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 She had withdrawn not because of my presence, I knew now.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. 

Paths of Damnation 2 (Kragyevozar)

Why I and my axe brothers were here in Tyrosht is something of a long tale, and one I have told elsewhere. It is good enough to say we have reasons to be here, each of us different yet similar. And all under the same bans of exile. Condemned to walk Zagroneichnie, without the borders of the homelands. It is an awful fate, to be denied the homeland, denied succor in any land from danger by others still within the borders of the Zhakon.

It would have been more dangerous, but we were accompanied by those who had chosen the path of ezgnaneiye with us. Among them two of great standing in the land, the Runabrost Grimdarzog, and the rising star of the diplomatic corps, Zefdarfan. That they had chosen to ride away from the gate of the exiles with us had left avalanche of turmoil behind us, And the crossing of the sea of treachery to this port had stirred so much ill-will against us all I was sure the bans would never be lifted now.

Here in the port of the Council I found the attitudes still against us. That we had faced pirates, beasts, undead and more crossing the sea, to reach this place mattered not to those here. I was known, not just as Keilroi of the Mountains, but as an  ezgnanst now. Outcast. Unlawful to speak with. I ignored the catcalls from the dwarven quay we had been denied the right to tie the ship to, though some of my companions felt the sting in their souls from the words. Words which ended when I uncovered my prisoner's head to the master of arms at the Gate of the Docks.

"I believe you have an offer of some coins for this one's head...how much for his whole body?" I was arrogant, cold and mean as I knocked the pirate LeGiles to the ground on his knees before the soldier. A soldier whose eyes lit up with a fire like that of a forge well stoked.

"There is only one corsair of these seas I would rather see here in chains before me. But Muirgant has disappeared yet again at the word of a hunter of pirates so fierce." The old man's smile was warm. The first warm smile I had seen. "What name shall I take to the Council to issue the coins unto?" The query was normal, but my answer would shock him.

"I am Keilroi, these are my friends and companions. We give you the pirate, his surviving crew, and their vessel. One less pirate clan to raid the sea." I let the name spread across the stone road and up the quays behind us. It was known to the Karleekie. It was known to all. My exploits in my youth still were told, and here I was, wearing the brand of exile on my forehead, the chain of a penitent and dragging in wanted men like a bounty hunter.

The gasps from the dwarven quay told me the name had struck home. The Keilroi had come to the west. As he came, he brought the Zhakon of the seas with him, still acting to enforce the Laws, not disruption and chaos as most did. The catcalls at us died, and instead the cheers for a hero began. With a few catcalls for the pirates as they began to be unloaded from the hold of the sailing vessel we had taken. Keilroi was still Keilroi to the dwarves. Someone to hope to see, not fear seeing. Unless one walked the path of the NyeZhakonst, then one had better still fear me.

I felt the hand of my old mentor, 'Darzog, on my shoulder. "Less grim, smile some malchik. Keilroi is a happy Karlykn, remember that. It does not hurt to smile from time to time."

And with those words, I was again just a malchik, being chided gently by his mentor to proper behavior. Some things never change, and never should.

/***

Three days it took to get the coins from the Council, but I begrudged them not a bit of that time, for they were being more than fair, we got the bounties on each pirate, coins from the sale of the ship, and rewards from those whose stolen cargoes were identified in the holds. We had enough for most adventurers to retire on,  but as we still had further to go, to reach the lands of the Lorsan Coast, where so many of our kindred who were also exiles had settled over the ages.

During those three days, as the others were treated to drinks and food, I sat at our inn thinking, making lists of things we would need, and meeting with the local liaison from the Knights of the Grey Sands to arrange joining a caravan on the northern route west, around the desert they patrolled and kept peace in. If one could call a life of danger peace. It was time well spent, even if I would have preferred to sit before the ochags and drink like the others.

In the darkness of the nights I sat and drank alone, if I could avoid 'Darzog and Dyadya Jaochim. Which was becoming more difficult of late. They meant well, but it still bothered me that they felt my isolation was wrong. I needed to think, and not about the past, but the future. We had made it this far by luck, not planning, and while I was not a great believer in plans, I knew we had to have at least a skeleton of one, or be caught with our shtani around our knees.

This night, had they known, they would have worried at the lack of vodka at my table, not the presence of it. Downstairs in the main area there were many revelers, but here in the balcony area around the main open room, there were few. Our crew and axe brethren were enjoying some of the spoils of our war on the way here, the younger ones learning the ways of the myrmidons we now were.

But I sat in the gloomy booth, recessed away enough to break some of the noise, thinking, and staring at the map before me. The Lorsan Coast, and Kelevfalashch, were still a long ways to go, and after our experience on the waves of the Veleky Vod, we had no desire to continue travel by sea. But there were only two routes west left from this island, three if one wished to take the more dangerous path across the heart of the Grey Desert. That one had no water that one could guarantee. The south caravan path had water in abundance, running down from the great gorya that rimmed the Rift of Dihn and the dry basin of the pustinya. But that meant crossing the lands of the Byezborodnei, and we had already been warned of a rough reception by those folk from some of the Alfs here.

We all had some experience with wastelands, and the problems of finding vod safe to consume, from our own adventures in our youth around the lands of the Lead Hills and the vast wastelands around them, or entering the Krasny Styepzei to hunt the great beasts or Vyeleikan-Ludoyed, the tusked giants of those prairies. The northern road was the one controlled by the Knights of the Sands, and open to all for its whole length. It was fraught with many dangers, from dragons to orcs and the lamia of the central desert who from time to time came out to raid the caravans.

But it was the only option, in a sense for us. Which meant our enemies, both from the homeland and here Zagroneichnie, would know our path. As Karleekie marked for death by some of our kin, no true caravan would let us join them, I was sure. Even without asking the Knights or any of the merchants or caravan. Few would want to add to the dangers of their own crossing of that part of the world.

As I sat there sipping the strong kophye that came from Rahab, thick with cream to take out the bitter blades from the taste, I pondered ways to cross the distance. Normally I drank mine without cream, but the syrupy brew made in this place was so strong and bitter, cream was a necessity. As so many times before, I had so much of mind focused on the problem on my table, someone was able to approach me unnoticed. I was lucky that I did not spill the pot or cup at hand when I started when my visitor cleared his throat.

He was an older karlykn, one I knew from my few times in court. He acted as the head of the local members of our race here and in the lands ruled by the Council. Some said he was even an advisor to that assembly on things related to our kind. His face was worn with the marks of worry I myself had begun to carve in my own face with the frowns of concentration. It was a deep brown, an unusual color for our kind, but it was the warm brown of the sun baking his flesh, not rot or some malady of the skin. They called him Gyevard Blednei, for the white hair he had since his youth. It was like a snowy mane on a lion from the north. His eyes were solid black marbles, glittering with humor and joy, despite his stern mime. He reminded me of ‘Darzog in that way, with the stern outer shell hiding the warm person inside.

“Poklonei, my kniaz.” The voice was not the rough one of most of our folk, but a softer one, filled with a sound more like the descent of water in a cascade in the mountains, not the rougher rock tones of my homeland.

I grunted. “I have no claim to that title anymore, Gyevard. Sit, take a cup of this foul brew.”

He smiled wider, and slid into the bench opposite me. “Spacebo, tovarishch. It is rare to find one who drinks Kophe in the evening, but I appreciate it. As I grow older, I find that vodka and veiskei do not sit well on my stomach afterwards.” He poured a cup of the syrupy brew straight, making my own stomach wonder at the iron lining his must have despite his claims otherwise.

“What brings you here, Glava.” I used the old term for chief of several clans, not the more modern appellation of boyar. He chuckled at the term, which meant he was in a good mood.

