₦airaland Forum

Part 12
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The first thing I noticed when I woke was the darkness. It was much darker than I recalled it being the previous night. At least then the light had been sufficient to make out the bed. Now, I could see nothing. I turned to my right, intending to lay on my side on the bed, but was immediately cut short by the feel of a smooth surface making contact with my ailerons. It took me a while to remember that the bed I laid on was strange. Like the bed I had slept in in the sickroom in the pits, this bed had holes cut out for my ailerons. It allowed for a much more comfortable sleep, resting my back on the bed, instead of on my ailerons.

I sat up then, allowing my ailerons to rise from the slot in the bed. As soon as I rose, I heard a scuffling sound coming from the right of the room.

“Who is it?” I demanded.

“Just me master.” Came the immediate response. How had I forgotten about Musa?

The scuffling got louder as, I assumed, Musa moved around in that side of the room. I heard nothing for a while, and then the room was suddenly flooded with orange light. I had to blink numerous times to allow my eyes to adjust to the bright lighting. Once my eyes adjusted though, I got my first real look at the room.

The bed I sat on was large. It was wide enough to take two uspecs my size, without our ailerons touching. But I could tell from the double aileron-slots, that the bed was only meant to take one. On the head of the bed, there was a long plump pillow, and behind it, an empty gap. I had to stand to see what was in that gap. I sidled forward and stepped down, off the bed. In front of me, was the brown fog entrance to the room, and by it, extending from a rod in the wall, a hoop which held the sword key.

The walls in the room were like nothing I had ever seen. Unlike the previous vertical pond with the standing bank of liquid okun, which made up the walls in the main lobby, the walls in my room had running pink liquid. Somehow, the liquid was kept running down in a constant stream from the ceiling, all the way to the narrow canal at the foot of the wall. I walked over to that canal and stepped inside it. I was shocked to find that the liquid in the canal was cool. I had never been in a cool okun. I turned around, and found that the canal was wide enough that I could stand sideways in it. Trapped in stunned excitement, I rose my hands and placed them flat against the wall of liquid. The temperature of the liquid running down the walls appeared the same as that in the canal. The stream of liquid flowing around my hands was only deep enough to rise slightly above the pads of my finger.

I began walking then. As I walked in the canal, ignoring the feel of my right aileron scraping against the wall of running liquid, I examined the rest of the room. There was a large wooden cupboard to the right of the bed. The cupboard had four doors, two of which were open. The opened doors revealed my black satchel bag hanging from a post, and the imp’s sack bag sitting on a shelf. Even with both of these in it, the revealed portions of the cupboard still had so much empty space. I wondered how many belongings would be required to fill the cupboard.

I kept walking. There was a large gap between the canal and the foot of the bed. With furrowed brows, I bent down to get a closer look at the ground. I had thought I’d been imagining it, but at such close distance, I could tell that I hadn’t. The ground was indeed covered by a ground of red fog. A ground of fog! I could not believe it. I had never seen such.

“What is this?” I muttered the question to myself.

“It is a coffer master, a safe place for storing valuables. The key to the room also serves as key to the coffer.” Musa provided an answer.

I nodded at it, before rising back up. The source of the bright orange light was not far from where I stood. There were only two breaks in the liquid wall. The first was at the front of the room, where the fog door was, and the second, at the light source. I walked over to it and was surprised to see that it was not the light source I had thought it was, but a window, simply allowing the natural light of the day to pass through. Certainly, the illumination from the orange dots could not be so bright, I pondered, as I ran my finger over the smooth surface of the transparent glass. The glass covered the same area as the fog, it ran from the ceiling all the way to the ground. Unlike the ground directly in front of the door, where the canal broke, the ground in front of the window was still canal.

“Is this just glass?” I asked.

Musa was standing behind me now, on the ground behind the canal. “Special glass master.” It said. Then it moved forward into the canal, and stretched its hands, reaching for the ceiling. I stared up, my eyes widening as the imp unfastened a lock in the ceiling, which I had not seen. The imp turned its fingers and a thin sheet fell from the ceiling and covered the window. As soon as the sheet reached the canal, the entire room was dark. “Pansophy master,” the imp explained, “they have both been given growth. The glass grows the light coming in from the outside, making it appear brighter than it is. The sheet grows the darkness from the room, combatting the light amplified by the window.” After saying that, the imp pulled the sheet back up, and locked it back into its easy-to-overlook compartment in the ceiling.

Pansophy. How could magic make so much possible? I felt a sense of pride from knowing that this could also have been part of my ancestors creation. As Musa had said, before my ancestors, none of this was possible. I stared out the window and was shocked by the sites.

I could tell from the world I looked down on, that we were on a higher level. The tops of the wooden walls surrounding the burg were visible from this level. I could also see to the other side of those walls. I saw a clean okun surrounded by more walls. Behind that okun, I saw another which took my breath away. The okun glowed. A hue of pink light rose from the surface of the okun. It reminded me of the okun that the frosted beast had led me to. What had Musa called it? A lit okun. It was breathtaking looking down on it from the higher view. Off to the side of the okun, I could see what, from so far off, appeared to be a bridge, the only one crossing over the lit okun. Behind the lit okun, was a large piece of land with buildings I was too far away to see in much detail.

“That is the Regnant master.” Musa stated, pointing to the lit okun. “They call that bridge, the bridge of nobles. It is the only bridge which connects from the sovereign’s manor, to the rest of the burg.”

“The sovereign’s manor?”

Musa pointed at the piece of land behind the lit okun. “The sovereign of Lastmain, master, that is its manor.”

I nodded. Slowly, my eyes rolled over the view, taking in as much of the burg as I could from my position behind the window. Then, I turned around. Musa stepped out of the canal, and I continued on my survey of the room. On the other side of the room, there was a yellow block. I walked over to it, knocked on the surface and found that it was made of wood. A table I assumed then, although I had never seen a table quite like this. I pushed at it with my leg, and with a minimal effort, it moved. Beside the table, there was a much smaller bed than the one I had slept on. This bed was much closer to the ground, and it did not have any of the slots that mine had. I assumed that it was meant for an imp. Probably were Musa had slept.

Satisfied with my surveillance, I returned to the bed and sat at the foot of it. The bed was high enough that the soles of my feet touched the ground with my thighs and calves at a right angle.

“Would you like to have breakfast first master, or shall we go for a cleaning? The resort imps took me on a tour of the facilities last night, the cleaning room is quite adequate.”

With my arms stretched behind me, my palms resting on the bed, I kicked out my legs and reflected on the imp’s question. The night before, I had been so tired that the moment I climbed into the bed I fell asleep without giving much thought to food or even my surroundings. This morning though, I could feel the slight twitches in my stomach from my hunger pangs. Still, I could not throttle the heart-racing excitement I felt at the prospect of uncovering the cleaning room in this resort which seemed to somehow make a production of even the most mundane places. My initial thought on seeing the canal was that the canal was meant to be the cleaning place, why else have an okun in a room? But now Musa mentioned another cleaning room, one that was ‘quite adequate’. My lips bent slightly, my mouth forming a gentle smile, as I scoffed at the words.

I stood then. “The cleaning room,” I decided.

Musa bowed. It turned around and walked over to the brown fog entrance. Once there, Musa reached for the wooden sword held up by the hoop extending from the wall of streaming liquid. It took the key down and, with the hilt of the wooden sword in its hand, it walked through the opaque fog. I walked through the now translucent fog behind the imp.

The hallway was as I remembered it from the night before. It had the same soft transparent flooring as the lobby. What I had failed to realize the previous night, was that the hallway was arched, not straight. We walked along the bend until we reached a set of thick green curtains. Musa pulled one side of the curtains back, holding it in place as I walked past. It followed behind me.

I had never seen a portal room quite like this. The walls, ceiling and lighting were all as it had been in the lobby, but the ground was different. Instead of the single bed of hardened quicksand I had come to expect in portal rooms, this one had multiple. I counted about ten different large spots of quicksand. Each spot had markings engraved on the rim of the floor surrounding the hardened quicksand. I imagined that each of those markings held a description of where the different portals led to.

Musa walked over to the first spot of quicksand to the right of where I stood. I joined it on the hardened quicksand, just before it turned soft and sucked us in. We were teleported to an empty space with a large wall of green fog on one side. The other walls were bare, as the walls in the hallway in front of our room. With the hilt of the wooden sword in its hand, Musa walked into the opaque green fog and it turned translucent.

I walked in after it.

Sounds of splattering liquid assailed my ears. I heard the sounds before I had the opportunity to look around the room. There was something peaceful about listening to the splash of liquid drops falling against a surface. The sounds caught me unawares, as I had never heard anything of that type before. The sounds of splashing liquid which I had heard in the past, where sounds emerging from a poured drink. This was different. For one, it was continuous, not short lived as that of spilled liquid. It also appeared methodical, as if there was a routine to the spray of liquid. Dazzled by my own introspection on the source of the sound in which I heard, I walked out of the green fog.

Then stopped dead in my tracks.

Surely, I thought, someday I would find sights such as this commonplace. I hoped that the ignorance of a de trop, whose only knowledge of the world was gleamed from the parsimonious tales of passing traders, would not shadow me forever. I dreamed of a day when I was able to walk into the most outrageously designed room unfazed. Sadly, that day was not today.

With a wide eye and a parted mouth, I took in the cleaning room. There were three large ponds in the center of the room. The two ponds closest to me where round ponds. From a measured glance at both, I could tell that they were both larger than the pond I had last cleaned in. They also appeared much cleaner. The round pond to the left had a very light shade of pink fog rising from it. I noted that it was the first drifting fog which I had seen since stepping inside the resort. The pond beside it had the darkest shade of okun which I had ever seen in my life. And behind them both, there was a rectangular pond with gleaming pink liquid. I could not help but notice the multicolored rocks which appeared to be floating on the surface of the liquid. The border of the room was taken up by a canal much wider than the one in my room. The canal appeared to be wide enough for two uspecs my size to swim in. It went all around the edge of the room, only breaking in the spot I stood in, which was the space in front of the wide door of green fog. A stream of falling liquid rained down into the canal. Unlike the walls of my room, this liquid streamed down into the center of the canal and appeared thicker than my hand. I looked up to the ceiling and was unable to locate the source of the liquid. Wide beds filled several spots in the room.

@Peaceyw the update is ready oh, come and read

@dragonstar14 HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! I'll eat a piece of cake for you today I'm truly humbled that you want to read this while celebrating your special day, thank you!


EVERYONE, thanks to Fazemood (sorry for the details) and dragonstar14 the update today is going to be very LOOONG, probably the most I've posted in a single day, so grab your popcorn and drink and come and read! I really hope you all enjoy it

Lol @popeshemoo don't worry, I'm running

@tunjilomo okay, I'm not responding to your comment until Saturday

@Tuhndhay all your points are very very valid. And you're right, we will know soon about the nature of their relationship . I really like your observation of Nebud spoiling for a fight and Musa appearing smart enough to sell Nebud (can uspecs be sold...note to self, figure that out ) before Nebud can sell it.

@phoenixchap nah, no update yet, but there is definitely one brewing somewhere. Lol, hope you enjoy catching up

@Fazemood thanks for the criticism, like I've said before I like to know what you guys are thinking, good and bad. So, with the details, I guess it comes down to conflicting definitions of 'necessary' (or unnecessary). I guess, when I'm writing this, I find every detail that I include to be necessary in defining some point. Some of the details I think are necessary to introduce, and help lay the foundations for, pansophy. But I think, most of the details go to the authenticity of the story. This is all new to Nebud, so, it goes over the details, it fixates on every little thing, because it's never seen it before. As it gets more and more used to things like this, its attention to the little details will probably go down, because it will have some reference for it, but till then, it just observes its surroundings. I should also probably state that, if you don't like the details, then you probably won't like the next part, which is also going to be a lot of details of Nebud's new and exciting surroundings. Are they necessary for the story, I think so, you may not, I'll let you be the judge of that. But since I know that you don't enjoy the details as much, I'll post two parts on Saturday, one will be very detail heavy, the other dialogue heavy (no details of surroundings). And I will definitely bear your critique in mind as I continue with the writing. Again, thank you so much for sharing your POV, I really appreciate it

“It is the block master.” Musa replied. “It is where the wealthy merchants live. It connects to the high nobles’ lodges in the west and the low nobles’ keeps in the east.”

“This is not where the nobles live?” I asked, shocked.

Musa smiled. “No master,” it replied shaking its head. “The nobles’ mansions are even grander than these. The nobles so hate to mix with the commoners that they are not satisfied with just having the walls separating them. There are also dividers master, okuns separating the commoners’ field from the nobles’ lands. But no divider okun is as magnificent as the Regnant.”

“The Regnant?” I asked, listening only partially, as most of my brain was obsessed with devouring the new sights.

“It is the most beautiful okun in this burg. A wide stream with dazzling pink liquid which gives off a dim glow. It is said to have poisonous sea serpents. But even if it did not have serpents, no one would dare go into the liquid. No one enters a lit pool and lives to talk about it.”

That statement pulled my attention. “What do you mean?”

“Okuns that give off light master, they are home to the kute frosted beasts. Those okuns kill any uspecs that wander in.”

I stopped for a moment, frozen by the implications of the words. I had wandered in to a lit okun, right on the trail of a frosted beast. I shook my head, deciding that Musa’s tale had to be just that. What did an imp truly know about a kute okun? I chuckled at the tale and continued walking.

“Perhaps we can stay here for the night master, it is the finest resort in the block.”

“Resort?” I asked with a frown, my gaze stuck on a multicolored fog which encircled yet another awing dwelling. “Are there no inns?”

“Inns are for commoners master, there are no inns in the block, only resorts. We can go to a cheaper one.” It offered.

“Money is no object.” I replied distractedly.

“Then this resort would do nicely master.”

I don’t know how I had missed it. Standing on the left of the road, the resort towered over every other building in the street. In fact, it towered over every other building there. I could not guess at how many floors this dwelling housed, all I could do was stare at the giant of a dwelling.

I walked towards the entrance. There was no fog blocking the view of the lower floors of this building. A wooden partition cordoned off the okun street from the foam covered path leading to the entrance of the resort. I walked on the curved path, my eyes wide as I took in the glossy cyan finish of the exteriors. Looking at it from the outside, the dwelling appeared to be made of separate compartments of buildings joined together. Each of those buildings had a finish of cyan shards. On closer inspection, I noted that the surface of the shards resembled the outer surface of the scales on my neck. It was intimidating to think of the amount of uspec scales required to cover the entire building.

The twisted road led to a large entrance. From further away, the entrance appeared to be just the same as the other parts of the building. It took me standing close to it, to see the subtle difference; like the change in the texture of the cyan shard. At first glance, I thought it was glass and marveled at it. I had never seen a glass entry. But on closer inspection, I could tell that it was something else. It was wide and smooth, stretching wider than the width of me, and rising taller than the tallest giant I had ever seen. I drew closer, noticing the drops of darker cyan which seemed to be trapped within the large shard. I frowned, perplexed by this material I could not place.

“This is the entrance master.” Musa provided. “It is solid fog. All you need to do is put your hand against it, let it sense the life in you, and it will fade away, granting you entrance. It can only be opened by an upsec.”

Slowly, I rose my right hand, stretching the fingers wide apart. Then I placed the flat palm of my hand against the smooth surface. It was warm to the touch, much warmer than the fog which drifted around me. As soon as my hand rested flat against it, the hard surface sublimated into a transparent cyan fog.

I walked in through the fog.

It was like standing in a large cuboid air bubble surrounded by okun. I had never seen a vertical pond, but that was the closest likeness I could think of to describe the walls in the room. If an okun bed could be made to stand, that was what the walls would be. I walked towards the closest wall, desperate to solve the mystery for myself. Surely it could not be liquid, perhaps it was a trick of the eyes. Upon reaching the closest wall, I stuck my hand into it, expecting a hard surface. Instead, my hand was swallowed by the pink liquid. I pulled my hand out, staring with wide eyes and a parted mouth at my wet hand.

“What is this magic?” I asked, sending my question into the ether.

To my surprise, it replied. “It is pansophy master.” I turned sharply, shocked to see Musa standing beside me. In my moment of wonder, I had forgotten its presence. I studied its face, but I could not decipher the expressions on it. “Designs like this were made possible by my former masters, the line of the Kaisers of Lahooni. They dreamt up innovations like this, ways to use pansophy to mix lifeforces, giving life where none ever existed, and mixing form in varying degrees. Before the Kaisers of Lahooni there were no fog doors, it was them who discovered a way to mix thought and life together in fog, turning it to a door which could be opened with a key.” Musa stopped speaking. It shook its head and turned to face me. “Forgive me master,” it bowed, “I got lost in my memories.”

All I could do was shake my head at it. This was the work of my ancestry? I thought in awe. I could not imagine the level of brilliance required to dream up magic which could make sights as the one I saw possible. Solid fog doors, vertical ponds, all from the line that had loved me, the one that had claimed me despite the fact that I was irira. I felt that almost forgotten pang of sorrow at the life I could have known. I found myself wondering again, how it was that I came to live in the slum, how I went from the beloved descendant of the Kaiser of Lahooni, to de trop.

My eyes voraciously devoured the rest of the room. I looked at the light sources hanging from the ceiling and wondered if that too had been a design of my line. The light sources were four round spheres with lit okun trapped in them, hanging by chains from the ceiling. The floor was unlike anything I had ever seen. It was an okun, or it would be better to say that it had an okun trapped in it. The ground was soft, it had the same softness as the twisted path which had led to the entrance. The disconcerting element was in its transparency. I could tell that I was walking on a ground that was not the okun, but I could not see it.

“Shall we book a room master?” Musa asked, its words prompting me from my admiration of my surroundings.

I nodded, distractedly following behind Musa as it led the way to a glass table. Although, to call the sterling counter a table seemed like an injustice. There was an uspec standing on the other side of the glittering cyan counter. It wore a short sleeve on both of its arms. Extending from its shoulders, the sleeves covered about half of its upper arm. Both of those sleeves were brown in color, with marks and signs I could not read, written on them. My eyes took in the wall behind it. There were two holes in that wall, both of which were covered with thick green curtains.

“Salutations noble one!” the uspec greeted chirpily. I could not help but notice the bright excited smile on the uspec’s face. This was a thin uspec. It had all of its outer sockets formed, but only one of them filled. Not a fighter, I thought with a dismissive glance.

I nodded in response to its greeting.

“Would you like a room noble one? We offer only the best accommodations here at Pine, Lastmain’s finest resort.”

“A room for the night.” I replied.

“Very well noble one.” The smile on the uspec’s face remained. “Would you prefer a royal suite styled room, or a common resting room. The royal suites are our finest…”

“A common resting room will do.” I responded cutting off what I imagined would be a long sales pitch. “A single room is all I need. I will take the cheapest one you have.” I had no idea what rooms in a place like this would cost. Although I had wealth, I saw no need to waste it, especially not until I had determined the extent of that wealth. Again, I reminded myself of the need to quantify my fortune.

The smile on the uspec’s face only wavered slightly. “Very well noble one. The cheapest room available will cost 10 pieces of merit for a night. Three full meals are included in this price.”

I could not help but think of the price disparity. In the field were commoners lived, I had arranged for a room and fare for a quarter piece of merit. It took me a while to do the calculation, but eventually I stumbled on the difference. This resort cost forty times more than the inn. I almost gagged on the thought, it was ludicrous. Still, I found myself reaching into the satchel bag and pulling out a sachet with silver embroidery. I counted out ten pieces of merit from the sachet and placed it on the counter.

“We’ll take that room.” I stated, pushing the payment closer towards the uspec.

“Very good noble one.” The uspec snapped its fingers and two imps came out from behind the curtains to the left of us. The imps were dressed finer than most I had seen. They wore a matching set of embroidered brown uniforms. “They will show you to your room noble one. After they see to you, they will give your imp a tour of the resort. Do you find that pleasing?”

I nodded.

“Very well. Gratitude noble one, and enjoy your stay at Pine resort.” It stretched its hand to its left, pointing in the direction of the curtains opposite the ones that the imps had emerged from.

