Chapter 1: 0-Conception?

"Ah! Most Exalted, you wish for your reign to be everlasting?

Let me tell you the tale of a man, cursed by Ninsiku himself. Eternity might be a treacherous temptress..."

-Unkown, Eridu, circa 2800 BCE.

When I reflect on my little dance so far, I can almost picture an idle deity, smirking high above me. Or a demon, perhaps, one that has found my ineffectual struggles to be a morbid cure to its eternal boredom. It’s even not much of a long shot, really. Plenty of men far wiser than me have claimed that the Lower is a reflection of the Higher -or, that the geometry of nature is fractal, I guess- so it might be that higher beings, provided there are any, turn out to be not all too different from us mere mortals. And, I, for one, remember fairly well how the usually empty eyes of the crowds back in Rome would get filled with cruel mirth at the sight of the damned thrown at the beasts. How could I forget? I was another face in the crowd, several times, and among the damned, at least twice...

I don’t really feel the need to justify my presence there but, on the former, I’ll say that my continued existence was about as tedious as everyone’s else. As for the latter, well, I obviously didn’t have much of a choice, so I can only comment that, though not necessarily much bigger than some dogs, leopards are a bitch to ‘fight’ barehanded.

But, I guess I digress, where was I?

...Right! My haunting demon!

In all honesty, of course, I strongly suspect that there’s no such entity! Back in the day, I even consulted with several exorcists, priests, witches, and shamans -and whoever I could get my hands on, really-, just to make sure. That being said, I’ve long since decided to just indulge my delusions. For one, it’s sort of cathartic. For another, it’s a decent way to kill time, and heavens know I’ve had a lot of time to kill.

So, on that note... Hello there, fruit of my mental escapism! Please, listen to my story, if you do see fit.

I was initially born near the mouth of the Euphrates, or so I believe. It is hard to tell, for then and there it had another name, and we had no maps to tell for certain, not to mention that my memories of ancient ages are, optimistically, a rusted mess...

In fact, I can’t seem to recall much else about that first life. I can say however that my mother -my real mother- was a kind woman. True, barring a few exceptions, that seems to have been the case with most ‘mothers’ I have had. But, that’s somewhat beside the point. I guess what I mean to say is that, perhaps, filial matters work a bit like young love; even if more follow, there is something special about the very first.

Now, don’t misinterpret my words. I’ll be the first to admit that I went through some particularly dark periods, of which I’m not proud, but I believe I’ve shown sufficient filial piety to most of my parents. As much as any normal son would have, anyway. However, I also have to shamefully admit that I’ve forgotten most about most of them.

Not her, though... Not everything about her, anyway.

Despite my will, memories fade, just like men, nations, tales, and everything else in the waking world, and sometimes I’ll find myself wondering whether I really followed Mebarasi into the lands of Elam, or just fantasized about it while salting the fields of Carthage under the orders of Scipio Aemilianus. Then again, of course, it might well be that Carthage itself was just a ghastly nightmare of mine as I desperately clung to my arms, ankle-deep in the blood of Byzantium.

Whatever the case, the way her tender hands and soothing singing voice were always enough to chase away my childish fears seems to be forever engraved in my soul.

Perhaps, that has something to do with how songs were different back then, closer to the choir of nature. There was certainly a special kind of beauty in that primal simplicity, something almost magical. I don’t know how long our kind has sung for, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that songs came first and words later, as nothing more than a glorified afterthought. After all, don’t beauty, harmony, and rhythm move the hearts of men more than reason?

Regardless, when I close my eyes, I can almost picture those distant scenes. Humble sounds, simple portraits of the joys of life, murmured in the protective embrace of a fire. It was silly, in a way, just pointless rebelliousness against the unknowns of the night.

I know, it might come as a bit of a shock to those raised under the neverending shining of neon, but our innate fear of the dark is not purposeless. Heavens know we haven’t had such luxuries since the dawn of time. Yet, at the time, even in their candor, our actions seemed more than enough, no doubt about it. After all, for all of our faults, art and beauty seem to be one of our major driving forces... Wasn’t coal used to draw before writing?

But I digress, again. I still remember some of the words my mother used, describing the land and the river, and sunlight warmly kissing the skin. Ironically, those words remain, even though I can’t quite recall her face. Even though the inclement hands of time have also shamelessly robbed me of her name...

She was a young one at the time I was born, that much I remember too, somehow. Probably barely in her teens. I know, that might strike modern sensibilities as odd, but it used to be much more common.

As for my father, I never got to meet him. Unfortunately, during those times, as in most other times really, life was not easy for a lone woman with a child. Asynchronous voices might scream ‘barbarism!’ all they want -and I admit I can’t deny there was some of that-, but, no, predicaments stemmed mostly out of necessity, rather than enforcement.

Luckily enough, her father was a man of honor and took pity on us, though perhaps that did have something to do with him having no direct male heir. No matter the case, he remained strong into his old age, at least, sufficiently strong to secure enough game for all of us until I myself became able to take up his mantle. Of course, I surmise my mother and her mother helped in any way they could, as probably did my younger aunts, provided I did have any, and their contribution likely wasn’t minor... In any case, I feel like, while not exactly easy, our life was not rife with strife either.

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Hmm... Now that I think about it, I do remember that sometimes I suspected the old man might have been my own father. Then again, even back then, such things were taboo, and I believe I never caught him gazing at mother as a man looks at a woman. But, who knows?

