Shiva shook his head. "I'm gone for four days and the entire politic of the chateau changes?"

Julia nodded her head. The notebook containing the beginnings of Shiva's life lay in her lap, the front closed, and the pen tucked neatly into the metal ringed binding. Her ruddy hands were folded in front of her. Then, when the silence stretched too thin, she tapped her glassy nails against the flimsy plastic cover. Shiva cocked his head to the side, pinching his eyebrows together. She stopped.

"So what has the Frenchman done now? For all his charm, he can't keep himself out of trouble, can he?"

"I don't know. Usually Camille gets all sorts of miffed with him, and he comes to Matias or me for advice. This time is different... they're not talking to each other, and they're certainly not talking to us. I'm not sure what to make of it," she said, glancing down at her lap. "It worries me, if you know what I mean."

"I do. You don't have to be a vampire to feel the tension here."

Shiva leaned forward, clasping his hands and resting both elbows on the cushioned arms of his chair. "And how are things between you and your dear? Have you given him an answer yet?"

"No, not yet."

Shiva pursed his lips together. "It's been two weeks now, hasn't it? Or nearly. It shouldn't be that hard of a decision."

Julia arched a well-groomed eyebrow at him, and leaning into a closed fist, she said, "You were in love once, so why don't you tell me? Do you think you could really have spent the last two-thousand or so years with one woman?"

"No," Shiva said, firmly and without hesitation. "Nothing in this world lasts forever, not even us. Time has her way in the end, regardless. We can try to fight against it, sleep through it, or refuse to acknowledge it, but in the end, time will triumph. All things are born, change, die, and are reborn in one way or another, spiritually or chemically."

"I can't accept that, Shiva, I can't. The only allure immortality has is some reassurance that something won't change. That I can have something for more than a few seconds!"

"And you have that, you only need to look in a mirror."

"It's not enough."
"Julia," Shiva's voice was low, a precursor of his mounting annoyance. "You are either stuck in yesterday or tomorrow, never today. You told yourself you've lost so much time living that way, so fix it. I don't want to hear any more of your concerns with tomorrow, tomorrow, or tomorrow. Now is the time Julia, because there may be no tomorrow!"
Julia bowed her head and stared at the notebook in her lap. She slowly peeled back the slick, plastic cover and removed the ballpoint pen from the metal binding, and mechanically, she hovered the pen over the paper, hand still, ready. Though Shiva had been gone the better part of the week, her mind hadn't stopped pondering over the cause of his sudden retreat, or what was bound to come next. Antoine had poured everything out in brisk detail, all at once, and though his emotions had been sharp, brutal, they hadn't been nearly as restrained as Shiva's. At times, the Babylonian seemed nothing more than a bronze statue from his era, stoic, unresponsive, except at the small intervals when she amused him, or some amount of fondness managed to trickle out.

"I know what you're going to ask, and there is no easy answer," he told her as she parted her lips. "I'm not in the business of easy answers, not right now."

"Then what happened next? What happened to your sister?"

He stared off to the side for a long time, not blinking, not moving, and hardly breathing. Then, he blinked slowly, his eyelids moving as if they were on strings controlled by a puppeteer.

"I assume she went straight home, huffing and puffing the entire way. I didn't know then, and I still don't know now. But she did go home, and she was safe, and nothing happened that night. But she didn't come back to see me ever again, and as the next year crept by, I was slowly being broken down by the priest who made sure to beat me for the smallest transgression. Perhaps I did not speak my prayers quietly enough or did not offer the proper amount of my breakfast in homage to Marduk. He only needed to snap his switch against his calf or tap me on the back of my knees to have me jump. Imagine me jumping at the sound of a switch cracking. It's difficult, isn't it? I hated and resented the priest, and plots of murder and revenge filled me. But I was too much of a coward to do it. What would Marduk do, then? Though I wasn't a fanatic by any means, I had some faith in the myths, and like any proper Babylonian, I feared he might strike me down in return, especially if I slaughtered a priest in his own temple. Besides... I wasn't a killer, not yet... not yet. I dreamed of it, but those were silent, bitter, and angry dreams that had no merit.

"So I ran away. I was almost fourteen. At my last dinner, I took away some bread, meat, and cheese, saying that I intended to pay a late homage to Marduk before I went to bed. But I didn't. As soon as I came out of the dining chamber, I passed by the inner sanctum of the temple and went straight for the front entrance. The senior acolytes only glanced at me in surprise, some pausing to watch me as I hurried for the entrance, but none of them stopped me. One or two might have gone to fetch a head priest, but by the time they would have been pulled from their dinner plates, I had vanished into the darkening streets, and no amount of time sequestered in the temple could erase my childhood knowledge of all the back streets and alleys. I navigated away from the light, staying away from torch lit, main roads, of which there were very, very few, and away from patrols of guards. I was nearing manhood, but in my acolyte robes and with my still boyish face, I'd be sent back immediately, and that was unacceptable. I wasn't a normal acolyte, but sent there as punishment, and the priest wouldn't take kindly to me running away. My brother wouldn't either, and he'd see to it I was lashed within inches of my life.

"Even though I was male, I was without a suitable place to go, and though I had some sliver of fierceness left to me, that wouldn't be enough. I had shamed my entire family, and not even the far and distant branches would want anything to do with me. My best option was becoming a thief, but I didn't know where to go from there. Even as a last resort, my arrogance claimed that was beneath me.

"I found a nook beneath an old and crumbling building, off a side alley some several streets away from my old haunts. It was empty, smelled of decay, and had been mostly boarded up and walled off to the public. Spiders and vermin slinked across the dirt floor, but it was the only place of shelter that I knew. Thin, hairline cracks stretched up the walls like grasping fingers, and a few slivers of light from the outside managed to creep through the grassy rooftop. I clutched the sack of food scraps I had taken from the temple to my chest, afraid to put them anywhere for fear that insects would get to them. I would fall asleep upright, with my back to the wall, listening to the dead of night grow deeper until there was only the sound of stars overhead. It was pitch black, then.

"I survived off those scraps for only a couple days, and tried to subsist on nothing but water collected from the underside of the grassy rooftop and whatever small, wandering foul I could catch from the doorstep of that rotting shack. I was in shambles, but I refused to believe it was more pathetic than stealing. But I was starving, Julia, and I was too afraid to go out into the streets, even at night, because I thought that any person who saw me would recognize me and turn me into the priest. That fear made me sick, until I could barely bring myself to rise in the early mornings to try and survive another day. I tried to convince myself the fear was making me sick, that it was making me too weak to move, but I when I tried to sleep at night, I could feel my ribs through the tattered remains of my robes. I couldn't stay in Babylon for much longer. Vermin and reptiles, droplets of morning dew, these things could not sustain me, and I had too much pride and arrogance... and fear... to think of stealing.

