A blog for The Urutsk Cycle and Related Subjects,
including the URUTSK: World of Mystery RPG.
Shipwrecked survivors of a galaxy-spanning empire (ruined when the core exploded) settle upon a wetlands world occupied by humans and other species. They then poke through ruins of their Ancient ancestors as they strive to regain space and then, starflight.
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Friday, June 20, 2025
Thursday, June 19, 2025
[Music] Twofer
Before:
After:
❤
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
[Excerpt] GR&SB Book II: FRUITFUL
From Book II: FRUITFUL, of the Green Ruins & Shallow Blues Series
(C) 2024 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved Worldwide
###
Campbell walked away from Rose’s bed, spoke briefly with a few of the Sisters she had installed, and from them received news of Syr Acaer’s condition, demeanour, and current whereabouts. Maylen then made her way into the alley garden which had been recently rediscovered.
It was colder by far, and wetter, one wall was slick and green, moss and algae washed with seep water from higher in the crevasse.
Along the opposite wall, scarlet-gold rays in lines went down the stone from higher: some opening to the air and sky of the surface – light could only reach that for an hour at most, and only during certain seasons – winter made an obvious choice.
As she stepped in, her boot was covered to the arch in cold water. Stones, black and striated with red and grey, were like islands in the lesser weedy life, whose individual plants were rootless and swept by the trickle only to disappear into the earth. Such glistered isles made for her girlish skipstep, and their ill-suited shape and wet, made the game that much more enjoyable.
-- “You are in rare form, Mother Commander. It is good to again see you, Maylen.”
“Syr Acaer. I had time to see Wethyl and made my way to you – but now, I fear that I am famished, and so weak as to need a steady arm on which to lean. May I call upon you for such a purpose, kinswoman?”
Jerahlyn laughed – it boomed in the space,
-- “Your formality is second only to your cunning, cousin. Yes, of course. No noodles, though, please. I have found a place which sees me, twice, thrice daily. No name, a family heirloom, and the folk good. Even Lord Marche had the good fortune to my invitation and was impressed.”
Maylen reached her and with a huff of breath caught,
“Across the black sea we travel, from world to world, out unto the greater exchange of peoples, no?”
Jerah looked on, smiled, looked down and then across towards the door inside,
-- “The stones as worlds – I had only thought them islands--”
“As had I to here, but then in the saying spun they larger; must had been for your greatness-inspired.”
They looked pleasantly, almost awkwardly, and then they both laughed, and Syr Acaer gave her right arm to Maylen’s left and they described their journey alternately together as they made way back inside the Magenta House.
Out, Sick
I have come down with some bug since Sunday.
Yesterday at the Reggie, I was barely able to go around 400m of the 800m track-after the rest of my tour of the 2nd Floor, but just managed four times on my shift.
I'm out today, ick, listless/tired.
I am formulating a review of the song apart from the video, but between my head cold and the video's many images and looking at you, it has been difficult to catch all the lyrics.
Two quick thoughts:
1). Throwing that screen so that the sea appears -- Brilliant.
2). I am Yearning for you.
3). Your beautifully shy smile was far too brief -- has it been edited-down from first run?
well, I guess that's three thoughts.
My Love
Monday, June 16, 2025
Hey, Babe,
Saturday's Detail was nice.
-- Sunday's (last night) was freakin' LOUD -- like 'hiss, and chest-rumble'-loud. Fortunately I was around the corner from the main area, and could even be just outside. Haitian Culture festival. Both of my Commanding Officers were very pleasant. It was nice.
I'm taking today off, because I am working the rest of the week; rare to get this many hours at the college.
I'll post some more music mid-week.
Love You
Sunday, June 15, 2025
Saturday, June 14, 2025
[Music] More Melodies
Friday, June 13, 2025
[Music]
Unwilling to leave Boston due to work, but will do what must be done to stay, MA.
[Life] Flex, and the Universe Pushes Back
My landlord just knocked on my door to inform me that although everyone will need to vacate the premises, I am to be the first.
No warning, no advance notice, just knocked on my door and told me to find a place and get out.
I have to roll with the punches...
[Music] [#W!tch_Hous3] * Not like my others *
[Music] 'All Comers (Into the World)'
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Thursday, June 12, 2025
[Music] Stone Def Protest * Updated with Lyrics
Circa 1972,
Righteous Take
[Music] Two New Instrumentals ❤
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
[Music] [Melodies] 2 More
For You, Sweetheart
All Rights Reserved
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
[Music] Quick Question, Maestra...