To be fair with the memories of the long deceased, though, I can state for certain that I never had other siblings, and I do seem to remember hearing that my father was a friend of his, a sworn brother who fell in battle. A sworn brother to whom he had offered his eldest daughter.

I know, not the most orthodox thing to do, but that was how things were done, back then; life was simpler, if more brutal. However, I think I liked it better, in some ways; along with its fancy vehicles, infinitely time-sinking screens, and crippling fear of death, modernity has brought forth a dismal amount of underhandedness and hypocrisy. Not like those weren’t there before, but... Never mind.

Of course, modern times do have their good points, like people no longer offering the chastity of their young daughters to their sworn friends. Not in polite society anyway. Well, unless one were to believe certain claims about the so-called elite and their dubious practices.

To be fair, in my experience, nobility has been self-indulgent, if not outright depraved, since its very inception. Even if they changed the name of their class, pulling the wool over most eyes, I wouldn’t bet on it having changed all that much, so, again, who knows? The entourage of Nero aside, my time with the Ottomans still sends shivers down my spine.

Yeah, I usually dislike forgetting, but, as far as those memories are concerned, I can only pray for the centuries to go by quicker, so that the sands of time may bury them faster. I know that will mean forgetting a few precious moments too, but it’s probably worth the trade-off; I can always have more of the latter.

In a way, I guess that might mean I have given up. But I confess I’m tired of it all. What use is there trying to fight against fate? I seem to have been cursed by Dieus Piter, or whatever powers that be, and what mortal has ever managed to overcome the gods? No, even in our imagination, in myth, getting involved with the supernatural rarely, if ever, ends up well for the humble man.

And yet...

How many lives has it been since that first one? I have long since stopped counting; barred from drinking of Lethe, after a while, all images blend together in the churning waters of the ages. But the memories remain nonetheless. Oftentimes, I remember during childhood, sometimes even as soon as I’m born! Occasionally, though, it takes longer, adulthood or, mercifully, even old age... I believe life is better that way, not mourning family and lovers that have long since returned to dust, not lamenting peoples of nations whose very names are no longer known. Of course, I still remembered in the end, I always remember. Even on the rare occasion where life spares me, the shadow of death inevitably brings clarity.

I was a hunter, many times, of both beast and man. I toiled the fields of Uruk, and was first called to arms in Nibru. I lauded the grace of Thoth in Kemet, and struggled as a helot in Sparta. I drank the Kykeon in Eleusis, and later joined the Legio near Tusculum. Life made me join the crusade, my rusted fang seeking the flesh of ‘heretics’ that my eyes had a hard telling apart from other peasants. I was then a Moor baker, run-through by a crusading lance after I somehow managed to avoid the levy.

I was the hermetist, I was the soldier, I was the indentured servant, and everything in-between. I left for the new world in the same ship that Don Francisco Pizarro, and died for the cause of Napoléon Ier. I paid the ultimate price for the sake of my family, in Prussia...

Like most other people, I feel shame for much of what I did and regret much of what I didn’t do.

Most of my lives had nothing in common, aside from the fact that the times I died from old age can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. Either battle follows me, or I follow battle, whichever seems more likely. It has never bothered me much, though. In a way, after dying enough, death loses pretty much all meaning...

I’m slow to the uptake, I know, for I’ve met a few who came to the same conclusion in just the single lifetime. I do envy their wisdom. I hope, however, not to be judged unfavorably, even if some could expect someone as weathered to be wiser. So do I. What manner of complete moron wouldn’t want to be better than he is?

Unfortunately, as my life has come to show by its own example, gift a mediocre man with an infinite amount of time and the sad outcome is nothing but an infinite amount of mediocrity. Or even perhaps, and arguably worse yet, just a finite amount of mediocrity...

I know well that the time I’ve been ‘blessed’ with would have been better spent on a gifted mind, the likes of Da Vinci or Newton, or one of the many sages of old. Never mind a millennium, or ten, who knows what Aristotle could have pulled off, had he had even just a century more? Unfortunately, all of them died for good, while useless old me keeps coming back, perennially bound to this accursed Earth. Such is the tyranny of fate.

Or so had I thought.

Yet, what I see right now certainly does not belong anywhere on the five continents.

Magic, unlike its folkloric depiction, is not about hands and wand-waving, and casting fire and brimstone upon unprepared enemies. The skeptics are absolutely right when they scoff at such notions. Despite, modern, sensible beliefs, however, there actually might be something to the practice. Probably.

I have personally dallied with it a number of times during my lives -for obvious reasons- to varying amounts of success. Although, it is much subtler in nature than ‘summoning the storm’ and, nowadays, of rather reduced usefulness. In most situations, one would be better served by more mundane means. Isn’t an arrow in the dark -or a bullet, for that matter- much more fearsome than any recurring nightmare? Satellite imagery is certainly more reliable than the vague impressions that stem from clairvoyance, or ‘remote viewing’, in modern jargon. And let’s not even mention the convenience of a cellphone over decades spent in meditation, on the off-chance that a practitioner might become able to transmit some imprecise feelings to another.

As for the chronicles of wondrous feats, things worthy of veritable gods among men? At least I myself never bore witness to any, and not for lack of searching. After all, my own condition did push me in that direction, more than once.

So, how come then that I now see such hand-waving, and wounds rapidly closing on their own, before my very own eyes?

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