Chapter 9

Fickle rains had always plagued Sterich, as far back as its early settlement by the welklings, when the Vaenaen Empire still occupied the realm. In the very bad years, when the rains hid along the horizon and refused to come ashore, the oat grasses stunted, the stems curled and their leaves yellowed. The river ran shallow. Small flies buzzed above the brown stained basins of the dry, narrow irrigation canals. Boats rested at odd angles on the dry river bed. Frozen in a sea of hardened mud.

Summer scorched the stems and left them bleached brown. Summer winds lifted the dust into the air. Hazy, beige clouds veiled the sun and covered what few green leaves were left. Each morning, farmers bent over at the hip, futilely wiped the dusty leaves only for the afternoon winds to restore their patina. On the days they could see the sky, the sun had robbed it of all its blue, and left a tired, white smear.

Before summer left, stems collapsed. Farmers scampered through the fields, a dull scythe in one hand, the other reaching for grasses that remained upright. The brittle plants snapped more than cut. Worried faces, reddened by the sun, searched out the meager yield the gods left them.

At the fading light that closed each day, farmers returned home to a pale broth and porridge. The ambling wagons that creaked under the load of grain, driven by the landowners or imperial tax collectors came frequently to collect the noble's share. Stern faces backed by big men with spears, made their demands in a civil tone that felt anything but. They had threats in their eyes. They had eyes that searched, evaluated and questioned. Their expressions that dared someone to say, "This is all I have." The crop yields shrank, but the noble's share remained the same. The imperial cut rose and fell based on needs of people horizons away. The sterish people tasted hunger.

Those bad years happened as frequently as the good, and buckled the farmer's spirits. Older farmers who had rode out the worst years, buttressed their flagging hopes with reminders that good years turn bad just as surely as bad years will one day turn good. They had a name for what was needed to survive those trying times, they called weathering. "If we a weather this, the shoots will shine green in the sun next spring." Not everyone could weather it.

Stoic farmers, with red necks and leathery skin, rubbed the sweat and grime from the back of their necks as they looked over what remained and discussed in quiet voices so the children couldn't hear, "Do we feed the pig? Or do we just eat it? Will the pork last a month? Do we have enough salt to keep it? How soon you think the rain's gonna come?" In the evening, when there was nothing left to do but listen to their stomachs and look out across the greying landscape as night stole the sun, they'd spy the lands beyond the view of Fael and wonder. Pale, yellow hills rimmed the world to the east like crust of undercooked pie. A skirt of redwoods traced their valleys, wrapped their bases in a dark, jagged shade. From that distance, they looked still and quiet. No roads to cut the landscape into pieces.

Rumors of springs just inside the hill line spread. Some dismissed that kind of talk as dangerous, speculative. But to the more desperate, these rumors were pregnant with hope. And soon men were asking their wives what they knew of the hills. Wives were asking their husbands whether a garden, a garden they could keep, would grow under those towering trees? Or how about higher up, in the yellowed, faded part, that bathed under a lidless sky?

In the driest year yet known by the sterish, when on calm days the sun cooked the sky to a gauze-colored heaven above them; when on windy days the ulth (earth) shed great clouds of dust that devoured the sun, and gently buried everything in a fine powder; when the nobles sent guards with tax men and the collectors didn't just accept their offering but kicked in doors and turned over tables looking for hidden stores of food: the rumors of the hills took on a sound of testimony from someone whom someone knew, never directly, but close enough to ring of truth. "There's water, there's land, there's no nobles, no imperials." A trickle of carts pulled by men with barely enough strength to drag their lives up the slopes of the hills, but with the resolve to find another day, began on those nights. Frozen hearts stared over shoulders for fear of a call, or horn, or stampede of horses to give chase. Fearful eyes scanned the the moon-traced country for the glowing blue eyes of the watchful and dangerous fay. The unknown could be no worse than the life they knew.

Families left in clumps, and many settled in clumps. Most didn't intend it that way. The journey there had changed their minds. Nights were fireless. Hidden in copses and beneath the crown of hills, they feared the nobles would one day come and reclaim them, return them to the land that couldn't feed them. So on their journey, they remained hidden by night without light. They spoke in hushed voices. They chided the children that couldn't help but blurt out their excitement. The men and women spoke with a guarded enthusiasm of the promise of their own land. "I want a plot where I as far as I can see, the land is no one's but the gods. And I can grow for myself, for my children." That's how they spoke on the journey. But once there, in these foreign hills, alone, with haunting new night sounds, families found comfort in being together. There were a handful of such clumps, that became settlements in the hills. One such settlement was Nemheim.