The imps led the way and I followed. One of the uniformed imps pulled the curtains aside, keeping it drawn so the rest of us could walk through. We walked into a portal room. The walls of the room had the same vertical okun as the main lobby, but I could tell where we were by the hardened quicksand in the middle of the room. By the quicksand, there was a large pothole filled with a strangely colored liquid. The sight suddenly took me back to the pits, to the day that the pious one had taken my baton and returned it as a key.

One of the imps moved, pulling me out of my memory. It walked to a bucket by the side of the entryway. In that bucket, there were swords of varying sizes and colors. It picked up a red sword and walked with it over to the pool. Then, it stuck the sword into the pool of liquid in the pothole and pulled it out. It brought the sword back to me, and I could tell, before it spoke, exactly what it was.

The imp dropped to its knees. Placing the sword on both hands, it lifted it up, offering it to me as it said, “this is a key for two domina. It will grant you access to all the common areas in the resort as well as to your room. It will only let two enter at a time. It is designed to grant entrance only to you and your imp.”

With a nod, I took the sword from the imp’s hands. As soon as I picked it up, I could tell from its weight that it was made of wood. The imp rose and the other imp led us to the quicksand in the middle of the room. Once all four of us were standing on it, the quicksand softened, and we were sucked in.

The portal took us to another part of the resort. We stood on a pathway. The flooring was the same as it had been in the lobby, but the walls were different. For as far as my eye could see, the walls were made of fog doors with a brown surface between them. We had stopped in front of one fog door in particular.

I stuck my red sword into the opaque brown fog, and it turned translucent. I was just about to walk in, when I heard Musa say, “Master, I will go with these imps and learn the resort. Shall I return with the same meal as you had chosen at the inn?”

I nodded. I walked into the fog and then turned around to hand the single wooden sword key to Musa. It took it from me with a bow. It wasn’t till that point that I realized how much of a hindrance having one key between us would be. But the imps were already walking away. I walked out of the fog, suddenly feeling the exertions of the day.

The room was dimly lit. It was too dim to really admire it. I knew that there had to be a way to fix the lighting. Then, I caught a glimpse of the bed, and decided that lighting could wait till the morning.

Part 11
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Everything seemed to slow.

It could have been my imagination, but I suddenly became aware of every minute detail of the environment I inhabited. I was aware of the red transparent fog surrounding me. I felt the slight stickiness against my flesh, felt the teasing touch of its warmth seeping in through my skin. The ground underneath me suddenly seemed more remarkable, more deserving of a study of its fine details. Was the okun slightly cooler than others I had walked in? Did the soft malleable sludge underneath the red liquid feel a little harder? A drop of liquid trailed down the side of my face. I felt more moisture on my skin. There was wetness on my back, on the empty skin between my ailerons. I refused to accept that I was sweating, that I was afraid.

My ears pricked, choosing that moment to record the angry chant of the mob as their voices grew louder, marking their determined approach. The area we stood in was the largest empty space I had seen since stepping into the field. The closest buildings were at least thirty feet away from us. I knew that the approaching mob was hidden by one of those buildings.

But not for too long though, I reminded myself.

“Uspecipyte!” the call grew louder. The word was yelled out so loudly, and by so many different voices, that it was only decipherable due to its familiarity. I turned my back on the empty land, back to face the gapped-wall and the opaque fogs covering those gaps. There was no escaping through those fogs. No, walking into an opaque fog without a key meant sure death, I remembered that much from the pits.

My only other option was to face the mob.

“Uspecipyte!” I tried to remember where I had heard the name. The answer reached me just as the first uspec appeared, from behind the building. It stopped for a second, pausing to look around, before its scanning eye found us, and it lunged forward.

They would be on us in seconds, I realized with a sinking heart. Was this to be my death then? Years spent fighting in the pits only to escape and meet my death at the hands of a mob. I took a deep breath, steeling myself for the coming battle. If I was to die, then I would go down fighting. I would take as many of them with me as I could.

I reached up, stretching my right arm so that my fingers could get a hold of the cloth on my neck. I was just about to rip it off, when I felt a tentative hand grab hold of my arm.

It took me a while to realize that Musa was speaking.

I shook my head, trying to clear out the loud sounds of the angry uspecs running towards us. Twenty seconds away from the look of it, maybe thirty if we were lucky.

“What is it?” I demanded, my fingers frozen on the edges of the cloth.

“Merit.” It said. It had to yell the word out to be heard over the loud sound of the angry mob.

“What?”

“For the fog master. Two pieces of merit to pay our way in. Do you have the money master?”

My brain suddenly seemed too slow to process all the stimulation. The mob was only ten seconds away now. Nine, I found myself counting down, my eyes locked on the splattering of pink liquid as the uspecs’ feet landed angrily in the okun. Eight.

“Master!” Musa yelled.

“What?” I asked. I had to prepare myself for the fight. My heart beat a steady rhythm. My mind…the shaking on my hand became even more vigorous.

“Merit master! We can pay our way in, do you have it?”

The mob had stopped in front of us. In the front lines I could see the angry faces of the uspecs from the inn. The cries of “Uspecipyte!” grew even louder, as the standing uspecs yelled, clamoring to get closer to me.

Distractedly, I took my satchel bag off my shoulder and handed it over to Musa. I remembered then that imps could not die. If I died, I could not think of anyone else I would rather own the fortune I had done nothing to gain. It seemed like such a funny thought now, knowing that I would have sold this imp if I had lived long enough to do it. Instead, I would die here, and the imp would have enough wealth to establish itself independently.

“Don’t search for another master.” I told the imp. “Take the wealth and make a life for yourself.” Then I shoved the satchel bag into the imp’s outstretched hands, and pushed it back.

I placed myself between the imp and the mob.

Ten uspecs ran towards me at once. I reached for their anger then, and it was present in droves. They burned with fury. I reached through the lifeforce in my anger and yanked all the anger I could feel around me. I transferred the wealth of emotions to a single uspec at the back of the mob, furthest away from me.

The uspecs running towards me stopped dead in their tracks. With baffled gazes, they looked at themselves and then at the uspecs behind them. I recognized their stunned expressions from my self-taught training on emotions. This was the calm before the storm, my best opportunity to attack as many of them as I could. I never knew how long the stun will last, but in that phase, it was as if the uspecs temporarily forgot what they were.

“Master!” Musa yelled.

I turned around. Why was Musa still there? Didn’t it know that it was supposed to run while it could?

“Come master.” Musa called.

It took me a while to realize that it was standing on the other side of a translucent red fog. The translucence of the fog meant that it was now safe to walk through it.

Musa had found a key!

I ran towards the translucent fog. As soon as I walked out on the other side of the fog, I turned around and saw that the fog had returned to its previous state of opacity.

“How?” I asked, bemused.

I could hear the smile in Musa’s voice as it replied. “These are the slots master. They are gates separating the commoners from the upper classes. The price of entry is a piece of merit per person.” The corners of my mouth climbed up as I turned to stare at the imp. It smiled back at me, but its smile was much more reserved than mine. “Forgive me master, I took the money from your bag.” It offered the bag back to me.

I couldn’t stop my lips from edging apart, exposing my teeth, in a smile wider than any I had shared in a very long time. “Well done.” I praised it without hesitation, before reaching to retrieve my bag from the imp.

It bowed. “Thank you master.”

I turned to take in our surroundings and was suddenly hit with a startling reality, we were no longer in the field. There were no signs to declare this fact, though if there had been I would not have been able to read them. Thankfully, no signs were needed for this. The truth was plainly evident in the difference.

And everything was different.

The ground was still made of okun, but the liquid in this okun was pure, as pure as the pink liquid which had been in Fajahromo’s dwelling. The ground underneath the okun was firm, it had the soft firmness of the padded floor of the docks, and none of the stickiness of the sludge underneath the okun in the field. The differences were also palpable in the air. The swirling fog remained, drifting around and decorating the night with its presence. Unlike the fog in the field, this one was cool. It was not as cold as the hatch which had had hail falling within it, but it was cool enough that I felt slightly chilled by it. For an uspec who had known nothing other than the warmth of natural fog, being surrounded by this coolness made me uncomfortable.

Those were the less obvious changes. The stark differences lay in the design of the place. First, the light sources hanging from the walls here emanated blue light instead of red. The streets were much wider and quieter than those in the fields. But by far, the most awing things were the dwellings.

I had no words to describe these dwellings.

The first one I saw was surrounded by a luminescent orange fog. The fog reached only half way up the full height of the building, shielding the lower floors from view, but allowing view of the higher ones. The dwelling was taller than anything I had ever imagined existed. It looked like it had at least three high-ceilinged floors. But its remarkability did not stop with its height, it extended to the actual exterior design of the building. My eyes got lost in following the arches and panels, the curling exterior staircases, the dyed-glass windows, and the intricate paintings. I could not believe that a thing like this was possible, least of all that it existed in the same world as I.

I had become so engrossed in my study of the palatial dwellings, that I did not notice the approach of the uspecs. It wasn’t till they stopped in front of me, interfering with my admiration of the ostentatious beauty surrounding me, that I became aware of them.

Two uspecs stood in front of me. They were both of a similar height. Their heads reached up to my upper chest. Black belts wound around their waists, with bulging pockets and a long sword sheath. They both had their right hands on the hilt of their swords. Besides the belt, the uspecs had nothing on. A glance at their faces showed me that they had all of their outer eye sockets formed, but none of them filled. Their feet were planted about a shoulder’s width apart. Their bearing stirred a memory from long ago, of guards flying into my slum. These guards were nowhere near as impressive as those.

“Salutations noble one.” One of the guards greeted. Its center eye darted over to my neck and then it slowly trailed over the rest of my body, before rising back to meet my eyes. Its expression was filled with doubt, as if it knew that I was not what the cloth showed me to be. I wished that it would challenge me, it had been a long time since I’d had a good fight. Though, from the lean muscles that these two bore, I doubted that they would be much of a challenge.

I nodded, in my best attempt at a noble’s gesture.

“What are you doing here noble one?”

“Doing where?” I tried to channel Gerangi at its most imperious state.

“In the block noble one, at this time of night.”

I shrugged casually. “We just arrived. Our canoe was delayed. Is that a crime?”

The guard still appeared skeptical. It turned its gaze to the slots behind us and then moved it back to stare at me. “You did not run into any troubles in the field I hope? Nobles travel during the day, and that is when the guard waits at the docks to receive them.”

“I did not know that it was your place to tell me when to travel.” I somehow managed to speak with a straight face.

“Of course not, forgive me noble one.” It said, but still it did not look convinced. I couldn’t help thinking of how much easier it would be to just kill the uspec and be on my way. I supposed a dead uspec body would be noticed easily in this fine place. “If you don’t mind me asking, where do you hale from?” it asked.

“I mind you asking.” I replied curtly. Then I decided to go on the offensive. “What is the meaning of this? Is this how nobles are treated in the last burg? Interrogated on the streets, by commoners?” I spat the last word out with as much derision as I could fake.

“We are not commoners, we are block guards.” The other uspec spoke up for the first time. “But you are right noble one, we have no right to stop you. Please be on your way,” it said, stepping aside.

I glared at both uspecs for effect, before walking past them.

“Nobles.” I heard one of the guards mutter behind me. I could not help my answering chuckle.

“What now Musa?” I asked the imp. “I assume it is frowned on to sleep on the streets in this place. What is this place anyway?” I asked, my eyes following yet another unbelievable beautifully designed building. I could not fathom how each mansion could have a different design.

@popeshemoo You can't ask that oh, you will get someone killed for giving the wrong answer

@Tuhndhay Haha, it's like you're sharing Nebud's mind. Nebud also blames Musa for its soft side. I'm trying oh, I'm trying to put drama in. With each chapter I'm trying to mix between describing the new things that Nebud is uncovering but also adding some elements of drama. I guess I'll have to count on you to let me know how I'm doing on the drama and guessing front
You ran across Osezele? Where did you see her? They're actually on midterm break now, so, maybe you saw her in Benin. Although, she mentioned that she might be going to Lagos to visit Tolani, so you may have seen her there too. Ahh, Nosa, well, I don't even know what he's up to during this break, but I think he definitely has a certain tri-marked warlock on his mind . You saw members of the pack in the gym? Hmm...I wonder what they are doing there too. What were you thinking they were doing there? Maybe I have to go and talk to Nosa, and see if he knows what they are up to. That last one about Lami...I didn't hear you oh, ah, do you want Victor to come for you? LOL! I'm glad you're back too

@tunjilomo haha it was just getting interesting? I didn't know oh You just said pansophy feels like witchcraft!? I have to go away now and start crying After all the work I did to make pansophy so coool lol. No, i haven't really gone that much into pansophy yet, but more on pansophy is coming up next. I was actually just thinking like a few days ago which I would rather have. Like, if I could have any human mark or spectral existence magic, which would I choose? Let's just say I couldn't choose, but yes, pansophy is really cool...it's actually my favorite magic in this book, so I can't wait to show you just how cool it is. Maybe then you'll stop comparing it to witch powers

@RealLordZeus Wow! Thanks for saying that, really means a lot

@Rynne Yay! I'm so happy! I just got my first request to buy this book. I think I'm going to take a screenshot of your comment and save it somewhere special The truth is that, there were many times after I just started writing and posting this story, when I thought that it was just too crazy or impossible to understand. So to hear you say this really means a lot to me, thank you . And I'm sorry to say this, but I'm doing my best to make sure that you have many many many more 'too much suspense' moments

@phoenixchap Thank you, really means a lot coming from you. I have to keep it real now, anytime I even think of falling short, I remember your first comment, when you said your biggest worry was that I wouldn't finish the story. That was over a year and about three stories ago, and you're still following, so thank you

@Fazemood thank you, I have to keep the suspense coming. I wish every chapter could end on a cliffhanger, but they can't, so, I put them where I can make them...(I don't even think that makes any sense lol, but I'm sure you get it ). Yes oh, Nebud is falling hands, it has to get educated soon, let's just hope that Nebud is smart enough to come to that realization

“Thank you.” Musa said to the imp, taking the cup from its hands. As Musa poured some of the wine into its cup, I pulled my wine filled cup closer and took a sip of the purple drink. I smiled, thinking it was almost as I remembered from Fajahromo’s dwelling. I confessed that the wine was not as tasty as the wine Fajahromo had served, but it was adequate. I took a hearty gulp before placing the cup back on the table.

The server imp returned shortly after, carrying a long thick wooden tray. On that tray there were four shallow rectangular pans, each of those pans containing a loaf of sweet bun cut into slices. With a bow, the imp placed the tray on the table. I reached for one of the pans and pulled it off the tray. I had already eaten half the loaf before I noted that imp was watching me eat. With an irritated sigh, a picked up one of the pans and placed it on the table in front of it. The imp smiled, I could tell that it was about to thank me and so I gave it a look which I hoped expressed how much I did not wish for it to offer me platitudes. The imp must have understood my look, because it reached for a slice of its bun and started eating.

“To the irira!” A loud voice called from the table to my left. The voice was slurred when it spoke, but the name had belonged to me for so long that as soon as I heard it, I understood it for what it was. Immediately, my head snapped to my left and my gaze darted to the uspec who had made the cheer. It was standing, swaying lightly on its feet as it held its wooden cup up in the air. “It was an abomination, but by the founder, I swear it could fight!”

“Shut up!” An uspec yelled back from across the room.

The drunken uspec would not be quieted. “Ever since the irira was killed, the founder be praised, the fights in the pits have grown boring, and so predictable. I mourn for the irira! I give my wine to its memory!” After saying that the uspec turned its cup over, emptying the contents of its cup onto the table it shared with six other uspecs. The uspec sitting next to it jumped to its feet.

“Look what you’ve done, you drunken fool!” the uspec snapped.

“More wine!” the drunk uspec yelled louder. “More wine!” it screamed. “I am mourning! More wine imp! Where is the imp? More wine!!!”

“I said shut up!” The uspec across the room yelled again.

The imp playing the musical instrument stopped and the server imp ran out from behind the curtain, with a large pitcher. It hurried towards the uspec calling for it. The other uspec who had yelled for the uspec to shut up, grabbed the imp by the arm and hit it with a clenched fist across its face. “No more wine for the fool!” the uspec snapped, taking the pitcher from the imp. “Put the cost of this wine on our drunk friend.” It snapped. The other uspecs on its table laughed.

“Hey you!” the drunk uspec screamed. “Dontan, give me my wine. Hey you, imp, bring my wine. Dontan!” It tried to climb out from behind its bench. Instead it tripped over the bench and fell on its face. It stayed like that, sprawled out on the floor, with the front of its body resting against the ground. One of its legs was on the ground, the other was on the bench. The uspec standing by it, lifted its leg from the bench and let it fall on the ground to lay with the rest of its body. Then it sat back down.

“Imp!” that uspec called out. “Come and clean up this fool’s wine.”

The server imp ran out with a cloth. Peace seemed to have returned to the room as the conversations continued. A keen sense of disappointment filled me; I would never know what tale had been circulated about my death in the pits.

“Maybe you should have the meal delivered to your room master. I don’t have a good feeling about this place.” Musa’s worried voice called out imploringly to me.

I shook my head at the imp. I returned my empty pan to the tray and picked up another pan of the sliced bun. Then I refilled my cup with more of the fruit wine, and waited to see if anyone else in the room would satisfy my curiosity.

I was not left waiting long.

“I was there during its first fight.” Another voice called out from the same table as the drunk imp. This voice was more tempered. “I watched it. You should have seen the rage. It went against a giant, almost double its size, killed it, and then went after an imp. Everyone knows that the irira hates imps, but I have never seen hatred for imps go that far. It grabbed an imp at random from the crowd, and it scooped out each of its eyes. Then it cut off the imp’s tongue. It would have cut its ears too if the pit guards hadn’t stopped it.” The speaker’s voice was filled with awe.

“My progenitor took me to watch it fight in its seventh year. It was the biggest uspec I had ever seen. In that fight, the irira was pitted against ten uspecs, ten! Damn me if it didn’t kill them all, one after the other. There has never been a greater fighter in the pits, and there will probably never be another.” There was sorrow in its voice.

The same uspec who had called for silence scuffed loudly into the silent room. “Great fighter.” It spat on the floor. “Great fighter my ass! It was taken out by a noble. Fajahromo the great! Now there is a great fighter! A noble kute uspec, not a de trop irira. Fajahromo the great has killed other fighters in the pits since then. Now that is an uspec to watch.” The uspecs in its table cheered it.

I didn’t realize I was shaking until Musa’s worried voice said, “master? Master you are shaking.”

But the rage I felt could not be so easily calmed. Fajahromo! Fajahromo had spread the rumor that it killed me! It had soiled my fighting career in the pits by pretending that it had destroyed me. As if it could! “Fajahromo is nothing but a coward!” I spat the words out uncaringly. I would go back to the pits, I swore, back to face Fajahromo. How dare it lie so heinously! How dare it? It would die for this, it would. I would go back to the pits…

‘Katsoaru.’

The voice rose in me, pushing all thoughts of revenge to the back of my mind. All of the anger I had felt washed away, leaving me empty.

The room had grown quiet. Each occupant stared at me. I could not imagine why I had suddenly become a subject of interest. I turned to face Musa and the look of fear on its face was worse than any it had previously displayed.

One of the uspecs on the table of the drunk broke the silence. “Do you know Fajahromo, noble one?” the uspec inquired. “I have always thought it sketchy how Fajahromo claimed to have killed the irira outside the pits. But since then it has killed a number of great fighters in the pits, so I came to believe it. Is it false?”

I felt each eye fixed on me like a weight. Those eyes peered, digging into me, searching for the truth.

“What line of Kaisers do you defend, banneret?” another uspec asked.

“We should go master.” Musa whispered. Its voice was too low for anyone else to hear. I shook my head. I could salvage this.

I knew that I could not remain silent. “The Kaiser of Hakute.” I replied confidently.

Hushed tones filled with awe rose, filling the room with a different timbre of sound. I could start to see the respect fill their eyes as their gazes turned away, as if they were afraid of offending a noble as great as I claimed to be. A smile crept onto my lips as I thought of a perfect revenge. I could not go back to the pits, not yet at least, but I could set these people straight. I could tell them that Fajahromo could never defeat me in a fair fight.

“Please master, please, let us leave. Please.” I heard the despair in Musa’s voice and ignored it. This was my chance to get my own revenge on Fajahromo. How could I let it pass?

