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audible. But the pages written in the stars and the volumes
spoken from the earth provided no aid to us in the choice
which we must make. Both earth and sky warned
repeatedly that two would come to us, and that one was good
and one was evil and that we must choose between them,
but neither earth nor sky would advise us which was
which. And we sent scholars into other realms of
knowledge to seek the answer we must have. And some of them
communed with the dead and others spoke with spirits
and with beasts and with trees. And our seers cast their
sight into the far future and the distant past, but nowhere
could we find the answer.
And upon a certain day we gathered together upon the
plains of Temba to consider our task and what we might
do to complete it. And we brought together all that we
had learned from earth and sky, from the living and the
dead. from the spirits and the beasts and the trees. And
when it was all before us, we were amazed that we had
discovered so much, for often what the sky did not say,
the earth did, and if neither earth nor sky spoke to a
matter, the spirits did. And when it was all joined together
we discovered that our first task was complete. We had
learned of the division which marred creation; we have
learned of the two spirits at the core of the division; and
we have learned of the two stones which once were one
but will never be rejoined.
And as we contemplated this, an aged man arose from
our midst and did bind his eyes with a cloth and spake
unto us in the voice of vision, saying:
'BEHOLD! Thy first task is complete, and now thou
wilt turn unto the second. The two spirits which mar
creation with Division contend with one another upon
this earth even now. One of the two stones is here and the
God-form of the other Destiny also. Even now the God
raises the stone against the earth. Seize upon this
opportunity to study the two Fates. Learn all that may be learned
of them that thou might make the choice between them.'
And even as the seer set this task upon us, the earth
heaved and split asunder as the God and the stone joined
to crack the world. And we turned all of our effort to the
study of the two Destinies which were revealing
themselves by their acts. The First Destiny we found to be
obdurate and unforgiving, and some among us seized
upon this, saying: 'Surely this Destiny must be the Evil
one, since Good cannot be so.' But we pointed out to them
that we had considered only the aspect of the Fate which
was represented by the stone, and it is most natural for a
stone to be obdurate and unforgiving. And in like manner
we found the Second Destiny filled with pride of Self and
with a great longing for praise and adulation; but these
were the natural attributes of a certain kind of God, and it
was such a God which represented the God-aspect of the
Second Fate.
And so we bent our minds to the task of seeing beyond
the aspects to the true nature of the two Fates. And in the
Book of the Heavens we found the pages which spoke of
the First Destiny before the arrival of the Second. The fate
then of all that was all that is and all that is yet to be bent
toward one EVENT, which was to come at a certain time