‘Including Old Twister,’ I added, smiling fondly at him.

‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed. ‘Old Twister and I have this little appointment. I will catch him one day, Aunt Pol, but don’t start polishing your roasting pan, because after I catch him, I’m going to let him go again.’

Now, that startled me. ‘You’re going to do what?’

‘I’m going to unhook him, unwrap my line from around him and then slip him back into the stream.’

‘If you’re just going to turn him loose, why catch him?’

He grinned broadly. ‘For the fun of catching him, Aunt Pol. And, of course, if I turn him loose, I can catch him again.’

Men!

It was during Enalla’s pregnancy that my wandering father went to Gar og Nadrak to follow up on one of those deliberately vague hints in the Darine Codex, and while he was there, he teamed up with a Nadrak gold-hunter named Rablek – and would you believe that they actually stumbled across a sizeable deposit of gold? I’ve seen my father’s stack of gold bars, and though he’s not quite as rich as I am, at least I don’t have to worry about his picking my pocket every time he needs a few pennies for beer.

I sent word to him about Garel’s birth, and he stopped by that autumn to have a look at his new grandson. Then he and I had a chance to talk. ‘How did the fishing business work out?’ he asked me.

‘Probably better than you imagined it would,’ I replied. ‘Every man in Emgaard drops everything he’s doing when the fish start biting, and they accepted Gelane as a brother just as soon as he told them about Old Twister.’

‘Who’s Old Twister?’

‘That big fish that got away from Gelane the first day we got here.’

‘The local fish have names?’

‘A quaint custom here in Emgaard. Any word about Chamdar?’

‘Not a peep. I think he’s gone down a hole some place.’

‘I believe I can live without his company.’

‘Don’t worry, Pol. I’ll get him someday.’

‘Now you sound just like Gelane. He says the same thing about Old Twister. There’s a difference though. Gelane wants to catch Old Twister, but then he wants to let him go again.’

‘What for?’

‘So he can catch him again.’

‘That’s absolutely absurd.’

‘I know. It’s what he wants to do, though. Give my best to the twins. Will you be staying for supper?’

‘What are we having?’

‘Fish. What else?’

‘I think I’ll pass, Pol. I’m in the mood for baked ham this evening.’

‘This particular fish didn’t have a name, father. It’s not like we’ll be earing an old friend.’

‘Thanks all the same, Pol. Stay in touch.’ And then he left.

Our lives passed quietly and uneventfully in Emgaard. As he grew more proficient at his hobby, Gelane reached the point where he caught Old Twister at least once a year, and during the winter months he’d take food out to that secluded little pool in the swiftly-running mountain stream and feed his friend. I’m certain that Twister appreciated that, and he probably reached the point that he actually recognized his benefactor – by his smell certainly, if not by his appearance.

Enalla had two more children in rapid succession, both girls, so I had lots of babies to play with.

Old Twister died, of natural causes probably, in the winter of 4801, and given the number of predators and scavengers along the banks of any mountain stream it’s really rather remarkable that Gelane actually found him. My nephew’s face was sorrowful, and there were even tears in his eyes when he brought the huge trout home. He leaned his fish-pole against the side of the house, and I don’t believe he ever touched it again. Then he sadly buried his friend near the stone wall in my garden, and he transplanted a pair of rose-bushes to mark the spot. You would not believe how big those bushes grew or how beautiful the roses were. Maybe in some strange sort of way that was Twister’s thanks for all the times Gelane had fed him in the winter.

Late that summer – 4902, I think – something got into the stream that supplied water to our village. I don’t think it was a dead animal, because the illness that swept through Emgaard didn’t have that kind of symptoms. Despite my best efforts, many people in Emgaard died, and among them was Gelane. My time for grieving came only later, since there were still those among the sick who could be saved. Then, after the illness had run its course, I devoted much of my time trying to locate the source of the infection, but it eluded me.

Enalla and the children had not fallen ill, but the impact of my nephew’s death was probably even more devastating than a personal illness ever could have been. There was at that particular time only one real vulture in Emsat, and he approached Enalla filled with false sympathy and an insultingly small offer for Gelane’s shop. ‘Why don’t you let me handle it, dear?’ I suggested.

‘Oh, would you, Aunt Pol? I can’t decide what to do.’

‘I can, dear,’ I told her, and I did. I visited the tavern that very evening and advised the local fishermen’s group of the offer and let them know that I found the fellow who’d made it very offensive. They took care of the matter for me, and our local entrepreneur left town the very next morning – right after I’d treated a number of cuts and abrasions and set the broken bone in his right arm. Evidently, he’d fallen down a flight of stairs – repeatedly. Small town justice in Cherek is very direct, I noticed.

We might have left the village after that, but Enalla was reluctant to leave Gelane’s grave behind, and by now she had many friends in the village. Garel and his sisters grew up there, and when Garel was sixteen, the bell rang in my head again. The girl who rang it was a bubbly blonde Cherek girl named Merel, and we got the pair of them married on fairly short notice. There weren’t any bars for windows in Emgaard, and the village was immersed in a deep forest where there was far too much underbrush for my comfort, given the inevitable adolescent urge for exploration. Merel was one of those incredibly fertile Cherek girls who seem to be almost constantly pregnant. Every couple of years, Garel, who was now the village carpenter, added more rooms to our house, but he could still barely keep up. His eldest son, Darion, ended up with thirteen brothers and sisters.

I kept the family in Emgaard for probably longer than I’d stayed in one place since I’d left Arendia. There weren’t any Angaraks in Cherek, after all, and the people in Emgaard shrugged off my longevity with the fairly simple, but wildly inaccurate explanation, ‘She’s a physician, after all, and everybody knows that physicians all know how to live for hundreds of years. They do it with all them secret herbs, you know:’ I always choked just a little when I heard one of them say that, largely because he pronounced the ‘h’ in ‘herbs’. It was their misconception, not their mispronunciation, that made it possible for me to remain in Emgaard with the descendants of Gelane and Enalla. I knew that I was breaking one of the primary rules, but it’s safe to do that in Cherek, because just about everybody in Cherek breaks the rules every time he gets the chance.




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