A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapter 9: The Clash; Chapter 10: The Reckoning
A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapter 9: The Clash; Chapter 10: The Reckoning
Psychedelic Scene Books‘ first fictional novella comes to a dramatic and shocking conclusion to satiate readers of this timeless fantasy story and psychedelic musical adventure for the ages.
This creatively written novella was inspired by a veritable cornucopia of allegorical references of conflicts caused by lack of communication, division resulting from varying views and appearances, Golden Age psychedelia, an Aquarian leitmotif, biblical references including The Book of Lilith, evolutionary and historical precedents, current events, and pop-culture literary references including J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Isaac Asimov, Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas and James Cameron.
Thank you for taking the time to read it.
A Tale of Crescendo comes to conclusion
CHAPTER NINE
The Clash
On the west bank of the Shendoa River on the darkest night and last new moon of spring, the Wescendant tribe commences Juna’s plan to cross it and rescue their Arch. From the beachhead they begin rolling large logs into the river in an uninhabited area downstream between Lepe Point and its terminus at the southern sea. As the logs roll into the river afloat, the warriors rush down the beach and leap onto the logs having connected them with rope. With the logs straightened in a line across the river, the western warriors balance across them and breach the eastern bank, setting foot in E’scend for the first time.
The crusaders are immediately attacked by archers on the night watch with speeding arrows, sharp and narrow. The Wescendants find that the aloe plant heals their warriors shot by arrows, however those pierced by poisonous darts succumb to their injuries. Slaying the archers and securing the eastern beachhead the intruders roll more logs into the river, partially damming it and forming a bridge between the two lands. Primed for battle, the western tribe’s full compliment of forces crosses the river. Under the cover of darkness, Kaedan leads the platoon of forty warriors towards Escenda to liberate it and their forefather Aedan.
At the culmination of the four-year war between their tribes, the Wescendants and Escendants commence the colossal clash to determine the control and future of their lands. As daybreak nears with the solstice approaching, the crusaders have lost their element of surprise. From a hightower atop Escenda’s tallest cypress tree, a budding bowman issues a war cry by way of song using an elk horn, alerting the eastern tribe of the invasion along with an ear-piercing raven. Reaching the capital village at sunrise, the western intruders engage in combat with Escendant archers and massive gladiators trained in secret. Arch Kaedan capably leads the platoon in close quarter combat; however, they are outclassed by the eastern titans and well-fortified bowmen.
Hearing the war cry from the nearby redwood compound, Aedan demands its meaning. His sweet lily-pad pleads to her husband that their enemies the Wescendants have invaded their homeland, with intents to eradicate their tribe and bloodline. Steeling himself, Aedan promises to defend Lily and their children against any threats at home or abroad. Aedan and Lily assign their eldest Tilian to guard their infant and adopted twins, armed with a dagger. As his lily-pad hands Aedan a sword he joins the Archess’ loyal lieutenant Pai-san outside the fortified redwood compound, guarding it against the advancing invaders. Atop the arbor capital’s cypress, the Archess and her avian summon the raven’s dark magick to call upon baerres and coyotes from the mountains, and pantheras and jaguaros from the canyonlands. Possessing the mammalian predators and the giant hawk she directs them to the Escenda village, while commanding arctic wolves to ambush the Wescendant children hiding in caves across the river.
As the deadly battle for the fate of Crescendo rages on in the capital for days, both factions have been cut in half by the other in close combat. Their tribes’ numbers are now down to twenty on either side. On the morning of the solstice, with a mighty roar the jaguaros and hulking baerres attack the western warriors, killing five more. As the crusaders are outmatched, they are forced to retreat west towards the Shendoa River. Fleeing to the river at Lepe Point well north of the new log bridge across, they are cornered on three sides by the remaining Escandant gladiators and the predator beasts. A warrior couple wades into the river towards home, and the pair is immediately washed away downstream. As Arch Kaedan orders the remaining warriors to stand their ground, the Wescendants’ futile attempt has failed and their entire tribe now faces imminent annihilation.
