Closed The Lie

[Wikus]

52th – Winter– 515 AV

9th Bell

This ink was addicting, and it drove him onward in pursuit of knowledge. Wikus was an uneducated man, possibly more ignorant about the world that he’d like to admit. There were many stories told in his past, yet his ears were always deaf to them as he always found something to be busy with. His kin often reached manhood with knowledge that may have been abstractly useful, but he never reached that stage. When others were taught to read, he cleaned the tents. When others were taught to write, he was with the horses. When others learned a second language, he spoke to himself. It wasn’t until he stepped outside of those tents and that life that he realized how lost he was, no place in the world made to fit someone as insignificant as him. It was sad, in a way, yet it was the truth. Having accepted it long ago, Wikus sighed as he wandered the streets.

The air was unexplainably cold, the winter in Riverfall being extreme despite what he believed. The ice had coated the entire city, and the snow had become as hard as stone. Wikus wasn’t a man of cold, as he would rather walk about naked rather than dressing these thick cloths he had paid for. Clothing was a waste of coin, even if coin itself was wasted space. Seeking a way out of the cold, the man entered the first door he found. It was the academy, a place he had visited a few moons back. There was the Valkalah Library, a place in which books laid and were available for the public. Wikus had visited it previously, and it was back then when he discovered his new ability’s true power. Absorbing the ink from a book granted him the ability to recite the contents of the book, even if he did not spoke the language. He could absorb entire books and keep the knowledge for himself, which in a way was somewhat wasted as knowledge was not something within his interests. Nevertheless, it would be a good place to finally try and gather some more skills – such as the one of reading.

Taking off his coat and leaving it on one of the chairs, claiming it with that act, Wikus would look around to try and find a tome he liked. Each one of them looked pretty identical, so the guess would be as random as its contents. A somewhat shady man walked beside him, carrying a rather large tome with the intention of returning it. They locked eyes for a tick; the stranger frowning deeply as he carefully inspected Wikus. For some reason, Wikus felt really awkward in that moment in the presence of said man, yet he did not get any clarification. There was tension in the air, only enhanced once the man offered a wide and somewhat disturbing grin as he handed over the book. Frozen still, Wikus raised his brow at the strange encounter, as if that man saw something he did not. Dubious at first, Wikus took a hold of the book and attempted to yank it out of the man’s hold, something the stranger did not allow as he instead tightened his grip around it. It was surprisingly effective to cause tension within Wikus, remaining on the spot. “I see you…” The man’s voice said, his voice being coarse and high pitched, as if a nightmare itself had spoken to Wikus. Before anything came to Wikus’ mind, the man had let go and was already marching swiftly towards the exit. Just as quickly as he came, he was gone.

Shocked by the bizarre encounter, Wikus remained on the spot for a chime, looking back at the exit as if waiting the man to come again, this once perhaps armed with a dagger or something. His presence was disturbing, and his vague words were somewhat terrifying. There was no reason to it, but nevertheless it was the impressing he got. Once he made sure that man would not return, Wikus finally moved to his seat with the book in his hands. Sitting down, he’d sigh before opening the book, hoping to perhaps encounter something astonishing and mind-breaking, something never heard of before and an answer that could fix all his problems. Instead, he found a bunch of symbols that he couldn’t quite read. Well, it wasn’t quite the discovery, but it was still something he thought. Just by looking at one page he felt the drowsiness taking over, his mind plotting to lose interest as soon as possible to instead focus on something easier. It would take bells to decipher the first page, and even then he had no guarantee if the deciphered message would have meaning for him. Perhaps it was written in a language he didn’t know, as he could barely struggle with Common. There would be a lot of pain involved, but it was a gamble he was willing to take.

