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Long ago, at the highest place in the Realm there stood a cathedral not built by hands.
Its stones were measured in silence. Its arches sang, but no voice was heard.
Its beauty was not expressive; it was obedient. Here, music was not performed.
It was followed and those who entered did not come to feel something.
They came to place themselves under something.
In that place, each voice knew its place. No sound stood alone.
Dissonance was permitted, but only to be resolved. Harmony did not mean sameness.
It meant order. No singer sought attention. No melody sought approval.
All things pointed beyond the self.
But far below, in the valley of dust a man named Selphos grew restless.
He did not wish to follow a music he did not write. So he built his own.
It shimmered. It thumped. It swelled. The people came to hear it.
And they clapped. And they wept. And they called it worship.
But they had only touched their own feelings.
Selphos told the people: “You no longer need old songs. You only need your own.”
The people clapped. They wept. They said, “Now we feel close to the Divine.”
But they had only encountered themselves.
Selphos built a new temple. Not to house the sacred; but to reflect the crowd.
Round. Glowing. Comfortable. Nothing pointed upward. Everything turned inward.
It was soft. It was filled with mirrors of sound. Every voice was a solo.
Every song was a story. Every note said, “You matter.”
The people called it worship. But it was only a feedback loop.
Screens shimmered with the faces of the crowd. The people said, “We are moved.”
But they had not been changed.
One by one, the elders forgot the old harmonies. The children were never taught.
Cadences were replaced with chords. Discipline with energy.
The structure was gone. The people swayed. The words lost weight.
In time, the old music faded. The scores were forgotten. The structure dissolved.
Stillness was replaced by rhythm. Proportion by volume. Reverence by performance.
And the children were never told what had been lost.
Far away, one child found a torn fragment of the old music. No lyrics; only intervals.
No story; only structure. She did not perform it. She learned it.
And then, she repeated it; not for applause, but for truth.
One child found a fragment. No lyrics. Just lines. No emotion. Just form.
She did not perform it. She obeyed it.
When she sang it in the Cathedral of Echoes the people grew uneasy.
It was too still. Too slow. Too exact. Too unfamiliar.
But a few elders stirred. Something quiet awoke. Not emotion; remembrance.
And they knew - this music wasn’t about them.
Now the Realm waits. Two temples stand. Two songs are sung.
One reflects the crowd. The other reveals the truth.
One says, “Feel deeply.” The other says, “Submit rightly.”
One echoes. The other orders. Each soul must choose.
Will you sing what pleases you? Or will you learn what is true?
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