There would be no time to mourn Donoro, the Dancing Hourglass. No time to see if his wounds could be mended. His life saved. For the enemies of the Greatest City That Ever Was and Ever Would Be were many. And its Champion of Champions called out to him.

To him!

Inqu dipped a spear. Sliced through a neck. Feet pumping across the earth, slid across the Grief laden sands with a skate on his knees as he slashed at the ankles of lesser armored men. Red shuka cloth snapping behind him as the dust clouds billowed in his wake.

A twist, a turn, a plant of mechanical claws into the grit of loose earth. Machinary hissed and clicked and sprang. Inqu was sprung up into the air, body twisting and tumbling as mechanical arms and flesh and bone alike whirred red death across the throats of a score of men. Their blood spilled across the sand. Sprayed and gout with the rage of losing life.

He landed on his feet, and at the Champion's side. "Yours to command, Marhuk!" he called out. Grin wide behind his mask of wardreams. Lungs full of armonium and the widow's pollen. Drums loud in his bones. Dances by late night fires pounding behind his eyes. And the promise of a goddess with twenty titties pulsing through his veins.

He would see her. He had no doubt in his raging mind.

Ten for the children. Ten for pleasure.
 

Ten for pleasure.

And there was pleasure aplenty to be found in the slaughter of the Mansa's enemies. He thought clearly in moments like these of the words his master had whispered to him on the precipice. Of all of the things that would come and was destined for their people. Of all of the things the gods had whispered of to the chosen leader of the Greatest City There Is, Was, or Would be. They spoke of thrones for every man, woman, and child that gave their lives for the Star Throne. It was the way things always had been and the way things would be. Marhuk said his prayers to the Great Three and the countless others in the name of the Dancing Hourglass. And so the violence continued.

The forces of of the Greatest City rallied about him, a feeling he was not unused to. Hearing the Little Weapon's voice spurred him forward in ways he would never tell the youth. His bloodied hands and club became even more so. One man fell with the his club enbedded in his skulled. Another fell with the hands of Marhukules making his face into imagination. Chaos. And so he moved on to the next man and made into nothing. And another after that. Mulch upon the sand. A thing to give as a gift to the spirits of the desert and let them feed. That was Marhuk's way. The way of one of many of the Mansa's Hands.

"Show no mercy..." a whisper that was shared across the wind itself. A word that might have been as good as his better upom the sands of the Mother's Arena.

The next man that died had done so because the Champion's foot had met his groin and became something more recognizable to ground meat when what remained of his body had left the ground. The next command that left his body must have felt like pure sound the way the sound left his lungs. The way that sand shook from atop the top layers of the dunes and the way the earth shook from sound itself. The men of the Empire responded with their own vitriol, bit the comparison was small. They fought with steel and those that called themselve Miradi fought with a certain spirit....
 
A scream. White as the sun's light. That which killed all that stood beneath its cruel light for too long without the wisdom woven into cloth. Sunken into skin dark as midnight. As airy and light as the breeze itself. Folded. Draped. Tended to fall across black fields.

Blades tore through bodies. Limbs of metal tore at limbs of flesh and bone. A whirlwind. The desert's wrath. Takoumba's claws. Takoumba's fangs. But whispers and shadows at the edge of lost men's sight. Still choking on the Ashen Grief. Its fumes still swirling. Still rising.
The war dream, pulsing in his mind. Ripples of every color in death's wake. Not red. But blue and green and gold and black as a moonless sky.

It all swirled. Down into the drain of the sands so thirsty. Body's feeling gone. Mind's awareness, burned away. Sheered at the root of each neuron that tried to feel. React. A blur.

Until the dim light of the ornithopter's hull buzzed to speckling spotlights about him. Three spiders still breathing. One elder dead.

The Hero. His Champion. Inqu looked about for that giant of a man. "Marhuk?!" he shout. Shuka stuck to him with the crust of dried blood. Body too heavy to move from where he sat planted.

