Part VI: Tit for Tat
Dreams are not alone. A time, a time before this there was when sleep was in solitude, but now there are multiple. The neckball and several others they are inside with me. Dream together. Shared, and what is shared?
Home, a full healthy human body before the changes. Long stretching beaches, and behind a city of white and blue. Young men and women cruise the city in convertible cars with two tone paint jobs and tail fin lights blasting rock n roll music. Proud young Hoplite warriors most of them. Dotted along the beach are beautiful naked sculpted bodies glistening in the sun.
Now obscured all of it. The neckball stirs. Now dark.
"Oez knows!" A reverberating deep and rumbling voice from all sides.
And now an altar before me.
What of this altar An offering? A sacrifice?
"Oez knows!" The voice bellows again.
I approach.
A sudden wind and it is gone. I'm awake, shivering. The lamp is out but now an oppressive white light washes in from the frame of the cellar door. I close my eyes as quickly as I open them. Blinking I see it between the frame of the cellar door silhouetted in the blinding light.
A gangly and humanoid body. Lynx like pointed ears and clawed hands, digitigrade feet. Behind it more of the same, more and many more.
The Catlings have come.
"Oez knows!" It growls.
I sit up carefully and slowly. It moves further in and I see its face. Matted unkempt fur on face and body. Pointed teeth lined in a jackal grin spread from ear to ear. Blood red eyes with pinprick pupils. It reminds me of a jester.
"Ohs nose." It repeats.
I really don't.
"I am Oez." I respond.
"Zeenx knows!" It hisses.
"You are Zeenx?"
A slight nod.
"Oez goes, Zeenx knowzzz."
"Why have you come?"
"Zeenx knows, Oez goes."
Not the most eloquent communicators.
"You know where I'm going?"
Another nod.
"That doesn't explain why you've come."
"Zeenx shows."
He flicks his hand upward, talon-like claws spread out like the leaves of a deathly fan. Each claw a sickled dagger crusted in dirt and dried blood.
It flutters in from behind: the source of the oppressive light. It stops and hovers above his claws.
Shrouded in light, no details minus the small feet and the insectoid fluttering of wings can be made out.
Faerie.
"Give, take, Zeenx shows, Oez goes!" On the last word it hacks and coughs. Its claws scratch the air as it moves to cover its mouth.
"A trade?" I ask.
It's eyes narrow with pleasure and despite how improbable it seems the grin becomes wider. "Yesss."
"What would you have? I have little I could offer."
Lust in those eyes as they focus on the object of their desire. He points a sickled finger at my staff. I suppress the urge to recoil, but tighten my grip around the staff.
I could of course weave without my spindle any tailor or spinster worth their salt can sew with naught but thread, needle, and fabric. So to with magi. The product would however be of a considerably muted quality.
"Why would I part my staff for the fae?"
"Foood." A low grumble and then a murmur of "Food!" "Food!" "Food!" From a dozen catlings in the background. The chief catling snarls and silence returns.
So desperate the hour. Pinioned like some offender of The King long before his demise. Before the liberation.
"I see no food."
He turns his head towards the fluttering light. "Speak!" A hissing rasp that drips with contempt.
"I know the way, but I will not take you." The whisper of a thousand voices each one a different color in my ear. The speech of a prism.
"Not the best offer." I counter.
Clck! Chk!
Light sputters and darkness flares not a creeping thing this dark: a force unto itself. Sickles now bladed bars of a prison cage. Flutter is now twitch and a soft light emanates from that collapsed little black body. Eyes like spears stab at the poor faeling.
"Oez goes! Zeenx knows!" No smile on his face, a twisted tangle of fury it is at this defiance.
"I- I- will not!" Sputters the voice of a decrepit old man from that little caged corpse.
Thlooth! Shplip!
A pulse of dark.
A wing spat upon the floor. Zeenx's teeth gleam. The faeling sobs.
Noises like a record played backwards now sliding from Zeenx's mouth.
The faeling sobs harder.
Speech.
Zeenx is speaking. What lawless language is it? Why does it call?
"Oez knows!" The neckball proclaims loudly. My heart pounds and the attention focuses back to me.
"I Oez of the Azul Isles by the rites of soil and air accept this trade." I toss my staff at Zeenx's feet.
My last best weapon. The Amber Thistle. A tool of renown, an instrument of power and an old one at that. Passed from wise master to apprentice generation after generation. Each carved rune, and symbol a testament to a living sacrament etched as much in the soul of time and space as the wood. Each sacrament the legacy and life's work of a wise master. Thirty four sacraments in total. There are more impressive spell spindles than this back home, but not many.
The faerie falls. No sound as its limp body strikes the ground.
With uncanny tenderness and care those claws grasp the heart of their desire. Ecstasy written across each inch of the catling's body and face. His smile returned.
After a moment he gives me a courteous nod (a bow perhaps?)
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