The hills were called Hyll Hael Rudo (Saint Rudo Hills). Rudo, in his day, had negotiated with the fay to leave the river lands and settle in the hills. And in his honor the sterish named the hills for him. The fay never made the hills their home.

These families that settled Nemheim had escaped the burdens of life under the nobles of Fael. They could keep that which they grew from the soil. They found little flowing water, but they dug beneath the massive trees and found ground water. Wells were dug, lined with stones. Gardens were watered by the sounds of a winch raising buckets that sloshed and splashed even on the driest of days. Yes, they had found what they had hoped for, but it was not as they hoped for it. That was expected. The gods provide, it's not for men to say how. But they also found they had lost things they failed to notice they had. They lost the security granted by the great stone walls of Fael. They lost the great numbers of men who could hold spears and shields. Nemheim was exposed.

Welklings are quick to find exploits. As Altarik, the great gnomish bookkeeper of the Third Long, put it, "We gnomes play in the fine print of ledgers, while the welklings do the same but with people." It didn't take long for some of these settlements to figure out that taking what they needed was easier than the work of raising it. Raids became frequent. Nemheim was burned and raised and burned in almost annual cycle. At first the surest defense was no defense. The people would scatter, hide amongst the redwoods in caves and in dugouts camouflaged with blankets of pine needles. The raiders wanted their oats, lettuce, pigs, chickens, far more than they wanted blood. Once the raiders began to covet the people, hiding became less effective.

Huddled in dark shelters, they could hear the booted footsteps, see the flickering lights of torches at night, hear the huffing sniffs of dogs hunting their scents. Nemheim had to meet these threats head on. Berms were shoveled shoulder high around the approach from the west. They erected guard towers from redwood beams with ladders of lashings. Horns called, sometimes not in time. Still, a resistance gave pause to raiders hoping for easy prey. The raids grew less frequent, but more coordinated. Nemheim grew more savvy in response.

Unlike Fael where the law, the Dux's fist and above all the Imperial Naels (armies) maintained a sense of order, Nemheim only had kinship to hold it together. In lean times, they shared their hunger. But overtime, how they shared it came into question. There were those who felt entitled to larger claims. They argued they contributed more than the rest. Some said they were more needed and could leave for other settlements if they weren't provided for. And so, the greatest bounty found its way to those who were deemed the most important or the most vital. Warriors (that is to say anyone who could wield a spear, hold a shield, and not turn and run in the face of danger) got the first pick of the harvest. The reasoning was thus: they must be fit to defend everyone's homes. The priests came next. If they perished, then they wouldn't be there to tend those in need. Then the artisans. The elders. Those with knowledge. Then came the rest.

As these affordances were made, resentments grew. Murmurs of discontent hummed like the rise and fall of the locusts. Mothers who had but an apple to feed their children stared crossly from the corners of their eyes at the stout smith who showed no signs of hunger. The elderly, those not wise enough to be part of the elders, sat under the shades of trees on small stools and in few words exchanged their concerns. "I remember this." "Different though." Nods. Grunts. Looks exchanged from beneath bushy brows. Sun spotted hands wiped sweat from the backs of their necks. "Different, and the same." They all knew what was meant: this new life was not the same as the life they left at Fael, but it was not that much different.

Before long, the people who settled had children who grew up and had their own children, and so forth. In a short time, those in Nemheim had no memory of life before Nemheim. No memory of the bargain made when they left Fael.

As struggles persisted in particularly bad years, the hunger spread from the outside in, from those deemed not as deserving, to the deserving. Families redefined a lifetime to a single day. One woke to hunger pains and the only point of the day was to find food for that day. Failure meant that any day could be the end of a life. There were no means to plan for anything beyond it. And if the next day came, another single-day-long life began all over again.

Their frontier had little escape to offer, no further frontiers to probe for promises of reprieve. The river bound them in the north, and across it lay wild Blada, too wild to hope for a better life. The eastern hills offered nothing to live off of. And the valleys beyond teemed with Neeklow and the other hill peoples.

In time, a few desperate people dared the bleak hills to the east, recreating the journey from generations before. Hungry people looking for a better place. Only, the horizon didn't offer much promise beyond hope. But hunger has a way of prizing hope, especially for the desperate. And that's how the stersh first went east into the barren, unforgiving interior hills. They carried empty stomachs and minds emptied of choices. They made promises to return, they made promises to find something better. Few returned. Of those that did, they only spoke of the horrors of the hills, horrors too terrifying to name. They feared uttering a name would call those horrors to follow them back, back to Nemheim. One of those that returned was a well known but quiet farmer. He had a wife, four children, and a garden of weeds. He had left a broad man with large eyes and an even temperament, returned hollowed out by the harrowing experience, with a savage scar across his chest, four claws had raked his flesh to the bone, exposing his ribs and sternum. His wounds festered and refused to heal. The cuts seeped blood until the day he passed. In his possession was a bundle of sticks with a ruddy bark and a blood red grain. The priest who, after failing to heal him, performed the death rituals noticed the bundle of sticks.

