Chapter 6
Who Stirs the Cauldron of the Lake?
-Part the First-
When their mother was still in the fullness of her strength, their family’s life had resembled an endless journey. Jyré oft dreamt of it. The places where they had once dwelt blurred together in his dreams, shifting one into the other like vivid, bright stains sometimes seen in the darkness. He dreamt of his mother as well, as fair and kind as she had been in life.
Mother was never like Father, he thought upon waking. He lay still for a moment till he felt eyes upon him. Peering through a narrow slit between his eyelids, he saw them — two eyes, long and brown, like cracks on birch bark.
“What are ye gawping at?” he huffed, yanking the quilt clumsily over his head.
“Gawping,” Fet echoed, standing motionless beside the bed, his expression as blank as ever.
A tuft of white thistle down slipped free from the linen sheath and tickled Jyrcho’s nose. With an irritated snort, he flung the quilt aside and glared at his younger brother. Fet’s fringe, pressed flat by a hat pulled too tightly over his head, hung like a shaggy curtain over his brows and part of his eyes.
“Is Father home?”
“Home,” Fet repeated, shifting his gaze to the beam of sunlight streaming through the east-facing window. Dust motes danced within that golden light like Moon-Daughters, and Fet watched them with sudden fascination.
“Why do I even bother…” Jyrcho muttered, rolling his eyes. He rose sluggishly from the bed, shuffling towards the water pail near the window.
“Oi!” protested Fet as Jyrcho’s silhouette blocked the light. Jyrcho cast a sour glance over his shoulder, yet Fet still stood there awhile, seemingly waiting for his brother to move. When nothing happened, he shrugged faintly and dashed off towards the kitchen.
Jyrcho bent over the basin and splashed his face with water. He shivered from head to toe, but the chill banished the last remnants of sleep from his cheeks. The elf-boy pushed the shutters wide open with a resolute hand. A startled waxwing took flight from the beech branch, diving down towards the earth. Resting his hands upon the window frame, Jyré followed the bird with his gaze until his eyes caught sight of Fév’s crimson hat and her shoulders wrapped in a russet cloak. Beside her walked Al, his cloak embroidered at the edges with beech leaves. Together, they made their way down the road that wound deeper into the forest.
Jyrcho grinned to himself, then turned away from the window and also made his way to the kitchen room.
His father sat at the table, cleaning a blowpipe for glass-blowing. A stray lock of hair, pale as golden grass blades, fell across his even paler brows and faded yellow eyes. Only Féven had inherited those eyes from him. In all else, they were so unlike their father that Jyrcho often wondered whether they were truly his children.
Especially he, Jyré — was there anything of Jalo in him?
He sprawled onto a bench by the table, legs splayed wide, and cast a sidelong glance at Fet. The younger boy had perched on the floor near the doorway to Fév’s herb room, turning his favourite toy — a glass orb their father had crafted for him some time ago — over and over in his hands. He could sit like that for hours, swaying to and fro, muttering nonsense to himself like daft.
Though peaceable, that one, Jyrcho mused. Reaching for a slice of dried apple, he snapped off a bit and addressed his father.
“Jalo?”
Father murmured a curt “Hmm?” barely lifting his gaze from the blowpipe.
“Not worried the bard’ll spirit Fév away?” Jyré bared his teeth in a cheeky grin ere stuffing a generous chunk of apple into his mouth.
Jalo’s lips curved into a faint smile. Yes, Féven had inherited that too — his smile, knowing more than the whole world without ever turning spiteful.
“It’s not her I fear for.”
“Ah, of course, of course.” Already vexing me, that tree sage, Jyrcho spat inwardly . He shoved another piece of apple into his mouth, chewing it like sticky pine resin. “Only me left to fret over, aye? Daft as a moth, bound to get lost in the city on my own.”
Father paused his work on the blowpipe at last and, lifting his gaze directly to Jyrcho, raised his brows.
“I never took you for a fool.”
“Then let me go to the City of Trees.” Jyrcho’s eyes, already wide by nature, widened further with pleading. “When Al leaves, I want to go with him.”
Without a flicker of doubt, Jalo extinguished that brief spark of hope.
“Out of the question,” he replied calmly, lowering his gaze back to the blowpipe.
Curse you... Jyré began inwardly, but held his tongue. He tossed the half-eaten slice of apple back onto the plate. Lost my appetite, thanks to him.
“I’ll soon be able to make my own decisions,” he declared.
“By then, perhaps...”
Jyré pursed his lips in irritation.
