The Witchling of Alsira

Skaldt Tales 2 - Look Closer

The many words and sigils on the loose parchment leaves that Leiros had splayed out across his wooden desk were beginning to blur together. He stopped his reading for a moment, closing his eyes, and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. It was now several hours before dawn and he still needed to get caught up on his studies but his tired body was doing its best to stop his efforts. He opened his eyes again and gazed down at the parchment that was directly before him. His eyes ran across the vertical lines of text, picking up the easy crumbs of information, yet getting lost for a few moments on the larger and more complicated sigils.

The room he occupied was nearly dark, as the light from his candles was beginning to gutter. The candles themselves could no longer be called such, as they were now nothing more than stalagmites of melted wax curving around the workspace of his desk. He gazed up at them for a brief moment, getting lost in their details. They reminded him of a jagged mountain range in miniature with rivers of slowly cooling clear mallow cascading down to pool on the wood surface. The last two lit wicks in front of him were beginning to flicker as they approached the clear lakes of mallow that would soon drown them out.

He pushed the parchment that was directly in front of him off to the right, turning his attentions to another parchment with an elaborately inked diagram of power. He traced his eyes around the the edge of a circle, reading the incantation notes scrawled in fine graphite. He could only gather a few of the ancient Morthavi words when he found himself feeling dizzy for a split second. It felt like he was beginning to shake or shudder out of his body, his senses growing distant, and then he came forward again. He desperately needed sleep, but he absolutely had to get this information crammed into his mind.

He let his head slump down into his left hand, using the support of his arm to hold its increasingly growing weight. There were still a few more than a dozen parchment leaves he had to study. He knew that one of the older masters would press him on this information during the next day. Master Illenos, especially, as she always had a knack for knowing when he hadn't studied enough information before-hand. She was exceedingly adept at the strange powers and the advanced perception of the Authrakallin, but instead of using those powers to assist others as the Order was meant to, it seemed like she used her powers just to figure out when it was best to remind Leiros that he didn't belong there.

Leiros gave a long sigh and absent-mindedly shoved the other parchment off to his right. He looked up, over his desk to the dancing shadows that were growing throughout his room. Most of the area was obscured in darkness, but straight ahead he could see the tattered red cloth that was hung over the doorway to his private quarters. Below the threadbare edge of the cloth he saw that the stone floor of the hallway outside was completely engulfed in darkness. It would seem that no other members of the Order were up and around at this time, probably all of them were peacefully asleep, lost in their own dreams.

Between the doorway and his desk was an open space, the rock floor was covered by several strewn-about rugs and furs to help insulate the area. Most members of the Order kept their rooms almost empty, as if they exalted in the bare rock of the great mesa they lived within. Leiros was one of the few exceptions, he had grown up in relative luxury during his formative years, and he wished to replicate what little he could of that lifestyle while he stayed here. His was one of the few rooms with a desk, with shelves filled to the brim with parchments, scrolls and books. Behind him and to his right, instead of a rock slab covered with dried grass, his bed was an actual wooden frame with a fine authroc-down matress. He had even managed to commission an artist in nearby Alsira Thaenat to make him a few paintings that he hung on the rock-hewn walls to liven them up a bit. This space was his sanctuary and he'd be damned to the depths of Gehemol if he was going to live for a single night like a pauper.

He returned his eyes to his desk just as the last two wicks died out in tandem. The entire room was quickly plunged into darkness. He gave out a half-hearted curse under his breath and pushed his chair away from his desk. The baser parts of his mind cried out for him to clamor in the dark over to his bed and retire to the blissful rest of sleep, but the higher parts of himself vehemently refused to.

He crept through the dark off to his left, carefully counting the steps and feeling along the edge of his wooden desk until he met with the rock wall framing the limits of the room and then turning slightly to the left. He tapped the wall lightly with the fingers of his right hand, inching along with small steps further to his left. He reached out with his left hand at the exact time that the tips of his fingers would touch the wood of a small cabinet.

He had memorized the exact details of his room in the dark and although he could perform a ritual to enhance his senses -- to summon light from the air itself, or push his ephemeral self out of his physcial shell into the shadowed realm beyond so as to see around him beyond the limitations of light -- he chose not to. He preferred to be subtle with the arts he had learned over his life, both to conserve his energies, but also as a form of deception to others. Something he learned, again, living the life he had when he was younger in the courts and intrigues of Morrthal City. His grandfather had taught him well that those with any sort of power should never flaunt it, lest those who envy such powers seek to destroy them.

He knelt down now, reaching around to the front of his cabinet to pull on a metal ring, opening the top-most shelf. The wood gave a hollow and warm groan as it slid forward and he turned on his feet just a slight bit to reach into the drawer and retrieve two more candles with his right hand, and one sulphur stick with his left. He pushed forward with his knee, closing the cabinet and then turned on his heels. He counted his steps once again with a decent stride. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Soon after this, he felt the pressure of his wooden desk against the front of his left thigh.

Leiros felt around with the toe of his bare right foot, tapping away at the fur beneath him until he found the wooden leg of his studying chair. He curled his toe out, pivoting his foot around the leg and dragging it forward so that he could sit down on it next to his desk. He reached forwards into the dark feeling the sticky wax on the edge of his desk. He found a decent section with the heel of his left hand and stuck one of the candles down into the wax with his right. He reached out again, finding another sutiable area and stuck the other candle down hard.

He leaned back for a moment, pushing some of the remaining loose parchments on his desk off to the right so that his next action wouldn't get any ash on them. He held up the sulphur stick he still had in his left hand, and rummaged for a moment with his right to find the piece of flint on the edge of his desk. He found the flint after a moment, came back and struck at the stick to alight it. That is when he was startled so badly, he almost fell backward out of his chair.

As the stick lit up, casting a soft and flickering orange glow in front of him, he was taken aback by the hunched and looming figure, standing just a few inches in front of his desk. In a split second, Leiros' imagination ran away with him and he believed that the figure was a cloaked reaper sent by Olthenna to capture his soul. As the first flash of light settled into continuous flickering and his eyes had a moment to adjust, he took in the familiar details of Grandmaster Toulam's tattered and drawn cloak.

The elder member of the order stood as if he were a statue, his head cast down and mostly covered by the aged cloth draped over him. Only the sharp tip of his chin, covered in white stubble could be seen within the shadows of his hood. His cloak was a faded light grey, looking like fog or mist draped loosely over his form. A few faded embroiderings of gold and crimson around his hood, deep sleeves, and sections of his front were the only designs that broke the uniformity of the grey. His hands were held before him, folded up beneath heavy wrinkles of cloth as if hidden in deep pockets. He continued to stand there, motion-less, word-less and heed-less of his surroundings.

"Grandmaster Toulam." Leiros muttered the words as if consoling himself that the old man was indeed before him, rather than some shadowy illusion that might strike out at him at any moment. "Did you get lost in the dark, or do you have need of me?"

The wizened figure remained unmoving, not a single piece of fabric jostled, and what few bits of his body could be seen remained frozen like pale marble. Leiros' mind began to wander, wondering if perhaps the exhaustion had finally taken hold of him and he was dreaming all of this. He shook his head quickly, feeling the disorientation and tiredness pulling at his consciousness again. No, he was still awake. He continued to stare at the figure for two more moments and leaning forward slightly to see if he could look under the front rim of the old man's hood to see his eyes beneath.

