A Cry in the Desert
Posted on 29 Jun 2021 @ 7:29am by Commander Calliope Zahn
Edited on on 29 Jun 2021 @ 7:30am
Mission:
M2 - Sanctuary
Location: Obsidian III, Far in the desert, outside of Kalara. The Shelter Rock.
Timeline: Prologue to "M2: Sanctuary"
2025 words - 4.1 OF Standard Post Measure
The waning light of Loki over the horizon left the heat waving as the air cooled over the sands that had absorbed the merciless rays throughout the merciless day. A sheet of sand caught on a breath of wind and carried off to the south as a series of figures seemed to rise out of the ground behind the dune, thirty-some dark skinned Obsidianites wrapped in light desert clothing, each one stitched with patterns and symbols of their families, appearing once grand and now repaired until they were more patch than cloth.
One great protruding slate of grey stone stood at an angle, broad enough to provide hundreds shade from a cruel afternoon and the only landmark anywhere to be seen. It was etched deeply with the Obsidians’ universal sign for the suspension of hostilities: symbolically it was akin to the common sign so many worlds employed for a sun— simply a circle with rays emanating out. Specifically this form represented the sign of the Ancient Law of Sunstorm Truce under which there were understood to be safety even, and especially, between blood sworn enemies. Here the patchwork clad men and women came to shelter from the sun and take a moment of refreshment, a few of their number scaling the dunes to see beyond. The long-suffering desert eyes of the lookouts took in the horizon where the desert now worked it’s deception, appearing to be a silver ocean under the conditions of a mirage. As if emerging out of and then walking on the false water came eight figures of great stature and shining white robes riding eralsu, six-legged beetle mounts which were captured as larva and brought back from the distant Rupathan Mountains; the radiation-reflective carapaces of the eralsu adopted the chrome-like characteristics of the mirage.
The Eight formed a line with their mounts and remained in position, forcing the thirty to tread up the rise to the top of the shelter rock and meet them, no longer under its protective elongated shadow.
“Where is Arch-Daion Halurik? We are answering his invitation to air our grievances.”
One of the Eight Riders dismounted and walked forward, the great shining form of his monstrous mount forming a terrible outline between him and the setting sun. “I will stand as the Arch-Daion’s Ear.” His voice was low and inviting in spite of the strangeness of the light around him. He walked with authority, sure and steady. Despite his powerful composure, he was young by comparison to most of the thirty gathered, his dark skin shining with the glimmer of sweat, accenting his musculature. “Speak openly and I will bear your accounts to him.”
One from the aggrieved gathering approached first, the great symbol of Loki and the seal of the Sunstorm Truce rising over her where it was carved in the stone and painted by the sunset. Elani Nal, a Grandmother among grandmothers, was freckled and age spotted and bent. The desert had formed into her skin it’s own dunelike ripples. As she moved she seemed to tingle with the sound of magic, an effect of the many bells and trinkets she had acquired as gifts for her fair dealings and measures of blessing and respect paid to her, each of which she accumulated on strings hidden beneath her robes. The sound of such recognition was considered to be the outward expression of much earned honor. Honor among the Turani was not meant to be displayed visually like a badge or a banner; it was unseeable, represented only by the precursory sound the tokens gently chimed as the honored elder moved. “The Turani have suffered much.” Elani Nal croaked through her aged throat. “What we share with you today is only a sample of our grievances. We do so by the assurance given under the armistice extended from the Principles of the Sunstorm Truce."
“Present your grievances,” he said impatiently. “The night falls soon.”
“I am Benimi Lavdahl.” A man pressed forward from behind Elani Nal. From his worn and colorfully restitched sleeve he drew a smooth, polished obsidian stone. On one side of the glossy stone was etched the mark of the Lavdahl family, on the other, the Turani tribe. He held out the stone as he spoke. “The Lavdahl dug the Kupanthi Well with the Funam and Olin families under the auspicious grant of the Council. We have observed all sacred water usage and care. We have taken up our turn as guardians. But for the past year, we have been turned away, first by claims of water table changes, which were untrue. Then when we disputed those false claims, we found our names stripped from guardianship— as a result we were considered having broken contract, even though we sent sons to guard the well, who were turned back!” Benami dropped the glassy rock in the sand at the foot of Halurik’s representative, their eyes meeting with equal stoniness. “We are unjustly treated and have lost many of our herds. The Lavdahl family wishes the prescribed justice- to be reinstated with our rights to the Kupanthi Well, and to be compensated twice fold for unjust losses to our flocks.”
A second man replaced him as Benimi receded. He also produced a polished and engraved piece of obsidian. He made his own introduction and his own claim. “My brother’s flock was taken and rebranded, he was made lame by the thieves. But because they are Kiban’s nephews, no action has been taken against them.” He dropped the stone on the ground with the first.
