Who Knows Where? 1301

A warrior climbed a mountain of flesh, a bundle of cloth and memories in his arms. The skin he climbed was old with a texture like worn leather and the color of a moonless night. It shifted with uneasy breaths and the yieldings of its own flesh. Finally, he reached its summit, a face lost in folds of fat, eyes atrophied under unending flesh, jaws drooling for lack of better things to do. But the mind yet functioned, and so did the mouth. The Igwa opened his gargantuan jaws wide and the warrior threw in the bundle.

Newborn babes always had the sweetest of flesh memories. They had the sparks of their mother and father, pure from the crucible of lovemaking. They had something else, too. The memories of their own births, memories which faded unlike any others. The memories of the beginnings of their world, reaching out for warmth, yearning for food, discovering motion. Blind, blissful, open, innocent memories. Only found in newborn babes.

The Igwa did not bother to chew. He merely swallowed the babe whole. He could feel its screams as it went down his throat, he could feel them end as it hit the pit of his stomach. He felt the satisfaction of truly knowing the world the minute the flesh began to be digested. Then the Pygmy had to ruin it.

The Pygmy had come into existence. The Igwa knew it, even if his eyes could not attest to it. "Pygmy!", the mountain of flesh cried, in a voice which could shake true mountains. "Igwa!" the pygmy called back, in a voice that could not.

"Why do you come, Pygmy?", The Igwa spoke in his deep, resonating voice, a voice that pushed through innumerable layers of fat to come out honeyed.

"There is a woman," spoke the Jew. The Igwa only gave out a laugh, small bloated arms being thrown up, visible for a second against the mountain of flesh.

"There is always a women with worldly men", he spoke before continuing with a deep, bone-shaking laugh. "Is it She-Who-Bleeds, Pygmy?"

The Jew nodded for The Igwa heard the beard ruffle against the Jew's own fat. Then he let out a sigh, for the newborn feeling had left him. Damn Pygmy. "She is inviolate," he rumbled, "To touch her would anger All-That-Is. I could send Reavers to feast upon her tribesmen, but even they could not touch her or those marked with her blood, for their hands are Mine."

The Jew let out a sigh of indignation. He had made clear his lack of faith in All-That-Is. "Do you know of her prophecy, Igwa?" Indeed he did. He had eaten whole a warrior from her tribe, and that warrior had held memories of her proclamations. "But, Pygmy, do you know of the not-wholeness of it? Death-but-not-quite is upon the man with the spark."

The Jew was surprised, he shuffled his feet. "How do you mean, Igwa?" The Igwa laughed, his fat tumbling in waves as he did. "He has lost the ability to give her his spark. He is not a man any longer. Dark hot metal cut into him and removed the flesh." The Igwa's words hung in the air.

"Igwa, I will be more sure of this women when she is dead. If you cannot help me, perhaps I will go to another...." Kozeba let his words hang, much as The Igwa had done.

"You mean Djeli? For none of the other Darkest are large enough save our feast-gifts." The Igwa merely shuffled, his useless arms stirring once again. "Djeli will do no more than I." Then anger entered those shuffling folds. "You presume to threaten The Igwa, who has feasted for millenia, who still digests millions! Leave me, Pygmy. I have no fondness or feast for you. Go to Djeli if you wish, but know that if the babe is born, I shall feast on it before any other. Perhaps I shall feast on you."

The Pygmy left existence and The Igwa tried to resume the memories of the newborn. But they had already faded. He would have to get his warriors to bring him another.

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Scales crackled and popped as a snake-man gave an annoyed hiss at the flame which had flicked onto his face. He did not see the Jew who flickered all the flames, did not see the Jew hobble into existence. His eyes were burning with smoke and there was the tang of his seared flesh in his nostrils.

Kozeba did not notice the snake-man either. He was not in Serica for entertainment, though his goal was a house of courtesans. He made his way through the crowd, a commanding aura pushing those aside from an already strange.... thing. Some vendors called out his name in their tongue, knowing something of his wealth. He ignored them, and continued through the cramped streets of Zinhai before coming to a well-kept manor, red lights within the windows.

