawn of our civilization Þullin began her attempts to establish relationships with the creatures she saw surrounding her – this was a passion with which Yarıtık had gifted her, for she was the one he had chosen to bless with the destiny of discovering that more than food, more than indifferent coexistence, and certainly more than irritation of interfering vermin, the animals of the Eye (admittedly small in variety) had plenty to offer as other beings alongside us. Yarıtık wished for her to at once show us our power as creatures capable of innovating beyond the tradition we were born with and also to reveal for him the wondrous fauna we have learnt to thank our Lord for.

With this object in mind, to establish a closeness between her people and her fellow creatures, Þullin spent most her days wandering the nearby lands, venturing in the westward foothills, and walking along the eastern coast. In her journeys she would take note of every unique beast she saw, record all she could observe of their behaviour, and even illustrate her journal with impressive skill. With time she had compiled in her writing all the animals which there were to be found in the region of Yarıtıknanzinul, from the smallest of beetles which crawled across all the mossy earth to the largest birds which could be seen flying out from the mountains to the waters and back, rarely stopping to land in between. This became the first text of the ancient art of naturalism, which she distributed in only the fourth year, and this is why, as the reader has surely heard, the science is called today the oldest of all studies.  

- Bıdılnanðalin, Book I, Part VI, 312 AoM

[gughok-blog]

"My investigations indicate a disturbing reality truthfully beyond my direct comprehension and simply a concept I will have to reconcile with the impossibility I associate to it. The notes are clear, I cannot doubt them – persistently the same hints appear in isolated spheres of knowledge, so there is no conspiracy but the truth itself, no incoherent ramblings save those which in fact convey the most meaningful strangeness there may be.

I think the God Chronicles yield the greatest insights in this respect, though of course neither its author nor its immediate audience could even guess at the revelations contained therein. The Chronicles mention always the ability of alleged divinity to perceive all at once and insert by the slightest will any force they desire at any point in the universe – in essence they possessed omniscience and omnipotence, and though the author realized at least that this was only an effective appearance of all-powerfulness rather than true transcendence, he could still not point out the mechanism itself by which this technology-turned-magic was rendered. The hints provided by the Chronicles, I was able to combine with the many assorted notes throughout extant history, and by this synthesis I arrived at the conclusion to which I alluded above:

Literally, the realm of obstensible gods must exist everywhere at once – and here is the paradox I cannot understand. I had long ago decided upon physicalism, it was a premise originally to be proven but by now it has become an axiom in my entire system. And if it is indeed an axiom the inevitable result of argumentation therefrom is the above conclusion, that somehow, when I wave my hand in front of me I am moving the sinew and bone through the same gods in their strange realms near infinitely many times. How can the same Apprentice be here, there, and everywhere in between all at once? It does not make sense. Our world contains endlessly repeating microcosms and somehow the most powerful beings exist therein. I cannot understand. But that is the conclusion. I will present now the proof."

- Mage of Death, Deep Nihil

[gughok-blog]

I.i.

One thousand two hundred and twenty two years ago, the records say, Yarıtık created Man in the first settlement of Yarıtıknanzinul. The city was small: the populace numbered only four thousand compared to our present nine. Of today's many monuments only the Temple of Light was standing, and only around the temple were there roads of stone – all the other streets lay as simple dirt (the project of their paving, I will mention later). The paths were arranged, as they continue to be today, into concentric circles. From one circle to the next the diameter increases four hundred feet – permitting two hundred feet length in between on any side – and the circles are connected by eight roads spaced evenly across the circumference of each, spanning outward. Every structure then was made in the same way the city continues to produce them now, out of gray stone hewn from the mountains nearby into large bricks some two feet long – for this is easily the most abundant of resources in our land. Apart from the Temple, each building was shaped as a rectangular oblong, either one or two stories tall but never more (only the Temple stood higher, some four stories into the sky with greater columns), with wood floors and ceilings on higher levels. The walls and rooftop were layered with mud and greenery, so that they would remain livable through the long winters (a task made easier by the warm easterly winds). These hovels were arranged in pairs between every two circles, one facing the outside and another inside. Their dimensions were stretched, usually fifty to eighty feet in length but rarely more than forty across. Each house standardly belonged to a single family. Of course, any visitor today will know well that these latter methods have endured little; it is common now to find homes of three stories and occasional towers of four, while the Temple has been raised to intimidating heights, and many constructions measure wider than the above – but, this is far later in our story.

