The Ultimate Stonemage: A Modest Autobiography (12 page)

The Third Proposition: Through the analysis of the events in life
,
one may discover life’s single and coherent purpose.

Proof: This proof is very elegant. Think about the first and second propositions. Now think about the fact that you are capable of thinking about them. Because we have analysed and thought about those propositions, it follows we have the ability to analyse and to think.

Is there, then, a reason we should have this ability? Of course! We know from the First Proposition that all things have a reason. Why, then, do we have the ability to think and reason? There is only one possible answer—so we
can
think and reason. Therefore, since the ability to analyse exists for a reason, it is only proper we should use that ability.

Next we must ask ourselves, where must the ability to reason be used? Why, in life, of course (for I doubt there are any dead people reading these words!).

But remember: according to the Second Proposition, life is single and coherent. It follows that the analysis of any event in life is identical to the analysis of life itself. And, since life’s purpose is a part of that life, and life is, by its nature, singular, the analysis of life’s events is identical to the analysis of life’s purpose. Therefore, in discovering the purpose for any event, we come closer to discovering the purpose for life as a whole. Thus, the Third Proposition is proved.

The Fourth Proposition: Those persons capable of discovering the purpose to their life must do so
,
thereby enabling them to achieve
that
purpose with greater efficiency.

Proof: If a person has the ability to discover his or her life’s purpose, then it follows (from the First Proposition) that there is a reason for the person to have that ability.

Since there is a reason for the ability, the ability must be used, for if an ability is possessed but never used, then it exists for no reason, and this, as we have seen, is impossible. Note that the requirement to use this ability is not a moral obligation but a logical one. It is a logical necessity that an ability which is possessed should be used, and not to do so is to the detriment of reality itself.

Yet let us now take a step back. For we have shown the utmost necessity of using those abilities of analysis which we may possess to analyse the events of life in order to understand its purpose. But what is the reason for this activity? (For, like all other things, it, too, must have a reason.) For the answer, I might easily turn once again to the stark rules of logic, but in this case I do not think it necessary, for the answer is very obvious: we must understand the purpose of life so we might attain the goals required for that purpose with greater speed; for, just as a sighted man may find a doorway more immediately than a blind man, so a person with greater awareness may achieve the goals of his life more readily than one who lacks this awareness. This, then, proves the Fourth Proposition.

Now, the foregoing reasoning was carried out over several days, while I sat in my chamber in a large house I had occupied, together with my myrmidons. During this time, I ate little, and drank only watered ale, for I wished all my faculties to be focused upon the intellectual battle which I was waging. I did not leave my room during those days—not even to relieve my bowels or bladder (I accomplished this task from the side window, which is the custom in most of America). Nor did I take any interest in the events of the town, nor in the great cathedral I was still designing.

When I had finally finished my pondering and had proved the Fourth Proposition, I was well satisfied, for now, at last, I saw how perfectly the events of my life had led to that moment.

For example, it was necessary in the scheme of things that I should have trained as a stonemage, for, as I have said, this gave me an understanding of plans and designs, even those which formed the design not to a building, but to a life.

Also, it was necessary I should have been forced to leave the service of the
Duke of Oaster, for this drove me to greater glory with
Gavor Hercules. And the unfortunate events which occurred after I left the employ of that great man raised me to still greater heights, because my escape across the Atlantic resulted in my command of a great and powerful army, and this would certainly never have occurred had I stayed in the kingdoms of Europe.

All of these remarkable insights were fresh and buzzing in my head, and I was anxious to share them with another person. Although there were many people in the town who treated me with great courtesy, there was only one I had come across who I considered a friend—the brave merchant Lyvell; therefore I swiftly made my way from the mansion which was my home to the shop where Lyvell carried out his business.

On arriving there, I found the shop to be gutted, the insides burned, the door broken off, and the windows smashed. When I asked the neighbours to tell me what had happened, they said that, two nights earlier, a mob of all Lyvell’s old enemies and their families had come to the shop and destroyed it, and had then beaten and strangled the old man, leaving his body in the gutter.

It was distressing news, you may be sure, yet it also brought me a strange satisfaction; for I now knew that the purpose of the life of the merchant Lyvell was to give me the news of the duke, and to set me reasoning upon the purpose of my life. It was only natural, then, that his life should end once it had achieved this worthy goal, which, in God’s mercy, it did. And this, in turn, provided yet further evidence of the truth of my new theories.

I returned to work on my cathedral to
Saint Elifax the Mariner, and quickly finished it. It is a construction whose simplicity and elegance doubtless brings admiring gasps even today, for, as one approaches the structure from a distance, it seems very like a real ship upon the waves, and it is only upon closer inspection the waves reveal themselves as tiny hillocks, upon which grow blue spinewort.

