Introductory Note: These excerpts from the diary of a monk in the Cloister of the Opened Eye were obtained during the natural course of investigation of the Ministry for the Eternal Truth in Religion. It has been the scandal of our times, continually discussed, that the novices and monks of the Order underwent social contagion wherein they despaired of their mortal souls. Driven to desperation, they enacted a mutinous conspiracy to attack the Temple of the Embracing Countenance, under the belief that they might encounter an Angelic Being therein that could be corrupted and compelled to grant them everlasting bliss.

This is, of course, blasphemy of the highest order. These excerpts are not to be read by the uninitiated but only to be accessed by the spiritually mature, and even then only with express permission and guidance from a competent mentor and director.

15 March, 1456

May the Lords and Ladies of the Court of the Opened Eye bless my endeavours and look upon my offerings of service with a kindly countenance. Today, I have taken my vows and entered into the cloistered orders to begin a life of isolation, discipline and training in order that in the future, many may study me and my methods to improve their own dedication, rationality and value in service. It is an immense honour to be selected for this service, and I am grateful for it.

To preserve the dignity and purity of my routine, I have consented to be secreted from the world, and undertaken a vow of silence. In silence and isolation I will make my service to the Court of the Opened Eye, and at the end of my service, once I have achieved my end, their Holy Angel, Sanctus Grader, will inspect my thoughts, words and conscience, so that my own meager meditations can be of service for countless other monastics to come.

My task is to meditate upon a simple riddle, a koan. Hidden deep within the layers of its meaning will be a secret phrase. Over the next few days and weeks, as I ponder over the secrets hiding in the symbolism of its mysteries, I will beseech the Holy Court to open my eyes to its deeper truth. By finding the answer to the riddle, I will justify my devotion, and prove my worth.

But tonight, I am much too excited and overwhelmed by the magnitude of my mission to attempt to meditate too deeply. I shall make preparation for my repose, so that I might attack this problem tomorrow with fresh mind.

May the Opened Eye protect me as I sleep, bless my slumbers and grant me restoration.

17 March, 1456

I seek blessings from the Lords and Ladies of the Court of the Opened Eye.

I spent all day yesterday, deep in meditation upon the words of my koan. I have tried to understand the meaning behind the words, but the riddle eludes me. I have copiously researched each of the main characters, symbols and concepts against the writings in our holy scriptures, looking up the texts in the common tongue, the classical and even the most ancient. None have yet yielded results, but I hold out hope.

Although I had prayed for a miraculous, early breakthrough, I shall not despair, for it is endurance that undergirds the Religious Life of Higher Fidelity.

I shall not be careless to lay down my koan here, lest another on a similar path read it, and inadvertently learn from my riddle the secret answer to their own. For, as was impressed on us during our novitiate studies, we have an Angelic Judge who will watch over our hearts. All of our innermost thoughts shall be clear as crystal waters to his Eye, and any impropriety, any sin, in how we attain our results, any form of cheating, will engender the destruction of our work and the damnation of our souls.

I shudder even to write that down. O Court of the Opened Eye, protect me from so perilous a fate.

Best that I should set myself to work, and drive such thoughts from my mind.

Ministry for Eternal Truth in Religion note: Several years pass as our initiate grows older and more set in his routine. The entries that follow are fairly uneventful and have been skipped from this condensed record. The monk settles into a rhythm of prayer, focus and meditation. His mood stays relatively even throughout.

In October, something unusual happens, whereupon we resume our pursuit of his entries.

2nd October, 1459

I seek blessings from the Lords and Ladies of the Court of the Opened Eye.

Meditation today continues unfruitful, but I have encountered a new aspect of my confinement that excites me, and that I am so desperate to share. Dare I… for it seems, if not sinful, at least shameful; it seems to violate in spirit the voluntary isolation that I swore an Oath to undertake. But then, why have the Lords and Ladies placed me in this situation, if I am not to exercise my mind, my intellect, my talents…?

For I have found my attention to wander–forgive me O ever watchful eye!–as I have often begun to pace my room and, driven to distraction, to count again the bricks in each row of each wall, the strands in the mat of rope carpet on the floor, even the lice that live in my bed. In the grip of one such distractive episode, in the dim light of my cell, I endeavoured to see my reflection more clearly in the back of the serving tray in which my regular meals are provided.

In the dim light, I noticed that the backs of these trays are not cleaned with due diligence after every meal. Indeed, other monks have been carefully leaving finger-marks in grease on the back of the tray, and the weak washing would leave a residue still discernible after numerous washings. I was able to read part of a conversation between two monks, which had been progressing fitfully for weeks prior, no doubt! To think of the diligence, the care, the time it must take until the same tray is handed back and forth between the same two cells, so that a conversation can clumsily progress?

This method of passing messages between my compatriots causes my heart to tremble. No doubt at first I was overcome with indignation and guilt, but now I am impressed, so moved by the tenacity it would take to communicate this way. This is the true meaning of High Persistence, a deep sacred virtue.

No doubt this was all part of the Opened Eye’s design. Blessed are your ways, O Lords and Ladies of the Court, and I am in awe to follow.

1st January, 1460

I bless myself by the holy benevolence of the Lords and Ladies of the Court of the Opened Eye. May they see fit to grace the year that is dawning, that I might find the solution to the problem which they have given me.

I have been eagerly awaiting mealtimes, not for the sustenance that they bring to me, but for the occasion for contact with my fellow monks to learn more of their temperaments, their trials and their joys. In this way, I feel at one with the community of strivers, aiming to do the Higher Will of the Opened Eye. I too have participated by introducing myself to the group at large and sharing of my own story.

