Of that fated hero and his victories, which

Through sheer volume of bravery 

Hang on the tongues of men and drunkards

In taverns and the high priests of stainless halls

Where only the just and good is praised. 

Sing, O muse, who holds dearest

All deeds, pure, and virtuous,

Of the wielder of seas who sealed 

Those dark demons, or, those small

And subtle deeds lost to time, secrecy,

And the humility of that blade; patience wise, and selfless.

Skyward guide, who overlook our 

Great and fertile Pangea; deep below they wings

I invoke your memory and compassion

To tell true and pure this story of faith, blood, and loss.

 

Speak of that time, when all lands were but ash; 

Moreso mounds of bone and char than dirt and 

Bountiful and fertile valleys. Speak of the faith

Of those times, not unwavering, but faded, cracked, and dying.

Take mt to that doubtful place, the last bastions

Of humanity and her cause, so I may know of bravery.
True bravery, true than steel.
Within me, virtue hone, and without quill sharpen,

So I may speak truly of Kalon’s journey.

Not the tale of the halls of justice, or

Taverns wherein drunkards boast, or

The tale oft-recited at careless feasts.

These are but micah, metal for fools.

 

Tell of him, not as myth or legend, but as he was:
Human, faithless, hopeless, and tragic. 

Tell of his lowness, and how it came to be, and by

What force (for it it could only be thy grace) guided

His ends to end those withered spawn of Extirpation. 

Reveal truth to me, so I may know true virtue

And justify the ways of the four to men.

But what brought our hero and

fatal savior so low? Was it

drink and whores and gambling?

No, those are not taint the soul already dragged

To the edge of stygia and back. No,

in that stall of filth, that dirty home for swine,

only accompaniment of the hero's true bane: shame. 

 

Defeat, the strike of three demons,

nearly vanquished our hero who rode in retreat

down the shattered mountaintops, and wandered

a year and ten days among the deathly cities,

each one more avaricious and slothenly, and

full of those men seeking vain refuge from

the terrible onslaught of the cataclysmic triumvirate.

Inn by inn, drink by drink, whore by whore

He wandered aimless to his lowest towards

that dark and moldy stall for swine, and still

among the swine, he was lowest.

Prostrate he lay in that refuse and filth, 

nearly-naked, penniless, and weaponless.

 

That self-imposed cell not pitch, though,

as miniscule cracks along the wooden stall

revealed bright grey sky, and

through these cracks drifted the flowing stream

of market conversation that ran long

the wooden walls of his drunken repose.

Revealed by light now, his form clearer now:

tall, long, and built like a wildcat and his

muscles pulsing in uneasy dream.

His skin, dark as a nut, though

darker still still, from filth.

His hair, dread, once clean, but now

poorly-cared, o how unlike before his fall!

His dreadlocks, oiled, and beaded, not

ratted and muddy, as tainted as he

deemed his soul be. Yet, his own soul he

saw wrongly, for only the gods (and poets)

truly judge the character of men. 

Prostrate, he lay, when the door of the swines’ stall

then swung open at the will of an inn-keep,

angry and tired, who doused our hero

with cold and brackish water.

 

“Thou be’est he?” the inkeep said in pity,

but motr disgust than compassion. 

Kalon pulled himself, muddy, wet, and hungover

upright: “Aye, I be’est he. Fallen,

a traitor, and weak,” so spoke our hero. 

“Know not of traitors I do, but thou be’est the man

 who owes me money for drink, and now for 

board as you’ve slept among my worst swine. 

I do not doubt you avaricious, but beyond that vice I care not.” 

So spoke the inn-keep. Our hero, in stupor,

put his palm upon his head which ached

as if among struck by a hundred-thousand 

blades, and in shame, familiar to him at this

point, spoke that he had no money. For this,

he was beaten, and thrown alone to the cobbled

streets of busy winter, eternal, covered as much

in ash and soot as ice, for it was not like winter

known to us, however. An entire year and ten days

ash and snow manifested by defeat infested

the plains, the mountains, and seas. Of food

the most common: rat, and insect. Those men

not consumed by the assaults of that wicked

triumvirate, scarcely could breath without

cough or wheeze, and those things only dismissed

by the relief of uncommon victories: water 

untainted, sunlight brief, and days where those 

damnable titans relented their cruelty. Those days,

however, fewest, in the heart of that long

and terrible winter; those fiends, regardless time,

tireless wracked what refuge for man remained. 

