I was born in Agaduun the son of a taylor and a blacksmith. Nobody expected that I would want to turn my attention to preaching, since I was a very loud and obnoxious child. But about at the age of eleven, the spirit visited me, and I became quiet and pious. The change did, of course, not go unnoticed, and after a few weeks, the village elder stood in front of our door and declared I had been chosen to visit the Gods in the mountains of Hamzaran.
You will never be able to imagine how I screamed that night, my dear disciple.
This is to teach you that you should not be afraid of screaming.
No child in Agaduun was a stranger to the corruption and depravity of the Gods. Never spoken of aloud, the stories lived their secret life in the murmurs and whispers of dark houses at nighttime, in the hollows and in the woods, the secret playgrounds, and were well known to everyone.
I spent the journey to Hamzaran in quiet despondency, not speaking a word and refusing food and drink.
The last twenty miles of the way led us through the cursed forest of Hamzaran, where the High Priest kept the terrors at bay only with difficulty. When we had reached the dead city of Hamzaran at the foot of the mountain range, they made me eat a small meal and then turned back into the forest, leaving me alone in the wasteland at the outskirts of the abandoned city. Only one rider remained behind at the edge of the forest, watching me intently for two hours. Then he mounted his horse and sped away into the forest, following the others, after setting the forest ablaze.
This is to teach you that the closer you get to the divine, the more forlorn you will be.
It will not surprise you, as it did not surprise anyone in the old days, when I tell you that the Gods emanated from Man when Man first beheld himself in disgust. In disgust he beheld himself, and disgusted he rose above himself to the heavens, to test and judge and eventually put an end to Man.
But what was less known in the old days is that, when it was assumed in the beginning that the pure and sublime part of Man was disgusted by the depraved and deplorable part and rose above it to the heavens, to test and judge it and eventually put an end to it, the First Believers overlooked that everything is symmetrical. One may well be disgusted by the vice and utter depravity of the very same that are themselves disgusted by one's virtue and purity. So even the most depraved and appalling one may well be disgusted by the purest and most virtuous.
And it was in fact the most depraved, deplorable and forlorn part of Man that rose and betook it upon himself to be the rulers of Man's fate.
You know all this, and knowing all this has not benefited you.
This is to teach you that wisdom always comes last.