Hon,
My SuperTight Snark reads this as a G# -- it's so lovely; is that what you get, too?
SXy is a wonky little guitar, with a warped neck, so I'm never sure if other folk will get the same results...
Love,
K
Monday, June 9, 2025
[Music] 'SUNS LIKE THRONES'
From the Green Ruins & Shallow Blues series:
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Sunday, June 8, 2025
[Music] [Bride of Set] -=REMASTERED=-
Yesterday inspired me to revisit this one, Honey.
-- Remember it?
I bet you never thought it would sound like this. :)
❤
Perils of Unmitigated Sh!t-Posting ;)
I work as Detail Officer, and occasionally as Swing Shift.
Friday, I worked overflow for a mosque, and even though I'm not muslim, the devout women seem to adore me; I was greeting them on the way in, and to help relieve the massive crowd for that venue, I held-open the doors and wished them a good day; they were all smiles.
Yesterday, Saturday, I worked an outdoor detail in which paint was splashed on the participants by each other as loud -- LOUD music played. So loud that although I was on the other side of a building on the venue property, it was still loud.
I was stationed with both Massachusetts State Police, and a private security group the operators work with, and while the troopers were rain-proofed, I stood in the rain, unmitigated, for almost exactly 90 minutes before my stint-supervisor, in long raincoat and hat, observes me and assures me everyone else on the team is likewise soaked -- neither the state police nor the other team found that funny, and the head man walked off to the covered area across the street.
45 minutes-in, raining worse now, second in command drives up and hands me a too-small jacket and chuckles as she and her diver skedaddle. Finally, the accounts mgr comes by and promises to give me the jacket she had ordered weeks ago -- longer story, more boring -- eventually she arrives and I am now cold and soaked but with nylon weave over me for the worst rain which lasts the remainder of the next (7)Seven hours.
I had to phone the mgr. to get the okay for my 30 minute lunch break, but could not find a place to sit, so, your girl was on her feet in the soaking, windy rain for hours.
I came home, plugged-in my space heater and started to recover.
The fun didn't end there at home; the joy of house mates who aren't friends could fill a volume all its own.
Love you toots,
K
p.s.: & the rest of my team were bone-dry
[Music] More Melodies
❤ Honey
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Saturday, June 7, 2025
Friday, June 6, 2025
[Music] Melody-Only
[Music] Shadow Work
MERITSUTEKH
(C) 2022, 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved
❤
Thursday, June 5, 2025
[Media] An ounceful of laughter...
Tuesday, June 3, 2025
Honey,
If some of the tracks were written when we weren't in a good place, and some of them cut, that's okay. I know how you feel, and there are tracks-unrecorded which I later scrapped, -- and I still love you more than the day we first met -- in person.
I'll go so far as to say that you are the single most important person in my entire timeline -- Wouldn't know what to do without you.
Stay true
[Music] Seat of the Revolution
The timing is preternatural...
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Monday, June 2, 2025
[Music] Domus Lunaris Nostra
Concept, Composition, Engineering, Editing
(C) Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Saturday, May 31, 2025
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
[Music] [Meritsutekh] Come and Sea
MERITSUTEKH
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
❤
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
[Music] [MERITSUTEKH] STARS APART
As:
MERITSUTEKH
'STARS APART'
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
[Verse 1]
The Road rolls on—through velvet night,
silvered with calm, caressed starslight,
—Echoes of winds’ recall: what’s known
...sparse profession in paths o’ergrown;
[Chorus 1]
While shadows stir and moments flee,
joys resounding in harmony.
In the too-hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, our truth gleams bright below.
[Verse 2]
Beneath the strong oak’s tender sprawl,
sweetness leans on memory’s call,
Golden leaves rise up, swirl mid-air,
your-quiet colors all I swear.
[Chorus 2]
Where stillness stays, and speech delayed,
still, light breaks forth and draws us near.
In the soft hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, hope gleams up soft below.
[Bridge]
The hush holds dear what hearts won’t say,
still warmth resides in breath and skin.
A spark remains where words refrained
—not lost, not dimmed... but drawn within.
[Verse 3]
The air breathes low a wistful sigh,
bless'ed the grace of even’s sky.
Stars-apart, in their realms’ repose,
to meet what silence won’t compose.
