Riddle Me This

Where life has no value .. Death has a price
And the number of Death was One hundred and twenty

I was irritated. I sat right down near that fire and I started taking apart the plains around me .. piece by piece. And I kicked around a few of them for good measure.

I felt better for it anyway.

I said the words. Slowly I began to build it back .. blade by blade .. horizon and Sky and blood white kaiila. Rising I strode to him and I swung into the saddle .. taking up my weapons I lifted a scream and I demanded that the Oneiroi show themselves.

Obviously the last time had taught me nothing.

But neither Icelos .. Morpheus ... nor Phantasos appeared to me. I threw my weapons to the ground and thought nothing of cursing the Sky.

But it was not the Sky that responded to my disrespect .. it was Valerie. She strolled on by in my dream and beckoned me to follow.

Figures.

She had done so much for me last time.

But what else could I do? I had no answers .. I had no choice but to follow her on the chance that I might accidentally find one. So I swung down from the beast and I strode after her .. the moment I consented to the deed the plains melted away from me and I was upon the desert .. a dry and wasted land of nothing but shifting burning sand. Not even a breeze to ease the oppressive air that weighted down on every cell of my body. Valerie was gone .. with the plains .... and I was alone. My frame caused my feet to sink deep in the sand with every step making walking an exhaustive chore and I was sweating and gasping after only a little progress.

And then I saw her. The woman. THE woman. Not the woman I thought was the woman. The slave who Beo had killed in the forest. No .. this one was much different .. she resembled the woman of my dreams the one I could never save .. and she sat at the feet of a great Tem. No .. not the tem I had seen destroyed and burnt to ashes in the forest. But a great tem who had lived far beyond his years .. his fruit dripped the blood of wisdom though no leaves decorated his gnarled and twisted branches for there was not enough water here to keep them green and lush. She was beautiful .. but her flesh was dry and cracked by the scorching heat of the desert. How long had she been here? How long could she survive here? Either one of them actually.

She did not seem to notice me .. she was busy with quill and ink .. scratching away on sheets of paper. I was not close enough to see what it was that she wrote .. though every once in a while she would wad a piece up and toss it away from her. The ink she used was the blood of the tem .. and she scratched great sweeping scarlet characters upon the papers. She seemed desperate to write something .. something she could not get correct. One of her eyes had been damaged and listed to the side .. it did not follow the other when she finally glanced up to me as I stood a ways off and watched her.

When her eyes touched my own I forgot why I was there and I reached to save her .. save her from the terrible heat that was slowly taking away every vestige of moisture ... of life ... that remained in her. Only when I reached she melted away from me and as I struggled to get to her I sank further and further into the sand. The burning grains scalding my skin until they filled my mouth .. my nose as I sucked them into my nasal passages .. and finally my eyes. Sand blasting them open and glazing them like globes of glass.