The Xerxyss

Hope is hard to maintain in the Red Wastes, but I held Belazei in my heart. I had never dreamed she had existed until the moment she revealed herself to me, and now I could not comprehend my life without her. Watching her return to the waves was an ache that would not quite go away, but it was a pain I needed. That pain would spur my purpose. I would regain what I lost and I would return to my brides, my family, as a whole man.

Kharsoom was an ancient land of many secrets. The terrain was so harsh that its many forgotten necropolises and haunted crypts could go unvisited for a millennium. The challenge was not to find one such place, but to find the correct one. I first needed to find which might have the secret I sought, and then, to dive into the wasteland to find it.

In my journey into the Red Wastes, I sought out every wise man, every oracle, every witch endowed with the second sight. They told me of a singular figure in the endless timescape of Kharsoom, the warlord Shu-Turul, the bloody-handed priest-king of the First Clan.

Shu-Turul was a rarity in his age and an impossibility in my time in Kharsoom. He was a wizard. They called him priest, said his powers came from the gods, but the descriptions of his jagkru, never far from his side, convinced me otherwise. Shu-Turul carved a legacy of horror across Kharsoom. There are those who claim that it was his actions that made the death of the gods inevitable. Though I could not see it yet, I knew my journey would lead to him.

What convinced me was, in part, that a jagkru familiar implied astonishing power. Familiars tended to the small, night efts, cyclopodes, sea bats, and the like. A jagkru could be bigger than a man and more than capable of devouring one. Appropriate for the man who conquered so much of Kharsoom.

I had ridden into the badlands at the edge of Kharsoom's Great Nemesis, hunting a rumor given to me by a one-eyed witch. This area was said to be haunted by bandit clans and tribes of wild xerxyss, and so I was on my guard as I made my way into the interior.

My second day, I spotted a wisp of smoke near dark. It looked to be nestled amongst some buttes and canyons. I found a pathway into the interior where I judged the smoke to be, but I was no fool. I found a ridge, and made my way up, that I might approach undetected. No one in the Nemesis meant well, and I included myself in that number.

My caution was merited. I found an encampment in a dell, the smoke threading skyward from a poorly-hidden campfire. They might not have cared overmuch at who spotted their fire thanks to their numbers. It was a sizable clan, not an army but more than a match for one man, even if he had a spear forged to kill gods.

The leader was a massive brute with a hooked spear wearing scraps of bone armor, striding among his followers bellowing orders. He had a harem of collared slaves he held on chained leashes. Most of the bandits were involved in the business of camp, tending fire, drinking, eating. A few fought, others talked. A commotion at the end of the camp drew my eye. In the shade of the valley, a wagon held a pair of bone cages. In them were two xerxyss.

I had only limited contact with the creatures, and what I knew of them was confined to the raiders I periodically battled out on the wastes. The Kharsoomians regarded them as savages, either dangers or nuisances depending on their numbers. They were frequent subjects of erotic art and stories, usually of a noble lady being abducted by a tribe of them and used as a pleasure slave. In truth, many Kharsoomian fantasies revolved around nobles taking the roles of slaves. Read into that what you will.

I had seen xerxyss, from time to time, in other contexts. There was the one I saw in Xoc-Nehar and the one that served as champion in the Crown Game. To me, this implied that any perceived savagery was at least partially a choice.

They were undeniably impressive creatures. Standing from one to three heads taller than me, they moved with a spidery grace and acted with incredible power. They combined the features of human and insect in fascinating ways. Their bodies were spindly, with hard armored plates on their shoulders, over their forearms and calves, and in other places along their bodies, as armor they needed never remove. The soft parts of their flesh ranged from pink to blue to purple, with the plates taking a pleasing iridescent quality.

They had four arms, two larger primary arms and two smaller ones that they usually kept folded about their torso, in a groove between armored plates. These they used for fine manipulation.

Their faces were even more fascinating. With fine plates over their features, they could look like they were wearing masks, yet these could open up, showing the softer parts of their mouths in sensual detail. They were strange to my eyes, but I will admit to finding them alluring in their way. They were a beautiful race, but it was an inhuman beauty fueled by their fierce pride.

I hid myself among the rocks, watching. As night fell, I retrieved my fur from Ksenaëe's saddle, wrapped myself in it, and returned to my vantage, watching the bandit clan. I could have left, found myself a cave to spend the night, but something compelled me to stay. The fire grew as the chill descended and the bandits gathered around it to warm themselves againt the chill Kharsoomian gloom. I heard their conversation only in the loud barks and harsh growls that carried to my position.

