Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 11 – The Kings of Satar

Note: As I have said, I've had some other storylines running through my head to mostly keep me interested, but also add some depth to this tale. I guess I got to thinking, "Do I care if Salama destroys this world?" What worried me then was if I have to ask this of myself, then surely my reader would also. I guess in part this is to create a vision of normalcy, of not wanting things lost. Also, I think it breaks up some of the Oan/Nestor tale. I do worry that my scope has grown too large to finish by the end of the tracks. But we'll see what happens.


Disc 1
Track 11: Cunfusion – The Zutons

“Why can’t this feelin’ leave me… just fade away?”

Ewam Perde shifted in his throne moving his chin from his right palm to his left leaning forward with his elbows on the marble armrests. Union Hall was empty save for his brother, his wife and their daughter at the other end near the two huge wooden doors. Ewam watched them. There was Eden, dressed in a silk blue shirt and brown pants that gave way to long leather boots. His hair was a bright red, his skin pale, his face wide and clean-shaven. He was every bit the copy of Ewam, except that Ewam rarely was so well groomed. Kendra, Eden’s wife, was slim and tall. Her hair was golden, her gown was flowing and speckled with flowers of every color. Even from the distance, she was breathtaking. Ewam had to look away. Her beauty was the bane of the aging bachelor.

Eden was bent over examining his daughter, Evandra, a girl named after the brothers’ mother. She resembled both Eden and Ewam, her hair a dark red, her features thick, strong, but not fat. She had a laugh that cheered the most somber room and a heart as big as Old Moon’s face. Ewam loved his niece dearly, but he seldom allowed himself to gawk anymore at her then he did her mother. There was pain there where there should not be. Wistful thoughts tended to follow and delivering the sharp thrust that nothing in the past could be changed.

From across the hall, the words of the family doting over the apparently ill girl came to him in fading echoes. It was unusual for Union Hall, the royal palace of Satar, to be so quiet. Usually servants and dignitaries and every manner of person would fill the room to have audience with the Kings. Eden and Ewam were the Kings of Satar, the kingdom that housed the heirs of the old kingdoms of Isa and Besa.

Never before had Satur had two kings. The duality of the throne worried the citizens. They took it as a sign. The kingdom had been under the rule of one king since the chaos that followed Tarek Grandar’s defeat of Salama and the pouring forth of the waters of the Belnor. The great river had flooded most of Besa. The inhabitants had fled to Isa bending the tenuous truce between the two kingdoms till it broke. A war made up of nearly a dozen different factions broke out and lasted nearly 50 years till the Perde family restored peace and formed a new kingdom named Satar.

Since then, one king had ruled Satar and peace had allowed the kingdom to grow and prosper beyond any other in the world. Then Ewam and Eden were born. Twins and mixed to the point that no one knew for sure who had come first. Their father, Eltor, declared before his death that both should rule and that was the decree that the two brothers followed. The partnership had eased the burden of rule some, but disagreements led to the occasional rift between the two brothers.

Through it all, they remained closer than friends. The two spoke their own language that they formed when they were infants. They understood each other’s minds. They were patient, yet assertive with one another. It was a bond that Ewam treasured above all else. So he avoided contact with Kendra and tried not think too much about Evandra. It was a daunting task to say the least, but the pressures and worries of the kingdom usually provided enough distraction.

Now, there was this business of Eleanor, the twin’s younger sister. Where had the fool girl gone? For her to leave in the middle of the night without a word of warning or a note saying goodbye was not her style. She was flighty, but not so much so. She would have made some grand gesture to draw attention to herself. She had always envied the power her brothers wielded, and anyway to divert some of that authority or attention to herself was her style. But she hadn’t done that. She had left, taking nothing, not even a change clothes. There also was no sign that anyone had taken her. The twins had plenty of enemies, but none bold enough to make such a move. Where was the fool girl?

