Hello! This is the page where I upload my longer poems (50-80 pages in length). So far there is only part of the Suit of Power uploaded here, whose sequential chapters I am posting weekly as the weekly poem on the home page. Please enjoy!
Suit of Power (March 16-August 2)
Once you cross the cursed silver peaks Near San Monthuella’s dusty heart Across the heath of dust and skeletal remains Lies the town of Buchbard where few will go It is the home of old prospectors and forgotten coppersmiths Before technohorses and laser cannons it was quite a hub Of illustrious folk and company But now it’s mainly the place where criminals come to lay low Hence the streets are often times derelict Save for the brambles that shiver and grow Except for one street Old Welexor Avenue The only way to the high abandoned mountaintops On that street are always two men Mav and Hibae they were called No one knows their real names You can know Hibae by his long black coat And the wan smile he always wears And Mav will always have his untidy red hair And wild stare and rotting green teeth And he’ll always shout pointing at old Mount Zamohey “There’s a magical Suit of Power in there, You just need to fight the two monsters inside, Then you can get the suit and become a god!” Of course no one really listens to them They’re just forgotten soldiers-turned-tramps Hopeful souls left hopeless as time went by
But if there is someone everyone knows It’s the worst of the crooks who in Buchbard lays low Henry Kneubald, if that was his real name, Although he’s new here as of last year Since then he had amassed an enviable reputation As the new king of the whorehouse-turned-tavern Though it still went by its old name of Madame Csakka’s Suite Csakka has been dead for about a year Everyone’s best guess was Kneubald’s knife Didn’t matter anyhow No one would touch him or his tavern now Not only was he friends with the mayor’s bastard son Called Rumerd Buceion, though he was known As the fat man with the pipe and the six-cylinder pistol Who hung around old Csakka’s place Kneubald was also the man for Csakka’s favored girl, Xeree A pretty thing who’d killed more men than most scorpions could Not to mention Henry knew well a priest of the Hill Folk Xenthrac Ozrcus was the name He had the same strength and gray skin of his hereditary race But was as corrupt as Rumerd or Kneubald could be They were the formidable four around Buchbard, everyone knew No one bothered them Unless someone knew money as mean as the four could be made But those chances for wealth were quickly slipping away
Suddenly a stranger came in on a Sunday during mass He doffed his hat at the people passed So they could see his skin of bright red Like a sunset He wasn’t from around here, they all said But he was smarter than the rest who crossed the cursed hills For he headed his spurs straight for the old whorehouse-turned-tavern He must be some crook looking for a big score Yet he smiled as he passed the whole town by Tipping his hat to the girls and nodding to the men Giving out how’d’ya do’s open and generously No one got in his way until he hit the tavern And disappeared inside for the rest of the day
The stranger order a champagne from Xeree at the bar He complimented the long kimono she wore And the way she tied her ponytail high on her head Xeree only stared at his skin the color of spilt blood And poured his drink wordlessly Across the room sat Rumerd in his usual spot A liter of beer by his shotgun by a deck of cards All upon the table he sat before He blew circles from his pipe Tapping his fingers near his gun The stranger glanced at Rumerd And he smiled as benevolently as a starving cat And turned back in waiting in the empty bar Suddenly Along with a strong gust of wind entered Xenthrac His hat jangled with bone beads from his enemies His long coat of Westbeast skin following him Like a mat of rats His face of drooping gray skin Turned at the stranger The stranger smiled at him Xenthrac grunted something obscure and joined Rumerd In a game of poker and heavy whispering Xeree brought them their drinks And joined with them in their minuscule speaking She divulged the stranger had said he was here To offer a deal to Kneubald if he got the chance Xenthrac warned them — “He’s not from around here, He’s a drifter, he’s drawing us in” — But the thought of rewards won over Rumerd And Xeree too She left them and passed by The stranger as he cast a wandering eye She disappeared up the stairs And who returned was not her But Kneubald himself dressed in a long black coat And monocle and black top hat Tall and elegant with a black mustache Handsomely greased beneath the shadows of his green eye He approached with the heavy clat clat clat Of his expensive spurs And sat beside the stranger They smiled at each other “What’s you name, stranger” “Name doesn’t matter as long as money gets made” “Fair enough And where’s the money” “Where’s the money? Haven’t you heard? Your tramps outside ain’t as dumb as they look You heard what they say?” “Gold in the mountain?” “It’s not gold they’re talking about It’s a Suit of Power Left over by an ancient race You find it, you own it, You can take over anything Ah ain’t found anyone man enough to get it But Ah think you and your boys would do the trick How’s that suit you, friend?” Now Henry Kneubald wasn’t foolish He knew the game the stranger played Get a few suckers to fall for a trick Then take them all in Collect a handsome reward But Kneubald knew what the stranger knew Everyone knew he had a heart two sizes too big For the wrong reasons He loved a girl Who was left behind in another town When he was run out by twenty years of crime And a Suit of Power was enough To woo his heart to return to his love He waited in thought He eyed the blood-red man Glanced at his waiting gang Xeree and Rumerd and Xenthrac looking back At last Kneubald offered the stranger his hand
Hibae and Mav were only too happy to have A new audience of well-dressed gents and a lovely lady Asking them at the tip of their shotguns What they knew about the mystical Suit of Power Per the usual Hibae offered no voice at all He sat in his long dirty coat Smiling catily at the every scrap of questioning Mav was much more entertaining Waving his arms and tossing about his hair Like a swarm of hay flies agitated by a bear He shouted “The Suit of Power! It’s in there! All the way deep inside behind them catacombs and tombs Where the old cyborgs and technohorses got all brunt up Electric men and radiation girls In there! In there! You must get through there! But beware! There are monsters inside A tall giant and a little killer Called Gorra and Gerrukrog I mean, I think Maybe can’t really say But Gorra — that’s the small one He wields a whip He swings it so fast He can cut a man in half He’s left over from the fourth war When they ran the tommyknockers out of the mines They had to cut supports and run back out alive But Gerrukrog’s the bigger one Made like the typhoon men from outer space During the eighth war — you remember the eighth war? -- They had typhoon monsters in the eighth war And he looks just like them He’s got their legs All twenty-nine snakes that squirm along beneath him And his chest is huge with a thousand-year battery And he’s got a tiny head full of censors that swivels all around And has this arm with a plasma cannon on it And the other arm has an extra weapon hidden inside Just in case, but he’ll use it if you try him Oh, oh, you must be careful or else he’ll blast your brains into a million bits And then you’ll be just a red splatter on the wall But it you best them both and go All the way to the deepest of the deepest of those catacombs I swear I swear I swear I swear There’s the Suit of Power in it! Take it! Destroy it! Kill it! Before it kills you! I hear it molds on you like a womb Then it sucks into your veins and holds on tight It’ll drain you dry!” But the gang was already walking away Taking their shotguns and attention along the way “It’ll kill you!” Mav screamed as they took their leave “It’ll kill you if you get too close!” But no one was listening As the pack went away Things went back to their usual way No one cared what Mav and Hibae had to say
Xeree was born into her mother’s business Never had the money to get out The street was safer than a house If one wanted to keep her choices open But the street was tough for any girl At least under Csakka’s care Xeree had food, shelter, A place to sleep, people to meet, Clothes that could tear and be repaired But nothing was her own She had her dreams when she was alone Of mansions in the highlands near the sea Which sparkled with machinery And robotic servants And smiling maids And dresses that never stained or frayed She approached Henry as night was coming on “It must be worth some money,” she said “If only we could get it first We’d sell it and live like kings At least try it, Henry dear, please At least give me my share I don’t care if you get done with me Please, Henry, I need this bad You don’t understand How much I need a break I need to get away Please, Henry, Let’s get the suit.” Henry said he’d think on it And he was thinking long and hard