[Chorus 3]
Yes, light breaks through where truth holds sway,
Love, in chords that do softly ...make.
In velvet hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, hope shines forth from below.
❤K
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
[Music] [Composition] Play At Home Edition (with Love)
As:
MERITSUTEKH
'STARS APART'
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
WORKSHOP:
:: Arranged for 12-String Guitar (Open Dm Tuning with Capo, and for Modified Travis (thumb + forefinger) :D
Chord Notes (Open Dm Tuning, Capo 2):
* Dm: 0-0-0-0-0-0 (open)
* G: 5-x-0-0-0-0
* A7: 7-x-0-0-0-0
* Bm: 9-x-0-0-0-0
* Fmaj7: 3-x-0-0-1-0
:: Use melodic hammer-ons and arpeggiation to enhance emotional phrasing.
:: Ending Suggestion:
-- End on open Dm harmonic (or one of your snazzy lightly touched 12th fret top string for shimmer ::swoon:: )
===
[Verse 1]Chord Flow: Dm - G - A7 - Dm
The Road rolls on
—through velvet night,
silvered with calm,
caressed starslight,
—Echoes of winds’
recall: what’s known
...sparse profession
in paths o’ergrown;
[Chorus 1]Chord Flow: G - Dm - Fmaj7 - Dm
While shadows stir and moments flee,
joys resounding in harmony.
In the too-hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, our truth gleams bright below.
[Verse 2]Same flow as Verse 1
Beneath the strong oak’s tender sprawl,
sweetness leans on memory’s call,
Golden leaves rise up, swirl mid-air,
your-quiet colors all I swear.
[Chorus 2]Chord Flow: G - Dm - Fmaj7 - Dm
Where stillness stays, and speech delayed,
still, light breaks forth and draws us near.
In the soft hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, hope gleams up soft below.
[Bridge]Chord Flow: Bm (C#m shape) - G - Dm - A7
The hush holds dear what hearts won’t say,
still warmth resides in breath and skin.
A spark remains where words refrained
—not lost, not dimmed... but drawn within.
[Verse 3]Chord Flow: Dm - Gmaj7 - Dm - Bm
The air breathes low a wistful sigh,
bless'ed the grace of even’s sky.
Stars-apart, in their realms’ repose,
to meet what silence won’t compose.
[Chorus 3]Chord Flow: G - Dm - Fmaj7 - Dm
Yes, light breaks through where truth holds sway,
Love, in chords that do softly ...make.
In velvet hush of twilight’s glow,
through mists, hope shines forth from below.
❤K
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Saturday, May 17, 2025
[Music] Bride of Set 'BLACK FLAME' (see EQ Notes)
BRIDE OF SET
2ND ^ SET
'BLACK FLAME'
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
_Alpha_Black Flame
[Verse 1]
Since it came over me, ain't been the same
Like a long-ago friend, returned, reframed.
Constant pressure for me to Grey
----------Dark chorus of severi-ty
...and all I can say is: -- 'I like me this way.'
[Verse 2]
"The Plan" and much more; the path has grown clearer
Am I entangled, with my dark quantum sister?
Does apotheosis now hinge -- upon her answer?
[Verse 3]
I'm all-in, -- regardless, my friend;
Could never return, without Everything
Let my reach exceeed my grasp, --if -- needs --be;
Yet, let me see, -- nay, let it be me:
-- The Black Dawn: --Setankhaten.
[Verse 4]
Together (or apart) let my hands find the tiller:
Reforge the Mythic, let the days blur together
The survivours of Sunder, all left better,
While great ruins crumble --and, smoulder.
[Verse 5]
Four seasons all in turn, let Bison hunts return;
the Continent wild, civilisation re-conquered.
Let liminal rites, adult Humans-make:
Ruins, their trial-space --rank,
Tokens they collect there, for fablesake.
[Verse 6]
That SET gave me this Gift while my blood
yet flows: too much is left unsaid, and undone.
:: My fellow Americans, and my Human friends:
We've so much to accomplish: -- it just never ends.
[Verse 7]
Our need for deep change: -- we can't stay the same:
The Red Reign, is companion -- to the Black Flame.
---
[] NOTES-
o Written during my trip to Tennessee (2022).
o Amended 11th July, 2024.
o 116 Hz, 214 Hz, 397 Hz, 735 Hz, 1.36 kHz, 3.43 kHz, 5.25 kHz, 6.30 kHz, 11.77 kHz :: Recommended EQ Settings
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
[Music] 'SUZANNAH'
Remember when you sang the first verse during our session?
