Conjunction

"Damn," he grumbled, running a hand through his still-damp hair. At the very least, she wasn't lying to save her own hide. She seemed trustworthy in that regard.

"Why would you let me go?" she demanded, narrowing her eyes at him. "Yesterday, when you defeated me in battle, you spared my life. I was at your mercy, yet you let me live. Why?"

"That surprises you?" he replied, the reptile fixing him with her unwavering stare. "Killing someone who no longer poses any threat to me would be wrong, immoral. I won't do harm to anyone if it can be avoided."

"Yet you seek entry into the sacred city," she replied, his statement seeming to confound her.

"We're clearly talking at crossed purposes," Caden added with an exasperated sigh. "These concepts don't mean the same thing to me as they do to you. Listen, just...I'll undo those binds, and you can go free. Leave me alone," he pleaded. "Believe me when I tell you that I mean you no harm, nor anybody else. The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but if I see you again, you may leave me no other choice."

He reached down towards her loincloth, the reptile whipping the back of his hand with her tail. He recoiled, dancing on the spot as he waved his hand, wincing.

"What did I just say!?" he snapped. "Behave yourself, or I'll paralyze you again."

Caden reached for her waist, and she remained still this time, realizing that he wanted to relieve her of her dagger. He withdrew it from a loop that was attached to a leather belt, a kind of primitive scabbard, and tossed the weapon into the oasis. It landed in the water with a splash, quickly sinking out of sight. Only now did he notice the cloth bandage on her shoulder, pausing to glance at it for a moment. That was where he had pierced her scales with a glass arrow the day before, a pang of guilt welling up inside him.

He aimed his staff at her and began to recite the healing incantation, the bound reptile starting to writhe on the sand once again as her eyes widened in alarm. He couldn't tell her what he was doing without interrupting the spell, so he retreated to a safe distance, getting clear of her thrashing tail. She soon stopped her struggled when she felt her injury begin to mend, torn flesh knitting together again, Caden watching the silvery strands do their work beneath the fabric. The nearby ferns began to wilt and brown, which seemed to alarm her. When it was done, he lowered his staff, the reptile watching him curiously.

Obeying his will, the ropes that had her so tightly bound loosened, all of the knots coming undone without him having to lift a finger. Now freed, she climbed to her feet, keeping a wary eye on him as she began to rub her wrists. Once again, her size impressed him. She was so tall...

"See?" he said, spreading his arms. "I'm not going to hurt you. And I was joking, by the way, when I told you that I'd put your head on a pike. I mean, it wasn't funny, I was just trying to give you a fright. Anyway, uh...off you go."

She glanced at him again, then began to unbind her shoulder, letting the length of cloth bandage fall to the ground. Her scales were covered in some kind of white paste, and she wiped it away, giving what had once been her injury an experimental prod with a clawed finger. It was as good as new, as though she had never been hurt at all.

"You are not as you should be," she said, Caden unsure of how to respond to such a statement.

"How do you mean?" he asked.

"A battlemage is cruel, vicious, they desire only to sate their bloodlust. You take from life as they are said to do," she added as she gestured to the dead ferns that lay at her feet, "and you fight with the strength of a demon. Yet you spare your enemies. You heal their wounds. Why?"

"You think that I'm a battlemage," he said with a nod, her skewed perception of him starting to make more sense. "I'm not. At least...Gods, how do I explain this? You have no cause to know about guilds and kingdoms. I may wield the magic and weapons of a battlemage," he began, not exactly confident in his own argument. "I may look like one and fight like one, but I am no battlemage. There haven't been any battlemages for a very long time."

"Unconvincing," the reptile muttered.

"What about you?" he shot back, the reptile cocking her head at him. "You tried to cut off my head with a giant axe yesterday, and you could have tried to stab me in my sleep today, but you didn't. Why? If you thought me so evil, why wouldn't you try to stop me?"

She rubbed her shoulder, looking away as her frill fluttered, its leathery surface flushing red.

"Must I repeat myself?" she grumbled. "I told you already, you are not as I expected. I...wanted to know why."

It didn't seem like she was going anywhere right now, and Caden wasn't sure what she wanted from him.

"Well?" he asked, "are you not leaving?"

