They stopped outside the entrance of a tent located exactly at the centre. Time to meet the leader, Veda thought. She was thirsty as hell.
“Wait here!” the bearded man said, and went into the tent.
Veda held Pradeep’s hand and stood there, waiting.
“I don’t have a very good feeling about this,” she said to Pradeep.
“Every thing’s going to be all right,” he said, squeezing her hand.
She didn’t believe him.
But then, a man stepped out of the tent.
He was strikingly handsome, tall and muscular, perfectly built and gracefully poised. His dark hair fell to his neck and occasionally over his eyes as the wind blew in it. His eyes radiated such warmth and intelligence that it was difficult not to be drawn to them.
Veda suddenly was not even sure why she had felt the way she had before. A wave of relief seemed to wash over her.
There was nothing to worry about. Nothing to be anxious about.
She was no longer thirsty. Everything was all right with the world. The man looked at her and smiled and she found herself unable to avert her gaze.
Something dark and primal stirred in her. Something that pulled her to him; a desire to possess this man with all her life, and to submit her existence to him. An emotion that was raw and scarily dark at the same time.
The man smiled knowingly, and to her displeasure, shifted his gaze away from her towards Pradeep. Veda followed his eyes, until suddenly, out of the tent walked two magnificent beasts. Two boars that circled their master with obedience.
The man lifted his arms to his sides and smiled at both of them.
“The sinners welcome you!” the Purge Walker announced.
Roy opened his eyes to an upside-down world.
His head throbbed with pain. It felt heavy and stuffed.
The room surrounded him in reverse. He could see the muscular back of the shirtless Purohit in front of him. The Purohit was upside down too, like a vampire hanging magically from the floor that looked like a roof now. Roy looked above and realized he was hanging upside down. His hands were tied behind his back and his legs were tied together by a rope that hung from an arch at the end of the semi–circular floor. Roy suddenly coughed up blood from his mouth. His blood dripped into his nose making him choke and cough more. The Purohit turned back.
“Looks who’s awake. About time,” the Purohit said, popping one of those blue pills that Roy remembered from the sanctum.
“These things taste terrible,” he said, flinching as he bit the pill.
He walked up to Roy.
“How are you feeling now?”
Roy didn’t reply. The blood in his nose had caked up. His eyes and head hurt terribly. He moved his eyes upwards to look down. Beneath him was a vast chasm filled with humming and droning machinery. Rusted and clunky gears shifted to raise and lower disc-like platforms that rotated about themselves. The machinery moved around in a metallic dance of purpose and precision.
“Quite a sight, isn’t it?” the Purohit asked.
“The grand machinery behind the rings! The entire thing was designed by one of our best Avadhanis. The man was a genius,” he sighed.
“Too bad, just two days after he was done with the whole thing, he was gone.”
He walked towards Roy.
“Common death! The first Avadhani we had ever lost. It was then that we had realized that the pills were not perfectly effective. So tell me – whatever you name is –do you fear death?”
“My name is Roy,” Roy muttered through clenched teeth. “And you better remember it. Because I am going to fucking kill you.”
His hands went to work behind his back. His fingers fumbled around the lumps of coiled rope. The knot was nothing he hadn’t escaped from before, but he knew this would be difficult. It was far too tight and far too big.
“Spare me the rage, Roy!” the Purohit said, looking amused. “You and your band of cavemen have been enough pain in the ass lately. If anything, I should be the one who’s pissed off! You should be dead right now, you know that? The only reason that your sorry life still continues is because I am a reasonable man, Roy.
“You are the one who led the riots, aren’t you? You are not that much of a fighter apparently –didn’t stand a chance against me, but you are quick –I’ll give you that. Quick, young, and determined. Maybe a bit of a leader too, if you grow up. So here’s the deal. You ask your men to stop rioting, and co–operate with us in stopping the coming coup. I will let your men live. And the way I see it, I am going to need a new Dalapathy and a new Avadhani once this mess is cleared. You clearly are not bright enough to be an Avadhani, but with some luck, maybe you can be the next Dalapathy. Maybe you will even get access to the pills,” he said.