At last, he brought his finger to the ink and began absorbing it. It was a very painful process, similar to getting a new tattoo on the spot and at a much faster speed. He only managed to absorb one page before the pain was too much to handle. Panting already, some of the other visitors of the library were indiscreetly staring at him. Taking a hand to his forehead to sweep some of the sweat, Wikus began whispering the knowledge automatically. “Men are all and everything at the same time being nothing but everything and so goes the cycle of everything and nothing for everything is real and false until men realize they are nothing and everything at the same time…” The knowledge was quoted literally in his whispers, without any punctuation or pauses as those weren’t in his mind. It was like a word he wanted to say being stuck behind his brain, and an itch to say it was constantly present even when he did recite it. The words were buried in his brain, yet their meaning was unknown until he actually recited them – and still, most of the words were somewhat enigmatic and unknown, thus needing time to translate as well. Exhaling deeply, he began his meditation. Reciting the words once again as he forced his tattoos to adopt the form of the symbols, he recited as he followed the symbols in an attempt of trying to learn how to read them.

1074 / 50000

[Wikus]

15th Bell

Weak was the only word he could think to describe his current situation. Leaning back, head hanging freely from his shoulders, the breathing calm and deep, Wikus was at the edge of falling asleep. His flesh was burning, even if he had not absorbed a drop of ink in quite the time. How much time was unknown to him, having entered this strange lethargic state perhaps bells ago, or perhaps only chimes. Reality was blurry, already wishing to fall asleep. This book was simply torture. There was no knowledge within, at least not for him, as the only thing he had found was pain and senseless riddles. He was quite mad at this, for the pain of absorbing the ink, narrating it until he translated it, and finally trying to learn to read the symbols was a task no man should ever perform. The book itself spoke of senseless terms, full of random stories that didn’t quite do anything but confuse him. As he didn’t know how to count, the number of pages absorbed was unbeknownst to him. He only knew that after taking each of those pages and putting in the effort to try and guess what lied within, he returned the ink into the book and refused to ever touch it again.

Many of the library’s scholars were staring, unknown to the pain he had suffered literally when attempting to gain knowledge. It was accepted for a while, yet soon he grew tired of their ignorance. Lifting his head up, he would close the book and begin dressing up – having uncovered his chest long ago in attempts of halting the sweat that was built in the process. His limbs barely moved, yet they still obeyed. Not a chime later and he was already walking the streets. The cold was obviously present, and this once he didn’t want to be in it. He needed a warm place in which to sit and to rest. Memories of the books excerpts came to him, having stuck after an infinite number of recitals done in whispers, having to translate them by either breaking his mind or breaking his pride as he asked somebody. He then recalled the disturbing encounter with the man, and tried to think of a motive as to why that book was placed in his hands. His thoughts drifted and drifted until he finally arrived at Vin’s Smokehouse.

It was a warm place full of the aromatic smell of tobacco, something Wikus enjoyed very much. There weren’t many people, but there was a lot of noise. Most laughed at jests, others moaned as they spun their heads due to the tobacco’s effects. Others talked about their daily life and their happenings. Wikus moved to one of the corners of the establishment, and after ordering some random type of tobacco, he sat in one of the cushions. He wanted to rest, badly. Not only it was physical, but also mental his type of drain, lacking the strength to do pretty much anything. The pipe arrived and so did the tobacco, Wikus having to pay 10 golden mizas for it. Expensive, but not quite minded by him. After the woman was gone, he prepared the pipe and eventually began smoking. A few puffs later, he felt extremely calm, and so he kept inhaling the aromatic smoke. His eyes had closed, and even the sounds of the world began to fade. His head was spinning, but in a good way, almost as if living a fantasy. The meditation began.

