No White Light Near Death
33rd Day of Ogun in the Third Month of Wind’s Sway
4375 A.G.G. (258 Years Ago)
The City of Koso, Beneath the Tuska Mountains
The Continent of Kazakoto
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It should be understood that some of the following passages may not be entirely accurate as they weren’t transcribed as they were spoken. They’ve been translated here for ease of reading. Because of this, unfortunately, some things may be lost in the translation from the original Ångëlįc to common.
Translated passages will be indicated by the use of bold print.
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Samahdemn
The bioluminescent light filling the small, subterranean greenhouse around us was jaw dropping. Greens, blues, reds and yellows all congealed with the blue-white light from the wicc lanterns in the area to create an undeniably romantic scene. It was a space that was forbidden to all other than Ñä’Kimuli’s family, yet visited regularly by none but her; having been her mother’s before her, and her mother’s mother before that. Passed down to her once her father, the viscount, had a larger space commissioned for the viscountess.
A gift to celebrate the anniversary of their bonding.
The small, intimate locale sat in the midst of a subterranean forest. A hidden paradise some eight hectares large, situated at the bottom of a massive sinkhole in Ñä’Kimuli’s fiefdom. Some thousand feet above us, the moons’ light poured through a hole in the mountain’s surface roughly six hectares square; lending to the acreage an almost ethereal feel.
The greenhouse’s thick, dusty panes of coloured glass were cracked in many places, through which wild plants had long ago succeeded in conquering the space. Nearly free of intervention from either Ñä’Kimuli or her mother before her.
Branches resting atop its ceiling.
Vines constricting around it’s supports.
Ivy coating its ages-old doors.
Elves tended to interfere with nature’s natural course as little as possible. Yet the structure as a whole had ceased to cave to the barely controlled growth. Such was the resilience of eluvian architecture.
The glasshouse itself was part of a larger structure whose purpose was no longer remembered by the family of nobles; so long had it been since it had last seen use. Likely once a maner belonging to a well-to-do family now long forgotten.
Outside of the greenhouse itself and its manor-ish ruins, the surrounding glade was otherwise untouched by the hands of any other mer or men. A quiet, personal space that Ñä’Kimuli confided that she wanted to share with me. Only me. Alone.
Scents both sweet and spicy filled the air; practically pouring from non-luminescing lilies, nicotianas, jasmine and clove. Clove, in point-of-fact, which Ñä’Kimuli cultivated solely in order to harvest for her own supply of leaf to smoke, which she oft mixed with cinnamon, elderflower and mace. It was a blend of leaf she was partaking in at this very moment as she moved ahead of me into the conservatory. The fragrant vines, mosses and whatnot that formed the forest’s (and the room’s) thick green carpet, giving way softly under her barefooted steps as she glided along.
And I, like her, left my shoes at the threshold at her request.
“It’s a sacred place, an elf’s garden, you see.” she informed me with her soft voice; her accent covering her words like a thick nectar. “And none more so than that of a sunset woman. Few are the reasons we invite outsiders into our hallowed spaces.”
“And what’s yours?” I asked.
She stopped and turned mid step to face me at the foot of a small weeping cherry tree, positioning the balls of one of her feet on the bridge of the other in a T-like position. A dancer’s stance.
She’d always loved to dance.
Ñä’Kimuli drew on her hand rolled cigarillo and offered it to me with an outstretched hand. “You tell me.” she answered as she exhaled.
I moved in close to her, watching the way the smoke from her thick lips caressed her features and wafted about her eyes, as I accepted the thin cigar and placed it in my mouth. Its burning leaf tasted of burley and its papers tasted of the traces of heka that were left coating its tip from her saliva.
She was intoxicating.
"That’s an interesting tree.” I commented; playfully deflecting her query.
She looked up to its branches, then back into my eyes; retrieving the tiny cigar from my hand. “A common centerpiece in gardens among us. A white tree, of any kind, is considered to be good fortune; a blessing. A representation of the Goddess’ Tree in the Dįvįnë Garden. We plant them first, then grow the rest of our gardens around them.”
“And has it? Brought you good fortune?”
“It has so far. You fancy it?”
I fancy you. I thought to myself as Ñä’Kimuli wrapped her lips around her stogie.
And I found myself daring to let my emotions drive me to slowly wrap my arms around her waist under the veritable waterfall of microbraids that fell from her head; their tips clinking together by her thighs under the weight of the decorations on their tips.
“It’s beautiful. Almost as beautiful as you are.”
“You’re very presumptuous in both your words and actions for someone so low-born.”
She’d given me no resistance when I physically claimed her, so her words caught me a bit unawares. I feared that I may have overstepped despite her calmness at my arms hugging her close. “I beg your forgiveness…My Lady.” I stated as I loosened my hold. “I should let you go.”
She smiled kindly at me as she gently placed her dark-skinned hand on my arms. As warm as the suns dipped in black, it was. The whole of her aspect glowed from behind its colour.
“Don’t back down from me so easily.” she commented playfully. “I said no such thing.”
One of my hands found itself creeping up to the roots of her weighty hair; empowered by the encouragement. And I lightly messaged her coca butter treated scalp as I tightened my hold on her waist out of my need for her.
She rose up on the tips of her toes as we closed the gap between our lips to within inches; never taking our eyes off of each other.
“I have a confession Iÿäloja.”
“What’s that?”
My lips lightly grazed hers as I whispered to her- “I’ve wanted you since I first saw you. I shouldn’t have, but I did.”
“And now that you have me?” she asked quietly as she relinquished her smoky vice to rest it on a nearby stone planter.
“Do I My Lady?”
“Call me by my name, and find out.”
“My sweet, sweet Ñä’.”
No longer could I hold myself back. I consumed her lips. Slowly. Methodically. My tongue studied each bud of hers; reaching as deep into her as it could as she did the same to me in turn. I could taste little from her but the nature of The Flow. Heka and desire.
Gently cupping her ample backside, I lifted her from the earth; the lightness of her lithe frame surprising me. And I felt one of her legs as she lifted it and wrapped it around me; hooking herself in and pressing her pelvis into mine with a smile that I can only describe as…hungry. I laid her down on the grassy floor beneath the floating white moss that hung from the branches of her garden tree. There, our legs interwove as I mounted her; the feel of her thicc, toned thy against my groin instilling in me the urge to grind against her.
An urge I denied myself for fear of seeming too animalistic in my wanting.
Our palms found each other; fingers interlocking. I guided her hands above her head and ceased my oral interplay, that I might take in the way that the moons’ light played across the surface of her dark skin and made her silver hair gleam.
“Your hair, Ñä’. It’s like starlight.”
She simply smiled a smile that spoke the volumes that she didn’t reciprocate in words. But that was okay. I could feel her feelings through the Flow.
I released the hold I had of one of her hands. She didn’t move as I traced the outline of her body down her arm, over the outer curvature of her breast, and down her stomach to the waist of her eluvian kirtle; gently guiding her leg by its inner thy to release me as I spread her open. But as I lifted my hips and grasped a fistful of fabric to slide it up her thigh, I heard her say-
“No.”
Confusion gripped me in the midst of my heat. “Did I do something wrong. my Ñä’?”
“No. You didn’t. But, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think I want that from you any more. Not right now.”
I released my grip on her dress, and re-rested my weight on her.
“Don’t be discouraged. I want it. I want you. But this isn’t something with you that I think I’m ready for quite yet.” she said shyly.
“Are you saying you’ve never…been with anyone before?” I asked.
She giggled like a schoolgirl as she ran her free hand through my locs lovingly. The feel of the breathy vibrations that her laugh sent through her body tantalized me terribly.
“You shouldn’t confuse sex and intimacy, my Sam. Sex, I’ve had. Intimacy…well…that’s far rarer. I’ve lived quite a bit longer than you. My past is a storied one. And I’ve made, what I would generously call mistakes along the road. Although, I’ll admit, few this intimate. There’s a closeness between us. I didn’t bring you to my sacred space on a whim. But I won’t let that closeness rush me into a bad place.”
“Am I really that bad?” I asked, feeling a bit hurt.
“Absolutely. You're a mess” she responded without a moment’s pause. “But I like you being a bit of a mess. It brings with it character. I’m of what you’d call a…passionate type. I let my emotions drive me more than I should for a sunset Lady. And I’m comfortable being that way. But a…sexual relationship between us would further strain the already volatile sociopolitical situation here under the mountain to a breaking point. And I can’t be responsible for that. I can’t be that much of a child.”
