Pillar of the Sky by Cecelia Holland

Author:Cecelia Holland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-12-11T21:13:51+00:00

Three

THE GATEWAY

The people of Rulon’s Village cut logs, and they pried up the first of the great stones by the High Hill, digging it out of the grass where it had lain so long, and worked the rollers under it. They made rope, and with the rope, and with men pushing, they moved the stone over the land to the river, and it took them well into the spring simply to reach the river with the first stone.

At the river’s edge, they built a frame of wood for the stone. They sewed up the skins of pigs and goats and filled them with water and thrust them under the frame, so that the stone floated up off the bottom of the river, and wading along beside it, and pulling with ropes on either bank, they brought the first great stone down the river to the place it came nearest to the Pillar of the Sky.

There, they brought the huge stone onto the bank, and worked the rollers under it again, and with ropes and pushing and groaning and saying many prayers, and giving much to the spirits to make them strong also, they hauled the stone up across the plain to the Pillar of the Sky. Altogether it took them from the time Moloquin laid the task on them until the Midsummer Gathering to bring the first stone to the Pillar of the Sky.

Moloquin did not go to the Gathering. Most of the People went but Moloquin stayed at the Pillar of the Sky, where he was digging up the old ring of stones, and many of those who loved him stayed with him.

He had ordered the People of Ladon’s Village to move their longhouses up to a site on the far side of the Pillar of the Sky, and there they raised their new roundhouse, and built a fence around the village; there they cut down the brush and the trees, burned them, and dug up the ground to make new gardens. From these gardens he charged them to keep all those fed who worked at the Pillar of the Sky.

At the place of work itself, outside the embankment, he and the men of the Forest Village built another roundhouse, and there at night they ate and told stories and slept; but everything they ate, and all their goods, came from the other villages. All they did at this place was work to build Moloquin’s gateways.

Toward the time of the equinox, another of the great stones arrived from Rulon’s Village, the men groaning and complaining. These were the two largest stones that Moloquin had chosen; he had made them bring them first because in his heart he was afraid that if they had brought smaller stones first, and learned how hard the work was, they would refuse even to try to move the bigger stones. These stones were so huge that with all the men of the village working at them they only travelled a few paces a day

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