Rys Rising: Book I

Amar looked back to the cliff. Many thousands of Kelsurs still remained above, and he imagined their grand camp up there under the stars.
A deep long note sounded from yet another horn and the raucous Thievesmeet grew quiet. The five guests at Gadoh’s fire set down their bowls and stood.
Gadoh came over to Amar and was excited to explain what was happening. “She is here. Loxane, our Shamaness,” Gadoh said. He herded Amar forward with his staff. “Come. See her close. Make a path for an old man. You must see her, Amar. Your civilization blindfolds you. Hides many wonders, and Loxane is one of the greatest.”
Willingly, Amar shouldered his way through the crowd, with Gadoh eagerly steering from behind. They made their way to the front of the crowd gathered at the threshold of Lax Ar Fu’s cave.
Another horn note sounded, hanging in the air meaningfully before fading away. Torches were thrown down onto the threshold of the cave. They landed in a semi-circle, forcing the crowd back.
People started to cheer and Amar looked up and spotted three figures coming down on ropes. Two men rappelled alongside the third figure that was draped in a voluminous hooded cape. Torches burned on the backs of the men, and the firelight rippled on their well-muscled arms as they came down the ropes.
When they reached the top of the cave entrance, they had no more rock to rappel from and they climbed the rest of the way down with their hands and feet on the ropes. The men alighted on the smooth rock before the cave, and they drew their torches off their backs like they were drawing swords. More slowly, the cloaked figure came down the rope and touched the ground between the two men. Wrapped tightly in the cloak, the third person advanced with the two men into the semi-circle of torches. The crowd became hushed, and Amar found himself sharing in the excitement. The sensation of awe and anticipation surprised him, and he thought nothing of his sorrows for more than one heartbeat.
When the Shamaness Loxane threw off her cape, people cried out with reverence and joy. She was naked and her wonderful body, both strong and soft, glistened in the torchlight. Tattoos of green and blue adorned her body, bright upon her exceptionally light skin. Her hair was long and curly and the most amazing color that Amar had ever seen. Red it was, like copper made soft and inviting. The enticing locks flowed over her shoulders but did not cover her full breasts that displayed her femininity unabashedly.
A sunburst tattoo encircled her navel and tattooed eagles adorned her thighs and perched on her knees. Snake tattoos coiled around her arms and their heads were drawn onto the backs of her hands with forked tongues going down her middle fingers. When she turned, Amar saw an elk tattoo on her back. Its great rack of antlers spread over her shoulder blades and its snout reached to the small of her back. The animal had starbursts in place of eyes, and when Loxane began to sway her body, the elk looked to be shaking its head.
Loxane began to move more of her body, limb by limb. Her hands rotated and then her arms lifted and her shoulders circled. Her torso circled with ever-increasing exaggeration of movement and her pelvis gyrated. Her buttocks lifted and squatted, glorious in their curvaceous smoothness.
The Shamaness Loxane danced naked in front of the gathered rogues and lawless wanderers, and she had no shame. Amar watched every move of her body, only blinking when he consciously thought to do it. Never had he seen, nor imagined, a woman making such a display of herself. And never had he imagined that a woman could be so beautiful, so powerful, but so wicked.
People were playing drums for her. First one drummer, and then three, and then dozens pounded a beat that was all life and no judgment. Their rhythms guided her and coaxed her to move faster. Her body joined with the beating of the drums, until the drummers seemed to respond to her movement as much as she responded to them.
Loxane moved to the edge of the semi-circle of torches and began to dance around the edge. People reached out to her but did not touch. She arched and swayed just beneath the fingertips of her admirers.
The crowd pressed hard against Amar and Gadoh as Loxane came closer to their position. Like all the others, Amar had no intention of giving up his spot. He turned sideways so that two more men could squeeze in next to him. Behind him, Gadoh giggled.
Closer she came to Amar, and his breath quickened and his eyes widened. The absolute scandal of her brazen nudity and erotic dancing pounded against all that his culture had ingrained in him about the modesty of women. Far back in his mind, his sensibilities railed against her outrageousness. She was the worst of the worst, criminal beyond the most wanton whore, but Amar paid less attention to the dogma of his upbringing the closer she danced to him. Indeed, as Gadoh had said, Loxane was among the greatest of wonders.
Although enthralled by her provocative display, Amar did not reach out to her when she danced before him. The fellows alongside him spread out their hands toward her, just barely missing her skin, but Amar only looked. His eyes went up and down her body, and he was truly awed by her lovely strength that went past simple maddening sexuality. His eyes traveled up her naked body, pausing at her breasts that glistened with the sweat of her dance, and then he looked at her face. Loxane’s eyes were half rolled back. The trance of her dance was deep upon her. Her lips hung open as if she would cry out with ecstasy at any moment.
