A randevouz with a snake.
"I'm glad he is gone. He has been stirring things up and generating discord between the soldiers with his lies. After he left, my job became far easier. Other than that, I will not search for him. However, I will merely make sure he can never work for the government again. He is an outlaw now."
Fucking dumbass. He did this to himself. I only worry about the women who left the camp with him. These naive people, not knowing anything about anything, will only hear things from Horirem. As long as the web of lies he will spew at them doesn't contradict itself, they will be under his control. These Qurayshi women have lived in such a closed environment that they are really naive. Everything you tell them; they absorb like sponges. That ability to absorb information could help them accept truths better or, in Horirem's case, make them a target for manipulation.
I took a deep breath to center myself. I can't save everyone. I can only affect the things under my control.
I have to recharge my arcane heart. Commander Kahir gave me freedom this week . I can do what I want. That's because I mostly fought this war single handedly. I gained this unofficial social status. It's as if I've become a high ranking official without all the work that entails. I've spread my sand under the sun this morning. I will collect and meditate on my Apep scripture.
As the sun set, I closed my eyes and concentrated. What happened after that sent chills down my spine.
"So you are being hated now. Good. You have accomplished this level of hatred faster than every other conduit I had."
It's the vision of Apep. It has come to mock me. I tried to disregard it and concentrate.
"Heh, heh. My conduit. When conduits of Hathor receive seed, Hathor approves of it and gives them power. What do you think I approve of?"
I knitted my brows and kept concentrating.
"You are being hated, boy. I love it. That means you've done great things in this world. Tell me, What did you do to get hated so much?"
I gave up. The visage of Apep is too distracting.
"I've succeeded and then told the truth to those who don't want to listen. So, the envious and the ignorant marked me as their enemy. I can handle them. There is a reason they are ignorant and envious. They lost control over their lives in different ways. In comparison, I'm in a great place."
I have an idea about who is hating me. I witnessed some refugee women reject the soldiers of the capital, and those men witnessed the way those same women looked at me. If I were them, I too would be green with envy.
On the Qurayshi side, not only did I kill their men, I refused to bow down to their twisted and delusional justifications about why this happened. That effectively brought the world crashing down on them. This would make anybody furious, if you think about it.
The snake chuckled.
"Yes, that'll do it. That would make all those people properly resentful towards you. You deserve a reward for concentrating all that hatred on yourself and pleasing me."
I hate it. I really hate it.
"Don't bother rewarding me. I don't want anything from you."
Apep's vision smiled.
"That won't do."
Suddenly, energy started flowing through me incredibly fast. It's really painful.
"If you survive, you'll thank me."
All the energy I have accumulated to get to the next step on my journey to immortality has been stolen. It's doing something to me.
Oh, it hurts! It hurts! Every part of my body is screaming in agony. I can feel something oozing from my pores. I don't know what's happening, and I'm terrified.
Panicking, I fell to my side, closed my eyes, and regulated my breathing. I circulated my energy according to Apep's meditations. It didn't help and made it worse. The energy started to flow even faster when I did that.
Black bile flowed out of my nose and my mouth, and I started a terrible coughing fit. I'm half vomiting, and it's all black. My skin was sweating out that dreaded color.
Half an hour of terrible agony later, I am impossibly tired. I'm covered in black goo. Surprisingly, I feel lighter. My energy is flowing through me far more smoothly. Ever since I started to circulate energy for my journey to immortality, I have had to be careful around certain parts of my body. Not anymore. There are no blocks to energy anymore. I could change my skin color more quickly, too. That's the good part.
The bad part is that it became apparent that Apep has dominion over my energy. And that dominion is stronger than my dominion. I can't go against Apep too much. He could ruin me with a thought.
Despite all that, I'm happy. As of now, I'm unable to affect the relationships between gods. That means Apep gains nothing meaningful, even if he decides to control me. That vector of control is a future problem.
I feel different. Something inside of me changed aside from my smooth, flowing energies. I feel more alive. Have I become healthier? Or is there something far different going on? Well, what's done is done.
I've made my way back to the military camp. I'm all in shambles, covered in disgusting, stinking goo.
The women who were lusting after me are waiting for me in bated breath. I need to take a bath first.
I ran to the river with a bucket. The river is a small splinter of the Nylle, shallow and a meter wide. I didn't realize it until I was naked. I have been tailed.
"Oh, it's you, ball fondler. I almost killed you. Don't sneak up on me."
She looked at me, befuddled. She is beet red because she is shy about seeing me naked, and at the same time, she is angry about being referred to as Ball Fondler. She shouldn't have fondled my balls.
"I'm filthy. Let me clean myself up so I can present myself to you girls more respectfully."
She disrobed herself and approached me.
"Let me help you clean. And don't call me a ball fondler. My name is Pilush. My father owns the blacksmith. He was capable of paying my ransom, but unfortunately for me, the man who kidnapped me took a fancy on me. You saved me from his clutches. I talked with my father, and he said if I had a child with you, he would help me raise it. You can embrace me all you want and not worry about a child."
She is being sneaky. She wants to get ahead of all the other women so she can enjoy me first.
"Just wash me; don't do anything else. That comes later."
She nodded in acceptance. And then she rubbed me clean with a wet cloth. She is a woman of her word. She didn't do anything overtly erotic.
"I'm just a normal soldier. I'm eighteen, and I have nothing to my name. Why do you all lust after me?"
She sighed.
"Are you eighteen? God damn. I thought you were older. Your age, being eighteen, is much better. That means you've achieved all this at this young age. You have won a war single handedly at this age. Every woman I know would kill to have a child with you. Don't underestimate yourself."
This woman is quite meticulous when cleaning people. The filth is all but gone. She is taking good care of every part of my body.
"What's all this gunk anyway? It's sticky and stinky."
I lifted my arms so she could reach around.
"Those came out of my body during the meditation. I don't know what it is either."
I can feel Pilush's breath on my wet body.
"Tell me, Pilush, is there anything I have to look out for in the refugee camp? How are those Qurayshi women behaving?"
She looked solemn when I asked that.
"Sometimes, those Qurayshi women were every bit as victims as we were. Everyone was getting beaten except those who sucked up their husbands to a sickening degree."
She started trembling.
"After getting beaten that one time, I had a stillborn two months into the pregnancy. You avenged all that hatred I had in my heart. When I told my father about my lost baby, he cried. He said he would never forgive himself for not being able to protect me. I told him that I still have the womb, and I want the child of the man who saved me. He agreed. He said he would teach blacksmithing to the child."
She has been through a lot. No wonder she was so excited about my balls.