Fragment: Fish In The Desert

It was some years after the old cities fell that I was wandering in the western desert alone, four days out from Los Caido when I met him. I had been to lay to rest some artefact of my ancestors making in the ancient city, and had found the entire ordeal somewhat more than what I had expected.

I had never believed the stories the old women of Tarlas had spoken of Los Caido, where the dead walk. I had written the tales off simply as that: tales. As it turned out, they also flew, and feasted, and danced, and sang. Never shall I return to that place ever again, so long as I can help it. Perhaps one day I will tell you of my time there amongst the insomniac dead with their raucous and macabre celebrations, but that is for another time.

Not a living soul had I met along the seldom used caravan trail and I marked time only by the passage of the sun and the number of tall, lone markers to mark the trail from New Ashen to the necropolis of Los Caido. In the empty desert air I could see the last twisted structure of stone and metal far behind, and the next in the near distance ahead, its abused metal glinting darkly, wavering in the afternoon heat. I had passed seventeen of them headed that way already.

It was near dusk, and the sun was sinking low over the dry stone hills to the west. My shadow was long and twisted to my right, my robes making it seem eerily wraith-like in nature. My footsteps were a long double line to the south-east over the dunes. I would be camping at the eighteenth marker on the western side to keep the first of mornings immolating rays of the sun off until I was ready for them. I was weary from my days walk, and my tongue was coated with a tasteless layer of sandy grit. Of course, I was in little danger of dehydration, for my dripper kept me well hydrated. I was merely uncomfortable and longing for a bath.

He was already camped in the place I had wanted when I got there, a small fire burning before him. Smoke coiled above the pitiful flame like a twisting snake, and he did not even spare me a glance as I approached. He was naked, save for a band of gold set with round lapis lazuli gems about his neck. His skin was the colour dark caramel. He had an almost noble, otherworldly cast about his features. His hair was long and dark. His eyes glimmered like stars with the reflected glow from the small fire. He was still as stone, and his body looked as if it had been carved of the same stone as the desert itself, though he seemed to be of the same age as I. A single long feather, the same shade of blue as the gems about his neck was clutched in his left fist.

I noted with some trepidation that he had no equipment save for a small cloth bundle against which he sat cross-legged facing away from the fiery sunset towards the tower. I thought he would make a most peculiar bandit. It was not until I had warily drawn my dagger, not quite so invisibly as I had hoped, that he took action at my presence.

"You have no need of that here, traveller," his voice was like the wind passing over the dunes. His teeth were the palest shade I had seen before. He motioned to a place across from him at the fire with a glance of his darkly reflecting eyes.

I sheathed my dagger and settled warily across from him, regarding him with a fair measure of suspicion. It is not often that one comes across ill-clad men in the desert, more than a week from the nearest living settlement, and seemingly lacking in much useful equipment. To cover my nervousness, I began to eat one of my travel rations, a hand-sized morsel of dried fish that I had bought for the outrageous price of six silver from a dealer in New Ashen.

He stared for some length of time more into the fire as I ate, the fire reflected in his eyes dancing. Behind him the great marker was fading from orange to black as the sun sank large and golden behind me. Above, the stars were peeking out, as fresh and as beautiful as they were in ages past before man had even fathomed the concept of fire. I pondered the nature of time as I chewed, my tension beginning to ease towards the stranger.

At length, he spoke in his empty desert voice, his eyes never leaving the same point in the fire he had been gazing at since I saw him, "You are coming from Los Caido, yet you are not of the dead. It is seldom that the living come back from such a place."

I nodded, unsure as to what to say, but he continued as if my silence was answer enough, "I am thankful I have no reason to go there, for I do not wish to see what the dead do. You still smell of that place. It is wrapped about your being as the chill shroud of Death's touch. If you are lucky the desert will have swallowed that scent by the time you reach Kharval to rent a skwylvch back to New Ashen, but it seems particularly strong on you. Skwylvchen do not enjoy the reek of death."

I had already had a few rather nasty incidents involving skwylvchen. I would not be even making the attempt to rent such a beast for travels, soon or ever again. In general I find the feelings between us quite mutual. He was quite correct in knowing that they do not appreciate at all the stink of death. I swallowed the last of my fish and remained silent.

He tilted his head to the side slightly, and for a moment he looked at the stars somewhere above my head, his suddenly unreflective eyes unreadable and commented, "It has been long since this land has last seen rain."

The statement was from nowhere, and it took me aback by its suddenness. I believe he must have seen the surprise in my face, for he fell silent after that. We watched the fire for a time, the crackling flame sending shadows skittering across the old structure of stone and twisted, skeletal metal in strange, almost mystical ways. After a time, he pulled out of his little cloth bundle a dark blanket and lay in it some small distance from the smouldering fire, still clutching the blue feather in his hand. I watched as his breath evened out into sleep.

I moved and positioned myself against the marker, so I could watch the sleeper, the fire, and the distant worn stone hills silhouetted by the last failing rays of sweltering day. The moons were shrouded, so I watched the glimmering, diamond like stars in the otherwise empty sky as I sucked on my dripper. I realised that I had never said a word to the strange traveller, nor had we exchanged names. I decided that I would perhaps speak with him sometime in the morning. Sleep swept upon me surprisingly quickly, and my dreams were of strange places far away.

When I awoke, the strange man was nowhere to be found, though his blanket was wrapped around my otherwise undisturbed form. There was no evidence of a fire, and the first drops of rain were falling around me, large, warm and wet.