"Fetch the entertainment," bellowed the warchief.

An appreciative roar went up from the bandits, their eyes turning to the cages with cruel light dancing within. A group of them descended upon the cages like a pack of jagkru around a helpless urok. The bandits chose one of the unfortunate creatures. It made a hideous keening sound, fighting against its captors, but they dragged it from the cage. The other reached for them, or its partner, but the bandits jabbed spears through the bars, driving it back.

They hauled the first to the fire. The one left in the cage uttered wrenching, inhuman screams. I didn't hear what the warchief said, but I didn't have to. I watched in horror as they tied ropes to all six of the creature's limbs, then staked them to the ground.

They spent the next several hours slowly torturing the poor creature to death.

I will not go into the torments they forced upon it. Their cruelty was bottomless, eclipsed only by their creativity. All the while the creature's companion screamed from the other cage. I did not speak their language, but I didn't have to. I knew the tone of revenge, and those were the vows the xerxyss made that night. When the creature finally surrendered to death, the bandits butchered and roasted it. The warchief ate the creature's heart while leering at its companion.

I was offended. How could I not be? The anger grew in me, and I knew then that I would not see this done to the other. I could not wade headlong into their camp and begin killing. That would mean my death. I stayed where I was, crafting the plan that would lead to the creature's freedom and would not cost either of our lives.

I decided to wait until dawn was immanent, when the bandits would be deepest in slumber, then I would approach through the southern entrance into the dell. I could leave Ksenaëe there, ready to bear me to safety. The cage wasn't far. A short run.

The warchief posted sentries, but a handful of sentries I could handle. These were not the bonded men of Clan El. These were brigands who had no reason to believe anyone would trouble them this deep in the wasteland.

In the chill deep blue of the early morning, I crept to the mouth of the dell. I clutched my spear, Ur-Anu, knowing that today would be a red one. Two sentries were posted at either entrance, while the bulk of the clan slept by the guttering fire in piles of furs. I steeled myself, ready for the coming carnage.

I sprinted to the closest sentry, killing him with a single stroke through his chest. The other prepared a scream, but I took his head with the backswing of my weapon. I ran, knowing that it was only a matter of time before the sentries' absence was noted.

I arrived at the cage. The xerxyss watched me with lavender eyes. It tensed, ready to fight me, believing perhaps that I would be author to more torments. I sliced the lock in twain, opening the cage, then beckoning to the creature, pointing to the southern entrance where the sentries lay dead.

"Alarm!" screamed a voice.

I whirled. The bandits were fast, exploding from their furs, grabbing weapons, and massing. The two sentries from the other end of the camp were charging, their spears leveled at me. Threads of fate reached form them to show me the pathways of the last few seconds of their lives. I dispatched both men, but by then the rest of the bandits were upon me.

Innumerable threads of fate danced through my mind. Too many to understand, and every one contradicting another. One path would lead to the death of one man but injury at the hands of another. I made my way back in the direction of the entrance, but there was always ten more of them, slashing, thrusting, hacking.

I butchered these brigands without mercy. Every step to my escape was a slog through a quagmire. I could not see the xerxyss, but I could see nothing but the opponent in front of me. I do not know how many I slew, but I turned the dirt below me into mud. Escape was just ahead. I glimpsed it as I fought. I was within only a few steps when I saw a bone spear, its serrated blade dripping with black, poke from the press of bodies. I couldn't find which thread was his, and by the time I selected one, it was too late. The blade pierced my breast.

White hot agony exploded from the wound. My vision was erased as my body seized, and I knew no more.

I awoke in agony. Wrapped in a fur, amber light danced over a rock surface above me. My head was pillowed on a feathered surface. As I moved, Ksenaëe squawked, her neck folding around me. My loyal qobad, somehow she had rescued me.

"I'm alive, girl," I croaked.

"You are. Not dead." The voice was strange, one tone above another, clicks beneath every one of the harder sounds. I struggled to rise, to see the speaker. "Lay still."

The xerxyss I had taken from the cage loomed into my view, her lavender eyes unreadable. "You," I said. I cannot explain why, but I took her to be female, or close enough to the concept. I would later find that this impression was correct. Or correct enough.

"Hurt," said the creature. "Wound bad."

