Glen

Never fully, nor forever

Lith snarled, cavernous mouth like a lion’s, bloody sharp teeth snapping when he tried to reach for her. Glen pulled his hand away with a cry of fear, a veil pulled from his eyes. The young man stumbled coming out of his reverie, heart thundering in his chest, only to realize he had rounded the kitchen building in the meantime, walking like an automaton and was now standing next to its back wall, where the small door leading to the repaired part of the castle’s outer fortifications was.

A Wyvern crawled closer.

Glen reached for his sword, when he noticed Lith walking towards the castle’s walls, her back turned to him. The Zilan paused sensing his presence and looked his way, golden eyes glowing alike a leopard’s in the dark, a clear warning.

“Do not judge her harshly, Glenavon,” Fikumin said out of nowhere, breaking the tension. Glen had missed him completely, but the small-statured creature posed no threat and he allowed his hand to relax on the pommel. His whole reaction was out of character in the first place, he thought. What are you doing?

“Why?” He asked, watching the Zilan melt in the shadows.

“She doesn’t,” Fikumin replied, a smile on his bearded face. More beard than face. “Lithoniela believes there’s a great fortune in your future.”

His words intrigued him. Glen scrunched his nose, then pinched the base hard with thumb and index finger.

“You mean, like treasure?” He probed, but Fikumin was gone.

Luthos curse you!

“Was that one of the Folk?” Jinx’s annoying voice asked, coming from behind him. This had to stop. “Hah, a Northern dwarf judging from all the rusty hair.”

Glen turned his head to glare at her.

“Stop sneaking up on people!”

Jinx limped her way towards the kitchen’s wall and pressed her back on it.

“Pfft, I can barely walk,” She sneered. “And I only sneak up on yer arse. Ye have a hearin’ problem, I think. There’s a remedy, but it’s gonna hurt—”

“Whisper!” Glen snapped. “I don’t care.”

“Now that… hurts.” Jinx said with a pout.

Glen’s sighed, shoulders shagging deflated.

“What do you want?”

“I thought you knew,” Jinx said, little finger digging in her right ear for something. She checked it and grimaced not finding whatever it was, she was searching for.

“Know what?” Glen exploded, her delaying tactics grating to his nerves.

“I guess, you’re not braver than ye look,” Whisper Jinx said. “You just didn’t know.”

“Uh? Fuck does that mean?”

“You’re right Pretty,” Jinx corrected it for him, pissing Glen off even more.

“No you’re not and I had enough of this,” He rubbed his face with both hands hard and turned to stare at the dark battlements for a long moment. Can you befriend a creature like that? He thought. Haven’t I already done it? Was it a mistake? Could she turn on us, like the mad dog in Sir Emerson’s story?

“You know her, Glen.”

He stared at the small-bodied Gish. Jinx appeared nervous. That’s a fuckin’ first, Glen thought.

“Do I really?”

“Ye travelled wit her, more than I have,” Jinx said softly. “Has she ever hurt ye?”

“I didn’t know she could do that… but nay, she hasn’t.”

“They all can,” Jinx explained. “It’s how they are.”

“Monsters. Just like in the stories,” Glen said, his voice cracking. “Is that what she is?”

“Our Lith is a Zilan,” Whisper replied simply. “They need to consume the living for their songs to flourish. To cast more potent forms of magic. Flesh is a great shortcut. Gish flesh in the beginning, until they found out humans tasted better.”

Glen puffed his cheeks out. Her words disturbing. “The tales were right then. It’s the same thing.”

“No, it’s not,” Jinx said. “It’s an indulgence, not a necessity. It’s how their society was structured. Nothing was forbidden at first. The Empire eventually banned those that used Nesande’s gifts this way. Some Gish believe, those reforms were responsible for their collapse. It fractured them beyond repair, between those that went along and those that refused to conform. It was a queen’s vanity that she knew better and years of internal strife that brought them down and not Reinut. You can’t control magic, not more than ye can control nature, or people, or even beasts. Never fully, nor forever.”

“What do you believe?” Glen asked feeling a little numb, as he didn’t expect Whisper of all people, to give him a diatribe on the matter and greatly surprised at her revelations. Then again, Jinx wasn’t exactly human herself, right? He thought, eyeing the pink-haired girl with suspicion.

“Gish love fucking,” Jinx answered his question with brutal honesty. “And all vices really. Shiny things to play wit and fun,” She looked at her feet self-consciously. “We are very social. Difficult to resist.”