Rumerd lived a criminal’s life Not by choice but more by birthright He grew up in a world in which He was remembered mostly as mistake He was used to fighting to prove it was wrong He smoked a long cigar like his father did He stole what he wanted like his mother would He grew cold toward kidnapping, hostages, theivery He found thrills in robbing stagecoaches and stealing technohorses He even once held up a bank But it didn’t suit his size to live So rugged and homeless, hated forever Forever was too long He’d rather die than live this way all his life He’d rather have his father’s house but elsewhere Where he was respected And rich And powerful Those were the dreams that came in curling smoke And that smoke flew out of windows And disappeared into the sky Still he sought the cigar Whose smoke would stick around And maybe become reality That was why he spoke to Henry Kneubald Drink after drink Hour after hour Cigar after cigar “We all got dreams, Henry We all need the money. We all can get the money Ain’t that what we all always wanted? And what’s a few hundred year old bots? We five can be in and out in half an hour And then we’re rich We can split if you’d like But just this one gig Come on Henry, Let’s get the suit.” Henry said he’d think on it And he was thinking long and hard
Xenthrac was a skeptic by heart He was born into the priesthood anyways For a people whose religion was the glue of existence He was used to hearing wild stories Of gods in the silver mines And monsters in the sand But the quiet of mediation And solemnity of preaching And the way he had to listen to the queries of his kind Were not fair rewards for a mind as sharp as his He enjoyed shooting through wagons from hidden hills Loading shotguns during hold-ups when the silence seeped in And the riches — the riches! — those were rewards Better than the approving eyes of any reverent kind Better than the best of prayers Yes, he was corrupt He would be the first to admit it But, only to certain people, of course, And Henry Kneubald was one But if he was corrupt Xenthrac was not stupid Henry Kneubald knew that too They sat together in discussion Xenthrac smoking a long pipe His voice mumbling along to the tune of an ancient hymn “This ain’t a good idea Them legends, they’re dangerous They’re made to make men go insane Sure a bucket of rot is worth a penny somewhere But here we’s got a good business already We can’t go squandering good stuff so far We gone too far Why waste it on a dream Henry, listen to me Adventure t’ain’t worth a heartache” Henry said he’d think on it And he was thinking long and hard
The stranger’s name was Kallorg But it took three hours of drinks and conversing for Henry to learn Even then Kallorg wasn’t drunk Just entertained By how much thought and consideration his prey had given “Doesn’t matter where Ah come from, Only that Ah do my job And my job right now’s to make it rich And this little Suit of Power In your mountain, over there Now that’s a score And in my business, we like getting scores We get one big enough, we won’t ever work again If only we can land that score At least the some of us who get out of there alive… Sure, you heard right By all accounts it’s guarded well But only by two And they’re not so tough against our skill and our guns Like this blaster here You’re free to have it if you come along with me And take your gang too… The point is This ain’t as hard as it looks And it’s a goddamn goldmine just waiting for us We could ride up to Tangerine and sell it as well-meaning thieves Say, don’t you come from Tangerine? That’s where Ah heard of you You still got a big name up that way You had a girl there, didn’t you? Ah thinks she’d take you back if she saw what you had Don’t you think?” Henry said he’d think on it And he was thinking long and hard
The day they set out for Zamohey On technohorses tried and gray Henry Kneubald wore his best A shotgun on his shoulder And a pistol on his hip A top hat on his head And a monocle in his eye Reflecting everything that passed him by Xeree came beside him Her kimono bound back at her side Enough to show the riding boots That rode up to her thigh Two swords crossed at her back And her belt hung tight and lined With knives and pocket pistols With two darts propping up her ponytail Rumerd rode nearby Still smoking on his pipe As was custom for any outing of his And by that same custom Wore a cannon on his back Two big irons on either side A fresh black coat And spurs that matched On the largest of their horses Came Xenthrac Ozrcus riding tall With his coat like a cape of gnats Trailing behind his beaded hat Whose bones beat and sang to him While his gray skin and drooping face Hid from the light like a desert angler in its cave They passed down Buchbard’s finest street To the slum on Welexor Avenue Where waited Hibae, Mav, and Kallorg the stranger Whose technohorse was silver and new From the two tramps the stranger rose And took his high seat in the midst of the street Smiling with crooked grin and yellow eyes “‘Bout a day away As these here boys remember it That ain’t too bad” And they all agreed And with one last look each On Buchbard‘s lofty church’s steeple And metalsmith factories And streets who shared their treasured stories The gang set out for Zamohey’s peak
They travelled all day and deep into night Riding hard in the strong orange light With their hair and coattails flying behind In the dust of the desert that blustered by There the peaks were cold and caves hollow And the cliffs hung high around them like a massive maze There were spiders and desert anglers and styphalian birds Xenthrac ran ahead to lead the way But even he got lost Which cost them a day of wandering and arguing Between pipes and liquor bottles on the flats of the ground Until finally Xeree tossed off her kimono Which had a tight-fitting light suit hidden beneath And she climbed up the side of the nearest cliff While her long ponytail went flying behind As dust and rock grit filled up her eyes At last when she was there she could see old Zamohey If they veered right six times and took a hard left They might avoid a spider’s nest And possibly underpass a group of desert rovers Nothing too serious, but still Had to save the firepower for what was hidden in that hill But then they’d be there On the long sandy flat That led up to Zamohey They set out right away But didn’t get far The dark was crawling in on that second day They set up camp for the night
Xeree told of poisoning And castrating The various forms of just revenge Rumerd recounted stagecoach robbery Highway bandits whose foolish mistakes Made their ends especially memorable His favorite was barging in On his father’s birthday party Uninvited, of course, as was the only way He robbed his half-mother dry And shot his step-brother straight through the eye In mumbled tone Xenthrac described The religious war of the Hill Folk warlords How they pulled off skin and tongues and eyes And set bushfires across the caves and mountainsides And lined stones walls with paintings and stories Of course there were happy times Times when stupid masses had their way And made the foolhearty warlords pay By exploding their wild heads Or roasting them alive upon a spit All through the night Kallorg sat and laughed Asked questions, made premonitions All in his otherworldly accent Kneubald smoked cigar after cigarette His monocle showing flame in his glassy eye Staring deep into the emerald firelight Until the rest had gone to sleep He would take the first watch, he said But instead he stood with Kallorg Overlooking the underpass Where lovely ghosts of men that were Blurred into the giant shadows of spider legs He held a shotgun in his hand A cigar whose blazing end reflected in His monocle — ever vigilant — While his long coat fluttered into the wind Kallorg came by and stood beside A cigarette in his blood red lips “You got a story you could tell?” the stranger said “I’d ask the same to you,” was the criminal’s question And that made the red man smile “What kind of story you had in mind? What’d’ya think Ah would’ve said?” “Something about that’ere mountain Would have done us well How’d you know it Why come to me Why hire us of all this lot” “Them’s hard questions, Mr. Kneubald” The stranger was quick to say “But If you ask Ah course Ah could give my best enlight’ning Wanna guess first?” “No sir,” said Kneubald, his half-mechanical eye Fixed upon the dangers roving down below “Not I All I want to know is why You’re leading us into that mountain hell hole” “Sure thing,” chuckled the stranger “Sure thing, Mr. Kneubald, sure thing, sure thing”
