THREE BROTHERS ⋅ A NEW GOD ⋅ CITY OF SALT ⋅ LAKE OF DREAMS ⋅ SUSPENDED! ⋅ THE TWO STREETS ⋅ ON THE EDGE OF THE MARSHS ⋅ BLACKSUN ⋅ DEMON ⋅ GAZELLE ⋅ THE HARDRIIM ⋅ RIDER ⋅ THE FLYER ⋅ ARABIAN NIGHTS ⋅ THE EMPTY MIRROR ⋅ THE SOLDIER ⋅ THE BICYCLE ⋅ THE CROCODILE ⋅ THE THREE TRAVELERS ⋅ OCEANSONG ⋅ THE FLUTE ⋅ THE TREE ⋅ THE TOWER

A merchant set off one morning for a day of trading in the great tower that stood in the central plaza of the cities’ business quarter. As he approached the huge building, the merchant saw a terrible sight: a morning star descended through the haze of early morning and smote the great tower in a mighty explosion. People ran shrieking and bloodied as debris fell from the smoke-blacked sky. “The apocalypse is coming!” somebody cried. The stricken merchant crawled through the burning rubble, his face blackened and his eyes wild, fighting through the panicked crowd. The black plume seemed to pursue him like a huge watchful eye as he fled home to his wife. Together they stared in bewilderment through their window at the smoking tower in the distance; when night finally fell, there were no stars in the sky. The following morning the merchant awoke from a deep sleep. His wife had already left for the marketplace; hazy sunshine streamed in through the window. The merchant recalled the previous day and felt a great foreboding as he roused himself, yet when he peered out upon the city an amazing sight greeted him: the great tower shimmering in the blue distance, unchanged! The dazed merchant could find no way to account for such a miracle, so he set out for the business quarter as he would any other day. How relieved he felt as he walked along the canal through the saltmonger’s district, surely it had been a most vivid dream! But as he neared the tower, he found himself unaccountably hoping that it would be smote and burnt once more. The merchant stood at the edge of the plaza, his mind so filled with the destruction of the tower that it seemed scarcely credible that it still stood before him. The long shadows on the pavement were soft blue yet hard edged - and where were the people? there seemed to be none. Slowly, silently as he drew closer to the tower, he saw the morning star appear in the top of the sky, or was it in his mind, he could not tell. Its silent shriek pierced the morning, it was as immovable and inevitable as death. The merchant realized that he alone held the shrieking morning star in his mind and he alone would determine whether it would smite the tower or vanish from the sky, that he must choose between the world of the gods and the world of men. Crushed by the weight of this decision, the merchant collapsed to his knees, the morning star forever suspended between the roof of the sky and the pinnacle of the great tower. And so year upon year the populace of the city fucked, shat, ate, and traded as men will do, never paying any mind to the old beggar who sat forever staring at the great tower. If a stranger might ask, they might reply, “Oh, he never recovered from the destruction of the great tower!” leaving the mystified stranger staring back and forth between the unblinking eyes of the old merchant and the obviously undestroyed tower. And if that stranger asked them about the great tower, their perplexed reply might be: “What tower do you mean, my friend? We do not build towers in this city.” -home-