Chapter Ten: Black as Ice
The palace was beautiful with its smooth columns that held a ceiling far out of reach and painted with stars. Footsteps would echo musically as a person walked through the rows of disguised stone and admired the history. All around were hieroglyphs that covered the wall from top to bottom with stories of the gods and past pharaohs.
Squall could understand only a few of the symbols. But the people here enjoyed inserting as many colorful pictures as possible, so the story should have been as easy to understand as a child's picture book. Yet Squall couldn't make sense of any of it. He was not one to ask questions either, so the history of Zamir was out of his grasp, though right at his fingertips at the same time.
Thoughtfully Squall brushed his fingers across one of the pictures. It was an illustration of a god he recognized to be Cerberus. The three-headed canine had its fangs bared in a ferocious threesome snarl. Next to the god was a pharaoh who sat high and mighty on his thrown. The man was pointing at Cerberus, as if ordering the god to leave.
Squall ran his fingers over the sand stone that felt like powder under his gentle touch. He then traced an index finger over one of Cerberus' eyes, which glittered like a jewel. The brunet could only wonder what story circled the two images. However, Squall didn't have time to dream up a tale because the grand hallway was filled with the echo of traveling footsteps of a stranger.
Pushing away from the wall, Squall resumed his walking towards the pharaoh's chambers. He didn't want some priest to catch him and say he was 'disgracing' the historic wall by touching it with his dirty slave hands.
"Squall," A strong voice called before he could make his escape.
The brunet acknowledged his name by turning around to face the unfamiliar voice. He didn't expect to find a short, white haired woman standing in the middle of the hall. Her red eyes watched him with the same impassive stare that he wore.
Was this the person who had summoned him?
"Come," She demanded in a voice that echoed loudly in the hall. She then turned on her heel and disappeared into a narrow passage between two of the large columns.
Squall quickly caught up to her while mentally noting that this path led away from the pharaoh's chambers. He was bursting to ask the other about the circumstances surrounding his reason of summoning, but it was difficult to keep up with the girl. For someone her size, she could move as fast and light as a gust of wind.
Through the twists and turns of the palace she led him until Squall felt completely lost. He had been in the palace before, but not in this particular area. Suddenly the girl came to a halt in front of a drop of white silk. She stepped aside and gestured for Squall to enter. The brunet looked at her with questioning eyes, but she merely motioned a second time.
Maybe whoever summoned him was behind that curtain?
Curiosity took over and Squall entered the room. On the other side of the silk laid a room that had three quarters filled with water. He took a step further and observed the nice flat stone that smoothed the floor around the shallow pool and even went under the water. Squall glanced towards the far end where the opposing wall was absent. Instead the room was open to the river, which explained the source of water. There were others present; servant girls that were staring at Squall with their own silent questions.
What was the meaning of this?
"Wash," The white haired woman answered his mental question then pointed to the water while simultaneously nodding to the servants.
They jumped to life at once. Squall felt his breath hitch in his throat as they crowded around him. They stripped him so quickly and subtly that it took Squall a few second to realize his nudity. Before he could dignify himself enough to be embarrassed, the girls had led him into the sun-warmed water.
A prominent blush spread like fire over Squall's cheeks. He glanced at the servants and saw that he was alone in the embarrassment. When he thought a little about it, it was obvious that these girls had probably done this to a number of different people male and female. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Still, Squall preferred to bathe alone.
The girls tugged him to deeper water. They didn't have to force him to sit, however, Squall did that on his own free will in order to hide his lower regions. The servants proceeded to pull at his limbs as they took small hard-bristled brushes from their waists, which they then used to scrub savagely at his skin. Layers of dirt collected from working the quarry was being lifted away.
"Ah!" Squall nearly jumped out of the water when one of the brushes wandered too far up his thigh to be considered friendly. His objecting noise didn't seem to detour the girls from rubbing his skin raw. They continued to wash him until Squall felt like they were scrubbing a bristle of needles over his muscles. Squall began to struggle, trying to pull his limbs from their grasp. He had had enough of the cruel and unusual treatment. There was no possible way they treated others this roughly.
In the end it was no use. He could get away from them, but he couldn't find it in himself to run naked. So instead he decided to endure the twisted sense of torture with a deep blushing scowl. Squall could swear he heard that red-eyed girl laughing at him.
Buckets of water were poured over his head. Hands and soaps were rubbed through his hair. Squall was then dragged out of the water, dried, and dressed into the light gray tunic and shorts that he had wished to never wear again. Finishing, the girls dabbed him with oils that were scented with an enticing smell of mix of spices.
Squall was still scowling by the time the girls finally retreated. The faint remains of a blush still clung to his cheeks as he turned to face the bemused smile of the white haired girl. He looked as if he had gotten severely sunburned by the way his skin had turned red from the brutal washing. Squall could say that it certainly felt as if he had gotten burned.
"Come," her monotone order contrasted with the smile on her lips and the shining in her crimson eyes. Once again she turned and walked off, disappearing through the curtain.
"Wait," Squall spoke up, adopting the one worded speech. There was a long pause where the brunet refused to follow, and the white haired woman refused to return. Since Squall had already been thoroughly embarrassed, Squall didn't see any problem with breaking his previous silence.
Finally the girl gave in and returned with a mild glare of annoyance. Her arms crossed warningly over her chest. Squall mimicked the pose with his own arms, "Why am I here?"
The girl didn't respond; only looked aside with a sad frown. Squall didn't understand her reaction. He was about to ask his question again, but she disappeared through the curtains a second time. This time Squall decided to follow with a determined mind to get an answer. He couldn't wait to find out where they were going, it felt like suicide to wait until the end; like this woman was leading him to be fed to a ravenous pack of dogs.
Again through the twists she moved with Squall trailing behind her. The brunet asked again about whom she was taking him to see, but there was nothing but silence to answer his words. Squall finally resorted to reaching out and firmly placing a hand on the girl's shoulder to bring her to a stop.
She whirled on him with defiant eyes that should have been crimson, but somehow they had turned into a pair of blue-gray storms. Squall took a step back at the strange appearance and the hallucination faded at once. He found himself staring at red once more.
I'm treating her like he did to me, Squall thought privately while letting a slight frown show. At least I sort of understand why he always did it..
The white hair girl shook her head at Squall. She turned again and led the way, this time taking a slower pace to keep the brooding brunet in tow. Squall got the slightest impression that perhaps he didn't want to know where she was taking him.
They moved into a more familiar hallway and Squall began to instinctively shell himself away. His actions switched to autopilot while his feelings were neatly tucked away into the far corners of his mind so nothing but a dark void was left. This was his protection, an ice-cold darkness that would nullify everything before it could reach him.
They turned and entered a recognizable room. As Squall passed through the entry he didn't even feel the soft touch a silk over his skin that continued to burn from the rough scrubbing. He got a twisted sense of satisfaction that his walls of black ice were so well constructed.
Squall felt, and tried to ignore the eyes that watched his every mechanical move through the room. Even the darkness couldn't completely kill the intensity of that gaze, so Squall adverted his eyes to look at the polished marble floor—only to see the person reflected on the surface.
"Are you not going to welcome me back, Squall?"
End Chapter.