Torn: The Lay of Elahir (Epic)

*See the author's note for a list of definitions related to this poem.*

In misty meads of Seradon
By Tannicel's broad roving seams
I watched her dance in grace unmatched
Amidst the sunlight's golden beams

She danced her way in every step
With fluid movement passing fair
As Luthien danced in hemlocks green
With silver starlight in her hair

She danced along the winding ways
On swards by Ki-Lin's sloping howe
In loamy shadows deep and rich
By hoary aspens standing proud

She danced a dance of life and youth
A dance of hope and joy comprised
Whose every step, whose every beat
Was mirrored in her azure eyes

I watched them walk the broader course
That led up from the sweltering south
They stank of rancid southern mires
Disgorged from Drachen's gaping mouth

Upon her willowy shoulders then
I saw their leering, awkward eyes
I saw a flame of sordid lust
To feed on something so alive

I saw a flash of silver claws
I watched her glistening coat turn red
I watched them wield their jagged spades
And cut the pearl horn from her head

I heard demonic laughter ring
I saw the horn they flourished high
I watched in silence, stricken through
I saw light vanish from her eyes

Then crimson shadows took me in
And held me in their wrathful sway
A serpent rose up in my chest
That lingers still this very day

An adder striking from the grass
A viper rearing from the vines
My alicorn lunged forward then
And sheathed its length in scaly spines

I felt his corded muscles tear
I rent it through his dusky hide
I saw blood dripping from its tip
And with its passion came alive

I reared up, brandishing ringswords high
And my weight sent them screaming done
I heard dragonbone cracking loud
I drove his carcass to the ground

They fled from me like leaves from wind
Like chaff before the threshing flail
I sought them out in every grove
In every coombe and every vale

Wonderly wroth they saw me come
They saw the asp within me rear
They sought in vain their southern fens
A respite sought in desperate drear

Three fled before my righteous wrath
For three my bloodlust screamed its need
In three my alicorn would dwell
On three my reckless heart would feed

The first was found in Grimwood deep
Beneath the boughs of Nethtaril
A wyrmling barely reached his length
A stripling barely worth the kill

I found him lingering by his lair
Languished in shadows deep and old
He stank of fear and sin and youth
Of ebon shadows passing cold

I sprang with movement striking fast
I lunged into a mounting arc
He turned to see my diving frame
I watched his eyes go icy stark

He thought to flee in craven fear
To brumous southern bogs depart
My horn found lodging even so
Betwixt his ribs and through his heart

The second dwelt in sandy dunes
On banks by murky Tannisbore
A hulking monster bloody red
A beast of five ell lengths or more

I watched him stretch his ruddy wings
To catch the sun's last westering heat
I saw a regal hart below
Now nothing more than rotting meat

I charged with sylvan movement smooth
I ran with equine thunderings fleet
He saw my shadow coming on
And turned my headlong rush to meet

His maw came open gaping wide
All lined with silver slavered fangs
My charge refused to waver once
I came on still, heedless of pain

We met like Titans brawling loud
Likes waves against the Cliffs of Lark
We fought as only angels can
With bone and flesh and mind and heart

We grappled long with fury grim
But all his efforts were in vain
I put my weight in one sure lunge
Up through his jaw, into his brain

The last one was awaiting me
At top of Laeim's lofty heights
A dragoness of noble birth
And steeped in necromancy's might

In twisting halls of Zenith high
She made her lurking, loathsome lair
From there she cast her spellbound nets
A spider waiting by her snares

It took me many weeks to reach
The stone before her looming door
I saw a tunnel going on
Down deep toward the mountain's core

I traveled down into the deeps
My breathing heavy in my ears
I felt the pressing weight of stone
Untouched, unmoved by passing years

At last, I came upon her den
The nest that was her rank retreat
I saw her steely eyes glint fire
I watched her rise up to her feet

She arched her sloping, snaking back
Her scales were dark as full midnight
Her eyes were cold, macabre, and drear
And full of pools of pale corpse-light

"Long now have I awaited you"
She said in dread, sepulchral tones
"I knew that you would seek me here
In my keep forged on sylvan bones"

