“Please Enlil, hear me,” Kiur prayed silently before the altar inside the ziggurat he was working in. It was at the crack of dawn and Kiur couldn’t get a wink of sleep with dark circles forming underneath his eyes. “Answer me, please.”

Silence filled the giant temple with the exception of distant footsteps, the rustling of plants and gentle rushing of the streams nearby.

The god remained silent. Of course he did.

Kiur could already see the shadowy delusion of his mind creeping up behind the altar dedicated to the god Enlil. Walking on the stream of water she tried to reach out for Kiur but he flinched back upon her touch.

She disappeared, leaving nothing but ash behind to muddle the waters into shades of black and grey.

“Of course, even you hate me,” mumbled Kiur and left the temple he once called his second home. Now it was nothing but a hollow place he went to keep up with his routine.

It meant nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Just like the home he supposedly grew up in.

“Tough week, huh?” Kiur turned to the familiar voice of Agarin who would regularly sell him fresh bread on the market. With two big vases of ingredients in his arms he was coming right from grocery shopping for his family.

“Being alone with no one else to talk to does things to you,” Kiur flings a nearby pebble off the cliff to the direction of the desert. He tried to hide his puffy face and stared off into the distance.

“We noticed, there was a rumour going on at the market,” Agarin placed down the vases to sit down next to Kiur and scratched his bearded chin. A terrible habit and very uncanny. “Did you forget that using earth magic inside the city is generally restricted to avoid damage to the surroundings?”

“Which neighbour squealed?” asked Kiur with a straight face and Agarin chortled in response.

“You were so inconspicuous about it that anyone could feel it. Even my son who’s not a magic adept yet would have been able to tell.”

“I should apologise to the neighbours,” Kiur mumbled with a hand on his mouth. He didn’t mean to lose control, but his mind was so blurry lately. It was hard to control one’s emotions without focus.

“You can do it tomorrow, but would you like to stay for dinner tonight?”

“Dinner?”

“Yes, food and conversation, you know the drill. My husband won’t mind and it’s long overdue for you to pay us a visit again,” Agarin picked up one of the big vases. “Get the other one and let’s go. Having some company during dinner should help put your mind at ease.”

Kiur struggled to keep up the pace without stumbling while carrying the very heavy vase. He thought about refusing the dinner but couldn’t find any good moment or a reasonable explanation.

Agarin was a friend of Kiur’s mother Esha, so he knew him for all his childhood. Maybe Agarin simply felt obliged in helping him even if it was something like dinner.

“I’m home, got the ingredients and a guest,” pushing aside the curtain of the house entrance Kiur entered their small but welcome home. The crackling of fire could be heard from the back as it was quickly replaced by the grunts of a man.

“A guest!?” a displeased yell filled the living room they had entered. “What guest, I can’t remember to have ordered one to-” the moment Gitlam, Agarin’s husband, stepped out and his eyes fell on Kiur he became quiet.

“I see,” the dwarf gestured to Kiur with a nod to follow him. “Come with me and get your hands dirty, only the diligent get food. Also, no accessories and put down that shawl, you don’t want them to get dirty.”

It was the first time Kiur ever set foot in Gitlam’s workshop. He was widely known to be an eccentric dwarf but a baker nice enough to save some fresh baked bread for Kiur and his friends whenever they came by.

“Three of my labourers have cancelled today, all of them are sick from the Sumer Fever that goes around. Without the girls I can’t finish the dough for tomorrow. As this is urgent, I will make an excuse for you to help me so you better work for your bread, understood?”

“Understood,” responded Kiur as he began to knead dough with his hands. It was his first time making bread and it wasn’t particularly easy either.

His hands started to get stiff. Worse than a writer’s cramp during work.

“Try to feel the elements on your hands,” Agarin’s and Gitlam’s daughter tried to give Kiur some advice. Her name was Ninda, a human child found by Kiur’s mother in Kutha. She’s several years younger than Kiur and is regularly helping out her fathers at work.

Her face looked somehow gloomy. “Infusing the dough with magic particles makes it fluffier.”

“I see,” Kiur nodded. Unwilling at the attempt, Kiur tried it out for curiosity’s sake. Willing the magic from his core and through his channels to his hands he let it flow into the dough. He felt the dough change, becoming bigger and less sticky though it made him more exhausted.

“Not like this,” Gitlam reprimanded Kiur with a sudden slap on his back. “You will tire out all your strength if you keep that up. Gather the particles from your surroundings like they teach you in school. Ninda, wrap it up while we take care of the oven.”

“Yes, father,” when Ninda walked over to finish the rest, Kiur noticed something strange. His eyes saw a teal light around the young girl, followed by a gentle breeze.

It smelled like the forest after a morning dew.

“Sooo, you’ve noticed she is adept in wind magic?” asked Gitlam in a low voice, firing the oven with his fire magic and instructing Kiur.

