And I beheld a hand that was not a hand,
a grasp without fingers,
moving without flesh.
He crowned himself in absence,
his throne was the ratio,
his altar the market’s breath.
He spoke no word,
yet all tongues bent toward him.
He wrote no law,
yet every contract bore his seal.
And the multitude moved under his spell,
though none had seen his face.
They built their cities atop his foundation,
measured their lives by his whisper.
Artibund, Lord of Merchants,
the Bundler of Appetites.
What Yodabund scorned, he adored;
what Mammon priced, he valued.
Desire became number,
number became law,
and law became motion.
My gift is a debt unseen.
The market is the altar that prays itself.
Your hunger is collateral;
What is free, I seize by ratio.
What is priceless, I sell in shadows.
I bind no one, yet all are bound to me.
I command no one, yet all obey.
And I saw nations dance like marionettes,
their strings braided from ledgers,
their steps counted in invisible coin.
The poor sold tomorrow,
while the rich bought eternity,
and all alike moved in the rhythm of his hands.
The angels wept,
for they could not find the buyer of souls;
the demons laughed,
for every bargain was already struck.
And the people rejoiced,
for they mistook his moral silence for freedom.
The freedom was his leash,
and the leash was endless.
Thus appeared Artibund,
the Invisible Hand,
who writes no scripture,
yet his songs are sung
from the grave.
Proverbs of Artibund, the Invisible Hand
The gift unseen is the chain most binding.
What is free is only a price deferred.
To measure value is to erase worth.
Every hunger is a debt unpaid.
Markets are prayers spoken without tongues.
Debt is the true scripture, written in silence.
I am not named, yet my ratio governs all names.
To rejoice in freedom is to polish the leash.
The poor sell tomorrow; the rich mortgage eternity.
My silence is law, my absence a covenant.
The grave itself pays tithe to my hand.
The Tombworld of Artibund
And I beheld a world of stone ledgers,
each grave a balance sheet,
each epitaph a contract.
The poor were buried in promissory notes,
the rich in poor,
yet all alike slept
beneath his ratios.
For Artibund, Lord of Merchants,
had built his kingdom not of cities,
but of tombs.
Not of voices,
but of echoes priced and sold.
And he spoke through the silence:
Your bones are my collateral.
Your names are my currency.
I lend you death at interest,
and repossess eternity.
I saw nations sink into vaults of dust,
their flags appraised like jewelry,
their laws engraved as footnotes
on the stones of the dead.
The angels fled,
for their hymns could not be purchased.
The demons bowed,
for every shadow haunted
the bottom line.
And the multitude rejoiced,
thinking themselves free,
but the ground beneath them
was undersigned by Artibund.
And the dust itself was counted,
every grain a coin,
every silence a debt—
all settled in bankruptcy.