Paths of Damnation - The Final Chapter (never got to the parts between)

We were gathered in the rooms above the inn. Rooms we had spent so many days, evenings and nights in talking with those gone and those still with us. I had come too late to change the battle's outcome. Five survivors. Of twenty six rash young fools, only five had lived, and we may still lose Billenius. Her breath had burnt him badly as he tried to reach Nonia to save her. Arms, legs, chest, face, all burnt. He had inhaled her breath and thus scorched his lungs and throat as well. And unless the gods would grant healing to him, or the great healer come soon, nothing would save him. 

The local priests of his kind are trying valiantly to save him, and failing. Only the gods could save them. Or that servant of my sire, if he could be found. I could feel the old lizard, even across all that expanse of sand to my east, flying here himself. He had told to guard this elf, but I had failed. I was certain that the rage I felt was more at me than the bitch of our kine up that mountain. She had withdrawn not because of my presence, I knew now. One of those upon my back was who she had feared in that moment. Rutilius was not the fool we had all thought, and his rage had surpassed mine on that ridge below her lair. 

And now, I had to play the waiting game. To see who would come first, the death god of his folk to take his spirit from his flesh, or father and his healer. Had I the knowledge of how to call him, I would break the rules of all and call upon the rider of the ass to come to his aid. 

The fear of the blue ones screamed across the leagues of desert, as my sire roared by them, I could sense them all, seeking the deepest pits of sand to hide from the rage of the heir of the Lord of the Arbitrations. And it was a terrifying rage, one that was causing fear even in the heights above this town, where the Queen of Flame lay trying to heal her own wounds, dealt more by the ones she had maimed and slain than we who came in rescue. I knew I would taste some piece of that rage, even if it were only words. 

The dwarf beside him with the arm so chewed up by servants of the beast was crying as the dwarven chirugeon sawed off the arm above the elbow. But the tears were not for himself, but his dead twin still up there on the mountain's foothills, where ever the creatures of flame had taken his body to toss aside or consume with their inner flames.

Still I feel my sire, there is no cooling in his rage, or his determination to be here in time to save those he can. This is not the beast that others think he is, but the one I know of, who does have a heart, and it is as red and loving as all think it is black and cold. Billenius was my friend, and for that father had spoken with him several times over the years. Then something else had grown between them, a respect for each other, or what they were to me. I know not still. 

There is the displacement of air outside and the rage is here, but contained more closely of the sudden. I hear the howling winds raging out from where he has teleported to, like the storms of the desert that often assail this town on the benches that rise from the desert floor. He is here, there is hope. Doors burst apart before the healer as he enters, giving commands to bring him supplies for healing and surgery. All know who Zotikos is, the great healer who serves my sire. 

None know the whole truth, and if they had, he would have been slain in that moment, out of fear he had come to ally with the bitch. The door opens, and he strides in with a pace that is nearly a run. He bypasses the three the local healers had thought to save, and approaches Billenius. He stops and hisses loudly. 

"Bahai-Luthna-Naish." With that naming, my own mind exploded. She had forged her own fate, created the thing that we dragons feared the most. Sees-Without-Eyes" that my sire's sire's sire had prophesied of. The bane who would slay the great dragons of the day and choose from those he left alive to be the next Lords of the Arbitraitions to take back our ancient homeland.

Now I knew the respect of mine sire for mine friend. 

"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-C

There will be one more part to this chapter, as time moves on. These two characters are just being stubborn about me not skipping things, and surprising me at what they reveal to me about their world, or this part of it. -D.R. 

Galen snarled as light fled the prairie, staring incredibly at the still glowing line where the head of his mace once supported a fin. Such a thing was thought impossible, that only portions of something would be taken with a teleporting item or person, not all of it, and what it was connected to. Not to mention, this being yet another blade to snap from the head of the mace, another problem to ponder, for it's enchantments were to prevent such incidents due to the design. Without a mage-smith nearby, to look into that matter, he shelved it, mentally.

Tagrun stalked about the circle of dead grass surrounding him, warring emotions dancing across his face. Anger at the escape, grief over the deaths, and relief and worry stuttering between those, over Chanti being alive, but once more beyond his reach to save. His feet moved closer, then farther out, but rarely more than two paces from the circle, as he moved. Something seemed to keep him out of it. Superstitions, perhaps, or an ingrained sense of self-preservation.

The elven assassin glared at him, not sure if the boy's hesitation, suddenly, was cowardice or wisdom. "Enter it. Show the mage you do not fear his spells."

"I seek his footsteps, none are here though." Tagrun raged, casting about for some way to trace his foe.

"The only steps you will find of his lie outside this realm, and mortal eyes cannot trace." Galen sighed. "Fools we were. Thinking we could kill him so easily."

"When he dies, it will be at my hand. The sands said so." Tagrun walked around the circle of death again, stopping to lift up a weakened, but still alive child. "Some trace must be where eyes can see it, for me to follow."

Galen's eyes narrowed, those words too close in his memory to another student's words decades before. "Perhaps. But not where your eyes see the trace of his steps, but the effects of the passage. Like the moving of blades tells of your namesake's stalking of prey?"

Tagrun whipped his head around, eyes seeking for such in the grass, but sighed after a few moments. "No. You are right. This is magic, something beyong the ken of my eyes. Only another mage could trace the foulness he did unto these innocents."

Closing his eyes, Galen nodded silently, thinking hard. It was in the distant desert of volcanic ash and sand his mind sought the answer, amid his memories of that other student, one who did not embrace what he was, but denied it, seeking to quell the gifts the gods had laid upon him, not use them. That boy's gifts, so similar to his own, rose up as an answer.

"There might be a way. Place will not matter, I think. At least, not to find where a trail you can follow for us will resume." Galen smiled, lifting his mace, turning the radiant seam where once a blade projected to his face. "And our prey cannot block it."

"What way is that? A user of the dark powers knows all." Tagrun said.

"Knows them, but not the ways of the user of them." Galen knelt, sifting a handful of dead dust through his fingers. "Nor that a hunter can use them as well as a mage."

Tagrun grunted, still not convinced, but let the matter lie, for the moment. "We must save these, and he will use that time to flee, covering his tracks, having seen a grass stalker follows with you."

"Yes. But he has only a few places in reach, if my own schooling tells true, of a spell only fueled by a few, instead of all these. West, unless he seeks sojourn among the blood drinkers, is out. North would keep him from his goal, but confuse us, so we must consider it." Galen shook his head, standing slowly. "No, East or south is my guess. Kensorthi or Jandalin."

"Kensorthi would expose him. Most there are of the grass, and would not tolerate a mage hiding among them." The boy scoffed, staring down the valley, as the lesser moon at last rose in the east. "Jandalin also gets more ships."

Galen stared at the boy. "I thought you never left the grass of the north before?"

"Once, we traveled to the coast. Trading furs for spear and arrow heads." Tagrun smiled shyly. "I never said I had not left the grass of the Eagle, but Jandalin is on the grass, as is Kensorthi."

"You tribesmen amaze me again." Galen smiled, looking over the slowly reviving clan around them. "Take them to the river. Washing may not be a remedy for their ailments, but it will let them wash the feeling of filth this foe undoubtedly left upon them."

Tagrun grunted, sensing there was more to leaving the place to just his uncle. Galen's face left no room for argument about the decision, though. Moving gently among the survivors, he aided them up from the ground, checked their steadiness, then urged them down the draw. Risking one last glance back, the boy nodded to Galen, even as the older elf closed his eyes, holding the mace's broad head to his own. The hunter moved faster after the others, taking the arm of their shala to aid her over the rocky terrain.

For Galen, only the mace was left in his world. The boy, despite their shared blood, was not part of his true kin. Tagrun felt none of the bonds the numeni held dear, lived his life as one of the clansmen, which might be fine for him, lacking a doni so far. Reaching into his soul, in the spot he once shared with his sister, the boy's mother, the assassin teased at the powers within his mind, calling them out gently, into the mace. The trick would not be invoking the connection between the head and missing fin, but in keeping the connection faint enough to avoid alerting the mage.

Chablys being much sought after by all mages for various rites and spells, not to mention the fact that their foe might even use a magical summoning of the power to drain the mace's enchantments through the portion of it he now possessed, he was sure their prey would not toss it aside.

Reaching out his doni, Galen stirred the power inside the mace, caressing the flow just enough to create a tiny ripple in those currents. A disturbance that fled out from the center of the great ball, finding the jagged seams that once held the missing fins, trickling out them to seek missing parts. Opening his eyes, the assassin shifted his vision from the world of matter to that of energy. Flares of power and life burst all around, swirling whirlwinds of fire marking the creatures, a flow from river to hilltop marking the grass and other scrubs, but over it all, a faint golden stream, marred by darker orange ripples along it, flowed into the heart of the dead circle, disappearing.

Patience, the greatest virtue of a hunter, be he of beasts or men, became Galen's only companion amid that maelstrom of hues, as the world moved about him in ways few others ever saw. Time ceased to exist in the normal sense for the assassin, now intent upon finding his prey and redeeming the knife on his belt. When the returning ripple came, it flowed over the scenery, not through the evaporated portal opening. A long, faint lone, stretching to the south, and a bit west. A line almost washed out when the boy stepped between him and the distant fin by Tagrun's angry red aura.

"Kensorthi." One word said it all, for both of them.

"Good. But we need to get these Otter folk down to help. Their shala is too ill to tend their wounds and sickness for them." Tagrun's rage forced Galen to abandon his effort, and look once more upon the physical, not the spiritual world.

"It will take too much time to find another encampment." He snarled.

"No." Tagrun grinned viciously. "Their main band is in the port, trading. And they were making rafts to join them."

Galen smiled himself, sensing something their foe had not anticipated. The hand of the Parcae, the three goddesses of Fate, being on their side, aiding their hunt. "Well, that changes things. How much more to do?"

"Those able to work managed to help me finish their rafts. A hundred spear throw walk, then the ride down the river." Now Tagrun's face showed worry. "But the river is not an easy thing, from here to the Sandy Grasses below. Many rapids, and rains must have fallen, for the channels here are swollen."

"But swifter than one would think, for this time of year." Galen stared up at the stars, blessing them, as the clouds broke for a few more moments, then sealed them over. "Let us see your rafts, and take a day or so to make them stronger and safer. It will not matter. Our prey is grown over-confident, thinking we were but lucky."

"How would you know this?" Tagrun asked, starting down the draw to the bank of the Kensorthi.

"He did not toss aside the fin of my blade. Instead, he plays with it, hoping to steal its magic, and my life through it." Galen sneered. "Fool, I say, and lucky for us. Even the masters of yore often failed at that."

"But some did it, that implies." Tagrun scowled again, noting flashes in the clouds, distant echoes of lightning to come.

Galen refused to answer, trusting to his goddesses to grant him victory.

Okay, now I have to do some worldbuilding in advance of the final part of the chapter, the river ride you see coming. And on Kensorthi the town, and its surrounds. And the path after that... no, this is not an easy hunt, and will end in frustration, if not for my characters, at least for me. =D.R.

