Disclaimer: I hate this! For the rest of this (however long that is) consider this story disclaimed!

I'm back! Thank you for all the wonderful reviews! Especially HyperKathryne! That has to be one of the nicest reviews I have ever recieved!

Umm, I hope this is not too confusing. I jumped perspective a lot, but this time I have remembered to separate them. Hopefully this will help. Oh and if any of the information I have is wrong I am dreadfully sorry and could you please tell me in a review. I lent out my copy of Emperor Mage and now distinctfully regret it.

On with the show! (And I hope you enjoy it!)

FROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die

Bayard Taylor - "Bedouin Song"

Slowly, the dark shape began to writhe and twist in the cool morning air. The long, lean back stretched and glistened in the pale light streaming through the cave entrance. He shuddered. His body was aching and protesting his every movement. He had been dreaming, and he knew that. Why then was his heart aching as though he had left it long ago in an environment far too cold for it to survive? Numair snorted slightly and ran one hand over the dark beginnings of a beard. Of course, he thought to himself, when the heart is frozen, there is no heart at all. He looked over at the still body on the bedroll beside him. He closed his eyes for one long moment. In the gloom behind his eyelids, he could pretend that he did not ache as much as he knew he was. Here in the darkness of his mind, he could cower and hide from the razor edge of the sunlight he wished would never come again. Quiet crept stealthily through his body as he denied that everything was anything more than a particularly gruesome nightmare yet again.

A bark of laughter tore itself from his throat. It was a sound eerily devoid of humor, of life. There was nothing in it; it rang against the stone walls in an echo of the nothingness left in the dark mage sitting stone still in the pearly dawn. His heart was far more than frozen. Daily, it was thawed so that it could break one more time before he turned away to surrender again and again. Numair released a heavy sigh burdened with all the pain of the already premature morning. This day was promising to be worse than the last. Only yesterday he thought he could feel no worse. After all, it was his third failed attempt to revive his love, the only true light in his life. He had only just found the flame he had been searching for so blindly instead of all the mage lights shining pitifully in the darkness where he had rested momentarily. He had sustained himself on nothing only to find her and need her to breathe. Numair slid his hands behind his head and leaned against the wall beside Daine's head. "Maybe I should give up love and hope for the fates to save you," he breathed in a ragged whisper. If she could hear his voice, if anyone could, they would hear the sound of a man decaying and crumbling from the inside out. Not only was he weary and drained of power and energy, he was also emotionally sapped and mentally strained. He was not eating properly, his ribs had begun to protrude and press against his flesh in a grotesque monument to his determination.

Every moment he could think clearly without his thoughts becoming clouded and scattered, he was formulating plans and theories as to how and why Daine was not responding to him. Could his magic truly do so little? He ran one large hand over her wild hair damp with sweat. The fever had not completely left her. The veins in his hand seemed to throb and strain unnaturally against his flesh. It looked as though his skin had become thin paper stretched unmercifully between bones weak and heavy. Yesterday, he had realized what this meant. He was beginning to die with her. He was fading away into a wraith of shadow and pain bound by desperation. He had noticed, and he had cared. If he disappeared, who would care for Daine? Who would hold her hand and pray to any gods that would listen for the strength to save her? He was no healer, but he was all she had. Right in this moment, when the world seemed to have stopped its incessant spinning, he was all he had. The thought terrified him. Unconsciously, he clutched her hand and threaded his fingers through her pale and lifeless ones. Her ragged and uneven breathing was all that convinced him she still lived. He was taking better care of himself now. Last night he had eaten dinner and prepared breakfast for the next morning as if to remind himself of his new pledge to Daine. He would remain for her. He would remain as her hope.