I moved the furs aside and saw the author of my pain. The wound was over my heart, and far too small to be causing the agony I wrestled with. It was covered in some kind of jellied poultice I couldn't identify and stank like rotten vegetables.

"It's a scratch," I protested, as though my reason would suddenly banish the hurt that robbed me of my strength.

The xerxyss chittered. "Sick blood."

"Poison?"

"Yes. Poison. Will help." A shout came from outside, distant, but not distant enough. She looked up suddenly, her movements quick, insectlike. "Men. Chase."

"The bandits are still after us."

"Yes."

I had the impression that my condition would not improve with too much movement. Though we might have to. The cave we hid in was small, and didn't look to have any exits we could use other than the one in. We couldn't stay here forever if the bandits were serious about finding us.

The xerxyss pointed at herself. "Rhikiksys."

"I am..." Ashuz, nearly fell from my lips. "Belromanazar."

"Bel. Romana. Zar." She cocked her head. "Zar?"

"Zar," I said.

She crouched motionless, staring over my head at the entrance to the cave. I shortly fell into a troubled sleep.

I awoke, struggling, a force holding me down, a hand over my mouth. Agony exploded from the wound, sapping the strength from my limbs as soon as I moved. My vision swam in front of me. It was Rhikiksys's face, barely a breath from mine.

"Be still," she whispered. "Men close."

I froze, and I could hear what had provoked her. Outside, rough voices and footsteps, the bandits hunting about for our cave. Rhikiksys lifted me easily in her arms, the furs still wrapped about me. She put me atop Ksenaëe, who for once never squawked. As I slumped in the saddle, the wound stabbed me once again. Weakness and ache radiated from it.

I noted she was unarmed. My sheath had been secured to the saddle, Ur-Anu held by the swatch of fur. "Use my spear," I whispered to her.

"Spear hurt," she explained.

She touched Ksenaëe's breast, then scuttled a short way to the entrance of the cave. She moved on all fours, the alien grace of her body capable of astonishing speed. The voices drew closer. I waited, my heart on the point of a spear, hoping they would pass us by.

"Here! It's here!" He didn't crow for long. I didn't see what Rhikiksys did, for the cave was dark and her iridescent light could not illuminate her more. I heard only a wet crunch and a cut off scream. Then one more. A second later, she scuttled back. Her hands were shiny.

"Come. Silent be."

She took my qobad's reins in hand and led us to the mouth of the cave. We passed two broken bodies. She had done that with her bare hands. I had been utterly at her mercy. If she had wanted me dead, I would be.

We emerged into the frigid night. The full moon blazed in a cloudless sky. In my addled state, looming shadows reached out of the gloom. I do not have a clear memory of that night. The wound and the poison conspired to render me delirious, and a frantic ride on a qobad did nothing to improve my condition.

It was a nightmare, and every jostling movement sent more agony through my body. I was neither fully conscious nor unconscious, but a hellish place in between that was only pain. I clutched Ksenaëe with the strength of the dead, trusting that she would guide us true. My mind fell into a morass of dream, memory, and vision. I recall shapes looming from the night, much running, and the occasional choked-off scream.

Rhikiksys's shadow spidered through the dark, nightmare sounds following in her wake. The sky dawned purple, a veined eye on the horizon. A white coatl frolicked in the clouds and I called to her. I called to Quiyahui, begging her to help us.

A soft hand was on my brow. Zhahllaia's gold-flecked eyes looked down on me with love. "Rest yourself, Master Wizard," she soothed. Her touch was solid, not the kiss of breath, but of flesh.

"I am a wizard no longer."

Her finger lifted to the sky, pointing to the dancing shape in the clouds. The light caressed her flesh, bringing the metallic highlights. I followed that graceful finger, and a shaft of sunlight came through the clouds, touching the coatl's feathers, covering her with every color of the rainbow. "There is your familiar."

Gentle arms enfolded me. They were pale blue, banded with darker stripes. The soft feeling of her breasts pillowed my neck. I felt the safety of home. Sarakiel's indigo eyes were on my own. "You have what you need."

Then, hot breath, the scent of cinnamon milk, the warm dry feel of scales against my skin. No face, merely an impression. "You are my king. You have always been my king. Take your familiar." I felt the brush of fire, the embrace of smoke.

Crimson skin, violet eyes, a straight Kharsoomian blade. Full figures no longer, mere impressions, mere feelings. "You will not die here, my husband. Not when what you seek is so very close."