The ship has no entrance door from the ground, for I built it to be entirely watertight, exactly like a real ship. Those who wish to gain access to the great interior hall must climb one of the long ladders of rope which dangle from the sides of the vessel, and then enter by the deck. Neither does this render the building useless for the old or the crippled, as some have speculated, for those cripples who truly wish to enter will frequently find the strength to climb those ladders is bestowed upon them by God, and, upon reaching the top, they discover they are entirely cured of their maladies, so, instead of entering the cathedral to pray for the restoration of their health, they pray instead to give thanks to God.

As I had planned, the cathedral was built in exactly one month. This would not have been possible but for the great size of my army, for I set every one of them to working on the cathedral. Some went to chop trees and gather rocks and magical ingredients, others transported the wood, while others hauled it into place and fixed it with pegs, which I later reinforced with bindings. I do not think I would have spent more time upon it even if I had had twenty years at my disposal, for although the wood (which was the principal material for the structure) was rough-hewn and splintered, yet this places in the mind the image of the sufferings of Saint Elifax as he drifted upon the waves. It is the same for the sparse interior of the building: it is like a great ship’s hold, with neither rooms nor windows, but merely a wooden staircase descending from the deck, and it reminds us of the saint’s privations during his voyage (for it is written: “he had not grain nor drink nor any soft thing for his head to rest upon”), and the ladders remind us of the path to heaven.

As to the sails, in this I made a minor error, for I set local workers to make real sails of canvas, which were then lashed to the masts, and held in a billowing state through the use of the binding scheme I described earlier.

Unfortunately, a storm struck a few months after I left
Molys, and the strong winds wrenched off the sails and broke the masts. (I heard about this years later) And yet it seems to me this is a very trivial loss, for the same might well have happened to the real Saint Elifax, just as it happened to me at the
Duck Islands, and the lack of masts and sails reminds us of the terrible storms which he must have endured—and not merely the storms of rain and wind, but also the storms of fury which later fell upon him from
Uss Naygler and the so-called
Legion of Toads.

When the month was up, I left Molys, and though I was given my two thousand arrans for my builder’s fee, yet I left the town carrying a much greater treasure, which was the treasure of Knowledge, and an understanding of the way in which my destiny was meant to unfold. And I am sincere in saying that this knowledge is worth far more than two thousand arrans, and more even than five thousand. In fact, I would gauge its worth at close to ten thousand arrans, yet it was given to me for the price of a few bruises inflicted by a piece of cheese.

This thought I find a very remarkable one.

The Eighth Part

In Which I Tell Of My Travels West From Molys And My Coming To Learn Of The Principle Of Directional Exhaustion

If you did not read
the previous chapter (and I am speaking here of the four great proofs contained in it), but skipped over it, because its contents seemed too tedious or difficult, I urge you to turn back to it now, and work through it, with a pen and paper in hand, if it is necessary. Work slowly and steadily, absorbing all the arguments I present, for they are very important, and they will certainly change the course of your own life, as they did mine. But more, you must understand these arguments if you are to understand my motives for the decisions I made at that time.

When you consider the matter a little, you will see my four proofs show the existence of destiny and providence, and show the value of prophesy, and of omens, and dreams too,
for there is no thing that does not happen without there being some reason to it.

There are those who will say attending to dreams and omens is mere superstition, but this is too narrow a view. Heeding dreams is not superstitious—only heeding them foolishly. So, to pick an example which befell me just weeks ago, if you dream of a pig wearing shoes, and draw from it (as a fool would do) that you will have both food and footwear in abundance, then this is no more than superstition.

Yet, examine the image intelligently and you will find within it a profound message, or even many profound messages. In order to determine which message is the true one, it is necessary to apply the same good judgement you would extend to any important matter. For example, my dream of the pig conveyed five possible meanings:

First:
That it would be an act of piglike greed to buy a new pair of shoes.

Second:
That, if I were buying shoes, I should seek out those of pig leather, and not ox leather.

Third:
That I should be wary of bacon or pork for the next while, for it is apt to be as tough as shoe leather.

Fourth:
That I should beware of animals which might steal my shoes.

Fifth:
That I should be careful not to splash my shoes in the mud because it might give them a foul smell, like a pigsty.

On considering these options, I reasoned the first and second to be inappropriate, for I was not considering the purchase of shoes. The third also I rejected, for pork and bacon give me the burps and I eat them only rarely. The fourth message seemed to lack relevance. The fifth message, then, was the true one. I therefore took great pains to stay away from puddles, and my efforts were rewarded with a pair of shoes that are clean and dry today, even though it has rained several times during the past weeks.

