Billenius's Tale - Journey to Freedom - chapter 9 (the lost chapter) draft 9

After a long delay, here it is, the lost chapter... sorry for the delay... this is actually the 9th draft, not the 8th as the other posted chapters are... so there may be other changes coming along soon. 


Chapter 9 (Acutal, will renumber them later today/tomorrow) "The Lost Chapter"

As I had anticipated, my nephew's head was a problem. We spent three days at the bend of the river, letting him recover. I spoke with him several times, trying to get him to accept the defeat, without admitting to the same mistake myself. It was not working. Norbanus was a bundle of nerves, and yet had his sense of humor in grim evidence during those days. I tried not to remember the one bet I had hoped to collect, but now had to forfeit. At last, I went to the packs, and pulled out the bag of tea, pouch of henbane, and my jar of honey, and made my way to his tent.
He guided me in, and asked me to sit. I handed over some of the fruits of my shopping in town. As he drank his tea plain, and never smoked, I had no clue what he intended to do with the spoils of my last bet. He merely sat patiently, waiting my mea culpa.
“Okay, it was a bad idea." I admitted in a chastened tone. "But it went really well until he sat up.”
Laughing, Norbanus dropped his other shoe. “Your father will disown you, Pilvus bites. All of Eurus‘s offspring do. Drinius gulled you.”
With that great news, I left him to his well deserved laughter, seeking out, with Ringelius's guidance, my nephew. He sat out amid the rocks, staring, sulking, as he was wont to do.
I told my patraelis to return to camp, taking a seat carefully amid the rocks. Ringelius checked for blood cobras before leaving, but there were other deadly and painful creatures in this desert as well. Scorpions, spiders with deadly bites, and ants whose bites were like the burn of hot iron to the likes of us. I said nothing, just contemplating my own feeling after my loss here. Several fingers of sand later, I broke the ice.
“The gates were a terrible idea. I never should have thought of them.”
Scattering rocks told me I'd startled him in that admission. Other than late, rarely do I speakof my days in Pelori. This surprised him, not just admitting its my invention. “Your idea? You thought of having those bars that low?”
I let his question float in the air around us for a bit. This was not really all that easy for me either. “Yes,” My reply was soft, trying not to stir his easy anger. “I had noticed that many races that were close were decided when one rider let up to celebrate before the line. I figured that the crossbars, and the cage feel would ensure riders staying in the race to the end, rather than just trying to slow down as they crossed the line.”
“Norbanus did not tell me that you designed this...contraption.” He spat that last word, almost the cursing I expected about it.
“Yes, I came up with the idea, some engineer built it for me, and refined the idea, like the guide in fences and corrals. Did Norbanus tell you anything about my racing days?” I had to ask, to know if this was a setup, to make me start behaving like a man crippled by his disability again.
My nephew turned away, a thing I could tell by the change in how well his voice came to me “Just that the one who designed it..” The words faltered, dying in the breeze.
I finished the thought for him. “Fell victim to it. Its first victim, in fact. And that is why the various peoples in Pelori respect the line of Eurus over my onager’s lineage.” I let it set a bit, then stood. “The headache will go away. The shame will too, if you don’t put it on an altar and worship it.” I rose,  tediously working my way out of the boulders, only to find Furius at my side, guiding my steps.
“So, its a family tradition then?” I sputtered a moment, as he laughed. Then I joined him, in laughing, leaving a foolish idea behind. We walked slowly back to the stockade, speaking in soft words of the races we had run, and our mounts. Bonding, I guess some call it.