Pain shot through the the index finger and thumb of Leiros' left hand. He had completely forgotten about the lighting stick which had provided the dim illumination in the room. It had burned down to the section he had his fingers around. He instinctively dropped the stick and began waving the heat from his fingers. The light went out and the eagerly awaiting shadows cascaded forth out of the very rock, hungry to devour the light.

Leiros continued to wave and click his fingertips to disperse the heat and pain. He continued to look forward into the darkness awaiting some sound or sign of the old man's movements. As soon as the pain faded he heard a very slight rustle of fabric from before him and a rush of breeze that carried barely audible, whispered words of ancient power. Before him, the two candles that he had set upon his desk began to flicker to life. It was a slow flame, but as the energy in the room spun and twisted around the wicks, coalescing into a proper flame, the wicks soon blazed forth with full light.

Leiros looked forward and upward to see Grandmaster Toulam with a single bare hand revealed from his clothing and curled with age as he held the limb forth. Small sparks of orange, yellow and redish light glinted like light off of snow above his upturned palm. The light remained for the briefest of moments and then quickly ceased once the candles were lit. The hood had lifted, showing just enough of the old man's face to reveal the faded white-blue of his cataract-filled eyes.

"You squander the gifts given to you by Nesharr, young one." The old man's voice was soft, steady and slow. Each word moved out of him and into the air like the rustling of leaves of a single tree in a very slow breeze. "Sometimes I wonder..." His voice trailed off for a moment as he turned on his feet, facing to the right wall of Leiros' room. "...Is your hesitance to use your gifts that we've taught you, because you weren't paying attention and didn't learn them, or because you're just too afraid of your own greatness."

Leiros gave a very quick chuckle. The old man could never pay a compliment in the absolute. He wanted his students to constantly doubt themselves. He felt that this was the only way that such gifted people could find humility among the engrossing and commanding powers that the Authrakallin used.

"I've been paying attention, Master." Leiros got up from his desk, taking a single step back from his chair and pushing the chair under the desk with a foot. "I've explained my hesitance before. The way that I grew up..."

The old man took a few jittering steps forward, making his way across the furs and rugs to Leiro's bed. He stopped his stride for just a moment, looking up to Leiros. A single one of his faded eyes looked beneath a fold in the fabric toward him and he interrupted with a shrugging "Pheh!"

Leiros stood silent for a moment, watching the elderly man finish his trek to the bed. He stood almost an entire foot higher than the slouched oracle. He saw Toulam turn to face him, lifting himself slightly to sit upon the bottom edge of the bed. Leiros moved forward, offering his hands up to assist the old man. He had only taken a single step forward when he saw the old man waving his left hand for him to stay back. He could hear a string of curses from Toulam, beneath his breath.

"Ahh!" The old man settled his haunches on the bed, pushing up and downwards with his legs. "This is what a Bretholm-made matress feels like." A thin smile cut through the revealed bottom half of his face. "I always wondered why one of my students would bother with such decadence. Now I understand fully. You bought this to accomodate your training with astral projection and dream-travel. Heh?"

"No, Grandmaster, I'm still a bit behind in those studies." Leiros took a step back and leaned his hip against his desk.

"Oh? This isn't for sleep divination?" The old man continued to smile, bouncing like a small child upon the bed. "Then the only conclusion I can gather, is that my best student is a decadent, soft-backed, lazy, little bitch!" He broke into wheeze-filled laughter as he continued his bouncing.

Leiros raised a hand to his head, pinching the bridge of his nose to stay awake. "Is there a reason you're here, Grandmaster?" He slumped his body slightly on his desk, raising a leg to prop himself against the wood.

The old man ceased his joviality and returned to his serious, statuesque, absence of movement. He let the rim of his hood slump fully over his face again. He slowly rose from the bed to stand on his two feet. He took a single step forward.

"Come with me." He turned and began to walk towards the doorway of the room. Leiros gave a single sigh, ready to draw in breath to retort agains the old man's words but was interrupted by the elder oracle. "Shut your mouth. I don't give a damn about how tired you are, or how behind you are on your studies." He reached the fabric-covered doorway and lifted it up with a hand. "All that theoretical summoning and binding crap that Illenos is wasting your time with can wait. I have secrets to share." He gave a little hop, looking like an impatient child who was in a hurry.

Leiros left the side of his desk, turned around and blew out the candles as he passed by. He turned back towards the doorway, uttering a few words under his breath and began to rub his eyes. He could feel the power that he was drawing from the darkness pooling around them and coldly piercing into his skull. Slowly the lingering darkness took on a foggy substance, fading and parting around him as he continued to stare forward. Greyish-blue and purple shapes began to reveal themselves; the outlines of the furniture and walls of his room. He waited a few moments until the detail and shimmering colors of the dark were sufficient for him to move forward.

"Good." The old man blurted out as he stepped into the hallway. "Nesharr gave you the gifts boy. It's not a sin to use them!"

***

It only took a few minutes for the two seers to make their way to their destination through the labyrinthine tunnels that wound their way within the grand mesa of Auhl-Keignfel Stohll. As they made their way upward towards the fountain chamber, Leiros could see the same glittering sparks of energy pooling around the Grandmaster's hands as he walked up a small flight of stairs and around a bend in the tunnels. As soon as they both made their way into chamber -- with the sound of gurgling waters ahead -- the old man let loose with his energies. Hundreds of half-melted candles that littered around the room erupted into life all at once causing Leiros to shield his eyes. He soon began to quickly disperse the energies he used to see in the dark so that he could see with the eyes of a mortal once again.

As his eyes returned to normal and he looked out in the chamber, he took in the familiar reliefs and chiselled motifs that cromprised the domed roof of the room. Lit by the flickering candlelight, each of the figures above seemed to move. Some were scenes from the history of the Order, others were histories of the ancient times when the powerful Morthavi ruled over the world, and others were merely depictions of gods or fell beasts from myth. The room itself was beautiful in its own strange way, despite the accumulation of melted candles stuffed into alcoves, or stuck to any free surface that would allow. The sound of the gurgling waters in the central fountain was relaxing, reminding Leiros of the small brook that flowed through his family's ancestral lands in the west.

Leiros brought his eyes down to the old man ahead of him, his back turned to his student and with a single drawn arm ending in a pointing finger to a rock slab next to the fountain. The old man silently bade for him to sit down next to where he stood. He didn't say a word and waited patiently for Leiros to follow his command.

"Yes, Grandmaster." Leiros made his way forward ending his stride right next to the old man and then quickly stopping before the rock slab. "I understand this is pressing for you. I wish to learn whatever you wish to impart, but I really must sleep soon."

The old man retracted his arm and then pointed again with a sharp jerk to the slab. "These are matters that go beyond temporal considerations, Leiros. I don't give a damn what your body cries out to you for. These are matters that transcend such petty concerns."

Leiros sat down on the weathered rock, feeling the ages-old indentation of other's shapes that had been subtly worn into the rock over the decades or centuries. He gave a long sigh and crossed his arms. He watched the old man take two long and cautious steps backward until the rock edge of another slab hit him in the back of the legs. He carefully lowered himself down onto the rock with a groan of age.

"If you must continue to be restricted by temporal illusions..." The old man settled on the rock, leaning forward while rubbing his aged and leathery hands together. "Consider this young man. I have waited almost two decades to sit here and tell you these things. The least you can do is wait a few hours before you galavant off into the realm of Ginnithol to rest with wicked Sethos."

"Grandmaster, I've only been with the Order for a decade. I..." Leiros cut in and then was quickly commanded to cease talking by the old man who held a single clawed finger to his ancient lips.