“We don’t need this war, Roy! People don’t have to die. The wastelands have plenty of things that kill us without us killing each other.”
Roy spat out blood.
“People don’t have to die?” he chuckled. “I watched the woman I love die, bleeding from a hole in her neck; because you and your bunch of religious nuts had judged her to be not worthy of living. I haven’t met someone who was fuller of life than her.”
He had found the tiny crack of space in the knot that he needed. His finger swiftly dug into it.
“I don’t want your fancy posts and stupid pills, you fission rat! I want justice,” he yelled.
“Fission rat? Looks like you were a Thuggee once. Any idea how I know this?” the Purohit asked. “Because I have survived in the wastelands longer than you have, and I know how everyone speaks, eats, shits, curses and even dies. I have built this colony from scratch, Roy; and I have given everything I have for this cause, so don’t you tell me about justice. Where do you think all these people would be if it weren’t for the towers? Huh? Out on the wastelands –starving, dying of radiation poisoning, becoming dinner to kinkars.
“C’mon answer me!” the Purohit screamed into Roy’s face. “I am trying to help them survive. Talk about justice to someone who is out there, drenched in the black rain, shivering in the cold –afraid of a purge and an attack from the kinkars in the night. See if he cares. The End Age has no justice except for Lord Kalki’s will!”
He walked towards the shining katana on the floor and picked it up.
“So, tell me what is it going to be,” he said, twirling the katana. “Are you willing to serve your God and lead a life of purpose or would you like a pointless death?”
The katana hung dangerously on the edge of the rope by which Roy dangled, above the chasm.
Roy’s fingers had done what they had done a lot of times before. The knot came loose. Roy looked the Purohit in the eye. There never was a choice.
“Since you seem to know so much about everything, guess where this insult comes from,” Roy said.
“EAT CRAWLER’S SHIT AND DIE, YOU WASTELAND PIG,” he screamed.
In a strong and swift stroke, the Purohit cut the ropes and Roy fell.
Years of bodily intuition and learnt quickness coursed through Roy as his arm instinctively reached out. His fingers painfully caught the edge of the moon-shaped floor outlining the chasm. His arm took the impact of his fall as his body slammed into the side of the column of shiny stone.
He grunted in pain. But he was alive.
He looked up and saw the Purohit standing on the edge, his face burning with fury. The Purohit swung the katana down, aiming to strike Roy’s hand. Roy quickly let go, grabbing the ledge with his other hand. The katana struck the ground with a loud twang. Roy saw the Puorhit recover from the recoil.
He quickly grabbed the foot of the Purohit with his free hand, and pulled. The man was heavier than he had anticipated. His body came crashing down, but onto Roy himself.
As their bodies collided, they tumbled off the edge and into the pit of machinery below. Just as Roy thought he would be ground into a ball of meat, their sudden fall was interrupted. He felt his body hit something cold and flat.
The room swayed in and out of focus as he rolled from the fall. As his vision steadied he realized that they had fallen onto the surface of one of those constantly moving and spinning discs that had happened to pass underneath them just as they had fallen.
The problem now was to stop himself from throwing up as the disc spun and the world whizzed past him in dizzying circles. He tried standing up but managed only to get on his knees. He saw the Purohit getting up, struggling barely to find his balance and then standing upright on the surface.
“It’s tough to stand up the first few times,” the Purohit said, facing him.
The world sped rapidly around them.
“Not as tough as not puking,” Roy said.
“I had thrown up all over the place when I was first supervising the construction,” the Purohit said, as he carefully walked towards the fallen katana that slowly skid outwards as the disc spun.
Roy crawled, when he realized he wouldn’t be able to walk faster than the Purohit here without some practice.
Luckily, his weapon was closer to him.
