Fiction Activity

Competition
[GJW XIV Phase I] Fiction - The Old Tongue
Textual submission

The object before you is a rough-hewn obsidian cylinder, forty centimetres long and five centimetres in diameter, that seems to have been knapped from a larger piece of material with primitive hand tools. Strangely, the cylinder is always frigid to the touch, regardless of the surrounding temperature. Small, blocky glyphs in ancient Sith have been inscribed in a mesh pattern around the cylinder, giving it the appearance of being wrapped in fine chains. When light strikes the cylinder just right, the rough-carved surface creates reflections that look uncannily like the Human faces. Researchers who have come into close contact with the artifact report that after spending extended periods in close proximity to it, they begin to have auditory hallucinations that resemble jingling chains and crying children.

The translation of the glyphs inscribed on the cylinder is given below.

For sorc'rors with the will to mould their fate
who find before them many threats arrayed,
an incantation fuelled by ancient hate
and deepest darkness will see them unmade.

This cylinder obsidian contains
energies drawn from vilest sacrifice
of children draped, by royal whim, in chains
and thrown into a sea entombed in ice.

A cunning sorc'ror who ignites a fire
and into it, this cylinder, extend
will summon these tormented spirits' ire
and bring enemies to a ghastly end.

And thus, if you face a superior foe,
this ritual cast, and bring upon them woe!

(The "inscription" was written as an English sonnet in iambic pentameter, rhyming scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Because I can. :P)