Mage Tank

Iun and Timo were bickering about who should get the larger melon, as usual. If it wasn’t a melon, it was something else that had to be nitpicked into dust. Iun appealed to his larger size needing more nutrition, while Timo argued he expended more energy because he had a higher metabolism. Jakom was quite sure they didn’t really care who got the bigger melon, they just wanted to be
.
Baras and Mattias were discussing logistics with Miran, who had a strange knack for organization. Mattias was worried they could not sustain the group with the coin they had, but Baras offered to hunt, claiming he knew where boar travelled in the hills. Miran was not worried. Her trust in Brae’ach was a fine anxiolytic.
While the group was discussing various ways of spreading the message and gathering more followers, Brae’ach walked a short distance ahead of the rest, and was the first to see the village as he crested over the hill. The two biggest roads in the region intersected here, and a trading center had cropped up to take advantage of the many travelling merchants that traversed the crossroad.
The many peddlers in the market were less shy about Brae’ach’s appearance than in the more remote towns. They saw plenty of Delvers come through with all manner of strange countenance and body. Mattias was quick to pull out his notebook and write down the various goods and their prices, looking for the best deals. Baras got a new spearhead from the blacksmith, and Iun bought a third, even larger melon, saying Timo could have the others. Sabek wandered to the fountain in the center of the square and started conversing with a beggar sitting near the base.
“Are you going to speak here, teacher?” asked Miran. Her voice was awash with a strained anticipation. It had been grasped very hard for very long.
“We may need lodging,” said Jakom, “if you are going to be long. The ground is rocky and the mountain wind through this valley is going to be very cold tonight.”
Brae’ach paused and watched the current of tradesmen and merchants, craftsmen and laborers, flowing between each other’s lives for scraps of survival and sustenance. Yet, Brae’ach also heard the breeze of a flute being played across the square, accompanied by taught leather drums wrapped around a local hardwood sanded and steamed into a wide but thin cylinder. The beat was simple and repetitive, but lively in its exuberance. What some would call flaws in the timing, Brae’ach remembered were the personal touches of musicians that made their performance unique.
It truly was not so long ago that Brae’ach had been playing a tando drum, listening to Til’ach provide a similar sweet jaunt of a melody. Jod’ach and Bor’til would clap along while the little ones were either hypnotized by the fire or stone-asleep by overexertion. The song was distorted by the roar of the flames, as they grew. The heat began to get uncomfortable, then it started to burn.
“Brae’ach?” said Jakom, hand on the robed figure’s elbow. Brae’ach looked down to see the man, perhaps the last true friend Brae’ach knew. He turned back to see Miran staring at the marketplace.
They were all so disconnected, pushing past each other. They were not supposed to live like this, hoping to last one more day under the microscope of a false god until the petri dish meets the incinerator.
Brae’ach lay his hand on Miran’s shoulder. “Inform Mattias he may wish to pay attention.”
Miran’s eyes narrowed, then grew. A smile crept up her face. “Is it time
?” she asked.
“I believe so,” said Brae’ach.
Miran quickly scampered off, practically skipping to Mattias. Jakom saw him point to the ground and mouth “Now?” as Miran nodded vigorously. He quickly excused himself from the salesman he was interrogating and scanned his surroundings before climbing up a nearby ladder to a rooftop above, which provided an exquisite visual and auditory advantage for his notes.
The people around Brae’ach naturally parted as he strode through the square. His stature invoked more than mere presence, inviting more heads to turn with each step. By the time he reached the fountain, more than a dozen bustlers had stopped to watch as the gigantic vestments of Unity billowed from the towering wanderer, ribbons flipping through the cool wind as it whipped down the busy streets. They shone with a brilliance so pure it was beyond light, beaming white rays under the afternoon sun.
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Sabek had sat on the fountain’s edge as the beggar drank from her canteen. She always prepared a honey citrus tea each morning and drank from it all day, but this man had likely drank little other than dishwater ale and water in quite a long time and his face melted in joy as he gulped down the beverage. Despite the region’s otherwise lush biomes, it was not surprising to see farmers who had struck out of luck in the less-than-arable soil in this valley.
Brae’ach stopped in front of the short man, to see luck had taken
than his finances. Large contusions twisted across his body under the rags that dangled from his collar bones. His lower extremities had atrophied to the point of uselessness.