"After about two weeks of hiding and scavenging, I decided to leave Babylon. It was close to dusk that I crept out of my hiding spot, and keeping to the winding, narrow alleyways, I made my way towards the city gates. Merchants and traders were always passing through here, bringing in goods from Assyria and taking goods to the other city-states of Babylon's empire. It was easy to spot these caravans, as they were often marked by long lines of camels, foreign tongues, and exotic dress. I'd seen them many time in the markets on my way to schools, and though I hadn't been good with my studies, like any boy of my time, I was schooled in Sumerian, Assyrian, and our native tongue, Akkadian. Of course, Sumerian was hardly used anymore; it suffered a fate similar to Latin, and was more of a means to understand more classical literature, and due to our intense relationship with the Assyrians, you could say that it was as imperative for me to know their language as it is for you to know French or Spanish. But I digress. There was a Babylonian caravan leaving the city for Sippar to the north, and though much of their number consisted of merchants and their camels, much more reliable then than horses, there were some number of small wagons transporting goods too heavy or fragile to throw on a camel's back. I climbed into one of these wagons and hid myself beneath rolls of thin linen that were being exported to the north. I was too weak, too demoralized to do anything but lay there, even though heat was sweltering, and I had nothing to eat or drink. I didn't dare come out. Merchants were protective of their goods and had little tolerance for anyone outside their group. They wouldn't see me as a mere hitch-hiker, but a likely thief or loafer. My weight would be slowing them down somehow, or my intentions were to steal away with their goods once we arrived at our destination. I don't know how I survived the first day, let alone the second."

"How long did it take you to reach Sippar?"

Shiva shook his head. "I didn't. The caravan traveled almost nonstop the first two days, but by the evening of the third night, they chose to stop and make camp before traversing a narrow and perilous gorge ahead. The men nearby claimed that to do so when everyone was worn out and on edge was too risky, especially since some of the merchants had managed to obtain several rolls of precious silk while in Babylon's market square. On the outskirts of the empire, those rare rolls would sell for a fortune, much more than in Babylon herself.

"I lay alone, tired and afraid as the merchants glanced over their cargo to make sure everything was as it should be. I could barely keep my breaths steady. I was terrified they might hear even the smallest sound, but I couldn't hold my breath. I couldn't keep my hands from shaking. I thought that they would see vibrations in the cloth and discover me beneath the rolls, but before long, the sound of light and hearty music drowned out my ragged breathing, and there was deep, husky laughter from the merchants and the sound of crackling meat. I was so starved that I could smell the wine that they drank from lambskin canteens, and my mouth swelled with pure need. But I laid there, still, my head pounding and aching from the smell of the fire and the lamb that they roasted over it. They were wealthy enough to season it, and the sharp scent of heavy spices overwhelmed me. I felt like Tantalus, desiring nourishment but never having it within my grasp."

"Only when they had drunk themselves into sleep did I come out. Men were slumped against the wagon, and a thick-bearded man had his wine canteen cradled to his chest. Spit dribbled down the corner of his mouth and into his beard, and like the sweat that gathered at his hairline, it glistened when light from the dying flames touched his face. Most of the pits were dying down by now, becoming nothing more than red hot embers that hunkered down into bitter coals. A few rebellious snaps and crackles pierced the cooling night air, and at every sound, I jumped. From the hand of a drunken man, I stole away a half empty canteen of wine and drank myself thirsty, and from the discarded scraps, I tried to scrape together enough to nourish myself. It was low, it was practically stealing, but I tried to rationalize it as surviving on what would otherwise be wasted and thrown to the dogs.

"I huddled close to a dying pit, trying to heat up the half-eaten remains of a leg of lamb, but there was little heat left to them that could be used for cooking. I came out with more burned fingers than I did warm food, and it took me a moment to be grateful for that much. I'd taken advantage of my wealth all my life, never understanding for a moment what it meant to have nothing. I'd had schooling, food always, and though there was a bitter rivalry in my family that was fierce in comparison to the status quo, there had nonetheless been a security there that I found myself in dire need of. And while I bitterly lamented all that had been taken from me, I did not, for a moment, regret what I'd said or done in the temple that evening. If anything, it intensified my hatred for my eldest brother, and as I sat there, feeling the frigid night air creeping in as the desert began to cool, I swore to myself I'd find a way to undermine him and everything that he would ever achieve. I would undermine them all, somehow.

"The panicked scream of a man broke me from my thoughts. Three men across the camp from me lay dead by their camels, and another lay flailing on the ground, his throat slit and bleeding. A few of the horses were wide-eyed and rearing back on their hind legs, and the high-pitched, staccato trumpets that shot out of their throats froze me in a squatting position. My thigh muscles were stone-cold, and I couldn't bend them even to get up and run. I watched as shadows infiltrated the small circle of light around which all the merchants had been gathered and dispatched these men one by one, for they were too drunken to even give up a good fight. One or two who hadn't drank nearly as much as the others stood and drew their swords from their sides, but they weren't mercenaries. Far from it. The thick-bearded man clutched his canteen as they slit is throat mid-scream.

"And when they came to me, I saw a flash of hot silver cut through the inky black of the sky, but it wavered there. A callused hand had lashed out to stop its merciless swing.

"'No,' said the bandit in Assyrian, his fingers tightening around his companion's wrist. He glanced back at me, his brown eyes insincere. 'He is worth nothing dead.'

"The other jerked his hand away, flicking his sword irritably to the side before sheathing it. 'From the looks of it, he's not worth much alive either.'

"'Just bind him and do it fast. We have to pick up and move—tonight!'

"When he came at me, I dropped what I had in my hands and tried to run. I managed only a few steps before something slammed into my right shin and I tasted sand in my mouth. A heavy weight landed on my back, and though I struggled to squirm from underneath him, my hands were captured with little effort, and rough twine was wrapped around each wrist before being tied around both. It cut into my flesh, and every movement, every motion and twist, made it dig in deeper. The cap of his knee dug into the top of my spine, pressing my face into the sand until it crept into my nostrils. I gasped for air and inhaled more sand.

"'Stay still, or I'll gut you like a piece of livestock and barter your flesh for as little as copper. Do you understand?' he asked. I gasped, but gave a rough nod of my head.

"'Good,' he said and eased himself off me. I managed one, solid gasp for air before a swift kick hit me in the ribs. Pain exploded through my side, infecting even my bones.

"A third chimed in. 'No need to be rough with the boy. In his state, I doubt he'd be able to get very far, very fast.'

"'No reason to take that risk. Besides, rough him up now and he'll know better in the future. When he does get legs, I don't want him thinking they're his to run with.'

Through blurry eyes, I watched as they gathered up the tethered camels, hitched up the horses, and scoured the dead for valuables. They took what they could, from medallions and rings to fine clothes. Some of the merchants were left naked and face down in the sand for whatever would bother with their rotting flesh. Already insects were starting to swarm to the freshly dead, crawling into their mouths and noses. It wasn't the sight that made me vomit. It was the stench. I can't tell you if it was the starvation that made my senses that much sharper or if the dead always smelled so bad so quick. It didn't matter. Anything I'd consumed lay in front of me, on me, and the stench of the half-digested lamb and wine made me that much sicker.

"'For the gods' sake, load him into a wagon or something! I don't want him getting sick on the goods!'

"Someone lifted me by my bound hands and dragged me to the wagon. I was hastily wiped down and tossed in, and a mixture of exhaustion and helplessness lulled me into a long, dreamless sleep. Does it sound cowardly for me to appreciate that? I didn't want to see those dead eyes in my dreams. The sight of those first deaths were the only ones to bother me, and even now I can see them before me, gray, lifeless eyes not understanding why they chose to spare me."

"I'm sorry," Julia whispered, and she leaned over the desk. She struggled to find the right words to say, but the sharpness in Shiva's vermillion stare prompted something less discursive. "Why did they spare you? Why not kill you with the others, especially if you were going to be a bother?"

