"What do make of the annual sacrifice?" Brione asked her younger sister, Carys.
"It's horrid, and I couldn't imagine any of us going through with it," the athletic teen answered.
"But think of the tradition's benefits. We live here in Eden wanting for nothing - taking bread-fruit from the trees, enjoying the meat of the beasts who offer themselves calmly to the butchers, cosy and safe in our marvelous ancient homes."
"I wouldn't mind a few leaks or patching the roof myself if meant we didn't haven't to pick some poor youth to give to the Great Demon each year," Carys replied earnestly.
"Ahh, you're still young and haven't started your time as a novice. Once you've spent some time in the Demon's temple, understanding His work, you might think twice. I see Him go forth from His statue at dawn, rushing like a wind to the six corners of the land. Yes, He repairs the roofs and everything else besides, and He sees to every tree in even the smallest village, and whispers in the ear of each beast that is ready for slaughter. But He cares for us in so many other ways. Without him we'd live in fear, prey to wild monstrosities and the armies of our foes. We'd suffer the pain and deprivation of the hundreds of ailments and injuries that His lesser demons see to. Children would be orphaned and left to starve, the elderly would suffer slow deaths. Without His fatherly presence, the city and the land would be miserable."
"But if He is so kind, why is it that wants one of us each year to suffer and die in his name? I bet with the festival so close, there's already some poor wretch pinned out breathing their last right now."
"Can't you see, Carys, that the suffering of that one poor wretch, hardly ever lasting more than a day, saves thousands from the misery and strife that could be just as agonising and last much longer. We can't begin to fathom why the Great Demon might make His benevolence contingent on this sacrifice - He is a divine being, and His mind is different to ours, but He too is subject to the greater laws of all creation, the laws that say the sun must rise, the flowers must wither, the seasons must cycle and the wolf must take the suckling deer."
"I guess," the younger woman conceded, "But I just would never be able to accept that it might be you, I or Arwen that might be called."
Brione looked down at her feet, and the atmosphere seemed to turn icy. She looked up guiltily into her little sister's eyes and clasped her hand. "Ahh, well, I am truly sorry to have to bring this news, but it is Arwen that's been chosen this year. I've just come from the securing ritual."
Carys leapt to her feet, throwing her sister's hand down. "What?" she screamed. "You can't have let them do that! Why didn't you dispute it? Why didn't you and her fight them off when they tried to hold her down? Our own sister! Our big sister who loves us and played with both of us all the years of our childhood!"
"I've tried to explain," Brione tried to speak calmly, folding her hands in the lap of her novice robes, "It's for the best, for all of us. Arwen understood. She cried, she was frightened, but she didn't fight them, and I wouldn't either."
The enraged Carys bellowed, "Well I will!" and with that, ran from the house.
She easily outpaced her sister, who ran after her, not breaking her stride in her sprint from their prestigious family home to the monumental temple to the Great Demon. She pushed through the regular pedestrian door, the huge Demon doors still being shut fast, ahead of the great reaffirmation rituals. There were few people on the wide marble tiled floor inside in congregational space, dimly lit by shafts of light from round apertures high in the gigantic domed ceiling. The general populace always stayed away if they thought the actual sacrifice was in progress. She gave no attention to the novices and initiates who were tidying the space, even when they frantically signalled to her to slow down and show respect.
She kept running to the back of the temple, then, heedless of her iconoclasm, scrambled over the decorative railings into the dark primeval cave whose mouth the temple had been built over. Though she'd only ever been here once, years ago for her coming of age, she charged down the unlit worn steps without hesitation, drawn to a hint of light coming from the deepest chamber.
She burst into the sepulchral cavern, seeing past the clutter of antique bric-a-brac lying around the natural crystal formations to spot her sister, seemingly unconscious, lashed to a sinister black stalactite twice her height, drying blood running down her pinned arms. A single initiate was on his knees before the gory scene, but he jerked to his feet at the sound of Carys arriving.
Clearly taking in the situation with remarkable speed and accuracy, the fearless initiate adopted a fighting stance and came at Carys. They met at a run. Carys dodged his blow then immediately landed a bone-crunching jab to his temple. The man crumpled to the floor before he could utter a sound.
Carys leapt to the sacrificial pole. Her sister's eyelids fluttered open and she whispered, "Carys? You shouldn't be here." At that moment, they both heard distant shouts and the rattling of the ceremonially sealed gates to the cave. More worrying to Carys's ears, though, was the whisper of a rising wind that could only have a supernatural origin.
Thinking quickly, she grabbed a heavy brass candlestick and threaded it through the chains restraining her sister. She twisted forcefully, and the restraints gave, causing Arwen to tumble forward into her arms. She gently laid the older woman down on the gem-encrusted floor before the pillar and attended to her sister's wounds. She realised they were deep, and the amount of blood lost may still be putting her sister's life at risk.
Remembering an emergency incantation that all well educated children learnt, Carys summoned a minor demon with a pop. The frog-like humanoid squinted at her, then at the prostrate form of her sister. "Whilst thou pay the price for this creature's repair?" it asked.
Carys urgently assented. "His Grace, in His Mighty Throne, is not going to like this," the creature muttered, almost to himself as he glanced up that the towering blood-spattered black column. Then Carys felt an agonising pain in her own wrists. She looked down at them and saw long livid bruises form, but then she looked to Arwen's, and saw the ugly injuries there shift, the exposed flesh pulling together into the pink line of a healing wound.
Clenching her jaw against the pain, knowing it was nothing compared to what her sister had endured, Carys choked out the ritual phrase that concluded the ritual and dismissed the demon, then gingerly put her hands behind Arwen's neck and shoulders to lift her up.
Her eyes opened fully now, and Carys thought she could see colour begin to return to her deathly pale cheeks and blue lips. Those lips smiled, and Arwen spoke in a dry whisper, "There will be Hell to pay now!"
Carys could still hear shouts behind her, but she didn't fear for herself now - she feared for the clergy who'd betrayed their promise to their Demon god. The wind was rising to gale force now, moaning through the caverns, rattling the icons and stirring the clinking chains of censers. She heard a crash and imagine the whole temple might be ruined before this angry divine wind blew out. "Oh well," she said to her sister, with a laugh despite the tear in her eye, "We'll just all have to get used to doing a bit more for ourselves."