Glen rolled his eyes, not falling for it.

“Right,” He smacked his lips. “I admit, I’m a little confused.”

“You’re aroused, it’s natural—”

“Fuck’s sake Pretty! It’s not that!” Glen blasted her. “I meant about what to do with Lith.”

Jinx started laughing, but stopped when she saw the rage in his eyes.

“You can’t do anything wit her. Any other Zilan perhaps, but not her, if I have her judged correctly. I know ye want to and it’s eating ye from the inside,” Glen narrowed his eyes warningly. “Do ye even know how old she is?”

“Twenty?” He chanced.

Jinx scoffed.

“Thirty… five?” Glen probed unsure. I mean she looks great for it, he thought. She burst out laughing.

“I hope ye like older women,” The Gish said after a while, just as Glen contemplated whether he should smack her once right at the nostrils to shut her up. “I do, but ye should know they come wit baggage.”

“I don’t have a problem…” Glen started, pausing to think about it. “How much older?”

Jinx shrugged her shoulders, then glancing at the door, she started hobbling that way.

“Where are you going?” Glen asked.

“You’re fine now, yes?” Jinx asked glancing back.

“Sure. But we haven’t finished!”

“I need to piss real bad right now. Want me to do it here?” She probed. “It will make a mess, I was holdin’ back to talk to ye.”

“What? Of course not!” Glen gasped, standing back, a little flushed.

“Thanks,” Jinx replied with a toothy grin. “It burns when I do it outside.”

Emerson had the face of someone that had just lost a relative, when he found him half an hour later. I should get some sleep at some point, Glen thought, but with all that had happened, he didn’t feel drowsy yet.

“You’re okay there lad?” The knight asked, when he joined him in front of the large fire-pit set outside the barracks.

“Yeah. Lots to think about,” Glen answered, warming his hands over the burning logs.

“Talked wit Jinx some?” Emerson probed.

“Huh? Yeah, I did actually,” Glen said, a little surprised he knew it already.

“How did it go?” The knight just wouldn’t let it go.

“Fine. Ye know Whisper.”

“What did ye talk about?” Emerson appeared determined to find out.

Glen tried to remember how the conversation had ended. Parts of it still vivid in his mind.

Like pissing outside and old but otherwise fine women.

“She told me a bit about the Empire,” Glen replied instead.

“Uhm, good. That’s good,” The knight said nervously. “Lots of good stories there, some of them plaguin’ wild.”

“Did you know about Lith?” Glen asked him, his tone harder than he’d preferred it.

Emerson shook his head denying it, coiled alike a spring. “No. Didn’t believe it. I told ye back then, I knew about ‘em from the histories, but I always thought all this talk about godless cannibals a bunch of falsehoods. Still have difficulty accepting it, after knowing her some.”

“Yeah,” Glen murmured softer now. “We were attacked after all. Perhaps she lashed out scared,” Emerson nodded finding logic in his words and visibly relaxed his stance. Healed me some before that, Glen continue his thought. Did that trigger it somehow? He should have asked Jinx, but if he’d done that, Glen would have had to explain his dubious use of that spell earlier.

I couldn’t do that.

Not before knowing more about it.

He had the words at the tip of his tongue; there, but not there. Glen stared at the glowing embers and the sprouting bright flames mesmerized. The warmth sipping into his very bones, the calling strong to make more of it. A maddening whisper, not alike a faint song, alluring as much as taunting. Dangerous like a Zilan’s hunger.

The need almost the same.

The heat grew stronger, black embers turning a bright white and the flames started rising, red tongues darting right and left, ready to leap out of the fire-pit. All it needed was an order. One word.

A Wyvern’s eye opened.

A yellow slit in a sea of burgundy.

Glen.

Huh?

“Glen,” Emerson said, rough gloved hand grasping at his shoulder firmly. “Go get some sleep son.”

“Aye,” He replied pulling away from the almost extinguished flames, his mouth dry and bitter. Glen walked slowly towards their assigned barrack, caught sight out the corner of his eye, of a man watching him half-hidden under the tower’s shadow, where the dark was even deeper and the torches light couldn’t reach…

Nor Glen should have been able to see.

The stranger, more shadow than a real person, gave him a slight nod of acknowledgment with his head and faded into black. One moment the eerie figure was there, the next he’d disappeared without any fanfare.

Just a hint of magic.