"I was flesh to them, in one way or another. I could be butchered, sold cheaply if it came down to it. I could be bartered off as the flesh of livestock. Or I could be a servant, a brothel boy like your dearest, a slave. Who knows what they intended that first night. I think it was that I wasn't a merchant. I couldn't turn them into the authorities, I couldn't fight back. They were bandits, and I was merely a part of their loot.

"I regained consciousness abruptly, and it was a splash of cool water that brought me out of my dreamless stupor. There was only one bandit that I could see, and he held a small, wooden bucket in his callused hands. He was a short, but well-built man with muscles that were easily defined beneath his worn, leather clothes. Hair as black as mine was allowed to sit in easy waves on his shoulders, but he took great care to shave. There wasn't a hair on his face though it was a trend in these times, and his features were smoother, less jagged than that of my countrymen. He seemed somehow more Egyptian or Nubian than Babylonian, but I couldn't begin to guess his origins. I'd never paid enough mind in school. Though he had stolen from a handful of wealthy merchants, he chose not to decorate himself with their luxuries, and wore nothing but a small, silver pendant around his neck; it looked knotted, like a celtic knot, but it was cruder, and there was a symbol hiding in the chest of the winding slivers of silver. His clothing was, as I said, worn and in need of replacement. It no longer groaned when he moved, and he was soundless as he crossed over to the small pool of water several feet in front of me. He got another bucket full of water and came back.

"He knelt in front of me. 'You're going to tell me who you are, where you came from, and what your business was with the merchants.'

"I knew what the water was for; though we were shaded by several trees, the heat was nonetheless heavy here, and my throat was a barren plain long afflicted by drought. I answered earnestly. I gave him my name and explained my situation. I told him briefly about how I ended up in the temple, why I left, and how I came to be with the merchants. I was nothing more than a hitch-hiker, and I had no home, no place to run to, for even though Sippar had often some redemption of hope, I could just have easily starved there as I could have back home in Babylon. There were no promises in either place. He listened attentively, and when I finished, he set the bucket of water in front of me. The water glistened in the midday sun as though it were filled with a hundred precious stones.

"He unsheathed a curved dagger from within his vest, and he held the blade in front of my face. It was well crafted, though unornamented, but he took great care to emphasize that it was much better than it looked. 'I'm going to cut you loose so you can drink, but if you try to run, this dagger will end up in your back, and trust me, my little friend, it can cut a great deal better than it would seem. Do we have an understanding?'

"'Yes,' I rasped.

"He leaned over me and cut through my bindings. Then he sat back on the balls of his feet and watched as I gorged myself on the bucket of water. I drank and drank and drank, until there wasn't a drop left to drink, and still I thirsted for more. I looked from the bucket to the crystal clear pool just ahead, and the bandit followed my gaze. He shook his head. 'I wouldn't if I were you. You'll make yourself sick if you try to drink too much at first.'

"He stood and put his hand to his forehead to shade his eyes. He peered past the trees, his eyes scouring the rolling desert beyond. I could smell the sand as the wind whipped it into the edge of the grass, trying to invade this small oasis. The bushes and trees fought back desperately, new plants trying to infiltrate the hot dirt only to wither and die days later. That was the way of this land; nothing here made it easily, everything had to fight for its fair share of ground.

"Seemingly not finding what he was hoping for, he sauntered over to the pool and splashed his face with more water. He sat with his back to me, perhaps knowing that I didn't have the strength to flee into the desert, where death surely awaited me.

"'What now? What are you going to do with me?' I asked, trying to find the strength to stand. The water was making me a little woozy, and an invasion of prickling pain penetrated my belly.

"'That's entirely up to you,' he said, splashing more water on his face. He looked back at me, eyes rough, insincere, and blooming with plots and schemes. 'Honestly, it's all the same to me. I can barter you off, make a little money, and be on my way. I don't care if you go to a brothel or a butcher, so mark me, if you do right by me, and you do what I tell you when I tell you, I'll do right by you. You've got a lot of that fire in you somewhere or else you wouldn't be here right now, and I need that kind of spark.'

"'You mean, teach me to be a thief and a murderer,' I said, the biting edge of my voice running him through. His pupils dilated, and the lids gave a subtle twitch.

"'Don't spit on what you don't understand, boy. You've sat in Babylon and been pampered your entire life, and here you are starving because you're too proud to do what you must to survive. What, you think there is some higher order to it all, that the just rule the weak, and that honor lurks in every nook and cranny? You don't know the half of it, and if you did, you'd be sick with yourself sitting there acting high and mighty. Let me tell you something. Out here, especially in the no man's land, there is none of that. Even in your beloved Babylon, the strong prey on the weak, and there is no one to protect them. So either you are strong, or you're not worth my time. Tell me which it is now, so I can decide what to do with you.'"

"'You're wrong,' I hissed under my breath. I'd clung forever to the thought that the strong always protected the weak, that there was justice and law for a reason. It couldn't be trampled on by thugs that preyed on drunken merchants to survive.

"He squatted down in front of me, his deep brown eyes searching mine fiercely, and in a quick, fluid motion, he backhanded me. I tasted blood in my mouth, and thought he'd knocked a tooth loose. When I tried to push myself up, he kicked me in my ribs, and there was no flesh there to protect them. I sucked in dirt and grass and tasted the earth in my mouth as I tried to scramble to my feet. He shouted, 'Who is here to protect you now? Who will protect you when you are nothing more than a slave, what then? Tell me, who has fed you when you were weak, who gave you fresh clothes, sanctuary, security? No one has! Either you become strong and overcome your adversaries or you die here, in the dust, and no one will remember you or mourn the loss of your memory!'

Shiva stopped, staring across the library at a row of books. He looked uncomfortable, and the sides of his mouth twitched. His fingers tapped the arm of his chair, interrupting the slow gathering of silence, and the longer he remained quiet, the faster and more urgently his fingers struck the arm of the chair. His hands paced for his feet, stretching anxiously across the soft armrest to find that unsalvageable remnant of himself. It lay too far beneath desert sands to be obtained here, now, but Shiva searched the surrounding room desperately with skittish eyes.

"We don't have to talk about this, you know. Not right now," Julia offered quietly, fidgeting with her pen. She set it down and fiddled with her hands. She went to push them into her jean pockets

"Stop it!" he snipped, glaring at her hands. "Don't… don't be afraid for me. I can't endure your sympathy, it's too late for that."

Her lips parted, but were unable to form words. Sound hung uselessly in the back of her throat, bubbling and unintelligible. She swallowed her apology, and before she could offer anything else, Shiva had turned his head away from her and was marching onwards with his story.

"I managed to pull myself into a ball, that pathetic fetal position, and stare at the ground in front of me. There were clumps of grass, but quickly encroaching upon the oasis were the harsh desert sands. Wind flung bits of sand into my eyes, and my parch lips withered beneath every kiss. I saw my dreams withering out in the sand, becoming frail beneath the blistering sun and collapsing in the desert to become one with it. What could I have done? The only way to glory, the only way back to where I thought I belonged was through him… I could do nothing but accept him and his words. What else was there? I had to embrace the beginning of a long and painful destiny, as it would be this very series of events, the stretch from the end of my brother's wedding to that meeting with the bandits that would condemn me to immortality. And sitting here now, I cannot help but despise my weakness in all aspects. My inability to control my anger and hatred, my inability to stand by what I had always thought was right, my inability to retain some vestige of who I thought I was supposed to be. This is the infallibility that I could not have known as a child, that I could not have dreamed of as I sat with my back to the family hearth and stared up at my father's legacy…

"I didn't need to say anything. I lay there, defeated, nodding slowly to myself when I could manage. When the pain subsided, I pulled myself upright, and the leader and I sat there for a long time, shaded from the sun but nonetheless baking in the heat. My throat was parched and the bucket lay before me, the last vestiges of water evaporating on the curve of the metal handle. I could have drank that small oasis dry, probably drowning myself in the process. Precious sweat trickled down my temples. I thought I'd die before the others arrived.

