Mairek had avoided leaving the confines of his room, believing it to be the surest way to limit time's need to see him dead. He tried to tell the four men who ushered him out of the Palace in the dead of night, a grey cloak draped over him, obscuring his green silk shirt and black breeches. Hiding their intentions from prying eyes. His moccasins tap, tap, tapped as he stepped over puddles as they exited the Palace gate. Puddles. His room didn't have a windows so it was had to tell when it rained so the sight of murky still water felt quite foreign to him.

  "So have you thought about having sex with the Princess?" Afur inquired. Stepping into the puddles without a care in the world. His black breeches wet to the ankle.

  "I have no intention of having sex with the Princess." Mairek answered.

  "You're into men, then? Lam here—"

  "Shut the fuck up Afur! I'm not gay!" Lam interjected.

  Mairek fought back a smile. "I'm not into men either."

  "You nurse a broken heart?" Tok walked beside Mairek, Afur at the front, Lam to the side and Sagal slightly askew to cover his exposed side and back. If a Flame Seer had come into Mairek's homestead and told him that there would come a time when he'd walk with four men tasked to ensure his safety, Mairek would have laughed until his ribs hurt.

  "Once." Mairek replied, remembering Jesnah. He found he could not quite recall her features. *Was there a sharp outward tilt to the edge of her eyes? Did she snort as she laughed or was it a cackle that marked her reception to humor? Were her fingers long or short?* Time heals all wounds, as the saying went, pondering it he realized that he was free of time yet not free of its effects.

  "I was once in love too." Tok said as they followed Afur who deftly maneuvered his way down the sharp incline of steps leading to the Palace gate. "She was the daughter of a shepherd, a robust woman with a temper to match." Tok smiled, to him, time aided his memory. Maybe being ignored by time rendered the opposite effect for Mairek. "I remember the time she let me kiss her beneath a Julwer tree, her lips were soft and her breath hot."

  "I remember my first love too." Lam said. "She was the daughter of the chief village elder. A petite woman with a smile that could light up the night. I—"

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  "It's a wonderful night isn't it? Sure there isn't a moon in the sky and the stars are hidden behind clouds but who needs celestial guidance when we can depend on Lam's lies to light the path?" Afur interjected.

  Mairek saw Lam's hand moving to the pommel of his sword, strapped to his right side, then the hand clenched into a fist, unclenched and fell by his side, swaying languidly with Lam's stride.. "Pray tell, Afur, what was your first love like?"

  Coming to a fork in the road, branching off into the city of Central Talisi, Mairek was taken aback by the sheer immensity of the capital. The houses were all made of stone, chiseled as if by the works of an architect channeling the God of creation. Closely cramped buildings allowed for narrow passageways yet several large roads pierced through the congestion of stone to allow for easy movement of carts ferrying goods and the likes. The hustle and bustle of a tide of Talisi going either which wasn't negated by the odd hour of the night. From the rise in the ground where they stood, peering at the city, Mairek could see throngs of bodies moving about and the sound of venders and merchants reached him with the urgent worship of commerce.

  "Here is as good enough a place as any." Afur intoned, pointedly ignoring Lam's question.

  They crested around him, the four guards. Eyes looking expectantly at him. Mairek wasn't sure what they were asking of him and it was as if his face betrayed the thought for Sagal spoke. "Delve into yourself, look for release in any way it presents itself."

  "Release?" Mairek wondered.

  "Pleasure, beauty, ecstacy." Tok opined.

  "And fat arses." Afur added, earning a scowl from everyone.

  It was then that Mairek recalled Nielda's words: If you can hear everything why don't you focus on the sound that pleases you the most? If you can see everything why not focus on an image that delights your soul? Perception is not confounded on the whole, you can focus on specific aspects of it that appease you.

  Mairek closed his eyes, relaxed his shoulders and allowed himself to sink into all that existed. Time touched on everything, from the laying of an egg to its hatching and the beating of wings that came of the creature stumbling free of the egg. And Mairek placed himself between the length of time from birth to death and sought something, anything that he might derive profound meaning from.

  He heard the grunting of lovers in the far off reaches of the City. A glimpse of them through his vision enabled him to see their sweat sheathed bodies moving in tandem, he focused on what his perception had gifted him and he gleamed the demise of the pleasure they shared. A glimpse of pain, shared between the lovers as what they shared came to an end and became a memory. The future! He saw the memory of what was once shared cease to warrant any emotion as they pain ebbed to allow for cold indifference. Mairek focused on the cold indifference, the end product of the death of something that was once valued. He gripped it within himself, enlarged it, spread it over the whole City of Central Talisi and there, amidst it all he saw strands of the final moments of everything occurring at the moment. He saw deaths and friendships turned into enmity. The end was a somber sight, but he focused on it and then slowly traced his way back to the beginning until something caught his awareness, something whose beginning and end warranted the same emotion.

  There! A spark that would become a furnace and never cease in its burning. Mairek opened his eyes, the four bodyguards flinched back, no doubt his eyes were shining blue. He started running towards the City and the four bodyguards followed close behind, he'd seen something, something so profound that his very fear of a death dealt by time was for the first time, pushed to the back of his mind. As they ran, Afur laughed hard which led to the similar outburst from Sagal, a curse from Lam and Tok's calm face broke into a savage grin.

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