let us send them a warning first
In the hope that they’ll mend their ways;
It is only that evil tyrant
Who has gone and led them astray.’
‘Yes, that most foul being dared to create
Creatures of metal and flesh—
Now he thinks he’s a god – a creator
But I shall teach him a lesson or two.’
And with this the Tree of Life ordered clouds
To gather and cover the earth,
Obstruct the sun, and ravage all
With lightning and torrents and hailstones.
In no time the empire’s lands were covered
In waters many feet deep
And half the Amarire nation drowned
In their mighty glittering towns.
But this did by no means deter the tyrant—
It fired his warped and inventive spirit;
With all his metal and subhuman slaves
They built many vast and oblong rafts.
Each was a hundred miles long – with a breadth about half—
And on these rafts he had them build new cities of solid gold;
And artificial sun was made to float below the clouds
Which shone with a brilliance that put the real one to shame!
And then one day in the glittering splendour
Of his own domestic retreat,
Za-Ha-Rrellel played his final trump—
A last, most terrible decision!
THE LAST SIN OF ZA-HA-RRELLEL
The inside of his golden sanctuary
Was a blaze of dazzling light
From millions of precious stones reflecting,
Which encrusted the golden walls.
On a gold and ivory couch on the far side
Reclined the misconstrued form of the hideous tyrant—
Draped with a golden kaross,
Studded with sunstones and sea beads.
A great golden bowl of beer floated in
On the wings of the air at arm’s length away—
Stopped short of the bald cyclopian head of the ruler
And emptied itself in the twisted, leering mouth.
(Legends say that this queer bowl
Needed no refilling—
No sooner was it drained
Than it created new beer again).
Hundreds of nobles sat in a semi-circle
Facing the Immortal Emperor,
All resplendent in golden necklaces and ear-rings
And loin cloths of woven silver.
On a living grass mat that floated above ground
They sat in the order of their rank.
In the centre a great cage of silver
Was enclosing a dozen of Bjaauni slaves
And these were beheading and disembowling each other
To amuse their Amarire creators!
This had been going on for some time
And now only one Bjaauni was left.
This hulking great brute named Odu now stepped to the bars
And stood waiting for the next command.
‘Sleep!’ snapped the Emperor and Odu dropped
Like a log on the bodies of his slain comrades;
‘He is my favourite,’ chuckled the tyrant—
‘The strongest I’ve ever created.’
‘Too true, oh Giver of Eternal Youth,’
Laughed one noble as the cage slowly sank through the floor—
‘A splendid fighter and a pity to waste him.’
‘Would you like to have him, Zarabaza?—
I shall gladly make you a present of him.’
‘O Highest Emperor, be ever powerful—
I thank you so much indeed!’
Za-Ha-Rrellel then wickedly smiled as he noticed
His nobles’ looks of jealousy and envy;
He always kept the spirit of rivalry burning,
For he believed in the principle: ‘divide and rule.’
(Other tyrants were to follow this example
In many an empire in later years—
Wise Men say that tyrannies flourish best
When subjects are disunited).
Bjaauni females were then ordered in
And they danced and danced until all but one
Fell to the floor in fatal exhaustion.
The survivor he presented to another noble
And called upon silence as the hour was late:
‘My people, I summoned you here because
I made a discovery fantastic’ly great—
One that might lead me to become the Master—
Not of the Universe, but Eternity itself.
I
