AUTHOR'S NOTE: As you can see, I've reorganized. This and all the previous chapters now make up Mazopolitik I. Mazopolitik II will change gears a bit, with longer chapters [about three times as long] and a heightened rating. It already has one chapter written and is, or will be very shortly, in the R-rated section. I've adjusted the rating because the sexual themes in the first part have gotten more prevailent. I blame it all on Dynast, and so should you. You should go visit the R section anyways because I have another fic in it, and so does Ryo Hoshi, and so do other people. It's a sadly neglected realm. Go make it less lonely.
I'm approaching finals now, and am taking five classes at once this quarter. This means that writing is a little tougher to do, since I have much less time in which to do it. After that comes graduation and summer vacation. New chapters of my stuff may be sparse. I promise I AM writing, it's just that with longer chapters and a busier schedule, updates may come less frequently. But worry not. I'm just as eager to see the end of my stories as you are.
* * *
The floor welcomed Xelloss with a hard smack as he pulled himself over the side of the bed. Any immediate movement by the priest had to be postponed for a moment - the knife in his back had been jolted by the fall, and it registered its protest with a wave of frozen agony. After a minute the blade ceased torturing its prisoner, allowing the priest to drag himself slowly away from the bed.
It was now that Xelloss became very glad that Dynast didn't carpet his chambers, preferring the gleam of polished stone floors. That made progress so much easier as he slid away from the bed with only his arms to pull his body. I wish I could move my legs. Hell, I wish I could feel them. When was the last time that I stood up on my own?
He stopped when he was six feet from the bed. That was far enough for what he was planning. He perched Bishop upside-down between his fingers, scratching the sharp quartz corners of the monk's hood against the weaker marble floor. What was it that Zelas said once? "I'll be more damned than usual, Xelloss. Every so often, one of your neurotic habits really does come in handy." The priest drew a wide arc into the floor, shifting his body so that he could further the curve's existence. I miss you so much, Zelas.
A curve became a circle, and a circle became a spiral. Xelloss set himself to filling in the spiral with tiny angles and jagged corners. His hand trembled as he marked lines [they must be straight, they must be straight] into the smooth white rock. His arms felt too weak, his fingers shaking as he forced precision into them. Dynast's care had taken its toll on his physical and astral bodies. Mazoku didn't need to keep their muscles toned with excercise. However, if their astral health was bad, then it showed through the physical shell. Xelloss' spiritual hunger had unavoidable subconscious effects. His incarnar body conformed to the mental pressures, losing more 'weight' as the hunger persisted. While the body had no real 'muscles', its strength depended on Xelloss' energy levels and ability to focus. Xelloss was sorely lacking in both areas.
A sudden spasm of cold hit the priest in the middle of scrawling a complex design. It was all he could do to freeze his fingers in their position as his shoulders shook hard with the onslaught. The spasm left as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Xelloss tense in its wake. He was lucky he had managed to halt his progress without destroying it with an errant mark. The priest continued in his scribal role, wary of more attacks to come.
The going was slow. Xelloss didn't allow himself to panic and quicken his pace. Speed in this task would bring with it carelessness, and any mistake at this stage might not just ruin his progress but ruin his chances at surviving this ordeal. Slowly the marks connected and weaved across the floor, converging in fractals of geometry that danced through sweeping contours. Xelloss didn't register the passing of time, not concerned with the end product. He was wrapped up in the process, tangled in pursuit of the lines that twisted through his fingers...
Cold snapped through Xelloss' back so hard that it knocked him down. His thoughts blurred for a moment, unable to dispense logic to his limbs. For ten minutes he lay there, beyond movement and beyond thinking. As the attack finally died away, Xelloss found the energy to look up.
"...No."
It hit him so hard that it brought tears to his eyes.
The bishop was ten feet away from him. It had rolled there when it fell from his fingers as the knife's attack had caught him unawares.
Gods. Gods I'm going to die. I'm going to... Xelloss squeezed his eyes shut, visions assailing his mind. He could see Dynast towering over him, surveying his crippled body and the etching under it. He could see the blind rage, the Lord assaulting him until he finally ran out of ways to make him hurt. He could see himself limp and frozen in Dynast's bed as the knife killed the last bit of warmth left inside. And finally, himself, standing beside Dynast, eyes cold and lifeless, expression as mindlessly docile as Bishop's...
...watching as Dynast wrung pleas for mercy out of Firia's last breath...
I just want to die. Is that too much? Xelloss opened his eyes, unable to bear the private visions anymore. He tried to concentrate on the feel of smooth marble under his body, on the peculiar indentations lying against his skin. He could lose himself in that, just lose himself in the cold...just sleep and wait for his master to collect his property...
