Act III
The next day Cassano got up very early,
And heartily shook the prophet’s hand,
Then he set out towards the frontier,
Ready for new adventures in that land;
The trail led him near the summit of the mountain
Between the two highest peaks,
He noticed the weather quickly changed,
And wind like icy daggers pierced his cheeks.
Billowy black storm clouds filled the eastern sky
And swirled in a threatening cyclonic motion,
As if they had been quickly conjured up,
By a wicked and malicious potion;
Daytime in this cursed and dreary land
Was as dark as very early dawn,
There was strangled sunlight all around,
And every vestige of hope seemed gone.
Underneath the dull, dismal sky,
The Sea of Shadows was a gloomy green,
And under the squinty eye of the storm,
Inferno Island could be seen;
A ring of fire blazed extremely bright,
And it surrounded the mysterious isle,
A volcanic mountain was in its center,
And its diameter was about a mile.
Its crater was filled with molten lava,
And was a red eye glaring over the sea,
The Dark One’s presence was strong there,
And no prisoner could ever be free;
Cassano saw all these various things
From the Magic Mountains way up high,
Petrio’s words were quite prophetic,
He spoke the truth and not a lie.
Cassano looked at the base of the mountain,
And saw a very small town,
The wild waves attacked with open jaws,
As if they were trying to gulp it down;
It was located on a bleak little peninsula,
Over the south end of the bay,
No light shined on treacherous Mai Tornar
On this very stormy winter day.
The wind was very strong and gusty,
As Cassano descended to Mai Tornar,
The weatherbeaten buildings were weary,
And they were all the color of tar;
This dirty town had quite a vile stench,
Of burnt meat and the cheapest ale,
And then he saw dingy drunkards brawling,
Behind the bars of the jail.
When he walked along the bluff near town,
He looked for a ship to take him away,
But poor Cassano saw no sign of a vessel,
And nothing at all stirred in the bay;
As he walked on the uneven cobblestones,
He found an inn along the road,
But as he came through the front door,
A man grimaced like a menacing toad.
This short, stout man was named Gonzalo,
And he glowered with hellish hate,
When Cassano had been a captain at sea,
Gonzalo was assigned his first mate;
It turned out Gonzalo was a petty thief,
And between them a dispute had arisen,
But in the end Cassano got what he wanted,
And Gonzalo got thrown into prison.
So Gonzalo quickly hid in another room,
And spied on him through the shutters,
He saw Cassano speak to a timid sailor
Who continually stammers and stutters;
The little chap told him that sailing is hard
Because of the inclement weather,
The last ship got tossed around by the waves,
As if it were just the smallest feather.
The fine ship was called the Intrepid,
And its wreckage was on the shore,
He said that the damages were heavy,
And repairing it would be a chore;
So Cassano quietly sat down at a table,
And he pensively ate some grub,
He was beginning to wonder if Petrio
Might have committed a bit of a flub.
Many weeks passed and no sign of a ship,
As persistent Cassano patiently waited,
Meanwhile Gonzalo continued to plot,
For revenge on the man he so hated;
The town’s citizens were terribly lazy,
And few of them had steady work,
They were thieves with sneaky eyes,
Who in foggy lanes did loiter and lurk.
But one morning Cassano eagerly awoke,
For an insight flashed into his mind,
The Intrepid was the first ship he saw,
So that was the one he had to find!
He formed a plan to repair the ship,
But he knew he couldn’t do it alone,
So Cassano created a financial incentive,
And he sold his precious stone.
To the many people who wanted work,
He gave them a respectable job,
Since Cassano gave them dignity as workers,
They no longer needed to rob;
In wages he gave every single coin away,
As he strove to treat workers fair,
In gratitude the citizens made a choice,
And they decided to elect him mayor.
Although the project took three long years,
The Intrepid was as good as new,
As the captain of this resurrected ship,
He chose a brave and trusted crew;
The weather was sunny in this perilous land
Perhaps only ten days each year,
So quickly the crew packed their supplies,
When the sky abruptly became clear.
Captain Cassano saw his opportunity,
So they cast off while the weather was good,
He wanted to travel a long way fast,
And the crew nodded and understood;
The captain decided to set a firm course,
Thus he chose the ship’s last destination,
Their voyage was to the Floating Icefields,
So each one manned his station.
But unbeknownst to Captain Cassano,
Gonzalo had sneaked aboard,
Nothing would make Gonzalo happier
Than to see him bloodied and gored;
Now the first three days were uneventful,
Which made the crew quite glad,
But after they saw a solar eclipse,
The whole world seemed to go mad.
Suddenly there was an eerie wild wind,
And the waters frightfully churned,
Bulging black clouds blitzed the sky,
As the weather had radically turned;
The Sea of Shadows was darker than ever,
But then there was another worry,
The Floating Icefields were in the vicinity,
So the crew scrambled in a hurry.
Lightning struck like daggers in the darkness,
Wounding the innocent air,
Thunder furiously raged and roared,
As the storm gave the crew a scare;
Though no rain yet fell from the clouds,
The wicked waves reached toward the sky,
The Intrepid bobbed around in the cauldron,
And everyone thought they’d die.
Gonzalo was waiting in the shadows,
Like a poisonous human weed,
He nervously stroked his stubbly beard,
As he planned the dirty deed;
Gonzalo suddenly leaped onto the deck,
And grabbed his bloody blade,
He rashly raised his knife high in the air,
As the revenge card was about to be played.
Cassano was very busy steering the ship,
When Gonzalo stabbed with his dagger,
But lightning struck the mizzenmast,
And the explosion made them both stagger;
The sharp blade cut Cassano’s left arm,
So his sleeve became rather bloody,
Then they violently brawled on the deck,
Until their faces turned quite ruddy.
Cassano punched Gonzalo in the mouth,
Bloodying his beard and lip,
Then Gonzalo tripped, and fell over sideways,
And he toppled right off the ship;
The hungry flames caused by the lightning
Quickly ate the ship’s old wood,
The crew tried dousing the flashing flames,
Or they’d all be gone for good.
The crew forgot about the ship’s helm,
For they were busy fighting the fire,
Then the Intrepid rammed into a glacier,
And the situation became more dire;
The vessel had a huge gash in the bow,
And swallowed a great deal of water,
The dying Intrepid shivered and shuddered,
Right before it started to totter.
Like a corpse, the Intrepid keeled over,
Like a harpooned whale in the sea,
The crew fell out like lumps of sugar,
And were stirred into the murky green tea;
Cassano latched onto the captain's skiff,
And he rowed with all his might,
His goal was to get away from the ship,
For he refused to give up the fight.