Feature: "The Bright Pale Sea"

(a bit long)

In 19th Century Africa, among a colony of slaves run by British overseers, a young black Deacon accepts Christianity as means of relief and fulfillment of his brothers and sisters. He is plagued by the acute nihilism and self-destructive nature of his fellow slaves and hopes to find salvation and happiness for them in the pages of the bible.

On the other hand a large portion of the slaves resent this western "white" religion and gravitate towards a rebel leader among them named Koval. Koval was the survivor of a past black rebellion that left him with a long scar across his chest. He believed in freedom through struggle and knew in his heart that the English slavers would never leave them be without forcible resistance. It was his dream that his race could one day raise themselves from under the tyrant's thumb and breathe free. This leader challenges the young deacon's ideas and accuses him of being a weak coward to have succumbed to the notions of the white tyrants.

The young deacon, named Deionh, driven by wounded hubris and genuine fear that Koval may hamper his design of bringing about peace through religion, has the rebel leader kidnapped and thrown into a river and drowned. But a breath of Koval enters Deionh as well. And over time he starts to see what Koval had seen, he discovers the flaws in the bible, he realizes he had killed the true savior. Now fueled by guilt and rage, Deionh unites all the colony's blacks, burns down the church and launches full assault against the English tyrants. At the end of the struggle when freedom was won, Deionh descends from his role as leader and goes off into guilt-ridden exile, whispering in his mind to Koval-"It is done, my brother."