"Blade of the Eagle Clansman" Ch8-two/B - The first Hunt of Scorpio Kenrai.

Moving along the trail their prey left, the signs pointed to another atrocity to be found early. Yet, even by sundown, none was found, save the implication of one to come, by the number of footsteps joining the Necromancer's tread marks. This was not a single gathering, but one marked by well spread out along his trail harvesting of bodies for something worse than before, both hunters knew. Just before sundown, they found an encampment, with fires still burning amid the tents, and knew that this night, the beast they followed would feast, unless they made haste.

Worse, Galen stared at the moons in the sky, as the sun set, knowing the night would grant the one they stalked complete darkness in the hour of dark magics, midway between dusk and dawn. Such a lack of light gave the dark arts greater power. Power enhanced more as clouds streamed north from the Great Water at a rapid pace, cloaking the stars as well.

He barely noticed the boy's sudden stop, nearly running into him, stumbling into a cluster of rattle-tails, whose seed pods gave their namesake sound loudly, drawing ire from his nephew.
"Sha!" Tagrun hissed. "Over this ridge, see it?"

Shifting carefully back to their path, Galen squinted a bit, but noted the faint yellow-orange glow indicating a fire. "Yes." The word was more breath than sound.

"He waits for something. What?" The boy's head turned slowly, taking in the surroundings, eyes glittering in the dark, seeing the land's heat and auras more than it's forms.

"Midnight. As always." Galen whispered, moving in closer to his companion. "That hour marks the zenith of the ars arcanum."

"This will be his last casting amid the Grass, then." The boy's grip tightened upon his spear's shaft, knuckles popping enough for Galen's ears to register the sound.

Hand upon the boy's shoulder, Galen moved around him. "Perhaps. Or it might be he wants us there, to feast upon our anguish as well. Think of what you will feel like if a whole tribe is consumed by his power tonight."

"The only thing I intend for him to feast upon is bile and my spear." Tagrun snarled, crouching down as he slipped past his uncle. The boy's sudden burst of energy shocked Galen, who'd thought the toll of the hunt more than it now seemed. He moved slower, but kept close, hoping to dissuade Tagrun from making a terrible error.

"Tagrun, no..." In a blink, the boy was over the ridge, and sprinting at the fire, where all looked away, facing south towards the heart of the night. The magus stood with his back to them, oblivious to all but his own rising chant, violet and purple flames dancing over his extended hands, reaching out towards the tribe held in thrall before him.

Tagrun hurled his hasta, the long spear whistling through the air, seeking his prey, even as one of the long hunting knives filled his right hand. Galen struggled to free his mace from its belt loop, forced to prance awkwardly down the rock strewn slope, stumbling twice when Nature's caltrops rolled under his steps. The elf waded into the rattle-tails, stirring pods into their namesake call.

The mage turned, eyes glowing with the violet fires necromancy fueled, a snarl creasing his face. "Fool, you cannot stop what is to come. Embrace it, join me."

Streaking through the dusk, a glint of bronze announced the flight of his sister's hasta, as Tagrun tossed his spear towards the Necromancer. The mage blocked its path with a backhanded gesture, shimmering purple field summoned out, as one of the sacrifices dropped, body crumbling to dust, leaving the spear to glance away into taller blades of grass behind him. The man thrust out his right hand, left held before him, cloaked in the field he'd summoned now, pulled in tight to his chest, unleashing a bolt tainted deep blue, almost the indigo of dusk's sky, at the charging boy.

Tagrun dove into a roll beneath it, coming up to his right, long hunter's blade slicking the Necromancer's forearm with an upward slash. The hunter of beasts stepped in, trying to lock the arm outward, but gasped as the mage splayed his fingers into Tagrun's chest, forcing the boy back, gasping for breath, a nimbus of blue static spreading over his torso, abdomen, and neck.

Using the boy's fall as a blockade, the mage snarled, grasping two of his victims, one recognizable as the elven girl, Chanti. Cursing, the mage lowered his head, as the male his right hand rested upon crumbled away to dust, and the mage and girl seemed to stretch away to the south.

Galen reached them before the distancing effect finished into vanishing, swinging his mace at the mage. One blade managed to entangle in the wide sleeves of the mage's loose robe, before a sharp crack, followed by a hollow bang announced their escape. A tendril of smoke rose from the mace's head, hot molten chablys giving the campsite an eerie light. A line that marked where once a blade, now departed with the mage, had been.

Real reason for the logjam of words

So, as the last post, the poem about the mental patio forming up, indicates, I'm suffering my weird writer's block, not so much that the story won't go, but another intrudes, and demands to be at least addressed enough to call some story inspector in to check the foundations before I let the character start framing the damned house the story will live in.

Yeah, my dealing with contractors at work is affecting my view of writing again. Metaphorically, at least.

So, this morning, I opened up my writing softwares, and what dropped into one tale had nothing to do with the tale that file/folder contained. I had to go back, save it the hell out, look around my hard drive and find a niche to cram those words into, as a holding place. Regrettably, that actually sparked more ideas and words from the main character, as the place in my head crowded up with others waiting their turns, or at least acting like they are waiting, to tell a tale.

What, you may ask, sparked this? Who the hell knows. I live inside my skull, and am just as mystified as to what goes on in here as others outside it are.

This is the words that flowed out, and that third paragraph sort of sealed the deal, that it was time to talk of "Grave to Grave" registration of undead bodies, how Bureau-rats (were-rats who have infiltrated the bureaucracy of CRAPP's parent organization) will guide or impede the characters, and some other things.

Upstairs, amid the cubicles, the offices, the suits, and the things in suits that need a good staking, they have a term which strikes horror in the hearts of many entrepenuers and riders of golden parachutes. "Cradle to Grave". It means how one follows the trail of chemicals and various by-products from their creation to their internment inside containers which are designed from step one to leak, deep inside some hidden place. Say Utah, Nevada, or over a major watersupply, say the Ogallala Aquifer. 
Down here in the basement, we have our own twist on that string of words. "Grave to Grave". And we hate enforcing it, as it means we have to deal with some form of undead bastard who cannot stay put once planted in the ground. 
There's a new, rubber placard on my desk, but it lies as much as its wooden and metal predecessors had, claiming my name is Troy Tanner, that my job title is "Remediation & Recovery Expert", and that I am handicapped. I'm pretty sure Blair and Beths teamed up on this one, as my only handicap is I cannot play golf or office politics, and the rubber tells me Beths is hoping this one will bounce back on its own from whatever dumpster I drop it into. Tanner is the name I answer to, unless the IRS is asking, so it will do. As for that title, face it, anyone who gets sent out to clean up a mess, be it made by the living, the dead, the undead, aliens, sasquatch who have decided that using someone's lawn over their woods to dump in, or other such things is just a glorified janitor. 

Yep, another of those days, when it comes to me writing. One where the characters do their damnedest to make me insane, by blocking each other like a goalie seeking to save the day.

Blade of the Eagle Clansman - Chapter 8 (partial)

(You be the judge, vote with comments: Do I have my chops back and have the thread of this story again?)

Three bleak, grey dawns now lay behind them, as Galen stared across the dying coals of their night's fire at the hollowed out boy across from him. Losing two so close to him, and the mess at the Burning Rocks still sore to the boy, left the eyes vacant save the occasional stirring of vengeance's flames within them. Today, the embers of the fire and the eyes were dim, but not for long, the elven assassin thought.

Something would spark a rage, a killing one, and the boy would be lost, every bit the killer the one they hunted obviously wanted to make him. The Necromancer was not just playing a game with primitives, that much had become clear. The creature of darkness wanted them on his trail, and moving through the land in a rage. Each day, near to noon, they would find his camp from the night before, a place of death, even the grasses brown, brittle, and lifeless, adorned with strange trees made of bodies drained of life, that they lost time in burning, to prevent the dead from following them.
Tagrun rarely spoke, only a few words about the trail in the morning, and nothing but gestures in the trade sign-language after they'd dealt with the foul messes left behind by their prey. His eyes died more with each night, but the hate blazed up each noon, when they beheld the new horrors of crucified corpses, some twisted into trees in their own right, before their essences drained into their foe.

His eyes drifted across the prairie around them, the soft, rolling grasslands of the place his folk once called the Eastern Deadlands, ravaged by the remnants of the volcanoes around them, and a sorcerous war three ages before that triggered that cataclysm. The grass was not the green of the northern prairies and plains crossed before reaching the Vault. Dull teal to blue blades swayed in the wind, shorter, cropped often by herds of auroch and bison, among other creatures. The tall spires of the old vents and runs of dykes left behind when the ashes of the eruptions which formed the bowl of the land cast strange shadows, as their gleaming rocks, rich in precious metals, studded by clumps of wind and rain polished gems that sparkled in the sun. Those towers, numerous, but still spread apart by stadia, left him stunned, but the boy ignored their beauty. The tribes all ignored the riches, having paid heavily when they'd overrun the land during the Age of Convulsions, as the Old North Empire collapsed, for trying to harvest such, finding them enchanted against harvest by any not of that fallen nation. Something Galen fought testing, to see if those spells still held out against the fading of power the years passed brought on all such power.

Three days of sporadic sprinkles left the trail still there, but weak, hard to follow. The delays in setting the funeral pyres merely aggravated Tagrun, the boy simmering over the delay, but knowing the cost of not burning the ensorcelled bodies, the young hunter took the time, and did it well. This morning, though, his half open eyes meeting his uncle's.

"We go about this wrong. He wants us wasting time."

Galen grunted, pouring out the last of the pot of kaf, frowning. "Yes. But if we do not find the camps, others will suffer."

Tagrun shook his head. "No. Here there are fewer night hunting beasts to fear. That is what I mean." He leaned back, noting darker bands of clouds to the south. "Tonight, I say we keep on the trail. By torchlight if necessary. Drive him to abandon this, make him hasten to his chosen place to meet us, and perhaps fail to have it ready as a trap to kill his pursuers." Leaning forward, the boy stirred the coals, letting them brighten a bit, before seeking Galen's eyes and judgement.

Galen narrowed his own almond eyes, staring across the waving grasses, noting the increase of shrubs amid the landscape, compared with further north. Sipping his drink, he thought over the suggestion, not liking it. If the clouds broke, the trail would be easier to follow, and the hunters were not known for night tracking, to those outside their lands. Ones who knew them feared the nights they hunted, for the clans proved good in the dark hours at tracking their prey, or maybe more than by the light of the sun. So far, their prey counted on the edge night gave his powers, so perhaps Tagrun was correct. But to confront a sorceror in the dark, or the dim light of dawn might just be too much for them.
"He travels by day, that we know." Tagrun now opined. "Gathering up those he finds out, for his evil. If we push him, perhaps he will not take more of the Otter clan, whose grass we now tread."
"Or perhaps we will meet the Otters themselves, at night." Galen stretched, feeling muscles still tight from their fast pace and short nights protest at the movement. "Against such as this man, we know not what they will be sending out now."

