[Terquem]

Chapter 2 part 5

“Alan,” Lisa said, “close the shutters on the windows, please. We need to settle in for the night. It doesn’t do any of us any good to stay up talking about these things right now. Let’s get some rest.”

“Is there a need to keep a watch,” Fairlyn asked, “or can this tower warn us if someone approaches in the night?”

“I cannot sense anything outside of myself,” the Tower said. “I can tell if it is raining. If the sun is shining, or if the wind is blowing, these are things I can feel I do not see with eyes, so I am not a good watch keeper.”

Alan went to the window to the right of the fireplace and unhooked the latches on the wooden shutter that held them open against the inside wall of the tower. He could not see much of the sparse grass and few low growing bushes of the moorland below the window which was more than ten feet above the ground. In the distance, to the west, he thought he could see faint lights moving along the ground. Too low to be lanterns or torches, he called to Lisa, “Lisa, there are lights in the distance. Do you know what they are?”

Lisa came to stand beside him. She took the window on her side and began to close it. She did not look out. “Insects,” she said, “or possibly just the reflection of the moon on the vapor as it rises from the wetlands.”

Alan looked up at the cloudy sky. “But there is no –”

Before he could finish, Lisa shut the window on her side and fastened it in place, then took the other window out of Alan’s hand and closed it, saying, “It isn’t anything.”

“Then we should keep a watch?” Fairlyn asked.

“The tower itself is not easily entered,” Lisa said. She turned and clapped her hands lightly, “I’m going to sleep here, by the fire. The rabbit skin rug will be large enough for all of us, if you don’t mind being close to people you don’t know well. I don’t think there are any beds, but the rest of you can put out blankets and bed rolls where you will be comfortable, if the rabbit skin rug is not to your liking.”

“I can stay by the door for a few hours,” Alan said picking up one of the stools. “If you are worried, Illoe, I can wake you in a while and you can sit by the door as a watch for the rest of the night.”

Lydia and her children put out bedrolls on the skin in front of the fire.

Tewelden and Fairlyn did the same but off to one side, away from the others.

Lisa took a light blanket from her own pack and pulled it over her shoulders as she lay down on the skin.


The room was quiet except for the crackle of the fire and the sound of rain occasionally being driven by a gust of wind onto the window shutters.

Everyone had settled into a sleeping position except for the halfling, Cooper. He sat with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around his legs. He was staring at Alan.

“Are you a giant, then?” Cooper finally asked, quietly. “Or a half giant maybe?”

“I am just a man,” Alan smiled.

“You are an enormous man,” Cooper said. “I’ve seen men, elven folk who were taller than them. I’ve seen orcs, well, you know, those Beauvingians, even maetaur folk, but I’ve never met a man as large as you. How tall are you?”

“I really don’t know,” Alan said.

“Six foot four at least,” Lisa said without raising her head from the rug. “I’m five foot nine inches tall on my bare feet. He is probably almost a foot taller than I am.”

“Why is this important?” Alan asked.

“I’ve never seen a giant,” Cooper said. “We don’t have giants on Ibalnd. I’ve heard stories, from the human folk from your country, about giants who are over ten feet tall. Huge folk who can lift a cow with one arm. Some folk say that all giants are monstrous folk who kill and eat other folk, but some say that’s not true, and some giants are kind. If you are descended from giants, I hope you are on of the kind ones. We don’t need anymore folk coming to Ibalnd to cause trouble.”

“I have never wanted to cause trouble, for anyone,” Alan said. “I’ve not given a lot of thought to being a big man. I guess, where I come from, my father and my brothers, well, all the men and women I knew growing up, were as tall as I am. At least that is how I remember it. My family comes from Goralda, which is in the mountains west of Anthandra, across the sea. My father was a soldier and his father before him. It seemed natural that I would be a soldier to, and I was only a teen when I joined the company of mercenaries that worked the north coastline keeping folks safe from pirate raids and dangerous creatures coming down out of the mountains south of us. I was twenty three years old when I fought at the castle wall. I guess that makes me twenty seven now so I am about as tall as I am ever going to be. I’m definitely no a giant, and I’ve never seen a giant either, but my grandfather fought one, back home, back in Goralda. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about him and tell you what my grandfather told me.”

With that, Cooper was satisfied and laid down next to his wife on the rug.
Soon everyone was sleeping.

Alan looked upon the people sleeping on the floor of the tower. He wondered what it all meant. He was sure that this woman, Lisa, was the sorceress he was looking for, but now he wasn’t sure he would get a chance to talk to her about his memories, his condition. It seemed odd to him that this group would show up in the same place that he had been searching for, for as look as he could remember, with a story of something that happened to them only a few days or maybe a week or two before.

Four years. Had it really been that long. Four years of traveling, moving ever onward from village to village, chasing answers, being chased, being hunted. He had only wanted to find an end, and now it looked as if all he had found was another beginning.