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It is his personal chamber A thin thermafoam mattress with a field blanket serves as his bed A s with several weapons and a long-range cos on the wall beside a filthy wolfpelt A second nook is hourines carved from disparate stones Beside it is a map of what looks like a cave syste each other
Atlas au Raa is a vaguely alien man It has been years since I’ve seen him in the flesh After the death of my parents, he was sent to the Rim to harry the Ascorandifted his office to another
I am struck by how soulful he now seems Was it the distant dark that did it? Or was it the war he returned to find raging in his absence?
Behind the sunburnt eyelids lurks an intense intellectual presence He is masculine like his son Ajax, but nowhere near as thick He is taller and leaner than his brother, Romulus, but less draold A scar encircles his neck where his throat was once cut ear to ear His long hair is black shot with gold and held back in a ponytail
I probe deeper with the Mind’s Eye
Forty-nine years of age Left-handed Li from the left knee Multiple hidden knives in hisabsence of insecurity in body and deeds Sociopathy? Delusions of heroism? No That’s usually supported by zeal Why so distant? Extremely lonely? Tired? Bored? Distracted? Absent in his personal presentation is the theatricality of his public work Which suggests a sophisticated system of operation, likely supported by the books in his library, and perhaps a personal philosophical treatise This is a philosopher-torturer with the practical detach butcher
“Stop that,” he says “Unless you want me to do it back”
I go still
Grandmother said I was her only pupil Could this be why Apollonius wants it so bad? He knows Atlas is yet beyond him?
The man’s cold eyes search the burn onto a conclusion So he is hu hLingo
“Salve, au Raa,” I reply
“How did ot before it becomes laborious “Of course I have been told, but I hear you saith your own eyes”
“He walked to the Dragon Tomb He died several steps short”
He is quiet for a full minute
“Alldid he talk before he walked?”