Sunday, May 11, 2025
[Music] [Writing] 'Winter War'
Saturday, May 10, 2025
Thursday, May 8, 2025
[Music] Origins
My older, but not eldest, sister received as a gift this LP when we lived in, West Germany.
I, 5 then, must have heard it once then, but it wasn't until we got back to the States that I would work up the courage to listen to it with its 'werewolf' snarls and eerie music.
This is my musical touchstone.
Wednesday, May 7, 2025
Tuesday, May 6, 2025
[Music] *Newly Updated* Both versions: Wings Above & 2nd Take
' Wings Above '
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved
This was more of a technical challenge and I feel I achieved the sort of sound I wanted.
The lyrics are of my amazement at flying alongside my Love.
Monday, May 5, 2025
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Love,
Sorry for the delay. Message received. :D
After that response, I have been hard at work.
I like the lyrics to the second song, and your etheric voice on all the tracks is very interesting. It makes one want to listen more clearly. I also approve of your departures from the traditional lyrics -- with the drift in pronunciation over the decades and centuries, some of the rhythm and rhyme has been lost -- your choices served the story while preserving your craft. ❤
I hope you were playing on the third one.
We need more of your guitar work, honey, even if that means playing your own backing tracks. I know you can loop live, so, really its not being disingenuous for you to be your own strings section, even on your solo shows. You've got the chops, babe.
Loving you is easy.
Here's to the Right Time,
Kyrinn
Saturday, May 3, 2025
[Art] Morning
May you see a beautiful day within, Darling.
❤K
All Rights Reserved
Friday, May 2, 2025
[Music] 'MONDAY, LOVE' set to music
All Rights Reserved
'MONDAY, LOVE'
Six ways from Sunday
Ain't it the truth
Hard livin's easy
-- got truth on my side
I mean Lovin's so easy
But you're so hard to find
A weepful of Mondays
I'd cry them for you
Stay up all night Sunday
just to be there, it's true
Mondays don't matter when
you ain't got no 9 to 5
But darlin' let me tell you
Your smile makes it worthwhile
Saturday nights go slowly
just thinkin' of you
How at sunfall all dreams
could simply come true
Friday-even light some up
and ease into each other
Our hair's been let down
Babe, let's make our big play
Six ways from Sunday
Ain't it the truth
Hard lovin' woman
ain't hard lovin' you
But where in the world
can we the, time, find
to be somewhere together
at the same time?
To be somewhere together
at the right time.
Thursday, May 1, 2025
Wednesday, April 30, 2025
[Media] [OZARK] [Spoilers: Mild]
• When thinking about the character, Hellen Pierce, from the NETFLIX series, OZARK...
Helen's weakness (Empathy) is exhibited primarily towards her daughter, and towards the Byrde family. IMO, this suggests that Hellen is a Sociopath rather than a Psychopath; one who has become so entrenched in her role for the Cartel that, until she meets the Byrdes, she had no reason to feel soft towards anyone -- that it is Wendy, as a mirror to Helllen, which unlocks her empathy :: daughter/daughter :: and that is the beginning of her lax attention (-- cunningly exploited through happenstance by Wendy).
Tuesday, April 29, 2025
[Music] 'Squatters of the Broken Causeway (SotBC)'
Believe it or not, this is off the BRIDE OF SET Impossible Sun album
' SQUATTERS OF THE BROKEN CAUSEWAY (SotBC) '
Sunday, April 27, 2025
[Music]
Saturday, April 26, 2025
[An Adolescent Memory]
Inexplicably, a memory of a Jr. High friend wanting to make a hand-phaser from a ketchup packet by a single pinprick to the pouch. He squeezed the packet and it worked, and a thin red line appeared -- on his forehead.
I had then laughed, but with such ill-luck of my own on numerous occasions, my empathy kicked-in and I tried to lessen the blow, but, the gutting damage done; he was so miffed, so embarrassed.
Weird how that came back to me with no related event or image.
I wonder how he's doing...
Friday, April 25, 2025
Thursday, April 24, 2025
[Writing Updates]
Monday, April 21, 2025
Friday, April 18, 2025
Thursday, April 17, 2025
[Ephemera]
Oh, by he way, on Monday, I had seen a wild turkey. It neared me, I think to try and intimidate me, but my kind words about its beautiful plumage seemed to keep its aggression at bay.
