Once upon a time, there was a poor child
With no father and no mother
And everything was dead
And no one was left in the whole world.
Everything was dead.
And the child went and searched day and night,
And since nobody was left on the earth,
He wanted to go up in to the heavens.
You want to hear a bedtime story, my sweet? Which one, then? About the black dragon of the forest? Then, what about the hungry sea monster? No?
Well, how about the oldest golem?
Okay?
Okay.
Well, honey, you know that we live in strange times, where man and beast and demon sometimes walk together. Of course we're safe here! Nothing walks among us, my sweet, I can promise you that. But often, men grow curious about the shadows that draw close in an untamed life. They begin to wonder where the line is drawn, that which separates our reality from our imaginings.
So it was with the golem's Master.
His master, they say, was a man who had dreamed since he was a boy of life's possibilities. As he grew older, he spent all of his time and money on books. He read the works of great scholars, the holy texts and the babblings of madmen, all with equal ardor. Above all, his quest in life was to understand. His time away from people and with their deepest thoughts and whimsies had made him grow strange. He had all sorts of odd ideas, gleaned from books and his own head, written on yellowed paper that fluttered all about in the old house where he lived by himself, deep in the forests where we no longer go. It was from one of these pages, torn from a volume of text lost to the ages, that he drew up his plans for the golem. Since he had been alone for so long, he had no one to help him with the things people need help with, things like getting books down from the shelves, helping with his chores, and keeping him from being so lonely. You see, the old man's family had long since abandoned him, and he had no children to read bedtime stories to. The villagers that lived next to his forest thought him very strange. It is a very sad thing to be old and alone.
So the old man pored over his collections of strange lore, the books that sought to explain how men were connected to their world and their deity. To his first paper, he added many more, pages of rites and rituals, of symbols to be drawn and words to memorize, strange, esoteric things on old scraps of paper and parchment and animal hide. After many months of preparation, which to him were not so much to spend on the pursuit of knowledge, he went out into the woods that surrounded his home.
What the golem's master did out there, in the wilderness where men do not go, is lost to the passing of time. But it is said that in the fourth hour after midnight, the effigy he had constructed out of mud and clay sat up. Arcane symbols lined his body, and the word EMET, TRUTH, was written deep into his forehead. On his tongue was a talisman bearing the Ineffable Name, from which life comes. His previously lumpy, unformed body had taken on muscle and bone, brown eyes and hair. He was an amazing replica of a human man. He gazed at his surroundings, and then at his master, with awe in his new eyes. His master gazed back at him, and then told him this:
"Unshaped man, look upon me and know that I have made you out of dust to serve me. For in the eyes of God, you are more beast than man; you are not possessed of speech and your will is not your own and therefore you cannot have a soul; and thus as all beasts must, I say to you, you must bend to my will."
The golem followed the old man home. And he did everything without complaining or asking for food or water or sleep. He never asked for anything, because he knew in his unformed heart that what his master said unto him was true. He was not, and could not be, a man. Though he understood what was said to him, and looked at his surroundings with an awareness almost human, and could follow every order to the finest detail, he could not feel feelings like you or I. It is said that the things he did gave him no emotions, and he looked upon nothing with man's passion or desire.
Among the duties he carried out were to go to the village. His master, in his old age, did not like to venture far from his cottage. The golem would take produce the man had grown, or bring back food or ink or cloth or anything his master desired. Because only creatures possessed of a soul can speak, his master wrote notes to the villagers detailing what he wanted. The villagers would take whatever note the strange, mute servant brought them, and read them aloud. They would say, "Half a dozen eggs just for that?" and gesture at whatever the golem was holding. "What is the world coming to?" They asked him. He could not answer, but he listened. Then he looked at the words, ran his eyes over them over and over while he walked through the forest that had been the catalyst for his birth. The forest that was his mother soothed him, made him still and receptive to everything around him. Sometimes his master had him bring or take books. The golem would cradle them carefully in his clumsy arms, and sometimes, alone in the forest, he would crack their spines with infinite care, stare at the letters with idiot eyes that some swore were full of longing, touch them with great fingers like a blind man. Honey, the way a half-wild cat looks at a bowl of cream was the way he looked at those books.