She seemed hesitant as she glanced at the reefs beyond the palm trees, but when she faced him again, it was with a newfound resolve.

"I cannot let you wander our lands freely, not without knowing your true purpose here. I do not trust you, battlemage, and so I will not let you leave my sight."

"What?" Caden replied, baffled by her response. "I don't trust you either, you crazy...whatever you are. You tried to kill me yesterday!"

"You tried to kill me yesterday," she replied.

"Only because you tried to kill me first!"

She crossed her arms, staring him down as he glared back at her. He wanted to threaten her, scare her away, but she would never take him seriously after the show he had just made of being harmless. He had sabotaged himself. Perhaps he could turn this situation to his advantage? Her talk of dead stars in the ruined city worried him, he had no real idea of what awaited him there. If he let her tag along, perhaps he could get some information out of her. He didn't believe that she posed any real threat. She had been presented with the perfect opportunity to kill him in his sleep, and she hadn't taken it.

"Fine," he said with a shrug, "do as you will."

She uncrossed her arms, seeming surprised, watching him as he made his way over to his pack. He returned the items that she had removed, then rolled up his bedroll and began to get dressed, the reptile watching him all the while with those yellow eyes.

"What should I call you?" he asked, pulling on his trousers.

"An outsider is not fit to speak my name," she replied tersely.

"You can either tell me your name, or I can refer to you as lizard. Your choice."

"Very well," she grumbled, "it is Kadal."

"Kadal?" he repeated. "Mine is Caden. I'd tell you that I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but that would be a lie."

She watched him as he pulled on his tunic and fastened his cape around his shoulders, keeping her distance like a curious wolf stalking the outskirts of a campfire's glow.

"What's all that for?" she demanded.

"Civilized people clothe themselves," he replied, kneeling to tie his laces.

"Do civilized people also trespass where they are not wanted?" she chided.

Caden hoisted his pack onto his back, then looked up at the sky, shielding his eyes from the sun. It was almost directly overhead, he had no clue which direction he was going in now, save for a vague idea of the path that he had taken to get here. Wanting to appear confident before his unwelcome traveling companion, he set off, leaving the shade of the palm trees behind him. Kadal was far faster than him, he had seen her inhuman speed, but she slowed her loping stride so that she could match pace with him. She was still wary of him, staying a good ten feet away.

***

The reptile continued to follow him doggedly as he wound his way through the reefs, staying true to her promise not to let him out of her sight. They had been walking for a half-hour now, and she was still lagging behind him, never coming too close. He felt those yellow eyes on his back all the while, like she was evaluating him, her curiosity matched only by her suspicion.

Caden stopped to sit on a boulder, retrieving his waterskin from his hip, and unscrewing the cap. Kadal flinched away, taking cover behind a cluster of corals as he paused to watch her, her head rising from her hiding place on her long neck to peer over the rocks. He chuckled to himself, shaking his head before lifting it to his lips, taking a long draw.

"It's just water," he called out to her, "it's not going to hurt you."

She slowly emerged from her hiding place, crawling up onto the rocks to perch there like a gargoyle on a battlement, watching him as he drank. Her head would sway back and forth like a serpent dancing to a snake charmer's flute as she scrutinized him, almost like a cat preparing to pounce.

"You can have some if you want," he suggested. "I know a spell that can refill it."

The appeal of a cool drink seemed to overcome her suspicion, the creature slinking down the reef, slowly creeping her way across the sand. She remained low to the ground, practically crawling her way over to him. Caden held out his waterskin to her, and she slowly extended an arm, snatching it from his grasp. She scurried back to her hiding place, sitting on the warm rocks as she began to turn the item over in her hands.

Did her people not have waterskins? How did they find water in the desert? He watched as she fiddled with the cap, taking a moment to figure out how to turn it, letting it hang from its string as the eyed the container's open mouth. After probing it with an experimental flick of her tongue, she upended it, spilling a good mouthful onto the rocks.

"Hey!" Caden complained. "Just because it's easy for me to make more doesn't mean you should waste it."

She narrowed her eyes at him, then spilled a little more in a gesture of defiance, Caden crossing his arms. Now, she put her scaly lips to it, Caden watching the mouthfuls slide down her slender neck. Her eyes widened, she seemed to be enjoying the taste, her frill fluttering like a parasol in the wind.

