Sands of Existance
I would like to make sure that to all of those that read this, it is only a teaser for a book project I am currently working on. For any and all imput, send an email to [email protected] all criticism is appriciated
Pain? Where? The first thoughts to enter his head were that of searing red, the dull throb on the right side of his head and the realization that he was sprawled out against the floor. It took Rask a moment to understand that he was sprawled out against the cold stone floor of an unfamiliar room and that the tiles next to him reeked of blood. Whose? Not thinking to clearly through the incredible amount of mental fog blotting his vision he clumsily probed his head with the underside of his paw, finger pads tracing into soft red fur, gliding up into a meshed glob of his own hair and sticky blood. At that moment he noticed something. Paws? Since when did he have paws, or more specifically, since when did paws have thumbs? Everything was in complete chaos and the room was starting to come into some form of blurry focus.
From what he could make out of it, the room itself was in all fairness nothing more than a cellar with a cot, water dish and chamber pot stuffed into it. Rask found this endlessly insulting but couldn't remember exactly why it should be. After checking out the rest of his frame he was taken back by several features he couldn't quite recall having earlier in his life, such as the paws from earlier, nor the pleasantly full tail now protruding through a raw spot on his hindquarters. A look into the few scattered glass fragments was enough to give Rask something of a mirror image of himself and after viewing it he promptly passed out again, haunted by nightmares of what he had just seen.
Clear ivory skin gone, every inch of it either covered by blanch white or a glossy apple red spread across his entire body. Firm angular nose now replaced by a gentile curve from which he could just barley make out the tip, a small spot of wet black leather where that proud feature used to stand. For a moment he tried to flinch and found the oddest sensation followed, ears turning completely across his head, rotating in different directions, now much more sensitive than before. He recalled a brief change in his vision but it had faded though the world seemed to be much sharper, angles harsher, little details he would have otherwise missed glaring at him.
Morning came slowly the second day, or so he believed it to be morning from the soft light filtering down through some loose boards in the roof, their slant familiar to the cellar at his own house. With graceless tact he forced himself from the uncomfortable spot he'd been diligently warming during his unconsciousness and pressed his bodies services into the simple cot propped up against the wall. It didn't take long until the sound of hard leather boots was heard clanking across the floor above. Doubtless as he was, Rask was fairly sure that this was not going to be a courtesy call and his head still felt like there was a hive of hornets between where his ears should be. His hosts didn't appear to lead him wrong in that.
After a stark moment of sudden realization he found that he had known that there were three people above him, two men and a woman. This was new to him, as he could also seem to smell every spore of mildew that laced the cellar along with the thick choking scent of ancient alcohol. Even through all these scents he could still smell the bitter scent of his own blood spilled against the floor. Remembering his head injury Rask's hand, or was it paw now? Moved up to stroke beneath his hair. With a whistling sigh of relief escaping his lips it had sealed shut and there seemed to be a disturbingly thick amount of stubble plastered against his face but his self probing was interrupted by the heavy slamming of the door leading into the cellar.
"I see our not so little fox-man decided he'd finally wake up." came a voice that sounded of heavy smoking with a body to attest to it. "I suppose I should get you something for that smack upside the head as well as something to eat and drink... should you behave nicely." With that Rask had managed to bring the man into focus, his captor could have easily passed as a titan hunched over but he barley fit into the cellar to begin with. Rask decided it best to just whimper an acceptance rather than to test what changes had come to his voice and the thought of him being a "fox-man" frightened him to near shivering.
"Eh, I'll take that as a yes to both then." The monolith of a man responded, tossing a damp rag to Rask that smelled heavily of rubbing alcohol but the coolness was appreciated against his throbbing skull. "I'll put this bowl down right here for you, you clean up all nice and pretty for the festival today and maybe someone will be kind enough not to make a mockery out of another of your kind."
Rask blinked and tilted his head to the side in confusion, dipping and cleaning the rag off in the quickly reddening liquid before taking a long moment to stare at his hands. The man looked incredibly amused as Rask let out a sharp yelp and slammed himself up against the stonewall, terrified of what he saw before him. The outline of human hands were still there, but there were thick pads on his fingers and palm, clipped claws extending out from the tips of what had once been a choreographers hands, long fingers coated in a thick red velvet that he suddenly came to notice covered everything but his chest, he blinked for a second and noted where that sore spot on his hind quarters was. Something had gone terribly wrong, he had an enormous foxtail sprouting out of his trousers and it seemed quite willing to attempt to hide itself between his legs.
