Majutsu-shi no Chikara Ch. 09

"What is this, Prende?" Akuji walked the perimeter to the sloped entrance -- remembering when he had been tasked with hauling-away the dirt from when the earth and stone stairs were cut away to make the ancient's abode easier to enter and exit for the more unsteady Elders.

"It doesn't fit." Prende was pressing two stone slivers together, as though the broken halves might somehow meld into one at her command. The tooth sat beside her, forgotten or deliberately ignored for the moment, and offered no other insight.

"What does not fit, Prende?" He sat across from her, careful to avoid some of the "placed" items that she'd arranged.

"The spell." Prende's eyes flicked up to him, green shining light -- the green of newly-sprouting leaf-buds backlit by the sun. "The spell must have been wrong... He was here... and now he's somewhere else, and I can't hear him."

Her confusion rolled outward, nigh a tangible thing in its own right, and he felt it make his muscles twitch. It was a small, fearless confusion -- a childlike wondering at a passing curiosity like scrutinizing a butterfly's wings or raindrops leeching into dry soil. Far from the deeper, more deadly mysteries of 'who', 'how', or 'why' South-wold had been made to suffer so terribly in such a short span. Not that a village being razed to the ground was impossible -- but it had been a rare thing to hear of in recent memory. Perhaps all the less surprising, then, as war and death were as much a part of life as farming and building.

"Matta's dead, Prende." Akuji's dark eyes were sympathetic, but the line of his jaw was set firmly and he offered no further softness to that issue. "Are you speaking of his ghost?"

"His...? no." Prende chuckled, looking around the tiny ruin as though each charred scrap were some intricate design. "No, it's just that I could hear him, still."

She looked him in the eyes.

"And now I can't." Shrugging, Prende tapped the two halves of stone together as her brow crinkled in concentration.

"Gods let me live to regret this..." Akuji glanced up to the heavens, then over to Ginga who watched in pained anticipation. They exchanged another silent message of encouragement to each other before the Head-Elder of South-wold turned his attention to the nymph.

"What was he saying? What did he tell you?" Akuji steepled his fingers before his lips and fixed Prende with a piercing gaze. In for a groat, in for a gold.

Prende shrugged again and said something -- and Akuji knew it was pointless. Whether her own fae language, the tongue of an elven kingdom, or some other gibberish, he only knew that it was beyond him. With a sigh, he put his hands to his knees, his feet tucked below him.

"And what does that mean in human tongue?"

"Oh!" Prende looked genuinely surprised at this, like the idea of language barriers was wholly outside her reckoning until that very instant. "I'm... that's... it means: 'Displace dirt and air without understanding as you look at my heart.'"

Akuji blinked at her. Prende smiled, her full lips displaying her gleaming teeth in kindly humor.

"It does not translate well." Prende tilted her head and hummed the rhythm of it, tapping the syllables in her language in time with her fingertips.

"Perhaps not. Does... did he say anything else?"

The narrowing of her eyes and the scrunched wrinkles of her face made Akuji wary -- longer than the moment she took to gaze at him as though peeling back layers of wax from a cheese. When she relaxed and looked away from him, Akuji realized he'd been holding his breath.

"I can't hear him, Akuji. That's what worries me." She sighed heavily. "If his magic worked, then he'd still be here, but his mind was gone... now, his mind is clear -- but he is gone."

"Matta's alive?" Akuji could not believe the revelation -- he'd burned the body himself.

"Wh...? No. No!" Prende frowned, then smiled, then laughed... she tucked her knees to her chest and rested her chin on one knee. "He's gone."

The human's bafflement was plain to her, and Prende made a delicate scowl of self-reproach -- then her smile dazzled back onto her lips as she thought of something else.

"Consider your shadow." She pointed, the sunlight angled such that she was pointing at her own shadow, rather than Akuji's. "Or, well... consider my shadow."

"Alright." Akuji nodded in reply, still leagues shy of wherever her mind was headed.

"It remembers me, but I am not there." She nodded, giving her shadow a slight pout before locking gazes with the human again and beaming with pride. "Understand?"

"It's not so simple as that, I take it?"

"When is magic ever simple?" Prende chuckled demurely.

"By the gods, I pray I never know." Akuji rubbed his eyes. "So, you... you have heard the shadow of Matta?"

"How is that different from a ghost?" Ginga chirruped, then flinched as Prende looked up at her -- half expecting the fae creature to lunge at her or somehow strike her with some fell disease... or cloud her mind with lust such that she couldn't think...

