by Saint Erythros
I.
He broods again.
My brother, cold and white,
like the diamond of his soulstone
is brilliant and radiant,
shining in the gloom of Nemesis:
but his glimmer is hard and cold,
all sharp edges and
an icy, glacial beauty.
My brother's name is Diamond.
My brother's soul is diamond.
Can it be any plainer to you
that my brother is cold,
that my brother is sharp,
that my brother is the strongest of all of us?
And yet I love him,
through the memory of shared secrets
and mutual revenge;
there are tales
there are legends
of a mighty Empress of the Only Home
and her consort and her girl-soldiers
who combined to drive us away
to exile us to this distant
bitter
cold
dark
world, away from the Only Home,
away from the light and the warmth of Terra.
Diamond it was who told me of this,
his eyes shining with a light that
only he can ever evoke:
white and argent and celestial fire,
all wrapped into my brother's vision
of
light
warmth
beauty unending
and the Only Home restored.
Diamond it was who promised me this,
standing by my bedside with
eyes ablaze, the incandescence of crystal,
the icy fire of diamond,
and the light of the Only Home
mixed and mazed,
reflected in the comforting glow of my brother's love.
"Sapphire," he told me, stroking my hair,
(I loved him even then; my brother!)
"Sapphire," he said,
"one day we will go back
go back in glory
go back in power;
Sapphire, one day we will go back
and we will experience the
light
and the warmth
and the ineffable love
of the Only Home."
Silence a moment, I worshipped him with my eyes;
"Sapphire," he said, eyes softer now, resting
only on me, only on his younger brother,
and not at all on his glorious visions.
"Sapphire, and I promise you this,
Sapphire, it is Diamond who promises you this,
on that day we will come home proudly
come home unashamedly,
and on that day, Sapphire,
Empress Serenity will be no more;
and you and I, Sapphire,
will rule the Only Home forever."
I believed him - how could I not?
For he was my brother
He was Prince Diamond,
and he was my personal deity.
Was, and still is.
II.
He broods again.
This time, it is Wiseman who
provokes his contemplation;
Wiseman the inciter
of my brother's thought.
Wiseman is a mystery,
wrapped in shadow
wrapped in malice;
he is the one who urges my brother
to pitiless destruction
to merciless deaths of the innocents
of the Only Home.
"See, Sire," Wiseman whispers,
"See, my Prince,
how the Only Home lies complacent!
It is trusting, it is open to our attack."
Diamond listens, for my brother is wise enough
to accept the counsel of those reputed wiser than he.
"See, Sire," Wiseman smiles,
"See, my Prince,
how the Dark Crystal hungers
how the Dark Crystal throbs in wait!
It will be our power, it will be our reckoning;
against it none can stand,
and the Only Home will be yours again."
As always, I am at my brother's side,
quiet and ready;
my brother does not need me,
not as I need him,
but I am always there,
to bask in the pellucid radiance
of my brother's white glory.
"Diamond," I say,
"Diamond, Prince, brother, master,
this is wrong, this is not in the plan;
Diamond," I plead, "please
listen, you have never promised me
the slaughter of innocents."
Two sets of eyes regard me:
one deepset, hooded in shadow and shrouded in malice;
Wiseman has ever despised me,
has ever urged my brother to set aside my words
and one day will urge him to set aside my person.
The other pair (trio) of eyes belong to my brother:
white and argent and celestial fire,
mingled love and affection and,
at the last, weary sad disregard
for the words of one who is,
after all,
only a young man and yet untested in blood.
"Sapphire," says Diamond,
"Sapphire, brother, younger prince and subject;
Sapphire, there will be no slaughter of innocents,
I shall never consent to kill
those who are guiltless,
those who had no part in our exile."
I smile tentatively, uncertainly;
my brother's words ring false,
echo hollowly in the Hall of Nemesis,
and I am afraid
for my brother's soul,
dimmed by the shadows and
the malicious webs
woven by the Wiseman.
I am disregarded,
my deity turns away from me,
and the attack on Crystal Tokyo
is set.
III.
My brother broods again,
and this time I know what causes his
unblinking
unseeing
unworthy
torment.
Neo-Queen Serenity,
Empress of Terra,
the Lady of the Only Home:
she haunts his thoughts,
clouds his mind,
and casts a golden shadow
over my brother's incandescent fire.
Among us,
among the family of Nemesis,
the denizens of the Black Moon,
it has always been known that
as for love,
there is none more intense,
none clearer
none more radiant
than that of Emerald
for my white brother,
for Diamond, Prince of the Black Moon.
She loves him,
a fact she hides behind
a shattered and shattering laugh,
a dancing fan that can fold and slap
away all criticisms that she looks above her station.
