Book 1: Gospel: Doves and Snakes

Book 1: Gospel

Chapter 14: Doves and Snakes

The sun had reached its zenith by the time I had begun to wake from my sleep. I stretched feeling the sand soil rub against my skin. Itza’s hair brushed my face as she rolled over. I smiled and reached for her. I felt the smooth skin of her back.

I paused.

I ran my head up and down, no fur. I opened my eyes to see my hand on her back.

“ Mmmmm,” she said as she rolled over. My eyes immediately travelled to her sandy, dusty breasts, “ If you keep on like that, my heart, we are gonna have to find a bigger bowl to lay inside.”

I smiled as I saw my feet sticking out over the edge, “ My love, you have no idea.”

She opened her eyes and met mine with a smile. Then as her eyes traveled down, her smile was one of confusion then shock then embarrassment.

“ Ezekiel!” she gasped “ You’re naked!”
She looked down and immediately sucked herself into the smallest shape possible.

“ I’m naked!” she hovered on the balls if her feet, “ In the dirt and dust and sand! I can feel it in my EVERYTHING! What if something crawled over me?”

Her eyes grew wide, “ Or IN me?”

She lept to her feet. I laughed as I caught the stripes on her skin where sweat had run down her during the night.

“ Izzy,” I laughed as I sat up dusting sand from my shoulders and hair, “ I had no idea you were part rhakshasa! No wonder you are so feisty in our private chambers.”

She looked down and shivered, “ I… feel…. horrid.”

I lounged back giving her a full view of myself, “ Now, now, dear, let me get a good look and maybe taste.”

She kicked sand at me, and I covered my eyes, “ Ezekiel Flame-Tail, you will not get anything from me until I get clean. So you best find me a lake, stream or puddle.”

I chuckled under my breath, “ We could make a puddle.”

She glared at me, and turned away looking around at the horizon. I took a second to let my eyes wander over her form and smiled as her three tails swished making dust swirl.
“No matter what she is covered in,” I thought, “ I don’t think I could ever see her as anything but beautiful.”

I stood up and shook the dust away that would come off. I immediately sat back down as I stepped with my left foot. Pain shooting up my leg.

“ Creator’s light!” I exclaimed.

Itza turned to look at me, “ What’s wrong?”

I pulled my foot towards me and saw the sticker from the night before still embedded between my toes. It had become red and swollen overnight.

“ Oh, love,” said Itza as she squatted and took my foot in her hands. Her black hair falling about her face, “ Here let me see if I can get this out.”

She squeezed, and I grimaced. He long nails dug in and plucked the offending barb from its place. A small trickle of pus and blood followed it.
“ We are gonna have to get that clean soon,” she said, “ If only we had had time to leave on stag instead of by paw.”

She looked down at her dust streaked breasts, “ Clothes and proper food would be nice too.”

“ Well,”‘I said standing up testing out my foot, “ We may have to just procure some along the way.”

Itza looked at me out of the side of her eye and smirked, “ You mean we get to Kitsune? What would the Church say about us taking what isn’t ours?”

I shrugged and stood up, checking to make sure my shirt pouch was still around my neck, “ I have a feeling that protecting my wife and myself from the elements and possible ire of the sun supersedes whatever dogma the Church may scream about. The Creator will understand.”

Itza stood arms crossed a mock shocked look upon her face, “ Ezekiel! Look at you becoming a Third Age rebel and heretic!”

She stalked up to me and pressed close her arms circling my neck, “ Your uncles and grandfather would be proud of you. I am proud of you, and as soon as you find me water, you can have me.”

She slapped me on my rear and swished her hips as she walked away, “ Come on, Flame-Tail show the Shadow Veil how the flames move across this wasteland.”

She looked over her shoulder, “ and please, try not to step on any more thorns. I can’t carry you and this child you planted so deep in me last month.”

