[You find this letter on your breakfast table. The paper is your own, borrowed, but the hand writing is spidery and jagged. Part appears to have been written in charcoal and it is sticky to the touch with honey]

Dear Professor Reflector,

I have been following your column with the greatest of fascination. All the more so since a good friend informed me that my own writing had made an appearance in your pages. I should rather say, that some dreadful non-sense about mirrors or some such other awful dross, bearing my name has appeared. A very poor joke I believe made on both of us. The culprit is however known to me and I assure you they will be dealt with appropriately.

That sorry business however, is all by the by. I write today foremost concerning a recent submission printed in your pages. A very erudite and eloquent argument, but its author I fear makes some quite terrible errors. Ones that, I feel, rather derail some of his contentions.

Let us speak of the two eastern gentlemen he alludes to. One, this so called ‘King of a Hundred Hearts’, was not to legend born a man. Rather shaped from the same clay that makes his present children. Formed that is to teach the other man, a king, of his own arrogance and tyranny.

Who molded this creature? Not God. Who then breathed life and purpose into it. Why Aruru, that merciful goddess, mother of us all. Who taught this poor lonely beast civility and showed it its first taste of affection and love. Not the harsh king. Who then was it that bathed him and fed him. Why that was Shamhat, the priestess. Who saved this dying man-thing. No traitorous Master. Who then in truth was forced to make the sacrifice that provided its healing heart. Why Stone, our weeping lady. The good fellow in his letter I must say almost corrects himself. When he looks to poor maligned Pandora. Seeking a source for the Unfinished man’s free will. Perhaps he should have gone further and looked to Eve for his own.

I argue then this. Perhaps your good readers may now lay aside the imagined fault of others, Clay and Human alike. Turn away from harsh criticism and presumed superiority. Look instead to their own flawed selves. I put it that if they truly wish to gaze the faces of their makers. To find the well of life in their midst. What drives much of their own creativity, inspiration and passion. Well, then good Professor, I believe that parable may have already been written out a thousand time before.

Cordialement, Mlle. C. de Witte.

[A vellum scroll nailed to your door, the words seem to have been burnt into the parchment by some kind of noxious acid]

Very dear the truthseeker,

What a terrible burden it must be for you, to have so much knowledge and yet still so little understanding. Where truly can I begin?

Firstly, I made mention of but a single fact I understood you to have mistook. The exact nature of the King with a Thousand Hearts. Sadly it was also the one on which you chose to pin your argument concerning our dear Clay brethren. Do you say you know for a ‘fact’ the certain identity of Polythreme’s king? Are you the Bazaar itself perhaps? Some great Judgement seeing all? I think not! No, you know only a story you have been told, a myth, a legend. Such things are nebulous at best. Yet you would base your vaunted ‘Truth’, your ‘Fundamentals’, on that story. You say I embarrass myself by blending knowledge and belief. I say you make the far greater fool mistaking legend and fact.

And what belief do you suppose I follow? What dogma? I made no mention of such. My point may have been moral, but not religious. Yet you seem to believe yourself capable of peering into the souls of others. Rather I think it is we who see a glimpse of your own, as its prejudices drip with abandon from your pen. What a paradox! You lament lost innocence, but claim knowledge is all. Free will has a price, knowledge has a price, truth has its price. Eve you must agree payed that price hardest of all (in legend I fear I must now make doubly clear!) That was my single point, but I fear seeking that out was too troubling for you.


As to your threats. How curious that it is a Woman in Yellow you think to send against me. How very brave of you, how gallant! Perhaps we might arrange to dine together in candlelight instead?


Clearly my little errata has upset you a great deal and for that I am truly saddened. Perhaps if you surrounded yourself with less corvid 'yes-men' you might learn to take kindly meant criticism a little better. It is truly I think a very great shame that wheat will not grow here in the Neath, for you do seem most determined to seek out strawmen. You may have no clue to my true beliefs dear truthseeker; and although you claim devotion to knowledge I think I see a little clearer now. You are in fact truly the most devoted servant of Salt.

Very kindest regards,

Charlotte. ( )

And to those who commission such writings, did you not know I wrote for your same group when I was South at Flint? Why in Heaven's name do you think your organization should of all places try and "publish" counter on my own letter? Did you think I would not publicly reply as such? Even your Chaos is nothing but Primary teachings compared to what I innately can now do compared to you. Don't make me have AEos come down in her Yellow garb to explain it to you as she will not be as polite as I was to the Patroness then that still breathes.