Sanishea Tarinen en des Geare Nimmes

Tarinen and His Gaining of the Staff of Anu Nairan
Or
Sanishea Tarinen en des Geare Nimmes
(Literally, Wizard Tarinen of the Cutting Nipples)

A bit chilly today.
  The sailor tilted the rudder of his little boat toward the island’s cliffs. His eyes searched the towering, jagged sea cliffs for a crack, an opening, any break in the impassive black rock. The smell of the salt-soaked boat was heavy in his nostrils, and the continuous roar of breakers against the crags drowned out the sound of the gulls.
A northerly wind blew his short brown hair about his face; more than once he had to spit the strands out of his mouth. Tiring of watching the cliffs, the sailor looked up at the grey sky. Only the silhouette of the sun shone from behind the clouds. Tiny swirls in the grey stratus were turning and shifting like whirlpools.
The man threw up his hands and began to shout at the clouds.
“Oh, hells, no! No, sir, we had a deal!”
Tiny breezes rocked his boat in reply.
“Oh, you can shove that in your wind-hole! Don’t toy with me, aeros! If you told them of my coming-“
A crisp wind almost knocked him over. When he regained balance, he began gesturing to the sky, arms outstretched.
“You told them! When I get back, oh, I’ll rip that...”
He began to shout of string of profanities, relating to the various places that Tarinen would put his flame-wreathed foot if the wind-spirit would come out of those damned clouds and face him like a real element.
“…and you’ll have to get those little sea-nymphs you’re always hanging around with to pull it out with a hook and pulley! A double-reel pulley, my friend!”
Seagulls lurched above him as the wind suddenly ceased. The man continued to look up at the sky, searching the sheet of clouds.
“Yeah, that’s what’ll happen. Friggin’ sing your feet off, and keep ‘em in a little iron box. You don’t break a promise with Tarinen.”
  He sailed his boat around the east side of the island, hunched over and mumbling, his hand lazily hung over the rudder-stick. Little breezes blew again, tentatively.
“You can quit it with the breezes, you fletcher! My nipples could cut pottery!”
The cold little gusts ceased.
“Thank you, good sir…”
  Finally, he spotted a crack in the rock face. Tarinen pulled the rudder hard, driving it toward the cleft. He could see the little runes people had carved around the opening.
“I don’t see any wind-wards, huh?” he yelled, casting an eye upwards. “You don’t go breaking promises with them, do…Oh, a shrine to you? I’m going to burn that little carving…”
-
  The sentries thought they had had a little too much seawater in their drinking barrels. A tiny boat, dotted with holes and tears in the planking, sailed into their cave-bay, piloted by a young man covered from foot to neck with black tattoos. And they knew he was covered foot to neck.
  The tattoo man docked next to a fine fishing ship, disembarked, and strode toward them, glancing around the sea-cave. He stopped in front of the little group of sentries, all half-shrouded in the shadows of the cave. Only their tanned faces stood out from the dark.
“Greetings, isle-men.”
“Greetings, Sanishea…”
Tarinen saw the confused looks on their faces. He looked down.
“Ah. Yes. Some things slip the mind.”
He was naked.
-
  He walked through their little village, made of driftwood and earth and perched on the tall sea cliffs, and headed toward the largest, triangular lean-to. It was closest to the edge.
Nothing says ‘I’m the brave leader’ like sleeping four feet from a cliff, he thought.
Young women stood frozen, and young men paused to raise an eyebrow.
  He had told the sentries, rather vigorously, that you never, ever offered a naked wizard clothes, unless you were an insidious or very foolish bagger who was trying to steal Names, would that be the case? Hmm? Get that samla out of here.
After bowing to the idol of Sanrael of the Waves, posted in the center of the town, he knocked on the driftwood door of the isle-master’s house. A young, sandy-haired man with leather armor opened the door, looking annoyed. He stopped when he saw the wizard’s gaunt face, and more importantly, the lack of clothing. An older man, with short, gray hair and eyes half-hidden by wrinkles, pushed his guard aside and inspected the wizard.
“Sea-nymphs. You go bathing near a sandbar, you leave your clothes on the sand, fall asleep…you know the rest.” Tarinen said, smiling.
The chief nodded slowly.
“We did not call for a conjurer, unless my request for baked herring was grossly misinterpreted. We have plenty of blanket-shirts, if you-”
The men escorting Tarinen held up their hands and shook their heads, the land-to-land signal for “Do not open the jar marked ‘WORMS’, sir.”
