Post by Liessel on Mar 8, 2024 12:50:11 GMT -5
Crosshatch,
drop the latch,
Stand by no fire and spin.
With all your luck and the rules unstuck,
You join your neighbors in.
She was shaking the entire time she'd completed the spell. There was a haunting thought that she wouldn't get it right. But she'd followed the instructions and practiced and practiced on her way. None of the companions she knew who could handle something like this for her were around, meaning she had no choice but to do it on her own.
The canals were no less unpleasant than the first time she had been there. The creaky rocking of canal boats huddled close and rocking with the bobbing of water was like bones clacking against one another she thought. It certainly was not an atmosphere she would have imagined herself being in during the early days of her life in London. Now, the chorus of those clacking bones of wood and metal, of rudders and rope, were just a backdrop as she closed her eyes, spun, and followed the instructions she had been given to what she hoped was a "T".
Liessel spun as, before her, Aurelia had spun.
Liessel spun as Adeline Webber had spun, and as Cyrus Singh had, on the first night that Adeline had ever ventured to the Twin Bells.
Liessel closed her eyes and chanted, and spun with the boat's moored unsteadiness underfoot, as perhaps dozens, maybe hundreds, had before her.
A silly rhyme, just nonsense.
Yet the waterborne boards beneath her feet were suddenly steady, the sound different, and the scents of recent construction came in with her next breath. Warm light through her eyelids. A drier quality to the air on her skin--
The air changed. It was no longer rank with the scents of the old canal. The clacking of those water logged bones changed into something far more friendly. With her eyes closed Liessel breathed in and found that it wasn't the rotten water, but something far more pleasant that met her senses. It was the sound of people that hit her ears.
Slowly, Liessel opened her eyes. She took her time in adjusting there on the small landing in the main hall. It had taken her a few seconds every other time she'd come to orient herself after the transition, and this time was no different.
She'd come wearing a dress of cream with green accents that were reminiscent of freshly grown grass that traced down the lines of her dress' bodice, and around her waist where the jacket of the dress hugged tight. The green also ran along her collar, and cuffs with a matching strip of it around the hem of her skirt. Her hat, sitting low and off center, was a white-cream with a green strip of ribbon around the cap of it.
Orientation achieved, Liessel lifted the hem of her skirt and started down the short flight of stairs she had found herself on.
Afternoons at the Bells were often nearly deserted in the hall itself, and it was so today. The voices came from a foursome closer to the doors, seated around a table half-heartedly playing cards. At least to first impressions, they all looked human enough, and their heads turned when the sound of Liessel's arrival--her shoes on the stairs--announced her.
They were three women and one man, and none of their faces would likely stand out to Liessel. Even so, one of the women must have seen her before, because she raised her hand a little and called over, "If you're looking for Horran, he's in the sun outside."
With the main hall as empty as it was that raised hand easily caught her attention. She had started that way as she reached the bottom of the steps, then stopped for a second as she considered what the woman had told her. "Thank you!" She called back over, giving a nod before heading for the door that would take her out of the main hall and into the world beyond.
The breeze that blew in smelled like summer itself. The air was gently warm and smelled of grass. It carried with it tiny drifts of dandelion fluff. It and the sunlight seemed to be one. It was bright out there; the sky was still blue. The few streaks of clouds were high high high and very white.
A chair with a sunshade and a footstool could be seen farther down the initial easy slope of the hill. Someone had set Horran up down there, before the ground grew steeper, so he could sit among flowers and seedpods and watch tiny birds hunt the weeds and grass for bugs. It was possible that the huge man seated on the ground beside him was that someone. Temmis Ashbroom was facing the same direction that Horran's chair was pointed. Though his back was turned, it was unmistakably Temmis. He was huge today--far, far larger, and probably also far taller, than he'd been the last time Liessel had seen him, as if he'd hit some storybook growthspurt.
