The rains did not abate within the week. Nor even within the month. Before we could properly appreciate it, we had been at Melchahim for almost a quarter, waiting for the ceaseless drizzle to cease. The Melchahim remained in perpetual good spirits, which is more than I could say for myself; after all, I was so quick to succumb to cabin fever.
Every so often parties of Melchahim would bring back long dead corpses to be turned to join their ranks. They did not care for the flesh that burned it in the rain, they simply cut it off and replaced it. A far cry from those who used to desperately stitch themselves in an attempt to make themselves whole. Now the flesh was apparently transient and they revelled in its ability to be exchanged at will. Especially when myself or my lord were looking. They were no longer recognisable as my youngest brother's brood...but they were hardly recognisable as anything else.
"I never thought to find myself longing for Turel's company of all things," my lord said to me once, after we had excused ourselves from Melchiah's presence, not for the first time during our extended stay. I was idly leafing through a volume my lord had long since finished and equally idly said, "I'm so bored of this place I could kill a man for sport, yet I fear that would only mean another soul for Melchiah to add to his army of the undead."
"Are we not all undead, Megara?"
"Oh you know what I mean," I snapped. "Or perhaps you do not. Did you know the Melchahim could raise the dead? Were you aware that they could preserve flesh for their own use? I'll understand if you were unaware of such things, considering they are being so reserved about it you might not have noticed."
My lord was laughing, something that happened often in my company the more frustrated I became. "How long must we remain, my lord? Surely you have seen all of Melchahim you needed to?"
"Some time ago in fact," came the surprising answer.
"Then what in hell are we still doing here?" I cried, but my lord looked startled, as though the answer were obvious.
"I was not prepared to risk your life by forcing you to teleport yourself."
My mouth opened and closed a number of times while the implications of what he had said sunk in. "You mean...we could have left weeks ago?"
"I could have left weeks ago," he corrected me, smoothly, "I was unwilling to risk your life to satisfy my own boredom."
"Oh...that's possibly the nicest thing you have ever said to me."
"Then clearly you haven't been listening," he snapped, irritably, "I have been damnably sentimental of late. But am I to assume from your gormless expression that you think yourself capable of making the trip to Turelim? Before you answer know this, if you fail, and you manage to place yourself where the rain dissolves you, I swear to you that I will create whatever paradoxes I must to return to this very moment, and the rain will be the least of your worries."
For a moment I stared at the door, but nothing happened. "Well as you haven't, shall we assume I am successful?"
Again he laughed, a long and sincere laugh, and said, "sometimes I think you were worthy of being my firstborn after all."
We took our leave of Melchiah who seemed disappointed that we were departing, though he could not have failed to notice that we were, and had been, practically falling over ourselves to leave. As it happened my aim was almost perfect. I materialised in the Turelim throne room, and never revealed to anyone that I had actually been aiming for the entrance hall.
"You're a damned vulture!" Turel was roaring. He was not sitting on the throne; instead he had drawn himself to his full height, snarling down the dais at a Rahabim representative. "You could have waited!"
"We saw little reason to do so," the Rahabim said, her words as smooth as rich blood. If the sight of Turel at his most ferocious was having any kind of effect on her, she was certainly not showing it. "The area is completely flooded, you cannot possibly utilise it, and even if you could, you can do nothing in this weather. The loss of life was...regrettable," she said, sounding as though she had never regretted anything less in her life, "but we can hardly be held responsible for that." Though the sly smile that danced on her lips suggested otherwise. I saw Turel's shoulders falter, and recognised the sign that he had been defeated, though he would not let on to her, or anyone that it was so. "Perhaps," she continued, slyly, "if the river defences had been better maintained..."
At that Turel snapped back to his full height and hurled a...well...something...a something that seemed to come from his very mind, at her. What courtiers were around the place backed away from this sudden display, as the Rahabim slammed into an opposite wall and crumpled to the floor. Nevertheless she rose, dusted herself down, and bowed, managing to make every motion look like an insult. A number of Turelim followed her out and I wondered in what state she would arrive back at Rahabim, if she ever did.
Dropping heavily into the throne, Turel allowed himself a long exhale, massaging his temples for relief. But when I leaned down and murmured, "brother," near his ear, he all but leaped from the throne again.
"Kain's blood!" he cursed, "how long have you been there?"
"I arrived just before you started throwing...mind blasts...or whatever the hell that was, around the place."
"Mind blasts?" Turel rolled his eyes, "if you must know we prefer force bolts-"
"Sire!" the call came from a sentry beyond the hall, "Lord Kain has been sighted approaching."
Turel merely waved a hand, but it was enough to send the servants running to make the necessary preparations. "Problems with Rahab?" I asked, quietly, but Turel merely shrugged.
"The damned streams around that cathedral in the south have burst. The whole place is flooded. From what I hear you'd need a boat to get anywhere near it these days. Rahab suggested that as I had no further use for it, he might take it off my hands," he sighed, "he might have at least pretended to be waiting on my permission."
He looked up at me, as though just then appreciating that I was there and gave me a rare smile, "It is good to see you," he covered my hand with his own, "and you brought Kain with you?"
"Well, I think actually he brought me, but yes. We have had the pleasure of staying with Melchiah."
His face wrinkled with undisguised disgust, "so I heard. You have my unreserved sympathy..." but anything more was lost as my lord strode in, and Turel rose to make him welcome.
Staying with Turel was something of a culture shock after Melchahim, not least because there were so much fewer Turelim. Turel had less than a third Melchiah's numbers, though that didn't count for much when the Turelim had the distinct advantage of being better trained, older and not rotting where they stood. Since my lord and I had quitted the sanctuary Turel had, of course, taken over the running of the empire, though most of it seemed to be admonishing Melchiah.
"At least Dumah has the sense to lose the occasional fledgling to keep the balance. Melchiah didn't have this many mouths to feed when we could feed them," Turel cursed, composing another missive chastising our brother. Turel was leading my exampled and had set limits on how many fledglings his clan could accommodate and the punishment for disobedience, or whatever crimes Turel perceived, was now punishable death.
"Do you think Raziel would have done this?" I asked him, quietly, watching a small group of useless fledglings to their deaths. He had already written off the three I had met on the border - the natural consequence of allowing themselves to get isolated during a storm.
"No," Turel replied, at length, when he realised I was genuinely curious and not critiquing. "Raziel would have demanded tribute to keep his own clan going and mocked my efforts to keep everyone alive."
I nodded in agreement, he was absolutely correct. "Maybe it's a good thing then that-" but I broke off suddenly, catching myself before I suggested any kind of positive to be taken from Raziel's death. Though it was easily done these days. Grief had turned mostly to hatred after all, we were so very tired.
Turel was watching me. He had not needed to hear the end of my thought to know it. "What an irony it would be if damning Raziel turned out to be what prolonged us as a species," he said, wryly, but there was no mirth there. Only exhaustion. He hid it well though; for whenever my lord strolled into the throne room he buried it, presenting himself as flawlessly as he ever did. Though he naturally faltered as my lord strolled in with a handful of papers an announced, almost amused, "Turel, the Melchahim are multiplying at an alarming rate, would you not agree? I would have thought you would have this in hand by now."