He sipped his tea, eyes turned to the few on the balcony, waiting patiently for all around to have their attention turn from a meeting of lords to the entertainments below. Such patience he used left me wondering if I could ever have such a calm attitude of waiting for the right moment. His eyes seemed calm, but he leaned back and they never stopped scanning those near and far. It was a gaze I remembered well from my bodyguards of my youth. One that weighed the threats of each it rested on in that single glance, marking the dangerous, the safe and the unknowns for when trouble would break out.

But this night there was no such tussles, the merriment at best were a few wrestling matches, but they were the good natured kind. I could see Joachim below at the end of the bar from which the drinks were served, he was sipping cha, and watching us. There was a look on his face I rarely had seen of late, since he had left his own children behind in his own exile for having spoken for me before the Dvoryets, the assembly of my folks governing councils. It was the smile of relaxation amid friends. But then, 'Darzog had told me once that Joachim was the kind of karlykn who could be happy anywhere, as long as he had friends or family around him.

I waited, trying to match the patience of the dwarf across from me. But I fidgeted to much for it to seem the same. My hands kept seeking the map, tracing the northern caravan route, trying to visualize the path to come in my head. As I did my companion sat nearly perfectly still save the slow oscillation of his head, as he continued to watch as life went on around us.

When at last he spoke, it was softly, so quiet I almost missed the words. "There is word among those who walk the shadowy paths beyond the Zhakon that your life has a new threat to its continuance, young man. There are whispers that the ubeiyotsyei have let a blade be made for you."

The room was no longer warm. It seemed as cold as a windswept peak of the (iron mountains) in the middle of winter. Ubeiyotsyei was a word rarely spoken among our kind, save in talking of the affairs of the other folk of the world. Assassins were rare in our people's doings, we who lived mostly within the Zhakon. For one to be unleashed on us even more infrequent, as any slain, even an exile, was likely to be avenged by his friends and family.

I felt my eyebrows seeking my hairline, as I tried to silently convey both my curiosity as to whom would try such a foolish action and the way this word had leaked from a tsyech as secretive as theirs. Their guild was known for killing those that spoke of its inner workings, or even rumors of its clients or contracts. That Gyevard had heard such, and lived to speak of it to the target told me something of the internal war going on inside that gathering of professionals we called a tsyech. A war within that guild would cause chaos everywhere, as contracts were taken against the codes of their rules. Not that rules were as strong a control as the Zhakon, the Law we Karleekie lived by.

He said no more, still watching, with the eyes of a warrior on guard duty, no longer the lazy gaze, but a more intense one. And his eyes were on one person, an alf, one of the byezborodnei, who leaned against the far balcony wall with an air of arrogance one could only find among the worst of that race. The arrogance of one not afraid of even the gods. I had seen many of his kind in the past half century, those who had walked away from gods and ethics in pursuit of power and wealth. They were no longer the people of honor they had been even just before my birth. Too many had taken upon themselves prejudices against others, feeling superior to the rest of the world.

This one, though, was more dangerous, he had weapons in evidence on his body, including a strange knife. One with a red lacquered handle. Even I had heard in my sheltered life, of the blades that marked one of the ubeiyotsyei on a mission. The way the elder with me was focused on him suddenly told me this was the threat I had to pass in this place to move on. But the alf's focus was not me, but the bar. He watched me from time to time, but it was Dyadya he was targeting.

I reached down and touched the topor leaning against the bench between me and the wall. I found the cold steel reassuring, knowing that even the slightest touch of it on this foe's flesh would pain him dearly. This was my only advantage, for while I was a warrior, this one specialized in leaving his blade between the shoulder blades of unsuspecting recipients of his skill. I needed to get up and move about, yet a simple hand gesture kept me in my seat for a few moments longer, as Gyevard motioned me to hold.

"Not yet, let his arrogance grow some more, and he will be apt to make mistakes." The words came from a mouth that barely moved, and was in the yazik, the speech of our people, but a dialect rarely heard outside the hills I had grown up in. The tongue of the Choelm was one few outside the clans of the hills knew, and thus safer to use for such a warning.

So I tried to learn a warrior's patience. To find the moment to strike that would turn the battle we now would be engaged in. I kept my face towards my companion, speaking of the trail to come, trying to keep my face from showing any hint of my observation of this foe. A fighter's mime is very difficult to maintain, I learned that day. Doing so while spying was harder yet.

As we sat, the alf became used to us there, relaxed even, yet it was the relaxation of a lion on the hunt, the disinterested act that belies his purpose in walking or standing in some place near the prey. There was a look of bored his face, but the eyes carried his hatred of all around him. Occasionally he scratched various places where it was obvious to a person familiar with carrying weapons that some deadly tool rested there, and he was more interested in checking to see they were there and ready to use.

I found myself doing much the same, with my axe beside me, not to mention knives and other toys I had learned of late. As well as finding my hand touching the kurok on the table before us in passing. Discharge of such a weapon in this town was forbidden, but I knew that if they were forced to choose between the hell to come of Jaochim's death or injury and my firing the kurok's small lead projectile, the latter would be more easily dealt with. But it would let someone know that one of our guns was able to come past the gates of the docks, compromising a vast smuggling empire, and ruining the ability to have our folk trade here.

There had to be a way to mess up this one's plans. Plans or the ruining of them, were the meat and potatoes of my own history. Keilroi was known all over as the wrecker of plans, hence LeGiles impending appointment with a noose at the docks. I felt my face scrunch up, remembering the words the pirate when I took him, that he would never be hung. This was a diversion, and if the Council had half a brain, they would not respond to any call for the guard here. There had never been a breakout from the tyurma here, but there was always a first time for everything. And as I realized this was just a diversion, that old wicked smile came to my face, as my eyebrows began to dance up and down with mirth at a plan that came to me. Weapon dancing is often associated among my kind with merriment and celebrations like we were in here. And few save the forge lords danced with a hammer. My hand sought out my own hammer, the great heavy thing with the arshen and a hand haft. It was heavy, with a large block of metal, topped with a spike.

"Excuse me a moment, I think I should join the merriment." I stood, leaving my axe, but picking up my hammer. "It seems a bit dead here, perhaps a hammer dance?"

The look of shock on Gyevard's face was a joy. He was a warrior of the careful school, but I had been raised and trained amid the wild hill clans of the Choelm. And they tended to have a different feeling about battle, it was something to enter into with a recklessness to shatter the enemies will, and break their courage with the wild battle rages. I knew better now, knowing that they did plan their battles, as carefully as the other warriors, they just refused to use formations in combat. Or to have inflexible plans, the way some did.

There would be a fight here soon, so the best way to deal with it was to take the initiative, in a way the enemy would least expect. I spun my hammer twice in front of me, and leaped to the broad banister on the balcony's edge. Just the motion caught the eyes of many below. But I needed all eyes on me, so the fool would think his time had come to strike. The malot crafted  on the Heart's Forge began to leave a trail of steely blue in a ring as I began to swirl it with a purpose to my right side. That ring was of the magics from the Forge, and a touch of red for the heart's blood I had shed in its making.

"Let us celebrate the victory over piracy! Give me a beat, tovarishchie! Let us dance the hammer's beat!" And with that I began to shuffle seemingly without care along the railing, to the beat of the many hands and suddenly produced hammers on the tables below. I paced my steps to the beat, letting the rhythm claim me as I went. It is an old dance, the forge dance, that I tried to do, and not suited to the rail, obviously so. And this let me jump to the stairs nearby and dance down them, gently tapping the louder strikes on the banister as I descended. I could not help but smile, and it was one that Steffan and Zeffan knew well as I reached the main floor. I saw their looks of shock, they could tell I was up to something, but had not noticed the lurker above yet.