Stepping out into daylight, Liessel found herself stopping short of making the rush down toward where her father sat. If only she'd been born with an artist's hands. She'd have drawn out her notebook and sketched the image in all of its everyday perfection. If she tried with the hands she was born with, the skies would look like spaghetti, the birds like scribbles of a pen that forgot how to be a pen, and there would have been nothing at all but a brick of color where her father sat with the large form of Temmis by his side.
Alas, she was not an artist. But she would commit the scene to memory later, by trying to capture it in words within the pages of a well-loved notebook.
Her steps down the shallow slope were easy, and light. She was careful on her approach not wanting to startle either her father or the man sitting with him. The word "Hello," preceded her, her tone cheerful and bright. With the world looking the way it did, she could not help but feel it matched within her heart.
Temmis's head came up, turned. It was his face indeed, in perfect proportion, just huge. He'd have had to bend to get through the doorway of the guildhall. Nothing about him suggested that he realized he might need to explain that, because what he whispered first was, "He's asleep."
He'd been reading, and closed his book carefully. Blue-bound, it looked tiny in his hands. He set it aside in the grass and pushed a hand to the ground to get up.
Temmis. She had thought it was him. But the last time she had seen him he had been asleep, and much smaller. The slope of the shoulders had seemed to be the same, if in much grander scale so when he turned and whispered to her, Liessel found herself blinking and trying to grab ahold of the reality that was before her in order to match it up to the man she had prayed over weeks before.
After a few moments, Liessel realized she was staring and forcibly put her attention on where her father sat dozing.
"Thank you," She answered Temmis just as quietly as he had whispered to her, "For keeping him company out here."
As he rose, Liessel looked and tilted her head back, back, back just so she could see him.
Finally he registered the way she was acting, once he was around the back of Horran's chair, and held out a hand, hunching perhaps unconsciously (though it didn't help at all to shrink him). "Don't be afraid--it's just me. Shall I wake him?"
"No," Reflex had her wanting to step back as he came around behind the chair, but she bit down on it and squashed it like a bug beneath her boot. It was Temmis. There was nothing to fear, just as he said. It was him, but only huge. "That's -- its alright, we can let him sleep." She felt like an ant talking to a tree! "I -- forgive me, I do not want to be rude," She couldn't help the nervous smile or laugh that came as she spoke and moved forward to offer her own hand in return, "But how have you come to be so big?"
He was already nodding along as she apologized in advance, and whispered his own words right in time with her own speech. "Long story," he told her. "It's something sticky like a curse. --But don't worry! It doesn't rub off on anyone else. --Do you want to sit with your father? You can take my spot."
He'd been seated on a blanket, though a narrow one, slightly bunched now. Aside from his book to one side of it, there was a little silver pot of something off the other side.
Curse. He said the word and it pulled at her mind. She could barely recall mention of something along those lines during her first visit. "It is of no worry," she told Temmis with a smile, "Mister Ashbroom. I've been close to you before." Her hand was lifted and pressed against the middle of her chest.
And then she was considering her father again. He looked peaceful, so well at rest. "I think we can let him be for now. I would like to -- talk to someone, if possible, about the history of Harroway." That, she felt, was best done when she didn't need to divide her attention between her father and her questions.
"Temmis, please. I'm not so revered around here as Greatmother." He said it with a snort, and quietly, and gestured that they might talk a little farther from Horran.
Temmis was dressed in clothing that was obviously handmade, and very simple. Someone--perhaps he, himself--had made the overlarge shirt to look like the collared shirts anyone might wear, but it was possible that he'd grown since doing so, for he wore it open with a much, much simpler shirt or tunic beneath it. The trousers likewise were handmade, and might have been put together from two different original pieces. Without scrutinizing the work, there was no way to know for sure, but some odd worn parts hinted. Temmis did not have a wardrobe for himself at this size; there had been some swift adaptation.
Once they'd stepped away and could talk at ease, he said: "What exactly are you hoping to accomplish? That will help me direct you."