"Don't try that 'old man with a weak memory' crap with me, boy." Toulam shifted on his rock, pivoting to the side slightly to take some strain off of his aged hips. "I know what I meant. We are seers after all, are we not? Ours is to know things that others don't. To know things that others shouldn't. To collect mysteries, secrets and to understand the strands of fate that the gods weave all around us, creating the tapestry that we call reality." The old man reached out a hand to give a slap to one of Leiros' legs.

Leiros gave a single nod and kept his tongue. He kept his mouth shut but pressed out his jaw to bite back a yawn. He pushed his back against the cool edge of the fountain and looked away from the old man for a moment. He turned his head upwards to take in the dancing forms in the roof above him, seeing the headpiece that was directly above the fountain. He took in the dancing form of Nesharr, the god that imparted the divinitory sight to the predecessors of the Authrakallin in ancient times. The exposed form of the god, half made of substance and half made of shadow, stood between the goddesses of life and death. Looming over Nesharr, half hidden in the top-most border of the relief was the insane god Jhulkos plucking threads that led down to the three immortals below. Leiros let his mind wander for a few moments, wondering if perhaps the strands of fate that the Grandmaster spoke of weren't so much in the hands of Nesharr, as they were his twisted and mad brother.

"Hrmph!" The disapproving sound came from the old man who knelt a little closer to Leiros as he sat near the fountain. "You're too young to be so cynical." The old man turned to the side and began to rummage in the folds of his cloak, looking for something. If Leiros had been of any other caste or order, he might have been startled by the uncanny coincidence of the old man guessing at his thoughts. Leiros was an experienced member of the Authrakallin, however, and knew well that the old man indeed had the power to pluck the thoughts out of his mind. There were rules about such things in the Order, but the old man cared not for such restrictions on his abilities.

"Besides..." The old man started again after finding a wooden bowl hidden in some hidden compartment of his clothing. "I know the bastard that made that sculpture." The old man held the bowl out to Leiros who took it. "He was an idiot."

"One doesn't need to be a sage of intellect to be a savant of the soul. A separation between knowledge and wisdom, I suppose." Leiros turned his gaze from the bowl in his hands back to the relief over the fountain. He heard the old man give a snort at this and pressed his words while turning his gaze back to his teacher. "Was it not Vhaltenesh, the precept of our Order that stated..."

"...That truest understanding does not always come from the exercises of the mind, but from the growth of the spirit." The old man finished the words with a sour face. His blinded eyes remained locked upon Leiros'. The old man turned his head and spat openly at the edge of the room. "Don't quote that long-dead sycophant to me. He was an idiot, too."

Leiros leaned forward, clasping the wooden bowl between both of his hands. "Well, we can't all be as wise as you, Grandmaster." He placed the bowl on his lap and leaned back to spread his arms across the rim of the fountain, enjoying the cool stone against his back.

The elder seer sat across from Leiros, one leg crossed over the top of the other, his head tilted slightly to the side as a desert canine might do at an intriguing sound. Leiros knew to empty his mind, just in case the old man might be trying to penetrate his thoughts, again. The old man held his position for a small handful of minutes, waiting for the press of time to grow uncomfortable for the younger man.

"Use the damn bowl. Drink the damn water." The old man blurted out once Leiros had admitted in his mind that he was finally uncomfortable. Toulam held his position on the rock, returning to his statuesque form.

"Grandmaster, surely you don't expect me to partake of the visionary waters at this time of night?" Leiros pulled his back from the edge of the fountain to look at the immobile form of the old man before him. "I'm exhausted. You said, yourself, to get proper visions one must prepare for weeks in advance. Rituals of cleansing, invocations of Nesharr..." Leiros leaned further still, trying to look under the hood of the old man and make eye contact with him, despite the futility of such. "You also stated many times that one was not to partake of these waters while they flowed during the night, lest the blood-light of Celanna might taint them."

The older oracle gave a slightly perceptible shudder beneath his robes. Leiros knew that for one as old and as wise as Toulam was, he remained as impatient as a small child tempted with sweets, when he wanted something of someone and could not get it immediately. The old man did his best to act removed, contemplative or catatonic but what very little of his thoughts that Leiros could sip from his mind, betrayed his pressing curiosity. Leiros had never been as oppressive with invasions of the mind like others in the Order. He admitted to himself that part of the reason was that he was still learning and mastering the art, but compared to most, even his neophyte attempts at telepathy were very subtle. He rather the targets slip up and reveal themselves through clever coaxing and mild inquisition, rather than the forceful piercing that many others seemed to enjoy.

Leiro's father, Kolmarq, had been a member of the filidath, or the law-giver caste. His father before him was a member of the tolshatra, or courtier caste, who had earned his way into society and established Leiros' family in the rich splendors and dangerous politics of Morthal City. It had broken Leiro's father's heart when he learned that his eldest son would not follow in the path that was established by his family for several generations, but would in fact part from it drastically. It was Leiros' responsibility as the eldest son to follow his father's orders, but Leiros chose to pick up the warrior caste's sword and shield rather than the chisel and tablet of the law-givers.

Kolmarq was a stern father, demanding much of his wife, three sons and youngest daughter, but as man who lived by the law and took a strong sense of purpose from the traditions of Hoelatha culture, he could not fight against what Leiro's soul had chosen for itself. Leiro's father knew how adept he had become at the martial arts, and how his father's encouragement had sculpted him into a moral and honorable warrior. Being a crafty manipulator and the son of a courtier, he also knew not to break the young Leiro's will by commanding him against his will, but rather to bend his son's inclinations in such a method as to further the family's prestige. That is when Kolmarq began to craft his son not only into an expert warrior who could serve the family with glory, but also to awaken the gifts of Nesharr that lay within him, so that the family could use his foresight and strange abilities to further their own ambitions.

Leiros knew he was different from other children from the moment his father sent him off to the vhulkovyr encampments outside of Morthal City. The first thing the vhasul mentor had done was to test him. Leiros had arrived with his father far too young for the Kollishi Thaulp rite of adulthood. The vhasul had taken Leiros' hands in his own, feeling how soft the skin was and scoffing loudly. The vhasul had turned his back to bellow out to the other students who had stopped their morning's activities to gather around this new child who seemed so foreign to their rough sensibilities. The vhasul, a rough man himself, yelled that Leiros' father must be mistaken as the vhulkovyr didn't allow princesses from the Sapphire Lands entrance into their caste. The words bit hard into Leiro's confidence, but not as much as the heckling and jeering from the female students in the vhasul's group, seeing him as even more effeminate than themselves.

Leiros could still remember the taste of the acrid salt of the Morthavis Highlands mixing with the blood on his bottom lip as he bit into it, trying to steel himself from talking out of turn. He waited patiently as the vhasul had his laugh, and the children had their moment to humiliate him. He turned his eyes to his father at that point and saw nothing more than disappointment and silent words upon his lips ready to chide him for not following after his own caste choice. That is when Leiros turned back to the vhasul and challenged him openly. A match to first blood, with nothing more than the long and elegant vhulthant blades that many of the Athul-kavi warriors used. Leiros remembered that he had peppered his challenge with many insults to the vhasul's character, but he could not remember the words he spoke. The insults had worked, as the vhasul had looked with eyes of murder into him and simply waved one of his students to retrieve the blades.