* * *


We broke camp that afternoon, starting to the river, still several stade to the south. Closer down, forests of cactus pressed in around the road, which started down a steep slope of loose sands and gravels, where even the engineers of the old days had not been able to create a road. The lower we went, the more things changed, as memory of this place came back to me. It would become more shady, moister, and most importantly, vegetation would be everywhere.
Then we were out of the desert, headed down the broad valley of the Seranarum River, as it wound out of the Grey Desert, to empty into the Bay of Gems. It was now beyond the start of summer. There was little time left if I was to take the same route out. The spring snows had started early in the Last Mountains. Early and heavy, as the bands of moisture that marked the lifting of the storm band girdling the world rose north, following the sun as it climbed the sky.
Snow and rain would hound us unmercifully, from the sounds of my companions. Drinius had sent a rider with us, one I trusted only as far as he had recommended trusting, but still it was just thirty we had left. The fourteen caligarium that we had not thinned out at Pelori for some lack of cause or proof of loyalty, nine more taken from the legion there, about whom we had only the word of the commander of that caterva which was passing through towards the east from home on a normal rotation of troops. Then our little band of rebels.
The river was running wide, deep and swift. The Seranarum was a vital river, it and the Greyflow were the southern margin of the desert, and ran along the foothills at the base of these mighty ramparts. The next part of the journey would be dangerous, but less so than what would come later. The valley of that river is expansive, miles wider than most cuts through a range as mighty as the Last Mountains Made by the Gods. It flowed west along nearly half the chains length, then cut south for many leagues, as the homani measure distances, before turning west to find the fingers of the Bay of Gems.
It was a wilderness now, but once had been a bustling route of trade, in the days well before my time, when the Rabahavi had been a province of the Old North Empire of the homani, and the Kordel still a land mostly held by my folk. This valley held many ruins, most used by bandits as hiding places, numerous lost mines of gems and metals in the hills ringing it, and many more such up in the mountains, those now the lairs of drakonis and other beasts who liked high places to live.
As the others stared at those mighty heights, I observed them, trying to see more details in their auras, to give us some clues as to whom we could trust, and whom we could not. Our caligaria who spied on me  still rankled my nerves, something about her aura disturbed me, though I could not pick out the details enough. She maintained a goodly distance from me, apparently knowing where I was at all times. Norbanus had his own doubts about her, saying he mistrusted the name she gave, but had not the skill of reading folk to pick out any lies. n this day and age, leaving behind a name to separate oneself from kin who were less than trustworthy happens frequently. Drinius himself had postulated that he might renounce his gens, just to get clear of the coming civil war fever.
I feared that such an act would merely feed the fires of insurrection, but had held my peace when he had expressed it after the race. Time would tell which of us was right about the whole mess. I feared I would be, and hoped Drinius was, but such is the lot of a seer.
For many of those with us, this was their first sight of these mountains up close, and the peaks, some of which towered beyond the level which it was easy to breath, were daunting. They challenged some to try reaching their tops, only to take every life that tried. Among my folk the climbing of mountains was a sport, and it seemed we had a few enthusiasts of that kind with us, by the words that reached me from a cluster of caligarium before me. Those rocky crags with their snowy mantles did grab the imagination, as I remembered from working in their shadows, so long ago. And that was at their lower, eastern terminus.
This was the rampart of the world, the true reason for the Grey Desert being dry, as their spine and ribs, nearly as tall as the central heights, wrung out all the moisture from the sea beyond them. On the other side were places beyond the dreams of we who dwelt in the arid desert and steppes of the Upper Lands. There were vast tangles of plants and broad always green savannahs. They were well watered, and the streams only ran dry after decades of drought, not mere weeks.
Up there, blizzards raged all year, and even the Karleekie feared to mine more than the fringes of that chain of ranges. And only on the drier, northern side. South was deadly, including the land holding the last ancestors of the drakonis. And to see the sun’s setting rays on those peaks, turning the whites and grays to starkly contrasting glowing orange and gold against violet and black granites, was something that made me miss my eyes more than before.
We would camp this night at the West Bend, the one where the river turned to carve its passage between the thin line of the last stretches of the Angry Red Mountains and the shattered arms of the Northern Reach, that rugged and still high series of parallel ridges that just suddenly died into foothills, hills then the broken lines of rocky areas that scarred the gorge‘s floor before fading into the ridges of foothills before the coastal range.. Norbanus had Didius and Cethegor guarding me in alternation, with Ringelius and Furius working with them both on some rotation. At night, Furius would pretend to sleep in the other cot in the new tent Drinius had found us. One of the great round ones I preferred. Didius and Cethegor were staying in it as well, but that was more due to the fact that it takes up more space in the packs on the animals.
Norbanus was being extra cautious this encampment. He had guards out on the perimeter, and he had the one caligarius he had full faith in standing watch outside my tent. Given what we had been through so far, to gain that trust of the optio as a good sign.
The road was clear for a change, and the only signs we encountered in the valley were the burnt remains of wagons and some animal carcasses rotting in the hot sun, more often covered by the scavenger birds of this land. We made good time on the westward run, until we reached the large bowl of savannahs where the river turned south, between the round mass of the Ruby Mountains to our west, and the ramparts of the Last, still on the left side as we headed south.
This stretch of road was well used, as it was joined by the land route from the Lorsan Coastal states to the north. It is a highway, even if it is not paved. We moved swiftly along it, the onagers able to set a quick pace, following that mighty river south, deeper into its broad valley. The worst we had were the crossings of the river, and a tributary from the east later. And that was mostly due to my being blind. I found those holes in the fords, and took a swim. Twice.
Leave it, please. I would prefer not to say anymore about that. It was embarrassing.

