Mortem Sit Amet

or The Ballad of Keziah and Alphonse. A pirate waltz. Another from the pirate album. About those who would steal getting their just desserts.

Mortem Sit Amet

by Jeremy Cooney

It began in the market

Of Libertalia

A soothsayer caught me in gaze

To her tent I did stumble

She spun me a tale

For a price that I gladly would pay

Now the parchment that I carry

Bears with it a warning

Speaks to aeons of grief

And of riches untold

On an isle, or hell-mouth

Far out beyond the Skeleton Reef

There be mountains of gold

And rivers of rubies

Gleaming and bloodied and wrong

For at the height of it all

Sits a music box playing

Eternally grinding the song

It goes one, two, three,

One two three three

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek

Long ago lived a bard

The cunning young Alphonse

A boy with the voice of a god

It brought him many a free meal

And nighttime companion

But true, led him under the sod

For he sang for the peasants,

He sang before kings

Alphonse sang before all who would hear

But pride was his folly

When he sang before Keziah

Captain'd she the great Boann Spear

Yes, she loved him and wooed him

With tales of treasure

She'd hid where only monsters dare roam

And his pockets were deeper

Than his love for the captain

The last mistake he'd make 'fore sailin' out over the -foam

-one, two, three,

One two three three

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek

Well, Keziah, she swooned

Oh, Keziah was stricken

But never did she play the fool!

And as Alphonse grew closer

His songs of the Captain

Spilt sour desire of jewels

As the old dingy rowed

From ship past the breakers

She heard his heart beatin' wild

With her eyes traced the pistol

Tucked into his waste coat

inside something froze and she smiled

For Keziah had "acquired"

A trinket of power

A keepsake of the dark wizard Zol   -Na'Fetack

A small wooden box

Plain and simple and empty

'till filled with the weight of a soul

Beckoning one, two, three,

One two three three

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek

As his eyes beheld crowns

Doubloons, rings and statues

His hands moved quicker than his mind

Keziah lifts up the lid

With a crack and a flash

Alphonse screams, bound eternal inside 

Well Keziah, she chortles

As Keziah, she bleeds

His shot stained the sleeve of her blouse

Something shifts in her hands

She twitches, she gasps

She drops both the box and her mouth

As it falls to the ground

Silver carvings do glisten

A warning, a song, or a curse

The notes ring cold and eerie

A tune known to Keziah

When Alphonse had written a verse just for her

It goes one, two, three,

One two three three

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek

See, old Zol was a trickster

Wise and a prophet

Foreseen Keziah's treachery, left not to chance

For the voice of sweet Alphonse

The box made immortal

Resistance is futile when you hear the dance

Her first mate espied this

And turned he to run

But his boots were already in use

The crew that had followed

Their luck couldn't save them

Danced their heels bloodied and blue

This was ages ago

Still their bones, they be clackin'

Caught in a waltz by the sea

So be wary, ye seekers

Of Keziah's lost cache

You're lost too if you hear that one, two three, one, two, three

One, two, three,

One, two, three,

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek

One, two, three,

One, two, three,

Sway like the sea

'Mortem Sit Amet"

The Devil's sweet music

Protects the fortune you seek