The Rise of the Titans - Prologue: Dhani

Chapter 4 : The rangers' friendship

On his journey, from cottage to tavern, and from bed to hay bale, Dhani discovered that he loved the common folk. There was one habit of theirs he appreciated more than anything: they told stories. Around the fire, before going to bed, on the road to pass the time, on the riverbank before naptime, men invented adventures, recited epic poems, recalled tales of yesteryear in whispers. 

Knowing no stories at all, Dhani loved to hear them: legends of gods and heroes of old, kings and queens and their knights, dragons, pirates and ghost armies. 

His favorites were the ones about the Titans, those enormous monsters who, in times past, had fought and fornicated frantically, shaping earth, mountains and valleys with the rolling and crushing of their gigantic bodies in the struggle for sex and domination. They had long disappeared — some said they were asleep — when Man was born. 

Dhani delighted in stories of giants whose cocks he imagined as big as trunks, or magnificent centaurs ruling over green meadows and deep forests, stories of sand lands and cities in ruins with temples filled with gold, or treasures whom long-dead gods no longer protected. 

He also liked very much to hear about sorcerers and magicians, men and women with knowledge so deep that they had to leave the known world to prevent their secrets to be turned into weapons. There were famous institutions where magicians learned their art. Dhani liked to whisper their names while falling asleep in the arms of a storyteller: Order of the Great Tree, Order of the Maejestes, Order of the Fliorulan... 

When someone told a story of magic, the young man made sure to follow him as long as possible. If he was a sailor, Dhani came aboard and shared his hanging bed. At night, he kissed his ears, and caressed his sack, asking for more. If he was a merchant, Dhani took the road with him, going from fair to fair under the summer sky. With him and with pants down, journeys were never dull. If the storytellers were trappers, Dhani traded bear skins and fur-lined boots to follow them to their mountain cabin. When they lived alone, Dhani would slip into their bed to lick their buttocks, chests and every nook and cranny. If they lived together, Dhani fueled the fire in the domritory to a blaze. No matter how cold outside, everyone came to him with bare legs and burning cheeks.Dhani made love until he was exhausted and he only left his companions after having purged them of semen and stories. 

Two years later, he had learned a lot; but there were always new legends to discover, new skin to taste, new lips to kiss. From inns to ports, from sailors to lumberjacks, from farmers to laborers with tanned faces and white bodies, Dhani ended up hearing about an order of sorcerers so powerful that almost no one dared to pronounce their name : 

The Keepers of the Curving Shaft. 

This very name made Dhani eager to meet them, filling him with an impulse seldom felt. Gifted as they were thought to be, they could be the ones to help answer his perpetual questions: Where did he come from? 

Why did he have no memories? 

What was this necklace around her neck and by what magic did it direct her desires? 

 Dhani had to find their home.

*

It took him another year of wandering, dead ends and new encounters. Then, a group of rangers took him under their wing. Dhani met them in an overheated sweathouse in Julinor where the eight men spent the last weeks of winter before returning to the wilderness. The energy from this group of striders attracted him and Dhani bonded with them with the ease that came to him whenever charm was in need. He followed them into hot baths, cold pools, showers. Back in the locker room, they were fascinated by him and so they invited Dhani to follow them in the imminent departure. The young man accepted with glee.