Page 112 - Folio Only

gently, quietly, lifting your right leg, slowly, while the rope is distracted
elsewhere (because it, too, will be burned as well, tied as it was itself to the
stake). Luther decided he'd try that. The other two alternatives would clearly
no work, so he might as well try the third.

Not that he had decided he didn't want to be sacrificed. He did. It was a
goat's highest honor, being sacrificed. Better than being relegated to some field
of grass for the rest of your life, either, for nannies, to be milked (whenever they
want to milk you, no choice in the matter yourself, where's the dignity in that?) or
as would have been Luther's lot, to sire as many offspring as possible before
they cut off your head and feed your body in pieces at the market. The siring
part sounded to Luther more than wonderful (“bleatific” was the goats' name
for it), but the sudden and random beheading, no, Luther didn't care for that.
So little control over your own destiny.

Which is why he had volunteered for the sacrificing. At least he felt like
it meant something. Pick me, pick me! he'd tried to say by stepping forward one
step out of the herd and striking a rampant pose he'd seen on some statues.
He could just hear the glory now. Glory to Goat in the highest...And then they'd
burn him, which would hurt an awful lot, then there'd be no more bleatific fun
with the nannies. Ugh, better think this through. And he had stepped back.
Pick someone else. Pick her, pick her! Luther had nudged a sweet dopey two
year old, who compliantly had stepped forward. Reprise! Out of the frying pan!
Free once again. But then he saw what he'd done to the poor doe, who was too
young and doe-eyed to know what a sacrifice was. Oh, no, Luther, this is
wrong. You can't let her go unknowingly to her death; that's unkind and unfair.
I can't...I can't let her go into something without understanding. Luther had
pounced forward in front of her. Pick me, pick me!

Which is how he had wound up in the sacrificial pyre. And now that he
was here...he realized he'd probably made a big mistake. It's one thing to
dedicate your life to your own beliefs, your own sense of Higher Purpose,

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