Kitara: A Tale of Leinyere

It ended up being not one lamb but many. One hundred men, all with wives and children, come to feast the victorious Mahmoud, returned with his soft pretty oasis bride. Noreah let Jahane feel the flesh of each lamb, indicating where she would cut and how and why. After each death, Jahane made herself examine the cut, to see if she had the right of it. Nervously, Noreah let her take the last one and while her hand was not as swift or as sure as the older woman's, it was close enough in technique that Noreah declared she would become good enough in practice.

Jahane asked to help with the cooking, but the scandalized wives shooed her off. She sought Noreah, but was stopped by a boy who looked so much like Mahmoud he could only be the older son, Walid. "Mother wishes to be alone. She must purify herself and ask forgiveness of the gods for the violence she has done." He blocked her path and pointed "it is unseemly for you and I to be together without supervision, please return yourself to the feast. My mother will return by feast's end to bring you to a cottage."

As the boy would not be swayed, she made her way down among the crowd. There she heard poets reciting the heroic tales of the tribe and some of the people of the desert as a whole. Old favorites, like the slaying of the dragon of the empty quarter by the brothers Junaid and Kadir. She marveled, not for the first time, that this poet from hundreds of miles away, this Rawi whose job it was to remember the poems of others, recited it with almost no variation from the version she heard as a girl. She felt at once at home and more alone than ever.

She drank sparingly of the strong fruity wine served with the lamb, wanting her wits about her, and so her head was clear at the end of the night where others were riotous, including her host Mahmoud. Noreah settled in next to her "He will be up for days, boasting and fighting and boasting some more." The older woman wrapped an arm around Jahane, who was glad for it. Though late spring, the air of the mountains was cold. "Come, let us get you into my house."

There, a fire spirit cheerfully heated the room. Adorning the walls were thick woolen hangings that kept off any draft. Strewn about the floor were pillows and blankets, soft furs and even a sheet or two of silk. "It is my time, and so I am not clean to sleep in the house of my husband" Noreah made a bed for the two of them in the pillows "I hope you do not mind the company, we will find your own house for you tomorrow."

Jahane curled up next to the woman, glad for the warmth of her "I don't know that I will ever be used to the nights here. The chill is so pervasive."

Noreah cradled her, drawing a blanket up around them, then dismissing the fire spirit so the light would go out. The room was warm enough, with two under the blankets "you will get used to much. You're a strong girl."

The girl sighed "I don't feel strong. I feel like I have no choices and no power." She hastily added, knowing Noreah's guilt "because of my sex. I am forever to be at the mercy of some man. At his whims and his sufferance." She shifted a bit "and what do I know how to do? At home I was taught to keep a house, to keep accounts for my husband's business. To weave cloth. What will I do here?"

"You will learn. I learned."

"How did you come to be here?"

Noreah sighed, but she felt like she owed this girl, whose life she ripped away. She curled in tighter against her back "You know that I was born among the Masalim. At the oasis of Ibrahim. Mahmoud's family used to travel through there, on their way to the Elven trading posts in the west. Selling their soft wool. Not everyone at the oasis was a Masalim. Ibrahim and his family were not, and the boys of his youngest wife were cruel, as their mother was cruel. They set upon some of our boys and beat them, knowing they would raise no hand to defend themselves and even if they did defend themselves, they would not know how. I took a chance, that they would not attack a girl. I stood them down, and I was angry enough that had Mahmoud not intervened I might have struck them. He came from nowhere, mocking them. He has a tongue on him, that man. Even at ten. He shamed them till they came at him, and while they beat him... four to one...he knocked the teeth out of one of their heads and broke the leg of another. His father rode in before he was brained, and my father took them in for a few days in thanks." She squeezes Jahane. "he came back, every summer. Spouting nonsense about how I was the loveliest girl in the desert. Writing me poems, making me learn them. When any would mock me, he would fight, sometimes winning and sometimes losing, but always fighting for me. Always telling me that I was the only woman worth fighting for. When he turned sixteen, he filled out. He became the great hairy bear of a man you see today."

Jahane laughed softly "It was the pelt that drew you, was it?"