Truly, I would no sooner ignore a dream than I would walk along the cliff edge with my eyes closed, and this belief in the importance of dreams and omens is not superstition, but logic, proved with logic and reason, and those who deny this also deny reason, and thus, if they do it consciously, they are clearly lunatics, and if they do it unconsciously, they are clearly fools.

I will return to my tale now, and you will see how I applied my reasoning in the field, as it were.

On thinking about the news which Lyvell had given me, I realized it was my destiny to restore the fortunes of the
Duke of Oaster—for if this were not so, then why should I have received news of the duke when I did? I realized also that, with my great army, I had the means whereby I might attain this destiny. Still, questions remained: What route should I take to find the duke? And how urgent was his need for my aid?

First, I considered the question of urgency. I reasoned that, since I had heard the news of the duke’s dispossession quite soon after the event had occurred (within a year, I guessed), I should therefore hurry to his aid. This line of thinking, unfortunately, was wrong, as you will see later.

Next, I considered the route, and here my reasoning was much more inspired. Was it ordained, I asked myself, that I should scuttle back to the River Ram, find ships, and cross the
Atlantic Ocean once more? Clearly not, for providence had left many enemies in my wake, and this can only have been in order to discourage my return along the route I had taken. What is more, I had sent my own ship to sail around the coast of America to the western town of Great Tasker. I had planned to travel overland, meeting the ship at that faraway port, and now it seemed that destiny supported my plan, for were I to do otherwise I would lose a good ship and large quantities of gold and jewels.

So, I must travel west across America. But how, then, was I to help the duke, whose lands were an ocean away to the east? The problem was vexing. Nevertheless, I resolved to place my faith in God, and to travel west, though it might fly in the face of reason, for I knew, somehow, an answer would be given to me.

My faith was soon justified. I was no more than a few days from
Molys when I came to a river with a wooden bridge and a bridgehouse beside it. I banged upon the door of the house with my staff, and a short time later the bridgekeeper answered it. She was an old woman dressed in shabby robes. Her hair was white and very long, but the wisdom in her eyes reminded me of the pictures I had seen of saints and prophets.

I said to her, “I wish to cross the bridge with my myrmidons. Is your bridge a strong one.”

“Strong? Yes indeed,” she said.

“How many myrmidons do you estimate it will support at one time,” I asked.

“Six,” she said. “But perhaps eight. Although if they were my myrmidons, I would send no more than two across at a time, and if I were in a cautious frame of mind, I would send only one, and I would tell each to step carefully with it, avoiding those planks which have a spongy feel to them.”

These words did not inspire my confidence. Since it was past nightfall, and it is not wise to cross an untested bridge in the dark, I ordered my myrmidons to put up camp on the near side.

Now, the bridgekeeper’s name was
Cayglee, or Caglee, or one of those American names. Her given name, in any case, is unimportant. What is important is, thanks to my great faith and all my recent contemplation, I was filled with goodness and humility, and I decided I would invite this simple bridgekeeper to dine with me in my tent. I had intended this as no more than an act of charity, but once again, just as it happened with Lyvell, great truths were revealed to me during the course of the meal.

(Truly, around that time, hardly a month seemed to go by without my receiving a great revelation or making an astonishing discovery. My good fortune was quite remarkable.)

We were eating a fine meal of wined lamb, which the slaves had prepared, when I decided, on the spur of the moment, to tell this woman of the problem I faced.

“How,” I said in my frustration, “is it possible for me to travel west but return to the east?”

She replied, in a strange, faraway voice, that I might do so through the knowledge of
Directional Exhaustion.

I knew at once that this old woman had been possessed by the ghost of
Saint Elifax the Mariner, who, I instantly perceived, was grateful I had built a beautiful cathedral in his name in
Molys and wished to help me in my travels. Some people, upon realizing they were talking to a ghost, would have become afraid, but I stayed quite calm, and simply asked those questions which I wished answered.

“I have never heard of Directional Exhaustion,” I said. “Explain the principle.”

Here she shook her head and said she could not do so. “It is a great secret which was imparted to me long ago when I was initiated into the Navigator’s Guild, long before I became a bridgekeeper.”

I pressed her to confide in me, but at first she would not be persuaded, saying she had sworn never to reveal the secret to another soul.

I said, “You are clearly a woman of great honour. But tell me, by whom did you swear this oath of secrecy.”

“Why, by God,” she replied.

“Then, as an archbishop, I command you to tell me,” I said, “for it is God’s will you share your secrets with his closest servants.”

“That is reasonable,” she said. “Yet I also paid a high price in gold to learn the secret.”

Here I knew the saint’s ghost was testing me, so I offered him, or her, gold if she would tell me the secret. We negotiated for some minutes, and finally agreed a price of two hundred arrans was fair. I gave her the money, and she told me the secret.