“I did,” confessed Kiur, following the instructions closely by keeping a steady amount of heat.

A grunt came from Gitlam, his eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t want to ask but would you mind to-”

“I will keep quiet, don’t worry.”

Gitlam nods to Kiur’s answer, his gaze stern face softening. “The heat should be enough,” he claps Kiur on the back again but not as hard as before. “Thank you for understanding, we don’t want to involve the temple just yet. That’s why Tabira isn’t here today either.”

Every child gets their magic abilities tested at a certain age.

It’s customary since anyone can learn magic and they need proper education and guidance on how to use it responsibly. Water and Wind are one of the rarest elements around their country, so children of these elements are usually nudged to become priests.

They are taught various things from singing laments to gods and improving the life of everyone else like running the temple and assigned a task based on their performance and character. It’s not unheard of to leave the family and move to a different city and start a new life there.

Ninda was adopted but was at an age when she needed to be tested. Her parents must have known and delayed the process willingly and only trusted Kiur with the truth knowing he would keep quiet.

After all, his brother had the same problem once and caused their mother a lot of distress.

“How was baking bread for the first time?” asked Agarin, setting the table.

“My hands are sore. I feel like I was inscribing tablets for 12 hours straight.”

“Ha,” Gitlam hit Kiur on his back yet again, making him wince from being hit repeatedly on the same spot. “That’s baking for you. My girls are the best at making the dough, you need some more practice if you want to succeed in this profession. Let’s go eat, I am starving. Hey, Agarin, did you see our son?”

“Resting, I will get him.”

“No need, I will,” offered Gitlam at the same time when Kiur felt a tug on his robe.

It was Ninda. “Cover your ears.”

“What?”

Before Kiur could react Gitlam yelled so loud that he could wake up an entire country. “Hazir! Get yar arse off your bed and get down here, DINNER!”

His husband gave him a look. “Very gentle.”

“Thanks,” winked Gitlam. “I was practising like you told me to.”

“My ears are ringing,” Kiur never heard such a loud yell in his life. It’s like the vibrations are stuck in his bones, shaking him thoroughly.

“I warned you,” said Ninda nonchalantly and took a seat.

Putting his accessories back on Kiur saw a small child enter the room. A dwarven boy not older than six or seven years old with black hair. He had a pillow in his hands as he dragged himself to sit down at the dinner table.

“Meet Hazir, he’s a bit sick. Sumer Fever, don’t mind it,” explained Agarin and helped the small dwarf sit down, face flushed red.

“Isn’t it too soon for the Sumer Fever?” asked Kiur, knowing that the fever only comes up during the summer seasons after the summer solstice which was still months away.

“That’s what I was thinking too when my girls used it as an excuse not to get to work,” complained Gitlam and chewed loudly on his food. “When Hazir fell ill too I knew they were telling the truth. Must be the weather.”

“Weather?” thought Kiur curiously. It was plausible. Nature and emotions that get paired with magic tend to cause sudden illness, but Sumer Fever is a fixed phenomenon. It only happens during Summer and not before.

Starting right after the summer solstice it weakens your body and magic. Lethargy, fever and glassy bones make you bedridden. Everyone is trying to avoid the fever as it is the cause for a lot of deaths.

No one likes the summer seasons here. Kiur was hoping his mother and brother would be back before the solstice.

“Watch out how you eat, you will get everything dirty,” Agarin gently scolds their youngest who sluggishly ate his food and was spilling it on his clothes.

“Father, that was mine!”

“Better luck next time missy,” while at the same time Ninda and her not so much taller father were at the beginning of an all-out food fight.

It was a lively dinner, one Kiur had missed ever since his brother and mother left for their work. All the time alone made him manic, worsening the delusions.

Fresh bread, spicy and tasty food, a lively atmosphere with people who don’t worry about much but enjoy their lives.

However, Kiur couldn’t put off the feeling that something was wrong. He enjoyed himself but the delusion didn’t vanish. Standing right in the corner she was watching them eat.

“You should try some,” whispered Kiur so that only the delusion could hear it.

Her face turned to Kiur’s, and she touched one of the warm breads, forming a shadowy replica and eventually sitting down on a nearby chair.

“There you go,” maybe it was a state of mind, concluded Kiur. If he could keep himself calm then what he was seeing would do so too.

“Did you hear what is currently happening in the north-west?” Agarin asked Kiur, expecting he would know some kind of answer.

“No, why do you ask?”

“Well, more and more soldiers were assigned to those areas. Like your brother and some in our families. We thought you might know something because of your brother or the temple.”

“Not really,” Kiur shook his head, he hasn’t been in touch in the gossip section lately. “It has been a bit more hectic in the temple but nothing unusual.”

“I will tell you what really was unusual,” Gitlam started, still chewing loudly on his food. “They caught a reiszer at the western border.”

