Maybe you will too. It was right after Riv got harbinger at about 11 con and Igbah and the Empire was kicking my ass all over Thar-Eris. To clarify, Riv started as a dude but ate the grapes. I just went with it. The My name is unimportant part is like the secret handshake for Riv's made-up secret society.
I met a holy man in a dark city. Sheltered by abolitionists, enlightened nobles, and free-thinkers, I attended this man's temple every day for weeks during my recent troubles. He expounded upon many things in his speeches, to rapt audiences in the hundreds. He had the piety and power to become a great shaman, a venerated healer, or a Lord of Nature itself. But he only spoke. Quietly.
Wanted by the Powers That Be for the capital crime of refusing their insane rule, I went disguised, convincingly enough, as a young man seeking after Truth. I sat in the middle of the pews, turned ever so slightly to watch the door and dais simultaneously. Funny to consider it now, but even when I had resigned myself to Death I still watched for the watchmen. While my ranger training, in observation and careful listening, became attuned to the manmade environs, my practice of spiritual magic dwindled to nothing. Living in a limbo of sensation and thought, I could not even hear the song of the city birds as I drifted, body and soul, into oblivion.
I, ha, religiously attended the temple all the same. The holy man's style of preaching was scholarly but somehow familiar. It even seemed at times as if he was telling me my own life's story when he'd catch my near unblinking gaze. He did not use his power of voice to condemn, praise or exalt any religion or person. Instead he sought to enlighten his audience to the commonalities of all religions and peoples. On one bright afternoon he spoke from the testament of an ancient human prophet and announced, just after capturing my eye: "I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind."
Despite myself, and my training, I felt a sudden and profound chill from the surface of my skin to the depth of my being. I pulled my cloak tight around me, betraying my feminine form, but not caring in the least. I began to shiver in earnest as it seemed my personal sense of time slowed to a snail's pace. Around me the parishioners began to leave but ten minutes or an hour had gone by without my conscious awareness. I blinked, and the world was normal again. I was alone in the temple with the wise man. He was sitting next to me.
"Who are you, really? You know me, don't you?"
"My name is unimportant. My titles ar -"
"No. Stop right there. You are not ili Rhodor, human," I spat bitterly, with more fear than I'd ever felt.
"Of course I'm not," he continued placidly, "but I do know of many things, including the name you have chosen for yourself. The comrades you keep. Your mission. Your desperation. That why you came to me, to sit in this spot for a moon or more. You listened to my sermons with those perfect ears, wanting guidance but only hearing the voice in your own head.
"Riv, you are a seeker after Truth. Genuine and devoted, I have no doubt. But you consistently seek in the wrong places. You write to escape the continual churning of your mortal mind and, by your obvious mystic and physical strength you have achieved limited success. But the one thought you can't escape, the thought that all your martial artistry, meditation, or magic will never lead to true salvation, has driven you to the edge of suicide. I'm happy - and sorry - to inform you that Thar-Eris is not done with you yet."
The strange time-shift occurred again, but the wise man was still present to me. "Who are you, really?" was all I could sputter. I felt close to passing out.
"I am. I hear the timeless voice of The All, Riv, and through me you hear it too. The Grand Cycle is in no danger, of course. You could lay down your wild weapons this moment and the world would continue. Thar-Eris will fully awaken, and again it will fall into dream as it has for all eternity. But still you persist in worrying at all the mysteries you can perceive. Still you keep up the appearance of fighting as your life-force ebbs away.
"If you really must know who I am, consider me just that quiet voice in your head. The one that has prevented you from falling on your spear in earnest. The power that keeps you from lying down in your grave and pulling the earth over your body. The antipode to your thoughts of confusion and fate and mortality. The voice telling you, here and now, that nothing real ever truly passes away.
"You will die in your time, because you exist in a world of life and death. But your quiet voice, my voice now, is telling you that life and death is not reality. The Spirits live beyond life and death. If you wish to find peace, and the unimaginable power that lies within that peace...well." The old man then started grinning, with the spark of pure mischief suddenly lighting his serene eyes.
"I've said enough for now, and the guards will patrol through this quarter before the next hour. Go by the sewers and leave the city tonight. I think the next step in your journey has arrived, Harbinger."
I was already running out the door. I felt new life. No, I felt I had accepted the life that had been hidden within me all along. The twinkle of fountain water in the afternoon sun dazzled me as I emerged onto the street. The song of a vesper sparrow lightened my mood and quickened my steps. I had no idea what he meant by calling me Harbinger, but I didn't care at that moment.
Harbinger of what?
