Grimoire Imperio
The Book of Empire
◀ Chapter 3 · Chapter 4 · Chapter 5 ▶

¹And it came to pass that Mortivar entered a town upon a hillside, whose name was not remembered, for it was of no great repute.
²Yet in that place he stood beneath a gnarled tree and lifted up his voice, saying:
³Behold, the time draweth nigh! The pillars are already laid; the architects sleep not.
⁴A nation shall rise that is not a nation; a kingdom of roads and treaties and tribute.
⁵It shall boast of liberty, but bind every man to his own yoke.
⁶Its eagles shall fly far, and its reach shall encircle the seas.
⁷Its soldiers shall be many, and their sandals shall crush the hills. They shall go forth in silence and return with hymns.
⁸And their gods shall be carved from stone, and their temples of stone, and their hearts like unto stone.
⁹Woe unto them that bow unto the Empire’s idols, for they bow not only the knee, but the soul also.
¹⁰Woe unto them that say: This is the new dawn! and forget the fire that first made the sun.
¹¹Then a scribe among the townsfolk said unto him: Speakest thou of a city? A nation? A people?
¹²But Mortivar answered him not plainly, saying only: What is written shall be known. What is hidden shall be revealed.
¹³And some were pricked in their hearts and said: Is this a curse? Or a warning?
¹⁴And Mortivar said: A warning is mercy; a curse is silence. I speak that ye may live.
¹⁵And the elders of that place forbade him to speak again, saying: This is not our custom, neither our concern. Let the man depart.
¹⁶Yet Mortivar departed not, but walked the hills round about, and there met many who hungered for the word.
¹⁷To them he gave parables, and told them of a tree whose roots reached through all the Oærth, and bore fruit that men knew not they had eaten.
¹⁸And he said: The tree is planted already. The branches ye shall see in time.
¹⁹Some shall build nests in it, and others shall flee from its shadow. But it shall grow till none may pass it by.
²⁰And they who dwell in its limbs shall forget the ground beneath them.
²¹And they who dwell below shall forget the sky above.
²²Be not as they; keep thine eyes upon the skies and thy feet in the dust.
²³For the Empire shall lift up the proud and cast down the meek, and call it justice.
²⁴And it shall write law in every tongue, but truth in none.
²⁵And those who resist it shall be crushed, and those who serve it shall be emptied.
²⁶And they shall make festivals in its name, and games, and temples, and scripts. And in these things they shall forget their souls.
²⁷But the people asked him: What then shall we do?
²⁸And Mortivar answered: Remember the Voice that crieth in the wilderness. Cling not to the Empire, but to the truth that made thee.
²⁹For the Empire shall not endure, though it span the world; it shall fall, and great shall be the dust thereof.
³⁰But they who stand apart shall be gathered, and they who endure unto the end shall be as stars in the vault of the deep.
³¹And the people marvelled, for he spake not as a man of clay, but as one who had seen the foundations of time.
³²And Mortivar departed thence, bearing the word into other places, for his labour was not yet complete.


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