"Ghosts are there. Ghosts aren't just parts of words or thoughts left behind... they exist." Prende's fingers traced lines in the air, but she put no effort -- no will or sound -- into it and nothing came from it. "Ghosts do things... Matta's gone... but the shadow of what he did: that remains."

"And you can hear that shadow?" Akuji's body had twisted away from the nymph slightly, and he felt the need to keep well away from the inhuman beauty in spite of his physical desires.

"Well, not with my ears. He's not 'talking', as we are..." Prende pantomimed with one hand, like a child's puppet, and her jaw moved stiffly up and down. "... it's..."

She looked around, gesturing widely with her hands and then looking back at Akuji meaningfully.

"Right... the shadow of... wait -- you mean he left messages behind?" Akuji's understanding clicked, having wrestled several moments against the unusual manner in which the fae communicated in non-human concepts.

"Is that the same thing?" Prende frowned. "What else did I get wrong?"

"Never mind that. How do you... how do you hear what he said?" Akuji glanced up at Ginga, who nodded and rushed to find Nurcan.

"It's just here." Prende tilted her head and squinted at him, one hand still sweeping between them to include everything. "Am I using the wrong words, Akuji? You look confused."

"Best not to... can you show me any of these messages?" Akuji licked his lips dryly, wondering if Ginga would return with Nurcan in tow before Prende's logic threatened to drag him down a road he had no business treading.

"Well, I suppose I could, if..." but Akuji leapt to his feet, interrupting her.

"Good! Let's wait until Nurcan gets here -- she kens this much better than I." Nodding hastily for emphasis, Akuji dusted himself and looked away. "Thank the... it's not proper to meddle in a Wizard's affairs, dead or not... I'd just as soon leave it to those best-suited."

He'd be lying to say the mystery of what she was describing didn't hold significant appeal... but Akuji bore down on the curious with dutiful resolve. This was not a matter that concerned the goings-on of South-wold, yet. Until he needed to make a decision about the course of events, it would serve them all better to leave the magic to those who practiced (or at least had begun learning). If Nurcan needed his advice, she was able enough to ask it. Already, his feet itched to be free of this especially enigmatic thread -- favoring the well-traveled paths of farming, hunting, and mundane human commerce. Those were his roads, and Akuji knew he could always finds his feet if he kept to them. Especially now that he was a widower and Head-Elder of South-wold's survivors.

With relief and a hesitant smile, Akuji greeted Nurcan with barely a wave as she approached. Ginga followed close behind, her hands clasped before her. Their breeches rustled dustily, and each woman dealt with their own unease differently as they neared Prende again. Nurcan hefted her breasts without artifice, tucking the fabric of her tunic beneath her breasts to settle the chafing a moment as she walked. Ginga, however, fretted her lower lip with her teeth and worked her fingers together -- her stride slightly wobbly or uncertain as her thighs fought to quell the growing need between her legs at the sight of the glowing nymph.

"Nurcan, it's so good to see you!" Prende called, her eyes ever charming and warm emerald. Nurcan frowned, displeased with her body's involuntary capitulation to lust, but otherwise nodded in answer of the nymph's salutation.

"What's this, then?" Nurcan stood before Prende, beside Akuji, and promptly squatted to the ground to sit.

Prende followed, and Akuji turned to leave.

"Best stay, Head-Elder." Nurcan didn't look away from the fae female. Growling a sigh, Akuji knelt in place beside her. Ginga, her task completed, gave the matter only passing concern before deciding to deal with her own needs more urgently in private.

"I have been reading Matta's shadow-messages." Prende leaned forward conspiratorially, eyes darting right and left. "Akuji helped, too."

"Pff." Akuji scoffed, his manhood giving a swell of pride at the nymph's off-hand praise. "I did nothing. You're better suited to this."

Nurcan nodded in answer of this, though she wasn't certain that Akuji's estimation of her abilities really fit the situation -- but if it made him feel better to have her along for whatever mad adventure was imminent, then so be it. As Prende gave her a revised telling of Matta's "message", Akuji back-tracked and offered the context of their earlier conversation. For the nymph's enthusiasm, Prende's sense of time and human perception were decidedly underdeveloped.

"The message is no more mysterious than any other love ballad." Nurcan offered at last, sucking at her teeth and adjusting her legs to be more comfortable -- succeeding only in becoming slightly less aroused.

