Windswept dunes
Sprawled
Across the desert floor
The jade of the grass, rotten

Tylmarris's Temple
Lonesome, haunted
An abode of ancient magick
Abandoned but not forgotten.

A solitary shroud
Of ink black reflection
Silhouettes
The pale moonlit windows.

The air whispered
Of Sorcery
Bones and runes in patterns
Drawn from hidden doors.

Drawn across the aeons
When summoned
At times fruitful, at times treacherous
Devastating yet sublime.

The power of the spirits
Was not for all to tame
Less even to mock as
He was about to this time.

The warlock crouched
Over his beloved's corpse
A silent prayer to Tythryll
To return her whence he took her from.

Unanswered again
He mused in sorrow
Four hundred and twenty days in misery
He had now mourned.

A gnarled hand he rested
On her chest
Her skin peeling to reveal bones
Like pearls emerging from pink sand.

A withering smile still
She wore
In her final moments with him
When Death made its stand.

He spoke in Kuthanese
Her name in her tongue
Her true name.
Naírillia.

Daughter of Sand
Keeper of Terralyn's visions
Desert Witch
Touched by the God himself, as a Seer.

With clenched fists
Raised in a fashion
To receive the wrath of the Death God
He stood over the pentacle.

His betrothed beneath
Encumbered in a nexus
Of his safety
As he set to do the impossible.

Tythryll! He bellowed
In a voice born of rage
Despair
Of angst to have his love back.

Seven and seventy limbs
Broke free from the soil
Reaching skywards
In the earth, a giant crack.

Green auras of spirits
Distantly growled
as a mortal
Dared to raise a finger at their Master

He had provoked the very God
To answer to his call
Such was the grief
Of the bonecaster.

The Immortal then descended
Into mortal realm
Tythryll's brow aglow with fury
Of the underworld.

His headless horse neighing
A pirouette from his eternal saddle
To arrive before the temple gates
Hurling thunderbolts.

The warlock called upon
Eknarak, the mountain devourer
As his Ascendant foe
Locked eyeless sockets with him.

The mountain parted
A ridged back, the spirit's face
Colossal, faceted at every angle
Awoken from slumber deep.

The world sizzled
And blazed like some devious
Flash in the sky.
A battle not to be seen.

For innumerable heartbeats
They raged against another
Primal sorcery slowly
Straining the God.

More and more, the warlock
Let loose all spirits of the land
Till finally, a leg of two feet
Pinned the God down.

Wait! His eyes showed fear
For the first time since it's creation
What do you want?
What was wrongfully taken, he whispered.

Tythryll glanced toward
The petite corpse
Sneered.
This is what you fight for?

A hidden dam of helplessness
Broke as all his magic
Was released by the Warlock
To save her.

His body convulsed
Even as it split open midway
Revealing an empty shell
But filled with contempt.

At his command
The earth smiled
A deep chasm that glittered
Showing precious rocks and fire.

A horde of corpulent spirits
Rushed the God to the core.
As the warlock himself
Barely finished the spell whole.

The temple, the sand, the wind
All were ****** into
The cavity, lolling its hungry tongue
To consume all.

Three moons passed
Not a soul,
Would, across the plains,
Now dare to cross.

A change of seasons
Quelling of Earth's lust
Full with the power of a God
The chasm healed itself.

A hand from the soil raised
Clutching at air, nails biting
The black earth, its grip maintained.

Inevitably, an arm appeared.
The beginnings of a torso.
The torso of a being
Who was thought to be dead.

Naírillia, earthborn
She rises in the midst of where
Her love battled
Died.

Hair, as full as a Wickan Horse
Her strength to match an ox.
The ravished skin was no more
bones and soft marrow.

She tottered, stepped ahead
And slipped
Her face beside a ring
Engraved were some words
In her tongue.

I love you.
The day of your birth has now begun.