Arrow's Fall (42 page)

(Dirk and Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

The Weaponsmaster has no heart; his hide is iron-cold

His soul within that hide is steel; or so I have been told.

His only care is for your skill, his only love, his own.

And where another has a heart, he has a marble stone.

That’s what the common wisdom holds, but common is not true.

For there is often truth behind what’s in the common view.

And so it is the Herald’s task that hidden truth to win

To see behind the face without and find the face within.

He goads his students into rage, he drives them into pain;

He mocks them and he does not care that tears may fall like rain.

He works them when they’re weary, and rebukes them when they fail—

Cuts them to ribbons with his tongue, as they stand meek and pale—

And will our enemies be fair, or come on us behind?

And will they stay their tongues or in their words a weapon find?

Or wait till we are rested before making their attacks?

Or will they rather beat us down and then go for our backs?

But he has no compassion, does not care for man nor beast—

And when a student’s gone, he does not notice in the least—

And no one calls this man their love, and no one calls him friend

And none can judge him by his face, or what he may intend.

But I have seen him speak the word that brings hope from despair—

Or drop the one-word compliment that makes a student care—

And I have seen his sorrow when he hears the Death Bell cry—

His soul-deep agony of doubt that nothing can deny—

For on his shoulders rests the job of fitting us for war

With nothing to give him the clue of what to train us for.

And if he foils it is not he that pays, but you and I—

And so he dies a little when he hears the Death Bell cry.

And now you know the face within hid by the face without

The pain that he must harbor, all the guilt and all the doubt.

The Weaponsmaster has a heart; so grant his stony mask

For you and I aren’t strong enough to bear that kind of task.

ARROW’S FLIGHT

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Paul Espinoza

(Talia: Arrow’s Flight)

Finding your center—not hard for a child—

But I am a woman now, patterned and grown.

Thrown out of balance, my Gift has run wild;

Never have I felt so lost and alone.

Now all the questions that I did not ask

Come back to haunt me by day and by night.

Finding your center—so simple a task— A

nd one that I fear I shall never set right.

Chorus:

Where has my balance gone, what did I know

That I have forgotten in Time’s ebb and flow?

Wrong or right, dark or light, I cannot see—

For I’ve lost the heart of the creature called “me.”

Doubt shatters certainty, fosters despair;

Guilt harbors weakness and fear makes me blind—

Fear of the secrets that I dare not share—

Lost in the spiral maze of my own mind.

Knowing the cost to us all if I foil—

Feeling that failure breathe cold at my back—

All I thought strong now revealed as so frail

That I could not weather one spiteful attack.

An arrow in flight must be sent with control—

But all my control was illusion at best.

Instinct alone cannot captain a soul—

Direction must be learned and not merely guessed.

Seeking with purpose, not flailing about—

Trusting in others as they trust in me—

Starting again from the shadows of doubt Gods,

how I fear what I yet know must be!

Chorus 2:

Finding my center, and with it, control;

Disciplined knowledge must now be my goal.

Knowing my limits, out judging what’s right—

Till nothing can hinder the arrow in flight.

FUNDAMENTALS

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Kristoph Klover

(Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

Ground and center; we begin

Feel the shape inside your skin

Feel the earth and feel the air—

Ground and center; “how” and “where.”

Ground and center—don’t just frown,

Find the leaks and lock them down.

Baby-games you never learned

Bring you pain you never earned.

Ground and center; do it, child

If you’d tame that Talent wild—

Girl, you learned it in your youth—

Life’s not fair, and that’s the truth.

Ground and center, once again;

You’re not finished--
I’ll
say when.

Ground and center in your sleep

Ground and center ‘till you weep.

Ground and center; that’s the way—

You might get somewhere, someday.

Yes, I know I’m being cruel

And you’re as stubborn as a mule!

Ground and center, feel the flow

Can you tell which way to go?

Instinct’s not enough, my friend—

Make it reflex in the end.

Ground and center; hold it tight—

Dammit, greenie, that’s not right!

(Every tear you shed hurts me,

But that’s the way it has to be.)

Ground and center; good, at last!

Once again; grab hard, hold fast.

Half asleep or half awake—

Both of us know what’s at stake.

Ground and center; now it’s sure;

What you have now will endure,

Forgive me what I had to do—

Healing hurts—you know that’s true.

