Look upon my works, ye mighty...
Luxembourg just after 12pm
<<Refusing to go on stage in Luxembourg... something is wrong.>>
The door remained closed to the dressing room, and a figure outside continued to bang at the door. But Tyler paid no attention. Within, he was certain that something tremendous and perhaps terrible has happened. All essence he had built up over time was gone, washed clean by the silence.
Then a familiar voice called from outside the room, and the banging stopped. It was Saul, the lead singer of the band.
Tyler let him in, shutting the door to the others.
He looked at Tyler once, his thin and drawn features more skeletal by the dim light of the darkened room. Tyler noted his apparel and temperament. He had been ready to walk on stage, prepared, but now something had pulled from him all desire to do so. He stood quietly, overshadowed by Tyler�s height and presence in the room, and then, finally, spoke.
�What happened? I felt something... but I do not know what it is.� His voice was quiet, carefully pitched not to carry beyond the small room.
Tyler stared, momentarily unfocused, at a random point on the wall.
When at last he spoke, his voice was a soft rumble of sound, somehow clearly audible above the dull thudding of the local warm-up act.
"Something...universal just happened to the Symphony, my friend. Think of it as an orchestra playing along, turning the page, and every musician discovers an unexpected rest note."
Tyler paused to allow his words to sink in. "You may not fully comprehend me now - perhaps this is where your learning curve shall steepen considerably, but this may be an opportunity unlike any other. We shall have to wait and see..."
Tyler took a quick swig from a hip flask, before changing the subject, and lightened the mood somewhat. "OK, I'm afraid we have to blow the gig...sorry, man, but look on the bright side - it'll do our street cred wonders! Rudy's too stoned to play, anyway. If anyone has a problem with us doing a no-show, I will answer to them." The last phrase lingered dangerously, as Tyler glanced towards the door by way of letting Saul know the conversation is over - almost...
"When that is done, I shall have need of your personal altar."
Saul was about to quietly leave when Tyler mentioned this, and he looked up a bit surprised. "Of course. I will get it set up when I get back in from canceling..." he swallowed, obviously considering asking what it was that he planned to do with it, and Tyler watched as the expression on his face moved from faint curiosity, to blank obedience. Tyler heard him with level voice answer the queries of the people outside, and then his voice became more distant.
Tyler sat quietly for a while, and made out the faint roar of disappointment from the crowd outside, accompanied by sounds of breaking glass and hollers. It sounded a little rowdy, but not disastrously so, at least not at the moment.
A while later, Saul came back in. "My room is ready." he said quietly.
Tyler accompanied him out into the corridor, overshadowing his thin frame by at least half a metre. One or two people in the hall at first looked as though they are going to accost Saul again, but one look in Tyler�s direction changed their minds.
Saul's room was darkened appropriately, with several ornate figurines in gold carefully arranged. The many headed and winged object of these statuettes is pleasantly familiar. Before Tyler, was the wall length wooden cabinet that Saul had converted, with its doors wide open, adorned with careful carvings of many stories and truths, some of which Tyler remembered having told him. Ornate ancient scrip was carved throughout, in several languages: Babylonian, Sumarian and Hieroglyphics.
Inside the main recess of the massive cabinet was the one great statue in stone, the gaze of which Tyler meet levelly, perhaps with a faint smile. Tyler was aware that all here was as it should be, and he could pass if he so desired. As to what was beyond, only passage would tell.
Saul, in the background, cleared his throat. "Is this something I should see?" He asked quietly.
Tyler half-turned his head to look askance at his "disciple", and spoke in the disaffected tones of one whose mind is on matters of far away and long ago. "You may stand by and watch, or go, as you see fit. However, this hallowed place must remain so until I return. The events of this night have me feeling drained. I must rest, and I would like to establish the true nature of what has occurred. To that end, I shall be calling upon some old allies."
Saul nodded his assent. "Then I will stand watch, as you allow." He cleared a chair of clothes, and sat down to get comfortable.
