PM to join Comfortably Numb (Achenar)

[Konrad Venger]

Huh... well I'll be damned.

The dry, pragmatic acceptance of reality wandered across Konrad's mind but didn't quite take place of the other thing. The rarer thing. The thing that, much as he didn't want to admit it, he hadn't felt much since before he'd agreed to Three Eyes' mad scheme and trundled out of Sunberth as a caravan guard, bound for Kenash.

It was such a simple thing. A scrap of wood bobbing in the air. Nothing, really. Such a tiny fragment of a moment... yet there were no hands or strings. None that were of flesh and bone, anyway. The slave got a hold of himself quickly and raised his arm. Ticks stretched out longer than possible and Konrad's blade became antsy in his hand.

Waste of time. Petching liar. Barely got any practice in, too. What a waste of time, and a waste of-

The wood began to move. Trembling, so little that Konrad thought it was the wind. But the wind couldn't lift a hunk like that, couldn't pull it from the sand with a sigh of earth and then it was bobbing in the air and Konrad's jaw slowly lowered.

A slave, with wyrd in his veins. Unbloodybelievable.

The slave put his heart into it, Konrad could tell. He couldn't see his face but he could see that stiff steel in his shoulders, warring with the ravages of the djed threatening over overcome him. The wood went from bobbing to spinning away as if hurled, landing sideways in the sand, sticking out at an odd angle.

Konrad harumphed quietly to himself, the closest he could get to showing admiration without feeling weak and sullied. Then he heard the slave's words, and at the end of them, his wonder, his awe, that shred of unmarred curiosity, had been replaced.

"'Broke your chains?' That's what y'wish, hmm? To escape?" Konrad didn't wait for answer; he just strode over and was right in front of the man again, kopis between them, laying on Achenar's chest and pointing upwards. "I could kill yeh fer that. Right now. Just fer the words. Or I could go to yer master, tell him his petch-toy has djed in his veins." The sellsword tutted, a twisted mockery of sympathetic concern. "Can't imagine that'd be good for you. Any part of you. But I doubt yeh'd be alive long enough to regret it..."

It was like battering a man with his hands tied, or raining blows on a man with his weapon already gone. It was brutal, and merciless, and Konrad was relentless with his words and the picture he was painting. He knew how threats work, how intimidation was to be accomplished. You lowered your victim into the deepest, darkest pit of hopeless shyke you could. You promised a future inescapable and unthinkable... and then, you gave them a way out.

"Or..." He scratched under his chin, glancing at the sea and surf like he'd just noticed them. "I could keep quiet... and you could be me eyes in yer master's house. I ask you things, youse give me answers. Yeh don't seem like a fool; wouldn't be learnin' this shyke if y'were. So y'know what I mean."

Konrad pointed to the slave brand on Achenar's forehead, just a darker patch of shadow in the low light.

"That Radacke owns yeh body..." He tapped Achenar's chest and grinned. "But I own yeh here. Cuz one word from me..."

Again: let their imagination's work out the rest. Konrad waited for his answer and once he had it, some small voice suggested a carrot to the stick. He internally blinked at it and wondered what the hell it was talking about, but he'd been around slaves long enough now to know that whips and threats and lash were not enough for them. Brutality and violence could only go so far. There had to be some benefit to them, too. Some incentive.

"Now..."

He sheathed his blade. That alone was... unusual, for him. But the die had been cast. They both knew how defiance would end for Achenar. So instead Konrad moved on to his original intent. This time, he just happened to have an audience.

"Y'want t'see what I can do?"

Konrad raised his hand and willed a few drams of res up his arm, ethereal veins pumping and sizzling in his body until his palm glowed softly, mist raising from his fingertips like steam. The green-black glow played over his face, quite a nice little light show in which Achenar could see his face, still smiling, but of a different kind.

[Achenar]

The magic thrummed in his veins. It was difficult to prevent himself from wanting to use the astral limb that floated by his side. When he'd first learned Projection from the older woman who'd taken pity on him, it had been a revelation. It was as though, in that moment, he had learned how to truly free himself from the tarnishes of his life. He could escape in an astral body that knew no pain, felt no fear, and could hold so many possibilities. But there were limits, and the young mageling had been quick to learn that.

