[College of the Balladeers, Attention of Balladeers Lynneth and Alejandro]

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[A letter arrives as the College of the Balladeers.]


Lynneth and Alejandro,

You are best informed on these matters and I would ask you relay this to anyone who would aid me voluntarily. The affair shall be very dangerous. You know the details of what hunts me and I shall put no fulsome details to this page.

But to say that:

• First, we shall travel to an island upon the Sea of Pearls, where stands exposed amid the rock a great molten space.
• Second, we shall see to the attention of this Fleshwrapper and draw it into battle upon the stone.
• Third, we shall place this Thing's viscera into an urn-sized crucible wrought of Alchemist's Steel, currently being worked on by the Alchemist's Guild, and burn away that which we do not seal.
• Fourth, we shall place the sealed vessel into this lake of fire, where it shall burn forevermore.

With the grace of the Wheel, this Thing shall be imprisoned for ever, or at least, for a long age.

Write to me if you, what what others,  shall aid me in this course.

Amelie

[Don Nadie]

Once Acolyte, ever friend, Amelie,

I could offer more words to the wind and your ears, but they're all superfluous. For I said I'd aid you, and I shall. Just let me know the time.

I shall make preparations, in the meanwhile... Among other, assuring my notes and research aren't lost forever in some faraway island.

I look forward to discussing poetry with you, my friend.

Yours,

Alejandro

[Moonlighter]

Tucked under the leftmost bedroll at the Kulamet grove.

Kula's daughter, wielding her spear so true,
Facing the djinn, her foe to subdue.
With words sworn, we march on her way,
To defend her from all, come what may.

You have need of me, and so I shall be there. Of that you ought have no doubt.

Lynneth

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[A letter arrives at the College. It is addressed to no one in particular and can feasibly be read by any student or Balladeer.]


Some notes on poetry for Alejandro, who I promised them to. I write under the chance that this shall go unsaid otherwise, or the work unfinished, and I urge you do with them whatever you will.

I have wrought most of what I have wrought in an "iambic" meter, or rhythm. It is simple, but I have found the best way to describe it to students is as the cadence of the heartbeat, unstressed-to-stressed; "da DUM, da DUM, da DUM, da DUM," with each syllable marking a beat.

In any case, "Upon the youth of Ashen Age" you may read aloud as "upON the YOUTH of ASHen AGE" and see the meter's flow.

In yon example of the heartbeat, I selected eight beats deliberately. These are the number of wholesome spokes of the Wheel. Thus, eight beats (or tetrameter) is holy. As is sixteen beats (or octameter), for the Wyld contains two facets to Her nature: the tended Gardens of Baz'eel and the wild places are both beloved and cared by the Kulamet in very different ways. Double eight and you have sixteen. Another holy number.

I select the number of verses, the meter, the structure, all of this to make a broader point. They are allegory so that we may teach through them. I use them in sermons, after all, and it is the very point of this work to instruct on the nature of the Wheel.

"Paradise in Bel-Ishun" contains numerous (some deliberate, some not) errors in the meter. "Of Elizabetha" and "The Fate of the Garden" are stricter. Is it odd my favorite is the least-strict of them?

Yet I believe every word I have written. I write you another, autobiographical and thus writ through with unacceptable hubris, but I commend it to you all the same.

It begins in tetrameter. It speaks of Truth, after all, even if the author does not wish to read of it. It is posed with an introduction in tetrameter, then describes a Trial, an Answer, another Trial, another Answer, and so on until a conclusion.

The Answers I have chosen with care. Ten syllables, pentameter, open the course to describe both truth and despair. Eight syllables for the wholesome Wheel and two  more for the Wyrm and Pra'raj. Or perhaps my Foe.

However, pentameter is answered in the latter lines by octameter (and two concluding in tetrameter), which shall build in number in proportion to the lines in pentameter. Thus I write initially in the Answer I shall enclose, a structure:

A10
A10
B10
B10
C16
C16

D8
D8

For this verse, however, as the author gains strength of purpose and resolve to answer the Foe, the number of pentameter lines shall dwindle and the number of octameter lines shall grow.

Until, responding to the Trial, is an Answer that is wholly committed to a holy purpose.

As we shall see this Thing sealed away.

Amelie

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[A scribbled first draft is enclosed with the previous letter.]


A8 Upon the youth of Ashen Age;
A8 The welling Foe would soon engage;
B8 To spread the evils that in lore;
B8 Were borne by Enemy of yore;
C8 A fool, unknowing, sought the Foe;
C8 Lamenting them their worldly woe;
D8 That bitter oaths shall now portend;
D8 The danger that shall wreak an end;

E8 If she will not swift go anon.


Then, a Trial of Solitude, as it was said to her:

A8 Unto desert's great expanse;
B8 That Bel-Ishun in style grand;
A8 Shall meet your every weary glance;
B8 And shelter thee amid the sand;
C8 But mark your work in Well is done;
D8 And heed now every weary breath;
C8 For though these lands are not undone;
D8 Alone you ply them, unto death.


Then, an Answer in Endurance, as she resolved:

A10 Attend you now, O weeping wretch, who raves;
A10 Of weary eyes to see the Foe that craves;
B10 To damn you for the goodly act you did;
B10 And from your home, forever to forbid;
C16 But what then is become of ye, that marked ten years in wastes complete;
C16 The wellspring is not gone from thee, so hunt the Foe, O fleet of feet!

D8 O weary Wanderer, seek thereby;
D8 To answer yet Fierce Kula's cry.

[Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi]

[Another rushed, half-scribbled first draft. Notes of the composition remain.]


Then, a Trial of Fear, as she witnessed:

A8 The Foe is mighty, soon you learned;
B8 Your salient blows to touch its form;
A8 From ashen sands its Flesh upturned;
B8 And bounded, meat in horrid swarm;
C8 Its seething boils came upon;
D8 Thy coterie of conjur'd might;
C8 You dashed them then, to woe forgone;
D8 But knew in heart It won the fight.

Then, an Answer in Errantry, as she proclaimed:

A10 You run through groves on secret ways unknown;
A10 An easy thing--just let him die, alone;
B16 But what then is become of ye that spoke of lofty derring-do;
B16 Shall you abandon graven oath, give in to all the fear in you?
C16 No! Heed the sounding trumpet, then, and take up vigil set for thee;
C16 And up the spear of wood and steel, that Cinquefoil errant shall you be.

D8 O would-be Errant, seek thereout;
D8 And clear of purpose, call blaze out.