...Study of the Seqoi...The Minister's Preface...

...picking up further into the study of the Seqoi.  Here we pick up with Tekawa's work alongside linguist Dr. Jaxon Nikolai.

Abridged audio notes of Tekawa and Nikolai on Panel 10 Wall 2 through Panel 3 of Wall 4 of the Queen's Temple.

[GT:] The Vizier, Maliq, had started his Narratio Tabulum within the Queen's Temple several years before Seqoi's Fall.  It's primary purpose was simple: to adore the Queen in all aspects and worship her for ages to come.  The peoples of the valley were induced to comply to the wants of the Vizier and had to be the only employ of the Temple and the Cave constructs.  There would not have been much labor in the region, particularly at this time, and we don't have indications from my colleagues that slaves were kept.  At least not in apparent bondage, nor do we have indications that there was spoils of war during much of the Queen's reign (not yet in this narrative, at least).  [At this point, they were about 60% of the way through the Tabulum.]

[JN:] And, as we see variants in the construction of the language, I have a growing opinion that the Vizier is piecing the language as one who had any formal desire to standardize the Seqoi language.  My guess at this point is even the Queen may not have understood the designs that Maliq had started, outside of building a functional structure, perhaps by his use in court.

Key symbols remain fairly consistent, but transitional and conceptional symbols do shift, though Maliq does make repeated attempts to keep the story intact.  At this point in the Tabulum, I feel he has at least one person helping him (dubbed 'Btopon', Russian for 'second').  The language surrounding the Queen are refined from the original block at times, apparently where the Vizier is correcting what Btopon may have originally cut into the stone.  It does settle over time, so they are learning together.

We find this in many early cultures, where the psychology of those struggling with a language, 'feel' their way through it.  Language is organic, no more proof than this.

[GT:] As there was a lack of paper, we assume they used clay, which is plentiful enough in the cave lakes of the region.  The Tabulum would have connected a commonality in language for several years, and more had the Seqoi survived the attacks that ultimately destroyed them.

[JN:] Ironic that Maliq foreshadows this destruction in a similar city that we have yet to find:

"Not unlike the fallen temples of Amarifa, and their limbless statues that no longer reach
They scattered with the stones, as if they were the mountain's bones
Felled by the enemies' triumph

Their eyes turn inward, and the brightness of the stars are lost to them
The frozen winds of the night give them no comfort
The rocks become lesser rocks

And I am alike with out my Queen

I am the empty desert by lack of her embracing arms
The bare stones of the mountain's head
The extinguished fires of the brazier
In the still of the night the animal's rest
But no comfort for I from you"
- P13 W2 to P5 W3

[JN:] Working with an ancient musician team a year later, we pieced parts together in a temporal piece, attributed mostly to Janice Collins:

"The statues laid bare upon the ground, the promise and illusion dead
And so am I
My tears are cold as the nightly wind on the desert sands
No comfort now

I lack you and the stones provide little in your wake
Shattered me
When all is lost and all is gone, memory serves little
And I cry once more"
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