Short story varying ‘The Whispering Earring’ on willpower and Goodharting values.
IV 108. Displayed high on ruddy iron pillars in the central marketplace of Tap Halakal, the diamond earrings shimmer like fire in the sunlight, drawing the eye. The crowds bustle by, the occasional passerby briefly eyeing them, or made curious by a curious foreigner. The diamond earrings, each on a simple silver hoop, are unremarkable in appearance. The diamonds themselves are of middling quality, dull and unremarkable; not the finest to be found in the gem markets of the city, but not the poorest either. The diamond earrings, of indeterminate number, are not guarded by the Duke’s warriors, nor the praetorians, nor are they barred by wrought grills. They lie beneath the blue sky for any to take, for right or wrong, good or evil.
IV 117. Perhaps once a market, a person (usually young) by themselves will, hesitatingly, falter their way up the steps, suddenly seize an earring, and put it on, staccato whispering to themselves, before equally suddenly wheeling about and briskly going about their business past the silent people, who have witnessed that the earring was donned of their own free volition, with no coercion. The diamond itself shines with a new cast, appearing pure and flawless. The diamond will return itself, in 1 year’s time, to that pillar, its contract fulfilled and its business done. For the diamond is often right, and often wrong—but the diamond is never broken.
IV 125. And what business is that? Such will become the chiefest topic of gossip, especially among the wearer’s acquaintances, who have most to hope and fear. “Diamond is unbreakable”, the townspeople say pitingly.
The wearer is no longer the man they knew: he is other, he has sworn a terrible geas, and bound over his body into the keeping of the diamond for that year. Like riding an unbroken stallion, like an army on the march, like a boat traveling spring-swollen rapids—e’en so, he must go forwards and never backwards, for to resist the irresistible is to be dashed against the rocks. Whatever he instructed it to do, it will do, without mercy or respite. He has been liberated from every human weakness, including that of choice; like an arrow shot to Hell, e’en such is he. He may scream in agony for rest, but his body will continue laboring; he may desire to sleep, but dreams will not come; he may hunger for taro in the market, but his hands will not stray to his purse if he has fare at home; if he demanded to be virtuous and shun flesh, then the mere smell of roasting may make him turn about and go a longer way.
The diamond earring is a merciless master, and obeys only the commands given by the wearer when it was first donned, reflecting them with the crystalline purity of a sutra. It grants no quarter and accepts no excuses, for diamond is unbreakable.
IV 142. The results are undeniable. A year, the wearer comes to realize, is a long time—longer than a day to him who cannot walk, than a night to him who cannot sleep, than a life to him who cannot love. And at the end of it, the diamond has done what is humanly possible. The athlete will stride to the pillar with a leanness that would shame fakirs; the scholar holds a scroll that the lamas have been unable to confute; the layabout is well-clothed and tanned from their labors; the soldier ascends the pillar in eagle feathers (or others on his late behalf).
IV 150. The results are undeniable—and yet, with what terror the crowd shrinks back from the returning diamond wearer, and beholds the wearer collapse, as a doll discarded by a child, and weep, as their friends carry them away. It is not known what the diamonds are; or who made them; or for what purpose; or if they are good, or evil, or neither good nor evil, or neither good nor evil nor neither good nor evil. It is only known that they are, and that they work, that they are often right and often wrong, and that diamond is unbreakable.
IV 156. When Kadmi Rachumion came within 200 yonpads of Tap Halakal, having been invited by Til Osophrang on another matter, envoys from the Duke come to him, bearing the seal of office and the globe of bronze and the tablet of jade. They entreated the Jina to enquire into the matter. He assented, and spoke with the elders and as many former wearers as would consent to recall the experience.
One morning, accompanied by but one disciple, he sought the dusty marketplace, and remarked by few, put on the diamond, and stepped away as he came. He continued his enquiries, learning the Duke secretly feared the diamonds, and sought his authority for their destruction, his learned scholars having failed to find any precedent in the Winter Chronicles or Long Recitation or Annals of Kings.
IV 167. A sennight later, rumors swept the city: the Sugata himself would discourse at the pillars on the nature of the diamonds.
IV 170. Thus all the worthies & unworthies of the city were assembled to see Kadmi Rachumion walk calmly up to the pillar, tilt his head, and the diamond fall with the tiniest plink! to the ground, unchanged. (Diamond is unbreakable.)
IV 173. The Duke exclaimed, “O Bhagavat! You have defeated and destroyed the diamonds. O hail great victory!”, and the court murmured approbation.
IV 176. To which he made this reply: “Oh nobly thrice-borne, you see, but you do not perceive. There is neither defeat nor victory here, neither creation nor destruction; only insight into arising & passing away, which I have already achieved, and have no further need to awaken. I shall therefore leave them for the merit of such people of Tap Halakal as choose to use them; for the diamonds may be right or it may be wrong, but diamond is unbreakable.”
IV 182. And so it was that Kadmi Rachumion left, and the diamond earrings remain in Tap Halakal, and the people ponder their import and purpose, and do not wear them.
IV 185. Niderion-nomai’s commentary:
The diamond earrings never break, yet they never build either. How can you understand this without understanding?
IV 190. Diamond is unbreakable; nevertheless:
“One tap of the hammer shatters the diamond,
One breath of the wind sets it free.
The diamond earrings will never be broken,
But will never be worn by me.”