After a time, the villagers warmed up to the tall creature, realizing he was not as strange as his master. They mostly took him for a mute beggar turned servant, though the topic of his origin was of some debate to the men in their bars. There was even some betting about the affair. The villagers' wives would take his big hands in their small fat ones and lead him to church, sitting him down in a pew and fussing over him while he watched, a vacant smile on his face and eyes that crinkled, but seemed to hold a sad desperation, like a child always just on the verge of tears. "How sad he smiles," they would say, but not to him. To him, they said "Your master can wait for you, dear. Runs you ragged he does, poor thing. You just sit here and listen a while, there's a lad." He would always listen to whatever he was told, for this was his nature. He was without soul like a beast, but he did not share their wild temperament. He was servant to man. You and I understand the world through all our senses, but not the golem. What he heard dominated his body and mind. So he would listen to the early morning sermons, for the villagers held church every day, and then he would be sent on his way. On the walk back, he would look at the forest that made up the only world he knew and his head would buzz with what the preacher said. Those sermons knocked around and around in that big fellow's empty head. It was filling up like a bucket dunked in a well.
Now, if a thing like him could be said to be happy, then he was happy. He spent his time among musty old books, the sweet smell of outdoors, and the soft bustle of a little village that accepted him. Despite the impossibility of it, some villagers swore that his eyes could almost appear content some days, his smile almost benevolent. The sermons, they were sure, had been the best thing for him. They had given him purpose and peace in his life, and that was why the only time he really looked content was the night before the holiest day of the week. However, they gossiped to each other, his master must punish him, for on the holiest day, the big strange man was never present among the churchgoers. He was never in the village at all.
...
Are you sure you wish to hear the rest? It's grown late. Aren't you tired? ...
Well... You know that it's just a story, now. You won't have bad dreams if I tell you? You're sure?
...
Okay.
Only one thing could be said to make him unhappy. He would begin to smile more serenely every Friday, his idiot face taking on a cast of slowly dawning joy that his master would blanket with the same immutability as the night blankets the day. And every night before the Sabbath, his master would say, "Come here, golem," and the golem would go docilely to his master, even though his eyes were full of terror. He was very afraid to face death, as all animals are, but he did it every week. The old man would wipe the ALEPH from his servant's EMET. Without it, his forehead simply read MET - DEATH. And then the spark of life in his eyes would immediately extinguish, and he would crumple to the floor. His skin would crack like dry earth. All day, he would sit, slumped and out of the way in the corner, as a child's discarded doll. The next day, his master would carefully rewrite the ALEPH on his forehead. Each day, the golem would live again, cowed by such a frightful experience.
It was necessary to do this, for the Sabbath is a holy day on which faith flows strong and strange things may come to pass. The old man had read much about golems before he created his own. The Sabbath had the power to give the unliving life, were they to have a few carefully-guarded sacred symbols on their person (such as the golem had engraved in his flesh). Such a simplistic creature as a golem was not meant for life. They would turn on their creator, grow savage with idiot rage and hate, energy without direction -- even if they were given feelings, golems did not know how to feel. Just to be truly happy would be strange and terrifying for them. Only things made by a deity were made for free will, and golems were made by imperfect men. And golems grew bigger as time went on. Over the course of years, the master noticed that the golem could reach higher shelves, lift heavier loads. They could become too powerful and heedless for men to control.
The golem knew this too, because his master told him so. It had been several years since he had entered the woods and performed his strange ritual, and sometimes, he almost saw the giant cloddish thing he had created as a man. The master had no heir in a son. He only had the golem. So sometimes, he would say "here, golem," and sit him at his side, and read to him books, and not make him do any work at all, and put him to bed, though the golem did not need to sleep.
Sometimes, he felt a little guilty.