“I wish I could be the elf you need.”
“You have no idea how much I wish that same thing.”
I felt a smile pelt across my face as I asked her- “So, you’re saying that you don’t bring people here often?”
“You’re the first.”
“I didn’t think I was worthy of such…trust. Least of all, from you. I didn’t think you even cared for me at first blush.”
“At first blush? I didn’t.”
“What changed?”
She shook her head dismissively. “Please, enough talk.” she gently pleaded; placing her fingertips over my lips. “I want to enjoy this moment. I want to enjoy you; the mess of a person that you are.”
I felt a smile cross my face as I kissed the fingers that silenced me. “So do I Ñä’.”
“Then enjoy me. Kiss me again. Don’t be afraid to touch me. My body? Within reason it’s yours, but respect my wishes as we play and don’t push me to go any further than I’m ready.”
Watching her eyes for any hint of disagreement, I willed my hand to drift back up her figure, following the energy of the moment, before coming to gently cup her chest through her clothing.
“I’d never want you to be with me against your will.”
A smile of acknowledgement, a playful tug on my beard, and she pulled me tight into her; her elven strength catching me slightly by surprise.
In response, I gifted her a kiss upon the raised floral tattoo above her eye and a gentle kneed of her breast and again, she giggled gleefully. In response I bit down with care into her neck and began sucking with the desire to leave a mark of affection on her melanated skin, to which she released passionate, disparate breaths.
Our eyes closed in tandem, as our lips found each other again.
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36th Day of Ojo Didi in the Fifth Month of Snow’s Fall
4380 A.G.G. (253 Years Ago; Mundus Reckoning)
The Township of Euuil Village, North of the Great Desert
The Continent of Alphava
I wish I could say that every dream I had in my death throws was like that. I wish I could tell you that every reminiscence was a happy one. But, if that were the case, then I wouldn’t be me.
Despite the lies I’ve been told, you do dream when you fall comatose. Too few were my moments of respite within peaceful memories of Ñä’. Far more often did I find myself reliving the perdition that was every other aspect of my life. Every bad decision I’d made, every life I’d taken, every monster who’d maimed me, every disaster I’d caused…my dreams had become inescapable nightmares.
Especially those of The Spire.
I saw massive chains of wicc falling to the ground. Fire engulfing all before me. Glass turning molten. Bodies gouged, bleeding and melting. I heard innocents screaming and crying in vain for a Goddess that, in that moment, didn’t seem to exist.
I could smell their burning flesh and hair.
I felt heat and force blast through a window next to me. I felt my feet leave the ground and my head crack against a solid object of some kind…
The grogginess of the death like slumber I’d found myself in had clouded my senses before I was startled awake by my perpetual night terrors. I fell in and out of consciousness for what felt like an age. And when I did rouse enough to be cognizant, it wasn’t visions of Ñä’ that comforted me in my confusion, it were visions of a fiery end that held me in terror. And it was there that I sat confused and in fear for my life.
Where am I? What happened? Did I kill all those people? Who put me here?
My mind was racing with a hundred questions a minute. I didn’t know where I was. I couldn’t understand what had happened. I only knew that I had to get up before whatever may have been coming next, came for me.
The Spire’s coming down. I can’t help them. I have to get up…have to get out.
I had to run. But I couldn’t. Everything hurt and my limbs felt…wrong. Entrapped. Numb.
It took more than a few moments, but an understanding of the white walls of the hospital room I was in, finally found itself filtering into my mind. A very modest space. There were a few simple machines about me from what I could see without exposing myself to the discomfort of moving my head overmuch.
Tubes feeding me intravenous fluids. A bathroom. Bronze vents in the floors that blew cool air.
I tried to move, but my body felt too heavy to do anything but lay.
Taking in more of what was about me, and recalling the fight in the alley, I saw that my broken arm was suspended in the air by a sling that was secured to a medical support over my head, and covered in a cast. My opposing hand and arm were likewise covered in hard casts, but not so extremely elevated.
There was no manipulating them.
My chest was tightly wrapped. Sore. Breathing was an exercise in experiencing pressure and modest discomfort.
“I would not try to move too much if I were you. That could be…painful.”
The voice of the man who spoke was familiar. From something recent. It grounded me a bit. It hammered home the realization that I wasn’t where, or when, I at first thought I was.
“There is a lot of turmoil in you.”
“Who’s there? Do I know you?”
“More than you think. But, no. Not yet. Yet you will. Soon.” I heard the stranger take a few more steps towards my bed; still refusing to step directly in front of me. “You talk in your sleep.”
I looked about frantically in so much as I could move. “Do I now?”
“You do. Who is Ñä’?”
“Rude to be so personal without giving me so much as your name. And why does that concern you anyway?”
I could hear the sound of his retreating footfalls as he backed away. “You are right. I am being intrusive. My people can sometimes lack, acknowledgement, of personal boundaries. We do not have them, in general. We are very close to each other in that way.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that whomever she is, she is important to you. Hers was the last name you said before you succumbed to your injuries, and hers was the only name you said in your sleep when you were not fighting your nightmares or talking to the dead. Your only moments of peace. If you will take a bit of advice from a stranger, who hopes to soon be a friend, you should hold onto her. You will need that connection.”
I’ll admit that I thought this man, whomever he was, foolish at first. Strange. Off kilter. He made me anxious, but, at the same time, he had a presence that was undeniably soothing; in a strange sort of way. Something that made me, against my better judgement, want to listen. Something in his voice. Or the energy he gave off.
Still, I would’ve gladly left the room had I the ability to move regardless. I had a healthy fear of the unfamiliar.
“You are fortunate.” he continued. “You would not believe how difficult it is to find a hospital outside of Hesijua that is not so full of dread of your people that they are willing to operate on you. And I have had to do it twice now.”
Forcing myself to turn my head as much as I could manage to one side, I finally beheld two conservatively dressed figures. Both dark skinned. Dwalli from what I could tell due to their lack of arm plugs. One was an older man. Tall and strong looking, despite the fact that there were visible yet stately patches of gray at the roots of his short black locs; a gray which seemed subtlety interwoven throughout the entirety of his hair.
If I looked hard enough, I could have almost sworn that it had a faint reddish hue over all.
Strange. A natural dwalli ginger? I wondered to myself briefly. Now there’s something you don’t see everyday.
And then there were his eyes.
They were the eyes of a young man. Full of vibrancy and life. Yet, they were unlike any I’d ever seen before...save for my hallucinations in the alley before I lost consciousness. Solid orbs of a dark yet rich purple that glowed from the center of his irises. I also couldn’t place his accent. Thick and rich. Not unlike my people’s, yet not dwalli either. It was off. Mixed with a hint of…something else. Several something elses.
“That Goddess forsaken eye of yours didn’t make it any easier either.” spoke the man beside him who piggybacked his rant about the difficulty of finding a hospital staff that sufficiently lacked anxiety enough to help me. “I suppose it’s good that those travel papers you swalii carry on you allow for medical care within reason.”
This man seemed much younger. Stouter and of a slightly fairer complexion…a more honey brown. Kinky hair that bordered on curly with eyes that were akin to the ginger’s, but they contained marbles of a blinding white hue as opposed to purple. He also spoke with the same off kilter accent.
My mind was fastly clearing now. I was just seeing things in that alley, wasn’t I?
I pushed that thought to the side for the moment.
“Can’t hold us to task for religious mandate when technology is something that’s literally a part of us.” I commented as I nearly parroted what I’d told to Fä’Äfkä earlier.
It was a practiced response at this point in my life.
“Not that there are not those who would love to put you to the sword for it anyway. But rest assured, they are not us. You have nothing to fear.” the darker man confessed.
“Not right now anyway.” the shorter man echoed.
“I don’t take kindly to threats.” I challenged; as if I had the ability to actually back up those words.
“You’re hardly in any position to-”
“Now is not the time Ëlzįëį. Do not fight with him. Our time grows short enough as it is.”
And there it was again. That intangible quality of the dark skinned man’s voice…something powerful and ancient that commanded authority and respect. That lulled me into being more malleable to the situation than I should have been. And behind it, Ëlzįëį bowed his head lightly and did as he was asked.
“Tk ucj ålkx.” Ëlzįëį whispered in a language I didn’t understand. But I understood body language. And he wasn’t happy.
