In the Temple, Jaelle wakes. She sits bolt upright in bed and waits. A moment later the sound comes again, and this time she is awake and there can be no mistake. Not for this, and not tonight. She is High Priestess, she wears white and is untouched, because there has to be one so tuned to the Mother that is the cry goes up it will be heard.
(There is irony, perhaps, that virginity is called for to be that closely tuned to the Mother of all, but it would be lost on Jaelle, especially tonight, with the cry ringing within her.)
Again it comes to her, the sound she has never thought to hear, a cry not uttered for longer than anyone living knew. Oh, the ritual has been done, has been enacted every morning after Maidaladan since the first Temple was raised in Gwen Ystrat. But the lamenting of the priestesses at sunrise is one thing, it is a symbol, a remembering. This is something infinitely otherwise.
(Infinite in a way that only death can be, she thinks. Only death and, she realizes, love.)
This is the mourning for no symbolic loss, but for the Beloved Son. Jaelle rises, aware that she is trembling, and still not quite believing what she has heard. Bit the sound is high and compelling, laden with timeless grief, and she is High Priestess and understands what has come to pass.
(What, though not how. Not yet. And still she struggles to let go of the word that comes in the wake of this grief. Impossible.)
She makes her way, barefoot in the unnatural cold of this Midsummer night, to the dome, behind the altar and the axe. The axe that only the High Priestess can lift, and that she lifts now, with both hands, before bringing it crashing down on the altar. Hugely, the sound reverberates, and she waits for it to end, to die back into stillness.
(It is the first sound she’s heard since the cries that woke her, the first to come from without rather than within this night.)
And when the stillness returns, she rends it, as she has rent her robes, with the words that echo through her.
(“Rahod hedai Liadon! Liadon has died again!”)
She weeps, she grieves with all her heart, and she knows every priestess in Fionavar has heard her, that they are coming here now from their sleep in the Temple, to find her here, her robe torn, the blood on her face drawn with her own nails, the axe lifted from its rest.
(“Rahod hedai Liadon!”)
It grows, it spreads, the Mormae begin to rend their robes and faces in that same wildness of grief. Jaelle scarcely notices, just as she scarcely notices the acolyte who brings her cloak or the fear in the eyes of the men in the Temple, or the question Kimberly, the Seer of Brennin, asks of her.
“Jaelle, who is it?”
(Liadon. Beloved Son. The sacrifice come freely on Midsummer’s Eve.)
“I do not know,” Jaelle answers. “Come!” Her horse is brought, and she goes, without waiting, though the streets of the town as the lights come on and priestesses come running towards her. Let them follow. There is only one path for Jaelle, High Priestess of the Mother, this Midsummer’s Eve.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-03-22 02:27 am (UTC)(There is irony, perhaps, that virginity is called for to be that closely tuned to the Mother of all, but it would be lost on Jaelle, especially tonight, with the cry ringing within her.)
Again it comes to her, the sound she has never thought to hear, a cry not uttered for longer than anyone living knew. Oh, the ritual has been done, has been enacted every morning after Maidaladan since the first Temple was raised in Gwen Ystrat. But the lamenting of the priestesses at sunrise is one thing, it is a symbol, a remembering. This is something infinitely otherwise.
(Infinite in a way that only death can be, she thinks. Only death and, she realizes, love.)
This is the mourning for no symbolic loss, but for the Beloved Son. Jaelle rises, aware that she is trembling, and still not quite believing what she has heard. Bit the sound is high and compelling, laden with timeless grief, and she is High Priestess and understands what has come to pass.
(What, though not how. Not yet. And still she struggles to let go of the word that comes in the wake of this grief. Impossible.)
She makes her way, barefoot in the unnatural cold of this Midsummer night, to the dome, behind the altar and the axe. The axe that only the High Priestess can lift, and that she lifts now, with both hands, before bringing it crashing down on the altar. Hugely, the sound reverberates, and she waits for it to end, to die back into stillness.
(It is the first sound she’s heard since the cries that woke her, the first to come from without rather than within this night.)
And when the stillness returns, she rends it, as she has rent her robes, with the words that echo through her.
(“Rahod hedai Liadon! Liadon has died again!”)
She weeps, she grieves with all her heart, and she knows every priestess in Fionavar has heard her, that they are coming here now from their sleep in the Temple, to find her here, her robe torn, the blood on her face drawn with her own nails, the axe lifted from its rest.
(“Rahod hedai Liadon!”)
It grows, it spreads, the Mormae begin to rend their robes and faces in that same wildness of grief. Jaelle scarcely notices, just as she scarcely notices the acolyte who brings her cloak or the fear in the eyes of the men in the Temple, or the question Kimberly, the Seer of Brennin, asks of her.
“Jaelle, who is it?”
(Liadon. Beloved Son. The sacrifice come freely on Midsummer’s Eve.)
“I do not know,” Jaelle answers. “Come!” Her horse is brought, and she goes, without waiting, though the streets of the town as the lights come on and priestesses come running towards her. Let them follow. There is only one path for Jaelle, High Priestess of the Mother, this Midsummer’s Eve.
Dun Maura.