Unrested and ill from vice, low our hero

wandered the brumal streets, each aimless step

further in grief and woe, and with the wafting smells

of cooked insect and roasted vermin, his temper 

further roiled in disgust and anger

at his world, humankind, his grief, and his lowness.

 

“Human? Nay, worse than vermin we be,

lower too, for vermin eat not of vermin,

and their life more fruitful than the maggots

of bad bread and rotten stews. Once.

Aye. Once, man great, we were. 

Our lives happy and healthy and sunny,

not defunct by bleak hibernal skies

and the rubble of demon’s wrath.

What damnable gods left us to this fate?

Those who trusted man stronger than demons.

Those who lied, and of human grief they cared not.

Our faith misplaced, and us overzealous progeny

of prophecy, if lies and rhymes be prophecies.

It is them to blame for our fall.”

So spoke the hero of tales of prowess,

him of unsurpassed strength and bravery

and zeal. Even Kalon in those times

of unending winter and titan’s fury

was faithless. 

The four divine easy for man to serve in happiness,

but even man‘s most zealous warriors

are tested by apocalyptic grief. Kalon,

although now legend, man then he was, and

legends do not come from birth, but from

action and change.

Pitiable, further to grief he wandered when,

among corpsen ash and streets of

hibernal decay, didst hear one small victory

against our bleak sorrow.

 

Children’s laughter light on the wind

and through the streets, Kalon perceived and

for moment, brief, Kalon relaxed his anguish

and stood for the first moment

in a year and ten days: hope. Yet,

grieving men irrational and lashing be, and

happiness, sudden, transfigured to madness.

“This is no time for hope and laughter,

show these young that no joy should be, I will.

Joy torn from me, joy I will tear from them.”

 

So our hero, drunken, ponderous, trod

within a clearing of children squat on muddy grounds.

Flame for refuge from brumal winds,

and amongst them a skald, but unlike any skald 

Kalon had yet seen. Their fashions strange,

and no book of tales they held on their belt.

Performance entirely memory, and no harp,

or lyre, or drum, or flute, or bright bells, 

or tambourine. A strange lute, four course of

two pair strings, all metal, and language

now known to him written upon its head.

Strange runes, yes, “Man from the East”, or so

the heavenly muses have whispered to me within dream:

turbid, rapid and fleeting.

 

The oddest feature of the skald, Kalon thought,

was joy, visible.The audience, all children,

laughed and begged for stories and songs.

Yet, not quite did the skald begin to tell a tale

when they spoke outwards to Kalon. 

“A giant has found us! Quick! Grab food

and make me as tasty as possible! Run! Run! Run!

Wait, children, no giant! My eyes in this snow and ice

betrayed me. The mud he wears, however, speaks

different of his dominion. Friend are

you a swine?” Impishly the skald teased,

and laughter, like flocking wings, rose

once more into the air, dismissing anguish

from the children sat on muddy ground, oblivious

temporary, to their dying world.

 

Kalon, still anguished, lashed with his tongue at the skald.

“I am no swine, no. But I am low, and you are lower still.

What lies and wrongs you give to these children; even

worse than The Four, you be, for even they are silent

in the face of our calamity.”

The skald, unphased, set his bizarre lute into a stranger-yet

bag of hard cloth, and brushed his hands on his

foreign tabard.

“I tell no lies and give no wrongs. My stories: all true.

Embellished from what has already said, or yet to be done,

I cannot deny. Even then, still true, or soon to be.

Children do not believe the words of skalds anyways.

so nothing you have to fear from myself.”

 

Kalon again lashed: “You have a tongue of arsenic,

worse than those deities, for laughter and joy 

are the greatest lies of our withering world.

Hope is lost. The world is ash. Joy is harmful,

for it will only bring greater despair when these

children are slaughtered by those disgusting fiends,

and bring those fiends greater joy.”

230The throng of yong, barely a decade at oldest, ruptured

in wails and worry, reminded of their hopeless

and miserable year, reminded that there was no

true refuge from the three remaining fiends. 

No castle impenetrable. No sea uncrossable.

No mountain unscalable. No army invincible. 

The bard responded: “If joy is harmful because

it can be lost, then pain is good because then

one’s fall is so short that it is unnoticeable. 

Why is it, then, that men do not want pain?

Pain makes men miserable, and that is why 

they do not want it. It is not good for man to 

be in pain? Why else would man seek

drink, whores, or gambling?”

 

Kalon objected once more.

“Men do not want misery, yes, but man

cannot avoid man’s nature, which is misery.

Man however, wants to avoid worse misery.

