Chapter One: Blood Sacrifice
Written by Jeff
Thirteen stone slabs jutted from the ground concentrically like colossal, jagged fingers breaking upward through the soil. Each slab stood taller than a man, leaning slightly outward from a shared center where a bonfire illuminated the darkness of night. Against the thirteen slabs stood thirteen bodies, upright and still, awaiting the ritual with nervous anticipation. The night was already hot and thick with humidity, and the fire felt oppressively warm against their naked bodies, nearly singing their hair with its grasping tendrils. The moon sat full and round in the sky above, blotting out the stars with its luminescence.
A hooded figure moved into the circle of towering stones and made little effort to avoid the licking edge of the fire. The figure moved with an air of concision, taking slow, deliberate steps from one stone to the next, momentarily placing a red, faceted gem against each person’s forehead. Once the stone had graced the flesh of all thirteen, the figure reached beneath its robes and pulled out a great fang the length of an entire arm. The base had been whittled into a handle that could be grasped by two hands, and one side of the fang was sharpened to an edge like a saber. The hooded figure purified the great fang in the flames for a long moment and then stepped towards a young man who stood with teeth clenched and neck muscles bulging. Again, the figure held out the red gem, hovering it over the man’s chest and arms, honing in with the instrument until veins began to protrude from the right bicep. With swift precision, the hooded figure used the edge of the great fang to slice along the raised flesh, causing dark red blood to pour out from beneath. The man made no sound as the fang separated his skin.
The hooded figure moved on to the next slab and the next body to the right, repeating the process with the stone and fang. This was a young woman, eyes brimming with an equal measure of fear and anger, and she growled at the figure as he slit her lengthwise beneath her left breast, sending streams of dark liquid down her navel. As the blood spread across her stomach, it did not drip to the ground but instead moved unnaturally towards the stone slab behind her, as if gravity pulled the liquid sideways instead of down. The blood pooled against the rough stone surface for only a moment and then was absorbed like water seeping through soil, the slab drinking deeply and greedily, as if it could not consume enough to quench its ancient thirst.
Once blood had been drawn from all thirteen bodies, the hooded figure held the bloody fang to the sky and emitted a piercing, shrieking tone that echoed through the silent night. The fang was purified in the flames once again, and the blood burned away from the blade in a cloud of red smoke, leaving the fang pristine and white beneath. The hooded figure sheathed the great fang beneath their robe and exited the circle of stones, replaced moments later by two men with long wooden spears with stone tips. The men wore simple hide wraps around their torsos and vests of mail made from tough reptilian scales that glistened in the firelight. Around each of their necks hung medallions, roughly round and fastened with ropes of tightly-woven reeds. The medallions refracted light from both the fire and the moon, reflecting it across the wary bodies propped up against the slabs as the men moved around the fire for inspection. Twelve of the thirteen bodies still stood upright and taut, but the woman who had been sliced across her midsection had crumpled to the ground with eyes closed and arms slack. The two men placed their spears in the coals until the tips glowed red, then began to crudely cauterize any wounds that still bled aggressively. One of the spearmen picked up the woman from the ground and splayed her against the stone again, holding her in place with one hand as he brought his scorching spear against the incision on her stomach. The flesh singed, but she did not flinch or make a sound. The man shook her angrily and struck her across the face, shouting, but she still did not stir. With a huff of annoyance, he flipped her limp body forward and it fell into the fire. The other twelve still standing averted their eyes, looking up into the sky at the moon that hung above them, trying to ignore the intrusive sounds and smells. The moon, once white and opalescent, was now stained with a tinge of red.
The men with spears marched the remaining twelve through the dark night back to their compound, with one guard positioned at the front of the group and the other in the rear. The group walked single-file through a gap between stacked stone walls, and once everyone was inside, the men with spears remained stationed in the doorway. The stone barricade stretched in a wide semi-circle until it met with natural cliff walls, sealing in a roughshod courtyard and aboveground cave dwelling at its center. The barrier here served two purposes: To prevent dangerous animals from the dense jungle below from getting in, and to prevent those living inside from getting out.