He lost track of sound, only hearing a distant tone. Strangely, he felt lost in a place similar to the Sea of Grass, mostly identified by the sentiment. It felt good, no matter how much he hated feeling lost. He inhaled, deeply, before opening his eyes – and finding himself in the Sea of Grass. Was this a dream? The grass was leaking ink, and the white puffy clouds moved with astonishing speed through the skies. Wikus sat on top of a large boulder, looking at the infinite horizon that lacked any significant detail. The peace and harmony were with him, his flesh lacking any kind of aching tattoos or ink, for that matter. The air was warm, yet not hot nor humid. Each breath submersed him more and more into this lethargic state of mind. He would live forever in here, lost where nobody could find him nor hurt him. He was safe here, unlike the world he had known before. His back no longer carried the heavy burden of his mistakes, for those mistakes were left behind in his past life.

“Please!” A voice cried nearby, the lethargic eyes of the ousted Drykas moving to see to whom it belonged. A hunchback was the owner, a creature as ugly as a leech, who kneeled before a man of unidentified features. His face was blurry, Wikus giving him no importance and instead watching the scene. “Look how ugly I am, how twisted and how unfairly I was born! Oh Master of Many ways, teach me the ways of old so I can gain what I never had!” Wikus blinked, raising his brow. The blurry man then hit the hunchback repeatedly, giving such a cruel beating in less than a tick’s time. It was as if time had jumped forward and skipped something, yet Wikus somehow knew everything that had happened in between. It was then the man with the blurry face the one that spoke. “You would bend the wisdom, which is true and real, to the respect of your fellow man, which is small and a trivial thing. The sky belongs to those who can look up, and below there is only the lie.” The scene and the two individuals dissolved in the air in a cloud of ink, only to reappear in a different spot of the infinite plains. No matter how far they went, or how distant their frames, Wikus could still hear their voices perfectly, and knew what was happening in the scene.

Repeating itself over and over again, Wikus watched the scene repeatedly. His attention was caught, but that’s the only thing he offered. He didn’t try to find meaning to the words spoken, nor try to ponder on the ideas presented to him in this universe he now lived in. Of course, fate was not like that. The next time the two men appeared, they did so just a few feet away from the laidback man. “Please!” spoke a voice… his voice. The hunchback’s features were his own, and despite Wikus not recalling what his face looked like, he knew the hunchback was him. It was as if he recalled being on his knees, looking up to a man and begging, as if this scene he had lived it in person. His eyes widened, a knot tying on his throat. “Look how ugly I am, how twisted and how unfairly I was born! Oh Master of Many ways, teach me the ways of old so I can gain what I never had!” Wikus knew the words, and his lips moved at the same time their sound reached his ears. Was he the one talking, or was he merely reciting in unison with his hunchback clone?

Then, he saw him. The man of the blurry features was there, present, and his image was perhaps the most known to Wikus. It was that man, handsome as the skies and with that smell of aftershave, whose smirk could bend the world and his eyes covered by his robe’s hood. That man, his lord and his savior, was the one that proceeded to beat up his hunchback clone. Wikus began crying, terrified for having awakened the anger of the only being he believed understood him, he wanted to move from this boulder and intervene but he was frozen in place. He was condemned to watch as his stupid self was beaten a few feet away. He couldn’t speak nor yell out, as his lines were over just like in the book he had extracted this scene from. His master stood above his beaten clone and spoke. “You would bend the wisdom, which is true and real, to the respect of your fellow man, which is small and a trivial thing. The sky belongs to those who can look up, and below there is only the lie.”

Wikus’ vision was impaired by the rivers of tears that ran through his cheeks. He wanted to look up, to discover what was up there that his own master had told him to find. Between wails, Wikus would finally find the courage to look up, and his eyes opened. He saw no sky, but the ceiling of the Smokehouse and the woman that had given him the tobacco slapping his cheek with her bare foot. “It’s closing time, sir. Please leave.”