“L kblįį mtn’b qħįlħƔħ bxtb bxlk lk bxħ otn ucj’wħ fjbblnd kc ojmx ÿtlbx ln.” he continued. “Bxtb bxlk lk bxħ cnħ åxc Brigid kftwħs bålmħ tns mcnƔlnmħs ucj bc dlÿb ucjw įtnsk bc. L mtn’b ħƔħn qħdln bc bħįį ucj xcå jnlofwħkkħs L to.”
“The law?” I asked, interrupting their conversation with my ever-growing sense of clarity. “Have they been here yet?”
“No. And they won’t. Manipulating people so that three gun shot victims weren’t reported to the law was no mean feat. But, once again, fortunate for you, we are who we are and it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“And who’s that?”
“That is a fine question. Do you know who I am Samahdemn? Do you recognize me at all? Do you know who we are?”
Feeling especially wary now that my thoughts were straight, I found myself answering with- “No. Should I?”
The younger man shook his head despairingly.
“Please do enlighten me.” I begged half-mockingly. “I’m sure you’re aching to tell me.”
“This is Ëlzįëį, a close friend and associate of mine.”
Ëlzįëį nodded slightly.
“Associate in what?”
The older gentleman smiled. “You are a sharp one. We will get to that. I myself, am Zåkÿntħos. I am quite sure by now that you have heard of me.”
I could feel my eyes widen in surprise and understanding. “So, finally I meet the infamous Zåkÿntħos.”
“Finally.”
“Are you really a…shape-shifter?”
He smiled devilishly and let out a snicker. “We will get to that also.”
“That could explain the ginger hair. It’s a trait that runs strongly in their kind.”
“Not really. That is a coincidence. That is simply…me. Besides, fewer people notice it than what you would think.”
“Strange that anyone could possibly miss it. I swear, between you, the woman that put me here and a…close friend of mine, hair of fire seems to be raining from the sky as of late.”
“’Hair of fire’?” the supposed therianthrope repeated. “An interesting turn of phrase. More accurate that I think you realize.”
I may have grimaced slightly at him as he spoke. I don’t know. But I couldn’t peg where he was from…and it was frustrating. And he knew it. It wasn’t just his odd accent either. His entire speech pattern was strange. Rigid and overly sophisticated. As if he were raised not knowing what a contraction was.
“I’d like to know where you’re from Zåkÿntħos. I can’t place your…dialect, or your accent. And I like to know the people I deal with.”
Yet another smile. “We will-“
“I know. I know.” I interrupted frustratingly. “‘We’ll get to that.’ It’s strange.” I confessed. “Your name has followed me for almost ten years. I’ve spent quite a bit of my spare time trying to learn more about you. But Brigid has always been surprisingly tight lipped given how important you seemed to be to her. And even with all of my resources, you’ve remained a complete mystery nonetheless. I was starting to think you didn’t even exist. And now, here you stand; both exactly what I was expecting you to be, and at the same time, nothing like I think you ought to be.”
“I will take that as a compliment, I think.”
“For the most part, it is.
“And so you brought me here? Wherever here is? Just as you delivered me to Brigid after Bastion?”
“Yes. So, I am sure that you can understand that if I wanted you dead, I would have just allowed you to die…instead of intervening.”
“As it stands, he’s already saved your skin more than many would’ve recommended.” Ëlzįëį interjected.
“As I said before, you have nothing to fear from us.”
“Hmm.” Questions swirled about my head by the dozen, but I needed to stick to the immediate issues. “And where’s ‘here’ exactly?” I asked as I did an air quotation as best I could with the free hand that I could barely feel.
“You’re still in Euuil.” Ëlzįëį answered.
“Ok. So this is Paratus General.” I stated; knowing that there was only one major hospital in the tiny city-ship. “Where are Jeruian and Waimund?”
“Safely under the care of the physicians here.” Ëlzįëį responded.
“What?!” As soon as the word, full of surprise and worry, passed my lips, I started to remember how hurt they both sounded in the alleyway. Sporadic bits of their exchange as I lay on the ground returned to my memory. Anxiety gripped me. “Why are they here? How did it happen? Are they hurt badly?”
Zåkÿntħos waived my questions off. “They are fine. Surprisingly so. Going head-to-head with an Askew was ill advised at best.”
“Had I known-”
“I am sure. Anyway, your friends are being checked on as we speak by another associate of ours.”
“Who?”
“Tå’. You will meet her shortly.”
“So I jumped between an Askew and my friends in vain.”
“I wouldn’t so much say it was in vein as you were just unlucky.” Ëlzįëį said. “Ricochets caught them.”
Between getting hospitalized again, temporarily reliving the panic of one of the world’s worst disasters, and getting all of this sudden information, I found myself suddenly in serious need of a drink, some hallucinogenic smoke and a good fuck to clear my thoughts.
For the briefest of moments, I thought about sexually rough housing with Jannett.
The walls of the room were slowly closing in on me. My inability to move from the bed was quickly becoming nerve racking and I mentally railed against the situation.
“This is insanity.” I said, agitated. “What do you want from me?”
“Be calm.” Zåkÿntħos said. “We came initially to speak with you about a matter most urgent.”
“But ended up rescuing you. Again…apparently.” Ëlzįëį added snidely.
“Is that right? Talk to me about what exactly?”
“Your future. But before we talk about that, we need to have a conversation about saving you once more.”
“And what, pray tell, is it exactly that I need saving from this time?”
“From yourself, since it’s not already clear to you.”
The assertive statement came from a dark furred ma’jong who’d walked into the room so suddenly, it was as if she were summoned there just to answer my question.
The first thought to flash quickly before my mind was the question of who this slave girl was. From all that I had heard of him over the years, and from what I was seeing now, Zåkÿntħos didn’t seem the type to keep slaves. Nor did this Ëlzįëį character. But before I could ask it, I noticed her wrist; unhidden by the sleeveless blouse she wore and completely free of bruising or discolouration from a lifetime of wearing a slave bracelet. There was also an apparent lack of scarring about the neck from the heavy iron collars and chains that are commonplace in slave transport and selling.
Then I noticed her eyes and realized that she was far from being a slave or even a freed woman. Her nails were unclipped and her coat was thicker and richer than any I could remember seeing on any of her kind.
“And you’re with them?” I asked.
The fem-fox looked at me sideways and raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner. “Yes. Didn’t Zåkÿntħos and Ëlzįëį tell you that I was coming?”
“Really?” I asked with more snideness than I intended. “You’re Tå’? But you’re ma’jong.”
Her posture stiffened. “Congratulations. I see it only took mere seconds for you to figure that one out.” she stated in perfect common, save for the elongated “s” shared among all her kind. But with the same rich alien accent as her compatriots.
I admit that, for whatever reason, it hadn’t dawned on me that Tå’ was a ma’jong prefix. Likely due to my initial discombobulation.
“It’s a gift.” I replied; deflecting my embarrassment. “I don’t own it.”
“Yes. I’m sure that your powers of deduction are astounding. Equally astounding is your apparent ability to hold your tongue. Minus your obvious surprise of course. I admit, I fully expected you to call me a dog ear in lieu of my name.”
She was short and blunt with her feelings. Holding nothing back. Anger poured from her and saturated me. And it was from more than just my shock at seeing her. It was something that seemed to run deeper. More personal. In retrospect, I can’t say that I blame her for it. I don’t think she ever really hated me in general per say. I think she just hated what Zåkÿntħos was ready to do for me.
She stared accusingly at the older gentleman. “You didn’t tell him I identify as fox-kind, did you?”
“I apologize. I forget so easily that such things are seemingly so important to mortals.”
“How could you?” she asked. “This backwards thinking is so pervasive that the very air here is heavy with the weight of subjugation. And it’s no different with your human here. His distaste for my appearance is practically tangible. In fact, I’m curious.” she probed as she glared daggers at me. “How hard was it for you to keep hold of your thoughts just then human?” she probed.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” I lied.
“Really? So that wasn’t condescension or bigotry I heard in your voice when I walked in? You didn’t assume that I was…owned by these men like everyone else assumes in this Goddess forsaken place?”
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Has mind reading always been a talent of yours that you’d presume to know my thoughts, Tå’?”
"No. But reading thinly veiled intentions behind clumsy statements is, Samahdemn. And don’t call me that. My name is Tå’Sånnun. You don’t have leave to be familiar with me.”
She turned her attention back to Zåkÿntħos. “At least three people flagrantly called me a mutt and I was stopped twice while I was out there by people demanding to see my papers relinquishing to me my freedom. One of them almost seemed not to even care and nearly looked to want to attempt to claim me anyway. The only things that saved him were the fact that there were so many people in and about the halls and that he didn’t actually try to touch me.”