“Ah landed in old Tangerine About ah year after you’d left The whole town would fall in ah riot On the very mention of your name You’re a big man in these parts Ah could tell it from the stories The ol’ coppersmiths would tell Around their brandy glasses come sundown Ah held those stories tight ‘Cus Ah knew if there was just one man Ah could trust to win me this’ere score that Ah’ve been looking for It’d be you You’ve got the guts most men are dreaming of And you got the passion to tough it through When the going gets rough You’re the kind of man most of ‘em want to be Take what you’re due Be smart Hold it through” “Oh sure, that’s nice and all But who are you And who are you really” “Alright, alright Whatever you say, Mr. Kneubald, Ah can provide I’m a poor boy from far away That’s the most important thing I’d think You know, we poor boys We want certain things Like safety On all its many levels I know you want what Ah want too That’s why Ah come round these parts Ah’m just like any old prospector I just want a score But what makes me better than your average worker Is Ah’ve got m’self a knack for pretty things Nope, gold won’t do it for me Not the silver in those cursed peaks Ah want something bigger Something new, something unique Something Ah can take home on my wall — when Ah get home, that is, ah course -- Point is, Ah want something that’ll set me up for life No more wand’ring dusty streets Ain’t that what you want?” Henry Kneubald didn’t say anything He stared down at the danger His finger ready on the trigger He didn’t say anything
They were moving nigh by sunrise Plowing through a storm Of blazing irondust They pulled on scarves and held their hats Xenthrac told a story For his gills filtered all the toxins out He said his people once believed That an evil god controlled these winds He said it had no common name Some called it Skelim The Sand Master Though it also goes as Otamuris The Evil One And yes, Xeree, you heard right That’s the same thing as the Desert Zirr And yes, Rumerd, He’s heard it called a sand demon too Whatever it is whips up the sand Causes lovers to separate He eats the men and takes the women At least that what they said And yes, he sleeps with them too They’re great stories about it But the storm had subsided by that time By midday the desert had become clear again The path was easily followed Their horses were swift Though Xenthrac found it rather annoying Dealing with a second navigator in his midst He and Xeree learned to get along Deciding which was the best way The day passed uneventfully Until they found the sacred flat There Henry halted them again He looked upon its long expanse Rockless Windless Hillless Houseless Just a stretch of dusty wasteland Leading to the monstrous shadow Of the old mountain palace Whose ancient turrets of stone Cast twisting spirals and minerets across the ground It stood several hundred feet high They looked upon it Tiny though they were They stopped only a moment Then they ran toward their destination
Sunlight had not graced the walls Of the ancient mountain’s sacred halls The only sunlight they could spare Came from the paintings left in there But the guardians had no issues with the dark They were happy as robots could be They didn’t know when But somehow they’d caught The mortsob software That made robots think just like humans thought They’d had it for such a while Their hardwire would could no never be rewired They even picked out their own names Gerrukrog found his first He took it from a magazine Stolen from a dead paratrooper The robot had enjoyed ripping up the pages With his serpent legs picking and choosing Rewording Rephrasing Until finally he got his name Then he had to help Gorra find his They spent three years sounding out possibilities It had to sound pretty with Gerrukrog And embody the robot’s deceptive personality For it was he who carried the whip He who killed three thousand Tommyknockers in the wars He whose eyes flashed red when he cut men in half He who crawled upon the ceiling And he who hung back in the shadows While Gerrukrog’s blaster Mowed men down to pulp and bodiless hips They certainly took their time finding his name But finally the robot got his voice Gorra, he decided To his partner’s delight And that made them both very happy For about two thousand years Then they began to wonder what was outside Picking through corpses Leafing through magazines Huddling around lockets and love letters Deciphering handwritting and meaning behind common phrases The world looked so happy from that point of view It looked like lovers were everywhere And that peace was just outside the door And that women were deities Whose forms were so worshipped in magazines They could find few women of their mountain’s many corpses Most were rotting away to dust and bones Gerrukrog was almost sad That he had no one discuss his discoveries About the world outside But Gorra was built colder And with a more martial software He didn’t care Only studied the murals on every wall Brushed away the dust with tip of blood-crusted whip And surveyed scene after scene Of desert serenity Day on day Year on year But never in their endless lives Did they consider leaving the sacred cave There they stayed Eternally Safeguarding their only dear possession The Suit of Power Whose iron veins and gears Spoke to them And pulled them ever near So close they could barely hear Who was tapping at the door Until it was opened And a gang of cutthroats stepped inside
The entrance of old Zamohey Was flanked on either side By ancient murals whose colors somehow Had survived numberless years of sand and dust and time And hailstorms and tornadoes Midnight freeze and daytime heat Though most of the raised engravings had since chipped away No one could read its ancient writing Nor understand its face of grooves and lines And myriad gnashing teeth and angry eyes Except for Xenthrac It looked enough like Hill Folk manuscripts He stopped short before the door “This is a cursed place,” he said “for Those who enter do not return This is a place of war!” But to this Henry only gave a twitch of his eye And took a look at the giant stone door It was twice as tall as any of them Perhaps three thousand years before It would have been imperceptible From the rest of the rocky face But time had already chipped away At its threshold and facade A rough outline now was easily found And with a few chippings away Of Xeree’s iron fingernails The keyhole too was bared But now there was an argument about the lock Rumerd called it a Gabjex mechanism Usually seen on the sturdiest safes He’d picked a few in his youth But Xenthrac said it couldn’t be Mountain’s over five thousand years old Couldn’t have a new-age lock Plus Kneubald had joined the fray Stepping in between his waring friends He could have sworn it was from the second war A hergatil or something or other He’d cracked a bank a few years that had one Looked just like it But still Xenthrac disagreed On grounds of nonsensicality To which Rumerd also had the chance to say He’d seen one before Looked just like it And Henry said the same And the voices kept cawing louder And the differing accents grew more dissonant Xeree sighed and leaned against the mural’s many heads Kallorg leaned too at her side “Fun to watch the fireworks, ain’t it?” She rolled her eyes and nodded And took the cigarette he offered her It took several minutes of echoed shouting But at last the argument moved away from the door Out to opener desert a few paces away That was the chance Kallorg caroled out a whistle And pulled a key out of his jacket Slipped it in with an affirmative twist And the whole mechanism — whatever it was -- Began to shake and sing With wrenching of metal and calcified things Dust fell from the sky And three sets of angry eyes Turned upon the ancient door Now swinging inward As the stranger turned backward A smart little smile on his ruby cheeks He offered his hand to the inside “Care to join me, gentlemen?” And before any could give him their mumbled “yes” Henry boldly bolted inside
Inside was dark and cold and damp And immediately the smell of decay Brought hands to noses all around A few curses were muttered, but finally They all patched lights to their collars And stepped into that stinking inside “Just a little of Mav’s old pals” Kallorg said And took the lead alongside Henry Who looked all around with his fanciful eye “Xenthrac,” Henry called “know anything?” “No. These are places unknown to my records” They nodded, and continued on Their footsteps echoed all around Down endless wild wily halls Lined with paintings of murder and death Mostly peasants, like Mav had said But if they scrutinized long enough They could find a few noblemen as well Mostly castrated or otherwise mutilated All was pretty but nothing rich But everything was preserved as if An artist lived within this mountain’s halls Everything — floors, ceilings, walls Sparse furniture and wallhangings -- “That’s weird,” Kallorg said Running his fingers down a picture of the sun “Couldn’a been preserved Tomb’s been open recently Why these stay so fresh?” “The air?” said Rumerd, a handkerchief Plastered to his sweating face “Nah, can’t be that Tomb’s been open” Kallorg said “The paint?” said Xeree, her broadsword In hand at her waist “Nah, can’t be Ah seen them paints before They don’t last ‘Les you give ‘em constant care And someone’s been caring a helluva ton For everything in here” Kallorg said “It’s the bots,” Xenthrac told him “Yeah, but why?” said Kallorg “Them’s battlebots, from the wars Why the hell would they help out these old walls?” “Unless,” said Kenubald “they caught it” “Caught what?” asked Xeree “Caught the Mortsob?” Rumerd said That made them all tighten up For even they who knew nothing about machinery Knew what happened when a robot caught the Mortsob disease And the thought of it in a warbot Made the marrow freeze in their crinimal bones And their tough hearts and throats Strove to keep from shaking “What do you think?” Xeree said Standing close by Henry’s side Henry barely bothered a response “Just another wall to cross” he said
