FOUND ON MOONS VELTH AT CARR PARADOR

i once dreamt that i was some kind of archer on a plain standing in the huge dark nighttime desert. or it might have been some kind of dance. i had to extend my body just so. my legs the right one stretched forward taut and the toes pointing forward the whole leg extending forward stretching. the other leg positioned in the same direction to balance the other leg. and the arms and hands held as if to hold skillfully some machine- it felt like a kind of bow and arrow but it could have been a machine i have never come across before at all. something else from time and space. could have been 10.000 years ago. could be completely in the other direction.
but the body was definitely positioned in a professionally relaxed way as if i knew how to work this machine, this bow and arrow.
or i could have been an animal....

PYLON

LIGHT! .................. NEW YORK CITY 08

FRAGMENTS FOUND ON THE FOURTH DISC, EARTH, 2020

…on the roof, on the roof.
I knew he was coming. They were coming. There was no escape but to get on the roof. So now I’m on the roof. I’ve climbed through and out the window on the top floor of this, what is it? Ten? Twelve floor building? Feels like I’m in Iraq, feels like somewhere like that but I don’t really know. I don’t really know anything anymore. Feels like I’m awake but something is telling me: “You’re asleep, you’re asleep, wake up”. But then something else tells me this is for real. This is really happening. And then I get that feeling of dread deep down as I hear them coming up the stairs, their boots banging on every step.
Up here on the roof. Thought I would be able to see the mountains from up here but the sky is an opaque blur of grey. And on the edge of the roof, thank fuck, a rope! A rope! I throw it over the side. I can escape. I can get back down. Or at least to another building. Feelings of relief. But not really. I throw the rope over. And suddenly I’m on my way down. Down. Down. Please God let me get down…

…and so I wipe the window pane. It’s heavily smeared with grease. Some black grease. These windows have never been cleaned. And what makes it worse, outside is pitch black. I can’t see anything. My reflection, my stupid face coming back at me.
“Why don’t you turn off the lights,” she said, “then you can see better.”
So I turn off the lights.
Through the smeared black grease I see them. All four of them outside in the night. What are they doing? Waiting? Standing in an orderly row, I think its that that’s the creepiest thing. Like they’re waiting for a fucking bus or something. But they’re naked. And their skin is the color of … and the texture of plastic. And they are shivering. The second one turns and looks at me.
“Bless me lord for…”

MUSEUM OF ZITH, TETHAGATA VI

FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG OF THE LADY OF THE BLACK WOODS AND THE OFFICIAL PORTRAIT OF THE LADY OF THE BLACK WOODS

She rides through the night on a burnished steed,
Eyes of gold fire thrusting forward like
Two bright swords cutting into the night… (fragments missing)

The woods are thicker here.
The darkness grows deeper. The night is at is peak of returning.
“Where am I?” asks she.
“My lady, we are at the place where as a child you used to play.
Although the night conceals it as such.” (fragments missing)
But at this late hour she rides to war,
To a war that will mark the beginning or the end of her reign ( vendelmun literally “ambiguity”).
And they come to a wide plateau the vast plain spread beneath them
In the light of the Three Moons,
And Galdartth and Splix, the two planets of Moir, like jewels
High up in the Nighttime (julindax literally “the hour of the night’s peak”.
She spies him on the horizon all ablaze.
The Fire Man. Kanulka Groan.
“See, there he is,” she cries, her voice carrying onto the air.
“See, there he is, and here I am. I will come. Does he know I arrive?”
“Yes, majesty, he is waiting for you.”
“Then onward we will go. There will be no time for dining. No time for sleep. For tonight, the fate of Ulandor Gelth is decided. Let us hope that it is our time and not his. My time (fragments missing)…. He is mighty foe. But the House of Lux will fight until we can fight no more! As one my people, we march!”
The horses whinny. The horses neigh. They stamp the earth and the booming can be heard from here to Kilp’s Mouth.
“Fill yourself with the rage of our fathers, brethren. Tonight …”

FRAGMENT OF “SAL-X2” FOUND ON GALDARTTH 980. TRANSLATED FROM GELTH ON THE PLANET EARTH BY FORDOX AND GENNETH (YEAR 3004). THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN FROM BOOK ONE OF THE LEGENDS OF ULANDOR GELTH. FRAGMENTS IN THE MUSEUM OF ULANDOR GELTH.

THE ORACLE

DARK CHILD