The hammer was swirled above my head, as the beat picked up to the steady forge tapping of a smith at his task. I no longer had to entice the beat, but still took the hammer on metal strike with gentle force on the supports of the balconies above. Each step seemed unplanned, but was made with a goal in mind. At last the whole of the bar was singing the forging song, the Pyesnya Kovalnya, that we had all heard some time in the past, at festival or sung as an item was crafted over anvils all round the world. At last I stepped out of the ubeintsya's sight for a moment, and laid into the support holding up his perch with all my might.

The reward was not all I wanted, the wood was not as solid as I had thought, old and dried out, it shattered easily, splinters sailing throughout the bar like the shards of a ship struck by the ball from a cannon. He had already started his move when his footing had been taken from him, stepping forward to leap down to our level. I was out of position by luck of the rotted column of wood, spinning under the might of my own miscalculation wildly, as the hammer came back towards the center of the building, it rang on metal, and something red danced up to ricochet off the falling balcony back to my foe, equally off balance from the unexpected fall. The alf was face down on a table, stunned, as his own crimson blade found his buttocks. His shriek was of fear and hate, mixed with shame as he tried to reach back to remove it. The song died as the balcony  finished its slow descent, and blocked my view.

It was only a few beats of my heart later that I was free of the mess I had made, my hands finding Dyada and 'Darzog's arms to guide them to safety. I found there was no more threat, only the shambles I had made of a place I found suddenly I liked more than I had before. The old runabrost stopped me firmly, and pointed at the bloody blade, still embedded in the seat of the assassin, whose body was twitching as only a poisoned man could do.

"Malchik, there is no threat left, this kind acts alone." His voice though soft, carried through the suddenly silent hall. "The marks on those blades are said to tell the tale for all to know."
I walked over to the body, looking carefully, my hammer firmly held at my side, ready to block a blow if needed. He was dead by the time I got there, even though the blow could not have been fatal. Save for the coating on that damned blade.

Poison, the mark of the deadliest of the assassins, and the colored blade said it all. This was meant for someone feared by some other. Some coward who did not wish to face their foe fairly, but desired their death by any means money could buy.

As 'Darzog said, there were three marks on the hilt, at the blade was the crest of my family, marked with the bar sinister. I had been the target. Not Joachim, not the runabrost. Me.

The next one I did not recognize, it was a crown wreathed in flames, but that was the mark of the foe who wanted me dead. I would have to puzzle this mark out, to understand who my real foe was. Last was a single dagger, with a drop hanging from its tip. Assassination by poison, one attempt. I would face no others, for now. But my grip on my hammer tightened rather than loosening. Someone wanted me dead, and it was not those in Ovozyest. This boded ill for me.

I reached to my belt and carefully took out my gloves donning them, but never letting my hammer leave my hands. I had been sent a message, and the gods had protected me against the death this blade had promised. But now, there was only one thing left to do. The symbol for my foe burned like the flames that were part of it into my mind, as I removed the dagger, set it on the floor and struck it with my hammer, which was enchanted to break weapons safely. No shard flew, no other paid a price, yet, for this action. But now the assassins would know their alf had failed. And I was alert to the threat.

When I met the eyes of my companions, they were all filled with worry. Zefdarfan wanted to say something, but I motioned him to silence. I needed to think about this, and deeply. There was no more celebrations that night, as we made the repairs to the balcony and sought a new support for it, and several others. All this and more we did in silence, as we each thought hard on the message I had been sent.

Paths of Damnation 1

Enough was enough. It was bad enough that the Imperatrix had allowed the Insulae to return to the fold after many ages, but to place many of those bigoted fools into places of power within the Empire, even to this distant outpost of her power, was idiocy, plain and simple. And the one she sent to take over here in Amoeni Terrai was a total incompetent. We sat there, at the table, Antonius and I, drinking our wine, and complaining about the new boss, who was nothing like the old one.

At least Urbania had known her limits in relation to her knowledge of the terrain when she came here. The fool from the Hantius gens walked in and told us we did not need to have water delivered to the outposts in the sands, there was water enough there. Even in the wettest years, the gullies in the hard clay badlands below the sandy plateau ran dry over half the year, and the tanks and oasis were dry for the same in dry years. But you cannot convince a Decurius of anything, short of doing it at blade point. The sad part was that the fool we had been sent was also related to my drinking companion, a fact Antonius kept apologizing for, buying bottles of our vintage, and cussing his father's clan.

Galenia Hantia was a moron, to think that we should summon water by spell to a place where even the greatest of mages had never even tried. But nothing we said here would matter. Unless it got back to her, in which case we could expect the worst jobs, the crummiest assignments, and no thanks for doing them. I had a luxury Antonius did not, I was at the end of my current enlistment in the Legion of the Custodians. If I chose, at the end of the season, only days away, I could walk away. Tony had to stay another three turnings of the seasons. Three long years of torture, unless the Hantia took a ride into the deserts with her attitude, and did not come back.

Corvinius, the master of our thousand, rarely sent idiots to the edge of the Grey Desert. That he was doing so this time worried me as to what was the conditions back home. Antonius seemed concerned as well, being from the islands, where the council of elders of the Ten Families ruled now with an iron fist. The same council that was attempting to suborn those who sat in the Forum with their lies and subversion of the freedoms we Numeni so fiercely defend normally.

I poured another goblet of wine for each of us, and smiled at my rival and friend. "I might as well be drunk when I resign. That way Corvinius cannot have an excuse to come gather me back to the fold." I lifted my drink to eye level, staring at Tony across the rim. "To the Imperatrix, long may she live."

While my companion was of the Insualae, his loyalty to the realm was still there. "Indeed. I may not agree with her or her policies, but they are better than the fools trying to remove her have." We drank swiftly, and set the goblets down to relax a bit more. Tony was thinking his way through things still, as in how to deal with what he would be left with.

I broke the silence, not to rub things in, but to keep others from joining us. When we were talking, everyone kept their distance from us for fear of the fight to come, when we drank silently, they came over to find out who had passed on to their next life.

"Well, luckily, Nonia is free too, and out west, at Pelori. I will cross the desert and maybe even ask her to take me to the Matriarch of her clan for approval." That got a startled move and then a laugh.

"Perfidio! Bill, you and Nonia have danced around it long enough, get married, boy. Hell, I have leave still, so I may come just to arrange the parties!" I winced as the bar exploded in cheers of our fellow Custos and those we often guarded of the caravans. I do not remember much more of the night, save that the fight Tony and I had was one of who could out drink who, which explains the memory loss...I hope.

Gods, please don't let Nonia hear about this before I can explain it to her.

I awoke in a damp bedroll in the tent I had pitched outside of town two nights before. The moisture was not rain or a flood, but the sweat of fear. I had hoped the nights of dreams of futures fraught with dangers where over. They were not. The nights dreams had been dark, so ominous I wanted to forget them, but could not.

This was not the first time I had been visited by the dark goddesses who deliver the Fates and Omens. The Parcae, we call them. Furies is what some call them. I tend to curse them as evil bitches who exist solely to ruin my sleep. When these dreams came to me, normally I would seek some priest to tell them to. But we had no member of the temples here in this place at the moment, all being out on rounds to the smaller communities before the fall turned to the season of dust storms.

I gathered myself as best I could and dressed simply, donning the leather pants and wool tunic for one last time. Specula, my saber, I wore in a backsheath today, being in town and not needing to ride anywhere. I donned several other weapons with my clothes, but I will not speak of them. Not that they are unimportant, but someone not so friendly to me may read this someday, and damned if I will tell them where I hide the blade or other tool of death I may need to draw against them.

