The Aquamages of Tsantsibon
#21 Tasting future characters
Despite filing this post under my ‘Character Tasting’ navigation, for those I’ve not yet written a full story about, I’m actually pretty sure I am going to go deep with Birardo the Chaste (above) and the other characters introduced here. I hope you like them - and as always, let me know your thoughts. Mages fated to protect their desert people form the violence and danger of the sands? Why not?
Love
Zayq
x
The Aquamage Merouan
Merouan is a Meton, one of the nine Aquamages of Tsantsibon, the powerful wielders of the enviromagic that stops the endless sands of the Nynimah Desert from blasting aside all human life in the hot centre of the continent of Seyladon. And not just any Meton, but at 37, the oldest that has ever lived. Most are depleted at 30, exhausted by the daily drain on their energies and minds that is needed to keep their people safe from the desert.
Merouan is revered, loved. Wherever he walks flowers bloom from the arid wastes, providing paths for travellers, traders and the lost to follow. His magic maintains the waterfalls at Annamakt, and the gardens that are known to be one of the wonders of the land. Traders from every land seek his favour, and he barters his skill for protection from every external conflict. Tsantsibon is the toughest place to live, but it is at peace, and no external force would dream of hurting the desert land, its people, or its leader.
Young men follow him, compelled to add their sacrifice to his, driven to follow in the traditions of the mages. He communes each night with a different aspirant, testing them to their physical limits and beyond. He leaves the unsuccessful youth gaping, marked as forever open wide to the needs of his fellow mages in their own travels across the land. It is a mark of high honour. These young men live the rest of their lives naked, proud to show the mark of the Meton – silver lines inscribed on their bodies by the power of the mage, and running from toe to thigh to throat.
For the successful, in the immediate post-testing dreamstate, slick with sweat, muscles shining silver, throats raw, lips overflowing, a new life has begun. And Meton Merouan, for as long as he lives, will be its guiding star.
Birardo the Chaste – Aspirant to the Metons of Tsantsibon
One such unsuccessful youth, his name Birardo of Annamakt though the Metons know him with much irony as Birardo the Chaste, belongs to the Metons more fully in these days than any of the other boys. His body is exquisite. Tall and handsome, his cheeks glow an angelic pink above a knife-sharp jawline. Yet they are not his finest feature. The rosy nipples that surmount his smoothly muscled chest invite the tongue and the teeth to stay, and while away the hours, and yet they are not his finest feature. The strength in his arms, and shoulders, and thighs, as he tends the gardens of Annamakt, is beautiful to the eye, and entirely admirable. And yet his strength is not his finest feature.
After careful consideration, and as he turns in the warm afternoon light, walking towards you his substantial cock swinging from thigh to thigh, you might consider you have discovered his finest feature, and that it is dripping a glistening welcome even as you watch. Closer still, your tongue slippery with delight as he feeds its heavenly length between your lips, you might be certain.
But turn him again. Watch as he bends to tend the gardens, perhaps as he waters the exotic plants, or kneels to weed each extraordinary border, his heavy balls jiggling as he works. Watch him wash in the city’s waterfalls, his hands slipping behind him into shadows that are only the Metons’ to touch. Birardo has curves of a kind that cannot be seen for a thousand miles by sea or land. Curves that attract the eye of kings. Curves worth fighting for in war.
Birardo the Chaste worships the Metons of Tsantsibon. This beautiful man is wholly and entirely theirs.
Meton Chaqunan the Aquamage
The magic of the Aquamages of Tsantsibon draws deeply from the nine Metons. It is the job of the youngest of the mages, the Meton Chaqunan, to store their magical energies against the time they are needed, and this he does, in silver jars protected by runes and other symbols of his craft. The monthly ritual, on the night of the new moon, is administered by Chaqunan. The eight circle him while he kneels at their feet, and as the rites are spoken. One by one the mages deposit the substance known as whitelight upon his lips, over his cheeks and eyelids, into his hair. It drips from the tip of his nose, slipping down, over his chest, and it pools in viscous puddles over the ridges of his body and into his navel. He catches it on his tongue, and it froths in mysterious light across his lips. Every drop is saved. He lies naked on the sands while the other Metons ensure none is lost. In turn the mages encourage Chaqunan to contribute his own whitelight, and at last he does, it’s magical energy shining silver as it splashes across his chest.
