Working title: Eemia

G'Hasra the Wise

The winters are colder now. The common people say that the land is rising, but it is apparent that the seas decrease - the dryness of the air turns to snow in the far north even as the lands creep towards each other.

Not five summers previous a man claiming to be from the far east walked - yes, walked - across the marshes of Gli-Doth and gained audience with Caim Mildreth. And I fear the news he brought; since that day the armies of Isra have camped along the Wild Marches.

Five years - and taxes have been raised time and again, and the fortresses that guard the wild marshes manned and provisioned. There is news that the cup of Ca'il has been found, and that strange races of half-men - not dwerrows nor tysja, but a bastard of man and beast - do prepare great engines of war, and kindle fires in the heart of the earth.

Some say these are the ravings of a man made mad by the ghosts of the Marshes, but I know this My'Lyn from of old, and his word is more true than the sun of the morning or the Queen of the night, and I too believe that the devil and his children do now walk the land with earthly feet.

As for me . . . well, my people are old, and not long for this land of shadows. But I am yet young, and I have grown found of the men of Al'Tlan, and of Isra itself. And the old stories must not be forgot, lest our memory be scourged from the Good God's green earth. I shall wait, and I shall watch, and I shall act if needs must.

Ebri of Mon

Ebri of Mon first heard of her father one evening when the clear cold light of the stars shone undimmed by cloud or moon. The farmers, legs encrusted with mud from their fields, came into the house of Col. Their loud voices belied the exhaustion they claimed, though Col was happy enough to offer them the drinks they desired. The goatherder frowned at the farmers as they joined his table, eyes reddened and blurry after appealing to Col many times already that evening. He had spent the day looking for one of his goats that had strayed further than her sisters had been willing to follow, and had gotten herself lost on the unfamiliar mountain slopes east of Mon, where she had never been before. The goatherder, searching for her, had at last come to the gully where a wolf had found her first.

"The third in as many days," the farmer commented. "Aris lost two. One was young and naive enough to wander on her own, but the other was an old canny master who should not have been fooled by any taunting wolf."

"A single wolf?" the goatherder asked.

"So Aris said. A smart wolf, cannier than his old master."

"The hunters are not doing their work."

"Will you tell them that? Ikren has returned, I hear, and will stay but a few days."

The goatherder drew a long sip from the tankard Col set before him. The brew of Mon was like liquid fire, more refreshing than the mountain springs. "No, I will not tell Ikren the Silent. I will not speak to a man who cannot smile nor laugh."

"He laughed once. I heard him; it was the day he came back and discovered that he had a son. But when Riel of And died on the tusks of the white boar he did not speak a word for two years. He searches the mountains every year. I do not think the Silent Hunter will remember how to smile until he finds the white boar."

"Orb of And had a white boar. He bound it with his spells and its name. But he thought himself into a tree for a year and a day, and forgot many things, including the binding of the white boar. They say it killed Riel of And because it was maddened at its capture and she had the scent of And on her. Orb has never seen his white boar again, though he called for it at Ikren's insistence."

Ebri shifted in her corner under a table, reaching out for the tankard Col handed her. She did not know the brew of Mon. She thought that nothing could taste sweeter than the cool mountain water she held with both hands. The tankard was too big for her; she had to clasp it tightly so that it could not slip out from between her palms. Pale hair drifted over her eyes; she pushed it back into an impatient tangle. The farmers and the goat herder warmed to their tales; Col's visitors drew closer to the table of the trio.

"A strange wizard came one spring day, like none other that has been seen in Mon, Har or And. He came from farther away than even Caer Dinn. He had white hair, but he was no older than I, and he had black eyes. The wizard saw the bronzesmith's daughter picking flowers in a field as he passed, and enchanted her with a spell and her name. Three days later the bronzesmith heard a knock on his door and opened it to find his missing daughter, carrying no flowers, but a witch-child that has white hair and black eyes."

The tales ran on into the night, spiralling through the clear air to the stars, told in rough language with little skill or poetry, yet music all the same to the ears of the listeners. Long before they ran out, Col chased Ebri away into the arms of her mother and sleep. She played games or sat quietly, listening intently to anyone who would speak of wizards and strangers, and waited a week before asking the question that turned over and over in her mind. She raised her head from the straw mattress, trying to see her mother's expression in the feeble light of the banked forge downstairs. "Did my father call you with a spell and your name, like Orb of And called the white boar?"

The bronzesmith's daughter smiled gently, wistfully, and stroked Ebri’s pale cornsilk hair. "No, child. Your father was fair to look upon, and true enough he had a glorious voice. He needed no spell to enchant me; one smile was enough. A wizard he may have been - who else but a wizard or a hunter would wander so far from his lowlands home? - but he had to ask me for my name, and I gave it gladly."