And there were others? Eleanor was not the only one missing. Everyone from high ladies to cook’s assistants were disappearing by the day. Farmers from outside the city were stopping by the palace at all hours with news that their wives and daughters were gone. Ewam was baffled by all of it. Of course, women had always sort of baffled him. His gaze went back to Kendra for only a moment. She was feeling her daughter’s forehead. Something is wrong, fever perhaps. Hopefully nothing serious, he could not stand to see the girl go through a terrible illness. Disease was always a risk for the young ones. Perhaps he should go over and see for himself. He let the thought go seeing his brother straighten up after giving the girl a hug. Eden was sending them away. His brother embraced his wife once, gave her a kiss and turned toward Ewam. From behind, Ewam saw Kendra take one quick look at him up on the throne before whisking her daughter away.

Eden composed himself in an instant. Ewam never doubted that it was Eden that had been born first and that he was the brother meant to sit upon the throne of Satar. The signs were in his long, confidant strides. The way he held his shoulders back and kept his face forward. The man exuded strength without trying. For Ewam, everything was difficult from keeping his beard short to standing up straight. He was a man designed to slouch in a tavern not tower from a throne. He genuinely wished his father had chose Eden as king so that he could have left Satar on his whim and returned only if need be.

Eden sat, slowly, properly, into the throne to Ewam’s right. The man kept both feet upon the marble floor and his back straight. Ewam did not know how he the man kept so cool under such pressure. They were twins, but they each had their secrets. Eden’s self control was his.

“Is Evandra ill?” Ewam asked.

Eden stiffly turned his head, a frown momentarily breaking his ruling façade. Ewam worried that his brother kept too many of emotions hidden behind his eyes.

“For three nights she has complained of nightmares,” Eden stopped not sure if he should continue.

“She’s getting a little too old for that,” Ewam regretted the words as they came out.

“I don’t think any of us grow out of bad dreams, brother.” The frown was now more of a scowl.

Eden stared out across Union Hall, taking in the high-arched ceiling, the dozens of smooth stone columns, the gold trim between the marble tiles. All the majesty that made Union Hall one of the most awing places in the world.

“I don’t know if they are so much nightmares,” Eden started in again. “She says there is a voice when she closes her eyes, even when she’s not asleep.”

“A voice?”

“Yes, a voice. It keeps her awake and crying at all times. I think it’s making her ill, I fear too ill.”

“Brother, is it some sort of madness?”

Eden did not answer, but stood from his throne and walked down the steps in front. Ewam studied his brother; Eden’s behavior was too much like his own. Where was his control?

“Any word on our sister?” Eden asked turning back toward Ewam.

“None. It’s like she’s vanished.”

“I see.” Eden looked away studying the room.

“There are reports of others gone missing also. All women.” Ewam did not want to admit to himself how many. The number was growing to be impossible.

Eden sighed, putting his hands to his hips. He wore a brown belt that he looped his thumbs through.

“Brother, perhaps we should send for the physician to see to Evandra.” Ewam could tell that the girl was weighing on his mind.

“I do not think it will help,” Eden said almost in a whisper.

“You believe it is madness?” Ewam was shocked.

“Nay, brother. I don’t believe it is.”

Ewam was concerned. This was not at all like his brother. The man was the stable one, the one always in control.

“How can you be so sure?”

Eden was pale; Ewam had not noticed it before. The man looked ill, almost on the precipice of fainting.

“Because Kendra hears it too.”

Ewam stood then, unable to contain his emotions. What in the name of the heavens was going on?

“What do you mean?”

“Kendra hears a voice also, every time she closes her eyes. She says she feels compelled to leave, to run. We haven’t told Evandra, but we can’t keep it secret much longer.”

Ewam turned away from his brother now, pulling at the long red curls of his beard. What evil is this?

“Eden. What is the voice saying?” Ewam spun to meet his brother’s terrified gaze.

Eden spoke the word then not in the common language of Satar, but in the twin-language they shared. It was something they reserved for when discretion was needed. They were alone in the hall, but Eden did not want any others to understand.

“Come.” Eden spoke, his voice dry and scared. The two brothers stood in silence for some time.

Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 10 – Need

Note: I was lost in this part for awhile. I knew I needed more interaction between Oan and Nestor to further their relationship, but wasn't sure where to get it. I am having hard time with the Oan character right now, because I think I've made him a little bland and I am having hard time caring about him. Plus, I've started to think up a couple different wrinkles and storylines to run with this that are occupying my mind.