At first the robots simply stared Long coats, lighting, skin, nails, hair There was a female among them, they could see And a hill folk, three men, an alien They conversated silently what kind of alien it was They decided thradian Those were the ones with bright red skin And large smiles And they were also known For being wise and possibly poisonous But this one was not the one in charge He posed little threat as far as they could see It was the one with the top hat and the bullet-proof glass They watched him progress stealthily Leading the pack down a narrow wall Following instinct instead of map With that eye he could see in the dark And with the shooter he posed a deadly threat The hill folk was second on their radar Third the woman — those human ones were known For whimsicality and beings makers of violence They pondered what sinister tricks her beauty would wrought On their rotors and wire brains Silent as the grave Gerrukrog climbed upon the ceiling Only the hill folk priest turned their way He called for a halt — it lasted a moment And — though ignored — Gorra could have struck But he held off Hanging from the ceiling by his needle-like fingertips Just watching silent for a single slip His software could analyze to make the death swift Normally Gerrukrog would have already struck Plowed them to pulp the moment he heard the door But the diseased software made such reflexes dull It had already replaced his swiftness coding With lines of thought and consideration That often were known to drive robots insane Perhaps he was mad to let the party pass But in both war-hardened bots Desire to kill Had become desire to watch If this tomb Gerrukrog was alone He would follow them always in the shadows While they wandered for year upon year searching and seeking He would simply admire their lives But this cave of wonders was not his for the keeping Gorra’s metal heart was still metal indeed He followed along silently And suddenly There was the chance A slip of the fat man on a bone The lady paused to help him up And down the battlebot dropped And swung his whip home
It cut before anyone could react Even Gerrukrog was lazy on his internal trigger He shot only when they had shot first Twice from the leader Thrice from the stranger Once as the hill folk pulled his ready cannon from his coat His seventeen fingers blasted a bolt Enough to fry a memory circuit Into noxious pulp But all hit only stinking air The robot was gone And a rain of desecrating fire Billowed from on high Sending them a-scatter Down the hallowed hungry halls All seven of them Flight took every sentient brain And at the sound of slaughter Deep in its iron cave The Suit of Power gave a roar Like the growl of a hungry stomach Demanding blood More and more and more And everything within Heeded it For a few moments they had made Hell in every blood-laden mountain vein Their blasters fired until they could cry no more Blood splattered on the walls Ancient metal ground in dents Scenes of suffering Decapitation All manner of mutilation A massive monster of gold and tentacular glory Flashed and glowed All around And the halls sang with the song of the dead Whose jaws still hung open as they continuously prayed For blood and suffering, guts and gore More and more and more and more Until there could be nothing living anymore Besides the panting and scampering Of those unfortunate souls All seven of them Who would be better off dead
Down the northern hall ran Xenthrac He was corrupt but wasn’t stupid He knew when to run What to abandon When to fight And after the flames from hell had scorched the hall And his canon loosed its final charge He had nothing left for him in there On padded feet he ran Returning to the ancient ways Of his great ancestors underground He slunk between pillars Ran beside walls Tested air with hissing gills And found a suitable place to hide If he shed blood he was sure To pull it back with his suctioning tail Or in the folds of his long coat Which drank it greedily As Westbeast skin was wont to do At last the fighter priest found A hidden knotch where he could Be free to lick his wounds in peace And what wounds he had That bolt from the blue had knocked him too Lashed open half of his third breast It must have plain impaled Rumerd What a shame That boy had such potential At cards and cigarette smoke dreams But no matter If Xenthrac had to loose his precious coat It would drink up his blood as if its beast still lived He pulled it off to reveal his tentacle lined chest Whose many arms cradled many bruises and wounds His gray skin glistened with sweat and streaking blood That now ran freely without shield of coat It splattered on the floor Pooled at his heavy knees He groaned slightly At the sight of so much demise just waiting for him But if he was corrupt Xenthrac wasn’t stupid He knew about that Suit of Power He deciphered — well, half deciphered — the ancient writing He knew what he had to do to save his life The Suit of Power He would find it alone
Now that she was alone Xeree at last tested out her right eye To see if it still worked God, was she lucky That fat bot was made for crowd control Not individuals Especially smart and swift ones like her Still it was a narrow miss by the absolute slimmest of margins This eye might never see sunlight again Even if the skin was just singed And the retina just stained by the blaze Still she persisted And examined what else The firefight had dealt her frame An aching elbow was really cut open Her ankle was twisted and would soon start bloating Her sword had lost a sizable chunk of its blade Her head was bleeding in three separate places The flicker of whip had exposed some bone But it mattered not She had been dealt worse But now she had the chance to breath And pull strings from her tattered dress Fix her hair Make splints Cauterize She found her life now dealt her one option and one option only The Suit of Power She would find it alone
Alone at last Henry could breath long and cold And reload his blaster and mope his brow His heart beat so loud he knew the bots could follow close behind Make it fast Buy some time This was some kind of atrium Whose walls were painted with scenes of a genocide This time he actually looked Upon the well-detailed crying faces Crawling like spiders all along the walls and ceiling Floor and column faces Staring down at him Hundreds of faces He loaded up his backup gun And checked how many fuses he had left Just one It would have to do That fight had come too soon When had they thought they’d come to blows? They didn’t think They followed that stranger Kallorg Was that his name? Henry decided that the first thing he’d do When he found that Suit of Power Would be to tear that stranger’s bloody grin Out of his ruby face And grind down that otherworldly accent Until he could lace it on the passing wind But first he had to find the suit And of all the five who went in with him He reckoned he was the only one unharmed Probably the only one not dead He’d find that suit Nothing to it
Down the spiraling endless halls Like veins the maze twists and turns and rises and falls Its clots become caverns Meeting rooms Stalls where horses once were housed But its winding tunnels through the ground Were mostly just maze To confuse and amaze But the seven whose feet Wandered through the mountain’s heart Found only fear waiting round every bend They pressed their backs against haggard walls And breathing heavily with guns at their ears Peered around the corners Down the walls Up the ceilings For ambushes at every angle Then they would run Like rodents would Their feet the patter of soot-laden raindrops Their eyes wide like the rising moon Their breathing cold and haggard As if each were their last And each might as well be For the living were hunted at every bend And the robots had met their most formidable match With two sole goals: Kill the living Find the suit Neither of which was easily done But they all would give chase and run Lest they be the first to get the job done At least, so did Henry And well he did until A certain face appeared from the dark of a hall And sauntering unashamedly approached him straightly “Well, ain’t it you?” said the stranger And he doffed his hat “Howdy do, Henry Kneubald? Mind if Ah ahccomp’ny you?”