Xelloss shook off the hold of the knife, its touch becoming more subtle now that it could feel him lose hope. He raised his head, surveying his reflection in the polished marble. I look like hell...WHAT?
The lines on top of his reflection connected in a pattern so complex that he couldn't believe he had drawn it. Intricate. Solid. Whole. "I...I was finished!" Xelloss' eyes flew to Bishop, the chesspiece lying on its side, turned to face him. "Bishop, we finished!"
Bishop smiled, congratulating Xelloss.
"Thank you," Xelloss whispered before uttering three syllables that vibrated in the air. The teleportation sigil beneath him glowed with power. With a flash of light, he dissappeared, leaving behind nothing but unblemished marble...
...and a lone, smiling chesspiece.
* * *
After Lafitte left, Firia tried to turn her attention to Xelloss. She was so, so worried about his condition. It had been months since she'd seen him. She had missed him terribly, and now to finally have him with her, but in this state...
But Firia could not focus on Xelloss. Lafitte's departure was affecting her in a way that neither she nor even he had probably expected. She couldn't fixate her astral vision on Xelloss, couldn't concentrate on his limp form in her arms. In fact, she couldn't focus at all. It was like she wasn't even here.
In a way, though, she wasn't. She was with Lafitte, climbing vapor rungs between worlds on a shadow ladder. And she was in her bed, sprawled in a trance next to Xelloss' corporeal body. And she was here as well, waiting for a delivery to take place.
She sat there, as motionless as her incarnar body, unable to react as her mind saw the stove shatter, unable to help Lafitte drag bodies from the house, unable to stop the fire from ravaging her cherished home. She watched the surinni push Xelloss off of the precipice of physical reality and into her waiting arms. Part of her noted that Xelloss' surinnar body felt heavier after that moment, and maybe even warmer. But another part watched on as Lafitte plucked the rope/cord/strand of her will, drawn tight like a bowstring. As it twanged, her soul resonated up and down between the worlds and through her heart. A discordant note broke through her ears as Firia was pulled up through the sky and into the ethereal realms. The last thing she felt in the incarnar world was the brush of ice as a cold and powerful presence entered Lafitte's life.
But that was not here, and Firia was no longer there.
Firia shook with the realization of what she had passed en route to surinnar. Dynast. Dynast was coming! No. For Lafitte, he was already there. Firia clutched Xelloss closer, tears falling from her eyes. She was still shaking so hard, as if she were colder than anything else in the world...
"W-wait until I'm settled in. Wait until I'm settled in. Wait...wait...." Firia tried to breathe and realized that she was in fact breathing. She was breathing on this plane. She was doing the impossible. She wasn't shaking anymore.
She could stand - she already was standing. She could leave Xelloss' temple - she was walking, the steps blending into each other like raindrops in a waterspout. And now, she was looking into the sky for a star that shined gold-
And there it was.
Firia almost wondered why she had never seen it there before. In the blink of an eye, she willed herself into it.
* * *
Gold mist filled Firia's eyes and then burned away in a shower of golden light. The sight was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. She couldn't focus on it, though. Everything was blurring together in her eyes. She was stumbling, unable to hold herself and Xelloss upright any longer. Her hands, which she never had attended to after searing one and freezing the other, were burning with every movement she made. Firia willed herself not to drop Xelloss as her vision faded slowly into darkness. Finally, her legs just gave out.
Someone was catching her.
Firia couldn't even find the energy to open her eyes as the mysterious samaritan asked her who she was. She hardly had the energy to mumble answers at all. Why were her arms and legs so heavy now? Why was it so hard to concentrate? The questions came from all around now, a multitude of voices demanding to know how she found this place and who or what was she and what was she doing with their friend Xelloss. When one of them tried to pull Xelloss away her arms suddenly found new strength and words leapt to her mouth.
"Don't take him away! I just now got to hold him!" Lafitte's face flashed across Firia's mind. "Rahanalili sent me!"
Every voice was silent now.
"How did you know that name?" whispered a voice over her shoulder.
"I..." Darkness spread from Firia's eyes and into her mind. She couldn't feel her saviour anymore. She couldn't feel Xelloss anymore. "Lafitte...run! He's going to catch you, Lafitte! Why can't you get up!? Why can't...we run?"
"She passed out! What are we suppossed to do with her?"
"What do we do with any of Rahanalili's gifts? We take care of them. Bring her in."
"What about Xelloss?"
"I fancy that Rahanalili would be a bit upset if we left him on the doormat after all this time."
"..."
"That's a priceless expression if I ever saw a face. Now help me carry these two. Something tells me neither are going to rest easy if I pull one away from the other."
