Following his plunge into the lake and encounter with the ghalthrach, Tolmer managed—after numerous attempts and much to his relief—to summon his shadow veil. Tenuous though it was, the aura was sufficient enough to conceal his nakedness, even if just for a short while. Every Milith child was taught this from an early age, and of all things he’d ever been forced to learn, Tolmer excelled and reveled in reciting the charm that brought it forth.
He shuddered and sighed and muttered thanks to Nirmanath, for without the bit of cabanium remaining in his blood, he’d never have escaped the old man with his life. He’d already expended a great deal of compound when he called upon its magic in his attempt to steal the old man’s bauble. That had nearly been his ruin. That and the water. A drenching always caused one’s veil to sputter. Now he sensed the power within him on the wane.
The veil would not last much longer. Luckily, he was able to seek refuge in the willow tree whose sturdy boughs overlooked the muddy beach and could support an individual three times his size and weight. From the safety of his perch, he watched and waited while the old man sat on a slab of driftwood by the lakeshore, rolling the staff between his palms. The bauble changed colors and intensity. It hummed tunes which touched a chord deep inside Tolmer, vibrating and resounding through him as if in response to a command he did not understand. It was as if the corrath called to him, and a twinge of emptiness spread through his insides in response. So full of joy and sadness, the song nearly caused him to weep.
When at last the forest shadows grew shorter and the warming sun rose above the trees, the sleeping person in the coracle awoke, yawned and languidly stretched. Tolmer gasped and clutched at his perch lest he topple down on top of them, for it was clear at once that the sleeping person was a her. A young woman with piercing gray eyes and lustrous dark hair falling past her waist, catching the sun’s light like a raven’s wing, shimmering with tones of copper and gold. The old man put his arm around the young woman’s shoulders and they spoke in guarded tones, the ghalthrach gesturing toward the west. Then they slipped into the forest, taking his clothes with them.
Cautiously, Tolmer lowered himself to the ground and glanced around to ensure that he was finally alone. He prayed to Nirmanath to help him conceal his vulnerability, for surely he was bereft of magic, depleted of cabanium. And naked as a newborn.
“Inni pana anenethil! Inni pana anenethil!
After numerous attempts, delving into his deepest fears, at last he coaxed a sheen sufficient enough to help him blend into the shadows. “I walk unseen.” He scampered into the brush. “But not for long.”
Tolmer heaved a sigh of thanks as well to the twilight as he scurried like a shade around the outskirts of his village with its three rows of thatch-roofed mud cottages and a common area in the center. Having avoided the sundry villager on his or her way homeward and the clutch of old women always gossiping around pots steaming with sweet vapors over smoldering coals in the square, he sidled into the house he shared with his sister.
Pausing in the threshold, he peeked around the door. The leather hinges squealed just enough to cause him to cringe, but his sister appeared busy at the blazing hearth, her back to him. Something savory simmered on the fire. His stomach rumbled. Thankfully, Tiela did not hear.
Covering his privates, he tip-toed past her and up the ladder into his loft under the thatch.
He rummaged as quietly as he was able in the trunk that Tiela had reserved for his clothes. Not much remained of his older brother’s outgrown garments, but he dressed quickly in the one fit pair of leggings and patched woolen tunic worn soft by years of wear. Demelar’s old belt of dark, oily leather fit him with room to spare. The soft deerskin boots at the bottom of the chest left more space for his toes than he was accustomed in the length. Thankfully, they did not pinch.
A roaring emptiness churned in his stomach, reminding him that he had not eaten since before daybreak, when he stuffed his mouth full of fintil seed cakes as the coracle from the island drifted into the reeds. The smell of hare and mushroom stew wafting up from the hearth made his mouth water. He popped his head over the side and peered down into the main room.
The fire burned low but brightly in the stone hearth, warming a blackened pot hanging from an iron hook. Tiela stirred the contents and hummed to herself. She seemed happier than usual.
Soundlessly, Tolmer slipped down the ladder, tip-toed past his sister and back to the door. He swung it open. “I’m home!”
She turned with a gasp of surprise. “There you are!” In spite of her scolding tone, a beaming smile lit up her pale features, her loosened hair shimmering like silver threads over her shoulders. “No one’s seen hide nor hair of you since before yesterday at sun-up.”
Tolmer closed the door behind him and strode into the room. He plucked a fintil seed cake from the earthen bowl on the table. Tiela swatted his hand with her wooden spoon.
“Ouch!” He crammed the whole cake into his mouth. “I was at the lake,” he said through his mouthful before chewing quickly.
She eyed him carelessly, as if her mind were preoccupied. “Yet you’ve returned empty-handed.”
He swallowed with an effort. “There was nothing today. The boat never came. What’s to eat?” He craned his neck to look around her at the fire.
“Oh, Tolmer!” Tiela’s ice blue eyes sparkled the way they did whenever she suffered a notion to open her heart to him. “How were you to know?” She inclined her head toward her pallet in the darkened corner by the hearth.
Tolmer took advantage of her momentary inattention to snatch another cake from the bowl and take a quick bite. Hiding the remainder behind his back, he glanced at what she had indicated, and his mouth fell open.
A man, golden of hair and pale of face, slept deeply under a pile of blankets and furs in his sister’s bed.
He choked on the cake. “You have found a husband?” Tolmer poured a measure of cider from the pitcher on the table into a horn cup and downed it at once.
“Look at him. Isn’t he beautiful?” Tiela’s eyes had taken on a dreamy aspect. A pang of foreboding clenched at his stomach.