“You mean ‘the only thing that saved you.’” I corrected.
She turned back to me. “No. I know what I said. You really are no different from the rest of them are you? Slaving piece of-”
“That is quite enough Tå’. Quit trying to antagonize him. Do not forget why we are here.” Zåkÿntħos said.
“I remember why we’re here. I just don’t like it.”
“Where are my friends?” I asked. No longer concerned with the whether-tos and why-fors of the situation and feeling generally exhausted.
“They’re close. And they’re fine. Despite your brash actions.” she answered.
“Brash?”
“You do seem to have a terrible knack for running into bad situations half…umm…half…half…damn. ¿Tå’Sånnun, åxtb lk bxtb fxwtkħ xjotnk twħ tįåtuk jklnd?” he suddenly asked her in the same strange language his companion spoke in earlier.
“¿Jklnd ÿcw åxtb?”
“Lnkbħts cÿ ‘lįį fwħftlwħs’.”
“Ah. Uh…‘half-cocked’?” the ma’jong half answered, half asked.
“Right. Just so.” He turned his attention back to me. “Running into bad situations half-cocked, as the saying goes.”
“You think I provoked this mess? Do you even know what happened today?”
All three of them looked cautiously at each other, but said nothing.
“No! Don’t look to each other! Look at me!”
I could practically feel my temperature rising. And I was quickly tiring of the entire situation. So, seeing as how I couldn’t simply walk away from the room, or punch my way out of it, I tried to do my best to hastily stumble my way through The Flow for answers.
I stopped and took a deep breath, pushing all other thought from my mind for the moment. I needed to know who these people were…what they were.
Ëlzįëį’s eyes narrowed at me as he apparently felt me reaching; tugging clumsily and weakly at the threads of The Flow. Instinctively. Asking questions of the ether in whispers of heka. He started to step forward, but Zåkÿntħos placed his dark hand against his chest, halting his advance.
“No.” said he. “Let us see where this goes.”
In the moments that followed, I felt the Flow moving oddly. And I had a hard time telling if I was feeling them, or feeling sick from trying to force my way into the Goddess’ power without proper ritual. But even beyond that, I still knew that my visitors weren’t quite right. At the time, I couldn’t tell what it was about them that caused energies to work through and around them the way they seemed to. Yet I knew it wasn’t necessarily wrong…just different. Normally, The Flow strengthens us as Magi through our knowledgeable touch. But, for these three it felt reversed; almost as if they were strengthening it. As if their spirits were feeding it as opposed to being fed by it.
A massive pressure that focused itself on my sinuses started to build. My brain felt as if it were threatening to claw its way out of my skull; forcing me to cease my weaving from the pain of it all.
“Unbelievable.” I exhaled the word as I ceased my delving. And with that breath came an immediate sickness. All color bled out of the world for a brief moment and when it came back, I found myself choking back vomit.
“That’s impressive.” Tå’Sånnun said with more than a little surprise in her voice. And we were led to believe that fire and flame was your sphere of magickal influence. Not spirit.”
“Impressive and brash.” Ëlzįëį interjected. “Daring to get close to Her without a focus? With a living machine hindering your soul’s connection to the world? I’m astounded you didn’t kill yourself with your blind absentminded delving. Is there any question why you confound and inspire distrust and fear among everyone around you?”
“But does that not illustrate my point? What I told everyone earlier?” Zåkÿntħos asked triumphantly. “He is too important for us to allow him to go astray.”
“You mean further astray, don’t you?” Ëlzįëį countered.
“I can practically feel the heka bleeding off of all three of you.” I interrupted through the smell of my own sickened breath. “I don’t know what you all are, but something’s not right. And this exchange is over until you tell me exactly what’s going on.”
Ëlzįëį looked to Tå’Sånnun who simply shrugged her shoulders. “Do you know how long you’ve been here?” he pushed out.
I was slightly put out by the question, but I allowed him the benefit of the doubt. “It’s not the twenty and fifth day I take it?”
“No. Not the twenty and fifth.” Ëlzįëį replied.
It made sense if I thought about it. I’d apparently been operated on and I was completely bandaged and casted. All of that would’ve taken some time. But looking about the room from my vantage, I could see no clocks of any kind. Nor could I see any time pieces on the arms of my three visitors.
“What side of the building am I on?”
Zåkÿntħos’ facial expression asked questions of my query that he didn’t allow himself to voice. He simply looked about and thought for a moment. “Roughly eastern I believe.”
The ever increasing golden light that was coming through the windows next to me allowed me to guesstimate that the suns were still low behind me, and rising. Morning…not afternoon.
“The twenty and sixth? Twenty and seventh?” I asked.
“It is the thirty and sixth.” Zåkÿntħos responded.
I could feel my face betray my surprise at the time lost as I spoke it. “Ten and one days?” For a brief moment I found myself wondering if Jannett was concerned about me; if she’d been looking for me. Or if she even cared.
Ten and one days gone from the world and I hadn’t felt the Goddess’ touch. Nor had the Lord of the Fallen come for me. It was at this moment that I felt justified in the belief that there was no Goddess or Fallen God. And if there was, They didn’t want anything to do with me.
Why this filled me with a particular sadness, I couldn’t tell you. I never had any real religion to speak of in the first place, but there’s something to be said for conformation of a belief.
But, the thought of not being relegated to a frozen hell for my sins, regardless of how well deserved, did manage to sprout from me an internal sigh of relief.
“You lost quite a bit of blood.” Zåkÿntħos explained. “Arterial bleeding. Another minute or so and you would have been beyond the gifts even of Mē’Cållįå.”
I tried to ask who this Mē’Cållįå person was, but I found myself at a loss for words as the realization of who she was sunk into my mind.
A smirk snuck its way onto Zåkÿntħos’ face. “Go ahead. Voice it. Despite everything, Lady Brigid led me to believe that you could be quite reasonable when in your right mind. And admitting the truth to yourself would be far easier than our attempting to convince you to believe us.”
Visions of the winged being that kneeled over me in that alley flashed before my eyes. Slowly, I allowed the words to pass from my lips as I tackled with the statement’s logic. Or lack thereof.
“So you’re implying that I wasn’t hallucinating before I went unconscious. That I wasn’t dreaming? You’d have me believe that you’re all…Ǻngëls and that you came here from holy Ëmpÿrë to, what? Save my soul?”
Zåkÿntħos shrugged his shoulders. “Kind of. After a fashion.”
“That’s a long wait for a train that won’t come.” I stated with an earnest sadness.
“Maybe not as long of a wait as you might believe.” said he. “However, to clarify, we are not all Ǻngëls. My companions here were both formed from the hands of our Eternal Mother. I was not. I am…something else entirely.”
“This is crazy.” I tried to motion with my arms only to be reminded that they were not fully responsive and I simply lay there defeated. “Ǻngëls exist only within the confines of orthodoxy for the express purpose of controlling the masses’ minds and coin. Religion gives people an excuse to do what they want to do without the burden of consequence. ‘The Goddess works in mysterious ways.’ ‘Lumå’įl made me do it.’ It’s all bullshit. And if you stand there and try to tell me that you’re actually the Zåkÿntħos from the Afua Maisha, then you may as well consider this conversation over. Because I’m not listening.”
The tension in the room was palpable. Tå’Sånnun looked as if she could rip my throat out with her bare hands. Ëlzįëį looked indifferent. Zåkÿntħos simply listened.
“I was always told that when you die, you see the afterlife. Whatever that may be.” I continued. “But, that was a lie. While I’ve faced injury many times over my life, I’ve never been as close to dying as I have been since the Spire. Since that time, I’ve courted death twice now. Twice! And I didn’t see Brŭmal’s haunting, yet majestic ice laden archways reaching for the heavens while simultaneously laying in eternal ruin. Nor did I see Ëmpÿrë’s ancient and cracked marble spires covered in grandiose forest overgrowth. I didn’t see anything. No white light near death.
“The Magisterium swears by the belief that our gifts are fueled by our acceptance of the Goddess and our prayers and chants to Her. Yet not once have I been stifled any more than what I already am by my own physiology for my lack of belief. I, a heathen in every sense of the word, say the phrases; I recite the chants and the heka flows outward from me. With intent, not belief. It’s a part of me with or without all of the religious nonsense.
“I’m convinced that only one of two things are true. Either Ëmpÿrë and Brŭmal truly are the flights of fancy that I’ve always believed them to be, or if they do exist, then I’m truly so lost that neither of the two want anything to do with my soul.
