DEATH LOTUS A twilight veils o'er Summer's Eve, As leaves of Sylvan1 Sound, lo, pale, wither and fall,

to DIE; and shall be this the passing of an age, for the VEIL shades Goddess Saelavi2. For wrote the oracle PANTOMIME the secret of the seer FORLORN, markings which the scripts of TIME of yet to be adorn:
THE ASTRAL CLOCK IS TURNING A CHILD OF TWILIGHT IS BORN

WHENCE

yon far fringes of the West fade before the eye, a prodigy of a scholar will arise: HE who will master the vaulted mysteries of mana, one at last to charm Saelavi; and shall to reign on high; and though the crown was acquired by surreptitious structures of stratagem, the adorned absolution will be an unspoken assumption: the silent sovereign elect. With this endowment, the SAGE shall seize the throne on Se Mt evse Sumvithse3. His serpentine clasp upon the realm shall decay a magick world once warm with wonder. The sphere of night will cast a shadow over a twilight age, as thus Luna shuns the ancient land whose splendor was stolen by a surrogate dispassion: by a numinous presence cast high over the mountains, and beyond the reach of even the eldest Vastleaf of the wooded Sylvan Sound, ... And shall be this the passing of an age. The Sylvan leaves for a year will wither, and once perished shall never be again to blossom: and the season shall be Death, a realm frozen forevermore between the brink of FROST and FALL. The effervescent waters will lie stagnant, and reveal the birthed anew cerulean soul: a perished vivacity, its brilliant contours, nebulous and elusive to the keenest perception; and effulgence faint, when even suffused by sunlight. A rare night, hearken! may, although, perchance invoke whispers of the past, clairvoyance of a fabled hour. But most do not, nor may see, so instead merely remark on the nearby bank, which has turned from sand to ashe. Rain will be as frigid daggers, the heat a draining shadow, ever in your wake. All will feel the absence of the essence for the senescence tangible on the VEIL; and yet the dirges wherein compelled will scarce be heard for the sensual suffocation which hails from the heavens. LOTUS thrives atop the throne Saelavi Spire and blooms in the garish gardens. An oration of euphony is thence sounded on the skies, whence comes a disquisition destined for the VEIL:

Lord Lotus, your god upon the throne, have cursed the land to make perennial the nascent serenity. May Saelavi rest at last. With arcane vision, I shall see with absolution antagonists to my will, and

DEATH LOTUS

strike with tempestuous resolve to effect the ascendant law, yet shall with a sorrowed soul. My children, I lament this cruel fate, and wish this not upon you.
sil'-win :: SILL win saiy'-jeh-lah'-vee :: SIGH yay LAH vee zeh mant' e-zveh' zum-vees'-thsneh :: zay MAUoont eh ZVAY zum-VEES-thsnay

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