Chosen For The Stars

How long have I been here?

No one can tell me. Memories of a time when I wasn't sitting on a dirt florr with my wrists and ankles bound and my back against the wall are distant and fuzzy. Other prisoners reside here, but most are ill or sleeping to pass the time. The rodents and the bugs are more friendly. All of us are covered with bug bites, dirty, infested with parasites. Our imprisonment is the ultimate in humiliation. The slaves might be better off. At least they get to move around and breathe fresh air. It smells like something died in here. Maybe some of my companions have.

I can't believe that I used to do this to people. I was once a warrior. I once took prisoners in battle. I once reveled in their pain, their brokeness. I once was proud to imprison them, to torture them, to sacrifice them.

Now I stare up at the night sky through cracks in the ceiling, wondering how I displeased the gods enough to become a prisoner myself. How did I end up here? What did I do for this to be my fate? I was going to be the greatest warrior from my tribe, from my clan, even from my entire village.

I wish I could commit suicide. At least that death would be somewhat honourable. But my weapons were taken from me long ago, and I suppose it is too late at this point for even suicide to be honourable. There is no more honourable death for one such as I than to be given up to the gods.

I can only hope that I am given such an opportunity, before I rot to death in this stinking hovel.

How will it be? Will I be offered a chance to play the ball game for my freedom? Or is some other ceremony requiring a sacrifice to come before that? How soon will I be chosen? So many others are here, also seeking relief of some kind. It is so easy to see that some of them would give anything just to die.

But I won't settle for that. Anyone can die. To be chosen for the gods is something special.

The door of our prison opens and a hand of warriors, all adorned in full feathered regalia complete with ceremonial weapons, storms in. They examine all of us, searching for something. I don't know what they expect to find in a place such as this. My comrades do not even make eye contact with them. I look them full in the face, trying to see the actual people behind the ceremonial masks.

"This one," one of them decides gruffly. He grabs my arm and yanks me up onto my feet. I nearly fall back to the floor. I have not used my legs for anything more strenuous than trips outside to relieve myself since I arrived here. My weakness is embarrassing. I used to be more than a match for any of these painted buffoons. Now the warriors laugh and prod me out the door. I struggle to stay upright on weak legs still bound together at the ankles with many loops of thick cord. My loincloth is practically rotting off my hips. Only pride and stubbornness keep me on my feet. Even now, I will not let them break me.

Fresh air assaults my senses, an unheard-of treat. I breathe it in deeply and nearly pass out from the joyous sensation. The air feels too clean for my lungs, after the air of the prison, just as I feel that I am too dirty to come from the hovel that was my prison into the city, where even in the moonlight everything gleams. The streets are clean and empty. It is eerily quiet. Only moonlight and starshine illuminate the buildings and streets. The warriors walk quickly, preventing me from enjoying the sights as I hop in an undignified fashion to keep up.

The centre of the city, like the city I once called home, is an enormous stepped pyramid with a temple as the pinnacle. It does not take a genius to determine that the temple is my destination. I will not leave there alive, short of a miracle. My blood will stain those cut stone steps like that of so many before me and probably many more to come.

I wish I could see my wife again. I wonder if she misses me or if she's married someone else. Does she believe I'm still alive? Does she want me to come home? How much has my daughter grown? Does she remember me? Do I have another child, one I'll never get a chance to meet?

My thoughts are abruptly cut off as cold water engulfs me. One of my captors shoved me roughly into a river, and now I am carried by its currents, helpless to try to fight with my wrists and ankles bound. One of them catches me by the arm and hoists me to the surface like a sack of potatoes while another cuts my disgusting loincloth from me. They then proceed to scrub me down roughly and wrap me in a fresh, pure white loincloth before we continue on our way. Perhaps they are not completely soulless. Or perhaps the gods do not want a stinking, dirty prisoner at whatever ceremony awaits us.

The pyramid looms ahead, its black shadow eclipsing my thoughts with sheer dread. I'm suddenly paralysed by fear. I'm not ready to die. I'm not ready to be given to the gods. But the warriors drag me along and I am reminded that my fate is beyond my control. I can go willingly and die with honour, or I can struggle and be slaughtered like a bird.

The steps are suddenly at my feet. I try to hop up the stairs as my captors pull me along, but the steps are too high and steep and I fall on my face. One captor roughly jerks me back to my feet and slaps me soundly, cursing me violently in two hands' worth of tongues. Another swiftly cuts the cords at my ankles, so quickly that I cannot swear I saw it happen. But I do see a flash of pity through his mask and my legs can now move freely, so our climb resumes. The stairs take us higher and higher, nearer and nearer to the stars I love so much and the gods that reside among them. Will I join them when I leave this world? Or will another fate befall me? A more immediate concern: how do they plan to send me on my way?

The lack of fires of any sort throughout the city suddenly strikes me as unusual. I have only ever heard of this being customary for one sort of ceremony. I suddenly feel cold with a new onslaught of dread. I of course expected something bloody involving the removal of my heart--that is always customary. But this ceremony will be somewhat more painful than most, if I do not die quickly. Why have the gods chosen me for such a fate?

We finally reach the temple. The priest is telling the sacred stories of the gods, specifically the ones pertaining to this festival, to a sea of people gathered at the pyramid's base. His voice is loud and booming and threatens to shake the stars. He announces that we are celebrating the alignment of the agricultural and religious calendars. I have never witnessed such a festival in my short lifetime. The calendars have never been aligned while I have been alive. I am disappointed that my role is so central and that I cannot be an onlooker. I would like to witness such a ceremony normally. But such is the fate that has been assigned to me by the powers that be.

The warriors force me to lie down on a large stone table, freeing my wrists in the process, and tie me down so that I'm lying on my back, staring up at the stars, Another priest is watching the sky from a place near me, no doubt tracking the position of the Fire Star. When he determines that it has reached its zenith...well, my time will have come. A slave sits on the ground next to the table, sharpening the ceremonial knife. At least the cut will be clean. I hope it will not hurt too much. I hope I will go quickly, with dignity.

The priest watching the stars makes a signal to his tale-telling comrade, who raises his arms and invokes the blessing of the gods. Several musicians begin playing conch trumpets. I stare up at the stars, praying desperately for favour from the gods, trying not to notice the other priest, who now has the knife and is moving all too quickly towards me. I clench my teeth, preparing for the pain. As long as I don't scream--

Screams of agony fill my ears as an indescribable pain floods my entire being. But then everything disappears. A moment later, I am floating above myself, watching the priests finish cutting my heart out. One holds it up for the crowd to see. They are roaring with adulation, but it sounds like it's echoing from inside a cave far away. The other priest replaces my heart with a piece of wood and sets it on fire. The crowd is still going crazy, but I can no longer hear them at all. Everything is falling away beneath me. The city looks like a child's plaything. The jungle around it is massive, and beyond that is blue. Water, perhaps? But so much? The world is much bigger than I thought it was.

But I have no place in it now.

So I look up instead.

And I am among the stars.

"Come to me, my child," a brilliant red star with my grandfather's face beckons me. "Welcome home."