The sun began to color the sky again as we continued to make our way south. The grass had given way to hard red, ochre, and crimson rocks and sand. I clambered up a rock grimacing as the hot stone burned my feet. I turned and reached down a hand to Izzy.
“We have to be in the Iron Sun Hills now,” I looked around feeling the rage of the sun on parts of me that had not felt its rays in years. “ If my memory is right, there should be a river of sorts that runs into here.”

I turned towards the east. I happened to glance at my wife her lighter colored skin around her breasts and rump turning an angry red under the sun.
“ If we head towards Ironfell, we may find some more settlements closer to there,” I pointed to the south and southeast, “ or we could head there to the Cinderclaws maybe we can find some shelter amidst the volcanos.”

Izzy just looked at me tenderly touching her sunburnt areas, “ Ezekiel, love, I don’t care just get me somewhere where my foxfruits and foxglove isn’t wilting and screaming.”

I grinned and gently took her hand and headed towards the mountains. We darted in and out of the scant shade, but as the sun dropped lower and lower, the shadows lengthened and deepened. The heat of the day slowly gave way to the cool of the evening and a breeze began to circle and moan about the ravines and rocks.

My skin prickled and goose bumped as the chill touched it. The sunburn only amplified the chill. I looked at Izzy. My eyes wandered out of roguish curiosity to her breasts. She caught my eye and rolled hers exasperatedly, turning and baring them full in front to me, “ Yes, yes, Ezekiel! My winkies are hard enough to climb rock walls with! I swear you males do only think about one thing even in the face of dire life and death situations.”
She huffed and flounced off ahead of me, “ It doesn’t matter if my wetwink is a mud hole, smells like a Sarkir fishmarket at high noon, and I’m dustier than a hen in a sandstorm.”

She turned and glared at me hands on her hips, “ You’d still just do a quick claim and be done, and I’d be walking all the way to Light knows where with mud bubbles running out my whisper slit.”

She looked at me with anger and frustration and righteous anger,” Are you even listening?”

I smiled and pointed over her shoulder, “ Love, look!”

She turned and followed my finger. A gentle water fall fell over some smooth yellow and red rocks. A thin streamer of smoke trailed upwards.

“ Shall we go see if they are friends,” as asked grinning, “ Or do I have time to make a mud pie?”

She huffed and slinked down the rock into the growing shadows. As we crept closer, the smell of roasting game and citrusy herbs greeted our noses. The sounds of laughter and music echoed off the rocks mixing with the babbling of falling water. We peeked around the corner to see who our potential hosts would be.

My eyes grew wide as I whispered, “ Sunborne!”

Itza looked at me as she took a peek. Her eyes grew wide as well, “ What are they? They are beautiful and….. exotic!”

I nodded, “They are the descendants of the Starborne that stayed behind and learned from the mortals they once hunted. They found emotion and engulfed themselves in it.”

All around the campsite, large enough for two or three families, brown, bronze, gold and black colored bodies moved and milled about. Some wore brightly colored loincloths or simple wrap around dresses. Children dashed about or painted designs on each other with brightly colored mud. The menfolk lounged about working spears or traps. Some dozed in the evening sun next to their mates. One woman, large and powerful sat by the main campfire. Her dark brown skin was painted in whirls and sun symbols. At one large breast, suckled a plump baby with hair like golden flames and eyes that burned like green gems.
Her husband stood beside her clad only in his tribal paint and a loincloth.

In between and on the rocks surrounding the camp, hung brightly colored rags and banners. Glyphs made to look like constellations and the sun were inscribed everywhere. My eyes caught a pair of shadows, and I followed them to where a young female sat cross legged in a painted rock circle as young men fought and battled with each other.

Suddenly, we were surrounded by a pack of children grabbing our hands and dragging us into the fire light.

The male by the fire cocked his head and grinned, “ Not very common to see those of the earth walking without their over skins. Earth-Walkers tend to bake under the sun like crawfish.”

Itza and I looked down at our sun reddened bodies. Itza tried to cover up, but the matriarch just laughed her round belly jiggling and causing her young to lose a grip on his meal. The baby wailed and his mother gave herself back to him.
“ Modesty is a very unnecessary earth trait out here where the sun reveals all,” she gestured around to the rocks, “ Secrets are pushed back by the Light into places where all sorts of death await. Both in the holes of the rocks and in the soul.”

