Year Twenty-Seven
In We’scend the tribe is continually restless and discontent, as their noble leader Aedan has now been held captive in E’scend for four years. Officially becoming Arch of the tribe on his twentieth birthday the previous year, few had survived the deadly war to attend and applaud his chiefdom. Hearing no word from the guild Kaedan has given up hope of saving the Archfather, with no hint whether or not he still lives.
Distraught that his paternal lineage is broken, Kaedan sulks in his royal cave having failed at every venture. His younger brother Paedan is gone, lost to the sea. An androgynous Arch now largely controls Crescendo with his own tribe largely defeated and family splintered. Arch Kaedan stands as his paternal grandpa R’Nesto’s and father Aedan’s only male heir to their enduring legacy.
Ash Cave, Hocking Hills, Ohio
Seeking his mother’s counsel, she advises him wisely but sternly. The tribe matriarch’s distinguished demeanor never betrays her conflicted emotions about her husband’s supposed captivity. Ivera and Kaedan do not speak of Aedan’s illegitimate son with the nameless jezebel, but she silently remembers the other vixen Lily who caught his eye before Ivera on The Minuet. Frowning, she cannot help but wonder if he has rekindled his moonlit fling with the sibling of the eastern Arch. Speaking none of this to tribe nor her adult children, she settles on the Wescenda outskirts in a morose cavern shell grotto matching her mood to protect from the elements and the sweltering sun. Naming it Lound’a where she gathers the children to soothe and tutor them, Ivera does not trust the black bird outside that reminds her of the nameless Archess.
Her eldest child, who has never taken a mate during the war, visits the matriarch at the new Lound’a school. Juna embraces her mother and shares with the children a musical lesson set to a cardinal’s birdsong, while Ivera prefers the bluebird’s tune. The singalong settles the hyperactive teens, including several whose elders never returned from the atrocities along the river. As the adolescent lads and damsels join in, they hum “la’s” “li’s” and “da’s” while composing new songs in the process. Juna and couturier Me`lyn fiddle to construct a wooden lute, while two yutes chase the other around in circles and soon twirl and dance.
Dancing Deadheads in Golden Gate Park, August 2025 (GD60)
In the uncharted lands to the northeast, the guild has secretly infiltrated E’scend. Boldly venturing into the bellicose eastern continent over the past year, they gradually near its capital village. Led by noble Q’isann and greybeard Dilian the ten knight-errants are endeavored to liberate Aedan, confront the impostor and re-seat Dilian as Arch. However, the deceiver ‘Dilian’ has fortified the forests surrounding the capital. Rock slides and giant redwood logs now block all possible paths from the Nevermore. They are prevented from entering Escenda from the north, and they cannot travel along the eastern bank of the Shendoa without being ambushed by archers on constant watch. Instead, the troupe has taken a longer route southeast from the mountains to slowly enter Escenda from the opposite end unseen.
In this traveling tenfold band with two leaders, the most capable and learned warriors and trackers from the west and east have coalesced in a unified cause for the first time since their arrival in this land. Their kin avenged, the Wescendant pathfinder family and four Paladins follow Q’isann’s lead, while the Escendant trackers are loyal to Dilian as their rightful Arch. However, there is no argument between them as the two leaders are in agreement at every turn.
Charting the guild’s daring route a few meters ahead are the ruddish-faced Xo-nan, and close-shorn Su-rin who chooses not to labeled by gender. They are followed by Dilian with a pair of lynxes on either side, and Q’yn whose new wolfling pet has not left her side since Wynterlyn. Dilian has formed a friendship with the younger, shy pathfinder, who previously only ever spoke with her parents behind them. As he shows Q’yn how to control her timber wolf’s aggressive tendencies, Q’yn has taught Dilian how to sing – which is unprecedented as until now only those born on Crescendo are able to. At times during their journey, they quietly sing together as the group rests under a lean-to bungalo.
A mutual musical lesson (Bedford Springs, PA)
Dilian’s peregrine falcon is his eyes in the skies scanning for dangers ahead, joined at times by an ebony bird. Following he and Q’yn are her parents Lyla and Q’isann, debating how best to approach and rescue their tribe’s Arch from his captor. Presenting four fingers to convey as many years have passed since Aedan’s arrest, the huntress suggests that if he still breaths, Aedan may not be still imprisoned. However Q’isann dismisses that possibility and submits a brute-force plan of attack.
Following a few meters behind the bickering couple are the four noble swordsmen whose elders were cousins to R’Nesto and drowned along with him on the sunken Minuet. Obeying Q’isann and Lyla as the group’s eldest Wescendants their swordsman of highest rank is Pah’lud, ensuring they are not pursued by predators as he holds up the rear. Hiking single-file to conceal their numbers, the guild travels purposefully around E’scend’s outlying lands. Along the way they are confronted by undisciplined baerres, a rabid pack of coyotes and the gigantic swooping hawk that had divebombed them in We’scend the year before.
Atacama Desert, Chile
Turning their compass from east to south the travelers near a garden of wild honey with bees, a raccoon and antelop resting within, leaving them undisturbed considering their plentiful rations of food and sparkling water. Nearing autumn the tenfold troupe approaches vast canyonlands, previously explored only by a few eastern trackers including Xo-nen and Su-rin. Cautioning the group of the dangerous terrain and prowlers ahead, they proceed guardedly before being attacked by a jaguaro pack.