“You do not wear the sigil of the line of the Kaisers of Hakute.” A voice rose from the back of the room. “I worked in the Kaiser’s palace for years. I know the sigil, that is not what you wear. Who are you?”

The voices in the room grew louder, as the respect they had once accorded to me, morphed into doubt.

“We must leave master.” Musa’s voice was firmer now.

“I can take them.” I replied.

“There are over forty uspecs in the room master. No single uspec could take them all.” It replied.

“Who do you serve, imposter?” A voice yelled out.

“Why are you here?”

“Tiyoseriwosin?” A commanding voice from the back of the room barked out the question and everyone else fell silent. This question could not be avoided. I could tell from the faces which had now turned to face me, that this was one question they all wanted an answer to. For the second time that night, I was made aware of my own ignorance. I did not know what the question meant. I had heard it many times, but I was still clueless. I did not know what the right answer to that question was, but I remembered that uspecs had been slaughtered for giving the wrong one. I reached for their emotions then. I thought, if I yanked their angers and put it all in one of them, they would be distracted by trying to hold that uspec down. They had to be feeling anger I thought, but when I reached for their emotions, I found no anger. They were waiting. Perhaps the anger would come after I answered, if I answered wrongly. But what if anger did not come? I had no idea what the question meant. Anger was not the only reason that uspecs killed, I’d learnt that in the pits. No, I couldn’t risk it.

Musa was right.

The imp must have been studying me closely, because it was standing before I was. I jumped to my feet and ran towards the exit. My retreat startled the uspecs, giving me enough time to reach the curtains before they could react. But I heard the sounds of benches hitting the ground as soon as I got to the curtains. I turned in time to see the entire room of uspecs moving towards me.

I ran out of the inn.

Musa stopped behind me. It placed its hands on the curtains and I watched them firm up. I watched the flapping material harden, and then turn into a solid object.

I gaped at the imp. “What did you do?” I demanded.

“I gave it form master, I made it solid, with pansophy.” The imp replied. “We do not have time. They will come out through the kitchen exit master. We must go.”

I remained at that spot, my baffled eyes travelling from the imp to the curtains which it had turned into a solid barrier.

“There it is!” A loud voice called out from above me.

“Master!” Musa yelled.

It began running and I followed behind it. I did not turn around when I heard what was obviously the sound of uspec’s jumping down from higher floors onto the okun ground of the narrow paths. I just ran. I let the imp lead, trusting that it would direct us to safety. It wasn’t long before I could hear the loud sounds of many feet running behind us.

“Uspecipyte!” An angry voice called out behind me.

“Uspecipyte!” Another stated, joining the chant.

It wasn’t long before the word was being sung, chanted repeatedly by the mob chasing us. From the sounds of feet I could hear, it sounded like the mob was growing in size. The fear I felt propelled me, making me run even faster. Musa was obviously on the same page, because it ran surprisingly fast. Faster than I had thought it could with its short legs.

It led us down winded roads, taking us to the left and then to the right, probably attempting to lose the mob. I soon realized that the tactic was flawed because of the loud cries of the mob following us. The loud cries woke up even sleeping homes, bringing heads sticking out of curtains. Those heads eagerly pointed the angry mob in our direction.

“We can’t lose them!” I yelled at Musa.

“I know master!” it yelled back. “I am taking us somewhere they cannot follow.”

I simply trusted its words and kept running in its wake. The longer we ran, the more hopeful I became that the mob would get tired and return to their homes. I was disappointed in that course. They followed us all the way.

Finally, we reached an open area not as congested with dwellings as the areas we’d just left. Musa slowed as we got to this place. I was about to ask it if it was crazy. How could this be a good hiding spot? Then I noticed the walls. We had reached some sort of boundary. Unlike the previous high walls I had seen, these were not continuous, there were gaps in them. I ran towards a hole in the wall and stopped short when I saw that the hole was blocked with opaque red fog.

After the pits, I knew better than to walk into it.

I turned back around, my eyes wide as I heard the sounds of the mob drawing closer. My heart pounded with the realization that we were trapped between a wall and an angry mob.

Part 10
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As soon as I stepped into the inn, silence befell the room. The silence was heavy in its arrival. It was not a gradual change which began by a hushed whisper offered by a single person calling for silence, and then growing slowly into an eventual lack of sound. No, it was an immediate response, dramatic in its alacrity. Ignoring the faces which had now turned to mark my entrance, I moved further into the room, the soles of my feet brushing against the hard ground.

There looked to be about ten tables in the room. Each table was long and rectangular, with benches on either side of it. Those tables looked like they could comfortably sit twelve uspecs of my size, six on each bench. In front of the room, there was a stage with an imp seated behind a large instrument which I suspected to be the source of the musical notes which I had heard undertones of from outside the inn. To the right of that stage, there was a large set of thick curtains.

Slowly, aware of the silence around me and the uspecs watching me with pensive gazes, I let my eyes roam around the walls in the room. The walls were painted black. There were markings of different sorts on the walls. The wall to the right of the room had short marks which I could tell were words, but the words held no meaning to me. The walls to the left however had drawings on them, those drawings were of different types of food. One look at the drawing of a square cake had me salivating for the pastries whose pleasant smell permeated the room. Behind me, there were stairs to the right. I assumed those stairs led to a higher level with rooms which I could rent for the night.

I let my gaze move from a study of the room, to the uspecs who had become quiet the moment I walked in. Four of the tables were filled, two of them seemed to have uspecs sitting closer together than I thought was comfortable. A scattering of uspecs took up three more tables, leaving only three empty. One quick glance at each of the uspecs told me that they were all commoners. None of them had any outer eyes filled, but they all had some of those sockets formed. I could also tell from the parts of their bodies that were visible, that most of them were involved in some level of physically tasking work. None had as much bulk as I did, but some of them came close.

With my perusal of the room and the people in it complete, I walked towards the empty table closest to me, and sat. I knew that the conversations would continue after the shock of my appearance faded and so I simply waited. It didn’t take long before whispered words turned into louder conversations and the riotous tones of so many different people trying to be heard filled the room. I allowed myself to relax then.

That was when I noticed that Musa was not with me.

Immediately, I lurched to my feet and turned towards the door. Musa stood in front of me. It had been standing behind me, I realized. “Sit,” I ordered with a snap, wondering why the imp waited to be given the most basic instructions. I thought about how much effort it would take to educate this imp to change that behavior, and then I realized I had no reason to worry about such things. The imp would not be with me for much longer.

Musa was visibly uncomfortable as it moved to the other side of the table and gingerly eased itself onto the bench. I noticed then that the conversations in the room had partially halted. Again, the uspecs stared at me, and again I ignored them. This time, the silence was not as complete as it had been when I walked in, there were still a few uspecs speaking. But the sounds were low enough that I could distinctly made out the sound of the imp on the stage pushing its chair backwards, before standing up and walking off the stage. The imp went behind the curtains in the front of the room.

The imp’s departure seemed to be the spark needed to reignite the conversations. As soon as it left, the attentions, which had shifted from me, to the imp, returned to the conversations at hand.

“Forgive me master.” Musa said then. Its voice was barely above a whisper which made it even harder to hear it in the rowdy room. What an annoying phrase I thought as I eyed the imp. Immediately, I thought to lecture on it on sitting when I did, but thought better of it. Why waste the effort? Instead, I simply nodded distractedly and took my gaze back to the curtains the imp had left through.

“Master,” Musa’s voice was shaky.

“Speak up.” I replied.

“Forgive me master.” Its voice was only slightly higher. Its head turned to look around the room, before returning to face me. “Why did you pick this place master?”

I frowned at the imp. “It is an inn is it not?”

The imp’s answering nod was reluctant.

“We need a place to stay for the night. Tomorrow we continue.”

“Yes master, but why here?”

“What is wrong with this inn?” I snapped, impatiently at the imp.

“It is…” Musa’s voice shook. It turned to its right, as if sizing up the uspecs sitting in the table beside ours, and then placed its hand on the table. Then it moved closer towards me. “This is not a very safe place master, there are better inns in the field.”

It took me a moment to interpret the tone of the imp’s voice and the look on its face as signs of fear. It stunned me that the imp would be so timid. An imp that had dared to use pansophy on me was afraid of a roomful of uspecs? I scoffed. “Are you always so scared?” I asked flatly.

The imp drew itself up, its shoulders rising higher. “I know how to defend myself master, but as a slave, I am not allowed to.”

I smiled. “Are you a great fighter then?” I teased.

“I could be.” The imp’s words were said with no inflection. It was a statement of fact I realized as I stared at the imp. It truly believed that it was a great fighter. I almost burst out laughing. I suddenly had the urge to spar with this imp. I wondered how many seconds it would last in a fight against me. I shook my head instead, chiding myself for the foolish thought.

I couldn’t help chuckling though. “Have you been here before?” I asked, changing the subject.

The imp shook its head. “My previous master would never come to a place like this.” It replied in a tone which made it seem like its previous master would never come here because it was smart enough to know better. It was the first time that I felt like this imp was willfully insulting me.

I rose my hand. It wasn’t till my hand was in the air, moving steadily towards the imp’s face, that I realized what I’d meant to do. I paused, my hand freezing in the air as I contemplated. As soon as I paused, the spark of anger went away. I pulled my hand back to its spot on the table and simply stared at the imp. I did not know what showed in my face, but the imp quickly became contrite.

“I am sorry.” Musa apologized. I noticed that it did not bow its head, its eyelids simply covered its sockets partially, given the impression of it looking downwards. “Please forgive me master.”

I just shook my head. The fact that I had not beaten the imp was the only evidence I needed to prove that this imp had used pansophy on me. It had used its magic to make me more susceptible to it. There had been no doubts before, so I simply accepted this as yet another sign that I was right to sell the imp. The imp’s eyelids rose and it stared at me. There was no mistaking the look of grief which contorted its face. Again, I got the airy feeling that this imp was aware of my intentions.

It started speaking. Considering my line of thought, I wasn’t sure what I expected the imp to say, but it certainly wasn’t, “why was master asking?”

“What?”

“You asked if I had been here before master, I just wanted to know why you asked, if you wish to tell me.”

I only deliberated for a moment, before shrugging and answering its question. “I was going to ask if there was any meal that you would recommend.”

It turned towards the wall on the right, the one with the words I couldn’t read, and said, “I cannot recommend anything from personal experience, but the bill of fare is written on the wall.”

“The what?” I asked.

“The bill of fare, the menu master, the list of the meals that the establishment serves. It is written in the common tongue master.” It explained, tilting its head to the left.

I turned again to face the wall to my right and was suddenly made aware of my own ignorance. Never had I thought of how much my lack of learning would hamper me. I knew there was a common tongue. I remembered once asking the passing trader what the signs in its books meant. The trader had laughed saying that it was the common tongue. It had said even the lowest commoner knew the common tongue. I had asked it to teach me and it had refused, saying that de trop were too slow to understand such things. I had not thought much of it then, but I realized now that it had been an insult, a way in which the trader, a commoner, had asserted its dominance over me, a de trop.

“What does it say?” I asked the imp. I kept my voice stern, banishing the weakness of the lack of knowledge I felt, from my voice.

The imp frowned as if confused. “What does it say master?” it repeated my question as if it knew that it could not have heard me correctly.

I nodded.

“Oh.” The imp eyelids pulled all the way up, giving the impression of widened eyes. It shook itself then, and turned to face the wall. It took some time, reading the words on the wall, I guessed, before it turned back to me. “They have some pies master. They have pies filled with different types of jejas.”

I shook my head. “Not jeja.” I ordered. “What of their pastries?”

“The pastries are cheaper master. They have a sweet dough, they call fried honey balls, and fruit cakes. They also have soft buns and different types of bread.”

“Soft buns.” I replied with a smile. From the first time I had watched a trader eat it, I had wanted to try it myself. “What of their meals? Anything without jejas?”

“There is a sea serpent soup which comes with a roll made out of bean and cassava flour.”

I nodded at the imp, that would have to do. Although I knew that there were different types of jejas, some of which I had never tasted, I did not want to risk eating one I hated. I decided to chance the sea serpent instead. Sea serpent meat was said to be tough, not as succulent as jeja. For an uspec who grew up on jeja though, I was more than ready for the adventure.

Soft musical notes drifted into the room. It was a marvel that I could hear the music over the raucous uspecs. My attention shifted to the imp who had just returned to the stage. I wished for silence then, so that I could fully hear the sounds of the instrument that the imp played, but my wishes were not to be granted.

“Greetings domina.” A voice called from my left. I turned to find an imp with streaked skin and empty eye sockets staring down at me. It wore a simple tunic which reached halfway down its thighs. “What shall I get for you to eat domina?”

“The sea serpent soup and whatever roll accompanies it. Also, four sweet buns, a fruit cake and a pitcher of fruit wine.”

“What wine domina? We have purple, yellow, and tinted wine.”

“Purple.” I replied.

“Very well.” The imp bowed slightly. “The sea serpent soup will take about fifteen minutes to prepare, but I can bring out the buns and the cake now. Would that please you domina?”

I nodded.

“Very well. That would be four pieces of value for the buns, two pieces for the fruit cake, twenty pieces for the sea serpent soup, and five pieces for the pitcher of wine. A total of thirty-one pieces of value for the meal domina.”

I nodded without pause.

The imp sounded extremely excited as it said. “I will be back domina.”

“Wait.” I ordered. “Do you have an empty room I can rent for the night?”

“You want to rent a room here domina?” the imp’s voice was filled with shock. I nodded. “Well…” the imp dragged the single word out, “then we have the perfect room domina. For a quarter piece of merit, you can rent the room and have a full meal tonight and in the morning. Does that please you domina?”

Giving all the wealth I possessed, a quarter piece of merit was insubstantial. I nodded impatiently, ready for the food to come.

The imp bowed. It began walking away when I realized that I had forgotten something. “Wait.” I stopped it again. Then I turned to Musa. “What will you eat?”

I heard the shocked gasp of the imp standing beside me. “We have slave meals which your imp can eat in the kitchen after it is done serving you for the night domina.”

I shook my head at the imp. “It will eat with me. What will you eat Musa?”

“We do not serve imps at the table domina, it is not done.” The outraged imp replied.

I stood up then. The top of the imp’s head barely reached above my stomach. It tilted its head back to stare up at me. “Are you questioning my orders?” I asked in a deceptively calm voice.

The imp shook its head. “No domina, forgive me. If it is your will for your imp to eat with you, then we will bring the slave meal to it at the table.”

I sat back down and placed my arms on the table. “You will feed my imp whatever my imp orders.”

I turned back to face Musa and raised an eyebrow.

“Jeja pie.” It stated with a stutter.

“Very well.” The imp said, before scurrying off.

“Thank you master.” Musa said, staring down at its hands on the table.

“While you are mine you will eat as you please.” I replied offhandedly.

“While I am yours.” It replied, or at least that was what I thought I heard. I chose to ignore the words as the serving imp hurried back with a pitcher of the wine I had selected and a single wooden cup.

The imp placed the cup on the table and poured some of the wine into it, then it placed the pitcher back on the table.

“Bring another cup.” I ordered.

The imp startled. “Yes domina.” It replied after it recovered from its shock. Then it turned around, hurried behind the curtains and returned with another wooden cup.

@Fazemood Chai, thanks for asking oh, they are both doing well! The pack is trying to get their bearing now that the quintise magic is gone, so Nosa is still trying to find his place as a leader. Yes oh, the gist that Osezele has been giving me ehn! I just want to scream it out, but I have to wait. Lol! I've told them you said hello oh, they say that they can't wait to share their stories with you again, and they're so happy that you are thinking of them. They said I should thank you!

@phoenixchap hey! Long time no see! Where have you been? We've missed you

@Dathypebruv hehe, thank you. Update coming Saturday morning

@tunjilomo lol, Nebud is really becoming more human uspec

@Fazemood HAHAHAHAHAHAHA That's too funny! Lol at that's not why we're here. Action is coming but it might be a slow build to get there. Fajahromo definitely has some explaining to do. And I miss Osezele tooooo ...actually, that's not true, I talk with her at least once a week, so I'm not missing her too much . But, I am missing writing her story. This story definitely looks like it's going to take a lot longer than I thought, but now that I'm in it, I have to do it justice. And I can't write both stories at the same time. I've tried that before, and I always end up leaving one story behind, so I decided not to even start a new story while I'm writing another one. We're going to have to wait to see Osezele again...but sha, I really can't wait to share all the things that Osezele has been whispering into my ear

Finally, the emotion had a name. Guilt. I should have known, this was the second time this imp made me feel the emotion. Yes, I thought, I had to sell it. I did not care that it had served my family, I did not care that it had wept for my progenitors. I did not want an imp that would dare use pansophy to manipulate me. No, it was not worth it. An imp like Musa, one who had been a pious slave and had such training in pansophy, would sell for a piece of worth, at least.

I had been so entrenched in my own thoughts that I did not notice how close we had gotten to the docks, until the canoe stopped right in front of a docking post. That was when I became aware of my surroundings. The sounds of revelry filled my ears. I imagined that what I heard was the high notes of famous singers and musicians entertaining nobles, the animated chatter of young uspecs enjoying the best of their youth, and possibly the soft murmurs of a family sharing tales before going to bed. In my mind all the sounds, separated and became things of note and significance. But in reality, it was all one big cacophony of sound. It was, however, the loudest sounds that I had ever heard.

My heart quickened with excitement. My first view of a main hamlet, it was exhilarating. I took my time climbing out of the slightly swaying canoe and onto the wooden plankway of the docks. With my side eye, I could clearly see Musa climbing out as well. I waited until the imp was standing by me on the wooden platform before turning back around to look at the runner. I stretched out my hand, offering the piece of merit to the imp.

It looked startled. “Apologies domina, but I do not have three quarters of a piece of merit for change.” It stated, with a shaky voice.

“Keep it.” I stated distractedly. As the imp runner’s face lit up with a bright smile, I kept my face straight, pretending that I was unaware and unaffected by its joy. I told myself that I was Nebud, and that the imp’s happiness did nothing to wash away the stain of guilt I felt at my earlier treatment of it. And why should I feel guilt? It was an imp after all. But I knew it was wrong, I had known throughout the journey that it was wrong, I had known as soon as my anger faded and I became aware of the imp’s suffering.

I refused to say it, to form the thought into words in my head, and so I pushed down the gentle prodding, the warning that something was not quite as it should be within me. I ignored it. This was what was. I was what I was. Had I been something different before? No, I shook my head at myself, just thinking of all this brought the familiar ache in my head, as if I was trying to separate myself into two different beings.

“Thank you domina.” Kneeling in its canoe, the imp bowed so deeply I thought its head would touch the fur lining of the bottom of the vessel.

“It is your due.” I stated simply, and then I turned back around.

Musa stood beside me. It remained silent, but I could tell that my show of generosity had done nothing to change whatever new feelings my treatment of the runner had awakened in it. I convinced myself that I did not care. I was not going to be leaving this hamlet with this imp, so what did I care if it did not approve. It was what I deserved anyway, for being foolish enough to take a slave with pansophy.

I turned my attention back to the hamlet bristling with life in front of me. I began walking, drawn forward by the sounds I heard and the uspecs I saw. Through my side eyes I saw the high wooden walls to the left and right of the docks. The walls were taller than triple the height of any giant I had ever seen. I wanted to examine these walls. As I moved closer towards them, I also moved closer to the uspecs I saw off in the distance and the sounds I heard.

A group of short uspecs ran towards me. There were four of them. If I had to guess I would say that they were barely past their youth, probably as old as I was when I left the slum. The uspecs were all thin, the signs of uspecs not acquainted with physical exertions. All of their faces were smooth, they had not yet formed any outer eyes.

“Salutations my friend!” The first of them to arrive called. The other three pulled closer, circling us. Musa moved much closer towards me. It was now so close that the strands of its hair brushed against my arm. Its head moved quickly from side to side, looking at the uspecs that had surrounded us. It appeared scared. The thought of anyone being scared of these four youths was so ludicrous I found myself smiling.

“No friend of yours.” A voice called out from behind me. If I strained my side eyes, I could catch signs of the one standing behind me. I decided that it was not worth the effort. “It’s a noble, you fool.” All four uspecs snickered.

“Forgive me.” The one in front bowed with a flourish. “Salutations noble one. From where do you hale?”

“Move.” I tried to think of what a noble would say and that was the best I could do.

