Immediately the dream began again. The scene was set. The players all together now and so began the show.
He raised his sword above her and began to bring it down upon the little girl and she screamed, holding her hands up to stop him. Miraculously, he did stop and flew head over feet twenty yards away.
Another solider saw this and stared at the girl in shock then his features turned dark and deadly. He too marched over to Tanith who merely stared at him as he too raised his sword and began to bring it down when a hand grasped his arm from behind.
The soldier turned to bring Tanith's savior down when he saw who stood behind him. Tanith's round blue eyes turned to the robed man who had saved her. His hair was long and white from age or something else entirely. His dark eyes were tired and weary and his voice when he finally spoke was just as spent as his eyes.
"Leave her." He turned and began walking away.
Tanith was full of questions and began following her savior to see if he might hold the answers. She followed him through the carnage surrounding her, seeking him out like a moth would as to a flame. When he finally stopped amidst the ruins of some dark building she raced up and tugged on his sleeve.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
The man looked down at her and sighed as he knelt down before her. He studied her dirt and soot covered face, as if seeking the answers within her features. He seemed to come to a conclusion and lifted her into his arms.
Tanith was fearful but kept a brave front as the strange man walked up to a horse, sat her upon it then climbed on behind her.
A solider came up to them where they surveyed the violence and said something to the man, something that the little girl didn't understand. What did a girl of five know of souls and magic?
Together they rode through the city surveying the carnage. Fires lit up the blood-covered sand in flickering relief. Screams echoed in the night and Tanith watched as the slaughter continued safely in the man's arms.
"Do you have a name child?" He asked her all of a sudden, his soft voice seeming to drown out all the cries of people Tanith knew.
"Tanith." She replied. "What's your name?"
He reined the horse to a stop and slid down off of it, "You may call me Master." With that said the man walked off leaving the girl alone to deal with the deaths of her people.
He came back eventually all shadows and darkness. Tanith sensed a sadness and horror about him, secrets about the events that only he knew haunted him like dreams of tonight would haunt her. Then they rode off into the night followed by the soldiers leaving devastation in their wake.
The palace was everything and nothing like Tanith knew before. Shops and tall adobe houses full of sleeping people lined the streets leading up to it. The floors were smooth white marble and the walls full of colorful tapestries leading up to the throne room where the pharaoh awaited Master.
Tanith hung back in the shadows behind the man, making sure that the great king who sat before her did not see her. But it was not meant to be. Master turned and handed her a velvet lines tray full of golden objects she had not seen him carrying before and motioned for her to present it to the king.
She took the tray and padded silently up to the man and knelt down in front of him offering up the tray full of seven golden objects.
He chose the large pyramid puzzle and then winked at Tanith. She smiled and walked graciously back to her Master. She stood beside him as five robed individuals similarly dressed as her master approached her and each took one golden item. The last, an eye, belonged to Master.
Tanith turned and presented the eye to him and he too winked at her then told her to wait for him outside the throne room. The little girl happily ran out of the silent room to await her master.
When he did come out, the eye replaced one of his lavender orbs and Tanith vaguely wondered if the golden eye allowed him to blink. He took her tiny hand and escorted her to some chambers.
"Stay here, little Tanith." Master told her. "Right now I have business to attend to and when I come back you and I will have a little discussion about that little trick you did with the guard."
She nodded, "The one who flew?"
"Exactly." He patted her on the head and left the room, locking the door behind him.
For a time the little girl explored her surroundings. She stopped and looked at the couch that sat before a balcony over looking the city below. She examined the tapestries that hung on the painted walls and made bottles of perfume and dye dance on the table they sat on.
Soon she grew bored and laid down on the soft silks of the couch. Not long after that, Tanith fell asleep.
The sound of birds chirping and the door snapping unlock awoke the little girl the next morning. She scurried to her feet and met Master at the door. Behind him was a slave carrying in his arms were a simple white shift, a pair of sandals the girl's size and a brush.
"You see what must be done, do it." Master ordered the slave then he addressed Tanith, "I must go do the business I spoke of now. Do not be afraid if you hear screaming, it's only bad people."
Tanith giggled, "Bad people, okay."
Then he left the room, locking the door behind him and the slave gently laid the clothing down on the couch then led the girl into an adjoining room where a large pool sat bubbling with water.
"You're very lucky to be taken in by Master Akunadin." the woman said as she roughly stripped Tanith of her dirty dress. "He doesn't surround himself with many slaves."
Before Tanith could blink the slave shoved her into the pool. Water flooded the little girl's mouth and slipped over her head. Panic flooded her and gave her strength but before she could react with that strength, the woman jerked her up by her arm to a sitting position where the water merely lapped at her chin.
"You would be a good sandal washer." The woman said as she began roughly scrubbing the dirt from Tanith's body. "Get all the sand ground into the leather off. And you could also be a meal taster. See if there's any poison in the great Priest's food."
She placed a hand on top of the girl's head and shoved her underneath the water. Again panic filled Tanith. She couldn't breath. She couldn't see. Strength filled her and finally it got its release. The water began to boil and part. The slave gasped at the sight and slowly backed away from Tanith. The little girl stood and began to hover then move out of the pool. Finally Tanith carefully lowered herself to her own two feet and relaxed.
The slave screamed as she left the room and began pounding on the door outside to be free. Free from the puzzled little girl who merely shrugged and walked out of the bathing room to get dressed.
The fine linen felt nice on her cleansed skin. She found a brush and began brushing the tangles out of her hair while the slave kept screaming.
As a little bit of fun after she finished brushing her hair, Tanith began rattling the bottles again. She moved the couch toward the slave like a shark on the prowl.
The scene that greeted Akunadin when he walked into the room some hours later was one of his slaves passed out in front of the door and Tanith sitting on the floor surrounded by floating pieces of the room. A bottle of perfume there, a heavy sculpture of the goddess Bast here.
"Hello Master! I was having a bit of fun." Tanith greeted as she dropped everything she was moving. The sound of the statue smashing awoke the slave and she quickly dashed out of the room once she saw the door was open. She didn't give her master a bit of attention except to shove him out of the way.
"That lady says I'd be a good sandal washer. Do you think I'd be a good sandal washer?" Tanith asked.
"No, I don't." Akunadin replied firmly. He walked into the room and sat down on the couch which he noticed had been moved closer to the door. "Remember I said I was going to talk to you about how you make things fly."
Tanith took a seat on the floor in front of him and nodded.
"How do you do it? Do you know?"
She smiled, "I tell them to move." The little girl pointed at a bottle that had not shattered and cried, "Move!"
The bottle shot across the floor and out the door.
"See?" Tanith said.
Akunadin sighed and tried again. "Do you know why they move when you want them to?"
Tanith nodded, "Because I want them to."
He shook his head and muttered, "You don't know. I don't know why I thought you did."
"Am I a prisoner? Can I go home?" she asked quietly. "Can I master?"
He avoided her bright gaze, "This is your new home. You are going to be my apprentice, know everything there is to know about the Shadow Games. About the magics only I can teach you. To use your own talents along with what I can teach you."
"But I want to go to my old home." Tanith argued, "I know the games I wanna play. Games my mommy taught me. I wanna go home, to mommy."
Akunadin rose to his feet and began to walk out the door. "I'm sorry little Tanith. You can never go home."
The sound of the lock this time was the sound of Tanith's heart breaking.