 Tagrun grunted, knowing his elder was right, but feeling his own idea worth trying. "Otter will understand. We know word is spreading, you saw the curse wards they leave, the wands in the rock piles, the staff with the burnt skull of the beast set upon one of their camps." He noted Galen's motions, knowing they meant the elf was ready to move on, but waited only for him to finish his idea. "One night, if it works, and we stop him from destroying souls, we keep it up. If not, back to the day trekking, but longer hours, camping only after the sun sets. The moon of migrations grows rounder each night, let us use that light."

Nodding, Galen admitted that one night would not harm them, if they could catch the horror they stalked. "Very well. One night of tracking him onward, but we do not approach him until dawn. Can you go so long without rest?"

"Once, I followed the tusk-cat I am named for, six days and nights, eating on the run, never sleeping. For this monster, I would run all the days and nights until the moon leaves the night sky. And into the dark, if the lesser moon lets us."

Kicking dirt over the fire as he rose, Galen met his nephew's eyes. "So be it."

Sample of the work from November... just a rather large snippet, really

The following is the sample I'm sharing about the tale I wrote for NaNoWriMo, just a piece, well into it. When I wrote this, I knew I had to go back, re-write the whole damned thing, but hell, it gelled the tale for me. This is the raw, mostly unedited thing that flowed out, one day at a coffee shop to remain nameless, so I can keep using it to write and hide from the world while doing so. 

Sikilashtar allowed her wings to spill air, leading her Mulusu down towards the girl walking the long, empty stretch of road. Her AndarU created a clumsy landing, the bulk of the battle armor plant forcing her to stagger. None of the others preformed perfect landings either, something difficult under the heavy gravity of this damned planet. She followed the commands still of witch Hili, coming here to find those still hiding from the domination by the Fey Princess.

"Don't let her hear you call her just a princess, Mashkim." One of her battle sisters chuckled.

"I said that out-loud, did I?" Sikilashtar replied, ashamed. "Sorry, Sanabi."

"Very loudly, too." The earth child they sought to capture said, still facing away.

The Mulusu brought weapons to bear, fast. The words of the earthling were in the sacred tongue they spoke in, not some earth language.

"Mashkim... there are reports that some earthlings turn rogue, and are very dangerous." The soldier to her left said, reminding her of their mission. To gather in humans, and slay any who resist being put under Hili's will.

"I know. And they speak our tongue, learned by their transformation in the contamination of this world by the Shimxul." Sikilashtar said.

The child waited. She appeared young, human, yet had pink hair, and a certain grace that few of them held. Not that they had not found signs of such, but it had become rare. By her height and build Sikilashtar estimated her to be in what the humans called their mid to late teens, having the starts of the womanly, perfect figure humans sometimes shared with the Sedu. The tattered, blue jacket she wore over the heavy leggings the rebels called 'blue jeans', and seemed to prefer over the offered Utug, living clothing, made of parasite plants, offered by the Sedu to let them wear, marked her as a holdout, one of the rebels. A strange logo decorated the back of the jacket, in red, white and blue. A small bear cub. Her shoes were not the heeled things of the Sedu rule, but flat soled, red canvas things.

"Child of Kibala, surrender to the orders of the Lugal." Sikilashtar commanded. "Turn about, and give your flesh to our empress's rule."

"No. Give yourself over to mine." From under the jacket a weapon appeared. Sikilashtar aimed her own, but gestured for holding fire. The weapon had not been aimed at them, just shown, held by left hand, aimed to the side and up.

"Mashkim..." One of her younger squad members gasped. "That weapon."

Focusing upon it, Sikilashtar snarled. "We were told there was a base out here, near that land of craters and death glass, that the humans supposedly held aliens in. I guess those stories were true."

"All too true, sadly." The human said. "Surrender, and I will give mercy. Keep follow that pretender to the Zidguza, and I will make even Shumash fear my destructions." The gun held steady, in a grip only experts with that model, long ago abandoned, save for ceremonial use, in the service of one person, the heir to the throne.

Sikilashtar's anger grew. Before the coups that led to this debacle, the destruction of a human civilization, she'd served in such, and was pissed at this earth child for carrying such a weapon, and at herself for not recognizing it instantly. "You are unworthy of that weapon, earthling. Set it down, and tell us how you learned our language and found that tool."
"No." The child stood, long pink tresses blowing in a breeze that looked hot and nasty, given the dust  it kicked up registered as highly radioactive. Deadly to humans. Sikilashtar debated just waiting for the particles of the real to tear the child's flesh apart.
"Then you will die. But, I still must know. How do you know our language?" Taking aim, Sikilashtar, the pure heart, prayed to the gods to forgive her for killing an innocent, misguided child.
"I answer your question with one of my own." The human said, holding perfectly still. "How did my sister die?"

Sikilashtar cocked her head, not surprised at the question, too many rebels blamed the conversions and deaths of family on them all, not just Hili's special corps made for that purpose. "I know not your sister, child of earth. We have killed many here, sadly. So you will go to the heavens never knowing. But I must know how you came to speak the Emezir. Tell me, or die."

The earthling's reply was to turn her head, giving hints of a beautiful face when the moving hair let more than her nose show. "How did my sister die, Mashkim. I know you know, you would have been there. I know those markings on your AndarU." The gun was armed with a touch of her finger. "Tell me how Tukgala died, Mashkim Lash. Tell your commander you did not betray the Diluzu to that witch Sallilu."

Arming the gun started the mulusu on the path to destroying her, as they spread out into a wider formation, to avoid all dying in the battle to come, for the Telmuna guns were named aptly. They made the holder's arm into a land of missiles, or at least where it was pointed into one, each shell of the gun tossing out thousands of monofilament diamond needles. Not even the AndarU would save them from such a weapon, which is why only the royal family and their guards held such.

"Drop it, child."

"I'm older than you, Lash. You just don't remember it, I guess." The gun rose, still not pointed at them, but now aimed straight up, by the left ear of the human, who looked forward. "Last chance, how did that Nighul dumma Asipu have Tukgala killed?"

That insult hit home, at last. And the name she'd been called, she realized was an old nickname of hers, not some earthling insult. "Dingiri." She whispered. "It cannot be. I saw the wreckage."

From the girl's hair, two long, golden antennae rose. marking her as one of the Sedu. "If I am who you now fear me to be, Lash, you best answer, before I lose my temper."

"Lillashu." Shaking her head, the Sedu warrior fell to her left knee, right knee supporting the clear leaf helmet of her AndarU. "Empress. Forgive us. We failed."

"Tell me, Lash. Tell me it was not treachery you participated in, treachery by your hand." The child of earth turned. "Tell me she did not give up the secret, and lead to this mess here." The hand moved around her imperiously. "Tell me I'm not having to grow up because you stabbed my sister in the back."

"When you ran off, we were demoted." Sikilashtar said, sobbing in relief. "Even I thought you could not have survived that crash, on that world, when I saw.... DINGIRI... That Bitch!" Standing up, the mashkim tore off the helmet leaves of her Andaru, feeling the parasite's pain, but not caring she wanted nothing between her eyes and the ones she met. "This place. This is it, GusukalKi. The bitch wiped that out of our minds."

A soft smile touched the lips of the teen-aged girl. "Which Witch?" Now in English, she watched the commander of the squad fighting to deal with the homonym. "Sallilu or this little Hili slut daughter of hers?"

One of the mulusu spoke up. "Princess, Sallilu ordered her killed. But we saved her, at Hili's order. But, what her end was, well. The still sealed in soldier of the Sedu shrugged. "I know nothing of that, but she was on Nymphia, when the Nigkua betrayed the truce flag."

"On whose word was it the Nigkua. They might be aggressive, and dumb at times, but they are not suicidal. Especially not Baphy." The gun now rested on the shoulder of the girl, who still refused to relent in her pursuit of answers.

"Hili...." Sikilashtar let her voice trail off, only to curse softly.

"Now THAT is the Lash I remember." The girl smiled. "Rise up, gather round, we are going to rock this witch to the ground." Lillashu grimaced. "Def Leppard's heirs will sue me for mangling it that way, then again, the boys probably would have been right behind me in revolution. Who knows."

"Def Leppard is a philosopher of this world?" One of the younger Mulusu asked.

"Nope, musicians. Well, musical philosphers, I guess. Unlike us, they actually used music to carry messages to the people." She strode into the pack of the kneeling soldiers, reaching up to pull down a suddenly smiling Sikilashtar's head by the jagged, but healing collar leaves of her AndarU. "Now, stop stalling, talk to me. Tell me how Salli did it, how that witch took down my sister. Or, I throw a tantrum."

The smile grew. "I think at last, my empress, you are too old for such."

"Royal perogative, I get pissed off, I can toss a tantrum, I just get to lob grenades and use my Telmuna you gave me when I ranaway." Lillashu waved the gun a little, as a reminder. "Now, old friend who really raised my sister and I, tell me how Tukgala lost, so I can do something of the same to this little minx Hili."

"She is your neice, by Salamacis..."

"Screw that crap. She's an usurper. And allied with ZiReDam. Don't care if she's my own kid, which I have not had one of yet, she's dead. Treason. Regicide of at least one empress, a lot more I bet." She aimed the gun between Sikilashtar's eyes, face grim suddenly. "Talk, Lash. Tell me what the hell went down after I left, so I can fix it."

All but one, a younger girl of the Pisuzu third flesh, spoke. Telling the tale, as they knew it, of how Salamicis rose to power, seducing a heart-broken child empress when her sister's vessel had been found on the true earth, home of all the races. Of the death of the then empress, by poison in her AndarU during a skirmish with the forces of Gorgon, Baphomet's rogue brother, and other treacheries done, by both Hilimaaz and Salamacis, against the poeple. The silent one stood, angry at this betrayal of their empress.

"Hilimaaz will slay you all for speaking of these things." She snarled, aiming her own gun at the child.

"Only if she hears of it." Lillashu said, her weapon dropping and firing in one smooth move, the needle gun shredding the armor and Sedu inside it apart. As her body dropped, the grim faced girl, face streaked with tears snarled. "And here I thought I was just fighting to bring back baseball."
Sikilashtar's face scrunched up in puzzlement. "What is baseball?"

The girl blinked, looking at her former bodyguard. "Something these earthlings had, a past-time sport, a unifying thing." She shook her head. "Something we all need, I guess."

The still kneeling guards all unhelmeted, the transparent leaves of their helms unfurling slowly, exposing nine Diluzu with bright, tear-filled, fearful eyes. "Empress." Sanabi whispered. "We offer our lives for our sins."

Turning back to the earlier pose, back to them, Telmuna gun resting by her head on shoulder, Lillashu stared out across the wastelands once known as Frenchman's Flat, eyes rising to the pass to her former home and prison, where the dry remains of Groom Lake once lay. "Live your lives. Live them to redeem those sins." She said, turning back, face fierce. "Let's give these slug lovers a war they won't forget."

Cold winds stirred up the dust again, sheathing them all in the rising haboob, erasing the traces of their ever being there.

