Someone Else's Kingdom, BOOK II - Scene XCVII

Swords clashed as the waters ravished. Five-pointed stars and fathers of death; fathoms further than the deep. The dreary seabed. A jewel box, with a copper lock and a golden seal. Black lamps of fire. Clouds, as horses across the sky: dark, grey, and white. The starry winepress; the ocean a swampy purple.

A hermit stepped onto his rickety rowboat, and headed out into the lashing storm. To escape the warring world, and find peace upon the lonely sea. Calm in heart, he pressed his oar to the swelling waves, his aged body still healthy to the task, as if striving to leave all earthly care. Finding a lull in the heaving tempest he reached down to pull a bottle from his tattered bag. He uncorked it and took a swig. The alcohol tasted sweet and refreshing upon his tongue and lips. He exhaled and took a moment to enjoy the exalt. Sitting there as in a garden. The hissing rain, the turbulent waves and clouds, like birds and their birdsong in the lively trees. He took in another brief moment of the discordant scene, then a billowing wave came sweeping over. A comforting blanket bringing dreamy sleep. The wooden boat cast to oblivion.

Back on land. The crushed skulls of contending angels. All dust and mud. The heavens raged. In its right hand seven stars, in its left, a sharp-edged sword. Metal burst flesh as men fought for their sinking countries. The glug and goo of snaking blood running rivers through the wettened lands. The chariots, horses, slaves and souls of men, pressed hard against the entombing drench. The world - the bridewell of mud and clay - a churning mess of dying killers. Flickering against the dark like tired candlesticks. One endless abyss, growing with exponential dread. The dragons of sea and sky wrestling in their violent currents.

King Mizmeam trudged up the incline as the rain fell. The half-sleeping Prince Seaspell beautiful, but heavy in his arms. His escorting men at arms, falling underfoot, lacking the will that now kept him going. As he headed from the worldly ocean he remembered a story his mother had told him when he was a child. The story of Prince Apple, the son of the ancient King of Trees. It was foretold by a haggard witch that the young prince would die by drowning, so his doting mother, the Queen of Vines, took him up to the highest mountain in the kingdom, to keep him safe from fate. She tended him with care and vigilance, confident she had done well, but one day, tired, she fell asleep. The prince wandered off. When she awoke from her moment of absence she found him dead, in the spring at the summit of the mountain. King Mizmeam felt darkened as he recalled the tale. He then heard a sprig of thunder. A little crown of sound, that gave the mountain he now climbed a thorny cap. The dark, grape-red sky above briefly lit with lightning. A silver key, as white as wool, opening the vault to some celestial city. Where the harp of heaven found its voice through the waters.

All around the rocks of the starry mountains fell to earth like timely figs, shaken in gusts of wind. Dark black horses, carrying pails of water - numbering a thousand by a thousand, and a further thousand still - cantered across the remaining peaks of land, shedding their downpour. In a single hour so many great riches and works reduced to naught. Every shipmaster, and every company of ship and sailor, cast hard against the stones. No soldiers left to fight. The damp carpet of death, rolled out as a text-less scroll. Blotting from the earth the names of men. Somewhere in the sunken fields Box's little sword lay bright and unclenched. An amber ring around her precious throat. Her wisp of holy breath now clothed in white raiment. Submerged beneath the tree of milky starlight.

Still, in the east, on the highest land, on the pinnacle of his high castle, King Kaspria stood yet raging against the weather. His face disturbed and distorted. Lost in his own madness. Careless to the countless animals now being punished for the crimes of man. The earth shook beneath him, but he dismissed its power, and wailed against its impetuousness. His fists shaking at the tumult in the skies. The season of glass: the icy crystals and shrill sleet and cold, barely noted by his angry skin. His ragged, bearded cheeks red against the endless night. His ships; once out of sight beyond the pleasing horizon, now out of sight beneath the water's rim. He screamed his orders to his briny crews of skeletons below. To muster their bones to take up sword and cannon to fight the howling wind. The Maiden Land enemy now almost totally defeated in his mind - not by nature, but by his own omnipotence. Finally, the weight of water that pressed against his castle walls flooded atop the parapet, knocking him from his feet. He gathered himself up, then began raging again, but the waters kept coming. His unchained will unable to halt the tide.

At the world's edge, far beneath the outer desert rocks, the waters rushed. The influx chasing the fleeing souls through the doomy catacombs. Their desperate legs little use against the crushing deluge.

The flood had overcome, and all was quiet upon the face of the earth.