Heat and cold, the desert was always hot during the day and cold during the night. Indomil had been born there to two parents who had nine fingers in total. She'd been raised there within a community where few had more than five fingers. She'd learnt how to walk the desert sands without leaving foot prints for the Binorian hunters to track. She'd learnt how lowly her place was amongst her fellow Kolotians and within the realm, and she knew of the price she would have to pay to be fully a part of the Kolotian colony hiding within the desert.
Her mother had told her of cities where stone dwellings reached for the sky, piercing the clouds. Where people didn't hide who they were from the rest of the realm. Where food didn't consist of desert critters, deprived of moisture. Where water was abundant and people even stripped free of their clothing and swam in the water. To be free of dirt, to be free of grime, to have hunger sated and thirst quenched, all of it was a fantasy. And those stories she'd eagerly listened to and dreamt about in her childhood now served to drive her hate.
She hated who she was, where she was from and the life that she led. She wondered whether death's release was such a bad thing, whether hiding among the sand dunes, among the crested caves upon the hard desert floor by the thousands was really living. She carried the twenty liter stone can, curved from soft rock that wasn't permeable. The cloth string tied to either opening of the stone can was draped over her neck, the stone can hanging on her back. She followed a line of twelve Kolotian water seekers. Heading to the oasis, to the only oasis to the South East that hadn't dried up. The other one to the North was too close to the Binorian Hunter colony and the other water seeker group that was larger than theirs would have gone West.
"It's the last time you'll undertake such a trip." Her mother had said to her before she departed the colony. She raised her hand with three fingers and cupped her daughter's cheek. "You've come of age, so the finger ceremony will commence upon your return. You and the eleven who go on this trip should relish in the movement your fingers will hold, in the simple feats you can accomplish like the simple hauling of water. For when you return, and the price is paid for your place within the colony, then such a thing will be missed."
Such sorrow in her mother's words. As if she recalled the time when she had all of her fingers, a time that was forever lost. The finger ceremony, by the decree of the Colony Chief, Thegir, the only colony member with ten fingers excluding those who were yet to come of age, required the severing of five fingers from those who are of age, and in future if need be, the severing of more fingers. That was the price a Kolotian paid to be part of the Colony. 'The fingers buy your place.' As her father often said. 'Your place in the only surviving Kolotian Colony, the only place a Kolotian can live.'
Indomil didn't know what was worse, the glorifying of mutilation the Colony imbued in the minds of all those who were a part of it. Or the fate awaiting those captured by the Binorian Hunters. She remembered coming across the mutilated body of a Kolotian woman who'd been caught by the Binorian Hunters, she'd wandered too far from the Colony and paid the price. Bloody stumps were left of where her hands had been, she'd been raped and partly flayed. A toy thing for the animosity that lurked within the hearts of the Binorians. Indomil remembered the sightless tear streaked face of the dead Kolotian woman, the promise of the fate that awaited all who weren't a part of the Colony.
"Indomil, quicken your pace." Dagaa, the head of the water seekers said, turning his violet eyes to her. The sun was at its peak, the time when Binorian Hunters rarely traversed the desert for it was the time of day when it was hottest. During the night was a whole other matter though, and the early morning and late noon. A Kolotian outside the Colony at such a time was a Kolotian with a death wish.
"I don't know what the rush is." Indomil said. "If we hurry and come back with the water all we'll get as a reward is our fingers chopped off."
"It's the price of being a part of the Colony." Dora said with a smile, the ever optimistic Dora, her round cheeks gave her sepia skin a glow with each smile. Indomil wondered whether the girl will smile once she wiped her ass with sand using three fingers from one hand.
"If we hurry we can reach the hideout by nightfall." Dagaa said. Quickening his pace so those behind him may do the same. The hideout, a place surrounded by towering dunes, where they would find shelter cowering in the shadows. Indomil knew there would be no sleep tonight.
Water. They risked their life for something others swam in.
"What does he do with the fingers anyway?" Indomil asked.
"What?" Dagaa wondered.
"What does Thegir do with the fingers he cuts off?" Indomil expounded.
"He shoves them up his arse at night from what I hear." Lupin said. Eliciting laughs from the others including Indomil herself.
"Silence." Dagaa ordered. The ever vigilant Dagaa. "He bribes the Binorian Hunters so we'd have a chance at survival. Do you think the hunters don't know of the Oasis? They do. They can stay watch there for months and catch us on our way there, torture the information of where the Colony is from us and raid our homes and kill everyone."
"They can't kill more of us." Dora said. "Because that would render them obsolete, if they kill off every Kolotian then where will they get our fingers from?"