His hand had barely gripped the handle when the Purohit’s foot slammed into his chin. Roy’s body was thrown away from the katana as two of his teeth expelled out of his mouth. The Purohit picked up the katana and walked towards Roy.
As the Purohit came closer, suddenly there was a loud mechanical snap and the disc toppled and turned as its axis broke from all their tumbling and falling.
Both their bodies now painfully hit the surface of the disc like ragdolls as it toppled like an out of control joy ride. The disc looked like a spinning top in its last moments before stopping. Roy and the Purohit flailed their hands in a desperate attempt to hold on to something, but could only scratch across the smooth plain surface of the metal disc.
The disc tilted more and more until it broke free completely from its axis. Pieces of metal and stone fell from its axis into the pit, bouncing off the turning gears and moving levers and finally vanishing into the black depth of the pit. The harrowing sound of the metallic debris filled Roy’s mind as he slipped and fell.
He fell away from the now vertical disc and onto a moving lever. He felt something inside break as his body bounced and rolled off the lever and further downwards onto another tiny platform. He fell flat on his back onto the thin surface with a loud thud.
He groaned in agony.
There was a sharp stabbing pain in his back and right shoulder. Everything felt clumsy, painful and broken. He looked down and saw huge gears turning with brute force beneath the platform. Busy pulleys used the gears to raise and lower large blocks of stone connected via huge shiny chains.
Roy looked back just in time. The platform shook violently as the Purohit landed on it from nowhere, the katana still held in his hand. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead just above his right eye. Also, he had difficulty walking.
“Tell me, Roy. How does it feel to die by your own sword?” the Purohit asked as he limped ahead on the platform, with the katana raised.
Roy kicked him hard in the knee. The Purohit buckled and knelt.
Roy lurched forward.
“It’s a fucking KATANA,” Roy screamed as he head-butted the Purohit in the nose. He could feel the bone in the Puohit’s nose break and crumble.
The Purohit staggered backwards, bleeding profusely from the nose and looked disoriented for a moment.
But before Roy could get up, he charged ahead, screaming in rage and swung the katana straight at his heart.
Roy did the only thing he could think of. The only two choices he had were immediate death and fatal danger.
As the katana came down upon him, he quickly rolled off the platform into the pit below. He knew his right shoulder was not in a position to carry his entire body weight.
If he was not to fall to his death he has to use his left arm to break his fall. As he rolled off, he caught the katana by its blade, with his right hand, ignored the paralysing pain as it cut into it his palm and pulled it away from the Purohit’s grip. With his left hand, he stopped his fall and hung by the edge of the platform. His feet dangled just inches above the huge grinding gears below.
With the katana’s blade finally in his hand, Roy flipped it in the air, caught it by the handle and in one swift move, plunged it deep, right into the Purohit’s heart. Strangely, that’s when Roy’s pain began. As Roy hung there, his hand pushing the katana deeper into the Purohit’s heart, the platform of gears below him had moved. It rose upwards like a shark rising to devour its victim.
By the time Roy had noticed it, it was already too late. His right foot was now trapped in the monstrous turning gears. For a moment, he was motionless. His mind had numbed down all his thoughts. And after that there was only screaming as the gears turned, grinding his leg into a paste of meat and bone. Roy’s blood trickled down the gears like the essence of a fruit, flowing down a juicing machine.
The towers were filled with screams of pain as the Purohit clutched his pierced chest, crumbled and fell from the platform into the chasm below and Roy hung there, his leg being churned into mashed meat in the gears below.
THE CORRUPTION
The night was almost upon them now, dark and cloudy.
Pradeep hadn’t dreamt the night before.
Nothing seemed to bother him now. Only occasional spurts of extreme anxiety and cutting guilt that seemed to vanish as suddenly as they came. Veda seemed relaxed and happy too. And he was happy if she was.
He smiled at her as they both sat by a fire. Her eyes seemed to be searching for something else. Someone else.
Pradeep saw her eyes dart anxiously towards the Purge Walker’s tent. Was it anxiety or eagerness, he couldn’t make out.
