The Golden Fool

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The manuscript, begun so many years ago, ends in a flurry of blots and angry stabbings from my pen. I can recall the moment at which I realized I had slipped from writing in generalities into my own intimate rendering of pain. There are creases on the scroll where I flung it to the floor and stamped on it. The wonder is that I only kicked it aside rather than committing it to the flames. I do not know who took pity on the wretched thing and shelved it on my scroll rack. Perhaps it was Thick, doing his tasks in his methodical, unthinking way. Certainly I find nothing there that I would have saved.

So it has often been with my writing efforts. My various attempts at a history of the Six Duchies too often meandered into a history of myself. From a treatise on herbs my pen would wander to the various treatments for Skill-ailments. My studies of the White Prophets delve too deeply into their relationships with their Catalysts. I do not know if it is conceit that always turns my thoughts to my own life, or if my writing is my pathetic effort to explain my life to myself. The years have come and gone in their scores of turnings, and night after night I still take pen in hand and write. Still I strive to understand who I am. Still I promise myself, ‘Next time I will do better’ in the all-too-human conceit that I will always be offered a ‘next time’.

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