As the Nomad ran his legs off, venturing his tired body into the cruel Atacama Desert, his mind kept on trying to find a proper parallelism between that nightmarish situation he was in and any other he had ever experienced: his memory traveled to very distant eras yet his remembrances couldn't be matched with that particular hell suffocating him. As obnoxious as the idea was, he couldn't remember any other deal going south so badly; any other ordeal going so bad, so fast. Wounded and scarred as he was, the jaded Nomad propelled his system into the seemingly ethereal portal hoping for salvation – sanctuary, that benevolent notion made for battered spirits and laconic existences. "Here goes nothing," the Nomad mumbled to himself as he smashed his very last sand grenade against the ground. Like a magician working his magic, the brown and dusty curtain enveloped his disappearing figure; a handful of dust covering his tracks in the middle of the desert. He chuckled, involuntarily, as his bones were left with no other choice but to embrace the irony he had just crafted.

One last effort was commanding the impulses running wildly through the avenues of his nerves.

One huge leap into the thin air would be enough to transport him into the balsamic realm of distance and safety.

He held on to his talisman, a brown wooden box full of memories from many different lifetimes ago even though every single souvenir from his past was evoking the same old faces and places he had never had the courage to leave behind. One leg, then the other, torso and head followed the motion to create one harmonic jump – dust and sand became the same elemental thing then, confused and blended inside the same chaotic tourbillion. The magician levitated gracefully as his form became blurry; he closed his eyes and hoped for the best until he finally disappeared from this land. It wasn't his first time in Outworld yet, back then, it was nearly impossible for the Nomad to image his stay was meant to be close to permanent. Irises colliding against the auburn horizon of the sunset welcoming his entrance into the wild landscape stretching itself before him, his vision went black as soon as he stepped into the great yellow hills. The stampede had been brutal like a bullet to the head – the Nomad stumbled, confused and overwhelmed; crimson trails sketched by his own blood led his way as they fell from his sweaty forehead to the tip of his battered leather boots. The air got hotter, denser than before: Outworld at last.

The taste of blood in his gums, strange noises and the tripping, the endless tripping from one body to the other, animalistic sounds of fierce and violence, the oxygen leaving his lungs, the box… the box pressed hard against his chest; that was it, the final blur, the definitive black. That was it: the oneiric state in which a body cannot discern dream from reality; life from death. That was it, the Nomad thought for the last time as the darkness embraced him completely, wrapping him up in the onyx that defines everything that is unknown.

That was it.

Salvation.

Arc III

Chapter XXII

Bird of Prey

(… And Those we've Left Behind)

The Parable of the Nomad

(1981 - 2001)

"Things can be seen better in the darkness," he said, as if he had just seen into her mind. "But the longer you spend in the dark, the harder it becomes to return to the world aboveground where the light is."

Haruki Murakami ― 1Q84

The blacksmith found him only a few hours later. At first, he thought it was a corpse what he was seeing, the herbivorous beasts were playing with the Nomad's unconscious body like it was some kind of morbid toy. He jumped off the seat of his scavenging cart and walked towards the gloomy scene, outstretching his long arms and waving them as menacing wings to try and shoo the animals away. Once the beasts were gone, he finally approached the scene: he stared at the Nomad with eyes full of compassion – his name was Dexitis, ever the good man. The blacksmith carried the broken man all the way back to his cart and, willing to aid the stranger in this peculiar predicament, turned the cart around and went back to his house.

The Nomad woke up four days later, wounded tissue and lacerations were the marks that the transition had chosen to imprint all over his body. The turbulent summer of 1981 seemed to have defused into a deranged vision of a faraway land that was completely out of his reach. As the Nomad sat up in the cot, he inspected the room with eyes that knew what they were longing to find: dilated pupils swam into focus until he found the only thing he really cared about – his talisman had not forsaken him. His box was there, waiting for him right beside the cot and the Nomad exhaled then, relieved to know that those faces and places still belonged with him, the laborious puff of air exiting his mouth was all he needed to reassure himself that he was still alive, that it wasn't a dream.