And Ebri had to be satisfied with that, for she could never again persuade her mother to speak of her father. She listened to the stories told at Col's house, and heard many wonderful and mysterious things, yet they too taught her nothing more of the wizard that had enchanted a bronzesmith's daughter and given her a witch-child.

Brean

Brean watched the horizon waiting for Sun to rise from its evening slumber. He loved this time of the day, before the others woke. He waited patiently, giving his homage to the night about to depart and for the day about to be born. He prayed silently to the all Father in thanksgiving for having made it through the night.

The sun began to rise, painting the sky red. He sniffed the air, gently at first, then breathing it deep. There was something sharp in it. Chill, frost would come in a day or two, frost was bad for the harvest. He'd have to get the clansmen to start harvesting now. They would listen to him and begin harvesting, with any luck they would beat the frost that would likely come in a day or two. Then they would start talking again about him having been touched by the all father.

He couldn't explain to them that he wasn't magical, he was just perceptive. Then again, how can you explain knowing that it will rain heavily with ice stones to those who don't know how to read the signs of the birds and beasts. They might nod knowingly at the time, but a day or two later they will forget, and only remember afterwards that you told them there would be storm, not how you knew. To be honest, Brean himself was never entirely sure everytime how he knew some of the things that he just knew, he just used his knowledge for the good of the people. He had been wrong before, but they usually forgot quickly and were amazed at the next correct warning.

It didn't help that he had an arrow head in his ribs from a raid by a neighboring tribe and had lived. Or that he had killed the rampaging tiger that had been killing their goats five years ago. To be honest he didn't mind the talk about him being touched by the All father too much. In the past year the neighboring tribe had stopped raiding them all together. The sun started to glow a bright yellow annointing the landscape with pale light. Yes, he had best go back and rouse his clansmen. There was much work to do.

Magda

The world was shrouded in steam and fog. Magda, a spare, black-gowned figure, went about her morning routine wrapped in billowing grey clouds, Some of it was the night's dew evaporating...but most was the heat from the Blood River, a hot spring that had broken from the ground in Magda's youth. So called because of the rusty color of the sediment at its bottom, the Blood River had brought the mixed blessing of hot water to Magda, the village of Caer Dinn, and to his Lordship in the castle downstream. Magda herself had the unheard-of practice of using hot water to cleanse wounds. Her patients. two and four-legged, usually healed cleanly, so this odd habit was overlooked.

Magda set out last night's meager leftovers for the birds...a motley collection of jackdaws, ravens, wrens, and one misshapen swan. Most of the birds were former patients...the children of Caer Dinn Village knew who to bring the fallen fledglings, the broken-winged survivors of stray slingshots to. The swan, now...Magda thought that he had his own agenda. He had glided into her little clearing one day, gazed at her from one side of his head, then the other, and consented to sample her breadcrumbs. He had no visible wounds, but he had a red band around his neck, which Magda had never removed. He was probably an escapee from the Lord's castle lake. Magda called him "Gwion"; and fed him with the rest.

The birds fed, Magda climbed with effort over the rocky rise, swinging the haunch of venison that a well-wisher had brought her a day ago. She ate little meat; tending the hurts of the animals maimed by sloppy-shooting hunters, she had lost her taste for game long ago. Still, she accepted the village's pay of venison and pheasants in exchange for her healing, midwifery, and fortune-telling. The meat was welcomed by her other charges.

She waited for them to appear out of the morning mists. Ariane, and Aron, the orphaned bear cubs, and Greymane, the wolf. She had divided the portions into three, as usual, and set them down a distance apart from each other. She had asked them to leave "her"animals alone, and hunt elsewhere in the Caer Dinn Forest, and seemingly, they had agreed. But they were not arriving. Where were they?

In answer, a symphony of growls and howls echoed eerily around the white-wrapped trees. She had a visitor. "Greymane! Ariane! Aron! Come to me, let this one approach and state his business!"she called.

Suddenly, like parting a curtain, they were there. The cubs shuffled up, nuzzling her hands with their pink noses, their black eyes gleaming with mischief. They were waist-high now, when they were on all fours. Standing, they would tower over her. Greymane stalked into the clearing, ruff bristling,still growling at the unseen visitor. His golden eyes gleamed. His haunches were tensed to spring. Only Magda's hand in his coarse, thick fur, stayed him from leaping for the kill. They waited.

The fog darkened between two trees, and a tall, black-cloaked figure stepped into the clearing.

"Who are you, and what do you want?"demanded Magda.

The man adjusted his hood, let it fall back just a little, to reveal deep-set brown eyes. He kept his hands within his cloak, but one was poised to strike at the growling wolf.

"What do you know of a witch-child, birthed to a woman of the lowlands, hidden away these five years? I have gold for your answer." Within the cloth folds, a jingle suggested ringing coins.