"ACT ONE: I have no reason to begin with simple tales of vengeance or the dark intent to kill. Yet, one must speak of how intertwined cosmic fates gained absolute dominance and utterly uprooted the festering fractures of a dynasty from their very foundations. Therein lies the ultimate metaphysical conjecture: that ASTYAGES was anciently and eternally cursed, and CYRUS was divinely destined to be made forever and truly great!"
"Many superficially deem the fall of the Median Empire the bitter fruit of a loveless union; while others narrowly attribute the ascent of the Persians to a grandson's bloody vengeance against a mad grandfather. Woe! The primordial knot resting eternally behind the veiled shadow of truth is far more INEXTRICABLE than the feeble nonsensical ravings maliciously woven into the worn textual fabric of history."
"Let us return to an age long past; far earlier than the day ASTYAGES fell by the relentless blade of Cyrus—be it by the hand of justice or the blind thirst for power. Even before the fated union where the King's daughter was tragically bestowed upon Cambyses. Behold! We now journey toward a primordial NIGHTMARE that remains ominously heavy with ancient fixations and the bitter stifling air of eternal suffocation."
"Undoubtedly, the collapse of the mighty Median Empire and the glorious ascent of Achaemenid grandeur cannot be dismissed as a mere result of betrayal, vengeance, or even a simple dynastic assassination. No! A limitless COSMIC justice, as vast as the universal rift, was required in a dark inevitable destiny to facilitate the total fall of the Median state; and perhaps, something far beyond that has mysteriously transpired!"
"Yet, to pass judgment upon the guilt, innocence, or the inevitable entanglement of grandfather and grandson in each other's blood is not our ultimate purpose. No! Let us set aside this daunting judgment and turn instead toward that first fiery spark of ASTYAGES's wrath; that tiny vicious ember which held the hidden power to ignite the flame that would ultimately consume the shattering entirety of the Median realm!"
"That small parasitic vermin born of nightmare, which had begun to crawl within the darkened imagination of ASTYAGES, eventually transformed into a small horned dragon, and thereafter, into a monstrous two-headed fire-tailed dragon! And that fateful, wondrous moment was no mere dream born of a full stomach, but indeed the very eternal dawn of a Great Empire's legendary and unstoppable ascent."
"On a charming spring night, when the earth's soul was drenched in dew and the air grew crisp, ASTYAGES—that frozen icy mountain of tyranny who had reclined upon the throne of ECBATANA for long years—awoke with a violent roar from the agonizing torment of a terrifying nightmare. Without delay, he frantically summoned the Grand MAGUS, his loyal chief dream-interpreter and trusted keeper of secrets."
"The sovereign's cry of horror from the nightmare echoed tensely until dawn through every corner and into the very ears of the palace's jade-colored marble stones; or rather, his ancient protective energy shield, not just the palace! This sound, merged with the Magus's harrowing interpretation and Astyages's violent decree, carved deep, chaotic venomous fractures into the King's sacred ancestral family tree."
"The First Nightmare, First Union: In a seismic vision, the King beheld a flood surging from the womb of his daughter, MANDANE; a deluge so vast it spanned the continent of Asia, shattering every border of his realm. Meanwhile, the Magus—trapped between profound bewilderment and the deliberate silence of the ensnared stars—gazed with trembling doubt at himself, the smoldering womb-altar of the nightmare, and the King."
"Observing the King's abnormal turbulence and his paralyzing dread of losing the realm, the Magus interpreted his own utter helplessness as the collapse of the Medes at the hands of ASTYAGES's own lineage. The King's heart finally grew heavy with a poisonous dark certainty: that wedding his daughter to a noble house of equal rank would only fatally hasten the inevitable and violent annihilation of his entire reign."
"Consequently, from among the low-ranking tributaries and minor officials near the court, the King selected an obscure inferior yet loyal and worthy lineage to bestow MANDANE upon in a calculated political marriage. He sought to secure a brief reprieve for his trembling reign, all while harboring the arrogant imperial intent of appearing to grant a supreme benevolent favor to the subjugated Persians!"
"Though many presume marriage to be a mere simple union, a fleeting pact between two souls, the Divine Mystery lies far beyond such trivialities. BLOOD! Yes, that primordial purity and sacred endurance which courses through the veins of man and woman; that ancestral legacy carried from generation to generation, from the very marrow of the bones to the eternal pulse of the veins yet to come!"
"Did the distant stars—Jupiter and Mars—truly hear the bitter prayers and lamentations of the suffering people tormented under the merciless iron claws of ASTYAGES's tyranny? Hmm! Though the Magus delivered the interpretation without error, his hidden bias and ignorant intent were precisely what the sovereign celestial heavens had secretly desired to orchestrate the inevitable downfall of his corrupted and crumbling throne."
"Otherwise, how could the only daughter of the Median Sovereign be chosen, by his own consent and effort, for union with a low-born man? Yet, in this particular moment, the discourse is not of ASTYAGES's hound-hearted cruelty, nor of the Magus's reckless ease in uttering the forbidden, nor even of the shifting destiny of the King's oppressed and silent daughter, but of a much vaster and more terrifying cosmic design!"
"Indeed! Turning by the eternal will and intelligence of the Firmament, at the very zenith of the Magi's astrological wisdom—which had plunged even that Magus into a bottomless well of astonishment—the birth of a colossal sovereign had been ordained long before. I know what you secretly ponder: the deceptive silence within the celestial dome; but no... Ha! That mysterious infant is most certainly NOT Cyrus!"