Kiini Salaam - Ancient, Ancient

“The le-ish has been set K-Ush, you cannot change it. Now go take ho-resh-li.”

“I don’t want to be a wero anymore.”

“It is not a choice,” Wa-Sheya says through gritted teeth. “You will take ho-resh-li now.”

“But if all we have to do is be gathered in the same hola…”

“Go,” Sheya growls.

K-Ush lifts her hands and floats toward the hola.

At the entrance to the hola, K-Ush squats to dip her fingers into the large skik bowl and bless herself with sacred water. The heat of the hola rolls over her body. Without rising, she surveys the room. It is empty, as it should be. Besides K-Ush, the only objects present are the curved holy blade and the virgin. One glance at the virgin’s young skin and K-Ush returns to the first times she took ho-resh-li. Then Sheya had to enter the hola with her. Sheya would hold K-Ush down and force her to take the virgin. Patiently, she taught K-Ush to ignore his terror and absorb his wild galloping adrenaline. K-Ush shakes her head as if to clear it of the memories. She crawls to the center of the hola sickened by one truth: Wa-Sheya no longer has to force her to take ho-resh-li. It is now a need: K-Ush must partake or die.

Still squatting, K-Ush pulls the tie fastening her robe, and the thin cloth falls from her shoulders and rests bunched around her waist. The boy does not look. Everyone knows what a wero’s body is like. Flat chested, narrow hipped, hard and muscular. No fat, no curves, all lines and angles. K-Ush unfurls her index finger and slides the curved blade toward the virgin. It is her brand of kindness. Alive or dead it makes no difference to her. The virgin rises to his knees and pushes the knife to the side.

“You will do it the old way?” K-Ush asks.

“I will, and I would like permission to speak.”

“I do not grant it. I cannot hear another praise song.”

“I did not say I wanted to sing, I asked for permission to speak.”

K-Ush’s head snaps up at the willfulness in the boy’s voice. She looks at his face for the first time. He looks like any other virgin who gives himself for his village, yet there is something determined in the set of his jaw.

“Who taught you to speak to a wero in that fashion?” K-Ush asks.

“A wero.”

Incredulity lurches in K-Ush’s chest.

“No wero that I have ever known. Certainly not Wa-Sheya.”

“No.”

“And certainly not I.”

“No.”

“Then who?”

“The last wero.”

“I am the last wero.”

“There is another.”

K-Ush’s cheeks darken with rage.

“You tell lies. You may not speak.”

She grabs the virgin by the back of the neck and pulls him against her body. She wraps two of her arms around his waist and licks her lips. She pushes her moist mouth against a thick muscle cord in his neck. Her lips draw back and she attaches her teeth to his skin. The boy twitches in discomfort and involuntarily pulls away. K-Ush tightens her grip on him and deepens her tasting. The boy shudders beneath her mouth. His body stiffens, then bucks in surrender. She sucks harder, pinching his flesh between her teeth. The acid taste of blood seeps into her mouth. She draws away, abruptly releasing the boy. She falls back against the air and floats horizontally. With two hands, she pushes her robe past her waist. She kicks her monstrous feet, and the cloth falls in a thin puddle beneath her hovering body.

K-Ush looks at the boy. He rises up on his knees and begins to kiss her body reverently. The virgin’s lips roam over every inch of K-Ush from her bony ankles to her violently protruding ribs. His mouth is different from the others K-Ush has taken in the past. His mouth is not dry and fearful, instead it pushes heat into K-Ush’s skin.

“You are different,” K-Ush says.

“I am,” the boy replies. “Again, I ask for permission to speak.”

“Were I to give you permission, what would you say? Would you beg for your life?”

“No. I would show you this,” the boy says holding up his arm. There a circular hole dents the smooth skin of his inner arm. “And this,” he says, opening his legs so that K-Ush can see the same hole in one of his thighs.

K-Ush laughs. “You are begging for your life.”

“No. I was sent with a message.”

K-Ush rolls forward until she is lying—still hovering—on her side.

“What is it, young virgin? You may speak. What is it you wish to say?”

“In my village…”

“This is not your village?” K-Ush interrupts.

“No,” the boy says with a smile.

K-Ush licks her lips and adjusts her hips. “I am weary, you must speak quickly.”

“You need the ho-resh-li,” the boy says.

K-Ush says nothing. A brief silence unwinds between them. Finally the boy speaks.

“In my village I have given ho-resh-li twice. Once here,” he says pointing to his arm. “And once there,” he says pointing to his leg. “In my village, there are no such things as seekers. We know the truth of the ki-ra-he, and we know the lie of prophecy. In my village the wero live among us.”

“The walls of this hola have heard many stories. But none quite so fantastical as this one.”

K-Ush extends two long arms and draws the boy into the air over her body. She continues to hover as she clasps the boy under his chin and drags his head up to her eye level. She removes the metal band from her head and clasps it in her hand.

“M-M-M-May I say one more thing?”

K-Ush exhales a frustrated breath. “Still trying to delay your death?” She opens her thighs and guides the boy to enter her.

“I must… deliver… my message,” the boy says between thrusts.

“Deliver your message, young one. And deliver it fast,” K-Ush says anticipating the sweet daze of ho-resh-li entering her body.

“The last wero invites you to visit her village. We know you are unhappy here. We want to offer you a different life, away from Wa-Sheya’s lies…”

K-Ush rams the metal band into his spine. Lightening quick, the band stretches, stakes him through his back, and exits through his stomach. The band seeks K-Ush’s navel. When it connects, an electric current snakes out of her body into the virgin’s, spurring all his internal organs into arrest. His breathing halts, his blood suspends circulation, and his brain quits. K-Ush drains all his energy, devouring it, not with joy, but with revulsion. His body—heavy with death—pushes K-Ush closer to the ground. She allows herself to fall back against the floor. Pure energy thrums through her veins. Her tongue swells, the taste of blood fills her mouth. She cannot free herself of the virgin. The band will not contract until all his energy is depleted. Powerless to move, K-Ush lets out a roar that silences all sound echoing in the dogra and instantly calls Sheya back from sleep.

As Sheya ushers K-Ush out of the hola, she again whispers something about the storm.

“No one ever died from a little water,” K-Ush snaps.

“I fear this one will be…”

But K-Ush does not hear the rest of her mentor’s words. She is rushing to lose herself in trance before the boy’s joints stick and his muscles grow cold. She does not want to think of the world he offered her. Her eye rolls back in its socket, her lips tremble, and prophecy flows from her like tears.

K-Ush offers prophecy hour after magnificent hour with a certainty that is terrifying. When the pain returns, K-Ush wonders if the ki-ra-he can bring pain as well as pleasure to her body. She wonders if this is the moment she should resist. The searing hurt obliterates any further thought. She does not call out to Sheya. Instead she retreats deeper into her trance. Her channeling voice continues booming out prophecy, but the aching throb does not let her go.