* * *


We spent ten days from that last “bath”, as Ringelius teased me for taking, winding westward along the narrow line of hills that lined the southern coast of the Glacier Bay, the cold arms of the Bay of Gems that spread east and west against the slowly lowering Last Mountains. Then we found the pass, and Norbanus called a five day halt, for we all needed rest, to repair gear, and wash our clothing. Unlike all our previous camps, this one was disorderly, but only due to the spread of our gear.
After that respite, we turned south and began to move towards those still intimidating heights. We walked beside the onagers on the steepest climbs, and rode when we could. Rain fell several times in those days. The last one was ugly, as we got our first snow, the wet kind. The northern edge of these mountains are cold, the lower parts shadowed from the sun by the spires and ridges of sharp rocky cliffs above us.
It took nine hard won days to climb the pass. Halfway up that we encountered the worst thing so far. As we rounded a bend I felt a familiar illness strike me. Death is something that we who see auras can feel, for years after it occurs, especially violent and horrid deaths. We are also sensitive to the bindings of souls and animae to their bones, to prevent a being from moving on to the afterlife. And as we came to that turning of the canyon we climbed up to the pass in, my senses screamed out at both foul things. Someone had been killed here, recently. And it had been done with necromancy, the dark arts that ate or bound the anima of a being to animating flesh that was dead and rotting, rather than moving on to the next life.

* * *


There is a climb from the canyon to the actual pass. A steep section of narrow trail that wound up that draw's walls. Along the way, several wider ledges and meadows provided places to regroup and rest. Optio Norbanus kept us on foot the entire way to the last park area below the summit.
What we stumbled upon in that place chilled the blood, even as it stirred our anger. The reactions of those around me told me much more than their words. My nephew howled sorrow and rage, Cethegor and Didius flanked me suddenly, spears no longer used to assist their walking, judging by a blade brush across one shoulder and a haft rap on a shin to stop my own progress. Behind me, Ringelius tapped the handle of Burya onto his right palm with a mournful rhythm.
Barking orders to the caligarium with us, setting the best battle line he could, Norbanus took charge of the situation. "Triari! Keth! Stay with Billenius! Ringelius, clear the back trail, turn the pack animals to the hillside!" A palm cracked across a face. "Furius! Get a hold of yourself. Fall back by your avunclus, now!"
Moving those untested by battle to safety told me it was not something I wanted to see. Along the last leg, my aura sight dimmed a bit, price of the exertion. It left me with shorter range, and a bit less attention. This left me confused at first, until the psychic stench stuck. Necromancy, the darkest of the magical arts, churning my stomach, intruding slowly upon my third eye as it slowly opened back up. And leaving me to wish that vision remained shut down as the atrocity washed over me.
Ringelius spoke softly. "Bill, keep amid us. Some mage left us a spectacle." Burya smacked louder in his hand. "Impaled skeletons in a rather sick display."
Forcing my guts back to their normal place, I let my sight roam ahead, gathering bits of something else, though I remained unsure. The auras around me blazed too bright as emotions fanned their spirits in varying ways.
"Triari, Keth, give me a corridor to see this better." My guardians resisted that prompt. Which said my patrealis definitely understated the horrors before me.
Didius rapped my left knee when I pressed ahead. "No, Augur. Stay back."
Frustration lent my voice a bit of my old strength. "Part so I can search this. Unless you have the ability to perceive magical auras."
"He has a point there, Rico." Cethegor shifted a crucial half step to my right, opening a partial view for me. Purple and black threads bound many golden flames to shafts of burning shafts of brown death. Didius started to block that opening, until a small blocking piece of metal intervened, as my old mentor as a Custodi touched the point of his spear gently to an arm. "Rico, auguris are flamenis, and only a flamenis can dispel the dead. He must see it to unbind them if they are bound to their bones."
The Triari spat his disgust, but stepped to the left, calling for all to part ahead of us.
I immediately regretted the request, details emerging as other auras stopped inteferring with my sight. The ground ahead lay covered in smoke and black lines of power, small violet spider shapes dancing along the strands, with hundreds of purple serpents rising out to attack the golden spirit flames bound onto those impaling spears. Those snakes poisoned the animae bound there, dull rust stains tarnishing their bright flames, twisting the spirits' flames cruelly. Forcing something more than just torment upon them.
To the left, I noted the mingled red and gold flames of Furius struggling to escape the grasping silver lined gold aura I knew to be Norbanus. The boy would break free soon, race forward to free some body he must recognize and trigger the trap. The spiders and cobwebs spoke that all too well. An Arenae, one of our underground cousins from distant Kito Rosato, worshipers of the spider-gods. Deadly foes skilled in the dark arts, though they tended towards showmanship in their crafting.
That web marked the trigger, a margin the Optio and Furius already danced the edge of. What the spiders could do still lay shrouded, I could pull only a vague shape from them, no details presenting save the glow of power.