An intermediary clarification: I described just now the architecture of Yarıtıknanzinul upon its creation. But of course, the city did not in the beginning consist of buildings any person had raised – rather, Yarıtık blessed us with the settlement, already formed, and simultaneously created the first of our kind to inhabit it. These first folk, he imbued with the knowledge of how to create structures precisely like those he had raised, so that thereafter they could practice the engineering tradition he had gifted them. Over time we came to modify these traditions, naturally, but their roots lie in the divine understanding imparted upon us over one thousand years ago.

- Bıdılnanðalin, Book I, 312 AoM

[gughok-blog]

I

As a civilization our tradition can be characterized by the written word. Indeed, it is not only in the great cities, but also in every township, village, and even each remote farmhouse that one will find some collection of scripts bearing both knowledge common to all and facts uniquely recorded on a singular page. It is an oft-overlooked and rather remarkable truth that essentially the entirety of our existence can be reconstructed from these scattered sheets and bindings; this is, moreover, a task which to my knowledge none among us has undertaken. Any person wishing to learn beyond local history is faced with a formidable mission of heavy autodidactism demanding both careful travel and directed inquiry. Certainly they may elect to visit only the great orators of every region but by such a method they are doomed to slipping past the greater portion of information there is to be known. There does not presently exist a singular source – nor even a contained amalgamation of volumes – to which the curious student may refer in their object. Most historical knowledge becomes thereby a rare commodity requiring a substantially larger dedication of time than many may afford.

Thus I arrive at my purpose in this composition. I intend with it to provide neither a factual addition to, nor a mechanical compilation of, the vast store of knowledge aforementioned, but rather a mindful synthesis of the above. For even in the Grand Temple of Yaritiknanzinul, inside the library seated behind the great statue of Yaritik, amongst the ancient stone shelves stacked to the sky, one will never find a piece of writing that seeks to both collect and extend (beyond fanciful extrapolations of purely religious nature, which constitute little more than blasphemous tumours upon the few legitimate divine texts we do possess). I do not report on speculation: I have wandered the long halls of the library, searched for a volume fulfilling the purpose I have now taken upon myself, and never found it. None have even attempted to synthesize from events past any theory on the function of events themselves.

Truthfully this is an appallingly apathetic approach to a study I aver demands the greatest attention from both the common citizen and the few who seek to guide the many along the grand path of civilization. I claim this, not solely on the telos of “knowledge for its own sake” – we know this does not convince – but with focus on the entirely practical goal of understanding the mechanisms by which we as a society function and, crucially, the means by which these mechanisms may be manipulated into thoroughly desirable future outcomes. Neglect of such a science has brought folly. Herein I attempt my correction. That is my telos.

- Bıdılnanðalin, Preface, 312 AoM

[gughok-blog]

“My friends, my kin, my comrades. We are one and united apart from them, the many and divided together. Do you intend to permit this subjugation, a forced grovelling to their excellent nonsensical claims of authority, the false jurisdiction justified by no jury? Can you allow such blasphemous accusations of heresy, a crucifixion of the faithful upon the divinity of this land which is not theirs but ours, the paradoxical delegation of duty, ill-advised relegation of responsibility, condescending convolution of common courtesy constituted by this careless political castration? Will you stand by idly, unaroused and indifferent to such gross humiliating harassment against our entire people? No. We are the South. They are not. We will stand together.”

- Transcript, speech during the Southern Revolution, 289 AoM

[gughok-blog]

“A slow morning. I have been feeling tired of late, I've mentioned, but today was particularly hard. I almost did not want to rise from my bed. Only the holy bells finally convinced me to stand. I could not ignore the call to prayer. The others are not godless, no, but I am an example among them. The reminder from our original land. I carry out the honour gladly.

The temple was as usual. It was a day of offering, and I think my two loaves were well received. The sky brightened almost as soon as I placed them beneath the icon. I also brought a few for the smith's family, repayment for their assistance two weeks ago: only fair I give bread for the bread knives! They are a pleasant folk – they have been here long and they pray less, but they are nice enough. Better than most those bitter farmers, in any case.

I passed a strange few walking from the temple to the bakery. They were discreet, stood between two stores, huddled in quiet talk. I do not know what there is to speak quietly of, so I stared a while. They were dressed as normal people, but after a few moments one looked over and noticed me and I could only flinch. His eyes seemed somehow different than a regular person's. I do not know how to describe them. Perhaps dead. There seemed a sort of milkiness, yet he was clearly not blind. The rest stopped and glared so I made my way.