Disc 1
Track 10: Lonely Day – System of a Down

“It’s a day that I’ll never miss”

They wasted another day letting Nestor recover from his fever. Oan felt a one day lost now was better than ten days lost later if the man did not properly rest. Oan ventured out into the Garden of Manta, scavenging anything that could be useful. He caught two Tanta that they ate at midday and in the afternoon he went back to the creek and speared five Anni.

Nestor was awake most of the time, but still terribly pale and at least twice he crawled away to vomit. Oan was anxious to leave even though the thought of returning to the witch made his own stomach turn.

She was a vile, clingy woman with cold hands and toes. He had lived with her for five years after she pulled him from the Belnor and those were days he seldom allowed his memory to dwell on. Madra had a way with him, a cruel, controlling way that confused him as a child and angers him as a man.

Yet part of him loved her. She had saved his young life from certain death. When his lungs were full of water, she pumped them out. When his heart forgot how to beat, she pressed his small chest against her bosom and used hers as a guide. And when life refused to return to his body, she forced a concoction made of things she only knew down his throat as she chanted in the old language a spell lost everywhere else in time.

The price? Only his childhood, his mother, his father, his tribe, all of it paid in full to her for a life burdened with responsibility beyond his wildest dreams. It was her duty to raise him, to teach him, to prepare him for his ultimate fate – the great battle in the fires of the underworld.

She did it all as they roamed across the lands east of the Belnor. She had roamed west of the mighty river, but where and how she crossed she did not show him. He believed there was some magic to it, she certainly possessed or controlled or conjured more than her fair share. How she did magic, he did not know. He asked many times, but she’d giggle and say “how do you talk,” or “how do you know when to sleep,” or his favorite “how do you know when to squat behind a tree.”

The day crept by as his thoughts dwelled on the witch that had sent him to the Aldroubi at ten years old to learn hunting and fighting and other such things that she did not know or, more likely, did not want to teach. She had brought him into the tribe camped along the banks of the Belnor one day. The women fled from her, the men grabbed spears, but she only lifted a hand high above her head in greeting. The men guided her to a tent where the elders held council. She went inside, moments later she came out, kissed him on the forehead and without a word left him. He liked to think it hurt her like a mother losing a son, like how his own mother must have felt when he fell into the Belnor and never returned, but she never glanced back, never visited him. For the second time in his life, he was orphaned and, for the second time, adopted by complete strangers.

In the years that followed, he had nightmares of her. Memories long repressed of her ways of teaching like killing birds and painting their blood upon trees. Once he remembered her leading him into the middle of a thick, wild forest in the deep dark of the night and then vanishing. He had been with her less than a year, but she left him there for several days, alone and scared of every sound, every shadowy movement. He survived, eating what he could find and huddling under a downed tree at night. When she returned, he ran to her and clung to her bosom. She whispered into his ear then, “See now, you need no one,” then even softer, “no one, except me.”

Now as a grown man sitting in front of a fire cooking Anni with a spear, he could almost hear her whispering in his ear again. He felt just as alone then even though Nestor was alert and sitting across from him. Once again, he needed her. This time, he needed her for answers. Who was he? He remembered little from his life before the witch. His mother’s face was a blur that only amounted to the clear memory of the brown curls of her long hair. His had no memory of his father. The swordbearer had said that the witch might know. He did not doubt that. Everything he knew of the witch was that things did not happen to her by chance. He doubted very much that she just happened to be near the day he fell into the Belnor.

“I don’t know where your mind is, but I do know those fish won’t get anymore cooked,” Nestor said.

The Anni were smoking at the end of his spear, their outer skin completely black. He pulled the spear out, the burned fish nearly falling off. He poked at them twice, the outer skin was nearly ash and the insides felt dry and hard.

“These two will be mine,” Oan said.

“Don’t fret on it boy,” Nestor grinned. “When one’s raised in the Sorna, one gets used to everything being dry.”

“Sorry.” Oan handed one of the Anni across before crunching his teeth into the other. They munched as quietly as possible for the next few minutes. When both were done, Oan started to cook the other Anni.

“I’ll be ready to move tomorrow boy,” Nestor said.

“Aye.”

Nestor gauged Oan before continuing.

“What of this witch?”

“We will see.”

“Well, where do we find her? Where does she hail?”

