Chapter 129: Desire

Book 3, Chapter 28 - Desire

Viper stood awkwardly as Aaron grabbed hold of his wrist and twisted it around, pinning his arm to his back. “Like this, you're disabled, disarmed, and I can snap your arm with a simple jerk,” the young prince explained.

Viper scratched his head. “That seems very impractical. Very slow too.” He picked up a knife and held it out. “I could just step—”

Aaron moved in a blur, repeating the same move.

Viper dropped his knife as he felt his arm being pinned against his back. “Ow! Ow! I get it!”

Aaron let go. “Practical for standoffs. Or for someone untrained. Move before they do and win before a fight begins.”

Viper massaged his wrist, seating himself on a sack of grains. They were taking temporary refuge in an abandoned cellar. The building atop it was a wreck —a loosely thrown together shed of wooden planks which was blown over during a sandstorm. A fetid stench of rotting foods lingered, passersby throwing bones or fruit pits at the unmanaged rubble. It'd become a popular place to throw away unwanted items. So long as it provided cover, Viper didn't care. His master didn’t seem to mind much either. They'd been squatting in the place for a handful of months now, late sowing season heat ravaging the surface without remorse. “What if someone's much larger than you?” Viper asked. “Thick arms and all.”

“Then don't fight,” Aaron said. He got down in a battle stance and went through fluid motions almost seeming like a dance, pausing for breath after sharp movements meant to be attacks. Most impressive was his flexibility and the way he precisely shot his legs above his head, holding the position as if testing his own balance.

“Or get weapons,” Viper pointed out, using the other half of the cellar to run through his own teachings with the blade. Aaron wasn't adept at weaponry but far advanced at bare handed combat. They both had been slowly learning from each other.

“Or assassinate from the shadows.”

“Yeah.” Viper stopped his movements after a while, sweating. He stepped beneath a spear of light impaling the cellar through a ceiling crack. “Late afternoon,” he said after judging the light's position. Aaron gave an acknowledging grunt, crashing down on a sack of stolen rice. The young prince had this careless look in his eyes. A look that said nothing mattered. A look that reflected how Viper felt inside.

Surviving turned out easier than expected. They'd found a place to sleep in, and stealing food was no issue with Shadow Walking abilities. The coins Viper had brought with him felt useless, full purses collecting dust in one corner. Threads of webs bound them together, an eight legged arachnid hovering between them in hopes of catching a meal itself. How long are we going to stay here? He planned to follow Aaron, but the princeling showed no interest in, well, anything really. And Viper couldn't find enough of himself caring to ask otherwise. But somewhere hidden within that all devouring void, he thirsted for more knowledge.

“ Sit too long in shadow,

Hands idle

Mind untouched by whetstone

Memory sentenced to the gallows ”

“A poem?” Aaron asked, wiping a bead of sweat from his brow.

Viper held his hand beneath the light, its shape taking on the form of the crack it came through. A shard of gold on his black glove, but not truly there. “Da said I should try something with more than four lines. That I should try challenging myself. He promised to take me to great libraries where knowledge is kept in things called books. Amounts so great they cannot be learned in a single lifetime…”

“You've never seen a book?”

“You have?”

“Sure. They're not always used for history or philosophy. Some contain stories of whimsy or fantasy. They make entertaining reads and are a simple way to teach children morals, I guess. Some are used for record keeping. Ledgers they're called. Merchants use them. And other business owners too.”

That last sentence was said with an edge of contempt. Viper ignored it, instead taking in this new information. A spark within the void. A goal. Something to care about. A feeling he hadn't had in months. His lips quirked up.

Aaron frowned his way. “You've really never seen a book, huh? I'm sure we'd find someone writing in a ledger or something if we tried looking. Maybe in the houses of the higher class or on a ship at Katur's docks some two hundred miles north of the city.”

The docks… Da's hunt . The guardsman smuggling shase had to have gotten his supplies from somewhere. That only would have been possible if they were hidden within mass shipments of grain and rice coming from Xenaria and Tarmia. That meant they were coming from the seaside ports.

Vi'Din had killed one man to prevent further erosion of Katur's citizens through this drug. But the seller was still at large. The seller whom had probably taken his business elsewhere. If Viper went north, an opportunity to find this seller might present itself. A small chance too reliant on coincidence, but a chance nonetheless. An opportunity to rid the world of a person driving profits from the misery of others. An opportunity to attain a moral high ground— to rise above his current thieving self.

Viper thought he no longer cared for morals. But his thirst for knowledge had nudged awake a past slowly drifting into an eternal slumber. A past full of pain but hope also. A return to what his father wanted of him. What he wanted for himself. Eldari .