The priest had a round belly that shamed him. Beneath his frock he wrapped a strip of wool tightly around his middle in an attempt to conceal it. It made breathing hard, especially when he exerted himself. So he did everything slowly, calmly, except inside his home, where he'd let his bounds loose and breath freely.

The farmer's widow, distraught, without any means to provide an offering to pay for the death ceremony, noticed the priests curious gaze. She sprung into motion, scooped the bundle into her arms, dropped to her knees, and with tears streaming down her face she pressed the sticks into the priest's bound belly. He took a step back, uncomfortably laughed, confused by the offering, confused by her desperation, embarrassed that she might detect the wrappings around his stomach. Still, his eyes couldn't leave the wood. It had a strange beauty. She released the wood into his arms. A smaller branch fell to the floor and skittered at his feet. He looked down on the tangle he held and felt something. A warmth seemed to radiate from the wood. He nodded, accepted the offering.

He performed the leaving rituals and prayed over the dead man. He stuffed the wound with rosemary and huckleberries. She handed him a stick, what would be the ceremonial first bit of kindling to light on the dead man's pyre. The priest saw it was of that same, potent looking red wood and he shook his head no. Had her place it with his pile she gave for payment, and told her to fetch another piece from a different tree. When she returned, he performed the ritual to let the gods light the wood. Several strange words, spoken in a deep voice, with a stomping cadence. The branch, laid across his palms, began to shed a green, wispy light that seemed to flicker like smoke. Then the stick glowed white, heatless, a pure flame. He set it, lit and all, on the man's chest. Nothing caught fire from this magical flame. It just shed light, in a dancing, flaming manner. He gathered coals from the hearth in a bucket. He placed the smoldering, cooling embers on by the pyre. The winds lifted, called by the pure flame of the lit wood on the dead mans chest, and in time, long after the priest left, they would ignite the pyre.

He took the blood red wood back to his home. His wife saw the pile of sticks and chided him for the odds and ends he brought back as payment. He laughed at himself, admitted he had never learned to say no. She took the pile and tossed it out by the rest of their fire wood. She wiped her hands clean, a look of irritation on her face, that then melted to a loving acceptance of the bumbling fool (that's what she called him). She loosened the wrap around his belly, which spilled out over his belt, and kissed him lightly on his cheek. He took a deep, unrestricted breath, and followed her inside.

For the rest of that day the priest was filled with a dread of having lost something. At night, after his wife fell asleep, he slinked out of bed and shuffled softly across the room. His feet slid across the dried floorboards with a sooosh sound. He tried to disguise that he was sneaking. He felt ashamed of his obsession with these twigs and branches. He didn't want his sneaking to betray how much his thoughts centered on this exotic kindling. But he also didn't want his wife to wake and stop him from going to see the branches.

Two of the moons had risen, tuelal still hid behind the horizon. Breaks in the canopy of the towering redwoods revealed the moons in silvery beams. Passing clouds claimed the moonlight as their own, and the darkness would deepen and fade as they passed. A wind from the west, cold, shook the branches and the moonlight danced to the sound. His obsession lay next to stacks of ordinary firewood and that bothered him. He bent over with a grunt and moved aside his pile of branches.

He grunted again as he stood up, his hands pressed palm to palm at his lips. He stared at the twigs and he felt silly for it. Tree branches. Kindling. All day long, at the edges of his mind, like a cloud that cast a shadow, the image of these branches lingered like a foreshadow. And looking at the the tangle of branches, a few dried leaves curled had separated and fallen to the ground -- they looked like any dead leaf on a dusty ground. He laughed at himself, a quiet chuckle, shook his head and turned to leave. The moment he did, he felt a pang of vague regret. He turned back around, and hurriedly mouthed a prayer.

He rushed it, scared if he took his time his thoughts would talk him out of this inquiry his instincts so badly wanted to make. With his eyes closed, he extended his awareness. At once, he felt the warmth of the wood again, just like he had the first time he held them. The heat felt like the dying embers of a once strong fire.

He kept his eyes closed.

