Lo’kresh lived in the middle of a great desert, and it was there that he one day came upon an Ifrit - what some would call a Djinn - and threw himself at its taloned feet.
He told the Ifrit the truth: That he was a poor but devout seeker of knowledge, a pilgrim come to beg at the table of a people who were neither demons nor angels, but with attributes of both, and a greater understanding of the physical world than either. A tribe that had been cruelly denied the favor that Allah gave to the race of Men.
The Djinn, who was named Al-A’amash, threatened to tear Lo’kresh to pieces with his tusks, but then decided that the entertainment of seeing a mere mortal attempt to grasp the secrets of the cosmos would be more diverting, and agreed to take Lo’Kresh on as his pupil.
Under the bemused tutelage of this Son of the Flame, Lo’kresh learned to capture moments in time, even as tree sap imprisons the honeybee and becomes precious amber, and to bend the elements and aethers of reality to his will.
As Lo’kresh pursued this knowledge, he gradually lost interest in the stuff of mortal life, even as he lost track of time’s passage. So it was that he awoke one day to find his body suffering from an unknown number of days without sustenance, drink, or sunlight.
“This will never do,” said Lo’kresh to himself, “for what good is knowledge if I die before I can make use of it? I must acquire a servant to see to my earthly needs, for the mighty Djinn have none, nor any understanding of the necessities of mortal men.”
Full of the secrets that he had acquired, the young wizard decided to set off westward across the desert in search of a suitable caretaker, taking with him only a bag made from the carpet on which he sometimes slept. He waited for a day when Al-A’amash was absent - which happened as often as not - and determined where the nearest slave market lay.
With the first step of his journey, before his slipper touched a grain of sand, Lo’kresh trapped the moment, and so journeyed far beyond the desert in no time at all, coming to Mystras, sister city to fallen Sparta. Here it was still night, and the city slumbered while Pirnha Lo’Kresh wandered its streets in search of the slave market.
Eventually he found that place, and sat upon his bag to await the sunrise and the market’s opening, making himself invisible to passers-by, as the Djinn had taught him.
He saw the shepherd boys driving their families’ sheep to pasture, and the girls sent to carry water. He saw the merchants arrive at their stalls, which ringed the slave market, with carts full of items for sale, which they arranged with practiced hands. Before long the braziers were lit, and all manner of delicious smells danced on the wind - savory lamb and roasted goat meat, chickens, figs and olives, spices and wood smoke, nuts and honey.
Eventually a man came and set to sweeping the dust from the raised wooden platform at the center of the square, a sure sign that the slave traders were en route. A crowd began to gather, eating breakfast from the carts and talking amongst themselves about the weather, trade, politics, and women.
Lo’Kresh ignored them, his mind on other matters. He had no abode, but he had become immune to the elements. A slave would not be.That meant raising a house from the dust - a simple matter, but why raise a house when a palace was just as easy? Besides, cleaning it would give his caretaker something to do besides seeing to it that he ate, drank, and made his ablutions each day. And while Al-A’amash, was a great teacher, the Djinn not as he was, and did not understand his desire for conversation, nor did he understand what the Djinn’s people did in place of it. It would be pleasant to have a… well, not a companion, obviously, but someone with whom he could at least converse about the weather.
She must be intelligent, if not educated, thought Pirnha Lo’Kresh. Diligent in her duties and well-spoken, fastidious and curious about the world. But does such a woman even exist, let alone as a slave?
It was with this thought in the forefront of his mind that Lo’Kresh saw the slavers’ wagons arrive, drawn by ancient horses, full of human cargo. As each drew to a stop behind the selling platform, their masters hopped down and approached their fellows, greeting them and conversing in low tones.
After a time, they drew lots to determine in what order they would ascend the platform to auction their wares. A tall and swarthy fellow in a blue robe went first. His slaves were mostly heavy laborers, great dark men as muscular as bulls, capable of carrying blocks of cut stone to build homes, bridges, and temples. The next, a fellow with an oiled mustache that fell nearly to his sash, sold exotic, beautiful women in every shade, who could serve equally well as handmaidens or courtesans. The third, a bedraggled man in a red silk caftan, sold elderly serving wenches from the west and skinny sailors, wizened by decades of salt and sun.