“...I’ll have gained some sense, aye. Right, Father, back to the same old tune.”
Jalo sighed, resting the blowpipe steadily across his knees ere turning back to Jyrcho.
“Forgive me, Jyré,” he said.
“Then let me go,” Jyrcho insisted stubbornly.
“It’s not because I think you can’t handle yourself — you know that.”
“Oh, aye, aye.” Jyrcho arched his brows lazily and drummed his fingers against the edge of the bench in feigned boredom. “Something about the druidic guard and those childhood tales of swords that burn to the touch — aye, I remember. And those bad memories you shared with Mother from Sén Serén, the ones you never spoke of so as not to grieve her. But it’s been ten years since she’s gone, and you still won’t breathe a word about what those memories were.”
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“I shall tell you,” said Jalo simply.
Jyré’s mouth twisted into a sceptical grin.
“When? In the next age? You’ve said that before, and nought ever came of it.”
At that, Jalo rose, setting the blowpipe aside near the hearth. He flung his cloak over his shoulders.
“Perhaps even today,” he promised unexpectedly. “But later. I’ve got to go to the glasshouse now —need to ready the display for the festival. Fetén!”
Fet froze where he was, ears pricking like a woodland animal's, listening for some further word he might comprehend.
“The glasshouse. We’re off,” Jalo added. Fet obediently stood and followed.
Oh, he listens to Jalo, does he? But me? He’d stick out his tongue like the little halfwit he is, thought Jyrcho. Once they were gone, his thoughts drifted back to his father’s promise.
“Aye, he’ll tell me, right,” he muttered under his breath, resuming his meal. “I’ll make sure he does.”
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Yet Father, once shut in his workshop, did not emerge until the very time of the festival, and Jyrcho knew well enough that pestering him there would be a futile endeavour. Fet returned alone in the early afternoon, the sun still bright in the sky, and promptly latched onto Féven’s skirt as she busied herself preparing herbs for the drinks. Soon after, she gathered a great bouquet of dried stems, blossoms, and berried twigs, and made her way towards the lakeshore, where the revelries were to be held upon the great stone slabs. Fet followed her like a shadow. He was more attached to Fév than even to Jalo. She alone, it seemed, understood him — at least in part — though Jyré ofttimes wondered how that was even possible.
Jyrcho, for his part, was neither eager to take part in the preparations nor particularly able to find himself a task among them. Wandering aimlessly along the lakeside, he eventually drifted away from the stone slabs. Whether he sought to kill time by circling the lake or intended to track down Al, he himself hardly knew. Where the bard had vanished to, he had no inkling.
The far shore, opposite the settlement, was wilder, overgrown with thick brambles of raspberry and blackberry that stretched right to the water's edge. At this hour, the trees leaned low over the lake, their branches casting deep shade. The boughs trailed so near the water that they seemed like long, wispy tresses belonging to some maiden gazing at her reflection.
Jyrcho was no keen observer of nature, nor one to notice subtleties, yet like many others in the village, he held the conviction that something strange lurked within that lake. Even Féven, for all her pragmatic ways — so much like their father, who saw no more of the world than was writ in books and dismissed tales of the Likho as utter nonsense — even she had sensed it at times.
Now too, a dark shadow seemed to glide just beneath the water’s surface. Pushing his way through the thicket, careful not to impale himself on thorns, Jyrcho kept his eyes fixed on the moving shape, striving not to lose sight of it and hoping to discern more.
No tree could be casting that shadow, for he had already passed beyond the dense curtain of their nearly leafless crowns. No fish nor beast dwelled in this lake, for even they seemed to fear its strange depths. The lake tidecomers and marsh sylphs never ventured here, and none had ever encountered even a black-bog sylph, though the shape beneath the water reminded Jyrcho less of any creature and more of a Tree Child, too fluid in its movements to be a mere plant swaying underwater.
It seemed as though it swept its hand back and forth — and held something within that hand…
A sword?
Jyrcho stared intently, moving slowly along the bank, his eyes narrowing as he strained to keep the shadow in view. He could not tear his gaze away — till suddenly, the dark form vanished.
In that very instant, the branches rustled, and the few stubborn leaves that still clung to the ash tree quivered. From behind them emerged the sage storyteller Gathén, leader of the settlement, gliding upon a raft. He pushed himself along with a sturdy beech pole that jutted upwards like a spear or an upraised sword. His vivid green tunic gleamed in the shadow of the trees, lending cheer to the sombre air.
"Jyrcho!" he called, swiftly spotting the boy by the water's edge. "Will you lend a hand with the raft?"
