Blood Sacrifice

The Matriarch Dolori Valda was standing beneath the largest of the five rolling hills by the curving river, looking up at the stone altar on top of it and the meandering path of slate steps leading up to the crest. The sky was overcast, bulbous gray clouds chasing across the sky and the wind was howling through the trees, tearing off the last of the leaves from the season gone by, grabbing her ox-blood red leather cloak and making it bulge out behind her, pushing strands of ginger hair in her face and tearing her eyes.

Or was it really the wind tearing her eyes? Wasn't it really the aching loss she already felt, even before the terrible event itself? When the agony shot through her form once more, contracting her chest, she grabbed the shoulder of Allona hard.  
"Ai, mummy, it hurts," the five year old was protesting.
"I'm sorry," Dolori murmured without taking her eyes from the altar, she didn't dare to face her daughter out of fear that she would change her mind. That she would not be strong enough to go through with the horrendous dead she would soon have to perform, in the name of the Great Mother.

The Goddess had asked for her daughter. To prove her loyalty to the one she revered, Dolori had been asked to sacrifice her own daughter to the altar of the Great Mother. The Arch Priestess had recently had a vision, a vision in which the Great Mother had asked Dolori of the life of Allona and for Dolori herself to be the one holding the sacrificial knife. There was no backing out of this, everyone knew that what the Arch Priestess saw during her sessions of meditation held legitimacy. No way around it existed, Dolori had to give up her daughter, the most treasured in her world to the Goddess, to prove that she was loyal.

If she didn't do this, who knew what might happen? Who knew what might befall of their small community surrounded by enemies if the Great Mother would take her hand from them. Just because Dolori had failed her. Steeling her soul she glanced down at the blond head, the lovely curls which flew out across the shoulder and down on her back, contrasting beautifully against the ruby red of her dress. Allona's father had been one of the barbarians of the north, a tall and hefty blond of the ones they had once been at war with but were now partners in trade and barter. They sent their fur, iron and timber down the river, and the People of the Mother were sending wine, spices, silk and olive oil in return.

This Amtimon was one of those men who had come with the trade boats. Not as a tradesman himself, but a security guard, one of those armed men who travelled with the goods to prevent it from being robbed on the way. He had been one of the largest and most handsome men Dolori had ever seen, and she had been immediately attracted to him. Now, the general rule was that Matriarchs didn't marry, even if there were exceptions some times. They were regularly seen as married to their society instead. Therefore the Matriarch could take to her bed any man she so should wish, given that he gave his consent of course. But that was seldom a problem.

Dolori had picked up Amtimon during one of the last fiestas before the tradesmen from north went home again, and they had spent one hot night in Dolori's chamber. Nine months later, Allona had been born, a child with a clear heritage from the northerner people.  

Thus the girl was different, she was fairer in skin and hair, taller and with smaller, more angular facial features than the regular people around. She also had a different temperament, more questioning and less willing to stand in lines and abide to rules and protocol. She was diverse, to cut it short. And some people were already now, while Allona being only five, expressing their worry that she was one day to become Matriarch. Would she be fitting for the rule? Dolori herself held no doubt, a rowdy five year old might very well be a well behaving grown up one day. And then no one would question that she had blond hair.

Or that was the future Dolori had hoped for at least. But now it seemed that this was not to be. Perhaps this was the Great Mother's way of showing that she was displeased with Dolori's choice of a mate, and father to her daughter. A foreigner, almost a barbarian, instead of one of the noble men from their own cities.

But still – asking this of poor Dolori that felt to her almost too much, almost too hard! How could any mother be asked to give up her own daughter in such a cruel way? Asking her to produce another heir that was something which Dolori could have understood and abided to. Asking her to choose a profession for her child that meant that she was out of succession for Matriarchy that would also be considered reasonable. Perhaps desiring that Allona should join the Temple on her 12th year. But not this. Not this!    

The slightest of consolidation did she have at least, the vial tied to her belt. The vial with the drug, to put the dear child to sleep, so that the last thing in life didn't have to be facing her mother's cruel betrayal.

Bracing her against the terrible agony, Dolori took the little hand of her child and started towards the hill. She tried not to face the Arch Priestess and the other small group of gathered people, trying not to see what was in their eyes. Pity, she guessed. Pity, agony and disbelief. Even scorn in some cases, from those who were not her friends. How many would still turn their faith towards the mother after learning of this? For real, that was, not because it was something you had to because of the demand placed upon you from the community that was yours.

"Mummy, what are we going to do?" Allona asked, her sweet voice as usually filled with curiosity.
"We're going to perform a ceremony you and I," Dolori responded.
"What kind of ceremony?"
"A special one, for the mother. Just you and I."

Oh, how she hated the deception!