That last decision had stirred something within him. It was like a serpent rising from its winter slumber as he slipped back into his dream from the other night. It had been his last moment with Sarra. He had sailed away and watched her become smaller and smaller in the distance until she was no more than a grain of sand; one dark shape among thousands of others. Sarra had believed in hope. She had clung to it with both of her hands and refused to let it be taken from her. Remembered love throbbed sourly in his chest as he perused his other memories of her. Hope. That was the predominant feeling he remembered radiating from her body as she shown more brightly than a morning star. He had been taught that hope was everything. The moment it vanished, so to did life. Hope was the thin thread that held his marrow to his bones and kept his flesh from ripping away from his body to be exposed to the brutality of life. Hope was the first and last; without it, there was nothing. He looked somberly down at the still form beside him. Yes, he still hoped she would wake. He still had faith that she could, and would when it was possible for her. He still had hope; he still had her. The glassy black stone of his eyes softened slightly in the golden morning. She was still breathing, and she was his everything. He still had everything and the hope that he could use it.

Arram paced angrily outside the classroom door. Only minutes ago he had emerged from the shadowy depths of the library. Class had been dismissed a while ago and the thought of Varice still plagued him. How could she not wish to become the glorious light he knew she could be? Her denial pained him; he could not understand her. Every day she seemed to fade a little more into a golden shadow that danced on the very edge of his vision. She was eluding him like nothing he had ever known.

Finally, the pacing man stopped moving. His dark gaze spun out of focus as he thought. He was recalling Varice's words from the night before. The Banjiku could help him understand Sarra, and that was the best news he had heard in a long time. Unbidden, her image swam into his mind. Her eyes sparkled like light on coldest of rivers and changed in her obstinate determination into storm clouds piling ever higher in their attempt to rip the earth to shreds. She was a wild thing, something that could not be tamed. A ghost of a smile flickered over his thoughtful face. He had no wish to.

Without a conscious decision, Arram spun on his heel and sped to the open doors of the University. His feet knew where his mind was planning for him to go, but his heart was still lost in the torment of his understanding. He knew nothing was all that his heart dared to chant at him. Beware it warned as, once more, the wild and hypnotic vision of Sarra swirled into his thoughts. She was not afraid of her power. She wanted to use it and do something with her life. Varice wanted only to cast illusions and enchantments. She wanted to ensnare the senses and seduce the mind into her spider's web of lies and deceit. She was wonderful and good he knew, but she was lost herself, trapped within a world of shadows that were not really there. He did not know what to do. He was fighting so hard to care, but his own desperation for hope and freedom were pulling at him.

The warm sunlight sank into his flesh like the gentle touch of a long lost lover. Its fingers wrapped about him and pierced his heart with their fiery tendrils. Faith was no friend to him, and so, he despaired. Varice was clinging to him; he loved her, but he did not know how to any longer. He was beginning to change. He could feel the awaking stirs of it within the deepest recesses of his heart. Still, she caressed his heartstrings with a deft and adoring hand, but she too was changing. How much longer could they bear each other's metamorphic pains? He had not the faith to answer.

The ground was hard and unyielding beneath his feet. The sun had long ago dried it into a smooth river of dust forever waiting for the chance to drink in the falling rain so to flow away. He felt tired. Logic had pieced all he knew together and was now threatening to leave him. He was so tired. Finally, the menagerie gates stood before him, proud in their wrought gold and silver intricacies. With a determined glance behind him, Arram stepped through the splendor guarding the Empire's beautiful and rare creatures. Nothing was waiting for him; he had taken his first step to his future, and he had not feared.

Varice stood in the gentle sunlight flashing around her. She smiled a smile worthy of a goddess however frozen she may be in the silver white marble encasing her. Varice brushed her golden hair behind her shoulders and turned slowly. Something was nagging at her heart. There was something she could hear whispering to her in her mind, but she could not understand it. The constant hum and hiss of it was driving her insane, but she needed to hear it. It felt as though it was the most important sound she had ever felt before. Finally, she gave up on hearing the gentle whisper that seemed to caress her ear from the lips of an unknown friend. She shook off the feeling and wrapped it gently in exquisite satin to rest in the corners of her mind where she never dared to look. There the feeling would wait and collect dust until the fated day when she would release it from its disintegrating folds. It would be patient. After all, the foreboding and apprehension had no need to leave her, and the unease of wary love would never fade or rust.
A small man darted into the shadows as Arram approached. His face was dark with tattoos changing his features from human to monkey. Dark hair spilled over his forehead beaded with sweat and into his eyes dark and large. "Wait! I only wish to talk with you," protested Arram as the Banjiku monkey-man began to slip farther away from him.

