Chương 329: 5.8

Valasect's Temple was hesitant to provide support for the ritual at first. It was only at both Jewel's command and the precise and exacting instruction of Celsus on the exact manner such a ritual was confirmed that the 'priest' and their four assistants were willing to even entertain the idea.

Further confirmation, letters sent to the other temples of Viznove (whether directly Jewel's vassal or not) and the arrival of an incredibly dense and exacting set of instructions transcribed in Old Cantor carried by messenger was required before they fully agreed to the act. All through the spring seasons the preparations and study was done before the God speakers of Valasect were confident that it could be done correctly. The insistence that it be done correctly and accurately had satisfied even Celsus!

And all the while Jewel was left baffled alongside the rest of Valasect by the character and tone that the speaking cows took to Bethica's Imminent sacrifice. It was with joy and celebration! Bethica and her children sang songs in Old Cantor. There were ballads in her and Celsus' field every evening! The low rolling chant of not just the speaking animals but rhythmic yowls and groans filled the fields.

Even what Bethica called the silent and mute among the herds seemed to at least grasp some depth of what was going to happen. The words tugged at Jewel's flame and drew up the fauxfire of the grass and fields. The soil and the sun. Every day of spring the air was full of their words. It had been a surprise for Valasect's people at first, but soon the peasants had settled into a rhythm.

Taking in stride the fact that this year their labors through spring and into summer would have a new haunting music rising up all around them. It gave a festive air, one at odds with Jewel's heart. When her leg had healed Bethica herself began to wander and sing all around the village. She recited the entirety of the iliad! Every story Jewel had ever heard from Bethica over the years and several she had not were sung over the preceding seasons. All of the voices of Valasect.

A mounting pressure of ritual filling the fields of the little village on the side of the Ridgetail foothills. To this moment. It was held under the mother tree. A slab of stone had been brought from the quarry and polished and carved. Passages to carry blood down to a waiting bowl. It was held at midday. Against any tradition Jewel was familiar with but both Celsus and the texts of the old Cantor ceremony stated it was to be done this way.

And so Jewel had gathered, beside the priest and the butcher who would be there for Bethica. To make sure that all would be done properly. Celsus stood to the priest's right and Jewel his left. Down the path leading up to the altar were the cows. Not just Bethica's children (although they were closest) but also every other animal of the sparse herds in Valasect. The beasts seeming solemn, each of them turned so their family eye would see Bethica as she passed.

One side nose to tail down the path, the other turned towards the god tree and the freshly quarried altar. The stone would remain after today. Celsus was already planning when his own time would come. Among and around the crowd of four legged beasts Jewel saw the men, the ver as Bethica and Celsus called them as a sparser crowd held back by the possible temperaments of the cattle. The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Men and women Jewel knew Bethica herself had helped raise were frowning. Friends of Gem that had nonetheless awkwardly grown taller than her. At least no one could demand that she and her spawn remain separate for this. A quarter hour before proper dead noon Bethica walked up the trail. The slightest limp and care taken with the leg she had broken. Summer flowers and green shoots of wheat had been made into a wreath around her neck. Leaves and petals glowing to Jewel's senses in the air around them.

The leaves of the tree above them flickering with sharp cuts of divine presence. Bethica walked with all the grace that the cow could manage. Head held high despite her almost stumbling limp. The groaning mewling cries of the unspeaking beasts rising and falling. Adding fresh pulses to the thickened knot of faux flame around the altar. And then Celsus and the priest spoke, saying words that Jewel knew were old beyond her reckoning; older than Old Cantor itself.

The words of Minos, lost ancestral home of Bethica and Celsus' Ancestors. Every beast's eye was on Bethica and the Altar now. With difficulty her friend brought herself onto the stone and then laid herself down upon it. Her neck was exposed but for the flowers and green wheat woven around it. The sun had risen to its highest point. Jewel watched as the shadow of the blade fell over her neck. Jewel watched as the eyes of her friend closed and a soft smile of peace overtook her.

As the knife came down, sharpened precisely as Celsus had demanded. There was a quiet jerk as the flesh parted. Blood welled up and filled the channels carved for it, but far more spilled free, covering the stone and spilling over the edge. Her friend exhaled heavily, the great heart beat strong, and then weaker, waning. Celsus and the priest turned up towards the sun. Entreating in ancient speech to the sun, to the harvest, to the ones which waited above.

Jewel did not know which or what, she had read the names but at the moment she could not distinguish them from the other words. It was all noise. But she saw the light of it, from the zenith of the sky it dipped down, the light of the sun pouring like honey in a blinding white; sinking like a cloth allowed to dip from a folding skirt. The Priest and Jewel stood resolute, Celsus and every other cow and bull kneeled. Lowering the fore of their bodies as their legs bent.

Jewel felt the heart in Bethica's chest stop as the white radiance of the sun touched her cheek. The struggling veins and the tension keeping her friend's chest still relaxing to laxness. At once she heard every inch of flesh in Bethica die all at once. Not lingering and striving in pain as the corpses of slain beasts or men did. But all at once in a suddenness that brought a gasp to both Jewel's bodies. And then the sky returned to its place above them. The sun once more high overhead. And Bethica was dead.

Made sacred and claimed by the heavens. Sacrificed. Jewel stared at the body of her friend as the Priest and Butcher went to work on the corpse. Parceling her meat and searing it over the pyre that had lit out of the bowl of Bethica's blood when the sun touched her. Jewel did as she promised she would, as Celsus had said, it was the greatest honor that her friend could have offered; she took up a seared flank of her friend's flesh and ate it.

As spawn and wyrm she bit through the light char and into the still bleeding muscle within. With her were the members of the family that had kept Bethica all her life. The children she had taught. Eventually everyone in the village was called forward and fed a seared portion of the cow's body. And then it was over for most of them. The villagers of Valasect left, but Jewel remained with Gem, with Celsus and the other cows who slowly circled the altar, keeping their familiar eye on Bethica.

As the Priest, his assistants and the village butcher continued the work, skin cut with greatest care to keep it as intact as possible, peeled back from muscle. Then flesh stripped from bone, the eyes, tongue, heart and lungs burned in the searing fire that yet blazed from the bowl before the altar. Each reducing the offerings to ash which soared directly into the brilliant blue sky. Against the gentle breeze of the day. Jewel remained to watch as every piece of her friend was portioned out.

Bones picked either to burn or be taken away. Until nothing remained. Even the blood was gone, burnt to ash to fuel the divine fire. The bowl, filled with grey powder. Leaving Jewel alone with the empty Altar. Bethica's children and the other cows had left earlier, their stomachs demanding to be filled with grazing. But Celsus remained with Jewel, grazing lightly, but staying there with her.

"It was a good death." Jewel stared at the empty stone. She could not find the words.