CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Somewhere along the tenth mammoth wall panel filled with tiny, time worn hieroglyphic script that would be convoluted and wondering even to someone proficient in understanding the mental as well as the linguistic aspects of the language, Kall-Su's temples began to pound. His eyes began to ache and his patience began to wear thin. He hated reading by the light of flame. Despised it. The flickering light made the wall script dance with shifting shadow. He would have given much for a simple witch light, the steady glow of which he had spent many a long night reading by.
Damn the runes anyway. He was almost tempted to work his way around them, dismantling the age old components of the things -- but that would have been even more grueling work that at the moment, his wavering patience and his pounding head were not up to.
He had discovered quite a bit of interesting information anyway. A great deal of off topic explanation of magics from a time gone by that he had allowed himself to be distracted by in his search for lore about the Black March. Al-Zahif Al-Asouad, as they had been called. The Demon Company. The Army of Darkness. The Devourer of Lands. The Black Death. The Sword of Al-Vaharr the Dark God.
All those things and more. He did not know all the names of the gods mentioned. Most of the formal titles and names meant nothing to him. But there was enough that he did understand to make him catch his breath on occasion and shiver in awe over what the holy men -- the magicians - the loremasters of the ancient world had been capable of. And they had hidden so much of their power. They attributed so many of their feats to the miracles of the gods, of which they had hundreds.
He could have stayed for hours more, had the pain in his head not driven him to bypass the non essential rows of writing. Had the some sixth sense that made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, made him eager to quit these cool tombs and take what information he had gleaned back to the surface and the sunlight.
So he slipped back through the dusty lower passages, past the rubble strewn floors, up past the storage level and the living quarters where silken creatures of both sexes wondered to and from duties of the flesh upstairs.
He passed the guards and they did nothing more than shift their eyes at his passing, more interested in watching the behavior of the clientele than of the staff.
Back through the maze of silken partitions and pillows and far to many uninhibited bodies. A rotund, brown skinned man in striped overrobes than fell open over his protruding belly laid a hand on Kall's wrist as he passed. He looked down at the sweaty fingers on his skin, then up to the drug hazed dark eyes. The man had a chain with a gold token swinging from about his neck, the sign of a valued customer that had paid his dues at the door.
"Ahh, you're a pretty one. Foreign?"
As if the distinctions were not perfectly clear. Kall-Su's lips curled in distaste and he twisted his wrist out of the moist grip easily.
"Join us." The man said and indicated with a jerk of his flabby chin a cushioned alcove where a mostly naked, brown skinned boy that could not have been more than sixteen or seventeen, lay inhaling the drug they seemed to prefer in this land through a tube connected to a brass pot over a small brazier. It occurred to him, that through the weird play of genetics passed down to him from his demon sire, that he did not outwardly look much older than that boy. It repulsed him, the gleaming eagerness in this man's eyes and in others like him -- to defile the young.
Almost he called up a nasty, painful little spike of magic -- and he forced the urge back, recalling where he was and what he was about.
"No." He said simply and stepped around the shorter, broader figure. The man did not attempt to stop him. The man was drug lulled and already had a willing -- one assumed willing at any rate -- partner to toy with.
There was a commotion of some sort at the main door. Some heads turned, some were to wrapped up in their sport to care. A few guards in their gaudy belts and white pantaloon pants hurried that way. He veered a little that way himself, interested to see what caused a the sudden, eerie ripple through the runes that protected this place.
A glimpse of black robed men melting through the gathering at the door, the guards falling back as if burned. A vague sense of reminiscence that stopped him in his tracks for a frozen heartbeat.
Then someone's arms wrapped about him from behind and spun him about, feet neatly hooking his ankles out from under him, slamming him down to pillow cushioned floor. His back hit a moment before his accoster's heavy body slammed down on top of him, driving the air out of his lungs. He shoved his palms outward, gathering lost breath to utter a spell, runes and anonymity be damned.
Schneider knocked his arms aside and pressed hands to the sides of Kall's face, forcing him down and still.
"Be still. They're here."
Shocked, Kall-Su blinked up at him, magical protests dead on his lips. The trailing material of Schneider's turban fell down around his head, concealing his vision, but he felt the disturbance, though the runes muted it. And heard the rolling wave of unease as people realized that there was something other than human among them.
Malice had pulled a bag of gold out of the air for him. And he had tossed it nonchalantly at the gate guards who had gaped at the amount and hastily given him a gold token on a chain and fawningly told him that any pleasure he wished with these walls would be his and if he didn't find it here, they would procure it for him. At another time, he might have liked to linger and sample the fruits this place had to offer. The glimpses of the girls he caught as he stalked through the scented, silken aisles were quite literally mouth watering. Thoughts of Yoko kept getting caught in a mire at the corner of his mind. His promises to her were irritating harassment's that could not quite be ignored.