"I wasn't so lucky; as dusk descended upon us, clouds of dust rose along the horizon to greet it. Over the top of the jagged dunes came two riders, harrying their horses down the frozen waves of sand. I imagined that they couldn't have come from far, and perhaps I could have survived an escape into the desert. It was too late for that. The riders were bandits, the ones who had captured me, and now they dove down the side of the dune with rich silk capes billowing behind them like the early dawn's last grasping shadows.

"The horses were gasping when they skidded to an uneasy stop in front of me, kicking up dirt and patches of grass. Spittle dripped from their grasping lips and giant pink tongues pushed at the crudely fashioned metal bits. Along the curve of their muscular necks lay sheets of glistening sweat, and when the riders dismounted they rushed to the pool's edge to sate their thirst with ragged gulps. And the riders, donned in their rich clothing, kept their hands on their swords as they swaggered over to the leader. The folds of cloth around their necks and faces were dark, and their sweat reeked more pungently of wine than the horses did of dirt.

One of the shorter bandits glanced at me, and muttered behind the band of cloth that covered the lower half of his face, "'I thought we were going to send him to the butchers?'

"'No,' the leader said, 'He's going to be coming with us. Sober up, and fast. As soon as the horses are rested, we're going to be paying a visit to the Mother.'

"The bandit's eyes hardened, and the gauzy pleasure that clouded his eyes quickly receded to the edges of his whites. His fingers loosened momentarily before tightening around the soft hilt of his sword. He was tapping them, though this gesture was slightly more fluid, more nervous than impatient.

"'I don't like these witches that you associate with, Agron,' he muttered, but his voice was quiet, suddenly tentative. He recoiled behind himself, hiding underneath the cloth that masked his face and sheltered him from more than just wind.

"Agron smooth face shone from the sweat that gathered only in the far corners of his forehead. His dark eyes were steady, driven by a solid conviction that escaped the gasp of either of his comrades. Even though the other bandit did not share his friend's protests, he seemed huddled off to the side, his hands grasping desperately at the horses' reins. He was trying to draw them away from the drinking pool before they became too bloated with water. He checked the beasts' harnesses, double checking the clasps, testing the strength of the leather, and inspecting the body for any form of trauma.

"'She is wise, and her guidance has never failed us before. Something tells me that should take him to her.'

"'Something tells you? Or has she told you something already?' he demanded, hissing each word between tight teeth.

"'Something tells me. Something also tells me that if you're going to start doubting my leadership now, I may be better off tying you to your horse and sending her running. I will not miss you, Tebu, if that's what it comes down to. I feel no obligations. You have come this far on your own and must take responsibility for that. I owe you no favors,' he said sternly, his eyes level with the other's.

"Tebu didn't say anything back, only fondled the leather-wrapped handle of his sword as if it somehow comforted him to feel that familiar grip beneath his calloused fingers.

"Agron scoffed, a deep throaty sound that reminds me of a tiger's bellowing, and he turned to his horse, which was tethered to a far tree. It was a large, docile looking filly of a plain, chestnut color. White dappled her strong face, splattering the ridge of one eyebrow that overlooked her unwavering gaze. The sparse greens of the oasis intermingled with the deepening browns of the desert glittered in her blue eyes. Her nostrils flared as Agron approached, and she bore his weight easily, as if it were as insignificant as my own. When he guided her past the other bandit, she pushed passed him with Agron's indignation and gave him a reprimanding swat with her tail.

"'Don't be a coward now, Tebu, especially not of women that know more than the lot of us combined. Witches, perhaps that is it, but I'm sure there is something more. I'd hold your tongue if I were you, before they guide your fate to cut it out,' he muttered.

He came up to me and offered a hand. In spite of my weakness, I reached for it, and he easily hefted me up onto the small, makeshift saddle. I sat in front of him, in the cradle of his strong arms, because he'd easily have lost me otherwise. I could only hold onto the rim of the smooth leather saddle and lean back into Agron as he sent the filly into a full gallop. She may not have been a muscular stallion, but her speed surpassed that of even warhorses. Beneath my legs, I could feel her muscles break and release with raw potential. The desert became an indistinguishable blur around me, a toxic mix of bellowing blues and reveling reds. The clash of the two made me sick to my stomach, and it was only the steady pace of the filly beneath me that helped keep my nausea at bay. The rhythm of her strides created a rhythm in my mind that guided me forward and kept my eyes focused on the horizon line even when it became so dark that not even the stars could distinguish land from sky.

The others followed us, and the pounding of hooves became a pleasant white noise in my ears. Sometimes Agron spoke to them, but rarely and only to stop to rest the horses. I never dismounted. I clung to the filly as if she were my only anchor to the world, and Agron had to pour water past my lips to get me to drink."

Shiva suddenly stopped and looked at his hands, marveling at them in quiet awe as if he couldn't comprehend their accumulated strength. Then he looked up at Julia, and there was a brightness in his eyes that whispered soft things.

"It's sort of a funny thing, if you think about it," he whispered. "We who are giants started out smaller than infants, but look at how fast we've grown. You think that for all the time and space that divides us that I cannot really understand you, but that's not true at all. Just you've grown faster than the rest of us. You have not lived as a mortal has nor grown into that form and shape, and now you carry all of the night on your shoulders. I think I know now what haunts you. I think I can begin to feel it, right here," he said, looking to his fingers and touching them together. "I admit… I am fascinated and afraid, Julia, of the things I'm beginning to feel. I was numb then, too numb, and though I'm telling you a tale now where I describe helplessness, it really wasn't like that much at all. I knew it, I felt it physically that drain, but I did not know it, and it did not imprint on me. I didn't carry it on through my mortality and feel somehow lucky to have been saved in the desert and brought to these women to have my fortune spun from spider webs. Even when it became a distant part of my past, I never once thought of it as a moment of significance. It was just that, just a part of my life that had expired. It was never a precursor of my future strength and determination, never a factor. It did not resonate with me the way that all of your experiences resonate with you."

"You're not making any sense. Then why are you telling me this, all of it? If it doesn't matter, if it didn't matter—"

"I don't know!" Shiva shouted, his eyes wide and white as cold milk. He flung his hands upwards furiously and shouted again, "I don't know! I don't."

He stopped and stared at Julia, and then shuddered. He lowered his hands and turned his head away from her so that he could stare at the rows of books lined up along the walls. He stuffed his fist under his chin and just stared. His bronze lips were small and trembling, and in a low, meek whisper he said, "I don't know, Julia. These things keep coming faster and faster, and I just have never thought about these things this way before. I don't understand it. This, I mean." He tapped his index and ring finger against the soft spot over his heart, slowly and with increasing reluctance as if each tap might somehow resuscitate the dead organ and breathe life into it again.

"I feel very truly for your Camille," he said suddenly, after an extended period of silence. "Her uncertainty when it comes to these new… feelings. How do you bear it all? I know that your emotions torment you, I know that you don't experience or endure it easily, but how do you do it at all? The more I think about these old things and accommodate them each, the more I think I cannot do it anymore. It was easier to live blindly and passionately, from one moment to the next with no concept of past or future. How do you do it?"

