It comes to him as dawn rises over the lake. The water steaming gently as it warms, as though the lake itself breathes. This early in a cool autumn morning the birds are only beginning to wake. A single heron flies with deliberate strokes along the edge of the shore, grey bird against misted water, coming to land with surprising grace.
The heron finds its fishing spot and freezes.Tarchlang watches the bird, looks over the lake. The solitude oddly magnified by the presence of one fishing bird.
'He's as tight as an overstretched lute string.'
The thought tastes right in his mind as he thinks on the previous night's meeting with Halbarad. The normally calm, efficient man ...some might say cold, if they did not know him ... had seemed to fill the space around him with coiled energy.
Hard on the heels of one thought comes the next.
'... and so... something is happening.'
Tarchlang takes his eyes off the motionless bird and begins to fill his pipe methodically. Southern Star. He likes the sweetness captured in this pipeweed, an acquired taste, superior in all ways to Longbottom Leaf to his mind. He feels along the bottom of his pouch. Only a little left - one benefit unlooked for in this northern journey - a chance to purchase more as he returns south.
He packs the pipeweed down with his thumb and picks out a charred twig from the fire. As he places the glowing end to the bowl of the pipe he takes a long draw, the fragrant smoke trickling out between his lips. The smoke drifts lazily in the still morning air, like the mist still hanging over the lake.
The heron stabs down sharply. Comes back up disappointed.
He feels the stab of his own long-entombed waiting as it thrills at the thought. Is it time? After all these centuries, just as we have dwindled to a mere thread in the weave of the world.
He takes the pipe from his lips, checks it is still lit, places it back in his mouth. He snorts once humourlessly as he recognises a century-old dream. Trickles the sudden hope out with the smoke.
