The Confession of Imperfection is an informal name given to a document found in 74 Cloud in the city of Hanessin in the western Velestrin, on the Shaadic coast near the southern terminus of the trade route through Tavath's Gap. Its apparent author was a jeweler named Tavass, a pioneer in faceting techniques, and in form is somewhere between a diary entry and an open letter.

It purports to describe - or, by the author's own admission, imperfectly attempt to describe - a brief but exceptionally vivid dream sequence in which Tavass found himself transported to the heart of Seluurin's Palace and found himself facing the Fateweaver Herself.

What is the price of perfection? Is it worth it?

In my art there are few strangers to the pursuit of perfection. An uneven cut, a lazy polish, can turn what could have been a brilliant gem into a stone little better than colored glass. Care, patience, and meticulousness are a necessity, backed by practice and training and a steady hand. For cycles I have cultivated these traits in myself, and grown skilled in their exercise. And I have benefitted; I have wrought emeralds that glittered like the morning dew among the leaves of the Tangle, and rubies that burned like the setting sun. I have received praise and wealth for my works. And having surpassed so many of my peers, I found it natural to wonder how much more I could improve.

For my friends and fellow jewelers who might read this, I ask: is it not natural, having developed a thing to a high point, to wonder how much higher one can go? How finely the skill can be honed, how straight the edge can be made, how flat and mirror-like the facet can be polished? Where is the point beyond which there is no improvement? Where can one say: here is perfection?

And I found myself seeking this point. I have time and money enough, now, to turn away commissions; I have no wife or children to aggrieve with my distance. To my friends who have missed me, I can only apologize; but they have known me to withdraw into my own concerns before. This I did, practicing in my workshop; and this I did for vigils at a time.

Vigils became turns, as I spent more time, more care, on each modification I made to my gems; each bit of grinding, each polish, became smaller and more controlled, for I found that I could control the results more closely. I shunned company, and only my servants saw my face. I came to pause in my work only for the barest necessities, and I began to begrudge the time lost; but I knew could not forsake things such as food or sleep without lessening my own capacities.

But for each tiny improvement I made in my work, I became ever more apprehensive, for each one became harder to attain and more difficult to perceive. There were times when I could not be certain that I had made any progress at all, and doubt gnawed at me. If I could no longer distinguish improvements, might I no longer distinguish equally small failures? And, thus troubled by doubt, I lost my appetite and could not sleep; and then, in truth, my capabilities began to desert me.

The anguish overthrew my mind and body, and my servants confined me to bed, though I begged them to let me up. I tried to rise when they were away, but could not. And, shortly thereafter, they gave me a potion to make me sleep.

What is the price of perfection? Is it worth it?

In my sleeping mind, I found myself in a palace of immense proportions, built as it seemed out of gems - or some substances of that nature, for they were of some kinship in my eyes but like no gems I had ever seen in my waking hours. And I could see, without knowing how I could see, that here indeed were flawless works: the facets smoother than silk, the edges so precise and sharp that they seemed to cut the eye. And they were entirely clear and without blemish, or else in colors so pure that it made me weep. There was a wide, flat floor, so clear that it could scarcely be seen save for the lights of the stars set in its midst; and from that floor arose many columns of numerous sides, supporting a high dome, blacker than the blackest onyx. And the air itself seemed to be alive with edges and facets, shimmering like a diamond; and the edges of the chamber were lost in the distance, shrouded by this pale light.

And I was not alone in the chamber. For all around me were takmar, or at least things of takma-shape; for they were not made of flesh and blood, but of gems or other colored stones, and they did not act as people do; they moved in file, one after the other, across the floor, murmuring in repetitious unison to themselves. They did not speak to one another, nor pay any attention to one another except to follow the one in front of them. There was enough space between each one that, when the lines crossed, those in one would pass between members of the other; and the lines themselves moved slowly according to some great design that I could not see.

As my eyes followed the movements of these beings, they were drawn to what seemed to me to be the center and focus of this place, to which the silent beings went and from which they came, and from which I found it hard to look away. And as my eyes were drawn, so too were my feet, so that I might more clearly see; for it seemed that the more directly I looked upon it, the more my eyes failed me, or perhaps it was the mind that lay behind them. The nearer to it I looked, the less I could interpret what I saw, for it seemed that there the light was greatest, and all the color and edges and the strange inhabitants merged together in a great harmony.

Was this, then, not the perfection I sought? Could I not partake of it - become one with it, as all else here was? Yet the closer I came, the more out of place I felt. I was a discordant note in a symphony, a blot in a written work, a chip in a gem's surface. And the very weight of divergence slowed my shuffling gait, and at last brought me to a stop.

And then there was a voice, a voice felt in the bones and permeating the air, a voice that was as deep as the seas and as high as the stars, a chorus of all the voices that could be brought into one voice. It was both beautiful and terrible beyond description. And though it spoke no words, it impressed meaning upon me with such force that it drove me to the floor. You do not belong here, it told me. Leave my domain. And though it told me that which I had already perceived, to be rejected so pierced the heart. I spoke in turn, begging for I knew not what: I seek perfection, said I, and here I have found it, but it is apart from me. Is it yours to give, and how may I serve you that I should receive it?

The voice said only, You may do nothing. One may not receive what they cannot possess. One cannot give what makes up one's being.

And though the light and the voice and the color, which were all one, seared my eyes, my mind, I kept them open, forced them to remain open, and peered into the heart of it; and there, for but an instant, I beheld a mighty throne, and seated upon it was a figure of adamantine rainbows and dancing facets, her eyes cold fire, and I screamed in shame and joy and terror, and I awoke, cast back-

(The text becomes briefly illegible, then blots. The remaining lines are written by an increasingly shaking hand.)

But now I know. I am not worthy. Perfection is not in the flesh we are given. It is not in what we are. I must change to find it, to become worthy. To become other.

All that is mine, I leave to my beloved niece Kalariss. I do not need it. This way is better.

I will be worthy of Her favor. The price will be worth it.

Tavass

The letter was found on the table in Tavass' bedroom. Tavass himself lay dead, with large portions of skin and muscle having been sliced off various parts of his body, apparently in an attempt to give himself facets.