Tyler then lowered his hulking frame until he was in a kneeling position, then smiled at the statue, shrugged, and then lay on the floor, relaxed. After a moment, he opened his eyes and looked up at Saul, as if sensing the bewilderment on the singer's face. "Do not be concerned, my friend. I shall only be gone a short while...I would invite you along, but astral travel is not a talent one can easily acquire", he said with a note of apology evident in his voice - even as he mused to himself, "Nor does it adequately describe what I am about to do!"
Tyler closed his eyes, and shut out the distractions of the corporeal world.
He focused himself utterly on the form in the cabinet. The dream image of what he desired to be, at least for now. Then, slowly, the walls, the ground, even the air and light blurred and become translucent. The last thing he recalled of the corporeal realm was Saul�s enawed (and perhaps frightened) face as he gasped, staring. The sound of his intake of air was blurred as well, as though only half real. Then Tyler was lying on the smooth sunlit earth with the bright all too close Sumer sun overhead.
The earth was cracked and dry, the sun hot, and a heat haze surrounded him. As he stood, he saw a distant city in the haze, and an oasis of green and shelter from the harsh desert planes. Babylon. He was in the far Marches, as he wanted to be. This plain was a long lost battleground between the Dragon and Meruk. Tyler remembered the day well. A battle he won, in a war he lost.
It was a long walk to the city of gardens and the tower of Languages. 'Whither do you go, and whom to you seek?' Asked a rock that was also a glyph, a sign made of rock in a desert. In the way of dreams it let Tyler know that one with power would speak with him. Tyler could see no mark of identification about the rock. Anonymous gods speaking in quiet.
It had been a long time since Tyler walked in Babylon. Long-forgotten memories returned, and for a time he stood and took in his surroundings, before he answered the inquiry of the rock, giving it his full attention out of curiosity, and showing no outward signs of discomfort in conversing with a rock (myths can be delightfully weird sometimes - makes for a unique story!).
"I seek to understand the nature of a recent universal Celestial phenomenon. I came here, to the place I have most attachment in my dreams, in order to make my presence felt amongst those who know of me."
Tyler grinned smugly, showing his teeth. "It seems that my instincts ring true, for you have seen fit to greet me, albeit not in a form befitting your true nature. Know this: none have bested me on this soil. I am confident that you pose no threat. Thus, let us talk. Have you knowledge of the event of which I speak? If not, what matters would you speak to me about?"
The stones fell to dust in the desert, but in their falling they spoke to him.
"This soil was not always this soil, but cities the likes of which no living man recalls once were beheld on this spot."
"I too know these sands. But they move from time to time. I lost these sands to no man or god, perhaps after thee, but one came once and spoke a quiet word. And then these sands lost me. Beware the quiet whisperer. It speaks of endings and forgetting, such that even the gods may know."
"I was god and king but all that is left of me is dust. But even the dust listens."
"I hear nothing but once in an age of silence came a Quiet that even I could hear."
"Something transpires. Something terrible this way comes. And then you are here, speaking old words in tongues long forgotten by man."
"My words end. Speak on if you will."
Tyler listened intently to the words of the dust, a faint smile flickering on his face as he recognized the identity of his erstwhile oracle. Out of respect for an ignominious fate he himself avoided, Tyler remained silent for some time after the dust settles. When he finally spoke, it was with uncertainty.
"Friend, your words are most...enigmatic. If they be truthful, then it would seem that more than one spider is weaving this web."
Tyler absently paced back and forth, careful not to disturb the remains of his advisor. "There is definitely an opportunity here, but as to what I can do with it, I am at a loss", he murmured. "The current situation may provide me with the freedom to move amongst Celestial circles without fear of torment. But...I am without purpose...", he trailed off before turning to look somewhat ruefully at the dusty remains and directly address them "...and thus I am cursed by my own free will! All I can do is commit your words to memory - you may take solace in that, for thus one forgotten page of history is remembered by one excised from history."
With that, Tyler turned towards Babylon, and walks slowly onwards. If the dust was to speak further, he would stop to listen.
The sands scattered at his passing, and perhaps the winds are thankful.
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