Julia looked down at the pen in her hands and slowly twirled it. It was nothing special, this pen, just a sheer instrument bent beneath the prowess of her thought, yet she examined every facet of it to try and stretch one moment into the next.

"I don't know, either," she said hesitantly. "I just… it's the small things that make me happy sometimes. It's seeing Eridani at the piano with Antoine, and every day… every night… she looks more like him. She gets that crooked smirk when she's up to no good, and he smirks too as if he's oblivious to it. I find strength in seeing Matias sitting near the fireplace reading those ridiculous newspapers, whether they're tabloid or news or what have you. He has this sense of real serenity around him, and I just adore seeing him there. It's like… it's almost dreamy, but not… it's… you know. More of an ethereal sense that it doesn't feel real, but yet, it feels as if this is where I'm supposed to be. In spite of everything, I just feel like… this is what was supposed to happen. Maybe I'm making excuses to make the pain easier, but it's just that. It feels… it feels right."

Shiva nodded, though more to himself than her. His eyes were still cast off to the side, eyeing the books, glancing towards the cold panes of glass in the window and how pieces of moonlight got stuck in them like glass in skin.

"That is the word. Perhaps it was the same word for then, too. I felt right at home on the filly's back, and neither sun nor wind nor heat discouraged me as we made our way through the rolling desert. I wish there was more to say about it, but what is there to say about the desert? How thick the heat is, how oppressive the sun? It's superfluous.

"It took us a few long days of hard riding to get to the base of the mountains, which were sparsely dappled with thin, bony trees that were malnourished from too many seasons of drought. Cliffs and ridges stood like enemy gates before us, but Agron only gave the filly a slight nudge in her sides, and up she went. The ride up was easy at first; the ground was made of smooth, even rock, and only a few bushes stood in our way. The filly would occasionally dip her head, and in one swift motion, tear up one of these helpless plants and munch on it as she made her way up the wide path. It wasn't until near dusk when the landscape changed. Rock gave way to bushes that gave way to an uneven line of trees. The path narrowed, but even with the two of us on her back, she made her way up the mountainside with only small difficulties. The other two followed us, their horses taking slower, smaller strides. The light was quickly fading. The sun hung precariously above the mountainside, a pendulum that was slowly swinging lower and lower until there was nothing but absolute darkness. That sort of darkness is hard for us to imagine, especially in a world that is constantly powered by light. You can't possibly know that black absolution. Agron didn't even light a lamp, and it seemed that he didn't need to. The filly kept moving forward, as if she knew by heart where every twig lay, where every rock rested, and she even ducked past branches that would have swiped us both in the face. Tebu wasn't so lucky. After several hours of unwavering, upward riding, his mare nearly lost her footing. The still that up until now had only been broken by the occasional disgruntled snort was punctuated by his cursing and the strangled, trumpeting sound that came from his mare's throat. She screamed, as if she were a human girl screaming, and rocks and dirt were thrown up as she struggled to keep herself and her rider from tumbling down the steep ridge we had been traversing. Tebu leapt from the saddle and grabbed her reins. The other bandit was there to help him as well, but he was grabbing at the mare's underside as if he hoped to be able to drag her up. I watched numbly from ahead of the group while Agron slowly dismounted and sauntered over to the other two. The rocks crunched pitifully beneath his heavy footfalls, and when he came alongside the mare, he grabbed her sagging hindquarters as best as he could, and even in the darkness I could see his muscles coil beneath the skin of his arms, and a light sweat broke out in between every groove. The three men struggled with the mare, fighting to guide her back onto the narrow path without being dragged down themselves. The battle seemed to go on for hours as I sat transfixed on top of Agron's filly and watched them go back and forth without gaining any substantial ground. The harder the mare fought to get her feet back onto solid ground, the more rock and dirt she broke away and threw down the cliff side.

"The mare gave one last solid push and managed to put one back leg and then another onto solid ground. Her legs gave way beneath her, and her round belly ballooned and collapsed in on itself as she took deep, panting breaths that sent a shiver down my spine. Tebu stared down at the shuddering mare and then looked back to Agron.

"'And I suppose that you think that this is a good sign? Where is your witches' power now? Dangling above us, omniscient? What do you think of this?' He demanded, following the head bandit to his horse.

"Agron muttered, 'I think it means you should hold your tongue next time you think to curse them. They could have let you fall with her, you know.'"

Julia stopped him with a timid interjection, "Did you believe in magic, Shiva? Do you really think that's what happened and that it wasn't just a coincidence?"

Shiva didn't answer immediately. He leaned back into his chair and looked as if he was lost within himself again. His brow furrowed, and he shook his head. Wispy black strands of hair fell into his face.

"I don't know what I believed—what I believe—about that place. I was still sick to death when they brought me in, and I can't tell you whether they were superstitious hags or if there was something real, something genuine to what they could do. It could have been parlor tricks, I don't know.

"I do know that they stayed secluded. When we neared the apex of the mountain, Agron led us into the mouth of a cave. But it wasn't quite that, it wasn't a cave. It didn't simply end. It went on forever, a small, carved out path through the mountain that took us deeper and deeper inside. Agron lit no torch here, though the others did behind us. He let the mare take her steps, allowing her to guide them through the branches that led into pits and holes from which there was no escape. The moisture was thick here, as it can be only in caves, and scrawled along the walls were symbols that I couldn't recognize. Don't give that much merit, though, please. Between my sickness and the dim lighting, I could recognize nothing, only wiry symbols that encapsulated some other drawing. I'd seen this on Agron's own chest, the only piece of jewelry that adorned his person. Here it lay scrawled on the walls that led us deeper and deeper, but yet, he would never say anything about it. Not in the years to come. He'd smile, laugh it off a bit, and then turn his attention to a dancing girl or to the far horizon on which all of our fates sat on golden threads.

"When we emerged from the caves, it was barely breaking dawn. The soft morning light dodged behind the overhead tree limbs, and I realized that we were submersed in another oasis. The sounds of insects were all around us, silenced only by the swooping of overhead birds. One such bird landed on a limb above and fluffed its feathers at us indignantly. The morning dew splattered against my face and dripped to my chin. I'd had nothing to drink since the previous afternoon, nor nothing to eat since the day before. Agron was trying to wean me back onto food, giving me only the fluids I needed while passing a few scraps here and there. I felt even more starved than before, and so when we broke through the forest and came into a clearing, my stomach clenched at the sight of crops being grown in small furrows that stretched out across the clearing. Beyond the gardens I saw a few small livestock being kept in wooden pins attached to the backside of modest mud-brick houses. A few horses, some pigs, goats and chicken. A little girl spotted us, and she cupped her hand around the top of her eyes to get a better look past the glaring morning sun. Her skin was a deep bronzed color, deeper than mine, and I knew that she probably spent every day out in those fields chasing other children around while neglecting her duties of keeping the birds away from the precious crops. The edges of her white, linen dress were dirtied, but not tattered, and a sole strap that looped around the back of her neck kept it from falling off. A golden necklace, similar to that which hung around Agron's neck, glittered when the sunlight struck it, and her wrists and fingers were alight with this fiery color as if someone had set a torch to her. Then she turned around and started shouting in a foreign language. She ran towards the white-washed houses waving her hands and cheering at the other villagers.