He'd had days where his arm refused to work properly, or his nerves were pinched for hours. And the more he exerted himself the harder it was to lift an object or command his astral arm. That was why he began to slowly stitch his incorporeal arm back together with his mortal limb. His brows were furrowed, the djed shuddering in his veins as finally, astral and corporeal finally joined once more, leaving traces of numbness in his arm that was difficult to ignore. For now, at least, his djed and soul could rest. The man who'd accosted him was not yet done with him.

The threat in his words was not lost on the ethaefal, the kopis, especially, a reminder that he only lived at the whim of the mercenary. His silver eyes narrowed, but he said not a word as the man continued his spiel. When he trailed off, it was then that he realized just exactly what he wanted.

Another bastard just taking advantage of those smothered in chains. Achenar wanted to curse him, but he also enjoyed having a tongue to speak. Instead he listened to the proposal, though the slave knew blackmail when he heard it.

What does he want with my master? That was the question that was on his lips, but he didn't speak them. When the man tapped his chest and laid down his unheard threat, the ethaefal looked at him with nothing more than derision.

"How does knowledge of my master help you in any way?" The ethaefal questioned. He inhaled after a moment, his hands squeezed into tight fists. "I'll do what you want," he finally said. If it will keep me alive. His pride would have been sundered had he any left. Working for a man like Konrad was a stark difference to working for a man like Zaelsen Radacke.

The viciousness the man had displayed, however, was not what stunned him. It was the glow he emitted in his palms as though he'd summoned a globe of fireflies. The ethaefal openly stared. "How are you doing that?"

[Konrad Venger]

Konrad was hardly a mage, but even he had experienced enough to know that djed was as much of the mind as it was the body. Much like the mind and it's will controlled his limbs when he fought, it controlled the summoning, the flaming, the projection of his res. Concentration was needed. Focus and direction. Things that were dependent on mood, not just a healthy body.

He was surprised to find out how much dark satisfaction could improve his own and, thus, his own wyrd.

The slave submitted, as was the nature of all his kind. He had a rebellious steak wide enough to add to a plantation, his learning of magic was proof enough of that... but he was not strong or ruthless enough to silence a man who learned of his secret. That made him Konrad's pet as much as it did Zaelsen's, but Konrad left the myriad of machinations he ould spin from this information to another day. It was the night, after all, and his horned... associate, had asked him a question.

"The same as you, I'd wager," he said, voice oddly disconnected as the brunt of his will focused on his hands. Before Achenar's eyes his hand rose, facing the heavens, and when it stopped... green mist streaked with cavern-black rose in tendrils, until his eyes narrowed and then meshed together, spinning into... a ball, like an orb of water suspended in the air. "Focus. Thinkin' what you want an' then... willing it."

The last two words were spoken, but in Konrad's mind a third was added: Burn. With it the spinning, greenish ball burst into a tiny Syna above his hand, lighting the sand and sea around them. Revealing a dozen scuttling objects that froze in the sudden glare, over-sized claws raised in challenge before deciding the giant mammals were no real threat. Konrad closed his eyes and let the heat warm him, feed him... and felt no tremor in his arm.

He sheathed the kopis without looking, but when his eyes snapped open, they were looking at Achenar.

Control. Power. Men, djed, yourself... it is all the same.

He breathed in and drew back his hand as if to strike a blow, eyes shifting to the board Achenar had lifted, still jutting out of the dunes at an odd angle. Barely twenty feet away, mayhap a little more... and Konrad knew that was his limit. He would need to let go his control, making sure that until then, it was on target.

Aye, well, best be on with it-

Go!

Before the slave's eyes, the mercenary hurled the miniature fireball and it flew through the air, somewhat slower than one would assume it should. But it flew straight, slowed but still controlled by Konrad until it reached a few arm's lengths-

-then sped up, wobbling, djed seeking its master even as it burned, making Konrad's arm seize and tingle again-

C'mon... c'mon!

CRACK!

Konrad barked out a sound that spoke of victory as much as pain. Sharp and sudden enough to get something running through the treeline behind them in surprise, but he ignored it. The fireball had struck the top of the plank. Clipped it, really, but Konrad was happy enough with the result.

The ball had blown apart like the other one had against the boulder, only now it had dry, flammable kindling to feed on and tiny flames licked their way up and around the edges. Deeper, redder embers were already glowing where it had struck, sending smoke curling into the air.

