Chapter 12

Ishar's eyes fluttered open. The sun was directly overhead and its golden glow blinded him for a moment. He blinked away the discomfort and sat up, observing his body. There was a handprint on his chest right above his heart, he wondered where it came from and by doing so, memories of the night he met a God came flooding into his consciousness. Ishar recalled the visions he'd witnessed when Ovek had placed his hand on his chest, he remembered making a pact with the God, giving him his sanity? He couldn't be certain, it all felt like a dream.

Ishar looked around him, he was still in the clearing of trees but the whole place was bare. He stood up and walked to the place where there had been a fire the previous night and found nothing but shallow underbrush. No ash. No half burnt wood. No evidence that there had been a fire. He walked around the clearing, inspecting the ground for paw prints of the Yendw wolves that had chased him and trapped him. Ishar found not a single paw print, there was no evidence to support the encounter he'd had with the God Ovek save the hand print on his chest.

"I was hungry last night." Ishar said to himself, speaking out loud. "I was afraid I won't find the sheep, I obviously got delusional and slapped my chest, hence the hand print." He walked around in a circle with his hand twirling a nonexistent beard upon his chin. "The self inflicted slap might have been a little harder than I'd intended and I might have passed out from the pain and the visions must have been a result of delusional sleep." He tilted his head back and laughed, he laughed hard at the nonsense he was trying to make sense of.

"Gods! Why would I slap myself on the chest?" He said in between laughs. "And why would I give my sanity away to a God? Does such a thing even make sense?" His laughter was cut abruptly short when he recalled what Ovek had said concerning his parents. Could I really have dreamt all that? Did my father really die with an arrow sticking out of his arse? He wondered. Ishar started laughing again. "An arrow sticking out of his arse! Gods dammit!" He said aloud while laughing.

After a while his laughter stifled and a brief silence ensued in which he recalled giving his sanity away to the God Ovek, he thought over the matter and concluded that the encounter with the God was a dream yet a part of him couldn't deny the fact that it was an extremely vivid encounter to be passed off as a dream. Have I gone insane? Ishar brushed the thought away. A mad person wouldn't know that they are mad, the mere fact that I'm questioning my sanity goes to prove that I am as sane as a man could possibly be.

He puffed out his chest in confident defiance of any assumptions of insanity. He then looked at the palm print on his chest, he lifted his right hand and tried to fit it onto the palm print but found it to be too small a fit. Ishar shrugged his shoulders, Cheke probably slapped my chest yesterday in anger. He perked up at the thought. Yes, it was definitely Cheke's hand print. I'm not going insane. Ishar assured himself.

Ishar observed the trees and the position of the surrounding Talisi hills, he picked up on his current location that was a little distant from the path he normally took to the sheep's' grazing hill. Ishar decided he'd just call it quits on the search for the sheep and instead go home and have something to eat. Sure, his Cheke had declared that he'll sacrifice him if he failed to return with the missing sheep but he was confident that on his way back he'll figure out a solution to the predicament and with that, Ishar started a steady march back home.

Besides, the old man can't sacrifice me, he needs me to grow into adulthood so he can cut off my hands and get a good price for them. The thought came bubbling up Ishar's conscience, it startled him and stopped him in his tracks. He had a moment of trembling rage and he quickly suppressed it. It was just a dream. He assured himself and resumed his journey, quickening his pace.

Ishar passed familiar trees and logs lying on the ground. He remembered running past the trees and jumping over the logs but he suppressed such thoughts as a side effect of hunger, his stomach growled at the mere thought of starvation and it served as a morale booster to power on his steps. After a while he came across the path that led to the grazing hill and his proximity to home had him breaking into an abrupt run.

Ishar's quick sprint led him to the hill with the wooden house sloppily perched on its side. He let out a shout of excitement after spotting the hill and immediately ran up it. Ishar did not know where the excitement was coming from, he did not quite understand what he felt but he passed it off as excitement under the prospect of food. An old man dressed in red robes emerged from the wooden house and observed Ishar coming up the hill. The man then turned around and went back into the house emerging later with a machete.

"Cheke!" Ishar exclaimed with joy when he was close enough to the old man. Veste looked at Ishar in the same manner a man would observe excrement stuck to the bottom of his shoe.

"Where is the sheep?" Veste asked, flexing the hand that held the machete.

"Aaaaah, the sheep, yes." Ishar said. "I'm going to be honest with you old man because I know you are wise beyond your age and with wisdom comes a great appreciation for honesty." Ishar paused, "I have absolutely no idea where the sheep is." A short silence ensued in which Veste's eyes narrowed at the young man before him. "I'm hungry, let me grab a little something to eat then we can.." Ishar didn't finish his sentences as a hot slap landed on his cheek.

