maintained for millenia, and into the deepest mind, through thousands of years.
He does not look his age, or tend to think of it. The years are his, mandated.
Only a very special kind of enemy could defeat him, and those were few and far
between. Simple death, morbidity or the spells of his brothers were like gnats
he kept away by the perfume of his sweat: merely the proper diet, herbs and
spells and consummated will, had long ago vanquished them as far as he was
concerned.
So strange to lust, to desire a particular woman; he was amused, joyous; he had
not felt so good in years. A tiny thrill of caution had hor-ripilated his nape
early on, when he noticed the silvering of her nightblack hair, but this girl
was not old enough to be-‘Ahhhh!” Her premeditated rippling takes him over
passion’s edge, and he is falling, place and provenance forgotten, not a
terrible adept wrenching the world about to suit his whim and comfort, but just
a man.
In that instant, eyes defocused, he sees but does not note the diamond sparkle
of the rods poised above him; his ears are filled with his own breathing; the
song of entrapment she sings softly has him before he thinks to think, or thinks
to fear, or thinks to move.
By then, the rods, their sharp fine points touching his arched throat, owned
him. He could not move; not his body nor his soul responded; his mind could not
control his tongue. Thinking bitterly of the indignity of being frozen like a
rearing stallion, he hoped his flesh would slump once life had fled. As he felt