A visit from the Ol' Prospector

This tale comes from a few folks, who when I was on the streets, often said I looked like an old prospector, when carrying my full load. That got me to crafting a character, sometimes acted out in the spooky season for a laugh, to tell some tales, about the past from this ghostly point of view. He's a ghost, just don't believe in them, so thinks he's still alive. You might see him, come the nights of All's Hallows Eve, wandering about calling for those mules of his, between running pans for gold, and cursing the witches as hexed his pan to only bring up nuggets of sweet and chocolate treats. 

Strange footsteps echoed in the building, as the youngsters wandered about in costume, one side a stomp, the other half drag, half limp. The scuff held tones of wind amid the drying leaves the town's trees, when the cold autumn winds dropped down the canyons. 

"Tarnation. Ornery. Where you nasty brayers gots off to this time?" Not more than a whisper, barely heard amid the aisles o' the big box store. Dogs whimpered, drawing back a bit, or barked wildly as the footsteps passed. Folks startled over the actions of animals that normally loved coming there. 

One long sigh, nearly buried by the noise o' modern forced air units, slithered down the aisles. 

"Dag-bummed mules, find that ol' bar in time to gets some nuggets, and they chooses nows to runs off. Oughta sell them boths to that there skinner, I oughtas." Customers jumped, as the whisper grew, and a mist gathered in the center aisle o' the store, forming a moving fog bank, drifting to the east. "Maybe the boys dones doubled back on me. Maybe. Nasty brayers, fer certain." 

Footsteps became louder, the whistling breathing of an old and bothered man now echoed between them, fog turning solid, yet still casting no shadow under the form that emerged from the swirling mass. 

"Dag-goned hayburners. Never let a man get a few good pans out o' that bar, they do. Gonna sell them, I swear me, I'm a gonna." The stomp came loud, as he turned up the wider aisle aimed at the easternmost door. "Get one day a year, ta comes back and find me some gold to buy my claim back, and they dones runs off, every years. Nuff to make a man cuss around ladies, it is."

Near the entrance, a cluster of costumed children, hands out to gather in sweets from the cashiers there jumped as a chill passed over them, when a louder yet stomp came. 

"You young'uns done seen any mules wanderin' by here?" A dusty, hunched o'er man snapped, tapping down his shovel on the concrete floor. The battered brown hat, front of the wide brim bent up, back down, and side wavy from years of use and abuse topped a mop of wild, graying hair, dim blue eyes and big nose framed by a white with hints of pepper beard, dusty dungarees and flannel shirt making him solid, above battered, tan work boots. 

Shaking his dusty head, he moaned. "Young'uns done looks like you seeing a ghost. Just me, the Ol' Prospector, tryin' to find my mules. Nasty brayers runs off all the time."

Looking them over, shocked and slight worried faces of parents behind them, he sighed. "Ain't no ghost, folks. Just an ol' man, cursed to pan the streams fer'ever and ever, seekin' nuffs nuggets and dust to buy back me claim, stolen away by some fancy tinhorn lawyer, come speakin' 'bouts laws and domains, not claims and ore." He laughed. "Not that it got him a penny o' flakes, save those fools gather in, thinkin' they found gold. Nope, that there gold bar be mine, and the stream hides the glitters from all but me."

He rapped his shovel, held more as a cane, and less as a tool, leaning over gently, a smile creasing his face. "But I bets you young'uns have seen ghosts before, just not knows it. Here in Fort Unions, there be ghosts o' all kinds. Long wandering conquistadors seekin' El Dorado's golden streets still, cowpunchers trailin' herds o' bunched strays they lost comin' this way, Niner's like me, seekin' the glory o' the motherlodes, even squatters and settlers, tryin' to get in one last harvest before the storms o' winter come. You just don't know what you see, when the foggy rains o' late October come to these benches." His grin grew, left eye twinkling with mischief's gleam. "Maybe even the phantom train, headed up the canyon and back from the smelters, haulin' ores down and supplies back up them there Cottonwood strewn canyons."

Seeing disbelief, he shook his head. Setting the shovel down, both hands on the handle as he leaned o'er it, peering at his audience. "Tellin' the plumb honest truth, there. You looks arounds, traces them ol' tracks still be there. Long grades that avoid the steeper climbs, mimicking the runs o' Tanner's Ditch and the canals o' you ancestors fer irrigatin's with. And on foggy, rainy, or snowy nights, you might just see the swirls o' the ol's steam engine's plume, as she runs those traces, seeking to finish that last run, one more time. Might even hear the faint scream o' her whistle, as she rounds the bends, finding other ghosts, or folks in these funny horseless carriages you race 'rounds in, missing out the things we saw as you speed on by." Laughing softly, he caught many an eye, those o' the kids that dared meet his gaze. Leaning back, he wavered as the shovel pointed to Fort Union Boulevard. "Yep, trains ran once, up along that road o'er there, 'fores branching aroun' Butler Hill, to rise up slower along the Big Cottonwood's run. Trains that served the mines o' both canyons, trains that were cursed by those they woke too early, the natives they drove off the land, and the settlers whose water they done fouled with tailin's and coal dust from the trains. Been many a year since those tracks was pulled out, by gandy-dancers long since ghosts themselves now, but those trains still run. Uphill slow, fightin' to reach the tops o' the canyons, and the mines along the way. Or racin' downhill, out o' control, engineers and firemen prayin' as they fight to keep their cars all on the tracks, not spilling the precious loads they carry. You watch, you'll see, young'uns. Those mines, the ghost ores still are dug, by the shades o' miners trapped under them mountains' bones fer'ever, and their ore still rides down them tracks, just not as you can tell, lest you see the fogs and snow swirling around, before, and inside them.

"Those trains, they were't lifeblood o' towns downs hereabouts. Jobs at the smelters, jobs in the railyards keepin' them trains runnin', jobs cutting the wood or diggin' coal to fire their boilers. Not a regular run, maybe twice, thrice at most a day, but still, they moved along, slow inside the canyon, buildin' up a fine head o' steam along these here flatter benches, racin' to Murray and Midvale, to deliver they loads o' rocks, and have folks pull out the precious from the worthless bits. Hints o' the rails marked durin' snowstorms as ice lines along Fort Union, showin' where those spirit iron horses still run, amid the snows, to deliver ghostly ore. Mark my words, you listen, out there tonight, you'll hear the huffin' and chuffin' as the pistons o' those ol' trains still run, tryin' to make it down to safety, a'fores an avalanche takes the tracks out again. See the cars rockin' in the air out above the freeway, in the places they dug down to make those lanes fer folks to roar along, faster than steam engines comin' back down the canyons. The flakes or raindrops will stick together, showin' you those ol' rail runners up there, or along the creek bed further up the canyons."

He leaned back, tipping the battered hat back, wiping his brow with his kerchief. "Yeppers, thems were the days, when the iron horse was king o' this valley, stopping sometimes to gather up a few cars o' sugar beets to haul to the processing houses, during the harvest. When the howling was not just the winds racin' down the canyons, but the release o' the steam, when boilers got to full pressure, and needed to bleed a bit. Days when men and women watched and waved as the trains passed, hopin' there'd be no leavin' o' the rails, prayin' the mountains were not hungry fer they kinsfolk and neighbors as worked they mines. When the land here still had farms, 'sides ol' Wheeler's place o'er yonder, as still bein' workeds." 

Hunching over his shovel, both hands again on the handle he sighed. "Nowadays, fancy folks dance the snows in winter, sled runners strapped to their feet where we dug out them ores fer the rich men back east. Investors who bought us out, forced us to work fer pennies, instead o' all the weath we'd finded. Been many a nights, under them mountains, since I last came down, ta find that place where the dust and nuggets gather up, down here beneath them purple mountain majesties. But one day a year, they let me out, to try and work that bar, and gather me up the funds to buy it back from them, to get me's claim back."

Cocking his head, he sighed. "Dag-bummed mules. Leave a man to wander 'bouts lookin' fer's them, when rightfuls, he should be runnin' pans fer flakes. Oughta sold them to that there teamster, back after the war 'tween the states. Rightful, I shoulda." He waves his free hand, turning to the back o' the store. "Tarnation! Ornery! Get your mangy hides back here boys! Found that sandbar, we need to run pans, a'fores we has to go back there." Limping along, left leg dragging the foot along, he moaned again. "Been a century since that avalanche took me, when I snuck out to pan the waters above Donut Falls. Need them mules to behave and stay put, long enough to buy my peace." As he walked away, his form became as misty as the trains he'd spoken of, before swirling apart into a blast of sawdust raised at the back of the store. 

A final echo came, faint, but full of warning to the kids. "Don't go lookin' fer me gold, young'uns, you be cursed as me, to only seek it once a year, and have others stop you from findin' it. Tarnation! Ornery! You boys gets back here, ya hear me!" 

Paths of Damnation 5 - (Billenius)

There is beauty to a desert sunrise, one that belies the brutal day to come, but still makes it something to enjoy. The clouds, usually high feathery ones, tend to glow orange or gold as the sun begins his daily voyage, after his underworld passing the legends tell of. Then the light blooms across the landscape, turning the nighttime grays to gold or shadowy black. Sandstones blaze their redness like torches as the buttes to our west caught the sun before the ground below them. And the dust raised by the various folks using the coolest part of the day to travel the Sands were like silver bushes on the horizon around me. Shiny silver to the west and south, blue to the north and east.

I took a deep breath, having rode hard for three days across the Riparian Neck, which is a tongue of the desert that extends east between the rivers of the land. It was north we sought, as we left Radixium further behind us with every turning of the horas. This long neck of sands and desert between the rivers was not as deadly as the rest of the desert we would face later, but still worse than the gentle lands near the Amnis Radix along the foot of the Last Mountains. We had rode east, not out of need, the faster path was due north, along the edge of the eastern most of the Grey Mesas. But one had paid a price I had avoided in my fight in the city of the foothills.

Quintas Marinius Varamadis, a distant cousin from these lands, had met my foe before the duel. Despite knowing the fate he would face, he had confronted the assassin. Marinius job with us here was as the local Castrorum Preafectus, the one charged with ensuring the supplies to the outposts and one of only five animas trusted with delivering payrolls to our posts every third hebdoma. So I had one last job as a Custos, one I had been trusted with several times before of late, due to my record of service. One I did more for a lost relative than duty, and to aid out my former colleagues, then from allegiance to the Custos.

So we had ridden the river's valley for two days, before turning north again up the Valles Favillae, the long brush filled series of draws as the land climbed up to the small volcano in the center of the Callix. We were halfway up it, the point where the dense briers gave way to scattered cactus and sage, with some scrub oak and other trees. At least it was not a place loaded with fire grass, which I would have hated. Not to mention having to dig into the supplies I had for the desert crossing to come yet. We had at least six or seven leagues of sand, depending upon the winds and recent eruptions of the volcano, to ride over. And those would be hard milles to make in one day.

But for now the worst of it all was the four extra pack animals. Marinius had no skill at choosing animals, and these four tried my patience at every stop or turn of the draws. Skittish, mean tempered, and if Pater thought Turbator kicked too often, he should try to shoe these beasts. Not that shoes were needed on a vartengi. Their clawed feet had thick pads of tough scaled leather. Claws that Marinius never had covered with blunt sheaths, but at least we had muzzles so they could not bite us.