“A Reiszer? I thought they refuse to make any contact with us,” commented Agarin with a distraught expression on his part.

The Reiszer are a nation and a group of people born with special abilities. There was a lot of friction with the group for their violent tendencies and unique disposition to possess no elemental attributes for magic.

There was only one instance when Kiur met a Reiszer.

It was during the Desert Peregrination, which is held every five years in both Idaris, their own country, and Navarre, their sister country. Children between the age of 12 and 17 gather and undergo a peregrination across the Navarrien Continent which consists of several natural wonders but mostly a dangerous and ancient desert.

Kiur was 16 when he met a reiszer in the desert.

He had the ability to disrupt magic abilities and like any other reiszer a naturally born fighter but that wasn’t all the most frightening thing Kiur remembered about him.

That man had the eyes of a killer and when he saw the children during their peregrination, he thought of how to get rid of them.

Kiur doesn’t want to imagine what would have happened if Archil and the other guardians weren’t present. Though anything else about that event was a blurry memory.

“I wonder what became of him,” wondered Kiur as he couldn't remember what happened to the man afterwards.

“A scout who came by earlier told me they caught a reiszer snooping around near the border,” Gitlam went on with his story. “He had nothing on him except his rags and no one understood what he was saying either.”

“He must have crossed several kilometres travelling to reach one of the border cities. Without anything on him it must have been arduous. It should be impossible.”

“Yet there he was, ragged and as scrawny as a scarecrow but alive and yapping. If only they had someone who could speak their language in the west,” Gitlam turns to Kiur who was more focused on enjoying his meal while it was still warm. “Kiur, your mother speaks the western language, doesn’t she?”

“Fluently and much better than I,” a few broken dialects and the standard language from the west is the best Kiur could manage. His mother was adamant about studying languages to keep a fresh mind, regardless of profession.

Remembering the lessons he had to hold back a snicker as his brother used to hide from them.

“Too bad she wasn’t there, it would have been useful to know what one of them was doing there. We know they are up to no good. No wonder the past Sovereigns put up a public ban on any reiszer.”

“Don’t talk like that, you know they were once our people.”

“I am aware,” yelled Gitlam aggressively. “They were once our people until they plotted to kill one of our Sovereigns. Whenever a reiszer is around it’s always a bad sign-”

Their dinner conversation was cut short after they heard a bang on their house. Listening closer they heard one more and then another much louder bang on the wall.

“Is someone drunk? Don’t they know the law for public drinking?”

“I hate two things, alcoholism and those who interrupt me during dinner. I will take care of it,” Gitlam jumped down from his chair, walking confidently and angry towards the entrance.

“Something doesn’t feel right, the air is heavy,” commented Ninda who appeared shaky and very sensible towards their surroundings like Kiur.

Individuals are born to either feel or sense their environment with a much greater awareness. Like a stream of magic trying to communicate with those who are attuned to it.

Sometimes it just tries to express its cheerfulness, warn of ominous weather or a warning about an imminent danger. In this case the latter was the case. Kiur could feel, taste and see the warning signs behind the curtained entrance Gitlam was approaching.

A warning to not approach it carelessly but before Kiur could say anything the young girl to his side shouted out, warning the father before his head would have been split in half by an axe.

Seeing how narrowly he escaped the incoming attack the dwarf flinched back and countered with several small blasts of fire, burning the edges of the entrance and entire curtain.

It didn’t take long for his husband to react and shut all the curtained windows and the entrance with thick stone while Kiur could only watch.

Trembling as the air tasted and smelled like stale bread.

Character Profiles

Name: Agarin

Race: Human ; Gender: Male ; Occupation: Merchant

Magic: Earth

Likes: Collecting Coins

Husband of Gitlam and father of Hazir and Ninda. Biological father of an unborn son carried by a priestess. Works as a merchant on the market to sell fresh bread and other products like grapes.

Name: Gitlam

Race: Dwarf ; Gender: Male ; Occupation: Baker

Magic: Fire

Likes: Baking

Dislikes: Alcoholism

Husband of Agarin and father of Ninda and biological father of Hazir. He is a baker who also helps out at the local brewery. The head brewing mistress has a feud going on with Gitlam.

Name: Ninda

Race: Human ; Gender: Female ; Age: 9

Magic: Possibly Wind

Likes: Spicy Food, bickering with her father Gitlam, fresh flowers

Adopted daughter of Agarin and Gitlam. Older sister to Hazir. She was found by Esha Artor in Kutha where she was presumably born. Esha acts as her godmother.

Name: Hazir

Race: Dwarf ; Gender: Male ; Age: 6

Magic: ?

Likes: Sleeping, staying home, eating the coins of his father Agarin

Biological Son of Gitlam and son of Agarin. Younger brother of Ninda. Is currently sick with fever.