The silence is loud as the stars sing of summer,
Whispering of winter’s ravens, now fled,
The beat plays softly, now we pay the drummer,
For a song sold for a thimble, a needle and thread,
As we weave in between, our bodies as one,
And drink deeply, the music, that echoes so sweet,
We move to the rhythm as the night comes undone,
Ever we go on, the dance incomplete.
Our deities delighted in sins and shadows,
Mortal playthings and realms at war,
The sounds of Singers, songbirds like sparrows,
And the irony of a cleric who turned in to a whore,
They gorge on a feast of frivolity,
Amusement – their wine, drama – their meat,
They have lost sight of learning as the majority,
Just watch us dance, the dance incomplete.
The Minoch were driven from the empyrean,
Discarded as dirt, like broken toys,
Twisted and turned as if in a bad dream,
Made monsters for mistakenly making poor choice,
And their masters abandoned their children in the dark,
Claiming no knowledge of each mischievous feat,
Which the Minoch paid for with banishment and hate in their heart,
We danced on regardless, the dance incomplete.
Our gods are rarely impressed or entertained for long,
Hence we dance all through the night, far past the dawn,
The Singers went next, someone silenced their song,
They were caged in a blue star, beautifully spellborn,
We were so very careful and did only as bade,
But tricksters would win and oust us from our seat,
So we followed our brethren on the path they had laid,
We danced out of the heavens, the dance incomplete.
We were the chosen, loved above all,
We were beautiful (once) and had grace even in play,
Though unwitting in our part in The Great Betrayal,
We were punished without hearing what we had to say,
But words were not with us during the loudest silence,
And for the first time, the last time, we admitted defeat,
We dance now forever, through times of love and violence,
Our dance is eternal, the dance incomplete.
©KieranDavis2013
©Baldypoems2013
Appendices anyone?
Isacc Tarakai
“Valen loved parties and he was a sucker for believing that he could one day find the good in Jedar. He almost always fell for his brother’s tricks, never seeming to learn from his mistakes in his naivety. Jedar had tricked a lesser god in to copying Illidian, god of the sea, and taking the form of a Giant turtle to investigate a divine temple below the surface of the sea. It was a trap, of course, and Jedar caught the lesser god in a great spellborn net; none knowing the true form of the majestic beast much as none knew when Illidian went forth in to the ocean as his favoured beast. The evil deity butchered the ill-fated Giant Turtle and served up his flesh at a feast for his brother, to which we, the Dancers were invited to partake of with the Minoch, the Taylar, the Feighla, the Traylyuis and the Heesho.
None knew the fate of the lesser god, not even Valen and we fed on the choicest pieces, devouring the former immortal with relish as we dipped his oysters in honey and wine, crunched on the crackling of the belly glazed with berries and seasoned sugar. We gorged ourselves in frenzy, a hunger never known to us before as Valen and Jedar each plucked out an eye from the Turtle that once was a god and changing them in to magnificent seeds for the future. Valen called his an ‘Evermore’ and explained his intent for the glory of Cyralost. Jedar distanced himself from us all, calling to him, his now immortal monsters as he made a hasty departure and leaving a missive stapled to the great table with a sword by the colossal shell of the forgotten god. The missive confessed his crime, his evil and magnificent plan to rid himself of a minor opponent and immortalise his children (known henceforth as the Morsterberg ‘angels’, dark, evil creatures of terrible power and fury) who would now reign parts of Cyralost with terror and horror on a cataclysmic scale. The letter detailed the devastation his Nevermore seed would accomplish and Valen sat and wept for ninety days.
We felt sick but no matter how we tried to regurgitate that which we had eaten, the foul deed was done, we had partaken of god-flesh, our souls were doomed and our lives would more long-lived than the Elves could dream of. And, worse of all, having had the taste for meat of a deity, we hungered for it again, an insane temptation consuming us and driving us involuntarily to attack those we loved and in-turn, be banished from the Empyrean.”
So says Isacc Tarakai when inebriated enough to talk of his true self. A Titan, a child of the gods, a plaything of the deities, there were a dozen such marvels residing in the Empyrean at one point in existence, long ago in the age of yester morrow. The Titans entertained their parents nightly with dances and exquisite music. They would move with more grace than Elvenkind, more sensually than the original Oarken and with a passion unknown before to the gods.
The heavens would thunder until the dance was replete, mortals believing themselves to be doomed and out of favour with those they prayed to, unaware of the wonders going on in the heavens.
Magic ran wild, deep in the very veins of Cyralost, through the roots of the mana tree. It infected everything, gave birth to the eleighxander and many of the known mythical creatures. The gods made the same mistake that gods in other known dimensions have by creating Titans… The Dancers, in their madness, attempted to overthrow the gods, their oppressive parents for reasons that are unknown but sprout a thousand theories (such as the one described by Isacc Tarakai above). Some fell in love with mortals, but whatever their crime, the punishment was the same.
Banishment and worse, they were forbidden to dance. Each of the Titans (Dancers as they were more widely known and referred to as) was sent from the heavens in disgrace, left to wander Cyralost for all of time.
Each was forbidden to dance again and warned that armies of dark angels would come to punish them should they disobey. The Dancers were each given a companion from the nation of Elves (the long-lived) and from a very specific blood-line too.
