Kolya's Memories

Kolya's Memories

This is what I remember.

The city, rising up in misty shadows from the water,

So massive, but so graceful; it was of arches and soaring towers,

And even inside it held a strange, mysterious elegance

So much more captivating than our gloomy tunnels.

And I wondered: just how quickly could we destroy the Wraith

With that kind of power and glory under our command?

Now I won’t know the answer.

The people there—I still respect them even with their naïveté.

They have a determination, more so than we, to stay alive,

And they deserve that city, more so than we, because of it.

It was that willpower that fought us, and that defeated us;

And I resolved that day to overwhelm them if I could

But I failed, and have since failed again to even wound them.

I had lost all that was mine.

My apprentice stole my strategy—he staged a coup and won,

Seizing command and taking power that I could have used.

The city was gone; it lay far beyond my grasp, and I was powerless.

I won the hatred of the people from the city in a plan that I regret;

As always, it collapsed, and I was left to stand alone.

But the city—it still rose up in misty shadows, haunting me.

I was desperate for a plan.

Again, I found an idea in my mind, albeit a hopeless one, and used it.

Fools of townspeople; they unknowingly harbored those I searched for.

But there was the one, the bold one who defied my designs,

And once again he foiled my plan, as he had so many times before.

So as I lay here, slowly healing, dreaming of that fascinating city,

I remember how I tried and failed and tried again to take it.

But I will return one day.