Mystery Play of Old Ebonheart

Mystery Play of Old Ebonheart

This play is performed annually on the day of the Ebonheart Festival, upon the city's fountain square. It was written by Nibenese immigrants of the rebuilt city and has been performed with only minimal alterations for over three hundred years.

Dramatis Personae

Akatosh: Played by a senior local magistrate, or otherwise a male noble.

Dibella: Played by a noble, male or female.

Arkay: Played by a high ranking member of the imperial cult, female.

The Triune: Played by three people. One a woman, preferably a warrior, one a man, preferably a scholar, and a reformed criminal chosen by the magistrate, which can be a man or woman.

[Akatosh walks into view from stage right, accompanied by Dibella and Arkay on either side. They are mid conversation. All three are attended each by a singer acting as a spirit that echoes their words.]

Akatosh: My domain is the procession of the seconds and minutes and hours and days, and your domain is the procession of nature according to my designs. This is my truest law. The march of time is without mercy.

Arkay: I can only offer comfort, then, that the deposed may rest unravaged by time. But how may I keep your time, Father, that I may never forget it when I am not by your side?

Dibella: You may keep it through writing, brother, but may it be so dull? The laws of the march see nothing but decay, but how can one spin words as beautiful as the dew on a blade of grass, or the body of a loved one?

[The conversation is interrupted by the Triune, whose three actors walk in simultaneous steps. The woman brandishes a large sword and flexes, the scholar hunches over and fumbles with his books, and the speaker keeps their head high and aloof. They are attended by spirit-mages who conjure lights that float above the crowd.]

Triune (Woman): Mercy is the gift that belongs to all, Dragon. You give none, for you are not strong enough to grant it! [The woman swings her sword in the air.]

Triune (Man): Who are you to not know how to keep your time? Your cyclical nature of rot and rebirth is disorderly without the construct necessary. I know the time, I know the place, for I am the architect of the clock and calendar! [The man brandishes two magical lights in each hand.]

Triune (Criminal): How could you forget the beauty in all words and action? Poetry! Poetry! All beauty pales in comparison to the word, which moves armies and hearts in kind! I am as familiar with the flesh as the quill, yet only one uses the right ink. [The actors are silent to allow the crowd to laugh.]

Arkay: Who is this bookish man that disturbs our walk and questions my quadrant-year?

Dibella: And what is this [man/woman] talking about? The tones of music ring more true to the soul than any stanza.

Akatosh: [Akatosh steps in front of Arkay and Dibella, looking stern.] These wayward spirits -- [Akatosh is interrupted by loud gongs playing, and various instruments rattling. The crowd is encouraged to get loud.]

Triune (All in Unison): We are the Orient Triangle!

Triune (Woman): We grant the people strength to kill in defense and honor.

Triune (Man): We grant the people designs of the divine and mundane.

Triune (Criminal): We grant the people elucidation of words beyond their kenning.

Triune (All in Unison): We are the Triune! ALMSIVI! [A gong is rung at each syllable of "ALM SI VI".]

Akatosh: [Akatosh crosses his arms and continues his stern expression.] THESE wayward spirits, I see now, are pieces which have escaped us and gone on their own journey.

Triune (Criminal): [The Criminal gasps.] We have existed in stately glory before your men crawled from their hovels, Dragon!

Akatosh: I know this is not true, for I am the only one who knows the before and after of all things. One point of your triangle was my mercy lost long ago, turned vengeful.

Triune (Woman): For the better! You watch your people become ill and your country savaged by invaders, with only platitudes for your worshippers!

Arkay: Is this true, father? Is this spirit my calendar run amok?

Triune (Man): You process the seasons without guiding your people, Reaper! They know not when to sow their seed and harvest their grain, nor to build shelter and retreat from it as the sun dances across the sky! You see only life and death without those that live and die!

Dibella: Who is the last one, then?

Triune (Criminal): Your sense of aesthetic, from the looks of your attire.

[The crowd is given time to laugh.]

Triune (Criminal): I am your forgetfulness of the beauty of humanity's thoughts. Not only held within, but put to stone and papyrus, for how else can the beauty of mind be shared long after that mind has rotten out of a skull?

Akatosh: There is error in allowing ourselves to stretch too thin, for we have moved east before we even knew it! Come rejoin us, wayward spirits.

Triune (All in Unison): No!

Triune (Criminal): You will simply forget us again, forget your lessons, and forget your compassion to your people.

Akatosh: How can we be better to our people without your will within us? Integrate, Triune. Split and reincorporate so that your wisdom may be sublimated and shared with all humanity.

[All three actors of the Triune turn to one another, arms around one another's shoulders and loudly murmuring. Gongs are repeatedly bashed.]

Triune (Criminal): Carve rooms out of your internal homes to allow our residence without absorption. One day, when our kingdoms have grown strong from our lessons, you may present a product of yours. If we are in agreement, we will rejoin the fold. Do we have a deal?

[Akatosh, Arkay, and Dibella all look towards one another.]

Akatosh: You truly are a poet.

Triune (Woman): And you a father, as am I a mother. The riches of myself are for my father-self and his people! For his and mine are one!

[The actors of the Triune all begin to cheer while gongs are repeatedly struck. They begin to distribute brass coins among the audience, and eventually shed their costumes to join them.]

Akatosh, Arkay, and Dibella: So it is, and so it shall be. [Music plays, and the remaining actors shed their costumes to join in the revelry.]