"Trap spell. Get those two back..." None received the chance to relay my weak words. Furius broke Norbanus's grip, darting forward across that dark web. Now the spiders exploded into motion, most attacking the boy, the rest scurrying to the skeletons, but some followed thin strands deeper into the park, to places where verdant green took on the taint of tarnished copper.
A rattle I knew well from another fight an age ago rose from ahead of us. Red-brown poisons dimmed the flames further, twisting them to meld into the bones, leaving only clusters of amber embers swirling where once hearts beat amid those now tainted ribcages. Beneath broken tarcel bones, dark cobwebs climbed remains to bind them into the spell's intent. To my vision the serpents covered the contaminated arm bones and vertebrae, melting deep within as the sorcery completed a foul transformation. Fangs lay along the fingers, dripping that horrid toxin, a warning to those able to detect it.
Which, in our caravan, proved just me. The caligarium shifted fast, forming battle lines, chablys squeaking against the leather sheaths swords left fast. Responding to noise in the brush around us, Ringelius whirled to face the foe, stepping forward with Burya ready to charge in.
Luck walked with me. My staff, which held a few enchantments of its own, lay in hand still from our ascent up this pass. Mostly one shot stored spells woven into it when I still possessed eyes, but a few reusable spells lay worked into the brass heels since it was crafted. The hand grip at the balance point held a very delicate spell, created for just such a moment when I was showing off, seeking to ensure Nonia's attention.
Knowing there was little time, I stepped backwards unannounced, spinning the staff while reaching into that dormant magic to link my third eye once more into the enchantment. My breath became ragged, this exertion being something not attempted since that day with Nonia. Tendrils of those old emotions for the numena I loved gave me something to latch onto, wrapping around the metal, grasping the connections more firmly than my hands held the whirling shaft.
"(See!)" With that word, power raced along that connection, binding my aura sight with the spell. A heartbeat later waves of psychic energy blended to the magic raced away, ripples across the world as others knew it, showing brief glimpses to my companions of the world as I perceived it.
Gasps rose from many, some in fear, others in shock, a few cried thanks, rapidly avoiding the revealed magical talons of death hidden by the spell from mortal eyes. Ringelius and Norbanus remembered this magical touch, pressing their advantage against the spell hard, testing the visions they knew cost me much to pass on.
Crunching bones, followed by a gravelly cheer behind me proved this gamble a success.
"Hips! Where the colors meet!" Ringelius voice boomed as more skeletons rattled out from the copses behind us.
Norbanus shouted his own command of where to strike. "Knees! Break apart the knees!"
Their voices faded, fatigue laying its fog over my senses. Years of not using magics, now so much use of those abilities left me faint. Staggering back amid the caligarium, the staff barely kept me upright. My vision dimmed, not just from the sharing it with others. Being this close to necromantic spells left me ill. My animas felt weak, sapped by the bindings reaching from those already tied to this mage's will.
Somehow, my left hand dropped from the staff, seeking the solace of chablys on my belt. Specula still lay set aside in my trunk, so I only found my cutler, the sacred knife of a flamens. Something twanged inside my memories, of a trip long ago across the desert with Loricus. Something the man said that time, shortly after becoming Triari.
From that memory, the words echoed out. "You walk many paths, Billenius. Some amid the world, others beyond it. Few things hold power in both worlds. Your aciniacis will not alway be useful, but other tools, those you may not yet have, will."  Tools I possessed now, not then were many. But this one was blessed by priests with better standing and command of their powers than I ever might hold.
Drawing it slowly, laying the blade against my staff as another wave of foul bindings surged towards us, my mind raced for some answer. Amid all the death, a single bird's song rang out. A piece of life amid the death around me. Clear notes which drew a thought to the surface. None sang for those dead bound to the necromancer, to ease their animas along to the next life.
My voice leaves much to be desired when raised in song. Even before breathing flame, coins would be laid before me to stop singing. Nonia paid more often than others, despite being my lover. Unfortunately, for all around me, the Nenia, the songs for the dead, were not things crafted to be spoken, only sung.
The notes are high, above my range, really. But I tried the opening lines of Cantare ab animae, the common opening of the Nenia. Soft, deeper than normal, but still carrying the power of the gods to free their servants. I will not have those words recorded, for some say they can unbind even the souls ephemerals possess from the flesh, before their fated day has come.
Around me, the clatter of bones falling matched the sudden bright flares piercing my darkened visions of the auras around me. This necromancer's serpents withered away as the amber explosions leapt free of them. More of the spiders rose from the webs still choking the ground before us. Moving towards me now, with a slow wariness in their motions. I now had the spell's attention. What to do with it I still needed to work out.