That was it, after all; salvation.

Two beautiful women stood before him with gauzes and various medical supplies in their hands. "Did you two find me?" He managed to mumble yet they both shook their heads quietly. He certainly wasn't dead, but that celestial sight was the closest approximation to Heaven, he thought. Only a few moments later one of the women dared to approach the stranger and whispered:

"No, we're just taking care of you, tending to your wounds. My husband was the one who found you – in the weathered hills. You need to rest now."

Focusing his vision once again and allowing his head to rest against the pillow they had provided him with, the Nomad quickly realized that both women looked alike – there was only one difference between them that was noticeable at first sight: the woman that had talked to him had different eyes. Her right eye was green as the forest but her left eye was completely white. The other woman, instead, the one that had kept her distance from him, had emerald eyes; a richer green calling him on just like the great wild jungle, so pure and so intense it made the Nomad think that never in his 138 years of existence he had witnessed such a noble color before. Visibly more adventurous than the emerald-eyed one, the first woman placed her gauzes and bandages near the edge of the Nomad's cot and introduced herself to the stranger:

"My name is L'ampaghna. This is my twin sister, Zarrabayeusse. Do you know where you are, can you tell me if you remember your name?"

The Nomad then introduced himself to the woman and explained to her that he knew that he was now in Outworld; that he had intended to go there and that, if his intuition wasn't wrong, he was positive he was in Z'unkahrah. L'ampaghna nodded in silence, satisfied to know that the man was indeed recovering, as she placed both of her hands on his shoulders and slowly began to massage his temples as an attempt to help him relax and sleep.

"He's not from around here," Zarrabayeusse finally whispered, still standing motionless in the center of the room. She was cautious and visibly weary of his presence, yet her tone had been intriguing as if trying to contaminate her sister's bravery with her own doubts and uncertainties. But L'ampaghna didn't care - if anything, she trusted her husband's decisions. That was just one of the many differences between the twin sisters: L'am was the brave one while Zar was usually the one left behind by her own limitations. While L'am would be fearless, reaching out for the stranger in need, Zar would be the one left in the dark, alone and always whispering the same words:

"He's a bird of prey."

The Nomad stayed there, with them, until he fully recovered from his wounds and injuries. Two long years had passed, and many things had become crystal clear for him: the portal was gone, there was no going back home for him. His employers must have thought that he had died in that dreadful South American desert since no one had cared enough to reach him – it was obvious, then, that no one was actually looking for him. Alone, and with all the time in the world, the Nomad looked around him and decided it was time he began building bridges towards those around him. The family had not only sheltered him; they had opened their gates for him to make himself comfortable, they had tended to his wounds… They had hidden him from the dangerous outside and from all possible curious outsiders: since he was an Earthrealmer, they knew he was not allowed to stay yet they also knew that he was not ready to leave yet.

For the first time in what felt like an eternity, the Nomad even had a true friend: Dexitis, the blacksmith who had rescued him, the one responsible for his recovery.

Still, his convoluted senses were about to betray him once again. The corrupted flames of misplaced desires were about to consume the light that the blacksmith had begun to shine down upon him. The son of a coffee-eyed demon and a whore, the Nomad knew his fate had been written long before the world was made. The secret affaire became a sad yet thrilling reality for both the Nomad and the unfaithful L'ampaghna until one day, from her lips drew the words the Nomad had never wished to hear:

"I'm pregnant."

The news was powerful enough to make his bones tremble inside the human vessel that was his body. Then the doubt began to grow stronger: could that seed be the one that life itself had stolen from him many, many lifetimes ago? Nine long and agonizing months later the woman finally gave birth to a healthy, beautiful boy: Aalem was the name that the blacksmith had chosen for the newborn, a personal homage to his beloved father. Coexisting with the troubled Nomad became nearly impossible back then, the doubts regarding the real father of the child eating away at him slowly and painfully yet alone, in the shadows of the house, Zarrabayeusse's voice could still be heard like a mad whisper anticipating the storm:

"He's a bird of prey."

