-Three Months Later-

A chill, dead wind blew through the town of Garma's Rest.

The streets were more empty than usual, and more than ever it seemed a settlement ready to sink beneath the very desert sands it had been built upon back in a time that no one remembered. The local tax collector had even given the place up. Most of the residents, many of whom swore they would call this place home, had vacated in the space of only a month.

Usually, such oddities would draw the attention of the local sultan or liege lord, for the Goba desert is a frontier land, and bloody territorial claims are staked on little more than the whim of a rising warmonger, defying Amaratian law and attempting to set himself up as a God of the lawless province.

Yet the people that remained in the town did not see an army come to their forgotten hamlet. Even that would have been too much cause for celebration.

Instead, a silver-haired Argent with a small contingent of men confidently strode into the town one day and began asking questions.

The silver one wanted to know about the mass exodus, and even as the men and women of the local tavern turned their faces from him and his brood of cutthroats, still, it was said that he coaxed the answers he sought from any he conversed with.

Slowly his suspicions were confirmed: here was a town on the edge of the world, slathered in a sheen of silence that told of death. In the last month, residents had taken to leaving the town in droves, some of them braving the harsh desert winds and constantly warring armies or bandits. They sought places where Amarata's presence was stronger. They sought lands where the light of the Lady could cleanse their souls.

For a demon had come to live in their village.

In whispered breaths they told the silver one where his lair was: the ramshackle house at the end of town, with the little broken well outside that wild hounds often frequented. They said the demon had come to them in the body of a child - a child who never spoke, and who brought a silence so deep it was like the dark of night itself went with him when he walked.

These things the silver one heard, nodded at, and then turned to those whom he had brought with him - a sly lizard endlessly drinking from a bottle at his waist, and a high backed, aged, blind Jilae with feathers cloaked in shadow.

"The chick shall not yet be fully in control of its powers," the ashen-Jilae croaked as they left the tavern. "Easy pickings for such a long journey."

The Yok'ra spat a globule of poison from his mouth and mumbled something about endless walking while the silver one marched on, at the head of the group, glancing back at his men over his shoulder.

"You'd murder a child, Revok?"

"I would murder an entire nursery of Glancer babies if you so commanded it, my Lord."

"What about you, Nils?" the silver one said with an elongated smirk. "Would you set fire to a cottage full of Yok'ra infants if I so commanded it, without question?"

"Without question?" The Yok'ra spat back. "Nah. I'd ask how much fer the job."

The silver one laughed at that, and those townsfolk who were listening to the passers-by at their windows felt their blood run cold. There was something distinctly alien about the way the man laughed. Like he was imitating a relevant emotion more than actually expressing it.

"I am glad that, in my old age, reason has not yet departed me," he said. "For I have chosen the perfect men for this particular job."

"So we're gonna gut the lil guy?" Nils asked.

The silver one made no response at first, for they had reached the threshold separating the house from the rest of the village. It stood alone - a dull, ruined, hollowed-out thing, and the wild dogs cleaning themselves beside the mud-filled well growled at the new arrivals.

There was a nip in the air - a kind of charged energy that conjured up images of wisp-like smoke snaking through one's nostrils, or pigs being fried on a spit for too long. The silver one breathed in, exhaled, and then stepped towards the worn, tattered doorway of the house. As he did so some of the hounds leapt to engage him, and in the next instant the blind Jilae turned his eyes upon them, they scattered back into he desert brush from whence they had come.

"This assignment is a lesson," the silver one then said as he knocked at the door. "So pay attention, check your mouths, and get ready to learn something."

"Hello?" he then called out, in a voice far different, far softer, than he had just been speaking in. "Is this Miss Gendry's residence?"

No answer.

Another knock. No answer.

Both the Yok'ra and the Jilae readied their weapons, and only the subtle twitch of their leader's fingers bid them stay their hands.

He sensed movement behind the door.

Something that felt like a hurricane brewing within.

"Gentlemen," the silver one said. "I suggest you both duck."

