Dousing the Watchfire

I gripped the flat basalt snuffer between my right claws, keeping the Book of Life clamped firmly beneath my left flank. The shallow oil well carved into the pedestal corner flickered with an unruly crimson tongue, casting shifting shadows across the lettering of Hell and Heaven. Ambiguity has no place when the day's decrees are done. With deliberate, downward pressure, I seated the stone disc squarely over the rim. The flame yielded instantly without a sputter. A slender ribbon of pale ember-smoke drifted up into the cavern drafts, leaving the dividing boundary in crisp, solemn twilight. The station rests under absolute order.