“And I honestly don’t know which of these possibilities is worse.”
Tå’Sånnun was visibly enraged. “Such insolence!” she blurted out. “You lay there in that bed before one of the Great Drågons! One of the first born of his kind and right hand to both Sånįgron and Åmbrosįå Herself. You should recognize the glory that stands before you! And I command that you be in awe!”
Her anger was more than just a show. She wasn’t trying to “put one over” on me. There was real conviction in her eyes. Entitlement even. She believed what she was saying. Hard. I could see it.
And for just a moment, I would’ve sworn that I could see a few thin strings of liquid flame wash through the tangles of her thick black hair in her fury.
A trick of the sunlight reflecting off the walls? The last of a sleepy haze on my vision?
I closed my eyes, shook my head briefly and examined her again just to see nothing.
Looking back to Zåkÿntħos, I saw him nodding. But whether he was confirming what the ma’jong was saying or confirming what I thought I just saw? I didn’t know.
“Look, I don’t know anything of the Dįvįnë Realm or the Dæmönic Plains.” I remember telling the group. “I’ve never had a vision nor have I ever witnessed a miracle. I’ve never heard a booming voice indicating to me which way to go, or perceived a proverbial parting of the seas to guide me out of a corner when I was backed into one. Everything that’s happened to me in my life, good or bad, has happened to me because of my own decisions.”
I told myself that I should stop there, and for a moment I did. But somewhere between my own agitation and impatience I found myself saying- “There’s no greater guiding power that drives us to do anything or go anywhere. No Dįvįnë influence. Events in my life have always transpired because of the bloody work of my hands. My paths have always been cut along the edge of my sword…and every one of my sins have been declared from the barrel of my gun.”
“How long have you been waiting to spew out that little practiced speech?”
“Tå’Sånnun, please. It is ok.” She stepped back to Zåkÿntħos’ side reluctantly at his plea.
“Forgive them.” he said with an exhaustive sigh. “She has no real quarrel with you. Neither does Ëlzįëį.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
The self-proclaimed Drågon gave me a wry grin. “You will soon come to understand that what I am here to offer you in order to help, as you put it, ‘save your soul’, is quite a bit more than what a great number of our kind consider to be acceptable. In fact, it is considered to be far too much.”
I must’ve shaken my head or shown some other sign of boredom, as the Drågon scratched his graying dreadlocks in deep thought and took a few steps closer to the bed; gently removing himself from the ma’jong’s side.
“Look into our eyes Samahdemn. Look into my eyes. Think upon the shear impossibility of the weight of our presence, which we know you have already touched through the ether. I can understand why you would think that someone would come to find you; to trick you into betraying yourself to them. But we are not they. And while the many crimes of your past are heinous beyond any doubt of Mundus and Ëmpÿrë, it is the future that concerns me. Not the past.”
“It’s a lovely falsehood that you spin upon yourselves.” I said sarcastically. “Let’s not forget that you’re all speaking to a heka wielder. Mentally weaker in The Craft than my peers, though I may be, I’m still a Magi that was trained in the very heart of the Link nonetheless. Do you know the saying of the practitioners of illusion there?”
“Believe not thine eyes.” Zåkÿntħos said with some hesitation.
I nodded my conformation. “Believe not thine eyes.” I repeated slowly. “I’ve seen novice practitioners of illusionary heka change their eye colour without any artificial aid in an effort to be more attractive to others. It was practically a fashion statement among them when I still studied The Flow there. I once saw a woman run her hands through her hair and watched as new colour followed her fingers through the strands. By Brǔmal, I’ve even seen Illusionists make themselves appear taller. I’ll admit that the way heka flows for you three is…unique; like the music being sung by The Flow is more in pitch than normal, or in a slightly different key. But then again, there’s a lot about the nature of the world that none truly know.”
Ëlzįëį rubbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes in frustration. “‘There’s a lot about the nature-’ Are you serious!?”
“Okay. Okay.” Zåkÿntħos nodded with grim understanding and released a sigh heavier than any I’ve ever heard come from a man who wasn’t being sarcastic. “I can see that the cynic in you is not going to allow us to move forward. But we cannot go back from here. Understand this, if I give up on you, the Ångëlįc who has already been charged with your…handling…will be made to come for you.”
“Handling? What? You mean to kill me? Not very Dįvįnë of you.”
“On that we agree.” Zåkÿntħos whispered.
“And who would be doing this handling? The Ångël of Death?” I laughed. They did not. “You’re serious? The actual Ångël of Death?”
“The Drågoon of Death human.” The fem-fox corrected. “And she’ll not hesitate or fail in her duty. Believe it.” Tå’Sånnun made the statement so sanguinely that it chilled my blood.
“Drågoon huh? Legends and færię tales are just falling from the sky today.” I stated with much condescension. “I’ve never feared death. It’s hounded me my whole life. No less than I deserve.”
“Be that as it may Samahdemn, if you die…” Zåkÿntħos couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Fuck it.” he said with conviction. And began looking intently about the room. “I suppose this space will just have to do.” he murmured to himself as he began to pace from wall to wall; seemingly measuring distances as the others looked on with confusion mixed with slow understanding.
“What in Åmbrosiå’s name are you doing?” Ëlzįëį asked the Drågon; lapsing into their odd language once again.
“I need to set a circle of protection. I can use my ethereal weapon as an athamé en lieu of candles, yemaya oil and seashells or chalk. But I will need you to call the wards into place.”
“Oneiromancy Zåkÿntħos? Have you lost your mind?!” the fem-fox argued.
“I did not care to expose our natures so openly a second time and further anger the Choirs, or you two, but I have to make due. It must be done.”
“What are you planning?” Ëlzįëį asked.
“He has to be made to see. One way or the other. We can talk to him until we are breathless. But he has been exposed to our true natures once already and he still only takes us for performers of cheap artifices. I have no other choice but to let him scry my mind as he tried to do earlier. See the truth of who we are for himself.”
I had no idea what was being said, but I could tell that the tension level had risen through the roof. The fem-fox’s eyes had gone wide and her ears lay flat against her hair. A shudder seemed to pass through her as she briskly moved to the side of her two friends.
The supposed Drågon stared at me. And I wondered for a moment if he were weighing whether or not to let his yet unseen friend, this Drågoon of Death, end me. Knowing the things that I know about him now, I realize that he was in fact questioning if I could truly be trusted with so much…truth. So much of his mind and thoughts.
The short answer was “No”. But what choice had he in the matter?
He’d have much preferred to do things differently. To expose me to the true nature of existence little-by-little. Or, at the very least, do it in a far more impersonal way. But time was their enemy. And the more of it he spent trying to convince me or keep the Choirs off my back, the more the chances grew of either the enemy getting to me, or my fast and loose lifestyle getting the better of me.
Tå’Sånnun placed her hand on Zåkÿntħos’ shoulder and forced him to turn and face her; concern flooding every aspect of her delicate features. “You can’t possibly think this is a good idea.”
“Not particularly. But, eventually, he would be privy to my thoughts anyway. Sooner would be better than later I suppose. I will just have to be…selective, in what I allow him to see right now.”
She shook her head. “And you’d do that how?”
“What else would you have me do Tå’?”
The fox-people tended to be prone to begging. Very nearly a racial trait. Probably due to the fact that the slave trade had hit their people much harder than their fellow human Assamians. After all, it’s far easier for humans to be cruel to a being that doesn’t so closely resemble one of their own. And humans are plenty cruel already. But all of that aside, given what this woman had shown to me in her speech and stature, it didn’t seem to me that she was pleading because it was in her nature, or just for the sake of pleading.
I may have been ignorant to their language at the time, but even a blind man could see that her concern over whatever was passing between them was far more than concern about whatever was going on with me. On some level, this was personal between she and the older Zåkÿntħos. She seemed so flustered that I almost felt sorry for her. Regardless of what the old man had said, I felt quite convinced that Tå’Sånnun had not given a single care for what happened to me over what could happen to him.
“First your soul, now your very memories?” she continued. “You’d share with him things even I don’t know of you?”
“Now, that’s not fair Tå’Sånnun.” Ëlzįëį interjected; apparently against his better judgment. “I hate this idea just as much as you do.”
“Do you brother?”
“I do. But whatever our feelings on the matter, Zåkÿntħos is only doing what he feels necessary to-”
“This wasn’t our mandate!” she interrupted as she moved to stand within inches of Zåkÿntħos.
