An Inner Being

[Jahl]

Jahl knew that friction caused heat, and what he really needed, instead of the odd fire that burnt in front of him and the cold heat that it emanated, was good old-fashioned work to warm him up. He searched slightly through his small satchel attached to his waist. After a few seconds of determined seeking through the meager sack of few valuables, he found what he was looking for. He pulled out he old carving knife, rusted a bit from all his travels of late.

“Your real blade is as pathetic as your wooden one.” Mahil whipped his hands around in a circular motion and pulled from the air a wicked looking black steel knife. “You should use this one.”

“No.”

Maybe Jahl would someday exchange his blade in for a new one, but if he did it would be a nice normal knife without any possible traps hidden within, besides the knife that Mahil held seemed to be evil. He had no clue why, but it just seemed to be no good at all. Either way, Jahl pulled out one of the already carved generic masks that he had carved before leaving.

He had left plenty of space on the wood to make revisions and fashion a nice mask out of the generic one. He decided that he would make this mask resemble what he most desired, heat and flame of true sustenance. His marks were swift and true, each score placed along the grain like a true expert. First, he carved out the space around the outer sides of the eyes, these leapt up like flames that followed the side of the face until they reached the top, where they seemed to envelope the small horns that he crafted. He gouged out lines that resembled primitive flame and traced it all around the rest of the wood, then made negative cuts in the bottom to continue the flame onwards.

Mahil watched secretly across from the magical flame. He raised one eyebrow and moved his hands around to some unknown goal. In the end, his hands were clasped together, seeming to have done nothing but rearranged into a more comfortable position. Only he knew what he had done.

Jahl looked over the finished project, work indeed had heated his muscles, but for some odd reason his hands were much more warm than work could accompany for. He soon found that he had to alternate the wood from one hand to the other. It was becoming quite hot.

“I’m curious to see what happens when you put it on.”

Jahl paused and looked the demon in the eyes for a second before he had to resume tossing the mask between hands. “You must have done something as a joke! Why is it so damn hot!”

“I didn’t do anything, mister Jahl, sir! Honest!”

“No, I’m sure you didn’t.”

He placed the mask into his satchel, grateful to be relieved of the heat, but enjoying also the amount of heat it emanated from the pouch. It was warming his body quickly, the heat traveling through his limbs like a warm glow. It was nice to feel his legs again and he soon lifted his body from the snow.

“I think that we should get a move on, I’m feeling great right now and I can’t wait to find a place to settle down.”

“It’s the middle of the night…”

“So?”

[Jahl]

They found themselves wandering in the darkness and despite Mahil’s warnings of nightly beasts and wandering marauders, Jahl pressed on in the same unknown direction as before. The trees traveled in the opposite path, each one slowly making their way past Jahl as he walked on towards the mountain peaks. He really didn’t care for the desolate plains that he came from and really wanted to experience the lands beyond the mountains.

What seemed to be an eternity passed before the sun started to come up from the crests of the mountains in front of him. The trees began to thin out and the roots of the mountains took their place in the great earth below. Early morning fog began to engulf the passengers. The mist rose from the cold ground and turned the air around Jahl thick and white over a short amount of time. The traveling became slower, but Jahl kept on going, despite the twenty-foot vision allowance. Mahil had nothing further to say about anything at all, but the child ran behind Jahl, disappearing into the forest every now and then and running back into the open giggling madly as if some unknown force was tickling him. The child burst into song as he began to run circles around Jahl.

~ “Where the mountains grow cold,
and the stories of old
whisper truths of the past
of a greed with no gold”~

He laughed out loud even louder than before and ran out of sight ahead of Jahl.

“What the…”

Jahl looked on in horror as he took notice of a great mass rising forty feet high from the ground in a straight wall. First he thought it was some great and unknown beast, but he soon came to find out that instead of a great beast, there loomed a great gate of pine and iron bars. Leading on from the gate, Jahl could see the beginning of the stone slab wall that gave way to the gate. ”Great, this huge thing is in my way.” Jahl thought to himself as he wondered what he should do.

The air seemed too calm to shout anything and feel comfortable, so he simply walked up to the gate and pushed slightly on it, hoping that it wouldn’t follow suit of the doors in the abandoned village from before. If there were people inside, a huge forty-foot gate falling over would be alarming enough to wake the dead. He laughed inside his head for thinking of such an improbable event and gave a small nudge to the right door of the gate. To his surprise, it was unlocked and it budged a few inches. “Hmm…”

He pushed a little harder, and with no sound at all, the gate opened enough to let him in. It disheartened him when he looked inside and began to realize that just looking wouldn’t be enough. The fog enveloped in here as well and all Jahl could see was empty ground around him. He looked around for Mahil, but the demon-child was nowhere to be found.

“Ow,” Jahl whispered softly. He began to look for the source of the extreme heat that he felt upon the side of his thigh and realized that it was the blasted mask that he carved earlier. He took it out and placed it on the ground next to him. Yet, instead of it staying put, it simply vibrated and flew swiftly and silently into the ruby globe upon his left arm.