Oan could not help, but grin.

“She hails from no where you and I know. As far as finding her, she has always roamed across this world never staying in one place for very long.”

“Then how do we find her?”

This had occurred to Oan also. There was no way to be sure which direction to head, but something in his head said north. He would not be surprised to find that it was the witch calling him toward her.

“When I was with her, we stopped twice at a cave at the foothills of the mountains. It was the only place that we visited more than once. Inside, there was nothing but bats, but deep inside where light shouldn’t reach there was a door, a wooden door.”

“A door?”

“That’s all I know. She’d tell me nothing of it, but she was drawn to its presence. I can’t deny that there was something about it that even as a child I could not resist. I wanted to open it. I wanted to find a way to peer through the three diamond shaped windows. It was a sacred place.”

“So you think she is there.”

“I know she is. Remember the swordbearer mentioned it. I believe with Salama’s return that the door is some sort of key to this all. I will make her tell us.”

“Can you do that? Make her do something.”

“I can try. I don’t believe she’ll resist, but she will tell what she wants us to know, but her answers will likely be riddles that raise more questions than we had before.”

“Then why go to her?”

Without a thought, Oan answered. He was not one to feel cold, but he shivered remembering that lonely day in the woods as the witch held him. Her whispered words echoed in his ears.

“Because we need her.”

Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 9 – Hatala Del Aram

Note: I wrote this all in one sitting last week and have edited it and added to it here or there. I think this piece is probably better suited placed somewhere else, maybe closer to the front, but it's what came to mind with this lyric. I am trying to stay true somewhat to whatever inspires about a song, lyric or band. A large scale edit afterward may rearrange things a bit.

Disc 1
Track 9: I’m Seeing Robots – Kool Keith

“Body movement, metal metallic, unpure”

“Where do you hail?”

His voice was hollow, his words hissed with a forked tongue. Inside his throat and lungs were aflame. The fires of the underworld burned his bowels and darkened his heart. Boiling streams of fluid coursed through vessels, the one’s near the surface of his dark skin bulked out. His skin had solidified some, nearing the transformation back into this form. His followers called it living form, but he was not alive. His soul burned still in the pits of the underworld, the eternal payment for the black sword at his waist. His mind was returned to this body to consume life from this old world till it was extinguished. That was the want of the Great Master, whose name he would never speak. The Great Master thrived on sucking the life out of everything. The marrow of life fueled the fires of the underworld.

He, who once was Salama and now was again, was a soldier (a high-ranking one at that) siring the Great Master with an army for the final battle while emptying this world of any strong enough to oppose. There was one man he was sent for in particular. One man, who was prophesized to stand tall in the great battle. Salama had hoped it was his old nemesis, Tarek Grandar, but time had caught up to that hero of old and his days of walking in this world were long gone. This was another man, one strong and special.

“I hail from Stra that was in the old kingdom of Isa,” The girl replied. He had almost forgotten that he had asked. The girl had the pale, freckled complexion of her ancestors and bright red hair that spilled out in curls. She was on her back, presented to him like so many others with her curious green eyes staring longingly up into his face. Green eyes, he thought, an omen to be sure.

“From so far away, so soon?” Salama brought her knees to his scorching hot skin. She recoiled as her pale flesh melted and bonded to him. Her agony filled him with a new joy. He yearned for her. He expected most men of this world felt the same when she entered a room or walked down a busy street.

“I felt your call from deep inside me,” she purred adjusting to her legs forming to his body. Soon he would rip them off in a sudden jerk that would send blinding shocks up to her hips, but that pain would be lost when he burst into her middles, pillaging everything inside. “I came on horseback, never stopping, needing you, feeling that pull. No other woman in Isa felt it, only I.”

“Oh, they’ll all feel the call,” Salama said. The time for his siring was drawing to a close, he was ready to pass that duty onto some of his offspring. They were wild brutes that would mangle each woman they touched to the point of death, but they’d still get one strong offspring from each woman before she was dispatched to the underworld. Once the army was large enough, the spoils of war would provide enough chances for growth that he worried very little about the women in Isa or Besa or any other kingdom for that matter. Not that the call would stop. That was one thing he could not turn off. Women were drawn to him. It was a power that he adored.

