Lux et Nox

I

A time in every era comes when the

Eternal battle of good and evil

Must be fought, and each side needs must choose its

Champions.  For dark, the selection

Is natural, but which warrior of

The light will step forward into the fray?

-

The Prince of Hades, Death-favoured Asp, waits

For the challenger.  The two Light Ladies

Bend Their noble heads in conference, but

It is the fourth Sister who offers up

A solution.  To the Black, She sends

One wrought of gold and wreathed in Her glories.

-

A lascivious smile creeps across

Pale lips like a worm writhing in a cold

Rain.  –It is to be the Daughter of Flame,

Then?  The Lady deems to send Her gilded

Child, armed all with pride and fury?--  He

Laughs, a chilling sound, ice and glass shattered.

-

But she falters not, the too-brave Daughter,

Righteous with disdain.  –Hast thou tired of

Thy toys?  Weary yet of tormenting girls

And babes?  Come, then.  How well shalt thou handle

A woman grown, with sword of lightning and

Storm-clouds for her shield?  Cur, I denounce thee.—

-

The leather glove falls at the Dark Prince’s

Feet, tossed down from impetuous hand.  He

Deigns to take up, rising from his blood-bone

Throne.  –Such ardor is dangerous in so

Unstable a soul.  A lesson needs be

Taught, that should have been learned long before now.—

-

--To it, then, thou dog, thou snake.  Muster what

Little courage thou hast in thy skulking

Heart, wretch most vile.--  From jeweled sheath, she

Draws her blade, forged from Mother’s heat and Aunts’

Metals, and blest by all Three.  Like to its

Mistress, it catches the sun and flashes.

-

Few of mortal making would dare oppose

The shining warrior-queen, this beauty

With ringlets like the day’s beams on water

And eyes greener than the jungle’s fairest

Canopy, this lady-knight, afraid of

No force in all the realms, Heaven nor Hell.

-

But the Lord of Doom is no mortal man

To quake before her or tremble in her

Wake.  His blade, mined from Death’s own depths, sure to

Wound a soul with but a glancing strike, he

Slides from black scabbard.  –Proud and insolent

Youth— saith he –Prepare to meet thy doom.—

-

A flash, a glint, and the game’s begun.  The

Ladies, pledging non-interference, watch

And whisper encouragement.  Light and Dark,

Chaotic and Lawful, Good and Ill, locked

In strife, in a combat which outdates time,

Stars, even the thronèd Ladies Themselves.

-

The shadow spreads its wings, and the shining

Aura rises to meet it.  Blades are but

The outward manifest of the struggle;

The battle is of the soul, to see if

Darkness shall swallow, devour light, or

If gold fire will burn away the black.

~~*~~

[Authoress’s Notes:

[Yes, there’s a very good reason for the use of “thou” and its declinative forms.  Anyone who knows their Elizabethan English will know why.

[More to come.]