My mind was still upset over the dreams of the night before, as I exited the tent. And discovered I had not been alone out here on the edge of the desert the night before. There were five tents there now, surrounded by a troop of temple guards, the Triarium, the spearmen of the third rank. Elves of such skill at war that they were recruited by the priesthood to protect the temples of our folk, in all their scattered places. Soldiers of the gods, who protected the priests of the lands they served in. That they had camped near me was not something I was comfortable with, having denied the callings of the gods twice already.

One of them was taller and older than the others. Very old, yet still very vigorous, even for our folk. I knew him, most folks knew of him, but I had met him before. Didius Lorcius. The leader of the Triarium. He smiled and waved at me, approaching carefully as mornings were the time of sunning serpents and scorpions in this place. One warming before sleeping the other warming to hunt the day.

"Ave. Billenius, is it not?" His voice was still firm, no crack of age in it. His hair was white as snow, and unlike most of our kind, he actually had some whiskers on his chin.

"Ave, Triari Didius. Yes, and I remember you well, old warrior." My voice was rough in comparison, not with age or weakness, just the effects of the hangover.

"Yes, and I you and your words to the priests. But last night I had my sleep interrupted by something that tells me the gods again call you to their service. You cannot deny the gods forever, young man. Sooner or later they get what they want. Better you accept their calling, for I have seen those the drag to their service, and the prices they had to pay." It was not a sermon, despite the wording. I could tell by his face and eyes, it was a plea. He had tears in those deep grey eyes.

"Just drinking dreams, last night of service drink off..."

His laugh cut me off. "Oh, those are great nights indeed. The dreams of the vine are indeed to be feared." Then a chill entered his voice. "But young Varus, know this. What I heard last night were the dreams brought by the Parcae. You cannot deny those dreams or what they mean for you forever, Varus. Sooner or later, those goddesses will pull you into their web of weavings."

I laughed, not at his words or sincerity, but the image he had created in my mind of the spiders weaving the Fates for the Parcae to deliver. "I am sure the spiders will have me some day, Didius. But until they capture me, I will stay my own man, and flit about like the flies and bees, tasting of this earth."

I waved to him as I walked off. "But the dreams of last night are sending me west, where I want to go anyhow, Triari, so for now, I must officially tender my resignation from the Custos and gain th freedom to head to the setting sun, and the smoke and fires that filled those dreams."

Behind me I heard the great old warrior hiss in surprise. For two reasons, my doni of foresight is well known among my folk, and so too is the word that I rarely share any of what I see, to prevent others from coming to hate me. I crossed the ashes of many ages of volcanic rains of the gritty materials that covered the desert to the west, and even this distant land with their pall.

It is amazing how courage at the bar evaporates by daylight's blazing heat. Especially under the desert sun of summer. I straightened my tunic before entering the offices of the Custos detachment, trying to find that resolve of the night before. The only thing keeping me going right now was the thought of being there when Nonia finished her time in the western desert detachment.

Inside I could hear the screaming that had come to mark the tenure of Urbania. Who she was tearing into did not matter anymore. It merely was the final log on the pyre of my career here. This is not how you treat folks who lay their lives on the line for others. Maybe the new ones, still learning, but to scream about the state of the uniform of a veteran, well that was intolerable. Henrius had been in the service for longer than she had lived, and was only a line worker by choice. Some of us had long ago called him the real leader of the troop here.

I walked in, and decided to let my last act be one of courage and respect. "Only a fool criticizes one with more experience than she has. And more brains, I might add, Optio Hantia." Where this courage was coming from still eludes me. Years later I thought it over, when asked, and still cannot answer with more than I have a low tolerance for fools.

"Yes, but that experienced rider was drunk when he reported for duty, and now I have no one to bear the messages to the west." Urbania's voice is not one made to soothe a soul. In fact one could say her voice is the grit used in sanding the wood used in furniture, or more appropriately, marble table tops.
Fortuna was smiling upon me, I could do her a favor as I left the service. "I am headed west, where do the messages need to go?" The eyes of cold green met mine, and it did make me realize she may not turn out to be as big a fool as we thought. There was a deep intelligence behind those irises. One I had not thought of the night before when complaining about her.

"Pelori, the capital, Cisburni, you name it." She recognized me at last moment. "Ah, Varus Billenius. You are sure you will not stay on?"

"Sorry, I extended for five years here twice already. there is no reason to hold me for more than thirty years on a twenty year enlistment. You need to find someone else to replace me, and I did bring in six more members for you this spring. I have a life to get on with, and that is not here on the edge of nowhere." My voice was even, and I tried to keep it friendly. Earlier this week she had invoked the extreme measure of preventing discharges of several first term folk. By mentioning the previous extensions, I was reminding her that no one could be forced to serve more than half again their initial enlistment.

Her face showed her distaste, but she knew I would not only fight any extension, but had a connection to the Imperatrix through my family I could use to end the action if needed. "Very well. Which batch will you take?" I was surprised at her lack of a fight. She might survive this place after all.

"Pelori and any messages for the Knights of the Sands. I have to head up that way to visit home and get some things I have there." I took the two saddlebags offered, and stayed a moment longer. Looking around, I saw the real problem, she had brought all her old staff with her, folks from the islands, from the wet western coast, and other places where the problem was too much water, not too little.
"You might want to talk to Loricius. He is out on the edge of town, where I camp. He can explain the water thing to you." The start told me everything. She had just signed the papers on that spell thing.

She'd never read it.

"What water thing?" Her voice was sharp, but she did not look at me, but her staff. I began to wonder if they were hers, or rejects shuffled off with her. There was hope, if Loricius could set her straight.
I walked out of the yelling match that erupted moments later with a smile, looking up at the noon sun, then off the to distant west. Unlike my dreams, it was not filled with smoke, fire and death. It rang of hope and Nonia.

As I wandered around town that day, settling my debts, and gathering supplies, I had that awful feeling between my shoulder blades, the one I have learned to never ignore. It made bartering and trading difficult, as I tried to both catch sight of my stalker, and yet not let this person know I was aware of being watched. This much I can say, the merchants knew I was distracted, and took advantage of the situation somewhat. To say my purse and pouch of gems was lighter than it should have been was an understatement. I really needed to have a talk with this person, they had cost me at least three sapphires, and a dozen topazes, not to mention the garnets when I almost picked him or her out to the crowd.

It was at the stables, as I gathered in Turbator for a quick loosen up ride that I realized there was more than one watching me. As we rode out for the short ride after the normal argument over being saddled, I tagged one, a fellow member of my race. One from the islands to the west, by his clothing, which was not suited to the desert.

One bearing more weapons than needed when walking in a town. There was an arrogance in his stride, as he walked to the stables. I knew what was to come. A challenge, in the old, very formal style. I rode off slowly, letting my mount stretch muscles rarely used the last hebdoma. It was good for him, and let me think over how to deal with him. I had Specula with me, and that was all, not even a knife. I was not sure an enchanted blade would be accepted by him, in fact, I was willing to lay coins on that. His folk felt only pure unenchanted chablys was acceptable in a duel. But I would trust no blade brought by one from the islands.

I made one decision fast, and headed leisurely to the west of town, where there was a broad bench just feet above the river that would give us good footing for the fight to come. He took up a distant following pattern, so I waited until we were at least one mil from the buildings before letting my mount try his paces. Turbator sensed we were going to a fight, and seemed to have the same place in his limited mind. The race like pace he took up was beyond belief, and the cloud of dust we left behind was an ugly arrow to the west.

He slowed as we came to the spot we had both chosen somehow. He paced around the broad stretch of flood deposited silts and sands, stirring up the dust still, pawing the ground even before the other stallion arrived. I waited until he calmed a bit before dismounting. Once on the ground I stepped away quickly, to avoid catching a hoof, but for a change my six-legged friend seemed to be content with just nipping at my sleeve.

