Chapter Six

"My lord?"

He was silhouetted against the new light from the sun, his back to the darkness of the forest, where the one who had called him was still standing. He stood still, letting the breeze wash across his face, purging the night's oppressiveness and inextricable dominion, ignoring the searcher whose voice he knew well. He flicked his eyes down to his feet, travelling a mere few steps to the empty chasm beyond, and, even further than that, the roar of the sea.

The sea… he'd always been intrigued with it, before… but now it was his companion, someone whom he could talk to, could rage at, and who would understand, could comprehend the pain, the rage that sprung from the very depths of his soul, answering when he needed it in the form of the crashing of the waves or the piercing call of the seabirds, staying calm and passive at other times, listening.

"…My lord?"

He sighed, deciding to finally acknowledge him. "What is it, Wipu?"

The significantly smaller figure stepped from the trees, stark naked except for his ceremonial body paint, as opposed to the much taller and fully robed man he had been searching out. He stood beside the other man on the cliff, starting out at the sea in silence, until, "This is the fourth time this week, Senatu."

"I am aware of that."

"Usually the Sea does not call to you so fiercely… what is wrong?"

"That is what I am trying to figure out, Wipu." He paused, bringing a skeleton finger to his equally skeleton face thoughtfully. "Tell me something, oh priest of mine… what did you feel when you knew that Laon would die?"

He did not have to be looking at his companion to know that his face darkened. "That is not the most favored of subjects to be speaking of, my lord. You know the spirits are angered when you speak and have no reverence."

"I realize that. But I never said I would be irreverent; how could I be? He served me well in life."

Wipu gave him a thin smile before regaining his stoic composure, as was proper for him as a priest and consequent go-between between the world of mortals and the world of spirits, to wear at all times. He couldn't help but let his guard down around this much taller, much more interesting being; aside from being his servant, Wipu also envisioned himself as the other's closest friend and advisor, a view not discouraged once in the ten yearly cycles they had known each other.

"Well, I suppose that is permissible, Senatu, considering the circumstances." He paused, gathering his thoughts, his face scrunching up slightly as it always did when he was sorting things out, or in the few moments just before gaining pure meditation. "A sense of foreboding," he said flatly, dark eyes fixed straight ahead, devouring the waves and the comingled blue of sky and sea. "A sense of gain, yet loss… Everything felt rather stagnant, helpless, yet I had to put on a face for the people, denying myself the truth…"

His companion nodded. "Exactly."

"How long have you been feeling this way, Senatu?" said Wipu quietly.

The other did not answer.

"Senatu? My lord?"

Still no response.

Wipu looked around him furtively, his sharp eyes picking through the shadows behind the pair of them, ascertaining to himself that they were truly alone. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, using a name that only left his lips when shock factor was needed: "Erik?"

The syllables had barely left Wipu's lips when the other man whipped his ghastly head around to look at him, his eyes burning. "I have told you not use that name, Wipualo," he hissed.

"Indeed you have, my lord," replied the other man nonchalantly, barely flinching in the wake of the other's impending wrath. "You were not responding."

"Must you wound me so deeply?" he murmured, staring out at the sea again. "You know how much pain that name is associated with. Erik is dead; Senatu lives in his place."

"That is impossible," scoffed Wipu; he loved these sorts of conversations with his master above all others, though the potential for violent emotions ran high, which, he supposed must be part of the allure. "A man cannot partition himself into separate entities; he is whole, comprised of several at the same time… or he is nothing at all, just a mere shadow."

"But I am not a man."

Wipu sighed; he had heard this argument before. "You are a man, my lord. You intercede for the common people with the deities, just as I intercede between the people and you, the intercessor. The relationships are endless, a cycle, and all men are intertwined with each other. You are a man—divinely ordained, yes, but still a man."

"I'll prove you wrong one of these days, Wipu. You are far too logical for your own good, I fear it ruins you."

Wipu chuckled. "Because I am better at it than you, do you mean?"

"If you weren't my high priest, I'd have you killed," he replied.

He laughed outright this time. "I highly doubt that, my lord. You have a good heart, despite your fearsome exterior."

"How do you even know I have a heart, hmm?" He was more amused than anything else by this point, his formidable temper cooled for the moment.

"Because, my lord, I have heard its drum beat from within you. And all men have hearts; for without one, they have no means of connecting with the rest of the world, sentenced to eternal unrest in the land of spirits. And you are indeed a man, my lord, and I shall prove it," he continued when he saw his companion open his mouth to rebut. "For example: is not the reason you have sanctioned this hunt nothing but lust for the woman?"

His marvelous, deep-set, miraculously golden eyes burned again, and he became fiercer than ever, the fullest extent of his rage held at bay by only a paper-thin sheath of self-control and an affinity for the offender. "No," he replied through clenched teeth. In all actuality, though, his body burned for her, for the woman he had seen near the military compound the night before, the reason for his increased confliction and torment that had led him again to this very spot; never before had he ever seen a creature more beautiful, never before had he wanted another human so fiercely. He could not explain it.

Wipu smirked, his dark eyes now scrutinizing the visible changes in his master, the way his eyes grew distant… and, much more noticeable, the sudden prominence of his malehood outlined against his dark raiment, among other things. "Your body is betraying you," he remarked, trying to keep a straight face and failing.

He clenched his hands into fists. "Goddammit," he growled in his native language, as there was no equivalent in the language of his adopted people. Wipu, however, was by now well enough acquainted with this word to know that his master was not in the best of spirits.

"You know that any woman in the village would gladly have you," said Wipu quietly, broaching the subject as delicately as he could, not quite comprehending of his master's aversion to coupling, which he had observed over the years. "They would consider it the highest of honors."

"I couldn't bring myself to do that, as I have told you time and time again," the skeletal man replied, and he slumped a little, depressed.

"I just don't understand—"

"Never mind, I don't want to talk about it anymore." And that was that.

Wipualo sighed. "Very well."

"I don't believe you ever told me for what reason you had come looking for me."

"A matter not of immediate importance, though your member seems to think otherwise," he said slyly. The other man scowled, and he continued, "The hunting party needs your blessing to embark."

"Of course…" He glanced once more at the sea before turning around and heading into the forest, Wipu at his side, keeping up every step of the way despite his much shorter legs. "Did they want a bloodletting as well?"

"They might, although I know it makes you nauseous…"

"How considerate of you," came the slightly sarcastic reply, another phenomenon, like swearing, that Wipu had not been exposed to until he began serving his master. "I don't care as long as she's unharmed."

"So this is about her," said Wipu a tad triumphantly.

Again, there was no response.

After they had traversed most of the trail back to the village in silence, Wipu finally asked, "What shall I tell them, my lord?"

"They can do whatever they want to the men," he said quietly, menacingly. "Just bring her back alive and unharmed. She is mine."