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| legend The stories of Atriedes, first of men, are many, but few would argue that this, though not the most fantastic is the most important, that its results reach into each of our lives to such a degree that to separate the effects it has had would be as hard as separating the already fallen flake of snow from the soft white blanketed fields. He remembered the awakening, mouth full of mud, eyes opening to the gentle sway of seaweed, the cough, the swim to shore, the first steps on warm sand. As the first of men his skills as a tracker were paramount. His name was sung with deep respect in the mountains and plains alike. This skill of his was the result of timeless adventures in the woods. He learned the language of the beasts and trees, to smell a trail, to taste what he hunted long before he could see it. But one day after a particullarly challenging game which provided him with little in the way of obstacles, his playful mind devised a new challenge. He called to the Raven and the Trout, the Tortoise and the Hare and the great golden Eagle, his most trusted messengers. " I wish to play a grand game, I have tired of these games we play, I want all the animals, both my partners and my opponents to make haste and obscure every trail, every path, to place all conceivable obstacles between myself and my goals, to try always to confuse my journeys." The messengers, not realizing the dark nature of this promise, agreed to his request and spread the word through the land. But Atreides powers were great and in no time he learned to discern the truth from the obstufacations. Even when the air itself solidified in a dark fog against him he found his way. And so he journeyed to the favored land of the gods, the great white desert, and fell on his knees between the ancient dried seas, birthplace of all life, and the great grey trunk of the most ancient of trees. In a voice torn with the pain only the eternal might truly percieve he cried "My life has lost its meaning, where there was mystery now there is knowledge, where there was once love now there is only understanding, shall I wander the hills and valleys, fjord the rivers and sail the seas for all time, knowing all names, seeing all things as they have and always will be? The gods took pity on him, even as far from comprehending the mystery of anguish as they were, and searched their minds for a solution. The earth shook to its very core, an ocean of rain fell upon the quaking land, the very lakes boiled with the gods' conference. The animals, both beautiful and ugly, searched in vain admist all this upheaval for shelter. No stone unturned, no pocket of air left still, the howling winds were drowned out by man and beasts cries of fear. Only atreides remained still through all of this, wrapped in his misery. Now this great conference of the gods can not be writ here, for the language of the gods will neither be bound by page nor the word of man. It is a language of movement, of turning, burning, all in action is their thought and though I might write a thousand upon a thousand of pages, yet still incomplete would be my futile advances. A mockery of the great tempest that tossed the stars, that sent the moon careening through the sky, in great circles around the earth. And so I might record the results of this conference but never will the words be captured by mortal pen. After an eternity of chaos an answer was found. And so the first gift of the gods becomes also the first curse. Atreides stood up, still between the ancient sea bed and the great oak, and from the sky fell the great golden eagle, his first friend, and the gods spoke through him. They told atreides of their gift, of time. That men and women would no longer be born in the sea, that they would be borne by women, that this great miracle would be followed by one even more profound, that with time the body would become less and less powerful, that eventually a great darkness would consume each man, that his time would come, and he would have no knowledge of when this thing, this death would come to take him. And death would be shrouded in mystery for man would never return to tell others what came after the last breath. Atreides held his dying friend in his arms, and for the first time, man wept. Now what began as a game, a blessing for the first of men, this gift of the gods plagues us all. We search for the completion our father found, we yearn to replace mystery with knowledge, love with understanding but through the gates of death all of us must pass and so the mystery continues to entrance us and the love holds us all gently in its hands.
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