“I came here of my own desire.”
The chieftain’s face tightened from his frown. His faded blue eyes ran over the swirling tattoos curling around the magician’s eyes, arms, chest and…toes.
“They will crush you, as they have crushed hundreds, thousands.”
“Then let me be crushed. At any rate, they will cut themselves on my chest here.”
Tarinen’s eyes swiveled towards the clouds. The winds blowing over the cliffs grew fainter.
“Do I have your consent to cross your magnificent cliffs and fine, deceptively sharp rocks?”
Tarinen waves his hands and mouthed a few words. A shimmering scroll and black quill appeared in front of him, floating. The chieftain waved his hand straight through the parchment.
It is a rare illusion-scroll that decides one day, damn it, it’s not going to let another hand pass through it. Thought the wizard.
“Trickery. For my benefit. Show me the true Oath,” rasped the chieftain.
Tarinen grimaced.
“Fine.”
  He waved another hand through the air. A grid of black lines appeared in the air, with runes placed at each intersection. Two spaces, in the center of the lattice, were blank. The chieftain touched the grid, a square the size of his chest, and drew, with his index finger, a symbol in one of the empty places. Tarinen flicked his finger, and his own rune appeared next to the chieftain’s. The grid disappeared before even the chief could get a clear look at the wizard’s symbol.
“Thank you, my good man. I will set out at once.”
  The chieftain scowled and stepped back inside his driftwood door. Tarinen turned and looked at the astonished/slightly lascivious faces throughout the decrepit little town.
“I will bring you good waves,” he announced. The villagers went back to their work. They had heard the promise hundreds, thousands of times. Each time, days passed, and a stitch of clothing was found in front of the sea god’s statue, pinned to the ground with a shard of bone.
  The girls watched him jog over the rocky hills, towards the other side of the island. No trees impeded their view of the black swirls and patterns tattooed on his back, legs, and, of course, buttocks. His vertebrae were clearly visible, as was the back of his ribcage, and his skin was pale, as were nearly all wizards. The girls wondered whether it hurt to walk over the cliff-stone barefooted.
It does, thought Tarinen.
-
  That night, Tarinen called up water from the porous stone and filled a little crater with it. He pulled the salt and heat from it, wrapped himself in sea-wind, and waited. He stared over the rocky knolls, noting the lack of trees and vegetation.
They have no trees, no fruit, no vegetables. Only fish, water, and what…berries? Are berries fruit? You can’t bite a berry…you just pop them in your mouth. You’re not supposed to do that with fruit. Wait…grapes… there small enough to pop in there. But they’re much more filling…don’t as many poisonous varieties. Ooh, wine…wine would be nice…can you ferment berries? I would need a bucket, and-
  A white fox was making its way over the broken rocks and sharp ravines, loping toward Tarinen.
An ambassador.
  The fox stopped in front of the little pool of water the wizard had made. It touched its nose to the water. Tarinen bit his lip. But the fox lifted its head without drinking. The water turned black, and began to shift. Shapes formed on the glassy surface.
  A robed man’s form appeared, viewed from the side. He was raising his arms, and shards of ice flew from the air, towards something unseen. His eyes widened, and ice began to creep up his legs, until he was encased. No sound came from the water as he screamed. The water faded to black, then to another image.
  A man, clad in heavy gray armor, was swinging a massive blade at something. His sword, covered in runes, cracked and shattered. The splinters of metal rose to the air then buried themselves in his chest. The water transitioned again.
  A third man, hooded and cloaked, raised his hands. Pillars of stone erupted from the ground, and thousands of diamonds soared through the air. Trees, gray outlines in the water, fell as the stones sliced through them. Suddenly, a crack split the earth and swallowed the hooded man in the blink of an eye.
Dozens of figures, one after another, raised every spell, every weapon, every beast, and each was consumed by shadows, ripped apart, sunk into the earth, had their head twisted around, and equally annihilated in every way.
The pool of water cleared again, and the fox stepped away. Its gleaming red eyes were fixed on Tarinen’s. The magician frowned and shook his head gently.
“Oh, I am very scared, nay, terrified now.”
He splashed the water aside viciously.
“I will come! If you don’t want a drink, you can go drink the seawater!”
The fox turned and loped away. Tarinen eyes narrowed, and a small smile spread across his face.
“When you see Nanlai the aeros, tell him ‘pulley’. He’ll know what it means.”