A pair of dark skinned lovelies slid up to him as he was trying to navigate the vast warren of cubbies and dens, offering refreshment among other things. He idly brushed aside the trey of sweetmeats, craning his head to try and catch a glimpse of a particular blonde head. One of the girls slid her hand inside his caftan, pressing her body against him and looking up with the most alluring dark eyes. He lost his train of thought for a moment, conscious deliberation fleeing as the singular and insistent entity between his legs roused at her expert touch. The girl was good. Better than Malice, who's sly experience left him neutral. This girl had innocence in her face and eyes, even if her hands knew exactly what they were about. Innocence made his gut clench and his blood run hot. It was one of those things that had driven him mad about Yoko, all that time before he'd actually gotten her.
"I'm looking for someone, sweet." He said, not bothering to dissuade her from what she was doing, bending over her silky dark head to whisper in her delectable little ear. "A young man. Golden hair. Blue eyes."
A hint of a pout lingered on her lips. "Blue like yours?"
"Lighter."
"What do you need a boy for?" Her fingers did something entirely erotic and he had to reach down then and catch her wrist before he lost track completely of what he was supposed to be about.
"He's a very pretty boy. Have you see him?"
She pouted. "I might have. He went downstairs."
"Show me?"
"You can't go. No clientele allowed."
There was a surge of power that caught him unawares. He blinked, straightening, bringing a hand to his head as it reverberated through the channels that were sensitive to magic. He turned his head towards the door even as the strangled cry of one of the wizard guards traveled into the palace proper. A brutal stab of power that set the runes to signing and had the two guards on the ground outside the doors, dead or wishing they were. He couldn't tell what magic had been used, the runes distorted it. The fact that magic had been used within the portal, almost under the influence of the runes was impressive enough. He didn't need to see the black robed figures that swept past the stunned inner portal guardians to know who they were. And since he was in no wise up to breaking the runes, much less confronting them, he stepped back into the anonymity of a silken partition -- and caught sight of Kall-Su, walking straight up the main aisle towards the dark intruders.
He cursed, stepped over a writhing trio on the floor and snaked out an arm, wrapping it Kall's waist and snatching him backwards before he had the chance to register the movement. Schneider had plenty of practice in gaining the upper hand in the bed cushions. Granted, women were easier to handle, but he had weight and height on Kall and managed to maneuver the both of them down upon the pillows as the first of the black robed intruders strode up the central aisle from the door.
"Be still. They're here." He hissed down, a whisper of breath against Kall-Su's cheek. Kall went still beneath him, realization taking the struggle out of him. Schneider bent his head, letting the flowing ends of his turban hide his hair and Kall's.
"How?" Kall asked. "Do they have the same powers of teleportation as the djinni?"
"Shussh." He pressed a hand over Kall's lips, not able to see the passage but sensing how close their enemies were. He shifted to gain a more comfortable position. Got a knee between Kall's legs to gain a little leverage and felt Kall shrink away a bit at the familiarity, felt him instinctively try and shift out from under Schneider's weight. Schneider caught one wrist and pinned it, delivering a warning squeeze for Kall-Su to be still. He slid his hand away from his mouth and whispered very close to his lips.
"Stop it."
"What are you doing?" A breathless, indignant whisper.
He blinked down at Kall-Su, for a moment not understanding. Wasn't it perfectly obvious what he was doing? Trying to avoid notice by creatures that at the moment neither of them were up to facing. Then he realized what Kall meant. Through the thin silk of the harem boy costume Malice had so gleefully given him, Kall must have very obviously felt the erection left over from the little whore's handjob. Kall-Su's wriggling under him didn't make it any less sensitive. More so in fact, after he was kind enough to bring it back to Schneider's attention.
"If you don't hold still," he hissed softly, with a touch of maliciousness, "I'll have to use it."
Kall's eyes widened, then narrowed to glare accusingly up at him. "Get off me, DS."
"Sorry, can't. They're still around." He felt the lingering presence. Not Ramlah, though Ramlah himself might have been with the first to pass. It was hard to tell. But there were still black swathed members of the March up here, waiting for their master's return.
He hated this. He hated hiding like a rabbit in the brush, waiting for the fox to wonder past. He dropped his forehead in frustration and Kall-Su's soft hair brushed his cheek. "fuckfuckfuck....." He murmured angrily into the pillows. He felt Kall-Su relax under him. Felt some of the angles of tense muscle melt into softer more comfortable contours as the younger wizard shifted just a little to better endure Schneider's weight.
"I discovered some very interesting things." He whispered against Schneider's ear.