1476 / 50000

[Wikus]

19th Bell

Wikus left the smokehouse once he wrapped himself in his coat. The air was even colder than expected, strangely contrasting with the unpleasant heat that existed within his chest. He wanted to bend forward and vomit, right on the white snow of the night, despite not having eaten anything salve the poor breakfast of the morning. His head was spinning, still affected by the hallucinations caused by that tobacco. Keeping his head down, he barely managed to see where he was heading, disorientation being ominous due to the events lived during this day. The skin still burned due to all the painful ink absorption, Wikus clearly having done it wrong or perhaps too fast. Later, the tobacco exchanged his meditation for a hallucination, which tired his mind further. The mental and physical effort was simply too much for him, and despite being a rather strong individual, he knew his limit was reached. He needed rest.

The chimes he spent walking the streets eventually took him to the street which held his inn, and thus the place he would rest for the surely a dozen nights. He didn’t want to eat, he didn’t want to drink. He just wanted to lie down and wake whenever his entire body had calmed down, and when he felt his strength returned to him. Entering through the inn’s door, he didn’t bother with the owner as he instead proceeded up the stairs, his feet so heavy he felt the temptation of falling down right there. He didn’t, still going until he reached the second floor. Panting lightly, he leaned against the wall to regain his breath and a bit more of strength. It had been many seasons since he had felt so bad, or felt so much pain that it clouded his mind. Someone opened their door, a man coming out of his room and quickly running towards Wikus. He squished between him and the wall, offering a brief apology as he seemed to be in a state of emergency. Wikus blinked, and began moving down the hall. He would have entered his room… if he didn’t see the running man’s room open. Wikus usually did a lot of theft, especially in cities, but he didn’t do it for profit nor vice. He was a survivor, and he took what he needed.

Of course, he entered. It was automatic for him, despite his bad condition. He simply couldn’t waste this chance – perhaps there would be food inside or something that might be of use. The room was identical to his, salve for the great organization it presented and the different disposition of the furniture. Unlike his room, the stranger’s was actually comfortable and welcoming. Wikus felt welcome to pry inside, as he began opening the drawers in search for something of use. Papers, clothing, and coins were found in various drawers, yet he took none. He was an honest thief, unlike others. What he did find appealing was a mirror. He hadn’t seen one of those in a very long time, and his room had none. It wasn’t big enough to let him see the tip of his head down to the end of his torso, as it was a hand mirror rather than a wall-mounted one. Without a doubt, Wikus’ hand would take a hold of it and he’d quickly sneak out of the room and towards his own. He didn’t close the door of the running man’s room, inviting anyone else to come in and take whatever they wished even if that right wasn’t theirs.

Once he was in his room, Wikus quickly threw a couple of logs of wood into the hearth, who needed very little to rekindle the fire that usually burned. Going to the heart and blowing with eagerness, he felt a little light-headed due to the loss of air and had to pause. He was feeling way more energetic and excited now, for a mirror was truly something wondrous to a simple man like him. It took him a few chimes to bring the fire to enough intensity to properly light his disorganized room. The floor was literally covered in wooden logs, a fruit of his constant thefts around the inn and that now had become a problem. Many other items hid around the room as well, be it plates, forks, cups and even a couple of sacks full of grass. The inn owner refused to let anyone inside to clean, something Wikus appreciated very much. Finally, he moved to the improvised hammock he used as bed, and placing his back to the fire, he raised the mirror and… looked inside.

Awe was the only word he could think of as he looked at his reflection. This is what I look like, he said to himself. His reflection had always been a vague image to him, seen mostly in surfaces of water. Never before had he seen his own reflection so clear and so pure. Never before he knew what he looked like, nor what his face gave away. Now, for the first time in the numerous winters he had lived through, he saw himself. He saw his blue eyes looking back at him from the other side, his blond hair tied in a bun on top of his head, his blond beard covering his face. His nose, lightly pointy yet well shaped, his somewhat prominent cheekbones, his perking ears. This was him. For a moment, he thought he was going to cry from emotion. Nevertheless, he felt a strange kind of joy as he saw his reflection moving whenever he did, cheering himself up just by placing himself in front of a mirror. He tilted his head to the sides, watching his reflection mimic him.

