Beyond the Valley of Mist Read Online Free Page B

the
valley, either to the East or to the West.
    The village consists of a
large number of caves that serve as homes. Several families live in
some of the larger caves.
    The priests and those who
serve them live in a large communal cave only a short walk from the
village. This cave serves as a temple of worship, and the place
where the priests keep the sacred Fire.
    Some caves have been eroded
by wind and rain; others were carved into the sandstone cliffs with
stone tools. A small stream runs at the base of the cliff,
providing water for drinking and bathing. A large river flows some
distance east of the village, at the base of yet another sandstone
cliff. Trees grow right to the edge of that cliff, which drops
directly into the river. The Lalocks use a trail down the side of
the cliff to get to the river to fish, bathe, and swim.
    A short distance from the
cliff, the river runs into a valley of perpetual mist. The mist
hides the valley completely. Many people ask, “Is there an end to
the valley? Is there another side?” No one knows, but they can hear
strange sounds coming from the valley. It is a dreaded place. Since
no one who ventured far into the valley has ever returned to tell
what was there, they call it the “Valley of Death.”
     
    ***
     
    Lalock is an unhappy place.
Their God is an oppressive God. The priests sacrifice people to
Fire and use the power of fear to control them.
    The priests watch the young
girls carefully to determine when they are becoming women. The
girls are required to tell the priests when they have their first
time of the moon. But before a girl can enter the temple to undergo
the rite of womanhood, she must be examined by a priestess to
determine if she is a virgin. If she isn’t, they declare her
unworthy and place her in the sacrificial Fire, where the Fire God
judges her.
    Once it is assured that the
girl is a virgin, the priests take her into the temple, where she
is forced to submit nightly to them until she conceives. It usually
requires about three months before the priests are sure the girl is
pregnant. When this is confirmed, the priests tell the people and
the girl’s future husband that they should be proud of her, because
God has blessed her and found her worthy. God has impregnated her,
and it is a great honor to bear the child of God. And then she is
allowed to rejoin her family and marry the man of her choice, but
the couple must pledge to raise their children to worship the Fire
God.
    If the girl doesn’t
conceive in a reasonable time, the priests say that God has found
her unfit, and she is thrown into the Fire. The priests tell the
people that this is done to maintain the sanctity of the
village.
     
    Lalock men were tortured by
stories of how their future wives were lusty participants in the
sexual orgies, and in a few instances, they were forced to watch,
in secret, as the sexual encounters took place. This was to assure
the man that his bride-to-be was engaging in the acts willingly.
The priests erroneously told the men that the girls found the
experience so satisfying that they didn’t want to leave the temple
even after conceiving. It took a very strong man to continue to
love the girl he had committed himself to marry after watching her
seeming to enjoy these encounters, and indeed it destroyed the
loving relationship between many of the couples. It was very
difficult for a man to love his wife’s firstborn, knowing that the
child was not his.
    The greatest torture a
young man could endure was knowing that the girl he loved was being
impregnated by another man. He knew that the girl also had a sexual
release, but it was purely a physical response, and that her mind
was saying no while her body was saying yes.
    The girls told their
betrothed that they submitted willingly because they knew that if
they did not conceive, they would be sacrificed to the Fire God for
being unworthy. The men knew this was true and tried to put the
situation out of their mind. Some