* * *


By the time I finished the Cantare, many animae broke the bonds of this fool mage, but double that number of the magical spiders danced just outside our reach. A shadow rose up within the main display, where one skeleton still stood, holding the rod that previously impaled him. This granted me a bit of hope. Our foe's pride pushed him to showing himself, even if only by projection of spirit.
The spell I'd cast to loan my vision to others frayed as time eroded its force. Already those furthest from me called out the fading of borrowed sight. My donum tend towards fading fast once loaned. Not just for those I pass it along to, but for myself as well. Tattering on the edges of my dimmed sight warned me of coming blindness. Forcing my hand to provoke a fast and brutal confrontation with the magus whose trap we triggered.
Psychic battles are not my forte. If anything, such show the lack of formal training and practice that led to my powers running wild for so long. This does not mean I am inept at such, just not learned in the subtler arts mental combat holds. Not all the shadows on my vision resulted from exhausting my power, as the foe's projection spread out a fog of war over the field we faced across. This hid those damned spider imps of his from me, making the fight challenging.
And on a schedule. While I trained in blind-fighting as part of my Custodi drills, we never touched upon guerre donum during those sessions. Chablys and fists was about it for that part of my life. I figured in less than a turning of a horarium's dual glasses, blindness would shroud my world for a while.
A shift of feet to my left allowed another lane amid my commites auras, granting me an avenue for tossing a bit more havoc into the necromancer's life. Lifting my cutler to shoulder level, saluting them with the flat of the blade, I unleashed another of the Nenia upon his raised dead. Normally, Befana's Orison closes the singing, but a call to the goddess of Mercy for her grace upon those bound so foully seemed appropriate that moment. That she answered an augur not dedicated as one of her personal flamenis shocked me. Fireworks of aura flares danced down that path, freeing over a dozen animae from the chains this foul magus cast upon them.
We all staggered as the astral wind of our foe's rage tore across us, weakening with each lost soul, torn free of his yokes. I felt that old grin tearing at burn scars on my face. It was good to be fighting again, even if this fracas lacked the satisfaction of physical contact. Shifting my right leg back as a brace, I spun the staff to my right, shifting the Triari aside for a moment. To my left, Cethegor laughed aloud. Behind me, my calf caught the back of Ringelius's knee, his protective dance drawing him in closer than I anticipated.
"Bozhemoi, Bill! Warn a person, will you!" His cry alerted the others.
Norbanus knew this look on my face. And hated being out of position to stop it, I bet.
"Augur! No!"
His cry was too late. Unfettered joy raced from my heart outwards, bursting off fingers as brilliant orange balls of mirthful fun. Being untrained at mental battles gave me one advantage here, unexpected forms to attack with. My fusillade arced out into the heart of the fog, landing with limited accuracy, but tremendous results. Each spider or web strand contacted detonated at their touch. The misses kicked up their own chaos, bouncing until they found a target.
Each action I made cost more of my sight, so I gambled on keeping me in the fight longer, banishing the vision-sharing. Unfortunately, that finger of sand lost me the initiative. The dozen or so spider imps leapt towards me, leaving binding strands behind them as they arced over my head. Up close, I could see them in better detail, those webs held violet strands of the dark arts. Not something I really wanted to be wrapped up in, or so I'd lay my coins.
Power sparked off the tip of my staff, the blue haft blazing with power laid into by an old friend to my sight. Using that bit of light, intercepting most of the strands worked, only a few whipping past it to leave my forearms tingling under their numbing power. My mental armor, thought tattered, held against that debilitation, for the most part. Until one of the little magical constructs leapt around me, sliding its trailing cable around my upper arms and chest while my staff grazed the ground, attempting to drive another back at the magus as a projectile.
Winter's bitter frost descended with that rope of spider-silk, chilling my arms as strength leached away. Releasing my staff unwillingly, my right hand fell to my belt, where half-dead fingers brushed over a charm I kept there, hangover from my days as a Custor. Closing my index digit and thumb over that metal device, I struggled to stay upright. My missed target scurried fast to bind my ankles in a loop, tugging me off to the left. trying to bring me down.
Lifting my left hand, I again presented the cutler in the side salute I used before towards the magus's projection, the numbed right hand fighting to make the necessary gestures as I chanted the quick spell to release a bolt of magical energy at him from the charm.
When my Dominae stepped in, making life Inferus and chaos for a few seconds.
One last lonely ball of my joke still danced out there, finding a slope down off a tree with only a few weak strands of the trigger spell left in its way. Those snapped easily, letting it reach the nexus of power the projection hovered over before bursting, just as my casting released at him. I caught him unawares, as most of my kind use that spell like an arrow. Long years of association with my Karleekie friends twisted that for me. The charm held the shape of a kurok, the nasty little flintlock pistol the dwarves used.
Amid the blaze of power, that charm fired a small blessed argentum pellet, a metal few necromancers used as in pure form it broke their spells. My magical missile struck just as the last of the earlier psychic fusillade exploded.
And as Ringelius managed to note with his own magical detection skills the spiders binding me up for lunch. His hammer connected with both as he managed a leap one would not expect from one with deformed limbs. Unless you expect him to slam into my back performing that stunt, sending me into the mud Burya created as rain dropped from the sky on her downward stroke.
The bangs as the energy golems imploded to nothingness was the last I remember for a while. My only consolation as I lost consciousness came from the agonized anger as all the spells he cast unravelled, feeding back upon my foe.

