SEALS

Chapter 8: A Tale of Tails

Wander had learned to hunt lizards from his father.

He sat atop one of the field-shrines casually tearing into a silver-white lizard-tail with his teeth. The land was spread out before him in hills and valleys. There was a great desert below him with strange stone rings half-buried in the sand. The young man had taken to the hunting of these lizards – mostly found climbing on the shrines – as a way to satisfy what little hunger he experienced. His father had told him about how the flesh of climbing lizards made one's arms and chest strong – an unsupported superstition in his culture, perhaps, but lizard tails were full of protein. The silver-tailed variety here seemed a bit different, somehow. Wander suspected that they carried some of Dormin's material essence, just as the Colossi did.

Eating them was taking away some of his strength as a man to replace it with this essence. Wander did not feel that he was "losing himself" in any measure when he'd taken a tail, but he still found the supernatural strength he gained from the glowing tails suspicious and creepy. He also found it necessary, however, as staying aboard living earthquakes using only one's hands to hang onto stone struts and bristly fur to be quite the challenge.

In addition to that, he'd grown quite curious as to what secrets were to be had in the upper levels of Dormin's Tower itself. Only a few mossy portions of the walls were capable of being gripped, but he'd found enough handholds in the stone to spark his curiosity. He had not nearly the stamina necessary to make it very far as yet, but he was determined to change that, if it was possible. He wanted to see if he could make it to the very top.

Wander ate his catch raw, letting the blood from it drip down his chin. There wasn't much blood in the tail. The hunter did not wish to climb down and make a fire to cook it. He often ate lizard's tails raw… before he'd even met the silver-tailed subspecies. Mono had hated that.

"Ah! Gotcha!"

Wander slid on his belly, grabbing a wriggling black shape with fine, smooth scales that tried to wriggle out of his hands.

"Wander, what in the world are you doing?" yelped a confused Mono as she slid off Agro and ran up to the boy. He'd just jumped of the horse as they were riding through the forest and had run after something. Wander got up off the forest floor holding a twitching black tail victoriously in his right hand.

"What in the world?" Mono repeated.

"I didn't kill it," Wander explained. "It's a black gecko. You can take their tails off and they're fine. The tails grow back after a while."

"What would you want with a lizard's tail?" the young woman asked.

"They're good for improving one's upper body strength," Wander explained. "I always feel pretty refreshed after eating one."

With that, he brought the tail (still wriggling) to his mouth and tore a hunk out of it, which he chewed and swallowed.

Mono was horrified. "You aren't even going to cook it? You're going to get sick! Don't you remember the blood-curse?"

Wander thought about the "blood-curse" as he stood atop the shrine-tower. Lately, he'd been experiencing a blood-curse of a very different kind with the intrusion of the black threads into his body and his spirit every time he felled one of pieces of the living puzzle that inhabited these lands.

The "blood-curse" was the knowledge that certain animals were not to be eaten unless all of their blood had been drained and cooked out of them. To do otherwise was to incur the curse of violent illness, perhaps even of a kind that one would not recover from. Some creatures provided flesh that could be eaten raw, provided it was exceptionally fresh. Fish and creatures that lived in oblong shells were like this. A few people even claimed that the fresh blood of a newly-slaughtered cow provided quite the nutritious meal. Most people, however, even hunters who spent much of their lives in the field and grew ravenous by the time they felled prey, bothered to build cook-fires before partaking of the life of an animal.

Most of the time, the flesh of lizards never bothered him any, even though reptiles were said by others to be particularly prone to giving people the blood-curse. He certainly didn't think the silver-tailed lizards were going to do anything bad to him at all simply because they were Dormin's and Dormin wanted him to finish his task. He could feel that knowledge coursing through his veins.

Lizard-tails had not harmed him… most of the time.

"Wander! Wake up!"

He felt a soft cloth upon his forehead, wiping away sticky sweat. He was aware of two things: The voice of concern that spoke to him belonged to Mono and his stomach ached terribly.

"Whar…where am I?" he asked. He was horizontal, laid out on a bed. It felt like straw beneath a large, shaggy skin. The room he was in was rather dark and stuffy. Pale light came in through a thick-rimmed window. This place was familiar, yet it felt strange to him in his pained state.

"You are in your own chamber." She dipped the cloth she was wiping him with into a bucket of water and rang it out. "You've been in and out of wakefulness for almost two days. I volunteered to watch you. Please don't forget who I am again."

"Maa…Mono."