They walked the rest of the way in silence. The question Dora posed hang over their heads like a malevolent halo. As the sun dipped into the horizon they reached a large sand dune that gave way to the oasis where green foliage and bent trees marked the grounds for the water they risked their lives to fetch. They walked without rhythm, ensuring their foot prints mirrored sand turned over by the wind.
Dagaa, the leader of the water seekers, went up the dune alone. The rest huddled at its base. Dagaa crawled on his belly as he neared the crest. Upon reaching there he stood up and stared at the oasis floor before him. He stood motionless for a long span of moments.
"Dagaa!" Lupin called out. "What do you see?" He asked.
Dagaa didn't answer. After a moment Lupin climbed the sand dune too only to stand dumbstruck at the crest. Indomil cursed and climbed herself, eager to see what had got the boys frozen. What she saw upon the crest chilled the blood in her veins, made the sun's warmth vacant. Death greeted her sight.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Hundreds of men lay dead around the oasis, their blood soaked the sand and some of it found its way into the water. Some had missing limbs, others had holes bored into them. Entrails scattered the ground and some heads were arranged in a pyramid at the center of what Indomil could only assume was the killing field.
"They are all Binorian Hunters." Dagaa said.
The pale skin, grey and blue eyes, the blonde hair, brown hair, dark hair. They were all Binorians. Suddenly, the water in the oasis rippled and a figure's head appeared, pushing to the shore, swimming to the dry land, he then emerged naked from the water. Upon seeing them he raised a hand and waved. "Hey!" He shouted, a Kolotian, like them, about the same age as them. "Hey guys! Hello!" He shouted, waving them over. The rest of the water seekers gathered around the peak of the sand dune. All of them staring at the naked Kolotian surrounded by dead Binorian Hunters. "Hey, come on down, will you?" The guy called out. Paused when he saw nobody was moving, then added. "Oh, don't be afraid, my name is Ishar, I'm a Kolotian like you so you shouldn't be afraid, well I understand how it looks. With the dead bodies and all but I only harm those who seek to harm me. Well, except my girlfriend." He stared at a fixed spot beneath him, before raising his head to them once more. "She ties me up and does things to my naked body but that can't honestly constitute as harm, can it? It comes from a place of love! And when she shoves a finger up my—" He stopped. A span of moments passed where he just stared at them, then he licked his lower lip, as if savoring a memory. He broke into a smile. "Well, you get what I'm saying, don't you?" They did not.
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They came down the sand dune hesitantly. Dagaa at the lead taking slow steps. The Kolotian had put on black breeches upon seeing their hesitation to join him at the oasis shore. The blood, brains, limbs and gore scattered around the Kolotian who'd introduced himself as Ishar didn't seem to faze the young man.
Young. Indomil thought. He was young in every sense of the word, his height didn't match that of Dagaa, sure, muscle lined his limbs and abdomen but it wasn't pronounced. He looked just like them only his violet eyes had a certain tinge to it, and his manic smile spelt of a potent nature that made her wary.
When they came close enough, Dagaa held out a hand to halt the procession of water seekers. But Lupin edged forward to flank Dagaa. Lupin, ever careless, always letting curiosity get the best of him.
"So." Lupin started much to Dagaa's annoyance. "What the fuck happened here?" He gestured at the dismembered bodies of Binorian Hunters riddled all around them.
Ishar raised a hand and lowered it before his face, then he spread the fingers. "They wanted my fingers." He said. "I've recently started having sex," he turned to Indomil and grinned. "I've realized fingers have more uses than just grabbing things. They can also enter places."
They gawked at him.
"There's something wrong with him." Dagaa whispered.
"Of course there's something wrong with me." Ishar said. "There's something wrong with everyone," He pointed at Phesoj, the smallest of the bunch. "Look at this one's eyes, he looks like he won't live long. Like he knows this, expects this. He's a man resigned to fate. A grim fate at that." He pointed at Indomil. "And her, she's currently fighting her desire for me, if you leave me in her presence she will violate me. I am certain of this."
Indomil moved to speak but Phesoj beat her. "You're right, tell me more."
All heads turned to the frail little thing whose back was hunched under the burden of the stone can. "Ishar you say your name is? What you've spoken of me is true." He lifted his head. Phesoj's violet eyes had a deathly cast to them. "Tell me more."
"Certainly not the same for me." Indomil grumbled.
Ishar lowered himself to Phesoj's level. "I see pain around the curve of your nose. A lot of pain, pain that trumps the death in your eyes. Everybody you love will die, before death you will forever know loneliness. But your lips."
"What of them." Phesoj pressed.
"They speak of satisfaction." Ishar opined.
"But what does this mean?" Lupin asked.
Ishar turned to the scrawny youth. "It means he will go mad."