“I am looking forward to the night,” he told her –maybe in an attempt to lure her attention away from the Purge Walker’s tent.
The Purge Walker had said there was something important he would like to talk to Pradeep about tonight. He remembered that it had made him feel special. Honoured.
“Me too!” she said. “You seem to like him. He’s something, isn’t he?” her voice seemed excited.
“Yeah. He’s a good leader, no doubt about that,” Pradeep said.
The men and women –the Sinners seemed happy.
Most of them anyway.
Things were strange though. But Pradeep couldn’t wrap his mind around why or what.
“The blood drinking is a bit weird, right?” he asked her, wondering why he had felt so now.
It had seemed perfectly all right when he had first seen the Sinners drink raw blood in cups. Blood of his horse, which they had killed and cut up in celebration of their arrival.
He and Veda had joyously joined the celebration. Everything felt liberating in this place.
But there was other blood too. Stored in huge vats and wooden cylinders placed by each fire. The Sinners sat by these fires, sipping the crimson juice in their small wooden cups.
He overheard them talking about the Beam, the fission, the Crawler’s curse and the one they called the true enemy. He knew some of the things they spoke about, but there seemed to be a sort of secretive air of truth to their voices.
“I want to try it once!” Veda said. “They all seem so content and happy. So devoid of worry!” she said. “I want to feel that once. Maybe it’s something in the blood. They are drinking raw happiness.”
Pradeep wasn’t sure what he felt. He was almost disappointed with her that she didn’t feel repulsed by the idea. He loved her nonetheless. But he sensed a bitterness inside him. A tiny sense of disgust, doubt and hatred towards her for a second.
“What’s the matter?” Veda asked him. “Are you all right?”
He shook his head.
“It’s nothing,” he lied.
It’s nothing, he then lied to himself.
“Are you ok with the boars? I mean…your face…” she paused.
“Yeah. They seem friendly. They are loyal and obedient to him. I almost feel safe with
them around,” he said. “You didn’t expect me to hold a grudge on all boars, did you?” he chuckled.
He hadn’t mentioned to her how they looked surprisingly similar in size to the beast that had ruined his face and those that had ambushed them before the purge. He didn’t want to look crazy.
He could already feel her thinking more about the Purge Walker than him. He didn’t want to lose her now.
This is not you, Pradeep. What’s gotten into you? He thought.
He had never worried about losing her before. Something seemed to have opened up the lid on all his insecurities and dark fears that he didn’t know lurked inside him.
Veda looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time.
“You seem different since we came here –you seem changed,” she said, frowning.
You too. He almost said that aloud.
“What do you mean?” he asked instead.
“I don’t know. It feels as if you are hiding things. There’s something uncomfortable in the way you … I don’t know. Just feels different,” she shrugged.
“Nothing’s changed. Maybe you need to rest a little more,” he said getting up.
He had hidden some things – that was true. He hadn’t told her about his dreams and the face in the sand that had saved their lives. He had planned on telling her, but something in this place makes him feel like a closed prison. Nothing seemed to escape him from inside.
“I need some air to clear my head. Going for a walk,” he said, bidding her goodbye without looking her in the eye.
He walked through the line of fires silently, hearing the fires crack and spit. The voices of men and women carried many stories, many dark dreams. He was engulfed in the spirit of this camp, breathing it all in. It felt suffocating and liberating at the same time. He felt like a zombie. Not alive yet content and numb. Strangely happy.
The cold of the night and the heat of the fires were alternating around him. He watched all of them. Some of the Sinless were sitting naked around the fires, drinking blood that dripped down their mouths that they blissfully licked from their hands.
He watched as two men got into a fight over something. One of them bit into the other’s neck and drove his fingers into his rival’s eyes laughing maniacally. The one whose eyes were now squashed human paste dripping into his sockets also laughed along with him. Pradeep’s feet didn’t stop. He walked along.
Sinners- The Dawn Of Kalki Page 19