The other Spiders turned their lazy gaze upon him. Laughed.

"Look who decided to wake up," one voice wobbled.
 
He still thought about it sometimes. The faces of the men and women that fought beside him in the war that must have been the envy of all the gods. Marhuk remembered their war cries and the aspirations that game them their fervor. How their twisted faces were revealed when colors unimaginable illuminated dust-choked skies. When Ashen Grief burned the lungs of friend and foe alike... Marhukules had been young then. All of that pain to see his Mansa seated upon the throne of the Greatest City That Is, Was, Or Will Be. The longer time went on, the more the faces seemed to fade. Never their voices, though. And their names... They were etched in his heart like wise men's words upon parchment. He'd decided those that fought beside him this day would join them. The battles became smaller and less significant, but souls were eternal.

So sayeth wiser men than he.

Inqu awoke with exclamation. Marhukules turned to face him with a ghost of a smile upon his lips before he turned his attention to adding notches to his great club. Small symbols for each man felled and each brother lost. Different causes and yet warriors all the same.

"Lay your head down, boy," his baritone rumbled. An echo of the warriors and generals and fathers from all over the bloody sands that raised him to become the monster that he was. His smile faded, but his voice was no less warm.

"You've earned that right. Man earns the right to rest his soul when he's sent the souls of many. Relax and be silent. We land soon."

And for a few hours the Ornothopter carried them across the dunes until the smell of the sea reached them. Peering out of the glass, a great palace made of coral loomed over a city made of sandstone. The scent of incense, sweat, and love making reached them even from where they sat high in the clouds. And as they descended lower, one could see the masses walking the streets like ants upon a hill, selling wares both filling and tantalizing. The coral palace grew even more monstrous, a structure that reached from the sea's edge to the Mother's embrace.

"You better be able to walk, Little Brudda!" Dunubu called from his seat/
 
And who was he to challenge the words of the Unassailable?

But a Spider, still sticky on the web. Yarn spindled out. Spent. Each breath through his lungs, slow. He had earned it. Rest. Said words echoed through the purple haze of his war dreams.

It rumbled. It shook. Like a pink bruise against the golden sands of the Kaikias that still shook from the smack that brought it to be. A sound he could feel in his bones as he saw cascades of purple dream powders spill and shake before him. Each pound of distant drums growing louder and louder between his bones. There amidst the matter grey that fired behind his dreambound eyes.

Pleasure City.

A jewel for all to behold. Its splendor. As the sun set into the distant sea, and its amber rays caught alongside spires, walls, and parapets the color of blush and full lips. Heavy with the feeling of it all. The breath filling the lungs. Hair on the skin rising as fingers scrunched across fabrics stiff with dried life's fluids.

The whine buzz hum of the ornothopter's wings sounded like glass song as the armonium bent and stirred across the wings' span. Sand and dust swirled with the haze of meat market smoke, and lounge vapors. Moonshine grins smiled as dexterous fingers pointed languid hooks. Clutched fans betwixt sure pads. Worked wrists to stir cool breezes across sweat shone bodies that gleamed as people laughed, loved, and lived amidst the Coral Dream.

Mechanical legs sprang out from the dart-craft's belly. A jet of shroudsteam hissed from vents like gills pushing out depleted breath and the Hatches hissed open.
 
Dunubu was the first man out of the Ornothopter with and arm around Inqu's shoulders. Marhukules wanted to believe it was about more than young Inqu getting his cok wet on the Mansa's dime. Even though such had been the case for many of them. How may times had men come here for the purpose of numbing the pain that resided in their heart as the result of war? How many had come to the Pleasure City to forget the horrors of conflict? They longed for the touch that the illusion of glory would not give them. The physical acknowledgement. The feeling of being enough...