"Yes, that's right."

"Mo-no… why does it stink in here?"

"You have been throwing up a lot. And a few other things, unfortunately. We tried to collect it in buckets and clean it all up, but… sometimes, when someone is as sick as you are, they start smelling of sick themselves. Here…"

Mono put a little bowl of water to Wander's lips and he sipped it. "Wha-happened?"

"Lord Emon came. He thinks you incurred a blood-curse from the lizard you ate the other day and that it is a very bad one. I paid one of the minor priests to issue a prayer for you. The only thing anyone can do is to watch over you and make you drink water. The priests say that you may join the spirits."

Mono wept and gripped one of his hands.

"Mono."

Wander stared down through the bars on the window high up in the circular arena.

"Well, I'll be…" he muttered to himself as he looked down to the center ground-floor. He beheld a Colossal lizard. It looked just like the creatures he'd made sport of hunting down to increase his strength. It did not seem to have a tail, however. Its tail was blunted and looked fin-like. Colored light oozed from beneath the thick scales of its heavily armored back.

The beast was dressed like a knight in his glory. It was also completely unaware of his presence. How long had this "tail" been trapped within this "pail?" Had it been shambling about for a millennium seeking a way out that it was unable to find? Such a fate would be a tragic thing, even for something as simple-minded as a lizard. The other Colossi had been of the earth, or otherwise a part of their temples and landscapes. It was a human presence in their proximity that had brought them to wakefulness.

Wander wondered about this arena. In his city, there was one reasonably like it. Warriors sometimes fought each other there for the joy of the common crowds. There were rarely any fatalities or permanently crippling injuries among the city's own men because his city needed as many young fighters ready to defend it and to go off to war as could be spared. Restraint was practiced in the games. Captive warriors from other lands, however, did not fare so well. A foreigner who fought well enough to win his freedom was taken outside of the city's gate, deprived of even the most basic of weapons and told to walk out into the wilderness. Honored with "freedom," they were unlikely to survive long enough to reach their own lands. Those that did not fight so well… they were considered blood-sacrifices to the gods. Wander remembered, with a wince, the few blood-sacrifices from among his own people that were taken to the arena for public display.

Mono had been the subject of a private, temple-sacrifice. The memory of the arena still stung him, however, especially since his attitude toward certain "necessities" of society had changed pretty drastically recently.

At the same time, non-human sacrifice didn't bother him. He knocked back an arrow and with his skillful aim, attracted the attention of a great shadow that crawls upon walls. He immediately regretted it, too, as the beast proved itself to be a kind of dragon-salamander, shooting charged clouds of poisonous vapor his way. Wander choked as he ran blindly to get away from it, desperate for fresh air. He could feel the gas burning his lungs, turning the breath inside them into acrid liquid.

He couldn't drop and let consciousness slip from him. Mono was not here to care for him and to wake him up. It was his job now to wake her up.

The glowing upon the salamander's legs gave away its weakness. After many tries and much awkward running, Wanders arrows found their mark. He was surprised he didn't hear the bones of his ankles break as he leapt down to deal with the prone Colossus. Then again, he was certain that he'd gained certain strengths between transfusions of black blood and dinners of unnatural tails.

He thanked all powers for soft bellies on lizards. He didn't much care that his prey hadn't meant him any harm until he'd invaded its space. As he stabbed down through one of two seals he saw on the beast's underside, the hunter noticed that the thrust of his sword had become crueler. It did not matter. His strokes were mean, but quick. Anything to get the job done. A promise of freedom beckoned to his blood. His skin was growing gray.

Wander had to roll out from beneath the giant lizard and make a run for it up the steps of the area as it breathed more misty death toward him. He almost fell and he could have sworn for a moment that he saw Mono's face smiling at him as she reached out her hand toward his.

He took the stairs two-at-a-time as he jumped through ancient outlets and inlets where crowds had once gathered to watch glorious feats and the shedding of blood. The little gladiator's arrows found their marks again and the giant once again flailed upon its back. It only took a few more cruel strokes before the clouds of poison vanished along with the memory of being cursed by food and cared for by a patient lover.

Was it over?

She rose from the altar, confused and lovely. She smiled at him, not worried that he was beaten and exhausted in an already rotting body.

She was alive.

She was happy - so happy.

The golden dream was ripped away from him as the wind whistled through the stone hall and another idol shattered. He pleaded desperately to stay within the dream, to see it as reality – the promise fulfilled.

"Mono…"