CHAPTER FOUR ~ The First Crescendo
CHAPTER FIVE
The War Begins
Year Twenty-Five
It is a time of war. Nine months after the first crescendo and confrontation at the signaling point, the Wescendant and Escendant tribes continue bombarding the other’s armed forces with losses on both sides of the river. The slingshot fashioned by Juna to volley care packages has been duplicated along the west bank and weaponized for hurling stones towards E’scend. In response, the catapult once built with good intent by Tilian is now used by Arch Dilian’s cadre for fiery air attacks westward.
Inheriting the chieftain title of Arch of We’scend during his father’s captivity, Kaedan has organized bands of his finest warriors to invade the Escenda capital and rescue his father, some overtly and others not. However following the battle at Lepe Point the river’s water level has remained the highest in two decades, and is even more indomitable during the progressive storm.
During the dead of nights in an uninhabited area upriver, the western warriors have been stealthily building a rock bridge on which to cross the Shendoa. However as they reach the middle on the half-built catwalk they are fatally pierced by arrows from eastern archers hiding along the shore, preventing further incursions.
Timucula Tribe depicted at St. John River, Fort Matanzas, Florida 1591
Within the crimson woods to the east, the true architect of decades of dastardly mishaps oversees the war and begins to reveal themselves. Incarcerated within a rooted prison cell, Aedan has been tormented for nearly a year. A broken man, he has been visited only by three figures who physically and psychologically overwhelm his mind, body and soul with conflicting emotions.
Dilian appears dressed in black and offers orchard fruit, water and a libation made from the two as he attempts to reason with his opposing Arch. When Aedan requests to return home to Wescenda, the slender Dilian sarcastically replies that he already is home and leaves him be. Later, a stout dungeonmaster tortures him in stockades as Aedan curses at him. Occasionally in the dark he is cared for by a veiled mystic maiden, spurring his confused loins while offering wine mixed with eye of newt, absinthe, lead, and a hair plucked from Aedan’s head.
The Beaver Wars and The Mourning Wars circa 1600s (edited for context)
On Dilian’s birthday the summer solstice, he cheerily announces to Aedan that he will be permitted to return home to We’scend after one year. Wearing royal robes, a crocodile-skin chapeau and a Cheshire grin, Dilian presents a chalice and a smelly, salted herb to revive him in the dank cell. Before liberating his opponent, Dilian asks only one thing in return: that Aedan utter their name. Stumped and disoriented, his mind drifts to the past.
Through a mental fog, Aedan recollects his account to the Arch who has manipulated and gained his trust while offering freedom. When prompted he recalls his early encounter while estranged from Ivera with a cloaked seraph, beckoning him to cross the river with her siren’s call. As his memory is stirred, he relives the first time he was swept downstream before being found by his tribe the following day.
At long last Aedan remembers the enigmatic enchantress, who cared for him for a day after he nearly drowned in the lilies. Sharing a pungent plant that eased him to sleep, he had hazily dreamt that the cloaked maiden philandered with him in the night. As the enchantment is lifted, he realizes that his firstborn was born as Aedan’s child with the veiled temptress and speaks their son’s name, “Tilian.” Triumphant, his captor’s robes drift to the ground and the pointed-hatted chameleon stands proudly bare before him. As the Arch metamorphoses before his captive eyes, he stares agape at the alluring female figure and now recognizes her.
She is the harpy who had twice lured him into the river and ensnared him. It was she who charmed him into a dream-like state and bore his first manchild without him knowing. Changing her appearance the pretender disguised as Dilian in his absence, assuming his identity to control the land. It was she whom he had sparred with at Lepe Point, not Dilian. Later masquerading as burly dungeonmaster Fed`ryk, she had whipped him for hours until he stopped cursing her. This witchy woman was the same mountebank who nursed and aroused him with sour apple spirits sub-rosa during his year in bondage. Unbeknownst to both tribes it was an archess – not Arch Dilian – who had secretly orchestrated the tumultuous events throughout their lands.
The Archess is ecstatic and exultant as her true self is exposed to Aedan alone, along with long-hidden truths. Tapping his chin with the chalice, she repeats her taunting demand that he pronounce her given name. Although he now knows who she is, his weakened state of mind cannot recall her actual name after all these years. Cackling as she seductively redresses, she refuses to set Aedan free since he will not speak her name. She vows to keep him imprisoned in her subterranean stockade as long as he lives, while she rules the lands and obliterates R’Nesto’s bloodline and his tribe.