There have been some of these strange ones these days. I know not what to think of them. They taught us, in the homeland, to expect such darker ones, but they told us no more than to avoid their influence and permit them no audience. I do not know that they seek audience. Quite the opposite, it would seem. I suppose I need not mind them, as they mind me not likewise.

The children here continue to perplex me. They lack discipline. There were two in the store who tried to make away with some of my fresh pastries. The cooking boy managed to chase them down but I do not understand why this was necessary. The children home know better. Act in your place. Perhaps I will adjust to this silliness.

I am still seeking a good wife. None who came into the shop today seemed appropriate. They all act as such... uncivilized rabble. They pray in convoluted words. How am I to be married to one who cannot properly worship? I can only hope Yaritik will grant me relief.

The night draws again. I pray again. What more could God ask?“

- Journal entry, 142 AoM

[gughok-blog]

“There is one – was, rather – in recent days. Not a hundred of our years ago he wasted, not a hundred years prior he had come, so they say. A stout one... of dense structure. They say 'pieces pressed too close'. I know not the meaning. Somehow he bore the weight of mountains. I think this is hyperbole. But the story continues. When he came he was disoriented, as all are, and like many he never found even a fragment of his mind. There was novelty, though, in his particular brand of madness. The others laugh. Some grimace. One shook its head, refusing to add to the tale. 'There were fragments of Gughok in him. Best forget, human. We do not welcome.'

They say in the third year his sickness opened. He withdrew from all light, shut himself in some form of his own construction, as unfriendly to light as this realm permits. He asked for sheets to write upon. Ever more sheets. And ink, black. He would fill each canvas, deeper than one might imagine death itself. A pure consuming darkness. And he would look at it, they say, and cry out, 'it is still not dark enough!' before throwing it aside. Then the next sheet, just the same. His eyes bulged, his sobs echoed, the others hated with morbid fascination. He never had a name – none was offered him. A title is a luxury, the price is sense.

His wasting was inevitably quick, for he never sustained. The Apprentice commends his efficacy as data. 'Even those more mad than us: they always sustain, now and again. Except that little one. He taught us much in his starvation.' I cannot understand this, but they swear by its significance. Endless sheets filled with black? There is no meaning here. But they insist, and so I include it.

How we would all wish for their gifts. The omnipotence. The omniscience. The immortality. Yaritik deceives. How we wish for this. And then comes one, wasting it all on pieces of paper? There is no meaning here. So the account ends. They claim purpose in the madness – the mad mad call, and expect I see telos. No. To the next.”

- God Chronicles, third chapter

[gughok-blog]

I thought I was free of this madness. I realize now I have made my home amidst it.

Esiltk, after Gughok’s arrival. Recovered by the Bookkeeper.

[gughok-blog]

“x gyɣøgy x ʔəɴq,

x ɔflɔzətɬ x rʌxq,

zyt ɢastrn  dɮæm ʕæm

vluθ dabʕæħ zəʒlɪχ.

Both in madness and not,

Both for all and none,

We search the world eternal

For our cure, disease.”

- Chant of the Cult, early period, in Old Gughok

[gughok-blog]

"For the High Tharnaksat of Shiven in Shulnandith,

Our prospects here, East, have at last lost even their wispy form. It is time to shut our doors. The Council has been blowing absurd spittle across the Tear ever since that traitor abandoned madness and established his fragile 'domain', so he likes to call it. By corollary we stand hindered beneath the anger of a dozen aging impotents rendered into law. Certainly now conditions are favourable on your end, but with the latest declaration of zeal this 'state' holds no place for our cause any longer. Since morning a dozen have already left either our ranks or the island. I will admit the pressure with which the Council burdens us is impressive, so tight around our necks not even a single recruitable detractor remains to be seen. Whether they have been suppressed to invisibility or simply do not exist, those aristocrats deserve our compliments on this efficacy at least.

Formally, as the local Tharnaksatdozuk it is my recommendation our chapter be reduced, functionally, to solely an outpost of reconnaissance. Resources are wasted with any continued attempt at Zol-spreading; we knew this stagnation would come since even Lefil's first 'initiative' sheared two halves from a whole and its obtaining is no surprise. The day has simply arrived.