Emerald loves him,
and for this reluctantly I love her as well;
surely no one who loves my brother as I love him
can possibly do evil to our family.
But Diamond looks away
Diamond looks to Terra
Diamond's eyes are set always
and ever
only upon the golden form
of the Empress who exiled us
and sent us away from the
light
warmth
security
of the Only Home.
I can understand his fascination;
she is rose and gold,
the colors of the sun,
the colors that are ever
and always
lacking from the drear shadows
and sere plains
of the Black Moon.
She is lovely, I freely admit it,
Serenity shines with a light
that outstrips my brother
as the sun outradiates the moon;
but Diamond cannot see,
can never see,
that if he tries to possess her
she will burn him with a light
utterly unlike his own calm pure fire.
This is Wiseman's fault
his meddlesome prophecy;
his scrying and his foresight
may well prove to be the nemesis
of Nemesis.
He told my brother
that Serenity was his,
was destined and was fated
to be the Lady by whose side Diamond would rule.
He told my brother
that Serenity would love him,
that the golden empress would gladly
forsake Endymion, forsake Small Lady
would above all surrender the Only Home
to be Diamond's golden blessed bride.
And my brother,
so acute
so perspicacious
so drivingly intense,
my brother believed him
and fell headlong into obsession
gently nudged by a shove in the back
from Destiny and from Wiseman.
It torments Emerald,
and by Nemesis it torments ME,
and above all it haunts and shatters
the Only Home.
Diamond's love and Diamond's arrogance
prompted my brother to send an envoy
with the demand of Serenity's hand
and the surrender of Terra,
the recompense for our long exile
away from the Only Home.
She did not mock,
she did not laugh,
but softly told him "Nay;"
my brother wept and then he raged
and by then it was far too late
for my words and my counsel
to turn back.
"Sapphire," he said,
white eyes alight in madness,
"Sapphire," he repeated,
this madman wearing my brother's pale form,
"she rejects me
she denies me
and still Endymion holds her.
Well, if her consort binds her
if the usurper of my place binds her
then the removal of Endymion
will turn the tide."
My brother was mad,
the pale radiance of his mind
clouded and occluded,
the facets of his heart
buried under a golden shadow.
Wiseman counselled him now,
not I,
and what Wiseman counselled
was enough to make even haughty Rubius
blanch in horror and in repugnance.
But Diamond was mad,
stung and enraged by Serenity's refusal,
and the attack on the Crystal City,
on Tokyo of the Gemstones,
was commenced.
When the dust settled,
when Serenity was hit and encased in dreamless sleep,
when the Only Home was irrevocably smote;
Diamond awoke,
Diamond revived,
and was struck to the heart by what he had done.
I loved him still,
pale brother pale prince pale god,
and I stroked his hair as once he had done for me,
crooning and softly whispering of
the light
the warmth
the ineffable love
of the Only Home.
"Be easy, Diamond," I told him,
"you were mad, you were not yourself;
there is still time to mend this insanity.
There are still ways that we can regain
the Only Home
and -"I hesitated, and said it:
"And the love of Serenity;
there are still ways that you can show yourself
to still be Diamond,
to still shine as brightly
and as sublimely
as the soulstone of diamond
for which you are named
and which, dear brother,
you resemble down to your core."
Diamond calmed,
his hysterical tears ebbed and faded.
For a moment he knelt silent,
head in my lap where I could smooth away
the rebellious hair from his brow,
away from the so-sensitive third eye
that now I fear is clouded and blind.
At last his reason
his dreadful cold sanity
returned to him
and once more my personal god
whitely shining Diamond, Prince of Nemesis,
stood before me.
This time I knelt, and he dispensed wisdom:
"Sapphire," he said, words out of a white aura
so brilliant that I could not see its center,
"Sapphire, dear brother, only friend,
we must find Serenity's daughter and return her.
Serenity will laugh
Serenity will weep of gladness
and surely she will waken and come to me,
upon the advent of Small Lady
back to her own time and own place."
This was wisdom and sheerest folly both;
I could not tell him so,
for he was Diamond and his soul was diamond
and even though there was a flaw in him
I could find no way to apprise him
of the monumental mistake
in his so-kind,
so-thoughtful
plan to retrieve Small Lady,
the rabbit.
But Diamond was pleased,
and his sanity had snapped back into place;
so long as he was pleased, what matter
my discomfort
Wiseman's perfidy
Emerald's tears of love unrequited?
Diamond was pleased.
And out of that
grew all of our troubles;
as I gaze down at the Only Home,
beautiful ineffably compelling Earth,
I cannot help but wonder;
diamond is the strongest of all gems.
Is Diamond truly the strongest of all of us?
Or is the flaw I perceive only in myself?
�1999 Jillian Byar. All rights reserved.
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