Strongest was the desire to see paper. To lay eyes on what his earlier self revered as myth. A thing upon which endless amounts of knowledge could be recorded.

Raised voices made Viper peer through the ceiling crack again. It quickly devolved into incoherent shouting. An argument between two vagabonds somewhere near. He turned to his friend, wondering how to suggest heading to the sea. The princeling had his knees tucked in and head lowered now. “Should we head north? We might find a ride to Xenaria—”

“To Ashes with Xenaria!” Aaron suddenly cried. The shouting from above paused, but renewed soon after. “They've forsaken us. These self-acclaimed noblemen . They know nothing. They are nothing. They scheme and plot and seek to dethrone us. They sully the sacred Flame and plot a revolt. House Serene, Lakris, Caranel —all of them. Murderers. Filthy mur—” he cut off, mouth agape and eyes squeezed shut as if to scream but no sound following. Aaron rocked back and forth while tugging on his hair. “I can't do it, mother,” he then whimpered. “I know you wanted me to, but I can't. These memories are overwhelming. I don't want them. They're why you died. Why I'm hunted. I don't want any part of that…”

Aaron was having another fit with his memories. The Zz'tai were said to adapt to it with age. That was what Shieda Spoken History said. Not much was known of the Flame Bearers. They once ruled over Illusterra —a rule that was said to have brought about flourish and harmony. And they were guardians of the Eternal Flames, a gift to all life from the Creator. Viper moved to a wall and sat down. If Aaron didn't want to go near Xenaria, then so be it.

But soon after, the princeling stood up and began pacing. He stopped and looked Viper's way. “I'd like to see the sea.”

“See the sea,” Viper echoed softly, smiling. Vi'Din had spoken of it once, long ago. Viper recalled fragments from lectures about Illusterra's four guardian deities, said to have existed long before even the First Calendar. Among them had been Katri of the Seas and her serpentine pets. 'Eat your vegetables Vi'An, or I'll feed you to Katri's Great Serpents.’

If only shirking vegetable consumption was the only strife in this world.

“Swiftly towards the sea to see the salty sea where sailors sail and sometimes swim.” Aaron giggled. “Try saying that really fast.”

“Swiftly towards the sea to see the salty sea where sailors sail and sometimes swim and sometimes sing ceremonious songs of sockeye salmon,” Viper recited, tongue racing his mind. He swished it around to wet it again and then grinned. “One up that!”

“Flames you're good.” Aaron peered through ceiling crack. “So are we going?”

Viper leaned forward, euphoria rushing into his blood. “You want to?”

“Not to Xenaria, no. Never Xenaria. But the sea is fine, I think. Besides, I have to show you paper! I'd hardly be a proper friend if I didn't. At least, this feels like something a friend would do.”

Viper shrugged. He grabbed his weapons and coin purses —just in case— and slipped into the Umbra. Aaron grabbed his coat, shoving it into a burlap sack before strapping it to his back with improvised string straps. He then headed for the cellar stair, Viper using Aaron's shadow as a means of transportation during the day.

***

About a half year had gone by since Jack had come into the custody of these kindred bandits. A half year of plenty and quiet. But a dire problem had arisen within the first few cycles of this luxury life. The problem of desire.

Unlike the mines at Luxiom, he was not kept chained to one place. Not constantly beholden to a wall of brilliant light. Not underfed and kept simple of mind with vials of blood. He'd since regained much of his sanity and dignity.

If life in a cage could be labelled thus.

No. Jack now had eyes by which he could see the passing landscape throughout his travels with these country scourge. He could see the vibrancy of the world, the green in the trees, the blue in the sky and the white in the clouds. He no longer smelt only blood, his own filth, and scentless rocks. He could smell the breeze and all that it carried —wet soil after a drizzle, roasting meats over night's cooking fires, fresh bread and tinges of sugar rising from the chimneys of farmsteads passed by. Jack could also hear more than just the hammering of a pickaxe against stone. More than just his own whimpering and laughter. He could hear rustling leaves, hear songs of birds, and the banter of bandits.

But this all felt a play, and he the audience. Jack had all this at a distance. He was fed all this information through the open windows of his little cage. Information he'd once taken for granted some many years ago. Information he should have absorbed during those years of childhood. Those missing years. He wanted it all closer to him. He saw things that he couldn't touch. He heard things that he couldn't see. He smelled things that he couldn't taste. He had autonomy over the use of his senses, but could mostly use them one at a time.

The life of luxury Jack imagined had become a prison. He'd tried denying it with the illusion of a better life than one at the mines. Tried convincing himself he was treated as a person by these bandits. Had that been true, he wouldn't have been in a cage. He was just an animal needing to be watched, waiting to be sold.