The sunlight on its feathers looked like electric Autumn; like burnished copper and bronze, backlit; it was really very striking.
It only yesterday returned to mind and I thought to share it with you.
Monday, April 14, 2025
MONDAY, LOVE
Six ways from Sunday
Ain't it the truth
Hard livin's easy
-- got truth on my side
I mean Lovin's so easy
But you're so hard to find
A weepful of Mondays
I'd cry them for you
Stay up all night Sunday
just to be there, it's true
Mondays don't matter when
you ain't got no 9 to 5
But darlin' let me tell you
Your smile makes it worthwhile
Saturday nights go slowly
just thinkin' of you
How at sunfall all dreams
could simply come true
Friday-even light some up
and ease into each other
Our hair's been let down
Babe, let's make our big play
Six ways from Sunday
Ain't it the truth
Hard lovin' woman
ain't hard lovin' you
But where in the world
can we the, time, find
to be somewhere together
at the same time?
To be somewhere together
at the right time.
(C) 2025 KYRINN S. EIS
All Rights Reserved
Friday, April 11, 2025
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
Echoes
Sunday, April 6, 2025
[Scripting AI]
A major breakthrough in my scripting:
[Colour Theory] & [Writing Update]
I awoke with the idea that fine-enough points of Orange, Green, and White, placed next to each other in the correct pattern could create the optical illusion of Yellow.
I then conversed with an AI model and, it turns out that I was/am correct:
Use this prompt:A digital image displays a rectangular field completely covered in a dense pattern of tiny, evenly spaced dots in orange, green, and white. The colors are distributed uniformly and closely packed to create the optical illusion of yellow when viewed from a distance. The texture is fine, with sharp focus on the dots, resembling a pointillist painting or a pixel array. The overall tone appears yellowish due to color blending.
The science is one of wavelength perception. Different shapes of points, and different arrangement patterns produce different results. Distance and angle, too.
Whew! Well, with that off my mind, and the neighbourhood revellers still active, I guess I'll get back to writing the, MATRIARCHY: SISTERS novel.
I hope to have the AYRQTHON novel out for purchase before the end of the month.
Friday, April 4, 2025
Excerpted from Book II of Green Ruins & Shallow Blues: FRUITFUL
(C) 2025 Kyrinn S. Eis All Rights Reserved Worldwide
Morqin held the Lady's hand as she exited the coach. In her white frock of judgement, Maylen, Mother Commander, was a dazzling sight. His eyes squinted as the overshadowed sun bore down upon her blush-tinted porcelain skin and raven hair and eyes; a black so full of every colour that it shone in their hues as an iridescence in his eyes so fulgent. Her smile, coy, knowing, but of what? Morqin could not say.
The cool mists of second-Spring were welcomed to the months of swelter yet to come. Maylen's smile turned more professional, but no less genuine.
"Thank you, Morqin. Don't think I haven't seen you looking at me..."
-- "I freely admit that, Mother. If my ...replenishment --"
"Replenishment?" she took umbrage,
-- "Your presence brings my own spirit to higher heights -- my reading has been so sublime of late, Commander Campbell... I --"
"uh ... -- if you -- if I can avail myself to you ...so casually... what would happen if we were more than admirers?"
-- "I cannot say without the stones."
Rebuffed by his stoicism and restraint,
"I should think that the possibility should sound grand in my ears as it is in ...'thine'?"
Morqin said nothing.
Deflated, Maylen then turned sullen and apologised,
"I should rather have said does -- does it sound as -- ...far-fetched in your -- our ears? Us both? Ha..."
Morqin swept his arm to present her way to the confines in which the two men and a dozen bystanders were held.
Maylen's visit was purely official -- after investigations and inquires, Capital- and, Guildhouse doors had opened to her in invitation. She was brought on to pass her evaluation and suggestions about a host of topics which plagued the Seventh Circuit for her rectification.
Here, on the municipal border of Damarrien-Damaren and Hamarka, the accused would receive fair trials and the innocent resorted to society or their wanderings. But the guilty... -- The guilty would serve her until death parted them. :: Should she die, all her beings would be freed :: Should one inevitably die in her defence or the furtherance of her will, she would only become aware of the loss and how the connection had changed her in some way. Their lives but echoes and fleet images of remembrance: ephemera and them in it, together.
