Götteril, 30 years ago

    'What is it that you most desire?' Vargin twirled a lock of her pitch hair in a thin finger, her hypnotising eyes trained on Huiden.

    He fell deeper into the depths of them and his smile widened. The curtain of his blonde hair fell forward as he leaned in to her. 'You know what I desire most.'

    The whisper sent goose bumps along her neck and back. Indeed, she did know what he most desired, and it worked for her purposes. They lay close to each other in a hovel, a dark spot found on the one side of the lake of gathering, where the ground suddenly dropped and their forms and plans could be hidden from the Fathers ever scrutinous eyes. The darkness felt warm and safe, and at the same time it felt risky and exciting. She wore her most revealing black dress, and her pale legs gleamed like pillars of lust in the darkness.

    'You know what I mean beloved; what is it you desire on Erdil.'

    Huiden licked his lips, his eager eyes travelled up and down her body, and he rested his hand on her side. 'I want to kill a man and have his blood stain my hands.'

    Vargin sneered and her eyes gleamed. 'How delightful.'

    'And I desire to fight. In a war, where lives balance on the edge of a bloody blade.'

    'Delicious,' she said.

    'I desire also to taste the ocean's waters, to gaze on the mountains and feel the snow on my face.'

    Vargin's smile fell. What a fool this one was. 'Would you like to know what I desire...' With her dark fingernail, she drew a slow line down his cheek. 'Brother?' Huiden's mouth drew close to hers, parted with desire, panting with yearning. 'Yesss.'

    She held his chin in her one hand. 'The marked one.' A smile played at the corners of her mouth, and a laugh built in her throat. Huiden's eyes were confused, and she watched him war with the possibilities of what she truly meant with a knoll of satisfaction deep inside her.

    'Ahh.' He forced a laugh from his chest that sounded flat and dry. 'You mean to meet him, kill him, taste his blood.'

    A sinister twinkling in her eye was all that gave her away. 'Oh, yes. To meet him and know him.'

    'Where are the others?' Huiden looked around, removed his hand from her waist, and would not meet her eyes.

    'They will be here. I know they are as eager as we are.'

    They stood, and Vargin pulled a crimson hood over her dark head. Did she look as breath taking as she felt? Huiden's star-struck eyes seemed to indicate so. A smug smile spread over her face. She was the most lovely and the most powerful of the Immortals.

    Soon Celissa and Gorst joined them, and Jarbin entered the shadows last, skulking behind the rest with that ridiculous lopsided grin he always wore. Jarbin unsettled her with that crooked face and those conniving eyes.

    'I'm so excited!' Celissa squealed and hopped about the hovel with her fists clenched.

    'We all are,' Vargin said.

    'I want to see the naked starred sky stretched over the desert.' Celissa swept her hand through the air. 'And I want to taste the food the mortals eat, and sit with them around a fire while they share stories.'

    Gorst folded his arms. 'I'll de damned if I'm going anywhere near as boring as that.'

    'You'll be damned if the fathers find us, that's sure.' Vargin swept the cape of her hooded coat away and revealed just enough leg skin to steal the attention back to herself.

    'Come, my friends, let us get to the matter that brought us here.'

    All eyes turned to her and each Immortal seated themselves as best they could.

    'As you all know, we have a limited time and opportunity to escape this darned hell hole.'

    She gestured to Huiden. 'Thanks to this dear brother, without whom this whole endeavour would be impossible.'

    Huiden stood half way out of his seated position, and the Immortals gave a timid applause. Awkwardly, he lifted a hand and his mouth twitched before his blonde curtain of hair hid it.

    'Does everyone remember the plan?'

    Everyone except Jarbin nodded; he looked at Vargin with a twinkle in his eye and the corners of his mouth lifted in a cheeky half smile. He was so contrary, and his arrogance grated at her. Vargin bit her lip.

    'When Huiden is taken up, I will stand at the lake of gathering and send up a signal using The Way.'

    'Yes, we know Vargin.' Gorst smirked. 'And we should meet here when we see it.'

    How many times she'd wished to murder this particular Immortal. If only it'd been possible. She grated her teeth together. 'Thank you, Gorst.' The name she growled, and for a second her calm demeanour fell away. Stop it, she chided herself. She had to keep control; these Immortals adored her, and if they knew what she planned, none would cooperate. This day was so much more than a rebellion against the Fathers, it was her coming into the power she deserved, a day all would remember or fear.

    'And then we call on the Mage, the keeper of the book, who will open a tunnel to Erdil while the Fathers are preoccupied.'

    Gorst nodded and she arched her one eyebrow at him.

    'We've spoken to him,' he said, 'all is ready.'