Yes, us. Didius Lorcius was with me, as he had promised. Thankfully. These beasts were more than I could handle, for my doni was not of calming animals. Barely pack broken and every night they looked over my onagers with hungry eyes, ready to leap into their dinner, or chase it down. While the pack beast was one they scared, Turbator just gave them the look only a stallion of his kind can. The one that says "I can out run you, and come back and kick you into a pulp". When we had mounted up before first light, the Triari kept me from letting Turbator have his go at all four at once, and help me fix my left boot as we rode. One of the vargenti had stepped on it and tore the outer leathers to shreds. As well as the linings, and my socks.

Luckily I had a concoction from a alchemist in Vepresium, who had noted the beasts. It was a reddish liquid he said prevented wounds from becoming gangrenous. It smelled awful and hurt like the fires of hell, so I was fairly sure it was real medicine for a change, not some snake-oil unguent. Then again, some said snakes were put on the world to aid in cures and healing. People that believe that way should be tossed into a pit of snakes, and see how they feel afterwards. I admit to using the oil, venoms and even shed skins in the field to preserve a life, but not to the point of worshiping the legless lizards.

As we rode, I noted that despite my own skills at leather working, developed by trial and error over my decadi here doing my own repairs, Didius was better. The touch of the Lorcius was swift and deft. Fine little stitches of his repair, almost perfect as new, gave the boots a new life beyond the next town. Pulling them on, I barely noted any tightness. It made me wonder where the Triari had learned such a skill, or if my own fumbling would improve with age as his must have.

This left me worried again about why he was with me. He had not again brought up the subject, but I knew he felt that the call of the gods was upon me to return to Jai’ and serve them in the temples. Not just any temple, he had mentioned the imperial ones, up above the desert, further north from my home ranges. Jugosium was a place I had gone to only by need, carrying messages, taking my oath. The city of hills and broken dreams, some called it, others called it the fog bound island town it once had been.

Regardless, it was not my intention. The Desert and the Plains were for me, not an island on an inland sea of fresh water. Folks on islands eat more fish than I care to taste. What can I say, not all folks like all foods. To each is a taste that is unique to them when it comes to foods. I knew my family would have horrors at my love of dwarven pastries. But the Pumillo's made such wonderful ones. That more than anything else I would miss during the journey. The ovens and special cookers for making such could not be transported easily, nor used very much in a desert with little fuel, save that which could rage into a wildfire around one in the space of a sneeze.

Two days of struggling up draw, the ground began to shake from time to time, with sounds accompanying the motions I knew too well from some anni spent upon the patrols of the edge of the Rima Magna, that great cliff that was the boundary between my home plains and this desert far to the north. Cracks and booms of rocks breaking. The beasts were jittery, I was worried. Even Didius seemed to have lines of concern around his eyes, but that could just have been the fumes that were filling the draw.

The winds came from the west most of the time in the desert, but this was a rare calm spell, when the air had only faint and erratic motion in it. That could just be from being below the vast flats of the desert as we climbed into its realm, or something more dangerous. One thing I knew for sure, this draw would fill with the fumes of the volcano, for that smoke did not just rise, but more often sunk into low places around the portals to the Realms of Fire and Lava. Fumes that formed clouds and fogs known to kill entire civilizations in the past. We needed to be up on the hard-pan of the desert, where we could move as needed to avoid the rage of the volcano. If the gods allowed it.

East and West there were draws, Didius was too busy keeping the vargenti under control to speak, so I would have to make the decision. East lay the Head of the Sands, the Callix, a dangerous area of shifting dunes, known to be filled with dangers. To the west was hard-pan of the Shallow Sand Arm, a place where only a few dunes and little sand accumulated, reaching to Amnis Radix to the south in a narrow plain between this valley and the Campi Fornax used by the desperate herders when they dared the fire-grass to feed their beasts. It widened as it met the Neck, but the Arm was my best choice. In this season the winds most commonly blew west to east, so passing west of the Favilus Vulcan was the safest.

Unless I was wrong. Much depended upon my choice, but I made it.

"Sinistra, Triari! We have to get out of here." I shouted, but it was already too late.

A cloud of hot ash rushed around the bend above us, telling me we were statistics, as my cousin and companion of my youth Norbanus would say. That was a tomb maker coming towards us. I had helped dig out hamlets and caravans from a hot ash avalanche before, it was not survivable, nor was it pretty in its aftermath. Such a blast could be confined to the draw we were in, or spread across the whole of the area if the mountain was viscious. I could ask the gods, or my donum of foresight, but these were things I was not eager to try. The gods were fickle, and my doni were untrained.

The vargenti needed no encouragement to leave the draw, just herding to keep them from spreading out into every gulley out of the place. Lorcius raced by me, disappearing into the first stinging wall of the ash-flow. Driving the lizards and back beasts before us, Turbator and I entered it next. Thankfully this was a light one, but a darkness to the north and east boded ill for the next part, as the eruption continued. Inside the ash fog I was reminded of the great wildfire my cousins and I had caused in our younger days. Cinders burned into my flesh, the tang of iron was in the air, which was not a good thing. There were many villages of my folk nearby who could die if exposed, or suffer long illnesses. Turbator hated dust storms, and was trying to race ahead of the others, which I could not do, lest the pack beasts turn back down the washout.  As we rose up the gully to its head wall, luckily one all the beasts could leap up. There I yelled into to air, driving the beasts west from the lower ground we had left.

It was a good choice, as the wind rose at last. Or so I thought as we broke out of the cloud. Only to find that Didius was not stopping, but urging the beasts further towards the west, looking back in fear every few beats of a heart. Looking towards Favillus, I knew my own fear. We had been lucky, already the earth shook more, as a pillar of fire, ash, and ruined mountain climbed into the sky. This was not a small blast, and already i could see the outer edges of the column of destruction falling back to the ground around whatever would be left of Favillus.

The distant buttes to our west and north marked the cliff above the Campi Fornax were suddenly very inviting, I just hoped that the devastation did not reach Statiheranae and the rest of the hamlets scattered around the Callix and the few safe havens within it. We would have to detour north and mak a longer crossing than I had hoped. But the Desert never co-operated with the plans of any save the gods, and some say it fought even them.

Turbator bunched under me, then showed his strides

Paths of Damnation 3 (Billenius)

Its disconcerting when your plans go awry right from the beginning.

 Half a hebdoma's delay was not something I had planned upon. But it had taken that long to recover from the poisoning, and face the inquest. The latter had been just a formality, Urbania crushing any attempts by her staff to make the charges of murder stick, which the poisoning had made mute anyway by law. Assassins and their ilk are as damned in our legal codes as in most others. That the fool from the islands had made it one of the old formal duels, but broken many of the codes his gens claimed to support, had made it easy to quash. The verdict of {nolo culpa} had cleared me of any fault, but still, it bothered me that only a few of the folks in town stood up to speak about this one.

Yes, assassins tend to be silent, but this one had not been, and the few who spoke for me had stated he had bragged of his commission, and tried to intimidate those he spoke with to silence. Still, one could not fault folks for fearing the threats of an assassin of retribution if they spoke of him.

As I broke down the tent the night before, and loaded it up onto my pack onagera, I noted that Didius was loading a similar beast's packs, balancing them as carefully as we of the Custos did. This was not a skill one expected of a man known as a foot soldier and temple guard, but then again, logistics is the lifeline of an army, and several times over his lifetime, Lorcius had commanded such gatherings, not to mention unknown smaller groups of men.

Each time I looked at him, he was looking back, smiling softly. Only the old man was packing, others were helping him, getting last instructions, and the like. The longer it went on, the more it became apparent, he had come here just to settle in these members here for some reason. Now he was headed to some other place, to check the needs of the guardians of the temples, or just the temples themselves to see if they had needs they did not voice to their superiors. That was the job of the Triarium, to care for the needs of the priests, who were too often focused on the spiritual and forgot the physical needs and comforts that made one more able to perform one's tasks.

Like me, he unloaded his onager after getting the load made even, so he could run free one last night to find sage and grass to eat before the long run of grains with little fiber to come. Turbator, my mount just sent from home a few weeks before was upset. Another stallion in the area was a challenge to his self importance. And one thing I did not need as I balanced his packs. Luckily, the pack beast of the Triari was older, more sedate, and far too interested in grass over the mare I had for a pack animal to cross the Sands with. He wandered off into the twilight, seeking some of that sweet blue sage that grew in the riparian areas of the desert's edge.

It did not make my troublesome steed any less ornery. Turbator was full of energy, mainly kicking a lot, and with six legs that made saddling and balancing a load on him a chore. But his line had been my pride for most of my life. Pater had other ideas about the lineage, which he said was too mean-spirited. But I preferred spirit to a broken nag.

As the night closed in, I sighed and let loose a simple prayer to Fortuna that Didius was headed any direction but west. That fickle goddess answered swiftly for a change, and my luck had turned. As I settled down to some tea and grilled beef and peppers, the head of the Triarium walked over.

"May I join you, Augur?" My back went up at that appellation. Among my folk there are special ranks of the priests, and an Augur is very special among the various flamenis. They are the voices of the gods, whom they speak through to give us their ruling and our fates. And with my gift for foresight of things to come, the priests had thought I would instantly bond to a temple as such a conduit of the gods. I was tempted to turn him away, just for the naming of me, as he had during the aftermath of the duel, as one who served the gods.

My parents had raised me better, not to mention the manners my avia had pounded into my head. "Very well, but leave the talk of auguries alone. I have rarely had dreams from the gods or sight of the future that any would care to hear. And I think we both can agree an augur would not have gotten into the mess I did this hebdoma."

Didius took up the other log, where the other riders used to sit until the day I said my time was over here, and they began to choose who would now be their leader, conscience and confessor. All jobs too close to the priestly ones that the Triari was hinting I should have chosen. He opened a roll of cloth within which lay something far different from my dinner, yet similar. Skewered tomatoes, baby peppers, and a white meat that dripped grease even before being cooked. It had to be Vartengi, the local horse sized, two legged lizards used as mounts by so many here on the southern desert, where beasts of thunder oft crossed the lower passes in the heat of summer, seeking more food or a nesting ground.

Vartengi is technically forbidden in the dietary laws of our kind. Beyond forbidden, even, as its meat has toxins it that can kill a Numen. I shuddered at the thought of the great warrior eating such a food. I had never dreamed of him being suicidal, or wanting to die. I looked at his face, as he chuckled. My face had given away my thoughts, something I had thought my years in the circuits here had sealed away.

"Relax, Billenius. This is for one who will join us in a few minutes. And try not to be too upset. He is coming to speak with us of something we, or more precisely you, need to know." He set them over the fire from the skewer hooks on the tripod I used to keep my teapot over the pile of coals. "I came here on a rumor, that one blessed with the gift of foresight was marked for death. This one who will join us has the details of the contract the fool you faced took."  He took out a collapsing brass cup, and pulled it open, the segments singing the bell tones of their metal that was one of the few our kind was not allergic to.