I couched my horn of creamy pearl
I stretched my silver wings out wide
I moved as firmament and clouds
I smelled of rain and rising tides

"I come to you for justice sought"
I cried in high, celestial tones
"For blood of innocents you spilled
You now must answer and atone"

She did not answer me at first
But eyed me with her scathing glare
All my willpower barely could
Keep me from shrinking from her stare

And then her eyes went dark with scorn
She moved her head with helpless shakes
As though I were a naive foal
Who did not know what was at stake

"You come here claiming moral grounds"
She said, derision in her voice
"And yet you know that 'justice' has
No place at all within your choice

You do not come for 'justice sought'
Or any noble things at all
You come for one reason alone
And for that reason you will fall

You will join Dragons in the dark
Despite the place where you were born
For vengeance is the work of wyrms
and not the work of unicorns"

I shrank back then despite my will
My heart was clenched in rigid pain
For I knew all her words were true
I thought that I might die in shame

But more than shame my anger burned
The asp within me coiling writhed
I felt it snare my sylvan heart
I felt my sylvan sentience die

I came alive with passion black
A feeling none before me knew
So anathematic to my kind
Antithesis to all they do

I lunged then like a jousting knight
A mighty ram against a gate
The avatar of all despair
A demigod of pain and hate

She did not try to stop me once
Though my horn pierced her mottled hide
She only looked at me with lights
Of savage triumph in her eyes

She did not try to turn away
When my horn found her withered heart
Instead, she only laughed out loud
As I tore yielding flesh apart

My vindication was complete
Mt task at last was satisfied
The pulsing tendrils should release
The viper’s anger should have died

But more than ever did it churn
With roiling, reeling, twisting power
A call to ravish evil ways
And soulless sinners to devour

I should have stayed in southern drear
With dragons found my new abode
But only cowards would recoil
From walking down my chosen road

I knew what was awaiting me
Within the forest of my birth
But still I chose to take the path
Devoid of gladsome peals of mirth

The elders stood beneath the trees
Awaiting me in Ki-Lin’s glade
My father’s eyes were pits of fire
As sharp and biting as a blade

They bid me go into the howe
And chained me by the dusty bones
Of he who fathered our great race
And now laid cold amongst the stones

The night was long and chill and black
The silence echoed through the halls
The cosmos balanced on the brink
Prepared to take a monstrous fall

My father came within the night
To look on that which he had sired
His eyes were empty holes of shade
His frame was worn and frail and tired

“I knew not what awaited you
On that dark eve when you were born
I knew only that I was blessed
With such a son, an avicorn

The wings of seraphs don your back
The heart of Ki-Lin fills your breast
You are the greatest of our race
The one who must uphold the rest

But you have turned to darker paths
The paths of hydras, asps, and wyrms
My hopes are dashed against the rocks
The greatest of my fears confirmed

The dragons claimed my daughter’s life
And with the unforgiving morn
My son will reap what he has sown
I rue the day that he was born”

I knew my father spoke the truth
But no shame filled my blackened heart
I knew my path would be the same
If I could go back to the start

He left me then within the howe
Amidst my wrathful bleak sojourn
I could no longer place my name
With that of lofty avicorns

I did not know what they decreed
Was to become my rightful fate
For none before me had succumbed
To such a reckless bout of hate

No avicorn who ever lived
Could bear the mantle that I wore
Not one had ever dared to risk
What on the morrow lay in store

For he who had succumbed to rage
And torn apart his sylvan soul
And dared replace it with a seed
As black and shriveled as a coal

I fell alone into my thoughts
Disdainful of my coming fate
Recalling only the cut horn
That had inspired such fearsome hate

“You will not find your sister here”
A soft voice nickered on the air
“She is no creature of the dark
Or undercrofts and cold despair”

I raised my head to meet the voice
To see the face of he that spoke
My sister’s mate, the stallion Gail
A fellow wearer of my yoke

“I do not wish to hear the words”
I screamed and leaped against my chains
“Of he who was afraid to seek
Atonement for my sister’s pain!”