The Drågon looked down upon his shorter fox-kin cohort while holding his sword arm out to his side. “Not true. She mandated us to do what we must.”
“Within reason Tħos!”
“Tå’! She wants him on our side. You know this. I am sorry.”
The air exploded in silence about his hand sending a rush of air through the room that disturbed everything that wasn’t nailed down.
Small instruments got shuffled.
Papers and pens flew off of the desk in the corner.
Tå’Sånnun’s hair was tossed about.
A potted plant sitting in a nearby window was knocked over.
I blinked my eyes against the unexpected onslaught. I hadn’t picked up on anything that sounded like chanting. I’d felt no shifting in The Flow about me. No ebbing of energies. Just the tell-tale metallic taste of heka in the air. But, in truth, that had been lightly present the entire time they’d been in the room with me.
When I opened my eyes again I beheld that within Zåkÿntħos’ once empty hand lay a scimitar of exceptional make; the likes of which I had never before seen. Its blade seemed to almost breathe in the suns’ golden light.
Never had I beheld such immediate and perfect heka weaving.
I was later told by Zåkÿntħos that the curved sword he held was ancient even by the reckoning of the eluvian, and had been bloodied in wars long forgotten or relegated to legend. It wasn’t until much, much later that I actually believed it. To my human eyes, it couldn’t have been an ages-old blade. Insanely expensive maybe, but not anywhere near being antediluvian.
It looked newly forged by more modern processes from a metal that I couldn’t place on site with its greenish tint. Phrases that were written in a language I didn’t recognize were elegantly carved along the blade’s center. Its edge seemed sharp beyond reason and not pot marked at all from age, rusting or the metal breaking down. The white leathers that encompassed the elegantly curved Drågon bone grip looked to be very lightly used, if used at all. No dried sweat, dirt or blood. No discolouration or wear from aggressive handling.
It made no sense.
But I digress.
When the sword made its appearance, I could’ve jumped from my bed in fear had all my body not been wrapped up and mostly unresponsive. I’m certain my eyes and shallow breathing gave away my surprise and lack of comprehension. But the small group simply ignored my flustered state; too immersed in their discussion.
“Then so be it.” Tå’Sånnun said weakly. Then she turned her eyes upon me. Venom was dripping from her words as she spat them out. “I feel nothing coming from this man. Nothing but anger, lies and…” She stared into me for but a moment longer; feeling, I assume, some latent arousal from me brought on by her feminine presence which caused her to finish her train of thought with “…vulgarity. Darkness pours off of him like heat pours off of the suns.”
“I know. Please, Tå’, go outside and make sure we are not interrupted. For me. This will not take long.”
Tå’Sånnun refused with a stern headshake.
“Tå’.”
“Don’t say my name like that Tħos. Don’t talk to me as if I were your child.”
He cast down his eyes. “It was not my intention to be condescending. I apologize.”
“I can’t stop you from sharing yourself with him, but I’ll be damned to Brŭmal if I leave the room while you do it.”
“As you wish…my love.”
Tå’Sånnun’s ears fell level. And all I could think in that moment was that I wanted to know what he’d said to her to lay her so emotionally flat.
“You’ve never called me that before.”
“No. But that does not mean that I never wanted to.”
She seemed to light up. And what appeared to be a barely restrained bounce on her tiptoes overtook her. But she quickly composed herself and the smile vanished from her face almost as speedily as it had appeared.
“Just remember,” she emphasized, “there’s a big difference between knowledge and faith. And I’m not certain you’ll be imparting the latter.”
“I know.” the Drågon said with a nod.
“Good and fine then.” she said, steering the conversation back into the common tongue. “Since there’s no changing your mind, I’ll cleanse for you, since washing with intent is clearly out of the question. But I may have to make due with water. I sense there’s going to be a distinct lack of maize in a hospital.”
“Samahdemn might actually be able to help you there.”
The fem-fox snickered at Zåkÿntħos’ suggestion. “How exactly? Would he point me in the direction of some isopropyl alcohol?”
Ëlzįëį choked back a laugh.
“No. But I do believe he had a small flask in his inner jacket pocket.”
“Not untrue.” Ëlzįëį confirmed. “I think I saw a glimpse of it when it was removed while the nurses were cutting off his clothing.”
I watched her as she crossed the room, still uncertain what she wanted a nip of my liquor for, and opened a nearby closet; pulling from it the soiled garment. Searching its compartments, she retrieved from it the black leather-clad vessel in question which held my moons’-shine. And twisting off its steel cap, took a whiff. She turned up her nose at it, but took a sip anyway.
“By the Goddess! This will most definitely do. But I swear, you could fuel an auto-mobile with this!”
She started to step away, but something else seemed to tug at her, holding her fast. And allowing herself to dig deeper, she eventually found my claro case snuggled deeper within the pocket. Opening it, she gazed at the thin, hand rolled cigarillos held within. Sniffing them, she looked at the vices questionably.
“Shame we’re in a place of healing and burning is disallowed.” said she. “Using this smoke…even his tainted variant of it…would be far more agreeable to his drink.” She inhaled them again. “They’re old; aged maybe, but not spoilt. There’s traces of heka in them.” She breathed them in a third time. “And strong emotions. Where did you get these?”
I admit, I was a bit reluctant to answer her. “Can tell all of that just from the smell, can you?”
“Our kind are very sensitive to The Flow, as you can imagine.”
“I’m starting to. I rolled them myself. Quite a while ago.”
“And the leaf?”
I hesitated before answering that- “It’s the last of an old batch. Got it from the mountains to the north.”
“Alphava doesn’t have a northern range.”
I sighed. “Kazakoto does.”
“Tuska?” She looked to Zåkÿntħos, who gave her a slow nod, then back to me. “Hmm. I see. Well…surprising that it’s stayed fresh for so long. Such are the magicks of the eluvian I suppose.”
Thankfully, with that, she let the subject lay. She closed the case before returning it to my coat as the man, whose claim to Drågonhood was becoming more concrete by the minute, removed his shoes and began to move about the area purposefully and placed the tip of his weapon on the wall to the right side of the room as I lay. Without uttering a single word, a thin sheen of magickal heat washed over the blade and it began to radiate a greenish coloured warmth; like a thin flame…but not.
“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling like an animal trapped; trying to conceal the nervousness in my voice.
“Erecting a circle…somewhat. More like a square I suppose given the shape of the room. You should be rotely familiar with the basics of the process.” He began following the wall in a clockwise direction; allowing his blade to leave the wall only when he maneuvered around my bed or the furniture. “Ëlzįëį, the corners please. I need the watchtowers roused.”
Nodding, Ëlzįëį kicked off his footwear in kind as he walked to the east and began to speak to the air chants that I thought I knew well. But as he started to charge the first of the four corners, he called to multiple rudiments instead of a single element. Many of them unknown to me as such; and he infused them with heka by force of will alone.
“In Åmbrosįå’s name, awaken watchtowers of the eastern reaches. Rise to my call guardians of spirit, death, the light and the darkness. Bestow upon this circle the blessings of the ether and our Goddess. Cleanse this space. Barrier it against foul spirits. And ease the transference of Her gifts to our hands. So mote it be.”
As he was calling, Tå’Sånnun, already barefoot, was taking swigs of whiskey from my flask, but holding them in her mouth before spitting them out in a mist-like spray about the door’s frame.
“Wards.” I stated.
“Just so.” she answered before walking over to my bedside. “But this one is for cleansing. And I must admit, I’ll enjoy it immensely.”
And with that, much to my chagrin, she took a mouthful of moons’-shine, swished it to mix it well with her saliva, and spit it in my face; a heavier dose than was necessary with more than a bit of spite behind it.
But, then again, I believe that was the point.
She then repeated the process by misting me from head, to toe, then back up again in a more restrained manner.
Zåkÿntħos completed his lap around the room; completing the circle as Ëlzįëį finished his chants to the south, west and north. The heka was so thick in the air it felt as though I could cut it with a knife. It pressed down on me and got caught in my throat. The sheer volume that the Drågon and his Ångëlįc kin were able to drudge up so swiftly was mind boggling. They had to be telling the truth of their lineage. Otherwise, they’d have been taking days off of their lives weaving with the swiftness that they were.
They hadn’t washed themselves with intent.
They’d made no preparations for the dive into The Flow.
They’d no larger group assisting with the weave.
Dread gripped me.
The last time I could remember feeling anything remotely as strong, I was having my emotions suppressed.