“You sense many things that other women do not,” he finally ripped her legs off of him. She screamed in surprise. “You know when it’s going to rain, for instance, or when trouble is looming over the next hill.”

“Master, I do, I do,” tears were streaming down her face. He did not know if the tears were from shame or pain. He did not really care either.

“What a dirty girl, maybe too dirty for my seed,” he grinned down at the small bush of hair between her legs. “Have all the boys been at you? Have you let them in when they like? Are you the whore of Stra? Is that what I, the Master of the Sorna, eternal King of Rion, deserve?”

“Nay Master, I am pure as when I was born, I swear it,” She pleaded for his affection. “I am saved for you alone.”

“Then what are ye bitch,” Salma spit on her, the dark liquid landed with a sizzle under her right eye, leaving a dark red blotch.

“I am nothing,” the woman cried. “Some call me a witch, but I’ve mastered no magic. I can do things others can’t, but I don’t know how or when. They just happen when I am angry or thinking hard about one idea or another. It’s a curse great one. One I never asked for. No man comes near me because of the rumors, the terrible rumors the townsfolk spread. I think they’d burn me if my father were not an elder. He’s ashamed of me, but deep down I believe he still loves me.”

“He doesn’t,” Salama hissed. She wailed as if this were the greatest pain he had delivered to her thus far. “Do you believe your Master?”

“Yes,” she sniffled.

“He doesn’t love you. He despises you. If his will were not so soft, he would have smothered you when you were in your cradle or carved you out of your mother’s womb. Your putrid stain sickens him, but he’s too weak to handle it himself. Do you believe your Master?”

“Yes.” This time her green eyes glowed back into his burning orbs. He could feel a surge of power, still small, but with the promise of much more with the proper coaxing and training, swell up in her skin.

“He hopes all those townsfolk in Stra would burn you. He’d watch your skin boil and he’d cheer at your agony. They all hate you. They’d kill you in a second because they fear you. If you ever had children, they’d trap them when you let them out to play and stake them in pieces to your door. Do you believe your Master?”

She did not respond, but the rage filling her eyes was answer enough. She was his fully now. A tool, a useful tool, to be used hard at the bend of his will.

“What is your name, whore of Stra?”

“Hatala Del Aram.”

He removed the veil over her eyes that saw him as the perfect male specimen. His true self was exposed then. The dark ashen skin, the rotting smell, the four arms, the eyes that burned hot and the forked tongue, all of it as Nestor had seen but that had remained hidden to every other woman. He preferred the illusion to keep the women orderly, but this girl had to take him as is for his plan to truly work. Hatala recoiled and tried to squirrel away.

“Hatala Del Aram, see me as I am,” his voice hissed as he grabbed her wrist. Her skin sizzled and smoldered in his grasp. She was past reacting to every small injury now.

“They all hate you, Hatala Del Aram,” he hissed. “They’ll rape you and burn you and drain their bladders and bowels on your grave every day till the end of time.”

Her eyes were hot. Her heartbeat raced looking back at him. One final tear found its way from her left eye.

“I love you, Hatala Del Aram. I will care for you. I will provide you the army to make them all pay.”

She stopped struggling.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be my Queen. You shall be the vessel that will bare the ultimate retribution for you in this world and beyond. You shall be at my side, on bended knee of course, but at my side all the same. Do you understand?”

Her forehead creased for a moment, then she eased back down on her back. A great rush of joy went through his ancient being. I will make you scream again my dear, sweet screams that will cut through the heavens. He could not help from smiling.

“I will, my King.” She opened her arms.

“Together, we shall bring down the heavens my dear, starting in this world and then onto every other.”

He came to her then. Plunging deep into her virginal crease (her anguish ringing in his ears as he did), then he sealed her mouth with his cracked lips and let her breathe in the fires of the underworld. He smoked out her insides and boiled her blood. She was strong for a mere woman, but he was raising her beyond that, beyond any other woman in this world or any other world, for that matter. He would leave his seed in her, but its fruit would not bear soon. He had use for her womb in another matter. A plan he hoped would put him on the Great Master’s throne.

When they were finished, the Dinar came to his seat in the old coliseum and removed her. He stood then facing the line of women that still circled around the old building.