Like any other creature that discovered their reflection for the first time, Wikus spent entire bells looking in the mirror. At first he played around, and then he watched himself in every detail. He now knew what he looked like, and what other people saw when they looked towards him. To think a man was so busy in his life to never before know what he looked like was sad at best. Nevertheless, Wikus knew the consequences of his youth and thus he didn’t mind too much. Spitting on his rear, he would properly lay in the improvised hammock now as the gentle fire warmed the room. Wikus started removing his clothes until he was comfortable enough, and simply rested. His flesh still ached despite how much he tried to forget about it. His stomach still irked, as if he had swallowed a dagger. All this trouble and this pain for a book whose contents he couldn’t understand. The vision flashed in his mind, and Wikus closed his eyes as he pondered.

“You would bend the wisdom, which is true and real, to the respect of your fellow man, which is small and a trivial thing. The sky belongs to those who can look up, and below there is only the lie.” Would ring once again in his mind, having heard it hundreds and hundreds of times, and only having memorized it when his own face was represented in the vision. That vision was directly influenced by the book, realized Wikus, as he recalled having read a story that described that vision. Nevertheless, the vision mattered none if he couldn’t understand the meaning. ‘Bend wisdom to the respect of your fellow man’ felt like a sentence full of hidden meanings. How does one bend wisdom? By lying? True, a lie could bend the world as it was a word that, if delivered with enough conviction could become the only truth for another individual. The world was built on lies, such as the promise of greener grass that never quite came.


‘The sky belongs to those who can look up, and below there is only the lie.’ The other sentence also carried some meaning. Those who can look up would be the strong, thought Wikus, as those who live the lie would be the weak. Life was often divided between strong and weak, such as this city for example. The weak were the Akalak, whom had to bend the knee in order to get a female. The female only had to raise a hand to have Akalaks falling to her feet. In that situation, female were stronger. In combat, however, the men were far stronger than the females. So who are the ones who look up? Maybe the ones that were always the strongest or perhaps the ones that started weak and ended up being champions. The options were infinite, and so were the answers. It was then when the two sentences joined, and Wikus opened his eyes.

That was not the complete sentence. There was another piece that he now remembered, and that allowed him to finally find the answer.

1477 / 50000

[Wikus]

21th Bell

“Believe the lie if you wish to enjoy it, believe it not if you wish to command it.”

That was the sentence. Wikus froze in place, his eyes opening to see himself in the hand mirror. It was a revelation, something otherworldly that invaded him and finally showed him the truth – the real truth behind it all. If the situation was any more dramatic, surely tears would be flowing down his tears, and they wouldn’t be just because of the pains or the mysterious tobacco he had smoked. It was something deep inside his mind what clicked, what finally connected to something else and enlightened him, that filled him with grace and power. Wikus stared at his eyes in the mirror, almost witnessing them glowing from the ecstasy experienced in that very moment. He finally had it, right in his hands, the answer he had been looking for the entire day – the answer that solved the riddle that had tormented him through entire bells, already having planned his pathetic existence if it never got solved. The solution was simple.

Standing up, Wikus’ hand would toss the hand mirror against the nearest wall. The glass sprinkled the entire room, the clash being thunderous in the small instance. He felt no pity as he watched the fragments of his reflection splatter around, forever forbidding him from seeing the other self that stood inside the mirror. The answer was simple: the book was a lie. It had taken him all this time and all this pain to find that answer, the answer that the book was in fact nothing but a book lacking of any meaning. Djed here, djed there… senseless words that tried to educate him into something he did not believe – magic. He had seen the power of magic before, people making flames with their fingers and claiming miracles of healing would occur from a glowing hand. He had seen that, and he had believed they would succeed when they were nothing but lies. Magic was the true lie.

