Markus wasn’t sure about this camp. It was a step up from the camp that the general ran, in terms of how he was treated and the living conditions. But this one was strange. There were people here who werent part of the group. They seemed to come and go as they please, and Maurissa didnt seem to care.
There was a section of the camp set up in the corner just for these people and Markus, more than once, saw Lisaz watching the strangers.
He had to admit that there were times when he caught himself staring too. These people were breathtakingly gorgeous. There was no one back home who could come close to them. They had copper coloured skin, like a overdone fake tan, but this was their natural skin colour. Their hair was light blonde through to white, with the men making up the bulk of the white haired section. As different as they all looked, their eyes all held one thing in common. There was a fierceness there. These people weren’t your ordinary travellers.
“They have no name,” Maurissa said, coming up unnoticed on him as he watched. “Collectively, I mean. Theirs is a nation, or a people, long forgotten. The myth goes that they wander the world until they find it again. We just call them The Travellers.”
“Theyre something else,” Markus said.
Maurissa nodded gently. “But they are an intensely private people so you and the girl should not spend your time staring.”
“Shit, yes, of course,” Markus said, receiving a quizzical look from the older woman.
“Your words still intrigue me,” she said. “You sound so much like us, but you have such striking differences.”
Markus chuckled. “It feels weirder when you point it out.”
The two of them wandered around the camp for a while chatting about Markus’ home, his family, and what he planned to do next. It was a question he had been deliberately avoiding. There had been three attempts now to find a way home and each time it had amounted in nothing, or worse, abject failure. There really was only one course of action left to him.
“Tell me about the sages,” he said as he and Maurissa sat down for the midday meal.
Lisaz was learning quickly. She had picked up some words from the man, but his ways were strange. He wasnt a teacher like she had expected. He was not a student either. He was something else. She had not yet perfected the speaking patterns, so she remained silent. The man looked at her strangely sometimes, a different strange to everyone else. She would speak to him first. Soon. Not yet. She had to no more about the bronze people. She had seen them before but she could not say where. She worried that her broken knowledge was trying to warn her about something. A warning for her, or the people that rescued her? Or for the bronze people? They had not harmed her, nor had they harmed anyone. They seemed to live peacefully in the camp, but their tents would change often. There would be different people each day. She knew that word. They were nomads. She had been a nomad once. Now she was again, in a sense.
The man was with the woman. She knew the two of them were safe, even if they werent expressly intelligent. She was still wary of the woman. She had so many secrets and they would overwhelm her soon. And then what? If the man lost the woman, then they would not be able to keep her safe. Lisaz needed the two of them together to keep her safe.
She needed to understand the bronze people.
“That kid is looking at us again,” Thalu said, brushing a long strand of her blonde hair out of her eyes and behind her ear.
“Let it,” Merta said in a gruff, impatient voice. “Kids are curious and we were kids once. If we werent curious back then we would be dead right now.”
“I know, I know,” Thalu said. “But she looks so weird. She doesnt blink, you know.”
“Youre trying to distract me,” Merta said. He was hunched over a small clay pot which hung over a fire. In his hand was a intricately carved flat wooden spoon. He was using it to stir a thick dark liquid.
“Distract you?” Thalu said, caressing the skin that she had exposed between her short cut top and the leather trousers she wore. “I would never dream of such a heresy. Not while youre busy with the ink.”
Merta didnt look up from his work as the woman teased and danced before him. She was undoing the small ribbon that kept her pants cinched at the waist when Mertas hand abruptly reached out and stopped her.
“I thought I wasnt distracting you,” she said coyly.
“Youre not,” he replied, still watching the pot of ink. “The kid is watching, remember.”
Thalu flushed red and adjusted her clothes back to where they should have been and glanced over to where Lisaz was standing. The child hadnt moved and the look on her face was still the same as it ever was. “Jesus thats creepy.”
“One more day,” Merta said as he pulled the spoon out of the ink and let the thick liquid ooze off it back into the pot.