The first shot blew right through him The second ricocheted The third was loud enough to wake a corpse Still the ghost of the stranger stood before And smiled still As wide and wily as when they first met “Might wake the robots,” the stranger said “What is going on…” whispered Henry “Oh Ah just thought,” said back the red man “it was a good time To jump into a portal out of here Don’t worry, I’m still here At least in spirit Like a ghost” And he held out the word as if it were a joke Henry gave no laughing He held the gun to the phantom forehead “You sold us out” “Oh, no no no, Ah couldn’t do that Hell, Ah’m not even here All Ah did was a little bit Of harmless dimension jumping Ah’m sure you know what that is” “Shut up! You left us to those things!” “Well, Ah did dent one That count for anything?” Henry fired once more But it hit nothing Just echoed down the hall Kallorg took off his hat which sat Over a smooth red skull of little red hairs “Now, Mister Kneubald,” he said as Mister Kneubald stared “Ah’m In a rather dangerous place Ah’d reckon even more dangerous than the one you’re in Ah’m in-between plains of existences And that’s not a nice place to be Luckily Ah’m an expert at this sort o’thing But ‘cus Ah’m an expert Ah know one thing Ah’m stuck here for about the next hour So you know what that means?” The jerk in Henry’s heated veins Made a shake of his head Enough for the ghostly man to see “Well it means, Mister Kneubald, that Ah Won’t be able to join in our little quest For the next few days at least Or maybe centuries But the truth is Now you know my little secret Ah know buyers from other galaxies Bigger than you could ever imagine Even in your wildest dreams So Ah got one deal for you You get the suit And when Ah get back We take it to someone who’s got the money We both need And trust me Ah know who to sell this to But first thing first Ah’ll say it again Get the suit Then we’ll talk How’s that?” Henry had nothing to say Maybe he’d lost more blood than he thought Or it was the rip in the space-time continuum That was messing with his head Instead he managed to nod By accident of straining muscles again And the wily man with blood-red skin Nodded back at him “Well now that’s covered over,” he said “Ah Think Ah’ll take my leave Be seeing you Mister Henry” And he disappeared into the abyss Of space and time Out of sight Though not out of mind
Gorra and Gerrukrog followed the sound But by the time they had appeared Henry was gone already Gorra’s motion sensors picked up nothing But Gerrukrog’s head began to fry “Malfunction malfunction” ran across his eyes Gorra sensed it too A trick Witty deception Some kind of dark science lost long ago to mankind If he wanted to he could decipher its hexillion lines of code Perhaps in a few million years he could figure Where exactly the portal had transfered But no Now was hunt He turned Gerrukrog back to where His software was better suited to roam And sought after the two trespassers Alone
Gerrukrog first found evidence Of an intruder’s whereabouts in the hall of decapitation Some fresh blood was left on a pile of skulls Gerrukrog was not built to analyze But the long strand of hair was enough to provide He was after the girl The lovely girl He wondered what she would look like Or if she were already dead With his ten serpent legs he tied the lock To his sixth eye which swiveled all around It was a comforting feeling At least to his sensors blinking To know he carried The mark of a great deity From the human realm But Suddenly As he was wandering by The mass murder of the Eoqwi kind Whose blood in colored tiles Was tempered on the floor Gerrukrog realized That he was not alone The scent of hair The boil of blood He lifted his laser and looked around His head rotated 360 degrees round His legs lifted him to ambush mode His massive chest with sinews like catacombs Lifted upwards slowly like the rising of the sun A rectangular, whirling, blackened sun Yet he didn’t see her Didn’t call out Didn’t stare Until his processing figured to where The little goddess had disappeared By then he was too late She was above him Moving silently Slipping over mossy rafters Gun in hand Eye burned black Staring down at his curving back Suddenly the robot struck Swiveling around Weapon arm cocked He shot and hit nothing Leaving just a smoldering splotch In the ancient landscape painting Of murder of minorities The girl was gone But not for long He shot again at her heels as she fled to higher ground The missing things from missing eye loosened what was in her usually sly She was slow enough for her clothes To catch the blue glow of every bolt Gerrukrog shot twice more Once too low Once too high Then he shot once more But she was already gone Over the lip of an upper cave Hiding deep inside Where decapitated heads would stare her down And speak with ever-open mouths Their final secrets that their skulls still kept silent There the woman hid And there the monster stared Until at last he swiveled back his body And approached on serpent feet The sound was little a million rattlesnakes And moving of stones out of a grave He pressed his arms against the wall Then stepped back Lit up the charge Hied up the energy Turned and shot again Bits and pieces of rock beat against his chest But he was not human It had no effect on him He shot again And again and again And as the hailstorm beat his chest The wall was naturally falling away Images of slaughter blasting to oblivion Until only bits of broken tile tears Speckled the floor and walls and air Yet still in the cavern up above The little woman clung Hanging close to the skulls whose putrid breath Promised her dozens of evil secrets With each blast more and more and more skulls Fell to shatter in final death The wall was iron-filled — she checked — She would need a better battle plan She held her blaster close to beating heaving chest At last the moment came She saw the red eye peaking high Above the lip of the cavern wall She shot without thinking It blasted off the lens The robot screamed and spat Red sparks that burned right through her clothes She screamed as she scrambled out of its way Kicking her boot into the socket aflame But then she saw five other eyes Two on one face On the back On the sides She barely paused to see how many Had latched their gaze upon her face She rolled off the ledge and ran Cutting open shoulders and arms and legs To fly to the open corridor way She heard the head twirl to a better view Then the shots flew Whizzing back Frying the ends her hair Melting the metal on her boots The only shot that would have hit Crashed down a pillar that took down the roof She just managed to duck She managed to run And the rubble at last barred the robot At last she stumbled on a bit of bone She fell to her face Crawled to the nearest burrow And there she let the tears fall at last Clutching the gun to her heaving chest And waited to know where her life would take her next
Meanwhile the man-hut two chambers over Continued on with quiet feet They heard the reverberation in the other hall Felt the debris fall Their heels crunched on grit for a few more steps But Henry didn’t care Neither did Gorra stop Each had yet to learn where the other was So they continued on Hoping the scent of decay would let them lie Below the prying eyes of the hunter and hunted Most of all they both wanted loneliness To find what they desired free of interfering guns and eyes Henry ran between the pillars and against walls Gorra climbed to the ceiling and swung between Columns and palisades on his whip hand shrieking But even with better height Nothing met his mechanical eye But the eyes of the dead and damned decorating the wall — pictures all He had seen before and grown to adore — But hunt was on Gorra’s electric mind And Henry was consumed by desire to find The Suit of Power It blinded him to all but sound He moved silently beneath the corpses all around Until he finally found A map Of all things In a soldier’s decaying hand pointing to the open corridor He snatched it Unfortunately it had a stone in it Sometime that had fallen from the ceiling many years ago But when it was moved It moved with the scrap of paper Just only part way Then it slipped to midair And splattered on the floor Sending near-tangible sound waves in every direction Henry’s blood ran cold He swore inside And bolted for the nearest way He was nearly too late The whip crashed above him Threatening to slice open the crown of his skull Gorra landed with metal toes grinding In the dust the crook had left behind He stood as gaunt and crooked as an angel of death Or a living skeleton No matter what he looked like Henry still shot Six rounds he fired at the glowing red eyes Until at last the bot could focus And cracked the gun right out of his wrist It exploded against the wall And the fire was just enough for Henry to pull His second blaster from his belt And just as the monster stepped up to him He blew a bolt in its chest Now Normally Gorra would only ever face Even on the worst if battle days Boulders that crashed down on his head and back But this was a direct high-charged blast It not only broke his metal skin But fried his wiring system three inches in And for a creature whose body is just seven inches deep The wound was rather serious At least for the first five seconds After that Gorra was back on his feet By ten his circuitry was repatching itself On his last-defense-self-preservation programming But by the time he was ready once again To throw his whip and sever scalps Henry Kneubald was long gone The hunt began again
