The Game Pieces

We are the game pieces
We see what comes to pass
You can bury us in your earth
Or place us behind glass
You think we're in the hands
Of the frightened or the clever
But the game pieces know
And the game goes on forever

It came about one night
Mist was on the water
Everything was still
Still for miles around
Darkness won her day
But other eyes were watching
And to the lowest knight
From the water crawled a man
All hands were lost
As the vessel took on water
Panic shook the decks
Leaving no-one in command
He'd seen a velvet bag
Floating in the moonlight
He lay alive and thankful
That he had it in his hand
Cutting of a knife
Last words stifled
The killer took his money
Rifle through his clothes
Then he found the bag
With the money's staring faces
Holding up a figure now
He swallowed hard and froze

They caught up with the man
Many years later
Blood still on his hands
Thunder in his eye
They bound him up in chains
Pointed to the gallows
He told the strangest tale
On the day he was to die
Told them of a sailor
Whose life he had taken
Told them of the bag
He'd committed to the clay
Told them of the strange god's
Black eye a-shining
They shivered and they said
"In the ground is where they stay."

Now digging on the land
A crofter found a jacket
Muddy, torn and faded
Just a purple hue
Came across the pieces
Scattered in their chamber
Like finding gold
To the man without a shoe
Valued as a lot
The hammer moves them on and on
Sold to a name
They stand and they wait
Silent air around
With no-one to touch them
A law unto themselves
Only moved by hands of fate

The game pieces know
And the game goes on forever