Ma'ory and the Basilisk

Deeply in the ground
By the lair of the basilisk
It’s roots have been bound,
Strong and quite sound,
The roots of the Obelisk.

Deep down the roots were set
The bases deep were laid
For the Obelisk’s beginning.
It’s needs were quickly met
The foundations stayed
The construction beginning.

On top of the Earth
Where people live and walk
The middle’s greatest berth
Strong around the turf,
The Obelisk’s great stalk.

Level the stones were laid
The middle strongly set
For the Obelisk’s building.
The stonework’s powerful braid
Never again in debt
The construction continuing.

Up high in the sky
By the perch of the great eagle
It’s tip does now lie
Strong and quite high
The Obelisk’s tip, regal.

Up high the crown was placed
The keystone high above
The Obelisk’s final building
Strong and quite well based
The keystone’s dove
The construction then ending.

From every single place
Where people live on Earth
Men came to see the trace,
Strong and deep mace,
Of the Obelisk’s great birth.

The caravan’s were long,
The trains of people great,
For the Obelisk’s great sighting.
Those who came were strong
Their power, then innate,
The Obelisk then slighting.

As people came together,
Around the mighty Obelisk
They came to simply gather,
Tied with a tether,
Not thinking of risk.

The cities then quickly grew,
The populations high
Surrounding the great Obelisk.
But the people there were new
Their knowledge incomplete
Of the building of the Obelisk.

Deep down the earth was stirred
At the roots of the Obelisk
A creature’s sleep disturbed
Strong and angered,
Leapt from the ground the basilisk.


The people quickly fled
The cities deserted
Around the mighty Obelisk
The people then were dead
Their homes deserted
All caused by the basilisk.

In a place that’s far away
Far from the Obelisk
Men from there came to stay
And then to say,
The story of the basilisk.

Stories were always told
To people of all ages
To anyone who’d listen.
The stories then grew old
By a few stages
And only children then would listen.

One of those children
Heard the ancient story
And attentively would listen
Son of a stone mason,
Whose name was Ma’ory.

Ma’ory would always listen
To any of the stories
And think about it every day.
So he began to strengthen
And train in weaponries
For a possible future day.

Then finally on that day,
The day Ma’ory came of age,
He decided he could not stay,
Instead he may,
Leave to become a mage.

Ma’ory traveled very far
Even to the Eastern Sea
At which he once was stopped.

He hired out the Ra’amanar
A ship to cross the sea
To an island to be dropped.

Finally across the sea,
On the island which he reached,
Ma’ory finally could see
The walls of the city
Of the mages that he seeked.

There Ma’ory found a master
And began to learn his power
Slowly learning to control it.
He learned his trade faster,
Faster by the hour,
And his muscles knit.

Finally his training ceased
A master Ma’ory became
Then a decision he reached,
Strongly he was teased,
As he left to make his fame.

He traveled back to his home
Where he was rejected
Because his power scared them all.
So he left again his home
To wander unprotected
Except for his skill and call.

As he traveled he remembered
The stories of his childhood,
Of the basilisk untethered,
Destroying undeterred,
Whatever he would.

He then quickly decided
To travel to the Obelisk
Upon the fringe of memory.
So towards the desert he headed
Intent on killing the basilisk
That lived on even in memory.

The Obelisk’s distant land
As far as the Earth was wide
Was a path that had not been manned,
Long and full of sand,
Ma’ory walked the pathside.

Over great mountain peaks,
Through darkened gorges
Ma’ory followed the ancient road.
Renown is what he seeks,
Fame is what he forges
In the basilisk’s abode.

Deep in the lonely desert,
Ma’ory found the place he sought
Surrounded by mounds of dirt,
Strong and unhurt,
Lay the basilisk of thought.

Ma’ory quickly resolved
To kill the ancient beast
To leave his exiled state.
The riddle he had solved
To not be the creature’s feast
And to not arouse it’s hate.

Ma’ory called upon his power,
The power of his mage’s flame
To slay the basilisk that hour,
Fire he would shower,
On the beast of that horrible name.

Yet the basilisk awoke
And was not damaged by the fire
That Ma’ory rained down on it.
In flame though it did soak,
No hurt came to the sire
Of dragons, though it hit.

The fury of the basilisk
Awoken rudely by the fire
Shook even the Obelisk
Even with the risk,
Ma’ory the beast did ire.

Then Ma’ory attacked anew,
Raining fire from above
Hoping the creature to destroy.
But the basilisk then knew
The weakness of that dove
That it treated like a toy.

Swiftly came the counter
The attack in retaliation
For the attack did not flounder
In the air outer,
But smote quickly the affliction.

Not able to defend himself
Ma’ory took the brunt of it
And lay there gasping as he died.
Lying alone on a single shelf
His body took that hit
And then his last breath he sighed.

From nearby a man came out,
Out from behind an ancient wall
To see what he didn’t doubt,
Ma’ory’s life was out,
And sent out a mourning call.

This man then returned to his home
To remember all that he’d seen
Of the fateful life Ma’ory’d had.
He then began to write a tome
On all that Ma’ory’d been
And why his life had been so sad.

When he’d finished writing,
The verses on the page complete,
He gave it to his child sighing,
“Child of my rearing,
Remember Ma’ory and his strange feat.”

That man had been, to be exact,
Ma’ory’s master in the past
Who’d followed his apprentice’s life.
The story of Ma’ory was fact
Even though his life was fast
It was always full of strife.

The child of the master,
Young though he had been,
Always would remember,
Sad and somber,
The truth of who Ma’ory’d been.

In his great old age,
He wrote this poem to warn
The people of the modern world.
“What can they learn from that unhappy mage?”
Some ask with scorn.
That the basilisk still lies curled
In the shadow of the Obelisk.