* * *


My world existed of only mud. Taste, smell and feel. You may not realize it, but mud has a sound too, an unpleasant squish.
"He's coming around, Rico." Cethegor's voice held some relief as I started to move about painfully.
The Triari's familiar hand lay on my shoulder with a firm grip suddenly. "Next time, try not to take out as many of us in your attacks on enemies, Augur."
Norbanus laugh, strained by some injury fell on my ears. "Just like the good old days. My spear landed just as your attacks and Ringelius's hammer blows ended it, Billenius." His gasp reminded me that my ribs hurt as much as his seemed to. "Not that tight, Keth."
The old Custor turned triarium snorted, the sound of cloth stretching around a chest said I'd guessed right to Norbanus's injuries. "If they are not tight, the fix will fail."
A moan nearby told me Ringelius survived his foolish attack as well. "Diae, I thought the hangovers came after the victory party, not before."
"Old age, patraelis." Wincing, I tried to get up, only to be held down by Loricus.
"Let me check those ankles, Augur. Our foe laid one last spell as you fell." His other hand touched those sore appendages gently. "Swollen, but they seem okay. Move them for me."
The aches from that action proved dull. "Sprained, hopefully just twisted a bit, Triari."
"Don't see your spear, Orban." Ringelius slapped my still frozen left forearm. "Hey, Bill, can a real spear follow back a projection?"
Spitting out a lunch's worth of mud, my answer shamed me a bit. "From experience, yes. Had it happen to me once in the Temple when I tried spying on Sticcius."
"Shame. I wanted to tease our Optio cousin on missing." Laughing, the thought worked through his thicker than normal skull. "Oh, bet it ruined his day and tunic then. Hit him about mid-body, I'd say."
"Even if he dodged it, he'll need to change his trousers as I did afterwards." Loricus helped me up as I gritted that out. Cethegor's laugh was fuller than anyone else's at my observation. The ankles hurt, but not as much as my head. "Perfidio. Ringelius, what the Infernus prompted you to smack those spiders."
"Ran out of skeletons."
The Triari's voice held a touch of humor as well. "Why is it, every time I am around you triconis, you try re-enacting that riot you started in Radixium?"
We all laughed at that reference to a bar brawl that spiraled out of hand after a ill-timed toast I had offered.
"Furius alright?" My body begged to lay back in the mud and sink in, so I diverted my mind from acquiescing with that question.
"Rico?" Cethegor's mirth fled at my question. Before the fight, my sight told me much of the goings on around me.
"Used too much of your untested mind there, did you?" The hand on my shoulder squeezed harder for a breath before relaxing. "Psychic fatigue tends to follow fights just as the warrior's version does, Keth. Give him a day or two to recover."
Cethegor's non-committal grunt echoed my own feelings about it.
The elders ran the camp the next hand of days, letting us ride out a snowstorm after the full Nenia we gave the dead that night. Yes, snow, even is summer, is a hazard of the mountains. Two other times as we rode over the pass, and started back down the snow fell on us. By the time we reached the lower, warmer lands, my vision started to recover.
A full hebdoma, the fourteen day weeks of my folk, it took us to arrive at the city of al-Wadi. Norbanus held us there for two days, until we moved on for another half a hebdoma before reaching al-Rabhavi.

Faith of the Afreet - Chap 2 of an unfinished tale of Billenius

By the time he broke his observations, my own nerves, even with the aroma of steeping tea filling my nose, were fraying a bit. His face darted about, as if seeking some danger above, constantly turning to Preacursor's always changing shapes, as the Dancer Before gave her nightly performance up there.

"When Uru-anna rises, that would be the best time to destroy this amulet. Let her blessed light aid us in the dissipation of the powers bound within, summoning home any bound within it to her waiting arms." He accepted the tea I offered him with a chuckle. "No lesser flame beast am I. My fires are of water that is split and burns, forging new things for the glory of Uru-anna."

The thing he named took a moment to sink in. Jzhan, our warming sun, I guessed after long thoughts on the word. "I seek not your quenching, but rather your good will and freedom. Perhaps, down the road, friendship."

He chuckled, a thing my ears heard not just as sounds, but popping crackles, same as the fire he'd kindled for me. "Friendship? That is a word few used with me. Tragrilorm, Varew, Harleigah, perhaps two dozen others."

Naming gods as friends disturbed me, leaving me speechless. I covered my shock, hopefully, behind sips  from my cup. This tea, a mixture of rose hips and chamomile, soothed nerves left sparking in curiosity from that revelation.

Batulbel merely sniffed the tea, raising doubts about his statements of immunity to water, even though the vodka he'd quaffed earlier consisted mostly of that element. Doubts rapidly destroyed after a while, as he tossed off the cup in one draught. "Smells better than it tastes."

Smiling, I offered him more. "Tastes in teas vary." I filled the cup again, slowly, glad for the bronze ball holding the bits and leaves, so we could easily make more, if needed.

"So it seems. It pleases me that you try no poisons, mortal." His chuckle again danced across the night. His face turned again towards the Dancer, blazes with the eye holes narrowed. "Yes, the time has come for the Great Mother's sisters to send forth new souls at last."

That cryptic comment fanned that part of my anima that oft proved too inquisitive. "I never realized Elemental beings came from mothers."

