Path of the Mother (Book Three)

Chapter 7 Priority of the Moment

In the morning, Lilly woke up first, and made a small fire. She was a tea person. There was just something relaxing about a warm flavorful drink that she could cup with her hands and sip on. This time it was with some wild raspberry leaves she found beside the stream. She sat looking out over the lake and thinking while she sipped.

Duncan was more of a caffa person and he had to boil his ground beans to release their juices. He was just getting to where she was on the rocks as she was getting ready to go back to camp. "I was hoping to join you," he said.

"Hang on, I'll go get my water bag and come back," she said.

When she returned, they both sat there in silence for a bit. Lilly said, "You realize that this is our second adventure together," Lilly said.

"What are you calling the first?" Duncan asked.

"Saving the kids," she said. "Why, what would you call the first?"

"I can think of several firsts where we're concerned," Duncan said with a sly grin.

She snickered and shook her head and said, "I'm beginning to believe that you only think with a certain part of your body, and it's not your head."

"We all have our issues," he said, grinning. After a while he said, "The Nymphs wanted me to pass along a message to you."

"What?"

"Lichen said that there was a problem between the Trolls and the Humans at Grover. He said that it was starting to spill over to other places too. I think they want to nip it in the bud before it gets too big to contain."

"I was at Grover not that long ago," she said. "I heard part of the story while I was there, but there wasn't anything going on at the time. I think it started several years ago a little farther to the east."

"What's going on?" he asked.

"From what I understand, there was supposed to be a Troll that went rogue and killed a couple of people. There's been a truce between the races for several thousand years, but it looks like all it takes is for one incident to get people at each other's throats again."

"Well, if it was just a single Troll that went psycho, what's keeping the problem going now?"

"People are," Lilly said, with a sigh. "Grover is a town that was established just so that Humans and Trolls can intermingle and trade on neutral ground. If they're fighting at Grover now, then the truce might be over. The story was that the daughter of the couple that were killed is grown up now and wants revenge on the Trolls."

"I'm guessing that she's got a few people helping her too, right?" he said.

"Yeah, I figure. Did Lichen say what exactly he wants me to do?" she asked.

"Nope. Just that he wanted you to act as go-between and calm everybody down."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Lilly asked.

"I'm just the messenger," Duncan said. "But I bet if anybody can do it, you can." He decided not to tell her that he was working an angle with all of this. She had enough to deal with already, but he still might be able to draw her into thinking it was all her idea.

She thought for a moment and said, "We need to find Trac. We can't just leave him when he needs our help, but I'm out of ideas with this mountain thing."

"Do you think the Nymphs know anything that might help?" he asked. "Not with the Grover thing, but with being able to find Trac's family?" It was just a sly way of getting her involved with the whole getting back into the mountain issue.