The sellsword turned to the slave with a smile, face sweating with the effort. Gods, but this parched him, and he learned not to ignore that feeling. Djed was of the body, oh yes, and as it wore the body down, you had to replenish it, and yourself. He unstopped his skin and gulped down a ravenous chug-a-lug of grog, strong and biting all the way down... then offered it to the slave.

The shock would be enough of a reward, but the deeper meaning was not lost to Konrad. He'd seen the same work on Three Eyes, and more recently, on Wikus. Make a man afraid of you, and he could bend him to your will. Make him feel valued, feel like a friend, a brother, an equal, and he would go much further, and of his own accord.

He's trapped, and he knows it. Hardly my damn brother, but... better he stay on my side of the shadows that the Radacke's.

"Where'd y'learn yer wyrd?" He nodded to the brand on the slave's head, hand still holding the proffered wineskin. "Can't imagine the Radacke's petchin' tutored yeh."

[Achenar]

He never thought he'd ever see a cretin such as Konrad be able to cast spells from his hands. The knowledge that a brutal man with a penchant for viciousness was also capable of the mysticism of magic put a tremble down the slave's spine. He was no match, it was as clear as the night sky. He was a slave with no weapon on his person and with only a rudimentary grasp on his own spells, but he was determined to become better just for that one taste of freedom he could only get from leaving his corporeal body.

But as it was, the stunned amazement was evident on his face. He'd never realized there was a magic capable of casting elements before. The fire burst from his hands like a firecracker and it made the slave wince at the sound. He glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the twinkle of lights on the horizon where Kenash slept. Petch, if anyone else wanders down here for a midnight stroll... He could only imagine the punishment he'd receive for being found out here.

The mercenary's smile was met with a glare. "You should probably put that out," he told him, gesturing toward the faint string of smoke. "Lest you'd like us to be found. I rather think you're one to keep your magic to yourself, as much as I." Why else would he come out here? He almost expected another headbutt from the man, but instead the waterskin was thrusted toward him-- right after he had taken a large swig.

"You just smashed my nose in, why are you offering me your water now?," the slave asked incredulously. No longer distracted by the magic or the conversation, his nose was painfully throbbing and a quick swipe made him realize his nose had been trickling blood that entire time. Zaelsen is not going to like this at all. What am I supposed to tell him now? Petch this mercenary.

"I'm not thirsty. Leth sustains me in this form," he told him plainly. In truth, he was parched, but he wasn't so parched that he'd forget his nose, or the man's threats. "I lived for a time outside of Kenash," he continued, at least deigning to answer him. "A woman from Lhavit taught me how to use Projection. When I was caught, I kept it hidden. I much prefer to stay alive, after all."

He sat then, cross legged on the cool sand, listening to the waves crash onto the shore. It was serene here. Too serene, and oddly enough, that unsettled him. "I suspect you want something from me, for keeping my magic a secret." He'd been a spy before, he knew the ins and outs of intelligence and taking advantage of what you had. He was just another pawn in every man's game. "Or perhaps I'm mistaken, and you've suddenly turned friend by offering me your waterskin?" He glanced at him with a crooked smile.

[Konrad Venger]

Still the boy put on a tough front. Nose crooked and drizzling blood, simple shirt still ruffled from mistreatment and soaked with sweat... not to mention being face-to-face with a man who'd ended more lives than he could even remember, but still he shot back with barbs.

Konrad snorted as he jerked upright, leaving the unwanted wineskin on the sand in case the boy grew a brain in the time it took him to wander to the smoking former target and stomp the smoke into nothingness.

A good point is a good point, even if it does come from a slave.

"I've shared a drink with a man I was trying to gut a handful of chimes before," his tone was conversational as wood-immolated-to-charcoal crunched and cracked under his boots. "Wadaya call 'em... circumstances, they changed. It was just business, after all," he continued with the careless shrug of a man for whom Dira's embrace and Krysus' sustenance were but a means to earn coin and lodging. "Wasn't gettin' paid to kill 'im. No point in doin' it. So I didn't. Sat down an' sank a pint, instead."

When the smoke was banished, save for a few broken wisps gasping up into the sky, Konrad started his way back to where Achenar squatted. The whole time he'd kept at least one eye on the slave, right hand twitching and flexing with djed pulsing under it. In case the boy ran, he was ready to hurl pure, concentrated pain at his back. Or if he tried his wyrd.

