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Terminus Est

from Divine Intervention by Julia Ecklar

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If you don’t know what the title means, brush up on your Latin or go out and read Gene Wolfe’s excellent The Book of the New Sun series (consisting of the individual books The Shadow of the Torturer, The Claw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor, and The Citadel of the Autarch — you can hear most of the titles hiding in the lyrics).

As a bonus, you’ll also learn the meaning of words like “fuligin,” “lictor,” and “autarch.”

I read The Shadow of the Torturer, and was completely blown away by Wolfe’s world and language. Stuck in Pittsburgh rush hour traffic on the way to work, the entire first verse just popped fully-formed into my head, guitar part and all. I wrote it down, and played it for my friend Ann Cecil (who also loved the books), telling her, “I’m going to wait until I read the other books in the series before finishing it, so that I’ll really understand what it’s all about.”

“Oh,” she said, a little dismally, “I don’t think you want to do that.”

Five years after reading the last novel, I finally finished the song.

It has perhaps my favorite guitar accompaniment of anything I’ve written (played on electric guitar here), and something about the word games I was able to construct in the lyrics still makes me very pleased with how the piece finally came out (five years of assimilation notwithstanding).

Michael Moricz quote of the day: “Have you ever thought about doing this heavy metal?”

lyrics

The shadow hovers o’er us, old and long,
Its power fuligin and vast.
Tradition slithers ‘round us;
Like serpent’s coils it’s bound us —
Bound us to the shadow of the torturer’s mask.
An ancient place the one I have and hold,
An ancient lesson I do learn.
Our job to slay the people,
Our fate to do the evil.
“Pity the poor prisoners, may the torturers burn!”

We must not sway beneath our heinous work;
Compassion is the greatest crime.
I take one life in kindness,
They damn me for my blindness
And I’ll bear that stigma ‘til the end of my time.

Her memories haunt me when I’m most alone;
No longer can I see the right.
Unwilling penance claws me,
Conciliation draws me
Into my grim future, into Urth’s blackest night.

The sword of this sad lictor
Of uncounted deaths can tell.
Her blade marks the division
Between living death and Hell.

So as I journey toward a hated post,
Despair is in her finest hour.
Upon God’s path must I tread,
My fate to make and raise dead,
Wielding like a sword an old and Urth-saving power.

If I but knew the use of what I’ve learned
Some hope might override my strife.
Can death be so appalling?
Humanity is calling
Me to be their Savior at the risk of my life,

While I must sew the Death
From which a new sun must rise.

credits

from Divine Intervention, released August 27, 1986

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Julia Ecklar Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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