By now the wizard was getting bored, having seen nothing that drew his attention, let alone his purse, and eventually dozed off. When he awoke, all but one of the slavers had gone, and most of the crowd with them. The sun was directly overhead, but Lo’Kresh had learned to redirect its heat away from his body, and was comfortably cool.
He stretched, yawned, and saw that the remaining slave merchant was having difficulty getting the price that he wanted for his final sale of the day, and Lo’Kresh soon saw why: It was a young woman, great with child. A pregnant slave could mean anywhere from one to three or more additional backs to toil, or to sell at a fat profit. This had not been lost on the slave merchant, but no one in the crowd would even meet his asking price.
Lo’Kresh considered. He had no desire for additional mouths to feed, nor need of money. The mother might die in childbirth, leaving him no better off than he was now. Perhaps it would be best to return another day.
He stood up and prepared to depart, rolling up his square of carpet and tucking it into his pocket as the merchant’s frustrated exhortations utterly failed to sway the crowd.
Suddenly, he heard a woman’s voice call out.
“Master, where are you going? Do you not know that I am meant to go with you, and only you?”
Curious, Lo’Kresh turned back, only to find the woman’s eyes fixed on him. He looked behind himself, but there was no one there. He glanced at his legs, but saw only air, as was natural when one was invisible.
“Do not forsake me, Master,” called the woman. “For it is destiny that has brought us together.”
“Woman, silence your tongue, if you wish to keep it!” hissed the slave trader. He raised his whip.
Lo’Kresh took a large step to the left. The woman’s eyes followed him.
“Yes, Master - I see you,” she said.
The wizard froze the moment, and the sunlight took on a grey cast. He stroked his beard, as he always did when thinking, and strode up to the platform. The woman’s eyes remain fixed on the spot where he had been, the slaver’s whip poised above her back.
Lo’Kresh made a slow circle around her, noting her soft palms, lithe body, and long, well-groomed hair. Clearly, she had not been a slave for long. Her clothing might be cast-offs, but her bearing suggested that she had come from a family of means.
“Wake,” he said, and the woman turned immediately to him.
“Thank you, Master,” she said. Her eyes fell on the slaver. She reached up, took the whip from his hand, and coiled it around the man’s throat, as tightly as she could.
“How is it that you can see me?” said Lo’Kresh, stroking his beard.
The woman faced him, and smiled. “My father was an Ifrit,” she said. “He came to my mother after her family’s caravan died in a sandstorm. I was born the same day. I have no magic, but I can see when it is at work.”
Lo’Kresh thought on this, and nodded. “The Djinn have few women,” he said. “I have heard that some take human females as mates. But where is your father now?”
“Sulaimon, the Great and Terrible, imprisoned him in a brass vessel when he would not speak the name of Allah,” she said. “Sulaimon burned my mother as a witch and cast the vessel into the sea. I have not seen my father since.”
“Is the father of your child also an Ifrit?” said Lo’Kresh.
“No,” she said, smiling bitterly. She nodded at the garotted slaver. “It was this dog.”
“I see,” said Lo’Kresh. “And what will you do when the villagers see that you have murdered your Master?”
“You are my Master.”
“You will be a mother soon. I need a servant, someone who will see to my house and the needs of my physical body.”
“One need not preclude the other, Master.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. Or I can simply remove the child…”
“No!”
“Why not? You clearly have no love for the father.”
“That does not mean I have no love for my daughter. She is like to be my only child.”
“You know that your child is a girl?”
The woman put a gentle hand over her belly. “I do.”
Pernha considered. If the woman did not perform her tasks well, he could abandon her on a mountaintop, or in the middle of the sea, and procur another. If she did, he would soon have two servants, and the second could take the place of the first when the time came.
“Very well,” he said. “Take my hand.”
The woman did so.
“By what name are you called?” he said.
“Llinuwe, Master.”
“Hm. I do not know this word. What does it mean?”
“Far-seeing.”
“Hm. Hold my hand tightly, Llinuwe, for we stride on the edge of the universe.”
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