Leiros had not only managed to take first blood in that duel, but he had also managed to take the insolent vhasul's eye as well. Something that the violent and miserable man held against him for the ardous four years that he spent training under him, that is, until his father managed to secure an advancement for him into the Authrakallin Order. Leiros was still a novice with weapons, but what he didn't have with training, he made up for with a strange preternatural ability at anticipating other's reactions. All it took was a single moment of calm, allowing Leiros to stretch the energy at the seat of his soul outward into the world, feeling the strands of fate as each were plucked by the decisions of the combatants. The vibrations of adrenaline carried him through the threads, giving him quickness and power that seemed almost inhuman as he moved. He knew the vhasul's movements before his mind had conveyed them to his muscles. He was able to draw from the vhasul's decades of training despite having received none, himself. He knew the consequences of his actions full moments before the actions could even be created. He didn't need to learn from exercises and rote muscle memory, he just had to be exposed to those who did, and to use every one of their weaknesses against them.

Those who were gifted with the sight of Nesharr were rare among the Hoelatha people, but were also prized. There had always been a tradition of honoring those with the sight of the oracles since the ancient bygone era of the fabled Morthavi, all the way through the once great Hoelatha Empire and now into the descent of the world. There were times in the past that those with the sight and the abilities of the oracles were hunted, and many other cultures who still hunt those of their blood, as well. Thankfully for Leiros, there was an order of oracles that would take him in, the disciples of Vhaltenesh, who had moved the seat of the Authrakallin from the once fabled Oerstav Caelii, the Isle of Oracles, which fell during the Great Cataclysm, to the desert mesas of the Alsi-Kavi people in the southern heartlands of the Hoelatha. Leiros hated deserts, but this place was the closest thing that he could call home.

Leiros lifted the wooden bowl from his lap and set it on the edge of the fountain. As he did so, he let his eyes linger on the form of the old man still seated and unmoving in front of him. He could see a very slight curl at the edge of the man's lips. Toulam was smirking, while no doubt reading the rememberances that had trailed through Leiro's mind in the last few moments. That old bastard loved invading everyone's privacy and using the knowledge he gained in his subtle and veiled schemes.

"Isn't that how you became the Grandmaster of the Order?" Leiros asked idly as he turned his head and looked to the wooden bowl while flicking it with a finger.

"Hrmph?" Toulam played at stupidity. He reached up and stretched for a moment, allowing his brittle bones and rheumatic joints to snap loudly. He lifted one of his legs to rub at his knee and quickly returned to his immobile pose.

"I assume that is precisely why you're pressing me to drink of the waters while being so exhausted." The realization rang through Leiro's mind as he said the words. He managed to sip from some of the thoughts trailing at the topmost layers of his master's mind. "You are here to see and experience the visions that I would have once I drink these waters. You expect something, you old scalten cat."

"I did say I waited two decades for this, did I not?" The Grandmaster rubbed his chin and soured his face for a moment. The tone of his voice trailed off in question for a bit longer than necessary. He was feigning senility, while at the same time using that tone as a prod against his student. Almost like an accustion of the faulty memory of the younger oracle.

"Yeah, yeah." With a sideways motion and a flick of the wrist, Leiros dipped the bowl in the cool waters of the fountain and brought a filled bowl back to the edge. "You also want me tired, so that it's easier to pierce into my mind. You don't want me hiding anything from you."

"You are my prized student, young Leiros." A grin spread across the weathered and white-stubbled chin of the old man that was visible beneath the shadow of his hood. "I don't expect you to hide anything from me at all. Have I not always been forthright with you, these many years?"

"If you count being 'forthright' as being a cryptic old bastard, then yes." Leiros grabbed the edge of the bowl and brought it down to his lap gracefully. "I'll do as you wish, but understand that if these visions don't destroy my mind and my soul as they should do to someone who is not prepared..." He lifted the bowl up with both hands to his chin and then looked back to his mentor. "...Before the the next fest-day, you're allowing me to do this properly. Rituals and all." He lifted the bowl to his lips and then quickly pulled away for a moment. "And, you're increasing my status in the order, so I don't have to put up with Illeno's crap, anymore."

The old man gave a single nod, then remained motionless while Leiros gulped down the entire bowl of water. He didn't say a word while his student, once finished handed the bowl back to him. The old man wiped the moisture from it on his sleeve and set it back in whatever hidden compartment he had first drew it from and sat across from the young man for a few moments more.

"It doesn't taste any different than the glacial run-off of the Alsira River..." Leiros smacked his lips for a moment and leaned back, pushing his knees out for a moment. "Quite cool and refreshing. Maybe I could drink this every day." He gave a chuckle. "So, when are these visions supposed to begin, or am I so advanced in my gifts that I am immune to the waters influence?"

"You'll know when they strike you." The old man gave another grin. He lifted his head just an inch to match his dead, white eyes against Leiros'. "Oh, and it is worth noting at the outset. You really aren't supposed to drink the waters during the night hours, especially when Celanna is full." The grin spread to a wicked smile across the old man's face. "It's fortunate for you that the Queen of Blood is full tonight, gifting the waters with her sanguine venom."

The face of Leiros began to contort. His mouth moving upwards, deforming and stretching beyond the limitations of a human form, still cloaked beneath his hood. The snaggled and yellow teeth in his skull began to grow into razor-sharp fangs. A serpent's tongue flicked between the crevices and gaps in his ever-growing mouth. As his fiendish face split, his jaw opening and unhinging outward, Leiros felt himself falling into the darkness of his maw as the thing that was once his mentor began to cackle fitfully, the haunting sound slowing down into a unearthly howl of a predatory beast.

***

It took a few moments for Leiros to catch up with his consciousness. The sensation was the same as waking up from a deep slumber, or a moment where one was unable to breath and blacked-out. Slowly he began to remember who he was, but he could not understand where he was or how he had gotten to whatever sort of dream-like reality he now occupied.

He knew, through a fog that clung heavily throughout his mind that he was not in the normal world he knew in his waking state. This was a world of deepest black. It felt like and looked like an infinite void that stretched on beyond his senses out into an abyss on all sides, yet this place he now occupied felt filled with some sort of cloying and suffocating ethereal substance.

Leiros looked down to his feet, finding himself standing still on a slick and hard surface. At the same time the same surface his bare feet touched was partially submerged in some sort of viscous, dark liquid. The sensation on his feet was oddly warm, while the sensation across his face and body was that of a subtle coolness. Around him, instead of a shadow, was a set of rippling reflections of his form. Each ripple reflected a unique and disjointed view or position of his body. He stood motionless and still, yet some of the reflections he saw at strange angles were of him screaming in pain, or laughing at some silent joke, or running in place from someone or some thing that was chasing him.

He followed the ripples around him, outward to where he would expect the liquid to meet a horizion, but there wasn't one. What he thought was the ground and the sky were one united shade of darkness. He looked back to his feet, lifting one up to look at his bare sole. As he lifted his foot from the liquid below him, he saw what seemed to be deep crimson blood flow from the sole of his foot back to the pool below him. His foot was not stained with the liquid, however, as it seemed to clump and fall away like some mass of organic oils.

He placed his foot down, steadying himself and began to turn around, looking in all directions and seeing nothing more than the eternal darkness that he was now trapped within. In this place he could not discern any sort of up or down, left or right, and he was beginning to panic. He soon became aware of his sense of time and began to wonder if he would be trapped within this realm forever. His mind raced at hazy conclusions that bubbled up within him like air trapped in boiling water. Had he died? Had he lost his mind? Was this some sort of punishment from the gods? Was his previous existence, as removed as it all seemed now, nothing more than a dream?

