Chapter 6: The scent of southern spices

I had heard of the lands to the South. Of the intense heat of the Broken Desert, and the gentle groves and forests that covered the islands which named the Sea of Stars. In the South there grew thousands of plants that would not live up here in the north, and spices and herbs so strange of flavor and scent that I would often pace back and forth through the markets of Cador while closing my eyes and dreaming myself away to the distant shores of the Yellow Sea and beyond. To the glorious fortress of Amran, and the mighty island Gorth, center of an empire, and even to ancient and vast Nebulam, greatest metropolis of all.

It was that smell, or some utterly feminine version of it, that filled my nose and my brain as I woke up next to Quaila, the beautiful, weird woman who had a sinister connection to the weapon called the Sword of Black Flame.

The lovely, heady, and enchanting scent came from the black-eyed woman's hair. Her lovely tresses were not very long, just short of three inches, but to think it had grown from nothing in less than a day! Black hair, shining and silken like the midnight sky, lazily reflecting the early morning sun.

I drew a deep breath and filled my mind with that smell, intoxicating and addictive. For a long, long time I lay there next to this golden-skinned goddess, unwilling or maybe even unable to move. Had she cast a spell on me, was I Captivated? It could be. She was not human, that's for sure, and who knew what strange powers she had despite her frail body. But I did not care, I just wanted to lie here this close to her and look at her and smell her.

The sun rose above the horizon, and Quaila's hair began to shine with a more and more intense golden sheen before she finally woke up. She blinked her eyes and moved her head to give me a dazzling bright smile, before she greeted me with some words I were unable to quite catch.

"Good morning," I replied dreamily, my head still full of her scent.

She laughed, made a little jerk with her head so that the hair gently brushed my nose and cheek. It felt like a soft, spring breeze had caressed me, leaving lingering traces of blooming flowers and sending my mind spinning. When I came to myself I found her sitting up with my old, green blanket across her shoulders.

Her woolen dress, as well as my traveling clothes, were dry now. Yesterday we had been soaking wet, but we had managed to gather enough firewood to light a blazing fire before we collapsed next to its heat: Drenched, hungry, and exhausted.

Around us were the hills of the Rawon valley somberly draped in dark green shrubs and subdued violet ling. There were birds noises in the air, calling to each other. Food, I thought. We needed food. Now that the spell of mystic scents and the gentle play of light on ebony strands was broken I felt ravenous.

"I am starving," Quaila said, getting clumsily to her feet. Her unsteadiness was not only due to sleeping on the hard ground. When I had first met her last evening she had been unable to stand on her feet. Why it was so, she would not say. She had become somewhat better now, and managed to stumble over to the ashes of the fire from last night.

"I think," she grinned when she tripped once and nearly fell, "I must plead with you to do the food gathering while I try coaxing this fire into life."

I agreed. Getting up and stretching while I considered her succulent, perfect body as it sat down by the fire, I mused that if there was something capable of bringing heat to anything then it was Quaila. Strange, wonderful Quaila.

Moving my gaze, I found something less pleasing to the eye: the so-called Sword of Black Flame. It was the heaviest, rustiest, dullest, and generally least impressive weapon I had ever had the displeasure to lay my hands on. And the Black Flame? I had seen more impressive, and deadly, black flames the last time I saw a moth fly into a candle. But Quaila seemed to have some sort of mystical connection to the Sword, she claimed she was its guardian or something like that. No matter what she would not leave it. So I was stuck with the cursed thing as long as I kept her with me, which I considered that a small prize to pay.