Nations, Like Stars

“Are you sure this plan will work? How do we know that some of us won’t die?”

“Some of you will die. You must for the plan to succeed.”

We looked around at each other in the candlelight. Eyes searched out other eyes in the flickering light, probing for doubts, mistrust, or secret alliances in the half darkness.

He explained the plan again. On the final day of the month the sacrifices would begin. One during every hour of sunlight at the temple of Inti. The most pious among us would volunteer as sacrifices to the sun god. The most pious among us would be those in this room. The sacrifices would continue until a sign from the gods told us to stop. The sign that he said he could predict.

No man should have such knowledge. No man should know the movements of the sun and the stars and the moon before they occur. Yet here he stood, the man who told the sun and the stars when to move. A man with such divine, celestial knowledge should be a pious man, a good man, and yet he was using it for such treacherous purposes. It was no wonder that some of the other priests thought he was a demon.

“You all saw the moon shroud herself as I predicted. You all know that I have the ability to predict these events, and yet still you doubt me.”

It was true, several months ago we had gathered on top of a summit overlooking the city and seen the full moon all but disappear on a cloudless night. But the moon is not the sun, and a smart prediction can be a close cousin to a lucky guess. After the moon returned, he said nothing. Until tonight.

“Four days from now the moon will block the sun above this city. The common people will gather in the streets, fall to their knees, and stare in wonder. If you want to join them then you can. If you want to use this knowledge to your advantage, then all I ask is that you listen to me.”

***

We stood in the bowels of the temple, the dark chamber reeked of sweat and excrement and fear. For the second time this week I felt eyes searching me out in the darkness, asking questions without words. How could we have agreed to risk everything? Would we ever stand to gain anything? And who had we put our trust in?

On the first day, 12 priests were sacrificed. The sun stayed in the sky, never wavering or flickering, shining down resolutely without respite. There was a brief spell of rain without clouds and people began to question the sacrifices to the sun god Inti. Maybe it was Apu Illapu, the rain god, who demanded a sacrifice and could be blamed for the poor harvests. Maybe the priests had misread the signs. This had the potential to upset the entire plan, but the rain passed quickly and so too did the doubts of the people, fickle as they were.

The first 12 priests had known they would die. He had told us this when he told us his plan. It might arouse suspicion if our plan succeeded too soon, with no sacrifices and nothing lost. The sun’s light would be blocked on the second day. In the end we drew lots, all 36 of us, and were sorted into three groups. Those who would die, those who might, and those who wouldn’t. Or at least those who shouldn’t. Whoever was left standing would emerge as part of the new elite - those who had been saved by Inti himself.

He knew the power that this would grant us, and he knew how to leverage that power to great effect. He knew the movements of emperors and common people just like he knew the movements of the sun and the stars.

As I waited in the chamber at the top of the temple, I felt the fear growing. I was part of the second group, those who might die. Those who had faced their death on the first day had done so with a stoic acquiescence. Knowing their fate had allowed them to prepare for it and accept it. This pattern didn’t repeat itself for our group. The chance of survival, the hope that you would be saved, drove us to madness. Some had to be drugged or beaten before being dragged to the sacrificial altar. One even had his tongue cut out to stop him cursing our heretic ringleader by name. He was brought to the altar still mumbling tongueless curses to anyone who would listen, already half-dead from blood loss before they cut his throat from ear to ear.

I was due to be the ninth sacrifice for the day. Nine hours can feel like an eternity under the right conditions, it can crack even the strongest mind. I broke around the sixth hour. To my shame I begged, either kill me now or let me go, just free me from this endless wait. They beat me without speaking a word until my pleas stopped.

In the eighth hour I was dragged to the front of the chamber, the loading pen for the next lamb to the slaughter. Near the entrance to the high temple steps and the altar I could see the sun in the sky searing the ground below with unfaltering strength. How could we have believed this charlatan? This demonic little worm had tricked us all, he had convinced his competition to destroy themselves, leaving only himself behind to whisper his falsehoods into the emperor’s ear. And we had willingly agreed. We were not the first to fall prey to his necromancy, and we surely wouldn’t be the last.

As I stood in my slaughter pen, beaten and bruised, gazing ahead with the vacant expression of a herd animal, I saw him appear. I turned to look at him, but he walked past me without acknowledgement. What did this mean? He hadn’t been present all of yesterday or today, but now he chooses to show himself? Was it just to check in on the slaughter of his rivals? Or was he here for the moment of truth? The moment of glory as the sun god reacts to our sacrifices.

They dragged me out to the altar and forced me to my knees. I felt a slight darkening of the light. My head snapped up, but it was just a wispy cloud, mocking me as it danced across the unwavering glare of the sun.

I should have known this plan was ridiculous, even though I was a part of the deception. The mere concept that we could bargain with the gods was a sign of his hubris. The destruction of our traditions, a sacrilegious act. Maybe the gods really would intervene, but to stop the sign rather than to display it.

As I knelt, readying myself for the sharp sting of the knife and the slow ebbing away of my life, already picturing my blood flowing out across the altar and down the temple steps in vibrant red, I felt another darkening of the light. This one persisted and deepened as I lifted my head towards the sun. There it was. A disc of darkness creeping across the sun. The sign that was promised. As I stared up, squinting my eyes at the diminishing light of the sun, I realized that on either side of this disc stood two different worlds. Once its journey across the sun was complete, a new world would emerge. One in which he had consolidated power, around a new and smaller elite that owed everything to him. The peasants always feared that the eclipse would spell the beginning of an endless night. This night, light all nights, would eventually end, but the darkness would linger over our world for long after the sun’s light had returned.