He moved forward, walking as straight a line as he could in the ceaseless oblivion that existed all around him. His footsteps did not make a single sound. He felt a growing vertigo and anxiety with every step, that he might be lost in this strange place for all time. He reached out and around him with his arms, desperately reaching for any sort of substance that might ground him, but feeling nothing. Not even the sensation of air passing over his arms or through his fingers. He drew his arms back to his body, tightly holding around his abdomen and then reaching his hands up to shield his face. Fear began to build up inside of him. Something was not right; this wasn't supposed to be happening. He froze and stared wildly out into the dark.

"Here you are, beyond any limitations of time or space, and you're already descending into fear." The voice was a feminine whisper over Leiros's left shoulder. He could feel the voice close to his ear, causing the hairs on his neck to stand on end. He could almost feel the woman's breath as she leaned in against him. Her voice was both playful and predatory at the same time. Her words sounded like the whispering a lover might do while holding another close in the throes of passion, or as a killer might do while seizing a victim in a darkened street right before the thrust of their blade.

Leiros froze and raised his shoulders slightly. He dared not look over his shoulder toward what might be there. A rush of confusion swept through his mind as to who the voice belonged to and what wisdom they were attempting to impart. A vague recollection bubbled up in his mind that he was within a vision imparted to him from the gods and that he must remember succinctly each bit of information that he was given. He stood motionless and awaiting the visions around him to begin.

"Descending into fear and expecting wisdom to be granted to you without any effort at all. How simpering and coddled." The voice whispered over his right shoulder now, it almost felt like he would feel the brush of lips against his earlobe.

His heart began to beat faster, his breath pitching, and he continued to remain still. He turned his head to the right just a fraction of a degree and could not see anyting from his peripherial vision. He let his arms remain straight at his sides, not knowing if he should react to any threat that might be posed. Memories began to slide into his consciousness of being a small child once again. Of hiding beneath the silk covers of his bed while being startled at the shadows cast by furniture in his bedroom, given life through the dancing of the candle flame. If he was indeed in a vision, he had nothing to fear, yet every bit of his instincts flared to life as if he was trapped in the claws of some dreaded and fell beast.

"I-If y-you are here to impart some wisdom, than do so." He felt his mouth grow dry as the words escaped his lips. "Surely, you have more to impart than comments about my unease." Feeling the goading words coming up gave him a bit more resolve. "If you are so wise, show yourself. Cease this juvenile whispering in my ears and show me something worth my time."

He felt a cold hand with sharp claws over the fingers grab into his left shoulder and pull him around hard. The metallic claws dug in but did not pierce his flesh, the human fingers beneath them were as cold as ice and gripped with the power of inhuman strength. As he reeled around he had to steady himself on the slippery and viscous liquid at his feet. His feet slid but he kept himself standing. He looked to the ground and then upwards to see a figure standing in front of him.

Before him stood a woman that was about the same height as himself and looked to be a few years older. The details of her appearance were almost overwhelming, dazzling and each piece of her form demanded attention. The more that Leiros took in of her with his senses, the more he became transfixed by her.

Her brilliantly blue eyes shone with a strange internal light as well as reflecting shadows that did not exist in this abyssal world she stood in. At the edges of the icy blue was a strange ring of indigo light that seemed to pull away from her eyes in a way that was hard for Leiros to understand. If he looked at her directly, her eyes seemed normal, yet if he looked away, blinked, or her head pivoted slighly, there seemed to be tendrils of some indigo darkness that trailed and spun their way from her eyes and around her head like smoke trapped in water.

Her hair was a mane of white, flowing from her head, over her shoulders and ending in tangled strands at the small of her back. The hair looked fine and straight, yet held a volume to it that no human hair properly had. The hair at her roots and along the sides by her ears seemed to trail out like quills which only softened to hair midway down her shoulders. Each strand was like the color of half-melted snow, white and almost translucent, yet shimmering with trapped colors. The ends of her hair, some draped over he shoulders, the others swaying from behind her back were stained and encrusted with what looked like blood.

The woman's face was angular but not severe, as her chin was sharp yet as Leiros' eyes trailed across her jawline they smoothed into a curved jaw framed by high cheekbones. There were features of her face, beyond anything physical, that made the woman seem predatory and bestial, but her features remained human. As his eyes became accustomed to her, a youthfulness seemed to become more prominent in how he saw her. Her nose was delicate, the skin around her eyes and forehead remained tight, her cheeks were lightly peppered with fading freckels from youth. Her pale lips were full and inviting, and as she looked at him her tongue would flick out for a moment to glide across her teeth and end at one of her pronounced incisors that looked like the fangs of a desert canine.

The skin on the exposed parts of her body was like a fine white jade, pale beyond any shade that Leiros had ever seen while growing up in desert climates. She didn't seem sickly pale, but more of an inhuman lustre, where only the faintest lines of purple or grey would mark veins beneath her flesh. She seemed alive and robust, yet looked like a drained corpse at the same time.

Her neck was slender, yet the sides of it were taut with strong sinews and only the topmost part of her clavicle was visible above the collar of her armor. The armor itself was a complicated thing to behold, on one hand it reminded Leiros of the furs and leather dress that many of the vhulkovyr caste used, yet there were strange metal adornments framing the armor at odd angles.

Around her shoulders was matted and blood-encrusted grey wolf's fur trim, seeming ancient and ill-used over years of constant battle. Sharp and metallic shoulder pauldrons stretched over he shoulders and dwarved her thin and muscular feminine frame beneath their spiked reach. The upper parts of her arms were mixes of half exposed pale skin as well as a mesh of tight leather straps and buckles. Large and bladed elbow protectors reflected light that did not exist off of strange mercurial metals. Each of her hands and wrists were framed with giant, black and metal guantlets. Each of her spindly long fingers peeked out from fingerless leather gloves hidden beneath vast metal claws that covered the topmost parts of her hands. Even unarmed, this woman was no doubt fully capable of killing even the largest of men with her bare hands.

The armor trailed down her abdomen, yet in the segments that exposed her frame beneath, he could see a tattered tunic covering her midriff. Some more sections of pale skin covered by leather straps and some hodge-podge armor held in place with laces or buckles. Her hips were exposed slightly, yet the armor of her legs rose up in metalic spikes that seemed to rise up and around her hips so as to protect them despite. Trailing from below her waist were tattered and threadbare loin-standards that flowed on non-existent breezes, reaching down to her kneecaps. Whatever heraldry of her army that was once emblazoned on her standards had faded with many years to be nothing more than sunbleached grey and faded crimson. Her strong legs were covered with leather straps as well, ending in large boots covered in metal.

The woman continually moved, even as she stood still. Every muscle of her body was tensed and graceful, ready to react at a moment to any threat or circumstance. With each breath she took, her head pivoted like that of an animal, moving and taking in details about her surroundings. When her eyes swept by Leiros' own, he felt an exhilarating chill pass down his spine. He felt himself inexplicably drawn to this woman, both as if he were prey that she was hunting, but also as if he was a paramour drawn in by her exotic and almost inhuman beauty. He felt as if any sense of time had stopped in this place, and he simply wanted to stand there and drink her in. Observe her, find out more about her with each breath she took and every detail, cut or notch in her armor betraying some epic story about her past. He wanted her to open her mouth and reveal all the mysteries of the world to him, and to lay bare the intimacy within her. If this was his guide in the realms of the spirit, he was fortunate, indeed.