A cascade of red hair, a wash of freckles. "You still have much to do. We call for a storm. You will heed us."

I swear these things happened. Or else my memories put them there after the fact. I cannot know. The poison those bandits used, a brutal strain common in the area, burns body and mind, leaving behind a husk. Allegedly, when they butcher a victim of this venom, the heart is already cooked, but this sounds like fancy to me. I know only that I felt a fire burning at the core of me, threatening to consume me utterly.

I believe that if the Mythseeker Belromanazar had suffered this wound, he would be dead. I believe that it was only my time in the jungle, my time as a fighting-slave of Clan Sesamhat, my time as a boldisar, that enabled me to survive. I battled the poison the same way I fought at the Red Bridge, the same way I fought in the decadent Crown Game, the same way I fought on the deck of Naeri's Revenge. I was unbridled ferocity, a refusal to succumb that bore me through.

I heard more voices, felt more touches. These were familiar and yet not. I held onto them all. They told me a simple truth, that I was not alone. I had fancied myself thus in my exile but that was wrong. The truth was that I was never alone.

I felt Belazei's hand close over mine, timid and trusting. I held onto it, needing to see her once again. She would give me all the strength I ever needed.

Before me, a blaze of red-black, a star at the heart of me, reached with tendrils of rot and ruin. I dove into it with a rage I had not felt in a long time. Rage that this insignificant thing should try to slay me. To do what Vexacion had failed to, what the Heacharid Empire failed to do, what Clans Sesamhat and El had failed to do. I would grab it by the throat and I would throttle it for the temerity to raise a hand against Belromanazar of Thunderhead, the Dreadstorm, Ashuz the Blackspear.

I do not know how long I battled this thing. My memories are, as I said, not clear. It felt like days, or perhaps weeks. I drove myself past exhaustion. The strangest part of my memory is that I cannot clearly recall how I fought. There are times I remember spinning Ur-Anu about me, cleaving my foes with its obsidian blade. Then there are times I see myself hurling bolts of lightning, my enemies rising as deathless stormwights. There are times when I see myself using nothing but my bare hands, my teeth, my fingernails.

I know only that I battled. And in time, I rested.

I opened my eyes. I thought I would see the wound again, that great pulsing energy of death before me. I saw the ceiling of a cave. Paint covered every surface, an intricate and beautiful. It was the art of the xerxyss, as complex and breathtaking as anything upon Thür.

Sadly, with the passing of their race, it exists only in forgotten caves, that was spared the wrath of the caul. Perhaps there is a hollow somewhere that holds surviving xerxyss that continue to produce this incredible art. I have pieces of it, stones in my gallery, but I was never able to obtain an artist to paint the walls of my gallery. Getting a xerxyss artisan to leave their range is impossible, let alone to a distant island in the Gray Ocean.

I found myself lost in the designs, tracing them with my eye. It was tremendously calming, my breathing and heartbeat matching the rhythms of the patterns. It was only then that I noted I only felt a distant discomfort, far from the searing pain that had greeted me upon my first awakening.

"Zar awake."

Rhikiksys loomed over me. She clicked her jaws together. Impulsively, I leaned up, kissing her softly. "Thank you, my friend."

She touched the place I had kissed. "Still mad," she assured me. "Stay eat."

Rising had taken what little strength I had. I lay back. I was swaddled in my fur. A fire burned nearby. I could hear strange sounds not too distant, but nothing like the violent noises of pursuit. I was, apparently, quite safe. Rhikiksys vanished from my sight and I returned to the contemplation of the ceiling. A short while later, she returned, holding a clay bowl. She cupped my head and brought my mouth up to meet it. "Mouth bowl," she said.

"I will not kiss you again," I promised.

"Drink," she said, putting the bowl to my lips.

The bowl contained a thick, milky substance. Purplish white, it had a rich taste with a touch of sweetness, instantly filling my belly and endowing me with a bit of strength. "What is this?"

"Milk," she said. "Drink, Zar. Drink."

I obeyed her, draining the bowl and laying back. My breath came fast in my lungs as though I had just run a race. The milk filled me with a heavy strength. I was sated.

She touched my forehead, brushing the hair from my face. I saw that it was lank, soaking with sweat. "Sleep. Sleep."

"I have slept in plenty."

"Sleep," she said more firmly.

I did not have the strength to disobey her and soon I slept once again.