Noticing how the Nomad's attitude had suddenly changed, the blacksmith took him to the Lei Chen Mountains and offered him a piece of land that had belonged in his family for generations – the Nomad accepted the gift acknowledging that getting away from the family was, possibly, the best option he had been left with. He started to build a cabin there; the naked land stretching itself before his coffee eyes becoming his ulterior motive and inspiration. "Here you'll find your peace, and you will satiate the thirst that has awakened your demons," Dexitis told him; his voice trailing off softly in the howling wind of the mountainside.

Alone, and left to his own devices, the nomadic man of the desert dwelling inside of him welcomed the quiet spirit of the lone wolf that recites his inner laments and pains to the moon in the rocky landscape of the mountains.

Six years later, the blacksmith finally went back to the Lei Chen Mountains and gently knocked on his door. At first, the Nomad hesitated: L'ampaghna's visage lingering in front of his eyes as if reminding him once more the kind of man that he was.

"I need a favor," said Dexitis.

No more the blacksmith but the political activist, Dexitis told him a story: there was a storm about to drown the city – they wanted to break Mileena's rule from the inside. The nomad cupped his chin with his own hand as he thought about the words he had just heard: he was a mercenary, not a politician, yet all those years he had seemingly spent alone in that cabin were slowly piling up upon his shoulders – he needed purpose, a job, money; the fuel for a greedy, ambitious soul. He stared at the blacksmith in silence: he had always considered politics to be a game of chess played by someone else. Still, the need encysted deep in that man's eyes and his own guilt waking up after six years of solitude were powerful magnets attracting him irrevocably.

The Nomad came back to Z'unkahrah with Dexitis – back to the family, and back to the dangers that had always coexisted with his lifestyle. He began to walk the stealthy and treacherous path of infiltrating Mileena's lines until he met a rather peculiar woman: Tanya, an Edenian that had aligned herself with the Kahnum seeking the restoration of her beloved land. In her eyes, the man seemed capable, willing and able. He had even provided her with valuable information about Mileena's opposition until one day, the Nomad finally demanded to meet the highest authority of Outworld – he was only giving them mere crumbs but Dexitis' plan was about to fall to pieces if he failed to get closer to Mileena.

"You seem trustworthy enough, but what are your credentials?" Tanya asked him, "you're an Earthrealmer, but that's not something that can help you. If anything, that would be perceived as a weakness. You said it was Shang Tsung the one who improved you…yet that treacherous name won't get you very far either," she explained.

"What can I do, then?" the Nomad dared to ask, already disheartened.

"Truth is we could use someone like you, but you'll never get anywhere near Mileena with those credentials, not even if I were to be the one willing to introduce you. But if you were an Outworlder… things might be different for you."

"You know that's impossible," the Nomad asserted.

"Not entirely true," Tanya began to explain, her sultry tone leading the way. "You can become an Outworlder, a naturalized one. That could work." She placed her hands on the Nomad's shoulders, a sinful smile taking over her face: "All you have to do is marry one."

He went back to the house feeling discouraged and nearly helpless. He explained everything that had happened to the blacksmith, who, far from considering Tanya's words as a limitation, had lucidity and perspective enough to see the predicament as a brand new possibility.

"I can offer you a wife," he said, "Zarrabayeusse."

The Nomad felt as if every single bone in what used to be the solid foundation of his body had suddenly begun to succumb to an advanced state of petrification: she, the woman whose words had defined him as a bird of prey; she, the twin sister of the woman he had slept with – the boy's aunt. No. He couldn't bring himself to envision her as his wife, as his companion or his partner; even as beautiful as she was.

"No one will ever marry her," the blacksmith went on as a calculative smile began to reveal the plot behind his explanations. "She's sterile, she cannot give birth. Yet, no one has to know about this and, if no one knows, we won't raise any suspicions."

"A green card marriage…" the Nomad whispered, contemplating the entirety of the proposal.

"If you marry her, you'd be eligible for enforcing," Dexitis said as he ran off quickly, getting lost behind his bedroom door. He emerged from his chamber a few moments later, a book resting against his hands. When he opened it, the Nomad saw a stencil-like stamp of a face that seemed familiar.