"I figured it was the wrong words." Prende nodded, giving another small shrug. "But it doesn't sound the same."

"Meanings are slippery -- but I believe the bards would say it more like: 'Behold, my Love and Wonder, for you I move Heaven and Earth'... something like that." Nurcan cleared her throat and wiped her hand over her mouth in effort to hide her blush.

"A love poem?" Akuji gawped, back and forth between them. "All that worry and talk of ghosts for a love poem?"

"It's a message." Prende frowned, which smacked wetly across Akuji's cheek and he sat back chastened.

"They are not so different." Nurcan patted Akuji's shoulder in solidarity, and Prende's scowl abated its onslaught just as suddenly as it had arisen. "The real concern is whether this is truly Matta's doing... and if more such messages exist."

"Or will." Akuji nodded. "Well, Prende?"

"Maybe." Prended pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth, setting both human hearts racing. "I have a question..."

Nurcan rolled her eyes, giving Akuji a knowing glance. They braced themselves as best they could for whatever the fae's mind would conjure... and dreading they would have less than no answer in the near term.

"Why is Ginga with you and not the father of her child?" She met Akuji's eyes a moment and resumed her study of the two broken pieces of stone she'd been toying with before. She took to smacking them together sharply.

crack

"Wh..."

clack

"Damon?"

cli-clack

"But he's..."

The humans stumbled and spoke over each other, which drew a curious glance from the nymph.

"Your son?" Prende focused her attention on Akuji, the rocks clenched in each hand. "Nobody mentioned that she was mated to your son..."

"My...yes." Akuji stood up, pacing around.

"Akuji! You're needed!" The cry arose as more survivors came jogging in from the field, smiles lighting their faces. "Help has arrived, at last!"

"But he's dead." Nurcan waved Akuji off, thinking this another trick of the nymph's non-human perception of the material world... or some other, perhaps more sinister, contrivance. "The poison, remember? Matta said he would... the poison was used within two days, remember?"

The tugging, backward angle of his glance nearly tripped him, but Akuji leapt from the hovel-ruin and met with his fellows.

"How would we know if the poison was used?" Nurcan insisted, crawling closer to the nymph with a different hunger gnawing at her... a terrible, dreadful knowing kind of hunger.

"It was used." Prende looked up, then over Nurcan's shoulder. "Before Matta left..."

"Died."

"What?"

"Before Matta died." Nurcan put a hand on the nymph's much more slender shoulder, muscling her own body to her will to keep her focus. "If you cannot admit that he is dead..."

"His body was destroyed, but..." Prende's eyes filled with painful, clinging tears that would not fall.

"He is dead, girl." Nurcan cradled the nymph to her. "He said himself: 'that which is taken'... remember?"

"What about...?"

"He was murdered... he is dead." Nurcan stared into Prende's green eyes, praying she could resist long enough for the fae to understand delicate human mortality. "He was taken."

"No..." Prende's voice was small, terrified. The tears streamed down her face in a rush. Nurcan felt a painful relief from the supernatural desires the nymph instilled -- instead rocked by the knife-like certainty of a fae being's grief.

"Come here, girl." Nurcan held her close, letting her own grief cut through her as they huddled together. "How you managed to live so long and never ken love's loss... be it pity or mercy?"

Thunder rumbled distantly, and the wind shifted to stir dust around them. Nurcan squinted her eyes against the sting of sand or ash. From the north, a thin bank of dark clouds crept toward them in a promise of rain before nightfall. Until then, the clouds barked and gathered -- casting bolts between them and lancing down to the earth. The storm moved against the wind, and Nurcan felt the hair on her neck stand on end.

"Let's get you inside." Nurcan stood, dragging Prende up with her -- the nymph sobbing uncontrollably now. "It seems the quiet of the grave does not agree with him... or you."

...

Cinching her coin purse one last time, Emseray Saran scowled at the baubles and trinkets on offer. None were exactly to her liking, even as the merchant eyed her purse hungrily and lauded the provenance of his goods.

"Very fine components, as I said." He drew a thin tongue over narrow lips in a round face. He was short, with sandy-brown hair and ruddy skin like that found prominently in a kingdom across the western sea, and his fidgety hands spoke of a knowing wariness of all things magical.

"Yes, you did." Esmeray spared not a glance at him, feeling she had taken his measure in the first moments he'd espied her and began barking his wares to her. "How much?"

"For...?"

"The lot." Emseray looked up, her eyes cold green glass set in an onyx mask. "Couldn't be more than a couple gold sovereigns... this is garbage."