Staring at him the gargantuan laughed heartily, "Appears you're exactly what I said you were, tail, ears, the works. Now get ready or you'll be missing breakfast... though feeding you in the first place might spoil the rest of the surprises this day has to offer for you." After a moment of heavy examination that ragged voice continued. "Suppose I owe you some sort of explanation don't I?" Rask nodded his head a brisk "yes" before he continued. "Well, seems you ate something or ticked off the Maji here enough to be made into one of the Misersers, you know who I'm talking about right?"
Rask nodded again though he was starting to like this even less than before, the Misersers were usually used when cheap human labor wasn't available and although almost everyone knew they were at least as intelligent as humans they were so easily put to shame that using them like slaves was not all that uncommon. The great man went on again, eying Rask more frequently than before.
"Well, whoever or whatever you angered decided that you'd make a fine toy for someone and after beating you senseless the hucked your carcass at our doorstep and thought you done for." Rask noticed some rather irate grumbling in the mans tones while his gaze never left Rask's body, "So we got stuck taking care of you and if it hadn't been for that blasted note and gold satchel attached to your scrawny hide I'd have fed you to the pigs by now." At that the man lowered his gaze and clenched both of his fists as if he were going to strike Rask for sitting there and then he paused again, "I'll send the Misses down, she's better with your filth." He stormed off grumbling again, something about the only use for a Miserser being slave labor or food. Rask was more than glad that he was leaving and that he'd managed to restore some order to his hair.
For some time there was total silence coming from upstairs before very light, tepid foot steps came back down into the cellar, the giants replacement being a slightly rounded woman who was still pleasant to the eyes but quite past her prime. With a softness that Rask could only begin to comprehend she placed her hand upon his head and stroked along the length of his ears, sending pleasant pinpricks up and down his spine. She spoke in a delightfully musical voice when compared to her husband and apparently had a great deal of affection towards Rask's now adopted people. "Sorry for Tayler there, he's been in a bit of a rut since I made him drag you down here though judging from the broken bottle next to your cot he was far from gentile."
Taking a moment to clean up the glass shards she continued to speak to him in that kind voice "My named be Ally, I'd ask for yours but I think you're still in need of sleeping off the worst of the damages your friends did to you a few nights ago." She paused and looked at him quizzically before bouncing up and bolting up the stairs. Within a few second she'd re-appeared with a plate of luke-warm soup and a loaf of rye bread and some soft cheese, offering it to Rask and not at all surprised when he wolfed it down with little notice to her kindness. Halting after feeding what had been a rampaging stomach he looked apologetically up to Ally.
She replied in that same kindly voice, "Don't worry too much about it, you haven't had a bite to eat since we got you here and I made Tayler spoon water down your throat when you were conscious enough to do so." A dainty laugh slipped past her full lips while she shook her head, strands of peach colored hair rustling with the motion. "I'd suppose that you'd be well enough to talk now seeing as how you haven't regurgitated that little fest, mind telling me something about you? Tayler'd probably just glare at you if you tried and gone off on something about "They're still animals, they shouldn't speak, that's reserved for the humans." He heard her sigh lightly and yet suppress a thin laugh before shaking her head again, "Men."
Trying to hold back a little laugh of his own Rask tried his luck at speaking. It came more easily than he thought it would but still sounded like a choking man in a rain storm and was about as steady. "Erm... I'm Rask, I eh, was a choreographer." He stopped right then, not quite sure what else to say but noting that she was smiling and shaking her head ever so lightly against her palm.
"You sure must have done something nasty to get that treatment Rask, it's rare for people to just change... but it does happen though that doesn't seem to be your case. Someone up high doesn't like what you did. Any ideas as to who?" There was a twang of fear in her voice, and it was rightfully placed. Nobody wanted to get on the wrong side of the Maji, their short fuses made certain of that.
