A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapter 3: The West & The East; Chapter 4: The First Crescendo
A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapter 3: The West & The East; Chapter 4: The First Crescendo
For the first time the earth perceives the impassioned song of a human voice, and is momentarily in harmonic convergence. Resonating in the frequencies four three & two, the aria of the one mystically multiplies throughout the land. As all winged creatures join along, the chorale flows through the planet’s atmosphere as an empathic wave.
For the first time the earth perceives the impassioned song of a human voice, and is momentarily in harmonic convergence. Resonating in the frequencies four three & two, the aria of the one mystically multiplies throughout the land. As all winged creatures join along, the chorale flows through the planet’s atmosphere as an empathic wave.
Primal conflicts of nature and nurture, sun and moon, empathy and reprisal collide as the eastern and western tribes face each other for the first time since their arrival to the kaleidoscopic lands of Crescendo.
A fictional novella making its published debut in Psychedelic Scene Books, A Tale of Crescendo blends Earth’s evolutionary prehistory with an Aquarian motif, and increasing literary allusions to Golden Age psychedelia as music is introduced into their strange new world. While the eastern tree-farers and western cave-dwellers embrace different customs to survive, after two decades they no longer resemble the other nor the unified tribe of their fading past.
(A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapters One & Two)
A Tale of Crescendo ~ A New World Created by Bill Kurzenberger
CHAPTER THREE
The West and The East
Year Five
Restless, Arch Aedan still seeks answers about the beast that killed their tribesman in the mountains while his wife does not speak with him. Hoping to warn the easterners and to exchange information about the treks to the Nethermore, he makes his way alone to the only place to visually communicate across the Shendoa. However there is no one at its east bank, where the waypoint has been abandoned.
Determined, Aedan camps along the river’s west bank at Lepe Point, making a fire to signal the other side. Slumbering under the stars and new moon he is stirred by a ghost wind and an ariose voice emanating from the stilled river, melodious like a bird. Yet he sees no avians and no one at the other side.
In his riverbed, Aedan is awakened at sunrise by the same dulcet sound. Through the morning dew and fog, he barely peruses a vague figure. As the haze clears, on the river’s other side he spots a feminine persona cloaked in white robes. He calls out to them, however the only response is an alluring chorale by an unseen flock of seagulls, enticing him to cross over.
With the Shendoa unusually calm, Aedan wades into its narrowest point and swims earnestly across. Halfway to the other side its current suddenly surges upstream, creating one giant wave which overwhelms him and takes him along with the river. For what seems like a day he is helplessly carried downstream, using driftwood to barely keep afloat. As he swallows water and nearly drowns, he loses consciousness and hears a siren’s call drifting and dreaming down the river. Deprived of air, he imagines himself under her care under a large tree.
When Aedan fails to return to his village, the pathfinder Q’isann – now his trusted second-in-command – organizes a search party with Lyla to scour along the river. The following day, they find their Arch barely alive on the western riverbed towards the sea. While thy return him to Wescenda for medical care, Aedan mumbles unintelligibly while clinging to life. Before falling into a coma, his only comprehensible words are “dark magick.”
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Year Eleven
As they commemorate their first decade in this new world, the western cave-dwelling and eastern tree-faring tribes have established modest Iron Age civilizations and cultures on both side of the mighty Shendoa segregating them. As time has passed with minimal communication between, the branched tribes have been forced to adopt new traditions into their principles to survive their various harsh environments.
On the river’s We’scend, their cave-dwelling warriors have been hardened by the murder of their pathfinder by the beast from the north. They hone their swordry and hunting skills while preparing to someday battle the abominable baerre. Their capital Wescenda, a cavernous village of trade, is built inside a natural network of caves with the Arch’s royal fortress at its center. With only torches to light the gloomy cavern, the shade of the western tribe’s complexion has gradually paled without melanin from natural sunlight.
Long awakened from his coma after being incapacitated in the sick bay for nine months, Aedan and Ivera reconciled and soon started a family. They now have three children, starting with a girl Juna born to a nearby birdsong. The following year her brother arrived, and another the next, already vying to someday succeed their father as Arch. Just to the north Q’yn, the hunters’ child, is free-spirited and strong-willed spending much of her time with her parents in the forest hills where she was born.
On the other side of the river the Escendants persevere in their arbor village, building as they go to protect them from predatory mammals nearby. While they can defend themselves with bows and arrows they continue relying on fresh fish and crustaceans, farmed vegetable gardens, and tropical tree-borne fruits for food rather than hunting. As their skin naturally tans under the bright sunlight they congregate under arbors with the most foliage, applying juice and oil from fallen coconuts as lotion for their skin.