“What are you going to do to me?”
“We’re going to change your outlook. Ëlzįëį is the Ångëlįc embodiment of faith. That is his charge over Mundus and the seat of power that he holds in Ëmpÿrë.”
The Ångël nodded his conformation.
“Faith?”
“Yes. I’m the most gifted in my ability to influence it among my fellow Fåsåru.”
“The… Fåsåru? As in the Choir? I see.” All of my years of mandatory theology classes came flooding back to me. And I hated theology. “So you’re telling me that you’re charged, by the Goddess Herself, as a protector of all beliefs and faiths on Mundus?”
“Yes.” he answered.
“Even the ones that don’t involve Åmbrosįå and Sånįgron?”
“All faiths, Samahdemn.”
“Ëlzįëį will be acting as the bridge between us. You refuse to listen to my words. So maybe, with his help, you will heed our past.”
Curiosity overtook me. “Really?” I asked Ëlzįëį. “So the mind is your elemental leaning?”
He cut me a queer look.
“The mind.” I attempted to clarify. “You’re strong within its realm?”
“Ah. No. Well, yes. It does run strong within me, but my true leaning is light, actually.”
I started to question how he could be charged with ruling over an elemental leaning, but have his gifts attuned to something completely different when Ëlzįëį hurriedly said- “Don’t worry about it. Ångëlįc hierarchies and power dynamics can be a little confusing for those who are outside looking in. Needless to say, I’m still very good at what I do.”
“And what thoughts are these you’d give me?”
“Not thoughts.” The Drågon corrected as his blade vanished with the same explosion of atmosphere that had brought it into existence. “Memories. My memories.”
Being careful to only move in a clockwise manner, Zåkÿntħos brought a chair over to my bedside as Ëlzįëį stood between us and Tå’Sånnun stood back, palms clasped, quietly chanting.
“Ready?” the young dwalli asked.
Zåkÿntħos nodded, and Ëlzįëį anointed his forehead with a clear oil that he pulled from a small pouch he had at his side; a symbol foreign to me engraved in its glass. “By the will of your blessings My Lady, times three.” he whispered as he traced said symbol with his thumb on the Drågon’s forehead.
“Are you ready?” Ëlzįëį asked me.
“Do I have a choice?” I responded lamely.
“You always have a choice.” Zåkÿntħos replied.
I think I remember rolling my eyes. “Sure. I’m ready.”
Ëlzįëį then anointed my head in the same fashion with the same symbol. The oil he used was warm and smelled of cinnamon. And as he placed his palms on our now blessed heads, I watched as the heka was visibly pulled from the air. It wrapped itself about his arms in the form of symbols and phrases in the language of magick. I could feel the tingle of The Flow, like a thousand small fingers caressing my skull, gently messaging me to sleep.
“What was that language you all were speaking earlier?” I asked sleepily. “It didn’t sound like any manner of Drågon-speak I was ever taught.”
“That’s because it’s not.” Ëlzįëį answered. And as if I were falling into a dream I couldn’t fight off, I felt myself floating outside of myself. Being pulled.
My consciousness seemed to move through (as I understood them then) the elements; I was the air we were breathing, I was the flame in the kerosene braziers hanging on the walls, I was the water dripping slowly from the faucet into the sink, I was the soil the toppled plant lay in on the floor. I became one with the energy that flowed about Ëlzįëį’s arms. I lived an eternity as I crossed threshold after threshold in route to the Drågon’s mind.
Once I did…I don’t know. I wasn’t fully prepared for it. It was as if time and all concept of it fell away. The world felt smaller. Less important. Visions flooded my sight at the speed of thought. So much and so fast that it made my mind hurt. My head was splitting. But after a few moments, I was able to force the nearly overwhelming wave of memories to slow. And as I did, I understood the being I was melded with.
I saw lands that were too fertile, water that was too clear, fields that were too green. I saw castles and holdfasts bathed in the crystal-clear light of a single sun. It was unlike anything ever seen by mortal eyes in a time that was beyond mortal remembering. These lands weren’t mine…this wasn’t Mundus. This wasn’t my world.
I felt the wind underneath my wings; impossibly large, spread out so widely as I glided through the sky that I blotted out the sunlight over entire portions of villages in this unknown paradise.
Is this what it is to be a Drågon? Is this what it is to feel the Goddess’ power and strength flowing through you? I wondered.
Beside me flew another Drågon in a manner that I can only describe as playful; so beautiful in the light which reflected off of its bronzed scales. Its body covered in splotches of creamy white. It was apparently feminine as I knew it as a “she”. Then her name came to me… Ëszërį.
She was important to me. She was dear to me. My heart ached for a love that I myself never knew. I pined in this moment for memories that were not mine.
As if riding along the currents of a river rushing to the ocean, my vision suddenly changed and I saw myself mounted on her back. Drågon on Drågon. Ëszërį’s scales were running beneath my belly; rubbing against me in a most pleasurable way as we moved back and forth with each other. The talons from my wings dug themselves fast into soft soil. My gaping maw locked around her long neck as I thrust into her as only an animal could. Primal and urgent.
No, wait.
More like…passionate and needing.
I could hear her screeching with my every movement; the curves of her gargantuan frame melding perfectly with mine. As if we were born to fit each other.
I could feel the rush of heat and pleasure from my groin as I clamped down on her hard and filled her with my seed...
The visions shifted again and I suddenly saw myself in human form…in Zåkÿntħos’ human form, walking among stone gardens challenging philosophies with a beautiful, dark skinned woman. Very dark. Like liquid midnight. Darker than I’d ever thought possible. Her aspect being only a shade or two lighter than the weighty locs she wore upon her head; perfect in their thickness and heft, which nearly dragged the ground, swaying gently to and fro at her calves as she glided gracefully beside me.
We spoke in a language which wasn’t my own; not one I had ever known. Yet, within Zåkÿntħos’ mind, I could understand it all as plainly as if it were common.
As we talked, I tried to look into the woman’s eyes, but I couldn’t quite see her face. I strained to see it…to drudge up the look of her, but I couldn’t. It was like seeing the vague silhouette of a woman’s aspect. A lack of contrast. I could see her smooth hands, her sensuous frame, her graceful gait. I could hear her voice…a voice which was like honey becoming one with lightning. But there was a light about her so bright that it pained me to directly gaze upon her. As if the suns shown ever behind her, or from within her.
Or, as if she were the suns themselves.
But despite my inability to see her, I knew her as a friend. We laughed. We shared ideas. I think I loved her. Strongly. But not in the same way that I loved Ëszërį. It was more akin to the love one holds for their family. The love a child has for their mother.
Åmbrosįå.
The name was but a whisper on the wind; it came to me so softly. I was attempting to look upon the visage of the Most Holy. And abruptly, I felt ashamed. It was suddenly no wonder to me that my eyes weren’t allowed to gaze upon Her glory.
I’m not…worthy of this.
As I closed my eyes to the memory, I found myself shifting to yet another.
A thunder of Drågons choked the air. And I flew among them. They were all about me; obscured by black smoke which filled the sky from the miles and miles of fires burning on the ground beneath us. I saw a massive battle being fought by beings I’d only ever read about, among a vista the likes of which I’d only ever dreamed. It was unlike anything I could’ve ever experienced with mortal eyes.
It was horrifying.
Is this during the Ten and Five Year Wars? Some long forgotten battle in the heavens? I was unsure.
Deep screeches filled the air; so powerful that it felt as though they could fell a forest of trees with their sound. The elements in their rawest forms were the beasts’ weapons. And they breathed them in ferocity at each other. Thunder and lightning split wings. Flames burned scales. Frigid ice cold-burned limbs. And before I could tell what was what, a massive force slammed into me…into us. The world spun as I looked into the eyes of another Drågon who would see me dead.
The talons on his wings tried to crush the bones in mine. He spat ice at my chest as we spiraled earthward. The pain was excruciating. Someway, the claws of my feet found his body and I dug into him with all of my might. As I felt his scales breaking between my appendages, I inhaled my fury. From somewhere within the depths of my throat, I could feel a rising liquid coldness; like iced water. The Flow became one with my breath. A power unfathomable. And as it reached my mouth, I screamed with the fury of a thousand screams and the most beautiful fire I’ve ever seen spewed forth from my gaping maw.
Glorious shades of purple.
It struck the foe in a way normal fire never would. It washed over him. Cradled him. It behaved almost as a living thing. And as I flayed the scales from his under-skin and ripped his wings apart, I took control of our decent and sent us both into a spin as he cried out in agony and sickness.
