The Orphan’s Mirage

Three moons have waxed and waned since first he fled the town,
Where orphaned wails had choked the church bells’ hollow sound.
No kin but parchments brown with age and secrets sealed,
That spoke of parents lost where two starved jackals reeled.
“Seek truth,” they’d urged in ink as faded as their bones,
“Where dunes embrace the sky, and silence chisels stones.”
Thus through the wastes he treads, his throat a well of ache,
Each step a prayer cast to winds that mock his stake.

One eve, as dusk bled gold through veils of drifting silt,
He glimpsed a spire’s ghost where shifting sands had built
A citadel of air—its turrets, frail as lace,
Dissolved like dreams too pure for daylight’s harsh embrace.
Yet from that phantom keep there came a voice, a song,
A melody that turned the burning sands to spring.
“Who dares,” it sighed, “to walk this labyrinth of pain,
Where even scorpions shun the sun’s tyrannic reign?”

He followed, parched and gaunt, through valleys carved by drought,
Till lo! A spring emerged, ringed by palms that bowed devout,
And there, beneath their shade where liquid diamonds spilled,
A maiden knelt, her hands with silver vessels filled.
Her hair—a midnight storm; her eyes, twin emeralds rare—
Locked his, and in that glance, the world dissolved to air.
“Why wander you, lone soul,” she breathed, “through death’s domain?
No truth resides here but the lies that droughts maintain.”

He told her of the scrolls, the parents lost to thirst,
Of years spent as a ghost in alleys dusk-immersed.
She listened, and her gaze grew deep as desert wells,
While nightingales unseen sang dirges none could quell.
“Poor child,” she murmured, “I, like you, am bound by chains—
A curse decreed when first these sands drank heaven’s rains.
My voice the siren’s bane, my touch the viper’s kiss,
To dwell ‘mid mirage-walls where no true world exists.”

Days melted into nights as starry cloaks unfurled,
And in her oasis-grove, he found a fragile world.
They spoke of verdant lands beyond the dunes’ grim keep,
Of oceans they had ne’er beheld save in their sleep.
Her laughter turned the air to wine, her tears to pearls,
Yet when he reached to brush her cheek, the vision swirls—
Her form would fade like mist beneath the noon’s harsh eye,
A specter woven from the desert’s cunning sigh.

“I love thee,” he once pled, his voice a cracked lute’s string,
As twilight draped its violet shroud o’er everything.
She trembled, a gazelle ensnared in moonlight’s snare,
“And I thee—but our hearts are seeds cast on bare air.
For should you stay, this haven too shall pass to dust,
And you, my doomed delight, share this cursed prison’s rust.”
He vowed to break her bonds, to slay what dark decree
Condemned her soul to haunt where no true life could be.

Through ruins of dead kings they quested, hand in hand,
Where sand-serpents coiled ‘round pillars half-sunk in sand.
In crypts where scarabs scuttled ‘neath hieroglyphs’ stare,
They sought the pharaoh’s scroll that might undo her snare.
But deep within that tomb, where shadows breathed despair,
They woke a sentinel no mortal ought to dare—
A jackal-headed god, its eyes twin coals aflame,
Whose roar birthed storms that shook the earth’s primordial frame.

“Flee!” cried the maid, her form now flickering like gales,
“This beast guards thresholds meant to shackle mortal trails!”
Yet still the orphan stood, a dagger clenched in fist,
And lunged—a mote of dust defying heaven’s tryst.
The blade struck empty air; the demon’s mocking grin
Split night itself asunder, and its clawed hand swept in.
But lo! The maiden leapt, her arms spread wide as grace,
And took the blow meant for his heart in his stead’s place.

Her body, fragile as a lotus touched by frost,
Collapsed into his arms—her substance tempest-tossed.
The oasis groaned; the palms shed leaves like funeral shrouds,
As lifeblood—amber mist—drifted from her fading cloud.
“Forgive,” she gasped, “this love that bloomed but could not root,
This stolen season ‘mid the ashes of pursuit.
Now drink—” She pressed a vial to lips salt-streaked with pain,
“One draught of Lethe’s spring to kill what memories remain.”

He refused, clutching her as winds began to howl,
But even as he wept, he felt her essence foul—
Her fingers dissolved first, then hair, then emerald eyes,
Till naught remained but scent of jasmine ‘neath cruel skies.
The dunes roared in triumph; springs dried to bitter crust,
And all her whispered vows became the mocking dust.
Alone, he staggered forth, the vial pressed to his breast,
Its contents now his sole companion on this quest.

Years later, travelers tell of one who roams the waste,
Muttering to shadows with a zeal gone to haste.
A flask hangs ‘round his neck—its seal no hand dares break—
For in its depths, he vows, her final breath awaits.
At night, he claims he hears her sing where no stars gleam,
A siren of the sands, a love that dwells in dream.
But when they offer aid, he flees, deranged and thin,
For hope, once lost, leaves greater voids than death within.