"It's quite warm in these cold mountains, anyway hush." Noreah swatted Jahane's hand playfully as if she were a recalcitrant child. "I thought, as I was all knees and elbows and too tall and scrawny, that the poet would forget me. He came late to the oasis that year and I was sure he had found some other girl. Indeed, there were prettier, richer women practically throwing themselves at him. A wealthy widow would have set him up for life. Instead, at the end of summer he came and asked for me. My father said he'd pay no bride price till I was of age, and Mahmoud said that I was the bride price. Nothing my father had was as precious, and he would not leave without my hand. He waited, two weeks, sitting outside our house. Refusing any food and taking only water. Finally, I slipped away with him. Three months later, we were married though I was only Eighteen and barely that. Since then, as he became a leader of men... it has always been him and me."

"And now I'm here to ruin that."

"Gods above woman, do you not at all see your worth?" Noreah grumbled "you're not a monk. You don't need to be so gods be damned humble all the fucking time. It's ok to say... I'm nice and smart and pretty and I'll make a good second wife. Say it."

"You can't make me; I'm a guest and I have rights."

"you're a brat and if you think in a month, I won't put you over my knee and redden your round ass, you're quite mistaken."

"Guess I better hope I'm rescued then."

***

"Who is it that you seek?" Faisal finally found the courage to ask, some weeks into the journey east.

"A man named Halldor. An elf, a wizard of evil intent."

The pair had stopped to aid a caravan attacked by brigands. Chosen knelt, stitching a man back together. Faisal watched with interest "where did you learn this craft?"

"Until Halldor forced my hand, I was a healer. I brewed potions, delivered babies. I stitched men back together and cured diseases. I had never raised a blade in anger."

"What then did this man do to you?"

"Later." Came the terse reply. Chosen moved among the fallen, helping those she could, and hastening the deaths of those she could not. Faisal had a sharp enough eye to see her perform the mercy killings, though others did not. She administered too much sedative, letting them drift to sleep never to wake again. Each death seemed to take something from her, but ever was she moving on to the next, till some were hale and others dead.

Finally, when they made camp, she told her tale. "A century ago, my sister and I were orphaned. Our father was a king's ranger. He and my mother died in service, protecting the king from a palace coup. We were raised in the palace out of gratitude. My sister." she sighed and rubbed her temples, steeling herself "she became the greatest archer of her day. I became a healer of renown. We served the old king until he died. He died childless, and a nephew took the throne. The nephew brought Halldor to court."

Faisal nodded, tending to the fire and adding a desert hare they snared to a spit. He set it to cooking, seasoning it liberally, making a sound to indicate he was listening.

"Halldor was a man who made mighty magical items. No one knew it at the time, but they had a price. They were mighty because they were fueled by the souls of the living"

Faisal must have betrayed his disgust and horror with his expression, because she gave him an approving nod. "A demon then"

"A demon in the flesh of an Elf, I thought. But in reality, just a broken twisted ambitious man. At any rate, the king wanted arms and armor that would make him unstoppable on the field. Halldor, in secret, stole the souls of his greatest warriors and fashioned for him such cunning terrible weapons that indeed none could stand before him. Halldor stole the soul of my sister, making the great bow of the king. He tested it... in front of me. He could hit any target with his eyes closed...because it was my sister guiding the bow. Her life force. Her mind drew his arm to where it needed to go." She shuddered. "It came out. These things always come out. One of the men used to forge his breastplate had a powerful family. Diviners investigated his disappearance. Halldor fled and the king fought all comers. He was nigh-invulnerable. After a day and a night of battle, he came to me to have his wounds tended to. I don't think it occurred to him who I was."

Faisal turned the rabbit on the spit and set water on the fire for coffee. "Did you kill him?"

"I couldn't. I didn't have it in me. I drugged him so he'd be sluggish. As it turned out, I didn't need to. An old man arrived... so old and feeble I thought I was about to watch the king slaughter him. He drew this blade and ran it through the King. He pierced magical breastplate, bone, flesh. As the king died the old man's vigor fled him. He could not even remove the blade from the flesh. I seized it to wrest it from the corpse... and then I heard the Goddess. She offered me the true villain. She offered me Halldor. He has been fleeing me ever since. He is cunning. Last time we met; he escaped the top of a tall tower on a great mechanical bird. So, the sword directs me ever towards him."