Naturally, since I paid a high price for the secret myself, I do not intend to share it at no cost in this book. Therefore, I have reproduced the secret only in the most expensive edition (which, as I plan it, is to be bound in cream deerskin with gold lettering). If that is the edition which you, the reader, are now reading, you will be pleased to know your edition was well worth the additional expense, for it contains this extra secret, worth two hundred arrans, and you may rejoice in the fact that the following paragraphs are reproduced only in your edition. The cheaper editions will not contain the secret at all, moving instead to the next leg of my travels.

The bridgekeeper (which is to say, Saint Elifax) began by telling me that, in life, the most important qualities are those of persistence and tenacity. “With these two traits,” she said, “all obstacles may be overcome. Do you agree with this?”

I told her this view certainly tallied with my own experiences, and she said “Ah, I see you have a good mind. Many people stumble upon that first part.”

She then went on to talk about the nature of travel. “If you travel westward,” she said, “you believe, perhaps, that you are moving further and further west.”

I said, yes, this indeed was my understanding.

“Your belief is mistaken,” she said. “The truth of the matter is that you are always in the same place. The name we give to this place is ‘here.’”

This made complete sense to me, and I told her so, for I had often wondered how people could speak of “here” as a single place, when, apparently, its location changed as the speaker moved about. But almost instantly a question entered my fast-moving mind.

“How, then, is my apparent motion to be explained?” I asked.

She replied, “What changes is not your position but the quality of your surroundings, the ‘here’ you occupy. Every place has a unique quality which is a mixture of the properties of north, east, west and south. Points further west have more ‘westness’ to them and less ‘eastness.’ Points in the south have more ‘southness’ and less ‘northness.’”

“Therefore,” I said, “there must be some point on earth which has none of these properties.”

“That is certainly true,” she said, “and what a terrible place it must be.”

I agreed with her wholeheartedly there, and we sat for a few moments shaking our heads and thinking about this nightmarish place before she continued with her explanation.

“When travelling in any direction, the traveller changes the properties of the ‘here’ he occupies. So, if he is travelling west, the place gains in westness but loses eastness. Is that clear?”

“Completely clear,” I said. “But tell me, is there a limit to how much westness a point can have?”

“Ah, you have cut to the very nub of the matter,” she said. “Such a sharp mind! Yes, indeed there is a limit. And this is where the personal characteristics of perseverance and tenacity come into play. For, if the traveller has sufficient perseverance, and the tenacity to endure hardship, it is possible to travel so far west—or, for that matter, so far in any other direction—that the point he occupies becomes saturated with westness. In other words, it is not possible for the point to become any more westerly. If, upon reaching that point, the traveller goes but a single inch further west, a very remarkable thing happens. By the grace of God, all the westness of the point will instantly drain away to nothing, leaving room for thousands of miles of continued westward travel.”

“Where does all the westness go?” I asked.

“An intelligent and perceptive question, to be sure,” replied the bridgekeeper. “All the westness is poured, as if through a siphon, into the property of eastness.”

“The traveller, then, is transported in an instant from a point of utmost westness to a point of utmost eastness.”

“Exactly so.”

“The moment of this transference must be a very jarring one,” I said.

“In fact, it is not,” replied the bridgekeeper. “Indeed, the passage from the limits of western travel to the limits of eastern travel is barely perceptible, save by the most astute and delicate perception.”

“It follows, from what you have told me,” I said, “that a traveller proceeding west from a given city, must, if he travels far enough in a westward direction, return to his starting point.”

“Yes! Yes! You understand perfectly!” she said, delighted at my intelligence.

“Let us consider this phenomenon from a practical standpoint,” I said. “I wish to return to my homelands in the east by travelling west. The question is, how long would such a journey take? Ten years? Twenty? A hundred? A thousand?”

She said, “The
Western Extremity lies in the
Pacific Ocean, approximately three thousand miles west of the American coast, and just a few score miles beyond the island of
Sira Tereen. From there, you will be transported to the
Great Eastern Sea, at a point some five thousand miles from the eastern coast of
Dranseet, and from there, if you wish, you may travel overland to Europe. In any event, the journey from the west coast of America to the eastern coast of
Dranseet, passing through the Western and
Eastern Extremities will take ten weeks, if your ship is fast and the winds are favourable.”

“It seems remarkable,” I commented, “that by applying one’s efforts in one direction, one may be taken into another. Yet perhaps the process is like kneading dough: through the constant pressure upon the dough, and strong will of the baker, the bread will compress no more, and becomes not smaller, but much larger than it was to start with.”

“I have heard numerous people try to explain the underlying principle many times,” said the bridgekeeper, “but never has anyone expressed it so exactly or so simply.”