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nanowrimo_ljI am! On! Freaking! Schedule! Almost!
Yeah. 499 words left! 499 words left! And I haven't the heart to start now. But if I write 2499 tomorrow, which I can almost certainly do, especially since I'll have Pyreflits and carrion and rotting corpses and undead to describe, I can get back on schedule!
YEEEEEEK!
And, um, if you want to see my chapter, which I'm posting in its entirety, then,
He had a point, damnit. He had a point. The problem was, he coudn't really figure out what it was.
But he had one. Or he'd had one about a minute ago, before the doorbell had rung.
Akhmet grinned. "Set can tell you lots of things about Obelisks. What they do when they think nobody's looking--"
"--trick birds into scratching their backs," Setekh grinned as well, then reached over and lovingly touseled her brother's hair.
"What they do when nobody's looking, but there are cameras--"
Nobody seemed to notice that whoever had rung the doorbell was now pounding on the door.
"--trick bees into scratching their backs." Setekh took a rather long sip of khumitz from her mug, and Het-Heru couldn't help but notice the faint flush.
The banging that everyone was ignoring was becoming quite annoying.
Akhmet gave his sister (Akhmet and Setekh are full siblings, right? Het-Heru found himself wondering) a reproachful glare. "Can I even finish--"
"--a sentence? No. I won't let you."
"I'm going to get the door." Akhmet left the table, and soon the banging stopped.
Het-Heru heard the murmur of voices, but couldn't make out what the speakers were saying.
Akhmet returned, white faced. Well, as white as skin the color of pale coffee got, which happened to be a rather creamy brownish color. "Father... You're the head of the household. You deal with it."
Kharda sensed that something was wrong, Het-Heru could read it in the sudden tightness of the man's face, of the paleness of his skin.
To his credit, the scientist stood up and walked towards the front hall with his head high and his back straight. Nothing, however, could hide the man's slight limp in his left leg.
Setekh noticed him watch the limp and hissed, "He was an archeologist when he was younger. Misjudged the solidity of some steps in a ruin, and wound up having to be lifted out by his armpits. He shattered one of his knees in the fall."
"That had to hurt." He winced. Shattering bones was no fun, no fun at all.
Setekh gave him a look as though he'd just said something that would be obvious to an a slumbering priestess of Casmi, but he ignored it.
You had to state the obvious sometimes.
Kharda's voice gave a sudden shout, weak and thin, wordless. And then he called Setekh's name.
"Come with me?" She said, tugging on his arm.
"What if it's family business?"
"Then you can leave."
So he followed her out of the room and into the foyer, where her father and a strange-looking man waited.
The strange-looking man drew his eyes. He had skin of a color Het-Heru had never seen, a thin-looking gray, and his pale, weak seeming eyes had sunken into deep hollows. He had thin, scraggly black hair, and was covered in sores.
And he had pointy ears, the sure mark of an elf.
"Are you Setekh Ibn Shar?" The elf man asked.
She inclined her head. "I am."
"I am The Spoiler, of Bien Gali Kora."
Het-Heru felt his knees try to buckle, and he noticed that Setekh had gone extremely pale. Kharda seemed to have grayed.
"Do you know one Mahieu Morteroi?"
"He's a Third level Mage, Lord Spoiler." She paused, reflective, and added a curt, "sir," at the end.
"Spoiler is a sufficient title, Magess Ibn Shar. I have come seeking him. Do you shelter him here?"
"I give Mahieu no aid, Spoiler. But why do you come to a mere Magess? Why do you not seek the Segnero and let a king speak for his people?"
Spoiler as a title? Isn't the Elf King named... And then Het-Heru's stupefaction cleared, and he began to understand a little. He's the Lord of Decay!
"I have consigned not to speak with the Segnero until he apologizes for his rude actions on a certain occasion. In any case, he would likely have no clue as to what I want to know, considering that he spends all his days in that palace of his."
"And what do you want to know?" Setekh looked the Spoiler straight in the eyes, and Het-Heru wanted to tackle her to the ground and apologize to the Spoiler.
She'd obviously never dealt with elves, the filthy carrion eaters, before.
The Spoiler laughed, but he showed his wicked-looking teeth a rather lot when he did so, and his eyes had widened in what was generally agreed by sociologists and psychological experts to be an expression of anger. "I want to know where Mahieu Morteroi is. He has caused three human corpses to rise in the eastern deserts, which could only have happened with a mass exodus of Pyreflits, which has not happened in a thousand years."
"I don't know what Mage Morteroi has to do with that." Setekh said it cooly, but she had gone quite pale, and she said it after too much of a delay.
You do know, and I intend to have the truth out of you, Het-Heru thought, but did not say. You didn't speak when you were a bodyguard if you were trying to make your ward look impressive and worthy of having a bodyguard.
"Oh, come now. All their corpses are moaning about is how Mahieu Morteroi killed them. We have a resurrected Mage, who was badly burned, and he's trying to do magic on himself, which is setting fire to small Zireqo towns, because the Obelisks cannot abide by the undead."