"No one wishes to talk with the Banjiku," stated the weathered man in a voice more of a chuckle than anything else. "No one that is, except for our masters who even then despise us." The small man's eyes hardened at the thought, but he murmured as an after thought, "But it is our fate. Our gods know what is best for us, even if it is enslavement."

Arram cocked his head to the side for a moment. Never before had a slave dared to speak so to him. He took in the man's appearance. Dirt seemed to be a common theme to his clothes tattered and worn from hard work with his animals. More grey than black littered his hair and his face seemed to be sinking in the sea of wrinkles. However old this man appeared, he still stood with a ramrod straight back and his tattooed hands were steady. The small, black monkey resting on his shoulder seemed just as alert as his master's bright black eyes. "I wish to talk to you of your relationship with your monkeys. I am Arram Draper. I will not take too much of your time."

Perhaps it was the pleading look in Arram's eyes. Maybe it was just that the man was tired and eager for a youngling to listen to his tales. Either way, the small man beckoned Arram into a small, shady copse that was invisible to the untrained eye. "I am Diallo. This is Fabunni," he said directly as he gently stroked the monkey perched easily on his shoulder.

Arram nodded gravely. He had completely surrendered to his mounting curiosity. His eyes were wide and over bright as they memorized each movement of Diallo's mouth. "Please, I have a friend, she is very dear to me and she spoke to me of your people. I wish to know everything I can, and you can help me understand the magic another of my friends contains. She called it wild magic." After a long moment he added, "But that is only a fable, is it not?"

Diallo smiled broadly. His eyes crinkled and disappeared in the many folds of his weather worn flesh, and his teeth gleamed brightly even in the relative darkness. "Then why do the Banjiku speak to their animals and understand their words back to us?"

"I-I do not know, sir."

Diallo beamed even wider if that was possible at the title, "We have wild magic of course!" he cackled happily. "It was a gift to us from Kidunka, the Second-Born of Mother Flame and Father Universe. Its price was this slavery to your emperor, but it is a price I willingly pay. Without Fabunni and the rest, I would be a broken man."

Arram ignored for the moment the explanation Diallo gave for his enslavement. "Can you only converse with monkeys like Fabunni?" the eagerness in his voice was contagious.

"All types of monkeys and apes, young master. All types."

"But only those? You cannot communicate with, say, a lion, sir?"

"No, no. My daughter is a cat-girl. She can talk with them, but not I."

"When you talk to them, do you hear words, sir?"

Diallo paused for a moment, his face twisted with thought. "No, not normal words. I hear them here," he paused to tap his temple, "not here," he finished by tapping his left ear. "I understand what Fabunni and the others say as words and sentences, but I have begun to think that they are more thoughts than anything else. I should ask Fabunni though," he completed thoughtfully.

"Does he understand what I say?" Arram asked in surprise.

"Of course!" he laughed. "Animals are not stupid! How else do you think they have survived so long?" Concentration flashed through his obsidian eyes for a moment, "He says though that your words are harder to understand and hard to hear. He says they hurt his ears more than mine."

"Fabunni said?" Incredulity washed over Arram's face and remained there. He was astounded by all that he was discovering. If this is what Sarra could do and feel, he would give everything to know every detail. He decided in that moment that he would ask Sarra to teach him. He knew he held no talent for this, but he wanted to understand it. This was yet another arcane mystery waiting to be discovered, and he was more than willing to do so.

Daine stepped hurriedly into the orange glow of sunset. She had not seen Arram all day. However, she had spent hours with Professor Akuji. The man was a mystery she could not describe. The pain and sadness in him rivaled a winter storm and overwhelmed the massive waves that wreaked destruction on the unsuspecting coastal towns and fiefs. His hope was fading; she could see it in the lines around his lips and eyes. Fine grey strands curled at his temples. Asha had told her as much as well. The dark skinned man was waiting for death. No, he was praying for it. Despite everything he had told her, she doubted him. Every word he had spoken to her she believed to be true, but how could all of that be enough to cause this gradual wasting away? His heart was festering and she believed it to be from a wound inflicted long ago when he was still innocent and new with life. What she did not know was the story of his love and how she had died so many years ago.