The astonishment on their faces surprised her. But one priest looked at the other and then back to them, apparently not willing to disobey a descendant of their gods.
“I am called Aleron and this is Kester,” the younger priest offered.
After a few minutes of awkwardness, with the priests continuing to bow at their every word or request, the two grew more at ease with them. The bad feeling was gone now, but the buzzing grew as they neared the stones.
“Do you see that there are eight stones remaining in place, Soren?” she asked him. He glanced around, counting them and studying their places.
“This looks like the same alignment that Einar drew around the chamber. Look how these stones are shaped,” he pointed out. Walking to the middle of the circle, he looked again and nodded. “The one marked with your symbol would be that one,” he indicated the one to the west. “The one that matches mine would be this one.” Soren walked over to that stone.
Ran walked to the one he’d pointed out to her and realized he was correct. Einar had drawn this arrangement in the broch. The low noise grew and she leaned closer to determine whether the sound came from the stone or something else. Ran placed her hands on the stone . . .
. . . and the world she knew disappeared.
The circle appeared as though freshly hewn and placed on the ground near the lakes. But this land was wider and the lakes smaller in size. Eleven stones stood in place and people wearing white robes danced around them. Bells and drums filled the air along with the whispered chants and songs of the priests.
Then two priests led a woman into the circle and stood her within a smaller circle of three smaller stones positioned there. She swayed to the beat of the drums, her eyes closed, her arms extended to the sky. The people gathered around the outside of the circle, the music and sounds growing raucous now.
The scene continued before Ran as though she was not there.
Two priestesses led a man into the circle now and stood him before the woman. Ran realized that the woman was drunk for she seemed unaware of those around her. The priests took hold of her arms and pulled her down to the ground there, stripping the thin gown off her as they did.
She must help her. Ran let go of the stone and made her way to the center where the woman lay writhing on the ground, being stroked by the two men holding her there. Ran shouted but no one seemed to hear her.
Then the priestesses tore off the small garment the man wore around his waist and began to pleasure him with their hands and mouths, until his prick grew long and thick and hard. They led him to the woman. All six fell to the ground, their bodies rubbing and pressing against one another. The people around the circle began chanting some words. As she watched, unable to stop them or make them hear her, the priests and priestesses rose and surrounded the couple still on the ground.
They were . . . rutting.
The chanting grew louder and louder, the tone and timing of it sexual in nature and the man paced his thrusts into the woman to those chants. The woman moaned in pleasure, still on the ground, as the man plowed deep into her.
Ran looked away and then saw an old man carrying a large dagger into the circle. He walked seven times around the circle in one direction, then another seven times in the other, stopping before the couple on the ground in the center. The chanting and prayers reached a feverish pitch as the man threw back his head and screamed out as his seed released into the woman. They moved in unison as he emptied into her.
Then, quicker than she thought possible, the old man straddled the couple, grabbed the man’s head and slashed into his neck. The woman kept screaming out her release as the blood poured over her. The priests took hold of the dying man and lifted him out and away from the woman, allowing his blood to cover her. As she lay shuddering with her own release, the people fell to their knees and touched their heads to the ground.
Unable to breathe or move, Ran watched in horror as the priests and priestesses dipped branches in the man’s blood and blessed all those around the circle with it. The naked woman climbed to her feet, following them, and allowed the people to touch her, taking the blood of her lover to smear on themselves.
“May she be fertile!” the old priest called out. “May she be fertile!” the crowd answered.
The woman laughed and shouted, “May I be fertile!”
Raising the dagger, the priest shouted again to those watching. “Or her blood will nourish the soil!”
“Her blood . . . life to our soil!” the people yelled.
“My blood for the soil!” she laughed out, falling to the ground now.
A fertility ritual? Here at the stones?
Ran turned looking around at the area. The crowd waited and watched as the woman was brought once more to the center where the man’s dead body now lay on a pile of wooden branches dipped in tar. The old priest gave her a burning torch and she lit the pyre aflame, watching as the fire consumed the man whose seed yet ran down her legs and mixed with his blood. Stumbling back, Ran noticed people she had not seen before. As the old priest took a place before one of the stones, these four men and three women did so, too. Dressed in costly garments and gemstones and crowns, they glowed, each surrounded by a bright color— turquoise, silver, molten orange, red, green, blue and yellow gold. The woman clothed in a gown that flowed like the sea met Ran’s gaze and smiled at her before turning back to the others. The priest glowed like moonlight as he spoke more words to the people. The seven touched the stones and became them, growing taller and leaning to meet over the sacrifice.
And then everything was gone and she stood holding on to the stone.
The gods? Had she just seen the gods?
Three women and four men. The woman in turquoise? Was that the goddess who ruled the sea? Her own ancestor?
A fertility ritual and a sacrifice to please them? In their honor? Here on the field of Stenness?
When?