"Tell me some of them were about Ramlah's wife?"
A pause. "Yes. There was mention."
"Good boy. I always knew you were the good one."
Kall-Su sniffed disdainfully. "That's not what you told Arshes."
Softly, Schneider laughed. That was because Arshes had curves and softnesses that Kall didn't have. Of course, with his hand idly resting on Kall's ribs, bared by the open front of his tunic, he discovered a preternatural softness of the skin there. Pale as cream, smooth as silk skin that hinted at not entirely human heritage. He had never quite noticed before. He trailed his hand down to Kall's hip, a connoisseur of anything that felt that nice to the touch.
Kall shivered silently and Schneider had to lift his head to see what was in his eyes. Thick, gold tiped lashes trembled against his cheeks, teeth worried at his bottom lip, those finely made brows were drawn, a faint worry line marring his brow. He wondered if he were thinking about his Lily, and how he would manage to get to her with the blossoming danger of the Black March to impeded them. Just as Schneider ought to be considering all his promises to Yoko in this den of inequity that so aroused him, instead of wondering if instead of Lily, Kall-Su was perhaps concentrating on Schneider's fingers splayed out upon his hip, fingertips testing the loose lip of his silk trousers. It was merely the unknown that intrigued him. The sudden realization of just how comely the body under him was, even if it didn't have all the parts he generally required.
He slid his hand up, let his thumb brush against Kall's nipple, and Kall made a startled little sound and his eyes snapped open.
"DS! Please - - - - can't we go now. Slip out past them?"
A flustered Kall-Su. A very worried Kall-Su from the sound of his voice. But about what?
"I don't want to take the chance." He murmured, close to Kall's mouth. "Wait it out, hummm?" He trailed his hand back down idly, slowly savoring the feel of skin that he could just swear was softer than Yoko's, watching the panic form in Kall-Su's eyes. The need to bolt and the pragmatic realization that he could not.
"DS. Don't ---"
Don't had never stopped him. Don't had always tended to encourage him in whatever he was about.
"Have to make it look convincing." He said, lips very close to Kall's. It was merely a matter of slipping a little to the side to taste the younger wizard's lower lip.
Kall hissed through his teeth and jerked away, and Schneider wound the fingers of his other hand in his hair to keep his head still, whispering into his mouth. "Don't make a scene."
"Stop -- mmnnnn." It came out muffled as Schneider covered his mouth with a hand, his attentions suddenly and completely drawn elsewhere. At a rumbling surge of power, of tearing, ripping runes that screamed like dying banshees. He cringed, the ethereal sound of it hammering to the core of him. He vaguely felt Kall curling under him, pressing hands ineffectually to his ears to shut it out. And failing.
The runes were being shredded. Not a clinical, methodical dismantling, but a pure battering ram of power that crumpled them. Most of the people here had no notion what was happening. A few startled exclamations from folk who might have been more arcanely sensitive than the normal man, but otherwise sex obliterated the underlying violence being done.
Until the ceiling started to shake and bits of rock and dust began to sprinkle down. Then, folk began to take note. A large chunk of stone fell, shattering on the floor, and screams broke the air. The music stopped and for a moment there was devastating silence before the muffled sound of an explosion deeper underground shook the floor.
It was the trigger that sent the room into a panic. The floor buckled towards the center of the room and silk and pillows and people spilled into the crevice. A column nearby crumbled, crushing more fleeing folk. People scrambled desperately for escape. With final death of the runes, the screaming wail inside Schneider's head stopped. His head still rung with echoes of it, but he was mobile, as he had not been minutes before. He surged up, hauling Kall-Su in his wake, shoving the younger wizard into the streaming mob trying to escape. If there were members of the March among this mass, then they were not likely to pay attention to the faces of the cattle rushing for escape. He spared a small surge of power to move a stumbling, terrified knot of people of their way, scattering bodies against the wall. The ceiling fell in before them, raining death down He called up a shield, broad enough to protect himself and Kall, managed to inadvertently save the people closest to them, and veered around the carnage.
As he passed, he saw the staring dead face of the girl with the innocent eyes. Half her body had been crushed by falling debris. He faltered, growling, eyes scanning the dust filled great hall for members of the Black March.
"What are you doing? Come on." Kall pulled at his arm. Kall had regained his senses. Kall was shielding, both physically and mentally, making the both of them invisible to other magic sensitive minds.
"I just need to kill one of them." He hissed, shaking off Kall's hand.
"So do I, but not now." Kall snapped angrily. "You're the one who wanted to avoid attention, damn you. Avoid it now!"
Schneider glared into the chaos. Cursed and spun about, cutting through the crowd like a scythe for the main doors.
