Dismailed, Chapter One. "Sissa"

Sissa


“Sire!" glared T'Mhet, hardly able to control his ire. "Seer Siminis has foretold unmeasured woe arising from our failure to act. The Cuirass must not fall into enemy hands!"


"Seer Siminis is a wizened old fool!" yelled Azzamán, slamming his fist down onto the table. "He has also foretold the downfall of our kind, yet that is hardly likely given our mastery of the Art! Let the Seekers take the Cuirass, for it shall return to us unscathed and untapped. They have not the means to harness its power, for they are weak and timorous. The Cuirass would dominate them and they should be its thralls, not its masters. To march forth from Sissa in its search would be more perilous than to await its return. Think of the consequences of so diminishing our defenses here!"


T'Mhet went to retort, but held his tongue; though the fire in his eyes matched even that of his lord Azzamán. "As you wish, Sire." He bowed and took his leave. "Who is the wizened old fool?" he muttered to himself, and set off towards the Temple of the Seer.

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"Such ire shall be thy perdition, Brother T'Mhet." Muttered Seer Siminis as T'Mhet descended the carven sandstone stairway leading down inside the Temple. Siminis knelt facing away from the entrance, and had not even looked up upon greeting his visitor, engrossed as he was in his Array. With frantic, circular swings of his arms he described circles, lines and icons in the wide shallow basin that was the Array, pausing only to grasp more handfuls of sand from urns on either side of him, flinging it into the Array and again tracing wild symbols and designs with his withered hands.


"The Sands have spoken," crooned the old seer, "and they foretell untold woe and suffering, should the..."


"What am I to do, Siminis?" T'Mhet cut him short. The ancient seer was prone to theatrics and unnecessary repetition of his divinations.


"Control thy ire, boy!" he said sternly. "Rage not! Act with haste! Seek out thy enemy! Regain that which has slipped thy grasp!"


"But I shall need an army to scour the Land! Yet without the consent of Lord Azzamán none shall aid me, and the Enemy shall prevail."


"Enough of thy snivelling!" Exclaimed Siminis, and he swung round abruptly to face T'Mhet, his lank grey hair wrapping itself around his face as he spun. It was a daunting sight: the haggard old figure of Seer Siminis - dressed only in a dirty grey toga - knelt on all fours like a savage dog, stared through the bedraggled locks of sand-ridden hair with pupilless eyes of black onyx - his age-marred visage ablaze like that of a drunken madman. Yet despite their blank appearance, T'Mhet knew that those eyes pierced his own and thrust like knives into his very soul. If T'Mhet felt shock or fear at the sight he did not show it, but would not have needed to.


Seer Siminis was old - almost as old as Sissa - but as he grew in years so did he in sight; though blind since childhood, the old man's vision was far-reaching indeed, defying both distance and time, and his voyances never faltered. However, the seer was given to eccentricities - as it has been said - and esoteric gifts are not without detriment. Thus his forecasts were often subject to varied interpretation. Differences in opinion and other discrepancies were the cause of much discord amongst the Elders of the Chamber, and it was one such altercation which led to Lord Azzamán's shunning of Siminis and all his ways.


"The time for esoteric nonsense is at an end!" He had declared. "A so-called art purportedly mastered by one man is no art at all, but a fallacy. The troubles of our times call for a keen eye and swift decisions, not the rantings of some half-sane mystic! For every vision of yours that has granted us true insight, another has led us into peril, and for why? For your inability to clarify to the Chamber the contents of your delusions! If you cannot - or will not - speak with transparency of your findings, then counsel us no more! We shall send forth scouts throughout the land to bring first-hand accounts of all that errs abroad, and with the one true art - The Black Art - we shall prevail against the Believers, the Seekers and the Infidels alike! Begone!" From that day, the Chamber heeded no more the counsels of Siminis, torn as they were between fear of blindness and fear of Azzamán's wrath.


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The colour faded from the old man's face and his hunched figure relaxed. “A keen eye and swift decision, Brother,” he said, now softly. “I have seen the way, and now thou must act swiftly. Go forth now – thyself and no more than three others, lest thy covey be construed as mob. Thou must also part in silence and obscurity – the twilight hour shall be thy veil. Pay heed! The sands have spoken! Beyond the sands of Sissa lies thy quarry, beyond the Sands of Time. Beware! for he who dares curb the Sands of Time will be blind to their slipping away within his very grasp!”


At this point Siminis’s voice seemed to dwindle to an incoherent murmur, though perhaps it was T’Mhet’s ear that failed - the words of the mystic were seldom comprehensible in their entirety, even to T'Mhet, yet seemed to evoke clouded images of their inner meaning in the mind of the hearer. Now T'Mhet wandered through vast lands, far beyond the desert to which he had been born, and further still to realms seemingly unknown to his kind. Flocks of dry birds made of sand flew in unison through the cold nebulous air and disappeared from view into a bank of white fog…


He was drawn out of his trance by the touch of Siminis's hand upon his shoulder. Blinking, he saw the old man’s face before him, eyes closed and smiling warmly. “Go now." He said calmly, and embraced T’Mhet like a son. "One day thy father shall thank thee. Make haste!”



At eventide, as the overground activity of Sissa drew to a close, T'Mhet and his three most trusted servants set out northwards across the sands of Sissa on a journey from which they might never return.


By nightfall, the eyes of the Watchers would be upon the desert; the ever-vigilant scryers of earth and Aether - watching for signs of outsiders or, more importantly still, of the Dark Ones. The eyes of the Watchers were keen and unobstructed by darkness; the light indeed was foul to them and hindered their vision, and thus they watched not by day. To march forth by day would be less likely to attract attention, but there was ever the risk that some townsperson might raise the alarm. Some folk worked on the surface above the underground city of Sissa, and the band’s departure could scarce go unheeded.


And so by darkfall T'Mhet and his unlikely entourage had trudged half a league to the north, and beyond the encircling dunes that would now hide them from view. Their sally would not go unnoticed for long, but none would dare venture after them – not least because Lord Azzamán would soon be mustering all available hands for the defense of the city. Heedless of the Seer’s hazy visions, Azzamán, ninth Lord of Sissa had himself foretold that the Cuirass would one day return to the Desert City of its own free will and, although not without bloodshed, it would again adorn the breast of its rightful owner. And how he craved that bloodshed! By that very blood spilt in the great battle, would Sissa be restored to its dark glory! The hordes of the dead would rise up and serve unwaveringly the will of Azzamán!

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