Meanwhile In the corridor of torture Xenthrac traveled swiftly by His many-armed body hugging its many wounds He kept his head aswivel The feelers on his face Snared and tasted every spec of air Their one-inch length could trace Without his coat his heavy feet We no longer muffled silent But the weapons on his waist and chest Would take care of anything that followed him Painted painful faces watched him pass Faces whose heads were being crushed Faces whose hearts were being extracted Whose arms were being skinned Whose chests were caving in Whose legs were being deviated Whose bones were being pulled Xenthrac was a religious man He paid them no mind at all Until he by chance turned and saw A whole muralled wall of his own Hill Folk being massacred Their bodies of many tentacles and dusk-brown flesh And feeler-bearded faces and cavernous mouths Screaming out in a circle around The gold-shining Suit of Power Whose many serpent legs Impaled and crushed and strangled and snapped The bodies all around it Against a blood-red sunset sky Xenthrac stooped to stare a while But it stretched into several minutes Both disgusted and entranced by the detail in the blood And the individual brushstrokes that made up the many bodies These were not humanized depictions of the Hill Folk That most humans liked to draw These were real natural Hill Folk beasts The many arms and many tentacles and inhuman faces all agreed It was a tantalizing truth that brought strange feelings in his gullet to see But suddenly The feelers felt the taste of the twisting of a trigger And he turned round and dodge just as the blast resounded It blew the painted agony to minuscule smithereens And after three shots of Xenthrac’s triggerfinger He could make out the features of a face In an upper cavern whose stone staircase had faded away It was Rumerd Buceion Xenthrac knew that look That manic eye That angry smile That itchy trigger And that erratic shot that sawed through everything But Rumerd was not the cigar smoker This was the gunslinger This Rumerd made murder and mistakes Not clever talk and card tricks Xenthrac knew this Rumerd less — Sure, he’d heard all the legends the winds and travelers had But seeing such myths in real life is Not the same as idle listening — And now the old priest had to choose which path to take To get around this wild desert deathmaker “Rumerd,” he called, just in case His old friend was in there somewhere, somehow “I Thought we’d lost you!” To this Rumerd said Nothing Only gave a short manic laugh That was when Xenthrac began to think Maybe that deadly wound had been deadly indeed Maybe that whip was laced with more than metal seams Maybe whatever poison that ancient bot gave Had taken too much of its toll on Rumerd’s brain Xenthrac chose a more diplomatic path “Hey Rumerd,” he said “put that gun down It’s just me You know me We’re friends even here Aren’t we I know what you want We can get it together We need the two of us for this Right? Right? Rumerd Put the gun down” But Rumerd would not In fact he held it higher And the busted light on his chest Illuminated reams of sweat Caking his neck and wrists and fingertips Despite the frigid cold As he shifted his wobbling stance The white light glanced off the whip wound on his chest It was amazingly deep Dark inside and glittering There was a bit of bone White and broken off Dripping marrow On his ripped-apart attire But Rumerd didn’t care one bit standing up there His eyes had gone wide and maniacal His smile was too bright “Rumerd,” said Xenthrac, bracing up his legs to run “I Think you should be thinking more About what you think you’re doing Pointing that thing at me We’re pals, Rumerd Known you for years You wouldn’t blow me away if you Thought it a little through Just think for a moment” But it had gone to far The smoke had lifted Leaving monsters behind Rumerd’s smile left his teeth so exposed They nearly glowed as he fired shot after shot And bolt after careless bolt blew pain away Off the wall which depicted Hill Folk slaughter But the one living Hill Folk evaded them all He was large but nimble without his coat At certain moments his malleable body Looked very human in stance and form But in the next his figure had reformed Into a blobular watery mass That could roll and shamble like a thing from hell — He was Hill Folk, after all was done and well -- But at long long last He was able to fire his canon at His old friend It missed Just enough to hit The ledge above Rumerd’s head It gave way at the slightest tap And rained down rocks on the corridor of torture Burying the floor and room and cavern above In rocks that stank of fighting and death Bone rained down along with it Mass graves of human, tommyknocker, Hill Folk, Aliens, magicians, demons, gods They cut at Xenthrac’s tentacles He cried out as scapulas like razors Exploded on his back as he ran below At last he was out of the landslide’s way A new wall had formed in the old labyrinth Heaving air through bleeding face The priest continued down another way
If only she knew where she was Xeree would not contemplate Her life in such a condescending way They way she saw it She made two grave mistakes It was always a stupid mistake To fall in with Csakka’s lot She should have known the price would rise Both hers and the ones she was paid Her mother once had made her dream Of glory and other joyous things But she was on so much drug and drink She barely spent time remembering Those aspirations became those memories Csakka boiled in her perfume That she spread out across the room That dissipated in the air That disappeared to god knows where What on the whole forsaken cosmos Made her strangle old Csakka Was it that they both were drunk Or someone paid Xeree off Or maybe when he did he promised her He’d fix it up So that she could have her mother’s dreams again How could she know She was drunk That was a stupid choice nonetheless Let Csakka die Let Henry rise And no one was worse than Henry Kneubald She should have known that earlier Csakka used to say join what you hate But this was some more deadly kind of hate She’d heard his name Associated with no less than seventy high crimes He must have started killing when he was five Dirty deeds under his belt before he came And made her take Csakka away That was a mistake Because soon Nobody would stay around And Henry had her all to himself At least he was halfway decent One of those gentlemen robbers or top hat killers She couldn’t tell But he’d led that town to hell No one got out without paying him Half of what they dug up or made Even the mayor was scared of him That’s the only reason Rumerd stuck around He had that way with people That kind of careful manipulation You don’t notice til it’s gone too far to crawl away Though Xeree’d been waiting for that day When she had just enough money To blow Buchbard forever Start over somewhere safer Never seen Henry Kneubald again But this It was stupid her who asked for this Still sniffing around for forgotten perfume She’d drink that fragrant poison if she had the chance And that’s what she’d done Ran off with dreams again That drove her through prickerbushes and bramble swamps Now she was lost within one of them And like every other time She tried her luck on this sort of stuff She’d find a way out again
Passing through the halls Squinting and cussing at minuscule map Henry Kneubald found the time was ripe to reflect What just went wrong He couldn’t decide It must have started out with that stranger drifting in He was here for the money Went straight to a spot where he knew he could find A group of suckers who were so stupidly deprived Of real wealth they’d follow anyone to a stupid treasure Stupid decision Luckily Henry hadn’t made it alone But then there was the other wrong turn he’d made Abandon the team and take this road alone Sure it was a fine technique Millions of crooks had done before But this time he was tied up in A one-v-one instead of one-v-four And this thing was built to kill Worse than any man who’d walked these cursed hills He should have rallied this team Instead of go it alone Funny Alone had always worked before Maybe he was going soft It would be for that girl in Tangerine Sweet Dorsey Lovely girl of golden hair Who should have thought A guy like him would go so soft Over a little girl But that was a long while ago Might as well be several years Even though it all was several months He had to keep going He was thinking too much Third mistake was taking this map He’d gone in circles several times Walked head first into caved-in dead ends Lost his landmarks and his temper Luckily that battlebot was far away Though sometimes he heard it stomping by above That was the only reason he would stop Switch off his coat’s lights and huddle behind A pillar or obelisk or crumbling pedestal And try without success To figure where in this hole he was headed If only he hadn’t bothered with the map Would have saved him some shot and a fine firearm He could find it better on his own Alone The way it was supposed to be But sweet Dorsey Left alone in Tangerine That was the women he would go through This horroble hell hole With its killer guardians And its constant collapsing walls If he and she were finally married He would never have to flee the law again He’d give it up That was the plan And may every god from the Hill Folk pantheon Try to stop him He would finish it