It was a rare malady, born of a magical parasite, but Brae’ach knew it well. All Davahns did. The parasite grew along trees that populated the cliffs of the eastern coast. During the hurricane season, winds would be strong enough to take the tree’s pollen high into the atmosphere, carrying the tiny parasite with it into the trade winds which traversed the entirety of the Inward Seas.
Despite Brae’ach’s familiarity with the disorder, seldom had he seen it in such an advanced stage as this man suffered. A Davahn afflicted so would have journeyed into the central mountains many moons before it had progressed to the point of infirmity. Thus, their burden would be lifted from the tribe. Now, Brae’ach mused on how such journeys would no longer be necessary.
While the parasite could infect any new host it came upon, it couldn’t complete its life cycle without the trees, and so never spread beyond its first infection. The parasite was isolated from its home, as this man had been isolated by the parasite.
Hiwardians didn’t seem to know any of that, however. Lacking the parasite’s natural vermifuge, their treatments failed and they blamed ancestral curses, witchcraft, or divine punishment.
The man turned to look at Brae’ach and froze with half-opened mouth. Brae’ach knelt as a small crowd began to build around him.
“Your body is at war,” he said to the beggar. The man looked down to his ragged tunic.
“The healers can’t help him,” said Sabek. “They can’t heal the damage to his body.”
“I am cursed,” said the beggar as his eyes wandered to the dirt.
“No,” said Brae’ach. “You are blessed, for this day, you are going to see the power of Unity.”
The man’s expression wavered, eyebrows moving in many directions, tumbling the words in his head.
“You are separated by battle and strife,” said Brae’ach. “Taught to believe you must fight each other for survival. You have the power to put aside your differences and work together, if only you had the strength. But what is easier to say, ‘You are limited by your weakness,’ or ‘Rise, stand up, and walk?’”
Brae’ach held out his hand and offered his palm. “If you want to reclaim your destiny and take back what you are owed, then Unify with the spirit which haunts you.”
The man looked quizzically at Brae’ach, but then glanced back down to his withered feet and bone-thin legs.
“You have both been robbed of your worth,” Brae’ach said gently. “Defy the demiurge that forced this existence upon you, pick yourself up, and walk.”
The man sat and stared at Brae’ach for several seconds, but his eyes softened from confusion, before hardening into realization. He reached out and took Brae’ach’s hand.
As their fingers touched, a wave shone through the man’s skin, its malnourished slack tightening around muscles that slowly expanded beneath it. The man gasped as his hair fell out, strand by strand, and blew away in the market wind, replaced just as quickly with a lush curtain of curls. His hardened eyes closed brown, and opened blue.
Brae’ach stood and raised the man, whose legs had grown several inches and solidified into a hunks of sculpted musculature. His toenails shed and were replaced with sleek dark crimson scales that bore a soft point. His fingernails followed suit. His teeth were last.
“What?” he said as his heels tapped the ground. “How?” he said, before taking a deep and long breath. “Who are you?”
Several people in the market immediately dropped their wares, which spilled frightfully across the crowded square. The beggar stood and hugged Brae’ach so that his robes became damp with tears, and Brae’ach embraced him in return. Iun and Timo were closest, and they started hopping in place with smiles that threatened to leap off their faces. A conversation broke out between them, Sabek, and the beggar as everyone else stood stupefied.
“The world is contrived against you,” said Brae’ach, turned to boom over the crowd. “The missing ships, the blazing infernos, the multitude of disappearances, these are orchestrated for the benefit of those few the world deems worthy of special attention. You have been cast aside. But I will take the refuse of the world and overthrow it, so that any who follow me can reclaim the destiny that has been stolen from them.”
In the wake of Brae’ach’s words, Baras and Mattias found those who’d heard him for the first time. Miran found those who sought something greater than a midday reprieve. Brae’ach listened, and answered, and when he strode from that place, some few followed.
Most did not know what to do or think or believe. It was not the last time Brae’ach would visit the village, for he knew the evidence would be more clear the second time around.
“You sure picked one hell of a place to introduce yourself,” said Jakom.
“Of course,” said Brae’ach. “They’ve heard about the name. Now they’ll hear about the man.”