Over the following week, my periods of wakefulness grew longer. Soon I was able to sit up and take the bowl myself. Rhikiksys was patient with me, never demanding that I move more quickly. After the first day, she brought in Ksenaëe, and the old bird sat closely by me. I was not surprised to find my spear still secured to the bird's saddle, and when I was feeling a bit better, I took it back. It was useful to lean on when I was feeling better.

Voices came from outside the cave, speaking the harsh language of the xerxyss. Their mouths were quite different from those of most races, and they had trouble with the softer sounds, their tongue primarily formed harsh fricatives and sinuous sibilants. I was never able to decipher their language, and I am sad to say it has likely passed from the world.

At the end of the week, when Rhikiksys brought me my bowl of milk, I tried to stand. The milk gave me strength and though she watched with what I believe was trepidation, her motives were difficult to divine. Though I wobbled a bit, I kept my feet.

"Well. Better."

"Close to it," I said.

"Come. Show." She beckoned me to the entrance of the cave. I went slowly. Ksenaëe lifted her head to watch me go, but she decided sleep was more important. Rhikiksys brought me out into the harsh Kharsoomian sunlight and I was given the gift of a sight that very few had seen even at that time. I saw a xerxyss city in peace.

Carved from living rock, the city followed the curves of the terrain making this place as much a natural part of the terrain as the mountain itself. The most fascinating part of xerxyss art and architecture is that every motif is repeated over and over, forming larger versions of itself. The most vast structures are the same shapes of the tiny devices that form the most minute part of the base. This forms a pattern that the eyes chased for a time before the realization of the true enormity of the design, and guides a viewer over the contours of the city, allowing a wordless tour. It was an aesthetic at once alien and familiar. I mourn its passing from the world.

Xerxyss went about their business along the winding avenues. They tended their beasts, creatures that I had only seen as enemies upon the battlefield were as docile as any milk cow. Xerxyss children, in great groups of twenty or more were tended by trios of adults. As the xerxyss noticed me, they chattered to one another, but I sensed no violence.

"This is beautiful," I said.

"See."

I looked out over the city for a few more heartbeats, but my body was still heavy. I touched Rhikiksys's shoulder in gratitude and made my way back inside. She followed me, stoking the fire as I settled down in front of it.

"Could I have another bowl of milk?"

"Hungry. Good."

She picked up the clay bowl, and I was shocked as she put it between her legs. What had looked like a singular plate between her legs peeled back in a star, and revealing a softer, wetter interior. A structure, like a stalk, moved to the entrance and opened. The milk, thick and liquid, came from it, filling the bowl.

I was intrigued. Not merely because she was so dissimilar from most of my paramours, but because I had seen something like this before. When I had lain with the remnants of the First People, the three of them had a five-lobed sex, complete with the plantlike stalk inside. Despite its strange appearance, it had felt wonderful wrapped about my staff.

The similarity made me wonder if the xerxyss had any relation to the First People. If they were an offshoot, or that in the uncounted millennia since the First Strata, another race had risen with some of the same attributes.

She handed me the bowl. "I have been drinking of you," I said.

"Food of body," she said.

I drank it. Her lavender eyes were on me. Now that I knew where the substance came from, the act of consuming it felt more intimate. She was giving of herself for my strength. Watching her watching me made me savor the complex flavors. My mind probed the rich liquid, undercovering the subtle sweetness, and finding more notes beneath, the brightness of a desert flower, the taste of rain from rock, the spice of Kharsoomian wind. Impossibly complex, I savored it.

"I should thank you," I said as I swallowed the last of it.

"No. Save." She touched her chest.

"You have repaid me and more for that."

"Honor," she said simply.

"You are a remarkable people. I am curious you."

"People," she nodded, then she touched my shoulder. "Find. Trust. Sleep."

I took her meaning, wrapping myself in the fur. "Thank you, Rhikiksys."

As sleep gently pulled its velvet cloak over me, I felt her hand resting lightly upon my chest.

A week later when Rhikiksys roused me from my sleep. She waited until I was awake and my eyes were on her before she filled the bowl. I could not help but think this was an intentional provocation. She wanted me to see this, some progression in our relationship.

I took it from her hand, our fingers brushing, and I drank, my eyes meeting hers. As the complex flavors bloomed over my tongue, I took in her alien beauty. "Thank you," I said.

"Strong now."

As though to prove it, I stood without difficulty, though I rested much of my weight on Ur-Anu. "I am ready."

"Come."