Temmis, please.
The request was given a gentle nod of acceptance, "Temmis, then," Liessel acknowledged with a smile.
The shift away from where Horran dozed was an easy one. Liessel followed Temmis' lead until they were a safe distance away and neither of them would have to whisper, though Liessel's voice was still quite soft in volume, "We came across evidence of a direct link between this world and --" She almost said my home, but it was no more home for her than Father McKellen's church was the Temple of the Guardians. "Harroway just before we left to return here with my father. I would like to ask some questions about the stones -- the meaning of Stonehenge. I would like to know if anyone here recognizes the names of The Guardians once I speak them aloud in this place."
"You think they were here--your Guardians?" Temmis asked, catching on that at first. He folded his arms and looked like a circus Strongman without even trying. "Or that your folk were?"
"I think more," Liessel said with another nod of her head, "That the Guardians took people from here, and gave them a place in what has become Harroway. "
She felt so tiny standing there next to him, still so very much like an ant talking to a tree. Him folding his arms as they spoke only helped that feeling along. It was hard not to feel dwarfed.
His surprise was there, but it did not expand into alarm. It did have him blinking, and he asked, "How long ago...?"
"The people there have been settled for generations," She told Temmis, "Our ties there have become old enough that they are obscured with the passage of the ages. We -- well, the Flynns -- came across a scroll that had some names listed, and a piece of vellum that had been painted with Latin characters."
Temmis's expression sharpened with interest at that. It was easy to know exactly when Latin had come to these shores. It might have been for other reasons, too. "Greatmother isn't here... and while we do have some records, our histories tend to be kept by those of us who live long, such as Greatmother, Missus White at the Tor, and others. If you want to begin with seeing if anyone knows the names, we could post a bulletin here in the hall...?" He'd started moving again, a slow walk pointed back up toward the guild all, on the gentle note of this initial thought among many.
Liessel didn't need very long to think that over as she fell into step with Temmis. There was a risk in this, she knew, and its name began with an "S". It rhymed with "snake". But what harm could be brought to the people of Harroway? Would Slake be able to pass through the gate? Did he have any desire to? Why would he? What would it net him? So many unknowns, even within the topic of the names, themselves. "I think I would like that. It sounds like a good place to start."
"Do you have the scroll with you? And vellum, you said?" The afternoon, sleepy and easy, reflected nothing of tensions here. Yet there was still the large scar where the bulk of half of the Raleigh had hit the hillside, and the fresh construction continued to make the unusual era that the Bells folk had found themselves in. "Tell me how you think this all happened."
"I did not bring the originals with me, but I did copy them down" As she spoke, Liessel's left hand disappeared into a pocket of her skirt and came out with a folded piece of paper. It was pristinely white aside from the dark ink she'd used to write on it with, and a pale light blue header that was capped with tiny pink flowers -- the watermarks of a woman's fine set of stationary.
Without a thought for it, Liessel offered the paper over to Temmis for him to look at. But it was not all written in english, or even Latin. The list that took up the top portion of the page had been written in the tight and tiny hand of the woman who had handed him the paper. The characters were rune-like in nature. Beneath the short list of those names, Liessel had copied the Latin text as best she was able: Here we greet the sun, Oh Loving Mother Eidole.
At the sight of the rune-like script, Temmis Ashbroom glanced sidelong at Liessel with his eyebrows raised. Of course, "sidelong" meant in fact that he loomed, peering over at her. "This is the script your people use? --You may be on to something. What did the Flynns tell you about the writing?"
She was trying not to look up at him because doing so meant she'd have to take her eyes off of where she was walking. But here, she did spare a quick glance his way, tilting her head to look up and catch his eye, "It is," Liessel answered, before quickly putting her eyes back on the way they were walking, "It was mentioned that it was reminiscent of Futhark. -- Which I have come to understand is a language that is linked to a people known as Vikings."
