To help from afar
"I love you."
I sat in the black silence of the room I had been left in, my hands folding together over the crown of my staff, and I listened to Nehemiah as she hurried out, and away from where I had laid beside her. The sheets were mused with sweat and musk, the smell of her a heady scent tinged with pepers and mine with sage. I rested, waiting, and fought the turmoil that burned deep into my fore-gut, a moment playing through me as I waited, sure she would not hear or think about me.
And I let out a sigh, from my sides, and shoved my hand across the staff, and blew out a heavy wash of ether from my fingertips. I sent it out again and then again, filling the room with it, and helping it brew into a potent mix of charged energy. When I was ready, I gathered it to me and unleashed it out in a powerful kinetic wave of my anger and denied love, and felt it rock, burst through the room. Candles snuffed and blew from their holders, the windows rattled, and the dresser nearly toppled onto its side, still shuddering as I poured my emotion into it.
It felt good, seeing the room quiver. It felt good, seeing the room shake and shudder from my release. A release that felt hollow, after the power left, a release as impotent as masturbation, and let me feel alone and far worse than I had before. Like masturbation, it was needed, but never came to anything good. And so, spent, I reached beneath the bed and called my tome, and looked down to study the enchanted inks and priceless vellum. My mind ached, as I began to remember, and meditate.
My meditation broke when the sun was at its zenith. I rose from the bed, to descend down the stairs with a click of my mandibles and a twitch of my antennae. Down I went, into the common room, where I could settle at a back table and watch the few travelers on the road, catching sight of those I was with, Four sat about a rounded table, and discussed, not acknowledging my attention, and I left them to their talk. Instead, of waiting and listening, and feeling as a conifer amongst the sands, I stepped out, into the outer heat, into the city within walls.
The walls were old, a mix of dung and straw and clay quarried deep, and provided an ample roasting to make them hard - and a long baking to make them more solid than granite, which they proved to be in the many centuries they had stood as shelter against the endless sands and raiders from beyond the civilized way. I looked upon them as I stepped out into the sand-kissed streets, and approached the great barriers, feeling and savoring the heat as it kissed me in the wraps that were strewn to my body.
It was the city of Ta'anach, where the lords of trade ruled, and hosted near thirty thousand souls. It stood as a great bastion under the dying red sun, where water was more plentiful than most, and did not barter too harshly for its gift. It was a pleasant place, as relative as it seemed, and few looked twice upon one of my kind, but to make wary and assurance that I did not seek to devour them.
I did not eat sentient meat.
At least, I didn't kill it, then eat it.
I walked through the market, through the grand stalls with their many pleasant scents, which tingled the fazz and twitched the antennae, making me pulse my breathing a little quicker. I walked amidst silks of the rare lands, and crossed sight of the heavy iron blades, which impressed me with their sharpness and endless durability. Their price was high, and my need was low. Merchants of flesh tempted me with a buxom young woman, promising a full belly if I was hungry for tender meat, or a dutiful and obedient female if I wished other uses. A look to the pitiful face and fearful eyes, and I walked past.
I could not afford, even if I had use for her.
I did not kill, and eat, sentient meat.
Under, at last, a great tent of cloth and ancient wood, I was finally able to find the wonders of my chosen profession, and let my fingers touch across components and over cases holding dust of fallen foes, and ash of ground bone. A sorcerers tent, it held my interest as did the pressed vellum and gold calligraphy of scrollwork and enchanted maps, as did the the bound tomes which held the secret powers of the universe. I hungered for that lore, for what it promised my future endeavors in the short years I had left.
But I passed it by - too much coin, for too little gain. I would wait.
"Few of your kind are keen enough to wear those robes." A voice broke my revel of lore, and I looked up, to a tangled face of grey and well tanned brown - a man with tired eyes, and a look of knowledge hidden just beneath the surface of those eyes. My attention was kept. "Not many live long enough to grow more than a few spells to their book, but yours looks quite full."
He smelled faintly of embalming fluid.
"Not many, no. Not many have zhe mind for it. I do. It lethz me contzhemplate zhhe power, and protect my clutzh. What clutzh I have. Had." Terms amongst terms, I tried not to relieve earlier memories, as it distracted from the now. If I spawned, I would let them digest what had been. But, few spawned with males without a clutch to belong to, at least, from my experience. Perhaps that was my problem. "Zudox. Zhat ihz your name?"
My antennae curled and twitched around the air in front of him, while I tried to make sense of his being, of who he was. He irked something about me, but I tried to maintain a model of politeness. Better polite with someone now, and a fight later, than an ambush now.
"Mal'ak." He replied back, with that dry rasp to his voice. I would have offered water, but what I had was back in the great tavern, untaken for we would not be leaving for some few days. "It is rare to meet one of your kind in such civilized lands. A mage, as well, it is a rare delight. Where do you go, Zudox?"