Her husband nodded, “ But perhaps an over skin would be good for these two lest they signal the ancestors in the stars.”

The woman smacked her mate on his thigh, just below the groin eliciting a jump of surprise, “ Ibanje, decency was a trait left out when the roundstone birthed your ancestors. I speak that sometimes you act more like the Between Seers than a Sun-Dancer. Tell your maidens to fetch outer skins for these two.”

The woman regarded us with curiosity, “ I am given the name, Nahiya. I am sun mother of these people. My heart flare is Ibanje. He is sun father. Come sit and let me feel your heat.”

I looked at Itza, who just shrugged as we walked over to the fire. She looked around for a spot with the least amount of sand and dirt to rest her behind.
Nahiya chuckled again, “ I hear the agony of your light, fox born.”
Itza’s eyes snapped up, “ How did you know I was kitsune?”

“ We have your tribe around here,” Nahiya raised her hands only three fingers and a thumb on each and mocked big ears on top of her head , “ only smaller with bigger ears. Their heat burns bright. They are very loud.”

Two young maidens both wearing colorful simple dresses approached and handed us each a robe and a skin of water. Ibanje came and sat back down by his wife.

He stirred the embers of the fire and regarded the coals as if they spoke to him, “ You, man fox, you have the smell of the trees about you. Not the dark woods, but the place where there is light,” he paused and a rumble sounded in his chest , “ and old magic. Your hear is not unknown to my kind, and it’s source has been the cause of much heartache for my tribe.”

I cocked my head at him mid swig, “ What do you mean? Yes, I come from the Grovelands to the west of here, and I am of Kitsune blood, but how has my family, my heat caused you and your family grief? Let me know to make it right.”

The odd man chuckled as children began to crowd around Itza, examining her tails and her nails. One made a comment pointing at her chest remaking on the different color.

“ There is nothing you can do,” he said placing his hands on his knees, “ Your fire father began this long before your coal was lit. The death of the round rocks. Spheres you call them is a necessary punishment for my people. For our sins of my ancestors who once killed to harvest the heat from those they were supposed to protect.”

He looked around at his tribe. His eyes glowed with a bright fire of pride, “ But He Who Keeps the Sun chose to bless my people, the Sun Walkers when He had your tribe show us heat,” he tapped his chest and then his head, “ Laughter, tears, desire, battle. All this is heat. Once we felt it we left the cold of the star vaults and never looked back.”

He clapped his hands and the maidens returned with food. There were bowls filled berries and bright colored tubers and flowers. Meat from what looked like some type of reptile was placed on skewers over the fire.

“ Tell me, Fox of the West, how come I find you very far from your tribe,” he nodded to Itza “ and leading this one who carries fire in her belly through lands not made for you.”

I took another drink of water and chewed a handful of berries and began my tale.
When I had finished, many of the tribe had gathered around to hear us talk. A child had found their way into each of our laps.

Nahiya looked at her husband , “She bears the coal of He Who Keeps the Sun, and they are pursued by those who would cage it in a fire pit.”

Ibanje nodded, “ Warriors from other clans have reported seeing missionaries from the dark woods outside the hills. They do not enter here for fear of the fire burning them. Their Creator is not the same as the one who made their ancestors.”

He looked at me, “ The fire will not keep them away from here. Their need for your child will drive them to continue to hunt.”

Nahiya nodded, “ We will send you to one who can hide your heat amongst a world of coals.”

I shifted and moved closer to Itza , “ Who is it? And can he reunite us with our daughters and my uncle?”

Ibanje grinned and laughed, “ He is the Serpent of the Sand Sea. Master of Hell and the worlds between and beneath. He is a man named Intelli Gent, a man with too much heat and too many feelings and not enough places to put them. He will do all this for you.”

“ I’ve never heard of him.”

“ That may be, Foxes of the West, but I would bet my flames he already knows of you and your burden.”