He opened his spirit and reached out. It's a sensation much like how one can draw a picture of a space by the sounds they hear. He was practiced at opening his spirit to feel the spiritual about him. He felt the shape of the wood, only it wasn't in the shape of a tangle of branches. It felt more like a crown. Then it changed shape. It felt like a different crown. And over and over, as his spirit felt for the wood, he felt a multitude of crowns, all regal, all magnificent, all worthy of dux and duxes (kings and queens).

He opened his eyes and took a slow step back. For a long moment, he considered the pile. "This is not just wood," he said to himself. He cupped his hands and began a ceremony. A wisp of iridescent green smoke wafted from his palms. He chanted, quietly, "Aenyl wythul nosturum." Over and over. Spoken softly, more like air that in the shape of a sound. With each repetition, the green smoke shone brighter, the light intensified. Revolution by revolution, it took on a shape. It became a roiling ball of green light that cast a mist like smoke made of pure light. He slowly cracked open his eyes, just a mere slit. His eye lids released each other. His lashes chopped up the view, and distorted everything. The world through that sliver was made of ghostly shapes and suggestions of their true form. He saw that the wood emanated a green mist of its own, and something more, at the heart of the green mist was a taint of orange.

He startled. His fingers straightened reflexively. The ball of green mist dissipated like sand, and quickly faded out. He stepped back. The branches still glowed, a faint greenish-orange mist, but only for a moment longer, then it too faded to a sandy-textured light, scattered on the ground, and faded out.

"This should not be so," he said aloud.

16 Firedawn -862

It was morning. The smell of coffee and porridge filled the priest's home. A breeze shook needles from the redwoods and carried a scent of pine into the room. A plate of salted pork shined with grease, an end of yesterday's bread steamed on the table.

His wife kneaded a sticky dough. She was a stout woman with sharp, small eyes and a firm mouth. She wore her hair tied atop her head in a tight bun. She worked the dough expertly. Her stubby fingers moved with a motion of their own. She heard a chair scrape across the floorboards and the grunt as the priest sat down. She cast a look back, over her shoulder, her eyes wide, and saw his smile. It looked forced. She waited. She worked the dough.

The priest rubbed his hands together. He asked "My love, how is your morning?"

"Baking bread," she said in a curt tone.

He stiffened. He didn't want her in a bad mood. He knew she wouldn't agree with what he was about to say. He wanted to see her face, confirm his suspicion, but he didn't dare.

She cast another quick glance and noticed how he avoided her gaze. She returned to her dough. Fold, lift, slap, over and over. As the silence hung in the air her impatience grew. She knew he was hiding something, something she wouldn't like, and he sought a way to expose just a tiniest bit of it to test her. She hated that. She disliked his meekness. Her eyes happened over the nearly empty flour bowl. She pursed her lips. She thought to herself, He accepted twigs, she thought to herself. We need flour, lard, meat, not twigs. I could get twigs. A bird could get twigs. For Isla's grace, he's a healer?

Wordlessly, their argument began. It was the quiet, cold way they fought. At last he said, "I am going to Fael."

There it is, she thought. She answered quickly, "I don't like that idea."

He replied with silence. That was how he disagreed, without words.

She worked the dough with vigor. The slap of the dough grew louder. Her thoughts coursed through her mind like a river passing over rocks and gaining in anger. Accusations, frustrations, impatience with his self-absorbed righteousness. She wanted him to burn that wood; to return to that foolish woman's house and demand the payment owed. Grain!. She exhaled slowly and then said, "Who is going with you?"

The priest heard both the question put to him, and separately, as if outside of his own body, he observed their dynamic. A detached, observation. Like this was happening between two people he didn't know. They didn't talk about the issue nor did they talk around the issue. They drew an outline around what mattered to them, dividing the space between what's said and unsaid.

Nemheim, like most villages in the hills, included a small number of fay. They had their own culture, and over time bits and pieces had rubbed off on the welklings. The way the priest and his wife argued was typically fay-ish. Obtuse conversations, where the words carry one message, but the real meaning is found in what's not said. The priest recognized the influence in how they fought. It saddened him. He couldn't say why. He turned, looked at her back. She flipped, slapped, lifted and stretched the dough and it sounded angry. She felt distant. And he wanted to reach out, approach her, touch her, let her feel his presence, and remind her they were in this together.

He opened his mouth, about to give words to this feeling but she spoke before he could, "We need flour. See if the miller will lend you some."

And with that, the moment slipped from him. He heard her unspoken concerns: how he exchanged services for trinkets instead of what they needed. How he doesn't consult her first. How he makes these decisions because he is weak and won't demand payment. He heard all of that, in her voice, in his head. He heard all of it in the silence outlined by her request for flour.