The Dancers went their separate ways, hiding from the world at first, hiding from the gods and sometimes even from themselves; infecting the world wherever they went (whether intentionally or not).
Isacc Tarakai turns up throughout history over the centuries, all over the place, taking on many different appearances (though his haunted, ageless eyes and name always stay the same). Many professions are taken up by Tarakai (though he favours that of a troubadour/bard) and the fact that he is a ‘Jack of all trades’ does not necessarily mean that he is a master of none.
In one epic, Tarakai passes himself off as a Sergeant-at-arms, a gladiatorial trainer in another. Tarakai takes on a great many roles (usually in some position of authority but not ever above a supervisory position, you’ll never see King Isacc or High Priest and Provost Tarakai (or will you…?). In some stories, Isacc appears as a woodsman, a merchant, even a beggar.
The Dancer is quick witted, funny and wildly intelligent, not necessarily brave but steadfast, practical and highly skilled. He won’t run from a fight but he will certainly try to talk himself out of it, talking is definitely his favourite thing as he loves the sound of his own voice.
Often crude, lude and very rude, Tarakai is sexist, racist (though he swears he is not) and turns his dark humour down these routes on many occasions, never realising that he may be the only one amused by the insults.
Isacc Tarakai always ends up ‘meddling’ or becoming a part of events that shape the fates (whether he means to or not) and he can’t help but search for his fellow Dancers. He knows where some of them reside and visits often (sometimes to disastrous effect), ever searching for those still hidden as he hungers for their company, a desire not felt by the other Titans for some reason. He yearns for them all to be together again and seeks to meet this end at the cost of anything and anyone, ever his personal and paramount agenda before or behind his other endeavours and without thought or feeling for the safety or even existence of others.
Isacc Tarakai is a romantic at heart and has been know to be lulled in to a dance by a lover, a mistake he rarely makes due to the dire consequences of death and devastation that follow in the wake of Darquelle (and the host of dark angels before him). It was a dance that led to the annihilation of the Harvarian court and changed the destiny of Urvasinia forever.
Tarakai is often watching the others, always there if they dance, in-case they need him (and despite their absence when he had need of them in the past) and through a fascination of the art even if it is morbid in the case of Newly Den-Wamara or erotic regarding the Wytch, Anna Bedar Scott (Anna’s dancing is always naked due to the nature of her craft and she is a prime specimen of womanhood, so Tarakai’s arousal and possibly perverted spying is understood). The ‘dance of the dead’, even Christopher Treece’s mad jig are a wonder to any eyes, mortal or otherwise. The Dancers are Cyralost’s hope, its doom. They are the Titans, the future and the end.
Christopher Treece
Christopher Treece is a dancer, one of the titans cast out of the Empyrean during The Great Betrayal. Mr Treece was one of the more accepting of his brethren upon arriving on Cyralost’s prime material plane. As bitter and devastated as the rest but quick to adapt to his circumstances and make the most of his abilities on this world. Sharing a love for the mortals like his fellow, Isacc Tarakai, Christopher remained close friends with many of the dancers and was only happy to help in any of their endeavours.
Mr Treece was a brilliant strategist, a tactical genius, unrivalled at chess and unmatched on the field of battle. Every army to have been raised has followed at least one of Treece’s manoeuvres at some point during their campaign and many a warring nation has sought him personally to captain their army.
Christopher has become something of an obsessive when it comes to the Underdarq, determined to keep the Nazdaelunders below ground and destroy any that venture above as he believes them unnatural and their demon lords to be a blight on the world.
The dancer came to dwell in The Labyrinth of Lunacy to personally guard the only known permanent portal to Nazdaelund and he remains in residence there to this day. On one fateful occasion, after the War of the Wizards, Christopher Treece joined fellow dancer, Newly Den Wamara, who had seduced him and tricked him in to joining a group of priests loyal (supposedly) to Valen and the other gods of light, who were transporting the captured renegade maniac, Darquelle (an evil sorcerer responsible for the War of the Wizards, the removal of Mytharia Illidure from this world and the deaths of thousands). They were taking the criminal to an alter at the top of The Peaks of Ravensky (in Calastria) where they would force him to drink Angel’s blood in a hope of curing his evil before using a mighty spell/ceremony to banish his soul to the prison plane. However, Newly Den Wamara had betrayed them (and the world it seems), the blood was that of a dark angel, an angel of death and the effect was detrimental to history as it transformed the evil sorcerer in to the most dangerous and powerful creature of darkness this or any other world has seen.
Trapped by one of Newly’s spells, Treece could only watch in horror, his mind tortured at the disgusting and evil things that the bitch did to the poor monks. The betrayal of the woman he loved and the knowledge of what he had helped let loose on the world was helped by some magnificent malign magic on behalf of the traitorous dancer and the new angel of death, rending Christopher’s mind and stealing his sanity. Christopher remained on the mountain, The Peaks of Ravensky for almost a year, in stark terror of the memory until his friend, Isacc Tarakai came to his aid and undid Newly’s entrapment spell.
Too late for any help otherwise, his mind incurable, the dancer had become a lunatic, a danger to himself and others, his mad genius matched by his new found madness that he would suffer forever more. Treece was persuaded to return to his place guarding the portal in the Labyrinth of Lunacy, aptly.
Check out the Minoch appendices in next post 🙂
Baldypoems 