Silvereyes

Eric Marin

Pretender to the Quartz Throne,
The Stone Emperor’s bastard
And con man extraordinaire,
Zacharias Silvereyes
Used his fast mouth and quick feet
To ditch bounty hunters and
And grim detectives alike.

His subjects loved his deep charm,
And even the wisest of
Burrowers succumbed to it,
And they cast illusory
Images of him across
The mundane and magic planes
That led pursuers astray.

The tunnels of his people
Bored throughout the multiverse,
And he used the Cedar Lamp
Pilfered from a sleeping djinn
To find his way between worlds
And lead him from scam to scam
And even straight to prison.

But his people always knew
When Silvereyes sat in jail,
And they opened secret ways
Out of the securest cells
And paroled their rogue ruler
Back to the Chiming Caverns
To hold court for a few months.

But boredom stalked Silvereyes,
A criminal seductress,
And he shrugged out of state robes
Placed on his narrow shoulders
By his Burrower subjects,
And off Silvereyes wandered,
Looking for new shills to fleece.