His body seethes, it does not breathe,
His soul is black and cruel.
He sits upon his throne of tears,
and contemplates his rule.
No living things dare go too near,
Their fear is strong and true,
For he is the bane of life itself,
All fear him but the fool.

The Armadiel has come to dance the dance,
To spread his hands and challenge chance,
To cleave the thread of happenstance,
To cast his net upon the sea,
To gather the souls of the brave and free,
Too blinded by the light to see,
Salvation’s secret silver key.

For those of you who think you know
What evil is, where hatred grows,
Where pain begins, when pity dies,
The transgression that you recognize,
The broken vow, a trust decried,
The anguish of loss, your love defied,
What suffering means when hope has died,
The difference between truth and lie,
Beware the beast!
He comes for you,
And all of those whose aim is true,
Your world to sunder,
Your heart to still,
To gather the cloth in his hideous hands,
To rend the weave ’till nothing stands,
And all that is alive, to kill….
And all that is alive to kill!

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards

So ends the path that honor paved
upon this somber ground.
To be traveled once and ne’er again
by ones not lost but found.
A passage to the darkest place,
the source of fear unbound.
Measure the reason for which you come,
against the risk you take,
Tread lightly upon this accursed ground,
if this be the choice you make.
Who dares trespass into this space,
beware the demon’s hound!
Let it rest, awake it not,
no harm will come to thee,
but when the time to flee is nigh,
be sure to set it free.

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards

So much you can, so much you can’t,
Choose those things you must.
How loud you rave, how loud you rant,
We all return to dust.
Do what you may along the way,
Be brave, be strong, be true.
‘Tis not enough, idly by to sit
When destiny beckons you.
Seek it now, the blighted map,
Pluck it from their hands,
Lest it fall forever lost
Upon the daemon’s chest to land.
The sisters of the sacred place
know not what they do,
Forgive them the words their actions speak,
They are noble, through and through.
Lost in a moment of what he needs;
“The well at the end go seek!”,
Not all can be arranged just so,
The Drue find, the Drue keep.

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards

What if the air were pure as gold and the water to stone should turn?
What if the birds were free and gay and the heavens commence to burn?
What if the sun did shine so bright and the oceans doth seethe and churn?
Why do we need to understand what is beyond our power to learn?

We ask the questions and search for the truth.
We encumber the earth with the burden of proof.
But we are no more than dust in the wind,
We come and we go like ripples in a stream,
In the eternity of time, we are but a dream,
A wisp, a sparkle, a moment, a beam,
A smile, a look, a feeling, a scene,
A touch, a gaze, a memory, a scream,

Here today and then no more,
a wave upon a distant shore,
the sand that through the sieve doth pour,
a yearning to unlock the door,
so fleeting, so transient,
so ephemeral, so brief,
so momentary, so short-lived,
a vanishing thief,
we yearn for the answers
we tally the score,
we shuffle our choices,
we pound on the door,
we cannot still the voices
that cry out for more,
or need’s a profligate and wicked whore.
we crave so much more…
always, yet more…
Forever, still more…

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards

Who shall choose, and who shall be Chosen?
The fabric weaves, the fabric is woven.
The First to come, the last to go,
the rivers run from the melting snow.
And all of those who deem to know
What purpose belies this unwholesome show
Are surely wrong,
They need not guess.
Who is so noble to pass this test?
Who will bond with the very best?
Who will breathe a dying breath?
Who will remain after all the rest?
Who, my friends? Who?
Can you guess?

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards

Tomorrow’s wind, a premonition,
through the trees it blows.
Upon its wings, fate doth travel
with the breezes, to and fro.

Must we join the fray so soon?
Must the sunlight fade to gloom?
Must the singers change their tune?
Must the darkness shroud this moon?

Those of you who bear the weight,
the disquiet that will not abate,
the memory of pain and hate,
an urgency that cannot wait,
with courage still to challenge fate,

Walk down the road that none dare tread,
the path of conscience, the single thread,
as you watch the darkness spread,
without the fear and burning dread,
of what it is that lies ahead,
but heed the words your father said,
should you alone survive the dead.

GemQuest, Book III, The Shards