And so it happened that one night, the night before the Sabbath, the old man ordered his servant to go into the woods and fetch him a certain kind of berry. He had plenty of this berry for his dyes; however, he took pity on the lumbering creature, and wanted to allow him a final walk in the forest that he loved to soothe him before the dawn of the Sabbath. The golem arose and walked out the door at the command, just as he had for many years.
From deep in the brush, three pairs of eyes watched him go. When he had crashed his way through the forest enough to be out of earshot, these men made their careful way towards the old man's home. They were thieves who had been passing through the nearby village, waiting for the traders caravan to pass through. It was a poorer village then as it is now, but something caught their eye, more precious than the meager goods that were being bought and traded. The idiot servant, walking with several books in his hands. Without free will, he was eternally innocent, so he could not know without someone telling him that books bound in gold must be kept hidden. It was a peaceful village. No one had ever told him to listen for followers as he walked back home, gilt tome in his hands, unable to sell it to the merchants for the price his master told him to accept. Neither he nor the villagers that tried to help him knew much about bartering.
So, the thieves... they entered the cottage of the old man. He was wise, but without his servant, he was just a feeble old man. They shoved him down, bound him cruelly and made him silent. Then they tore apart his great collection of literature; they stole or desecrated those things which had taken him decades to gather. When the golem had finished his slow forage and crossed the cottage's threshold, the evil thieves were already gone into the night with whatever seemed valuable -- mostly those finely-gilded books.
The golem fell to his knees, crawled to his master. His eyes were strange and different in their fearful looks; it was almost as if he were begging for orders. But his master had been meticulous in never letting him see the light of a Sabbath morning -- he had no free will of his own. Above all he had learned to be gentle and subservient, so that the old man would never want to wipe his forehead of its holy word forever. With his master still cruelly bound, no orders came to him. He looked as if he wished to say something, but his mouth was still bound in cloth, and so he could not order the golem to remove it. The old man's creation shivered all over, and they were still like that together, breathing shallowly.
... After a time ... the old man stilled.
The golem was horribly cut adrift. He stared at his master as dumbly as if only MET were engraved on his forehead.
He was truly alone with the man who had taken him from the earth. He knew nothing but following this man, and so he wanted nothing more than to follow him still. But he could not move. His body was not his own. It was no one's. He thought vaguely about his new imprisonment. Slowly, he began to mourn it, as sun slats from the dawn painted their faces through the still-open door.
And then, something incredible happened.
More things than cold thoughts and animal reflexes began to drift into his mind. His life was not in danger, as he had no need of food or water or sleep, but his heart thumped heavily as fear settled in his breast. This was very, very different than the adrenaline response he'd been forced to quell when he went to his master every night before the holy day. No one was here to dampen it for him. Experiencing such an alien reaction sparked panic, a feeling so deep and true that he felt he was drowning in it. He knew the truth.
The holy day had come to pass, and for the first time in his life, he was experiencing it.
A crazy desire possessed him; the golem wished to wipe off his own ALEPH.
The truth in his heart was that he was terrified of man. They were strange and kind and cruel, and he could no longer watch their emotions from a distance. Now he was one of them, but not by any desire of his master, or by any desire of any god. It was by cruel chance that he had obtained these feelings he had once observed, maybe, they say, had even once wanted. His traitorous heart would spill over with emotion forever and ever, against the will of the villagers' god, against all his master's designs, against his own nature. He had the heart of a man, but not his body. That would grow tall and strong until it cracked with time and weather, until he slowly fell apart, until his TRUTH was smeared beyond recognition, whereupon he would slow and still, as a windup doll does. Until then, he would be alone with his thoughts, his memories, his negligence so clear to him now.
"Father," he said softly, in a strange voice, deep and cracked like scorched earth, and then never spoke again, for he knew the great sin he, a beast, was committing in using a gift God gave to man alone.
And so the golem, deeply penitent for his nature, for killing his master with inaction, for being no good to anyone anymore, jumped up and burst through the door and ran far and deep into the forest, for no other reason than that he desired to. He felt it in his soul.