Ground and center; lover, friend—

You won’t break, but now you bend.

Costly lesson, high the price—

But you won’t have to learn it twice!

OTHERLOVE

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Leslie Fish

(Talia: Arrow’s Flight)

I need you as a friend, dear one,

I love you as a brother;

And my body lies beside you

While my heart yearns for another.

I wonder if you understand—

Beneath your careless guise

I seem to sense uneasiness

When looking in your eyes.

I need your help, my friend, and I

Had sworn to stand alone;

How foolish were the vows I made

My present plight has shown.

But don’t mistake my need for love

However strong it seems—

For while I lie beside you

Someone else is in my dreams.

I wish that I could know your thoughts;

I only sense your pain—

Unease behind the smile you wear—

A haunted, sad refrain.

I would not be the cause of grief—

I’ve often told you so—

Yet there’s a place within my heart

Where you, love, cannot go.

AFTER MIDNIGHT

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Leslie Fish

(Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

In the dead, dark hours after midnight

When the world seems to stop in its place,

You can see a little more clearly,

You can look your life in the face;

You can see the things that you have to—

Speak the words too true for the day.

In the dead, dark hours after midnight,

Little friend, will you listen—and stay?

In the time when I never knew you

I could view the world as my own—

I was God’s own gift to his creatures,

And I wore an armor of stone.

I was wise and faithful and noble—

I was pompous, pious and cold.

I was cruel when I never meant it—

Far too cool to touch or to hold.

It was you who broke through my armor;

It was you who broke through the wall,

With your pain and your desperation—

How could I not answer your call?

How could I have guessed you would touch me,

And in ways I could not control?

How could I have known I would need you—

Or have guessed you’d see to my soul?

For as I taught you, so you taught me,

Taught me how to love and to care—

For your own love melted my armor,

Taught me how to feel and to dare.

When I looked tonight, I discovered

I could not again stand apart—

In the dead, dark hours after midnight,

I discovered I owe you my heart.

SUN AND SHADOW: MEETINGS

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Leslie Fish

(Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

(When the “long version” of “Sun and Shadow” is sung, this is sung as a kind of prologue)

She dances in the shadows; like a shadow is her hair.

Her eyes hold midnight captive, like a phantom, fell and fair.

While the woodlarks sing the measures that her flying feet retrace

She dances in the shadows like a dream of darkling grace.

He sings in summer sunlight to the cloudless summer skies;

His head is crowned with sunlight and the heavens match his eyes.

All the wildwood seems to listen to the singer’s gladsome voice

He sings in summer sunlight and all those who hear rejoice.

She dances in the shadows, for a doom upon her lies;

That if once the sunlight touches her the Shadowdancer dies.

And on his line is this curse laid—that once the day is sped

In sleep like death he lies until again the night has fled.

One evening in the twilight that is neither day nor night,

The time part bred of shadow, and partly born of light,

A trembling Shadowdancer heard the voice of love and doom

That sang a song of sunlight through the gathering evening gloom.

A spell it cast upon her, and she followed in its wake

To where Sunsinger sang it, all unheeding, by her lake.

She saw the one that she must love until the day she died—

Bitter tears for bitter loving then Shadowdancer cried.

One evening in the twilight e’er his curse could work its will,

Sunsinger sang of sunlight by a lake serene and still—

When out among the shadow stepped a woman, fey and fair—

A woman sweet as twilight, with the shadows in her hair.

He saw her, and he loved her, and he knew his love was vain

For he was born of sunlight and must be the shadow’s bane.

So e’er the curse could claim him, then, he shed one bitter tear

For he knew his only love must also be his only fear.

So now they meet at twilight, though they only meet to part.

Sad meetings, sadder partings, and the breaking of each heart.

Why blame them, if they pray for time or death to bring a cure?

For the sake of bitter loving, nonetheless they will endure.

SUN AND SHADOW

Lyrics: Mercedes Lackey

Music: Paul Espinoza

(Talia and Kris: Arrow’s Flight)

“What has touched me, reaching deep

Piercing my ensorceled sleep?

Darkling lady, do you weep?

Am I the cause of your grieving?

Why do tears of balm and bane

Bathe my heart with bitter rain?

What is this longing? Why this pain?

What is this spell you are weaving?”