Liessel took the time to breathe for a moment. Temmis had asked how she thought it had happened, and she still wasn't sure she had an answer for the exact how. What she told him was, "In one of the other scrolls that was recovered, it was stated that they were asked if they wanted to join The Guardians. How that happened wasn't told."
"Greatmother remembers when the Vikings came," Temmis said, slowing to a halt and arching his brow at her. "She was young, but she tells stories. How the vættir and fylgjur came through breaths and songs and clashed over these lands with the Folk Our Friends and those who rode over and beneath Ireland. I think that was in the days when Gwydda watched as the Warden." He was thinking again of what he knew that might help Liessel; who was left?
"There may be some left who can help you, if Greatmother can't," he decided at last, meeting Liessel's eyes.
Liessel stopped with him, and turned. She looked up, tilting her head so that she could catch his eye as he spoke. "She very well might have heard something, then. And if not, then I will speak with anyone else who might know something. The mystery of this has been long kept from The People of Harroway. I would love to be able to provide them with a link to the world where our ancestors had come from. I would like to know, myself. Thank you, Temmis, for helping me with this."
"I'll do what I can to help you here, but... How ready are you to do some traveling in pursuit of this? There aren't many old ones who go far from their burrows, these days. Even Greatmother has to travel to see them."
Liessel had to think about that. There were carriages she could rent, she was almost certain that Eddie would be willing to take her if she asked. Her answer to Temmis was a little nod, even as she still thought about the possible modes of travel she could use to get wherever she needed to go, "As long as I know my father is being looked after well, I will go where this trail leads me."
"Well, then." Temmis laughed a little. "Let's get this started with a list of names we can show our closest friends."
The ones who came the most often tended to be the ones that needed the Twin Bells the most. That is, the regulars of the guild tended to be the guild's least powerful--but that didn't mean they were nobodies. Temmis Ashbroom led the way into the hall, having to duck and take care even in the double doorway, and when he was inside it was clear that perhaps the spatious and high rafters had been measured out in deference to his particular dimensions.
drop the latch,
Stand by no fire and spin.
With all your luck and the rules unstuck,
You join your neighbors in.
She was shaking the entire time she'd completed the spell. There was a haunting thought that she wouldn't get it right. But she'd followed the instructions and practiced and practiced on her way. None of the companions she knew who could handle something like this for her were around, meaning she had no choice but to do it on her own.
The canals were no less unpleasant than the first time she had been there. The creaky rocking of canal boats huddled close and rocking with the bobbing of water was like bones clacking against one another she thought. It certainly was not an atmosphere she would have imagined herself being in during the early days of her life in London. Now, the chorus of those clacking bones of wood and metal, of rudders and rope, were just a backdrop as she closed her eyes, spun, and followed the instructions she had been given to what she hoped was a "T".
Liessel spun as, before her, Aurelia had spun.
Liessel spun as Adeline Webber had spun, and as Cyrus Singh had, on the first night that Adeline had ever ventured to the Twin Bells.
Liessel closed her eyes and chanted, and spun with the boat's moored unsteadiness underfoot, as perhaps dozens, maybe hundreds, had before her.
A silly rhyme, just nonsense.
Yet the waterborne boards beneath her feet were suddenly steady, the sound different, and the scents of recent construction came in with her next breath. Warm light through her eyelids. A drier quality to the air on her skin--
The air changed. It was no longer rank with the scents of the old canal. The clacking of those water logged bones changed into something far more friendly. With her eyes closed Liessel breathed in and found that it wasn't the rotten water, but something far more pleasant that met her senses. It was the sound of people that hit her ears.
Slowly, Liessel opened her eyes. She took her time in adjusting there on the small landing in the main hall. It had taken her a few seconds every other time she'd come to orient herself after the transition, and this time was no different.