“No pain is greater, mine or Phaere’s”
His voice was gentle as a breeze
Than that which you have chosen now
Which echoes through the very trees

Do you not realize what you are?
No meager equine of the north
You are a servant of the glades
A steward of the very earth”

I thought to surge against my bonds
To fix my jaws about his throat
But something stayed my vicious wrath
Within my mind, a ringing note

A resonating piercing knell
A swelling, growing, bursting toll
That spoke of purpose, fate, and might
That was my duty, path, and goal

My plight was nothing in its face
A lingering stop along the road
Much greater than my father’s race
Much higher than their meager code

I sank into Gail’s limpid eyes
For it was he who sent such sounds
Resounding, ringing in my skull
To show the place where I was bound

Accosted by a blinding light
Transfixed within Sarunai gaze
I knew my fate was to become
Sarun’s servant ‘til end of days

“Remember now what I have shown”
The Edenai spoke in my mind
And next to you the sylvan race
Is small and meek and frail and blind”

I had no memory of that sight
That glimpse into the future years
That Gail had granted on that night
To turn aside my anguished tears

It would be many decades yet
Before I was allowed to know
What had transpired on that night
What Gail through Sarun came to show

I slipped into a black abyss
I did not see the Dreamer go
The ebon eve passed on while I
Lay prone and dreaming on the stones

On the morn they came for me
To seal the fate they had ordained
My mind had slipped again into
A shell of surging blood and pain

They spoke their dry accusing words
They read their lofty noble creeds
My mind was numb to stinging blows
Designed to bring me to my knees

They thought me scornful of their strikes
Dismissing, careless to the last
Deserving of such reprimand
A loathsome creature unsurpassed

Their mantras rose up to the sky
To the goddess’s silver gates
Beseeching her to turn her back
Imploring her to hide her face

To cast aside her blessed gift
To recall such celestial grace
That should have been my rightful boon
Granted to all those of my race

My gleaming coat was burnished black
As dark and sleek as raven’s wings
My azure eyes went red with flames
And the ashen smoke that fire brings

My cloven hooves went hard and grey
As base and cloddish as a horse
My lion’s tale went rough with scales
My mane ran wild, dense, and coarse

The horn unraveled on my head
Into a jagged blackened spire
As dark as cold volcanic glass
As twisted as a demon’s child

The seraph’s wings upon my back
With pinions white as those of doves
Went ebon as those of a bat
Forsaken by the goddess love

Repugnant claws tore through the skin
Along the boney monstrous points
Of fingers ripping through the hide
Of dragon wings with scaly joints

Their verdict named they turned away
But not before one last decree
I could no longer bear my name
That spoke of earth and wind and trees

I had no right to such a name
An aberration most reviled
They gave me then another name
To mark me as the one defiled

The only one through all the years
To fall into this sordid state
To be as vengeful as a wyrm
And to receive a fitting fate

The “Torn” they called me in their tongue
Or “Embereyes” they laughed in scorn
Below what creeps along the ground
The only fallen unicorn

They drove me from my sylvan home
Outcast, exiled, scorned, and feared
I wandered over Avalor
I roved for many empty years

And all the way my anger burned
The serpent never loosed its hold
It nestles still within my heart
Burrowing deep within its folds

Vigilant Sarun saw my paths
He lingered always in my dreams
Provoking me to use my ire
To look beyond my trifling schemes

In many years I came to know
That Sarun sought me all my days
Seeking to bring me to his byre
To block out Suren’s yearning gaze

The tale continues on from here
But that is for another time
For now I am content to dwell
Within the aspens and the pines

Of Dûnenberg, my mountain home
Where Sarun bid me rest and wait
A sentinel to always keep
To linger there and meet my fate

A Sarunai I have become
But I recall where I was born
I know that which was done to me
I remember how I was torn

They do not know my newfound role
Appointed by the very gods
To guard the passage with my life
Despite the numbers or the odds

For those who pass along the north
Beneath the icy alpine skies
They always pass beneath the gaze
Of me, Elahir Embereyes