Surely this is Great Sodom where such cries
as if men were birds flying up from the swamp
ring in our ears, where such fears that were once
desires walk, almost spectacular,
stalking the desolate circles, red eyed.
Tell me… Which Solterra do you speak of?
The way the other stallion asks it whets Zayir like a blade; it sharpens him as a lion sharpens for the hunt, or a falcon for the dive. He turns his eyes—his eyes like ichor, his eyes that have seen into death—to appraise the man another time. Tell me… which Solterra do you speak of? He wonders if this slave-hunter asks a barbed question; do you miss the days of slavery? Zayir does, before it was tarnished under Zolin’s rule. As a soldier—a career soldier, born for it, bred for it—he knows the necessity of slave labour, of how wars are won on the backs of slaves, how countries are built upon them. The weak. The desolate. Those who succumbed to stronger wills—
Yet there was a beauty in subservience, one that he does miss. Not in the rumours of Zolin’s house of whores, or the slaves that fought without honour—as coerced, frightened animals—upon the sands of the Colosseum. No, Zayir misses the tribal dancers in the city of Inebu-Hedji, or the woman who raised him without her tongue and her entire heart. These are not the things Zayir had considered, however, when he wandered into the desert—these are not the things he misses the most.
“I speak of the Solterra made in the likeness of our god. A city that shines as Solis does; with pride, arrogance, violence. I speak of a Solterra helmed by natives rather than foreigners—“ Zayir is aware of the contradiction in the statement, as Lady Marcisa Arisetta had always been a foreigner, but he does not stop. “—I speak of the Solterra that would never have submitted to a tyrant without complete and utter bloodshed. A Solterra full of pride rather than brokenness.” There is a curling bitterness to his tone. Zayir is proud to be Solterran; but expressions of pride are few and far between in the city streets. Even the Sovereign, whom Zayir has only observed at a distance, seems to wear an expression of piety and subservience. He looks as if he is paying a penance rather than leading a kingdom of warriors, of Solis's chosen children—
“A Solterra built on steel, blood, and sand. Not a Solterra built upon tragedy.” Zayir realises, of course, he has gone on far longer than is socially acceptable. Where Noam had offered the question quickly, Zayir had answered it as one allows embers to smoulder; slowly, and with fire.
I didn’t realise it mattered.”
Zayir almost laughs and, in the same breath, nearly scoffs. He finds… the response to be anti-climatic, devoid of passion. Perhaps this simply illustrates the difference between soldiers and assassins. No matter how pragmatic the act of war became, the killing itself always had motive. So Zayir says, “A man’s purpose for killing always matters.”
He then shrugs his supple shoulders; even fresh from the catacombs he is lithe, a supple creature of sinew and lean muscle. Here and now, Zayir looks almost too thin. The shade of the desert shrubbery accentuates it; it transforms the smooth white of his features into hard, angled plane. Zayir finds it strange he has confessed so much for a stranger; he has delved so willingly into a discussion when his companion has hardly revealed anything of themselves. It is this revelation—that Zayir has confessed much and this stranger so little—that makes his next answer so short. “Zayir.” He says, and intends to leave it at that. But the name, delivered so softly into the desert air, sounds ephemeral. The wind across the hot, barren sand nearly whips it into oblivion. So Zayir adds (as he is, and will forever be, a creature of pride): “Of Solterra’s Arete.”
When he says Arete it sounds like, “Troy” or “Persepolis”, “Sodom” or “Gomorrah.” A thing dead and gone, except in legend, except in ruins.
A wry smile turns his lips. Above them, a hawk careens through the too-bright desert air. Zayir envies it. “And you, Hunter?”
"Speaks" || @
The devout have laid out gardens in the desert,
drawn water from springs where the light was blighted.