His resolve hardened. This is important, he told himself. He didn't know how, but those twigs and the strange spirit they contained mattered. He had a duty to figure this out. Thank the gods I got paid in twigs! Flour? Meat? Trifles. He was doing something important, something good. Things work themselves out. No one would ever let us go hungry. He could hear her rebuttal in his head, You rely upon others and get taken advantage of.

He ate his breakfast. His hunger had left him. Still, he forced the food down. She would grow upset if he wasted what she made for him. "I will speak with the miller," he said in reference to the flour. "And I will ask someone from the chapter (he was referring to the men who rotate the lookout duties) to accompany me."

She picked up the dough, held it above the board, and then let it drop with a wet thud. "I'll bake you a loaf to take with you."

17 Firedawn -862

The following day the priest sat up in bed. The room was dark. Outside the window he saw the night sky fading. He heard the scrape of a pot on the hearth from the floor below. His wife was readying for his departure. He smiled sheepishly. He knew she didn't want him to go, didn't agree with why he was going. And yet she still took care of him. He felt happy, at first. The longer he sat in bed, though, the more her love caused him to question his own motives. Did it have to be him who carried forth this discovery? Was this discovery even worth the effort? What if this turns out to be nothing?. He felt the regret in his stomach. His appetite vanished. He questioned the value of going on this journey. He'd be away from home for ten days. Maybe a few more. Maybe a couple less.

His fingers laced and twisted in his lap. Outside the birds began to wake and chirp their greetings to the new day. His wife began to sing to herself, her voice carried up the stairs.

The priest thought about the ten days he would be gone. It sounded short. Only ten days.. What if he had indeed found something of note, or great importance, something placed by the gods for him to deliver? Only ten days. Leaving was hard for him. Staying felt much easier. If only she were more supportive of the idea, then he thought, he wouldn't have so much regret.

He got out of bed and slipped his frock on. He felt something in his pocket and he remembered. He had picked a flower for her, her favorite flower. An orange bluesum-huen (honey-blossom). He placed it on her side of the bed, just beneath the blanket. Something for her to find at night, when she went to bed alone, to remember him by. He patted the blanket softly, and felt better about leaving.

She gave him a solemn good bye. She wanted him to know she loved him, but didn't want him to forget that she didn't approve of this journey.

He doted over her. He was overly attentive as if showing even more affection before he left would make up for the time he was gone. She did not receive it well and hurried him out the door.

He headed for the village center where he was supposed to meet his guide. When he asked for one, he felt awkward, imposing and little embarrassed. But once the time came to leave, he was relieved he had. The journey was a long time to be alone. While the trails should be safe, it was always safer to have a companion. Even if he met a raider, most wouldn't harass a priest. Few wanted to risk the temperaments of the gods. But that's not foolproof.

He reached the square and his hopes turned to disappointment. The miller's son, a tall lanky man -- barely a man, still too much of a boy -- waited for him. He leaned against a redwood, one leg up, his foot against the trunk. He chewed on a long, yellowed grass. "Priest," he said. He had an impassive face, like a mask of flesh, that hardly moved when he spoke. His mouth was wide with almost no lips, just a cut in his face for words to seep out. He pressed a canteen to his lips, took two loud swallows. He asked, "Ready? Have everything you need?" His breath smelled of ale.

The priest clasped his hands over his midsection. He tried to take a deep breath but the wraps around his belly held him tightly. The priest knew this man. He was a drunk and prone to agitation, even when sober. He liked to scrap. He didn't mind getting a beating. One time, he picked a fight with the blacksmith's son, a strapping young man with the broad back of a laborer. As he pinned the blacksmith's son on the ground and wailed on him, this man just laughed. The priest had witnessed it. The freakish expression on his face. Blood thinly coated his teeth. And that maniacal laugh from the cherry red mouth. "I will go on my own," the priest said.

"Oh come on now. You can't do this alone. Besides, I'll catch sulfur if I let you go by yourself." He clasped the priest on the shoulder. "Downhill to Fael. Should make good time getting there."

Summer had baked off all the green and suppleness of the hills. The redwoods clung to their needles, but the branches sagged from the effort. The birds greeted morning with light song while the buzz of locusts began to rise and fall. The ground crunched beneath their feet.

In the open meadows, the trail was a narrow line through the grasses like a crease in the land. When the trail snaked through the redwoods, it was harder to see, often just a scuffle of needles. Cairns no bigger than a fist provided some guidance. The priest followed faithfully behind the miller's son, never sure if they were on the trail or not, never worried either. The miller's son walked with a casual confidence. He fixed his eyes on his feet and the trail. Occasionally, he looked up.

