Down in a lush wooded vale, I met a man named Truth. The vale was green with ivy, and thick deciduous foliage, and so also was Truth. He stood in the midst of the vale with his two feet planted deeply into the earth; as a growing tree was he, with fibrous roots reaching even beneath the foundation of the mountains. Lush, thriving and alive, yet made of stone as much harder and sharper than diamonds, as he was also older than they.

Truth was a sharp and rigid fellow, and he cared not what I thought, neither that which I believed. His long, shaggy hair bristled in all directions like long ponderosa pine needles, and his thick beard hung down to the earth. He was old and rigid… but not tired. There was no hint of weak, or weariness in him he was as spry as a warrior youth, and his sword was as sharp this day as it was the day it was forged in the fires of The Eternal (and it is being tempered at every moment).

The horror of the ages filled my trembling soul as I stood before this terrible monstrosity who regarded no thought, emotion or will (indeed, he has no regard for any, save He who made him). My bowels were within me as melted wax, and my knees did tremble so that it seemed at any moment I would collapse.

I met Truth in my pilgrimage, as I journeyed to the farthest reaches of the Great Horizon, where the light like a ribbon compasses the dark ground with a golden crown – that place which ever beckons man (a place of mystery, and hope). He is the bridge between the worlds, and scaling his back is the only way to cross the gold horizon. Scale him?! Tis the hardest and most fearful deed a man can do… supposing he is able.

You may be wondering how I got to this place, but that adventure I shall not tell, for you will find yourself there as I. The Truth never leaves his place, and all will come to it one day, those who seek to find his habitation are his disciples, and those who seek to avoid the place of his habitation are his enemies. May God have mercy upon them.

Finally unable to stand in Truth’s awesome presence, I collapsed to the ground. I had found his home, and entered upon it to confront him. Yes, and all who come to this place with either confront him, or be confronted by him – and his glittering sword will cut them to pieces.

He was fully aware that I had come to the place of his dwelling, and had for some time appeared to ignore my presence. And surely there are those who stumble upon his home, and even make a full and thorough search of his dwelling, yet never see him once while they are there. Forasmuch as his home is called by his own name: Truth, all the lands surrounding him for miles are his – yet so he, himself is hidden in the midst of his land, and is indistinguishable from the landscape (but Truth must be known personally, no mere knowledge of his abode – however intricate – will suffice). Even as I said, he was in appearance like a tree, and he stands more motionless than the trees for he is eternally unchanging.

Surely many have walked right by him, and never known nor seen him for his utter simplicity, and common appearance make him nearly invisible… and fully indistinguishable from the landscape around him for those who’ve no eyes to see him.

Yet now, I had discerned him, and distinguishing his form from the landscape, I saw all the fullness of his terror, and collapsed at his feet. Only then did Truth deign to shift his eyes onto me; even his gaze was so intense that it pierced my flesh, and cut my heart. At his glance I cried out in pain, and the blood ran forth. Then he sighed, and his breathe blasted the ivy canopy of the ground, tearing leaves, and peeling vines from the blast as a tempest; his hot breathe as hellfire scooped me from the ground and cast me tumbling through the brush.

Maimed was I, nearly broken, yet the man had not even spoken.

All my armor, and every weapon I bore were less than children’s toys; they were from a lower, weaker realm than this man who cared not, nor had respect for any.

Then suddenly, the ground, the trees, yea, even the air about my head reverberated with the sound of words: “WHAT YOU SEEK WILL KILL YOU.” These words shook the world around me, and their reverberations set themselves deep into my bones, and trembled me from within till my joints all shook loose from their sockets.

Yet even when the words had ended being spoken, they hung like echoes in the air… and reverberated within me. And there I lay, wounded but at the faintest interaction with Truth. All at once did my mind conceive a million horrible things; I saw death, and tortures, I heard in my mind the shrill screaming cries of one suffering unimaginable torments – and discerned that that voice was mine own.

And now, though I had sought this place, and chosen to find this horrible man, I yearned for the days of mine ignorance, before ever I’d seen him: when I was a child and this man did not matter. But he always did matter, only I was blind… blissfully blind. Why, oh why had I opened my eyes? Why had I looked, why had I striven to see him? Oh, but if I hadn’t yet still these moments were surely to come, for as I see now (and as I have said), everyone will confront, or be confronted with Truth. And so I realize though the pain and the horror of his appearance come, better it is that they come upon men in the land of the living, where the pain, and the horrors are but echoes, and the truth of them is not to be felt in eternity. For the fearful eternity is where Truth will cast all those who have not fallen in love with him.

In mercy Truth neither spoke, nor looked upon me for some time as I began to recover from the gentlest taste of his being. Praise God there is time to begin to come to terms with him, now!

Part II – ‘Truth’s Seed’