"They were a small mixture of men and women, young and old. A group of women sat in

circle in front of one house, and in perfect unison the weaved together baskets for gathering the

crops once the growing season came to an end or storing them thereafter. They had none of the adornments that the child had, not even earrings or necklaces. Some had their fine, black hair clipped short to curl underneath their strong jawbones, and others, the much younger girls, seemed to let their hair grow so long that it had to be braided and pinned in circles to the back of their heads. All of them wore makeup, even the young children. Kohl from the Egyptians was smeared around their eyes, making the dark chocolate of their irises seem nearly black.

"The men smeared their eyes with kohl, but with little else. The boys sat on the edges of the animal pens, small switches in their hands, and they bared their white teeth at us as if to mimicking the long-haired, exotic dogs that were curled at their feet. Finely tanned leather collars hung around their necks, and a small, embossed silver plate had been attached to showcase its name. All the while the older men busied themselves with the physical labor of collecting fallen branches from the forest edge and if sufficient wood couldn't be gathered this way, they took axes to the older, dying branches and pruned the trees the way old women today prune the shrubs in the front of their house. Nothing seemed to go to waste here. The fat from slaughtered pigs was made into soap or saved in clay pots for cooking, and the bones were turned into small pins, combs, and even baby bracelets and earrings. As soon as some of the men saw us, they stopped what they were doing and headed towards the center of the village. The young girl I had seen flocked after them, jumping up and down and swatting the back of their legs with a long piece of grass she had pulled up from the side of the road. Her dark face was radiant, splashed with bright, fierce make-up, and as we made our way down the dusted road she came running up alongside us.

"She bounced alongside Agron, swatting him with her makeshift switch, and she called out his name several times. Finally, he halted the filly, and he turned towards her.

"'What is it?' he asked, and his voice was suddenly very soft, a reflection of a patience that I wasn't aware that he had.

"She grinned at him, and swayed her hips side to side with her hands clasped behind her back. 'Mother wants to see you.'

"He chuckled and bowed his head. 'I know. I will be seeing her soon.' He nudged at the filly's sides, and she started back on her path, each step mindful of the child that was bouncing alongside her.

"'Is that him? Is that the boy?' she asked. Wearily, I turned my head to look at her, look directly at her, and she couldn't have been too much older than your Eridani, but she was much sweeter looking, much less frightened and defensive. She didn't have that devilish charm floating on her face, either. When our eyes met, she grinned broadly at me, and her teeth were as dazzling as carved ivory.

"I turned my head away, but she pursued us still, asking one question after another: how long would we stay? What did "mother" want? Would I be staying with them now? Would I be going? When would I come back? Would they bring her back something special next time? And Agron answered all of these questions with the same patience as your Matias, but these were also short, clipped answers that alluded to the fact that he didn't know much himself. The little girl stopped at the village square and waved at us as we passed through. There weren't many houses past the village square, and what few there were gave way to more jungle and a white noise of insect calls, bird cries, and other sounds that seemed altogether foreign to me. It brought me back, momentarily, to a few days I'd spent lounging in my father's garden and how I'd watched him from behind the lush greenery as he'd check on his honeycombs, sample the honey, and decide whether or not there was enough to harvest and what was of what quality so he knew where to send it.

"We approached the mountainside, from which protruded the quiet face of a white-washed temple. The stairs were shallow, requiring no more than a few modest steps to ascend them and reach the gaping threshold. It was here that Agron descended and tethered his horse to a nearby tree. The other bandits did not do the same. In fact, the moment that two women donned in slender, white robes and adorned in gem encrusted, gold bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, the other two drew their horses back. The beasts flared their nostrils and strained to push themselves further away from the temple entrances despite the best efforts of their riders to control them. I'd never seen so much white in a creature's eyes before, it was almost as if the dark irises had been exposed to salt and had shrunken back.

"The women themselves appeared ordinary to me, aside from the mixture of white garb and superfluous jewelry. Agron beckoned for me to dismount, but I clung to the saddle stubbornly, my knuckles nearly turning white. I'd been fixed to that saddle for the past two days and it was more home to me by that point than land. The dirt seemed like a muddy brown sea that would threaten to take my feet from me, and so I shook my head.

"'No,' I muttered. 'No, no, no.'

"I could not deny my weakness, but I would not be made out to be a fool. I would not stumble around and then vomit on the ground, an increasing possibility the longer I remained still. The filly had carried me this far, and it was her rhythm alone, the mixture of hoof and heart beats, and the endurance of her stable stride, that had kept my stomach quiet this far. The sudden still was breaking me into pieces; I could feel my insides writhing and then crumble in on themselves, and the far extremities of my body were numb but tingling with a vestige of my initial stubbornness.

"'Carry the boy inside, Agron, it'll do him no harm. We'll take the sacks,' the one on the left said. Her hair was long, very curly, though it was suppressed into one long, incongruous braid that sat on her shoulder. Her features were sharp, but intimately feminine with the way her cheeks curled instead of sloped, and how her jaw was not so square but eased gently into her ears. Her lashes were long, framing her honey colored eyes, and she raised one hand out to him, an impatient, beckoning gesture that employed the full use of each finger.

"He seemed to waver, standing quietly between her and I to evaluate his choices. He glanced briefly over to the others, Tebu and Valli, but they were equally unresponsive. If anything, they implored silently for him to give his orders, to either have them stay or allow them to be dismissed. Callused hands gripped the worn leather reins, but too tightly; their knuckles were paling, becoming a much softer shade of caramel. The sharp edges of their jaws shuffled beneath the taut skin of their faces, dancing back into the wake of their own fear. Sweat trickled down their temples in a never ending stream though the early morning sun had yet to bear down oppressively on the well-shaded valley.

"And yet, Agron did not share their horror. He shared their hesitance in all facets, but not their misgivings or the fear that multiplied beneath it. It only took a passing glance back to the priestess for him to become locked within his resolve again, and he took even, unhurried steps back to the mare. Deft fingers untied the knot that bound a large sack to her side. The sack was heavy, but did not clatter as if filled with precious coin; it only sagged limply in hands before being tossed along with others of its kind to both priestesses. The mare let out a sigh, as if relieved that the weight had been unburdened from her back, and she shifted her weight from one leg to the other.

"Agron extended a rough hand to me, but there was no curling beckon. There was no choice for me in the matter, as I would either be given the option of unwinding myself from the mare's back or being heaved off. I had no doubt of Agron's strength; I'd seen it spread from his limbs as if driven by another force altogether, as if his strength was an extension of something beyond his physical might. I took the hand tentatively, more unsure of myself than him, and he hauled me into his arms with the ease any adult had with handling an infant, though, like your dearest Frenchman, I had never been exactly small for my time. Even through the near starvation, one could have seen the extent of my developing physique, and how my muscles strained against my shrinking skin so that even the deepest violet veins protruded like the tunnels of some burrowing creature. I was mighty from all my street adventures, and even my short stay in the temple hadn't diminished my physique regardless of how unused it had been.