Jyré tugged the hat from his head, where it had earlier snagged on a bramble branch, and rolled his eyes. For once, Father’s right, he thought grudgingly, mocking us for the fool fancies we share, like common prophetesses imagining nonsense.
He made his way swiftly to the very edge of the bank, grasping the pole Gathén had levelled towards him. With a firm tug, he drew the raft closer. It drifted through sparse reeds, yellowed and rotting in patches, until it bumped gently against the shore.
“What brings you here, sage storyteller?” Jyré asked with curiosity, catching the rope the man tossed to him. He tied it deftly to a low-hanging ash bough. “The festival is nearly upon us.”
“Just so,” replied Gathén, sweeping aside a towering bulrush that stood nearly thrice his height as he stepped onto the bank. “Your sister told me the last rowan’s still bearing fruit on this side. Kyanna’s got it into her head to weave sprigs of the Blind Mistress into her festival crown, so I promised I’d fetch some for her. She’s not Féven, after all — too frightened to venture past the lake herself.” He chuckled warmly. “The waxwings will be pleased too — good for tales and for a nibble, those berries. I spotted the tree from the water. Look there!”
Jyrcho cast a languid glance further along the bank, where the land rose gently to a solitary rowan tree, its red-berried clusters gleaming faintly even from afar. He knew that tree well — Féven was especially fond of it. She’d once befriended and tamed Ledo, the hedgehog cart-puller, beneath its boughs. She had oft brought Jyré here too, in times past.
Gathén began to push his way through the thicket, striding briskly uphill toward the tree. Jyrcho trudged along behind him, though berry-picking was more Féven’s sort of task, not his. Still, there was nothing better to do than keep the storyteller company.
"And you," Gathén spoke after a moment, turning his head to glance over his shoulder at the elf-boy, "what are you seeking here?"
"Al," Jyré answered simply.
"The guest of ours," he added, and Gathén's face lit up as he understood whom the boy meant.
"Ah, the bard. A fine fellow — easy to talk to, and with tales aplenty from the Land."
They fell into silence, trudging onwards till they reached the rowan. They scaled the tree and Gathén drew a knife from its sheath to sever the fruit clusters, swift yet careful. One bunch, larger than the man himself, dangled heavily as he worked. Meanwhile, Jyrcho perched himself on a sturdy branch, legs swinging idly below. His gaze wandered to the lake, now sinking slowly into the grey veil of dusk. Thin wisps of dirty fog coiled lazily over its surface, twisting in the damp air. Not even the faintest whisper of wind disturbed the water’s solemn, unyielding stillness.
A sudden shiver coursed through Jyré, and he wrapped his woollen cloak more tightly about himself. He glanced at Gathén, who, clad only in a tunic, seemed utterly unaffected by the cold.
I am doing nought but sitting, Jyré mused, puzzled by the chill gnawing at him. He rarely, if ever, felt the cold.
Yet the thought was fleeting, eftsoons swept away by another.
"Gat?"
"Aye?" The storyteller cast him a fleeting glance, dropping the severed cluster down to the mossy forest floor. It landed softly upon the carpet of green.
"Do you know why my father settled here, of all places? Leaving the Cave behind to build a glassworks here, in this wildwood?"
Gathén smiled faintly under his breath. He wiped the blade of his knife against his trouser leg once, then again, ere sliding it back into its sheath. He settled himself upon the branch beside Jyré.
"And how would I know? He'd tell you sooner than me, I reckon. Your father’s a sensible man, more grounded than most, and his clear mind has served the village well many a time. He speaks fair with anyone and looks down on none, but a chatterer he’s never been — nor is he now. As for what stirs in his heart, well, your mother was likely the only one who ever truly knew. He loved her dearly, that much everyone knew."
He’d have been a fool not to, Jyré muttered to himself. No one could help but love Mother.
"Well then, best be off," Gat declared after a pause, rising to his feet and preparing to descend. With some reluctance, Jyrcho slid down after him, though even the promise of merriment did little to quicken his step that day.
Together, they grasped the rowan branch and, taking a roundabout route to avoid snagging it on the thick underbrush, made their way back to the water’s edge. Gathén carefully laid the branch across the raft, whilst Jyrcho gripped the pole and thrust it against the lakebed with all his strength. Once they passed through the reeds, he angled the craft to the right, guiding it along the shore toward the village. Through the swirling fog, the flicker of firelight began to break through — bonfires and burning torches set between the lakeside stones, ready for the night’s celebration.