For as long as I can remember, I had the Eye That Sees. My right eye (most people would expect it to be the left, but most people don’t understand levels of statistical significance) sees the truth, so that I may speak it.

I must have been asleep when it was taken from me. The gods do not have the gifts of mortals, and sometimes they steal a bauble here and there as a gift for a beloved. The gods are ever falling in and out of love, and plucking gifts from mortals in their endless passions - a living heart of true love, and swatch of un-tearing cloth. My eye. I know who took it. I know to whom he gave it. It is still my eye, and it still sees.

There are only so many ways to go about gaining a prize from a god. The most common route is eternal praise and blind loyalty. Well, I’ve still got one good eye, so that route is closed to me. One can also plea for sympathy or empathy. I find it unlikely anyone who would take my eye will feel strongly about my plight. One may also perform heroic deeds, as gods love a good show as much as anyone else, if not more.

Alternatively, one has the option of beating down the gates of heaven, and striking the gods about the head until they return what is mine. I have, perhaps, given myself away in this regard.

Now, gods do not become gods just because they build a house on top of the world. I made my decision in seven breaths, though I am a slight man, and have no weapons about me save my wits and my words. The moment my choice was made, the gods sent a great warrior with six arms to slay me. “Before you do so,” I told the warrior, “let me tell you six stories. For each story that is true, you must stay your blows.”

Thus I set out on my journey to the gates of heaven, and told the warrior my first story, the truth of his name. He stayed one blow of his sword for one night, but the gods then sent the four winds to carry me off. I am a slight man, and the task would not be difficult for them, but I demanded that they prove their might. “I am heavier than I look and I do not wish to be dropped. Here, move this mountain, and I shall go willingly.” One after another they struck the mountain with all their might until they were exhausted and had no strength left to lift me.

The following day I told the six armed warrior my second story, and so named each of his swords. I was reprieved from yet another strike, but the gods sent a horse which could breathe fire, which had skin of stone and hooves made of cold iron, to trample my body and burn me to ashes. “Very well,” I said, “but before you do let us drink to your health.” And so I put out the fire inside the horse with the water of life, and climbed up on its back in the blink of an eye. “You dare not throw me off, horse, for you see how easily I bested the winds and doused your fires. I should throw you past the thrice ninth kingdom if you even dared to buck.” Thus I rode the horse with stone skin and cold iron hooves, even though I do not ride horses and was very uncomfortable.

My third story named a new star after each of the warrior’s six arms, and his third blow was stayed. The gods sent a wolf as big as a house to come and eat me alive. “It is nothing,” I said to the wolf, “to eat me, for I am a slight man. Come, I wager I can easily eat more than you. Let me prove it before I die.” I took the wolf directly to the nightshade plant, and challenged it to eat more than I.

For my fourth story, I named for the warrior each of his six sons, and told him of their deeds. This story was as true all my stories, and my life was spared a fourth time. The gods must have been growing worried, for I walked with their warrior, I rode their horse, I had bested their four winds, and killed their wolf. They sent seven dragons with seven heads, who were to rend my body to pieces and scatter it to the ends of the earth. Each dragon was stronger than a hundred men, and larger than five houses. “Very well, Dragons,” I said, “You are stronger than I, and there are too many of you, but I must tell each of you a secret before you kill me. One of you is the king of all dragons. Let me speak to each of you in turn, and you will know the truth.”

I spoke with each dragon and told each one he was the king, and how the others conspired against him. “Strike first, before I present you the crown, or they will surely take it from you.” The dragons tore one another to bits, and from each of their heads I pulled their teeth, and these I made the horse with stone skin and cold iron hooves carry.

I told the six armed warrior his fifth story, about the six greatest enemies he would defeat, and I named them all. This was true as well, and so there was but one sword remaining to strike me down. We stood at the edge of heaven and saw how the gods had set an army before us. I planted each tooth of each dragon and soon an army grew from the ground. “There,” I told the dragon warriors, “is the army which slew the seven dragons.” Thus the army of heaven and the army of the dragons destroyed one another, and soon I stood before the gates themselves.

“Now, my steed, kick them in, for the stuff of heaven falls easily to cold iron.” His hooves struck the gates of heaven three times and beat them down. All the gods cowered within, for I had slain their wolf, their dragons, and their entire army, and I now stood before them with their own steed and warrior.

“You have taken the Eye That Sees from me, and I have come to take it back. You need only return it, and I will leave without another word.”

“Ha!” said the god whom I knew to be the thief of my eye. “You are mortal and iron hooves mean little to a god. Instead I will strike you down and we will see how well you walk without even your life.” So speaking, he leapt at me, with the intent to strike the life from my bones at a single blow.

“Now, warrior,” I said, “here is your sixth story. Your last sword was never meant to pass through my heart, but was forged to slay a god. It cannot harm mortal flesh, but the name of the god that shall die spitted upon it is this very same one who has stolen my eye. This is the story, now let your last sword strike at the truth.”

In saying it, this story was true. The six armed warrior passed his sword through the god’s body and the god was slain.

The home of the gods was silent, until at last a goddess stepped forward, carrying something that glittered green. “My thanks,” I said to her, and returned my eye to my head. She bowed and, seeing her, I saw too that she had seen me through my own eyes and come to love me. But the love of a goddess is a fickle thing, and to see the eyes is not to see the man. I returned to my home, alone, as I had left, without the horse and without the warrior, and returned to speaking what truths I saw with my eye.

Thus, in saying it, this story is true.