Deer Me: Adwanee Sands

by The Psychopath

Burning Glass

Author's Note:

Sorry for the delay in updates. Stuff happened IRL, preventing me from doing this chapter. Also, heat wave. Can't stand temperatures above 20°C/67°F.

Also, I'm developing the future of my second novel: Lux Locus: Familial Troubles while working on here as well.

Most of the time spent on the boat was uneventful, to say the least, save for what the Mer-Auder attempted to do, be it purposely or not. It nearly caused the ship to crash after reshaping the bedrock below it and raising it up for whatever reason that was known only to it. A storm also found its way onto the sea and delaying the trip by two days. Surprisingly, no one was lost and damages to the ship were minimal, if not nonexistent. The ghostly masts and sails helped with that quite a bit. By the fourth night, the ship had reached the borders of the territory of Saddle Arabia's waters. Atop an artificial mound upon a cliff stood a statue of a very thin horse wearing a cloth over its entire body and holding up a giant cup on its extended foreleg. The facial features were indistinct: A squarish muzzle, hairless head, clear eyes, and no mouth were left as the details for the stone.

"What is that?" Stelimus asked.

"That is one of the thirty-seven prophets of the Saddle Arabians' history," Hora answered.

"THIRTY-SEVEN?!"

"Yes."

"But aren't there supposed to be, you know, only one?"

Hora snorted in response. "No. What gave you such a stupid idea?"

Stelimus looked away and gnawed on his hoof a little bit. "Nothing." The deer tapped his chin briefly. "What are the thirty-seven supposed to be for?"

"I don't know. Ask the Saddle Arabians. I'm not here for that."

"But I thought, because you knew about that, that you would know the precise purpose these prophets had."

Hora raised an eyebrow and walked back to his crew, leaving Stelimus and the other guests on deck and making the deer king groan in annoyance. The closer they got to Niris, the hotter they became, and it was unbearable. Luckily for Stelimus, he had learned an interesting cast using frost essence several years ago and decided to use that to keep everyone cool. The frost on his antlers sparkled brighter and brighter until they erupted off the surface into a wide ball of blinding white and engulfing Copper and the rest of the deer. They all let out a sigh of relief as the 'micro-climate' Stelimus created allowed them to cool off gradually and find protection from the sun rays.

A few hours later, the boat started approaching the coastal line where a small port resided. Said port was pure white and made from various types of stone, but upon closer inspection, the stones turned black depending on the angle one looked at it. The pillars holding up the walkway appeared to be comprised of multiple vines of stone interweaving with each other on a large scale and leaving a hollow space within them. A large warehouse dug into the land to the right of the port received and released several merchant ships going in every direction and carrying whatever cargo the anyubinites made. The warehouse itself seemed just as hollow as the cabin of the ship Stelimus was on with the walls made from the entangling 'vines'. The four corners of its solid, black roof possessed elongated and smooth tiles that converged towards the corners extending outwards and ending in lilies of the Nile. They had a bizarre love for that plant, Stelimus thought. Multiple ships were docked either at the port or at one of the many micro-islands surrounding the area, giving a unique appearance to the seascape and showing that the anyubinites were capable of creating and using whatever it was they needed and wanted. The micro-islands had also been created by them as attested by the large ships of similar design using cranes and pulleys to drop sand and blocks everywhere on the sea. With a bit of force pushing everyone forward, the ship stopped and hit the pier slightly.

"We're here," Hora announced.

"Really?!" Copper shouted joyously.

She climbed on the edge of the ship, despite Stelimus' protests, and jettisoned herself onto the pier. Bouncing left and right, the mare noticed that something seemed off.

"Where's the welcoming committee?" she asked.

"They're over there, at the start of the desert," Hora explained as he pointed further outward.

Stelimus and Yolumay both shrugged as they followed Hora and the other two anyubinites through a hole between two rocky hills while the rest of the crew followed behind while carrying two wagons with four, thirty-gallon barrels of water in total. They had no issues carrying them and, despite the blazing heat, did not pant for even a moment.

"Wow," Yolumay said. "They're really made for this climate."

"Of course we are," Hora mocked. "What, did you think we came from some random area and somehow adapted to it? Like that's possible."

Stelimus coughed while Yolumay scratched her antlers. Once they passed the passage, they were met with multiple anyubinite soldiers wearing armor made some type of black scale that covered their torsos but avoided their arms that were, instead, covered in a semblance of sleeves by the same, seafoam green light. All the soldiers wore nemes headdresses of varying patterns and colors, yet they too were different than the Egyptian pattern Stelimus thought he had seen. Instead of solid cloth, they appeared to be made from an unknown, rough material that reflected black at any angle of the sunlight and did not move in the few breezes of wind that the desert bothered giving any of its inhabitants.

"Who are they?" Stelimus asked.

"They are our military escort."

"But...what about their own provisions?" Stelimus worried.

"It's included in ours."

"So we shouldn't worry about them?"

"No. Now let us away to the capital of Niris, where our Zaoris awaits to meet you."

Stelimus nodded and followed Hora once again, then it hit him: He was doing nothing but following again, just like way before when he was still a...well, he didn't really know what baby deer were called. He never went through basic schools like the others, at least, not in his pony form.

"He's very static when he talks, isn't he?" Copper noted.

"Yeah. Just point A to point B with him," Stelimus sighed.

"I hope his...Zoros is--"

"Zaoris," Stelimus corrected.