"I do not doubt your esteem for your own devices, Ser, but I assure you..." He squeaked his indignation before she interrupted him.

"I need essence infernum." Her fist thumped against the display, causing several items to bounce dangerously against their tethers.

"Ser, please!" The merchant whined, his eyes searching for his hired guard or a nearby soldier.

"You have it." She snarled, eyes narrowed so that their light nearly vanished and he felt he stared into the depths of night. "Where?"

It was all she could do to keep the ruse -- lest she throw the man to the ground and rape him there and then. She'd pushed herself too long between relief -- going almost the entire day searching merchant stand after merchant stand looking for the host of reagents and articles she would require... and the lust only grew, mounting hour by hour until she was nearly in a fugue from it by late afternoon. The day had not been a waste, but her patience and resistance were near their end.

"In my vault, in town." he pleaded. Esmeray grabbed his wrist and slapped two gold coins into his palm, looming at his face.

"Get. It." and she stormed away. "I'll be back in the morning."

"...gods of night and coin..." he gasped, panting with fear. "Yes... yes, Ser."

He shook himself out of the fear, sheepishly adjusting his crotch when he thought nobody could see him. The guard returned -- immediately receiving a severe reprimand and being docked a day's wages for his absence when the strange obsidian sorcerer had accosted his employer. The merchant found his disapprobation barely satisfied by the sell-sword's protests of an unruly gut from last night's heavy drinking. No matter; the coin debt was paid and the sexy-scary sorcerer had paid him just to fetch his stock from inside town. With a bit of luck, his wife (an aspirant of the Guild) would have fared much better on the day's sales. Tomorrow, the obsidian nightmare would pay an absolute fortune for the essence she sought -- and his wife would be much pleased with that. He only hoped that he was not wasting his time.

As he returned home at sunset, the dull boom of thunder far to the south in a great grand-father of a storm, he regaled the mistress of his heart and house with the happenings of his day... Often, he would let her dispense her own musings first, for she frequently had very interesting stories to tell... today, he wanted to tell her of the maniac sorcerer with obsidian skin and white hair...

"Wait -- do you mean..." and his good wife conjured a seeming in nearly the exact likeness, less the wild-eyed ferocity. "...this woman? Her?"

"Well... well, yes." He mumbled, somewhat rebuffed and thinking his wife about to castigate him for wasting her time with some bit of nonsense. Oh, he knew business well enough -- but when it came to magic: she was the queen of his castle. "You, uh, you know her, I presume?"

"Every Wizard in the Guild knows Esmeray Saran." her mouth sparkled with gleaming white teeth, and he newly began to fear for his safety. "She's a member of the Arcane Tower, and... and why she'd be bothering you is beyond me."

They frowned at each other for their own reasons, until he ventured to finish his telling of the story -- now much-abridged for her taking the wind from his sails.

"She gave me two sovereigns and bid me bring essence infernum, tomorrow." He thumbed his belt and puffed his chest with certain indignation, but otherwise relented at that.

"How curious." His wife eyed him with a hunger he knew well, and he blushed in anticipation. "I think I'll join you, tomorrow... but tonight: I think you deserve a special reward."

He nodded eagerly, securing the door behind them and nearly tripping over himself to charge past her and into their bedroom above the shop. He listened to her sing-song magic, heard the rustling of fabric as she climbed the steps, and a terrifyingly familiar obsidian face peeked around the corner. Try though she might, she was too short to masquerade as Saran, and too giddy with her own designs to wear the facade with the same severity as the original... but he didn't care.

"Oh..." his eyes were like saucers, his cock rock-solid and proudly thrust outward from his hips where he lay in their bed.

"I think..." she turned about, feeling her skin and caressing her buttocks. "I think I want you to fuck her."

...

"Enjoy it while it lasts." Emseray's mouth was a predatory smile over the small scrying mirror. The naked figures provided a modicum of entertainment as she gave her lust full reign and fucked herself with the magical phallus to a second climax. She watched, mimicking some of their exploits as it suited her own pleasure, as they cavorted. First, she was sucking his cock as if it were the last hope for Renks Cairn... then, riding it... a brief rest as the merchant drank a glass of wine to fortify himself... he dove into her snatch with an appetite Esmeray approved-of, even if she couldn't fully enjoy it. When her doppelganger offered her ass to her husband, the poor man's eyes nearly bulged from his skull and his cock looked about to burst.