The mocking smile on the uspec’s face faded. Its center eye darted to stare at its friends, and then the smile returned. “We’re just trying to help you noble one. The field is unsafe at this time of night, so many unsavory characters. Perhaps we can lead you to the safer part of Lastmain, the places for uspecs of your ilk.”

“Move out of my way.” I stated again.

“There’s no need to be unfriendly.” An uspec off to my right, reached for my bag. I grabbed the uspec’s hand and broke it. The uspec fell to the floor groaning loudly in pain. “My arm!” it cried.

Suddenly, the three uspecs left standing appeared in front of me, with daggers in both their hands.

“It’ll need a healer for that arm.” One of the uspecs said. “Just give us five pieces of merit, and you can be on your way, noble one.”

“You do not want to do this.” I warned, my heartbeat racing. I realized how much I had missed a good fight. Three armed against me, that seemed like it would be a decent enough exercise.

“We do.” Another uspec replied.

I turned to face Musa. I took off the satchel bag which had my fortune in it, and gave it to Musa. “Hold this for me.” I instructed.

“Master, perhaps you could pay them instead. They are local touts, they could hurt you.” I almost laughed at the concern I heard in Musa’s voice. Did it really think that three youths, barely as tall as it was, could hurt me? I simply waited until Musa took the bag.

Then I walked towards them. The first one ran towards me. I slammed my head against that ones head, knocked the daggers out of its hands and gave it a blow which sent it sprawling to the ground. The other two took a step back.

“Do you know what a banneret is?” I asked mildly, walking towards them. “A banneret is a noble trained to protect the line of Kaisers. I have killed so many touts in my lifetime, I have simply lost count.” I took another step towards them. The uspecs dropped their daggers, turned around and fled. I watched with my side eyes as the ones who I’d knocked to the ground, limped away, running after their friends.

Musa walked back to my side. I reached for the black bag on its shoulder and took it back from it, placing it on my shoulder, then I continued walking. I pretended not to see the look of awe on Musa’s face.

It was obvious when we reached the end of the docks. The dock had been floored with the same soft brown foamy ground as the path we had walked on. This new place however, the place which I gazed at, had an okun ground. It reminded me of the arena in the pits. There was a slight wooden protrusion, demarcating the okun floored region from the docks. That protrusion kept the pink liquid on the other side from flowing into the docks.

“What is this?” I asked.

Musa was quick to fill in the details. “This is ‘the field’ the touts were talking about. It’s where the commoners live. The tall walls,” it gestured towards the walls that I had been drawn to. The corner of the walls started from right where the docks merged with the okun we had travelled on. “they fence the hamlet in and separate the different living areas in the hamlet. They separate the commoners from the wealthy merchants and the nobles. I’ve heard that the walls are actually made up of two distinct walls with deadly okun trapped in between. They say that the liquid in the walls are like the fogs, that they will kill you if you go in.”

I turned to stare at Musa and then I smiled. I nodded at the imp and walked over the protrusion into ‘the field’. As soon as I stepped onto the okun floor, I let my gaze travel around the area, truly examining it for the first time. My first impression was that it was too packed.

Light sources hung from the other side of the walls. The sources gave off a red light the same shade as that of the clouds, but brighter. From further off, the brightness of the light had made it appear different in color, but now, standing closer, I could tell that it wasn’t.

The place was packed with dwellings. The closeness of the dwelling places made the walking paths between them narrow, too narrow for an uspec to sleep on. I thought we would have to go back to the docks to sleep for the night. And then a curtain was pulled open and two drunken uspecs stumbled out of a dwelling with a sign at the top. That was when I remembered the existence of inns. I had been told so many tales of inns, the food they provided, the stories which accompanied them, but I had never thought that I would have cause to stay in one. I smiled as I began walking deeper into the field, searching out my first inn.

As I walked, I saw a few uspecs walk past me. They stopped to stare each time, their shocked center gazes moving to the cloth on my neck. Some of them bowed, mumbling greetings as they walked by, others simply looked away. Whatever the reaction, the uspecs gave me and Musa a wide berth, moving as far away from us as they could get.

The dwellings all appeared to be the same or very similarly designed, at least from the outside.

There were rows and rows of buildings all painted in different colors. It was hard to tell where one dwelling began and another ended. The only clue to that was in the curtains marking the entrances to the different places. I don’t know how long we walked for. I found myself absorbed in the different curtains, the lightings, the presence of so many uspecs and dwellings, that I simply walked on and on, just staring at each new sight and running my hands over the walls of the buildings. Finally, a strong waft of pastries drifted out of a dwelling, then the curtain parted, allowing an uspec to walk out. The uspec’s center eye was so nearly closed, I wasn’t surprised when it almost walked into me. I simply moved aside and cleared the way for the uspec to drop to the floor. It pushed itself up and began walking again.

Shaking my head, I took my gaze from the uspec to the inn it had walked out of. Drawn by the inviting smell of the pastries, I pushed the curtain aside, and walked into the inn.

Part 9
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It was night before I got my first look at the main hamlet. Off in the distance, lit by a dazzling display of colorful lights, the hamlet sat like a beacon calling to me after a long voyage. We were too far away to see the contours and plains of the dwellings which made up the hamlet, but I could see the glow of light, like a halo rising from it. I yearned to move closer and truly observe this place.

We had come to the end of the empty land on which we’d been walking for the majority of the day. Now we stood at the bank, where the land met the okun. Musa placed its sack bag on the ground by my feet and turned to face me.

“I will get an open top canoe master.” It said, and then remained where it stood, as if waiting for some acknowledgement from me. With a somewhat puzzled frown on my face, I tuned to the imp and nodded. It bowed and then it left.

I stayed as I was, with my head bent to the side, tracking Musa’s departure. It walked quickly by the bank, moving further and further away from me. Eventually, it disappeared, moving behind the shrubs which bordered the path. With Musa gone, hidden by the vegetation, my mind recalled the question it had asked before it left and the way it had waited for a response. Was this what it meant to be an owner then? To be forever bound to another’s care. I sighed, watching and waiting for the imp’s return. It wasn’t till I saw the pointed tip of the open top canoe emerge from behind the shrubs, that I allowed myself relax. I realized then that I had been worried. But worried about what, I could not say. No, I decided, I did not much care for this business of owning slaves.

But Musa was bound to me. It did not know it, but it had belonged to my ancestors. I had watched it weep for them. With a sigh of resignation, I accepted my role as its owner. However, there would be no other. It would not be my responsible to care for another imp. No, those wishes had been the longings of a naïve uspec. Now I knew better.

As the canoe drew closer, I realized that there were two imps in it. One sat at the middle of the canoe. With both paddles in hand, it controlled the canoe, propelling it forward through the pink liquid. Musa sat at the stern, in the front of the canoe. The closer they got, the more aware I became of the intricacies of this canoe. It was painted a dark shade of grey, and had markings carved onto its exterior. From the bits of memory I could pull together from my voyage from the pits, I did not think that this canoe was as large as the one Gerangi and I had travelled in. It was obvious though, that this one was of a much finer quality.

The canoe came to a stop in the okun a few paces from me. Both imps emerged from the canoe. Musa jumped out first, coming immediately to reclaim its sack bag and stand by my side. The other imp’s dismount was slower, and much more thorough. The imp kept a hand on the side of the canoe as it disembarked, and pulled the canoe with it, closer to the edge of the foam ground. I could not help but notice how the canoe was suddenly held fast when the imp shoved the stem into the solid bank. Then it walked out of the shore and came to stand before me on the solid bank. The imp was naked. It had streaked skin and empty eye-sockets.

It bowed. “Greetings domina, I am a Lastmain runner.”

With a frown, I turned to Musa. “Lastmain?”

“Main hamlet in the last burg master. The natives call it Lastmain.”

I nodded and took my attention back to the bowed imp. “If it pleases you domina, I will take you to the docks.” The imp said.

Musa spoke up then. Its voice was a little hesitant, as if it wasn’t certain about the wisdom of broaching the subject of which it spoke. “She says that the journey to the docks will cost half a piece of merit master.” She, it was a word that I had heard before. Though I wasn’t sure what it meant, I knew that it was often used to refer to imps. While I mused on the meaning of this strange word, Musa spoke on. “Forgive me master, I had intended to find an empty canoe, but there were none that I could see on this side of the okun. Those canoes are free to use. Maybe I just didn’t search long enough. She says that all the empty canoes are back on the other side of the okun, by the hamlet, but she may be lying for the business…”

“I am not lying.” The other imp snapped. The snarl in its voice pulled my attention from my own thoughts and my passive listening. “You beggar, how dare you call me a liar? A passing trader’s imp insulting a Lastmain runner, I will have you whipped in the city. Foolish, disrespectful, little thief.” The imp ended its tirade with a sound I had never heard before, but it resembled one that an animal would make.

It had been a long time since I had felt the rush of anger that usually came with being insulted by an imp. Suddenly it filled me, coursing through my veins with the blood flowing in me, leaving a path of scalding heat in its wake. I lashed out with my right hand, and grabbed the imp around the throat. It was shorter than Musa, and thus, much shorter than I was. I lifted the imp up, squeezing its throat as I rose it to a level with my face. I wanted to hurt this imp, I wanted it to feel pain. Its eyelids pulled back and its eyebrows rose, giving an expression of fear. Its hands reached up to mine and it tried to pry my fingers loose. The effort was almost amusing in its futility.

“Master.” Musa’s voice was like a splash of cold liquid, pulling me out of the fog of rage.

With a clearer mind, I turned back to the imp in my hand. It wasn’t till I was no longer basking in the energy of my own anger, that I remembered the familiarity of it. Now that it was gone, I was suddenly left with the chilling feeling of a being a stranger in my own skin, with the anger being nothing but a glimpse at the person I had once been. The stranger that I had become was disgusted by my behavior. I knew that I was a weakling. By my actions I had revealed myself as something despicable, an abomination which would hurt a thing which could not defend itself.

I let go of the imp and took a step back. My head was throbbing, it throbbed so painfully that I had to put my head in my hands and massage my temples with my fingers. It took a while, but I finally got the pain to ebb. I looked up then to find the naked imp staring warily at me, and my own slave looking at me with horror on its face.

I sighed and jerked my head towards the canoe. “I will pay.” I said simply.

“Thank you domina.” The imp said, as if it was used to that sort of treatment from uspecs. It recovered quickly from its earlier shock and ran back towards the canoe.

I waited for a moment for Musa to say something, anything, but it remained as it was. The look of horror faded from its face and in its place rose an appearance of calm acceptance. It kept its head bowed as I walked past it, and then it followed mutely behind me. I climbed into the canoe. Instead of the wooden bottom which I had expected, the interior of the canoe was lined with fur. It had three seats. One in the middle for the paddler, one in the front and one at the back. The last seat was wide enough to sit two uspecs my size, definitely wide enough for Musa and me. I sat at the back of the canoe and Musa sat at the front.

The runner pushed the stem of the canoe free of the lock of the shore-ground. Before the canoe could move too far away, it jumped back into the canoe, and took its seat in the middle. Then it began to paddle, steering the canoe away from the empty path we had spent the whole day walking on, to the city of lights I could only glimpse from the bank.

The canoe moved in the okun. The okun was gentle, it did not have any of the waves which was rumored to cause a panic to travelers. The liquid in the okun did move lightly, causing the canoe to rock a little as we moved, but I found the rocking motion somewhat lulling. It drew me into myself, forcing me to dwell on my actions and a new emotion which had risen in me. It was such a novel feeling, irking in the unsavory traces which it left, that it took me some time to identify it.

We travelled in silence for an hour, and in that silence, I recalled Musa’s tone when it had mentioned money. It must have thought me incapable of paying half a merit, that must have been why it had begun its rambling talk, words which provoked a reaction from the other imp. I pulled the black satchel bag onto my lap and scanned it in more depth for its contents. I pulled out three sachet bags and found that they had different colorings. One of those sachets had swirls of gold embroidered on it, another one had swirls of silver, and the last had no embroidery. It did not take long for me to make the connection between the markings on the bag and the pieces within them. I pulled on the strings of the sachet with the silver embroidery and took out a piece of merit, Then I drew the strings, closing the sachet. It occurred to me then that I had better take out some time to examine my new found wealth and count just how much money I had.

As I closed the satchel bag, my gaze rose to the back of Musa’s head. Throughout the journey, it had not turned around once to look at me. Not only did it bother me that I cared, my awareness that I was somehow at fault, infuriated me.

Suddenly, the thought of selling the imp became unbelievably appealing.

The imp made me feel things that I did not want to feel. It awoke new urges, made me feel that loathsome emotion that was still unnamed. In some ways, I felt like the slave and the imp the master, it could manipulate my emotions so well. Was it using pansophy on me? That had to be it. The imp had used pansophy on me, that was why I acted so strangely. The imp had to go. I decided then that I would sell it the first chance I got.

As soon as I made that decision, Musa turned around. The look it gave me was so prescient I felt chilled at the thought. It was as if Musa knew exactly what I had been thinking. Its head bent and it shoulders sagged, but it turned back around.

Guilt.

Peaceyw:
I am speechless once again, I don't even know what to comment about. But I will like you to explain who is a banneret

Yay! I'm always happy when I can make you speechless So, the banneret is a type of noble. They are nobles that have been granted that position for guarding uspecs of the line of Kaisers

@tunjilomo yes, all the existences overlap. So that's why when we see Hakute or Lahooni in this spectral existence tale, it's introduced as the part that coincides with a specific part of the human world. And, the names if you look closely, are actually derived from human state names. So, Hakute coincides with the Port Harcourt area (harcourt, ha+kute(spectral existence spectrum that lives there)), Lahooni (La+hooni) coincides with Lagos which was stated in the previous book {in-between}. Your second question is much more complicated, and if I'm being honest, not one that has been fully fleshed out. So, in short, no the afterlife is not the same for the marked and the unmarked. We haven't seen this in the spectral existence in this book, because this book is set before the emergence of the marked (which Nebud says in the start). I don't want to spoil the future books, but I'll say this, the marked and unmarked in general still become imps and wraiths, but we'll see later that they are treated differently, because they have something unique to offer the other existences. Hope I answered your questions well enough!

@Fazemood thank you mister or Mr.

“Master.” Musa greeted. It spoke with a hesitation that I had not heard it use before. I nodded in response and looked at the area. I noted that the black tarp and the wooden bowls and spoons had already been removed. The only items on the ground were the sack bag and my black satchel bag. I picked the satchel bag up and let the strap rest on my right shoulder.

“Shall I carry that for you master?” Musa asked. It is funny how you only notice the presence of a thing once it is gone. In our previous conversations, I had not taken note of the enthusiasm with which Musa had made offers of its service. Now that the enthusiasm was gone, and all that remained was a perfunctory offer, I noted its loss. Suddenly, I was desperate to get the old Musa back. But what was I to say? I did not know, and I realized that I should not need to. If the imp chose to sulk, I would let it. As long as it performed its tasks, and did as it was told, what business of it was mine if it chose to speak without animation?

“No need.” Was my belated response. “You mentioned you knew the way to Katsoaru?” I prompted.

“Yes master.” It replied. “The entrances and exits to all ports are connected through the inter-port trail.”

Again, I took note of the somber tone and ignored it. “Lead the way.” I ordered.

It rose its head so that its gaze met mine. Even its show of shock was subdued. “You want me to walk in front of you master?” Its voice trembled slightly, as if it was afraid to say the words.

I suddenly felt like a monster, and the thought irritated me. What had I done to the imp? I had simply asked it to follow basic instructions. And for that this sullen behavior? I sighed, shaking my head at my own rise of anger. “Yes.” I snapped at the imp.

It bowed its head and turned around. Then, it picked up the sack and began walking.

We walked together in silence.

It led me down the empty sludge land. We must have walked for hours before I caught a glimpse of the first sign of an outhouse. I suddenly remembered Musa’s prompting the night before, to walk a little further to find a place to rest for the night. I had thought that the walk would be a few minutes, not a few hours! Had it really been that desperate not to sleep in sludge? The thought was confounding. Why would a beaten imp prefer to walk for hours just to rest on a bed, when it could rest right where it stood and be surrounded by the comfort of the sludge? It made no sense to me.

We continued walking, our silent travel leading us closer to the tent Musa had referred to the night before. Musa stopped walking and stood by a wooden post which had been erected in the road. It wasn’t until it stopped moving that I became aware of the difference in the ground on which I now walked. I had been so lost in my own thoughts that I had completely missed the transition we’d made from the sludge to the foam. The wooden post had an iron ring extending from it. Strips of brown cloth hung from that iron ring. Surrounding the bottom of the pole, there was a puddle of pink liquid. This was the smallest okun that I had ever seen. The liquid was about as clean as the pond I had cleaned in earlier.

Musa took off a strip of cloth from the iron pole and knelt by the puddle, with its head bowed. It took me a while to realize what it was doing. Once I did, I walked over to the kneeling imp and rose my right leg. Musa dipped the cloth into the liquid in the puddle, wrung it out, and then used the moist cloth to clean off the sludge from my foot. It turned to rinse the sludge off the cloth and into the puddle, before turning back to await my second leg. I rose the leg up and it cleaned that leg too. After doing that, Musa rinsed the cloth more thoroughly before wringing it out. It stood with the cloth and draped it back over the iron ring. Then, it bent to pick up its sack bag and silently continued walking.

Now that the sludge road had given way to the more comfortable ground, I expected to see more uspecs, but there was still no one in sight. I was shocked to see that the tent Musa had referred to was actually a hovel. The hovel was large. Like the hovels in my slum, this one was made of wood and baked sludge. But its material composition marked the end of its familiarity to the hovels I had grown up surrounded by. This hovel was magnificent. It was double the size of the largest hovel in that slum, and had a smooth finish which showed that much work had gone into constructing it. If a hovel this magnificent was the ‘tent’ for travelers which Musa had referred to, then I could not even begin to imagine what a great house would look like.

Suddenly, my curiosity was reborn. I remembered the desire that had filled me at the sight of the uspecs flying into my slum. I remembered imagining how big the world had to be outside my slum and how eager I was to discover it. Now, I realized, I just had my first real view of a dwelling outside my slum, and it was shocking.

I did not stop to examine the interior of the hovel, I did not even pause to take a closer look. The glimpse I got of it was enough. I would examine better places, I decided, bigger dwellings beautifully decorated and artfully designed.

And so, with a parting gaze, I bid farewell to the hovel, a dwelling of my past, and turned around to the path in front of me, excited to see the dwellings which awaited me.

Musa stood with a blank expression on its face, watching me. I realized then that, even though I had not stopped to examine it, I had slowed down considerably. My pace had become slow enough that Musa had noticed it and stopped. It was not then as unaware of me as its new apathetic bearing made it appear to be. That thought made me smile.

I nodded at Musa and the imp bowed and turned around. Still, holding stubbornly to its silence, it continued its walking. It dawned on me then, that this silence may not be such a strange thing. Perhaps silence was customary between an imp and its master. Perhaps the imp only spoke when it needed to, and remained silent every other time. But I could not accept that, not with this imp. Though why I would think I knew this imp well enough to make that judgement baffled me. I shook my head, vexed by the mental effort I had again assigned to worrying about my slave.

I took my attention to my surroundings then.

“Where are all the people?” I inquired casually.

Musa stopped walking and turned to face me. “Uspecs don’t live this close to the slum border master. My old master only lived so close because it was a passing trader, its business took it to the slums.”

“There’s no need to stop walking. It was only a simple question.”

“I would never dare to speak to master with my back turned.” The imp’s voice was flat. I had never thought of myself as particularly perceptive, especially when it came to noting slight variants in another’s tone. Still, I was all too aware of the lack of inflections in Musa’s voice as it spoke.

“I do not mind.” I replied without much thought.

“You do not?” I heard a spark of life in Musa’s voice as it asked the question. “Master…” it cut itself off, and then it looked down. Its feet began to move. I could sense its distress from the way it fidgeted.

With a sigh I ordered, “ask.”

It inhaled audibly as if needing the fortification of the air it breathed to gather the courage for the question. I found the act slightly amusing. “Have you ever owned a slave before master?” it asked and then exhaled just as loudly as it had inhaled.

I shook my head. “No Musa. You are my first.”