The earnest Eleven to the east have reached the redwood compound, after the treetop archers impeding their path joined the ensuing conflict. They see Aedan standing freely outside the redwood and presume his captors answered the war cry as well. Believing they have succeeded in rescuing their rightful Arch, Q’isann calls Aedan’s name who does not recognize his own nor these interlopers. Waving at him, Q’isann and Lyla approach Aedan and announce they have come to rescue him while he shoos them away.
With Lyla at his side Q’isann falls to his knees before Aedan his once-and-future Arch, and says he has come to take him home to We’scend. With no memory of his former life there, Aedan no longer recalls his former second-in-command. He is outraged that Q’isann and his armed guild have invaded his home, and demands that they leave his homeland at once. Just on the redwood’s other side, Sho-lin faces his old prodigy Pai-san. Sho-lin implores his former apprentice to join their guild and defeat the Archess. However, Pai-san has been under her spell for as long as he can remember. He attacks Sho-lin, and the two engage in combat with their swords.
40-year-old redwood tree by Dev Ahuja
Mila and Dilian rush inside the redwood and find their twin offspring. Tilian – Aedan’s firstborn son with Lily – defends the adult twins and starts to assault unarmed Dilian with his dagger, but the twins melodically chant together for Tilian to not harm their father. With the crooked chameleon nowhere to be found in the wood Dilian, Mila and their twins reunite for the first time as a family. Assuring they are safe inside the redwood, Dilian runs out to locate the deceiver. He joins Q’isann and Lyla at their side, facing Aedan. As the original chiefs of the two tribes stand face to face for the first time, Dilian recognizes the pain in Aedan’s eyes and offers his good hand to Aedan in a sign of peace.
The former prisoner’s eyes are widened as he recognizes his nemesis. He must be the conjurer who arrested him after the first aria, imprisoning and beating him under the redwood for years. He kidnapped Aedan’s lily, and according to her account treated her poorly. Now, this villain has raided the house where his wife, son and adopted twins live, wearing the face of Aedan’s lily to torment him. Not remembering Dilian’s name after four years, he stammers the first words that come to his fractured mind. “You… you…”
“Judas!” He snarls at Dilian, lunging at him with his sword. As Aedan swings for his head, Q’yn uses her spear to defend Dilian and engages Aedan in combat. The trio of paladins stand behind Aedan, sworn to rescue and defend their rightful Arch, as the younger two swordsmen encroach on Q’yn. Stopping them from attacking her, the eldest Pah-lud orders them not to interfere with the duel between their guildswoman and Arch, while Lyla stands between them and the trio of paladins. The two trackers restrain the raging Aedan as they defend Dilian.
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"Bloody Storm" by Janka Lateckova - Wars of Beleriand via TolkienGateway
On the other side of the towering redwood, scornful Pai-san continues attacking his former master who parries his blows and implores him to cease. Given no alternative, Sho-lin swings his sword at Pai-san’s feet and slices off part of his foot to disable him. Pai-san screams and falls onto the grass bleeding profusely, while Sho-lin runs around the tree to re-join the guild. Restrained once again by Dilian and his accomplices, Aedan growls and lets out a primal scream silencing the birds in the wood. Sho-lin advises them all to lower their swords, as Xo-nan and Su-rin loosen their grip on Aedan on Dilian’s request. Breaking down, Aedan begs his demand that they leave him and his family alone. Dilian states that that he is not the one who has taken Aedan’s family and his dreams away from him.
Dilian explains he and Aedan have only ever met once, from across the river twenty-six years ago today. He is certain of the date because he was his own twenty-first birthday, and recalls first trying apple wine with Mila that night beneath their new redwood home. Dilian regrets that half of his life and his families’ lives have passed since then while estranged from her, escaping his responsibilities to write poems within the lonely mountain. Having not fully considered the weight of his actions and needs of his muse, their twin children and tribe, Dilian snickers and hangs his head while realizing this catastrophe is largely his own fault.
Dilian senses his impostor commanding the great battle just west of them at the capital village, and asserts that he must challenge the chameleon at once to stop the bloodshed. Sho-lin affirms and says he and Mila will protect the children and maintain peace at the redwood. Humbled, Aedan now joins Dilian and the band of nine westward towards the fatal clash.