Rask forced himself to think back to the past several months, he seemed to recall being brought along on an expedition into the Wildland east of the ocean and plains but as for doing something wrong, he was drawing a complete blank. Just managing to squeak it out so that she'd hear it " No, nothing I've done" He wasn't quite sure about that but tails about what happened in the Wildland were bizarre enough to explain this change and so he told her what he could remember of that ill fated journey.
She blinked at him several times in astonishment as a warming grin worked across her lips, "You must have been either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid there Rask, even the Maji don't venture far into those lands without their own armies following behind." Rask was already aware of this long before he'd gone there and save for the beginning of the trek he remembered little. What he did remember was bizarre enough to fill his dreams and nightmares for years to come. It all seemed like a hallucination to him now that he thought about it but from what had happened to his form he knew that those slim memories were completely true but it left one lingering question in his mind. What had happened to the others?
Ally had continued to speak but Rask had long since given up listening to her, trying desperately to recall what had happened in that place of vines and carnivorous ground. Everything was a blur but he could remember the faces of some of their guides, one of which had been another Miserser. From what he could recall it was a canine of some sort but this did him little good right now, for all he could tell the entire expedition was extinct save himself. With a snort of indignation Ally brought his attention promptly back to her, those crystalline green eyes hard to ignore when angered. In a meek voice Rask took to speaking for a moment "I'm so-sorry. Trying to remember faces." Ally stopped glaring at him and instead smiled, putting Rask momentarily at ease.
Taking up the plates of eaten food Ally motioned for Rask to follow her upstairs and after quickly silencing Tayler, offered Rask a place to sit down. They sat there and talked most of the morning away, trying to pry every last bit of information about the Wildland's out of Rask's head before he left. The only thing he could manage to slip out into the conversation was little bits of information about ancient and disused trails climbing into the East Mountains. In the end all it managed to do was get his hosts more curious than before, leaving him with a throbbing migraine and a desire to promptly depart again. With a little bit of cohering he managed to retrieve some of the supplies that had been dumped off at the home and made his way quickly out into the town.
Within the first five minuets after passing out into the packed market streets he found himself the unwanted center of attention. Merchants would slam their cart windows shut as he passed by and everyone seemed content to place all of their scorn upon his existence. Any other time Rask would have considered this extremely rude but due to his outer shell, he swallowed his pride and continued through the town. Taking a good long while to slip into the back allies he managed to make his way to a small Maji outpost on the eastern outskirts of town.
The building these mages devoted to their craft ranged tremendously but this cluster reminded Rask oddly of a livery. The buildings themselves were long and low to the ground, each cluster enough to hold pack animals and an assortment of humans. That's where the simplicities stopped. The outside of the buildings were garnished with ornate symbols that were commonly used for training enchantments and other various magic's amongst the Maji's understudies, the Cawer class of their kind. From what Rask understood of the Maji's teachings he'd be hard pressed to get any information out of this bunch but it was better than just being left in the town to rot or worse.
Rask coaxed himself through the golden-leafed gate marking the entrance to the compound. The moment he passed onto the grounds the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end while cold chills ran up and down his spine. The Maji were said to be cruel at best, who knew what his trespassing on their territory would bring upon him now. It only took a few moments before an armed guard came to escort the intruder into one of the smaller buildings off to the side, one of the more simply adorned stone structures. From what Rask could recall about similar structures of the Maji's design, the simple buildings were frequently used as holding cells for their more intricate sorceries.
The guards were far from kind to him while escorting Rask to the building. If it wasn't their boots shoving the nervous man forward, it was their pole arms jabbing into his sides that had him quickly wondering what kind of mistake he had just made. From the looks upon their faces it was hard to judge but he was starting to think that he'd somehow managed to insult the guard. It wasn't hard to tell when they booted him through the door and slammed it shut behind him. In a surge of panicked surprise Rask clawed feverishly against the door but it appeared to be bolted shut from the outside. Upon turning around his gaze came across a pair of floating crimson orbs and the voice that followed chilled him to the core.
"Sit quickly before you become an experiment piece," the voice commanded before a chair slid itself underneath Rask, knocking him off balance just enough to be forced into it. "You have much to explain trespasser."