I sat in silence. There was nothing I wanted to say, I was not an augur, the gods did not talk to me, I merely had that touch of the foresight so many had, just a little clearer than the population at large. But the visions sent by the gods, brought to one by the Parcae, I had seen one in the throes of such a vision once. And she had died from the Truths she had been forced to see and give to the world in the end.

I was glad the smoke from the fire was blowing away from my gear, even the grease of the soot of such meat could contaminate my gear had it crossed it. But then, being of a more stable and polite generation, he had noted the wind, the fire's location, and been polite enough to let me see the food before laying it on my fire. He had even pulled out the coals to cook it over to allow them to not be part of the main fire, and thus my responsibility to cleanse afterwards.

The Triari poured some of my hot water into the cup, and set a steeping ball for his tea in it. The aroma was of the stronger leaves of the actual plant the dwarves call cha. I shuddered at the thought of not sleeping for a week. But Didius was used to such I was sure, having served in the Legions. But still the smell of the lizard wafted to me from time to time, roiling my stomach. I tried to think of who could have information they would dare share with others about an assassination. If it was an amateur job, there was the chance that the assassin or his employers would try to eliminate those who could tell the tale. Professional job, even more frightening to me, and we could all be dead in seconds, with no warning.

I knew a professional assassin, back a few years before. One that had walked from the shadows for a while, not to escape, but as research on how to get closer to his prey. I had tried to stop him, turn him from his path. But we had both come to a point where only our own views of the target had mattered. Or so I had thought. When I found out why the assassination needed to happen, I had stood aside, something I still regretted. And yet, I could never bring to justice one such has that monster of a person had been.

That made me remember I had other donum, ones that would let me be safer, even if I had not used them for years. Oh, the sense of knowing a falsehood I had used, and the sensing of danger near me was not a thing I could easily lock away. But the other sight from the third eye, that I had locked away for ages, as too disturbing to me. Knowing the real self of those around me, seeing the inner flames of their anima tell me the truth as they tell my eyes and ears lies. That had been too much to see, for me at least. But there were times I opened that eye, to save lives, or gain knowledge. Shutting it was something else, an effort best described as heroic, or by some as self abuse.

Lack of use can atrophy an ability, and thus it is with me. What I had fought so hard to sequester away proved as hard to awaken, and hiding that effort from one I had earlier denied using such to was more difficult. But something deep in my own anima was stirring me to do such a thing. That prickling of the hairs on the back of ones neck feeling, the one that says danger is near. The one that failed the great warrior in that moment, just as my inner vision slowly was awakened and focused.
There was a darkness around us, but to that vision, the world is lit up even at night. The glow of all that lives, has lived or is touched by the elements and magic glow with the power within them. That glow blurs within a short distance, one of a constant blue haze like the sky to my way of perceiving it. But against it, behind the gold fire that was Didius life force, was a dark area of coal black flecked with orange and red spots of heat of life. And a familiar feeling to that darkness.

It was worth it, to be taking that calm sip of tea as the veteran of many wars next to me suddenly leapt to his feet in startled rage as he felt the cold of steel against his arm. Steel that burned him, as it affects all our kind, save a few blessed by the gods with the tolerance of iron. Didius has some such protection, but not enough to not be burned by the metal we find so deadly. Smoke curled off his arm as the poison burned the flesh it had touched, grabbing the spear from the spot he had spiked it to push out at...nothing.

Already the one that had attacked him was beside me, and finding Specula's point at his abdomen. "Hello Jinatozu. It has been a few years, has it not?" I kept my voice and blade steady, the training of many years in a dangerous profession being useful at moments like this one.

The rough chuckle, like the burble of a stream over rocks came from our guest. He sheathed his blade slowly, leaning out to take the meal that Didius had made for him. This one was small, barely a gradus and a half in height, grey skinned, with darker patches under his onyx eyes, and scars of stark silver on his arms and face. Some looking as if they were newer, still tainted with the red of his blood showing through them. A red so unlike the olive green we Numeni have coursing through our veins.

"The joys of being one of the best at your job is you get more information if you do not pick up a blade offered you." This was a daring insight into the world of the assassins' guild. Daring for him to even mention how a job is offered to one of their guild. Such an admission would bring death to the speaker if word made it back to his masters.

Didius settled back upon his seat, still wary of the one who had joined us. Nor was I any less alert. My acinias lay unsheathed across my thighs, my sinister hand near her hilt at all times. This was not a friend we sat with, just an acquaintance, and one I still was not sure of where his true loyalties would lie. I stayed silent for a long time, still sipping the tea from the large mug made for me by a friend long ago as payment for saving her children. A mug of carved silver and simple amethyst inlays in the pattern of the symbol of my gens. It held great value to me, despite being of simple crafting.

We sat there quietly, each enjoying something, as Jinatozu ate, I drank and Didius filled a pipe he had produced from his belt pouch. Soon the air was filled with the aroma of fine tobacco burning slowly in a intricately carved briar. It was something that I rarely dared in this dry place, but it had rained two days before and the winds had been light with coolness of the mountains in the air this evening. It was a strange thing, this cold spell we were in. Some would call it an omen. I called it weather, and ignored the climate one would normally expect from the desert.

When he spoke again, it was softly, the rough voice strangely like silk with the words it delivered. "There is a dagger issued on your life, Billenius. Few will take it, for if you wait and the masters tell you of who bought it, it comes from the west. The Queen of Flame has some fear of you." He let the words settle over my mind like a kerchief of the fabric they had sounded like. Another long pause in the words in this deepening night of suddenly revealed intrigue.

My own voice spoke to him then. "I recognized the mark on the blade, before someone stole it. But enough folk had seen the blade, the red of its hilt and blade, and those markings. The mark for my gens and profession at the blade end of the hilt, the center mark the flame wreathed crown of the Queen of Flames, and the hilt mark of the single black onyx inlaid dagger. Even I could read some of that code, the draka had bought a blade to take my life, one try only, by one person.

But I knew there was far more in those symbols on the hilt, a code I would never know in this lifetime, unless I betrayed the way I had been raised and turned to murder to support myself. Not that I would, but sometimes, I found myself curious as to what the other side of my profession did. Curious, not driven.

I puzzled over the implications of this threat. I had no love for the Queen of Flame, the draka of fire who sat above Pelori, and had brought so many of the creatures of her element into this world, and thus by her proximity to my homeland, my native grounds. But I had never seen her as a foe I would be able to face. I know that the draoconis have the ability to see into the future with greater accuracy than even my doni allowed. That meant she saw some threat coming from me, one that made her fear facing me directly, or allowing me to reach her territory. What that threat could be was beyond my comprehension at the moment.

"I know this, Jinatozu. I saw the dagger that fool bore." My words were soft and paced, delivered with a cup of tea between my face and his. I was testing for another knowledge, for this one never moved at loud noises, so I had a theory he was deaf or hard of hearing.

A theory dashed by the rapid answer and chuckle. "I have heard that you have seen, and also your latest theory of my ability to ignore noises, Varus. Not a bad thought, wrong, but it would have explained things."

We shared a smile, and I began to realize there were those involved in the criminal activities who had honor and ethics enough to become a friend, or at least deserve my admiration. He was here, breaking rules, as he felt rules were being broken in the attempt on my life. A quiet settled over our fire for a spell as Didius thought, and I considered getting out a deck of cards and the board to try once again to catch the sleight of hand that had tipped me to Jinotazu's profession that fateful night.

Typical of the general he had been and still acted as for the temples, Didius had questions he needed answered. As he broke the silence to get them, I absorbed which ones were and were not answered as best I could. Which was not as well I would have preferred, but still better than others could do I hoped. It seemed strange to me that she would fear me right after I left the Custos, not before. Was it that I was assigned east and her territory the west of the desert? Or something more dangerous to me, that something had changed in the Fates recently.

The two others began a conversation, one that seemed to be conducted upon two levels, as if they were trying to either hide from me or any other ears that might hear their words. I did my own thinking as they talked, listening with one ear, as the saying goes, and using the other to listen to my inner voice tell me what it was figuring out.

At last something was said that I partially caught, yet rang in my head. "What was that, the bit about the prophecies of the Wyrm?"

Didius shifted uncomfortably. He obviously had hoped I was not paying attention to what had been said. "Nothing," was his terse answer.

Nothing that meant something, I could tell. I leaned into the fire, and started a fresh pot of water for my tea. The warmth of the fire was not painful, at least not normally, but suddenly I feared fire. A fear that came not from the reasoning part of my mind, or the survival part, but deeper, in the mystical portion I tried so hard to keep walled up in a corner. The place that now screamed for my attention like an alarm bell on the walls of a city. There was more here than either of these people wanted me to know of.

Something I needed to know. I dug in my memories to see if I could roust out what had reacted to those words. Which is not something I would normally do. I had been a Numen of action for so long, turning into one of thought was not my style. Or had not been since I and my deformed and outcast cousin had parted ways half a century gone by now.

Then I found the thought, and pinned it like an eel had to be pinned in the river not far away, when one hunted eels for their skin or other organs that had so many magical and other uses. Those creatures are slippery, elusive, and very hard to get to land without ruining the very things you are after. And sometimes my thoughts are like that as well.

I focused on the thoughts of the tales I had heard of from Umbradinor, and the books in Avia and Amita's libraries where I had studied as a youth. There was a set of scrolls made ages ago of the dreams of the last of the Lords of the Arbitrations, Tragrilom the Black-hearted, that foretold the future. And key to those prophecies was the coming of the one called Bahai-Luthna-Naish, "Sees without eyes", who would herald the coming of the new draconic gods and the next Lord of the Arbitrations. None were sure who those would be, but every time the omens seemed right, every dragon in the world would see itself as the next god or Arbitrator, which is the goal of them all deep down it seems.

I laid down my own scoffing at the prophecies. "There are many who have eyes and still cannot see, so I am not sure how the words of some ancient prophecy could mean anything several ages of the world later."

This got me a chuckle from the assassin. The head of the guardians of the temples was silent. The disapproving kind of silence, long and filled with a meaning not needing words to be conveyed, as his face told me all I needed to know  The Triari felt I should not mock the words of warnings from the gods to mortals. But that was part of his charge, to protect the image as well as the personages and relics of the temples.

We spent the night sitting there, talking of many other things, and I found the insights of both of these individuals to be enlightening. As well as entertaining once the tension from my earlier skepticism had passed. I was learning still many things, one of which is tact, something that may take centuries to develop, according to my father's mother. Avia has always had a low opine of my learning curve.

Perchance, deservedly so.

***

With the rising of the sun came the moment I had waited for many turning of the seasons. I rode west, not alone as I had intended, as the Triari was with me. But it was west, to my love, my home, my future. I had a pouch of messages from the outpost for the various places in the west, and Turbator was anxious to move on, He could sense we were not coming back, and being an exploratory sort, was ready for new places to roam, new grasses to taste, and more important to him I was sure, new herds to take over.