As Dilian, Aedan, Q’isann and the guild enter the capital treetown Escenda, it is largely destroyed in the ongoing battle. The possessed beasts attack the guild, killing the lynxes and Qyn’s dire wolf. At the shoreline Arch Kaedan, Juna and ten surviving Wescendants face certain death by the eastern titans, baerres and prowling felines under a murky mystic spell. High above the clash, its overlord stands atop a lone cypress tree with an archer and a raven perched in the impenetrable hightower.
Oldest cypress tree near Sanford, Florida, >2,000 years old
Viewing the approaching guild below, the Archess commands her beasts and orders the gladiators to eradicate the troupe and their depleted platoon immediately. As the titans rush the western warriors at the shore, the predatory brutes suddenly raise their heads with their ears perked. Approaching them at the point Dilian and Q’yn abruptly engage in song together, persuading the beasts to desist.
Trapped at the shoreline with her brother Kaedan, Juna joins the duo in singing. As they can only subdue the animals with pure intent, they cannot command them to attack the Escendants. Instead they convince the baerres and coyotes to return to their hillside caves, and the jaguaros and pantheras to the canyonlands. Across the river, the wolfpack hounding the children’s hideaway hears the song and retreats north to the mountains.
Unable to control her mammalian army, the Archess and her raven concoct a deafening maelstrom unto them from the cypress treetower above. Thunderclaps ring out as the skies darken around them, and lightning bolts strike two Wescendants dead at the river shore. The earth around them starts to tremble, as the combatants fall off their feet. Without warning, from the north a single gigantic wave roars down the Shendoa River towards them.
As the remaining eastern titans and western warriors flee the shoreline, half of them make it to the village and half of them from both sides are washed downstream by the tsunami. Of the Wescendant tribe only Arch Kaedan, Q’isann, Lyla, Q’yn and two paladins remain; the others including Juna have been lost to the river. Only four gladiators and the archer protecting the Archess remain of the Escendant army, and they quickly resume clashing with the crusaders in the village.
As the tribes duel to death with swords and axes Q’yn defends her Arch Kaedan against a gladiatorial assault, and he returns the favor while slaying another. In the melee, the noble warrior Q’isann is smothered to death by a towering titan. Using their combined skill and might, Q’yn, Lyla, Kaedan and the duo of paladins defeat the last three gladiators together, however both remaining paladins are slain in combat.
Arch Kaedan, Q’yn and Lyla are now all that remains of their tribe, along with Kaedan’s parents nearby. As they peer up at the cypress hightower in anger, Aedan approaches the concluded clash with Tilian pursuing from a distance. Kaedan finally reunites with his father while Q’yn is inconsolable over the lifeless body of hers, as is Lyla as her gallant husband lies dead.
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Battle of Cunaxa, Babylonia - September 3rd, 401 B.C.
Concurrently across the river in Wescenda, Ivera alone had defended the tribe’s children at a downcast shelter she had called Lound’a, holding the possessed werewolves at bay until the pack abated. Just after the roaring river’s deluge, she hears an urgent melodic call that she immediately recognizes as her daughter’s. Rushing to the Shendoa, she finds that it has completely depleted and is now merely a stream. Viewing from a distance her kin Kaedan, Aedan and the concluding clash on the other side, she heads to the log bridge built just before the prolonged battle of Escenda.
At the new bridge she finds her daughter Juna alive along with a noble swordsmen Pah-lud, a Wescendant couple, and a few eastern archers. They had been carried downstream by the tsunami, until the logjam stopped some of them from washing out to sea. After aiding each other from drowning with help from Ivera, they were pacified and ceased their feud. A sole Escendant gladiator also survived the flood, but soon lumbered off into the jungle. Ivera, Juna and the few others make their way to the eastern capital to reunite with their remaining kin and put an end to this debacle once and for all.
Atop Escenda’s towering cypress, Dilian has carefully climbed to its treetop where the conjurer awaits him. Sneaking up on the archer and pushing him off the tree, Dilian is attacked not by the perched raven but a giant hawk. After nearly falling from the treetop himself while evading it, his flock of falcons quickly come to his aid harassing the hawk and disabling its wings. Dilian enters the hightower to confront his impostor at last.