At midday they climbed up a steep rise. They walked along a ledge wide enough to go single file. The path climbed above the redwoods that filled the gorge below. The priest slid a hand along the chalky wall of the hill. He avoided looking down. He avoided thoughts about the drop. He struggled with the peculiar anxiety of walking next to a drop: if the drop weren't there, he surely wouldn't lose his balance; but with the drop there, losing his balance seemed assured, promised, a compulsion to resist.

The miller's son kept glancing back at him. A studied, concerned look on his face. The priest, embarrassed, smiled apologetically. He didn't like being the recipient of the younger man's concern.

At the top of the rise was a broad hilltop capped with bleached white grasses. In several spots, the grasses were pressed down flat. "Deer," said the priest to himself as he huffed to catch his breath. The vision of deer curled up asleep on this precipice gave him a smile.

"Nope," said the miller's son abruptly. He was crouched down, unwrapping his ankles to remove his shoes. "See how those spots are clumped together like that." He indicated with a nod. "Real close. That way the bodies touch. Wolves do that." He shook his shoe and a pebble dropped out.

"There are wolves in these hills?"

"Sure looks like it." He replaced shoe and carefully bound the wraps around his ankles.

The priest squinted. "Did you know that wolves were in these hills?"

"How come you're so out of breath?" He looked at the priest, his head tilted back as if he needed to look down his nose to get a clear picture.

"Oh, I ..." The priest faltered. Reflexively, his hands went to his waist and traced the wraps beneath.

"What have we got going on over here?" The millers son's grin looked like a half-moon cut across his face. He got to his feet and put a hand on the priest's belly.

"It's ... it's a wrap," confessed the priest.

"Why in sulfur are you wrapping your stomach?" An awkward silence followed. The miller's son fixed his eyes on the priest. The priest felt mocked. Then a look of enlightenment lit up the miller's son's face. "Oh Ulso, you're not proud of being fat? Go on, unwrap that thing. I wanna see just how the gods are providing for you."

The priest looked back, the way they came. All he could see was the path disappear behind the lip of the gorge and the pointed tops of redwood trees. Nothing of their path taken could still be seen. He turned back to the miller's son. He was wide eyed, gleeful, waiting as if he were about to receive a Noel present. The priest felt alone. He didn't know how he could refuse this request.

"Look priest, I won't make you do it. But it's a long walk and you're gonna be chasing your breath all the way to Fael. Sides, I get fed too. Not as much as you, it seems." A laugh interrupted what he was saying, "But I'm sure I get a bit more activity than you do. So, go on and get it over with. Unless you plan on sleeping like that too."

The priest heard what he said, heard the words, and while nothing in those words sounded threatening, there was a look to his eyes that felt menacing, challenging. That look implied the suggestion that one way or another he'd end up complying. The priest lifted his frock and loosened the tie of his wrap. His stomach sprang out and spilled over.

"By the gods!" The miller's son fought back his laughter.

The priest felt some relief. He worried the miller's son would be angry or jealous, see his big belly and argue that it wasn't fair, and that he should be held accountable for it. That was his fear, but the miller's son only looked ready to mock him. The priest was relieved.

"There's nothing you won't eat, huh?" The miller's son gave his bare stomach a playful slap. "To think, I was worried bears would eat our grub. I'm gonna have to hide it from you."

"You never answered me about knowing whether or not wolves were in these hills," said the priest. He wanted to change the subject.

The miller's son chuckled. "What does that matter?"

The priest heard the fay influence in how he spoke. The way in which he answered with a question that could mean so many different things. And he did it effortlessly. "Why haven't we heard the wolves at night in our village?"

"Prolly cause they don't go that way."

Still not convinced, the priest asked, "Don't deer lie like that?"

"Not just like that." The miller's son answered like he was bored with the conversation. Then he said in a more animated tone, "Look there, aego (literally means 'eye', a common way to refer to a priest)".

The priest looked to where he pointed. The hills smoothed out into a vast yellow plain that stretched to the sea. From that vantage, high above it all, so far away, it looked continuous and soft. Just a bed of yellow. The priest knew that not so. Those are dried, brittle grasses with spiky seed pods waiting for anything to brush by and attach to. The ground would be dusty, scrabbly and rough. And further away, that bland yellow would be broken up into plots with farms of dead grasses and bony cattle. Outlined against the horizon, where the land meets the sea, was a magnificent and large square block: the keep at Fael. The priest had been to Fael only once, to learn from the high priests at the temple. He had only ever seen this view twice, on the way there that time, and on the way back. Each time he was struck by awe for what mortals were capable of. It stood starkly above all else. From where the priest stood, he couldn't see that it stood atop a high cliff that looks out over the river and the sea. But he knew it to be so. And he knew that what he saw, that mass of stone, also had roots. It dug deep into the ulth. He once plunged a small portion of that, to an ancient sept, to pray to a forgotten god.

