Chương 326: 5.5

In Ogien the ritual for the longest Night started well before the actual day of the event. But unlike in Kaeketeh there was not so furious a revelry, nor was it purely from preparation for the feasts either. No, in fact all of those began even earlier than in Kaeketeh, which was astounding enough it made Jewel wonder if perhaps the reason Ogien was not richer was they spent all their wealth on festivals. But again that was not the case.

It was because to fend off the darkness and cold of winter the lords of the Ogien were bound by vow to the stars to make a journey. In the dead middle of winter! Up a mountain! To the very headwaters of the river which gave the city and lord its name. The Lord Ogien invited her along, as his liege and guest. Which Jewel could hardly refuse since she was spending the winter in his house. She was however not ready for what that meant.

Jewel had to admit that her growing pregnancy was nowhere near the trial that women or even Bethica suffered. It wasn't even strictly speaking all that noticeable, a slight bowing out of her sides in her hindmost half of her torso. But it hardly impeded her, which was fortunate for all the long days of slow walking they had. The journey was made into quite the festival.

On the road north and then east following the widest source of the river around the flanks of the Vault Spire there were not just way stations they would stay at but every village was prepared awaiting their arrival. And they were not shy with coming right up to their party on the journey up. The incredibly direct engagements did not end with their time on the road either. It was actually a refreshingly provincial sort of affair! Well wishes for their lord, blessings from their shrine keepers and temples.

Nights of hot drink and surprisingly sparse food (lots of dry, salted pork), it was not as raucous and overwhelming as Kaeketeh in winter, yet also not as solemn as Rochford or Valasect. But subdued as it was, Jewel could still feel the ever so much more sway enter her step with each day from the welling up of goodwill and the rising anticipation that seemed to build upon them like veils with every town and temple visited.

The giddiness of the air on the mountain was still growing even if Jewel was not surrounded by a bottled up fever of revelry. There were thankfully no encampments to be made in the snow. Every night they had a restful and warm series of chambers ready for them and Jewel assisted with sparking the fires of their hearths herself on sodden and iced over timbres rather than taking from their many host's precious stores of dry wood. For all the trials she rather liked the journey in fact.

The daily snows as the northern mists from the river settled in heavy white made every day's trek clean and stark at the start of the morning. It was however a very slow trek, made hardly any faster for how each village followed Lord Ogien and his party nearly halfway up to the next and often met him just as far from their own homes. Many of which gave Jewel's larger self a fearful distance despite crowding their lord. But that was normal.

She still had a good time with the children as Gem, although many were wary of her for her fine dress and scaled skin they all soon delighted in the fact that she could burn with the heat of a hot fire and freely offered that warmth to any willing to embrace her." Is that really yor ma?!"" She's so big!"" Are you gonna grow that big?"" Yor warm!"" Yor faces look like horses!"" No they don't, they look like deer! Stupid!"

Through her smaller self she often was able to win over at least the children to come up and at least touch Jewel's larger self. She found a popular diversion was offering to light 'torches' of sodden sticks for them to wave about. Still this gradual plodding manner of doing things turned what in summer would have been but a single day or two of walking into an effort of five. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

But at last they reached the promised spring and with it the hot steamy air and open flame of its holy fire. There was in the greenery around the spring the sharp cuts of a god's touch. But equally so was a raw and almost unfiltered faux fire of many years of ritual layered one over another. Both the God's touch and what Jewel had come to identify as 'common' magic grew denser and thicker with the mist itself as she approached the bubbling hot waters and the ever burning flames.

And then at last they were at the place of ritual. Where all stayed back as the lord Ogien produced a great woven wreath and began to chant in words that Jewel did not know. Still the way the words twisted and caught the faux flame around the lord and dragged it in and out of the wreath was all but expected. There was tension among the guards however. Jewel could hear words muttered softly between them under their breaths.