“What the hell is going on around here?” Indeed strange things were happening since he left home and he began to wonder if this was how the real world was to everyone.

From somewhere out in front of him there came a small noise, soft enough not to startle Jahl, but loud enough to make him realize that he wasn’t alone.

[Jahl]

Slowly, Jahl crouched down low, then made a check on his elbow blades, making sure that the short and only real blades that he had were intact and ready to go. He also drew his mahogany sword, which could always do bludgeoning damage to knock out any unsuspecting foe. He knew that the fog was a hindering to him, but that also meant that it was his strongest ally as well.

He began to sneak out to the right side, hoping that he wouldn’t bump into anyone or any thing. Slowly, dark shapes began to appear in the whirling fog ahead. One shape appeared to be human, the other more like an inanimate mass, like a box or something similar. The humanoid mass began to walk around the box slowly, reaching down and eventually bending over to grab something from the bottom of the box.

Jahl snuck closer, realizing that the humanoid was really human and that the box was a keg of ale, the user just taking another pint for his enjoyment. Then, Jahl began to understand that because he could see the other man, the other man could see him, and realized that he had just been seen.

“Oiy there Kevin? What are you doin’ up so early? Your watch doesn’t start for another few hours?”

Jahl’s eyebrows rose in fear. What if these people were hostile, his only chance at escaping would be to play it off as he being Kevin.

“Yeah, I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come and keep you company.”

“What? Who’s that!”

“Uh…It’s me, Kevin!”

The guard stood straight up and grasped his halberd from the pole that lay beside him. “Kevin’s mute you bloke!” The guard charged at Jahl, his halberd in full swing, ready to lop off Jahl’s head. His swing went wide though, Jahl rolling backwards in sheer surprise of the bum-rush. The guard was definitely drunk however, and very clumsy. Jahl’s mahogany blade swung quickly into the back of the guard’s unprotected head, connecting with a loud crack. He fell out, stone cold.

“Hey! Who goes there?”

There was obviously someone else there. More than one guard meant that it was a relatively large place. Yet, Jahl could see nothing at all. Footsteps were heard and Jahl glanced frantically from side to side, wondering where the steps were falling. Obviously, there was a great echo, for the footsteps could be heard all around him. Then, without a warning, a great biting wind whipped up and took away a majority of the fog around him.

There, situated all around him were guards of all shapes and sizes, each one covered in furs and wearing oddly dark glasses. Each of them had their weapons drawn, most of them wielding spears, the others having halberds.

“Uh oh…”

The body of the other guard was lying next to him and it definitely looked like he murdered him, despite the fact hat he only lay unconscious on the cold earth.

“Drop your weapon!” Jahl had no choice but to obey and soon he heard his wooden blade hit the ground with a clatter.

“Lillian, strip him of his armor and bring him to the master quarters, we’ll let Kev’nok decide what to do with him and the child."

The child? They must have gotten Mahil too. Jahl could only think that Mahil would have a brilliant plan of getting them out of their fray.

[Jahl]

Jahl was clipped in the back of the head by one of the guards, sending him out of consciousness. While he was out, they stripped him of all of his armor, leaving him in a small amount of clothing in the freezing cell that they threw him in. He would be out for at least an hour.

Time passed and soon Jahl awoke to the steady thud of human muscle colliding with unwilling skin. He let his eyes focus before he moved and then began to look around, slowly bringing his torso off the ground from his prone position, but not sitting up. He noticed that he was in a sturdy cell, with brick on all sides. Each of the four walls had a small window that was filled with bars, each window no bigger than two feet wide. One window seemed to lead into blackness, a room with no light, another lead to another cell, empty for the most part, save some rats and a small empty bowl. The last two windows opened up unto a larger room, obviously a torture chamber or some other area for investigation.

The heavy thud came again, this time followed by a shout, “No! Please not again, I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jahl raised himself to his feet and took a look out of the window facing the investigational area. There, surrounded by three guards, was a small child. Yet, this child was not Mahil, it was a little girl, pale and red headed. ”What the… Jahl was definitely confused. The land that they were in was bare and had no residents, how could this little girl be a prisoner? She would obviously be close to home so she must live in the fort. Logic, as Jahl was noticing, didn’t seem to matter in the real world at all.

A face appeared from what seemed to be nowhere in front of Jahl’s. It was a man’s face from the other side of the bars. “He’s awake!” The other three guards dealing with the little girl threw her back in the cell next to Jahl’s, then dragged him out and set him up on the table in the middle of the room, locking his wrist in place with rope. Jahl lay on his back, his eyes closed expecting some excruciating pain to commence. None came, instead, the guards left, leaving him there on the table, alone with no one but the sniffling girl in her cell.