"It's magnificent," said the priest.

"It's just a square. Come on now. You spend all that time building something, you can at least give it a shape."

"A square's a shape," said the priest, almost automatically.

"Come on now, you know what I mean. Don't go playing smart with your words."

"It's just imprecise, the way you said it. And ..."

The miller's son cut him off, "What a man means is more important than what he says. You're not a dummy, aego, you know what I mean without me saying it. And that," he pointed to the Keep, "Is just the simplest thing they coulda made. All that stone and they just do that."

The priest listened and let those words hang in the air for a breath or two and studied the younger.

The priest studied the younger man. He remembered his own youth, when dismissing the efforts of those that came before was an easy thing to do. When being impressed by something was an almost shameful thing to admit. So, the priest said nothing. Age comes with time, not talk, he thought to himself.

"Get yourself something to eat. I'm not risking returning you to your wife any smaller."

They ate in silence. The breeze tossed the grasses, which rustled faintly. Birds called more than sang. A hawk circled overhead in silent orbs. The priest found the cake his wife hid in his pouch. A yellow cake, browned on the sides, sticky to the touch, it was shaped like a heart. He felt her love and he felt his guilt. His feelings were wordless thoughts that flowed from his chest and felt like a longing. It was the feeling of questioning himself, questioning why he left her to go on this trek to Fael.

By the afternoon, the sun commanded a desolate, washed out sky and burned off all the morning clouds. There was no escape from its brightness. The priest pulled his hood over his face to spare his eyes, but his skin broiled and dripped sweat in huge drops that ran down the end of his nose.

The heat surrounded his thoughts. His sweat drenched clothes clung to his flesh. And yet his mouth was dry. His lips felt cracked. His thighs chaffed. It started as an itch and then grew into a burn. His feat ached from the walking and pulsed with the heat. When he tried to think about anything, his discomfort nagged and tugged at him until his thoughts returned to how miserable this heat was. He longed for evening, the cool air that would blow across his face and lift the heat and sweat from his face.

He wanted to think about his wife. He wanted to plunge the depths of his missing her but even those thoughts just turned into a way to escape the heat. He imagined himself at home, in the cool shade of their forest, sitting patiently through the hot part of the day. Instead of thinking of her, he thought of the relief. She faded into the background, more of a setting than a person.

At his worst moments, when he felt his head growing light and his breaths came shallow and rapid, he'd remember the precious bundle of sticks. That other spirit, the one that burned rich with the orange flame, was a mystery that must be solved.

The ritual he performed to find the spirit in those branches had revealed two things to him, one expected the other frightful. He expected there to feel the life within the branches -- a fading life since they had been plucked from the tree and the roots that supplied their sustenance. He was surprised that the life he felt was strong, stronger than what he would find in a living tree. But that wasn't what frightened him. It was that orange aura within, that burned at the heart of the branches spirit. He had never felt that before. The gods compel me, he told himself, They have sent me a sight that to ignore would be to invite their displeasure.

They camped in a sheltered cove that faced west. The winds from the plains roared up past the opening. Darkness came slowly as the light from the setting sun had nothing to stop it, and the day clung tightly, not wanting to give into night. The priest had wandered off to gather kindling for a fire. When he returned the miller's son said they won't have a fire. "We're too close to Balrode. We passed her by not long after midday. Remember that tiny trail we took with hill on our left shoulder, and we stared right into the sun? Over that hill she sat. And I don't much like the folks from Balrode. Sometimes they can be little active."

"Active?"

"Yeah, active. You know, testy."

"No, I don't know." The priest knew Balrode. He had been there a few times when a healer was needed. He found the families that lived there to be inviting, even if half the town was fay.

"Aego, you're a healer. Folks always like you. I'm not counting on that to get us through these lands. Less attention we draw the better."

They slept wrapped in blankets on a flat outcropping with two large granite rocks behind them. Before them, the western night sky stretched to a flat, straight horizon where the world cleaved the heavens.

Summer nights along the coast carried the chill of the sea. It reached into their bones. The cold gently carried the priest to sleep. The priest was woken by the howling of wolves in the distance. He then heard the miller's son say, "Told ya."

Overhead stretched a canopy of stars. One of the moons had already set, two remained clinging to the horizon.