Weak and exhausted, the twelve men and women lumbered up through the barren courtyard to the jutting white rock dome that stood at its highest point. They passed through natural archways into the exposed caves and crashed down into their individual sleeping areas, where sparse piles of palm leaves only slightly cushioned their bodies from the harshness of the stone floor. Within moments of laying down, all twelve were deeply asleep.
In the compound, things moved even more slowly than usual in the days that followed a blood sacrifice. Some of the inhabitants slept for an entire day or more, and spirits were communally low, but aggression was usually abated during this time because of low energy. It would be a few days before the residents of the compound grew restless and agitated, revitalized enough to resume their endless and futile attempts at displaying dominance over one another.
These were the days that Ja preferred most, the days when his guard didn’t need to be raised quite so thoroughly, and the next sacrifice was an entire moon away. These days never seemed to last long enough.
A few afternoons after the ritual, the guards brought in their daily armfuls of tamfruit, letting the rough-skinned spheres fall gracelessly and clunk against one another, rolling across the dusty ground. Several of the men from the compound rushed the pile of food and pushed at each other to grab the spheres at the center first, though they easily could have grabbed any of the fruit on the edge with no provocation. As always, Ja waited until last to take his portion, making sure that the others were already tearing away the husks and digging into the soft, flavorless flesh below before securing fruit of his own.
Whoever built this compound had gone to great effort to fashion a large table out of stone in the courtyard, carving away seats and a place for feet to rest beneath the long, flat surface. For all that work, few of the inhabitants here sat at the table; the majority of the men ate on their bottoms in the dirt, hunched protectively over their food even though there was more than enough to go around. Ja preferred to sit at the table with the two women in the group. There had been a third woman, but she had fallen during the blood sacrifice. Ja did not know her name. She hadn’t used one. Few in this group did.
Ja reached out for the shallow stone bowl of dried spice leaves that he kept at the edge of the table and found that it was empty. It had been nearly full the day before. He grimaced. Procuring the spice was a nuisance, as he had to convince one of the guards to go with him to gather it. The guards preferred adding flavor to their tamfruit as well, though, so one usually agreed to chaperone Ja as he foraged outside the wall of the compound for the plants. Instinctively, Ja knew what had happened here - knew he shouldn’t take the bait - but finding the spice bowl empty agitated him, and so he stood and addressed the group without thinking it through.
“Where is the spice?” he asked using hand language, knowing well enough to keep his mouth closed.
The men hunched on the ground began to snicker and sneer, and one of them got up and walked towards Ja with shoulders squared in a sign of intimidation. The man held out his opened tamfruit to Ja’s face and the flesh inside was more green than white, the entire supply of spice leaves mashed and mixed in with the fruit. The man took a heaping handful of the mixture and crammed it into his mouth, then chewed maniacally in Ja’s face, green leaves and stems sticking between his broken, yellow teeth. That much spice at once must have tasted disgustingly bitter, inedible, but that didn’t faze the antagonist, who put another messy handful in his mouth with wide eyes and an intimidating grin.
Ja stepped back and brought together his shoulders in submission, signaling an apology with his right hand. The man took one more menacing step forward and then belched out a laugh that sprayed white fruit and leaves against Ja’s chest before turning and sitting back down in the dirt. Ja scolded himself silently. He was a fool to have spoken to the group like that. There was little he could do to protect himself against any of the men here. Why would he risk provoking them like that? He was many seasons younger than all of them, just barely a man, slight and lean with no real muscular strength. He’d only recently gotten hair beneath his arms and on his upper lip; the others sported scraggly beards and were taller than Ja by a head, with thick arms that could overwhelm him in an instant. Ja kept his eyes downcast and stepped back to sit at the table for another bland, flavorless meal.
As he ran his fingers along the inside of the fruit husk, light refracted off of Ja’s hands and he looked up at the entranceway in the stone wall, knowing the guards were approaching. The sun was shining off their medallions, sending skittering rays of light across the table as the guards drew closer. They were leading an unfamiliar woman by her arm. In stark contrast to the naked bodies in the courtyard, she wore hide clothing stretched across her torso and waist. Ja knew why she was here: A new castaway was being deposited in the compound to replace the body that had fallen during the blood sacrifice. There were always thirteen.