“I am through with you bunch. I release you to the will of my sons and daughters.”
A clattering came from the massive pile of corpses as the beasts, some now quite grown and some that resembled normal men and women except for their many arms and various other deformities, emerged with their tongues wagging behind sharp teeth. He left then to shrieks that split the air.

Red's CD Project Story 2: Part 8 – The Rock Garden of Manta

Note: A few things to note. One there is a part below this one on the board, if you missed it. All parts are connected on the side link under Red CD Project 2. Second, this part pushed the tale over 10,000 words, I believe making about the third longest thing I've ever wrote. In comparison the first CD Project ended up at about 14,359 words. So I am well ahead of pace. If I keep at this pace, we're looking at about 60,000 - 70,000 word document. That would be average novel length.

Disc 1
Track 8: Intimate Secretary – The Raconteurs

“The other foot looks like it won’t drop”

They rode in silence almost nonstop for two days. They only stopped for a few short hours of sleep and a quick meal each night, but were up early letting Old Moon and New Moon guide their way. By the third day, Nestor was slumping badly in his saddle. His skin was pale and he mumbled nonsense in a language that Oan did not recognize. By midday the man could ride no farther.

They had entered the Rock Garden of Manta early that morning. It was an ancient wonder of the kingdom of Rion. Boulders ranging in size from waist level of the average man to the height of ten men standing one on top of the other were scattered about in no order that Oan could understand. He had traveled through before and knew that it’d take at least five days to make it from the southern entrance to the garden to where it ended in the north. It was nearly the same distance east to west as it was south to north. Weaving around the boulders made it a slow trek.

The history of the garden was lost in time. No elder’s ears had heard that story for their lips to pass it on. All that was left to recount the time of the garden’s history was the fading murals elaborately painted across each boulder. The murals depicted everything from great battles to picturesque landscapes with bubbling brooks where deer drank peacefully. There were more boulders there that could ever be studied and one elder claimed that over time the murals changed their scenes. The witch had said that they were reflections of life and like any reflection the image varied. Oan did not always understand the witch. The woman dealt in secrets and those in that trade depend heavily on lies. He was not sure how much of what she told him when he was a child was true.

Oan guided Nestor’s steed over to a large boulder that blocked the cold wind from the north. While winter was alive in the mountains, it was only late fall in the valley of the garden. However, there were few trees in the Garden of Manta to block the wind. He had heard the slow moving waters of a creek bouncing off the hollow boulders earlier that day. He thought they were very close. He would fish once he got the old man settled behind the boulder. There was little else to hunt in the garden only the small burrowing Tanta that were difficult to catch and not very tasty.

Nestor’s one good eye was all but closed and Oan had to lift him down from the saddle. The man had a fever and Oan did not know if it was from the icy waters of the Belnor or from the poison from Salama’s whip emerging from forced slumber. He dropped the man gently against the boulder and wrapped him in a fur they had brought from the camp. He forced Nestor to drink water from a skin, but little of the liquid made it into his mouth. Nestor mumbled some more gibberish about the Sorna and the demon it had born.

Oan frowned studying his companion. He could not afford to be slowed by the man, but Oan was sure that he could not leave him behind. Nestor’s role in the battle against Salama was not over. Oan did not need the witch or that strange little man that gave Oan the ancient sword Kekur to tell him that. Oan was thinking about all this when he noticed the mural on the boulder he had propped Nestor against. The face of the boulder was flat, but the mural was three-dimensional depicting a large field filled with nothing but white-petaled roses. Way in the distance was a great mountain peak covered in snow and he thought he could make out three small figures atop it. Above the peak was a clear sky painted a soft purple instead of blue. Oan shuddered remembering the swordbearer’s dream.

He left Nestor sleeping against the boulder to search out the creek. Halfway there, he found the splintered, charred remains of a short tree that had been struck by lightning. There was enough good wood left to carry back and start a fire. He made three trips giving them an ample amount to make it through the night.

The creek ended up being slightly farther away than he expected. It was no more than two arm lengths wide with a steady current and clean, clear waters. He could make out several plump fish skipping along with the current. Most of them blue Anni with large gills. Manni were good fish to eat when cooked over a fire. He also saw two orange Dangs. Those he avoided with his spear. They were nasty fish with a slow poison that eventually led to terrible skin blisters and long nights squatting in the weeds.