Xenthrac had been living long indeed Little of it was worth mentioning Even to himself Or the mosaics all around But he still kept thinking what parts of his time on the Silver Hills Were worth remembering Just in case he was going to die There was that time when he was a boy Back when his dominant arms hadn’t formed up yet He came face to face with a Westbeast Before that he had only seen Their skins in the coats his father wore He didn’t know that Westbeast had teeth Or scales on their hands and grubby feet Or seven eyes with such horrible glow Fighting through a tangled mess of hair Matted down into blood-tipped bramble leaves It grunted at him Stomped three legs Gnashed its maw Then ran away For Xenthrac’s mother had appeared And rolled screaming with three sticks in her grasp It was a young one It was just as afraid As Xenthrac was to see it stare at him It was just testing out hunting It would be back someday But it never did His village was attacked and burned down Raid from another town But his father held them back They regrouped in a little cave An abandoned silver mine That was where he found he loved money more than scripture Within the month they managed to find And drag in the opposing priest Then they tore him apart with hoes and rakes from their busted fields Xenthrac very clearly remembered the screams Those howling deep cries from his massive face Those tears that he cried And the blood Like sewage water Spewing out all over the ground Decorating feet and feelers and faces Weapons broke in ribs Rocks spewed in fat His coat of Westbeast skin Was snatched out of the fray And landed somehow at Xenthrac’s feet That was what religion was about And the noise — the noise! — Never had Xenthrac heard such noise The cave was so low it threw the screaming from either side All over the air Everywhere And for many years Xenthrac would remember that screaming It would guide his studies Stand behind his sermons Validate his worth Maybe that was all he had to think about There was little else noteworthy he had lived through The age of conquest between religious clans Had come and gone when he was young The military class came back as politicians Religion was now a social glue Not the real society His life became horribly easy No wonder he sought stagecoach robbery And other criminal activities Though if he had one thing to say Henry Kneubald was a mistake It was easier when he was just himself And his gun and his coat and some hired hands But these big operations were dangerous stuff People get hurt People get killed People get mutilated and friendship get mangled He knew the risks — one of the few things he could do well — But this Was stupid This was something he would prefer to forget Go back to his books and his foolish congregations Live a thousand years more in useless bliss Than mess around with such crooks as Henry Kneubald Rumerd Buceion Xeree Though she was more victim than he could ever be Doesn’t mean he cared what happened to her Once he got out of this They’d never even see him again
Oh the glory of being and seeing and breaking And snapping and smashing the skeletons and corpses He staggered down the hall with a smile on his lips Sometimes the pain came back and snatched his entire brain Made finding the wonderland too difficult to bear The white of his bone ached until he cried And fell crippled on his side But if he twisted his spine just right The pain would all go away And the wonderland flooded back In long and delicate Sumptuous pink waves And washed his head in sweat that beaded like lace It made him sing But his throat had gone dry He only managed to right himself against the fire in his inner chest And race again down the halls Entranced in how wonderful it was How grand and fluffy and like a dream it all was Slipping in and out of realities His favorite was the other one Where he was king of a steam-powered castle Where he walked on roads paved over with gears And had pretty robot girls sing to him And had robot birds and hand-crafted panthers And windup dancers who twirled beneath Tall marble pillars and emerald colonnades And the music The music! It hissed through his brain And annihilated the pain until he could bear the dream no more Then he would fall into crying on the cold floor Until he managed to twist his spine wrong again Then he was back on his feet Swinging back into the dream Eventually He couldn’t decide Whether he should try to live to see the castle or fall down and die But as the choice became less clear As the ancient poison worked deeper and deeper The slipping back to reality Became less and less easily seen Soon the winding catacomb halls Were inextricably indistinct From his own mansion in which he was king He followed whatever wild fancy his brain could contrive He wandered wild Smiling Forever lost inside
Gerrukrog had lived plenty long He measured his life against blaster shots And the recharging whirling in his chest After each fire fight came and went by That would make him near three thousand years old If one year was one century And varied depending on activity All he knew was Humans counted their lives by their years But this year was exceptionally long Even armies didn’t take run so far Nor so fast Nor threw so many shots his way Now brought such a crafty woman his way At least his programming thought her face was feminine enough Though when she was afraid She looked very male indeed He knew there were others Some fat man shambled by above Laughing uncontrollably He would die by Gorra’s defunct poison Whether Gerrukrog shot or not And behind a wall he caught ear of The Hill Folk man Bleeding from several spots Cradling weapons in shivering hands But Gerrukrog let him pass His mechanical brain was fully trained On that nimble young goddess who ran through his halls He wanted to look upon her again See just what these mortal men Worshipped so much He had never had a god Besides the Suit of Power But that was more a master And a nuisance Do this Do that Kill them all Do it now It told no stories Was worshipped by no one Shouted at everyone What was a loving goddess like? Were they gentle? Were they kind? Were the soft like all humans? Or did they have bones of steel To combat the admiration of their followers? Were they immortal like their pictures were? Gerrukrog had never had anything to desire so fiercely Than when chasing this person This little idol His metal nature had left him without Now his programming gone completely rouge Gone completely insane No one could guess he was a battle bot No one could guess he had killed a single man How easily He was swayed by a pretty girl Without a single heart to beat
And then the robot saw it Henry saw it too Like a flash from the blue Each other standing very still Each in grief and deep thinking But now such humanity had no place in them Immediately they drew their weaponry Across the entire edifice Gorra swung on his whip His other arm revealed a ruffle of razor blades Only for close fighting His programming said But Henry was ready He was not only twelve feet away By the moment the monster’s Crooked feet hit the grime-slick floor But he had already fired six shots Each time nearing that hole in the crooked monster’s chest But eight were in his gun And this was his second-to-last one He paused in his barrage To tuck it in a pocket And pick out another That was just enough For Gorra to shamble up to him Gears clicking and whirling like death itself Limbs aching back and forth like ships upon the sea Eyes glowing like cold inferno fires Seven feet above the floor Still hunching over his whip That thrashed with symphony of snapping spines Across stone walls And metal legs The very sight Sent a shock through Henry’s trigger finger Which rolled into his heart and all through his spine And bathed him in a frigid sweat To see those demon eyes crawling near Nearer Nearer No matter how many times he shot Suddenly his heart dropped from his chest And there was a moment Of silence Where he saw twin mountains of death Between which walked His one true love Walking away Then suddenly Like a deity A splatter of red and black crossed between The whip and Henry It shined like sunlight And bathed the world in cold red and white teeth Only when the light had blinded Henry even through his monocle And he had fallen back and scrambled for his feet Did he realize It was that stranger in red Floating like an angel Half translucent Half gazing down at him “Why don't you run on outta here” The angel said And by Hell Did Henry listen
And suddenly Crawling from the gloom With one side of its face smoking sulfur Gerrukrog ambled from the dark Weapon aimed upon the ground And immediately his mechanical eyes Were blinded by Xeree’s lights She had been so deep in thought And reminiscings of drug-induced dreams She had barely heard the churning of machinery And then He was there Across the way from her His glowing yellow split through the fog of her ruined sight And as his monstrous metal-bound chest lifted high Legs squirming like limbs of a furious squid As it suddenly barreled down the hall Toward the little distraught lady The sudden explosion of noise and freakish sight Sent a shiver right through terrified Xeree Shrieking an accidental battle cry She lifted that gun she had been cradling And fired seven times into its approaching head Stepping backwards three times until A mural of murder halted her flight Four shots had missed Two had hit shoulder One had managed to blister the chest But now her trigger hissed emptiness For a moment Xeree beheld death It had two eyes like a stoplight’s Ten feet above her Closing in With a metal cape of darkness Closing in Enveloping her Like a coffin’s embrace Between the robot’s blaster and this portrait Of women screaming Holding infants Whose heads were missing The priest at her funeral Is the golden effigy of that hidden Suit of Power Yet despite in her heartbeat’s softening In acceptance of solemn fate A second passed Another Another And while she stared at glowing eye With beads of sweat on heaving breast The robot crouched over serpentine legs His face in her face Blasters by her legs Just staring at each other In silence Then its horrible head began to buzz And whirl and steam Its busted eye fumed more and more Processing Processing The programming said Processing Processing Said the foreign software And both coding systems had plenty to work his wiring upon Xeree’s brain was empty save The rapid beating of her little heart And that’s the way they stayed Until a shot from thirty feet away Blew out Gerrukrog’s second eye
