THE TOWER
Outside the cavern he is met by BLACK RICHARD
“I see you have begun to find your way around these parts . What is it that happened in that cavern to you I do not know for I was not there. But I can tell you it is apperent something great and awesome did happen because your face radiates a white glow. Clearly this is the mark that such a one as you did see a fraction of the infinite broken off from that mysterious place and given to you. Do you know where you were Iso? We who inhabit the land, our ancestors built this cave dedicated to cycles of the sun and the moon. The moon is full one in 28 days I’d say no? well my ancestors surely knew. And every 28 days then it would shine it’s brightest in the night sky but not always in the same position. Each time, in a new position in the sky, until the celestial cycle is renued and the moon returns to shine in the center in the sky. How long would that take for the full moon to shine again in the high part of the sky? I don’t know how many months or even years but we can both guess it is many. Yet my ancestors surely knew to the hour and even second which is how they could build this cave. For the hole in the cave was carved by them, so that on that day when the cycle is renued the moon would shine directly into the cavern , and when such an event occurs the impossible doth transpire. And do you not walk to me as testimony to the impossible for ethereal colours suuround you because you witnessed the event.” (and richard only knew the half of it for he did not notice the white ring.) “What is the point from whence the impossible creeps into this world of logic? This world of past, present, future. This world of cause and effect.
Let me tell you what has been passed to me from my ancestors:
We face the sun as it is rising about the horizon do we not? (and the sun was rising for it was morning) And therefore it is present. The sun in the sky is like the present and in the past it was just by the horizon surrounded by the colours of dawn and in the near future is will set behind us. It will travel over us and beind us to set there in the west. But as us, our ancestors too would face the sunrise. Notice how facing the sunrise is the opposite of what would normally be. Should we face the sunset it would be going with the grain. For then we in the present would be facing the future which is to say the sunset and our backs are turned against the past from which we came, that is to say the sunrise. But we as our ancestors face the sunrise and in doing so make the past into the future. Furthermore, we know that in the future the sun will cross over us and behind us to set in the west. But I tell you that since we have turned our backs on the west and the sunset, that is to say the future will happen behind us. Yes the key to what I say is that the future is behind us. And as we stand knowing that the sun does set behind us we also know that it will rise again in the future Which is in front of us but would normally have been regarded as the past being the sunrise and the beginning. So The past is in front of us and is the true future.
The old future that was once acknowledged to be the real future is of the past for it is behind us. Remember that Iso. I see you have a book with you. Is it filled with words? Then let me have it and I will deliver it to the labyrinth way on the other side of the world” and he took the book in his hand and flew into the sky.