An ancient stone tower stands upon a weathered crag above the surging waters of the Ocean of Dreams, tinting its formless darkness with its warm light. Yet the tower itself merely shelters something solitary and immovable, a kind of will that has stood here since eternity and shall stand even on that day when the stars fall from the sky, blooming in their drowning like white lotuses upon the surface of the primal waters.
Legend says that once there was neither sea nor tower here, but only peaceful green hills crisscrossed by the trails of wandering souls and steppe beasts, in whose midst sat the Silent Traveler, called Kirin, neither old nor young. At dusk, he would always kindle a fire, and the beasts surrounded him in a respectful circle to listen to the wisdom of Silence in warm stillness. Then, however, the world changed, and the Tide began. The infinite coils of the diamond Serpent filled the land. Plains turned into seas and valleys into fjords. People fled to the mountains, abandoning their cities, which were then seized by the faces of the dead, while dreams flowed through the streets deep beneath the surface.
Then, it is told, the foamy crests of the serpent’s coils struck even Kirin’s crag. The spirits of the steppe fled to the hills and watched from afar the lonely figure of their master, around whom his cloak fluttered like the wings of struggling gulls under the force of the serpent’s breath. But then the Silent Traveler fixed his gaze upon the blue-clear giant and spoke a single word. And behold—that word became stone, the foundation stone of the lighthouse, which Kirin finished building with his own hands that very day. He spent the entire night wakeful atop the tower where, as every night, he kindled his fire. The Ocean struck at its base in vain, and from that day forth, it advanced not a single step, for it was halted by a word torn from silence. That word is the lighthouse and its fire.
And it is said that this lighthouse does not stand upon our earth, but upon shores a thousand times older and firmer. It stands, they say, upon shores of adamant, an immovable crag of the unconquerable memory of the gods at the very center of the stars. Every sailor honors and seeks the light of this lighthouse, for its flickering radiance is visible from everywhere in our land—for in truth, we call its fire the North Star, honoring it as the fixed vanishing point of our wanderings.
