James West - Reaper Of Sorrows

“Come to my wagon,” she said abruptly.

Rathe laughed, and it felt good to do so. “You do mean to seduce me!”

She stood away, favoring him with a flat expression.

Rathe raised his hands in surrender, not a little disappointed. “Very well, you do not wish to ravish me. But if not, then why invite me to your wagon?”

Nesaea paused before answering, favoring him with a speculative eye. “So I can give you answers to questions you have not yet asked yourself.”

Intrigued by her cryptic answer, he walked at her side to a wagon styled after a war galleon of narrow beam. A breeze fluttered azure and saffron pennons hung from the short mainmast, giving the illusion of billowing sails. Webbed shrouds of white silken rope stretched from the mast to the deck, more decoration than serving any use. A gilded raptor jutted from the prow, caught in perpetual flight.

Within the circle of wagons, the merriment continued. Captain Treon watched the proceedings with a narrowed eye, while the rest of the men clapped and shouted encouragement to the dancers wheeling about the various campfires, while a handful of their sisters played a frantic but merry tune on panpipes.

Nesaea ran her hand along the hull of the ship-wagon, fingers dancing lightly over graven reliefs of people and fanciful creatures. Amidships, she halted at a winged leopard, twisted an inconspicuous rosette below its paw. There came a soft click, and the seams of a hidden hatch showed themselves, sharply defined by a welcoming glow within. She eased it fully open, and a ratcheting mechanism produced a short ladder. She climbed up and in, beckoning him to follow.

Not knowing what to expect, Rathe went after her and found himself standing in a cabin fit for any shipmaster. While his gaze roved over the elaborate furnishings, all built to a small but useful scale, Nesaea turned a diminutive windlass that drew up the ladder and closed the hatch on the celebration outside. In one corner stood a writing desk and chair, overshadowed by book-lined shelves; in another stood a wardrobe with elaborately carved doors. Toward the stern, a small table and two matched chairs sat across from a tiny stove and an iron rack laden with cookware. Beyond a sheer curtain waited a bed, lighted by flameless orbs of golden radiance.

He moved nearer to the fist-sized glass spheres. They gave off light, but no heat. After considering what she had said more fully, he asked, “Are you a sorceress as well as dancer, singer, bard, and musician?”

She laughed, a lazy finger toying with a dark curl of hair at her neck. “I am many things, but no conjurer.” She inclined her head toward the radiant orbs. “As to the Eyes of Nami-Ja-the god of light on the far jungle isles of Giliron-they are but useful trinkets gifted to me by a wizard after hearing me sing. I dare say, my reward was greater than his.”

Rathe disagreed, and Nesaea blushed at his praise. He added, “I didn’t know the Maidens of the Lyre travelled so far as Giliron. It’s said that such a voyage to those far western islands is fraught with pirates and terrible creatures of the deep.”

“The Sea of Muika is no more dangerous than any other. As to why I was there, suffice it to say that it was not my choice, but leaving was. Returning would mean my death.”

Rathe’s eyebrows shot up. “You must have made quite the impression. Giliron is not known for its upstanding citizenry, let alone punishing them. You must tell me-”

Nesaea stilled him with a raised hand. “I didn’t bring you here to prattle about my life, but to speak of your fortune.”

Rathe bellowed laughter. “I have no desire to hear how I will spend my days in Hilan, growing old and forgotten, probably dying in the jaws of some foul beast I always believed was a legend.”

Nesaea fixed him with an unwavering stare.

Rathe resisted as long as he could, then said, “Why do you wish to tell me these things?”

“As to that,” Nesaea replied, failing to completely hide her disquiet, “when I feel such compulsion on my heart, I follow it.”

“So will I wed a beautiful woman, or give my soul to a toothless crone?” he chuckled. His experience with mystics and the like suggested that men, no matter their station, always learned they would end up with the former.

“I will not paint so clear a picture, but rather divine the essence, the flavor , of the remaining days of your existence.”

“Do what you will,” Rathe said, losing what little interest he had. He knew well enough what his life held.

Nesaea cleared an area between the stove and table, then rolled out a sea-blue, hexagonal carpet embroidered with all manner of arcane symbols. “Sit in the center,” she instructed.

After he settled himself with an accommodating grin, she placed a candle at each corner, no two the same color or size. Poking a wooden taper into the stove, she coxed its tip to flame with a gentle breath. Murmuring strange words, moving right to left around him, she lit each candle. Rathe thought he sensed the small flames as cold prickly fingertips caressing his skin, but dismissed that. Drafts rising through the floorboards, nothing more.

Nesaea knelt before him, the individual candle flames shining like golden sparks in the depths of her eyes. Their slow, fiery dance brought to mind Nesaea’s dancing earlier. How she had moved, a beautiful flame to excite passions….

He noticed the candles dimming, radiating a smoky, sullen light. At their dimmest, an eldritch aura materialized around the tiny flames. Crimson flecked with black, they seemed to press in, threatening to extinguish the candles’ infinitesimal heat.

A skirling wind suddenly whipped around him, disturbing neither the flames nor the curtain before Nesaea’s bed, nor the sheaves of parchment atop her desk. The gust touched Rathe alone, bringing with it profane words spoken in a mocking tongue. Both the Eyes of Nami-Ja and the candles dimmed … dimmed … and went out. A smell wafted from the dead wicks, that of meat rotting in a winter wood.

Rathe sat in the dark, trying to beat back a child’s fears. When that failed, he spoke, longing to hear Nesaea’s voice. “I suppose that always happens?” The camp’s joviality filtered into their confined space, seeming every bit as irreverent and scornful as that voice he had heard.

“Never,” Nesaea breathed, sounding terrified.

For a time, she said nothing more. In the silence, the ensorcelled orbs from the isles of Giliron gradually regained their luminance, revealing the stark terror in Nesaea’s gaze. As if that light gave her leave to speak, she whispered, “The blasphemous voice was that of the Khenasith, the Black Breath. Rarely is it heard, for it speaks only to the irredeemably accursed.”

Rathe digested that. “So I spoke the truth when I guessed my own fortune, and I will be eaten by some fell beast?”

“No,” she muttered hollowly. “Yours is a fate buried in shadow, a life of woe, a harrowing storm to trouble your every step. Turn this way or that, but you will never escape distress until the grave draws you to its loveless bosom.”

He mulled her grim words. “What other fate is there for a man?” he asked, trying to comfort her more than himself. “Is not life but pinnacles of brief triumph and joy, followed by valleys of tedium and misery?”

“Perhaps,” she allowed, looking to her hands fidgeting in her lap, “but the Khenasith has spoken, revealing the curse upon you. That’s what I sensed in my heart, that yours will be a life of woe.”

Rathe snorted. “Maybe you should have kept it to yourself?”

“I should have,” she agreed.

“Well then,” Rathe murmured, edging closer to Nesaea, “if I am twice cursed, then to the darkness with my vows of reformation.” He swept her into his arms and stole the kiss he had coveted since first laying eyes on her. Her soft lips tasted of honeyed spices-