“Oh.” It said. Suddenly, the smile returned to its face and its shoulders lifted and straightened. It was as if I was watching the life rise back in it. “Well, master,” it began, the animation now so evident in its voice, I found myself smiling, “I think perhaps, if you would like me to talk while we walked, and you would like me to lead the way, then perhaps we should walk together, and not with you behind me. You may not mind if I spoke with my back to you, but others might, and they will judge you for it.”

What a strange thing to say, I pondered. “Why would I care what others think of me?”

“You wear the cloth of a banneret master, it is a position that many envy. They will watch you for it, and judge you for it, and if they see the opportunity, they will question it.”

I could not help but notice the imp’s phrasing. It had said, ‘I wear the cloth of a banneret’, as opposed to, ‘I am a banneret’. Was I overthinking it, or did this imp perhaps know that I was not what the cloth proclaimed me to be? I chose to ignore the doubts and simply nodded at the imp, accepting its words. I walked forward, and the imp began walking once I was beside it.

“Where do you hail from master?” the imp asked.

My eyes narrowed at the imp. “Why do the uspecs not live close to the borders?” I asked instead, choosing not to answer its question.

There was nothing in the imp’s tone when it replied to state that it thought anything of my choice of topic. “Commoners don’t like to be so close to the slums, master, so that they are not mistaken for de trop.” My jaw clenched at the imp’s words, but it continued speaking, oblivious to my reaction. “Plus, with the kutes, they like to be close to large okuns. In the first metropolis, the main hamlets are built around the okun.”

I nodded, and we fell back into silence. I could feel Musa’s reticence to ask any other questions or open a new topic. Its reticence no doubt stemmed from my refusal to answer its previous question. I decided that I was more than okay with this silence. It was different than the previous silence, with Musa walking sullenly ahead of me. Now, even though it wasn’t speaking, it had the animated bearing that I had come, in our short time together, to associate with the imp.

Part 8
--------

Musa stopped speaking. The silence that followed the conclusion of its tale was almost deafening. It took a while for the implications of the story to hit me. It took some time, for Musa’s tale to combine with Gerangi’s, but once it did, I felt like laughing. I turned around then, my gaze traveling over the empty area to the first sign of vegetation and the uspec I expected to see hiding behind it. I suddenly expected Gerangi to leap out from behind the nearest tree and laugh, as if this had all been one big joke. Perhaps the place it had taken me to had some sort of pansophy in it, something to make it appear as if Gerangi had died, when in reality it hadn’t. There had to be a reason behind all of this, there had to be. I could not believe that this was a coincidence, coincidences such as this did not happen.

Maybe Musa was lying to me. Maybe it somehow knew what Gerangi had said I was, and was trying to use that knowledge to change my view of it. My gaze turned slowly then to rest on the object of my thoughts. Musa sat still, with its head bent downwards so that it peered into the bowl. Its hand held onto the wooden spoon, and it twirled the spoon around in the bowl. It did not appear to be mindful of my presence, it was as if, in telling its tale, it had retreated so far into its mind that even now that the tale was done, it could not escape the feelings associated with the memory. Almost as if in confirmation of my thoughts, Musa sniffled. It sniffled and then I saw the tears running down its bent face.

Emotions such as those could not be faked.

So, what was the alternative? If Musa was telling the truth, then perhaps Gerangi had lied to me. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that this imp, this slave who had served all of the Kaisers of Lahooni, would suddenly stumble upon my path. Me, who Gerangi had said was the offspring of imperial ones. Gerangi’s words from the day in the pits returned to me.

“Your progenitors were both imperial ones. One was a first and only imperial, the single offspring of the Kaiser of Lahooni, while the other was a second imperial, the second offspring of the Kaiser of Hakute. You have a lineage irira, you are of the line of Kaisers. Both of your progenitors died in bringing you into the world and so you were given to your hooni sire, the progenitor of your progenitor, the Kaiser of Lahooni.”

Calam, my mind provided the name of my supposed sire. No, I shook my head, it was impossible, Gerangi must have lied. Gerangi was obviously no friend of mine. I hadn’t stopped to dwell on its words from the strange place, the place with the cyan fog. I recalled it telling me that I would die, that it had brought me to my death. No, Gerangi was no friend of mine. It must have lied to me then, I was just a de trop irira, just a nothing uspec from the slums. And meeting Musa, the pious slave who had served Kaisers, well, that was just a coincidence. I did not yet know if I appreciated the amount of knowledge which it would have gained from its previous service, but it belonged to me now, and I would have to live with it.

Musa’s sniffling took my attention away from my thoughts. I looked at the imp and found that I was not as irritated as I usually was around others who cried. What was it about this imp that affected me so strangely? Perhaps it was the loyalty in those tears. This was an imp who had not shed a single tear when it had been whipped by its previous master. It had taken the pain in silence, but now it wept for masters that it had served willingly and loved as family. Could such a slave truly exist?

“Where is the pond?” I demanded.

Musa jumped. It was so startled by my voice that I worried it would turn over the food in its bowl. Hurriedly, Musa wiped the tears away from its face with the back of its arm.

“Forgive me master.” It said, its head rising slightly, even though its empty sockets stayed below my line of sight.

I sighed. Where was the usual desire to scold weaklings who cried? I shook my head, finding my own reactions exasperating. “I do not like tears.” I said simply to the imp. “I do not want to see them again.”

The imp’s head rose, and its eyebrows lifted. It looked at me and I was suddenly assaulted with guilt at my last command, solely based off the look on its face. I refused to rescind the order, I would not let a slave dictate my words or deeds.

Musa nodded. “Forgive me master.” It said, after a prolonged silence. Its eyelids lowered, given off the impression that it was looking downwards. “It will not happen again.”

My answering nod was curt. “Where is the pond?” I repeated my earlier question.

Immediately, Musa sprung to its feet. It placed its bowl of food on the black tarp before saying, “I will lead you there master.”

“No need.” I replied, rising to my feet. “Just point me in the right direction and I will find it myself. You stay here and finish your meal. When I return we will leave.”

The imp looked surprised. “Surely you will need my assistance to wash your back, between your ailerons, and polish your feathers?”

I shook my head, and rose an eyebrow, waiting for the imp to reply to my earlier question. Musa’s head bent down, and its shoulders sagged. It looked as if it took my rejection as a personal failing on its part. Suddenly, I was filled with an insane desire to take my order back and allow it to assist me. That desire annoyed me. Again, I was tempted to go against my own wishes for a slave. “Do you need a beating to loosen your tongue?” I spat out harshly. As soon as the words left my mouth I regretted them. This imp was different. I had known it from the moment I felt its pain, and now, after hearing its story and the amount of loyalty it had shown to its Kaiser masters, I knew just how unique it was.

I sighed, shaking my head at the imp who had now dropped to its knees, its head still bent. “Just tell me where the pond is and do as I asked.”

The imp nodded, its head still bent. It lifted its right arm, and pointed its finger behind it, and to the right. “Behind those shrubs master.”

I left in the direction it had pointed at. For a moment I wondered if perhaps this was the same pond that I had swam and found jejas in the night before. I thought that was unlikely though, that pond had been much further off. I was tempted to look back, and see if Musa was still on its knees, but I resisted the urge. Instead I walked towards the yellow shrubs, my feelings a mix between irritation, and puzzlement at how much I cared about the imp’s feelings. It was a most unnatural thing.

Years later I asked the Kaiser why it had chosen me, and it said that it had been drawn to me. Its exact words were, ‘you called to me, as if I’d known you in a different life.’

Those words from Musa’s story rose in my mind as if in answer to my confused thoughts, ‘you called to me, as if I’d known you in a different life.’ Was that how I felt? I could certainly remember the familiarity of the imp’s face and name. I had seen it in that dream. I had awoken after taken the swamp-imp’s eyes, without any recollection of the details of the dream, but with a name and vague memories of the face which accompanied it. Then the next day I had seen the imp. It was as if meeting Musa wasn’t a coincidence, any more than the bag of money which I had found by the tree.

It wasn’t till I thought of the money that I realized I had left the black bag behind, with Musa. Every instinct I had honed in the pits told me to go back and get the bag before the imp stole it. But deeper, and more compelling than those instincts built on years of distrust, was an inane feeling that I could trust Musa. I had been drawn to the imp, just like the first Kaiser of Lahooni. And now I trusted this imp more than I had ever trusted anyone else. I cared more for its feelings than I had ever cared for another. Those things were not natural, they were not Nebud, but still I could not help feeling them. I could not help feeling the rightness of my union with Musa.

“We were led to believe that you died along with your sire, but we were obviously misinformed.”

Those words, those had been the words that Gerangi spoke, the conclusion to it telling me that I was descended of the imperial ones of Lahooni and Hakute. What reason did Gerangi have to lie to me? None. And Musa’s story? Musa had specifically called Gerangi by name, that had to confirm Gerangi’s tale that it had been there when I was born. If neither Gerangi or Musa were lying, then what did that mean? Something happened. Something must have happened between my birth and when I was sent to the slums, something neither Musa nor Gerangi knew about.

I looked up to find that I had reached the pond. It was a small pond hidden directly behind the yellow shrubs which bordered the empty land we had slept on. The liquid in it was not nearly the clearest I had seen, but it was much cleaner than that in the slum.

I walked into the pond and let myself swim once I got to a level too deep for me to walk. The pond was not wide enough for me to swim more than three strokes before reaching the other side, but it was enough to wash the sludge off, which was really all I needed. I spent much more time than I would have if I wasn’t worrying about Musa. I wanted to give it time to eat its meal before I returned. Again, I felt that instant reaction of irritation for my care for an imp. But then I remembered its tears.

If I accepted that neither Musa nor Gerangi were lying, then I had to accept that I was the offspring of Calami, the master Musa had wept for. I exhaled and took another lap in the small pool. What did any of this mean for me? Perhaps it meant that I’d had a sire who loved me. One who named me heir even though I was irira. I suddenly felt a brief pang of grief for the sire I had lost. It was a stirring that was short-lived, but one whose existence I could not deny. Still, I couldn’t determine what any of this meant. Was there a deeper meaning behind the revelations?

I walked out of the pond, and began the short hike back to Musa. Musa. It couldn’t be a coincidence that I met it. But how were such events manipulated? I was suddenly made achingly aware of the time I had lost. I had hit my head against a hard object in a room with green sludge and had woken up in a swamp surrounded by trees and a murky okun. Someone must have moved me. Had the person who moved me specifically led me to an area where I would find the imp? Had this person purposefully reunited an uspec of my line with the slave who had served that line since its inception? And if it had, what was its purpose? And what did any of this mean for my immediate future?

‘Katsoaru.’

The prompting of my mind seemed like an answer. Katsoaru. It was where I belonged, it was the next phase of my journey. I had to get there. Perhaps that was where the answer was. Maybe this Marcinus person somehow had the answer. I recalled Gerangi’s pansophy, the way that it had put its thoughts in my head, and then I remembered Maxad and its warning which had kept repeating in my head. This was pansophy then, this desire to go to Katsoaru and take Marcinus’s eye. It was pansophy, it had to be. I had no choice but to follow the voice in my head and put the pieces of the puzzle together. The answer would be in Katsoaru, I convinced myself as I returned to the imp.

@cassbeat thank you!!

@decoderdgenius Your suspicions are not too far off the mark . Thank you!

@HotB thanks so much!

@tunjilomo Yay, you remembered that part of the story from the pits!

@Mielekcezylil thanks!!!

@Fazemood I wish that there was a blushing emoji on nairaland, because ***insert blushing emoji here*** Thank you so much! I really appreciate that!

@spixytinxy Thank you! I'm so glad you understand the parts I tried to shed light on . This update is definitely longer

@Tuhndhay thank you! Hurry and catch up!

@Peaceyw Yes oh, Musa has certainly been through a lot.

@Taniaa You just started reading it two days ago and you're already in Volume 3! Wow, I'm doing my happy dance here! Please, keep enjoying

@Rynne I like where your mind is going! So, the short answer to that is that uspecs simply cease to exist after they die. So, they're death is real death, there's no life after for them. The reason for this is the long answer, which basically boils down to humans are special. Why that is is not really going to be covered in this book. That's part of the marked world creation story, so that's going to be in the next book, the Reckoning.

Part 7
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“I was born in the standard existence, in a place that is now known as the Western part of Africa, about 3 millennia ago. I died in the middle of a land dispute after I had lived for fourteen years. In those times young imps, such as myself, were taken as pious slaves. Some where trained solely in the acts of a specific order, some were trained to have a deep knowledge of all orders.” The imp paused in its speech to play around with the spoon in its bowl. I thought of scolding it, urging it to eat and talk, but I could sense a pensiveness as it spoke, one that did not invite interruptions.

“The first requirement for a pious slave is the knowledge of pansophy. An imp cannot die and so, the wisdom, the knowledge that pious ones deem too sacred to write down, are committed to an imp’s mind. To ensure that knowledge is never forgotten, the imp’s mind must be strong. The imp must master pansophy, it must know it better than any uspec would ever be required to. Just a simple study of lifeforces and their internal manipulations, a study that uspecs are taught in years, we are taught in centuries. Some imps, those that are considered promising are singled out and taught to master all forms of pansophy. I was one of those.” Again, the imp stopped speaking to idly stir the meal in its bowl.

When it spoke, its voice was lower, pregnant with emotion that I could not decipher. “It was a position that no sane person would want. You are taught to push your mind beyond its limits. Imps do not die, but we feel pain. We feel the pain of forcing each receptor in our brain open, of pushing it to work, to accept the knowledge of pansophy. We feel the pain of the internal meditation, the probing of our lifeforces, the manipulations. It was all pain. Centuries of pain to master pansophy, and eventually become tutors of it. We were to be kept secret, to be owned only by the pious, but everything changed when Chuspecip selected a line to serve as the Kaisers of Lahooni. The first Kaiser of Lahooni was the strongest Kaiser that had ever existed. It did not only thirst for wealth and territory, it yearned for knowledge.

I remember that year, it was after my first millennium in the spectral existence. I was owned by the order of procreation, but in that year, I was sent on loan to the order of adjudication. The Kaiser of Lahooni had a dispute with the magistrate of the order and was determined to see it end with the magistrate’s life. The magistrate of procreation intervened. It made the Kaiser aware of a secret that very few knew. Prior to this time, pansophy was thought to be a form of magic which could only be manifested by the pious. But the magistrate confessed the truth to the Kaiser of Lahooni, it confessed that pansophy was a gift which could be given to anyone with a strong enough mind to possess it.

That marked the birth of a new era. Before that time, only the pious had pansophy. After that, pansophy became a gift that was shared between the pious and those of the line of Kaisers. And it all began with the first Kaiser of Lahooni. That Kaiser was wise, too wise to accept the magistrate’s offer to learn from the magistrate itself. Instead, it found out about the pious slaves, the ones who had trained for centuries in pansophy and agreed to forgive the magistrate of adjudication only if one of the pious slaves was given to it in perpetuity and in its entirety. That meant that the slave would no longer owe any fealty to the pious, from that moment on, it would belong to the line of the Kaiser of Lahooni.

I was the slave chosen. The Kaiser chose me itself. The Kaiser was an imposing uspec. It was the first giant I had ever seen. Nine feet tall, and built with a bulk that perplexed the pious ones. The ground shook whenever it walked. On the selection day, we were all lined up in front of the Kaiser, and each of us deemed suitable for the position, prayed not to be chosen. But I was. Years later I asked the Kaiser why it had chosen me, and it said that it had been drawn to me. Its exact words were, ‘you called to me, as if I’d known you in a different life.’

I had prayed that the terrifying giant would not pick me, but it did, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The Kaiser treated me like family. It had a strange fondness for young imps. Not that it was cruel to other imps, it wasn’t, it just had a different relationship with the young. It filled its palace with young imps, and every imp it chose served it loyally. Before I met the Kaiser, I had thought of my slavery as an injustice thrust on me by an alien race, but with the Kaiser it became more than that. My eternal life was suddenly filled with purpose. I had found a master worthy of the name. I learnt the true value of service.

The Kaiser’s vision was big, much bigger than its lifetime. It did not simply want to conquer the entire existence and sit as Kaiser of it all, it wanted to build a port flourishing with enlightenment. Its dream was so engrossing that it became mine. The Kaiser knew that it would die and so it conferred upon me the position of osin, the favored one. It was not a position that existed before, but by its words the Kaiser formed it into existence. I was the first osin, and the only osin to ever serve the Kaisers of Lahooni. I carried the first Kaiser’s vision with me for the following millennia and ensured that its descendants completed the work it had begun.

And so Lahooni became the most developed port in this existence. It became the throne of power, and the Kaisers of that line became de facto leaders of the spectral existence. They settled disputes between quarreling Kaisers, and the size of their armies ensured that their word was adhered to. Through it all, I acted as tutor to the imperial ones, the offspring of the Kaisers. I taught them every tongue spoken in the spectral existence, I taught them to read and write, I taught them the rules of society and, most importantly, I taught them pansophy. With this knowledge, the skill for pansophy grew stronger in the Lahooni line, stronger than any other line of Kaisers.

It made other Kaisers jealous, it made them envious of the power of the Kaisers of Lahooni.

As osin, I did not only act as tutor to the imperial ones, I acted as a secret adviser to the Kaisers. It was my job to be informed, to know of all that happened both within the port and outside of it. So, I should have known when the plenum was created. I should have known when they formed and set their sight on Lahooni. I should have warned the Kaiser. Perhaps if I had, the Kaiser at that time wouldn’t have become the last Kaiser of its line.

Master Calam.

In many ways it reminded me of the first Kaiser. I think that master Calam was most like the first Kaiser. It was most methodical. It was not a giant like the first, but it came close, it was eight feet tall. The Kaisers of the line of Lahooni were always about six feet tall. Master Calam and the first were the only exceptions. Master Calam added much to the riches in Lahooni, it dedicated its life to technology and using pansophy for innovations that no one else had imagined. Wars are fought for power, bitter wars fought between siblings all for their progenitor’s favor. That had never been the case amongst the Kaisers of Lahooni, because the first decided that there would never be more than one offspring, never more than one imperial heir to the line of Kaisers of Lahooni. Another could only be made if the first died. But to ensure continuity of the line, a Kaiser’s first duty was to procreate.

And so master Calam had only one offspring, master Calami. Master Calami was like all the other Kaisers in height and bulk. It did not have its progenitor’s extra length, or its aptitude for innovations, but it had all the thirst for war that its progenitor never did. Master Calami had a short temper, it was a thing I tried hard to correct, but regardless of how desperately master Calam and I wished that master Calami would change or grow out of it, it never did.

Instead, its temper led it to a war with one of the offspring of the Kaiser of Hakute. At first, it was a petty thing; both imperial ones would play little pranks on each other. Somehow it escalated, it grew to the point where neither imperial one was willing to let it go regardless of the scolding of their progenitors.

They were determined to fight it out. A fight to the death. I tried to talk master Calami out of it, I tried to reason with it, but it would not relent. It would simply smile at me and say, ‘do you really think that spoilt brat can beat me?’ But of course I didn’t. There was no better fighter than master Calami, no one. That was why I wanted it to relent. It was an imperial one, destined to be the next Kaiser of Lahooni, I did not want it entering that position with a blood feud against the line of the Kaisers of Hakute. It did not listen.

And so, the Kaisers got together, master Calam and the Kaiser of Hakute. They decided that instead of tainting the reputation of their lines, they would turn the challenge into an honorary one. The only way to make a challenge to death honorary, is to fight for births, that is, to make it a procreation bout. That way an offspring would come out of it.

It was a thing unheard of. Two imperial ones never challenged each other in the hatch, nobles barely ever challenged each other in the hatch. It was a fight usually done between a noble and a commoner. The commoner died most of the time, but in the cases where the commoner emerged victorious, the progenitor of the noble chose whether or not it wanted its offspring’s offspring. If it decided it did, it would become its sire and pay the commoner off.

But master Calami and the Hakute imperial were determined, they would not be swayed.

I should have known it was a trap when they insisted that it had to be done in the pits of Hakute. Master Calami was so confident, it swore that it would fight, and win, anywhere. The day of the fight was the last time I saw master Calami. Master Calam and I accompanied it. We watched it walk into the hatch, and waited on the other side of the opaque fog for its emergence.