The last thing I remember before time shifted before my vision was my foe’s limp body being released from my talons. It followed gravity and inertia down into the earth. His wingless carcass impacted with such force that it splintered the ground, shook the world, and sent a many nearby tree flying root upwards.
Within the new vision I found myself, I saw a woman. She was mature. Very elegant. Mahogany skinned with glowing white orbs swimming in pupils of pitch. And being completely shed of clothes, I could see that her complexion was…discoloured. Cream-like blemishes of white nearly completely engulfed her feet and ankles, creeping up her legs in smaller splotches. Her arms, spine, neck and face were the same. The blotches flowed up her nape into her hair line, and from her shoulders down to her breast and stomach. Even the center of her wasn’t spared discoloration.
Not that any of that detracted from her loveliness.
Tiny smile lines were visible in her face and slightly raised veins covered her hands, much like Zåkÿntħos’. And like Zåkÿntħos, she carried these signs of age with a grace and regalness that only a Dįvįnë being could. As she lay naked underneath me in the ruins of a bedroom that seemed to have once been the very definition of opulence, I made love to her with every ounce of my being. I could feel her feet wrapped around my waist, urging me onward. I looked down at her erect teats; one nearly bleached white; its areola covered in a large milky spot. The other a more natural, black colour. And I couldn’t help lightly pinching them lovingly between my fingers just before suckling them like a babe.
Moonlight poured in through the remains of the ceiling; the shadows from crossbeams laying across her dark, vitiligo stricken body just so. The air around her smelling of the coca butter, coconut and almond oils that she used on her scalp, in her hair and on her body.
This was an eve of battle. Far below, outside of the thick, broken windows, there were the bonfires and dirty white tents of a war encampment spread wide under an amazingly clear sky.
But this was no night sky of our world. There were no multicoloured swirls of cosmic dust. No clusters of stars. No Audaux in the night sky. Just darkness with scattered points of light and a single moon. Whole. Not a partial astral body trailed by the remains of a second that had supposedly collided with it in the Ages before mortals “awakened”. The soft murmurs of people talking and laughing filled the air. As did the sweet sounds of my lover’s slow, wanton moaning.
The woman’s dreadlocked hair was spread out underneath her in the heat of our passion like a black woolen blanket, strewn with gray strands which were granted by her age.
Ëszërį.
Again that name came to me. Was this her? The fem-Drågon in human form?
She’s so…lovely. I thought. Goddess, she’s beautiful.
Did Drågons really make love sometimes as we mortals did? I knew that legends and religious dogma held that they took mortal form in ages past when they mated with the eluvian races. But never had I heard that they may have bedded each other in our forms. What’d they get from the experience? Only the Dįvįnës knew.
And Ëszërį’s complexion…
I never would have thought that a being the likes of a Drågon would suffer from ailments of the skin the way that mortals do. Were they really so close to us? So like us?
Time and space slipped by me. I became lost in the currents again. Eternity stretched out before me. I felt the pulse of existence. Happy moments, lost ages, dear friends, bitter rivals. It all came to me at once.
Just as I felt as though I’d lose myself in this man’s mind, I found myself within a great amphitheater of sorts. The open sky was over me and the light shining down was as clear as ever. Birds flew overhead and I could feel the breeze on my skin. The air smelled of alliums and aster. And before me rose a castle from the cliff upon which we sat the likes of which I have never beheld. There was no doubt in my mind that surely no place in the world could I ever see its like.
I saw before me a great assemblage of beings from a number of different races. All in bodies I recognized as mortal. Yet all of them I knew from Zåkÿntħos’ thoughts as more than Man or Mer. These were Ångëls, Drågons and Drågoons all.
It confounded me even further than experiencing Drågons being intimate in human form…all these Ångëls and the like choosing to retain mortal bodies for no reason I could fathom. It was completely beyond my understanding. Where they born this way; to resemble Mundus’ beings? Did they choose to do it because they felt that they related the most to those bodies? Did they simply enjoy looking mortal?
What does an Ångël look like in its natural form?
Among those gathered, I could see Ëlzįëį and Tå’Sånnun in transformed, powerful-looking bodies cloaked in very official looking garments with solemn grimaces on their faces. Zåkÿntħos sat at the head of this meeting with another powerful looking man. An Ångël of great importance. All were in disagreement. So angry. So fervent. But for some reason, I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I struggled to listen; to pull words out of the air. But it seemed in vein. Then I heard the dark skinned Ångël beside me clearly ask-
“Zåkÿntħos, we didn’t come here to debate Samahdemn’s nature. I assume that’s not your purpose. So, what is?”
They’re talking about me? I asked myself in disbelief. Ångëls are talking about me?
Time slipped.
“Then why not just allow the mortal’s life to end and be done with it? We all know that he is dangerous.” spoke a dark skinned man with green marbles in the center of black eyes near the far end of the open space.
Time slipped.
“Mįssħåël, the Ǻngëls are not murderers. We Drågons are not executioners. Drågoons are not vigilantes.”
He’s fighting for me to live? Even though they want to kill me?
Time slipped.
Before my eyes once again stood the Goddess cloaked in light that my vision couldn’t penetrate. Beside Her stood a dark skinned man of rightful authority. His very presence seemed to command it; a true king in every respect if I ever saw one.
“It is this human of Zåkÿntħos’ My Lady.” a female dwarf said to the Goddess. “He believes him to be the man of whom You prophesied…the Child of Fate.”
The Child of Fate?
Time slipped.
“So mote it be then.” the Goddess spoke in a voice that was so clear and beautiful, yet so powerful and pure that it moved me to emotion. “Go back to Samahdemn, and offer what you will, as you will.”
Time slipped for the final time, and I saw Tå’Sånnun in my arms…in Zåkÿntħos’ arms. I could feel the warmth of her; the softness of her through her robes. I could feel the rise and fall of her body as she breathed.
My feelings were muddled. Confusing. But I could tell that I…wanted her. Cared for her. Loved her. But I felt…sad. Guilty. I should not have wanted her the way I did.
But what about Ëszërį? What happened to-
Before I could finish the thought, I heard myself say in Zåkÿntħos’ voice- “Be gladdened Tå’. This is a victory.”
“If this is a victory, then why does it feel so much like a loss?”
She loves him. They love each other. He’s losing something in this. She’s loosing…
Somewhere in this entire affair, in some way, Zåkÿntħos really was giving up more than Tå’Sånnun was willing to let him. But she still begrudgingly supported him. I didn’t completely understand what he was losing, but I could understand what I felt from him. He believed in what he was doing by coming to me. And in this belief, he grieved, and he was grieved, by her.
Then, I fell. I fell through space; through nothingness. I was nothingness. I was no longer wind or water or earth or fire. It’s impossible to describe. Impossible to make someone else understand. I simply and literally became…a nonentity. The absence of consciousness.
Then I opened my eyes and the first thing I saw was Ëlzįëį’s sweat covered brow. The transfer had obviously taken quite a bit out of him. I looked past him at Zåkÿntħos. Words escaped me. I had no idea what to tell him. No idea what to say. But he knew the questions behind my eyes. After all, at this point, how could he not? The transference had to have been a two way road.
How much of my mind had he glimpsed?
“And now you see.” he said. “Now you understand.”
“I’m not the man for this.” I confessed to the Drågon. “I don’t feel like deserve it.”
“And that is why it must be you. It can be no one else.” he responded.
I could feel Tå’Sånnun’s eyes. Turning my gaze to her, I watched as she looked to both the Drågon and her Ångelįc friend. They in turn nodded their confirmation.
Then she met my eyes, and I saw her as I hadn’t seen her previously. I became overwhelmed by my feelings for her…by Zåkÿntħos’ feelings for her. I was weighed down by the love I knew she had for him. And I faltered. How he kept himself together in her presence was completely beyond me.
The Drågon’s sorrow slammed into my heart and I felt warm tears roll down my cheeks.
I was taking from this Dįvįnë woman that which mattered most to her...somehow. And I hadn’t the right.
Apparently she saw this realization in me. Maybe in my quivering lips. Or in my shallow breaths. Regardless of how, I know she saw Zåkÿntħos reflected in me and knew there was now love for her in me. And for the first time, her face softened.
“Oh Goddess.” I said weakly. I was at a loss for words. “I don’t know what to say. I just… I’m so sorry.”
“Yes.” Zåkÿntħos said, sharing in my emotions as he looked at me. “We all are.”