He knew, as well as I did, that we both needed to be fit for combat. Somehow, this beast from a distant place of grasses also sensed we were leaving the lands of sage and ash. I was still amazed at the doni that had given me the ability to make friends and understand beings others called beasts. I could sense their thoughts, and contrary to the claims of many, they did have them. Right now, Turbator was thinking of chasing off a stallion, to show who was dominant.

I could feel the rider and his determination as he came up to us, even with my back turned. My donum were flaring up again, and after so long of only having the sense of danger or occasional hints of things to come, it was disconcerting. Once the flamens had sought me, as the Triari had said, for those gifts from the gods, but I had denied them. Yet the gods can be patient, to a point. I began to wonder if there would be a day they would gather me into their fold, whether I willed it or not.
The sound of two feet landing heavily on the ground brought me out of the dreaming I had walked the edge of for that moment. Reality was intruding, and the gods and their plots would have to wait and see if I could walk away from this place to do their bidding.

"Quintas Billenius Varus, you have been marked for death by the Allegiance of the Blades. As a member in good standing, I have taken coin and weapon to slay you. But as you are of the blood of the ancient lineages, I grant you the honor of dancing with me in the old formulas." Somehow I knew he would have a voice others would call angelic, not knowing what he was inside.

With a simple turn, I drew Specula from her sheath, letting the light she was imbued with flare out for the moment. "There is no honor in taking coin to kill others of our kind. In fact, it was forbidden by the gods ages ago, in the earliest of days you claim to be here to represent, fool." My voice was low, and had that edge it too oft did in such times. But in the end, all that mattered was not the appearance or perceptions of others, but who stood for right and who committed wrongs.

"You and those of the plains left honor behind when you left the islands, servus. Now, be a good boy, and die like the dog you are." His blade came out, stained red with an iron based poison. The merest touch of that blade on me, even some of the stuff dropping on my skin would be deadly, I was sure.

"Poison? This is your honor?" My taunt struck a chord in his anima, one he seemed surprised to still have.

"I am an assassin, stultus, what did you expect of me? Dueling swords and seconds?" His blade still dipped to the ground, offering quarter.

I smiled and saluted him with my acinias. "No, you are all I thought would come for me. As is your second out there in the sage watching us. Signal him to back off, and stay out of this. His kind is not ours, and this is not about the money, is it?"

One thing I have learned over the years is that the eyes often speak even with the rest of a person are still as stone. Pupils constricted, then opened in the response of fear. He had not known he was followed, nor could he think who was out there, waiting for this fight to be over. And now he would not be able to stop thinking of that one.

I let my inner eye open for the slightest of moments, sensing the flows of life forces around the me. There was a smoldering pile of ashen color out there, with only hints of the fires of life in it. It was not the dying fires of the undead, nor was it the smolder of one of the living who is dead inside. It was one who tried to bend the stuff of shadows around himself, with a skill that was remarkable, but still nothing compared to artistry of my old friend Umbradinor's. This one was still learning the path of crafting shadows, young, unskilled, yet showing promise. I knew this one, I was sure.

In my musings, I was vulnerable, and the fool made his first attack. My saber is fast luckily, and with a flick of my arm, the first clash of chablys on his bronze blade. From this moment, all was the battle, none on other things. I laid my mind upon this foe, and watched everything he did, noting the slightest of clues, the tension of muscles I could see under his skin, the way he shifted his weight to a side, forward or back, all was important.

The dance began in earnest, as we began a slow circling series of feints, attacks, blocks and movements. With each move, one of us stepped closer to death, the other to life, and for the first few fingers of sand dropping from the upper to lower ends of the horus, neither of us was sure who was moving which direction. Then the moment came, he launched a series of attacks that were part of the standard saber dance, predictable to a point I blocked them without thinking of the blocks, but turned my eyes to the step he would take next or beyond.

In the saber dances of the islands, the aggressor always wins, but in reality, it is the person who realizes a fight is not a dance who wins. Specula touched him gently several times as I used her tip to test his mindset and skill, and found both lacking. How the assassins had allowed such a fool into their midst, I could not know, and probably never would. One thing was for sure, this fight was not one I had sought, nor desired.

Turbator had declared his own war, as we had danced, with the huffing and screams only the equines can make, be they horse, mule or onager. The other stallion was younger, and took the challenge eagerly. Hooves and teeth were clashing at the river side, as we danced, two battles of one single war. I tried not to let more than where their fight was at, it being far more mobile than ours, as it raged along the length of the bench. If that battle crashed into ours, all sorts of new problems would erupt.

My nameless foe, which was strange given his attitude to the traditional style of dueling, had yet to touch me once with his blade, but now wore the green badge of combat in seven separate spots now on his body. None were deep, nor did any slow him a bit, but I had the touches, and now we both knew he was not as skilled with the blade as I was. My acinias danced in and out of his defenses as lightning would in the clouds of a storm. This was not part of the enchantments cast upon that chablys. It was all training, determination to live, and way too much experience in real world fighting.

At last he managed to turn away from the formula of the island dance, and tried to lock blades between us, but years in the saddle and working in the fields beside those I protected had given me greater strength than his years of impractical forms had done for him by practice. With a simple push off, I ended the match, as the edge of his blade dug into his face. I gave him his spin at the end, like in the saber dance. Despite his sudden knowledge of being dead, he still tried to block it. Specula shattered his saber, and I winced as he at last drew blood with a sliver of bronze that broke the skin of my forearm.

Behind me, the younger onager fled at last, but Turbator stood his ground neighing loudly in triumph, not pursuing the vanquished. Which was good for a change. I felt the first throbs of the poison of iron in my arm, thinking I should bandage it, when a strong arm took my good one.

"Augur, you make it very difficult to protect you." Didius voice, not angry, but not happy.

Nor was I happy with what the treatment for the poison was. Leave it to say, it is not very palatable, nor were the after effects anything I would care to share. Also, I hate tourniquets with a passion, they make your fingers numb for days later.

Billenius's Tale - Journey to Freedom chap 10 draft 9 (was planning this as the start of Seas of Treachery).

Dusk fell over the rain-washed city, and with its arrival my vision improved. Others see either poorly or not at all by night. For me, night brings clarity to my rainbow-hued world. A soft rain interfered with my aura vision, but not as badly as the sun, with its over-whelming warmth. Often I wonder if the myths of the necromantic creatures being of my kin come from so many of us being so gifted or cursed. This was the true test of my control. Pelori many hebdoma behind us now, still was more a large town in size, not a city.

Aiming my empty sockets over the city, I saw the truths of the place with my third eye. Like a wax painting left too close to a fire, the precipitation blurred the once clear auras into mingled shapes and colors, both pleasing and revolting. Much like the people, places, and events they come from. They changed as the weeping sky moved its own veils between me and the world. So like the sun's, yet softer across the intervening distance, its folds and ripples changing ever as the moments pass.

My inner gaze found a cold flame on that canvas of light, so bright that it shone clear even through the rain. Large and silver, at least as I remember silver being before losing my orbs. It crackled, even over the distance, to my inner ear, the one that sometimes hears what others never notice. That blaze represented the reason for our journey to this place. That is how I see the life-force of the Grey-Claw-of-the-Night-Sky, Umbradinor, my old friend who perhaps would protect me from the Centurions, or not.

The start of our friendship dated to our younger days, in the Upper Lands of the North. We had met by chance, I seeking bandits who had stolen children, he hunting alone for the first time since his hatching. In joining up to fight those criminals, a friendship formed. But that is another story.