Once, when the villainous Eyemind sought again her power, the need had been great, and more folk in one moment not only had been yoked to her, but she had in one day's bloody, costly fighting -- been counselled in death by her ranks of departed Followers. Some of those voices lingered on. In glimpses, mirrors, especially at odd intersected corners -- or in twilight thoughts -- or drunken Mediumship --
-- "Mother Commander, Anatole' Antarday, and Bartholomew Anderson, primary combatants and the ones most of the rest agree were the first to come to blows."
Maylen smiled grimly,
"You understand that my truesight and angelsear have the ability to accurately inform the authorities -- in this case, my Brother-in-Law, Morqin Anathellion, Slayer - Lawforcer - Captain. He will execute justice as corresponds with your folkways in light of the First Mother and Her Daughters Thereafter.
"The, Qar Dashin, is very clear." Her voice grew angry-sad with volume in a lower register. Tears went their way down her rosy cheeks and sparkled scarlet in the westered-past overshadow-sunlight.
-- "Those who wantonly despoil, slay, or mishandle another shall be given the pains, or shall be damned in this life that, should they inherit some tomorrow, they should be better for it as shall our descendants," she turned to smile upon Morqin, $/"-- ' ...unaware of their perfidy, for it hath been atoned...'"\$
"Gentlemen, which of you would speak first to the Mother Commander?"
Antarday, with a wicked smirk raised his left hand while his right was moved to his heart, over which twined fore-and-middle fingers in a braid,
-- "I'd love to speak with you, Sister, Mother, -- Ma'am -- Grand Madame." the smirk never left his lips.
Campbell looked to Anderson, who shrugged, his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets; head down, never made eye-contact,
"Look at me, Anderson. -=Bartholomew=-"
The recluse's head moved as if under external control, his eyes wide, his tongue still in his mealy-mouth.
-- "What a loser." Anatole' looked on as he cleaned his finger nails with a steelthorn. -- Obviously the guards were not as thorough as they had aught!
"Who let that slip through cordon?!"
"-- ....Answer me."
The Chief Detainer stepped forward,
--- "If any of my crew failed to --"
She moved to him upon pantherine thews, her high boots tossed aside the frock's skirt and showed the pair of thrownails in them. Maylen's lips pouted in anger as she then briefly looked upon his face--
"You have no such knowledge; I shan't punish an innocent.
"No matter! I shall ask the armed man behind bars if he is our incipient murderer.
"[*] Anatole' Antarday, did you first spill blood in this unholy desecration of Human life and posterity?"
-- "Ma'am, if I did, I must surely had forgot."
Campbell snorted, even Morqin smirked.
"Well, let me refresh your memory."
She looked into his eyes of black flame kissed with silver light turned auric-sardis with flecks of Samaran Rose, like embers on a phantom breeze...
Campbell, Maylen -- she stepped back and then with a huff, strode to Anderson,
"Look into my eyes of your own accord. That's it, free of fear of --"
Campbell looked down and stepped away, between the two, and then made her way with rapidity to Morqin who drew his Anointed Blade.
Maylen leaned in and whispered,
$"Each of them has the eyes which would pervert Justice' course, but for different reasons. I -- I can't -- any hearing would only confuse the matter -- ..."$
Morqin looked on, eyes narrowed as he awaited her judgement -- he already knew what the Qar Dashin said on these matters: Omen.
His observation of her indecision brought her, in an instant, to angry, crushed self-assurance. It was as if she not only had failed to spring to correct action, but in her waver, had diminished herself in his eyes... As bad as that was, but now... with Morqin's truthful admonition of his -- his appreciation -- she -- she couldn't let-down that confidence. It may had been pride, but it was borne of the sacred Qar Dashin -- which dwelt in her...
"Omen."
The pride in the Truth shone like a platinum aura upon his face. In his features, Maylen saw supreme confidence in their mutual metred justice's rightness in this instant.
With a golden serenity upon her lovely face, her sapphire eyes shone with a Silvery sparkle,
"The men are Aenigmas; people who defy the common rules of logic and orderliness of everyday life. Judgment will require more certain confirmation. We shall Omen."
*
The men were brought outside, onto the hang-platform for administrative capital punishment. Bound after a search found nothing else on Anatole's person, the two were on separate leads. Each stood with two guards between them, and each flanked by one beside and another behind -- all armed. Below three men and one woman were each armed with an antique coilstock aimed at the accused.