"Done it the other way, too," he said, voice not changing, but his shadow falling just right across Achenar as he spoke the words. "Bought a man a drink then stuck me blade in his guts before he'd even finished it." A smile. Allegedly. "Prob'ly shoulda' leddim finish at least, aye?"

Konrad sat back down next to the slave and listened when he spoke. So many in his trade didn't do that, he'd noticed. Just shut the petch up and paid attention. They were loud and talked in blood and oaths, but fury had it's place, like all things. But not when it came to cultivating an asset like Achenar. Besides, one look at the man's face told Konrad that any more such physical "cultivation" would be unnecessary. And telling.

Don't need his master asking too many questions.

It was business, after all. But when he heard the slave speak of Leth, he was reminded just what he was. Not a mortal. The horns, well, they could have told him that much, but more than a Dhani or a Eypharian or those spider sods he'd heard about, this was a child of a god. After a fashion. Konrad's curiosity groaned into life and he drank in that odd little detail.

No need to drink? Anything at all? But... ah, no, only in this form. Remember the girl? She changed from night to day, as well.

Konrad listened, or at least appeared to, but in truth, his ears were just grizzled flesh for a moment. Not truly instruments in keen use. He looked up to the stars like an explosion of diamonds, Leth hanging so fat and wide that he could almost see a jolly mouth splitting it open. Or was it a silver coin, the traitor's gift, tossed into the sky in mid-flip, fate of the gesture never to be decided?

Maybe the gods made a bet for the world. When the coin lands, we know who'll win.

The thought ambled through his mind just as Achenar's words did. Instead Konrad's eyes were filled with the past, all the more real for being recent. A girl with spun gold for hair in the day, and straight, pitch curtain at night. Curled horns growing from her skull and caramel skin even darker in the Leth-light. Her father's light. Unbidden his hand caressed the place she'd first touched him, at his shoulder. That shudder of absurd... feeling, that he'd banished long ago.

Or thought he had, for there it was, green and living and pulsing in him, sure as the djed he'd yet to unearth.

"I knew one of your kind, once. Never knew about youse not needing to drink, though."

His lips closed around the first syllable of "She" before he caight himself. Gods... he heard himself, too. Was that really his voice? So distant, so forlorn? Was it the girl he missed, or the feelings her wyrd conjured in him? And he knew, and reminded himself, pounded it into his thick skull again and again, that was what she had done. Used her wyrd, or... mark, whatever she called it.

Wasn't real. None of it. So why do you speak like this?

"Never been to Lhavit," he said after a tick, voice louder, plowing through the words like a man who wanted the old ones forgotten. "Heard it's a strange place." He took a pull from the skin and smacked his lips. Swamp berry wine. Had to be careful with it, apparently. Wrong berries get picked and, well, it'd still be a good brew, but it'd be your last, too. "But I've crossed half the world. Might as well cross the other half one day."

The slave wasn't so easily mollified or distracted, however, and Konrad chuckled when he shot his last reply. The boy was smart, but he still took things so personally. Never something a man should do, he always thought. Not when it came to business. Couldn't even just enjoy the silence, heal his djed just like Konrad was, without jabbing him with another needle-pointed question.

"I don't have friends," he said bluntly, half his face finishing the sneer his scars twisted the other half into. "I know. Big petchin' surprise, aye? And I want what I told ya. You hear something about yer master, about his brothers, or his cousins, somethin' you know could be important-"

THUNK

The wineskin thudded into Achenar's chest as Konrad swung it into his torso without looking around. Not hard, just enough to make it clear that, yes, he was expected to drink, Child of Leth or bloody not.

"-and don't act like yer too lackwitted t'know what is and isn't important." He injected a judicious dose of growl into his voice; enough to let Achenar know that he wasn't such the brute he didn't know the gleam of intelligence when he saw it in a man's eyes. "That's when youse come see me. Out here, or at the Terraces. Long as y'do that, it'll be just me an' the crabs knowin' about yer wyrd."

Konrad let the slave take the skin and reclined enough so he could rest back on his hands, body weight pushing his hands deep and hard into the loose, warm sand. Barely took an hour for the heat to drop off, but the sand would take longer, and now Konrad stared at the same sights the slave did, mayhap felt the same stirrings of beauty beyond the make of man, free and obvious to any pair of eyes.

Unlikely. But mayhap.