The folly of man seemed, to Asrael, to be as pestilent out in the Blighted Lands as it ever had been in Capita. Their many assumptions reminded him how much he hated the simpletons whose myopia prevented the foresight to identify their true enemies. To make matters worse; they had presumed to understand his motives and attempted to use the girl and the small, fat man to get him to do their dirty work. He grinned at the dust at his feet and leaned against the rock supporting his back. All around him; the scorching sun split the air with disruptive, shimmering waves above the wide, mercurial pools of endless mirages. It would have been quiet- if not for the girl at his side. She was sweating profusely, but it was neither her sweat nor her girlish noises of complaint that irked him the most... it was that sullen expression- that sheepish, distant, deep-in-thought gaze.

A gust of wind blew a handful of dust to her face and made her lengthy, clean, sun-bleached hair dance at the side of her head. She took a deep breath and scuttled backwards to cover herself in as much as the rock’s shade as she could before whispering; “I hope Berral’s all right... he must be so scared down there in the dark.”

Following her example; he, too, sought cover from the scorching tyrant in the skies and once more stared out across the desert. After a lengthy pause, she sounded another sigh and earned herself a glare for it. From in between his gritted jaws, she heard him say; “Never you mind the creature. I asked for you to join me so that you might tell me of that old woman.”

Neda blinked and broke from her stupor to see the darkness in his green eyes- a malice far more pronounced than his evil bulbs had ever exuded before. “There’s not a lot to say about her... she’s the leader of the village. What-”

Asrael raised a palm to her face and wrinkled his nose at her. He was almost frightening as he informed; “Stupid as you are, you might have failed to notice that she knew. I racked Kerras’ mind- he has never met the woman, nor had any of his men... yet she knew I was not who I claimed to be. How?”

Neda shook her head and shrugged to inform: “She’s old and wise. We-”

Asrael’s head jerked in her direction to shout; “No! There is some trick- some secret. I never told her I was a magus, but she knew.”

Neda looked thoughtfully out into the desert for a moment, before informing; “Yeah... she can tell when someone’s Ungodly. That’s how me and Rallo...” Asrael cracked his knuckles and intensified his staring out across the dusty, scorching dunes. So there was a trick...

Neda forced her thoughts of her brother to the back of her mind and pinched her thigh to remain as focused as she could be. “Hey, what’s that stuff you were talking about with Manjuseth? Something about Rifts?”

Asrael seemed taken aback by the sudden question- almost positively surprised, for once. He closed his eyes to verify that the solution to their many problems was still a ways off and, despite her idiocy; she was a magus... he may as well waste the time and effort to explain her; “The Rifts, peasant, is where the magics come into our world. They are weak-points in the fabric of creation through which the elements bleed, but they were sealed a thousand years past and our world was cut off from the free flow of magic.”

She had never heard of a Rift, nor had she ever heard talk of the ‘elements’ outside of conversations about the weather. She cocked her head and cautiously asked; “What does it mean that it’s open now?”

Asrael’s fingers tapped against his obscenely thin knee as he pondered the question for himself. Eventually, he broke from his silence. “These lands- the Blighted Lands... this is the end-result of the First Emperor’s decision to close the Rifts. Without magic; life cannot survive. There is a balance to be maintained- a balance he upset by closing us off from the webworks of interconnected worlds... I sought to find a way for humans to survive the day when the blight would spread past the walls.”

As he informed; a dark shade took hold of his features- as if it pained him on a profound level to speak of such things. She knew she was pushing it by asking, alas; she had to take advantage of his sudden talkativeness. “That’s why you came up with that magic?” She asked.

Asrael slowly shook his head. “No. Originally, perhaps... but I never cared about the blight. It would have taken another two hundred years or so until it would have consumed us all... I had... different motives.” His glare honed in on a miserable shape on the horizon- a shambling, agonized creature dragging something in its wake.

Neda failed to see what was on the horizon and continued staring at her companion with a keen interest. None had ever told her such a thing- certainly none whose name meant anything. Whether it was due to her attempt to escape the pain that solitude and silence brought with it or because she was genuinely curious, she hadn’t the faintest idea... all she knew... was that she wanted him to go on. She pleaded: “Please teach me more about magic and our world. I want to learn more-”

Asrael turned towards her to shine another heart-rending grimace of disgust at her. “It seems you are incapable of learning anything. If you are a Magus, then you have the right to learn. But you have spent your life serving whatever master you could throw yourself at. You are no Magus. You are hardly human.” Neda reared at the cruelty- that horrible, terrible, unmatched disgust in his voice... could she really have offended him so, simply by existing?