Over the years, I usually spent my first night without the city, sitting in my tent observing the place and its ways, for such oft change in small ways, and I had no wish to be seen as a total stranger in this land of taboos and mysteries. We agreed to this method and place many a decade ago, with the resident seeking the visitor once our informants were contacted. Our most common guises those of merchants, pilgrims or traveling soothsayers. Its easy for one with a true gift to play the latter, so some of our group acted as barkers, calling out my presence and skills. Actually, it was just Ringelius, who was having entirely too much fun and exaggerating my skills greatly. I could not detect

Here in the realms of the Homani, we Numeni stood out like the roses in the weed patches. Only amid others of our kind could a Centurion hide, and even that would be difficult for them. Those who traveled outside our lands rarely were the bigots who would welcome their kind. Cethegor and Didius were sure we had at least two centurions of the Centuria Sinistra still with us. Despite the changes in personnel that Norbanus had made in Pelori. That calagaria was still stalking about, watching me as well. My blood and companions admitted they had no clues as to her leanings. Furius, though, was still agitated about the foul magical workings we had found made of his father's remains. Ringelius was busy keeping the boy on a short leash, as the saying goes, while drumming up some business.

As the leader of the Triarium, Sextus Didius Lorcius held the respect of all our kind, his name linked to integrity and honor, at least until the last few years. Using that reputation, and the bargaining powers of Norbanus, he had been able to talk a wealthy merchant off this spot today How much of that talk would be costing my own coin pouch, I was sure to soon find out. Norbanus has the anima of an accountant, he missed his true calling in life. He would have taken any campsite, not knowing the importance of this one to contacting Umbradinor. Yet, despite my own follies in Pelori, they had gotten me here alive. For that I could not fault them.

I was still not sure Umbradinor would help. The Decuria's arms were long and often hidden in places one did not anticipate. Our meetings here were well known to happen, even if they had been clandestine. For the moment, all I could do was hope the others were right. The part of me my goddesses use did not seem to agree.

Contact came quick and unexpectedly. No sooner than our encampment had been drawn and setup begun, than a voice I knew but shall not name spoke to us from nearby. “Be wary, travelers. It is said that that field is over run with lizards by night.” The message was one used only once before. Rather than wait for daylight, we would have our visitor soon.

One wave of storms passed and another approached. His aura did not reside in its normal spot, on the east side of the community, nor in his bolt hole to the north. No, he lodged in the center of the city, near the Sultan's palace. I could not determine if it was in the dungeons, or in the Emir's quarters, for both were close there. When the glow that marked my friend moved, which led to an understanding of the change.

Many more auras still, some of a similar nature, but less sharp, others like those of the Elemental Spirits. Children, obviously, as Soludrin had intimated back up on our rock seat. I had forgotten that. Despite the building headache from using my third eye, I stared at those flames. They were already distinct from their sire, in color at least. One tinged with the black of the grandsire, three others had brilliance of mage-born in azures, golds and reds. The last made of sickly yellows of early death. Whether Grey Claw knew this or not, I would need to speak with him to ascertain. I hoped he knew, for bearing bad news would weaken my position further. My gift of precognition was known to him, so perhaps he hoped to gain more knowledge of the child's destiny by speaking with me.

I pulled out the five carbuncle stones Soludrin had given me, as gifts for the children. Ringelius had spent a short time as we waited out the race looking over the stones. Searching my memory, his descriptions rose back to mind. All had the colors of the children's auras. A deep star sapphire, the wild flame ruby, two diamonds, one with inclusions of gold, the other pitch black and a topaz of rich amber gold. On Ringelius suggestion, I had kept them wrapped separately since the pass, to let their resonances remain individual.

Curtains of rain closed in again, blurring then hiding the auras of the children from me. Was that dance of the rain a sign? Good omen or bad? I was disturbed by the change from the normal of the past saeculus. The sense that something was out of sorts stayed with me. I could only wait until Umbradinor could arrive.

To ease my pain I asked for tea while concentrating on closing the sight I saw by down to shorter distances. The hand of my nepo set the cup and some other herbs to my hand as I tuned out the world around me., I thought long over what to say. Should I assume he knew not of the sickly child, or wait for him to breach it? The scales in my mind teetered on the fulcrum of conscience, leaving me worried and confused. During my waiting, Furius left, as now two entered. Smell alone spoke of the taint of wet metal and leather told me that two warriors had come in. One had to be Ringelius, but that left me wondering who held the leash of young relative outside.

At length, murmurs from without, and the opening of the flap of my tent raised. The boy spoke in a soft voice, one suited to my acute ears, which his time with me taught him the moderation of.

"Master, there is a Domorushtuun outside, dusky skinned, with gray hair and deep black eyes. He seems to be of middle years for such, but he feels both older and younger than such to me. He has the powerful build of a younger man of the Northern Foothills region, perhaps of the city states of Alogasna or Threndu." The rustle of the entry flap in his hands was loud to me, but those with sight are less attuned to sound then we who tread the path of darkness. I was impressed by his attention to details, making sure those waiting inside new the man to enter. That was the guidance or Didius, Cethegor or Norbanus in the ways of preparations.

I pitched my voice to carry out to the men with my friend "Yes, Furius, show in the man. I will read his fate, and cast the auguries for his children as he desires. But only he may enter, if others invade the sanctity of the tent the readings will be skewed. Those as bear steel or iron they must back off further." I caught that distinctly draconic snort that only a lizard, no matter his form, can make. Grey Claw still retained his sense of humor, I noted.

"Stand off, soldiers! You wear iron, which causes harm his kindred. Since those are the metals by which his power is blocked, his reading for my children will be imperfect . Ten steps is all I ask. Surely the Vizier will understand the need of my having a good augury?" His foot steps without were erratic, powerful but still unguided to any who would not know of his heritage.

The voice was still the rough and rumbling bass that marks him to my ears, It rang with his amusement over his escort's dutiful attitudes. Amusement was a good thing, as one in our party, sitting next to me would not make his trip here enjoyable. The rustling of steel garments tells me that he is obeyed. The interest of the Vizier is troubling for I have never had good relations with those who hold that office. Professional rivalries and the like, the constant bane of the mage, no matter the school or power. Needless to say, I had low opinions about the previous holders of that office, but more over reasons of competence than of style and silly racial prejudices.

The flap opened again, and Umbradinor entered the shelter. As the canvas dropped, my guest settled down across the brazier from me. I offered some tea, herbal of course, and he accepted. We drank for a few minutes in silence, before beginning. I could smell the incense from the burners outside, wafting along on the gentle breezes, as my nephew lit them. The cloves would irritate many, while the green-berry poison would overwhelm the lesser kindred who came too close for our purposes. I deemed from the departure from normal, the initiative must be mine.

"You have more problems, my friend, since my last trip south. At least five of them very new." My voice was low pitched, but the murmur of it would carry to without the tent, allowing the guards some knowledge of their charge's safety.

The snort again, this time strained. He knew, and needed my help as much as I needed his. "I would have sent for you moons ago, my friend, if I thought those fools would let you leave." Somehow, the lizard made his sip sound more like the lapping of a tongue. "How didst thou leaveth the chains of thy captors behind thee?"

"We overthrew the Decemviri.” It was a joke, but it got no laugh. “We tried, at least. I cannot say if we will succeed my friend. The Imperatrix is safe in the hills, or so Cethegor assures me." I took a sip of my tea. A gasp and sputter told me I had struck at an inopportune moment with that comment. Whether it was the concept of my folk in a civil war, or that Cethegor was here, I could not tell.

This pause was shorter. Tidings and rumor ran before me, obviously. "Surprising, that he would take up with thou, after thy last adventure amid the Northern Wastes." Those words stirred the memory of pain in my ribs again. Reminding me of the mistakes I had made over the years.