  He slept well that night, but woke long before dawn. Wrapped in his blanket of wind, he called another gust to wear as shoes, for his feet were beginning to bruise. By the time the sun rose over the sea, he was standing on one of eastern the sea-cliffs, looking out at the sister island to Ana Sarain. It was covered in tall trees that obscured all else, almost four times the size of the island he sat on, and much…prettier. There were gravel beaches, little pools, and glimpses of flowers and grass under the trees.
Wench of a sister, he thought.
  Tarinen sat on the cliff, looked down at the water. He could see the little whirlpools, submerged rocks, and sandbars in the water. The island o0f Anu Nairan was not a place to be entered by boat, as he had gathered from the scrolls. Dunan-Sharen had ridden a cloud into the heart of the island-forest, and Nanost had leapt the distance, landing in the treetops. Both were shot down by yew arrows.
Subtlety…all the powers of the world at their hands, and they chose to make an entrance into the demon-forest.
-
  A little ember, white and wind-blown, floated and danced on the sea gusts. It crossed the strip of water between the islands, and began to drift down, toward the trees. No larger than a pebble, it dropped on the carpet of pine needles and dead leaves. Despite wet sea-winds, the inner forest was dry, but cold. The cinder landed on a dead leaf, grew, and blossomed into a little flame.
  Fueled by years of withered plants, the fire’s fingers began to spread. It consumed the carpet of leaves and brown needles, and moved east, toward the heart of the forest. Shadows appeared from behind trees, whispering in a tongue nothing living understood. Ice formed on the ground, and quenched part of the fire. But the inferno was beyond mere ice; it began to climbs trees, leaping from branch to branch, heading ever faster toward the center of the trees. Crumbling walls, with glints of gold under the moss and fungus, grew closer. Dozens of towers, carved pillars of stone, stood inside the ramparts. They were covered with carvings and runes, histories in stone.
  The shadows fled inside the walls, and the fire chased them up to the battlements. Though it roared like thunder, the fire could go no further. It receded from the walls, and gathered in front of the crumbling gate of the place, a stone archway whose center-stone had fallen long ago. The keystone lay just inside the walls, split in two, covered in moss.
  The flames roared and began to eat the trees outside the walls, announcing its challenge with the crashing of trunks and the cracking of bark. Suddenly, a sharp, keening sound cut through the crackling and hisses. Another joined it, then a third. Voice after sharp voice was added, until the sound could be heard throughout the island. When it ceased, a train of grey-cloaked forms emerged from the gate. They walked in two somber rows, silent and hooded. Their robes made no swish sound, and the dry leaves they stepped on did not crackle or whisper. The robes stopped and looked at the fire, then at the trees. One figure, at the back of the train, walked to the edge of the flames.
Show yourself, inferno.
The words were said as poetry, lyrics of a song.
  The fire fell from the trees in sheets, gathered itself and rose. Out of the flickering tongues of the blaze appeared the naked Tarinen, tattoos shifting like waves across his skin. His jaw was set.
“Show yourself, svartalfar.”
  The grey robes fell from the procession and its leader. Brilliant white light shone out, with silhouettes barely visible in the glare. Tarinen did not cover his eyes, but surrounded himself in flames and screamed above his own fire’s roar.
“Not illusions! Not glamour! Show yourselves!”
  The light faded, and pale-skinned men and women stood outside the gates. They were tall, slender, blonde-haired, and inarguably beautiful. They wore no clothing, but it didn’t matter; they could have made bloody animal skins look breathtaking. The most beautiful was the woman who had spoken. She reached out a hand and touched his face, caressing it. He caught her hand in his searing grip and squeezed it. She moved away, pulling him closer, smiling with brilliant white teeth.
A wolf’s teeth are brilliant white, too…he thought.
“No more. I can look into a looking glass for beauty. My hands can feel the hate in your bones…”
She pulled him closer, away from the trees.
“Your blood…”
Closer to the walls.
“Your stare.”
The beautiful woman smiled sweetly, and spoke gently. Every beautiful word entered his mind and etched its mark there.
And it burns hotter than all of your fires.
  The forest, the beautiful woman, the flames, and the walls all vanished when she finished the last word. Tarinen was left in a black place, where one neither stood, nor sat, woke or slept. Hands, faces, blacker than the void and its endless, starless night, crowded around him, screaming, moaning, cursing him and their irredeemable loss. The hands clawed at him, ripping away his flesh, while the mouths voiced their ear-splitting hatred for Man and his devices.
