Creek World / Plaques / The Innermost Rotunda
CW·R·13
The cycle of force
What happens when elements meet in force
The cycle of force is what happens when two elements fight: iron cuts wood, water puts out fire, fire swallows light, and sound shatters iron. No element can kill another. People do the harm.
Iron takes the wood. The wood of the hull keeps out the water. Water quenches fire. Fire swallows light. Light names the rot. Time fades the word. Sound shatters iron. And round again.
That ring is what happens when two elements meet in force. It isn't how they wear on each other by nature, or how they sit together inside one holder.
No element kills another. The damage happens where they touch. No blade ever killed Sound: men with blades killed the people who held it, and the survivors stopped speaking.
Spirit isn't on the ring. Everything on the ring is made of it.
Quick facts
- The ring
- iron → wood → water → fire → light → time → sound → iron
- Not on it
- Spirit
- Dark is
- Time: rust, rot, poison and forgetting are duration
See also
- The Eight: Four pairs, eight elements
- Across the wheel: Opposites, a second kind of bond
- Sound: Pair I · flesh-side
- Iron: Pair IV · flesh-side