The woman looked around the encampment frantically, making no effort to hide the fear and confusion on her face, and the men who sat in the dirt ogled and grunted at her inelegantly. The guard leading her by the arm pushed the woman towards the remaining tamfruit that lay strewn across the ground and gave her the hand sign to eat, then turned and walked back to the entrance in the barricade. Ignoring the men wallowing in the dirt, the woman snatched one of the hairy, tan fruits from the ground and walked over to the table, taking a seat directly across from Ja.
She peered around the courtyard and at its inhabitants, and at first, it seemed as though emotion might get the better of the woman and that she would begin to weep, but she steeled herself and swallowed hard, fighting back the impulse. Her face hardened and she looked over at the men sitting in the dirt, all of whom were still gawking at her, before turning her face down to the stone table.
“Savages,” she muttered under her breath. “Naked and eating in the dirt like savages.”
“Keep your voice down,” said Ja, barely above a whisper. “Don’t let them hear you speak.”
The response made the woman flinch back with a start.
“You speak?” she said in a quiet gasp. She looked him over curiously. “I was told no one here could use language.”
“None of them can,” said Ja, still not meeting her eyes. “And they dislike those who do. It would be safest for you to only use hand language while you are here.”
The woman looked pensive. “We rarely used hand language in Orn,” she whispered. “Everyone there speaks. I wouldn’t know how to communicate using only my hands.”
“You won’t do much ‘communicating’ here,” he said with a sigh. “You’ll only need hand signs to show deference and submission. These people do not have conversations.”
“You speak so well, but I never saw you in Orn. Where did you come from that you learned language...and how did you end up here?”
“I learned language here,” Ja said solemnly. “I was taught by a man named Pall, a castaway from your community, like you. I was brought here as a child. My parents died looking for community. I had not learned speech then - my parents barely knew it themselves - so I was brought here, same as every other non-speaker the community finds. Pall taught me language, raised me here, looked after me. I am only alive today because of him.”
“I remember Pall,” she said. “From when I was a girl. He was a tracker, but he was badly injured on a hunt, and then I never heard of him again.”
“Yes, he was badly burned by the fire on the mountain,” said Ja. “Lost half of his arm and was never able to walk well again. When he could no longer hunt, they sent him here for the blood sacrifice, and he lived for many seasons after his injuries. He survived many rituals. Pall lived here longer than any other.”
“Where is Pall now?” she asked, looking around the courtyard. “He would remember me, I think. I could use a friend here.”
“Eventually, he fell,” said Ja somberly. “As will we all. Pall could not survive the ritual forever. He fell four moons ago.” Ja’s eyes finally raised to meet hers. “And you could use a friend here. Pall was my only friend. He protected me.” Ja’s eyes narrowed and peered at the men in the dirt, who had resumed wrestling with one another for the remaining tamfruit. “The blood sacrifice is not the only way one falls in this place.”
She nodded understandingly. “My name is Kaia. What is yours?”
“Ja.”
“I know I just arrived,” she said bashfully, “but maybe you could be my friend?” She slid her hand across the table and placed it discreetly on his, and Ja felt all of the hairs rise on his arms and legs. No one had touched him with kindness for as long as he could remember. He pulled his hand away and dropped his eyes forlornly back to his half-eaten fruit.
“I will try.”
Though he was sure an attack would happen that evening, Ja did not warn Kaia beforehand, as he would need the element of surprise if there was any chance of interceding. When the sun dipped below the cliff face and shadows stretched across the courtyard, Ja went around the edge of the caves to the back of the compound where a dying tree stood. He checked for onlookers before plunging his arm into a hollowed-out branch. Hidden inside was the stone knife Pall had shown him how to fashion, with a sharp edge and tip and a grip of braided tamfruit husk. It had been hidden here since before Pall fell, and though Ja had considered using it several times to defend himself, he’d never had the courage - or the certainty that he needed it - until now.