"Steady on, don't drink it all!" Caden protested. He rose to his feet, Kadal quickly covering the mouth of the waterskin with the palm of her hand to prevent its contents from spilling, darting off into the corals. There was no hope of catching her, so he sat back down on his boulder, grumbling under his breath.

After a few minutes, he was starting to worry that she might have made off with it, but she eventually reemerged. She tossed the waterskin on the sand at his feet, resuming her silent vigil. Caden picked it up and weighed it in his hand, finding that it was empty, scowling at her. He reached for his staff, the reptile's frill flaring in alarm as she dove back into cover.

Caden wasn't about to set her on fire, as much as she was asking for it. Instead, he set his waterskin on the rock and began to recite the spell, calling on the moisture that was present in the air to coalesce inside it. The spell was still effective despite how arid the environment was, but markedly less so. He had to concentrate harder, and the spell took longer to complete, but the waterskin slowly began to inflate.

Kadal peeked over the corals, watching the odd sight, slowly emerging from between the rocks as he whispered his incantation. He found himself wondering what her level of magic was. She had wielded powerful artifacts, and she had known how to summon locusts and lightning, but how similar were her shamanistic practices to those of the sorcerers? Did she have any understanding of what he was doing right now, or was it all new to her?

When it was full, he wiped the mouth with his cloak, then took a drink to show her that everything was fine. She was so skittish, he had encountered deer more confident around him than she was.

"What do you call that?" she finally asked. It was the first time that she had spoken to him since leaving the oasis.

"This?" he asked. "It's called a waterskin."

"Water...skin?" she repeated.

"It's made from a sheep's bladder," he explained.

"Sheep?" she repeated, rolling the unfamiliar word across her forked tongue. Odd. Perhaps the magic that was allowing them to understand one another could not translate words and concepts that had no equivalent in their language.

"Never mind," he sighed, returning the waterskin to its place on his belt.

***

Night was falling, the rays of the setting sun bleaching the cloudless sky in shades of pink and orange. Caden's feet were becoming sore again, and his stomach was starting to rumble. It was time to make camp.

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing that the creature who called herself Kadal was still following him at a distance, keeping pace easily with her immense stamina. She hadn't grown bored and turned back yet, as he had expected. She was so stubborn.

Caden found a likely place to sleep for the night, a cave-like dugout in one of the reefs. It was only a few feet deep, the floor covered in red sand, but it would do. He debated whether to cast an invisibility spell, as the reptiles seemed to have overcome it. There were surely more of them pursuing him, they seemed far too determined to give up so easily. He elected to perform the incantation anyway, as it was better to be safe than sorry.

Kadal was less wary of his staff this time, watching curiously as he performed the spell. When it was done, he stepped through the barrier that he had created, vanishing from sight from her perspective. He turned once he was inside the mouth of the shallow cave, smirking at her bemusement, the reptile creeping closer. She cocked her head, her tongue flicking out to taste the air, her long fingers brushing the footprints that he had left in the sand.

Caden extended an arm through the shroud, the magical barrier taking on the quality of broken glass around it, the limb seeming to appear from thin air from where she was standing. She leapt back, hissing as he wiggled his fingers at her.

Getting over her initial surprise, she crept closer, crouching by the barrier as she extended her clawed fingers. She watched in awe as they vanished, the shimmering shards reflected in her wide eyes. Caden watched her play with it, waving her hand through the magical shroud in the same way that someone might run their fingers through a stream. When she wasn't trying to cut his head off with a giant, enchanted axe, she could almost be described as cute...

"You can come in, you know," he said. The sound of his voice seemed to startle her for a moment, as though she had expected the barrier to muffle it. She slowly pushed her head through, anticipating some kind of resistance, blinking at him as she emerged into the dugout.

Caden made his way over to the far wall and set down his pack, pulling out his bedroll, and laying it on the sand. Kadal didn't have much choice other than to come closer in the confines of the coral cave, as she wouldn't be able to see what he was doing from the other side of the barrier. Reluctantly, she sat down a few feet away, bringing her knees up close to her chest as her tail coiled around her feet protectively.

