Path of the Mother (Book Three)

Chapter 2 Tugger

Brannon had the fish smothered in salt and some herbs he sprinkled on them, and he spitted them with a long stick from head to tail. He then propped open the sides of the fish with some smaller sticks to allow the heat from the fire to reach the inside too. It was a technique that Duncan hadn't seen before, and it was interesting to watch him turn them over the fire. They were done in just a few minutes. He set them all to the side to cool.

"Almost forgot," he said. "Could you fetch me that pot by the wall over there, and pour it about half full of water?"

Duncan got it for him, and he tossed in the tubers and onions that were waiting. He reached into his tunic again to hold his stone and put the end of a stick into the water. A couple of words later and the water began to boil.

"Man," Duncan said. "I need to know how to do that. I have to use a flint, and sometimes it takes forever."

"Tricks of the trade," Brannon said. "It does save a lot of time ... especially making tea."

Lilly laughed at the way he was so nonchalant about the use of magic. It seemed like just about everywhere, people were really wary about magic and scared to let anyone know they had the gift. Brannon did it like it was a natural thing to do. She liked it. It reminded her of the way her Grams dealt with all of it. Her mother was a lot more reserved about it and hid it as much as she could.

They had a wonderful meal and the fish was moist and flaky. The tubers were soft and full of flavor and the onions were still sweet and flavorful too.

After they had eaten, Brannon pulled out his pipe and offered them some of his smoke. They both declined. Duncan always wanted to keep his wits about him, and Lilly didn't like the way it made her stomach feel. He went ahead and took a few good pulls before setting it aside again.

Brannon said, "You said that you had some things you wanted to ask."

"We were swimming in the Little Falls Lake a few months ago," Duncan said. "That water was so cold that it has to be coming off of a source of ice in the mountains. We thought that if we could get into the old mines up there, we might be able to find where all that cold is coming from." It was true for the most part. He wasn't quite ready to blurt out the real reason that they wanted to find the ice yet.

"You want to get into the Signet Mines?" Brannon said, pulling on his beard, and doing some thinking before he said anything else. "You know that people have been trying to get into those mountains for hundreds of years. Nobody ever found the entrance."

Lilly said, "Johnah said if anybody around here could point us in the right direction, it would be you."

"If you found the source of the cold water, what do you hope to gain?" Brannon asked. With this simple statement, he let them both know that there might be a possibility, but they needed to give him a good reason to let them know what it was.

"We think it might be part of a magical working of the Elves, back when they were partners with the Dwarves," Duncan said.

"Elven Ice," he said thoughtfully. "No one's asked about that for a moon or two either." He picked up his pipe again and gave it another pull, savoring the bitter aftertaste it left. After he let the smoke out, he said, "Now why would a pair of youngsters like yourselves be after Elven Ice? You can't really use it for anything. The magic that created it is long gone from this world, and it can't even be broken up into smaller pieces without the magic that made it."

Duncan and Lilly both looked at each other for a moment. Lilly nodded at him. Trac needed to be kept safe from Humans, but they couldn't help to save his family on their own. To accomplish what they needed to, it was going to take knowledge that they didn't have.