"Are you done gawking at me?" The woman took a single stride forward and closed the distance between Leiros and herself. She pivoted her head to the side and looked downward to him. Her arms were raised slightly, her shoulders drawn back, and her top lip lifted slightly to reveal her teeth and fangs beneath. Not only were her incisors far larger than any person that Leiros had ever seen in his short travels, but it looked as if what few of her teeth in the back were fanged as well. "If you're done looking me over, I actually do have important things to show you." One of her hands raised up to grasp the fabric of Leiros' hood under his chin.

Leiros reached up with his right hand to grasp the icy-cold and frost-slick metal of the woman's gauntlet. Her grip was tight on his cloak, each one of her long fingers seizing into the fabric. Despite the strength that her grip betrayed, she didn't seize into his flesh, nor lift him from the ground as he was expecting. She simply leaned in close to him, drawing him in with her inhuman eyes and with her breath that felt like evening's frost gently caressing his face.

He didn't have time to stumble out a reply before a strange feeling of vertigo began to sweep over his mind. He felt himself falling to the side and curling inward and downward. There was a vibration against his skin, like the ethereal substances that passed for air in this realm had come to life; crackling with otherworldly energies. As sudden and profound as the sensation was, it soon passed away and stable normalcy returned.

He could feel wind against his clothing and face now, a howling gust of air that made him reach both of his hands up to shield his eyes. The wind carried sharp grains of pale sand, like the constant sandstorms that blew through his home in the Jolash Plateau. He moved his feet to lower himself against the wind once the woman let go of his cloak. He felt the hard chips and pockmarked surface of igneous rock on his bare feet. Oddly, the sharp granules didn't seem to pierce his skin, and neither did the sand sting at his eyes or shred his exposed flesh. His mind couldn't keep up with the conflicting sensations, but he crouched down, drew his hood forward and attempted to shield his eyes, never-the-less.

Leiros turned to his side and saw the woman still standing beside him, she was completely unaffected by the sand, the wind, or the situation they now found themselves in. A bolt of lightning went off some unfathomable distance away and her startling blue eyes lit up with the reflected light. He saw her shift her stance slightly, almost as if the flash of nature's fury gave her a subtle exhiliration. A very slight smile spread across her lips, allowing the tips of her fangs to become visible against the full and pale flesh of her bottom lip. She looked around at the place they were now in and from what Leiros could glean from her reactions, the setting seemed oddly familiar to her.

He turned his gaze from her reluctantly to take in the rest of the scene. Immediately he was struck with familiarity as well, dropping forward to steady himself with his hands on the rock beneath him. He was atop Auhl-Keignfel Stohll, the highest of the Whendan Mesas. He was at the summit of the place he called home, standing no more than a few yards from the circled rocks that he would sit at with other young initiates of the Authrakallin to hear wisdom from the Masters.

He slid his feet and turned all the way around, the wind still tearing and pulling violently at his cloak. His mind reeled at how quickly they had come from some far off realm of visions into the waking world, so close to his home. The land around him was unmistakable, the air had depth to it, although it oddly felt hollow at the same time.

"Why did you bring me here? In a sandstorm, no less." He pushed the side of his hood against his face with his right hand and turned to look at the woman who remained still.

"Because, this is your first step on your journey." She continued to drink in the setting for a moment and then turned her eyes back to Leiros' own. As she did, he felt a cold chill go down his spine, once again. "Not just of your journey, but of those that will follow you along it."

A resounding flash tore through the sky and landed near the edge of the cliffside a few yards away. The heat and energy of the lightning could be felt by both Leiros and his guide. He lifted his hands in reaction and pulled back. She turned her head and seemed to shudder with a release of emotion. Her mouth was open now, the relief of her white teeth playing off of the dark clouds behind her.

"Take this all in, oracle." She didn't turn back to him, she kept her eyes on the cliffside where the lightning had struck. "You have choices to make that will affect far more lives than just your own."

The rocky summit gave a groan and shudder beneath both Leiros' and the woman's feet. It felt like the lightning had struck a section of rock on the cliffside and sent it tumbling down the mesa to explode on the plateau far below. The wind picked up with even more violent gusts and the clouds above began to circle and shift quickly. What could be seen of the sky above looked like the surface of stormy waves from the perspective of a drowning man descending into the depths below.

A few moments went by and Leiros took position behind a rock so as to be able to catch his breath. He looked at the storm going off around the summit of the mesa, and then back to the woman still standing perfectly still like a sentry, looking off to the source of the lightning strike. He did not know why the woman had brought him to this area at this time, as if this were anything other than a vision, being up at this altitude in the middle of such a severe sandstorm would be suicide. He continued to press the side of his hood against his face, both out of habit in keeping the illusory sand from his eyes as well as so to keep his breathing steady as the wind assaulted his nostrils and mouth.

Leiros took one last look to the woman and that is when he saw some movement from out of the corner of his vision. He leaned forward, peeking around the rock and narrowing his eyes so that he could see in the dark past the flurry of sand. It was a single hand pulling up over the rim of the cliffside, followed by another, and then a moment later a crimson-haired head peeking over the rock.

"Who would be so idiotic..." Leiros whispered over his own breath and let his voice trail away on the wind. He looked quickly back to the woman who returned his gaze and smiled broadly. She gave a single nod and then looked back to the form pulling itself over the edge of the cliff.

The woman remained motionless, and Leiros crept forward, hiding behind some rocks of decent size so that he could see the woman pulling herself onto the summit, yet not betray his presence to her. It only took a few moments for the young crimson-haired woman to pull herself up fully and take in the empty expanse around her save for strewn about boulders. From what he could see, she wore old and threadbare clothes, simple leather britches and her hair was wild, caked with sand, blood and sweat. The woman looked old enough to be considered an adult, but based on her dress it was hard for Leiros to determine what caste she belonged to. Given her lean and muscular sort of beauty and the efficiency she seemed to possess at getting on top of the mesa, he assumed she must be of the vhulkovyr caste. Given that she had just climbed the famed Auhl-Keignfel Stohll, however, she must be a supplicant desiring to join the Authrakallin Order.

"She's not here for that reason." The white-haired woman spoke, heedless of whether the younger woman would notice her standing where she was, or follow her voice in the wind. "You needn't hide yourself, either. I am showing you events from the future, young oracle. What is seen to transpire will not be affected by our presence." She turned from watching the scene to gaze directly at Leiros, once again. Whisps of indigo smoke seemed to trail from her eyes as she turned her head. "You are to watch and experience what I have to offer you, and then you must choose your path forwards."

At her words, Leiros trepidatiously raised up from behind the rock. He turned from the white-haired woman to the crimson-haired woman a dozen feet away. He watched the younger woman for a moment to ensure that her behavior didn't change, that she couldn't see him at all. He emerged from behind a rock and took a few steps forward towards the young woman. Every few strides he would stop and look back to the white-haired vision-guide.

"Why would se be so foolish?" Leiros muttered as he neared the woman and lowered himself down to look at her. "There is no one here to greet her. No one to oversee her attempt at the Kollishi Authrak." He looked up to the skies and raised his arms out to his sides. "It's fully night, in a horrendous sandstorm. All the members of the Order are either asleep in their quarters, deep below us, or they are taking shelter. She will die up here. Alone."

The crimson-haired woman leaned forward after surveying the area for a few moments. She pulled forwards, keeping low to the ground and moved towards a houndstooth-shaped rock that stood between the area she had climbed and the headwinds of the storm. She turned and pressed her back against the hard stone, trying to wipe the sand away from her eyes. Blood streamed down her cheeks, both from the sand in her eyes and from the small cuts the sand had already made as it cut into her flesh.