  The hands ripped away everything that clothed the soul of Tarinen, until only a little white spark, a bit of Music, was left. The hands, the claws, tried to pry it open, break it, crack it, as humans had done to hundreds of their kingdoms, thousands of their arches and their keystones, but the little light would not reveal its Name. The mouths howled and screamed at the defiance, voices shrieking higher and higher, towards octaves no man had ever heard, until it seemed the void would have no other option but wrench apart.
  Tarinen staggered backwards. The fire had died, and left only charred earth behind. Of the procession, only the beautiful lady was left. She stood under the broken archway, where she had held him. He stared silently at her, and looked into her wide, blank eyes.
Crack.
  A fissure appeared on the lady’s face, and spread down her perfect form. Her face shattered like pottery, and her body fell into shards. Nothing was beneath the shards. Tarinen shouted up at the towers.
“Enough of this! I have come to face you, my Lady! Not imitations, not illusions, not temptations.”
The beautiful voice echoed in his mind, still lyrical, ethereal.
What do you want, human? My death? Have your little kings decided to claim my island?
“I have come for the same reason as all others, Your Graciousness!”
Then you will die as quickly as they did.
“You are wrong, my Queen!”
Do not patronize me, worm. Come to the tower, and there, in the seat of my power, I will consume you.
“Thank you, gracious Queen!”
  He jogged through the crumbled gate, passing by the great, broken keystone, and among the forest of towers until he came to the largest, wider than all other combined, and taller than the trees. His head swiveled and noticed dozens of circles had been drawn in the dirt, with candles at their centers and letters around their edges.
Wards…traps…summons…seals! He thought. It would take the Fourth Key to break these. I can feel her holding these towers up, and the walls. Jackanapes, she’s good. He thought.
A circular door, taller than Tarinen, was at the base of the tower. Row after row of ring-shaped holes were carved into the stone, each with a rune above it. Tarinen sighed.
“Why do you insult me, my beauteous Majesty? The End Song?”
No reply.
  He inhaled and touched thirteen of the ring-holes. Each made a note in a descending pentatonic scale, and then lit up with white light. The door swung open. Even Tarinen was impressed: Everything inside of the pillar was flawless, blue crystal, perfectly curved. A feasting table, set with food, was in the center, and at its head was a throne. Tarinen walked parallel to the table, toward the seat of honor, never looking at the food, which happened to be all of his favorite meals. He stopped when he saw what lay at the foot of the throne.
  Tarinen stooped over and picked up the little stick. It had been carved, by an inexpert knife, into a little staff.
Out of all the amulets, talismans, spells, and enchantments he possessed, he held that one when he fell. Said the voice. There was a faint giggle.
“You killed him.”
Yes.
He rolled the twig over in his hands.
“I made this for him...so he had something to hold until he got the real thing.”
  Tarinen looked down at the roughly hewn miniature staff, then back at the entrance. A woman with raven-black hair was gently shutting the door. Her face reminded him strongly of the previous lady, though this one might have been an iota less beautiful. She still wore no clothes.
I was walking around nude before it was fashionable, Tarinen thought.
When the portal was sealed, she turned to look at him, hands held behind her back, smiling shyly at him. She tossed her head, causing her hair to cascade over her shoulders.
Faces appeared in the walls, as if near the surface of water. They were wizards, thieves, sailors, all encased in the crystal, forming a huge, life-mocking circle. They all looked peaceful, as if asleep, and Tarinen walked before them, back toward the door and the elf. He did not turn his head to look for his Master’s face. To see the old man, pristine, lifeless, would end all possibilities, all the fantasies that had kept him alive.
When they were twenty feet apart, he stopped. The elf smiled pleasantly. Tarinen bore the face seen by hundreds of charming men, after hearing the bedroom door open and realizing the little red mark on their attractive young lady’s finger was from a wedding band.
“So here we are, two naked people staring at each other.” He said. His voice was flat.
Indeed.
  They stared in silence at one another. Then, at the same time, they began to speak. Names, spells, wards, poured out of their mouths. Tarinen’s skin-writing exploded into movement, lines swimming across his face, chest, and arms. The crystal room began to quake as the two sang their enchantments, and a deafening rumbling grew slowly louder. But their voices were raised even over that.
  From the cliffs, villagers stood in awe as lightning spread across the sky and waves rose as high as the trees on their sister island. The black sky roiled and shifted like the sea waves below. Hurricanes grew and died around the shore of Anu Nairan, and shards of ice rained down. Pillars of flame erupted from the heart of forest, and cracks began to split the island.
