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How does he walks in beauty, like the slow, sweet hours of night! Is Iridan so completely dead that all taste and nuance of the flesh have been forgotten? Ha! If they were, sweet Soran would stir the memory, awaken the animal magics of lust and desire. And Soran is keenly aware of the power of his charms -- so like his father, long ago.
Half a thousand houris have serviced him at the mere snap of his fingers. A word from him, and the most lissome, lovesome concubines in palace and temple would cast off the silk and spread for him, all the while calling this blue-eyed angel the prince of paradise.
And yet he walks alone, even here. As he has sampled the wares of courtesan and concubine and passed on, now he passes through the wanderers’ camp, where the gypsy ships are drawn up on the sand. He appraises the dancer, harlot and sailor, the minstrel and juggler, and no face, no body, quite meets what he wants tonight.
The black racer is tethered, grazing saltgrass up on the dunes, where a boy will watch over him for a coin, and Soran steps into the pool of the torchlight. Spark fly upward, caught in fire-drafts, and beyond, the night is blue-black, humid, cool, and curiously calm now. The storm has settled. The Zeheftimen are long gone, and as always the water gypsies are intent on their revels. They have seen too many lands drowned at the whim of Hurucan to mourn for another, and to them Zeheft was just a port, a place to do business, take on food and water, before they vanish with the tide.
Soran knows them, or at least their kind. The Nubiye, tall, lean and dusky, with dreadlocked manes and scarified bodies. The Hecala, small and swarthy, astute in the market, courageous on the sea. The Incari, nimble, quick and bold, copper-skinned and brown eyed, with coiling tattoos and the arrogant manner of men who know they own the sea trade. And the Zehefti, with their red hair, golden skin, Keltoi blue and green eyes -- outcasts already, even in their own land.
O, if I should sing of the Zeheftimen, whose line began with Diomedas and ends with Faunos, I would sing of woe, of the sorrow of a defeated people. I have seen the many ages of mankind, and when the priests and scholars of Vayal ask me what I know, I speak in riddles, tormenting them with glimpsed half-truth.
I could tell thee how the serpents coil beneath the sea, and how the oil a hundred burning lamps fired the great pavilions of war, in battle camps where the Atlantan and their mercenaries contested the Empire...
But no: sooner would I speak to thee of passion, for Soran walks tonight like the raven-haired son of Helios, who knows everything of the pleasures of the flesh, yet knows no smallest detail of love. He races in where even Furies would not tread, laughing as if life is a game. He sways to the music of the gypsy harpers, drinks wine from the lips of an Incari boy.
Does Soran know, he is begging to be seduced? Perhaps. But not for a moment does he guess who shall pay the price.
Iridan has little left save watching and dreaming away the sad hours. I watch the battering storms that year by year pound the islands of the Empire to rubble, and yet I know the truth. It is not the wind and wave that break higher, with the wrath of Hurucan and his divine brothers. It is the fury of Volcos and his cousin demons, deep within the earth which pulls the New Kingdom down to its doom, a surely as the old was razed to ashes.
One day Soran will learn all this – but not tonight. These few, sublime hours are for self-discovery, bittersweet as the half-ripe fruit that dances on the tongue and then gripes the belly – like luscious wine which seduces the nose and punishes the head.
The firelight enfolds him like lovers’ arms. The music fills his senses and his heart quickens as he searches for the one he wants. He knows the face and form already, though he has not yet seen these limbs, these eyes.
Just a single night, he thinks – one night, to prove himself a man, as killing the leopard and bedding the legion of courtesans have never done. Ten years ago, he rode his father’s chariot home and wore the leopard skin like a cloak; that night, he relished the tender flesh of the girl from Aegyptos, the boy from Incaria, the gelding from Kush, but in the morning he did his sire’s and brothers’ bidding as always, like any bondsman.
Tonight is his own, and he is light headed with the joyous freedom of it. He is of age, and hunting for a mate of his own choosing.
O, young men’s sports are these, young men’s glorious follies … and poor Iridan, Oracle, is even now vulnerable to the pangs of envy for youth, for life and beauty. Shall I speak the truth, for once without rhyme and riddle?
On this night, as no other, I envy my sweet Soran as he makes his way to the flickering heat of the gypsy fires. I envy even the prickle of his nose as he breathes the aromatic smoke of cedar and spruce, the tang upon his tongue, as he tastes the sweet, heavy wines of distant lands. And I envy all Soran shall soon have, though as yet he has no thought of the future … and if he did, mayhap he would turn tail and flee!
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