Sure enough, as soon as night filled the interior of the cave, four dark bodies began slinking inelegantly towards the area Kaia chose to set up her sleeping palms, next to Ja and on the other side of the cave from everyone else. Kaia could sense the men approaching and froze with fear, and when their heavy breathing was nearly upon her and her heart began to seize, a whoosh of air came past her face from the opposite direction and a shriek filled the sleeping chamber. She jumped up to a crouch and could see the altercation playing out as dark figures silhouetted against the moon. Ja had cut one of the men, who had now drawn back, one hand pressed against his ribcage and the other shaking furiously in the air. A second man tried to slam down both hands against Ja’s head, but he dashed away and stuck the blade into the man’s side. This attacker also screamed and skittered off, and Ja waved the knife defensively in front of them, warding them away with its edge. The other two men made feigned attempts at further attacks but clearly did not want to be sliced themselves, backing away as soon as Ja pointed the knife in their direction. Kaia moved up to Ja’s side from behind him, snarling furiously and ready to strike anyone who dared come close. This violent pantomime continued until sunrise, when the two bleeding men finally crashed back down into their palms exhausted, and the two uninjured men simply lost interest. Kaia and Ja sat awake with their backs against the wall, muscles aching and knife still extended, though the threat had subsided for now.
Ja had worried that defending himself with the knife would make him marked for death among the other men in the compound, but once they started wrestling with each over the daily pile of tamfruit, he realized that their aggression lacked any real focus and longevity. Their lives were filled with tiny battles that were constantly won and lost, and the end of one altercation only meant the promise of another. Still, they knew that Ja had a weapon now, knew that he posed a threat, and that would surely change the dynamic. He would need to keep the knife close to him at all times, but couldn’t risk the guards seeing it. Tools of any kind - especially weapons - were strictly forbidden inside the compound.
Kaia spent that day weaving a skirt for Ja out of palm leaves, similar to the hide wrap she wore around her own waist. They were able to gather the leaves from one of the few living trees inside the courtyard and no one paid them much attention as they did, as everyone relied on the palms for bedding and wiping themselves, among other uses. The two sequestered themselves in an unpopulated corner of the compound, and surprisingly, no one bothered them once they were out of sight and thus out of mind. Kaia began the weaving, showing Ja how to stack and twist the strips of leaf, and soon he was contributing to the project as well. It took the majority of the day to complete the skirt, ensuring it stayed in place while Ja moved, didn’t restrict his movement, and kept the knife tucked away from sight beneath. He inserted the blade between the overlapping pattern of braided palm leaves to keep it secure, and though you could barely see the gray of stone replacing certain squares of green on the outside of the skirt, both Ja and Kaia were confident that the guards wouldn’t notice.
With the rest of the sunlight, the two took turns napping in their secluded corner of the courtyard with the other keeping watch. This small bit of rest gave them enough energy to spend another entire night defending themselves, as the men predictably gathered in the moonlit cave to attack once again. But as their shadows crept to the other side of the cave a second time, they found Ja waiting with knife drawn and Kaia armed with a sizable stone, large enough to brain any one of them if it connected squarely. The four agitators beat their chests and lunged forward with machismo gesticulations, but it was clear they feared Ja’s blade, and before the moon had even moved from one side of the cave entrance to the other, the weary attackers gave up and retreated to their palm leaves.
This was how the following days and then weeks passed, with Ja and Kaia doing their best to keep out of sight during the day, taking turns stealing sleep while the sun was up, and then keeping their guard up all throughout the night. One of them was always awake looking out for the other, catching the moonlight glint off of peering eyes in the dim cave and then brandishing the stone blade back in warning. In the hours when both of them were awake, the two spoke at length about their wildly different upbringings. Kaia was born into the community in Orn and had lived there her entire life until her recent exile. Ja asked her of her parents, and was surprised to learn that she did not have a mother and father in the same way that he did. In Orn, everyone had a specific job, and that included birthing the children of the community. Others had jobs of rearing those children. There were several mothers of Orn, and many fathers, and so communally they were everyone’s mothers and fathers. Though Ja was very young when his parents died, he still remembered their faces clearly; remembered his anguish as they fell searching for community; remembered being pulled from their bodies and placed in the compound.
Kaia had been a life bringer in Orn and had birthed three children into the community. This surprised Ja, and it was only then that he realized she was several seasons older than him - an actual woman while he was barely a man. Kaia had been exiled because her body had stopped nurturing new life; she had not carried a new child to term for six seasons. She had pleaded with the elders of Orn to let her stay in the village, begged them to let her gather, or weave, or undertake any other task if she could not provide new children to the community, but they chose to cast her away. Ja could see a deep sadness in her as she told him of her exile, and he tried to comfort her with the knowledge that she was simply unlucky, not useless. The blood sacrifice demanded thirteen bodies, and before Kaia was sent to the compound, there were only twelve. Unless they happened to capture a savage in the jungle to fill the role, someone from the community was doomed to be cast away, doomed to stand against the stone slab beneath the full moon.
