'To be merciful,' Si'Wren wrote, remaining carefully apropos of his own
words. Then she added, 'Kindness is better than cruelty.'
"You think so? But does not even this depend upon the circumstances?
Foolish men must be punished, and what the gods declare must be carried
out. Do you not agree?"
Si'Wren hesitated, and felt a great upwelling of truth that would no
longer be quelled. She paused with marking sticks held poised in
stilled fingers above the moist clay, and then made her first markings
in its smooth freshness. What she was about to write would be rank
blasphemy, but she could no longer contain herself.
'The smith', Si'Wren wrote, 'labors hard in the coals, using tongs. He
pounds his many gods with endless hammerings, working by the strength
of his arms. He is mortal, for he hungers, and his strength fails, and
if he drinks no water he soon grows faint, yet he has created his own
gods, which if they truly lived, would be battered witless anyways from
the noise of hammer and anvil, even as they are shaped to make them
ready to sell.'
That seemed a fitting beginning.
Seeing she had her Emperor's complete and undivided attention, Si'Wren
was emboldened to inscribe further, 'The craftsman measures with his
eye, and marks with his forearm; he whittles pegs to pound into the
holes he has made, and attaches a head and arms onto a graven block of
wood, making block-heads to bow down to.
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