30: Poems of Another World (The Jealous King)

A secret correspondence from another world between an old Librarian and a foreign nobleman

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There's an old saying in Cal'dir...

"Dead Men talk too much; be sure to bury and burn them for good measure."

Secrets are like luxuries in this city, only the rich can have them. 

And among the wealthiest and fattest lords of Cal'dir,

there is one secret above all that is coveted. 

***

Daemons...

The pleasures, the prosperity, the rise and fall of great lords;

All of it churns to the dark deals we endeavor behind closed doors. 

The City of Splendor is where Eros made his home

The Jealous King; fallen angel of Love who cast his envy upon mortals

***

Within the bluffs of Rea, countless rituals have occurred

where the children and lovers of lords untold were sacrificed

Like lambs at the grim altars and edifices of the Jealous King.

And all the opulence of great Cal'dir, is as mirages in the Azuna Desert

All figments and phantoms cast by the wicked tricks of vile Eros

***

Here, the nobles vie for his love, his favor

But Eros is, as all daemons are, obsessive.

Let me ask you, what would you give for power?

For the lords here, they would surrender even that which they love

Because Eros demands that you love him, and him alone. 

***

Fathers slay their sons; brothers kill brothers

wives and husbands will stab each other in the back.

The nobles kill each other, and the Deceiver laughs

And slowly he teaches us that Love is an illusion

We learn from him to become nihilists and cynics

***

But you will see none of this gruesome reality

all of it is concealed behind the veil of silk and honey

The thousands of lost fathers, mothers, and siblings

are like the crumbling ashes in a great urn

thousands of indiscernible nothings, tucked away in secret places

***

Those countless secrets form the bedrock of our city on the bluffs

It is the fertilizer of the Sanguine Jungle to the south

And it is the custom of our people.

You will never know the darkest corners of Cal'dir

Concealed in our limestone and lapis marvels

***

The Mosaics of gods, the armillary spheres, the stellar traditions

All of it is falsehoods and lies cast by the Jealous King

The Great City of Splendor is a city of schemes and illusions

The secret haunts and enshrouded ghosts scream in the bricks

They cry out from the stones; and their cries are deafened by dull gold.

***

So go on, partake of the bathhouses and brothels

Where our spies hide and make their home

Or visit the market and enjoy the fruits

harvested by the slave children of bygone nobilities

You'll never see our ugly side here, since only the dead will know it

***

And in Cal'dir, we don't just bury our dead. We burn them.