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CHAPTER TEN
The Reckoning
At the ravaged capital amid smoke and ruin, Dilian enters the hightower and stands face to face with the impostor bearing his likeness. Turning to face him she does not speak, nor does he as they both take a moment to size up their antagonist. Dilian stands in baerre-skin leather from the beast that killed Q’isann’s brother, who Q’isann has now joined in death. Pale as a ghost, Dilian’s skin, beard and shoulder-length hair are as ivory as the snowy mountains. His enigmatic impostor is equally tall and slender. In fact, to the eye they are of the same height, approximately the same weight and perhaps around the same age.
The Archess before him is both a formidable nemesis and a vulnerable natural beauty, rife with conflict. Radiating brightly and appearing as a solar seraph, her primal inner toil has been summoned, saved and transformed by the shining sun above. Adorned in long, flowing ebony robes and ravenous hair reaching her torso, her face and skin have been burned and blotched by years of sunburn.
However aside from their faces the Archess and Dilian are of the same height, around the same weight and perhaps close to the same age. Despite their contrasting skin tones and appearance, they unquestionably come from the same tribe. This is no indigenous chameleon nor subterranean demon standing before him; this woman arrived on Crescendo on the same ship that he and his family had. The Archess recognizes past her adversary’s white skin, beard and hair, and recognizes her own face staring back at her.
Sahara Desert – Caravan to Infinity
On the day that she lost her family and tribe, Lily’s parents had insisted that her own turmoil not disrupt the captain while he steered towards their new homeland. Moaning in anguish, the pangs in her womb had been dismissed by nearly all onboard. While her father pleaded with deaf R’Nesto to turn the damned ship, she was unable to speak or signal with the love of her life. As Lily’s cries were joined by those of a newborn infant below deck, only her mother provided consolation until the ship suddenly crashed and sank.
Washed ashore east of the rivermouth and shipwreck, Lily was segregated from her tribe by a fierce panthera which chased her into the desert. Dehydrated with no food, water, shade nor shelter, she faced certain death. However like her family, death never arrived to claim her, as the bright sunlight improbably nourished her. Indefatigable, Lily was able to survive in the harshest weather and environment by drawing the light, her scorn as scalding as the solar sphere above. Drawing deep within the ground from the earth’s magnetic attraction to the star it revolves on, Lily concentrated the sun’s energy towards her and Escenda. Harnessing natural nuclear fusion from the core of Earth’s yellow dwarf star, its temperature thousands of degrees above countable range, matching and fueling her rage.
Magicians engaged in mystical duel by Dzmitri Auramchik
Reddening as she recognizes Dilian, she begins to utter his name but has lost her voice amid the thundering din she has created below. Taking a step towards the other, the two foes peer beneath their opposite appearances.
To his shock he recognizes her as Lilian, his twin sister not seen since she was lost in the shipwreck twenty-seven years past. Observing her brother for the first time Lilian’s ruthless years and tears of rage start to wash away, with her empire laid to waste. Overcome with emotion, she breaks down as does Dilian. The twin siblings comfort each other, and they finally embrace as one.
Beneath them in the ruined treetown Tilian, master Sho-lin and muse Mila arrive from the redwood with her and Dilian’s adult twins. Except for Pai-san and the hulking gladiator, the calamity’s few survivors converge at Escenda as Dilian and the Archess descend the hightower together.
The near-extinct Wescendant and Escendant remnant tribes stand and stare at the snow-maned Dilian and his raven-haired impostor, and collectively grasp that she is his sister Lilian who survived the shipwreck unbeknownst to all. Finally free from her enchantment, they comprehend that it was she who had impersonated her twin brother, ensnared Arch Aedan, and assumed reign of E’scend before taking control of the entire land. With the Crescendants forgathered as one, they collectively demand that Lilian face judgment before them.
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The longest day has ended as the sun sets on the summer solstice, and the great clash for Crescendo has been resolved. At the ruined arbor village, Archess Lilian faces corporal punishment for her dastardly atrocities that nearly extinguished their tribes. Of the surviving Escendant adults only Dilian, Mila, their twins, Master Sho-lin, the pair of trackers and three archers remain, as the hobbled Pai-san and sole gladiator are not seen again.
