The Demon in the Pool, or A Solstice Vision

Turac squatted with his back to the undergrowth, arms tightly clasping his knees as he shivered there, watching. The buffeting wind punched a way through everything. Through the crisp winter air, still sparkling in the melting frost from the night before, through the brambles and bushes at the edge of the wood, and through his goatskin cloak, his jerkin and his buckskin tunic, all the way to his ice-cold flesh.

From this favourite place, he could see right across the old fields and all the way up the far slope to the edge of the Plain, where at any time he expected his father, Mellorac, to appear, making his way home from the hunt. Turac often waited there in the evening. In the summer, Father might be coming back from the inner Plain when he had been to check that the boys were looking after his cows properly. But this late in the year, the little herd was kept close around the homestead, where either he or his big sister could easily watch them whilst they did their other chores about their homestead.

Turac dreamed of one day being a seer like his father, so that, as he huddled there, he was trying to concentrate his thoughts in the vain hope of receiving a little vision of Father striding home through the grass. Once or twice before he had seen something, but so fleeting and mundane he was almost certain they were no more than ordinary thoughts, daydream images, and not true visions at all. He was convinced that if he could achieve a real trance vision, even once, Father would have to change his mind and allow his young son to train as a seer at the Spirit House over the ridge. But he knew also that most seers needed to take medicine to be sure of a vision; that required training to avoid poisoning yourself, and Turac knew better than to experiment without it.

His father was an exception. Turac had seen, more than once, his father fall to the ground without warning, his eyes rolling and his tongue lolling in his mouth. Father had told him many times about the scenes and images that came piling, all out of sequence, into his head as he lay shaking on the ground. Afterwards, Turac would need to assist his exhausted father to rise, and to support him as the seer staggered drunkenly for a while until his balance returned. That was why Father refused to permit him to begin training; he considered his ability as a curse rather than a gift, and would wish it on no-one else, he said. Turac shook his head in despair.

At last, he saw a figure he recognised coming diagonally down the far slope towards the ford, struggling a little under the weight of something on his shoulders. Mellorac was a stocky man of some thirty summers, his dark hair already flecked with grey, Behind him loped his dog, Raff, always his companion when he went abroad – in this world, at least. His burden meant that he had been successful, and they would all feast on venison tonight. Turac leapt up and began to run down across the field to meet his father at the ford.

"Father, Father! Wait for me! I'll help you carry your kill across the ford!" Turac's slightly breathless shout carried on the wind to the seer as he searched for a safe way down to the water's edge. He doubted whether any intelligible words had made it to his father's ears, but the meaning must have been clear enough. There was no reply from the seer until Turac reached the stream.

" How long have you been sitting up there freezing, lad? And who is watching the herd? What have I told you about wasting your day dreaming while you wait for me? Ah, Turac, what am I to do with you?" Despite the tone of his reply, Father, dropping the deer he carried, swept his son up in his arms and held him as they both laughed with pleasure.

"Welcome home again, Father."

"Thank you. I am, as always, very glad to be back here. Come, take the hind legs and let's get this home together. I have news to tell you all."

* * * * *

"Before I crossed the river I took a detour to stop in at our chieftain's house, just to catch up on any news." Father began, once they were home again with Turac's mother in attendance. "That newcomer was there, talking to Sylthyn and one or two others. They were on about the Spirit House again. The stranger – they call him the Wanderer – was saying ..."