The trail was dusty, the long ago laid down ashes of distant volcanoes trying to climb again into the sky, casting an ominous paleness to the dawn, and that redness of which sailors fear, as the gods gave the warning in the sky of rough weather to come. We should have heeded the sky, but both of us had schedules to meet, I with my last duty to the order of the Custodi, the Triari to the temples, and our steeds to the their own desires.

Someday, perchance, I shall explain why we all should have known better from our own pasts, but that is a tale for another evening around a comfortable fire with friends.

Billenius's Tale - Journey to Freedom - Chap 1 draft 9... to be compared to draft 10 to follow...

The auras danced in the sky, as fires circled around me. Salamanders stabbed at me from all around, as I heard the dwarves yelling in battle with their mistress. Nonia was turning, trying to hurl her spear, when the maw of the large red draka opened, and fires spewed out towards her. Even knowing now what would happen, my body still leapt to her, knocking her away from the blaze that engulfed me, as I screamed in pain, moving into the fire, not away. The inferno ended, but the pain increased, as the heat dug into my flesh, and my eyes boiled and burst. I collapsed to knees as the pain overwhelmed me. I heard my love howl in rage, and felt her rushing past me. I was no longer able to see, but the roar of pain told me her hasta had found its mark.

The came the awful crunching noise, mixed with a yell of pain as potent as mine had been. Specula twitched in my hand, as somehow I found the strength to stand and again move forward. I heard my name from lips so sweet, but not in love. She was in pain, and trouble, it was a summons to the death to save her. Yet even as I took the steps towards our foe, I knew it was already too late. I could see her aura, even with my eyes gone, as the flames of it broke up and wisped away. I swung my blade down hard at those wisps, not to end the life, but to try and save it.

Then a bony claw intervened, scaled in blue, not red. The flesh on the talons was rotting away, leaving the bones bound only by some blackness that moved like water in a rocky streambed along them. It caught my acinias, and deflected it off to the side. The fires were gone, and all was dark, save the glow of those blue scales. This was no longer as things had happened. But the vision marched on, as the claw struck at me, and shattered, and another draconic visage howled in pain and lightning exploded around me. The stench of death had remained, now overlain with the smell of rotting flesh.

And the fires were replaced by the bitter cold of death. I shivered as I fought this new foe, one I did not recognize. Somehow I was able to know where he was, even as he tried to move in ways I could not predict. The blackness of its soul showed me where it was, I could see that dark blotch, and feel the life of all around it dying. Then a spear sailed in, a hasta, much like that Nonia had born. The claw again struck at me, remade in iron, but now twisted palm up, and in it there stood ten shadowy figures, bound up in chains made of shadows.

I awoke from these dreams of past and shadowy future to a flow of late spring snow dropping out of the window above the foot of my cot onto me. The sudden change of temperature had brought me back from the lands of visions, future and past, to that of the present, where my empty eye sockets screamed in agony at the cold air. My body shook with the cold, something I was never very fond of anyway, as I wondered how a set of shutters that were never opened even summer's heat could be open now.

A voice shivering with the same cold I was starting to suffer from came from beyond the window. As one who had survived the flames of a dragon, cold bothered me more than I cared to share so I understood that chattering voice's pains. "As you commanded, Dom, the spears shall be raised."

The answering voice came from within, and was one I had only dreamed of hearing again. It did not so much answer the voice without, as speak to me. "Perfidio! My apologies, Billenius. I thought the winds had cleared the ledge of snow, or I would have awakened you." The voices were both low, whispers really, but around one who relies so much on hearing as I, they were still very audible. As was the sounds of items being passed in the window. I could hear the person inside stacking the items along the wall, as they were passed in. Then one went onto the bed beside me, my hand instinctively sought it out.

My fingers found another thing I had thought lost as much as the person in the room with me. Sharkskin wraps on the handgrip, the smooth polished feel of chablys, what others call elven steel, and a well worn scabbard decorated with gems. Gems I knew by heart, having set them myself before the breath of the Queen of Flames had boiled my eyes from my face. Specula, the saber made for me by my father, crafted for my hand and style of fighting. Not that a blind man can fight. But still, it was comforting, even if it meant that my visitor thought I might need it.

At last, the noise of passing items ended, and the voice inside spoke again. "Good, in two turnings of the horium, let the spears be raised. We will bring out all those flamenis and auguris who wish to leave, and still can move." A chill deeper than the spring freeze without the walls held that day for my aching wounds entered that voice. "Let the Ten Gens of the Insulae tremble in fear, and their puppets in the Decemviri flee from our hastae. The Ordo Triarium will once more hold the sacred safe."

The words had rung in my ears, with names I feared and others I had longed for the return to the city for so long. The Ordo Triarium, the spearmen of the third rank, once the protectors of temples such as the one I had spent so long imprisoned in by fools, had returned. Andtheir leader was in my cell here in the monastery wing. For once I hoped the Parcae, the dark mistresses who delivered the prophecies to I and the other aurguris, had sent someone. That way the gods would have been behind the attempt to free us, or at least not disapproving of it.

The shutters were set back and the snow stopped, as I sat up, and sought out the clothes I had set out the night before on the stool beside my cot. Only to find something other than the flimsy robes the Decemviri had ordered priests to wear since their takeover. These clothes were things as familiar as the blade now in my hand for the first time in half a century. The flannel lined leather jerkin and pants, a pair of well broken in riding boots, my favorite belt, and thick warm woolen socks, new by the feel and smell. I could not resist the attempt to smile, despite the burn scars on my face that made that very difficult.

These were not clothes for staying in place, but ones for traveling long distances. It took a few fingers of sand falling in the horium for me to get my legs over the edge of the cot, and into the pants. As with my face, my legs bore the scars of that fight I had relived before waking, and did not work well in cold weather. The feel of the flannel on my skin was welcome, letting the warmth stay in my clothes. The socks took time to put on, not from any error, its just after years of sandals, I forgot your heel has a spot it goes and I could not see it anymore. It took several tries for each foot to get them on right.

My cursing elicited a few soft chuckles from the visitor. "Quintas Billenius Varus, such language, and from an Augur."

I let my frustration come into my voice. "Thirty years without your sarcasm, Didius. I almost would have enjoyed it, if not in the hands of the Centurions of the Decemviri."

The chuckles ended, and his voice took on a serious tone. "Well this I can promise you, Augur. You will not be given back to the less than tender mercies of those fools without a fight. The Ordo Triarium have returned to the island. This time we will not give way to their wishes. You will walk free today, my young friend."

Being called a friend always warms my heart, but the words before had left a chill in my bones, not from the dump of snow. I had to voice my own concern. "Or be headed to my next life?"

Didius laugh this time was not soft. It was loud and warm. "Well, it seems you wish to live again. I will do what I can to prevent your death, even if it means giving my own life." Despite the laughter, I sensed a finality in those words. Such resolve far too oft had led to death for those who said such.

I struggled with the boots, cursing the man who invented their lacing, and the lack of eyes to ensure I was in the right holes. This added fuel to my cell mate's humor. I was beginning tow worry about attracting attention of the guards, when a knock came at the door. Not the normal pounding of the Centurions, but a rhythm beat, one I had heard many times when the Triarium had guarded the temple before the Decurian takeover of the island.

There was a rattle of gathered weapons and the squeak of hinges that had long needed oiling. Then the weapons were rattling down the halls as the door creaked shut. "Terrible how they have let the maintenance go," was the comment Didius made.

"No password? I thought you were more cautious." I had to jibe back, at last managing to get the left boot tied, and now reaching for the right one.

"We are past the time the Centurions can stop us, Billenius." Didius warm laugh filled the room. "Besides, few have as ugly a face as Cethegor."

I shuddered at the implication there was no turning back for the various Triari at this point. Despite the warmth in his voice, Didius was a commander, and people were just tools to use, and dispose of to most of that rank. That he was the leader of the Ordo Triarium meant he had to be willing to risk his Triari, to save the lives of others. I was not sure my life was worth any number of lives.

I wanted to know what the plan was, but I was sure Didius would not tell me . Which is the same as I would have done during my time in the Custodi, the border guards. Those being saved needed to know only the details they would encounter, not all of the plan, so there would be less chance of confusion in moments of great need of speed and precision. So we waited, as I took on the task of dressing, cursing the lack of someone to help me, the designers of garments, and my own lack of forethought on the scabbard of Specula. The last truly was embarrassing, as I had taken great pride in making this sheath while in Pelori, sitting at the same table as Didius most of the time that I crafted it. 

To pass the time, I asked one thing I could not tell myself anymore. "What hora is it?"

"Last before dawn, and by sunset you will be off this island. We will move shortly, and once our spears are raised, we shall have need of all speed." His voice was now matter of fact, that skill of a true commander of soldiers. "If you find yourself needing help, do not hesitate to ask for it, Billenius. You were being poisoned by the Centurions here, to keep you from healing further, and to induce visions and prophecies they could use."

Tingles of fear went up my spine. To tamper with prophecy was to invite the wrath of the Parcae, and the dark mistresses who delivered Fates were vindictive bitches, even if they were the goddesses of all gifted with foresight and prophecy. Chilling tales were told to children around campfires, and in the seminary here to young flamenis, of the vengeance the took on those who warped their gifts to mortals for personal gain.

"Which poison?" Even I could hear the fear in my voice, as I asked this.

"Venom of the Basilisk. Irpex. And we found iron shavings in the water barrels." Winds of fear ripped my anima, the thing others call a spirit. There are no more dangerous or deadly toxins to my kind than those. Irpex was a hallucinogen, and mind numbing drink. Harrow, some called it, for it plowed the mind over like that tool of farmers. That I was still sane and breathing was a miracle.

"You say found? How long was the iron in the water?"

He chuckled then. "Billenius, never were you not under our hand. What the Centurions administered themselves, we could only apply antidotes, but the water was a thing those we set here allowed none to drink." I heard a canteen being opened, the tin of the container ringing a bit. "Speaking of water, I have something here a bit stronger, which counters Irpex, or so we have found." The slosh of the liquid released an aroma I had much experience with over the years.

"That potato poison of the Karleekie?" My nose tried to wrinkle up, which the damage to my face made painful. "It works as more than a weapons cleaner?"

The humor in his voice said he got the joke. "A quick sip, will purge most of what little they snuck past those I left here, but it will be days before you are whole again." Cold metal pressed to my palms, as he set the flask in them. It took quite a few heartbeats to screw up my courage and brace my throat for what was to come. Not that one can truly brace yourself for vodka. My time in Pelori served me somewhat, that great "Pah!" that the dwarves give after slinging back a small glass of the stuff does keep the back of your mouth from burning too much.

But it felt like the rest of the time we waited was spent with me coughing from the swig I had taken.

Then the hall erupted in a furor, as many of my fellow flamenis were being awakened less than politely. As I sat there, I wondered why I had been alerted before the others. Again, this was part of the plan I might never know the reasons of. Two bellows reached my ears as some resisting souls were hauled to the cells at the end of the hall, not the temple entrance. And by the voices, I knew that there would be two less guards to deal with on the way out, but I wished I had been in the hall to kick them both, as they had often struck me when they had the chance.