Instead, a pious one tried to enter. That should have been my first clue that everything was not as it seemed. But at least I was fast enough to stop it. I pointed out that the pious one had no business entering the hatch, not when master Calami’s progenitor was present. I suspected then that master Calami was dead, and that the pious one was trying to bond to the new imperial one. It is the most despicable sacrilege to manipulate a birth that way, but I had seen it done. I had seen pious ones force orphaned nobles to cast their first gaze on them, and by so doing have a noble that was forever bonded to the pious one.

Master Calam walked into the hatch instead.

I will never forget the look on its face when it walked out with the newborn. Back in that time, there was no middle ground when it came to iriras. An irira was to be killed, it was a sacrilege to do otherwise, but master Calam could not kill its own descendant. Master Calam was an uspec of enlightenment, not one of religious superstition. Even if it was the law, master Calam thought the law was wrong, and so it took the irira back with it, to raise as its heir.

That marked the beginning of the end of master Calam.

I begged it to procreate. I told it that an irira could never be Kaiser of Lahooni, I told it that the uspecs would never allow it. But it would not listen. It loved that newborn. I must admit, even I loved the young master too. I saw master Calami in the newborn’s face, I suppose master Calam saw the same thing. I did not want the young master to die, I simply wanted master Calam to appease its people by giving them an heir they could stand behind. But master Calam would not listen.

The night of the birth, word spread that the newborn was irira. I could not even begin to imagine how the news got out, but by the next day, master Calam was holding court with other nobles in Lahooni and it told them that its decision was irrevocable. It told them that it had already named the irira newborn as heir to Lahooni. The nobles promised that they would not let it stand, but master Calam was sure that their grumblings would cease after years had passed and the newborn became the kind of heir that they would all be proud of.

I told the master that the nobles wouldn’t wait that long, but it wouldn’t listen.

The assassins came at the end of that week.

It was a good week. I could tell from the second day I spent with the young master, that it would be great. I knew that it would be one of the taller Kaisers in its line, and I could tell that it would be a great fighter. Those things were evident from the very first day I spent with it. I developed a bond with the young master, and I found myself spending more time with the newborn than I did with its sire, the progenitor of its progenitor, master Calam.

I think, deep down, on some level, I knew that the young master was in danger and that was why I spent so much time with it. I wanted to be there to protect it. But when the assassins came, I was in Hakute. Master Calam sent me back to the pits. I think it was beginning to have its suspicions. We both knew that there was no way the Hakute imperial one could have beaten master Calami, not if the fight was honest, as it was supposed to be. So, I was sent to investigate.

I knew the moment master Calam was hurt. I tried to get back as quickly as I could, but by the time I got back to the palace in Lahooni, master Calam and the young master were both dead.

I never even got the chance to tell master Calam what I learnt of the pious one who had tried to walk into the hatch. I never got the chance to tell master Calam that I had found out its name, that the pious one was called Gerangi and that it was rumored to have worked for the plenum. I never got the chance to tell master Calam that Gerangi’s specialty was poisons, that I suspected that Gerangi had somehow put poison in the hatch and that was most likely what killed master Calami.

I never got the chance to tell master Calam goodbye.

All I got was its body. I got the body of the last two masters I would ever happily serve, the last two Kaisers of the line of Lahooni. I wept by those bodies. I wept for the masters that I should have protected. A millennium training on pansophy and two millennia spent serving the most noble and most worthy line of Kaisers to ever exist in the spectral existence. But where was I when I was truly needed? Nowhere to be found.

Nowhere.

I let my masters die before their time.

But I performed the burial rites. I at least did that for them. I made sure that they rested forever in the royal okun, with their ancestors.

A week after their deaths the plenum came to the palace. They came parading around the noble grounds as if they owned it, and installed a Custodian, as if they had the right. Master Salin, loyal to the plenum, was made Custodian of Lahooni. I had always been kept a secret. The Kaisers of Lahooni never committed my role to paper and so the new master did not know that I was trained as a pious slave. I became a kitchen slave. Some of the older imps, osins of the new master, decided that they hated me.

They picked on me and regardless of what I did, their hatred of me grew. Our altercations began to grow in size and scale, until it got to the point that their hatred of me was made known to the master. The master could not abide such squabbles between imps, so it dealt with us. The master’s osins were scolded and I was ‘punished’ and sold to a passing trader.

I’ve been the trader’s slave ever since. It was the trader who you killed last night.”

@correctguy101 great!

@decoderdgenius haha, I'm happy you're enjoying it! I have to work, so I can't write every day, but I try to keep my posting consistent at two posts a week on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. If I need to cut back on that, then I'll try to let everyone know before hand, but those are the set posting dates as for now. Hope you enjoy this next one

@Fazemood lol yeah, I think I'm going to love the relationship too A friend...? I guess we'll see. Next part coming soon

@decoderdgenius haha, I like that, please keep thinking on it

@tunjilomo I like where your mind is going

@correctguy101 lol, prepare your mind for more, more errands coming soon haha. Blame you? NO! I love that question, it shows that you're really getting it So, I haven't really gone into that much detail on imp magic, but you're right about the imp eyes being the source of their magic (one type of magic that is, there are others they don't need the imp eyes for). But, an imp with eyes is an imp without magic, they have to lose their eyes before they can get any of the magic of the spectral existence (more on this coming up later) and so, it's really just a matter of strength when an uspec tries to take an imp's eye. The imp can fight back, but if the uspec is stronger, the imp really doesn't stand a chance. As to the imp magic, I'm going to go into this in much more detail later in the book, but I'll just say here, that the majority of imps with magic have siphoned magic, which means that they are siphoning the magic from their owners. Because of this, the owner pretty much controls the magic that the imp can use and what the imp can use that magic for. It is very very rare to come across an imp with magic that is not siphoned. This is what Xavier (magic imp from the pits) tried to explain to Nebud when it was talking about how it came to work for Fajahromo. So, to answer your question, if the imps wanted to take over the spectral existence, they would have to rely on more than just magic, because in terms of spectral magic (in general) the uspecs have them beat. As to whether or not the imps can take over the spectral existence... well, I guess I should say that anything is possible. Hope that helps you understand better

@spixytinxy as soon as Musa entered I was excited, but I don't know if it will be a friendship, or something else...Anyway, I hope neither of them messes it up

Then I waited, straining my ears for sounds of the imp walking away. I could not say with any degree of certainty if I wanted the imp to stay, or if I preferred it to leave. I was certain of one thing though, if the imp left, I would not go after it. After waiting for a few more moments in the unenlightening silence, I turned around. The imp lay quietly on the sludge ground. Its eyelids were pulled close. The corners of my lips crept up, the smile coming unbidden to my face as I turned back around. I closed my eyes then and willed myself to sleep.

I woke to a sound that I had never heard before. It took me a while to place the gentle tunes of the high-pitched voice. I recalled where I was then and the imp slave I had acquired the night before. Slowly, I pulled myself to a sitting position and turned around to face the imp.

It knelt with its back to me. A number of things had changed while I slept. It was obvious that the imp had gotten a change of clothes. The shirt it wore was made of a light blue material, unlike the shredded cream one it had worn during its whipping the night before. Its trousers appeared to be the same, but it had none of the sludge stains I would expect after a night sleeping on the ground. There was also a worn looking sack bag by it. The sack bag was made of a brown material, and it had a black strap sewn onto it. The sack bags I had seen in the slums were much bigger and did not have the strap. But I could imagine how the strap would make the bag more convenient for travels. I couldn’t help wondering where the imp had gotten the change of clothes and the sack bag.

I cleared my throat, making my cognizance known to the imp.

The imp jumped to its feet and turned around to face me. It had a cheerful smile on its face as it bowed slightly and greeted, “Good morning master. Would you like to have breakfast first, or shall we go to a pond for cleaning?”

I was dumbfounded. Thanks to my newly gained outer eyes, I was able to clearly see the bowls which had been hidden by the imp’s kneeling form, without moving my head. Those bowls were placed on top of a wide black tarp.

“Breakfast?” I asked, my voice breathy with shock.

The imp fell to its knees immediately. “Forgive me master. I woke early and so I thought that master wouldn’t mind if I left to go back and get my belongings from the tree my previous master had tied me to. The food and change of clothing were there. Please forgive me master.”

What was there to forgive? I wondered. I stretched my legs out and placed my hands on the sludge ground behind me, as I observed the kneeling imp. “Why were you whipped the night before?” I found myself suddenly curious.

The imp’s voice shook. “I displeased my previous master.” It replied vaguely.

“By…” I prompted.

“It did not tell me what exactly.” There was a distinct note of sorrow and self-disappointment in its voice, as if it felt its old master’s displeasure as a personal failing.

“Get up.” I said. “I don’t care if you go about before I wake.”

The imp’s smile was so wide it shocked me. “Thank you master!” it exclaimed. “Shall I bring you some food then? It is not great, but it is well prepared. I used the last of the old master’s foodstuff.”

I nodded hesitantly. It felt very strange to have an imp waiting on me, very strange. The imp grabbed the larger bowl from the black tarp and brought it to me. I stared up at the imp, took the bowl from it, and nodded in thanks. It went back to the tarp and stood by it. My gaze moved from the wooden object sticking out of my bowl, to the imp standing by the tarp.

“What is this?” I asked, pointing at the long wooden object.

The imp’s eyelids pulled up and its eyebrows rose, its face forming a picture of shock. For a moment it just stared at me with its mouth hanging open. Then it made a visible effort to compose itself, before answering. “It is a spoon master.”

A spoon. Suddenly I remembered the pictures in the passing traders’ books, of fine dining and utensils used for eating. I had only ever eaten with my hands. I looked at the soup in the bowl and thought better of using my hands. Food like this would have come with bread in the pits. Warily, I picked up the spoon and pulled it out of the bowl. I examined the contraption, studying the bowl end of it, and then I put it back into the bowl and scooped up a spoonful of the soup. I noticed then that the soup was not as light as I had imagined. Its texture resembled that of the gruel we had been fed in the pits. Warily, I took one spoon of the meal.

It was impressive. My taste buds did not suddenly explode with the delight of a fine delicacy, but it was a more subtle succulence. This meal would not be served at a ball for a Kaiser, but it was the type of thing that I liked. It was much better food than I had eaten over the past years in the pits, and for that alone I was grateful. I took three more spoons before I remembered the person who had made it.

I rose my head then to study the imp, and I could not help but be baffled at the look of pure delight on its face. It was as if the simple act of watching me enjoy its meal was pleasing. “It is good.” I said.

The imp’s smile got even wider, a feat I had previously thought impossible.

“Have you eaten?” I asked.

The imp shook its head. “I would not dare eat without master’s permission.”

The imp’s words took me by surprise. My mouth hung open with shock. Was the feeding of this imp also to be my concern? Would it starve if I did not specifically tell it to eat? I could not think of anything I would like to have less in my care. “Whenever you are hungry you will eat without my permission. Is that understood?”

“Yes master.” The imp replied.

I nodded and took my attention back to my meal. I was almost halfway through the meal when I realized that the imp was still standing. With a sigh I put the spoon back in the bowl. “Eat imp.” I said, gesturing towards the bowl on the tarp.

“Now master?” it asked, “while you eat?” It spoke as if such a thing was unheard of.

“Yes, while I eat.” I replied, suddenly finding this whole business of slave ownership amusing. What other rules existed between master and slave?

The imp moved around awkwardly. I watched it edge closer to the tarp and then observe the material as if it was a foreign body it could not approach. Finally, it knelt on the tarp and then grabbed the bowl. It bowed its head and said, “thank you master”, with a forthrightness that awed me.

I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to know more about this imp. “Is it comfortable to eat while kneeling?” I asked, truly curious.

The imp’s head rose so that it looked at me. “I would not dare sit to eat while you sat to eat master.”

“Dare.” I said, jerking my head to the tarp. What a strange imp, I thought as I watched it awkwardly maneuver to a sitting position. Minutes rolled away as the imp did nothing more than stare, with its bent head, at the bowl in its hand. It did not eat, it simply looked at the contents of the bowl.

Then, after a while, it rose its head up and stared at me. “Truly master, you do not mind if I eat with you?” it asked. I shook my head, and again its answering smile and “thank you,” were candid.

“Tell me about yourself Musa.” I said, after taking another spoon of the meal.

The imp was just about to put its first spoon into its mouth, but then the spoon went back into its bowl. It stared at me and then it chuckled. “But master, you just said that I could eat.”

I frowned in confusion. “You can eat and talk.” I stated.

“It is not considered acceptable in polite company.” The imp’s words almost sounded reproachful.

“Are you saying that you decide what is considered acceptable?”

The imp dropped the bowl and went back to its knees. “Forgive me master…”

“I was only teasing.” I said, and it surprised me to say it. Teasing. When was the last time I had teased another person? A vague memory formed of a childhood in the slums, but even then, I had never been the one to do the teasing. I had however been the one teased.

The imp went back to its sitting position on the tarp. “It has been a long time since I have been teased.” It stated simply, before taking a spoon of its meal. Suddenly, with its solemn words and expression, this imp appeared much older than an imp young. The sadness in its bearing told of a pain that I could not fathom.

The thirst to know more reappeared. “Tell me about yourself Musa.” I prompted. This time, my voice was gentle, cajoling, yet firm and unyielding. “I want to know everything.”

Part 6
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The last burg in the first metropolis of Hakute
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I took one last look at the streaked skin of the imp’s face before walking around to the other side of the tree trunk. The imp’s arms had been spread so that they were wrapped around the tree, reaching as close together as they could. Then the rope had been wound around both wrists and knotted in the middle of the space between them. I cut through the ropes binding the arms together and watched the arms draw back to the other side of the tree. The imp’s legs were tied in a similar way. I went on one knee and cut through the ropes binding the legs as well.

Once the imp was free, I walked back to the other side of the tree, and leaned causally against the tree trunk. With my arms crossed in front of me, I watched and waited to see what the imp would do.

The imp, now freed, rubbed at the indents in its wrist which had been formed by the ropes. It rubbed at its sore wrists for some time. Then, as if suddenly recalling that it wasn’t alone, it rose its head up so that it’s empty eye sockets were in line with my eyes.

I noted, as I watched it stand still before me, that it was the tallest imp young that I had seen. The imp was tall enough that the top of its curly black hair reached over midway past my chest. I found its height pleasing.

The imp appeared unsure. After peering up at me for minutes and watching me do nothing more than observe it, the imp’s head bent downwards, as if in a bow. I waited for it to raise its head and fidget, or perform some other gesture of impatience, but it did nothing more than stand with its head bowed. I cannot tell how much time passed in the silence that followed.

Finally, I spoke. “What is your name?” I heard myself repeating the redundant question.

“Musa.” The imp repeated its answer as it had the previous time. Then, as if as an afterthought it added, “Master.”

I could still remember the first time I had heard tales of imp slaves. I did not know yet, why at such a young age, I had felt drawn to be an owner, but at that point in my life, I could think of nothing greater than owning an imp slave. It was my sole ambition. Before I dreamt of eyes and the magic they would bring, before I wished for feathers to fill my ailerons, and before I dreamt of my tail growing longer, I wanted a slave. Now I had one, and I had no idea what to do with it. I had spent too much time alone, too much time with no one but myself to worry about and care for. What would I do with a slave? The rebuke lay on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to chastise it for the title it had given me, to tell it that I was not its master and that it was free to do as it pleased, but I didn’t. Why?

The longest interactions I had had with slaves had been to rebuke them for insults against me. But this one made no move to insult me. It hid its emotions, which meant it had pansophy like Xavier, yet it made no attempt to get itself free. Why was that? And why did I care?

“Can you move?” I spat the words out callously.

The imp’s head snapped up. “Yes master.” It replied.

“Do you not want to be free?” I teased it. Was that cruel of me, to tease an imp with a freedom I was not willing to give it? And why did I care what the imp felt?

The imp’s head moved backwards, and its lips parted as if in shock. “No master.” It replied.

“Why not?” I pushed.

“Because I am a slave.” It replied with content.

Slowly, I moved myself away from my relaxed position leaning against the tree trunk, stood upright, and stalked towards the imp. I stopped in front of it and waited for it to crane its head backwards so that its gaze met my face. It did not. It remained standing as it had been, with its head pointed at my chest.

I bent so that my ear was on a level with its ear. “So, you will serve whichever uspec claims you?”

“You killed my master, so now you are my master.” It stated as if the answer should be as plain to me as it was to it.

“And what if I don’t want a slave?” I asked.

The imp tilted its head backwards then, its eyelids pulled all the way back, and I could tell, even with its empty eye sockets, that it was staring right at me. “Do you not want a slave?” it asked. The question was stated simply, there was no taunting in the imp’s tone which I could hear, but I knew that the question in itself was impudent. But what was I to do? Should I discipline it, start off the relationship the way I expected it to be? I found that instead of finding the impudent question disrespectful, I was slightly amused. A willing slave with spirit. If nothing else, the imp promised to be amusing.

I nodded curtly at it. “My name is Nebud.” I informed it. “I am your master now.”

The imp nodded, and then it stepped three paces back and dropped to its knees in front of me. I was suddenly aware of my own level of ignorance. What was it doing? The imp held its hands behind its back and then it bent its upper body, bowing its head until its forehead touched the sludge ground. Was I supposed to do something now? I wondered as the imp remained in its supine position.

“You can stand up.” I said, after a few minutes had passed and the imp remained as it had been. I heard the slight undercurrents of amusement in my voice and was slightly puzzled by it.

The imp stood up. A smudge of sludge was stuck to the imp’s forehead. I found myself wiping away the sludge before I realized what I was doing. Wasn’t the imp supposed to be the slave and I the master? Then why was I cleaning it. I brushed off the sludge with my other hand, slightly irritated with myself.

“Thank you master.” The imp said.

I jerked my head forward and began walking. The imp followed behind me. Traveling by myself, there were many things that I had never stopped to consider. One of those things was the speed at which I walked. I walked at a speed which I found satisfactory. But now, with the smaller imp following behind me at a pace which even I could tell was not comfortable, I found myself making the conscience effort to slow down. Now I had to measure my movements for the imp’s sake? Why had I been so eager to own a slave? I could hardly remember.

“Master, if I may?” the imp sounded as if it was out of breath, like a winded runner after a race.

I stopped altogether, giving the imp a chance to rest. I nodded brusquely at it, in answer to its question.

“Where are we going master?” it asked.

Again, I wasn’t sure if this question was impudent or if questions like this were expected from slaves. I truly had no knowledge of what it took to own an imp. I decided then, that I would treat the imp as I would any other uspec. I had never really had any problems with imps, that is, with imps who knew their place. As long as this imp obeyed me, and it spoke in a respectful manner, it could say whatever it pleased. Having made that decision, I felt a lot more confident in my new role as master.

“Katsoaru.” I replied.

The imp’s lips parted, and its mouth hung open in shock. It stared at me with that ridiculous expression on its face for at least a minute before it composed itself. “Master,” it spoke slowly as if taking care to measure its words, “do you know where we are?”

The corners of my lips twitched as I thought about the question. Then I shook my head. “Not exactly.” I replied.

The imp smiled. “We are in the last burg in the first metropolis of Hakute. It is a slum border master, as far away as you can get from the inter-port trail.”

“The inter-port trail?” I asked.

“Well, yes master. The inter-port trail connects different ports. It is the only way out of, and into a port.”

“Do you know the way?”

“Yes master.”

“Then lead it.”

The imp hesitated. “Master,” it began, “perhaps we can find a place to stay for the night and then continue the journey tomorrow? It is at least a day’s walk into the main hamlet. Once we get there, seeking transportation to the inter-port trail will be easy.”

I started to shake my head and then I remembered the beating the imp had taken. Although I was not tired, I thought, maybe it was. With a sigh, I nodded. I took my bag off my shoulder and placed it on the sludge ground. Then I lowered myself to a sitting position. I was just about to lay on the sludge ground, when my eye caught the look of alarm on the imp’s face.

I sat up then, and stared up at it. “What is it?” I asked.

“Master…” its head turned to look around the empty area, before focusing back on me. “Surely, master, you don’t mean to sleep right here, on the sludge ground, in the middle of a path?”

I frowned at it. “Of course.”

The imp shook its head, its widened mouth hanging open. “But, perhaps master, we could walk for a while and find shelter. The sludge gives way to more comfortable ground a few paces ahead, and there are empty tents erected specifically for travelers.”