This is why laughter and joy are bad, for

they make misery worse by distance of fall,

and perhaps even more miserable than one began.

Drink, whores, and gambling subside misery, without

making one truly happy, and thus are not bad in

comparison to laughter and true joy. Need not 

gods and prophecy to end more miserable

than one began through joy and happiness.”

 

The skald, thankfully, did not succumb to pessimism.

“So then your anger be not at laughing children, but gods?

If so, why care for the joy and pain of these children?

They are not gods, they have not angered you. 

No man harmed you with joy and hope. And;

for the gods created man, no god harmed you

with joy or hope either, but harmed you in creation

if you are so pessimistic. 

A man who cares of nothing does not last long,

yet you live a year and ten days into the wrath

of the four-now three-titans. Perhaps, then, deepy

you care and because of these things youscorn wrong,

 it seems, and your wisdom is now 

tainted false by anger and self-pity.”

 

Kalon, offguard, was caught, unprepared for

the skald’s quick tongue, and spat at the storyteller.

“And what makes you wise of the stories of god

and man? Their prophecy: wrong. Their heroes: killed.

I know’st this, for I was once a hero, but no longer.

Their rhymes betrayed my duty, and thrust grief

upon me tenfold of any here. 

The skald, slow and mocking, approached the dirty

hero and examined Kalon closely.

Head to toe and back to head the skald’s eyes and nose went. 

 

“Strong, yes. That much can be seen if one

looks and smells unders your grime, swine.

Yet, not a hero, for I have witnessed many and know the smell.

As you said, the gods lie in rhyme and they prophesied

you a hero. So, if gods be liars then how could you have

been a hero if what the four prophesied was false? Therefore 

a hero, you never were. Simple oaf, though the odor tells me ass!”

Kalon, reckless, furious, and stubborn in vain attempted

to deflect the verbal wound: “What do you know

of heroes and wounds and battle? Skinny, weak,

nary a sword you could wield, nor spear, nor shield.

Is it not heroic to fight those four demons now three,

for one defeated? If so easy, then why not you slay

those remaining three? Then you understand the

task, impossible, that lay before thee, and more pity

on defeated men you would have, and more importantly

not tell lies in rhyme and songs to children.”

 

The Skald mimicked a sword thrust upon his heart,

and with feigned mortal breath, defeated Kalon.

“Shame! Oh woe! Indeed you are who I thought ye be, 

Kalon! With all grime, impossible to see. Man who claims

to care for none, yet concerned for children and his reputation.

Unless you admit prophecy right, no hero I can call you, and I know

heroes for I am a Skald. While normal Skalds of these lands carry

books and scrolls and paintings, I carry stories in my head. Lighter

weight for the longer distances I travel. My job, unlike yours, 

is not a duty of violence, but of fate. Heroes fight, heroes die, 

heroes save, heroes fail. My job is to know, and to see. 

Sometimes know first, sometimes witness. And Kalon,

for I only speak truths and no frivolous rhymes I tell:

still a chance you stand, to send the remaining three

through the celestial sphere, unto Hell.”

So the Skald, serious, solemn, spoke, and gave

Kalon a moment of silence, and regret.

“Skald. May I stay, and listen to story, to make sure

you tell these children no lies, and give them no

false hope?”

 

The Skald nodded, and plucked of his strange lute to

begin a tale foreign to these lands, and our sphere.

Skald spoke of a woman of ominous and auspicious

birth. Dead, yet fated, born under plethora of celestial

bodies. This woman longed for power and knowledge,

yet her desire for these things led to a fall so dire,

that her soul lay on the edge of death and decay.

So we wandered the lands, aimless, and committed

evil deeds, just as vile as those terrible demons. 

One day, her demise she foretold, and so far too the north

she sought a great tree which had brought death

and value into her world and she drank from it.

For many years, she fought the forces that dragged

her low, but with years came wisdom, and with wisdom

came to realization. Greater threats. Greater foes.

The divine bid her defeat, and she could not turn her

back, for she was the only one powerful enough

to save. Her life was unhappy, but it was a good

life, for she did good things with it. Kalon saw no lies

in the story, but did not see himself as the Skald intended.

 

The sky had turned dark when distant bells of the

watch resonated their terrible gongs, permeating

walls and taverns and houses and minds.

A demon had come to the city. It was still the end times.

Still faithless, still hopeless, the wielder of tides ran swift

through throngs of the innocent and damned,

fearing wrath and woe. Still hopeless, still faithless,

and not ready to believe himself a hero.