The Unwavering Hand

A rustle in the bushes.

The shaman pushed open the curtain to the outside and scanned the darkening dusk dimly lit by torch fire. His eyes alighted on it immediately, placed ceremoniously in the center of the ground in front of his hut, surrounded by gruesomely red flowers. His heart shuddered and made him look away from it, the thing he knew was inescapable.

The priestess went out ahead of him and stood before it, her breath shallow. She knelt in the dirt, and, with uncommon care, took it into her hands. She stood slowly and brought it before him with great deference.

"My love," she said, resolutely. "Your duty is delivered upon you."

The shaman forced himself to look down into her delicate hands, and there he confirmed the object of his dread: It was a tiny form, a shape rolled in cloth, and the cloth was cut of the robes worn only by priestesses. As if in doubt of what the cloth could contain, he unwrapped it with his one good hand. As he had anticipated, as she had anticipated, as the very fabric of the world had anticipated, in it was a finger.

His finger.

"My love," she said again. "It is the finger of fate. Your duty is delivered upon you."

That fickle finger, which he had cleaved from himself a fortnight ago, had found its mark. And, like the previous two fingers, this one was cloaked in the garb of a priestess.

The shaman felt dizzy as the world fell out from under him. It is not as though I had not foreseen this, he thought to himself. Fate cannot be averted; and its hand, my hand, cannot be stayed. The impact did not lessen.

The priestess hung her head, her eyes cast down after the world which had fallen, and her hands were folded in a silent prayer.

"I follow my sisters," she said.

Automatically, they walked out of the hut and into the brush, following a well-beaten path. Their feet moved as a river flows, unstoppable and toward an inevitable destination. They both knew that no matter how hard the river was fought, it would always win in the end.

They came to the steps, and they ascended toward heaven. It was too short a climb. At the apex, in view of the gods, was the altar, and the altar boy waited beside it, holding the ceremonial kris. At their approach, the young man looked dumbfounded.

"B-but she is the last priestess," he said worriedly. "Who will hear the words of the gods?"

The shaman said nothing. The priestess mounted the altar and laid down. The altar boy, looking from one to the other, tried not to offer the kris to the shaman, but failed. His path, too, was a river. The shaman raised the kris over his head with his last three fingers.

"The gods weep," said the priestess as she lied on her back, looking up to heaven. The shaman looked up and, indeed, the stars did twinkle and falter.

"Why do they weep?" asked the altar boy fearfully.

The shaman looked into the eyes of the priestess. There was, between them, a silent exchange shared only by souls which were bound: a farewell, and the promise of a distant reunion.

"Because my hand is the hand of fate, and cannot be stayed."

Against his will, he brought down the dagger, and the gods' words were silenced forever.

---

Nearby, sinister mortals rejoiced; for theirs was the only voice that could now be heard, and fate was at their command.