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___From the dark man in his darkness, my beloved, I turn; looking forward seven summers.
___On the edge of mountains and plains, a bright clean palace gleams.
___Within its halls, a woman walks; slowly, stiffly, smoothly, straight and tall.
___Her long auburn hair is dancing with life; her face, however, can no longer show so much expression. Her royal gown of greens and browns, trails behind. Her servants pause to smile and bow.
___They love the fragile smile she gives in return; they know she cannot give much more, and wonder about the tears they see on her cheeks. Some of them think they know why.
___Some of them speculate wildly.
___Some of them are correct.
___She wants them to know—more than they know; more than they will be comfortable knowing.
___One day, they will learn why they see those tears.
___But, that time cannot come, until she takes a first step of hundreds.
___Smoothly she glides, stepping out into her quiet garden, which she touches.
___Slowly she glides, up the baked stone face of her tower, which she does not touch; although as always she checks it for wear.
___She gently steps into her wide upper room, between its narrow encircling columns.
___A servant waits, having ascended by stairs curving up through the floor. The servant has brought what she asked, and sets it on a tilted frame.
___The woman nods to him, and with a gracious gesture she dismisses him.
___He will do the same for her on each first day, each week, for years to come.
___The woman carefully lowers her willowy body into a nearby tall-backed chair, billows of hair arranging in comfort around her.
___She pulls the frame to her. Upon the frame: a shallow tray filled smooth with clay.
___The woman casts her mind back through the years; back to the days when she leaped and crouched and stormed through life.
___Then she reaches, and sinks a stylus-tip into the clay.
___Along with this she sinks her thoughts.
❖ ❖ ❖
___I am the Empress of Mikon.
___I do not know how long I have, before the next great change.
___My people have often represented my body and face; indeed, moreso than any woman’s in history. Somewhere a sage is collecting a record of all my public utterances.
___But, the paintings and sculptures and statues of me, are only of my body. Even my sayings do not reveal my soul, my mind, my history.
___My people deserve to know, to remember, the truth about me. I remember. I have failed in so many things, and most of my people do not know— or do not remember.
___They should know. They must remember.
___On a day to come, their disillusionment, though divisive, still will serve its place in the fate of the nations.
___And, perhaps, this testimony shall also serve historians, helping them piece together events of the past few years. I held a central place in the history of our lands, of Mikon, after the most recent Culling.
___I did not know what privilege I had been granted.
___Oh, I surely asserted my “privileges”! I thought I snatched them by my will, from the anarchy of that time.
___I was a fool.
___Already I hear the ardent denials, from people who shout my name with such devotion. I treasure and bless those people in my heart, more than they can imagine. And those paintings and sculptures showing the ground beneath my feet becoming fertile, watered by my eye-closed tears—they are not wrong. No, they are far more right than they know. Yet none of them, nor the songs which call me “meek” and “stern” and “gracious” . . .
___None of these tell why.
___They don’t even know from how deep a wound, to myself and others, those tears seep.
___I dug my wound, bit by bit, filled with decay and ooze and bile. It swelled with infection.
___It had to be lanced.
___And even now, I pay the price.
___but my price is small, compared to what others have paid…
___for me.
❖ ❖ ❖
___Page by page she scratches her soul along with the clay.
___Every week, a new blank tray. A day a week, a page a day; the fine, small letters she cuts in the clay, as if into powdered flour. It doesn’t weary her, but emotionally.
___Emotionally, and in one other way.
___She mustn’t write more than one page a week.
___She still has many things to do, many people for whom she must be strong, before she dies.
___She will not kill her body through her writing.
___Not yet.
❖ ❖ ❖
___Whatever use it may be to scholars later, this is a testimony first—of the person that I was.
___I am a maga; even though I haven’t needed to use those skills in years.
___But what I was, still echoes in what I am.
___It would be misleading to say that I am no longer a maga. Every study affects the soul. My soul is still here; although my body has flowed away, as every mortal body flows—as the curving of a waterfall.
___Scars and all, my soul is still here.
___I am not against magi—not in principle.
___But I was not a good one.
___And that makes all the difference.
___When I began what I considered to be my self-carved path to glory, I had not long passed my twentieth year; having spent some time already in preparation and training for the magical arts.
___I’d always enjoyed my use of power—a habit that wouldn’t soon change—and so had devised a clever scheme of revenge against…someone I had known as a girl.
___I had been certain that I would escape detection.
___I had been caught, of course.
___This was when I learned true fear.
___Had I been properly punished—and I did deserve death after some demeaning service— I might have learned wisdom through fear. But, my masters delayed my punishment.
___I now suspect that they were debating, whether to risk the loss of my potential—to the world at large, or to particular schemes of their own, the Eye only knows.
___Then the Culling began; thanks to fighting among the Cadrists.
___I also know the Rogues had a hand in the Culling as well.
___All the klerosa vanished; and the nations fell apart; and I was released when the Cadre disbanded. Why, I never found out; and had no wish to discover. I took myself away to survive in obscurity, not to become an expendable pawn: the fate of most apprentices.
___That was a terrible year. Fool that I was, I tried to tell myself how exciting my life had become. Then the fighting began to slacken as one by one the surviving Cadrists also disappeared. Bands of soldiers crossed the land, seeking any advantage, competing simply to live.
___I also needed advantages—and resources.
___So, I gathered squads; building them into companies. I thought of myself as dar- ing, and innovative, and defiant—swimming against the currents of history!
___Hardly. I threw myself headfirst downstream into the river, trying to swim more quickly than anyone else.
___and . . . I who am thought an example of virtue today, was once . . . something else.
___I was worse than any mere flirt. I enjoyed edging men in that direction, with or without my magic, achieving power for myself at their expense. And if it bothered them, so be it—what were they doing around me at all?!
___Fortunately, I was distracted enough by my practical problems: I never gave my full attention to this addictive little hobby.
___Yet, even now . . .
___I feel such burning shame in my heart, I wonder if steel would quench it…
___No. This is only another temptation: to defy the price of what I have done, to pretend that I can make it go away.
___What I have done is real—forever.
___Further crippling myself will never help me. Adding to my crimes will only add to the burdens I carry beneath the unavoidable Eye.
___I can be crushed beneath those burdens.
___Or, I can let love to help me to stand—and to walk—and perhaps one day to run.
___I do not believe that I shall be running again in this world.
___I am grateful, even to walk…
___Now my thoughts have turned that way, so I will follow the bend in the path I walked so poorly.
___But, not that far. Not yet.
___That cliff must be descended; but not yet.
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It’s there for readers to appreciate if they want to, but should (usually) be transparent if a reader doesn’t want to bother with it. But that explains why my word order and phrasing sometimes look a little weird.