Of all the stupid decisions he made — which were few Because Xenthrac was greedy not stupid -- This was the king of his stupidity Shooting at that thing For Xeree’s sake Maybe it was because he didn’t want To see her blood And bones And guts Because he remembered seeing her in the street Begging for coins from drunk strangers Who left her half crying Or maybe it was because he Was still — stupidly — tied up in his dream That the gang wouldn’t break up And he’d be rewarded someday By a similar shot to back of a beast But of all the stupid decisions he could make Pulling that trigger was their king Immediately Gerrukrog’s attention turned to the old Hill Folk Priest Luckily Xenthrac had already started running He had gotten just far enough away That the barrage whizzed over his head But the robot’s aim would improve Its head had already swiveled to a new eye But As if in the nick of time A few shots blew into its back They were weak The bolts had not been charged fully yet But it was just enough time for the two of them To get away Down separate paths And that left Xeree to her shivering And Xenthrac to his cursing And Gerrukrog to his sorrow And the hall to its dust
When the dream began to go spotty Rumerd realized Through a tingle in the back of his mind That he was dying Slowly Dying Which was likewise overly evident From the way the dream was turning Back into reality This dream was lapsing into The Mayor’s Hall And his father’s clothes And the cigarette smoke that breathed prosperity The robotic servants became the people Who lifted their noses when he came their way The dancing girls stopped prancing Their faces shifted into the cold gaze Of his father’s wife and half-sisters The music was disappearing He had to fight to keep the dream half-alive The was never enough Energy Motivation Time He stumbled more often The tears fell over haggard breath His heart resounded through the palace halls Slow Deep Cold Crying tears over haggard breath Still he rose back to his feet Whose soles were soaked through with blood and gunk And he chased after that dream Even if it was his father’s life That was flashing before his eyes Taunting him his fast-departing life If he had the chance to grasp it Rumerd would have it Dying as he was
With his original hard drive scrambling unstably Reiterating command after fruitless command Trying to define exactly what had just happened The invader software had free rein To return quite smoothly back to its original train Of thinking Commanding thoughts to run With just enough consideration to make human pain flood All through the fire All through his busted circuitry Gorra sat and pondered What all of the killing and the slaughtering could mean What did it mean All he could see were the pictures — old photographic memories Stored in a small place that had stopped deleting Somehow sent bleeding all through his wire brain -- Bloodsplattered catacombs Crying children Missing mothers Eviscerated fathers whose little hands Pulled at his whip while he stalked away Back down the mineshafts Where all of his nightmares were made and set And whenever a command managed to pass Gorra’s sentience returned to the present And he could sense Through eyes and wily feelers on his whip That his special prey in the tall black hat And the glowy monocle Was getting away And yet Gorra chose to do nothing about it There was too much pain Too much pain But suddenly the last command That fateful last command Reinstated the killer coding back into its rightful place And Gorra shot out of his misery And shot after Henry Absolutely compassionless
Now Gerrukrog was deadly hurt He lurched by Angry with cold coding verified The round of fire without a sing shot of his own Had flourished his old ways back into being He would mow down anything that came in his way And so he ambled by Legs whirling and curling Eyes glowing wide His cannon upraised jerked toward every sound He wandered around Targetless Lifeless He was wandering around When suddenly a little sound Hearkened ambush from a higher floor It would have smashed his tender head Rendered his once-360 vision useless It would have totaled him for the rest Of eternity’s heavenly end But Gerrukrog was a war robot He was not made to die in stinking caves He was the master of a million graves He shot before the warrior hit her mark But then the terrible invading software Kicked back into his circuitry And eclipsed the killer inside of him He stared at the remains He had killed his only idol He could not break away
Henry heard the shot It knocked a few pebbles onto his heavy hat And over his map He paid it little heed He was busy Squinting over ancient writing Muttering old graffiti Then bolting down meandering halls Floors like riverbeds Wall slick as glass Paintings glaring down at him He paid them little heed He had more important things To occupy his racing mind His heart beat fast Couldn’t be too far away Maybe another hall Maybe another doorway He flashed by thinking Feet pounding Heart racing Everything else was several thousand miles away They were trapped behind a sound-proof sill Past the adamantium mines And the cursed hills He ran and ran and ran away They couldn’t catch him now He swore They couldn’t catch him now But Henry didn’t need any catching He wasn’t caught He simply stopped He hadn’t even heard the footsteps Shambling nearer The little laughter The hissing air It was near too late before he caught sight Of a familiar form Coming closer from the dark “Rumerd,” he said, and frowned “Well I could have sworn the thing had killed you Good to see you” but by then Rumerd had ambled close enough That the light on Henry’s coat And the flicker of his monocle eye Illuminated the dying image Rumerd — squinting — laughed He cried from one eye Held a hand to shield the other Had Henry not known better He’d say Rumerd had bathed his half in blood He’d bled worse than castration Within a few seconds it was evident That this really was their end Almost a year of hold-ups and robberies Fraud and deception Various unpleasantries And again another chapter in Henry’s villainy Came to a frigid period Upon a half-filled page He stepped away As the man fell forward Pitching on shivering knees Healthy stomach now deadly weight Like a nest of spiders from his chest He slipped once more on slickened shoe And fell face first His head slipped to its cheek His hand buried underneath His coat spread around him He laughed one more time with crying eye And then went silent
It he ever had the patience Or the time Or the resilience of lack of concentration Enough to really wear a cigar down Until it was only a pulp from which He could get no satisfaction from Rumerd would watch the last rough whisper of smoke Curl off into the ceiling Those heavy gray roads Were always most fragrant And most slow They took their time to rise And leave And when they were gone Rumerd was left feeling Empty Needing another cigar That would only Leave him empty again He saw those lingering wisps once again In his father’s cigar Just a few more steps And the old man would be dead Strangled Stabbed It didn’t matter Rumerd would do it Just before those last heavy coils Disappeared into the ceiling And For once He was full and happy But Someone had crushed his cigar long ago It was just dust Grasping at dust Going dark
It was half too late for the old Hill Folk priest When he realized He was still loosing too much blood Way too much blood His coat would have sucked him dry But the damp heat here Was draining him just the same The corpses that he passed he Donated blood half by accident Cussing when he saw his own generosity It reminded him of Hill Folk rituals And he didn’t want homesickness if he was about to die Dying was always a sickening thought Now joining these old halls Made him feel unequivocally sick Vulgar Commoner His father would shout at him Fool Imbecile The rest were words only his native tongue could pronounce And only his native hand could spell All still burned to think about Fool Imbecile Chasing dreams again Xenthrac? Missing studies for these dreams? What war will you fight? Who will you kill? Grown and drying Xenthrac pushed the memory aside Trying to find his path again He was lost Just right So he decided to look for a way out Turning around That would put the memories to rest But then He saw a long passage way Paved over Bathed in gold It suddenly worried him Maybe he had lost enough blood Like Rumerd Wherever he was But no It was real He touched it Rubbed it between his fingers And his thoughts and memories disappeared Into an abyss Called greed
Waving along his whip With nimble footsteps And all machine senses Hypercharged to 700 percent Gorra wandered in hot persist Attuned to everything But his near-human compassion He still had his thoughts At least what was left of them Twice he’d failed He could strike one more time Kill that foolish face in the monocle Romping down his sacred halls Desecration to the Suit of Power Fools to think that he Could be so easily beaten between Bullet and whiplash hand Gorra had lost compassion for that fickle human man Metal against muscle Crushing muscle Was his plan But though he traveled fast enough With metal brain trained on distant footsteps He was not fast enough to catch That fiendish little puny human Before he found the golden hall The center of the labyrinth Where the Suit of Power slept in royal bed Of corpses it had killed before Its sleep was sentenced to eternity Imagine that foolish little human In the coffin of the armor A golden lovely godly coffin It enraged poor Gorra horribly To think that terrible ancient storied suit Would kill his special victim in place of his whip And Gorra knew rage as much as he knew hate He bolted down that golden hall Poised to kill Fulfill his fate
One of Henry Kneubald’s richest gigs Happened when he was twelve He and a gang held a family of three Captive while the father showed them a mineshaft he found It was paved over with gold nuggets From the ceiling All across the ground Stomp and half a pound of riches would fall He snatched a few in his pocket Before the shootout rang out Normally Henry remembered that moment As the death of his old leader Daniel Red Not only was Red shot seven times But he was also impaled by a falling stalactite Then the whole cave fell in But Now Running down the golden hall Whose smiling regal faces gleamed upon the walls Henry remembered the thrill of the sin Of greed He forgot what he had seen it do To men’s minds and bodies No matter Profit was all he could see