The vicious, agile felines assail the travelers, fatally mauling one of the paladins. During the bloody fracas the huntress and swordsmen joust with the jaguaros aided by Dilian’s lynxes and Qyn’s wolf, slaying several until the rest run off. However the youngest paladin is dead, and Lyla and Xo-nen were badly scratched by the felines’ sharp claws. Dilian shares a canteen of Shendoa spring water while Su-rin applies her aloe on a cloth, which combined stop the bleeding and prevent infection. As the group mourns and buries their Paladin in a funeral dirge, they steel for battle and forge towards Escenda as a guild numbering nine.
At the Wescendant tribe’s most desperate hour, a birdsong unexpectedly brightens Juna’s doorstep at dawn. The chirpy nightbird musically transmits a pertinent message, which only she can comprehend through its rapid warbling. Her nearby mother declining to join her, Juna rushes to the capital village with the avian dispatch. Arriving at the Arch’s domicile deep within the Wescenda cavern, she relays to her brother Kaedan the airborne transmission received from Q’isann.
After three years of navigating around Crescendo, their pathfinders and elite warriors have infiltrated E’scend through the Nethermore as ordered by Kaedan. Although one paladin is dead, the others are secretly nearing Escenda to liberate it and return Aedan home. Along the way in Nether Mount they encountered the true Arch Dilian and his benevolent trackers, who have joined them on their quest to Escenda.
However, they only number nine. Numbering nine prudent and armed, the soldiers would be no match for the fifty well-armed Escendant warriors and the conjurer of dark magick awaiting them. The group requires the military support of the Wescendant tribe to somehow penetrate Escenda from the river, engage and distract their forces while they advance from the east.
Juna, having spent much time along the impenetrable Shendoa, suggests to her brother Kaedan a strategy to cross it. As the Arch assembles the royal guard outside the cavern complex and prepares to implement her plan, he instructs her to spread the word. By way of song, Juna vocalizes the Arch’s directive only to the tribe west of the river. As if by command, her blackbird and all birds west of the great river join her and trill the message across We’scend.
Eurasian Blackbird by Le poidesans
Hearing Juna’s opera, a small flock of falcons who had flown from E’scend arrive above outside the cavern capital upon hearing the blackbird’s call. From their clutches, they drop branches of unfamiliar plants into the tribe’s hands before settling next to Juna. Kaedan and the tribe have never seen these esoteric herbs, however Juna recognizes their medicinal properties. As the Wescendants arm their platoon and prepare to penetrate the fortified beachhead, they now have the means to heal themselves while liberating E’scend and Aedan.
Far across the river in E’scend while all are unawares, Aedan has become Lily’s husband and father to their two children together. Contented as his bride provides for the family he never leaves their lavish compound within the redwood tree, having forgotten his captivity and previous life with Ivera as Arch of We’scend. He dotes on his wedded lily and first love, who appears virtuous and devout to him.
Outside of the serene redwood the Archess continues her totalitarian dominion of the lands, using an iron glove adorned with splinters from the Minuet. As she rules the Escendants they obey her commands under enchantment, no longer modifying her appearance to resemble Dilian as her long hair grows proportionally to her dark magick. The raven guiding her path communicates with her, permitting it to see through its eyes. In time, the Archess uses this power to influence the birds and predatory mammals to do her bidding.
With the eyes of the giant hawk, she is well aware that a guild of Wescendant warriors has infiltrated her homeland to overthrow and depose her. However, she has lost sight of them in the canyonlands and can no longer track their clandestine approach. She orders her trusted lieutenant Pai-san to closely guard her family within the redwood compound.
A kilometer eastward, the guild numbering nine has covertly made their way through the unbridled canyonlands. Approaching the western edge while hiding out of sight, they can now view the capital Escenda in the distance. As they prepare to charge the treetop village at speed, they are halted by a voice imploring them not to pass. From a hidden gap in the canyon emerge the master Sho-lin and healer Mila. Reuniting with his companion trackers Su-rin and Xo-nan after two decades, Sho-lin is gratified that they had not perished during their fall in the Nethermore Mountains after all and the three sages chant an “om.”
Dilian rushes jubilantly to his muse Mila. Embracing elatedly, he asks her if their children are safe. Mila and Sho-lin reply that he and his apprentice Pai-san found the pair in a panthera den after the impostor ‘Dilian’ kidnapped Mila and her twins long ago. While Pai-san returned the duo safely home, Sho-lin had tracked and scoured for their mother. Killing the panthera that had trapped her, he was mauled in the process. After she healed him with aloe they planned to return to Escenda, reveal and depose the deceiver. However bolstered by dark magick through the years and the now-enchanted armed tribe, the Arch had grown too powerful for the two of them to face…
But now they go to eleven Q’isann interjects running out of fingers to count, while Dilian introduces the band to master Sho-lin and medicine woman Mila. Scouting the area ahead using a hollow branch with glass on either end, the tracker spots the conjurer within a large tree. Xo-nan tells the troupe that Dilian’s impostor is not dwelling in the main Escenda treetown, but within the broadest redwood in sight between the arbor village and the canyonlands. They are very close to their destination and await the absence of moonlight to advance; however, they cannot continue without being ambushed by treetop archers protecting the redwood compound.
CHAPTER NINE ~ The Clash
Musical accompaniment for context
Ambient Instrumental Score: “Tabula Rasa” ~ Part 6 of 7
“Crescendo Chapters 7 & 8 Score ~ v1” (03:40)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part VI: Cyberian
“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
Created and written by Bill Kurzenberger, December 2025 ~ All Rights Reserved