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He assumed that his height and stature made the villagers think him Immortal. But the really interesting thing to note was that they thought nothing of it.
Apparently, humans in this time knew all about Pure Ones. Moreover, Pure Ones were looked upon as “vermin” and “scum.”
That’s when a light went off in Ben’s head: he must be in an Age during the Dark Ones’ rule.
The good news was, he’d read up on all of the written histories of the Pure and Dark Ones that he could get his hands on (and that Eveline, the Pure and Dark Ones’ scribe, had managed to translate), so he knew something about this world, though it spanned a vast timeline. Thousands of years, in fact.
The bad news was, the Dark Ones’ reign, no matter which Dark Queen, was always a brutal one. Filled with war and chaos, where humans were cattle and Pure Ones were slaves. Other Immortals were suppressed minorities at best, hunted trophies at worst.
It was definitely not a good thing to be pegged as a Pure One.
He hunched his shoulders and back, bowed his head, and kept his eyes cast down to make himself as small and as unobtrusive as possible. He shuffled out of the way of the heaviest traffic, staying to the edge of the village, walking around everyone else.
Watching. Observing.
The village was indeed a large one, with plenty of mud and even stone huts staggered throughout. There was clearly a main road that cut through, which boasted larger abodes and wooden market stands on the side. Ben did not see coin exchange hands, but there was bustling trade nevertheless. Food for wares. Services for food.
As the smell of smoked meat and fresh fruit wafted beneath his nose, his mouth began to water, his empty belly groaning in protest.
He wondered what he could do to take care of basic needs. Even if he could convince people he was human, he was a stranger, and a threatening looking one at that, given his size and build.
He sat down for the time being against the side of one of the largest buildings in the village, constructed entirely out of stone bricks. In the back of his mind, he marveled at the ingenuity, the budding historian in him salivating over all the clues he found and pieced together.
There was plenty of evidence that more advanced civilizations existed, beyond human ken, thousands of years ago. From ancient pyramids to buried and lost civilizations, artifacts didn’t fully paint the picture of what was or could have been.
Now, sitting right in the middle of a lost time, beyond written record and comprehension, Ben saw first-hand a primitive yet highly advanced, magical world.
Primitive for humans, who looked like children playing under the watchful eyes of godly Immortals. Or sheep, under the bloodthirsty watch of wolves.
At the same time, whether it was the fortress carved into the mountain behind the village, the gigantic warhorses and their riders, or the intricate crafts made of precious metals and stones that Ben could see decorating some of the more prominent establishments—this place and time was far more advanced than what was described in the histories that Ben had been taught in school.
He did his own research and had first-hand accounts from his long-lived family and friends, so he’d always known that therealpast, especially before 3000 B.C., was vastly different than what written records accounted for. But seeing it with his own eyes really brought the truth home.
“Pure scum,” a gruff voice said, “ye ain’t welcome here.”
Ben looked up to see two men glare down at him with weapons clutched in their fists—a club and a hammer.
He thought fast. If he got up, he’d tower over them, making him seem even more of a threat. But sitting down put him at a disadvantage if he needed to defend himself.
“I’m not a Pure One,” he tried.
“I just need a brief respite from my travels. Do you know how I can procure some water and food, good men? What services I can offer? I am strong, as you see. Perhaps I can help with some hard labor.”
The two men exchanged a sly look, which sent a chill down Ben’s spine.
“Oh, I know just the sort of labor ye’d be good fer, whoever ye be,” one of them growled.
“This here establishment is reserved for Dark masters. Ye want to sell yer body and blood fer a day, ye can eat their scraps at the end of it and sleep on the floor by the hearth. Seeing as yer not collared already, maybe one o’ them will take a fancy and keep ye.”
Ben’s blood ran cold at that.
Bloody hell. He was in deep shit.
Especially since a muscle-bound giant of a man, clearly an Immortal, all dressed in black, suddenly loomed behind the two human pimps.
Ben slowly rose to his feet, his self-preservation instincts on full alert, as a prey’s would be before the most deadly predator.
“He’s mine,” the flesh-and-blood mountain rumbled in a gravely deep voice.
