Samhain 2016

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate the endless signal - RECEIVE - initiate apocalyptic cadence - AND I LOOKED, AND BEHOLD A PALE HORSE: AND HIS NAME THAT SAT ON HIM WAS DEATH - when four equals one - WITNESS - the Rider.

A rider approaches.

Listen, sweetling. Hooves beat the earth at thunder decibels. All the world becomes Ichabod Crane looking for a bridge to escape, clip-clop, clip-clop.

A rider approaches. And power was given unto him over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

The Rider is here!

Some will say that he is Cain -- the brother killer fled from the Land of Nod. And some will say that he is Tithonus -- blessed with mortality but not with eternal youth, forever babbling in the wretched ruins of himself. And some will say that he is Utnapishtum, who survived the great flood and was gifted by the gods with eternal life. And still some will call him Ahasver, Matathias, Isaac Laquedem, or the Wandering Jew.

It does not matter what you call him, sweetling. The geas laid upon him compelled him to cut out his own history. All memory disdains him. We, who are knowledge, cannot recall. The only truth is that he cannot die. Whatever his crime, his punishment was severe. Sisyphus and Judas got off easy!

He is imprisoned in his never-ending flesh. And that flesh is a prison for a legion of demons and horrors -- all of the devils bound by Solomon multiplied by ten and by ten, again and again. His only relief comes when he releases them. He always regrets it, always tries to regurgitate the beasts in the company of heroes. Better out then in. Eh, sweetling?

His horse brings apocalypse. And some say four, but there is only one! War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death -- he wears and exchanges all of their masks in the ridiculous mummers play that the terrible geas laid upon him compels him to perform over and over. The only audience he wishes to impress is oblivion, but it never applauds.

And what of the clues you follow, sweetling? The mysterious text, fragments, and maguffins. We know, we know. They are clumsy contrivances. But understand, the Rider is the one that leaves them and writes them. He would rather warn you more plainly, but the terrible geas laid upon him prevents it. He wants you to defeat him.

Poor Rider. There are some places still where the farmers arrange the rows in their fields in such a way that on Sundays the Eternal Wanderer might rest there. And still others say that he can only sleep upon a plough, or that he cannot know respite until the deep December.