Despite her exile, Kaia reminisced about Orn fondly, and Ja was keen to learn what life was like in a real community, where people worked together for a common good. Here in the compound, the castaways all slept in the above-ground cave to escape the clouds of insects that rose up from the jungle when the sun set. Some of the bugs still made it through the archways into the area where they slept, but only a fraction compared to the swarms that lingered in the courtyard. It was hot at night here; scorching winds often came down with the darkness from the fire on the mountain, making the night even more unpleasant than standing in the unceasing sun. But in Orn, the community slept beneath the ground, in caves that descended deep down and remained cool day and night, no matter the temperature outside. The swarms of biting insects did not travel down those corridors, and the fiery winds from the mountain dissipated long before they ever reached the gates of the community. There were streams of cool water nearby, and Kaia longed for a drink that was actually refreshing. The only drinking water in the compound was a trickle of hot, cloudy water that dripped down the rock face from the raging mountain above.
Everything about the compound was oppressive, and it gave Kaia new respect for not only how good life had been in Orn, but how things seemed to constantly be improving there. The community was regularly making new discoveries that made their everyday existence safer and more efficient. Or rather, the Blood Summoner was constantly making new discoveries and then sharing them with the rest of the community. He was the figurehead of Orn, its undisputed leader, equally revered and feared. He had no name other than his title, and though Kaia had lived under his dominion, she did not fully understand what a “Blood Summoner” actually entailed. He rarely showed himself to the citizens of Orn, his dealings conducted in the deepest caves beneath the community. But his genius was unquestioned. Orn’s advances in functional tools, weapon making, foraging, medicine, and more all came from his brilliant proclamations. Kaia herself had never really seen the man, at least not his face, which was perpetually covered by a drawn hood. Ja nodded at her vague description of the man, putting together in his mind that this was the terrifying figure who conducted the blood sacrifice. This Blood Summoner, this bringer of great advancement, was accomplishing these feats using the blood of those trapped at the compound. Using Ja’s blood. Overwhelmed, he berated Kaia with questions about the man: Where did he come from? How did he draw his power? How did he harness the blood from the stones? But Kaia had no satisfying answers for the wild-eyed adolescent, remarking only, “He is of the Great Serpent.”
In their long conversations, Ja struggled to communicate as freely as Kaia, as her language was significantly more developed than his. She had been raised in a community that primarily spoke with voices and he had not, but Ja had a natural aptitude for language and found his vocabulary growing steadily the more they talked. He worked with her on essential hand gestures she would need to communicate with the guards and with others who could not understand language. The gestures were surely useful for Kaia to know, but neither of them believed they would ever be put to use in communicating with the other members of the compound.
Though the men hadn’t attacked during the night for several weeks now, they were always looking for an opportunity, their eyes searching in the darkness to see if Ja and Kaia’s guard had been dropped. This prolonged negation of violence seemed to be visibly grating on the would-be attackers, and they now appeared less satisfied by spending their days simply beating on one another. They were wandering closer to Ja and Kaia’s corner of the compound during the day now, creeping through the daylight as they did through the darkness of the cave. Still, day or night, a flash of the stone knife was enough to prevent them from pouncing. Ja wondered how much longer the threat of its edge would keep them at bay.
Surprisingly, it wasn’t the constant, looming terror of the men in the compound that finally broke down Kaia’s spirits, but the monotony of the tamfruit as the only source of food. She desperately missed meat, missed the celebration of the hunting parties returning victorious, the smell of smoke and the taste of charred flesh. Ja too missed the simple addition of flavor; in the weeks since Kaia had arrived and all of his spice had been pilfered to taunt him, he hadn’t dared approach the guards to try and get more. Now, he was willing to take the risk.