She despised every step up the hill, every step that brought her closer to the altar and closer to the end of her dear child. She hated the sight of that large stone slap resting upon four pillars. There, they had been sacrifying birds earlier. Birds, seed, flowers mostly and sometimes a calf or a lamb. But never a human being, never ever a child. Not even in their worst times, those old days of war had the goddess required such a sacrifice.

So why now, when they had peace and prosperity?

Dolori counted the steps, she had never done that before, so now she learned that there were 34 of them up to the altar. A demanding climb, still for some reason hadn't her daughter complained once. It was almost as if the girl understood the seriousness of the situation, even if she would hopefully not know the terrible fate awaiting her.

It was lonely at the top, in more sense than one, and it would soon be lonelier. Kneeling by the little girl, Dolori hugged her hard, fighting the tears, she could not let them show. Then she reached for the vial by her belt, plucked it out and unscrewed the cork.
"Mother," Allona asked at that moment. "Why are you crying?"
"Oh, it's nothing. Just the wind in my eyes. Do you want some lemonade?" she dreaded that the girl would decline, but Allona took the bottle from her hand and sampled from it. Then she wrinkled the brows.
"It tastes strange. I don't believe I want anymore."

Allona returned the bottle to her mother, who swallowed hard. Now what? How to make her drink some more – without even tasting it herself. But the next moment the eyes rolled backwards and Allona slumped down on the stamped ground, drugged to sleep. Such was the potency of the drug. Shaking her head the Matriarch corked the vial again and returned it to her belt. At that moment she touched the knife. The hateful object which would soon be used to send her Allona from this world.

After hesitating a few painful heartbeats, she lifted the limp form of her daughter up and placed her carefully on the altar. The little girl's head was lolling and the mother made an irrational effort to not having it bang into the hard stone but coming to rest carefully on the horizontal surface. Allona's blond hair fanned out like sun rays from her lovely little face, she was now laying there with closed eyes, looking ever so peaceful.

Swallowing hard the Matriarch reached for the knife in the belt, unsheathed it and then she found herself staring at the sharp and pointy steel of the business end. It was so sharp that she drew blood of her own finger by just touching it ever so gently with her left hand. The next moment she was raising the knife over the altar, squeezing her eyes shut against the agony and the terror engulfing her – and froze in the moment.

"NO!" she defied. "I'm not doing it."

In the silence after her process, the only thing heard was the rattling sound of a magpie calling out.

"I'm not doing it," Dolori protested. "How can you, a mother yourself ask such a thing from another mother? No,  take me instead! "Then she posed the knife above her own chest instead, preparing to force the knife into her own heart.

In the moment of her frightened hesitation, she felt the hand around her wrist. A strong, unrelenting hand, slightly colder than the hand of an ordinary human. The force of it made Dolori dropping the knife, which fell upon the altar with a clatter that rang out loud in her ear. That made her eyes fluttering up, as somebody was whispering into her ear.

"That was just what I wanted to hear," the melodic voice was saying, it thundered like a waterfall in her ear. "The clear ability to be a human, a mother. To choose the call of the blood, of the offspring above everything else. That's the kind of Matriarch your nation needs. Especially in times like this, when everything seems fine on the surface, but when intrigues and trouble are breathing underneath."

"Who?" her voice grew high-pitched with surprise.
"You know very well who I am!" came the powerful voice again, in her ear. The hand was still clutching to hers, still Dolori saw nothing, nothing but the strangest bluish kind of mist floating around herself and the altar, where her lovely daughter was still asleep.  
"Mother? Goddess?" her voice was trying, insecure.
"Yes indeed."

"But... why?" confusion coloured her voice as Dolori's eyes flickered from her still unconscious daughter upon the altar and then towards the grip she still felt on her hand, however it had lessened considerably and was now more like holding on. But still nothing visible.
"Consider it a test. Not of loyalty, I know you are loyal and faithful, dear child. Any simple minded idiot can be faithful, out of fear quite often. But a test of your sensitiveness and intelligence, you proved that you can be the ruler who can think and prioritize for herself. Who can make the hard decisions, and still have her heart in it. That is necessary for a woman in your position. And that is what I wish for you to teach your daughter as well. Had you ever considered putting that knife in your daughter you would never have been worthy of your position. Never been worthy of me."

"Then what would have happened?"
"I'd stopped you of course. Human lives are never to be taken in my name, I expletively forbid it. Have always done. But you would have been asked to step down from office, and hand it over to someone more aligned with what is going to be need. But we will not dwell further into that. You have more than enough proven yourself to me now. Dolori, my dear, take your daughter and carry her down from the hill again. And then go out in the forest and slaughter a deer and give it to me tonight when the full moon becomes visible above the mountains in the east."

"But the arch priestess?"
"Do not worry about her, or any of the others, they will not remember this incident. Now, go in peace, Matriarch Dolori!"