The rustle of paper drew her attention, Caden lifting a parcel from his pack, tied together with a piece of hairy string. Her tongue darted out as he unwrapped it, starting to chew on a piece of salted pork.

"You went straight for this when you were rifling through my pack, didn't you?" he asked as he waved the morsel of dried meat at her. Her eyes followed its every movement, the end of her long tail starting to twitch indecisively. "How about you and I make a deal?" he asked. "You answer one of my questions truthfully, and I'll give you a tasty treat. How about it?"

He could see the conflict in her, but the allure of salted pork eventually won out, and she nodded her lizard-like head.

"Why are you really here?" Caden asked. "If protecting your sacred city is so important to you, why didn't you try to kill me earlier? You thought I was asleep, my back was turned, so why not take that chance?"

He waited as she fretted, like she was struggling to formulate a reply.

"There would be...no honor in that," she grumbled. "I came back because...I want to know how you defeated me. Why you spared me my fate."

"And what fate is that?" Caden asked, the morsel of meat still clutched in his hand.

"We fought," she replied, as though it should be obvious to him. "We held nothing back in our attempts to slay one another, but when I was laid low, you stayed your hand. My death was assured, yet here I am."

"Do you feel as though our fight is incomplete?" Caden joked. "I can finish the job if that will give you the closure you seek."

"That isn't what I meant," she grumbled. "My kin show no such mercy, to let a challenger live is...not our way."

"I gathered that from all the skulls," Caden muttered. "If I were in your position, I'd be grateful to be alive after a fight like that. You came close to killing me, too, and I have a feeling that I wouldn't have been afforded the same courtesy if our roles had been reversed. We're both alive, unharmed. That's as good an outcome as we could hope for."

"The Shaman told me of your kind, battlemage," she continued. "She spoke of their cruelty, of their lust for conflict. I saw that fury in you, that power, but you are not as she described."

"Don't call me battlemage," he grumbled, sparing a glance at his staff as it leaned against the cave wall at his side. "I told you my name, it's Caden."

"How did you come to wield the powers of a battlemage if you are not one?" Kadal demanded. He could hear the frustration that was creeping into her voice. It wasn't mere curiosity that motivated her, she burned with the desire to understand, to know how this wound to her pride had been inflicted.

"There were battlemages once," he replied, "a long time ago. In ages past, they were used as soldiers, and they fought in great wars between the Western kingdoms. Long before I was born, the Sorcerer's Guild was formed, and it was decreed that only those of sufficient knowledge and responsibility would be permitted to learn such magic. I wield their weapons, and I have mastered some of their techniques, but I am no warrior."

That reply didn't seem to satisfy her. If anything, she seemed angrier, her frill taking on a red hue as it rose to frame her head.

"Do you mock me?" she snapped.

"In what way?"

"I was chosen to fight on behalf of my people because I am the foremost warrior of my tribe," she hissed. "I am the largest, the strongest, the most accomplished. I was sent on a vision quest, I was anointed by the Gods. Yet you expect me to believe that you are no warrior? That I was defeated by a mere...what do you claim to be?"

"A scholar," he chuckled, her furious stare leaving him unfazed.

"You are no mere scholar," she snarled, baring her sharp teeth. "What secrets are you hiding from me?"

"There is no secret," he replied with a shrug. "I never claimed to be some great warrior, that was just your assumption."

She scowled at him, clearly unsatisfied. It sounded like her whole self-image was tied up in this idea of being the biggest and strongest warrior of her tribe, but she had been dethroned by a skinny librarian. No wonder she was so confused.

"Here," he added, tossing the piece of pork to her. She snatched it out of the air, holding it in her palm as she glanced across the cave at him. "I'm true to my word, you answered my question."

She hesitated for a moment, then began to tear off small chunks with her sharp teeth, chewing on it. As angry and as confused as she was, its flavor seemed to lift her spirits, her frill fluttering in a way that almost seemed content as she ate.

"There are other ways to be strong besides the physical, you know," Caden added. "Do you not wield a primitive kind of magic yourself? That obsidian axe, your pendant, I saw how they empowered you. Your hide became as stone, you could call down lightning and summon swarms of insects, I watched flowers grow where you tread."