"Going out again, my son?" The voice, so soft that Solon almost suspected the lightbringer of touching his mind, was enough to cause him to turn. Hanamelk sat, calm and still, on a cushioned pedestal in the great hall performing his primary function - for he was the passive voice of change, his meditations the relentless weapon of the kalashtar to bring down the Dreaming Dark. It had been more a statement than a question, but with the unearthly calm and patience that marked the race Hanamelk stood, gripping his walking stick, and waited for a response.
With piercing eyes reflecting a mix of crystal sky and emerald forest, scarcely visible in the shadow of the deeply cowled cloak Solon favored, he answered simply, "I have a client, lightbringer, would you have me stay?"
"My son, this is not a profession you have chosen. Selkatari has nothing but praise for your skills in combat, for your grace in the dance - only your meditations suffer. And for you, above all the others, the meditations must not fail. You were too long away from us, and we all walk a line of madness. This life you have chosen represents a legacy of pain from your past. You can be more. And I fear if you continue to abandon your meditations that you will fall into the abyss of the darkness."
The boy's eyes suddenly became hard and focused. "You do not understand, lightbringer. My past may have guided me to the door, but I choose to walk this path, I was not fated to it." Solon lowered his head, a sense of shame filling him for a moment, "My talents have never been with my mind. We have turned from the flesh and reflected within because we are more - but I have never felt that way. Artisans and performers - philosophers and priests - all of these for il-Yannah, to turn the age to light. But my memories are nightmares and madness, a reflection of my past. I do not forget. My meditations are not forgotten, lightbringer, they are with me in that moment. And maybe they are with my client too. You may not see me as one, but I too am an artist, a performer, and yes, my friend, even a priest." The boy turned back to the door and without waiting for a response fled the Gathering Light.
A woman, lithe and beautiful with a grace that bordered on supernatural, stepped from the shadows. "Will we lose him too?" she asked.
"I am a philosopher and a seer, Selkatari, but that I cannot see. The boy believes his words. But the trauma of his past is deep, and we will never know how much it has truly impacted him. He hates the Riedrans, and that was never our goal. Opposition, change - these things we need, but if he embraces that hate the madness could take him. As for his "profession" - the boy is a monk and priest of il-Yannah. That he sells his company is troubling, but remember - you found him because of it. We had long thought him dead."
"He could be a master, Hanamelk. And there are too few of those. The darkness that dreams doesn't have the same lack of soldiers and priests. I need him whole. Let him wander and whore if he must. As long as he comes home."
Hanamelk did not need to see to feel her leave the room. His mind was attuned to everything in this chamber, from the crystal mosaics on the walls to the comings and goings of every member of the community. Her troubled thoughts lingered hanging close to the floor at the edge of his perception, and he could not blame her for them. They had come so close already to losing Solonovakhtash - so dreadfully close.
The boy stopped only two bridges from the hall of Gathering Light. Briefly he considered hiring a courier to cancel his rendezvous and going to talk to Havakhad at the shrine, but, though he would never admit it to Hanamelk, he would never interrupt his devotions for just any client. He wished they would not invoke his past so much as an attack against him. Why did they attack his devotions? Why was ecstasy and sex not an appropriate offering to the Light? Why did they care so much about his past?
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Solonovakhtash witnessed tragedy from an early age. The son of an unknown kalashtar, Solon was raised by his mother in the Ship's Towers district of Cliffside in Sharn. They lived a simple life and spoke his mother's native Riedran at home. And then one day they came for his mother. He had heard the Riedran voices, the insistent "Where is he?" of the men. He peered through the porthole of the houseboat he shared with his mother just in time to see the men rape her, and then break her neck. A memory of holding her on fields of sunlight passed through him, and then he fled into the seedier districts of Cliffside.
Solon fled initially to the homes of friends. His friends in Ship's Towers had been mainly families of goblin servants who served in the many districts of Sharn. They could not keep him forever, he knew.
Solon did not wish to be a burden to anyone. Solon possessed the extraordinary good looks common to his race, but lacked the kalashtar height, and most on the street assumed him to be a golden child, a gorgeous young human child. Strong and muscular for a youth of twelve, his looks soon had him receiving offers of compensation for his companionship. Realizing quickly that these men did not realize just how young he was, Solon seized upon selling his body and companionship as a means for him to support himself, to rely upon his own talents. Solon left the homes of his goblin friends and adopted the name Sultesh to help obscure his origins. Diligent searching and careful inquiries soon led him to a "reputable" establishment led by Ilara, a halfling madame of House Ghallanda. A dragonmark heir, Ilara had deep affection for her charges, especially those who came to her young. She ensured that Solon had two sets of paperwork - one for him to keep safe and secret that revealed his kalashtar heritage, the other with his adopted name of Sultesh, naming him a servant of the house of Ghallanda. Ilara taught him many things about seduction, teaching him to use his special talents and grace to enhance his own pleasure, not just that of his client. She also enforced schooling for all her charges, teaching them to read and write both common and goblin. She quickly realized the fierce intellect Solon possessed and engaged special tutors to complete his education.
At twenty, Sultesh was chosen from Ilara's charges to attend a human soldier of the citadel - Selar, a young man of some rank. Acting as a body servant, and providing special services when requested, Sultesh spent five years in the field of the Last War, most of them away from actual battle. When the soldier returned to Sharn, the war finally over, Sultesh found that Ilara's establishment was gone. Unable to find any trace of her, or the establishment that he had called home and lacking any connection with the kalashtar community of Sharn, indeed unaware that they even existed, he took a final payment from Selar and established himself as an independent escort in the embassy district of Ambassador Towers. With his company in demand by both men and women, Sultesh's profile raised slightly too high, and he caught the notice of a malevolent Riedran guard from the embassy. Somehow, despite his usual precautions, the guard discovered his heritage. Brutally raped by the soldier in a dead-end alley, Sultesh was rescued by a small group of kalashtar, led by the head of the monastic community in Overlook, Selkatari. She looked upon the brutalized young man and immediately recognized both his heritage, and the spark that made an exemplary monk. She knew that spark well, having spent her life training the community at the Gathering Light.
Selkatari took the still young Sultesh in. For the past eighteen months Sultesh has excelled in the training she has provided, especially the early stages of the Path of Shadows. He has refused, however, to give up his chosen life. Taking clients only from outside Upper Dura, and avoiding his once favored haunts in the Ambassador's Towers district, Sultesh struggles to be part of a community that is still somewhat alien to him.
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Now I just need to work in relations with the other characters.
- Ashavan