"An undead mage?" Setekh looked ill. "Accidentally setting fire to towns... Ad then trying to use magic to restore them, but it doesn't work, because he's undead..."
"You have the right of it." The Spoiler looked grim. "I need your help. I can't have this migration of Pyreflits sustaining their bodies. We need those Pyreflits. But the only thing that will make the corpses relent is if Mahieu is brought to justice, or at they're assured that he will be."
"This puts you in quite a quandry." Setekh made a small noise. "Justice will take time, but time is what you don't have. However, in order to remove the Pyreflits, justice must be served. Except it will take time, which you don't have. But you can't regain the Pyreflits without expending time."
"That would be correct. You knew him well, the two other undead told me. It is fitting that you should bring him to justice."
Setekh nodded. "Well, Het-Heru... I suppose this means we aren't going to be sitting at my house, eating up my father's larder all day. And I'd rather wanted to do a bit of exploring in the ruins near here, just for the hell of it."
"Those are catacombs, yes?" The Elf's expression became strange. It was a mixture of eyes lit in joy and a predatory grin.
"Yes, I believe so. We did bury our dead in mass... caves, I suppose, is the word, before we did the civilized thing."
"And sent them to us." The Spoiler flashed them a genuinely delighted grin.
Het-Heru shuddered. Elves feasted on the flesh of dead humans, and he didn't like that thought at all. He'd seen one eat one of his dead comrades, once. He supposed that sending them their corpses in airtight boxes at Imbith and Scuryei was better than the Elves raiding their villages to make their own dead, but still...
It was a gruesome thought.
"If you wish to visit the catacombs, I would be quite willing to tarry. It would be slaying two men with one bullet, yes?"
That was a rather nasty choice of metaphor, he thought, his teeth grinding together.
"How so?"
"I would be getting the Pyreflits back, and bringing food to my people. Our larders are rather thin at the moment. You'd be surprised at how quickly six months of bodies for this continent can vanish."
Het-Heru kept the grimace off his face, but just barely.
"Please, Spoiler. Share our table for the night. We're having gazelle." This came from Kharda, who had been silent for quite a while, apparently content to watch and learn that his daughter had associated with a murderer.
Arjawa knows what the man is thinking. Het-Heru rolled his eyes as he followed Kharda, Setekh and the Spoiler into the dining room.
He wasn't at all surprised to find that the Spoiler enjoyed gazelle and that steak/venison/gazelle seasonings were better than the finest wines, in the Elf's taste.
Feedback is welcome. And to be honest, I wasn't sure where I was going. I just sort of went with the story, and the world is just blooming like a motherf-cking flower, and it's WONDERFUL.
Yeah. 499 words left! 499 words left! And I haven't the heart to start now. But if I write 2499 tomorrow, which I can almost certainly do, especially since I'll have Pyreflits and carrion and rotting corpses and undead to describe, I can get back on schedule!
YEEEEEEK!
And, um, if you want to see my chapter, which I'm posting in its entirety, then,
He had a point, damnit. He had a point. The problem was, he coudn't really figure out what it was.
But he had one. Or he'd had one about a minute ago, before the doorbell had rung.
Akhmet grinned. "Set can tell you lots of things about Obelisks. What they do when they think nobody's looking--"
"--trick birds into scratching their backs," Setekh grinned as well, then reached over and lovingly touseled her brother's hair.
"What they do when nobody's looking, but there are cameras--"
Nobody seemed to notice that whoever had rung the doorbell was now pounding on the door.
"--trick bees into scratching their backs." Setekh took a rather long sip of khumitz from her mug, and Het-Heru couldn't help but notice the faint flush.
The banging that everyone was ignoring was becoming quite annoying.
Akhmet gave his sister (Akhmet and Setekh are full siblings, right? Het-Heru found himself wondering) a reproachful glare. "Can I even finish--"
"--a sentence? No. I won't let you."
"I'm going to get the door." Akhmet left the table, and soon the banging stopped.
Het-Heru heard the murmur of voices, but couldn't make out what the speakers were saying.
Akhmet returned, white faced. Well, as white as skin the color of pale coffee got, which happened to be a rather creamy brownish color. "Father... You're the head of the household. You deal with it."
Kharda sensed that something was wrong, Het-Heru could read it in the sudden tightness of the man's face, of the paleness of his skin.
To his credit, the scientist stood up and walked towards the front hall with his head high and his back straight. Nothing, however, could hide the man's slight limp in his left leg.
Setekh noticed him watch the limp and hissed, "He was an archeologist when he was younger. Misjudged the solidity of some steps in a ruin, and wound up having to be lifted out by his armpits. He shattered one of his knees in the fall."
"That had to hurt." He winced. Shattering bones was no fun, no fun at all.
Setekh gave him a look as though he'd just said something that would be obvious to an a slumbering priestess of Casmi, but he ignored it.
You had to state the obvious sometimes.
Kharda's voice gave a sudden shout, weak and thin, wordless. And then he called Setekh's name.
"Come with me?" She said, tugging on his arm.
"What if it's family business?"
"Then you can leave."
So he followed her out of the room and into the foyer, where her father and a strange-looking man waited.