"Well, okay. But I think Lafitte may have some explaining to do."
"The day Lafitte doesn't have something to answer for is the day he crosses over. Damn. This chick is heavy! You'd think she was a dragon or something."
I'm approaching finals now, and am taking five classes at once this quarter. This means that writing is a little tougher to do, since I have much less time in which to do it. After that comes graduation and summer vacation. New chapters of my stuff may be sparse. I promise I AM writing, it's just that with longer chapters and a busier schedule, updates may come less frequently. But worry not. I'm just as eager to see the end of my stories as you are.
* * *
The floor welcomed Xelloss with a hard smack as he pulled himself over the side of the bed. Any immediate movement by the priest had to be postponed for a moment - the knife in his back had been jolted by the fall, and it registered its protest with a wave of frozen agony. After a minute the blade ceased torturing its prisoner, allowing the priest to drag himself slowly away from the bed.
It was now that Xelloss became very glad that Dynast didn't carpet his chambers, preferring the gleam of polished stone floors. That made progress so much easier as he slid away from the bed with only his arms to pull his body. I wish I could move my legs. Hell, I wish I could feel them. When was the last time that I stood up on my own?
He stopped when he was six feet from the bed. That was far enough for what he was planning. He perched Bishop upside-down between his fingers, scratching the sharp quartz corners of the monk's hood against the weaker marble floor. What was it that Zelas said once? "I'll be more damned than usual, Xelloss. Every so often, one of your neurotic habits really does come in handy." The priest drew a wide arc into the floor, shifting his body so that he could further the curve's existence. I miss you so much, Zelas.
A curve became a circle, and a circle became a spiral. Xelloss set himself to filling in the spiral with tiny angles and jagged corners. His hand trembled as he marked lines [they must be straight, they must be straight] into the smooth white rock. His arms felt too weak, his fingers shaking as he forced precision into them. Dynast's care had taken its toll on his physical and astral bodies. Mazoku didn't need to keep their muscles toned with excercise. However, if their astral health was bad, then it showed through the physical shell. Xelloss' spiritual hunger had unavoidable subconscious effects. His incarnar body conformed to the mental pressures, losing more 'weight' as the hunger persisted. While the body had no real 'muscles', its strength depended on Xelloss' energy levels and ability to focus. Xelloss was sorely lacking in both areas.
A sudden spasm of cold hit the priest in the middle of scrawling a complex design. It was all he could do to freeze his fingers in their position as his shoulders shook hard with the onslaught. The spasm left as quickly as it had arrived, leaving Xelloss tense in its wake. He was lucky he had managed to halt his progress without destroying it with an errant mark. The priest continued in his scribal role, wary of more attacks to come.
The going was slow. Xelloss didn't allow himself to panic and quicken his pace. Speed in this task would bring with it carelessness, and any mistake at this stage might not just ruin his progress but ruin his chances at surviving this ordeal. Slowly the marks connected and weaved across the floor, converging in fractals of geometry that danced through sweeping contours. Xelloss didn't register the passing of time, not concerned with the end product. He was wrapped up in the process, tangled in pursuit of the lines that twisted through his fingers...
Cold snapped through Xelloss' back so hard that it knocked him down. His thoughts blurred for a moment, unable to dispense logic to his limbs. For ten minutes he lay there, beyond movement and beyond thinking. As the attack finally died away, Xelloss found the energy to look up.
"...No."
It hit him so hard that it brought tears to his eyes.
The bishop was ten feet away from him. It had rolled there when it fell from his fingers as the knife's attack had caught him unawares.
Gods. Gods I'm going to die. I'm going to... Xelloss squeezed his eyes shut, visions assailing his mind. He could see Dynast towering over him, surveying his crippled body and the etching under it. He could see the blind rage, the Lord assaulting him until he finally ran out of ways to make him hurt. He could see himself limp and frozen in Dynast's bed as the knife killed the last bit of warmth left inside. And finally, himself, standing beside Dynast, eyes cold and lifeless, expression as mindlessly docile as Bishop's...
...watching as Dynast wrung pleas for mercy out of Firia's last breath...
I just want to die. Is that too much? Xelloss opened his eyes, unable to bear the private visions anymore. He tried to concentrate on the feel of smooth marble under his body, on the peculiar indentations lying against his skin. He could lose himself in that, just lose himself in the cold...just sleep and wait for his master to collect his property...
Xelloss shook off the hold of the knife, its touch becoming more subtle now that it could feel him lose hope. He raised his head, surveying his reflection in the polished marble. I look like hell...WHAT?
