Sing us of the stone risings,
Like tooth buttresses of forgotten kings,
Much larger than man but with smaller souls,
Souls now wasted stain the land.
Giant kings once ruled and killed,
The mountains are their graves,
Rising cold to bleak grey sky,
While beneath them Craedus stalks its prey.
Centre of it stands a tower,
Unexceptional, not special, not this one,
But atop that spindly, darkened spire,
A red light flickers, always does.
The Craedus lives here, Ulterkaad,
No purpose served, no quest is won,
This is an empty, hollow place,
A howling place that’s nearly done.
A storm rages softly, soothing end-song,
The Craedus walks on, slowly now,
No sun lights passage, cold earth, cold souls,
The Ulterkaad lives on and on.
Now Craedus comes to mound of stone,
Once encouraging, human home,
It sifts through rubble, seeking nothing,
It finds a box that’s itsalone.
And in that box sits mounds of paper,
A pen with never-ending ink,
The Craedus inspects discovery, wondering,
About its words it stops to think.
Then tentative, strokes slow at first,
Craedus tells us of it first,
Of who it is, or who it could be,
And its forsaken, cursed course.
Course winding through the Ulterkaad,
Forgotten land where evil ruled,
And evil captured, so remained,
Locked in tower, trapped by good.
But such great evil touches much,
And poison yet remains,
The Ulterkaad grew poisoned such,
And poisoned, Ulterkaad remains.
The Craedus then is doomed to watch,
To warn nobody of escape,
To prowl and walk this haunted wasteland,
To live a hopeless, tortured fate.
For centuries enduring such,
Its old life is forgotten now,
There is no way to break the curse,
Unless
Michael Scott Hand 