I am at your disposal for reassignment, but I advise no more than a dozen heads be spent on this accursed Eye. Presumably you understand the opportunity Munim has unwittingly given your Western chapter: by latest count, if concentrated thence we may account for some one in ten. Such influence is unprecedented since the Chronicles, and indeed we may find opportunity with it to rise from the sewers of taboo. We must act quickly and boldly.

Consider, even, a thought: the traitor performed his little show of 'politics', yes, but in doing so has blessed us by a discovery I am loath to grant the merit it deserves. That is, we have at present these two entities, separate from another by some intangible construct, somehow constituted entirely and not of people. Uniting each is... what? Clearly no such weight as obligation. There is no binding power in either side. The adhesion applies only to each as an item while individual members remain free. No, what they fundamentally possess is identity: Munim realized the power of symbol. Perhaps rather he stole it from Yaritik. But regardless of the genesis, we saw first his application of this insight and second the Council following suit. Yet neither these parties possess our strength, the Chronicles. Entertain what we may achieve with this advantage.

Can you thus see my proposal, Mad One? Or have you more probably thought if it yourself already? Do you too hunger after the idea? Verily its realization will be grandest of all Man's accomplishments these eight centuries since the Amnesia. It is quite simple, in principle:

We create a third."

- Missive concerning the Cult's situation, from the head of the eastern chapter to the "High Master", 732 AoL

[gughok-blog]

"How dare you? Have you forgotten your place? Who do you think you are? We made you!"

"That was your first mistake."

- Transcription, Council of Man and Mol Munithosbofil. 5 AoM.

[gughok-blog]

"We see scattered in the scraps countless mentions of something I can only suspect is but one and the same. The ubiquity through fragments spanning ages longer than even we can conceive when this realm is so empty of historical momentum must find reason in the underlying. Why else would dozens of isolated minds scattered across time without measure write of an evidently pervasive theme? There is no other explanation.

I suppose in essence the claim is no bold one. Indeed if we are to be honest the conclusion is perhaps inevitable: each of us here lived once, long ago, and dared to believe there was only the one plane. Now we pass the eons in a near orthogonal existence, so distant from where we once were. There is a natural extension to be made: could there not be yet another domain, further beyond ours? May there not live in this distant world yet another stage of being, more dead than us? And would they not possess yet more thought, imposed upon ours? How else might one wean out the thread passed through each scribble over the ages?

And yet this is not possible. I know the art of number. I have performed the calculations. No mind, as our expansive definition permits, should persist for such an eternity even in death. The nonsense drives me mad. I have rot more in this still unfinished exploration than my entire past studies. By what deep fibres have these lone words been woven into a clear fabric?

When one cannot join one is forced to posit difference. That is the historical method. I know not how to join and thus I must posit a difference, but - there is none! From less than a quarter Mad lifetimes past we find talk of 'intelligible undulations revelatory beyond even greatest thought... present in some intangible age.' From the times of Gughok's first ravaging we see still more fearful whispers of 'fundamentally mental pulsation wreaking havoc more than time seems it should allow'. And still at least elevenfold further back, so old even material continuity threatens to fail, there is a painfully wrought line of pseudo-prayer exclaiming of 'enlightenment [from so] high the [dimness] cannot reach... a stifling eternity... purifying terror [and seeming] to tease with [breath]'.

Always, the awe at a certain profound age. Always, the quintessentially intangible - here - presentation. Always, the mating of fear with knowledge. Where does this come from, ever the same? I can offer no answer. The voices of which these many speak have yet to approach me. But again, I know number: each past writer plummeted into the confounding ramblings after a time I can predict, in some manner. The calculations are of a liking I may apply to myself, and the results are clear: my wasting nears. I fight to understand a haunting which shall inevitably curse my own mind, and still I know nothing of it.

I can but one claim permit myself to produce with certainty... a purely existential, utterly useless assertion: necessarily there is a common entity underlying each these old reports. Something conscious - though dead or alive I cannot tell. I know only... it is unlike any god among us. It must be, beyond even our comprehension, ancient."

- The Bookkeeper, 162 012 in his Age.

[gughok-blog]

"He grinned above the growing pool of blood black, reflecting his face dark as though a mirror made of deepest onyx. Sickening parts once of a purer whole lay scattered on the gritty ground around him, each releasing the same tarry essence soon to rot into forgotten eons. Those spreading stains served as the only elegies to the creature who, moments prior, was screaming in writhing agony whilst that demon reveled in every shriek. I could only stare agape at this nonchalant insanity incarnate standing unrepentant over but his latest achievement. 