With a hardy gulp to clear the clot preventing him from speaking Rask went quickly about trying to voice his concerns. His speech was cut short by a nerve-wracking laughter. Swallowing again he waited for the hooded form in front of him to speak again, finding each moment in it's presence more uncomfortable.
Speaking in a now distinctly feminine voice, the iced tone continued, "An adventurer? I might have some uses for you that the divinations hadn't foreseen." And again that grating laughter escaped its lips. "This is just grand, someone familiar with at least part of the wastelands to the east. Poor bastard that you are, probably still call them the Wildland's."
Blinking at it Rask was now more confused than when he had woken up several days ago lacking his original form. Taking note of this momentary discomfort the Maji decided best to act upon it, letting the crimson glow of its eyes fall back while it removed the hood that it was wearing. Beneath the hood was a length of luster chestnut hair flowing to her shoulders and her eyes. Not sure what to think of them Rask stared at them, he'd heard tales of odd colorations of skin and hair but never this. There was nothing natural about them, the irises were stark gold, pupils that glowing crimson and where her whites should be was a sea of swirling oranges. Looking at her eyes for any period of time was more than enough to make Rask ill.
She started speaking again, this time the ice falling from her tone, "It's interesting, you proclaim that you were once human and as far as I can tell, you may have been." With an indignant snort she stared at him, gliding with inhuman speed over to his side. She raised her hand to stroke tenderly alongside the length of one of his ears, making it delightfully hard for him to focus. "I might have an offer for you, you either accept or become part of an experiment."
Rask forced himself to breathe at the mention of experiments. The Maji had been known to use their own for cruel body alterations through magic as well as some other unpleasant things. The stories the country folk told about them was far more pleasant than any truth and Rask had been a first-hand witness to one such alteration. It wasn't hard for him to accept her offer considering the alternative. With a thinning voice he replied to her. "Yes, better that than your other option."
Tossing his hair beneath her hand she slid around him, pulling up another chair and sitting, backside of the chair facing him. "I'm glad you've seen it my way, it'd be a pity to waist something as interesting as you. Do you remember the stories of the colonies to the west? The ones that allegedly disappeared in some volatile fever centuries ago?"
From what he could recall, just talking to the Maji about that failure was punishable by evisceration and then death. He nodded his head and she continued on, voice becoming gradually warmer but her hands never leaving some part of his head.
"Good boy, now someone over there activated an ancient scrying device and it's opposite responded to it. Hard to tell what exactly was going on, the image was very dark and we suspect that the energist used to power that artifact was past it's prime." Rask had kept himself nervously aware of everything she had said and that as she spoke of this turn of events a smile was breaking out across porcelain features. "It'd seem that not all of our colonies failed if someone managed to turn it back on, too bad they haven't tried to contact us again since. Do you want to know what you're going to do for us now?"
He had a sneaking suspicion that he did. The Maji still ruled over this continent and the loss of those colonies to the west were viewed as their greatest failure. Some had ventured to reclaim those lands but it had been well over a decade since the tattered remains of the last expedition washed up upon the shores. Trying to hold back any sign of his fear from her he spoke up, drawing on those few strands of confidence he had left. "You want me to go and see what happened don't you?"
With a look of smug satisfaction upon her face the Maji nodded, "Before those disastrous events two centuries ago, the land we'd acquired was very well suited for us and after decades of failed ventures to reclaim it we've decided you'll do in our stead." Her sense of self-confidence continued to grow, enough to make Rask wonder why he came here in the first place. "It seems whenever we send one of our own out to cross those seas the vessels meets disaster, but from the first journey we know that our artifacts don't attract the attention that we do. You go and report to us what happiness there, and I may find someone willing to restore your humanity to you...." She sneered at him. "If it's possible."
Rask let a slim glimmer of hope swell inside of him, if only he could remember what stuffed him in this underclass body to begin with. That wasn't important to him now, what is the fact that he might be able to return too normal. He knew how the Misersers were treated in this society and from what his position as a human had been, he'd gladly have taken death over being a constant icon of ridicule. The sheer possibility of being returned to his former glory was enough to make his current burden seem as light as air but there was something gnawing in the back of his head. Rask quickly forgot about that subtitle warning in the back of his mind and with renewed enthusiasm begun his discussions with the Maji whole-heartedly.