Taking a last thoughtful bite of the cake, Tolmer edged closer. The young man—for surely he was barely older than Tiela—rolled onto his side, where the light revealed smooth cheeks and a few-day’s growth of wispy golden whiskers on his chin and upper lip. “But he’s not one of us, Tiela.”
His sister came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “He’s practically perfect otherwise.”
The blankets had slipped low, revealing a blood-soaked bandage. Thankfully, the blood was dry. “Besides, he’s injured. Why did you take an injured man?”
“We rescued him…from Nortlunde pigs. They seemed intent on killing him, so it’s quite all right.” She sank to her knees beside the sleeping man and tenderly brushed a wayward shock of flaxen hair from his face. Her hand lingered on his forehead. “Anyway, he is the one for me.”
“What if he dies, Tiela?”
“Oh, there is no chance of that. The Grandmothers have tended to his wounds.” She strode to the hearth. Tolmer cast a longing glance at the bowl of cakes on the table as his sister rummaged among a number of vials and jars on the mantle shelf before coming away with two small stone pitchers and a length of clean linen cloth. She placed one vessel on the floor at the bedside and held the other up to sniff it. “This one…” Tiela knelt beside the man and pulled back the blankets. She peeled away the linen strip. “…will heal his wounds quickly. See…? Hardly a scratch now and it was a terrible thing to behold.”
While Tiela tended to the man’s injury and covered it with the clean bandage, Tolmer snatched another cake from the bowl and ate it as quickly as he could.
“And this one…” She unstopped the smaller of the vessels and dabbed a few drops of its contents under the man’s nose. “…will keep him in deep sleep until ’tis time to wake him.”
The galthrach’s question prickled on Tolmer’s mind. Have you seen anything unusual on the road…men on horses…anything of that nature? Tolmer stuffed the remainder of the cake into his mouth, his eyes fixed on his sister’s mate. “You saw these men of Nortlunde?” He swallowed hard.
“Oh yes, the bowman would have killed him for certain, and the others carried swords. But we all summoned our shadow veils and closed around him. Let me see….” She began counting on her fingers. “There was Alion and Cousin Gwylan, Edemil, and Faran…and I cannot remember who else…but it was quite spectacular.”
Tolmer licked the crumbs from his fingers. “You saw them?”
Tiela glanced at him over her shoulder. “They left as soon as they sensed our presence. ‘Hintervolk,’ one of them said, and they fled the wood as if they’d been chased by fire-breathing ergochs.” She giggled behind her hand like a girl. Then she fell into a thoughtful silence.
Tiela rearranged the covers over the sleeping man. She wandered to the fire, her head bowed in thought. She stirred the pot, and with her apron bunched around its handle, removed it to the hearthstones. When at last she turned to him, her eyes shimmered with tears. “You know what this means, don’t you, Tolmer?”
His heart clenched. Of course he knew. His sister had found a husband. All the talk over so many months between them—how she was “seventeen, nearly eighteen with no prospects”—and all at once it had come to pass. Time had come, though he had done his best to avoid taking part in the coming-of-age ritual that would have marked him as a man and ready to face this eventuality. He’d have been better prepared had he taken the bronath rhanthil—his survival wander—with the other boys his age. But he’d never been ready…or had never wanted to have to “prove” himself. Besides, it was too much trouble.
Ever since they both were little, since their parents died, Tiela and their older brother had taken care of him. Now that Demelar had taken up with a Milith woman from their home in Tawartinnu in the depths of the Old Forest and visited only rarely, Tolmer provided what he could for them from the gifts he’d find in the occasional coracle on Morolath Lake. Now at last Tiela had what she wanted. No longer would she be dependent on their brother’s bounty or the generosity of the clan for her sustenance. She had a husband now.
No longer was there a place for him in his sister’s house.
“What will you call him?” Tolmer fought back the tears that constrained his voice.
Tiela’s eyes shone as she returned to the pallet and sat beside her man. She ran the back of her hand over his cheek. “I will call him Einar.”
“Einar? That’s a dull-witted name!”
She shrugged. “I’ve always had a fondness for it. Einar will be his name. What do I care what you think?”
* * *
Tolmer lay on his pallet under the thatched roof in the early hours before dawn. He hadn’t slept. Tossing and turning throughout the night, he agonized about his future. Where was he to live? Surely not with the widowed men and those without benefit of a woman’s house. Who would care for him, feed him, mend his clothes? When at last he banished such thoughts from his mind, memories of his encounter with the ghalthrach left him cold and trembling. If he did not have a care, he might yet wake one morning to find himself turned into a chicken…or worse! Yet through it all, the image of the old man’s shiny bauble beckoned to him. Its song tugged at his heart.
What sort of power might he wield with such a jewel in his possession? Surely, he would have the means to look after himself…and his clan…without subjecting himself to the menial tasks expected of a Milith man. He would not need to find a wife, the thought of which filled him with uneasiness, for he was considered clumsy and oafish by the girls of his acquaintance. Even the old ones laughed openly at his attempts to sidle up to a pretty lass and speak his mind without tripping over his words…or his feet.
The bauble would provide. But how to attain it?
He snuggled deep in his blankets and, with the ghost of a smile turning up his lips, closed his eyes. Dreams would show him the way. They always had. Yes…. He would find a way to make the corrath his own. In so doing, he’d exact a measure of revenge on the ghalthrach for causing him such humiliation.
Perhaps he’d turn the old man into a fintil seed cake….