.-SCENE ONE-
(The posse has retreated to their tents to sleep, while Blanche is awoken by a strange visitor
Meanwhile, Perceval is the honoured guest at a moon ceremony.)
BLANCHE:
Mother, there’s a darkness coming in through the window
Please hold my hand, keep me safe from the shadow!
Don’t leave me cold, bring me back from the meadow
Don’t let me go alone!
Under the night, dreams filled the tents like starlight
Blanche looked on—by the fire was the Great Swan
While Kaye and the boys lay as dead, Cygnus flew into their heads;
She held them all night long, and sang her wicked songs
Under the Queen, Perceval’s night grew green
The witches danced up to their moon in a trance
The horse was crowned, they spread their flowers around
Painted her skin to let the goddess back in
BLANCHE:
Mother, there’s a darkness coming in through the window
Please hold my hand, keep me safe from the shadow!
Don’t leave me cold, bring me back from the meadow
Don’t let me go alone!
The swan screamed at the boys in their dream!
Inside her dome, she told them to ride back home
Lance held his awful spike to his heart all night
Next to his gun, he dreamed of scorpions
A DESERT ROSE:
Look at the sky, you are her mislaid child!
The heavens weep while you are not in their keep
Flowers rose from the sand to the cosmos
Kingdoms on earth, by a holy birth
BLANCHE:
Mother, there’s a darkness coming in through the window
Please hold my hand, keep me safe from the shadow!
Don’t leave me cold, bring me back from the meadow
Don’t let me go alone!
-SCENE TWO-
(Everyone wakes up the next morning in the ashes from a night of flames.)
Lance awoke to an uncanny shape in the smoke
From the dream, to the morning’s rise
Was the Swan, arched by the fire!
Perceval, last night ’s celestial
Woke up to an empty day
The witches had drifted away
Hanged Rose, in the dust with her leg broke
Saw smoke in the distance
She will have her vengeance!
King Sour, the worm in his tented tower
Put a spike into his flame
New fumes for an old game
Drunken Kaye, wished last nights drink away
A swan looked into her eye
A haunting, under a blue sky
Little Blanche, watched from inside her tent
A kind bloom in a bad land
Blood fell on the white sand
The swan hit the earth! Shot by Lance in the heart
Blanched touched the still-warm corpse. Inside she grew a thorn
A cactus came to life, on Perceval’s trail, and swiped
Sour moaned in delight. Perceval’s neck filled with spines
PEGASUS:
They try to pull you down. They want to watch you drown
And live behind their bands. Remember what you are!
Don’t live your life in pain, get up and try again
Bring your heart to the blade, child, don’t be afraid
Crack the sorcery of Sour’s monstrosity!
Perceval run free, come back to me
Look up at the moon, child, you will be home soon!
Daughter of the sky, mother light divine
-SCENE THREE-
(After the killing of Cygnus, Lance leads the posse back into the
Wasteland in pursuit of Perceval, where they make a pivotal discovery.)
DRUNKEN KAYE:
There are roses in the trees. Why are they looking at me?
I can still hear those dogs. All of our water is gone
Black smoke from his cigar, poison drips down from the stars
We left poor King to rot. Just like we did that swan
This ain’t no place for a young girl. I never told you about the world
What some men will do, to leave the rest of us to ruin
The gods don’t abide. I fear I won’t come home alive
Who’ll be there to comfort you? When you learn what people do
Don’t see no rivers in the sand, just blood all over my hands
I must be going mad. Inside my soil went bad
They sent your father away, left you with Drunken Kaye
I brought you into this mess, I’ll get you out again
The spike glows like the moon, because he knows
He can smell fear. That fucking horse is near
Blood drips down her neck, like a kiss
The pain burns like a love you never earned
Against the cliff, they see the horse, astride a rift
With no place to go but to run like only the wild know
Out comes the rope, to choke that horse’s hope
When the leash pulls, men come to hunt like wolves
When the sun sets, evil comes to collect on debts
To find the light , the good must spread like a vine
Shots are fired. She looks back into the gyre
The hounds of vengeance will stalk her down to hell before they stop
Then to hell they’ll ride, right off the cliffside
The pure can’t be destroyed. She jumps into the void!
-SCENE FOUR-
(Perceval has disappeared over the edge. On the cliffside
Lance and the posse make a deadly bargain.)
Little Blanche afraid. She’s pressed her rose tight to her heart
And watched as Lance’s rifle led the posse over the cliff after that horse
‘Take the spike and press it to her skin,’ he said, ‘go after her’
The posse cried ‘we’ll die,’ they said, but Kaye told Lance ‘just keep my girl alive’
Her mother’s bargain left her on the ledge with Lance alone
The madman made them jump after the horse they all watched take her leap
Her skin like steel, the cactus spines erupted from her neck
Like bullets, while her body rose into the air, as ravens fly
Then landed like soft rain upon the desert floor below
While just behind, the men upon their horses fell as corpses would and died
Lance’s skin was crawling like a snake under the sand
He laughed, while Blanche thought of her Kaye who had died to save her life
Lance grabbed Blanche then while she cried, and put her on his horse
They rode to find a safe way down, his black blood missed its spike
A cry came up from Sour’s tent, as he sensed what had transpired
Those men had leapt into their death, while Perceval escaped
He took a scale out of the sand, and put it in his fire
And something foul emerged out of the pile made from their death!
PEGASUS:
The posse rose from the dead with Sour’s plague in their heads
From a scale in the sand—lizards at his command!
Kaye and the boys’ new skin—Zazamanc’s saurians
One put the spike to the horse, to bleed her heavenly force
Crack the sorcery of Sour’s monstrosity!
Perceval run free, come back to me
Look up at the moon, child, you will be home soon!
Daughter of the sky, mother light divine
-SCENE FIVE-
(Bloody Lance grabs Blanche and the unlikely pair tear off along the cliffside
Lance is desperate to retrieve Perceval, and more importantly, his scorpion tail
While Blanche detects a weakness in him.)
Bloody Lance and the child ride into the night
The strung man—she knows that he needs his spike
Lizard Kaye pulls the hobbled horse towards Sour
The dark mage sits and waits for the final hour
Hanged Rose stands up on a broken leg
She’ll find him and make him beg
A young witch in a cactus with gleaming eyes
Makes Lance twitch, and gives Blanche a splinter from the sky
Lance bleeds from his ear without his venom
Blanche takes the leads. She’ll ride them into the end