He followed his own advice as the door was sliced in half and blown free from its hinges. Easily avoidable, and with little force behind it. Still, potent enough that it could've ended the life of one of the tiny beings that drank from the well.

The silver one stepped inside with icy calmness. His men followed, their hands still fingering their respective weapons.

The interior of the home was a jumble of broken furniture and webbing. Here and there tiny spiders, rats, and other insects scurried away from the three newcomers who brought light to their black realm. As the leader of the Argents stepped further into the darkened interior, he suddenly felt his foot make contact with something organic - something thin and bloodied, and weak enough that his foot sank right through it and he felt bone crunch beneath him.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

He had just trodden on an impossible eviscerated arm - barely recognizable as a human limb. It looked more like the scratching post of some frenzied saber-toothed cat.

As he puzzled over the grotesque sight, he suddenly felt another burst of energy fly towards him.

This time, he did not duck. He grinned, drew his blade, and batted the gust of vicious wind away with little effort. It impacted the wall of the house and tore a new scar into the already ruined structure, which now began to groan with the effort of maintaining its weakened integrity.

With the light that now streamed through the new window, the Argents then saw the owner of the arm: a body that could only vaguely be described as a female's, covered in more lacerations and puss-filled, gaping wounds than many of them had ever seen or believed a human body could withstand. She lay splayed in the middle of what might once have been the kitchen, judging by the smoothness of the blood-spattered floor. Her hair had been ripped from her skull almost thread by thread, and her skull lolled to the side, showing where her teeth had each been chipped away at so they more resembled the fangs of a dog than the canines of a human. No limbs were present on her torso - they, the silver one assumed - were probably strewn elsewhere throughout the house like the arm they'd just found.

"Ms Gendry, I presume," the Jilae said.

The Yok'ra cringed. "Bloody gross. Gonna need me a drink."

"You always do, dear Nils."

While his companions continued such nonchalant conversation in the face of this horror, the silver one noticed probably the greatest oddity of the entire grisly mess: the face of the woman, from what little he could tell, was twisted in a macabre, almost childish smile of joy. Natural, or forced by the attacker, he couldn't tell. But once one got past the base horror of the body, the impression was clear: this woman had suffered, and been happy about it.

With this thought ruminating in his mind, the silver one let his eyes wander up past the body to the darkest corner of the room, and sensed, as only he could, the barely contained energy swirling there:

Appraisal: Success

Race: Human

Class: Glancer (Windcaller)

Level: Unleveled

The plot thickens.

"Come on out, son," he said to the corner.

His companions stiffened behind him, drawn to the same expanse of power they felt emanate from the child's hiding place, and then slowly the young thing emerged - a small, eerily thin, bald youth, holding something in his arms.

He did not look at them. Instead, he kept his head downcast, like a child who had stolen a toy, or committed some other trivial domestic blunder.

"That's 'im," the Yok'ra said. "The wumin's boy - Knox."

The Jilae sighed. "Well spotted, Nils."

"Knox?" the silver one asked the dark creature, bending to one knee. "Is that your name, son?"

The boy did not answer him.

"Ye got sand in yer ears, desert boy?" the Yok'ra snapped. "This is Lord Jael Argent ye be ingorin'. Ye think what ye did ta yer ma's bad? This guy could rend ye from yer little limbs quicker than a-"

At a quick glance from the silver one, the Yok'ra fell into silence.

"Hello, Knox," he continued. "My name is Jael."

No response. The silver one continued.

"Is this - was this - your mother?"

The boy shuffled, tugging at his ragged robe with his free hand.

Then came a nod. Subtle. Strained. But it came.

"Did you do this to her, Knox?"

The boy tightened his grip, and this time a nod did not come. But the increasing shudders of his small shoulders told the men enough.

The silver one edged closer to the boy. As he did so, he softened his voice further, dropping it to almost a feather-lite whisper.

"Knox, was she a bad woman?" he asked.

He heard the boy gulp.

"Did she hit you?"

Another gulp. Then a nod.

"So you hit her back, didn't you?"

