"But Why Did You Go There in the First P

"But why did you go there in the first place?"



Meril thought about the question, poking the fire and wondering how to start. Alyssa sat, spinning with her drop spindle, and waited.



"I didn't really intend to go, at first. It didn't interest me. But then, one long winter night, a night of endless thinking, a niggling little thought occured to me: what if the runes I drew, if runes they were, what if they were made by my mother's people?" he finally said.



Alyssa stopped spinning and looked at him. "And was it? Did you find out?"



Meril shook his head. "I never saw runes like the ones I had been drawing, there or anywhere else, for that matter." He tossed the piece of wood he was using to poke the fire into the flames, and watched it burn.



"Whatever I thought I could find, it wasn't in Balmorila. But that is where I met Haback, and his wife and son... and now they are dead, " he said, in a monotone that she understood. It was the same monotone that she herself had used after Hanno died, at what used to be her home. She picked up her spindle and started spinning again.