Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn From: caz@owlnet.rice.edu (HWRNMNBSOL) Subject: [KQ] [TGMOAB 10.0] PERSPECTIVE OF THE AGES Message-ID: Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 06:38:23 GMT IN THE COURT OF LORD MACHRION LIONHEART Know then, great Lords and Ladies, that I am no Skald, no bard, but a simple country man. I have no great gifts of speech or song. All I have to offer such fine folk as you are the ballads of my youth. They were taught to me by my grandfather, and in turn those lays were taught to him by his, and so on down the line further than memory and history extends. These songs do not tell stories of the world of today -- they are far too old for that. In the times of these verses, armored dreadnaughts did not creep across the countryside on treads of adamantite, spraying liquid fire on honest country folk. In those days, lords did not poison their chattel with mind-bending distillates and whip them with neurostunners! In those days, a man could live like a man without some aggrandized bandit snatching.... Unhand me! Let go, you big lout! Ow.......alright! Enough -- I'll amuse you with my tales, if you wish, though there is no amusement left in my heart! My lord, this ballad is nameless. Make of it what you will: Great flinty walls reached skyward Ships bore gold and fruit and slaves The greatest city; in the days before the sinking of mythic Rameshand. Child and Child, brother and sister Rats in the walls of plenty Scraping love from barrel-bottoms; Living life like king and queen.