"All things, even your gods, are born and die. Even the Lords of Entropy do not live forever. Eventually their powers fade, as the matter they feast upon escapes their grasp, evaporating away into the cold between Realms, or rushing back out to create new Realms." He stared still at the brightest star of the night, as the last cresent piece of Athalan's rings sank in the west. "My birth, though first and greatest so far from Uru-anna, is not the last of her children. Each day, the great breaths of matter and fire she exhales sends more of my siblings into the cosmos, to live and eventually fade into cold, dead embers for those Lords of Destruction to consume."

"Strange, that no scroll I've read speaks of these Lords of Entropy." Finding my cup empty, my hands filled it reflexively.

"Not so. Many scrolls mention them, if only in veiled terms to hide their True Rulership. They lie out there, even at the core of this galaxy, giving the anchors around which all spin, drawing together the masses of stars and gasses, the corpses of my kin, into their reach, albeit with a patience few can fathom. Their power spans distance you can scarst imagine, reaching from their abodes the entire distance of all you see above and further." Metal screeched as his face turned to me. "Their arms gather in the elements the Mothers are born from, the waves their arms create forging those lanterns to hold their meals until the time of feasting on the stars or their dead bones comes at last."

I held my peace. Our travels across the desert taught me patience with his methods of instruction. My hands wrapped around the cup, seeking the warmth it provided, as the chill of the long night still held on the land and air around us, leaving me fearing the winter to come all too soon.

When he spoke, again he face northeastward, gazing at the Dancer. "That one now exhales for the first time in ages. Her breaths will be wonderfully terrible, scouring this planet of life if allowed." Creaks filled the air, as his hands flexed those metal gloves. Gestures turned to fists, fists ot open hand motions I did not recognize. "You seek things, mortal, well beyond the ability of your mind to grasp. But I will offer for you my own birth, and a reason we only hold the Mothers above anything. Pray to your gods you are not shattered along with those foolish notions you have of life."

I chuckled at his warning, not from dismissal, but a phrase Matertera used often during my youth. "You never heard the sayings about young elves and cat?" I asked.

"Long-lived, unless they die nine times from their curiosity?" That chuckle, something more soothing than a dragons rumble, warmed my heart. "Very well. Fill this again, the way it burns within my fires is indeed soothing."

As I refilled his cup, his eyes dimmed to mere embers, focused on me tightly. Much as that first time we met, over the stunned body of his summoner. Once he had his drink in hand, he looked away, leaving me guessing why this conversation came now, despite his hints.

His words after came slow, between sips of the brew.

"When Uru-anna still lay cold and unlit, her siblings, save Athalan, still scattered remains of previous stars, one of the Lords of Entropy's domain passed near our ever moving home, stirring her shell to motions. Already, her heart burned, but barely. The wake of that passage, striking her body, drove more dust and bits deep into her, feeding that cold fire, fanning the flames to life. She screamed her joy for the universe to hear, gouts of that burning matter spearing outwards, as she woke for the first time.

"Riding upon that gout of her fiery primal scream, I and other broken fragments of her mind lost our connections to her, tossed out as her emissaries, to stir the sparks of others, fan the flames amid what you call aether, and guide those grandchildren of the stars into life and fire of their own, to drive away the darkness.

"But the hands of the Lords of Entropy reach far, with strong grasps. Those sparks fade faster than we of the first breaths, each generation buring shorter, dimmer, and colder. Draining away the fires, gathering to themselves all in their reach, until everything becomes the cold and dark they thrive upon, despite fires kindling in their hearts from so much being in such small places.

"Beside Uru-Anna, and around her, Mother's sisters joined her or slept on, as (Athalan) dreams still, never waking to blaze her glory. Even in those dreaming stars, the embers of those reveries dance into life of their own, moving about, lifting out, gathering and molding the elements around them into bodies. Some great, some small, but all imbued with the same forces, if weaker, as I was. Thus it was, as I watched your folk born beside the Usumgal, that you call draconis. And all those we faced this last shadow, those who rose before you amid stronger moments of her failed flames."

Looking again towards the Dancer, he sighed. "And now that sister of the Mother sends out her children. Ones steeped in fires beyond my own, seeking food and shells to serve their own creator through."

His arm rose, hand cupping the collection of crescents and discs there, just as the body of that celestial being brightened.

Faith of the Afreet - chap 1 of an unfinished Billenius Tale

Pelori lay behind me, a few still lit windows visible across Nalan Pelo's broad bed of cracked mud. This night, Preasul's dull light, though a savior for half the now passed Crossing of the Shadow, failed to show those raised salt deposits in the gaps. I blessed the gods the worst I suffered being a stubbed toe.

Reaching Harridan's Cairn, as agreed, I paused. Oath or no, the one I came to speak with this night still held reason to slay me. Information he offered during the Crossing drew me, to seal the fates of the three slayers now sitting in the stockade. The magistrate felt satisfied of their guilt, but if they demanded trial by jury, I wanted more stones to bury them with.

The voice came soft, a contrast to my few earlier encounters with this one.