"Brother Morqin, prepare to consult the Stones."
Morqin removed the thong from round his neck and produced the pouch. He handed them to her and Campbell opened and inspected each with a perfectly critical eye. All twenty standard stones were flawless, and the lesser weight of the Qualitators and Contextors -- perhaps even more craftsmanship had gone into these... Maylen looked up into his eyes,
"Magnificent, all of them: flawless twenty, and excellent clarifying stones -- you well know your craft, Brother Morqin." Her eyes lingered in a smiled love of law and his merit within the Schema of Support.
Anathellion took a knee, doffed his left mitten and with his honourblade, sliced his palm. He held it aloft to show the blood. The onlookers, not at all advised as to the ways of the Mother Commander and the Slayer Brother, looked on, marvelled and awed.
He brought the sanguine palm to his forehead and impressed its ink to his brow. His meditation placed him in his mind's eye, hunter's mark upon the matter at hand as if it were lifesaving game, its service the sustenance of the people of the Tribe of Humanity.
Water was poured by a girl ushered-on by the Mother Commander, and still upon one knee, Morqin washed clean both hands and shook them thrice upon the charger. He lifted up his two hands and showed them round.
The Slayer then brought forth the stones and let them fall where they may. He let them settle although their lay had been immediate. Some looked on as if the stones could -- would flip to their other face, so sure they for the look of his patient observation.
With no change, Morqin pointed at each and whispered its name. Once all of them had been consulted, he then made constellations of them with his hands in horns-formed by thumb and outward last-finger, like the head of a Rackhorn Bull. Each such pairing but one in a sequence until all that could be so constellated had been.
The Brother looked up and spoke an anagram,
-- "OhUlTharAnt Elhamant"
He looked again, and swept all but one away. He looked as if he desired to touch it, to move more centrelike, but daredn't and instead sat some remove from it and steepled his forefingers and formed a house of memory. Morqin entered his Memory Palace.
Equipped with the Elements and Objects necessary to impart in forced Visioning and Acceptance, Anathellion gathered and redeposited the nineteen stones, but held back the twentieth, one of his own creation a green stone.
-- "Read my mind and lift the Implement of Judgement; wield it against each man. The Truth of It shall be made plain: who is the man capable of the crime."
Maylen looked confused for a moment, unsure why he had used such loaded language. She looked into his eyes of brown, and received Level 3 contact. Her beauty and an invitation to Level 2. Arrived, his, Morqin's love of her made clear, his attraction was secondarily to her power and glory in the Ancient Law, and -- oh... the third leg of the structure of his love for her: her justness. Almost an afterthought -- or?
"Foundational?"
His smile was as clarion as the call of The Law to her mind.
Maylen Regan Campbell's sapphire eyes sagged under the weight of her tears; joy; pain; worries and concerns both; their future; her past -- his...; he...a killer without remorse, and yet, a lover of Humanity to the last man ...woman -- child.
:: -- The Implement was as close to perfect as -- well, as he who had crafted it. In her hands, of her mind's eye, she -- it was effortless. Its heft and balance; he knew her mind so well as if he had dwelt therein, or -- had but from afar, so guessed its content as if already familiar. unassuming. welcome. -- Yes.
She stood before Antarday and struck his mind with it--
She, Maylen, in freefall. Her soul torn, -- in tatters: trailed above her as she unravelled from her being's core. Damnation. Endless separation from the light -- Light (Reason, logic, the Law, and the MIND which conceived it -- It.)
She, Campbell -- Mother Commander stepped back, almost doubled-over, half-bowed and dared again to look upon his face.
"I but a messenger of his coming. For all Humanity he gives himself freely."
It was in the Ancient Tongue of the, Qar Dashin, -- even earlier, -- purer, ...more poetic. Each word a phrase in-and-of itself -- a poem: each word uttered.
Its sadness, the remove of the beauty it encompassed. Its bearer -- its burden -- the bearing -- borne, now, ...in her.
Morqin caught her, steadied her -- Maylen Campbell, the Mother Commander.
What was this man, this -- Anatole' Antarday -- that he should repel her Judgment. Steel was in his hand before the last thought had fully formed.
Antarday laughed, pointed at the sword in Anathellion's right hand, again with the Steelthorn in his left,
"You know that you can't actually kill me -- with that or anything else, -- don't you? "
His laugh was almost a titter, tinged with bitter irony.