"This is the great Osh-Tekk warrior that will rule Outworld one day – and when that happens, you and I will be there by his side," the Nomad stared at the image with eyes full of reflection; he had seen that face before, back in Earthrealm at first and then, many years prior to the incident in Chile, during the time when the Nomad had served the former Kahn as a liaison of sorts between realms, smuggling weaponry and acting as an information broker. But now the man had changed - he was different, already embellished by the distinctive charms of imminent power. "If you marry Zar you will get close to Mileena; you and I – we can tear apart her rule from the inside. Then he will come; his rule will set us all free. You will have a job again; a proper employer. Purpose, my friend - the very thing that has always defined you, the very thing that you've been lacking ever since I found you."

"But I… I don't love her," the Nomad mumbled – he had only considered marriage once, love had indeed played such a big part back then, many lifetimes ago, and it hadn't ended well. "And I'm sure as hell she won't like the idea either."

"She'll understand. What you have to understand is that this is a permanent decision: you will be a naturalized Outworlder. That means you'll have rights but annulment is not going to be one of them. A small sacrifice is all that's separating you from everything you've ever wanted."

The Nomad stood in complete silence for a moment; many concepts and ideas were running wildly through his numbed mind yet the proposal somehow began to seem reasonable enough: not only for their political plans but also, as a way for him to give something back to the family that had sheltered him. Even Zarrabayeusse would benefit from their union: it would be a loveless marriage indeed, but at least she would be safe from words such as 'pariah' or 'incomplete'. A small sacrifice… He shook the blacksmith's hand, determination started to show as the Nomad embraced his fate.

"Deal."

Zarrabayeusse complained about the arrangement for as long as she could but the woman gave in eventually; her personal predicament becoming reason enough for the woman to accept whatever shards of a proper life they were willing to throw her way. They got married in a small ceremony with the blacksmith and his wife as the only witnesses. Then they went back to the house, the wedding had only been an errand they had been forced to run. They put the certificate of marriage inside one of the books displayed on the many shelves of the blacksmith's personal library and went on with their lives as if nothing had changed.

Still, in the dead of night, the woman would whisper: "he's a bird of prey."

It took him four years, but one day it was finally time for the Nomad to meet Mileena.

Four years of plotting and perfecting the plan were about to meet the exultant path of conclusion.

There she was, standing right in front of him, her suspicious grin welcoming the treacherous Nomad. Tanya was also there, motionless by his side – it was her cadence the one that eventually ventured the room and introduced the man. The Nomad shook the ruler's hand and he explained that he had crossed paths with a traitor, a political activist seeking rebellion: a blacksmith known as Dexitis the Instigator. Infuriated, Mileena ordered her enforcers to capture the blacksmith – the group was guided by the Nomad himself, claiming to know the exact location where they could find Dexitis. But when they arrived at the place the only welcome they received were axes, torches and nearly medieval weaponry slaughtering Mileena's lines. They had been ambushed; the Nomad was responsible for such obscure maneuver. That was the first crack in the Kahnum's structure: a rule that was soon to be erased by oblivion and by the firm hand of a new leader. The news of such a triumphant attack quickly reached the Osh-Tekk's ears; the future emperor summoned both the Nomad and the blacksmith longing to meet the ones behind such Machiavellian move.

Truth was, Tanya had revealed so many secrets by then that the Nomad, facing a more-than-suitable employer, understood that it was time for the mercenary to finally take over. Leverage, he had learned long ago, was more valuable than any currency – especially when his pockets were empty.

"How do I know you won't betray me, just like you betrayed Mileena?" The Osh-Tekk asked, amused yet cautious.

"You don't," the blacksmith took the lead, "but I can assure, my Lord: everything we've done, we've done it for you."

Empowered, and determined by purpose, the Nomad remained by the Osh-Tekk's side. His wait eventually proved useful: the war was finally over; his employer was now the Kahn of Outworld. Now a naturalized official enforcer by Royal Decree, the Nomad moved to the Palace, taking the blacksmith with him. Their lives had changed; the progress they had been waiting for was finally there, within their reach – his life was resuming its natural course, his wife and his empty marriage were completely useless now - even if he was still chained to her by a forgotten piece of paper, he was free again to finally be the man he had always been.