She'd come wearing a dress of cream with green accents that were reminiscent of freshly grown grass that traced down the lines of her dress' bodice, and around her waist where the jacket of the dress hugged tight. The green also ran along her collar, and cuffs with a matching strip of it around the hem of her skirt. Her hat, sitting low and off center, was a white-cream with a green strip of ribbon around the cap of it.
Orientation achieved, Liessel lifted the hem of her skirt and started down the short flight of stairs she had found herself on.
Afternoons at the Bells were often nearly deserted in the hall itself, and it was so today. The voices came from a foursome closer to the doors, seated around a table half-heartedly playing cards. At least to first impressions, they all looked human enough, and their heads turned when the sound of Liessel's arrival--her shoes on the stairs--announced her.
They were three women and one man, and none of their faces would likely stand out to Liessel. Even so, one of the women must have seen her before, because she raised her hand a little and called over, "If you're looking for Horran, he's in the sun outside."
With the main hall as empty as it was that raised hand easily caught her attention. She had started that way as she reached the bottom of the steps, then stopped for a second as she considered what the woman had told her. "Thank you!" She called back over, giving a nod before heading for the door that would take her out of the main hall and into the world beyond.
The breeze that blew in smelled like summer itself. The air was gently warm and smelled of grass. It carried with it tiny drifts of dandelion fluff. It and the sunlight seemed to be one. It was bright out there; the sky was still blue. The few streaks of clouds were high high high and very white.
A chair with a sunshade and a footstool could be seen farther down the initial easy slope of the hill. Someone had set Horran up down there, before the ground grew steeper, so he could sit among flowers and seedpods and watch tiny birds hunt the weeds and grass for bugs. It was possible that the huge man seated on the ground beside him was that someone. Temmis Ashbroom was facing the same direction that Horran's chair was pointed. Though his back was turned, it was unmistakably Temmis. He was huge today--far, far larger, and probably also far taller, than he'd been the last time Liessel had seen him, as if he'd hit some storybook growthspurt.
Stepping out into daylight, Liessel found herself stopping short of making the rush down toward where her father sat. If only she'd been born with an artist's hands. She'd have drawn out her notebook and sketched the image in all of its everyday perfection. If she tried with the hands she was born with, the skies would look like spaghetti, the birds like scribbles of a pen that forgot how to be a pen, and there would have been nothing at all but a brick of color where her father sat with the large form of Temmis by his side.
Alas, she was not an artist. But she would commit the scene to memory later, by trying to capture it in words within the pages of a well-loved notebook.
Her steps down the shallow slope were easy, and light. She was careful on her approach not wanting to startle either her father or the man sitting with him. The word "Hello," preceded her, her tone cheerful and bright. With the world looking the way it did, she could not help but feel it matched within her heart.
Temmis's head came up, turned. It was his face indeed, in perfect proportion, just huge. He'd have had to bend to get through the doorway of the guildhall. Nothing about him suggested that he realized he might need to explain that, because what he whispered first was, "He's asleep."
He'd been reading, and closed his book carefully. Blue-bound, it looked tiny in his hands. He set it aside in the grass and pushed a hand to the ground to get up.
Temmis. She had thought it was him. But the last time she had seen him he had been asleep, and much smaller. The slope of the shoulders had seemed to be the same, if in much grander scale so when he turned and whispered to her, Liessel found herself blinking and trying to grab ahold of the reality that was before her in order to match it up to the man she had prayed over weeks before.
After a few moments, Liessel realized she was staring and forcibly put her attention on where her father sat dozing.
"Thank you," She answered Temmis just as quietly as he had whispered to her, "For keeping him company out here."
As he rose, Liessel looked and tilted her head back, back, back just so she could see him.
Finally he registered the way she was acting, once he was around the back of Horran's chair, and held out a hand, hunching perhaps unconsciously (though it didn't help at all to shrink him). "Don't be afraid--it's just me. Shall I wake him?"