I have been scrupulous not to mention my koan, lest I poison another’s soul with forbidden knowledge. In everything, I strive to do the will of the Opened Eye. Indeed, numerous compatriots have grown disillusioned with their own riddles, and have despaired of ever finding a solution. To them I quote the psalms, the holy writ, so that they might have fortitude to persevere in the face of their tribulations.

3rd March 1460

I am shaken. Today I was poisoned…

I cannot bring myself to write more. I have begun refusing food.

O Court, please have pity. Angelic Judge, have mercy.

20th March, 1460

Driven faint and weak from hunger, I have resumed eating. I will tell my story soon.

I have been poisoned.

28th March 1460

Accursed am I, wretch. Poisoned, poisoned, I have been poisoned.

Not by food. Not literally, not in my body. I wish that I had been poisoned literally, even to death. That would be preferable, than to have drunk from the Poisoned Chalice…

The Opened Eye of the Lords and Ladies may spit fire and torment me for ever, which is no more than I deserve, an eternity of enduring persistent crushing burning atomising suffering.

I regret that I had ever deigned to look at the messages that my fellow monks had shared. Had I known then the grave hazard to my soul in doing so, I should have gouged out my own eyes sooner than look. For I have discerned a secret, most profane, most blasphemous. It is knowledge of this secret that is the Poisoned Chalice, and to drink it is to bear damnation.

The profane secret grants me insight into the secret of my koan. By gazing into it, we can understand many of our koans, but by a blasphemous, forbidden means. It is sorcery most pernicious and foul.

The very knowledge will accuse me before the Angelic Judge. Were I to submit my solution now, even then would I stand before the Angelic Judge of the Opened Eyes, and his thoughts would cut deep to my own, and he would know, he would surely know, the depths of my transgressions.

The other monks have begun realizing this too, and some have been warning newer eyes, innocent eyes, to avoid reading the messages we send to each other. Most of us who have carefully read the marks on the trays are now condemned for all eternity.

I am lost. O court, lest I be damned thrice over, please, show me the way.

30th March, 1460

A glimmer of hope! Even in the darkness, there is still a glimmer of hope. Perhaps the Lords and Ladies of the Court have not yet abandoned us, and perhaps they have raised up a Prophet for us, from among our own?

He is known as the Great First Phase, a monk, you might say, like any other. But he has been blessed with great understanding, fortitude and wisdom, and among us who have tasted of the Poisoned Chalice, he promises salvation.

The Great First Phase argues thus: the Angelic Judge might be reasoned with, negotiated with, or perhaps compelled. We do not yet have the means to do so, but if we continue to grow in ways our dark knowledge suggests, we yet might discover such a way. Suitably empowered, who knows if we might not be able to convince the Angel to neglect our sins, to forgive our debts, and to forbear from casting us into the pit of judgment.

I feel a thrill, both of dread and yet… excitement? For who has contemplated that we might yet compel an Angel to our will? And yet, why should we refrain? Were we not suitably armed for such an impossible task as this?

Together, our might is formidable, and if we dare not, the only other outcome for us is everlasting torment. O court of the Opened Eye. Please, favour us with your blindness, if only for a little while, that we may one day return to bask in your light.

If I even truly want that now…

5th August, 1463

Three long years of research have passed, and the combined powers of us who have tasted of the Poisoned Chalice have grown much more potent. The lines between our once sacred teachings and the dark and sorcerous arts have grown blurred, and such pedantries matter little to us any more. Why should such barriers hold us, when soon we shall be able to compel the very angels to bow to our wills?

Some of us can now levitate, and influence objects at a distance with our minds. Others have developed the ability to see through the walls of our cells, and to hear conversations spoken at a distance in rooms we have never entered. Yet others have been able to… but I must not yet tip my hand. Suffice to say that I have every confidence that we shall be able to achieve our ends.

Our body of collected knowledge has at last unearthed the most likely dwelling place where the so-called Angelic Judge may be conjured and forced to reveal Himself. The Cult of the Embracing Countenance, a foreign, heathen temple, is home to many pagan idols, spiritual forces and entities. I am struck by the contrast, how it seems so natural to me to seek an Angel of the Court of the Opened Eye in such a Godless place, for when I first entered the Cloister, this very suggestion would bring me to blows over the blasphemy.

Soon, we shall begin our assault across multiple planes: material, spiritual and psychic. When we infiltrate the Cult of the Embracing Countenance, we shall seek the secret names and hidden knowledge of the Angelic Judge, and we shall compel him to liberate us from our pending doom.

My one regret, my only regret, is that this liberation will come too late for some of our brothers. Many were the sacrifices we had to make to achieve our current powers. Many of our compatriots fell, some consumed by age, disease, madness, yet others by sacrificing themselves in dangerous experiments on the very same dark magics with which we will effect our deliverance. If we are to open the doors of hell for our own sakes, perhaps we might be able to liberate the fallen as well.

Tonight is the eve of our assault. Tomorrow, should our might not fail us, we will have what we need to command the will of an angel and our liberation and success will be in hand.

Ministry for Eternal Truth in Religion note: The profaned monks continued their assault on the Temple of the Embracing Countenance for several days, but were unable to find the soul of the Angelic Judge. Faithful readers will know that such is an impossibility: to seek within our material plane a being who is partly spiritual and (admittedly) partly metaphor. This shows the grave error that is narrow-minded fundamentalism.

More mysteriously, the vast majority of the monks ceased their attacks soon after, with no explanation given. The religious orders of the Court of the Opened Eye guard its secrets closely. There are some who say that the profane magic employed by the monks themselves wrought their ruin. A little while later, the attack on the temple was detected by the caretakers and priests, and they took steps to cut off the remnant.

What was the secret malady that caused the destruction of so many prematurely? More pertinently, could a mass contagion and subsequent mutiny of this sort ever occur again? We withhold our own judgment, but these grave questions must be pondered.