The creak of the door was followed by yet another voice I knew, of a Numen hinted at being here already. "Commander, the spears are raised." The draft in the room increased, telling me he had opened the portal further. "Billenius, you look like strecus."

The only way to deal with a direct insult is to return another jovially. "Come now, Cethegor, surely you can insult me better than that. Mercae is closer to my certain pasty white complexion these days, or has being a clerk dulled your wit?"

Laughter, even in moments like these, is a good thing to hear. Especially when from the heart. "You knew it was me in the library?"

"Your kind of face creates shock waves in the air when it is shook in negation, Cethegor. One does not need eyes to detect it." I was falling back to the ways from before my blinding, but I was at the moment marking that to effects of a shot of vodka on an empty, and still protesting I might add, stomach. Once, as a member of the Custodi, recently discharged, these men had treated me as both charge and equal. They had even tried to temper the arrogance that had led me and my friends to the Fate that caused my current condition. We had shared tales, complaints, drinks and meals, even talked late into the night around hearths long left by others who needed more that a few glasses of sleep every four days.

These two were reminding me of what I had been, and thus that it was a much a part of the current me as the last fifty winters was. My heart lifted at the thought that these two at least did not see me as a cripple, just one still on the mend. I stood up, only to find arms catching me, as I discovered the way I had set Specula's sheath was not one conducive to walking, without an adjustment at least.

The hall, once I had my gear set right, was a long walk, but one I was willing to make, having the hope of freedom at the end of it. With each step something of resolve settled in. It did help, having two strong sets of legs on either side of me. Then, rather than heading right to the back door, we turned left to the front entrance of the temple. My thoughts raced, I had no clue until now that they meant this to be an open confrontation. The east exit at dawn, if my mind still registered the rising and setting of the sun correct in my blind state, was something omens marked as being of great moment. And yet of late, other than this morning, many of my dreams had been of sunrise on the steps. Gods and goddesses, why had I been so blind to the portents. But then, a seer's mind is clouded about events affecting them personally.

I knew by the incense when we had reached the vestibule, and the slowing steps told me they were using the sunrise as their signal to move out. The hall was cluttered with many voices, some I knew well, others vaguely remembered, and quite a few strange indeed to my ears, even if they held the ring of chablys in them that spoke of the spears they bore. And by the babble, most of the flamenis, my fellow priests, were just finding out today was their day of freedom, and not all were certain it was wise.

At the threshold, we got our first direct taste of the confusion and anger. Lucia Velina, the high priestess was protesting loudly, until she must have recognized my escorts and myself. Her diatribe died off in a sudden stutter as we stopped, hopefully out of arms length, she tended to speak with her hands, something I knew as being blind made it difficult for me to avoid some of her gesticulations. Not to mention her use of a shoulder punch to signal she was tired of speaking with you.

"Senex." The word passed her previously loud mouth as a whisper, the noting of the age of the one who led the Triari, and his power over temples and priests.

"No arguing, Lucia, I told you last time we spoke, this foulness must end. I have the Centuria Media taking command of the young Imperatrix, to get her to safety, and as many others in the line of succession as we can." The voice Didius spoke with reminded all he had two ranks, one even I had forgot. He was also the Praetor Perfectus of the Praesidi, the guards of the imperial family and senate. And while the Praesidi rarely were seen these days, all knew they were still there. Too many of the senators had survived assassination attempts of late. That was a gossip not even the Decemviri could keep from the temples.

There are days I wish folks had bells or rattles on their heads, for those silent head motions of acceptance or denial. But as nothing further was said, I took it our great leader had submitted to the authority invoked by Didius. I could feel the rising of the sun, in more than just the figurative sense. In one way alone, my eyes being gone had not left me blind. My folk have a third eye, as we call it, deep within our brains, that lets some few perceive the auras of the living. I was lucky in that my vision that way is blocked for a while after by dreams of prophecy. But the warmth of the sun is a wash of power even that cannot block entirely. I could feel that power, even still "see" it, a warm orange glow, so bright even still beyond the horizon, I dared not look at it with even that internal eye. 

I started to perceive the auras about me more, as just that bit of focus on the sun awoke that sleeping ability. Tinges of colors formed in my head around me, hints of the person they each belonged to in them. In their colors, vibrations and brightness, it the way streamers of thoughts flowed. Cethegor and Didius were like the sun, steady, intent on a purpose, not wavering, save a steady thrum, much like the beat of a heart. Others were flickering wildly, in a panic. One was weak, but steady, tinged with many colors and a shiver to its whole that hinted at anticipation. That aura was of Mactator, who professed no gens and had been in the temple longer than any other remembered. I would not have expected him to be in one of the ones fleeing this day.

More cold air surged around us, so I knew the doors were open. And by the sudden shift of those around me, not by the plan. Two auras I knew too well, over our time of imprisonment. Sticcius and the Cato, the Centurion in charge of the temple and the Censor, the one in charge of the city for the Decemviri. Both their auras were sick with their sadistic tendencies. These two felt the best way to deal with priests was a fist to the head as a greeting.

"What is going on here. Get these fools back to their cells. Sticcius, I thought you said they had been behaving." The deep voice of the Cato was rough as his punches. "The blind one especially..."

I faced the auras, and tried to bring up the corners of my mouth. It hurt like hell, and was something that took enough effort that I felt the moisture of sweat building in the places on my body still able to release it. But just to see the confused flames of these two auras was more than enough to make my day one worth being here for. I did not have to see faces to know why those auras were dying. That many spears in the hall would intimidate even a greater number than two. But who held the spears must have shocked them.

"Cato, the gods have spoken, and the time of your holding of the temples is over. We are taking all the flamenis under our care. If you wish to argue this, I have someone here you can speak with about it." There was no mercy or love in the voice of Didius as he addressed the fools. Sticcius flame seemed to be fading, something I had long associated with movement away from me. And as the door was the only place he could move to, I knew that his cowardice was showing. Give him a foe he could beat easily, and he still preferred an unfair fight.

Then another aura, one I did not recognize moved to fill the doorway and the wash of warm light there that made all other auras fade. Save this one. It burned intense as the fires that still tormented my dreams, but was smaller in size, silver and blue flames with a hint of purple in them. Each tendril of that blaze of light leapt randomly about, yet were sharp in their outlines. Someone unpredictable yet focused had joined us.

There was a quick scuffle, during which I heard Sticcius shout out an alarm, and heard answers from beyond the portal. Then his aura was tossed past me with the battle cry of my gens thundering in a voice deeper than any spoken yet this day, and more melodic.

"CATO! You coward! Draw that gladius you still wear and face me!" Ringelius' voice, my cousin who had been cast out by the Decemviri upon their takeover. He had a long list of grievances with the powers that ruled our lands now, and with the Cato in particular. He had been born with a condition that was anathema to those of the islands, being short and stocky like a dwarf, not tall and lean as most of our kind. Any deformities, any condition of birth that made one weak and ill, those were despised on the islands, and those from that land were cruel in their enforcement of the laws they had on others. Had my cousin been born in the last thirty winters, he would be as dead as so many other children, left staked out in the grasslands for the beasts to dispose of the shame they claimed his deformity brought.

Feet were starting up the stairs outside as a whistling noise began from the door. A noise I new well, the sound of a dwarven hammer being spun in the air. Ringelius had taken to the ways of the Karleekie over the years he had traveled, and their weapons suited him better than a saber, but with a gladius or spatha he was the match for any in the lands. The Parcae had opened their chest of dangers to the ones who had frustrated their will. This was one Fate they had never dreamed to face, I could tell by the fearful shiver in the Cato's aura.

I heard a gladius slide out of its sheath, then steps not towards his foe, but the high priestess. I cursed softly, knowing it was time for action, my hand dropping by instinct of a hundred years before my loss of vision to the hilt of my acinias. I heard similar words and motions from others, as weapons were shifted for use, as well as the commotion amongst my fellows in fear of blood being shed in the temple, always a bad omen.

Cato rasped loudly his challenge. "To get to me, Detastio, you will have to kill a flamena. Then you will confirm the death sentence you are here in defiance of, fool!"

The whirling hammer slowed, but not much. "Step outside, and face me like a real viri. You win, they stay, I win, they leave." There was a chill in that voice now, one deeper than the one in the air. "You have said I am here as a dead man, show us all how the Censor carries out executions. Or can you only kill cripples and the lame?"

The Cato was a proud man, one who had risen on a reputation of fierceness and skill, but allowed ruthlessness and hatred to rule him. There were tales he was the greatest of the warriors of our kind, yet others said there were some even better. Deep in the aura of that Numen burned a pride in his skill, and somehow my cousin was taunting it out. I could see the desire in this oppressor of so many years flaring up, to fight a fair fight again, and take the lead. But one of the few said to equal him in skill was my cousin. And one other in this room, who had stood against a draka and fought on after serious injury.

In the sudden silence as the Cato weighed the odds, another sound broke the quiet. That of a saber leaving its scabbard. I did not remember drawing Specula. But it was there, hilt in my left hand, and the blunt back resting in my upturned right palm.

"Or would I be more to your tastes, Sextus Strabo Cato." I turned my face in a way over the years of beatings and other of his amusements I had found to disconcert him, break his rage into fear of the unknown. The Trairium all murmured in amazement, save two. Cethegor had known I was able to still perceive the auras, and used it in self defense. And few things ever startled Didius.

"Augur, bide." The voice of the commander of the spearmen was soft, not challenging my right, but cautioning me.

My rage was up though. "A Custos takes an oath, and while we serve only a set time, we agree to protect the weak and defenseless, Lorcius." Using a family name was a trait many warriors seemed to share of all races of the world. It was like a password to remind others you had served, and were one who could take care of yourself. My blade shook slightly in my hand, as I spoke. "Step outside, and face me, Cato. I fear not the Censor in a fight. And I do not need eyes to beat your backstabbing ways. I remember whose kin came for me in the desert before I walked the Paths of Damnation."

Murmurs erupted, as many were reminded of who that one who had faced the Queen of Flame and lived was. Yes, I had help, and many had died. But she had been driven away in the end, by a saber, an axe and a hammer. And the saber and the hammer were in the hall in that moment.

The cries of Lucia as she hit the floor and the Cato bolted out the door seeking safety in numbers without ended the standoff, but once he crossed the threshold, the hammer picked up speed and followed him out the portal. I almost wanted to follow my cousin down those steps to the fight I knew was coming. But a hand held me back, that of Didius.

A warm laugh rang in the temple. "I would say you won, Billenius. The Cato fled a fight with a blind man, who was bluffing."

"I don't bluff when it comes to protecting those who need it." My voice is harsh, even to my own ears since my injuries. Flame can be breathed in, and harm lungs and vocal chords, they say, and few live past such, no matter how shallow the fires descend their throat.

The spearmen were moving out now, stepping into the fray that was erupting in the street out front. As I walked out the doors for the first time in a long time, as a free man.