"Hunting zhe lorr of Zhadowzh. He who zhlew my clutzh, with many like companionzh I whill carve their namezh into hizh head." I studied the brown-wrapped man, who smelled strangely. He did not seem quite overtly hostile, but the tingle of the ether was about him - he played with magic just as I did. His felt wrong, somehow.
"An admirable goal. To avenge your clutch and teach others to do no harm to what is yours; one can easily admire such determination to go against such a foe. You are quite impressive, and so young!" He watched me. I was not young, he was wrong about that.
"I am twenty-zhixzh. I already feel myzhelfh on zhe cuzhp of death. I do not have muzh longer in thizh life, but zhall awaken again in zhe future, in order to continue thizh hunt and thizh study of magic. I will not, allow myself to die until my hunt izh completed." Four years was a little over a tenth of my lifetime. I could feel death calling to me, a promise of a moment of rest in the hunting grounds, and a new life, perhaps one a bit more peaceful. But I had made an oath, an oath to the forces of nature, that I would come with peace as soon as my goal was accomplished. Nothing else mattered. I was so tired. "It will happen."
So tired. My strength was slipping away, a little each day, and my chitin bore small cracks and crevices. None of them were lethal, and none would become infected, but it was hard to hide them. I had never spread my seed and would die out, last of the clutch of the Red-Wash Sands At least they would pass avenged.
"What if you cannot make it, Zudox? Who will carry on your goals?"
I looked to him, to those strange eyes, and to the bazaar beyond him. My antennae twitched in thought, distant thought, of what he had to say. I would not deny the logic to his words, even if they made my palps dry.
"I will find a way, to accomplish my taskzh." I gave Mal'ak a look, and shook my head sorrowfully, as I had seen done amongst my few companions, and walked past him. I was filled with sorrow at his suggestion, that justice would be denied the spirits, that I knew doubt, doubt to my own strength. "In thizh life, or another."
Had I tears, I would have shed them.
But Thri'keen do not cry.
Age is not kind to anyone in a world of sand and salt. We make it as best we can with what we can, on a world slowly dying from the red fire of the sun. It was a reminder of the finality of life and viciousness of what we had to face, and eventually it would burn the world to nothing more than a char, where only the ghosts of the dead would wander. Perhaps a thousand years or ten, it would happen, unless one could find a way to reverse the very course of entropy and revert the sun to youth, and give the world another chance.
I passed through the bazaar again, with a lingering look upon a new and lovely slave girl, whom looked pleadingly to me. She was well curved and dusky skinned, long haired and strong of build. I slowed my walk and held her eyes for a long moment, seeing her for a quiet breath. There were dozens with her, human, elf, and more - those whom had lost hope, and gave into a fate that would see them dying hard and painful.
I held her eyes, and saw the pleading hope, and deep beneath, a core that had not given out. She had not given up hope, even with the scars of a lash along her forearms and the slice across her cheek, which looked more painful than I had wanted to think about. I saw that iron soul deep inside and I felt it ring inside me as well. She had the will to survive, even though it hurt.
I could not afford her, I could barely afford myself. She was plain, and I did not desire her, as I had desired Nehemiah. She was not built as a fighter, nor kissed by the gods, nor did she look to have the quick frame of a scout. I had no use for her, and knew the defiance would only grow with time. She was not a slave, even in bondage and chains.
"She is defiant. She is strong willed, and unbroken. Wild meat is said to be most tender." He said, the dark bearded slave-driver. He gazed to me with souless eyes, someone who had long lost the will to be gentle. This world was not kind to gentle souls, nor could it be.
Ever the fool, I gazed up to her face one last time. I memorized it, studied it, saw the soul of iron beneath it. She would do, she would do. I approached her, and touched her cheek and caught her grimace. I touched lip and nose and ear, her teeth were there, if yellowed, and she smelled faintly of dirt. Her thighs were strong and back criss-crossed with lash marks, and she flinched as I touched one.
"She is twenty." The slave-driver spoke. I held my staff close as it hovered beside me, and ignored the speaker, who eyed the gems and silver and gold on my body. I did not wish to know the dark thoughts he held. "Twenty, and yours. I do not care what you do with her, only that you take her far from me when you do it."
Twenty was not as bad as I thought. Unbroken slaves were worth more for some, less for others - sacrifices preferred wild, houses preferred tamed - and her, her I desired as she was. I placed the coin, twenty I could not spare, and took her from him. She held her head high though her eyes leaked precious salt, and she followed me, away from the markets.
I might have been one to free another city, and known as one who killed tyrants, but I would not ever shake the fear of my kind. Fear I smelled on her, as I lead her away from the bazaar, towards the gates, towards the grand inn which my party and I had stayed. My staff beat a soft click in stone and sand, not looking to her as I tugged the chain about her throat. She wore only rags. This would not do.