"Alone and on time." Several desert beasts scattered at the sound, despite the softness, knowing a predator, somehow. "You intrigue me further by honoring the agreement."

"Makes no sense to break my word. As you said in the Dunes, honor is all we have, in the end." I kept my voice light, hand away from Specula's hilt, and narrowed my lids to let my aura sight rise up to reveal him.

"Billenius, you called yourself. Baal-lu-Lil Ni-uushum, I name you." Even knowing my abilities, the measures the beast took fell short of hiding his aura from my third eye. Nimbus of death magic's purple swirled over the inner red flames his arrogance and hate fueled within that shell of metallic skin. Burning orange eyes lit the small islet of grass and stones, drifted with sands by that storm he fled during. "And still strong, despite denying the power within you. Few pierce that cloak of smoke and wind so swiftly."

I shrugged, raising the skin of wine in my right hand. "Less arrogance might dim your inner flames a bit. Fewer of the gods' creatures destroyed to fuel it and there might be little trace for me to seek."

"Gods. Again with those mortals who know not the Truths of this Realm." Metal grated on metal, the joints of the armor around him speaking the lack of care since his summoner's death. "But at least you bring somewhat to ease this trivial talk you wished."

"One you must desire, as well. Batulbel, or is there something else I should call you?" I tossed him the skin, then loosened my small pack, empty save a few other things I prayed to save my life, and garner me his better will. The metal mask twitched slowly as the pastries from (lost the inn's name!) came out, the teapot elicited a chuckle, and the tea a simple nod.

"That name shall do, for now. No water will douse my fires, this you know. I will accept these prizes as tokens of good faith." He partook the wine, flames dancing on the nozzle as he finished the skin swiftly. "Bribery. Not something I expect from so awesome an aura as your flesh burns with. One might think you thought I would not honor the agreement."

"No, just thought we could tary a bit. Sleep eludes me still, after the horrors I saw in the Dunes." Checking around a rock made him chuckle, so I explained myself. "Your honor, I trust, afreet. The honor of fire cobras is another matter."

"Bah. Lesser things that tasted good. None shall haunt this place for a while, I'd venture." Belching, he motioned me to sit. "Know their venom fails against such as me, born of the Greatest Fires."

"And that, Batulbel, is why I sought making this night one of comforts and discussion." Settling down, I asked carefully. "Would it be fair to say you honor the guesting codes of Domorushtuu?"

"One must honor that you instill in your followers, to show them none are above obeying such." He rumbled loudly. "I take no insult at that. It was a fair question, as you say you have little past experience or knowledge of the Flame Born."

"That such as you can be dominated and controlled by pacts intrigues me." Setting up the small tripod for the tea, my hands sought rocks to ring the fire, the grasses being very dry after so long without light to survive by. "That amulet Morlo created, truly it threatens such as you?"

"All of my kind, not just me." The lips, though partially motile, never parted with his words. Such things disturb one deeply, even knowing the being inside was one of spirit, not flesh. "How such as those crafted such bindings it holds still eludes me. I thought it beyond such ephemeral beings."

"They burn brief, but bright. At least from their auras." Reaching for a few pieces of wood, detritus carried here by some past visitor, I had a thought. "Could some enemy of your people or yourself known such?"

"Tragrilorm held such powers. As did a few others before him." The metal face turned to the faint hints of the Last Mountains, barely cresting the horizon this far north. "Perchance his heir holds tomes with that information. Or others found the older grimoires in some forgotten place."

"Domorushtuu holds many such places." I said. "But the heir of Tragrilorm you may rule out."

"You trust him." Those openings to his inner flame again blazed brgiht, fixing me under their light.

"Such would stand out amid his collection of alchemist and healing tomes. Though I admit, there may be other collections he kept hidden from me." Settling the wood, my face took on that odd twitch again, realizing the flint and steel sat on the table of my room.

Sensing something amiss, noting the wood remaining unlit, he chuckled. A deep resonant sound that I found strangely comforting. "Allow me."

Sparks flew from his fingers with a simple toss of his hand in the direction of my fire-pit. Each spot one touched, smoke rose in thin threads for a few breaths, then small flames erupted out, spreading swift into a comfortable blaze.

"My thanks." Hanging the tea pot, my hands dove into the pack, returning with two collapsible bronze cups for the tea, and something much more dangerous, still wrapped in cloth to protect my hand from it.

Metal popped and ground as my companion leaned in, interested. "You have it."

"Yes. One condition. It must be destroyed." Shrugging at his intense glare from behind the metal mask, I leaned back, relaxed, after setting it out for his inspection. "Not my rule, but the ruling of the local Dux here. She wishes this thing gone, before others of your kind are also bound by it."

After several fingers of sand fell the glass, he sighed, and leaned back. "Later this night we shall, together, destroy this foul artifact." His metal bound face turned up, to the stars. "Though, I fear, this night we will rue it being gone forever."

He kept silent as the stars moved two hands across the vault of the heavens.