"Others as well. Norbanus, Didius." Still I sipped calmly, sensing easily the agitation within the one across from me.

The rattle of the copper tea kettle coming off the brazier rack told me he was thinking. Umbradinor was silent only when deep in thought. Water sloshing over the tea holder in his cup was loud, something he normally was silent in doing. My friend was not reassured by my companions. Several sips of tea later, he spoke at last. "Given thy past travels with Lorcius, and the troubles thou encountered, is this wise?"

"Wisdom? Trust me, the wise flee us now." Subtle hints, dancing around the subject of the aura behind me. This time it was a sniff not a snort, one that turned into a very reptilian hiss. The rustle of cloth marked his looking about to find the source of the scent.

The snort he gave told me Grey Claw had a differing opinion of Ringelius' return. “Varamus, Thou hath lost thy mind. That one be not thy ally.” His further slide to the formal speech and use of my family name in the archaic form was a sign of his own agitation.

Despite our long friendship, the bonds of blood are stronger. This stirred an old anger for me. “No, he is not my ally. He is off my kinfolk. I still honor those bonds, even if some of my blood would prefer he had never been born.”

"Listen to thyself, Varamus. Thou forgets that a seer is oft forbidden by those who rule his Fate to see his own end. Thou shalt charge blindly..." His voice trailed off, in regret. Regret of choice of words, regret he had not arrived until that long ago battle was for all purposes over.

I could not leave that lie to fester. "Yes, old friend. Blind men walk where others fear, for we cannot see the perils. But you forget one thing. I know the dangers I face. And I know who chases me. Trust me to try and stay free, and loose no more pieces of myself." My voice was strident, even to my ears. To ease his guards worries, I barked loudly as if bargaining a price. "One hundred dinar! No less can I accept lest the Parcae reject the offering!"

"Thief! But we should not argue for a reading. Very well." Grey Claw knows me far too well, as he spoke softer. "You hope to use his lack of a Fate to break the hold of your Decuria upon you."

Sometimes, one could wish that one's friends were less insightful. "I say I have already. All I wish for now, my friend, is to keep my freedom from those who poisoned me with ferric toxins to keep me weak and compliant to their will."

I let the words sit, and reached out to where the teapot should have been, only to find my cup being taken, and hand gently pushed back. "Let me, Varamus. I do not wish to bandage any more burns on you. Ever, my friend." Behind him, the tent flap lifted as Ringelius and Didius left us, to speak our minds freely.

We each held our cups, waiting for the anger to pass. Sometimes a friend will stir the fires of a passion too much, pushing limits of politeness to their breaking point. The saecula had taught us to use such times to cool those flames within. Surprisingly, Umbradinor spoke first.

"What thou canst perceive, others might catch glimpses of. Yes, thou will attempt to avoid trouble, that I can tell. But Ringelius, Varamus, be trouble incarnate. Casteth thy mind back to our youth."

I laughed, not out of contempt, but joy at some of those memories. "Indeed, he is trouble. Trouble the Decuria, knowing now that he lives, will be wary of. Trouble that walks with me, not into me. Trouble that slayed the Cato. And that blind spot seers have for him has a tendency to mask those around him. You remember the pranks of our shared youth?" This was a touchy subject, for those pranks had more oft gained us all trouble, yet I had to try.

"The Cato's death was his work?" Grey Claw was shocked.

"Yes, and perhaps you are right, lizard. But it could be I am as well. Know this, there is nothing I can foresee about my cousin. Nor can any others. He is fateless." I sighed, and waited. As we both thought on this, something from a corner of my mind came out and danced on the main stage of my brain to my tongue. "He is without a Fate, but that hammer he bears is not. It is destined to be held by a Tsar who starts a new dynasty amongst the Karleekie, Grey Claw."

Short silence, followed by the lizard's own thoughts. "Yes, indeed, but in his hands it becomes invisible to seers. Trust me on that, my sire has long tried to see that hammer, to know which of the stunted ones will slay his old foe with it." His chest rumbled loudly to me, but probably imperceptibly to others, as if he were using that draconic purr to think. Yes, a draconi do have a kind of purr, much like felines.

"Yet I have felt the effects of the Buran Malyot. Not just once, but several times of late. I foresaw the coming of it in a dream in Jugusium, just before he arrived. " I rarely will push back against the Grey Claw of Shadows, for while I am a seer, he is a student of prophecies, and has read many more than I in his own, and his father's, quests for knowledge of what is to come.

"Speaking of thy gift, Varamus, I must ask you to actually use your skills." He shifted uneasily. Draconi had their own seers, but if none would answer him a question, then turning to me meant desperation.

"I will do what I can, but your kind has defenses against precognitions in your blood." Telling this to a priest of the Draconi goddess of shadows was no revelation, not even a reminder. Just a reflexive speech I spoke to any seeking to know their future.

"Do thy best, Varamus. We knoweth the boundaries set forth by the gods." Fatal acceptance in one or a species known more for its arrogance is frightening, I discovered in those words.

"Speak the problem as thou perceive it, Umbradinor. Perhaps I shalt seeth the answer, if that might make thee feel better." He had me talking that way as well. Too much formality was overwhelming me.

The long silence had me wondering if he wished no part of a reading of fates and auras. Two cups of tea later, at last he had composed his thoughts and words for the moment. "Eight claws of winters back, I met a woman here. One skilled in magics, especially those of the Five Elements of All." I leaned back, realizing this was part letting a friend get caught up on his life not stalling in his request. 

"Never did I realize that one could feeleth so for one not of mine species. Aisha is very gifted, strong, and of a heritage that can bear young by me. Laugh naught at me and mine folly, wingless child of the sky, for thy kind oft falls for humans as well." He paused to sip a fresh cup of tea. "It was 'til I realized she loved me as well that I found how matched we were. She is not just a mistress of the Elements, but part of them. Jann. Burning Stream clan."

The least of the genies, mixed blood among those how were born of the leftovers from the creation of the world. Jann were long-lived, powerful mages by any standard who were linked by their blood to the magics they craft. While hated in other lands, in Rahab they were the nobles of the land, each title earned and kept in clan hands by service to the sultan. Those of the Burning Stream were water and fire specialists, with a touch of the void in there with earth and air. A powerful and rich clan.

The clan of the current Vizier who advised the Sultan.

"When I found that out, we got married in the ways of her clan. Soon after she became pregnant, in the manner of her kind not mine. The first birth was difficult, but each became easier she said, as did the midwives. But the youngest boy, he is either exploding energy or lethargic." He broke off then. I let it rest for several sips.

"Is he sickly otherwise? I ask not to offer help, but to discern which child you mean, for I see two that you may have called me for." As I spoke, I set down my cup, leaving off filling it.

He choked, spraying his tea into the fire. It sizzled in tune with his laughter. He was obviously clueless as to his child’s problem. "Nay, only the youngest is a problem. The other children are fine. The babe is oft languid, then goes long periods as if containing boundless energy. Mine eldest is merely a scholarly child, as her mother..." His voice started out solid, but as he spoke unsure tremors entered it, for the seeds of doubt had been sown.

"A girl, the eldest and scholarly. Interesting, considering her father's fire for adventure." But a worry to me, something nagged the back of the mind.

"Look, damn thee. Look into her fires, and his. Seeketh an answer that shalt let mine mate and I keep mine heirs." Pain rode the air and roiled in his aura so much the waves pressed

"Come to my side of the fire, please. I will need to look again and your flames..."

"Since when can you see that far?" Disbelief tinged his voice.

"Apparently poisons are good for something. I had to fight so much to see, my ability once free of the toxins is greater than before." This was not a new pride or my old arrogance. It was the simple truth I was still trying to deal with myself.