Aedan stands and weeps, not with Lilian but with Ivera and their offspring. As Lilian’s treachery is revealed, Ivera accepts that his transgressions were the result of the Archess’s enchantment. Reunited as a family, Aedan, Ivera, Kaedan and Juna accept Aedan’s illegitimate son Tilian as their kin. As they count the survivors, all that remain of the Wescendant tribe are Lyla, Q’yn, two wedded warriors, and a sole paladin Pah-lud who takes the name P’Al-aedan in honor of their rescued Arch. As Juna and her half-brother Tilian embrace for the first time near Lepe Point where they first met so long ago, they understand that their attraction that set these events in motion was not romantic but familial love.
It is time for the unifying tribe – now numbering only twenty – to hold the Archess accountable for the souls of all those slain in the Great War. As the ten Wescendants call for Lilian’s head, Mila cautions them against executing her. The deposed Archess is held in restraints by the trackers and does not speak, nor does Aedan as he stands with his family nearby. The tribe starts to argue amongst themselves, and they soon scuffle.
Declaring that they be silent, Dilian climbs a tree stump and calls for their attention. He begins to croon an operetta, the likes of which he has never sung before. The tribe falls quiet and they all listen intently. In poetic meter and lyrical form, Dilian recounts all that has transpired. He tells them of the venomous lizard that bit him, being saved by his muse and the wise master, his journey to Wynterlyn with a blackbird and snow-covered hare, and how he healed himself and the tracker duo with the natural spring and smylia herb. He relays to them the guild’s quest that brought him back to E’scend and returned him to his family.
As he continues ambling verse after verse while Lilian stands silent, his remnant band join in his song – first Q’yn then Lyla, Mila, Sho-lin, the trackers and the paladin. Soon, Juna and all in the tribe sing with them along with the young children safe in their shelters afar. Even Tilian and all the others who were unable to sing can now join in the aria.
For the first time in all the land, its surviving inhabitants sing together in unison in an unprecedented, magnificent crescendo. The world stops for a moment, and all is in convergence. As the harmonic wave ripples back to its origin in the Escenda ruin, Lilian ultimately joins in their epic chorale.
'Trees' Carolyn Anne Anderson - Psychedelic Scene Artist Spotlight 2024
After singing together in harmony, the tribe has spoken and come to consensus. Lilian will not be harmed, as they forbid executions and far too much blood was spilt during the war. No longer able to enchant the tribe, she is destined to spend her days within the redwood compound alone with her infant daughter and is never to leave. If Lilian does not comply, she will be incarcerated in the rooted cellar below where she once imprisoned Aedan.
Forever casting aside the title of Arch, a role he never desired, Dilian appoints Master Sho-lin to oversee the lands east of the river. The Shendoa river itself, once mighty and impassable but now spent, is now merely a stream that no longer divides the land in two, and the Crescendants are now one tribe and one people.
Dilian and Mila soon elope without ado and make their home together in the rebuilt treetown with their twins residing nearby. Escenda becomes an artistic commune again and on the stump where he had stood, others now sing out in turn to the gathered tribe using lutes fashioned from wood.
West of the Shendoa Stream, Arch Kaedan and Q’yn wed in a royal ceremony and start a family together in Wescenda. Aedan, who at advanced age declined to resume the role of Arch after his ordeal, lives with Ivera in retirement. Juna soon settles along the seashore with a tracker from the east, occasionally visiting her brothers Tilian and Kaedan and their aging elders to the north. At the rivermouth at Minuet Point, Juna and members the unified tribe often visit the ascending rock totems constructed in memoriam at the shoreline to the song of a lively cardinal.
Maypole traditions - Brighton, U.K.
A Tale of Crescendo
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Appreciation to you, the reader, for taking the time to read my first creatively written book.
The story never ends…
Stay Tuned for an epic epilogue, and eBook PDF
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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” ~ Part 7 of 7
“Crescendo Chapters 9 & 10 Score ~ v1” (03:40)
Containing segments of ” Tabula Rasa”
Part VII: Resonatian
“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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“As they sing under the treetown, they often chant in a Crescendo.”
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