Author's Note: Now that I've been re-doing The Dark King, there will be several additions and also several changes. I hope no one really minds, but these changes are for the better, I promise! This story will be much more explanatory, but will remain with that mystery and suspense that kept most of you on the edge of your seat. I needed to make these changes in order for the story to progress into what it was meant to become, or what I had in mind for it. This beginning may confuse a bit, but you should hopefully understand it. So read on, enjoy, and please review or send any comments to my e-mail. Thank you.
I
BLESSED be this place,
More blessed still this tower;
A bloody, arrogant power
Rose out of the race
Uttering, mastering it,
Rose like these walls from these
Storm-beaten cottages -
In mockery I have set
A powerful emblem up,
And sing it rhyme upon rhyme
In mockery of a time
Half dead at the top.
II
Alexandria's was a beacon tower, and Babylon's
An image of the moving heavens, a log-book of the sun's journey and the moon's;
And Shelley had his towers, thought's crowned powers he called them once.
I declare this tower is my symbol; I declare
This winding, gyring, spiring treadmill of a stair is my ancestral stair;
That Goldsmith and the Dean, Berkeley and Burke have travelled there.
Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind
Because the heart in his blood-sodden breast had dragged him down into mankind,
Goldsmith deliberately sipping at the honey-pot of his mind,
And haughtier-headed Burke that proved the State a tree,
That this unconquerable labyrinth of the birds, century after century,
Cast but dead leaves to mathematical equality;
And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream,
That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem,
Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme;
Saeva Indignatio and the labourer's hire,
The strength that gives our blood and state magnanimity of its own desire;
Everything that is not God consumed with intellectual fire.
III
The purity of the unclouded moon
Has flung its atrowy shaft upon the floor.
Seven centuries have passed and it is pure,
The blood of innocence has left no stain.
There, on blood-saturated ground, have stood
Soldier, assassin, executioner.
Whether for daily pittance or in blind fear
Or out of abstract hatred, and shed blood,
But could not cast a single jet thereon.
Odour of blood on the ancestral stair!
And we that have shed none must gather there
And clamour in drunken frenzy for the moon.
IV
Upon the dusty, glittering windows cling,
And seem to cling upon the moonlit skies,
Tortoiseshell butterflies, peacock butterflies,
A couple of night-moths are on the wing.
Is every modern nation like the tower,
Half dead at the top? No matter what I said,
For wisdom is the property of the dead,
A something incompatible with life; and power,
Like everything that has the stain of blood,
A property of the living; but no stain
Can come upon the visage of the moon
When it has looked in glory from a cloud.
~ W.B. Yeats ~
Through shadow and night, through darkness and power, they reigned the earth and rose as majesties over these lands. Arrogant and cunning, gods and monsters in their own right, they lived freely and took what was desired, and what had been created by them.
Glory came in blood, and glory came in strength. And through this glory fear was born and festered in the hearts of mortal men. How could one exist with the might of many silently living in the hills of the land, beneath the sea, and the very air that was breathed? How could mortal men ever find the courage, and the strength to build their own world when the world they inhabited would never truly be theirs?
And so the gods of the skies, mountains, and seas saw a time approaching when their own immortality would no longer matter, and no longer dominate as a gift, but instead a terror. In realization came sadness, but also acceptance that the time that had once been theirs was now past. Creation had been given by them, life had been blessed by them, but now the moment of departure into Telhatas, the city beyond the ancient realm, was upon them.
A single night was seared into time as the Creators of life and being bid the earth farewell. Mortals, men, women, and children alike listened as sorrowful songs echoed quietly through the hills and valleys of the earth, through the traitorous ocean depths. The stars swam as bright as the sun overhead, and seemed to recede behind the clouds that moved to cover the darkened sky. In one night those who had once lived and dominated life were now gone, fading, sliding quietly into history.
How was anyone, mortals or even gods, to know that two had remained? How would time be able to tell the threat that came with the remaining of evil, the thirst for gain and might? How would mortals fight against a tyrant that held the ultimate power in merely one hand alone?
Evil and light, shadow and pure. Both felt the temptation for power, felt the luring of greed. Who was to stop them now that the others had departed, who was to halt their gain of land and cause for despair? Men had weaknesses; men were easily taken over, and easily created into slaves. How could they fight what their own hearts could not fight against?
But not even gods could see that two women could tame what nothing else had ever been allowed too. One was discovered in the beginning, and passed through the centuries from daughter to daughter as a maiden of mystery and immense beauty. Through her one found the peace to settle the gain of power in his heart, and remained a light shadow on the earth thereafter.
The second was found centuries into the birth of the New Age, and was raised in a land filled with terror and death. As a god, alone and in control, bitter that a nemesis had found what he could not, he had swept the earth with his wrath and conquered the regions he desired. War and destruction had filled his heart and driven the need to create conflict among mortals, enabling him to see, and to fight, what hate had created on the slopes of Kharasan, the mountains where many had met peril and death.
The war raged for years, fueled by his own greed, and Kharasan became a grave for the bodies of men who fell in battle. The earth here silently welcomed the spilled blood, as dark and traitorous as the god was, and thrived on the hatred and vengeance that came with this.
It was in this second, when she had been raised from child into woman, that this god finally found the cause for halt. In seeing her and knowing her, in touching her and taking her, the blackness that had enveloped him was poured steadily from his heart and mind. Fulfillment came in a split moment, and the mountains of Kharasan were deserted of men and their god, leaving the hills steeped in a history that would forever be remembered as the Battle of Kharasan.
Peace settled as a cool mist over the earth, the time for mortal men to rule and take what was theirs gliding as a turn in the history of men. With quiet and still, with peace and silence, a New Age began once again.
A New Age for men and kings, for lords and masters to rule the land, and a night for storms to brew through the skies, and for a single child to be born unto this world.
Gods and immortals had receded, power and strength a vague memory in men's minds, but a child would rise from boy to man and take what gods and monsters had left to him.
And one day, when the earth and the skies met once again, he would become known as The Dark King…..
Last Notes: Now I completely understand if you readers are scratching your heads and wondering, 'what the hells going on here?' This was narration, the beginning before The Dark King even existed, but introducing the history of the earth before he came along. Now who's speaking? Who's narrating this and telling this story? (other then me as the writer) Lets just say there's a third party involved.
From here I've taken out each of the chapters for The Dark King and will begin re-writing them one by one. The plans I have for them are supposed to improve them and, hopefully, make them way better. The story itself is an epic, like Helen of Troy and other stories like it. I plan to evolve each chapter and make them more….how to say it? More descriptive, more in depth, and much more interesting. I just hope this attempt works.
I've already received a review that I was more then ready for from obscurity. Now I don't blame her, or even any of you readers, for think I'm doing this for more reviews. I believe many writers in the past have done this for that sole purpose and I'll even go so far to admit that that was the majority of the reason I first began this story. Reviews, reviews, and more reviews. I suppose it's turned into somewhat of a contest for some writers these days. I'm telling you obscurity (I hope I'm spelling that right) and any others thinking that's my purpose here that it is NOT. I'm doing this because this story needs much more then what I've given it so far to become what I plan for it. My reasons for doing this are completely my own, but I do hope that no one continues thinking it's for reviews after reading this. And besides that, you CAN find the other chapters to this story at my website. Thank you.
I apologize to everyone who's been waiting for the release of the next chapter, but your wait will be just a tad longer. Actually more then a tad, but I swear the wait will definitely be worth it! Thank you to all of you and please send any comments to my e-mail. ~SailorPerfect
The Dark King copyright © 9.29.02 by SailorPerfect