The blacksmith and the renewed Nomad worked together, side by side, for four more years until fate decided it was time for the devil to show his tail. His longevity was about to teach him an important lesson: history always repeats itself.

He had been patrolling the city all morning, his legs wandering those dusty streets pursuing a missing destination – the blacksmith's house, only a few steps away from his tired feet, seemed as evocative as it looked tempting. He knocked on the door only to find L'am waiting on the other side. The Nomad walked in, cautious yet clouded by a mystified feeling he couldn't quite place.

He knew the blacksmith was at the Palace.

"The boy? Your sister?" He asked her, even then he would never refer to Zar as his own wife.

"Gone shopping."

Sure, he realized, their lifestyle had changed now that they were being paid good money by the generous emperor. There were plenty of luxuries they were able to afford; capricious and whimsical as the very concept of economy.

They hadn't been alone in a very long time – before the boy; before the doubt. But now the doubt was gone: Aalem looked more and more like the blacksmith as years went by. The fire, the hunger - ethereal elements colliding against the sacred barriers they were willing to cross. They knew they weren't supposed to; he was a married man now and she had become a mother. He was family now, he belonged with her twin sister even if that marriage was nothing but an empty pantomime.

Maybe it was because the very root that should have grown under the solid foundation of the term family had been crooked inside of him: his original family, a conglomerate of fake bonds and unclear bindings. Loyalties intertwined with deeper, richer feelings that had nothing to do with the reciprocal notion of sharing the same bloodlines.

Flesh of their flesh, sin of their sins.

Jessica was his aunt, or so they said – yet it never mattered in the slightest, it had never been reason enough to stop them.

L'ampaghna was his sister in law. What difference did it make, really?

As they embraced desire the devilish tail of temptation brushed softly against their skins. The blacksmith stood immobile a few steps away from them, his incredulous eyes were unable to look away. He grabbed the Nomad by the hair and tossed him away from his wife as if he was an object; an undesirable, repulsive object that had ruined his life. As his body landed against a wall, the Nomad witnessed his troubled friend – his trembling hand was airborne, the uncontainable spasms of his fury directing his digits downwards. He slapped his own wife in the face as his mouth began vociferating all kinds of insults and the woman cried out as her eyes got filled with tears. She tried to cover her naked body with her arms, but his grip was too strong. Soon his hand became a fist, the cascade of punches emanated from his arm like a possessed, deranged element of torture wielded by a blinded executioner.

Déjà vu.

The memory of his last day with Jessica quickly began to torment the Nomad. He had already lived through that moment and now he was being forced to relive that exact same instant - only now he had to choose. Way back then he had been nothing but a frightened boy, now he was a grown-up man, a very capable, determined man. With his back still pressed hard against the wall, the Nomad made up his mind: he would never be that frightened child again.

He moved quickly, grabbed one of his guns from their holsters and shot his best friend. The bullet hit him right between the eyes, exiting his skull in only a fraction of a second. The Nomad then rushed his way towards the horrified woman: he tried to hold her, to cover her with his own clothes – yet she was already gone; a part of her already damaged, already broken beyond repair.

"He's a bird of prey," Zar had warned them.

They made a pact: no one was ever going to know the truth behind Dexitis' sudden demise.

The Nomad went back to the Palace and tried his best to go on with his life but the guilt brewing inside of him was nearly unbearable. Driven by torment, he started to walk the stormy road of grief, visiting the broken family every now and then, trying to make sure they were alright. The boy was just a boy back then – yet the mother, the treacherous L'ampaghna, was headed towards the dancing flames of her own sin.

It took her only a few months, she stood on the chair – the rope brushing against her slender neck.

The Nomad and his phantasmagorical wife took care of the boy - he even found himself dividing his time between the Palace and the house. They became an ensemble family, but they were a family nonetheless. Yet, in the back of his mind, he would die inside each time the boy would call him uncle Erron.