"Truly?" Still the doubt ruled the Grey Claw of Shadow's voice. " 'Tis over a league from here to there."

Something of my body language must have shown him my concentration to raise up the power again, as much as I could in this place. Softly, I asked my guards to shift aside for my viewing. Umbradinor moved to the side, out of the way, but still not beside me. It would have to do.

I opened my third eye, turning my vision again to his children's auras searching for the things I had missed the first time. It took all my focus to see that far with my inner eye, as I looked deeper and saw the separate ages and powers. The smallest flame was the truly sickly one, the bookishness had hidden the ill from the parents, but it sat there, slowly killing the child, and it had gotten me confused. Worse, their age before was not apparent, the youngest was not ill, merely coping as poorly as the untutored do. I searched my for the words to ease my companion's sorrows to come, and found but a poor choice to use. I sensed the moments slipping and the growing anxiety across the table.

"Your eldest is the truly ill, it looks as if she has some ailment similar to bone-eater. She bears up yet, thinking it to be growing pains, as her sibs have now, but it is not, and in her heart she knows this. It has turned beyond just physical pain, gnawing at her psyche, devouring her self-esteem. Seek the priests of Varew for her, and soon, for her light still echoes in the future."

"And the youngster?" The pain in his voice hurt me, even second hand. He had so been sure, but to have his judgment prove wrong even the once was terrible to him. His pride, as that of all his kind, was immense. Now to give him hope for the other.

"He bears the blood of thy ancestors. In him, the blood of Tragrilom the black, your great-grandsire returns to the Realm. You will be busy keeping up with him." I kept my voice reassuring as I could.

"Is Japi beyond the healers? She is my mate's favorite, to lose her would sorely hurt the woman, perhaps beyond repair of her soul. You are sure I do not need healers of my kind? She shares my blood, so perhaps they would have better skills at the healing?" Only a parent's voice can carry all the hopes and fears, wound into a few brief seconds, and convey them to others so well.

I knew what he asked of me. What the Decuria had wrung from me by drugs and torture. It was something I had only toyed with at times early on. I am at best an untrained seer, one upon whom the gods had hung the mantle and powers after my own folly and failure to understand the limits of my donum. Can any deny a friend what they ask? The warnings and guidance of the gods, those I bear, as best I can. But to seek the future willingly, read the weavings in the tapestry of lives that is the Ars of the Parcae, is not something pleasant. What I wished had no relevance, this was one of many debts I had to pay.

I focused again upon the auras, casting my other vision, the one that saw futures, upon the child in question. Even without eyes, my face contorted into a painful squint, old habits being hard to break. The thread of light that is her future appeared more distinctly, no longer hidden by the then and there, but clear, almost sharp for such perception. But it eluded me.

"She will survive, but pain will be with her for a long while. There is time for the summoning of aid, but not much. As to its source, I..." There is a wash of Power that fills one when the gods speak The powers that guide destiny now speak through me, against my will, but with less than normal vagueness. "Dangers shalt bind thy bookend children. Seek thy father's ally and rival, Bahai-aha-muith, he and the rider of the ass shalt be thy youngest offspring's salvation. But know this now, in saving him, thou shalt lose her, as she finds her true form and destiny."

The hands of the Parcae ebb away, leaving me drained of all but the power to breathe. I felt the fear I had sealed my own doom. Eventually it passed, as the sense of my life stretched ahead of me again. I had not fatally trespassed the gods‘ domain of knowledge.

Yet.

Umbradinor is very familiar with my reactions to a prophecy. His hand held my shoulder gently, supporting me. He waited to speak, holding back his own reaction, until he was sure I would not collapse.

“So Ramali is in danger then. But the threat to Japi be dire? This is no choice, Varamus. This is madness. How can I save both children?” He stirred uneasily. “I am sorry, but this is not the lot any father chooses, to have to decide which child to save, and which to allow to die.”

Time passed, enough for us both to make some decisions. My plans become more solid, as more of the fogs stripped away from the future ahead of me. Those trails shown that took the sea route were less fraught with the shadows of dangers. The ways that touched the lands of Domorushtuu across the sea were dark, I could sense no path at all there. To take the paths of the Grey Desert held more dangers. In my mind a maelstrom of fire, lightning and dust sat there.

I would travel by water, if I could convince Umbradinor to let me. As the girl needed help, and I was headed that way, perhaps?

“I must head east. She can come with us, if need be. By what path I for now cannot see, other than water. Something must occur here first. And in it I see grave danger. You must take precautions, lizard.” At last I sipped the now cold tea, savoring the mints and tangs of the mix. “I looked to the north and south of the Zharnik’s waves, my friend, to the south lies a darkness I cannot penetrate. To the north, well, lets say some new and one old enemy seems to prey upon that path. Not to mention that the sands themselves seemed disturbed, but whether it was normal or other, I could not perceived.”

The Grey Claw of the Shadows pondered these words for a bit. "I shall indeed take precautions. As shall you, old friend. I suggest you take a few days here and arrange transport by ship to the lands held by the bastards of my kind. That is the safest, for the dusts you saw was the madness season come again upon the Lodriken. The Desert of the Shifting Gray Sands is not a safe place, for elf, dragon or any other. Besides, to leave abruptly may call attention to yourself unduly.?" His words asked for more information.

"Perceptive as always, Lizard. But time is of the essence, so the attention drawn by my haste will be nothing compared to the harm the Decemviri could cause back home, or even elsewhere should our land fall.” That was a threat he would understand, for those from the Insulae viewed his species as a nuisance to be tolerated only until they could be exterminated. “Name me a captain with guile and courage, and I shall have Norbanus or Furius make terms with him."

"Yevziva Baladivna and her crew are in port now, and headed towards their ancient homelands.” He said this slowly. Fear for his children still deep in him.

"Another old friend. Now I share your discomfort, this smells of the Parcae, or worse."

He laughed, heartily. "Nay, thy family and I be not in collusion. Tonight is the first contact I have had with those who travel with thou in over two claws of years."

He sighed. "Varamus, you and he together, I trust. But you are asking me to put my daughter, who is just coming of that troublesome age for girls, where they seek some male to bond to..."

An age old dilemma, one only fathers ever faced. He had known in his heart that the girl would soon need to move on, to grow up and leave the nest. But not with anyone with the reputation for disasters in relationships. I could do little to settle that doubt of his. I decided to settle some things now.

"You spoke of meeting the family. Over a meal by chance?"

A snort is all the answer I got. Umbradinor shifted his weight forward, and that aura his kind radiates, that had spurred Gerrae to that great run just three hebdoma before pressed upon my nerves. "You are set upon this course? Can I not turn you aside? For I know as do you, that Ringelius' ambience is a two edged sword, one that can cut its wielder as well as its victim. I recall numerous times when his antics ruined our well-laid plans, to our chagrin. Think hard, and heed me, for I have a bad feel of this."

I sighed. "I am set in my course now, and besides, I need the excitement." I gambled with those words, praying to Fortuna and Befana for their mercy and some luck.

Umbradinor did not speak for a few fingers of falling sand. "Perhaps it is time you met Aisha, and the children.” When he makes a decision, you go with it, or prepare for a lengthy argument. “Come. Yes, you shall sit at our table tonight. For a change we may leave the fugues and double talk we must use out here in the open aside."

Long ago I took up a way of abstinence, which my friend knew of, but something else was at work here. Besides, matertera had said I should eat outside the kalend. I thought long on what all we had spoken of meant, then gave up. Not all could be known to a mind locked in the present. My dietary restrictions of late caused many problems.

Besides, I had a feeling that the Grey Claw intended to make stuffed peppers, a great weakness of mine, and a culinary achievement of his. Some things are not meant to be passed up. No matter the price in coin or indigestion.

　

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.