She, Maylen -- Mother Commander Campbell,
"Steady, steady Morqin -- Brother. He -- I move on now to Anderson -- ..."
Maylen looked on at him -- the 'loser', and gazed with dread upon his sad face and the shake of his head which presaged another great shock in store for her, of the many...
A Titan, sunlike -- a star of brilliant white flame, like chains which wove through his heart, now a lock which each link was but a key in a great condemnation which tore power -- real POWER from the One invested stripped from him and in his lowering again to anything less -- lesser, was as damned in heart, torn, yet so fully embraced by that Light, as to know only a sweet sorrow, and gain insight into the downward fall of the other man -- the, Page of the Black Flame.
:: Within this vision, she for its awesome beneficence, could bear-up under the elite suffering and regard the man himself,
-- "Can you hear me? Who first spilled blood in this public conflict?"
The titan -- the man of Titanic soul -- Bartholomew Anderson reached out to take Maylen's hand; she accepted -- ALL WAS FIRE!
A good man consumed by his zeal and set alight from within -- enkindled by his passionate opposition to Darkness. At once, beset upon by the Strictures, and elevated to the Redoubt Unshaken: bound in fiery chains while power was forced into his soul as pulses of a light beyond reason -- kindness unasked suffused with the definition of absolute orderliness.
He was raised-up even as he fell from grace; caught outside of time; nolonger human, but no longer a ...god. Not an archon, and not a mortal, he, Bartholomew Anderson was now a thing of the Wild Spaces Between All Worlds.
Campbell smote him with the Implement -- his mind, like a great pile of yellowed leaves scattered to the cold wind of year's end. There, the wind, they transformed to flutterwings of Spring. There was nothing to Anderson which wasn't apparent, his answer had been the truth. He hadn't done the killing.
She again stood in her body and through her eyes looked upon Bartholomew, and his sad smile.
As she turned round to once more confront, Antarday, she saw that he pointed the steellthorn to a man in the gallery.
"You there, sir. Come forward."
The man, burnside beards upon his jowls, sat motionless.
"I say again, sir: Come forward lest I compel you."
Arms of brown red veined -- another one!
Campbell watched as the telescoped arms erupted from the man-shaped host sheath. The same monstrosity she had seen Syil fight. It reached out for her; would take her for its speed and her sessile, rooted mind unable to think to her limbs to move even as she saw her inevitable fate--
Two men, Morqin and Anatole' had stepped from opposite sides to sever the obscene limbs from their quarry-reach. Anatole was gone, and reappeared in her vision of exacted instances, to safeguard Morqin slow to spin and defend himself from new threats. Hands were on her, and Anderson was there, somehow. He pushed her and she lifted as well as moved rearward, as if she were a balloon on a string. Moved faster than her brain could track, a streak of the last frames of near frozen time became a smear of darkness. Light, torchfire, outside at birth of night.
Bartholomew half-smirked, and then was gone in a blur.
Chaos within erupted as the thing exited through a window and part of the wall nearest. It made directly for her. Maylen forced herself to utilise her power. She stood her ground and reached out for the thing's essence. Some part of it, surely, had something to do with life she could understand -- animal, or even plant, if not a wretched -- monstrously-warped humanity. It neared in fractions of moments which others could scarcely witness, much less measure.
There was something there :: somethings :: minds :: residue of victims -- sheathes :: !
Campbell sought out that one mind she found within the thing's braided undulations of plasmic ooze. She barked her Order,
"Don't move! Stay exactly where you are!"
The thing slowed, a face formed briefly, it was sluggish to reengage her, but parts of its mass went cilial, and in long strands, hairlike, hissed in rapid agitation of the late afternoon air.
"Sit! Heel!"
Morqin emerged, bloody, and dashed out -- then he saw the thing, and some part of it saw him and reared up again,
"NO! I forbid it!"
The shambling heap bubbled and seeped as other parts of it went like runnels of brown ink through the furrows of the pavers.
Morqin eyed it as he circled round to her,
-- "You are unharmed?"
She merely nodded, this control took all her effort, and exerted upon a Human would had enslaved it to her -- this ...thing was only restrained -- if that.
Anatole was then suddenly to her left, and Bartholomew to Morqin's right -- the four formed a rough crescent -- horns.
"Now do you believe in me?"
Antarday smirked wickedly.