My child, there lived in hoary days of yore
A necromancer no force could withstand,
Who conquered, with a blend of awful plagues,
A Faro cruel that ruled with brutal hand.
The ring of power fearless Mosa wore,
Flame forged of mystic metals mined below
The surface of a planet far from earth,
Was formed by Elder Gods, claim those who know.
'Twas with this ring he saved the Hebru tribe
Then gave it to the eldest son he sired—
For him, in turn, to gift it to his heir.
And, thus, through time it passed, as he desired.
Like fleeting dust motes on eternal winds
More than a thousand generations passed.
New kingdoms rose and fell while earthquakes ripped
The changing continents, for naught could last.
Vemdeez, astrologer and counsel to
King Fulbra, ruler of the Yorus clan,
Was known, throughout the southern continent
Of Zothique, to every learned man.
Within his tower nook he scanned the tomes
Of elder lore that warned a plague was near—
The Silver Death of creeping pestilence—
And knew the Faraad folk had much to fear.
To save the king he placed his circlet o're
The royal finger tip, with aspect grim—
The very ring that Mosa wisely sent
Down long cascading centuries to him.
The nightmare, decimating plague advanced
And slew Vemdeez, left naked of his ring,
And nearly all who lived within the realm—
But spared the friend he served, the sovereign king.
King Fulbra thus survived and ventured forth
To meet, intrepidly, his fated doom
Awaiting on the Isle of Uccastrog
Within King Ildrac's dreadful torture room.
Written as an extension to Clark Ashton Smith's "The Isle of the Torturers"