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.
IX
The mourning began when the doves circled Vingaard:
the poison had passed through the veins like imagined fires:
and alone in his quarters, the poet's apprentice
abided the funerals, settled accounts, awaited
the search of the Order through ravaged Solamnia
for rivals and villains, for the trails of assassins,
and late on the fifth night after the burning,
when the ashes had settled on Arion's pyre,
only then did Hieronymo bring forth the harp
(though some there were curious, who late in the night
had heard, or had thought they heard, the apprentice
weeping and playing the sonorous mode of the Rending),
and late on the fifth night after the burning
Hieronymo sang for the host at the Vingaard Keep
and the Rending changed as he spoke of its birth
in the spiral of prophecy, the brush of its wing
on the glittering domes and spires of Istar
the swelling of moons and the stars' convergence
and voices and thunderings and lightnings and
earthquakes
as Hieronymo told them that night by the hearth
that hail and fire in a downpour of blood
tumbled to earth, igniting the trees and the grass,
and the mountains were burning, and the sea became
blood
and above and below us the heavens were scattered,
and locusts and scorpions wandered the face of the
planet,
as Hieronymo told us, and then he leaned closer
and NOW, he said, NOW, I SHALL TEACH YOU
OF TIME
OF THE FAMINE AND PLAGUE AND PYRRHUS ALECTO
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