As a child I watched my Father consumed by the Black Sands.
It was the first time I heard a man scream himself to silence. How even now I cannot begin to describe my awe that you could hear the moment vocal chords give out. That there was pain that couldn't ever be voiced.
Perhaps that's why I had such a curiosity for grief and its power is to make a man walk out into the sands.
But there was no time to dwell on curiosities as chains came not long after.
No orphan of the desert stays free long, we are enslaved to the sun, to thirst, our cage the miles of endless dunes. At least the whip wasn’t metaphorical and thankfully it grows dull and boring after enough time. Unfortunately when that happens there is a stubbornness that takes root in a young slave. He learns not to cower beneath his master's strikes. No longer fears the bite of the Jackals that encircle him. He grows to hate their laughter and their mockery as they yip, and bite, strip the flesh from him; feast on him with human teeth wide and salivating.
The saving grace of the desert, and all those who dwell within is that they waste nothing. She is a place of survival, of trade. A place where even a pile of camel shit would fuel a fire and keep you warm from her bitter cruel night. A gem for a cooked rat. Your son for a cure to the cobra venom in your veins.
It is how it is, how it's always been.
A rabid slave then? An easy trade.
A few coins and grope from a concubine and I was sold to violence. The reward of the insolent and unyielding. A crucible of the spirit violence is. It can make men into giants; myths. Or it can undo them. Few have the taste for it even as many claim they desire a seat at the table.
So every night for a year I fought in that pit. Was roused each evening by the cacophony of vultures fighting over the bones, bidding and bartering death. All types came to bet on the mortal contest, rich and poor alike. It was like prayer to them, wealth laid before fate each certain the oracle would favor them in the spilled entrails of the defeated. So it was I that scryed the destiny of spectators with my blade but cared none for answers.
That was my life in Shiman-Sekh, the city of desire. I was sure I was to die there in that pit, but I too was desired. I suspected at the time it was my wry amusement of my impenitent sinners who came to pray to me, that intrigued my Master. Yet in these past few years I like to tell myself he saw a kinship with me. That he recognized something inside me he himself possessed that made him so hungry for the secrets of the mortal and magical.
So now when I look back upon that shambling caravan that finally freed me from that hell of sun and sand that stumbled through the desert and out into the world it is with fondness. How he spoke to me on the expeditions to lands new and strange. How he told me of all he knew and unburdened me from my unanswered questions from the day the black sands took the last joy away from me. That with the right secrets and desires you can’t have anything taken from you again.
Of course it is unwise to teach a creature that has solved his curiosity of grief the gospels of gluttony my dear reader because the only thing that keeps us from edaciousness is remorse.
Thus it is the saying of my adopted people I left in dear Shiman-Sekh.
“Invite a cannibal to dinner and he’ll eat more than just desserts.”
It was the first time I heard a man scream himself to silence. How even now I cannot begin to describe my awe that you could hear the moment vocal chords give out. That there was pain that couldn't ever be voiced.
Perhaps that's why I had such a curiosity for grief and its power is to make a man walk out into the sands.
But there was no time to dwell on curiosities as chains came not long after.
No orphan of the desert stays free long, we are enslaved to the sun, to thirst, our cage the miles of endless dunes. At least the whip wasn’t metaphorical and thankfully it grows dull and boring after enough time. Unfortunately when that happens there is a stubbornness that takes root in a young slave. He learns not to cower beneath his master's strikes. No longer fears the bite of the Jackals that encircle him. He grows to hate their laughter and their mockery as they yip, and bite, strip the flesh from him; feast on him with human teeth wide and salivating.
The saving grace of the desert, and all those who dwell within is that they waste nothing. She is a place of survival, of trade. A place where even a pile of camel shit would fuel a fire and keep you warm from her bitter cruel night. A gem for a cooked rat. Your son for a cure to the cobra venom in your veins.
It is how it is, how it's always been.
A rabid slave then? An easy trade.
A few coins and grope from a concubine and I was sold to violence. The reward of the insolent and unyielding. A crucible of the spirit violence is. It can make men into giants; myths. Or it can undo them. Few have the taste for it even as many claim they desire a seat at the table.
So every night for a year I fought in that pit. Was roused each evening by the cacophony of vultures fighting over the bones, bidding and bartering death. All types came to bet on the mortal contest, rich and poor alike. It was like prayer to them, wealth laid before fate each certain the oracle would favor them in the spilled entrails of the defeated. So it was I that scryed the destiny of spectators with my blade but cared none for answers.
That was my life in Shiman-Sekh, the city of desire. I was sure I was to die there in that pit, but I too was desired. I suspected at the time it was my wry amusement of my impenitent sinners who came to pray to me, that intrigued my Master. Yet in these past few years I like to tell myself he saw a kinship with me. That he recognized something inside me he himself possessed that made him so hungry for the secrets of the mortal and magical.
So now when I look back upon that shambling caravan that finally freed me from that hell of sun and sand that stumbled through the desert and out into the world it is with fondness. How he spoke to me on the expeditions to lands new and strange. How he told me of all he knew and unburdened me from my unanswered questions from the day the black sands took the last joy away from me. That with the right secrets and desires you can’t have anything taken from you again.
Of course it is unwise to teach a creature that has solved his curiosity of grief the gospels of gluttony my dear reader because the only thing that keeps us from edaciousness is remorse.
Thus it is the saying of my adopted people I left in dear Shiman-Sekh.
“Invite a cannibal to dinner and he’ll eat more than just desserts.”