Phesoj nodded, as if understanding the utter nonsense Ishar was saying.
"And her!" Ishar pointed at Indomil. "She will attempt to sexually violate me tonight. And I'm not talking of soft violation like the one between me and my lover. No, hers is hard and filled with hate."
Indomil's sharp retort was cut off by Ishar's last word. Hate.
"So you have a lover?" Dagaa asked.
"Yeah, she's Talisi." Ishar said and smiled to himself, as if very proud of having a lover. Indomil felt a sudden urge to cobble him.
"I've never seen a Talisi before, I've heard about them, and the Remu. The old songs spoke of the races, and one race that is no longer upon the realm, a race with green skin." Dora said.
"My Telinete Rhino, Carrot, often says the same thing." Ishar said while nodding to himself. "He speaks of a race whose skin is like that of a cabbage."
"And you have a Telinete rhino called ... Carrot?" Lupin said.
Ishar nodded profusely.
"Can you give us a second?" Dagaa asked and turned, gathering the rest of them with him several paces away from Ishar.
"He is mad." Dagaa said with a whisper where they stood huddled together, arms over each other's backs.
"Completely mad." Lupin seconded Dagaa with the same pitch.
"There's something wrong with him." Indomil found herself saying. "His eyes, they are violet like ours but behind that glare, with the sinking sun, there's a flash of another color."
"Amber." Dora whispered.
"Should we fetch the water? It's crimson with blood." Phesoj asked.
Dagaa turned his gaze to the water then the bodies around them. "What happened here?" He voiced a thought that plagued them all.
"A single man, a Telinete rhino and a Talisi woman couldn't have done this." Lupin said.
"What do we do?" Xelif posed the question they were hesitant to ask. His beady eyes darting about nervously.
"We take him to the colony chief." Dagaa decided. "We can't fetch the water, we'll go back with proof of what we've found here. A few heads in the stone cans. Otherwise they won't believe us."
"They'll come for us." Dora said. "After this, they'll come for us and we'll all die." Her words startled Indomil, where was the optimism she'd grown accustomed to from Dora? Did everything vanish in the face of barbarism?
"We should do this." An unfamiliar voice said from among them. "We should take Ishar to the colony so he can see more Kolotians. Up until now he'd never seen another Kolotian and the thought of there being more makes him as giddy as infant girl." All heads turned to the voice to find Ishar among them.
They flinched away from him.
"You're mad." Dagaa said.
"Yes, so what?" Ishar asked.
"You're insane!" Lupin opined.
"Yeah, I know. I know" Ishar said, he seemed bored. "What I don't know is if you guys are capable of putting your faith in madness? To surrender whole heartedly to the seed of chaos, can you do that? Because you'll need to do so if what I desire is to be obtained. And what I desire is your freedom. What I desire is that you live."
Indomil stared at him at that moment and realized that this stranger wasn't joking at all. Ishar turned and their eyes met. His face broke into a smile. "You're admiring me, aren't you?" He asked. Her cheeks flushed and she turned her gaze away. "My girlfriend will kill you if she finds out you harbor feelings for me."
Rage took over, Indomil balled her hands into fists. She moved to slap Ishar for his half-assed opinion, but the Kolotian caught her hand easily, he tagged her close to him and she could feel his breath upon her face. She stared into those violet eyes and watched them flash amber for a brief moment before reverting back to violet. "I can place a hand upon your chest." He spoke softly, almost intimately. Her breath caught. "I can take you into a realm where black sand and a dark abyss hangs above." He let go of her wrist and placed his hand on her neck, with his thumb he touched her chin. "My God is eager for worship, Kolotian beauty, he is eager for his people to return to him." He smiled. "You're in so much pain, let me ease your strain." She found herself closing her eyes, leaning into him. A sensation enveloped her, promising release in simply letting go. Letting go of all that weighed her down, her anguish, her fear, her hatred. Everything didn't matter if she simply let go and drunk what ishar offered her. She found herself enamored by the warmth his hand brought to her skin, and the thumb on her chin, she felt—
He abruptly hopped away from her, raised his head to the sky and let out a cackling laugh. "Well that was hot, hotter than the desert floor. I'm so well versed in matters of the heart these days, I know what to say to make a woman swoon. Though my girlfriend told me she'll flay any woman I enchant with the methods she taught me." He sighed. "I miss her, she'll be back soon." He stared at the ground for a span of moments. "Now, bind my hands with rope and take me to your colony so I can talk to your leader and complete the objective that brought me here."
"What is your objective?" Lupin questioned.
Ishar smiled, "Why, it's salvation young man, always salvation. With a touch of chaos, of course, can't leave out chaos. And a dash of madness too."
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