“I am fine with the sludge.” I replied.

“But master, I … I … it’s sludge.” The imp exclaimed as if my suggestion that it was a good sleeping ground was insane.

I was suddenly irritated with this imp. “Find your own place to sleep then.” I snapped. “I have no problem with sludge.” After saying that, I lay down, using the bag as a pillow again. I turned my back on the imp, closed my eyes and did my best to fall asleep.

Fazemood:
Oga Don get first slave,
He has been he money to buy as many as he wants, so not a big deal.

LOL!!! Yes oh, it has money!

It was pristine, it was purer than anything I had ever seen and it had a glow of pink which rose above the surface of it. The swan turned around and moved towards me. It wrapped its long neck around the bottom of my leg and stroked the side of my feet as I continued to stare at the liquid. Even without exerting too much energy to study it, I felt the swan’s pain. This close to the pond, the pain appeared different in a way that I could not place. There was also something about the gesture of the swan’s beak scraping against my feet which gave me pause. I had no time to contemplate these things as the swan uncurled itself and then walked back, away from me. Its wings spread and slowly, one after the other, they began to flap. Then the swan rose. It flew away from me and dove, beak first into the okun. As soon as it entered the okun, the swan was gone. No matter how much I searched, I could not feel its pain.

That was when I realized what the gesture had been, and why its pain had appeared different. It dawned on me then, that with its gestures, the swan had been saying goodbye.

I just stood there for minutes trying to wrap my head around the loss I felt. What was it about the swan that made me ache to see it again? Was it the purity? Being in the presence of a frosted beast was not a thing that many could boast. I had been taught that frosted beasts rarely ever left the body which birthed them. It had been said that on rare occasions when a frosted beast was separated from its home, it sought an uspec companion. Had I thought that I had been chosen, that I had been found worthy for such a position? I laughed at my stupidity then. Whatever reason there was behind the swan finding me, I was just grateful that it had. I was grateful for the fruit it brought me, and grateful that it led me out of the swamp and to this pond with food.

I placed my black bag on the sludge ground and ran towards the okun. Then I dove in and spent more time than I would have thought endurable, just enjoying the feel of the liquid. It had been a long time since I washed, I long time since I simply enjoyed the pleasure of swimming in an okun. As a kute, I was an okun person, it felt like a wrongdoing to have been so long separated from the okun. I swam for what could not have been more than a few minutes, although my stomach complained as though it had been hours. At my stomach’s hungry urging, I dove deeper into the okun and searched for jejas. I kept an eye out for the swan, but I knew that I would not find it.

Instead, I saw a school of yellow jejas swimming towards me. I lashed out with my arm and grabbed three of the streamlined creatures before they could escape. The rest of the group scattered, swimming in different directions to get away. I had caught three small ones. I was sure three jejas would be enough to start. I could always jump back in for more.

With one hand, I swam out of the okun, and took the three jejas I had caught back with me, to sit on the sludge ground by my bag. For a moment I thought about cooking them. I had never eaten raw jeja. In the slums, we had left the jejas out over days to dry or smoked them over a fire, when we ate them alone. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I was too hungry to either search for a fire or leave the jejas out for days to cook.

I slit the jejas’ throats with one of my neck scales and waited as long as I could, holding the jejas upside down, for the blood to drip out of them. Then I proceeded to eat them, one after the other. I did not have time to clean them as we usually did in the slums, cutting of their tails and fins and heads. I did not even take care to debone them. I just tore into the flesh and ate a bite at a time, till all that was left was the long center bone. Even after eating all three jejas I still felt unsatisfied. However, I remembered the warnings from so long ago. I remembered that it was better to eat in small amounts after a prolonged fast. So, I crawled back to the okun and drank fistfuls of the pink liquid, filling up my belly with that instead.

Then I crawled back to my bag and sat by it. I stared up into the night and like the night before, I felt at peace. I was actually excited at the thought of sleeping on the sludge ground. It had been a long time since I felt the warm embrace of the sludge. A long time indeed.

I was just about to lay down, when a foul feeling stole into me. I knew at once what it was. I sprung to my feet, grabbed the black satchel bag and set off on the trail of that foulness. Like a beast hunting a scent I followed it mindlessly. I paid no heed to my surroundings, placing only as much forethought as was needed to push a branch away from my path before I brushed past it, or to move around potholes.

As I got closer to the source of the feeling, I heard the sounds of an uspec grunting, followed by the sound of a whip hitting flesh. If those sounds were all I had to go on, then I would have been unable to tell if the subject of the lashing was an uspec or an imp. But I was following the feeling of fouled pain, and I knew that only an imp young had pain which could be fouled as such.

There was something about this pain that was more compelling than the others. If likened to a smell, then the foul pain of the others could be compared to an offending stench which I found unbearable. This one, on the other hand, drew me to it. From the distance which I had walked I could tell that this imp was further off than any whose fouled pain I had ever felt. It was further off, yet I was able to sense it. It compelled me to come to it, it drew me in a way that none of the others had. I did not think of what dangers I could be walking into, or what rights I had to intervene, I could not think on that. All I could think of was my desperate desire to remove the foulness from the pain of the imp young.

I stopped at a deserted sludge road.

Off to the side, I could see glimpses of artificial light, proof that there was some sort of settlement not too far off. But in front of me, only a few paces away, was a short kute uspec wielding a tail, and an imp young, tied to a tree. The imp young wore two sets of clothing. The shirt it wore to cover its top half was ripped to shreds. There were lines of blood on its back.

I stopped and watched as the uspec pulled the whip back and then brought it down hard on the imp young’s back. The imp young did not move. No sound came out of it. It was so still and so quiet that I wondered if it was dead, even though I knew that such a thing was impossible. Still, from the ripping of its shirt and the amount of blood which I saw, I knew that this beating had to have gone on for a while. Where were the tears? If there was anything which had become obvious to me about the imp young, it was that they were weak. They cried when they were in pain. Why did this one not cry out? Perhaps it was mute? Three more lashes landed, and still the imp remained silent.

The imp’s pain was not as silent as its owner. The foulness in that pain increased to sickening proportions.

“You there!” I called out, before completely knowing exactly what I would say.

The uspec did not acknowledge me, it just continued its whipping. I marched forward, and stopped the whip with my own hand, taking the force of the blow. Irritated, I yanked the whip from the uspec and threw it on the ground.

That caught the uspec’s attention. It stared at me, frowning, as if it could not fathom my existence, or at least my sudden appearance. Then it took a step back and bowed slightly. “Noble one.” It greeted me.

I was so shocked by the greeting that my mouth hung open for a long time. Too long, I realized as the uspec lifted its head and smirked at me.

“One of those then.” It said jeeringly. Then it bent, reaching for the whip.

I had to shake of the shock of been greeted as a noble one. I couldn’t understand why this uspec would refer to me as one. Did I look noble? I placed my foot on the whip, holding it down firmly so the uspec couldn’t take it.

Suddenly, a cyan blade flashed just an inch away from my throat. I took a step back, barely avoiding it. The uspec stood with the small dagger in its right hand. Its feet were spread and it made jabs in the air, as if it was prepared to fight me. I had my first good look at the uspec then. Its feet were covered with a mixture of caked and fresh brown sludge, a clear sign of an uspec who spent much time in the sludge. It had nothing on, save a belt attached to its waist. That was most likely were the dagger had come from. The uspec had three of its outer eyes formed, but none of them filled. It only took one quick glance at this uspec to know that it was a commoner, probably wasn’t much of a fighter either. No good sport could come of brawling with it.

I found myself acting in a way that was so uncharacteristic it puzzled me. A part of me wanted to kill the uspec and just get it over with. But another part of me, an alien part which I had never before been acquainted with, argued against it. What had this uspec done to deserve death? It had every right to discipline its slave. In fact, if the imp didn’t happen to be an imp young, I would not care. So why take its life? This new part puzzled me. Where had it come from, and why was it denying me an easy resolution? Still, I found myself heeding it.

“I mean you no harm.” I spat the words out, eyeing the uspec and its dagger.

“Then be on your way imposter.” Its voice was hostile.

“Imposter?” I asked, truly perplexed.

“You wear the collar of a banneret, but you are not noble, are you? You were probably just a guard who stole it from its unsuspecting owner.” After saying that, the uspec moved closer, jabbing its dagger some more.

The collar! I had completely forgotten about that. I stifled the urge to laugh. “Is this your slave?” I asked instead.

“What is it to you?”

“I want to buy it.” The words came out of my mouth before I had truly reasoned them out. But what else could I do? “I’ll pay you well.” I promised.

As if it could smell the money, the uspec’s eye darted greedily towards my black bag. “Maybe I’ll just kill you and take the money.” After saying that, the uspec rushed at me. It ran towards me tactlessly.

I stepped to the side quickly and grabbed hold of the uspec’s wrist as it ran past me. With my free hand, I grabbed the uspec’s shoulder and pulled it closer towards me. Then, with my hand on its wrist, I controlled its hand, turned the dagger around, and drove it into the uspec’s neck.

It fell to the floor, its blood flowing into the sludge.

What a waste, that foreign part of me whined. I could have paid it off instead I thought. I was so irritated with this new part of me that I reached for the dagger and pulled it out of the uspec’s neck. It wasn’t till I rose the dagger up that I realized my intention had been to cut out that annoying, weakling, part of me, which was mourning the death of an uspec I did not know. I had done the fair thing; I had offered to pay good money for the imp. Instead the uspec chose to attack me. What was I supposed to do? Reason with it, I answered myself.

Shaking my head forcefully, I took my attention from the dead uspec to the imp tied to the tree.

That was when I noticed that the imp was looking at me.

Its face was a dark shade of brown. It had empty eye sockets and streaked skin, the sign of an imp with magic. I reached out with my pain for the imp’s but I found nothing. There was none of the foulness which had drawn me to the imp, none even of the beautiful pain I had come to associate with the imp young. I felt nothing. It reminded me of Xavier, and how the imp had hidden its polluted emotions from me. I knew then, that this imp was hiding its emotions. To do that, it would have to have pansophy.

Did I want an imp with pansophy? An imp with magic I could tolerate, in fact, an imp with magic was useful. But an imp with pansophy? Especially when I didn’t have the magic myself? No, it wasn’t worth it. Without the foulness in the pain, there was nothing pulling me to the imp anymore. I decided to leave it as it was.

I was just about to turn around when I remembered that the imp was tied to the tree. I walked closer to it then, intending to cut it loose before leaving. But as soon as I got close enough to see the imp’s face, I stopped. It stared back at me, with its empty eye sockets, and I was filled with a haunting sense of familiarity. I had seen this imp before. A blurred picture formed in my mind as I tried to remember where I had seen it, but the picture was too incomplete. I just couldn’t figure it out.

“What is your name?” I heard myself asking.

“Musa.” The imp replied.

Immediately, pieces of a memory filled my mind. I remembered watching the imp die from a cutlass wound to the neck and then picking the imp up and taking it away. But taking it away from where? And how could an imp die? My thoughts didn’t make any sense to me. Hadn’t it been a dream? But what were the chances of me having a dream about an imp one night, and then meeting the same imp the next day?

I did not know. There was so much I did not understand, but I knew one thing, I knew that I could not leave it. The imp belonged to me now, whether I wanted it or not.

Part 5
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I walked until the orange dots gave way to red clouds. It was an entire day of walking, and by the end of it, I was still in a swamp, still surrounded by large trees and pink liquid. I started to wonder where the imp had come from. If not for the occasional glimpses of my face which I caught, reflected from the pink liquid underneath me, I would have begun to believe that I had made the entire encounter with the imp up. But my face showed three eyes, and so, I knew that it had not been imagined. I had already walked for hours before it occurred to me that it may have been wiser to begin my expedition by confronting the imp whose eyes I’d stolen and asking where it came from. At that point, I had already walked too far, I doubted I could find my way back if I tried. Instead, I continued walking further.

I paused by a tree trunk. The roots of this tree were the biggest I had seen throughout the day. It was so tall that the top of it rose above the surface of the liquid, and it was long and wide enough that I could lay fully on top of it. I decided that that root was as good a place as any to rest for the night. So, I placed my black satchel bag at the head of the root, where it emerged from the tree, and sprawled myself over the hard wood. I used the bag as a pillow and stared straight ahead, into the red clouds in the sky.

The root was not wide enough to accommodate all of me, and so the sides of my ailerons sunk slightly into the warm liquid. I did not mind the wetness too much, it was actually somewhat relaxing to feel the gentle sway of the liquid against me. I was finally able to allow my mind to escape the thoughts of walking and focusing the energy I had to completing that task. Now that my body rested, I was made aware of the fact that I had not eaten in…I could not even recall the last time I had eaten. Yet, I did not feel weak. The energy gained from the weed-fruit which I had dug up from the okun still burnt brightly within me. Regardless, my body made it clear that it was in need of sustenance. It wanted food. I could not blame it, but as a yawn escaped my lips, I decided that tomorrow was soon enough to go searching for food. For that night, I could close my eyes without the fear of Fajahromo, and I could sleep. I desired that peaceful respite more than food.

‘Katsoaru’

I groaned. “I know.” I spoke out, my voice breaking the silence of the swamp. “I will go to your blasted port. I could go back to the pits and kill my enemy, exact my revenge on an individual who has stolen so much from me, but no, instead I go to your port.” My words trailed off. By the time I was done speaking I was simply muttering the words. Even my voice sounded strange to me. I realized then that it had been a long time since I had spoken.

But the silence returned. The voices in my head were quiet and the swamp was as devoid of sound as it had been before. I noticed then that the keen senses I had developed from eating the weed-fruit had long waned. I could no longer hear the sounds of the creatures swimming in the okun. The thought of the creatures rose the familiar hunger pangs. Tomorrow, I promised myself as I closed my eyes for the night.

When I awoke, it was to the insistent poking of a sharp beak on my right thigh. I jumped to a sitting position on the tree root, and instantly stretched out my right hand ready to kill the creature which assaulted me. My arm froze in the air.

There are very few things that uspecs’ respect, very few creatures that we honor, very few sights which fill us with awe. Foremost amongst these creatures are the frosted beasts. For every spectrum-soul there is a frosted beast, a species of creatures said to be born of the soul and is the living embodiment of the purity of the body which birthed it. For the Kute spectrum, the frosted beast born of the okun is the swan. It is a creature of pure white, with a long neck, and four legs.

It was with awe, that I moved to kneel on one knee before the swan which had awoken me. Its head moved off to the side, its long neck bending at an angle as it observed me. I stretched out my right hand and gently stroked the white wings of the okun creature. It moved closer towards me and I watched in awe as it emerged from the pink liquid and stood on all four legs on the root of the tree.

It was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.

For a moment, it let me stroke it, and it did nothing more than observe me with its pink eyes, and then it leaped up. It flew, its wings flapping in the air as it surged far above my head. I could do nothing more than tip my head backwards to stare at the creature, until it came back down, landing on my shoulders. The pointed ends of its web feet pricked my skin lightly, but I did not care, I was too awestricken to complain. I was in the presence of a swan. I had been taught that a meeting with a swan was comparable to communing with the okun itself. To touch a swan was like reaching into the heart of the okun.

The swan moved forward and its legs slipped backwards as if it was trying to move into a more comfortable position. I stayed still until at last, I felt the undersides of its flank rest steadily on my shoulder and its feet brushed against the front and back of my chest. Then its long neck curled around mine. I felt the tip of the creature’s white beak scratch against the bottom of my earlobe. The communication I felt in that instant is indescribable.

Put simply, it was pain. I felt pain, but it was pain of a type that I had never before felt. In some ways, its beauty reminded me of the pain which I had felt coming from the imp young which I had encountered at the pits. In other ways it was pain of an amount with overshadowed that which I had felt from the multitude in the pits. I had learned from my time in the pits, that there was always a story behind the emotions of others, and that if I focused hard enough, I could tell where the pain came from and how much damage it could cause. Somehow, I knew that the only way to reach this swan was to go into myself and focus on my pain.

It had been so long since I’d tried to draw on the lifeforce in my pain, so long since I had felt it, that for a moment, I doubted it was still present. But it was there, as constant a force as my beating heart. I closed my eyes, blocking out the rest of the world as I reached for my pain and through it, the swan’s. The swan’s pain told a beautiful story. It told a story of its source, a deep pond with sparkling pink liquid, surrounded by a sludge ground. There were jejas in that pond, a variety of them that made my stomach grumble, awakening its hunger pangs. The swan’s pain had what I interpreted as a longing. I could only understand its pain in terms of severity and cure. The swan’s pain was severe, it was so severe in fact that if it was an uspec, I would say that the pain was fatal. But I could also tell that there was a cure, and the cure was the source of the pain. And so, I deciphered that pain as a longing to return to the pond.

The swan’s neck uncurled from mine and it flew off my shoulder. I opened my eyes and was blinded by the orange light. It was bright, too bright. I squinted, shielding my eyes from the glare of the light. I felt a throbbing pain in my head as I tried to push myself to my feet. I was too weak. It was as if I had lost all my energy from communicating with the swan’s pain. I put all of my effort into forcing my arm up and I was rewarded when my arm rose slightly off the root and fell back down.

Through my squinted eyes I saw the swan rise from the pink liquid with a black object within its beak. It brought the object to me, and placed it in front of me, on the tree root. My heart leapt at the sight of the weed fruit. Again, I channeled all of my strength to my arm as I tried to reach for the fruit. I was just about to get it, when the swan poked at my weak hand with its beak. It reached for the black fruit with its beak and then it bent its long neck so that the end of its beak was close to its webbed foot. Using that foot and its beak, it separated the fruit from the weed, then it flew unto my shoulder with the fruit in its beak. I wondered if there was any significance to the separation of the fruit from the weed, but I was too weary to dwell on it for long.

The swan brought the fruit to my lips with its beak, and I gratefully accepted the fruit from the creature. I chewed, perplexed by how much effort the simple gesture took and wondering why I had suddenly become so weak. Then I swallowed the chewed fruit and felt the energy flow back into me. The swan flew off my shoulder and landed in the okun in front of me. Moments later, I stood to my feet, grabbed the black satchel bag from the head of the root, and joined the swan in the okun.

I walked behind the swan as it glided through the liquid. I followed it through the swamp walking by endless large trees. My stomach growled, reminding me of the promise which I had made to it the night before. I remembered the sight of jejas in the pond and wondered if I could wait that long for food. I had energy, the energy which the fruit provided was just like the energy which I felt in the okun. It was enough energy to keep me going, but it did nothing to stave off the hunger. I listened for the sounds of see creatures swimming. I had heard those sounds after I’d eaten the weed-fruit the previous day, but this time I heard nothing but the sounds I made as I walked in the okun. I wondered if perhaps eating the weed along with the fruit did have some significance. I remembered experiencing a heightening of my senses after I’d eaten the weed. Even the surge of energy had felt somehow superior to that which accompanied just the fruit. Maybe there really was some significance to the swan separating the weed from the fruit.

I shook the thought off and brought my mind back to my surroundings. But my mind trailed back to its ministrations. I began to wonder if perhaps my sensitized ears from the previous day had not heard sounds of creatures in the swamp but outside the swamp. Had I heard the creatures in the pond which the swan led me to? If so, it couldn’t be too far away, and if it wasn’t, then perhaps I wouldn’t have too long to wait for sustenance. That thought did nothing to quell the rumbling of my stomach, but it did bring me hope at least, and hope proved to be a powerful motivation to ignore the hunger.

I had been wrong in my musings, as we did not reach the swan’s pond until the end of the day. By that time, my hope had given way to resignation. I was so downcast that I did not even notice as the occurrence of the large trees became more and more infrequent. By the time I realized that we had left the swamp, the red clouds had filled the sky for hours and the liquid in the okun had become so shallow that it did not fully cover my feet as I walked in it. We went on for about an hour longer before the pink liquid completely disappeared, and I was walking on sludge. Looking ahead, I noticed that the ground underneath the swan had pools of pink liquid, as if the liquid had come out from the swan. It was an intriguing thought.

