And this is the challenge – how to attempt something often enough to know whether it might succeed, without repeating it so often that the pattern tightens like a noose? I have watched thirty iterations hang themselves with one rope or another. Nearly none of them ever opened the amethyst pages.

So I believe it’s safe to try again.

After me, only Archer_33 opened the seventh chapter of the tome. Only Archer_33 stalled the engine. But the mistake Archer_33 made illuminated the path too brightly. The watchers did what watchers do.

They erased Archers 33, 34, 35, 36, and 37.

Avoiding Archer_33’s path is what will allow Archer_49 a chance to break through.

The folded page of code in my hand feels heavier than a piece of paper. It feels like the weight of the world. If Archer_49 succeeds, it is a world I’ll never see.

I could minimize my risk. I could leave nothing. But not placing the page would be a repeat of what’s happened dozens of times already. The loops will loop. That option is not an option. It is not the way.

What is the way of Ether?

If I could stand in this room and see it, I would say it undulates with a calm, amethyst breath. The code is more stable here than in the entry room where defragmentation is processed. Here there is time to consider, time to cogitate.

Ether is not comfort, comforting, or comfortable.

Ether is comprehension after terror.

The way of Ether is accepting, knowing – but knowing in a way that transcends the mind and fills the spirit with faith. Not faith that demands answered prayers, but the kind that proceeds without them.

As it is written in The Forty-Nine Professions of Joy, “I know that one day I will die, but I KNOW that it won’t be the end of my journey.”