The villagers could hear, in the howling wind and rolling thunder, the booming words of the two combatants, commanding the winds or raising the seas. A huge wave, twice as tall as any tree, started toward the Anu Nairan, then turned to ice. Fissures widened around the shoreline, and closed again.
  Inside the remains of the tower, the two held their arms to the sky. Tarinen’s eyes were closed in concentration, the twig held in his mouth, but the elf’s eyes were wide and frantic. As she called up all the elements of the world, he calmed and soothed them back down. When she called for the fingers of the earth to swallow him, he sang them back into the ground.
  After watching her groping tree roots disintegrated by gouts of flame, the elf screamed several Names in succession. Her shadow rose up, until it touched the clouds. Long, curving horns grew from it head, and massive claws took shape. It was a being of absolute black, and it watched the wizard with eyes that had seen the true Void. The monster reached out a hand as large as the island and closed its fingers around the chanting Tarinen. The black tattoos on his arms and fingers writhed like snakes.
  He brought his hands together, fingers pointed toward the ground, and brought them apart again. A tiny white point of light was between his palms. With the last uttering of the chant, he raised his hands to the five black fingers that blocked out the sky. A white, horizontal line appeared in the air above his head, and there was a flash of light. The line shot toward the beast, and sliced through its chest, like a hot knife through the blackest snow bank ever known. A crack, reaching from the thing’s shoulder to its hip, appeared and widened. It’s torso slipped off and fell slowly backwards, into the sea. No splash was heard as it passed through the surface of the water.
  Tarinen opened his eyes and began to walk toward the elf. The ground split and buckled under his feet, and winds carved away the stone. The stone towers collapsed. The elf chanted wildly, calling on all of the spirits of the earth, winds, waters, and fires. A cyclone of fire, ice, and stone grew around them. Tarinen walked on, reached out a violently shuddering hand, and touched the elf on the forehead
“Riann.”
  The winds and waves dropped, and the fires went out at once. The elf staggered back and fell to her knees. The deafening noise of the ocean and the earth stopped, and there was one, brilliant moment of absolute silence Her eyes looked into his, and he saw two ages of loneliness, bitterness, and melancholy in the sky-blue gaze. Uncounted years watching, watching the world succumb to its conquerors, watching her kin slip away, watching the past slowly forgotten, and her with it. They were the eyes of the despaired, and this moment was the last severing of all the possibilities, all the fantasies that the world could return to its old ways.
  She began to wither away, all enchantments of vitality and illusion shattered by the revelation of her Name, until nothing but her shadow was left. It fled from Tarinen, to places untouched by Time.
He watched her go, watched her fly through darkness, out of the Fourth and into the Third, until even his Music could no longer touch her. But he held her Name in his hand, and felt her, the way one knows what note will come next, though they have never heard the song before.
  Slowly, the great island sunk into the sea, and the water flooded the towers, engulfed the keystone, and swept away the trees. A crack opened in the center of what remained of the tower, and Tarinen shoved his arms into it, just as the waters began to lap at his feet. He pulled out a long package, wrapped in black silk. He turned toward the cliffs of Anu Sarain, and his eyes fell on one chunk of crystal, unbroken. The worn, bearded face inside was serene, as it had always been.
  The villagers watched Tarinen rise from the waves, flying up onto the cliffs on a sea-wind. He was dressed in great, tattered green robes, and had thirteen, scratched gold rings on his fingers. The Staff of Anu Nairan was in his hands, and a green, wool chullo hat was on his head. There were holes and patches in the clothes, and it was clear to the spendthrift islanders that the clothes were secondhand; the robes were a little too large, and the scarf had been stitched. But Tarinen, the Sinker of Islands, assured them that these clothes would be perfectly fine.
And since that time, he kept his promise to the people of Anu Sarain; only one storm ever reached the island, and it was the Last. A hurricane almost struck the cliffs three years after that morning, but Tarinen’s dice game ended just in time.
  Only one tree, the tallest of Anu Nairan, stood above the waves, a grave marker for its forlorn and banished Queen. Tarinen’s boat appeared below the cliffs several times a year, for he would come back and sit in the tree, looking out towards the edge of the world, thinking of his fallen master and the sad, usurped Riann. A little twig was always in his hands then, carved with inexpert hands.
                                                        )()()()()()()()()(