"That...is an odd tale milady. But I am a collector of odd tales, being a Sha'ir."

"It will be your tale. Soon enough I will bury this blade in Halldor, and it will be yours to take up."

"I do not know how to use a straight blade"

"When the old man used it, it was a bastard sword. It changes to suit the wielder. It has been at times a mace, a warhammer. A falchion. Bitterness finds its way into the hands of those who crave vengeance. It has many faces." She looked sad for a moment "it is not too late, for you to turn from this path. It has been lonely, these ten years."

"Nothing can deter me, lady. Mahmoud will die and Jahane will be mine. It is destiny."

***

Months had passed too, in Qasin. The lovers, Halldor and Zahra had both been busy. He at pretending to build a golem and she in conducting clandestine experiments on those sentenced to die otherwise. The difference being that she knew what he was doing, and he did not. At least she did not think he did. Still, her experiments had born fruit and now it was time to put the ultimate experiment to test.

Zahra looked down at Halldor, and slide her lush curves along his body. "My love" she nibbled at his ear "I want to play our little game" Their little game, as she called it, involved tying and teasing him until he begged for her.

"If we must, then we must" he was resigned, it was not his favorite, particularly in the brutal heat of the desert as spring was turning to summer. He placed his hands over his head and allowed her to loop the silks around them. She blindfolded him then and ran her nails along his chest before taking a feather and stroking here, then there.

She made no pattern that might alert him, instead dipping the feather in arcane inks, drawing single lines of runs on his flesh without completing any one of them, brushing here, then there, along his ribs a line, along his thigh another. Slowly over time, she traced all the eldritch symbols on his body. "Are you ready to give yourself to me my love?" she cooed in his ear, her hand stroking his cock "are you ready to spill into me?"

"Yes. Please Zahra" he moaned out, partially in lust, partially because after their play he could get back to his work.

He felt her straddle him, muttering softly under her breath "say it, say you give yourself to me"

He could feel her, feel her warmth around him and he moaned. She was quite skilled, for a human. He would give her that. He rocked his hips and she pushed him down. She rode him, faster and faster, drawing him close to completion swiftly "say it. Say you give yourself to me"

"I give myself to you" he moaned out, on the edge of release. He felt her draw something on his chest with a fingertip.

"Say it again. Louder"

"I give myself..." he started to spill into her, then... to his horror, felt as if he were draining out of his body through his cock "Zahra... you witch what have you done? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???" she cackled, as his essence ran from his body and into hers.

He found himself in the palace of her mind, In a room with no doors and no windows. She was there as well. He moved towards her, but in the mind, she had no equal. The sorceresses of Qasin were restricted, by the gods or some quirk of their biology, to the magics of the mind and body. They were, as a result, unequaled. There in her own mind he had no chance against her. She held a knife, and he felt it cutting pieces of him away. "Stop. Stop I beg of you. You promised I would sit with you on your throne"

"And you shall. For what will be left of us when I am done shall be one thing. Man and woman both. I shall have access to all the magics, and when I move to unseat Jafar I will not be hampered by some arbitrary magical rule involving cocks. So when I sit on the throne, what is left of you will sit with me."

"What you are doing is evil. It is evil! You will damn us. You will damn us woman." He begged, knowing the souls flensed in such fashion were never whole again without the intervention of a god. He had done as much himself, making items. "You would destroy me? You would destroy centuries of knowledge for a cock? You are short-sighted. Stop this madness"

"I cannot risk your mind seizing mine and making me your puppet. But you raise a good point. I need not dispense with all of you. Just..." she slashed at him, and he felt all emotion slide away. All ambition. She cut and cut, removing his passions and desires, leaving him aware, leaving his memory and skill intact. "Now... to merge with you"

He shrugged "chances are what you make will still be an abomination. You have no practice stitching souls together"

"That is where you are wrong." She let him see. Months of experimentation, blending two prisoners into one, making monsters, some mad, some grotesque. She even used those, keeping them alive to study what went right and what went wrong. He would have been fascinated and appalled, were he capable of emotion any further. She had surpassed him in some fashions. "Ah. And you want my magic and you think you can keep it"

"I hope to keep it. If not, further experimentation will be warranted." She spoke words again, and then he knew nothing, he ceased to be.