Before long the priest heard the miller's son gently snoring. The wolves continued to howl. They sounded far off. The priest couldn't tell if they were getting closer. Their howls echoed off the hills in deceiving ways. He struggled to fall back asleep, and when he did he didn't realize it. His dreams seemed to stretch from his waking thoughts without any indication of the change. When he woke up, he was shivering. He lay in the shadow of the hills. The sky darkened to a dying night on the horizon.

The miller's son squat at the edge of their camp, looking down the hill to the west, to the coast and Fael in the distance. He didn't hear the stranger approach, either.

"Ulso turns to us, travelers." A man said it, from above them, atop the hill they slept upon. He too was crouched. He appeared as a silohuette, a dark cut out on the brightening dawn behind him.

The miller's son looked over his shoulder. "Hey now, it's not kindly to sneak up on folks in the dark." The pale, ghostly morning light lit him up in a washed out way, flattening his features, except for his eyes which were clearly wide and searching. His gaze darted to his spear that lay on the far side of camp, between him and the stranger.

"That's why we waited till morning." The stranger's voice was calm, assured. The situation lent it a menacing quality.

The priest heard the stranger say we but he saw no one else. He propped himself up on his elbows, looked up at the man crouched above him.

"This your hill?" The miller's son stood up. His voice was clipped, challenging. The priest worried the miller's son was looking for a scrap. Throughout their trip it seemed that the miller's son stove to prove himself, the way boys new to being men wanted to signal to the other men that they were to be taken seriously.

"Cold night to camp without a fire. You look fit to build one. Curious choice." The stranger spoke slowly, assuredly.

The priest heard the fay in those statements, the questions implied, the warnings inherent in the outline of what was said.

The priest said, "You're from Balrode." His intonation sounded like a statement, but he meant it as a question. The priest liked fay-speak, and getting to practice it on someone other than his wife would have been welcome had the stakes not felt so high. He was confident that he was correct, the man had to be from Balrode. Balrode had more fay than Nemheim. He remembered the people there and their habits well. Unlike the way the miller's son spoke of Balrode, the priest had a good impression. So he was relieved believing the stranger was from there and not some roaming bandit.

But before the stranger could answer, the miller's son said, "Some folks are drawn to fires, unsavory folks. We're just trying to pass through."

"Where you headed?" The stranger faced the miller's son. Since he didn't answer the priest, the priest took it as confirmation the stranger came from Balrode. Which gave him an uneasy kind of relief, lent credibility to his desire for this to be nothing more than a scout checking on travelers.

"This your hill?" He repeated his challenge. The priest heard the fay-ness in how he kept making this assertion. The miller's son looked about now, openly searching for the rest of his we the stranger referred to.

The priest answered the stranger, "We're headed to Fael, to the high temple. I'm a priest." The priest pulled his feet underneath himself, then with the help of his hands, pushed himself upright. His blanket fell to his waist, he quickly pulled it back over his shoulder.

"A priest? The well-fed one from Nemheim?"

The priest blinked rapidly, he looked surprised and galled by the description. "I've been fortunate ... That's a little bit of ... my wife is a good cook."

"By the looks of it, the best in all the realm!" The stranger laughed.

His mirth was contagious, the miller's son laughed too. "She baked him a cake for the trip," said the miller's son. His tone was playful. "And wouldn't you know it, he didn't share any of it."

"I"m not surprised," said the stranger.

The priest noticed how the tension slackened as the two men poked fun at his belly. He relaxed a bit more. He feared the miller's son acting up and instigating a confrontation more than he feared the appearance of this man.

"I didn't know you wanted any," said the priest. "If you had asked --"

"Oh come on priest, I'm just poking you. Stranger, we'll be on our way with a quickness. We'll beat the sun over the horizon if I have to roll this priest down the hill."

"Stick to the trail, it's safer for you. There are bandits in these hills. The imperials don't patrol north of the river anymore."

The miller's son thanked him for the advice, then the stranger stood up. He held a spear, which until then they hadn't seen. He walked back behind the hill and was gone. The priest was about to say something when the miller's son waved him quiet. They remained fixed there, still, quiet, for several minutes. The miller's son gestured with quick motions to gather up their gear and head out silently.

They didn't speak for nearly a half an hour. "Don't ever tell anyone you're a priest, aego."

"Isn't it obvious by my frock?"

"Not when you're hidden by shadows and have a blanket wrapped around you."

"Wouldn't they be less concerned if a priest passed by their lands than a soldier or bandit?"

"Yup, that's right. Less concerned they'd get hurt. But they ain't got a priest of their own. An easy way to get one is to just take one they find wandering in the hills."

"Come on, now. They're good people there. I've been there."

"We're all good people, aego. Until we can't be."