    'Eeep!' Celissa squealed. 'I can't wait!' With her hands clasped just below her chin and a naïve smile on her face, she peeked at Gorst who sat beside her. Pathetic.

    'Yes, yes,' Vargin said rolling her eyes, her voice dripping with apathy. 'We know, Celissa.'

    'So why are we here?' Gorst asked, folding his arms and leaning back against the gravelly walls.

    Fathers, Gorst was exhausting. Vargin glared at him with half lidded eyes. 'We gather each day you know that.'

    'I don't see the point,' Gorst said and folded his arms whilst leaning back against the hovel's dirty rise.

    'Yeah,' Celissa nodded and giggled. 'Me too. Her hands she clasped before her, swaying and peeking at Gorst. Oh, Fathers, she was so obvious and gullible. Vargin pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

    'Okay,' she breathed through clenched teeth, 'What do you suggest.'

    'We could wait for your signal,' Jarbin said. Oh, so now he spoke up. And isn't that what she'd already said? Damned fool.

    'Yes,' Vargin said with as sweet a voice as she could muster, 'Didn't I say that already?'

    Celissa and Gorst started to say something simultaneously, but Vargin held up her hand. 'My friends, this is the last day. We have no other gatherings. This is our last time in the hovel. The Fathers are accustomed to us being out of sight for hours each day because of our previous gatherings here, and today we break into Erdil.'

    Ahh, yes it was easy speaking to them as children. They were so naïve and helpless; so in need of leadership and guidance. What a pity to place power into these fools' hands, but no matter. She was here to help, she would lead them and make use of their skills. She would show them all that was possible, and they will worship her forever for it.

    'Come now, let us be patient. At any moment the Fathers will call Huiden up, and then our lives will never be the same!' Vargin threw her hands in the air with a great smile.

    The Immortals nodded and mumbled to each other. Well, except for Jarbin. He was leering in the background. Bloody idiot. But it didn't matter—him she would kill first, if it was really possible on Erdil.

    The dark hovel was not sinister but wonderful. A celebratory atmosphere filled it along with happy murmurs, sickening sweet smiles, and Celissa's damned batting eyelashes. Perfect, everything was in place. The knoll of satisfaction in Vargin's stomach grew and consumed her with an ecstasy she had never before felt.

    In her mind images of Casamir's naked body twined with hers flitted. Sweat covered limbs roiling and grinding. Panting and moaning, blood and blackest ink mixing with their heaving chests and parted lips. Fathers, it took her breath away. It wasn't just a sexual lust, though she tingled with that too. The power, that lust for control of him, it satiated every part of her, drove her near mad. Fathers, the things they would do together, the power she would wield with his abilities.

    Was it getting hotter? She fanned herself with one hand and made sure none of the others noticed, but Huiden's eyes were on her, and colder than before. Did he suspect? Oh, he was nothing, could do nothing. The plan would work, and soon Huiden would be gone anyway.

    She smiled at him and continued to fan herself, hoping her eyes dripped with enough lust to fool him into believing in their romance. Suddenly Huiden's chin jerked up, and his eyes went milk white. Without a wasted moment, he ran out of the hovel. Their time had come!

    'Everyone, Everyone!' she said. The excitement she couldn't mask and it filled her voice. 'It's time. Gorst, come on, open your window, call on the keeper of the book.'

    All eyes turned to Gorst and he moved his hands in The Way to open a window. His technique was off, and his power much less than herself, Vargin noted with a one-sided sneer. The cloudy wisps floated up from his swivelling and intertwining hands and they floated together into the shape of a round window, to Erdil.

    At first she only saw mists, but soon they cleared and a dusty, dry mountainous area came into view. Chewing on her nail, she tried to figure out where it was. Somewhere in the North she guessed, because of the cold wind—maybe close to Windburg? Through the window they swivelled around rock formations with spurts of wisps plants straining out of cracks, down huge, gulfing cracks that could swallow a farm, and finally through dark caves where the slow dripping of pure water was the only echoing noise.

    At last the movement slowed, and a sunlit dusty brown room of some sort came into view. It was a hole in the ground, or some sort of chiselled out hovel beyond the caves. Sunlight bled into it from high up and barely any shadow could be seen. In one corner a figure was bent over a cooking pot, humming and stirring. In the most direct beam of light lay the book, the one the Immortals could not read. A flicker of anger bloomed in her chest. Why did the humans get so much more favour from the Fathers? Why were the Immortals so scorned from their love, so trapped and tortured? Today it would change, she would fix it all.

    'Mage,' Gorst called, 'the time has come to repay your debt.'

© Joy Cronjé 2015