However all is not well in Escenda, as the reclusive Arch Dilian has not been seen for several seasons. Amongst the tribe there are whispers that he succumbed to a hidden injury, or has embarked in search of a natural cure to heal him. While the tribe gradually constructed a grassy mound meandering to the shape of a serpentine Shendoa tributary, the budding tree village became a leaderless commune showing signs of decay. Mila, the tribe’s muse and medicine woman, has quietly been suggested as the next chief even as she mothers her eight-year-old twins.
One night, the Escenda villagers awaken to the sounds of screams and roars from the direction of the redwood. They discover that one or more pantheras had climbed into the tribeswoman’s family home and shredded its contents. Mila and her twins are missing along with all signs of the pantheras, excepting a trail of paw prints leading into untamed canyons.
Sho-lin – the tribe’s surviving tracker from the Nethermore – sets out east in search of the mother and children, taking his young prodigy with him. However the seasons turn and as winter approaches, the trackers have not returned to the arbor village or settled areas.
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Shenandoah River south fork, Virginia - Shutterstock; used with permission
Year Thirteen
On the summer solstice in the shaken tree village, a chorale of ravens hearken the abrupt return of Dilian! Fully recovered during his two years in eastern mountains, the resilient chief returns with renewed vigor and an unexpected surprise. Traveling with him is his eight-year old son who was unknown by the tribe. The Arch introduces him as Tilian and shares his vision that one day his son and heir would rule the lands of both east and west of the Shendoa River as its future king.
In recent years the Escenda village had become aimless without its Arch, and interim leaders Mila and master Sho-lin. The peaceful easterners had been terrified of the panthera packs which now constantly encroach on their village from the canyons, and have never forgotten the kindred trackers presumably murdered by prowlers or western warriors. Arriving to deliver their salvation Arch Dilian promises to lead the frightened Escendants into a new era of strength and prosperity, and rescue their missing kin from the canyonlands.
Casting aside their communal traditions, the Arch instills in the tribe a warrior ethos. Now a resolute leader identified by a black glove on one hand, he pledges to defend them against predator tigres, baerres and wolves to the north, the lethal jungle towards the sea and territorial incursions from the west. As the villagers are overjoyed at the return of their chief, it goes unnoticed that the shape of his face and form have subtly changed in the years since they last lay sight of him.
Autumn arrives and Sho-lin’s apprentice returns to Escenda with the missing twins, who are physically unharmed but traumatized and no longer speak. The prodigy Pai-san explains that he and the wise master tracked them to an otherwise empty panthera den in the eastern canyons, but without their mother. Sho-lin had continued searching in search of Mila, while sending Pai-san to return home with the children. As Arch Dilian takes the trembling twins Zenn and Tai-cha into his care they are now mute but can communicate non-verbally with each other, forming their own unique unspoken language over the years that follow.
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Qagyuhl wedding party - Edward S Curtis circa 1914
Year Twenty-Three
Another decade has passed, and it has been twenty-two years since the arrival of the Crescendants to the now-colonized lands. Over time both tribes have become militarized and aggressive, neither signaling nor feuding across the river. As the cave-dwelling warriors to the west have paled without natural sunlight, the eastern tribe has tanner complexions from the brightening sun while using coconut lotion and trees for shade. No longer resembling the tribespeople on the river’s other side, trust and communication has withered. Distantly viewing the other’s advancements in weaponry, both tribes have armed their trained warriors and fortified their lands in defense of a looming attack from the other side.
From a hidden compound on the outskirts of Escenda, the transformed Arch Dilian now rules with an iron fist while grooming his teenage son for future leadership. The tribes’ attention turns to the first generation born on Crescendo approaching adulthood including Dilian’s son and heir, and the telepathic twins who the Arch has raised as his own children. Now aged eighteen, Tilian is drawn westward to the river while resisting the pressure to follow in his father’s footsteps as Arch-in-waiting and future would-be king.
Along the river’s We’scend the twenty-year-old Q’yn lives with her pathfinder parents in a woodland hillside cranny – but not a filthy hole in the ground as one might expect. She often joins their expeditions, charting the unexplored reaches to the west. In its capital Wescenda, Aedan and Ivera’s three offspring are now budding warriors of the age of seventeen, sixteen and fifteen pining to prove their qualities to their Archfather.
While the two brothers Kaedan and Paedan hone their warrior skills and compete for their father’s favor, over the years their older sister Juna has formed a long-distanced friendship with Tilian from E’scend. On clear days they meet at Lepe Point, signaling across the river. As their tribes and Archfathers no longer communicate with each other, Juna and Tilian gradually rebuild the only bond between the two worlds.
Unbeknownst to them all, a mystic impetus gradually constitutes in the darkness and prepares to strike.
