Davet Gworstan stood on the streets of the city called Radixium, wondering if the wind ever stopped blowing here in the desert. Above the place towered the purple and red stone spires of the Last Mountains. The city of the foothills, as the name went, was appropriate, the young mage thought. Tall and lean, with black hair already touched with grey, a small nose that made his face seem too large, and wide ears touched with a hint of the elven blood of an ancestress many generations back, he cut a figure in the green breeches, tunic and cap, with the yellow feathers and bead-work of the wild clans over the mountains from his homeland.
"Travel is the seasoning of a man, more so for a mage." His father's words haunted him, as he had learned much just in coming this far. Gazing into his father's strange ball of clear crystal rose quartz, he had seen himself crossing the sands of the Grey Desert, and this had left him puzzled, for few mages these days came here, to the eastern third. Most still tried to equal the act of the greatest mage, Gerzal Sandknight, who had found the Valley of the Gods, where Ajishia, goddess of magic, had redeemed him.
"Travel is a pain in the neck. Seasoning, like I am a dish the cook made, gah, Why did I not just stay at the inns on Tyrosht?" Davet grumbled aloud when upset, one of many things his father had claimed seasoning would end.
Behind him came a cough. "Talking to yourself in a big city can get you clubbed and sent to a farm for those with head injuries. The kind you never get out of."
Davet whirled fast, his staff in front of him. There stood a girl, the likes of which he had rarely seen.
Tall as he was, but with skin like a rich walnut table had, even patterned, but in muscles not tattoos or scars as some of the folks from Domorushtuu were. This was one of the legendary women warriors from that southern continent across the seas and straits. Tales said they could kill a man more easily because of their sex, not in spite of it. Golden eyes that warmed his heart to gaze into met his, as he finished checking her out, in the brown and grey leathers of her profession, tight fitting to her body in places, yet loose for swift and full motion in others, gleaming with the studs of some metal set in the leathers to both upset opponents and strengthen the armor she wore.
"Really? Will they bill my father, or do I have to work it off myself?" Davet had to get to know this woman, some how, some way. To a young man just out of his magical apprenticeship, it was the only way he could think of, off hand, to get a chance at it. All those years in the academy over at Thogras, where they trained boys and girls separately in the Arts, just to avoid the problems that came from being together in a class, had left him curious about women, especially those not of the schools he had attended.
She smiled, showing a few golden teeth, but being a warrior, those were medals of battles fought, not vanity. Though some alchemists of late had supposedly urged wooden and silver teeth to save those with replacement teeth from being robbed for their dentition. Personally, Davet felt if any tried stealing hers, he wanted to be there to get some bets down.
"Best not to find out, don't you think so?" Her voice was a warm contralto, with the kind of huskiness that came of much working outdoors or around fires of a forge. Yet it was not one Davet disliked.
"Indeed. Well, good, I would rather spend my money on finding out more about you than those places anyway." Pushing his limits, Davet let loose his own best smile.
"I never eat or drink with those I do not know." The chill of the snow pack on those towering mountains entered her voice, more a warning than a promise of violence. She seemed to be nervous suddenly.
"Then how can you ever get to know those you meet on the street? By just correcting their bad habits?"
She laughed, and all traces of the ice were gone. "Persistent man, are you? Very well, dinner, no wine, I save that for when I eat my enemies."
Davet nearly choked on that last, rumors of cannibalism among those of the continent to the south had long circulated, as had the reports of others, first and second hand tales, of encounters with those kinds of ceremonies and diets among the tribes, especially near Kveag, one of the larger city-states of the land, near the shores just south and east of the danger filled strait called the Kordulg. He wondered if she were teasing him, using the legends and rumors to put him off, and decided regardless of the answer he would soon get, to move ahead with his pursuit. After all, as long as she did not eat him, at least not all of him, he thought.
"Agreed. Would ale or other spirits be out of the question?" He was trying to avoid the water, which during his stay here in Radixium was founled at all times by the taints coming from mine tailings up the canyons, where gold and chablys materials had been found, or so the tales went. All he knew was the water was not something to drink, it was not clear, and the clouds held colors and things moving in them that he had no desire to consume.
She tilted her head, looking over his frame again. This time with the eyes of a woman, not just a warrior. What ever she saw, he did not know. But it made her smile again, and that was all that mattered.
"Given the water here, it would be safer."
"Agreed, I am Dalarvanet, most call me Davet though."
She shook her head in surprise. "To give a name so freely, you northerners amaze me. If I were a witch, I could rule this land fast, given the powers you offer strangers over your souls."
Davet let his face become somber, holding his left hand cupped over the top of the fingers and thumb of his right, muttering a phrase as he snapped the right fingers, then quickly rotating his left had over to let the blue and green mage fire flames reach a foot upwards. "The witch who enchants me better be ready to take some heat back."
There was none of the fear in the darker skinned woman's face that a northerner might have. Instead, there was respect and interest, for in the lands of the south, power was more important than appearances and social cliques ruled by the profession one lived by.
"Yes, that is interesting. You may call me Dinya, I am from Kveag." Her voice again gained an edge, but it was tempered with its warmth. "Among my people, we have to be careful of a name, unless we wish to walk to the stew pot at some witch or warlock's commands."
Eyes met again, still warm, a bit wary on each side, but knowing they had found someone in this cold elven city to trust. Dinner took them a while, as few of the local eateries were open due to a day of the calendar that came once every fourteen days. It was to be a day of fasting, but luckily, for those not of the elven blood or creeds, there were some human and dwarven establishments to gain food in.
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