They retreated beyond the crowds who gathered to gawk at the crumbling palace. A the destruction of something so very old. Its final gasp was spectacular. An explosion of stone and sand and debris to the mortal eye, and to the wizardly, an expulsion of vast power that swam amidst the debris and dissipated finally into the air above the city. And with the final explosion came the March. Out of the dust and the settling wreckage, they walked. Perhaps ten of them, striding through the madness as if they had no care in the world for the cowering people that crawled over each other to get out of their path. From down the avenue their great black horses came, trampling all in their path.
Schneider and Kall-Su watched them mount and ride off, back towards the desert where no doubt the rest of their number waited. Dust and sand rose up in their wake, as if the very magnetism of their presence stirred it to mad intensity.
"Fuck." Schneider said and slammed a fist into the sandstone wall beside him. The stone cracked and crumbled.
"What was that?" Kall hissed at him.
"What do you think it was? The fucking March."
"No, you ass. In there. What were you doing?"
Schneider blinked, taken seriously off track. It took him a second to register what Kall was talking about. Kall's furious eyes and red cheeks made it perfectly clear. He took a breath, letting anger melt away, and met those glittering ice blue eyes with a slow, lazy smile, then let his gaze wonder down the open front of Kall-Su's thin silken tunic.
"What do you think I was doing?"
Kall-Su snarled and hastily pulled the tunic closed, crossed his arms over his chest when he couldn't belt it and turned his embarrassed glare elsewhere.
Prude. Schneider thought in a brief flash of amusement, before the anger seeped back.
"Where in hell is that djinni?" He snarled, looking over the turbaned heads of the mulling crowd. Now that the Palace had settled and the March had departed without inflicting too much damage, the common mortals became braver and ventured to poke into the wreckage.
"Master?" A small, scared voice proceeded a wary, and surprisingly timid Malice as she slipped around the corner and peered worriedly at the ruins of the once great structure.
"Where's the little desert rat?" Schneider asked, looking behind her for Abu.
"He fled, my lord, when the demon company came."
"The Demon Company?" Kall lifted a curious brow at her. "Where did you come by that name?"
"I remember hearing tales of them --- before I was trapped so long in the bottle. I never saw them."
"I saw that reference." Kall mused, eyes drifting off thoughtfully, then they refocused and he asked in a very civil tone of voice, considering how he generally addressed Malice. "Would you give me some decent clothing, please?"
"Naqada. Does that ring a bell?"
The little desert guide huddled in the sand outside the city of Meshed, hands raised defensively to protect his face. As if mere flesh could prevent any harm Schneider wished to inflict. He didn't mean to inflict any at the moment, the little man's fear was understandable and his flight had not put them to any great trouble. They had found him rather easily on their own way out of the city.
"Naqada? " Abu stammered. "I have never heard of such a place. What is it?"
"It is the place where Ramalah's sorceress wife was supposedly sealed away, very much like he was, from what I gleaned." Kall explained patiently.
Kall had not uncovered the whole story behind the tale Abu had spun, about this wife betraying the husband into imprisonment, but he had discovered facts about her holy sect and where she had gone after the Black March had been banished. A place called Naqada. The only clue was that it was west of Meshed. Which covered a damn lot of ground.
"Naqada? Naqada?" Malice, who had been dutifully studying the state of her cuticles, lifted her head with a curious expression on her face. "I seem to recall that name ---"
The lot of them stared at her, while she silently chewed on her lip.
"Well?" Kall finally snapped. "Does it mean anything to you or not?"
She drew her brows and frowned. "Don't rush me, its been a long time. Oh, I remember now. It was my second master. He took me there. He was a merchant and had a great deal of business along the river. That's where Naqada is."
"What river?"
"The river. The Nile of course."
"There is no Naqada upon the Nile." Abu said sullenly.
"Maybe not now." Schneider said. "How long ago was this, Malice?'
She sighed and shook her head. "I do not know. Many, many years before I was banished to the bottle."
"Can you take us there?"
She shrugged. "It may not be as I remember. It may be all sand now. Meshed was very different. This little man says Naqada is not there at all."
"Does it matter? If its under a thousand feet of sand, it still rests in the same place, does it not?" Kall-Su inquired. Kall-Su sounded put upon. Kall-Su was holding grudges. He had not said a thing to Schneider that had not expressly needed to be said, since their escape from the Pleasure Palace. He would not meet his eyes.
It systematically amused and annoyed Schneider. That affrontage. That preciously hoarded indignity. As if Schneider being Schneider was some great, earth shattering shock.
"I suppose not." Malice admitted.
"Then take us there." He commanded.
"Not me. I do not wish to go." Abu cried a moment before Malice sighed, shut her eyes and the world swam around them.