Warning: reference to blood and war.
We leave our unclean garments on the rocks outside before we enter the shrine. When we come out, they will be washed by the silent servants. The temple is lit by a serenade of candles. The floor slopes gently down and at the bottom is the lake. It ripples green in its own light. An algae of some kind grows at its bottom and this throws a light that makes the uneven roof of the shrine look like some drowned ship.
The gong rings clear as sound and we line the edge of the lake like bowling pins. The priestess crawls out from the mouth of one of the many caves that line the rock face like bullet holes. She is bent and twisted by time and the tattoos on her parched skin have faded to almost white. Her scalp is shaved clean and her eyes are blindfolded with a black cloth. She is held on both sides by acolytes and on her ankles drag manacles chained together. It is said that everyone of these women, who see this god, is mad.
You feel the shudder ripple through all of us. She is placed on a seat near the edge of the lake. She opens her hands and a bloody eye stares with menace at us.
"You who seek the distant stars have come beseeching he who sleeps for powers to ford the great water. He who sleeps do not like being disturbed over trivial matters like your hungers for the thing that will kill you but this time he will make an exception. But you must sacrifice! Blood must flow from your veins!" The witch muttered then she cackled as if to an inside joke.
We are ready. We know the drill. It takes blood to call blood. Blood is the currency of power. We bow and the acolytes move among us, doing their sacred deed. Not a single whimper leaves our lips. We are warriors. We have defeated the foreigners in their big ships to the south. We know they will return unless we go to their homes and bring justice and vengeance upon them as our laws demand. We are ready.
The crone cackles loud as she holds up the calabash and drinks deep and long then she rises. She spreads her arms wide and does benediction on us all. From the placid lake, a ripple begins and a bulbous thing rises from the water. It is black as the earth and big. It rises high enough for us to see its eyes, wide as a moon each. Then like whips, tentacles snatch at our legs and lifts all of us from the ground. Not one of us struggles. Not one of us yells.
As we fall into the lake, the water grabs at our lips, our throats, our lungs. We fight to keep air in, to find air outside and we cannot. We are blacking out, thrashing in the human attempt to survive when suddenly there is a hush and we are thrown out of the water. We land on the floor only to find a bright light staring at us. We cough and splutter before we are clear enough in our heads to see what it is we are looking at. It is another woman dressed in all black, a faded veil covering her face. The old crone is nowhere to be found.
This woman looks at us scattered across the floor like bombed debris. She points at a door but says nothing. We struggle to our feet and walk in silent to this door where no door should be. The door stands just above the edge of the lake. We each jump through and land in a room filled with weapons of war. We grin. This is our first sound since we left our homes. We select what suits our specific skills. In a corner a silent servant carries a calabash from which he brings out a charm and gives to each of us.
"You will die in this fight you seek in so much haste. Maybe some of you will survive. Maybe this will open your eyes to the world outside your constant bickering for power. Maybe this will be a lesson as to the foolishness that is war but I am but a woman, albeit a voice of my goddess. I cannot quench your thirst for blood. My patroness has blessed these weapons. They will help save some of you. But this people you seek have perfected the art of carnage and they also know how to tell stories of valiant heroes even if these heroes are but monsters." The veiled woman says from the doorway.
We pause and stare at her. What are we to do? Go back home to our now silent wives and speak of failure into their cold bosoms? Go back to our salted farms and try to grow the bones of our loved ones out of memory? Drink the brine of our tears in the dark of our quiet castles? What is she talking about? We look at each other. We have already signed our deaths the moment we left our boats burning on the now far shore. We cannot go back. We can only go forward. We can only hope that somewhere in this wide world that we are coming to know, there will be a people who as much as they will try, will not forget us and the horror we will visit on them and theirs.
We square our shoulders and face the wall. It opens like an old wound, raining dust and stones on us. We step through and on the other side are boats berthed, waiting to be sailed. We catch the wind on our skin and shaved scalps and we smile. We may not return but we will leave a bone in the foreigner's throat. He will not drink water without feeling us lodged there. Amin. The wind takes us away.
WHO WINS WHEN WE FIGHT?
One thing that empowers winning is when we are determined and make up our mind to accept what may come out of us, it was a great courage, they had for still continuing into the war, after hearing what, the seer has told them. "That they are only lighting their death themselves".
A richly told story, full of powerful imagery. The people are thirsting for war, and even though they are told it is pointless, they still go forward.
Please remember to read and comment on the work of other members of the community, @warpedpoetic. As always, we ask everyone who publishes in The Ink Well to read and comment on at least two other stories for each one published. Thank you!
Yeah we fight wars in spite of knowing it will solve nothing.
It seems the priestess is a leader that the people look to for guidance. One wonders why she is manacled!
Well it is often seen that seers and holy ones of gods are prisoners as well in the sense that they are not allowed out of their god's abode. In this case, the priestesses of this god are considered to be insane and dangerous.
Wow, so interesting! I assumed it was something like that, but thanks for clarifying, @warpedpoetic.
Dear @warpedpoetic, we need your help!
The Hivebuzz proposal already got an important support from the community. However, it lost its funding few days ago and only needs a few more HP to get funded again.
May we ask you to support it so our team can continue its work this year?
You can do it on Peakd, ecency,
https://peakd.com/me/proposals/199
Your support would be really helpful and you could make the difference! Thank you!