The Coral Dream stood like some great idol over the sandstone buildings of the city that paid it tribute. And as the Mansa's men treat the main avenue, there were sights to be seen all about them. Merchants sold wares that smelled of roasted meats and perfumes more expensive than gold. Children ran to them holding crystals of many colors and spoke of of their effects. Their little voices brought with them the promise of fuel and power. Concepts that their little minds could not understand. And amidst the sweat and sultry scents was the smell of sex in the air. In high places, priestesses from the Coral Dream hung out of windows and called down to where power walked. Many of them called out in ecstacy with manhood and digits digging to their core. Those they were with wanted to be reminded that they were men. That they could make the dreams in front of them feel pleasure in a world that reminded them they were less than royalty.

All were royalty in the Pleasure City if they had the coin.

"Which one are you wantin', boy?" Dunubu asked with a tight arm around Inqu's shoulders. "Look at her right deh. The fair skin on dat one, eh? She might be of Ilican persuasion. She's lookin' at you. Or that one ova deh! Two of dem! Look at the bosom on dat bi-"

"You'll kill the boy with all this talk, Dunubu. Let him breathe," Marhukules interrupted and reached out to Inqu.
"Don't listen to him. We go to the Dream. That's the best experience here... They worship the Mother in there, you see? A part of their worship is the art of sex. The art of love for those who are weak or weary enough to be fooled. Don't be fooled, boy... But enjoy. People come from all over just to come here and spend their fortunes."
 
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Rust red linen cloaked about Inku's slender form. Hid the metal sockets and joints where in the gift of their ancestors met his mortal flesh. Gilded wounds, kept open by doctored scars so that bone and neurons linked to peeled endings, fanned and frayed like grasping fingers so that shroud glazed glass and armonium fused alloys wove themselves to place. But the arms of Takumba were put away. The Spider's Arbalest, was laid to rest. Now only strode the Takoumba'ni.

Very much a boy with so much life yet unlived.

Eyes wide and hungry, for all that life he saw being lived around him. So unlike the strict codes of discipline that governed his life upon the Spider's Silk. He could hardly breath, with all the excitement that spun about inside him, hearing the sounds of ecstasy and triumph mix and sound out windows and throats that spilled their dark glory unto the sky. Men, women, and those between and beyond gave praise to their goddess of twenty gifts.

Dunubu's wisdoms came freely. Mad as they were. The squeeze he put on the boy was sure and welcome.

"Which one are you wantin', boy?"
​
Inqus eyes dart about. Brows quirked. Head still aloft in the war dreams haze as the pinks and purples of the vesper eve set fire against the coral structures of Pleasure City. "Uh," he feels his throat tight with the choke of indecision.

"Look at her right deh. The fair skin on dat one, eh? She might be of Ilican persuasion. She's lookin' at you."​

"Looking at me?" his dark skin felt red hot about his nose, and across his cheeks. "That can't be right," she was too beautiful.

"Or that one ova deh!" ​

His head snapped to follow. "That one?" he asks, and sees the big curious eyes of a woman with skin like the richest earth. So full of power, its gold turns midnight.

"Two of dem! Look at the bosom on dat bi-"​

"Wha-"

"You'll kill the boy with all this talk, Dunubu. Let him breathe,"
​
Another flush of heat across his face. Up his neck and ears this time. "I'm fine," he asserts.

"Don't listen to him."
​
"I wasn't," he tries to convince. Gathering himself beneath his cloak, and holding his head as high as he can. Chin jutted up. Neck balancing all that worked there in that big head of his.

"We go to the Dream..."
​
The Dream. One more of so many. The young spider finds himself thinking, as their feet keep on stepping. Hears of their worship. Of their arts. Sex and Love.

"I ain't no fool, Marhuk," he puts on.

But as the drums beat louder. The grains of sand and motes of dust so set to stir, rattle and bounce to the point of buzzing wings. Laughter. Bravado. Calls of cats, foxes, and prowlers of every sort rumble and mix through the air like all the heat the great Kaikias burns down upon all the Coral has to offer.

The great doors so inlaid with mother of pearl and vibrant blue glass spread wide to welcome them.

Inqu's eyes went wide.
 
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