Ordo Draconis
								When the Cycle Ends

A Crimson Dawn
or
An Overture to the Raven-Feathered Queen
(Words by Midhir) 

The introduction (as included in the booklet):
The scenery of "A Crimson Dawn" is a bloody battle area at early morning. The omnipresent colour of red
indicates both aurora, and blood and fire. The Morrigan is the Celtic goddess of war, death and rebirth, who
appears as an appalling raven when like mad she rages over the battlefield. Her cries can be heard at a
warrior's death.

I: (The harbinger Morrigan)

Blear with dew came the morrow
And winds rustled aloud.
Down by the rill where purled the flow
The Washer1 washed the shrouds
And Nemain2 sang of woe and sorrow.

"O black-feathered Morrigan"

II: (O'er bleak winds of death)

A raven, Morrigan yclept, loomed awaiting burial.
On wings o'er rueful winds, she stalked along.

A storm-blast of blazonry chased the sands
And left the drift seen afar.
A breeze brought the scattered grains,
That flung 'gainst the dewy scars.

Her frenzied squawks exhorted the ravage
And the hewing of sheen blades,
And blood suffused the barren earth,
'Pon which the crimson dawn glowered.

A Crimson Dawn Awakened!

III: (Hoarse cries and clanging steel)

The brash and bray heartened the noble souls
To defy the singeing fervour of battle.
The carmine sky was brimming with sore shrieks,
As they rose high above the flourish of brazen trumpets.

IV: (The beacon glare)

When, dark by smoke and red by fire,
Aurora had won the day,
The sun, in beacon glare, rose higher
And sweltered drouthy fey.

V: (The ascent of warlike fever)

The fervour seared the sanguine plain,
And the sour scent of cold damp
Did linger no more. Undaunted or felled,
Shrieks resounded to where their lot was cast.

"O black-feathered Morrigan"

"Thrilled by rankling fury, as I hearkened direful voices,
The red blaze of death aroused my vengeful moods."

"The glorious grandeur of battle, at this blood-tinged dawn,
Made boil my ebon ichor, glinstering as steel whirled."

The carmine sky in ashen stains flecked
Brimmed with husky moans.
Thus the sabre-rattling swoll
Into drear timbres of ire
(The empty words sceptred).

VI: (On the brink of ruin)

"Wounds of savage thrusts
Shifted me to the brink of ruin
And the grave burden borne
Struggled tho' I strained life."

VII: (A draught of immortality)

A raven, Morrigan yclept, loomed watching the battlefield.
On wings o'er rueful winds, she stalked along.

"Thrilled by rankling fury, as I hearkened direful voices,
The roan blaze of death aroused my vengeful moods."

"In awe of ancestral victories won
I unsheathed and brandished my sword
Once more. Dreadful countenances fell
Until the baleful knell rang triste."

After the dismal rise of the sullen sun,
Ravens reap the rich morning harvest,
As the drenched earth is sated by thousands
And splendid glory has been gained.
The ardent ashes that flare
Smoulder with more afterglow
Than a midsummer fever would leave
And now the embers are fanned.

1. In full the Washer at the Ford, has been told to wash the clothes of those warriors already destined to
fall in battle. A warrior, who saw her washing his very own blood-stained clothes, had seen the
prediction of his own death. 

2. Nemain is one of the three forms attained by Morrigan. She is known a scaremongerer for she sowed
panic among the warrior's wives.

I who have stood dumb
when your betraying sisters,
cauled in tar,
wept by the railings,
who would connive
in civilized outrage
yet understand the exact
and tribal, intimate revenge.
(Seamus Heaney Punishment) 



Fading Daylight
(Instrumental composed & performed by Rahab,
dedicated to the memory of all love lost)

Introduction: Sunset settles, faint daylight gleams and mists descend. In the mountains resound
a thousand moanings and the pale moon calls upon the shades.



The Gloaming of the Haunted Eve
(Words by Midhir)

The Wanderer:
After odysseys thro'- utter spheres
I stravaig o'er mist-wreathed hills.
At evenfall I wander the moors,
Where the twilit gloaming abides.

Doleful dirges ride the chilling winds and elven lights twinkle in the dark of even. Still
the thick mists darken his pathway. However, at random, he makes for the sonorous
rushing of torrents and the sparkle of wills-o'-the-wisp. Thus he arrives at a torrent,
where sang a lily-white naiad.

The Undine of the Streamlet:
Hark ye wanderer and walk yon way,
Wander e'er more for e'er and a day,
For none did roam these paths before,
But thine have crossed theirs 'cross the moors. 

The Wanderer:
Alack! As fair as seemed the billowy moors,
So foul was laid a snare of yours.

A wraith appears 'pon eldritch stones,
As lurid mirages raise the torrent,
That slopes upwards to the pearlwhite crown
Of snow and hyaline frost...

The eerie weepings, echoed deep
For a covenant to come,
Beckon and, unredeemed,
They lurk in their cursed slumber.

The enaidis haunt the vale of tears,
The mirthless shades errant,--
That sojourn in the dark caverns.
Yon the knell seems for aye.

-A night season, seething with mists,
Advances and -the moon enshrined
Shimmers by its pale white rays
O'er the whimsical plains of death. 

Mountains soar with eternized crests,
Grimly silhouetted 'gainst the sky,
Like wuthering spires 'scarped by great eld
And gyred by the shroud of fog.


The Nightwanderer
(Words by Moloch)

A mystical landscape rises up at dusk,
A valley o'er which a violet dim light shines
With huge attractive power.

A place concealing many lost lives.
No longer do fallen souls suffer earthly dimensions,
But wander fore'er.

The Spirits:
"To enter this lost dominion
One must die by his own hands.
Leave your prison of flesh and blood
And gain eternal life." 

My soul yearns for this dimension.
My spirit separates from my flesh.
Witnessed by the hypnotizing black moon,
My soul will find its rest. 

And as I travel towards the violet light,
My path is surrounded by burial mist.
A vision appears clearly before my eyes,
A dimension, where sorrow ne'er dies. 

In this magnificent fullmoon night
My fallen soul is reborn.
I took my destiny in hand
And left this earthly curse. 

The Spirits:
"You have fulfilled your destiny, nightwanderer.
May you find rest in the valley of shatters."