"She has her own reasons for being here. Foolish as they may seem to you." The white-haired woman took a few steps towards Leiros. Every step was graceful and calm, like a predatory cat sneaking up on it's prey. "Sometimes the things that people do in their lives, don't make sense to those who observe it from outside. Yet, as irrational -- or irresponsible -- as they may seem to others, every action or choice may be pivotal to the larger schemes of fate."

Leiros brough his eyes back to the crimson-haired woman. She had taken her threadbare tunic off and was proceeding to wrap the frayed fabric around her head. Once she had made a protective mask from the fabric, she pulled off her leggings and began scoring them with a rock. She was trying to stretch out the clothing she had to cover as much of her body as she could. A noble effort, but one that would not allow her to live, given the high altitudes, searing wind, and flaying sand. She would be stripped to the bone in a matter of hours.

"Are you expecting me to stop a young woman from committing suicide?" He turned to look at his vision-guide standing behind him now. "As you say..." He took a hard gulp of air and tried to swallow. "Actions ripple out and affect fate. Correct? But just as actions can affect others they also cause consequences." He leaned down, almost leaning over the crimson-haired woman's shoulder as she continued to shred the leather of her britches. "Those who would take action, must also bear the responsibility of those actions. They must suffer the consequences. Rational or not."

The crimson-haired woman began to cover herself with the leather straps, pulling them tightly around every inch she could of her body. Wrapping her hands, her abdomen, the sensitive parts of her legs and thights, and her feet so she could continue to walk. Once she was completed, she began to look around her frantically to find any form of shelter she could run to that was more than mere boulders of rock.

"I don't doubt the veracity of what you just said." The vision-guide took a few more steps forward. Lightning went off once again, striking some dead scrub-brush on the other end of the summit. She stopped to enjoy that moment of nature's fury and continued her stride once the thunder had torn through the heavens. "I am not here to debate philosophy with you. I am here to show you events that will affect your life, if you chose to follow the path that has been set out before you. It is still your choice if you wish to follow it or turn from it." She moved away from Leiros and idly walked toward some hewn-rock stairs carved into a small rise near the middle of the summit. "You must look into yourself and make your own choices. Follow your own philosophy. Choose who lives and who dies. As you said, every action ripples out. Every action has consequences."

Leiros' face scrunched up for a moment at the white-haired woman's words. He didn't like having his words turned against him, or for this vision-guide's sense of circular logic. He was a man who was fond of debating, of understanding human nature, of conquering irrationality with rational thought. He was raised to believe that human nature was flawed and must be perfected by civilized behaviors, civilized discourse, and civilized rationality.

"So, I am to bear the burden of other's choices?" He turned away from the crimson-haired woman who scrabbled along the ground, keeping her body low as she moved towards the raised rock near the center of the summit. He too, took stride towards the hewn stairs, surpassing her painful and groping movements. He made his away up to the raised area beyond, looking down to both the white-haired woman as well as the crimson-haired one. "I have sworn myself to the Authrakallin Order. If you are a being of visions, beyond the ken of mere mortals, you should already know this." He turned away from both women and stared off to another rise of rock near the other end of the mesa. "We are oracles. We are observers. We do not mettle with the choices made by others who don't possess our sight. We may guide, we may influence, but we don't interfere. The last oracle who interfered in the lives of others became a ravening lich who slaughters her descendants to this very day. A forsaken and dark reminder of what befalls those who mettle in fate."

Leiros didn't need to draw upon his neophyte abilities at telepathy to realize that the white-haired woman's patience was being tested. All it took was for her to furrow her brow slightly and turn to the side, away from him, staring off into the distance. At this, he began to feel a light sense of anxiety as he realized that none of his oracle powers worked in these visions. If he tried to reach out with his energies, or change the energy inside of himself to activate any abilities, it felt like he was gasping at air, or trying to look out while submerged in some muddy water. The abilities he had were still there, but something or someone was blocking him. Perhaps it was his vision-guide, or perhaps it was simply the nature of the visions he was now trapped within.

"If you will be guiding me through these visions of the future, I will need to know your name." The crimson-haired woman had made it up the stone stairs and was approaching the spot that Leiros now stood. He stepped aside, letting the groping and half-blinded woman past. "Whether you are a god or a mortal, I must know to who I am trusting my fate."

Leiros looked down to the crimson-haired woman for a few moments. With every movement forward, she smeared blood from the many cuts into her flesh across the blowing sands and rock of the summit. The white sand was hungry for her life, drinking in the sanguine humors, and carrying them away on the wind. The winds continued to pick up, the blowing sand glittered in the air, looking and acting like shards of glass. If it were not for the protection that the visions offered to him, he would be sharing the same fate that this young woman was suffering right now. The searing pain, the blindness, and the lack of hope.

"I am neither of those things." The white-haired woman casually walked up the rock-hewn stairs and stood just a few feet from Leiros. "If you are trying to glean my true-name so as to control me, you won't have it." She crossed her arms, the strange metal that covered her leather armor seemed to move as if it were liquid for a moment. "If you wish to know my former name, before I became what I am at this moment, I cannot provide such knowledge. I lost my name when I shrugged off my mortal coil and became what you see before you." Leiros had to take a step back as he beheld great, inky, and smoke-like wings lifting and unfurling from the woman's back. The wings snapped out to their full breadth. The woman's wingspan was larger than any of the great authrocs that Leiros had trained with. Larger than three grown men laying down, end to end, for each wing.

Leiros felt his mouth open wide for a few moments, sand began to pull the moisture from his tongue and he quickly spit it out and closed his jaws. He watched as the wind seemed to pull at the inky smoke of the woman's outstretched wings, yet they remained still like some organic shadow. He had never seen or heard of such features on human form before. Some creature that was part bird and part human, yet was neither.

"If you must refer to me by a name, than I must give my title. I must tell you what I have become." The woman's eyes lit up with a strange icy fire. The indigo tendrils that were only the vague hints of light now took on the same smoky haze that her wings had. The tendrils curled upward, around her head, into some sort of backward-pointing horns, or a half halo. "You may call me Zerranistra. For this is what I have become."

"I know that word..." Leiros took a step closer to the white-haired woman. He looked her from toe to head and then stared deeply into her eyes. "That's an ancient Morthavi term. Truly ancient. From a prophecy that came from the first oracles of the Oerstav Caelii before Merithault destroyed the entire island." He paused, feeling his forehead furrow and his jaw tighten. "It is said, that when the final age of humanity will come to pass -- when the world-mother shall die and be devoured by darkness -- the half-immortal known as the Zerranistra will cause havoc throughout the world. That word, it roughly means 'the Destroyer.'"

Leiros pulled away from the woman, raising a hand to his face to tug on the bridge of his nose. He took a few steps away and walked toward the crimson-haired woman still making her way across the sand-strewn rocks of the risen-up plateau. He crouched down, near to the younger woman. Her struggles were getting worse. All of the exposed flesh of her body was raw and seeping with blood. Every action was belabored and painful. He felt sorry for her, that she would have to endure this horrible kind of death, even if it was caused by her own folly.

"It shouldn't come as a surprise if I don't trust you, then is it?" He turned his head and looked back to the woman who claimed to be the destroyer of the world. "If you are some malignant spectre, sent to destroy all things, then I shouldn't trust anything that you show me or say to me."

The woman's wings dispersed on the wind; the inky shadows being torn apart by the shards of sand. She took a few more steps towards Leiros and placed a hand on his back, as he remained crouched beside the suffering young woman. He looked up to her, wishing he could call upon the powers of his sight -- or of his telepathy -- so that he might be able to pierce into her soul. He had to correct himself. If she still had a soul and know for certain if he could trust her.

