What should I tell you?
About molten steel
Industrial lava
Incinerating everything
As I stare into red oblivion
About shattered shop windows
Blown out by shotgun blasts
Fired from some kid’s old Ford
About scratching skin bloody
Through grain dust so thick
You wait to drown a dry death
About priests in black with
White neon collars nailing us
To crosses we carved ourselves
About small men fighting
For little gain, unheroic,
The appalling pettiness pervasive
No. I will tell you of this
Hot black coffee and
Warm crusty rolls slathered
With butter shared with my father
Before going to work together.
The world is young, dark, and rough. But the bright light of civilization illuminates the highly advanced Island Nation of Athlan, a country of order, balance, and progress.
However, the world is changing, and what is solid becomes fractured. Amidst this epic era of devolution, the never-ending cosmic battle for control of earth has centered on Athlan. While celestial forces gather, wielding power unimagined, the Marfach Gardai, human defenders of Athlan, ready themselves for the final conflict with the lethal, mindless Armies of the Night. Athlanians, great and small, men and women, will die in bloody droves, incapable of understanding or escaping their fate as Great Athlan destroys itself. Witnessing the battle for her planet, Mother Earth joins the fray with a small but extremely potent cadre of once-women who defend the earth with their lives. In the end, everyone will become a pawn on the empyrean board of life and death, and the game is in doubt . . .