It took time but, in the end, he had successfully indoctrinated the kid, nearly forcing him to call him Mr. Black instead.

Mr. Black, he would say, the cold command contaminating the boy's elocution to finally reverberate like a mechanical response forever detached of all feelings yet intrinsically speaking of an indissoluble bond.

The united family charade was brief though; it lasted for less than two years. Trapped, and feeling like a caged animal subjugated by the discord carried by mundanity and the turmoil of having succumbed to the unwanted endeavors of a domesticated spirit, the Nomad understood it was time for things to go back to normal.

He took the boy with him and went back to the Palace: the mercenary taking over, once more, corroded by the renewed call of greed and power. She pleaded, on her knees: she wanted the boy, she saw no reason for the cold-hearted Nomad to take him away from her. She was the only real relative left for the boy to hold on to, she argued – yet her words could never melt the ice wall the Nomad had built up. He was a bird of prey and he had taken it all away from her, he had stolen everyone that she had once held dear, he had corrupted them; he had poisoned them all with his unruly, devilish ways.

"Take me with you," the woman cried out yet deep inside she already knew the answer. He had never included her in his plans before, why start now? Afraid of what they all might say about him, a man who had censured his own manhood by marrying a sterile woman while following the wild songs of greed and power. The dishonor. The graceless truth of an unscrupulous soul.

He left her behind with no regrets in the calm horizon of certainty, only it was too late: the colors she had seen had been way too rich, just way too powerful to be ignored. She was already in love with the bird of prey.

The boy stayed with him for thirteen years; the memory of his aunt fading in the wind with each passing day. Until one morning, the Nomad realized that growing up inside the secluded walls of the Palace was not meant for a gentle soul like Aalem's. All he did, in the retrospective image of his own failure, was to set him free from one crystal box just to put him in yet another one: a smaller, more isolated one - his cabin. Feeling guilty for pushing the boy away, the Nomad even gave him a false purpose, making him believe in a fairy tale made by smoke and mirrors. The boy - the true, silent victim of all the Nomad's mistakes was the only one paying the price: the illusion had backfired; the cabin's walls, closing in on him, had murdered his young spirit.

"How long has it been, Erron?"

"Since what exactly? Since we met or since we last saw each other?" The mercenary asked patiently as he turned to his side to look her in the eye. Those emerald eyes of hers were powerful magnets, forcing him to stare indefinitely into their quiet depths.

"Since you ruined my sister's marriage by killing her husband," Zarrabayeusse stated with remarkable simplicity and indifference.

"You sister was already dead," the cowboy challenged her.

"Was she now?"

"Thirty-five years, Zar. It's been thirty-five years." Black confessed.

Alone in his cell, the Nomad relived their unexpected encounter with bitter eyes about to rain: it had been thirty-five years indeed, but not since he had killed the blacksmith. It had been thirty-five years since Dexitis had found him. He knew, there was not a single trace of doubt inside his mind: that first day he had already ruined their lives, corrupting them slowly with his venomous existence.

He turned around in his cold cot, praying for sleep to come. Yet, forbidden, her lulling voice kept brushing his ears, summoning the unwanted hurricane of sudden introspection.

"Is she truly dead?"

He flinched, the memory too painful to go on.

"Tell me he didn't die in that cabin."

There were things he could never tell her now – many terrifying truths he was not willing to expose her to. He knew she wasn't ready. She would never be ready. Even after every single atrocity that he had done to her, she was persistent: she had become the only constant in his life. He had always taken her for granted yet there she was, merging her bones in the indissoluble substance of time; eternal and irreproachable. No, he could never tell her the truth about the boy – the truth was his personal punishment, a monster he couldn't even bring himself to face.

Being with her and being without her had become equally torturing situations.

The soulless Nomad covered his face with his calloused hands. The darkness; the uncertain cover of night trying to suffocate the true nature of his essence.

She had been right - every single time those words had propelled from her mind she had been right.

He was a bird of prey. And he had left them all behind. All of them.

But her.