"Zaoris, isn't as static as him. I feel like I'm listening to a pre-made voice activated by a punch-card machine."

"I feel that this trip is going to be long and boring," Stelimus sighed.

"Adventure!" Radivus shouted atop his sister.

"Ugh..."

The blazing sun beat down upon the travelers in the desert and would have certainly cooked the 'tourists' were it not for Stelimus' spell, but the hotter it got, the more frost essence he needed to strengthen the spell, and it was getting very, very hot. Sand, sand, and more sand were the only things that were common landmarks here aside from the occasional broken monolith or what looked like the adjacent roof of a pyramid buried in the sand, pleading for help to get out of its prison, but its screams fell silent. The travelers continued their way across the dunes of gold, leaving the ruins and forgotten constructs to rest eternally in a tomb they never asked for. As if that weren't enough, even with their hooves and Stelimus' spells, the deer and ponies could feel their hooves burning up as if they were made of metal and being heated in a blacksmith's forge.

After climbing over dune number one thousand forty-seven, a city came into sight, in but a few hours, and what a sight to behold. Tremendous monoliths with the same design pattern as the support pillars of the pier were dotted at random around the landscape with several hundred buildings and homes surrounding the monoliths' bases. It piqued Yolumay's intrigue when she noticed this seemingly innocuous detail.

"Why do you all live around the monoliths?" she asked Hora.

The jackal raised an eyebrow in surprise and looked at the doe from over his shoulder. "You noticed?"

"Yes. Tell me," she ordered.

The jackal chuckled almost inaudibly. "Each monolith represents one god, goddess, or deity of death that we worship. Those who worship a deity live at the base of their respective monoliths."

"Are there those who worship several?"

"Yes, but we don't accept those kinds of anyubinites."

"What? Why not?!" Stelimus shouted.

The jackal growled, but not at Stelimus. "Those who worship many think they will have more chances to reach an after life if they please one god more, but by doing that, you condemn yourself to being without any afterlife and wandering aimlessly amidst the corridors between the gods' realities."

"But that's stupid," Copper complained. "What if they chose a god and discovered that their ideals aren't the same as theirs?"

"Then they must bend themselves to that god's ideals."

"Can't they change?"

Hora looked the mare straight in the eyes and spoke a single, almost death-implying tone: "NO."

Stelimus stomped in front of Hora and jabbed him hard in the chest. "Don't EVER talk to her or LOOK at her like that again, got it?!"

The soldiers around stopped and only watched the events quickly unfold before their eyes.

Hora shortened the distance between their faces and grinned. "Then don't ask questions you don't need answers to." He extended a finger and gently touched Stelimus' muzzle, then his grin faded. "Hm," he hummed as he looked at his finger. "Bizarre."

"I'm not my uncle."

"Oh, it wasn't for that."

"HORA!" Yolumay shouted.

"What is it?!" he growled.

Stelimus grabbed Copper and hugged her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

"Y-yes. Don't worry."

"I don't like these guys, and not just because of their culture."

"Why are you judging them all?"

"Because they all watched when Hora acted the way he did, meaning they approve in some manner."

"But that isn't a reason to hate them," Copper said.

"So why aren't there any deltas here?" Yolumay asked smugly. "You said there were deltas coming from the ocean and allowing your people to farm."

"The delta is underground. It opens up in many different areas rather than being a continuous line through the desert as the Saddle Arabians have."

"I see." There was a long moment of silence until Yolumay asked another question. "Anything we should know before reaching the capital...what's its name again?"

"Dreis." Hora wiped some sand off of his torso. "As for what to know, well-"

Comments

[Cereal-Killer]

Question: Is Anubis meant to be a character in this, or is he the equivalent of a titan, being the OG God of the Dead?

[Mix-up]

He never went through basic schools like the others, at lest, not in his pony form.

Wait, are reindeer some sort of pony in this world?

Also, is "lest" mean least by any chance?

I wander what they where expecting to get for a reaction form Stelinus?

[The Psychopath]

7564978 He is the equivalent of Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Movie.

7565107 It's 'Stelimus', not 'Stelinus'. And no. That was a typo. *Fixed.

[wildlander84]

67 degrees? Seriously, that's cool in my region.

[The Psychopath]

7566309 I know, but I can't stand temperatures above that. My preferred temperature range is between 12 and 17 degrees celsius.

[Cereal-Killer]

7566051 Oh. That's my favourite character

[wildlander84]

7566321 I don't think so well in Celsius, but preffered Fahrenheit range for me, when active anyway, would be 55-70. 85 is hot, but nowhere near intolerable. Problem is humidity. Even when it's cool, if you stay active and the sweat can't evaporate, overheating is a concern.

[mastermenthe]

The description of the warehouse and canal lost me, what do they look like?

Strange how these creatures speak of the gods of death as absolute fact, as though they have concrete proof. So many afterlifes, it feels like each god's reality is pocketed inside their monolith, and the lack of choice being implied as absolute fact rather than any consequence, it makes it feel as if these afterlife monoliths are not afterlifes, but fallout bunkers meant to shelter the spirits of the dead from something far worse.

[wlam]

Also, heat wave. Can't stand temperatures above 20°C/67°F.

I sympathize. I'm lucky I don't have a whole lot of regular work to do during summer and could spend most of the 38°C+ period sleeping days.

"Because they all watched when Hora acted the way he did, meaning they approve in some manner."
"But that isn't a reason to hate them," Copper said.

If "being a dipshit on a personal level" isn't reason to hate someone, what is?