"Lunch?" I heard one ask. I ignored the bartender, a portly sort missing an eye. He did well to live to the age he did, and wore his gut with pride - it meant he ate well, and was far wealthier than he seemed. I gave him a look and tapped my staff to the bar, shaking my head.
"Zhend a large meal, I believe that I will be buzhy for a time."
"What are you going to do to me?" I sat upon the bed, while looking over the great tome, and quietly flicking through the pages left from my first years of study. Notes and annotations were left, the basics of theory wortcraft and theory somantic were dotted with the words of power, and even the first scrawled spells I had managed after many months of trying. The writing was crude, after twenty years of study - the writing was crude but I had pressed on, even to this day and near my twilight moments. The book was powerful, and meant much to me. "Are you going to eat me?"
"I do nozht eazht zhpeakingzh meazht." I clicked to her - flicking the page again, and again, before settling upon the most simple of axioms, for magic and for life: 'simple is good, simper is better'. I relaxed to the words, then gazed up to her face, while removing the chain from throat and wrists, and tossing them to the floor. I had no use for them, nor did her raw wrists need their weight. For a moment, she was thankful, then guarded.
"Are you going to rape me?" She asked, simply - as though questioning about the weather.
I looked at her, horrified. The effect was lost on her. I looked back to the book and turned it, settling it before her. She looked down, eyes flickering over the letters - she could read. I had made a correct choice.
"You are nozht zhe one zhazht I wanzht."
The meal was delivered after another few moments of terse silence, and I set the bowl of broth and water, and plate of meats out to be eaten from, which she devoured greedily, to my chagrin. I ate as well, the taste of mutton a delight on my palps, and smooth down the larynx. The water was used to wash my hands and face after eating, before allowing her to do the same. The jug of it was shared, as was salt - little, expensive, but a meaning that was not lost even on a slave.
"You have a zhertin zhpark to your eyezh, a rough zhoul of iron beneath your brown eyezh. It izh what I have zheen in my own, when I wazh younger. From iron to zhteel, from zhteel to zhtar-metal, zho zhall you go. I am dying of age, apprentizh, and zhall die azh zhoon azh my quezht is completed." I touched the staff to the bed, and placed it before her. It hovered near her, as did the ether flow. It was no stronger than mine, and no weaker. A good match. "You zhall becomzh my zhudent, and learn zhe artzh of magic."
"I... what?" She nearly choked on her water, having spit a mouthful out onto the tray, and onto me. I carefully patted the water off my neck and along my thorax. I did not like being submerged.
"You heard me, zhlave." I spoke. No, that wasn't a proper term. "What izh your name?"
"Tola." She spoke. I gave a short nod, a fitting name for the dusky skinned human, and found the second passage I needed. I recited it three times, then brought my hand out and touched her own, to settle it over onto the staff that was drawn to hover between us. I looked down to it, then up to her, seeing her beautiful face, soft lips, and long hair I would delight in combing out.
"Tola. You will be my ahzizhtant, apprentizh, and my zhervant. I do not have much longer to live, so my zhtudiezh will be quick and your lezhons will be firm. I chozhe you for your strong zhpirit. Pleazhe, do not fight me on thizh." The windows darkened, and I pulled long droughts of the deep ether stored inside of me, using it to fuel the power that began to wrap and warp around my body, and shift into the staff - and through the filter, into her. She began to glow, her hair alighting like the clouds deep in the desert. "Clozhe your eyezh, and breath deep."
I pushed the energy into the staff, pulling deeper into that ether. It was an addictive place to be, always draining and pulling and filling and twisting - a place of power, raw and streaming through the senses more sharply than the most crisp of alcohals. It suffused me, and I called to her across the manascape.
She was in trance, as I guided her. I called to her and she took my summon, to be shrouded by me, subsumed into my essense, and find me a filter for the power that suffused everything, living, dead, animate or organic. I felt her awe, and watched her reach to touch the flow - even as her body held still.
"You are very bright, Zudox." She whispered, she smiled, her body bare as the sun, and starting to glow. As she aged in power and in body, she would become like the sun, like I was. Her power would peak, and she would know the final secrets, that I would never even dream at. And in seeing her smile, I was okay with it.
"Awaken from your dream, Tola." I whispered, breaking the connection, and leaving her spinning, dazed upon the bed, sweating and panting like she had run a marathon. "Awaken to me."
Mal'ak was right, and he was wrong. I had found a way to survive past death. All that was required, was to teach someone else. And I held this someone - though she was not Nehemiah, whom I craved, she was someone I could help, and doing so, overcome my own shortfall.
I held her, and washed her down with small drops of water, to help her body cool into the fever dreams of the magi. I held her, through the night and into the day, and I was content.the fever dreams of the magi. I held her, through the night and into the day, and I was content.