He speared four Anni in short time, cleaned them and brought them back to the fire. Nestor was sweating and moaning. Oan left again to scavenge anything of value including a few green berries growing on a vine that tangled around one very large boulder that only had the large face of wolf with glowing yellow eyes painted upon it. He also found some Knash Root along the bank of the creek that could be ground down and added with one of the few potions he had brought with him that might break Nestor’s fever. Otherwise, there was little else than sparse nearly brown grass, a few small twisted fir trees and thousands of boulders in the garden.

He mixed the potion with the ground down Knash Root when he returned to Nestor and forced the man to swallow some with a couple of the green berries. By then, it was getting close to dusk and Oan started cooking the fish, two at time at the end of his spear. He sprinkled salt and pepper upon them and ate. The smell aroused Nestor enough for him to sit up and take stock of their location as the sun settled low on the horizon painting the sky a hundred shades of pink, orange and purple. Oan, who still wore no more than a short pair of pants, did not shiver once as the air turned cold from the loss of warmth from the sun. Cold did not bother him. Hot did not bother him either. His body temperature was always precisely the same. That was the gift from the witch, or a small part of a larger gift or as Oan thought of it, curse that the woman had gave him after pulling him from the Belnor when he was a boy.

Some color had returned to Nestor’s skin, his eye sagged a bit and a drooping frown hung on his lips. For the first time, Oan wondered if the man was going to survive this latest illness.

“Where are we?” Nestor’s words came out slurred. “Is it the underworld?”

“Nay, we are in the Rock Garden of Manta,” Oan said while picking his teeth with a thin fish bone.

“Ahhh.” Nestor swatted at something invisible in front of his face. It was a long time before he spoke again. Instead his eye darted about like he had again forgot where he was and whom he was with.

“Don’t leave men here boy, it’s a dying place, I can feel it,” Nestor mumbled before falling back into a restless slumber.

Oan watched Old Moon and New Moon move slowly across the sky for a very long time. He held the old sword Kekur for a time, but it felt wrong and altogether too heavy for his hands. The spear seemed more natural to hands and cleaner to use in battle. At some point though, he knew he’d have to learn to wield the weapon. The swordbearer had claimed he’d carry three swords, but he could barely stand holding one. Oan was lost his thoughts for a long time before noticing that Nestor was awake and studying him closely.

“Feeling better,” Oan asked?

“A mite perhaps,” Nestor’s voice had regained some clarity. “How long have I been out?”

“Since midday for the most part.”

“I’ve had nightmares, boy, terrible ones. I see my wife’s face, her body being torn and twisted. I dream of the demon’s ashen grin as he fouled woman after woman.”

Oan did not have an answer or have any way to soothe the man. If it had been him, he would have found a way to end such nightmares before they started. The shame and pain would be too much to handle. Nestor continued.

“Then right before I awoke, I had a vision, my boy. I was wielding that old sword of Tarek Grandar’s. Not the one you’ve been grasping, but Lunar, the sword forged from the face of Old Moon. I dreamed I had the power to strike the demon down. …”

Oan had stopped listening to Nestor. He was watching the painting on the boulder splashed in the firelight. Like a spell, the Nestor’s voice hummed in Oan’s ears as the great field of whites rose splashed upon the ancient rock face turned a blood red, the green stems wilted black. The mountain peak in the far back was leveled with a river of fire pouring out. Everywhere there was shadow where the orange of glow of fire didn’t reach and below was shining the scared face of the man that seemed more an illusion than a man made of flesh. Oan’s eyes grew heavy, his heartbeat slowed. Before he drifted away in the world of dreams, the entire field and mountain were covered in flames, but between the flames he saw nasty little things crawling about sucking the last bits of life from the roses. Nestor’s voice continued to sound for a long time.

Oan woke once that night to find Nestor had crawled around the fire to where Kekur was laid upon the ground. The man was on his knees almost in worship of the sword, his fingers running up and down the blade and resting once in the grooves of the hilt. Oan watched him, but did not stir. Trust was not something given away freely, and not something he’d giving easily to one-eyed man with a heart full of vengence.