The sharp little flickers of various heavenly attentions stabbing through the crowd as many offered whispered pleas." Let the man pass unharmed. He's a good sort."" Let him not burn in your fire." Which was a bit troubling, was there a risk of that happening!? No one had told Jewel there might be a chance of Lord Ogien catching fire! However, with every word he uttered tongues of faux flame seemed to dance and push away the catching heat of the wreath.

Not that strongly perhaps, but so far no immolation of her vassal seemed imminent. For now at least, some of the working seemed to tremble almost timidly under his command. Lord Ogien continued to speak the words, a tension to his breath, sweat under his heavy winter clothes for a reason that even Gem's nose could tell was not from the unseasonable heat of the clearing. He walked up to the open flame and then knelt down before it on both knees and raised the wreath over his head.

It was an interesting ritual, like many she had witnessed before—but as with most also subtly different. Jewel could see the way the faux flame was not just working its way into the wreath, but also running up and down the body of the lord as well. Layering in threads that were foreign to her senses, but also similar. Furthermore Jewel could see how the faux flame was tugging free from his lips, his throat, the grip of his hands on the wreath. It was suspiciously like Adelyne's little sneaking trick.

Or one of the dozen or so spells that Gem had 'learned' from Tsulogothulan. A presence of sorcery left upon them now called and gathered and prodded into a proper working. How it rushed out of him in his words and gestures and then sank back down to continue the work along his skin, clothes and then sank deeper to the bone. Different from the way that faux flame was gathered in the temples. Or maybe it wasn't so different at all?

Jewel looked at the way the layers of earlier workings reached out and joined with the ones that were coming from Lord Ogien's own words and body. Was this how every act of sorcery was? Urul called it speaking to the world by other means, but was this how anyone who lacked wizardry did it? Her focus on the flames was broken when Ogien finally reached the final words of the ritual, the tension in the other witnesses rising sharply! The smell of anticipation and fear was almost choking in its rush!

Their Baron lowered the wreath forward so it touched the eternal fire of the flame spring of Ogien. And all the wound herbs and oiled wood caught and burned into a searing halo. Even as the fire wrapped wood was still gripped in the hands of the lord Ogien himself! Jewel only just held herself back from rushing to her vassal's aide. For although the wreath in his hands was burning hotly she could see the faux flame, the workings of the sorcery from the ritual yet stood within his hands and fingers, over his body.

There was no smell of searing flesh or fat despite the almost white fire that had engulfed the ring. Then with a quickness in his step that no one present questioned the Lord Ogien marched back to join the rest of the party, a fast charger was brought for him and with the hands of his footmen acting as steps their lord strutted stiffly up to and then mounted the saddle of the horse. Still with arms raised high.

The animal's ears twitched only slightly at the feeling of the fire and heat just a few feet over its head. A testament to its rearing and quality. Then some very familiar flight straps were further secured around the Lord Ogien's legs and then locked his waist to the slightly taller backing of the saddle for this particular charger. So secured, the members of the Lord's party gave out a single guttural cry.

"For Ogien!" To which their lord bellowed out, again still holding the blazing hot ring of fire over head." For Ogien!" And then with a squeeze of his legs and a slap from his captain to the rump of the charger the Lord Ogien was galloping down the road they had just come, screaming at the top of his lungs trailing sparks and smoke from the burning wreath." FOR OOOOOHJEEEEINNNNN!" To which, Jewel could honestly only stare. After a moment, she hen turned back to the Captain of Ogien's footmen.

"Is he going to gallop all the way back down the mountain?" Who for some reason beamed back at her with a sharp nod.

"Yeah! This should be a good year, he didn't muss up any of the words. Hands likely only be a bit pink on his palms by the time he gets to the city to light the pyre." Jewel blinked a bit at that then shared a look with her smaller self. Which then muttered: " And they say that Rochford's festivals are mad?" Both versions of her were glad Gem's voice was quieter than Jewel's.