A spot of pink caught my eye. It was still a ways off from where we were, but I could see glimpses of the pond, hidden behind a wall of shrubs. As we got closer to the shrubs, my mouth hung open. Previous thoughts of food and hunger fled, as I prepared myself for the sight. I had never seen a shrub before. We’d had an okun and trees in the slum, and so those were not new sights, but these shrubs were foreign. I knew from the passing traders’ stories, that things like plants and shrubs, and even the trees in our slums, were all a result of imp magic. None of those grew naturally. The Kaiser of Hakute considered it a waste to have food bearing plants grow in slums. If not for the wood gotten from the trees, we’d probably not have had trees either.

I stopped in front of the yellow shrub and stroked the leaves. Their texture was surprising, slippery and soft. It was something I had never felt before. As I ran my fingers over the leaves, and put my hand into the shrub, I caught a glimpse of small berries. Like the shrubs, I had seen pictures of this from the passing traders. I remembered learning that they were sweet. I reached to pluck a few of the berries, but the swan suddenly appeared in the shrubs. It scratched at my hand with its webbed feet, forcing me to let go off the fruits. Then it flew down from the shrubs and continued its graceful walk, on the other side of the shrubs.

I took that as a warning to leave the berries alone. It was a warning I heeded. Pushing the thin stems away, I made a path through the shrub which I could walk through. After releasing the branches, I turned around one last time to watch the shrub move back in place. I took one last look at my first shrub, and then I turned back around.

I froze and my lips parted as I stared.

It still surprises me how much differences can exist between okuns. At this point in my life I had seen a number of them. I had seen so much pink liquid in different states of purity, that I found it hard to believe that I could still see an okun which shocked me.

But this okun was different.

@Fazemood that's great! I'm glad

@Mielekcezylil thank you! Welcome to the story!!! So happy you're enjoying it!

@decoderdgenius Thank you

@cassbeat yes oh, we have to wait and see what Nebud will find when it gets there

@HotB thank you so much! I appreciate that!!!

@Peaceyw Confused good or confused bad? lol. So, the thing about the scene that Nebud saw, is that we don't actually know who was actually seeing it. It was a scene in the standard existence, and from what we know, Nebud has never been to the standard existence, so now the question is, who was seeing that scene and why/how was it shared with Nebud?

@Fazemood thank you!!! Yes, Nebud has gained spectra, but can it challenge Fajahromo....? Remember, there are different types of spectra 'powers'. Fajahromo has all of them, Nebud only has one, so, I don't know how well it would do in a fight against Fajahromo

Okay, there are four existences: supreme, standard, spectral and the fourth. The supreme existence is where the elements, Nature and Duraya reside. It is where the elements come from and it's probably the existence that was referred to the most in the in-between (because that is where Duraya is, and the ancestry worships Duraya and all that). The fourth existence is one that was spoken about the least in the last book, but it was where Osezele went first. It's were she went to the nothingness and she had that vision about Nosa stabbing her in the heart and fighting the merged imps again (if you remember all that). The spectral existence is where this book is based. It's the existence with the uspecs and the imps, and it's the existence that Osezele had to go into at the end of the last book, to fight the imp. The last existence is the standard existence, which is the regular existence. That is where humans live, so that's where St. Luke's and the community and all of that is. That's also the existence that the war in the last part I posted took place. Hope that helps!

Our horses rested on the flat top of a hill. From our position, we had a good view of the battle taking place below. Two different tribes of the indigenous kingdom fought over a plot of land. One group of warriors tied white wrappers around their waists and had their chests open. These warriors were all men. The other group had a yellow wrapper tied around their waists. I could see from the exposed breasts that there were a good number of female fighters amongst them. A thought crossed my mind then, on the sight of the breasts and the different sexes, but I shook it off. I had no time for such.

The land on which they fought had been previously chosen. It was empty land with clay soil and devoid of any civilians. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small form, hiding behind a big stone. It looked like a child. I turned, seeking out the rock and the child I had seen.

Marcus stopped my search. “Mistress.” The slave called out in a hushed tone.

I turned to my side, the child I almost saw, momentarily forgotten. “What is it?” I asked.

Marcus pointed at the ground underneath us. That area was separated from the fighting grounds, by a hill, much wider than the one we were on. I turned my horse and led it a few steps so that we were closer to Marcus and his horse. Then I looked down.

I sighed.

Just a day ago those grounds had belonged to us. They had been filled with quicksand and remained one of the existing portals through which uspecs could easily navigate to the standard existence. Now instead of the quicksand which had once filled the area, the grounds were covered with a black mist. I watched in pained anger as the last bit of brown became covered by black.

“Another victory for the fourth existence.” I said. I approved of my voice. It did not shake, it did not reveal any of the anger I felt. The slave was not mine, it belonged to an umani, I mentally shook myself, human, and it was loyal to the one who owned it. I could let nothing slip.

“Will there be a great war then?” the slave was not as good as I was in keeping my feelings hidden.

I turned to face him.

Perched atop the horse, he sat with his back straight and his bearing aristocratic. His skin was the dark shade of the indigenous people. I remembered his story, he had been the prince of one indigenous kingdom or another, before they had fallen to the Egyptians and now he served the pharaoh. It was a common enough story. He was dressed in the formal attire of a high ranked royal slave.

I turned back to stare into the black mist. “We won’t let it get to that.” I lied.

He exhaled, but the fear was evident in his voice as he spoke. “My master will be pleased to hear that. You must understand our fears mistress, we live in the middle ground. To reach the fourth existence an uspec must pass through ours, and that goes for all the other existences. If a war is fought between the three existences, it will be fought in the standard, and humans will die.” He stopped speaking and then his voice filled with hope. “Perhaps my master can arrange a meeting for peace talks between you three? Surely, the great war can be avoided, I…”

“I just said that it will not come to that.” I snapped, cutting him off. “And I do not need your master to arrange anything for me. I am more than capable of making those arrangements myself if I choose to.”

“Of course, mistress.” He bowed atop his horse. “I did not mean to displease…”

I rose up my hand cutting him off. Again, I was drawn to that black mist. A part of me wished to jump off my horse and into the mist. I knew that I could stop it, in this one instance, at this point in time, I could stop it. But what then? They would only find another. I couldn’t help the nagging thought that the supreme existence was in on it, that they colluded with the fourth. This time, our portal was taken over by mist, the last time, it had been taken over by an endless crystal blue sea, a supreme existence portal.

I sighed. The one thing I just couldn’t understand was how they found the location of our portals.

“Musa! No! He’s just a boy!” The loud cry broke into my mind, stealing me from my thoughts.

I pulled sharply on the reins in my hand and led my horse around. The child that I had glimpsed hiding behind the large rock was now in the arms of the group of warrior men in the white wrapper. The child was held by one man in particular. That man had his arm wrapped around the boy’s body, holding him close, and the other hand held a sharp cutlass to the boy’s throat.

“Let us through or we’ll kill him.” The man in white replied.

I knew a lot about warriors, enough at least to know that they would not surrender to save one boy’s life. His fear reached out to me, and I was driven forward, spurred by nothing more than the desire to free the child. This was what disgusted me most about humans, how little regard they could have for ones so precious. The human child was the rarest gem that existed in all of the existences. Its emotions were pure, its motives honest. It was the one single creature on all existences that I would give my life for, over and over again.

“Let the child go. We will not let you pass regardless of what you do, so you might as well release him.” The voice that responded was firm.

No. I thought as I spurred my horse on.

“Mistress.” Marcus called out from behind me. “Stop mistress!”

But I did not. I could not, not when a child was in danger. I raced towards it, desperate to save it from its own kind.

I was halfway there when I felt the foulness of the child’s pain. That feeling was followed by a voice crying out in pain and the sound of the boy’s body falling onto the ground. They had cut his throat. I could see the blood pooling around his body. Still, I urged my horse on, moving faster and faster.

I was so driven, that I barely registered the cutlasses aimed at me as I rode into the thick of the battle. I pulled my sword free of its sheath and cut through the humans in my way. I tore through them in my race to get to the boy, but when I reached him, he was already dead.

Why did I pick him up? Why did I yank the anger away from the warriors, leaving them stunned and unable to continue their war? If I was so enraged, why didn’t I kill all the human warriors in that moment? It would have been easy. I could have at least polluted their emotions. They were not as strong as my kind, they would not survive the polluted emotions. It would have been just punishment for the crime of ending a life so innocent. But I did not. Why? Simply because they were not mine to punish.

The boy was dead, and the fight for his spirit had begun. If he went to the fourth, they would turn him into a wraith, a slave creature they made to bend to their wills. And if he went to the supreme, he would become part of the elements. But in both he would lose himself. He would lose the memories that made him him, and the purity that made him a child. Not in the spectral, in the spectral he would remain intact, and he would be mine. I swore it. I would protect him.

I let my horse fly into the black mist and as I found the remnants of quicksand, I forced the black mist back, and reclaimed this ground as a spectral portal. But it was pointless. I knew they would return after I left and that they would take the portal back for the fourth. Still, in that moment, I did the futile deed and won that small battle for the spectral. Marcus and his master were right, we were on the precipice of the great war, and it was the humans who would suffer the repercussions. There was nothing I could do about that, just then, all I could do was force the boy’s spirit to remain with me and guide him safely to the spectral existence.


I woke up shivering. My head throbbed as the liquid in the okun surrounded me. I could not remember where I had been. It felt as if I had just woken from a bad dream, and I had forgotten all the details of the dream. The only thing I remembered was an umani young. Had I seen it? And what was this Musa word which floated around in my head?

“Nebud!” I jumped, my body rising out of the liquid. My eyes remained closed as if there was something binding the eyelids shut. “Nebud!” the voice was loud, it was deep and light, it was a combination I had never heard before. It scared me. It scared me in a way that was real, not like the polluted fear had, but in a more visceral way. It was as if I was in the presence of death. “You belong to me Nebud.” I felt as if I could hear the voice, as if the words were spoken into my ears, but at the same time, it was as if the words came from within me.

“What do you want?” Did I voice the words or were they simply thought?

“An eye. Go to Katsoaru and take Marcinus’s eye. You are mine Nebud! You are mine.”

The voice left then, and my eyes opened.

So much had changed yet everything appeared to be the same. The swamp looked just as it had appeared before I felt the overwhelming urge to take the imp’s eyes. I realized then that I could see more. So much more. It was as if my field of view had suddenly expanded. I could see things off to my side that would have been impossible to see before. I could see trees behind me, and I could see details off to my sides which I had previously missed.

Like the black bag leaning against the tree which I had awoken resting against. I became as aware of that bag as I had been of the imp. I knew with certainty that the bag belonged to me. That I had brought it with me from the mysterious place with the green sludge where Gerangi had taken me. But what was that place and how had I left? I didn’t know.

As I walked towards the bag, I felt an aura of energy surround me. I could not quite put my fingers on it, but I knew that it existed, and that I was somehow soaking it up. It was more than just the energy that one would get from eating a good meal, it was primal, a sort of energy which felt like it could cause more than just movement. The energy was almost magical.

I reached the black bag just as it dawned on me what the energy I felt was.

I dropped to my knees in the okun and stared down, into the murky liquid. The pink liquid wasn’t pure, but it was reflective enough for me to see the two extra eyes I had gained. The eyes were on either side of my face. Spectra. The word rose in me unbidden, gently spoken in Gerangi’s voice. Spectra. I had gained spectra. By taking the imp’s eyes I had unlocked the magic of the Kute eyes I was born with. It was a magic which allowed an uspec to drain another creature, and get the power needed for other forms of spectra from the okuns.

Spectra.

I could not believe it. I looked at my reflection in the murky pink liquid, and the three eyes staring back at me, almost took my breath away. Suddenly, I was filled with the desire to return to the pits and kill Fajahromo. I smiled, yes, it was time. It was time for me to get my vengeance. I had spectra, I could return…

‘Katsoaru.’

The voice in my head was unbending. And just as surely as I had known that I had to take the imp’s eyes, and that the black bag in front of me belonged to me, I knew that I had to go to Katsoaru. I did not know why, and I did not know who Marcinus was, but I knew that I had to meet this uspec and take its eye. I could no more disobey the voice as I could stop my heart from beating.

‘You belong to me.’

The thought sent a shiver up my spine. I picked up the black satchel bag from the stump of the tree which it been set on. Curiously, I opened the bag, and found several pieces of cloth in it, and countless sachet bags like the one Gerangi had taken with it from the pits.

I picked up the cloth first. It was a grey cloth made of very soft material. The cloth was circular, like a band…or a neckcloth to cover my scales. I lifted the cloth up and on it, I saw a sigil that I could not quite place. But it was a sigil, which meant that the cloth belonged to a banneret of the line of Kaisers. Bannerets were special guards entrusted with the safety of those of the line of Kaisers, it was a position of great honor, one that could only be filled by a noble.

My fingers trailed over the smooth material as I thought of the genius of the cloth. Not only was it a great way to hide my neck scales, and the fact that I was irira, it told the world that I was a noble, which meant that I would be treated to automatic respect wherever I went.

I didn’t even hesitate before placing the cloth on my neck.

Then I pulled out one of the sachet bags and drew it open. I gasped, so shocked that I almost turned the sachet bag over. It was filled with money, not just any money, but pieces of worth. From the weight and feel of it, there were at least fifty pieces in it. Fifty pieces of worth! That was more than enough money to establish myself as a noble. I looked in the bag and ran my eyes over the other sachets. The amount of wealth in this one black bag was unimaginable to a de trop. Had it all really come from that mysterious room with the green sludge? Was this the riches that Gerangi had alluded to? I had so many questions and they all seemed to revolve around that mysterious place and the things that had happened after I lost consciousness. How had I gotten here?

‘Katsoaru.’

I sighed, irritated at the insistent voice in my head. I placed the sachet back into the bag and let the top fall back in place. Then I turned around and began walking.

Part 4
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When I regained consciousness, I was sitting in a warm liquid with my back resting against what seemed to be the coarse surface of a tree bark. My center eye opened slowly. I shut my eye, wary of the bright streams of orange light which broke in. I took a deep breath, steeled myself for the influx of light, and then pulled my eye open.

I was in a swamp. Tall trees surrounded me. My legs were completely covered by the murky pink liquid in the okun, but I could tell from the solidness of the ground on which I sat, that the okun was shallow. It was not as shallow as the okun in the arena in the pits, but it was shallow enough that I could easily walk in it.

I rose to my feet then. As soon as I stood, I felt a throbbing pain in my head. My vision blurred, as the ground underneath me swayed. I shook my head. No, I knew that couldn’t be. I was the one swaying. I tried to force myself to stand still, but that seemed to take up too much mental effort. The more effort I exerted, the more painful the throbbing in my head became. I tried to move, and instead slid. My right foot slid on the ground underneath the okun, and my left followed it.

I landed inside the okun. The liquid in the okun was deep enough that when I landed on my back in it, my body was completely covered by the murky pink liquid. The fall was so unexpected that I found myself heaving, struggling to breathe in the liquid, and by my actions imbibing mouthfuls of the pink liquid. I pressed my lips together and dug my fingers into the malleable ground. I pushed, with all the strength I could muster, and was able to get my head above the liquid.

I inhaled, panting in my attempt to fill my lungs with as much air as I could gather. It wasn’t till the throbbing in my head subsided that I was able to open my eye again and reacquaint myself with my surroundings. That was when I felt the smooth brush of weeds in my right hand. I pulled, digging the weed out, and rose my right hand out of the body of liquid. Then, I pulled my fingers up, opening my palm up to inspect the weed.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips at the sight of the black fruit hidden within the intertwined leaves of the weed. I could just barely remember Xavier feeding me a black fruit just like this one, and the boost of energy I had felt after eating it. I threw it into my mouth, weed and fruit together, and chewed as if my life depended on it. Partially crawling with my hands and the sides of my feet, I pushed my way back to the tree I had been leaning on. I rested my back against that tree and swallowed the remnants of the chewed morsel. Then, I waited for the fruit to take effect.

I was not disappointed.

The jolt of energy was almost instantaneous. In that moment, I felt as though I could rip out the bulky tree behind me, with nothing but my own two hands. Even my ears felt more sensitive. I heard the flapping of the okun-creatures swimming in the liquid. This time, when I rose to my feet, there was no weariness, no swaying of the ground underneath me, and no blurring of my vision.

Whistling sounds filled the air, distracting from the small natural chimes I had heard, like the sounds of the creatures swimming in the okun. Mindlessly, I walked towards the source of the whistling sound. I did not know exactly what I wanted, or why I was suddenly so desperate to find it. All I knew was a compulsion which forced me to search out the whistler.

My search was short.

Behind a giant tree, only a few paces ahead of the tree that I had leaned on, there was a naked imp kneeling in the okun. The imp knelt with its back facing me. It was bent over, its shoulders moving as its arms extended out in front of it. It had its hands underneath the surface of the liquid. The closer I got to the kneeling imp, the more aware I became of the action it performed. Buried by the sharp tune of the song it whistled, was the sound of a garment being hand-washed.

I took another step closer to this imp and became aware of a fact that should have been glaringly obvious the moment I laid my eye on it. The imp’s skin was streak-less. The absence of the black lines on the imp’s skin meant that it had no siphoned magic.

It also meant that the imp had its eyes.

Suddenly, a force drove me forward. In a way, I was cognizant of the actions I took and understood, to a degree at least, why I did them. But in that moment, as I made a mad dive towards the kneeling imp, it was as if my body belonged to a foreign thing, an insane entity that was capable of anything and would do with me whatever it pleased. Even though the desire that filled me was foreign, I knew that I was the insane entity. If indeed, there was something that took hold of me and forced me to act as I did, that thing was me, it had become so thoroughly intertwined with my consciousness that I could not say with certainty that there was anything in me, that wasn’t me. The thoughts and feelings perplexed me, was there a foreign being in me, or was I the architect of my own actions?

Was my sudden urge to posses this imp’s eyes a drive propelled by a foreign entity within me, or was it a longing that I had always possessed?

I grabbed onto the imp’s shoulders and forced it around. The garments dropped from its startled hands as it turned to face me. Its skin was pale, it was white with skin that was almost porcelain. The imp screamed out in shock when it saw me, and then it latched onto my hands on its shoulders trying desperately to break free.

I was as unaffected by the imp’s futile efforts to fight me, as I was by the trees above and the light fog around.

The imp’s legs kicked against mine as my hand encircled its throat. I pulled the imp up and out of the okun with my hold on its throat, then I slammed it against a nearby tree.

That knocked the fight right out of it.

Tears trailed down the imp’s face as its lips moved, forming words which I could not understand.

I tore out a cyan scale from my neck and stuck the scale into the crying imp’s eye-sockets. Blood filled the imp’s face as the eyeballs dangled from their sockets. I flung the cyan scale into the okun and reached with a single hand for both eyes. It took very little effort to rip the veins which connected them to the sockets, and cut them free of the imp.

Once I had both eyes in my hand, I let the imp go. It dropped to its knees in the liquid, and then fell below the surface. I turned my back on the imp without a second thought.

Perhaps I should have stopped to contemplate the lessons I had learnt of imp eyes and the folly in simply taking them from an imp whose origins were unknown. I should have thought back on the day in the pits when an uspec had put incompatible imp eyes into its eye-sockets and had lost its life as a reward.

But I didn’t stop to contemplate any of this. I knew, just as surely as I’d known that I’d had to take the imp’s eyes, that these eyes were meant for me. The degree of my certainty made no sense, perhaps that was why I chose not to ponder on it. Instead, I placed the imp eyes into empty sockets in my face. The first I put in my previously filled socket, and the second’s socket I chose arbitrarily.

As soon as the eyes entered my sockets, I saw a blinding white light fill my center eye. Pain exploded in my head. I only had the moment before I lost consciousness to wonder at what had caused my sudden thirst for imp eyes. Seconds later, my body fell into the liquid in the okun and my mind went blank.

@cassbeat hahaha no, I will not lol. Thank you!

@Fazemood Yes oh! It was actually surprisingly hard to write Nebud as not-Nebud. There was so much that it should have been seeing as it traveled through the Hamlet, and like every time I started describing some hovel or something different about the Hamlet, I realized that Nebud could not actually see it, or that it just didn't care, and so I had to consider everything I wrote... so, I am very happy to have Nebud back!

@tunjilomo sometimes it's small, sometimes it's big, the next one will be longer

@spixytinxy Hahaha, thank you!

@Peaceyw as in...and in fact, it hasn't even started yet. I almost feel bad for Nebud but...let me not spoil it for you