The strange-looking man drew his eyes. He had skin of a color Het-Heru had never seen, a thin-looking gray, and his pale, weak seeming eyes had sunken into deep hollows. He had thin, scraggly black hair, and was covered in sores.
And he had pointy ears, the sure mark of an elf.
"Are you Setekh Ibn Shar?" The elf man asked.
She inclined her head. "I am."
"I am The Spoiler, of Bien Gali Kora."
Het-Heru felt his knees try to buckle, and he noticed that Setekh had gone extremely pale. Kharda seemed to have grayed.
"Do you know one Mahieu Morteroi?"
"He's a Third level Mage, Lord Spoiler." She paused, reflective, and added a curt, "sir," at the end.
"Spoiler is a sufficient title, Magess Ibn Shar. I have come seeking him. Do you shelter him here?"
"I give Mahieu no aid, Spoiler. But why do you come to a mere Magess? Why do you not seek the Segnero and let a king speak for his people?"
Spoiler as a title? Isn't the Elf King named... And then Het-Heru's stupefaction cleared, and he began to understand a little. He's the Lord of Decay!
"I have consigned not to speak with the Segnero until he apologizes for his rude actions on a certain occasion. In any case, he would likely have no clue as to what I want to know, considering that he spends all his days in that palace of his."
"And what do you want to know?" Setekh looked the Spoiler straight in the eyes, and Het-Heru wanted to tackle her to the ground and apologize to the Spoiler.
She'd obviously never dealt with elves, the filthy carrion eaters, before.
The Spoiler laughed, but he showed his wicked-looking teeth a rather lot when he did so, and his eyes had widened in what was generally agreed by sociologists and psychological experts to be an expression of anger. "I want to know where Mahieu Morteroi is. He has caused three human corpses to rise in the eastern deserts, which could only have happened with a mass exodus of Pyreflits, which has not happened in a thousand years."
"I don't know what Mage Morteroi has to do with that." Setekh said it cooly, but she had gone quite pale, and she said it after too much of a delay.
You do know, and I intend to have the truth out of you, Het-Heru thought, but did not say. You didn't speak when you were a bodyguard if you were trying to make your ward look impressive and worthy of having a bodyguard.
"Oh, come now. All their corpses are moaning about is how Mahieu Morteroi killed them. We have a resurrected Mage, who was badly burned, and he's trying to do magic on himself, which is setting fire to small Zireqo towns, because the Obelisks cannot abide by the undead."
"An undead mage?" Setekh looked ill. "Accidentally setting fire to towns... Ad then trying to use magic to restore them, but it doesn't work, because he's undead..."
"You have the right of it." The Spoiler looked grim. "I need your help. I can't have this migration of Pyreflits sustaining their bodies. We need those Pyreflits. But the only thing that will make the corpses relent is if Mahieu is brought to justice, or at they're assured that he will be."
"This puts you in quite a quandry." Setekh made a small noise. "Justice will take time, but time is what you don't have. However, in order to remove the Pyreflits, justice must be served. Except it will take time, which you don't have. But you can't regain the Pyreflits without expending time."
"That would be correct. You knew him well, the two other undead told me. It is fitting that you should bring him to justice."
Setekh nodded. "Well, Het-Heru... I suppose this means we aren't going to be sitting at my house, eating up my father's larder all day. And I'd rather wanted to do a bit of exploring in the ruins near here, just for the hell of it."
"Those are catacombs, yes?" The Elf's expression became strange. It was a mixture of eyes lit in joy and a predatory grin.
"Yes, I believe so. We did bury our dead in mass... caves, I suppose, is the word, before we did the civilized thing."
"And sent them to us." The Spoiler flashed them a genuinely delighted grin.
Het-Heru shuddered. Elves feasted on the flesh of dead humans, and he didn't like that thought at all. He'd seen one eat one of his dead comrades, once. He supposed that sending them their corpses in airtight boxes at Imbith and Scuryei was better than the Elves raiding their villages to make their own dead, but still...
It was a gruesome thought.
"If you wish to visit the catacombs, I would be quite willing to tarry. It would be slaying two men with one bullet, yes?"
That was a rather nasty choice of metaphor, he thought, his teeth grinding together.
"How so?"
"I would be getting the Pyreflits back, and bringing food to my people. Our larders are rather thin at the moment. You'd be surprised at how quickly six months of bodies for this continent can vanish."
Het-Heru kept the grimace off his face, but just barely.
"Please, Spoiler. Share our table for the night. We're having gazelle." This came from Kharda, who had been silent for quite a while, apparently content to watch and learn that his daughter had associated with a murderer.
Arjawa knows what the man is thinking. Het-Heru rolled his eyes as he followed Kharda, Setekh and the Spoiler into the dining room.
He wasn't at all surprised to find that the Spoiler enjoyed gazelle and that steak/venison/gazelle seasonings were better than the finest wines, in the Elf's taste.
Feedback is welcome. And to be honest, I wasn't sure where I was going. I just sort of went with the story, and the world is just blooming like a motherf-cking flower, and it's WONDERFUL.
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