"I remember the entrance of the temple only by the distinct coolness that washed over me like a sheet of the finest silk, smooth and unhurried first through my hair and then down to my bare toes. Even while I was being carried, I could not retain enough focus to gather much of my surroundings. My first impression of the temple came from the hesitant shadows that clung to the smoothed, painted walls, and the sharp, prickling scent of fine incense, though it was not myrrh. It was some other mixture, sweet but pronounced, and interlaced with the low aromas of drying herbs, crackling torches, and something even more indistinct, something dry and bitter. All around me, coalescing with the blur of burnt oranges and reds were the stark black eyes of young acolytes and seasoned crones, women who all wore their hair in braids and juggled animal bones between their spindly fingers. As Agron carried me past them, one stood, an older woman, but her eyes were deeper than mine and drowned me in their infinite wisdom as she grabbed the palm of my hand. Smooth, wrinkled fingers massaged my bones, rubbing oil into the pronounced furrows of my palm. She curled my hand into a fist, tight and unforgiving, before spreading it so far apart that my fingers were half bent below my upraised palm.

"She scrutinized the lines in the circling dark, and when she spoke I could smell the fragrance of exotic tea leaves on her tongue.

"'You desire glory,' she muttered, and twisted my hand into a different angle that caught the light better. 'But be wary of their bribes. Once you start marching, you won't be able to stop. You'll never stop, not until, until…' she squinted her dark eyes as if unable to see something even in the bright torchlight. Then a sharp breath caught in her throat, 'There will be—'

"An acolyte that had been peeking over the shoulder of the hunched crone interrupted her, 'You're too old to be telling fortunes anymore! Don't you see the way the oil is collecting in this line?' she asked and grabbed my hand even though Agron had started walking again. He'd paused for the crone, but he was impatient with this girl. She held onto my arm and twisted my hand back into the shadows. She squinted and walked with us. 'You cannot escape your pride. Here, the oil is gathering here, and…' she paused, but briefly, 'it will lead you to an early grave that will have been shared by many others. Now… only destruction, destruction!" Her voice rose to a sudden shriek, and though it was she who grasped my hand, she convulsed as if the touch of my skin against hers was like a hot iron, 'Get him out, get him out! Blasphemer! Demon!'

Her curses continued long after the other women had pried her trembling hand from mine, and though I saw only flashes of the rest as though it was something seen through a mirro, I could see her eyes smoldering from beneath her white hood, and she rocked back and forth cradling her hand. She gritted her white teeth, baring them at me like a provoked devil, until I could see her no more. But her gazed haunted me still, even though I was too disorientated to know the full extent of her hysteria, to know fully and wholly what I had done, what I was doomed to do.'"

"Do you really believe that?" Julia asked, doubt flitting across her face, dancing on her neatly shaped eyebrows.

"It seems as if there was no other way," he admitted with a dismissive hand gesture. "I would forget her soon enough, forget the women and the mother, forget the way they fussed over my palms and every line that existed or would exist on my body. Even though I would forget their predictions for years to come, there rings a certain truth in them that I cannot deny or evade. Is there absolute fate, a road that I have always been destined to walk whether it was by my will or fear? I don't know, Julia, I'm not a fortune teller, or even a religious man. But even though I would forget them and their words by the time I returned to Babylon a grown man, everything they ever said to me would come to pass. All of their low whisperings, they would manifest themselves in my destiny, and I would feel trapped by those physical emergences.

"Agron took me deep into the temple, until it was nearly cold, and a small line of shivers crept along my back like tip-toeing fingers. He brought me into a carved out room where there was a low fire. There almost wasn't enough air here to fuel it, but it provided enough warmth to sooth me and to illuminate the surrounding walls. Carved masks stared down at me, their angry mouths gaping, and wooden chimes clinked and clanked against the wall when a breeze emerged from the deeper cave passages. It would pass with a whistle, stir the fire into life, and leave the strings of animal bones that were hung from the ceiling jittering noisily. I hate this sound, the jittering of many wooden things. It reminds me of that cave, of how moist and earthy the air was here, how it almost smelled of raw, natural decay.

"And there she was, in a moment, peering over me like a perfect avatar of light itself. Her hair was so blonde that it was almost intangible, and her eyes were perfectly blue, a crisp, winter morning blue that would make your Matias' seem like tarnished sapphire. A delayed sigh of relief left her, and the touch of the back of her hand against my sunken cheek stirred a dying warmth within me and brought it to surface along my skin. She leaned in close, and I could smell her like an opening blue lotus. Her presence was like a light, flowery wine, one that the Frenchman might have grown and enjoyed in his mortality, and the sight, the smell, of her was enough to ease me into a viscous, dreaming sleep. Even in this quiet state, my dreams were touched by her, and within myself I could feel her soft hand around mine, rubbing my palm in slow, languid circles with her thumb, and I thought I slept on pillows of her hair. I heard a thousand whispers come from her mouth, as if she had a thousand voices, and each one was indistinct but unique, and though it should have been a cacophony of noise, it was fluid and seamless in my sleep, coalescing to form one distinct thought that resonated inwards through me. I cannot describe this feeling of oneness, not the way you were able to describe it through Matias, that sense of being one and the same with every other living thing in the world, yet knowing at once that there is a loneliness in this oneness that only we can recognize.

"Even when I surfaced from my dreams, the feelings and sensations that I had known in them followed me to consciousness, however brief it was. Sometimes I saw only her, but often I saw her and Agron sitting across from each other, just beyond the fire, and she dutifully rubbed scented oils into his hands and up his arms. Her gestures were quiet, tentative, even though her eyes were not. She barely met his gaze, only lifting her eyes to his when she reached over to her painted pots to retrieve more sacred oils. Her whispers were sublime though fleeting. The sound of her voice alone soothed any troubles that stirred within me, and there were long, drifting moments when I thought that I had returned to my father's garden and through childlike eyes, watching him dutifully attend to our fruit trees and to the bees that produced honey from their cold blossoms.

"I strained to listen to them speak, and their conversation skipped past me like flat rocks.

"'What awaits him when we leave?'

"'He won't stay here, it is not his destiny. You must take him with you and teach him all that you know. Groom him like you would a son, or better, an heir. You must nurture his nature and give him all he needs to be strong and enduring.'

"'You waited a very long time for him, Mother, but you won't have him now that I've brought him to you? Surely everything he needs to know should be taught by you and your priestesses, not a thief like me. I can't do these things that you ask.'

"'It will break him, staying here. What he must know, what he must do, cannot be done here…'

"'Why won't you tell me our destinies? You have always given me fortunes when I've been here before, but now you're quiet. Why won't you indulge me the way you have in the past?'

"'There is nothing absolute about his future. It dims and brightens like this fire, and your destiny is now entwined with his, and I can no longer see where it leads. Like the others before him, I cannot touch the strings of time that lead him through his future. It is up to you to do that now…'

"'But where will we go?'
"'Anywhere. You can go anywhere. Go across land or across sea, it doesn't matter, but do not go back to Babylon! You will be hunted, you do not know what comes now. He's marching. He won't stop marching, Agron.'

"'Who?'

"'…keep your voice down! He's waking more now.'

"'How much longer?'

"'Only a fortnight now, give or take…'

"Agron was sitting very still, and he stared at the mother. Her hair was darker, a tarnished blonde now, and her eyes were a deeper blue, almost a greenish ocean blue, but it was difficult to tell. I saw her eyes only in the darkness, when she crept over to me and poured a warm, meaty broth past my lips. She did this for days, it seemed, but I was like you after Maria's kiss, feeble and incapable of retaining consciousness for any substantial period of time, let alone being able to track how much time had passed in between my waking periods. I recalled seeing glimpses of her face, flashes of whiteness that became darker each time that she came to me. Her white robe trailed in the dirt, and beneath the white hem I could see her toes gripping the smooth earth as she teetered on the front heel of her foot. My eyesight sharpened, and I became aware of how sheer her robes were, how delicate and fine the silk was, and yet how immaculate despite the dirt and moss that crept everywhere around us, penetrating the mortar that bound the brick floor toghether. Nothing clung to her, not even between the grooves of her toes or beneath the crystalline nails, and the robes she wore was a reflection of her outer self: clean and perfect, incapable of being touched by this earthly world.