Now the face jerked up, and the silver one saw the boy's eyes were not full of emotion as he thought. Rather, they were like two empty, onyx gems screwed into a scarred and dirt-caked face. If he held remorse for what he did, the silver one could not find it in his gaze.

"I understand, Knox," he continued, pressing slightly closer. "You're special, aren't you? You can do things the other people here can't do. Special things with the wind and the air."

A little flicker in those eyes, now. A spark of interest. Especially at that word, 'special'.

"Sometimes you feel the air coming into your nose and running up your arm to your hand, right?" the silver one continued. "And then you can make things happen with it. You can hurt people. You can help people."

Now there was true surprise burning in those little dead eyes. Life was in there, alright, and a thirst to understand what he was.

The silver one smiled.

"Me and my friends are special, too," he said. "We can make things happen with fire, water, lightning, rocks - lots of things. Some of us even use the wind, just like you."

He noticed a slight drooping of the boy's brow at the suggestion of similarity. So, as he moved within striking distance of the boy now, he changed tac:

"Of course, none of us can do anything like this. Nobody I've seen showed this much promise at your age, Knox."

The interest was back. He understood what he needed to about the boy, now.

"Knox, would you like to come with us?" he asked, reaching out a hand. "We can take you somewhere where there are people like us, people who would love to meet you. Learn from you. Maybe you could learn a few things, too."

He expected the mute boy to either grip his hand or push it away, and yet he was pleasantly surprised to find that, once again, this world and the people in it still held surprises for him.

The boy placed unveiled the thing he'd been cradling in his hands and placed it on Jael's open palm. He looked down to see the desiccated, fly-ridden, eyeless corpse of a puppy.

The Jilae gasped, the Yok'ra coughed, and the silver one suppressed the desire to laugh as the boy pointed at the dog, touched it with his fingers, and looked up at him in confusion as though he expected something to happen.

"Ah," the silver one said. "I'm sorry, little one, but when a life is spent it cannot be brought back. Life is a resource too precious to be wasted. Once it is gone, it is vanished from this world. Of course, where we shall be going one day, that will all change."

Now he had the boy's undivided attention. He held his eyes even as he let the dog's lame head droop from his pale fingers.

"Yes, Knox. There is a place where your magic will only grow, and we're going to go there one day soon. If you came with us, you could learn just how much can be done with life in the hands of one who holds power like you do. One day, you may even learn how to bring this little being back."

He had him now - even his companions could see it. The magic in the youth's eyes that brightened even his dark, drooping form. They'd had that same magic injected into them the first time they met the silver one, and from that day on they'd followed him to the ends of this doomed earth.

The boy would do the same. He was one of them, now.

"Revok," the silver one said. "See to the care of this young one. See to it that he gets a copious helping of our rations, and sleeps soundly tonight on a comfortable wing."

The Jilae nodded while the Yok'ra bristled, and though he would normally have interjected, the bird-man let the lizard make his complaint:

"Ye sure about this, Jael?" he whispered. "The boy's a creepy fuck. Can't even talk proper, like. He's liable to kill his brothers and sisters in arms, not help 'em!"

But Jael was cool. The boy saw this as he looked up into his bright, luminous eyes and his youthful smile.

"Witness your lesson today, Initiates Revok and Nils," he said. "Life is a resource. It is a candle that flickers on the thinnest, most fickle wick amidst the storm of an angry night. And with proper nurture and care, enough candles can create a bonfire that will burn like the brightest star."

He looked down at the boy who had forgotten about the dog that now lay at his feet. He'd forgotten about his mother, too. About the village, and about even his own concept of self. Now, he had something else to believe in.

"I will not extinguish a flame that has only begun to burn," the silver one said, and he marched past both his incredulous men wearing his proud, saccharine smile.

They were both left to look down at the child.

"Creepy fuck," the Yok'ra said again, swigging from his tankard and following his master out.

The bird-man, however, draped one soft wing over the boy. He felt its warmth radiate through his skin like the most calming, soothing wind of the desert outside, and allowed it to lead him past the corpse of his mother.

"Come, young one," the blind bird said. "I can already tell we shall become fast friends."