Caged within desolation row, Aedan is a dejected hostage of his own despair in the Archess’ lair. He cannot reconcile nor declare what they had once called his peer while their voyage brought them here. In the depths of his fractured soul he identifies his tormentor, who has destroyed him and his family to avenge her own and take control of Crescendo. However he cannot remember her first name, nor even Ivera’s. Aedan is defeated, his distanced family and tribe decimated.
Aedan’s rooted dungeon
Year Twenty-Six
Two years after Juna’s spontaneous aria and the ensuing confrontation, the dreadful war continues while tribes are at a stalemate. Having improved the distance of their projectile attacks, neither side can approach the river amid aerial assaults from the other, and the fortified beachheads are now abandoned. Their platoons of warriors have been depleted with heavy losses on both sides, as the Wescendant tribe suffered greater casualties while attempting to enter E’scend to liberate Arch Aedan.
A world away to the north, a resolute troupe has been embarking on a secret crusade. After the western tribe’s failed attempt to cross the river by way of the half-built rockbridge, Kaedan – now their Arch – has sent a guild of their seven most daring and skilled warriors on a covert mission to rescue his imprisoned father in the east.
Leading the quest is pathfinder Q’isann who was Aedan’s second-in-command, along with his wife the huntress Lyla, and their adult daughter Q’yn who is their most skilled tracker. Joining them are four noble swordsmen who are distant kin of R’Nesto, steeled for any clash. Along their journey, the group is attacked by a feral pack of coyotes which they easily dispatch in self-defense. They are also harassed by a gigantic avian predator as large as any of them, repeatedly swooping upon them as they venture further north.
At the foothills of the northern mountains, the hiking group is besieged by a blizzard that storms and howls for a week, impeding their progress and chilling them to the bone. Before frostbite sets in, Q’yn quickly guides them into a small crevice constructed in the hillside like an igloo. As the seven ride out the storm, Lyla shares a secret and a smile with her daughter while cuddling and huddling with Q’isann for warmth, proud of her little eskimo who has saved the group from freezing to death.
As the hunter’s moon signaled autumn, the team of seven reached the untamed Nethermore Mountains. The only Wescendants to have ever explored these perilous peaks and lived to tell about it, Lyla and Q’isann have prepared their companions of the dangers that await. Neither of them have ever forgotten the abominable baerre that killed his brother before their eyes twenty years past.
CHAPTER SIX ~ The Great Hall
Musical accompaniment for context
Ambient Instrumental Score: “Tabula Rasa” ~ Part 5 of 7
“Crescendo Chapters 5 & 6 Score ~ v1” (03:40)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part V : Holocene
“Tabula Rasa” ~ A musical representation of the past, present and future of life on planet Earth
Composed & recorded 2010 by William Kurzenberger; Released on the album Solitary Road © 2010
Vocal/group accompaniment for lyrical context
“Gypsy eyes, alligator hat, Cheshire grin and an attitude to match.
Everyone thinks you can do no wrong, but they haven’t known you for that long.
You keep saying everything’s fine while you sit there drinking your venom wine…
… Don’t ask her for the recipe, she brews it up in her home winery.
Eye of newt, absinthe and lead, and the hair that she plucked from her lover’s head.
Boy I sure feel sorry for you if you’re the next victim of her witch’s brew.
And if you’re lucky she’ll give you a taste, but you’ll wake up naked with a painted-on face.
You lost your hat sleeping out in the rain. That old venom wine has rotted your brain.
You thought you were queen of the town, but you ain’t talking very much now.
You keep saying everything’s fine while you sit there drinking your venom wine.
Ain’t it fine, ain’t it fine, ain’t it fine, ain’t it fine, sit there drinking your venom wine.
You’ll go blind, you’ll go blind, you’ll go blind, you’ll go blind, sit there drinking your venom wine.”
Written 2004-2005 by William Kurzenberger; Released on the album Suspending Disbelief © 2005
Created and written by Bill Kurzenberger, December 2025 ~ All Rights Reserved