"I wish I had your words. Truly, I do. I wish I could describe my sickly state better, and how everything seemed then. I think a month passed while I was ill, recovering from a mixture of starvation, trauma, and my own despair. I would have good days, days where I could sit up and huddle around the fire, and listen to the Mother hum while she ran bolts of fresh silk through her fingers and embroidered it with spools of the finest thread. These are the things that Agron had raided from the merchants, and he brought them to her as gifts. I never saw her give him anything in return, and I wouldn't know until later what purpose their relationship served, and why she, a woman of absolute faith, tolerated and encouraged his thievery. She wouldn't tell me at the fire, either, and she barely answered my own questions. I wanted to reach out to her, touch her fine hair, run my fingers through it to see just how delicate it really was. Whenever this thought flitted through my mind, she'd lift her head, smile politely, and then turn her attention back to the embroidery. She never pricked her fingers with silver needle, which must have come from the very far east; it didn't look anything like what my mother or sisters had used for sewing. It glittered in the firelight, a bright, beckoning thing that slithered in between fingers and cloth as though she had breathed a special life into it.

"During my first period of solid wakefulness since I'd been brought to the temple, I noticed that Agron had long since gone. His footsteps had been brushed away from the thin layer of dirt that covered the rough brick floor by the mother's pacing. But it wasn't pacing at all, Julia, it was fluid, seamless, as if she were a breath of wind moving through quiet air, and nothing flittered around her, nothing was anxious. Even the chimes on the wall and ceiling were quiet, each carved piece turning to keep her in view.

"Slowly, I leaned forward and found that the ground beneath my fingertips was solid, but smooth. A fur blanket had been laid beneath me, apt bedding considering that it would fare better in the dirt than the heavy woolen blanket that had been bundled around me. Though woolen, it was finely crafted, and I could feel the attention and dedication that the mother's fingers had stitched into every inch, every thread. It reverberated through me, and I jerked backwards into the wall. I smacked the point of my elbow, and that painfully delightful sensation crept through my arm, a reverberation not unlike the presence that passed through me entirely from time to time, whether in dream or consciousness.

My head snapped to her when she spoke, and my eyes and ears where perked like that of a startled stallion.

"'It's okay,' she whispered. She was hunched over the fire, and it was flaring to life so that each tongue could have its turn under her fingertips. 'Many have a hard time adjusting to… this place. It is unlike the half-uttered chants of public temples, only half as obscure and even less corrupt. You can feel the entire world here, in its mouth.'

"'Where is Agron?' I asked, bracing my legs to stand. It'd been such a long time, I thought I'd almost forget what it meant to have legs.

She smiled patiently and weaved around the fire, the hem of her robe barely dusting the floor behind her. She clutched folds of it in her hands, which fluttered over her fingers like the wings of a bird held too tight. Past her beauty, which had been eclipsed in shadow during the weeks of my sickness, there was something brutal and primal that somehow managed to seep through my skin, wriggle past whatever civility had been built up in walls around me, and caress that very inner core, that very frightening and basic part of us that we learn to forget in time. There was nothing human about her gaze or the way she stared at me, her eyes skittering in between leaf and stone, picking apart what had been built by man and what had been organized by nature. That presence that she kept cloaked about her became a tangible extension of herself, and I shudder when I think about how it touched me, how deeply she groped through my insides to find what you refer to as your beast, your creature. I have no figurative personification to give what she touched, because you know that it is a distinctly caged thing that we do try to forget. She touched it, caressed it, and almost beckoned for it to rise.

"'He will return, in time,' she breathed, a deep exhale as if it took all of her concentration to manifest herself as a physical force. 'But that is irrelevant now. You are here, alive, and I see the beginnings of questions rising.'

"'No,' I lied. I didn't stand. I was afraid I wouldn't have the strength. 'I don't have any questions for you.'

"Beautiful? Yes. But there was an ethereal aura to her, something that even I could feel in spite of my doubts. I'd felt it reach out and touch me, and though it pains me to say so, I was afraid of her, too. I didn't want to talk to her, or be left alone with her. I wanted Agron to answer my questions, man to man, and know that whatever he told me would be more truth than the any word that came out of her mouth. The mysticism that surrounded my sickness and the image of light I'd had of her in the beginning made me uncertain of her. That image of light, the brightness of her hair and skin and eyes, it was all dark now, like mine. Her hair was a deep, dusky brown, with a burnt hint of orange, and her eyes were like aged honey, dark and thick, and in this shadow, a horrific realization was beginning to break. Sitting there, only having just come out of a state of weakness and confusion, I couldn't fathom what had cause such distortion in my perception of her. How could she have changed so rapidly in my eyes, or had that transformation been intended, yet unnatural? Had she truly changed? That I couldn't know, that I couldn't begin to know, and that uncertainty is what caused me to back up, to draw away from her.

"But there was no limit to her patience, no threshold that could be broken. She let go of the folds of her long robe and clasped her hands together in front of her. She said, 'Very well, then I'll give you your answers instead. Agron will not be back for a few weeks. You are too feeble to be gallivanting around in the desert playing bandit, especially because you neither have the training or fortitude to do what he does. You will stay here, with us, learn and grow strong. And then in a few more weeks, he will return for you.' She stared at me, and I at her, and before I could speak, she pointed towards the door, 'Go on, if you think you're strong enough. Go.'

"She didn't need to tell me twice. I was on my feet before she could finish speaking, but my steps were wobbly, uneven, and I didn't make it to the threshold before I fell to my knees. I only kept my face out of the dirt by grabbing the stone frame, clutching it with whatever strength was left to me. The fire flared behind me as a breeze rustled through, and I felt the warmth slowly creep up my back. There was no consolation in this. I was practically naked, save for the small piece of cloth that was pinned around my waist. I could see my bones protruding through my flesh, see the structure of my body straining against itself. There was almost no muscle left to me, not enough for me to easily saunter away from the mother without some sort of aid. Whatever the starvation had gorged itself on could not be rebuilt so long as I remained confined to my bed, and for once, it seemed that some solid truth had been presented to me by the mother, that even though I fancied myself a hardened survivor of Babylon's streets—which to her credit, really didn't say much of anything except that I knew how to run and jump, like any proper boy should have known—I really didn't have any formal training in fighting, and as I stared at my bony legs, again, I was reminded that no, I didn't even have the fortitude to ride my own horse. The slightest misstep on the beast's part would likely result in severe injury or death on my part. I wouldn't have the strength or speed to correct the mistake or get out of harm's way.

"I looked back at her, and she stood there as a perfect vision of beauty, neither too masculine nor too feminine, neither strong nor weak, but simply a presence that extended its hand to me, a quiet, contemplative offer of peace. When I touched her hand, there was none of the strangeness that had been there before, only skin that was neither soft nor callused, neither unskilled nor seasoned. Not even her fingertips were callused, though I had seen her sewing furiously for the past few weeks.

"With unsettling ease, she helped me to my feet and her strength guided me out into the cave tunnel. 'Let us begin,' she said, and there was no doubting the sincerity of those words, no doubting the finality."

Author's Note: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Another one should be out eventually! :)