Zahalldor looked down at her body. Leaner than Zahra, narrower of hip, smaller of breast. She sighed, taking in the size of the new cock jutting from her mons. "He always was a disappointment" she muttered "I suppose it's the lot of most men to wish they had bigger cocks though" she grinned "what a delightful first experience. I feel positively masculine in my penis envy."

She called in her servants to dispense with the lifeless body. None would miss the Elf, not here in Qasin.

***

In the desert, a hundred miles away, he was missed. Faisal watched the Chosen awake with a start, panicked. She drew her blade and cast about, moaning in despair "he... he is gone. HE IS GONE." She cast about, a wild look in her eye "I will be damned to be a revenant, forever seeking something missing. Forever denied vengeance. HE IS GONE." Her voice was full of terror, her eyes wild as she faced existential dread. He could see it writ large across her features. A cry leaped from her lips, anguished "I am damned. I am damned."

Faisal moved to comfort the Elf. The weeks on the road had not endeared the woman to him but he understood that if he were to have the blade, her quest was important. At the very least he needed to calm her enough to get her to sleep so he could kill her and make off with the blade. As he approached, he saw it quiver in her hand. She looked down at it, hope rising in her eyes, then fading as it stilled. It hummed and vibrated, then stilled again. "What magic is this?" he asked, quiet.

"He is here, and yet not here. Perhaps he is dead but lies unquiet. I may yet put him to final rest if he's become a Lich. I know not though. The blade tells me he lives and does not live. That he is on this plane and is not."

Faisal nodded, noting that the calm was returning to her eyes, and the blade sat once more easily in her hand. She looked up at him, and as if she knew he'd contemplated killing her for it she gave him a frosty look. "I'll keep watch the rest of the night. I probably need to attune the blade anyway"

He nodded, grimacing "I need the sleep and will be glad of it. You may watch all night every night if you like" He made light, as if nothing at all had happened "Really, I'm just along to watch and perhaps spin your tale if it is a worthy one."

Chosen nodded. "Sleep then, tale spinner." She held the blade across her legs, looking towards the east, waiting for the rising sun. He could see himself that it was nearly dawn and considered preparing the horses for an early ride. He settled on sleep though. It would be a long hot day.

***

To the south, Jahane had put her foot down and demanded to be allowed to work. She watched the others carrying bags of wool, though the sheep were unsheared. "If I am to be part of this endeavor, you must show me how it is done. I cannot sit another month being useless. I will not eat if I am not allowed to work"

Noreah had groaned at the girl's ingratitude but also respected her work ethic. Two months of idleness would have driven her mad, so she understood it. She led the girl up into the hills, past the sheep... to the goats that seemed to abound. "Here..." she sat, and a goat came over, the indeed lined up almost as if they expected something. Noreah took a brush, and began brushing out an undercoat "see here?" she showed the girl "the long hairs are no good, but in the winter, they develop a downy undercoat. That's the source of the soft wool. No sheep at all but goats. You have to be careful brushing it out, and then you have to pick the long hairs out of it. It's long and boring work but it is important."

Jahane nodded and chattered as she set to the task, letting Noreah supervise and inspect each goat before letting it move on "so many of your men never leave the valley then eh? Protecting the goats from wolves and outsiders."

Noreah nodded "these goats are the source of Mahmoud's wealth. It was his father who discovered their down, after watching one rub on a rock. He undertook breeding and domesticating them, and Mahmoud took over for him after his father became chief of the Nahasz." The older woman inspected the first few goats but found the girl's gentle touch and thorough nature was more than adequate to the task of safely getting the down out of the goat's longer fur. She sat back, content to watch the pretty thing tenderly extricate the fur from the goats, who were glad for it as it made them hot in the spring air. "you're really learning quite fast you know" She was telling the truth. The girl was almost a deft hand at slaughtering, though she found her crying over killing a lamb the other day when she thought nobody was watching. She could understand that too.