Lying back down on his improvised hammock, Wikus brought his palms to his eyes, hiding from the embarrassment. This book had tried to convince him throughout negation the lie of magic, but he was smart enough to detect it. It had nothing to do with neither the vision nor the particular sentence he just remembered, but in the previous segments of the book. Despite not having reached very far into the book and its almost random content, he had managed to keep some of the knowledge. How? Throughout hard work and insane dedication, and that was the only truth he needed. Magic was a fake discipline, even if webbing itself was supposedly magic. This Djed thing was supposedly something everything in the world possessed, yet he did not believe it. Can a stone have of Djed? If so, how come no stones are seen casting fake magic? The book itself was a lie, and he wouldn’t fall for the trap.

‘Believe the lie if you wish to enjoy it, believe it not if you wish to command it.’ The sentence ringed inside his head again, almost bringing a hysterical laughter in his lips. Those who believed magic would solve their life were wrong; they were the ones that believed the lie. Those were the ones with muddy faces and teary eyes, useless creatures that expected something to fix their disgusting life for them. Only a man’s hands were enough to build a future, to build something real. Only hard work and sweat, only pain and perseverance would ever bring results. Fools and goofs were the ones that spent their time with books such as these, or books in generals. The cowards that were too afraid of stepping into the real world, of stepping outside of their little doors and witnessing and experiencing all the cruelty of the world were those found trying to gain knowledge from other sources. Surely they were the ones that gossiped and talked instead of doing something useful.

Wikus shook his head, finally being happy with the riddle’s answer. He, who had lived throughout so many winters that his counting skills were not enough to keep track of, was still alive despite never touching a book in his life. Sighing, finally the calm invaded him. His mind and its reasoning were highly pleasing. He didn’t felt pressured to find any answer, for him himself was the answer. He was living proof that magic was a lie, that Djed was a lie, and that the only truth in the world was indeed blood. Believe the lie if you wish to enjoy it, believe it not if you wish to command it – and he would command it. If he stopped being lazy and unmotivated, if he stopped trying to find something different to do with his life than what he had been doing to this day, he would be the one to command the weaklings. If he was patient, he thought, he would one day find vast power by suffering rather than coming up with excuses.

Completely satisfied with his reasoning, Wikus would close his eyes once more and let the euphoria fade away. He knew that he was right – he was always right. His philosophy was correct, for it did apply to his life. Others died and he lived. He of all people, even when seen as the perfect pray, was still alive in this twisted world he lived in. The best of all was he never lied, and was always pure to his beginnings. He never said anything he didn’t believe, nor spoke untruths just to find comfort and love from people. That’s why he was alone, and that’s why he would probably die alone: because he would rather break than bend. The world needed more people like him. Tiredness ran over him, finally kicking in after the several chimes that had passed. He had skipped work to confirm something he already knew. At least now, after all this trouble and all this wasted time, he knew one thing.


He knew that he was right all along, and that he shouldn’t doubt himself ever again.

1027 / 50000
Thread total: 5024

[Konrad Venger]

Nice job! Your work has pleased The Sloth! Wikus XP: Observation - 3 Meditation - 2 Philosophy - 3 Larceny - 1 Lore: Valkalah Library: A Buffet for the Brain Abilities: Absorbing Words and Thus Knowledge Philosophy: Not Just Knowing the Words, but Understanding Them Meditation: The Art of Mental Transportation Larceny: Steal what you Need, what not you Want Philosophy: Drawing Understanding from Metaphor Philosophy: Suffering Breeds Survival Click Me! : ‘Believe the lie if you wish to enjoy it, believe it not if you wish to command it.’ Brilliant! I loved the progression of knowledge, here, it was very well done. I liked how you didn't shy from portraying Wikus from what he was: a man ignorant in books and learning and philosophy, who was twisting the knowledge of others around his own experiences in order to understand them... at least as far as he CAN understand them. You made it all very convincing and believable, too. Oh, and please make sure you go back and edit your post in the Request Thread to reflect the fact this one is now done and dusted. PM me with any questions and later 'tater!