Even though he was afraid they might notice the stone blade woven beneath the latticework of his skirt, Ja approached the guards anyway and asked them to chaperone him and Kaia on a foraging trip. The guards were not savages like the other men in the compound, and they appreciated the addition of spice just as Ja did, so he was hopeful they would agree. With no argument whatsoever, the taller of the two guards nodded in acceptance. At first, he refused to let Kaia come along, until Ja lied and said that she had been a skilled gatherer in Orn and could find new food for them to eat. To that, the guard hesitatingly agreed and waved her over to come along. As Ja and Kaia were escorted through the stone entranceway and out of the compound, the rest of the men glared at them even more viciously than usual.
When they reached the area where Ja normally foraged, he found the plants had recently been munched away by some sort of creature, leaving behind nothing to gather. Ja showed the guard the barren stems and asked politely if they could press on further from the compound to continue searching, and the guard turned to Kaia. Using hand language, he said, “You will find the food they eat in the community,” and seeing that she didn’t fully understand, Ja translated the message using speech. Kaia flustered. She didn’t know the first thing about gathering - she had been a life bringer. But after seeing the stony look on Ja’s face she steadied her own expression and then bent down to examine the leaves by her feet. Looking up as if she were following a trail, Kaia met the gaze of the guard and using hand language proclaimed with confidence, “We go this way.”
As the three trudged through thick brush, Ja kept his eyes open for any of the spice that he knew, hoping that if they at least found that, it would excuse the fact that Kaia wasn’t able to gather any new and exciting ingredients. But Ja found nothing he recognized, and soon he could feel impatience and agitation emanating from the guard. But before the spearman could raise an objection to their aimless wandering, the three emerged into a meadow filled with small blue flowers, and Ja gave Kaia a delicate nudge in the ribs at the discovery. She picked up on his hint without a pause and gestured to the guard, “This is what we have been looking for.”
In preparation for the foraging trip, Kaia had woven together a basket from palm leaves that was several times larger than the stone bowl Ja used to store his spice. The three of them picked the flowers diligently, which had a subtly sweet aroma, but neither Ja nor Kaia had ever seen these flowers before, let alone eaten them. Ja popped one in his mouth as he picked, and it did have a pleasantly sweet flavor. He let it sit on his tongue for a moment and sucked on the leaves, wondering if it would improve the blandness of the tamfruit. He figured that it was better than nothing, but not as good as the spice he usually found. But after the flower sat for a while in his mouth, Ja found that his tongue was beginning to feel numb, and he spit the flower out without letting the guard see. Only a small corner of the meadow was needed to fill their basket to the brim with the small, fragrant flowers, and as soon as they were done the guard gestured that it was time to go back.
The other inhabitants of the compound were already digging into the piles of tamfruit when the three returned from their foraging trip, and the guard exclaimed to his partner and the rest of the people there with a wide gesture, proclaiming, “We have returned with the food of the community!” He jerked the palm basket from Kaia’s hands abruptly and walked over to the pile of hairy spheres, peeling open the skin with his teeth and peppering the flesh inside with the blue flowers. The other guard quickly joined, adding the flowers to a tamfruit of his own, and the two ate together heartily, placing the basket on the ground next to the pile of food. Ja looked down at the basket, then up at the eyes of the other men, and as soon as they realized that this was something Ja had worked for, they fought each other for the right to take it away from him. There were plenty of flowers for everyone, but that didn’t stop the squabble, and soon the men weren’t even trying to use them to season their fruit but instead shoving handfuls of the flowers into their mouths and elbowing one another away from the basket. This caused the guards to kick at the men and make sure they got another portion for themselves, but as soon as the guards stepped away again the squabbling continued.
The two women who ate seated at the table looked longingly at the basket of flowers, at this new delicacy enjoyed by those in the distant community, wondering if there would be any left over when the men had gotten their fill. Ja moved over to the table inconspicuously and made a soft whistling noise to get their attention. They looked at him inquisitively, confused when he gestured low by his waist, “Do not eat.”
It only took a matter of minutes for the nine men of the compound and the two guards to consume the entire basket of blue flowers. Even before the final handfuls were eaten, it was clear that their movements were becoming leaden and sloppy, their aggressive grunts slurred and fangless. Their mouths were going slack and they could barely chew, with mashed-up wads of blue flowers spilling from their lips, but they still fought each other to eat more, looking back at Ja occasionally to ensure he was witnessing their act of dominance over him. The guards had moved back to the entranceway of the stone wall and they were swaying in the breeze, propping themselves up against the stone with elastic arms. Before long they toppled over, spears clattering in the dust, and the nine men of the compound lay splayed around the empty basket, some convulsing, some utterly still.