Their discussions finally came down to some reasonably strict standards. He was to report to the Maji at least once a week on a newly forged set of scrying mirrors. Rask didn't mind that restraint at all; it was the ones involving his appearance that disturbed him the greatest. There had long been legends about how the Misersers originated and it was said that their greatest achievements had been seen to the west. He was expected to wear ankle length robes that made fast walking imposable and from what the Maji had told him, was to act as if he owned everything he surveyed. Rask recalled what it was like to be under the scrutiny of the Maji and imposing that upon a people who hadn't seen their rulers for centuries seemed a little unethical. He would have plenty of time to decide which of the Maji's more troublesome quirks he'd keep with him when he arrived at the colonies but until then he was under their care.
Staying at the keep in Cannia wasn't unpleasant save the guards who never seemed to see him as anything more than a nuisance. Sneering at them in return was all he could do to avoid a beating but he knew that he'd been selected for something far more important than any of them. With an egotistical pride Rask went about his daily business as if he already owned most of the keep but kept himself reserved enough to know that not everything here was right. That night, his nightmares were very clear.
"Dayton, this trail look like anything we should follow?" The earth toned short little man turned back with a warmed smile on his face while his fingers traced along what appeared to be the sides of a game trail.
"I don't see any reason we shouldn't, it's been near a week since we ran into that ground that fleshed our horses." Came another voice from out behind a towering jungle tree wide enough at the base to make several mansions. Rask was looking down at an iridescent flower attached to the base of the tree, trying to figure out why it emanated light like that.
Dayton spoke up again, this time his voice was urgent and awestruck. "Hurry up here you three, I've found something. Get up here now! This is astonishing." Rask clambered up around the base of the tree to meet up with Dayton, standing next to Thyme as he gawked at what they were witnessing.
In the meadow less than a hundred feet in front of them the trees had begun to sway in unison. The dried leaves upon the moist ground had picked up in a wind that none of them felt. This was the least remarkable part of the event. They all stared as a sapling in the center of the grove burst past the tops of the tallest trees around, it's base becoming at least as thick as the tree Rask had been inspecting earlier. What was astonishing was once it finished growing the entire mass burst into a rainbow of flames, tossing out ribbons of unearthly fire across the ridge of the meadow.
Rask found it hard to believe what he was witnessing but Thyme's hand holding tightly onto his shoulder told him that it was quite real. All four of them watched and then Dayton collapsed to his knees, resting the weight of his torso solely upon his arms. Falling behind him was their earth-toned guide, Valt, his head pressed into the ground. With a sudden wash of fatigue Rask and Dayton followed the order, their heads all bowed to the towering pillar before them. If the wash of sudden fatigue wasn't enough, the words that came next haunted Rask throughout the rest of the trip.
He woke up on the morning of his departure in a cold sweat, his limbs feeling lead filled while the rest of his body was sore beyond reason. This was not the first time he'd had that nightmare but what bothered him is he couldn't remember what the burning plant had told them. The feeling he got from his inability to understand its words were growing more urgent with each repetition of the dream. For now he'd decide to forget it and prepare himself for the trip laid out before him, he'd have plenty of time to worry about dreams on the voyage over.
The day passed more quickly than Rask could have hoped fore, the distance from Cannia to the nearest port was less than a days travel. It only took him a brief while to prepare the items the Maji demanded he take with him, the scrying device and several odd articles of clothing that they'd assured him would bring the former colonists into line. The few other things they provided him with were mainly trade goods should he not get the kind of reception the Maji were expecting. Some of the things placed into the ship's hold were odd even from Rask's understanding of how the Maji worked. So many pickled things were put into storage that he was certain that before the end of the voyage he'd be sick of anything with vinegar in it.
Taking a deep breath Rask boarded the ship. He'd learned the vessels name just a few hours before and was glad for it since he could use all the luck he could get. For once he was glad that both the Maji's attention and the fact that the Miserser's body he was wearing made him something to be quickly avoided by the superstitious sailors on the ship. He found it a bit ironic that the name of the ship was roughly translated as "Luck Runner" they'd need luck and more if the previous voyages across the sea were any precursor. They left the port at about noon and the land was no longer visible to them before the end of the second day.