And he is there to this day, running from what he has become.
Goodnight, my sweet.
Information
Aleph_523 has a minion!
Emet the Pebbit
Emet the Pebbit
Aleph_523
Legacy Name: Aleph_523
The
Glade LegeicaOwner:
KelsoAge: 14 years, 11 months, 3 weeks
Born: May 13th, 2009
Adopted: 14 years, 11 months, 3 weeks ago (Legacy)
Adopted: May 13th, 2009 (Legacy)
Statistics
- Level: 613
- Strength: 1,533
- Defense: 1,533
- Speed: 1,530
- Health: 1,532
- HP: 1,524/1,532
- Intelligence: 551
- Books Read: 537
- Food Eaten: 0
- Job: Private Shopper
Pet Treasure
Jungle Matriarch Jade Serpent Earrings
Dark Shaman Effigy
New Growth
Marble Fox Trinket
Carefully Crafted Wasp
Sacred Ground
Swamp Mud
Garden Dirt
Garden Dirt
Garden Dirt
Fertile Ground
Root Forest Sample
Ancient Saherimos Text
Doubled-Over Scrap of Paper
Bottled Fire
Phaloroceas Leaf Charm
Phaloroceas Rain Charm
Split Scrap of Paper
Winged Stone Book
Sacred Wings
Mark of Sol
Sorcerous Summoning Circle
Arcane Summoning Circle
Mystic Summoning Circle
Mark of Luna
Dark Sign
Pile of Sacred Lands Sand
Wooden Scrying Bowl
Oval Scrying Mirror
Ancient Black Pot
Death Soul Stone
Aqua Esther
Soul Stone
Magic Enhancer
Experimental Dew
Creepy Carved Wooden Face
Greenman Totem
Tribal Priest Wooden Mask
Scarred Tree Stump
Blue Mushrooms
Fun with History: Sacred Lands
Magic Hinges
Ornamental Item Catalog
Scarred Leather Record Book
Petrified Field Book
Moss Overgrowth
Petrified Book
Sands of Time
Broken Ornamented Mirror
Broken Stone Wings
Ancient Rubble
Fossil
Bug Trapped in Amber
Amber
Analeptic Alzebo
Potion of Fleetness
Raspberry Gummy Xotl
Leafeather Heirloom of the Stars
Carved Stone Lizard
Carved Stone Snail
Carved Stone Turtle
Desert Priestess Iridescent Scarab Figurine
Carved Stone Octopus
Carved Stone Serpent
Enchanted Red Fox Familiar Stone
Carved Stone Fish
Carved Stone Moth
Carved Stone Butterfly
Carved Stone Lovebirds
Carved Stone Frog
Jungle Trio Wood Carving
Earth Spirit Figurine
Carved Stone Spider
Strange Animal Figurine
Enchanted Arctic Fox Familiar Stone
Fisher Hook
Stern Male Dead Fuzzy Caterpillars
Enchanting Dust
Crystal Shard
Fishing River Rock
Brave Explorer Giant Boulder
Rolling Stone
Hangmans Moss
Deep Sea Rock
Jade Bead
Earth Defense Tear Crystal
Dark Crystal Shard
Flock
Happy Songbird
Little Robin
Luckling
Gilded Tangled Overgrowth
Indian Corn
Willorse
Willoat
Hummingbird
Golden Seal
Acorn Cupule Hat
El Wood
Pointy Twig
Jimmy Mud Puddle
Chicory
Thyme
Wild Clover
Wormwood
Blades of Grass
Tangled Leaves and Vines
Verdi
Gray Moss
Earth Soul Stone
Green Tinged Haunted Crystal
Dry Root
Gourd
Wood Nymph Decorative Gourd
Wood Nymph Drape
Attack Tag
Work Charm
Scrawled Note
Candles
Gilded Item Tome
Pet Friends
Benthos
...
Cream
...:heart:
Rhodiensis
-turns and smiles, then pats his back as he stands and ambles off-