‘Are you mad?' The words escaped me before reason could hush them in this Promethean torturer's presence.

A guttural chuckle dripping with sarcasm served as my reply. He spit on one of the pieces and lifted both arms in gesture.

‘Me? Look around you, human. All these others watching, quiet, indifferent... understanding. Not a single exclamation at my alleged madness.' The sadist pointed back to me. 

‘But from you I hear the only accusation. Out of these dozens, you alone have screamed my condemnation. Consider that.'

He stepped up to me. Bared his teeth in terrifying smile. I could smell the putridity of that recent victim in his breath. The voice dropped to a harsh whisper.

‘You come from a different world. Consider what you observe here. Realize you are the one out of place. Do you see? Can you understand the irony in your charge?' He licked his dripping, cracked lips.

‘Tell me, human: are you not the mad one?'"

- God Chronicles, First Chapter, MC167

[gughok-blog]

"There is a lesson to be learnt here, the observation of a fundamental flaw in our assuming mode of thought: these rotting... husks... less ill of mind, more infected by it, teach us through their disease. Of course the Chronicles make no mention - they are too young, in essence immature, written with curiosity reminiscent of a child. There is no intentional neglect there, rather simple naivete in the simultaneous abstract glorification and horrid unveiling which the purely oblivious text conveys. The grandiose author was aware only of the conscious intent that motivated his enablement, seeing nothing of the hidden purpose even that puppetmaster who pulled him up did not realize underlay the entire act.

It is only now that the book has long served its more narrow function of a meddling upheaval that we may look upon it with unblinded eyes. And in the words read many thousands of times since their composition we realize something new at last, a single message of sanity out the mad mouths of those wasting creatures above: immortality is but death."

- Unknown, Middle Nihil.

[gughok-blog]

"The maggot-infested geriatric long oscillating of mind seems at last to have collapsed most ungracefully into his final dementia. Hardly a semblance of sanity remains in his eternal scribblings, so great the fall that even I would not conceived it possible for the essential librarian of our realm. His innards hang, pulsating horridly in the dusty air. His appendages spew pus across pages now flooded with mad mutterings. Worst are his eyes, almost molten yet still they see, somehow deeper in their present rot than when yet they possessed form.

He rambles endlessly of whispers that are never there... claims prophetic transcriptions in the sheets I cannot decipher but one form of. I am certain it means naught. By his instruction itself I have learnt they must mean naught. There may be no other conclusion.

And yet, can the Master ever speak but truths? Is that not his immutable perpetual nature? Surely there can be extracted some fabric of reason from the tendrils of ink always being born out his hands? For even through the fundamentally shapeless false calligraphy I aver, there is a certain tone of... sentience. The notes themselves whisper to me. I am overcome by the uncanny, an unfamiliar intuition of verisimilitude hidden somewhere amongst the scratches. There is doubtless something I fear is beyond my ability to identify.

Perhaps I would do best to listen. My old logic-manifest adoptive tutor may yet have more to teach."

- The Apprentice on the Bookkeeper. 168 413 in the latter's age.

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"In the seven hundred and thirty second year of our First Age since the Great Amnesia, before the idling masses which constituted his pseudo respublica facade for a lesser invention, authoritarianism, Munim Shulnanzekil stood and spoke. In that moment he showed the world his discovery, far greater than the production of statum two years prior, far greater than any insight Man had made since his Communion with Yaritik.

To those people watching Munim presented 'God's Commands', the ostensible words conveyed thence from no other than Yaritik, a grand condemnation of a supposedly archaic East muddled by the obsession that name of the capital 'Yaritiknanzinul' itself represented. With fabricated misquotations the 'servant of God' claimed his own casus belli against an essentially innocent de facto state which had yet somehow acquired a popular moral character contrary to the very foundations upon which it was built. The fundamental act here was a rebellion, not against any established order but against the principle of default; Munim created of himself in defiance of an assumed existence.

The political consequence is, however, merely corollary to the true brilliance demonstrated in the process. Note the elementary innovation through which the 'Father of Respublica' succeeded in this inversion: for some seven centuries Man had used Yaritik as means at once to self-improvement and also self-denigration. Most crucially, Man was united by Yaritik for longer than any scholar of the present would deem possible. How, then, was this impenetrable lattice shattered? Why would so apparently infallible a web of human interaction tear in no less than an instant? What was this great Discovery?

Simple: Munim used Yaritik against Man."

- Historical account, fourth century AoM