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The Great Serpent Mound, Peebles, Ohio
CHAPTER FOUR
The First Crescendo
Year Twenty-Four
As a year has passed Juna and Tilian continue to woo each other, only able to vaguely glimpse the other while visually signaling across the point. On its east side Tilian has built a small wooden catapult which he uses to launch satchels of cloth across to the west bank containing roses and ribbons for her hair, strawberries and tangerines, along with notes written on balsam wood to express his affection. At the western peninsula, eighteen-year-old Juna fashioned a slingshot to return the favor with sunflowers and prepared fish along with tender replies on the bark. Enamoured by each other’s letters, the penpals notice that their tribes’ written languages have deviated from the other over the two decades.
On the sunny solstice, Tilian spots a large shell-shaped driftwood washed ashore nearby. He contemplates using it and an oar-like stick to cross the river to finally meet Juna. However since their fateful arrival here, the Archfathers have forbidden ship-building and crossing the river. Using its few tributaries on either side for cleansing, fishing and fresh water the tribes dare not cross or swim in the Shendoa itself, lest they be swept out to sea with their elders by its mighty current.
Equally eager to meet Tilian face to face, Juna gestures to him at Lepe Point to cross the river using the driftwood shell. Torn by desire and his father’s order, he sorrowfully declines and walks away from the shoreline after waving her goodbye.
Brokenhearted, Juna loudly calls out to Tilian in a wail. Subconsciously, she begins to imitate the ash gray and scarlet songbirds trilling outside their cavern home. Suddenly, Juna begins to sing!
Rainbow River by Kel Verde
For the first time the earth perceives the impassioned song of a human voice, and is momentarily in harmonic convergence. Resonating in the frequencies four three & two, the aria of the one mystically multiplies throughout the land. As all winged creatures join along, the chorale flows through the planet’s atmosphere as an empathic wave.
Without being prompted, all of the children born on the continent over the past twenty years spontaneously sing in unison with Juna to conceive the first musical crescendo. Even the twins, who have not spoken in eleven years, suddenly sing along. The world momentarily stops on its axis, and time has no meaning as the resonation is broadcast through the solar system at the speed of sound.
The aria lasts for ten or twenty minutes, perhaps an hour during which the passage of time is temporarily non-linear. As their ears are awakened and eyes peer skyward, the effect on the Crescendant tribe is profound and their world is never the same thereafter.
Juna's Aria
As the unprecedented hymn resounds through the land the harmonious wave ripples back to its operant at the convergence point. Juna is overwhelmed by the sudden aria she has conceived which was heard by all, and is stunned into silence. As the chorus of singing birds and children subsides to a quiet lull, the tribes are astonished having never heard a human song. Drawn to the source of this extraordinary sound the inland villagers on either side start to walk towards its origin at the river, which has receded during the resonation.
Back at Lepe Point, the two admirers try to comprehend what has occurred. Tilian was unable to sing and join the harmony, as the only native-born Crescendant who could not sing. As he groans to Juna, she is too startled to repeat her song. While the Shendoa has momentarily calmed, at this narrowest point it is now shallow enough to pass over in the driftwood shell.
As Juna reaches to him, Tilian crosses the dwindling river with ease. Finally, they meet after glimpsing and wooing each other from across it for years. As Tilian sets foot in We’scend and approaches her, Juna is suddenly shocked and aghast at the sight of him.
She recognizes that Tilian’s face is that of her two younger brothers, Aedan’s sons who unmistakably bear his and her grandpa R’Nesto’s likeness. Juna cannot believe her eyes as she comes to understand that Tilian must be her brother as well, which cannot be. She shrieks and flees from him, while he cannot understand the cause for her sudden disdain. He follows after her as she pleads for him to leave her be.
As the first answering the crescendo’s call to reach its origin point, Juna’s brothers hear her cry and rush to her aid at the riverside. Paedan comforts his sister, while the older Kaedan confronts the swarthy Tilian. As they begin to tussle they are both dumbfounded – they wear the same face! Although his skin is tanner than theirs, Tilian’s visage is nearly identical to Kaedan and his brother.
While the three young men aged nineteen, seventeen & sixteen gesture at each other quizzically, the villagers from both sides arrive at the shorelines. Arch Dilian emerges across the river with armed tribesmen, while Arch Aedan and Ivera arrive with the western tribe.
For the first time since their arrival over twenty years past, the tribes and its chiefs can clearly see and speak with each other while the diminished river lies still. As they view the Arches’ offspring standing together with their tribes on either side, they collectively gasp and fall silent.
Aedan approaches his sons and Dilian’s son and immediately recognizes his own heritage in the tanned Tilian, as do all summoned to attendance by the aria. As Aedan and Ivera have only three offspring together, and he was an only child there can be no other explanation for Tilian to bear his and R’Nesto’s likeness. Tilian is the son of Aedan, not the son of Dilian.