“Excuse me?” Thalu asked, still distracted by Lisaz’s staring.
“One more day and the ink will be ready. I can make your marks tomorrow night.” He hefted the pot off the flame and carried inside the tent.
“Y-You’ll make the marks?” Thalu stammered, going red again. “I thought Herast was coming.”
“That boy does poor ritual work. He would rather spend his day marking those other people than train to improve his skills for us. Besides, if he was going to be making your marks, he would be here already. He would be making the ink and he would be preparing you.”
“But youre like a brother to me, youve trained and taught me everything I know. I cant accept it from you,” she was speaking fast and loud now.
“And who else do you trust to do it properly?” Merta asked, finally looking her in the eye.
Maurissa was in her usual place, the officers tent, a large open area with a few desks scattered through it. She sat at an empty desk and massaged her temples as she read through the mess of documents that sat before her. She was muttering to herself, almost reading out loud as she traced her finger down the page.
She read something, stopped and retraced her finger back up the document. Furrowing her eyebrows, she muttered something under her breath.
“Oh,” she said, her eyes widening and a small grin crept across her face. “I guess that settles that then,” she said to no one.
Markus was deep in thought. The conversation he had with Maurissa the day before had been less than enlightening. He was less certain now than before that the sages would be able to help him. They had their own agenda and it wasnt always for the benefit of everyone else.
Without someone to give him some sort of lead, he was going to be stuck here forever.
“Markus,” Maurissa’s voice shouted as she ran towards him.
“Oh, hey,” he said, as she sat down next to him. “Whats with the running and shouting?”
“I found something,” she replied. “Its an old translation of some mythical document.”
“Ok,” Markus replied sounding sceptical.
“It says that the sages meet once every … I dont know how often, but the sages meet regularly. All of them.”
“Yeah?” he was still sounding sceptical.
“We can go and crash their little meeting,” she said smugly. “We get them to tell us what we want to know and we get you home.”
Markus wanted to mirror the look of joy she had on her face, but he couldnt quite bring himself to try.
Merta sat on the floor, his legs folded in front of him. Straddling his lap, trying not to squirm or blush, Thalu willed him to hurry.
He was wearing the same clothes he had worn during the day, but she had changed into an almost see through purple gown that barely covered anything. She could feel his eyes burning into her skin and she wished she hadnt decided to follow this path.
Next to them both, hanging over a small fire, was the clay pot with the ink inside. Slowly, but deftly, Merta dipped a sharp stick into the ink and traced it lightly over the skin between Thalus breasts. The woman shuddered slightly at the touch but Merta paid no attention to it, slowly drawing the patterns as prescribed on her.
He held her by her ribs with one hand, partly to keep her still and partly to stretch her skin slightly so the ink made proper contact. The sleeves of this arm were rolled up to his elbow and his forearm was marked with his own set of tattoos, vastly different from the ones he now painted on the uncomfortable woman before him.
Thalu leaned back on her hands and stretched her belly flat. Mertas eyes flicked to hers as he frowned and manipulated her body back into a position that was easier for him to mark.
“Dont move,” he said. His voice was calm and it sounded like every other time he spoke. For some reason it made her even more uncomfortable.
“How can you expect me to stay still,” she whispered, unable to speak normally. “Youre marking me.”
“This is what you trained for,” he replied. “The pain is a part of it. A part of you. Did you think it was a joke, some kind of prank, all that training?”
“No,” she said slowly. “But-”
“How many months has it been?” he asked, not looking up from his work. “Since I told you that you must finish what you started.”
“Its been many,” she replied. There was a new timbre to her voice now. Not a realisation, a remembrance.
“How many months has it been since you said you would see it though?”
“Many,” she repeated, her voice solid and firm.
“Who are you?” he asked as a thick line was etched into her skin, around her navel.
“I am Thalu Xuol,” she replied.
“And who is Thalu Xuol?”
“The newest sage of this world,” she said, her voice strong, and resonant.