She had prepared me for this. I was to meet what I believed was a scholar or a holy man. I wasn't certain if it was one or the other, or even if there was a difference in the xerxyss culture. I had been looking forward to it, my curiosity still a roaring fire even as my body recovered from that hideous poison.

She led me out of the cave and down into the city itself along the beautifully geometric boulevards, through tunnels and over soaring bridges. The destination was a stately structure in the center of the city capped with a statue, but not a depiction of anything I could understand. It was entirely abstract, and it was not until alter I understood it to be a single point in the design of the entire city. This was the key to understanding every last structure here.

The building was designed in a spiral leading down to a single point, with columned entrances ringing the top. The walls danced with geometric symbols, the writing of the xerxyss. The letters were steady for a moment, then a shimmer of purple went through them, and they reshaped themselves in the stone of the wall. Multiple pathways described a spiral down to the base of the building, and every sound was magnified. Speak anywhere and it could be heard anywhere else.

At the bottom of the room was a xerxyss who struck me as aged. His carapace was dry and cracked, and had grown over more soft areas of his body. He moved about on all fours, standing up only sparingly. A collection of filaments, like a beard, had formed about his face.

As we entered, Rhikiksys said something to him, and he responded. She gestured to him and in explanation said, "Kirylkis."

Kirylkis approached, clicking at me. When I didn't respond he said, "Kharish? Speak Kharish?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Think you speak us," he said, shaking his head. He clicked something at my guide and she turned away, her smaller set of arms rubbing together. "Ask me, ask me."

I asked him. The old one didn't need much to get him going. Some things I think are universal, no matter what the race. He told me of the legends of the xerxyss, and as his clicking words echoed in the cup-shaped room, the words carved across the walls changed. Though I could not read a single pictogram of his language, I knew it was bolstering his words. I had never wished I could read a language so much as right then. Secrets, now irrevocably lost, were revealed there and I had not the eyes to see them.

He told me that the gods created the xerxyss and gave them a lush land to rule. But one of them was was greedy. He believed that the world was not yet paradise. He went to the gods to steal their secret, but was caught. He wounded one of the gods in his desperate escape, whose blood flowed onto the soil. Wherever the blood touched, a man grew, and where a man grew, the land withered and died, becoming the Red Wastes. Enacting the vengeance of the wrathful gods, the man hounded the xerxyss into the wasteland.

This was not enough. For though the gods created men, they could not control them. Soon the men, turned upon their creators.

"A man, Bloody-Hand, went to the abode of the gods. Mount Sorrow. Know you the mount? The name, Kharish. We call her Tele'kili. This is her true name. Kah!" he swept his hands. "Men name things. Take names, call elsewise. Curse them, curse their bones."

"Kirylkis," said Rhikiksys softly.

"This one pays his debts," said the old one.

"I did not save her to pay a debt," I said.

He jabbed a sharp finger at me. "You did, though you know it not."

"Tele'kili," I said, "where is it?"

His mouth unfolded, the plates about his face shifting to reveal the softer, meatier parts. Even here he was dry. I had the impression that the old one would never truly die, just shrivel and blow away when the cruel winds of the wastes took him. "No one knows. Not xerxyss, not men, not cyclopes. It is lost. But you know, you sniff it."

"What?" Rhikiksys said. The old one chittered, and she turned to me, cocking her head. "Gods dead."

"A dead god can still work miracles," I said softly. It was a miracle I sought. Oddrin's body was years and leagues behind me, but to a god years and distance meant nothing. A god could bring him back. That link would be reforged, and I could return home to Castellandria as a wizard once again.

"Yes. Come, Debt-payer. I will show you what we know."

"Can I ask? What does Tele'kili mean?"

"A place of slaughter," said the old one, his mouthparts expanding in what I now knew was a xerxyss smile.

I learned much from Kirylkis. Though the precise location of Tele'kili was unknown, it was believed it was past the Forest Issatesh, beyond the Ealur Wastes. I did not know it then but the Forest Issatesh was within the lands claimed by the Clan Abibaal. Lands that would in fullness of time belong to me before being plunged into the churning waves.

The last hurt of my wound receded, and I knew I would need to depart. I sensed I would not be welcome in this place forever, no matter what service I had performed. I bore them no ill will, for my destiny lay elsewhere and I would not have stayed even if they allowed me. I had a goal now, and though the road would be a hard one, I would find this place of slaughter. Dead gods would inevitably leave something behind, something a clever man could use for his own ends.