The lines on top of his reflection connected in a pattern so complex that he couldn't believe he had drawn it. Intricate. Solid. Whole. "I...I was finished!" Xelloss' eyes flew to Bishop, the chesspiece lying on its side, turned to face him. "Bishop, we finished!"
Bishop smiled, congratulating Xelloss.
"Thank you," Xelloss whispered before uttering three syllables that vibrated in the air. The teleportation sigil beneath him glowed with power. With a flash of light, he dissappeared, leaving behind nothing but unblemished marble...
...and a lone, smiling chesspiece.
* * *
After Lafitte left, Firia tried to turn her attention to Xelloss. She was so, so worried about his condition. It had been months since she'd seen him. She had missed him terribly, and now to finally have him with her, but in this state...
But Firia could not focus on Xelloss. Lafitte's departure was affecting her in a way that neither she nor even he had probably expected. She couldn't fixate her astral vision on Xelloss, couldn't concentrate on his limp form in her arms. In fact, she couldn't focus at all. It was like she wasn't even here.
In a way, though, she wasn't. She was with Lafitte, climbing vapor rungs between worlds on a shadow ladder. And she was in her bed, sprawled in a trance next to Xelloss' corporeal body. And she was here as well, waiting for a delivery to take place.
She sat there, as motionless as her incarnar body, unable to react as her mind saw the stove shatter, unable to help Lafitte drag bodies from the house, unable to stop the fire from ravaging her cherished home. She watched the surinni push Xelloss off of the precipice of physical reality and into her waiting arms. Part of her noted that Xelloss' surinnar body felt heavier after that moment, and maybe even warmer. But another part watched on as Lafitte plucked the rope/cord/strand of her will, drawn tight like a bowstring. As it twanged, her soul resonated up and down between the worlds and through her heart. A discordant note broke through her ears as Firia was pulled up through the sky and into the ethereal realms. The last thing she felt in the incarnar world was the brush of ice as a cold and powerful presence entered Lafitte's life.
But that was not here, and Firia was no longer there.
Firia shook with the realization of what she had passed en route to surinnar. Dynast. Dynast was coming! No. For Lafitte, he was already there. Firia clutched Xelloss closer, tears falling from her eyes. She was still shaking so hard, as if she were colder than anything else in the world...
"W-wait until I'm settled in. Wait until I'm settled in. Wait...wait...." Firia tried to breathe and realized that she was in fact breathing. She was breathing on this plane. She was doing the impossible. She wasn't shaking anymore.
She could stand - she already was standing. She could leave Xelloss' temple - she was walking, the steps blending into each other like raindrops in a waterspout. And now, she was looking into the sky for a star that shined gold-
And there it was.
Firia almost wondered why she had never seen it there before. In the blink of an eye, she willed herself into it.
* * *
Gold mist filled Firia's eyes and then burned away in a shower of golden light. The sight was more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. She couldn't focus on it, though. Everything was blurring together in her eyes. She was stumbling, unable to hold herself and Xelloss upright any longer. Her hands, which she never had attended to after searing one and freezing the other, were burning with every movement she made. Firia willed herself not to drop Xelloss as her vision faded slowly into darkness. Finally, her legs just gave out.
Someone was catching her.
Firia couldn't even find the energy to open her eyes as the mysterious samaritan asked her who she was. She hardly had the energy to mumble answers at all. Why were her arms and legs so heavy now? Why was it so hard to concentrate? The questions came from all around now, a multitude of voices demanding to know how she found this place and who or what was she and what was she doing with their friend Xelloss. When one of them tried to pull Xelloss away her arms suddenly found new strength and words leapt to her mouth.
"Don't take him away! I just now got to hold him!" Lafitte's face flashed across Firia's mind. "Rahanalili sent me!"
Every voice was silent now.
"How did you know that name?" whispered a voice over her shoulder.
"I..." Darkness spread from Firia's eyes and into her mind. She couldn't feel her saviour anymore. She couldn't feel Xelloss anymore. "Lafitte...run! He's going to catch you, Lafitte! Why can't you get up!? Why can't...we run?"
"She passed out! What are we suppossed to do with her?"
"What do we do with any of Rahanalili's gifts? We take care of them. Bring her in."
"What about Xelloss?"
"I fancy that Rahanalili would be a bit upset if we left him on the doormat after all this time."
"..."
"That's a priceless expression if I ever saw a face. Now help me carry these two. Something tells me neither are going to rest easy if I pull one away from the other."
"Well, okay. But I think Lafitte may have some explaining to do."
"The day Lafitte doesn't have something to answer for is the day he crosses over. Damn. This chick is heavy! You'd think she was a dragon or something."