Amar envied the oblivion on her face, doubting he could ever experience such inner peace.
Loxane’s eyes snapped into focus. The men reaching for her withdrew their hands, each gasping as if the snakes on her arms had come to life with venomous anger. She stopped dancing and lowered her arms. Her chest heaved with hard breathing and she stared intently at Amar.
He looked into her eyes that were shockingly blue.
In the background, the drums continued to beat, loud and hard like the heartbeat thudding in Amar’s ears. Just when the drums started to slow, she began to dance again, but this time with her eyes firmly on Amar. She took her gaze from him only when her dancing steps spun her around. She studied him and then step by step moved away. Amar watched her go. He could not have described his feelings. Desire, curiosity, perhaps even wariness confused him as he realized that she had shown him special attention.
Loxane finished her circuit and danced back toward the cave. Lax Ar Fu waited for her at the cave entrance.
She went to him. As if in a meeting of equals, they bowed to each other. They exchanged words but the drums covered what they said.
The crowd loosened around Amar as people started to dance. Loxane had enflamed their passions and people swayed, kissed, caressed, and invited pleasure into their bodies. At the heart of the thumping mass of dancers, Lax Ar Fu extended a hand to Loxane, and he took half a step toward the cave, apparently to guide her inside. She reached slowly for his hand, but then withdrew it and looked over her shoulder at Amar who had not moved from his place.
When Loxane stalked toward Amar, Gadoh cringed and clutched his staff close. The other people still near Amar moved back, leaving him exposed. Gadoh began to do the same, but Loxane speared him with her striking eyes and commanded him in the Kelsur language to stay.
Gadoh dipped his head respectfully to the Shamaness. “How may I serve she who dances with spirits?” he asked in the Kelsur language.
“I would speak with this stranger. He does not know our tongue, does he?” Loxane said.
“No. What would you say to him?” Gadoh asked.
Loxane made her statement and Gadoh pondered his interpretation.
When Gadoh turned to Amar, the old man looked at him in an entirely new light.
“What does she say of me?” Amar demanded.
“She says you spirit-touched,” Gadoh said.
Amar frowned and looked at Loxane suspiciously. Onja, he realized. She knows that magic has touched my body.
He nodded. “Ask her if she has been to the Rysamand?” he told Gadoh.
“What?” Gadoh said.
“The Rysamand,” Amar said louder, directly to Loxane.
She did not need the interpretation. She recognized the word.
“Have you been there?” Amar asked, but when Gadoh relayed the question, Loxane shook her head. She began speaking, and Amar awaited the translation impatiently.
Gadoh finally told him that Loxane said that her ancestors had come from a land beyond the mountains. She was of a special lineage, the blood of the sun it was called. Other Kelsurs did not possess the knowledge that was her heritage.
“What do you know of rys?” Amar said.
Loxane looked down wistfully and spoke in a tone of ripened sorrow. She explained that her grandmother had taught her about rys when she was a small girl. Her grandmother had been into the mountains, in the Valley of Powers as she called it, and she had encountered the rys and learned what she could of them.
By now, Gadoh had warmed to his role as interpreter because of the fascinating topic. He said, “Loxane asks where you saw rys?”
Amar withdrew physically from the question. The growing intimacy that had been quickly forming between him and Loxane receded, and he noticed again her wild nakedness. Her brazen body distracted him and added to the threat he felt at her question. Even though she had freely told him about herself, he had no desire to speak of his experience. His time with Onja was his, and not to be spoken of loosely.
“I have not seen these creatures,” he replied, but looked at the dirt as he said it.
Loxane sneered at his lie.
“Elder Kelsur,” Loxane said to Gadoh. “Tell this man born under a roof that rys command the powers of Nature. They perhaps even dip into the well of creation, but their hearts remain the hearts of animals. In their thoughts and deeds they are no better than man or woman. Beware them.”
When Amar heard the translation, he spurned the warning of Loxane. He knew more of rys than her little girl bedtime stories that she sold as wisdom. Who is this woman who would call Onja an animal? he thought with much disdain. Onja’s power is true. Not some trick from a shameless savage Shamaness who confuses sex with power.
Amar crossed his arms and indulged in one long good look up and down her truly luscious body. “Loxane of the Kelsur, you were kind to speak with me,” Amar said with cool courtesy.