No. She would not accept it any more. For twenty years; the world had thrown its torments at her- forced her into submission and slavery, only to taste an ounce of hope that things could be different. He had sparked that hope and now; he seemed determined to discard it. He continued; “You were as pathetic as you ever were in that tent. Cowering in fear of a woman whose neck you could’ve broken at a moment’s notice. Do you not care what she has done to you? Did your brother mean nothing to you?”

That’s right... she had blamed everyone for Rallo’s death thus far. Asrael. The Inquisition. Herself... but none of them had started this. None of them had picked them out as children and forced them into a pit, where they had spent most their childhood cowering in fear while eating scraps. Neda reached out for Asrael’s shirt and grabbed him by the collar to bring him close to her frothing, tremoring mouth. The red, intense eyes shook with the same rage that animated her strong fingers- her jaw clattered with unadulterated fury.

“He meant everything to me, you fuck! If I could; I would’ve-… if you’d have taught me how to use my magic, I’d-…" She struggled to find the words and the meaning to fuel them.

His lips split apart in a malicious grin and spoke; “Go on. Tell me- what would you use this magic of yours on?”

Her grip tightened to the point it started tearing at the cloth. He could feel the still air begin to shift around them- cooling their skin with its gentle breeze. Neda’s eyes stilled- as did the chaotic tremors of her lips. Instead; she moved them to whisper; “I’ll kill them.” Before Asrael’s smile grew to its usual, malicious state; a thud sounded from the dust next to them. Then another.

Neda startled and dropped her grip on Asrael’s shirt to look at the two forms on the sand next to her. Following his brief chuckle, Asrael spoke; “It seems Kerras has finally given you the chance to do so.”

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For days on end; Kerras had stood in the scorching sun and watched as the man inhabiting the Yurt went about his daily business alongside the long-necked, furred creature. The dead Commander had rued the day he was born and every following second of his life leading up to his meeting with the Necromancer. The agony of his continued existence aside, he was as miserable as could be. In this state; his mind was a plaything for Asrael’s intrusions- tearing memories of his precious, dead daughter from his consciousness at a whim. He seemed particularly interested in everything related to the girl- everything from Lena’s decline into madness born from the death of their child, leading up to the Commander’s death at the hands of the terrifying army of naked women.

Every second of this unnatural state was an eternity spent roiling in the Hell that was his mind. Therefore; when Asrael had finally sounded the order in the middle of the night, Kerras hadn’t hesitated a second. His wrinkled, dehydrated, sun-burnt skin had broken from its frozen stupor to lunge across the dust- towards the yurt where the man now rested. He would never know his name or his crimes- all he would know was the strength of his will to survive. Cautiously; the dead soldier had opened the flap of the tent and snuck inside to watch him sleep. The bright green of the Commander’s eyes had illuminated the young man’s resting face. Death became a warrior in the night... he needn’t breathe, he needn’t move unnecessarily. All he needed do was reach out for the man’s neck and squeeze his fingers around his throat.

He awoke in a panic- kicking, thrashing and screaming in vain. Even if he had been capable of forcing air through his trachea, it would have been a useless venture. The closest human being who would have been capable of hearing him scream was a day’s walk off. Asrael could feel the ligaments in the man’s neck as if it were his own hands squeezing the life from him- crackling, popping and sliding beneath his skin until finally; the man thrashed no more.

A day’s journey through the sandy dunes had left Kerras at the end of his artificial life-span and offered a faint promise of relief, should he finally dehydrate to the point his new vital-functions could no longer keep his constituents together. Alas; when night had fallen, the fine Lieutenant’s tall, pale, flabby body had met him halfway towards the camp- carrying a barrel of water to extend his suffering.

Now, that he had dropped the body of the desert-dweller off with his Master and the slave-girl; he sat in the sun- watching the tall necromancer drag the corpse in his wake, off towards the distant village. Perhaps this day, might finally be his last...