From this viewpoint at the top of white cliffs, the sea far below is calm. Very close, lightning flashes in the smoke billowing out of the volcano across the bay, filling the sky and approaching rapidly. You try to concentrate. Guarding the subject is easy today, until it will not be. You feel yourself losing sight of the bigger picture. Guard the homeland. You have gathered here with your tribe at the appropriate time and place for a very specific reason. Yes, an offering is chained to the rocks below, the subject, but this is transpiring as custom requires. Prosperity in the new year is promised, for the rest. The priests are chanting and have begun their dancing. This will be over soon.
Except, the subject is your dearest love. Your entire affair has been conducted in secret, forbidden by law and custom, for obvious reasons. A guardian and a subject. There have been more farcical tales in the taverns than this one, but not many. You are pretty sure this is true love, true enough to forsake all you have ever known. Maybe custom needs to adapt.
It was not always like this. You were once a subject yourself, as everyone starts out. You and your beloved had met in school. Rigid social hierarchy and job placement programs worked against you both, but it was always easy to meet again in the parks or farms, in your free time. Later, becoming a guardian was a great honor, until it changed everything.
The priests fall silent. It is the end of the first incantation. Dark smoke has enveloped the entire bay, threatening to drift onto the homeland soon. The subject’s sacrifice will ensure that it does not. The assembled crowd behind you murmurs in prayer and anticipation. Understanding more now that they possibly ever will, you try not to fault them. The truth is painful and difficult. These are not gods. They are subjugators. They have stolen almost everything from us. Our lands. Our seas. The world above, where our ancestors were born.
Time, however, is running out. You stare at the wall of smoke, waiting. The cliffs are very steep, with enough mysterious well carved stairways and long caverns in its cliffside to possibly distract a person. Not today. You remain focused on the ceremonial altars, only 2 stories below. If you are not immediately challenged, this is a mere 28 steps. Perhaps, 15 seconds of running would suffice.
Your resolve falters. Lights are beginning to play in the smoke, projecting from the opposite side. You have witnessed what is supposed to happen next many times, but you do not chant with the crowd this time. Mists part. Your supposed god is seen in a new light of personal clarity. Mistakes have been made. Ironic training takes over and you recognize points of weakness for the first time. Your grip on your spear tightens.
The abomination thanks your village. This has never sounded more false. It reaches down slowly, with a practiced ceremony of its own.
Your beloved screams for mercy. Your name is shouted in such anguish, from a voice that should know only singing. This can not continue. You throw aside your robe and brandish your spear. All the blasphemies your father claimed to never say fall freely from your lips.
The abomination silently scratches a horn before bellowing in laughter. It says, “Okay, then. I do enjoy the entertainment of answering one of these challenges. When we are done, I shall consume your entire village. How does that sound?”
You raise your spear, and leap.