What seemed like days passed before Jahl noticed something moving on the ceiling fifteen feet above him. There, on the ceiling right above him, was Mahil, waving idiotically. It was a strange site to behold, the child having its hands and feet flat against the ceiling, but its stomach facing the floor, like a crab on the ceiling. Jahl looked around to make sure no one was around, then assured himself the little girl was asleep before he gestured to his bindings for Mahil to help him out. Mahil just stared at Jahl, blank faced. Jahl kept on gesturing with his head, but in the end, Mahil simply shrugged in a ‘What do you want me to do’ fashion.

”Damn he’s worthless,” thought Jahl. A few minutes went by of Mahil’s host childishly attempting to see how far he could let the drool from his mouth go down before he sucked it all back up. Jahl was more annoyed with the fear of spit landing on his face than being tied up in the cell he was in. “I’m going to kick your ass when I get out of here,” Jahl said.

“Making threats now are we?” Jahl turned his head around as far as the table would allow and noticed out of the corner of his eye, that someone was standing at the entranceway of the room. The voice was soft. “My name is Lillian, and I think it’s high time for enlightenment.”

[Jahl]

Lillian was over Jahl now, her face close to his. He could feel her soft breath from underneath her helmet. Yet her voice was full of a metallic twang, sharp as steel itself. She was a cold warrior and no doubt about it. She removed the steel helmet and let her dark red hair fall upon Jahl’s face. Her eyes were beautiful, her skin pale. She was the pure embodiment of dangerous beauty. “I,” She began, “Am a seductress. I own this city by the power of beauty, and I wish to show you how I get things done here. Jahl found himself in a trance, dumbstruck by her words, not really understanding what she said, but knowing that she meant to please him to get what she wanted.

Then Jahl felt a wet slap upon his chest. It made no noise, but instantly, Jahl’s frustration with Mahil attempting to test gravity returned, snapping him out of his trance. He followed Mahil’s example and launched a mouthful of spit into the awaiting mouth of Lillian. She flinched, turned to empty her mouth of Jahl’s saliva, the came back into his view, wide eyed and hysteric. Her face was no longer pale, but red and terrible, he beauty replaced with rage.

“I know how to deal with men like you. You seem to not like me, so you obviously want other men. I’ll just have to send ten of my best men in here to ‘dispose’ of you.” She slammed her helmet back on her head and stormed out of the room, the door ramming shut with a sharp bang.

Jahl heard Mahil chuckling from somewhere, but couldn’t quite see from where. Then he heard another giggle, this time from the little girl presumably. He soon found that the bindings around his arms were being loosened. Jahl looked over to see rats, chewing away at the ropes that held him. The world only seemed to be getting stranger and stranger. Helping rats, demonic children, magical masks, sex as torture, it was all so odd.

When Jahl sat up, he saw Mahil gesturing with demonic magic to make the rats do his bidding. He found out why the little girl was giggling, Mahil was making the rats dance in a strange fashion, al of them in a single line, holding their partner’s shoulders and kicking their legs out as high as they would. It was quite amusing.

“This is Mary! She’s fun and like my dancin’ rats!” The children were obviously having fun watching the rats dance. “I hate to ruin your fun, but I really think we should get out of here.”

”Agreed. Although I would have no trouble at all leaving you here and escaping without a trace.”

“Yes, yes. I understand, you helped me, blah, blah, blah. That doesn’t mean you get the mask.” Jahl rubbed his wrists and got a decent look around the room. It was pretty plain, nothing but tables with rope bindings. The entrance door was about ten feet from where he sat upright on the table.

“What mask?” Came an unsuspected reply from the little girl Mary.

“Don’t worry about it, let’s just get out of here for now.”

“He’s got something my friend wants and he doesn’t wanna share it.” Mahil’s child host began to tear up and his lip began to tremble. Mary seemed to be a couple years older than Mahil, and began to comfort Mahil. Jahl simply rolled his eyes and lifted himself from the table. “Damn I’m hungry.”

Mahil stopped whimpering and spoke, ”There’s plenty of rats.” Jahl ignored the reply and tried the door. Luckily, it was unlocked, either that, or Lillian broke it when she slammed it. Jahl made his way down the dark unlit passageway that led from the entrance to some unknown location. Mahil and Mary were nowhere to be found and Jahl was beginning to worry if Mahil had really left him like he said he could.

Another door came along, Jahl not knowing until he found it the hard way. He tried it as well, and found that it too was unlocked. Obviously, these people were not to worried about their prisoners escaping. Then, Jahl heard voices. There, around the corridor in front of him, was a door, slightly cracked. There was light inside and Jahl snuck up to see in. There was Mahil and Mary, both laughing softly and some puppet that Mahil had obviously made of Jahl. It was dancing much like the rats. The doll had a strange stupid look on its face and Mahil was mimicking Jahl’s voice, saying things like, “Oh, I’m a stupid greedy-pants,’ or ‘blah, blah, blah! I’m stupid!’