"I am not here to decieve you. If I were to do so, why would I reveal myself to you as I have. Why would I allow you the free will to make your own choices." Zerranistra stopped her walking and knelt down beside the suffering form of the young woman. She leaned down, reaching out with one of her hands towards the crimson-haired stranger. Her face seemed pained, filled with regret, and with longing. She pulled her hand back quickly and looked up to Leiros. "I was once mortal, the same as you are now. The same as this young and foolish girl is, before you. I made mistakes. I suffered my consequences. I was burdened with the irrational choices that others made, and that I must endure." She lifted herself up, standing over Leiros now. "I suppose you could say that because of my folly, I chose to become this thing you see before you. This being the culmination of my mistakes. The consequence of my actions. But, I did not wish to become Zerranistra."

Leiros looked up to her, holding eyes with her for a moment. He didn't feel a cold chill down his spine this time, he only felt a sickening sort of pity for the woman standing above him. He looked back to the crimson-haired woman who had paused her movements and began to slowly sob to herself. The pain she was enduring must be unbearable. The fear inside of her must be clawing away at whatever resolve or courage she had used to climb this far. The situation began to pull at Leiro's heart as he realized she had succeeded at her Kollishi Authrak. Such a thing should be a joyous time for a supplicant who wished to join the Authrakallin. There should be masters here to greet her and begin her training, offering her refreshments and tending to her wounds. Yet, here she was, alone, suffering and about to die.

"You are like Merithault, then." Leiros reached out to the young woman before him, wanting to comfort her. Wanting to use what little powers of healing and regeneration he had learned in his studies to ease her pain. His hand went right through the bloodied woman. "You may have chosen your fate, but you are cursed by folly not by maliciousness." He looked up to Zerranistra, once again. "Assuming I do trust you and what you wish to impart to me. How do I know you won't condemn me to that same folly, but for myself?"

"You still have free will, young oracle." The woman reached out a guantlet-clad hand toward the head of the crimson-haired woman. She passed her hand across the trailing bits of the woman's exposed head. Her eyes reflected the brilliant red color of the hair like mirrors. "Perhaps my involvement in your path isn't to corrupt you to folly. Rather, to help you avoid it." She crushed her fingers into a tight fist, pulling back from the hair of the young woman. Her top lip snarled and her fangs flashed in the darkness. Something in seeing the young woman up close brought out the predatory and inhuman rage within her. "Maybe it is up to you to prevent the folly that gives rise to me. To save the world from what I will eventually become."

"So be it." Leiros' voice was firm, now. He had made his decison to trust what this entity wished to impart to him. He must trust his own self, his own abilities to see through deceptions, and his own abilities to change whatever darkness awaited this world in the future. "I will see, hear, and understand what you have to show me, Zerranistra." He stood up, pushing his hands against his knees to steady himself against the wind. He could feel the storm tugging at his cloak even harder than before.

Both Leiros and Zerranistra stood over the crimson-haired woman. She had ceased her movements and held her head downward towards the rocky ground that was quickly being coated with bloody sand. The woman had given up, she found no succor or shelter. No doubt she had either lost her sight, or was beginning to do so. Her body tensed and then went limp for a few moments. Her body tensed again and she lifted herself into a sitting position.

The crimson-haired woman lifted a bloody hand up to the shredded cloth that covered her face. Shakily and painfully, she pulled the cloth away. Leiros could see streams of blood pouring down from her otherwise blue eyes. Sections of her scalpt had been pulled away by the searing sands as well as most of the freckles from her cheeks. The look on her face was one of resignation along with unfathomable pain. She raised her head up, to look to the skies above.

Leiros understood what the young woman was doing, she was awaiting Olthenna, the goddess of death, to come down and take her suffering away. She had given up on fighting against the winds and the sands. She had given up on the gift that Tolesh had given her; her own mortal coil. Leiros felt pained at this. Although he did not know her and wanted to hold some consternation towards her for her foolish act in climbing the mesa, but he could not hold onto it. He wanted to reach out to the young woman and end her suffering himself. Perhaps a quick snap of the neck, or several dagger slashes across her arteries. Anything but watching her slowly be flayed away by the sand.

The wind sped up and so did the sand, almost as if the world itself was accelerated. He watched, wide-eyed as the work done on her body moved at a frantic pace. Her skin peeling away from muscle, her blood falling away into the sand. The soft tissues falling away, rising like ashes on the wind from a burning tree. The young woman used the last pieces of her body to keep her head aloft up to the clouds above, raising up a single arm to reach in vain towards the cloud-hidden, celestial star-sea above.

Leiros hoped that Olthenna had taken mercy on her and taken her into the shadowed halls of Gehemol for her final judgment. He hoped her soul could find rest and not return to the lands of the living as a thaekkuz revenant for her folly. He watched as the last bits of flesh and gore left her gleaming bones and tough sinews, half covered in piles of sand.

He saw the clouds begin to part above and the first rays of the burning god's light break through to illumate the mesa summit and the sad scene below. As soon as he was able to adjust to the now brilliant light, everything passed again into shadow. He felt vertigo in his mind and body once again as it felt like great winds blew at his back. He thought he was falling backward towards something, but as soon as he was able to feel the sensations and panic, he was stopped once again.

"What would you have done differently?" The voice of Zerranistra called out to him from behind him and to the right. He spun around, feeling the slippery and warm liquid on his feet as he did so. He was back in the abyssal realm, once again.

"I wouldn't have let her die." Leiros called out as he saw the woman behind him. "I wasn't involved in this, however. I did not see myself in that situation, at all."

"Because you did not make yourself a part of it." Zerranistra took a few steps towards him. She let her right foot linger, outstretched in the blood before she continued to step closer. Her arms were crossed over her chest. "Not everything is about you. Very little in this life will ever be handed to you. Sometimes you need to mettle."

Leiros gave a rancorous chortle. "That goes against everything I've been taught while being a member of the Authrakallin. We are here to observe and to guide. I told you this, already." He pulled his hood back to his shoulders. He wanted to reach out and dust the sand off of his cloak, yet there was no sand on him at all.

"You were told not to use your abilities to interfere with the paths of others, yes. I was told such by a member of your order when I as very young. Not yet the being that I am now." She gave a quiet sigh and continued to walk around Leiros. "The reason for this is not use your powers for selfish gain. Not to use your powers to harm others. Not to steal other's free will from them, so as to corrupt and wither the strands of fate. Correct?"

Leiros furrowed his brow in contemplation. He pressed his chin out a bit before speaking. "Yes." He looked away from the woman to gaze into the dark reaches all around him. "I suppose that is true. If you look at the larger concepts and intrinsic ethos of our precepts..." His voice trailed off.

"Don't get lost in fine details." The woman stopped her pacing and dropped her arms to her sides. "There is as much ruination in getting lost following the exactness of rules, as there are in only following the broadest interpretations of them." She tilted her head to the side for a moment, biting down on her bottom lip. "The power of the mind is in interpretation. The power of wisdom comes from knowing when to use it."

"Yes. Yes. I understand." Leiros lifted his right hand up and gestured into the air with his fingers. A position he was taught by his father during proclaimations of court. He wished to let the woman know that he understood and for her not to belabor the point. "I have my own free will. I must make my own decisions, even if they must be made for others. I must temper my actions with wisdom, so as not to violate the free will of others. Yes. I get it."