...took a new name: the Frost Shepherd. It was in trying to understand this act, its causes, and its consequences, that I first thought this second volume might be necessary. Even as it happened, I sensed a moment of diversion, of what an old mentor would have called a potential “rupture” in history.
In the old Hieron, when such a thing was still possible, I studied and practiced as a semiotician of the New Archives. Because the Rhizome stretches as it does, and because we were so removed from the histories which precede us, you may not know what that means. In short: We collected the world so that we might better arrange it. This is how I fell in love with writing and with history.
Towards the end of my studies, in some north campus basement, Semiotician Emeritus Uklan Tel delivered a guest lecture for a select group out of some technical obligation to the department.
“The world unfolds according to systems and rules,” he told us. “History, politics, war, society--they have velocity, they have force, they have momentum. But now and then there is a chance for great change.” Any average evening would be followed by an equally average day, but a rupturous evening might bring a day like one we’ve never seen.
But these moments only carried the potential for transformation, he told us. These moments of historical rupture, he said, offered opportunity for the systems and rules by which we organize ourselves to find a new route. But most of the time? That opportunity was wasted. Things returned to the status quo. The moons past over the edge of the world, the sun arose, and we’d be back to normal.
I had the impression, as he started to speak, that he was trotting out an old lecture, something reliable, that even dead in his voice would impress on our young, eager psyches. But as he spoke, he found a startling rhythm, like an old workhorse building towards a colt’s gait.
It was as if something he’d seen, something recent, maybe, had given flesh to words that had only been bone. I could tell that he thought he wasn’t just correct, but that he right. He told us, then, that we might not know it, but that we lived in a moment of rupture.
And when I stood in that crowd and heard the Frost Shepherd speak, I recognized in my own blood, on my own skin, an echo of Tel’s old confidence in recognizing a moment rupture.
When Tel warned us about the future, he was, of course right--and only now do we know how ironic this warning was, considering his own role in the events of the years that followed that lecture. Which is excuse enough for me to extend his warning to you: In times like these, the rupture is not one night, it is ongoing, and we are all participants in whatever comes next. Pace yourselves. Recognize the way you touch the world. And travel accordingly.
-An Excerpt from the Foreword to The Last Days The We Had: A Narrative Catalogue of Hieron, End Apparent, Pt. 2 by Alonzo Victor Devareaux van der Dawes
This week on Spring in Hieron: The Second Spring Pt. 5
Hosted by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)
Featuring Janine Hawkins (@bleatingheart) Andi Clare (@captaintrash), Ali Acampora (@ali_west), Art Martinez-Tebbel (@atebbel), Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal), Keith J Carberry (@keithjcarberry) and Andrew Lee Swan (@swandre3000)
Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal)
Text by Austin Walker (@austin_walker)
Produced by Ali Acampora (@ali_west)
Cover Art by Craig Sheldon (@shoddyrobot)
Sangfielle 12: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 4
Sangfielle 11: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 3
Sangfielle 10: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 2
Sangfielle 09: The Secret Ledger of Roseroot Hall Pt. 1
Sangfielle 08: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 4
Sangfielle 07: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 3
Sangfielle 06: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 2
Sangfielle 05: The Hymn of the Mother-Beast Pt. 1
Sangfielle 04: The Blackwick Group
Sangfielle 03: The Curse of Eastern Folly Pt. 3
Sangfielle 02: The Curse of Eastern Folly Pt. 2
Sangfielle 01: The Curse of Eastern Folly Pt. 1
Season 7 Trailer & Announcement
PARTIZAN 48: Post Mortem
PARTIZAN 47: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 3: The Stories Told About the Things We Do
PARTIZAN 46: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 2: The Gate
PARTIZAN 45: Operation Shackled Sun: Act 1: The Fray
See you next year!!
PARTIZAN 44: The Prison at the Top of the World
PARTIZAN 43: The Tunnels Beneath
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