A slightly lighter skinned woman presented herself next. “I am Sulann Qinat.” She carried an herb satchel and was marked with tattoos on her hands and forehead. Her accoutrements and bearing made her readily identifiable as a midwife. She produced a stone of her own from her bag. “I was called and retained by many and recompensed by few in the region surrounding the Ulgan Oasis. When I presented my accounts, instead of the agent aiding with collection, the outstanding fees were nullified. I was called a Turani liar and warned against pursuing it further on pain of imprisonment.” She dropped the stone.
One after another they continued before the representative. Apart from the trace of his eyes and the wind picking up his robes in gusts, he remained still. Some made claims of being cut off from their seasonal hunting grounds, others of more thievery and fires to tents. Others of maltreatment and false accusations.
Finally a man whom the Arch-Daion’s Ear knew personally came before him and for but a moment, the otherwise unflappable representative seemed to wheel one foot back on his heel.
“Echtu. My Son.” The older man’s face was equally as angular and determined, but his eyes softened with sorrow.
“I am no longer your son *in law*,” Echtu protested coldly.
“Not so. For you have *claimed* to have divorced my daughter. Indeed, you sent Mizna to us broken-hearted and destitute. As many of your tribe have done lately with their Turani brides, all of whom have been loving and faithful and deserved no such unkindness. You did not even send her back her dowry. Without return of her price, you do not fully satisfy the terms of divorce. So I will yet call you my son, Echtu.” Echtu’s father in law held up the stone in his hand. It was printed with the tribe of Turani on one side, and on the other, both the families of Mizna and Echtu. He did not drop the stone as the others had, but instead, bent low and made sure the stone touched Echtu’s own robe, resting on the hem.
Echtu felt hot ire growing in his belly and snapped. “We grow weary of hearing your tiresome complaints. Your tribe has become soft. Ever since you befriended the devils from the Outer darkness, you are full of plagues and the grit has gone out of your teeth."
The midwife could barely believe what she was hearing. Against her better judgement she protested. “You crush us daily and now you call us gritless?”
Echtu took one stride forward and dropped a heavy arm across her mouth. She fell back into the rest of her company.
“Show some respect while I wield the face of the Arch-Daion. You are gritless, and shifting. You make yourselves the victim of every little thing and then cry foul. Meanwhile you break the sacred code of blood! Is it not bad enough that all must make pacts with devils? Such is the Fiery one’s test of our world as they come out of the sky day after day. But you Turani co-mingle with them! You make our blood one with devils! Do you deny it?”
They stood silent. Realizing the entire invitation was never intended to carry their grievances but actually to ensnare them, Elani Nal interjected. “You have called us here under the precepts of Sunstorm Truce! There will be no further violence, or the Divine One will bear His witness for our sakes.”
“The Divine owes no one His witness.” Echtu drew a sword and his company followed suit from their mounts, raising hunting spears or knocking arrows. “The Divine One stands apart. You condemn yourselves in profane deed and word.”
As he spoke, many of the Turani had already turned to run, but for the most part they did not make it far. Grabbing her by her silvered hair, Echtu’s sword cut down the old woman first, and he felt the vindication course through him as the chief source of the offenses was ended in one swift slice. He pulled her strings of trinkets out like yanking the guts from a kill and wrapped them around his fist.
When he looked up again, he was faced by his father in law. Behind the old man the rest of the number was being stricken and collapsing in the sand in terror and pain.
“Fool! Why do you not run?”
As answer, his father in law reached to embrace Echtu, even knowing he would be embracing the sword in his own belly as Echtu’s response. Echtu punctured his wife’s father through the belly and then cleft the chest to the ribcage, feeling the weight of him fall against him and bleed hot into his white robes. He heard the old man cry out and gurgle and sputter into his own ear, and when he was still and heavy with death, shoved him back and away into the sand which drank up the pooling blood. The dark sand appeared black in the fading dusk.
Echtu surveyed the stillness of the bodies. For a moment he felt regret before he swallowed it back with righteous disdain. Etchu remounted his riding Beetle. “Leave them. The vultures will consume them down to the bone and pick the sand clean of their blasphemies.”
The air stirred with the wind of a storm moving in. Its howling masked the sound of a small cry from the ears of the Eight riders making a line down the dune, away from the site of the executions. The crying child was still a nursing babe, wrapped and concealed beneath the robes, clutched against his mother's heart as she had waited to present her grievances. Her stone was still in her fallen hand, an arrow through her back. Her little one had been full with milk and swaddled tightly, but now he grew hungry and stirred awake by disturbing sounds. The child emerged through the wrappings and pressed his face into his mother’s, patting her with urgent demand. But she did not move to sooth him with song or chide him or lift him up. The breath had gone out of her. The little one laid his pointed ear against her cheek and lifted a louder cry.
In the last vestige of Loki’s rays, the dark, thin arms of a stranger gathered the half-alien boy, defensively wrapped him in rags, and retreated beneath the shelter of the rock below to wait out the coming storm.