Speaking to Aedan for the first time, Tilian asks him if he is Aedan’s son and they are his brothers and sister. Aedan stares at him intently and hesitates before responding. “Yes.” Almost on cue, the villagers on either side reply nearly in unison. “Yes.”
“No-ooooooo!” snarls Arch Dilian in a primal scream from across the river. While the skies darken around them to the squawk of a descending raven, he glides across the receded river to retrieve his heir. Defending and stepping in front of his newfound son, Aedan confronts Dilian and they begin to skirmish. Following their Arches’ leads, the tribesmen begin to throw rocks at the opposing side in their first ever battle.
Attacking each other in fisticuffs, Aedan’s physical fighting prowess is somehow matched by slender Dilian’s slithery evasion. Despite being hammered by Aedan’s fists Dilian pounds him with an iron-crusted gauntlet, dazing him.
Dilian grabs Tilian and half-drags him to the shoreline as he protests. Aedan pursues them with his sons closely behind, while a hard rain proceeds to fall around them. At Lepe Point the Arches struggle to claim Tilian, grabbing his arms. In the scuffle, he gets away and they pause.
Peering at his foe, Aedan comes to a shocking realization. He loudly proclaims to all in attendance that this is not Arch Dilian standing before him, it is a charlatan! Confounded by these conflicting events, the villagers on both sides stop clashing to scrutinize Dilian.
As the downpour soon turns to a thundering storm, Dilian emerges on his side of the river during a lightning flash while Tilian is nowhere to be seen. Furious, Aedan chases after the deceiver Dilian to the east. Using the driftwood shell beached on the riverbed, Aedan crosses the Shendoa towards E’scend to pursue the impostor.
Without warning, the river surges and roars from the north. Sudden raging waves rushing downstream overwhelm Aedan in the driftwood, sending him down the river uncontrollably towards the sea. Without thinking, his sons Kaedan and Paedan dive within in a valiant attempt to save him; however they too are quickly overcome by the waves.
As the three men desperately swim for the shore downstream towards Minuet Point, Arch Aedan has washed up on the opposite side. Kaedan has managed to paddle to the western shore; however his brother Paedan has been lost to the sea.
Kaedan and the royal guard rush to rescue their Arch from the other side in the driving thunderstorm, however the rising water level causes the Shendoa to be once again insurmountable. Aedan stands up on the E’scend shore for the first time, and is immediately captured by Dilian and his lieutenant who drag him off into the jungle.
Outraged as they clench their fists and avow vengeance, Kaedan and the Wescendant tribe rally all of their armed forces as they prepare to invade E’scend and liberate the Archfather. On both sides of the river the warriors steel themselves for battle, bellowing together to declare that this war between the tribes has begun.
To Be Continued
Stay Tuned for the next weekly installment in Psychedelic Scene Books!
Chapter 1: The Arrival
Chapter 2: The Nethermore
A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapters 1 & 2 ~ eBook PDF download
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A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapters 3 & 4 ~ eBook PDF download
Chapter 2: The Nethermore
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Created and Written By William Kurzenberger ~ All Rights Reserved
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Musical Accompaniment for context
Ambient Instrumental Score: “Tabula Rasa” ~ Parts 1, 2, 4 of 7
“Crescendo Chapter 3 Score ~ v1” (03:40)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part I : Cryptic
“Crescendo Chapter 4 Score ~ v1” (01:28)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part II : Cambrian (3rd movement)
Part IV : Eden (2nd movement)
“Tabula Rasa” ~ A musical representation of the past, present and future of life on planet Earth
Composed & recorded 2010 by William Kurzenberger; Released on the album Solitary Road © 2010
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Vocal/group accompaniment for lyrical context
Chapter 4 – The First Crescendo:
“Resonate”
“It starts with an intonation of instrument and voice,
A blind collaboration, not a conscious choice,
Some call it soulful melody, others call it noise,
But it has the potential to make your heart rejoice.So if you find you can’t relate, let the music resonate,
If that’s too much to contemplate, let the music resonate,
Come and recognize your fate, and let the music resonate,
And if the hour’s getting late, let the music resonate.And when the spark is lit, the music then ignites,
An audio inferno that spreads throughout the night,
It elevates the music into the atmosphere,
A current of torrential rhythm, flowing through the air.So if you find you can’t relate, let the music resonate…”
Written 2003 by William Kurzenberger; Released on the album Resonate © 2015
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A Tale of Crescendo
Chapter Five: The War Begins
Chapter Six: The Great Hall
Publication Date: Sunday January 4th, 2026