This was Xanfu Zhi's favorite courtesan house, Kozeba was sure of it. If he was not here, he could be found in his academy and that was only a hop for the Jew. Kozeba entered, to be greeted by a slim courtesan, clever looking as all of the spy-whores of the Middle Kingdom. She was young for a mama-san, but then no courtesan ever lived to old age.

"Mama-san, many greetings. Is Xanfu Zhi using your services?"

The courtesan did not look up from her papers, papers with scribbled notes and schedules. "No. And he shall not be returning to this place."

Kozeba narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "And why is that?" Courtesan-houses were notorious for political take-overs, Xanfu Zhi had been active in politics as of late.

The courtesan looked down on him with returned suspicion. "He was trafficking with illegal spirits and was executed by order of the God-Emperor. Were you one of his.... students?" Kozeba could hear the venom in those last words. He did not want to check the Academy. He popped out of existence as the whisper spell was on her lips.

Damn, came his thoughts in the void. Xanfu Zhi was the man who had made the most progress on Horatius' ague. I should have guessed his politics would end him. I spent enough time wandering this void for him, finding those emperors for counsel on the snake-men.

My, how many odd friends I have, came the tumbled thoughts. Smile, and be gone came a voice without mouth.

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Kozeba hobbled into existence before a rearing horse. The horse tumbled at the crackle of the void, crushing its snake-man rider. Kozeba just laughed, and a chorus of the closest thing snakes had to laugh followed. The rider was incompetent, for his horse to be scared by such a thing. Even an anomalous Jew popping up out of nowhere.

Khanaalkhatan was always a confusing city, precisely because it wasn't a city. It was a flat section of the steppe, marked with the ancestral mounds of all the tribes. The city proper was just makeshift tents and cooking fires, with free ranges for horse and rider. It shifted with the seasons.

Kozeba found his way though. Some of the men who rode with Chingiss knew "Sshort-Flesh", and so trotted the Jew to Chingiss' own tent. It was a grand tent, to be sure. Kozeba looked at the fiber and gave a silent chuckle. Human flesh of Serican hue. Spoke wonders of Chingiss' conquests. Kozeba merely gave a command to the snake at the front of the tent, he had no time to deal with formalities.

A deep blood red snake had his body wrapped somewhat luxuriantly around a naked Serican female. His tongue danced upon her neck, and she seemed to have fainted from shock. He let a razor sharp fang glide upon her exposed neck, drawing a slow stream of blood. Then he seemed to notice Kozeba and let out a cough of phlegm and blood upon the woman's face.

That was Chingiss. And the rumors of his own sickness were true. Chingiss looked over at the Jew for a moment. Then he unlocked his jaw and tore into the throat of the fainted woman. She gave nary a cry, her blood spilling upon his scales and the dirt floor. His tongue lapped at the fresh blood. Then he upturned his tongue and gave a throaty rendition of a human tongue.

"Sshort-flesh, wh'hat know you of virgin blood?" Chingiss spit some of the blood dribbling from his jaws upon the floor. Kozeba looked at the girl, who finally showed some motion, before it was all gone. "I think th'hat was not a virgin. Ssericanss tell me virgin'ss blood will cure me. But how do you ssoft-flesshs know a virgin from a not-virgin?"

Kozeba took a moment to respond. "I am afraid that I was here for a cure myself, Chingiss." Chingiss gave that snake-man laugh, a tittering of hisses and clicks and wheezes.

"I care about myself over all otherss, Shhort-Flesh. Go elssewhere. Not here. Any virgin iss mine. Any cure iss mine." He brought all four of his arms to point at his chest, and raised himself high upon his muscular tail.

"Do not forget who opened the gates of Samarkil, Chingiss." Chingiss lapped his tongue at some of the fresh blood pooled in the woman's throat. "Do not forget, sshort-flessh, who killed every ssoft-flesh in the wallss of Ssamarkil. I have nothing to offer you."

"Shhort-flessh, I am death sstolen upon a horse. And death hass finally found a rider to catch up to me." There was another cough of blood and phlegm, all upon the girl's gutted throat. "I will not help you with a cure. Perhaps death'ss riders, those sserpentss who sshall ssuccseed me, will have more interesst in you, sshort-flesh. I h'have none. Leave me."

Kozeba did. He hopped through the void to the last friend he could think of......