Ja was terrified. He and Kaia would be blamed for this, and rightly so. This was entirely their fault, even if everyone in the compound had eaten the flowers with vengeful free will. When they woke - if they woke - no small stone blade was going to keep them safe any longer.
“We have to go,” said Kaia aloud, snapping Ja from his stupor.
“Go where?”
Kaia looked at him as if he were the simplest man alive.
“Away from here. There is no one guarding the gate.”
“We can’t leave!” Ja exclaimed. “They will hunt us down and kill us. Leaving the compound is forbidden.”
“And what do you think will happen if we stay?”
Ja looked at the men crumpled in the dirt. They were still breathing shallowly, but deeply asleep. His eyes returned to Kaia’s, full of fear.
“We are marked for sacrifice,” he said, barely above a whisper. “There is nothing these men could do to me that I fear more than the man in the hood. The Blood Summoner will find us.”
Kaia gave Ja an indignant look. “Let him try.”
With that, she strode briskly to the empty basket and refilled it with the few tamfruit that were uneaten. Kaia walked back to Ja and then past him, barking, “Come!” and he found himself following behind her obediently. Kaia approached the fallen guards with hesitation, but when it was clear they were unconscious, she set down the basket and patted them down to see if there was anything of use under their clothing. Ja stood over her and watched as she slid her hand beneath the scaled vest and around their thighs, but there was nothing concealed.
As Ja looked down on a lifeless body, he saw the glistening medallion around the guard’s neck for the first time with real clarity. He never dared to look at the guards when he spoke to them, always keeping his eyes downcast, but now he could see that the necklace was something truly fantastic: At that moment, the medallion held the sky above trapped inside of it. Ja hesitantly drew closer, putting his face directly above the shining blue surface, and a face appeared in the medallion, causing him to jolt back and the face to disappear. Overwhelmed by curiosity, Ja drew close again and realized that it was merely a reflection; a perfect reflection of himself, infinitely clearer than he had ever seen his face reflected in water. His hand went down to take the medallion from around the guard’s neck, but he hesitated and then stopped, deciding that taking it would only enrage the guards further if they caught him with it later. Not knowing exactly what it was, Ja stared into the mirror with deep fascination until Kaia forced a spear into his hand and gave a decisive order that it was time to go.
The image of Ja and Kaia jogging off into the jungle with spears in hand was reflected in the medallion of an unconscious guard splayed out on his side. The reflection of that image was seen in another mirror as well, held by a roughly-scarred hand in a dimly-lit cavern. This mirror was significantly larger than the one around the guard’s neck and was encased in a rough frame of white volcanic stone. The hooded figure held the mirror in his right hand and studied it closely. His left hand was placed against a raised stone with fingers splayed. Blood flowed up and out of the stone, covering the hand completely in crimson and seeping up the wrist to the man’s forearm, where it entered his body through a long vertical slit below his elbow. The hooded figure placed the mirror down onto a long stone table alongside dozens of others, each with a unique material encasing the glass: wood, coral, onyx, hide, bone, ore. His eyes passed from one mirror to the next, examining the scenes, glass glistening in the dull red light.
FATE INDEX:
1. Nothing happens when something is supposed to happen
2. Character loses one of their senses
3. Extended stream of consciousness
4. Protagonist’s identity is thrown into question
5. People begin to question their belief system
6. A weakness is discovered by accident
7. A great artifact of the past is found, calling to a new owner
8. Social faux pas has serious consequences
9. The inevitable end is actually a rebirth
10. A member of the community who was heavily relied upon disappears
11. Spirits of the dead begin to spill their secrets
12. Monotony is broken
13. Religious indoctrination
14. Body swap
15. Too many cooks in the kitchen
16. Rules are disregarded
17. A tenuous bond is formed
18. Life is too good
19. Something is awakened
20. A new adventure begins
Outcomes Used:
6. A weakness is discovered by accident
16. Rules are disregarded
Added outcomes:
Charismatic megafauna
(thanks to Kat)
Bodily functions begin to cause eerie physical changes
(thanks to Aubrey)
