Cognizance City

Dying mumblings of an old man send me west. Four hundred ticks beyond the desolate Necropolis, the city of dead words, lies the bustling port-city of ideas. This is the meeting point- the crux. It is the final edge, or rather the beginning, or rather the still-beating pulse of this land: where reality gives way to the fantastic... or vice versa. The silk roads converge here. It is here where the world's mysticism is reinterpreted, repackaged, and then carted east by sharp toothed merchants to the dry outlying wilderness. It is here, in this sprawling city, lie scattered large halls where scribes exhaustively record and transcribe all thoughts, fantasies, passing notions, and ideas into infinite volumes. Materialization of pulses, these ideas, that float and hover around us unseen... into words. These texts are sent north, to the great royal libraries in Seraphim, to merely gather dust and be forgotten and then to ultimately die.

Or so I was told as a child... Or so I was sung as the flickering candlelight made the shadows dance and play.

I arrive into the city at dusk. All around me are the sounds of commerce. Shrewd exchanging of hands. This is a mercantile city, an ancient city, where might is measured not by the sword or by gold, but by thought. I arrive penniless and defenseless and my mind is still ill at ease. The journey was arduous and my caravan is exhausted. Yet I push on. I progress deeper into the metro-bowels and my bewilderment increases. Blank faces. Everywhere I turn I find emptiness, completely void of conviction or direction. No purpose. Something has alarmingly changed. Distrusting eyes weave in and out of the shadows. The occasional glint of firelight off a gold tooth or an ornate buckle draws my attention away from the task at hand. Strange men with even stranger smiles beckon me into dark alleys promising fame, fortune, and earthly pleasures. " A girl for you? We have young ones too, cheap, one great idea and she's yours for the night. Or do you like boys?" I ignore them and turn away pretending not to hear.

I seek something but I know not why. Or how. Something rare and coveted... inspiration. Before he passed the old man said I might find her here. “ In the heart, by the great hall, where only the wealthiest men - the thinkers, languidly sip wine and play chess.” These were his final directions, cryptic instructions. And here I am in the center of the city and I find only inanition. A deserted hall. Deserted streets. Empty minds. What once existed now doesn't. Or perhaps never did. Or perhaps the tales of old lie. Deceitful fables intended to mislead and fuel dreams and spawn hope. In fact, this entire city is a lie.

Or perhaps, just maybe, I am in the wrong place.