Normally a slap or any hit from Veste usually sent Ishar sprawling onto the ground and curling up into a ball, this time it didn't. Ishar stood his ground and raised his hand to his throbbing cheek. "You loud mouthed fool, you disappear for a night and half a day then come here sputtering nonsense with your loose tongue, without the sheep for that matter!" said Veste "I will.."

"Can you hit me again?" Interrupted Ishar.

"What?" Veste asked, confused.

"That slap just now," Ishar started. "It was violent and abrupt but behind it I felt a rage and hatred so pure emanating from you, it was so beautiful!" Ishar tilted his head back and laughed. "By the Gods, I wish to experience it again, I sort of liked it, can you hit me again?" Veste took a step back from Ishar, his hands slightly trembled and he held on tighter to the machete to still the jitters .

"Can I ask you something Cheke?" Ishar asked, lowering his hand from his cheek. Veste maintained his silence, his eyes never leaving Ishar. "Is it true that you've raised me for the sole purpose of cutting off my hands and selling them for ten gold vigons?" Veste gasped, he raised his machete before him, putting it between him and Ishar. The old man was clearly startled, every breath he took and every movement he made assured Ishar of the truth, that he was indeed an investment.

Ishar curled his fists in a fit of odd rage. A rage he didn't quite understand. He felt pain well up within him but he lacked the words to define it, it was an odd sort of pain, foreign yet familiar at the same time, as if it was something he had experienced in another life. The boy and the old man stood outside the wooden house staring at each other, Ishar took a step towards Veste and the old man lunged with the machete. It was an abrupt movement, as abrupt as the slap Ishar had received but somehow Ishar saw the machete coming before Veste had even moved his weapon wielding hand.

Ishar saw Veste in a new light, bathed in fear. Fear For his safety, fear of confronting an insane man and a scoop of hatred plastered the fear that Veste felt. It all bundled together before Ishar and formed a thought that was impulsive and the impulse resulted in an action. Ishar could see the action, he could see the swing of the machete, he could see it arc in the air towards his neck and it all happened before Veste had swung the machete.

Ishar ducked beneath the swing and the machete missed. Ishar caught Veste's arm on the reverse swing and slammed the old man's arm on the wooden wall of the house. Veste let out a groan of pain and dropped the machete. Ishar picked it up and without hesitation, without doubt or second thought, dismembered Veste's right hand. The old man screamed and dropped to the ground, grabbing at the bleeding stump where there was once a hand.

Ishar picked up the dismembered hand and tried to fit it on the hand print on his chest, the hand didn't fit, its palm was too wide and its fingers too small. Ishar dropped the hand and turned to the screaming old man on the ground "How does it feel? I can sense your pain, it's raw and riddled with fear, don't worry, I won't kill. You did raise me after all." Ishar said. "Did you ever once consider what it would feel like when your hand is severed from the rest of your body? I didn't think you had so I wanted you to have an inkling of the experience."

"YOU ARE MAD!" Exclaimed the old man in between screams of agony.

"No, I'm not mad." Declined Ishar. "If I were mad I would have dragged you and locked you into the latrine like you always did to me, then I'd burn the shrine you've built for Meena in your room and bring down this whole house that's a symbol of the pain and suffering I've endured under the hands of a hateful old man."

Ishar thought over the words he'd spoken, a smile grew across his face from ear to ear. Veste went abruptly silent at the look on Ishar's face. Ishar approached his Cheke and brought the hilt of the machete down on the old man's head. He repeatedly hit him until Veste lay limp beneath him. Ishar then took a hold of the old man's whole hand and dragged him to the latrine beneath the hill and locked the latrine with Veste's unconscious body in it.

Ishar then made his way back to the wooden house, he gathered his belongings which weren't much and could fit in a bed sheet. He wrapped the bed sheet into a makeshift bag and grabbed some stale bread, mutton and some oil from the kitchen that also served as his sleeping chamber. He then went to Veste's room where the red shrine to the Goddess Meena lay. He observed the numerous red candles that were always lit around a wooden curving of the Goddess.

Ishar poured the oil onto the shrine and watched as it erupted in flame. Really pretty. He thought as he observed the building fire. He then exited the wooden house as the fire started licking at the wooden panels that lined the house's interior and went to the sheep's pen, releasing all the sheep. Ishar then sat cross legged on the ground before the house while devouring the mutton and bread with the sheep spread out upon the hill watching him and the burning house. He watched as the flames spread and engulfed the house, he listened to the crackling of burning wood and observed the smoke rising high into the sky. "I really am crazy." He said and chuckled.

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