"No," Reflex had her wanting to step back as he came around behind the chair, but she bit down on it and squashed it like a bug beneath her boot. It was Temmis. There was nothing to fear, just as he said. It was him, but only huge. "That's -- its alright, we can let him sleep." She felt like an ant talking to a tree! "I -- forgive me, I do not want to be rude," She couldn't help the nervous smile or laugh that came as she spoke and moved forward to offer her own hand in return, "But how have you come to be so big?"
He was already nodding along as she apologized in advance, and whispered his own words right in time with her own speech. "Long story," he told her. "It's something sticky like a curse. --But don't worry! It doesn't rub off on anyone else. --Do you want to sit with your father? You can take my spot."
He'd been seated on a blanket, though a narrow one, slightly bunched now. Aside from his book to one side of it, there was a little silver pot of something off the other side.
Curse. He said the word and it pulled at her mind. She could barely recall mention of something along those lines during her first visit. "It is of no worry," she told Temmis with a smile, "Mister Ashbroom. I've been close to you before." Her hand was lifted and pressed against the middle of her chest.
And then she was considering her father again. He looked peaceful, so well at rest. "I think we can let him be for now. I would like to -- talk to someone, if possible, about the history of Harroway." That, she felt, was best done when she didn't need to divide her attention between her father and her questions.
"Temmis, please. I'm not so revered around here as Greatmother." He said it with a snort, and quietly, and gestured that they might talk a little farther from Horran.
Temmis was dressed in clothing that was obviously handmade, and very simple. Someone--perhaps he, himself--had made the overlarge shirt to look like the collared shirts anyone might wear, but it was possible that he'd grown since doing so, for he wore it open with a much, much simpler shirt or tunic beneath it. The trousers likewise were handmade, and might have been put together from two different original pieces. Without scrutinizing the work, there was no way to know for sure, but some odd worn parts hinted. Temmis did not have a wardrobe for himself at this size; there had been some swift adaptation.
Once they'd stepped away and could talk at ease, he said: "What exactly are you hoping to accomplish? That will help me direct you."
Temmis, please.
The request was given a gentle nod of acceptance, "Temmis, then," Liessel acknowledged with a smile.
The shift away from where Horran dozed was an easy one. Liessel followed Temmis' lead until they were a safe distance away and neither of them would have to whisper, though Liessel's voice was still quite soft in volume, "We came across evidence of a direct link between this world and --" She almost said my home, but it was no more home for her than Father McKellen's church was the Temple of the Guardians. "Harroway just before we left to return here with my father. I would like to ask some questions about the stones -- the meaning of Stonehenge. I would like to know if anyone here recognizes the names of The Guardians once I speak them aloud in this place."
"You think they were here--your Guardians?" Temmis asked, catching on that at first. He folded his arms and looked like a circus Strongman without even trying. "Or that your folk were?"
"I think more," Liessel said with another nod of her head, "That the Guardians took people from here, and gave them a place in what has become Harroway. "
She felt so tiny standing there next to him, still so very much like an ant talking to a tree. Him folding his arms as they spoke only helped that feeling along. It was hard not to feel dwarfed.
His surprise was there, but it did not expand into alarm. It did have him blinking, and he asked, "How long ago...?"
"The people there have been settled for generations," She told Temmis, "Our ties there have become old enough that they are obscured with the passage of the ages. We -- well, the Flynns -- came across a scroll that had some names listed, and a piece of vellum that had been painted with Latin characters."
Temmis's expression sharpened with interest at that. It was easy to know exactly when Latin had come to these shores. It might have been for other reasons, too. "Greatmother isn't here... and while we do have some records, our histories tend to be kept by those of us who live long, such as Greatmother, Missus White at the Tor, and others. If you want to begin with seeing if anyone knows the names, we could post a bulletin here in the hall...?" He'd started moving again, a slow walk pointed back up toward the guild all, on the gentle note of this initial thought among many.