Vervouan the Sad – Aquamage of Tsantsibon
Every morning the young barber leaves the oasis while the moon is still in the sky, and travels across the blue moonlit dunes to the camp of Vervouan, Aquamage of Tsantisbon, known as Vervouan the Sad. With deft flicks of the wrist he shaves sharp lines into the mage’s beard, and every morning Vervouan rewards his service with permission to administer a yet more intimate service: a single slow lick along flesh, a single salt sweet drop of his essence, and, more practically, a single small bronze coin changes hands. Every morning the young barber slides his slim silver cock from his robe, and empties his bouncing balls into the sands at Vervouan’s feet. And every morning the young barber returns to the oasis. ‘Is Vervouan the Sad still sad today?’ they ask.
Haqumet the Handsome – Aquamage of Tsantsibon
The Queen of Viloa thought to buy the services of Meton Haqumet, known as Haqumet the Handsome, Aquamage of Tsantsibon. She thought to buy his love. But Haqumet’s love could not be bought, for he loved a man of the deserts, in his youth a mercenary by necessity and in his middle years a goldsmith by trade. Haqumet took the queen’s gold, so lavishly and freely given, and shaped it to the service of his people. A single gold bar Haqumet took for himself, the length of an arm. ‘Make me a treasure, a solid golden treasure, to remind me of you when we cannot be together’, he said to the goldsmith. Modelled from life, every vein, every swelling and ridge is true to life. Solid gold. Imbued with magic, the treasure rocks and throbs and tingles beneath the drape of Haqumet’s robes. They say Haqumet the Handsome always has a smile on his beautiful face. The goldsmith is lost now, to the lands beyond the sun, but for Haqumet the man lives on. Deep, deep, deep inside of him.
Setouan and Kefouan the Aquamages
The Aquamages Setouan and Kefouan arrived at the oasis as the people prepared for a coming storm. Red sand clouds the height of the sky blotted all light, and the people were in fear, as they had seen no sandstorm so cruel before. The mages undressed, and naked, walked calmly towards the storm. When they reached the centre of the storm they began to kiss, and for an hour, and for an afternoon and a night, and as the storm raged around them, they showed this being of hatred and malice what love meant. And in the morning the storm had died, and no storm ever came to those lands again. The sun rose behind them as they returned to the oasis, their bodies glistening silver with the substance known in those parts as whitelight, the magical sheen clear on their faces and chests, and the backs of their thighs. They bathed in the warm green pool of the oasis, and it is said that those swimming there afterwards became ever more handsome, ever more beautiful, and today the town is known through all the lands for the beauty and the kindness of its people.
Parad the Pale – Apprentice to the Aquamages of Tsantsibon
Parad dozes, maintaining his position floating on the surface of the water with the tiniest flickers of his fingers. The sun beats down on his chest as it does for a certain 12 hours of each day in Tsantsibon. In the golden light of late late afternoon he sifts for novelty through half-closed eyelashes. Lotus flowers bloom around him on command. And as if by the power of his mind alone he sees Birardo the Chaste wade towards him, his beautiful body shimmering. Birardo leans over him and sinks Parad’s cock deep into his throat, until the tip of his nose is mere millimetres above the water. Parad holds himself there, as Birardo massages the shaft with his lips.
And giddy with delight Parad begins to play, as apprentices do when they see a moment of time for themselves. From each hand he creates a bubbling fountain, the simplest of magics even for an apprentice to the Aquamages of Tsantsibon. And the crowds watch and applaud, though whether for the fountains, for his cock, or for the perfect worship of the boy Birardo, Parad cannot tell.
My strong strong feeling here is that wizards don’t have to be crusty old guys with beards the size of Texas. Even Merlin, even Gandalf were young once. Mages hotter than Vesuvius? If that’s a vibe you can live with then the boys of Tsantisbon might be a great fit. Or maybe it is Birardo the Chaste you have an eye on? I’m looking forward to stories featuring these guys a whole lot, writing even now, and will be sharing as soon as possible. Let me know what you think.
With love
Zayq
x
As always, you worded a picture that abides in every readers' mind. Shades of richness.