On my final day with the xerxyss, I was preparing my things to depart when Rhikiksys came in.

"Zar go?" She was almost impossible to read, but I believed I heard regret in her alien voice. She was so beautiful in her way, a beauty only bolstered by the honor she displayed and the care she took of me. Affection filled me, and a thought that had been dancing through my mind crystallized.

"I must." I held my hand out. After a moment, she grasped it and pulled her close to me. "Thank you, my friend." I leaned up, kissing her softly on the plates of her mouth.

"Hungry?" she asked.

I knew what she meant, and I felt the tremor between us. Alien though she might be, I sensed a curiosity about my body that matched mine for hers. We were alone in this cave, the final time either of us would be with the other. We would not get another chance.

"I am," I said, caressing down her side.

"Good," she said. I believe she had the same thoughts as I. One time together, the two of us, and we would have no regrets after this moment. Her hands went to my shoulders, pressing down. I dropped to my knees before her. She stepped forward, placing her orchid inches from my face, her mound swollen. The lips of her rippled as though in a breeze.

"Drink," she said.

I kissed the place where the five lobes came together, inhaling her subtle scent. Because her milk had been such a part of bringing me back to health, the aroma itself put vigor in my limbs. I held her thighs, my fingers dipping between the armored plates to stroke the soft flesh beneath. I licked along each line of her sex, bringing her pleasure back to the center each time. A dribble of her milk collected along the slits, more with each of my ministrations, and I collected it on my tongue.

She hissed, a sibilant sigh from her strange mouth, and her sex opened, blooming like an exotic flower. Her stamen within leaked milk. My tongue found its opening, teasing about the edges. Her fingers closed over my shoulders, gripping me as she pushed her hips to my face. More milk flowed, and I gulped it by the mouthful. I drank deeply of her, taking her essence into my body, my thews blooming with strength.

She shivered, clicking, her body moving in strange, stuttering starts. Her milk was a torrent now, and I swallowed what I could take, even as rivulets ran down my beard and over my chest. I gripped her hard, now drinking as much as I was exploring her. She shuddered, falling backward onto the floor of the cave, and I was atop her, frenzied with lust.

My mouth met hers. The plates opened, soft tongues running over my face. I pulled my loincloth off and cast it aside, and then I was inside her. I felt the stalk of her sex swallow mine, pulling me into her. If I was not convinced before, I was now. She had some relationship to the First People. This was a primal act, and both of us found joy within.

I could not think clearly, I knew only that I was frantically coupling with this gloriously beautiful inhuman creature. Her mouth enfolded mine even as her orchid relentlessly sucked on my staff, swallowing me inch by aching inch. It would be tempting to think I was fulfilling a Kharsoomian fantasy, but the erotic art almost always went the other way, with male xerxyss ravaging female Kharsoomians. I knew only they were denying themselves an experience I would treasure.

I touched her face, and she broke from me, whispering in a shivery voice, "Zar. Fill."

"You are wonderful," I said, holding her as I thrust deeply. I needn't have moved. Her sex did more than enough work, taking me to the hilt. Then, every second, it pulsed, as though swallowing over and over. She built in me such a torrent, one already fueled by the taste of her milk on my tongue. Her arms folded about my body, her second pair opening as well, gripping my hips. Her legs wrapped about my hips.

Then, I could hold back no longer. The bliss tore itself from me, lighting a fire as it went. I felt myself pumping into her, filling her as she had filled me. I could only hold her as I spilled again and again. She uttered a long, clicking purr as she held me through my quakes.

I lay there for a time, catching my breath, and then unsteadily, the two of us disengaged and stood. I saw in her a slight awkwardness. We had lain together, but that would be it. There was friendship between us, but no love. Curiosity had been satisfied.

"Zar strange."

I reached for her hand. "Good?"

"Good," she said. "Wanted."

"Thank you, Rhikiksys."

"Thank Zar."

I embraced her, and she held me for a moment. We both knew it was time for us to part, for me to return to my path. I dressed, collecting my things, and she returned Ksenaëe to me. The qobad gave me an annoyed squawk, but she warmed up quickly. I suspect she was ready to leave as well. I swung myself into the saddle, and rode from the xerxyss city.

Thanks to them, I now had a destination. I would find this place of slaughter. I rode north and west, leaving my most recent paramour behind. I think of her whenever I look at the scar over my heart, the one that would have killed me if not for her sense of honor.