Liessel didn't need very long to think that over as she fell into step with Temmis. There was a risk in this, she knew, and its name began with an "S". It rhymed with "snake". But what harm could be brought to the people of Harroway? Would Slake be able to pass through the gate? Did he have any desire to? Why would he? What would it net him? So many unknowns, even within the topic of the names, themselves. "I think I would like that. It sounds like a good place to start."
"Do you have the scroll with you? And vellum, you said?" The afternoon, sleepy and easy, reflected nothing of tensions here. Yet there was still the large scar where the bulk of half of the Raleigh had hit the hillside, and the fresh construction continued to make the unusual era that the Bells folk had found themselves in. "Tell me how you think this all happened."
"I did not bring the originals with me, but I did copy them down" As she spoke, Liessel's left hand disappeared into a pocket of her skirt and came out with a folded piece of paper. It was pristinely white aside from the dark ink she'd used to write on it with, and a pale light blue header that was capped with tiny pink flowers -- the watermarks of a woman's fine set of stationary.
Without a thought for it, Liessel offered the paper over to Temmis for him to look at. But it was not all written in english, or even Latin. The list that took up the top portion of the page had been written in the tight and tiny hand of the woman who had handed him the paper. The characters were rune-like in nature. Beneath the short list of those names, Liessel had copied the Latin text as best she was able: Here we greet the sun, Oh Loving Mother Eidole.
At the sight of the rune-like script, Temmis Ashbroom glanced sidelong at Liessel with his eyebrows raised. Of course, "sidelong" meant in fact that he loomed, peering over at her. "This is the script your people use? --You may be on to something. What did the Flynns tell you about the writing?"
She was trying not to look up at him because doing so meant she'd have to take her eyes off of where she was walking. But here, she did spare a quick glance his way, tilting her head to look up and catch his eye, "It is," Liessel answered, before quickly putting her eyes back on the way they were walking, "It was mentioned that it was reminiscent of Futhark. -- Which I have come to understand is a language that is linked to a people known as Vikings."
Liessel took the time to breathe for a moment. Temmis had asked how she thought it had happened, and she still wasn't sure she had an answer for the exact how. What she told him was, "In one of the other scrolls that was recovered, it was stated that they were asked if they wanted to join The Guardians. How that happened wasn't told."
"Greatmother remembers when the Vikings came," Temmis said, slowing to a halt and arching his brow at her. "She was young, but she tells stories. How the vættir and fylgjur came through breaths and songs and clashed over these lands with the Folk Our Friends and those who rode over and beneath Ireland. I think that was in the days when Gwydda watched as the Warden." He was thinking again of what he knew that might help Liessel; who was left?
"There may be some left who can help you, if Greatmother can't," he decided at last, meeting Liessel's eyes.
Liessel stopped with him, and turned. She looked up, tilting her head so that she could catch his eye as he spoke. "She very well might have heard something, then. And if not, then I will speak with anyone else who might know something. The mystery of this has been long kept from The People of Harroway. I would love to be able to provide them with a link to the world where our ancestors had come from. I would like to know, myself. Thank you, Temmis, for helping me with this."
"I'll do what I can to help you here, but... How ready are you to do some traveling in pursuit of this? There aren't many old ones who go far from their burrows, these days. Even Greatmother has to travel to see them."
Liessel had to think about that. There were carriages she could rent, she was almost certain that Eddie would be willing to take her if she asked. Her answer to Temmis was a little nod, even as she still thought about the possible modes of travel she could use to get wherever she needed to go, "As long as I know my father is being looked after well, I will go where this trail leads me."
"Well, then." Temmis laughed a little. "Let's get this started with a list of names we can show our closest friends."
The ones who came the most often tended to be the ones that needed the Twin Bells the most. That is, the regulars of the guild tended to be the guild's least powerful--but that didn't mean they were nobodies. Temmis Ashbroom led the way into the hall, having to duck and take care even in the double doorway, and when he was inside it was clear that perhaps the spatious and high rafters had been measured out in deference to his particular dimensions.