Jack became Jahck. And Jahck laughed beneath the mask. All of it an illusion of the truth, if such a thing existed. After all, if he had been let out of the cage, he'd have ripped apart the throat of every man here. Just like the animal that he was.

These bandits were a careful bunch, Jahck had come to learn. They travelled slow and without aim. They robbed caravans and travellers, and sent pairs of men into villages to sell wares and purchase food if hunts proved fruitless. Some among them, like Shank, were simpletons lusting for fights as much as they lusted after expensive clothes and gems. Others like Laosa and Ning were more wary. They were the brains behind each raid, and were experts with their weapons. Experts even when hiding tracks or playing the part of a merchant when squads of soldiers caught wind of them. It was because of them that even guarded caravans were easy pickings for a group no larger than a dozen.

“I say we leave it,” Shank was saying, a finger in his ear. He drove the wagon carrying Jahck. “Scorching Flames. We've sold two wagons full o'goods but this one we can't cause this stinkin' creature's in it.”

“We made good money, selling those two wagons. We'll make good money selling this one too,” said a man from horseback. Longbraid was his name, Jahck recalled. Strange name for a bald man.

“Ain't making dime if soldiers catch wind of us actin. Too many uniforms on the road these days. Wars brewin' at the borders.” He spat out the side of the wagon as if he was disgusted.

“We'll only get caught if you keep opening your malodorous mouth like last time,” Ning hissed, riding up beside the wagon.

“Actin like it's me bloody fault eh? Flaming string eyes. Ain't no soldier trusting flat faced muck like you. Sides, I do most O the fighting. You'd all be dead without me brawns.”

“Yes. And brawns is all you have. You'd be dead without us. You can't hunt. You can't sell. Flames, you'd probably spend all our finances on booze and gambling. All you're good for is eating and sh—”

“Bloody string eyes. Everyone knows your kind are stupid.”

Jahck stared out at the landscape as the bandits continued bickering. Sowing season was nearing its end. The horizon ahead held a golden hue with the glossy look of heat haze. Star Cloak territory as these bandits called it, for far off to the right, opposite the desert, lay the lengthy shadows of the Thousand Sun City's caging walls. Soldiers in white spotted black cloaks patrolled these lands. Merchants were frequent here but bandits, nonexistent. Jahck was being taken to some place in the desert where slave trade was common and unmonitored. He was to be an easy sell there, before the bandits returned to cooler, greener pastures.

It was all the same to Jahck. He'd be transferred from one cage to another. He could only hope he was let out of the cage. A single moment's misstep and — how many times have I hoped for that? He pressed his back against the bars and stretched his legs as best he could. His clothes stuck to his form. Thin as he was, he still sweated. The surrounding terrain was slowly changing to one of dry crags with the occasional small trees. Each passing day felt hotter than the last.

Jahck remembered something from his past. A longing for summers and the changes in life that would come with it. He didn't long for summer heat anymore. Out on the dunes, that almost seemed a death sentence. And Jahck hadn't had any human blood since that night he'd fed from Ning's hand. That same weakness had settled into his joints. Heat breathed fatigue into him. Slight impacts caused radiating pain that spread throughout his entirety.

Jack took off his mask. It was an Artifact. Just like his dagger. It made his imaginations seem a reality to his captors. Though at most, it seemed to only be capable of minor tricks like changing his appearance. Jack had imagined himself to not at all be in the cage, giving Shank a jump scare. The creature has escaped the fool had run off screaming. There was talk of abandoning the cage at which point Jack dismissed his imagination before the others could realize. Made sense for them to just drop the cage, but that would leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere.

As the days grew long, intentions of escape thinned. Fragments of his time in Karine's dungeons returned. What good was escaping when he had nowhere to run to? He was a half-breed. An accursed child rejected by both races. No friends. No allies. No one to love him. Escaping earlier might have helped. But now, here in desert regions, escaping would leave him stuck under blistering heat with nothing edible or sheltering for miles everywhere. He couldn't enter a human settlement either. He remembered it now. He'd tried that long ago. He'd tried entering the village to play with other children. They called him names. They threw stones at him. And he'd scrambled back home bloody and bruised. Karine had been furious.

Karine had been furious…

Jack cackled, insides hurting as he keeled over and lay on his side. The bandits ignored him —they'd grown used to his outbursts of laughter. Karine had to have been the greatest actor alive. She was furious at his pain, once upon a time. And then she'd hurt him in a way no human child could. She'd killed his mother.

No friends. Just a mask. And heat all around, slowly sapping at his beating heart's sound. Jack fell asleep, hoping to never wake.

But wake he did again, repeating another day's worth of pain.