The necromancer's gaze grew by gradations to a great grim vexation. "In patience you will perceive the potency of my council." The breath from Anand'at hissed silently as it escaped, carrying the warlock's words out in wafts into the ether. "My sorcery is slow and subtle. Tho you see it not now, already has it worked its aweful wonder."
"Ha!" boomed Nosib Ikem, the cords in the fighting-man's neck rippled in muscular conviction: "That is the difference between us; I believe in what I can see and touch. You believe in what cannot be seen nor cannot be touched." The bravo bellowed a gusty laugh. "Let me eat my manna and drink my sanguine wine! Let me smell of the lusty scent that lingers upon the nape of the lioness's neck! Let me relish in the craft of my own calloused hands; Revel in the fierce song sung by a sturdy sword as it slays my enemies with swift and decisive judgement!" The fighter flung back his head and emptied his cup. "I leave the smoldering pot and idle ponderings to you, priest—Meanwhile, I live life!" He snorted, attempting to conceal his glee.
"Wisdom is lost on you, Man." Anand'at's thin tongue flicked in and out, dark dilated eyes peered on unblinking: "You have only to look, and you will see. You have only to reach out and lo you will grasp it."
The bruiser returned the dim robed sorcerer's gaze with an equally penetrating appraisal, then sobered suddenly in awareness of the dry drinking receptacle and reached for the keg: "In my travels in this life have I met many desert dwelling wonder-workers: Emerald robed clerics of YAV, who seek wisdom, power, justice and love in the beautific fear of a pure boundless Divinity; Dusky cinnabar robed magi of Amazd, who stoke upon the primal spark of Life, and blaze bright the white light of the Sacred Fire; Cerulean swathed hierophants with their ankhs and talismans who come forth by night and sleep in dusty tombs by day, catatonic beneath trackless sands in the stasis of lotus-dreams; Saffron garbed Silnaen geomancers, who read the whims of the wind and the ebb and flow upon water, and inspect the wobble and tilt of great graded compasses; Black mantled seers who speak among the grumbles of the Grave, deducing dormant mysteries hidden by the darkness of death, time, and distance." He paused, filling his cup, a thought fermenting below the rising froth. "You are right in this aspect, magician: In all their signs and miracles do I fail to conceive a cohesive conclusion. If I am to take truth to be real, then truth must always be true. Why do words and wonders so often obfuscate a lack of substance? What can you offer that they can not?"
"A skeptic will be a skeptic so long as he is skeptical. I offer nothing you do not already have; rather will your doubt be taken from you as does tired breath inevitably leave the weary body to return to the Void. Your delusion is my truth. Indeed, what is my deception if it proves real?"