"Take off your clothes, Nevara." A creaking voice said as I entered the small tent, eyes watering, instantly sweating from the heat inside and choking on the sweet grass smoke that filled the darkened space. I would have walked out of the tent had my Grandmother not clutched my arm tightly and held me fast in place.
There was nothing else said for a few moments, as I stood there, trying to control my coughing, with my Grandmother's fingers dug into my arm. Then, my eyes slowly adjusting to the change from the bright afternoon light outside to the dimness within, I began to see the shrunken forms of three ancient women sitting before me. "Wh-what?...My clothes..?" I coughed.
A crone sitting across from me, glanced at my Grandmother with dark unreadable eyes then waved a thin shift in my direction once again. "Yes, child. Take off your clothes and put this on. Now. We must begin." She commanded, and settled back into her seat, with the diffidence of one who is used to being obeyed.
I took the shift from her hand, and placing it on the ground beside me, I turned and began to disrobe, folding my clothes by the tent flap. My face flushed with shyness, I quickly donned the shift, still releasing the occasional cough. Turning back to the three crones and my Grandmother, I stood there furtively looking about the tent. There was a hole in the top of the tent, releasing the smoke from the small fire liberally covered in grasses. The rising smoke obscured any sight to the sky outside, and no air seemed to filter inwards to grant reprieve from the stifling heat inside. The three elders sat as if marking the points to a compass, one having a small drum placed by her side. Each was wrinkled like the trunk of an old oak tree; each wore a garment made of autumn leaves. The soft moss of the forest floor outside had been cleared away, leaving only hard packed earth which was covered with some sitting hides. Nothing else decorated the crones or the darkened tents' interior.
The elder that had spoken as I entered, looked to my Grandmother and said, "You may go now. We will call you when we are done." Her black eyes were emotionless as she waited for my Grandmother to leave. With a curt nod, and a swift glance to me, my Grandmother departed in a whisper of the tent flap.
The crone spoke again, from her seat at the southern point of the compass as she picked up her small drum. Her voice taking on a fuller tone than before; "Sit Nevara," she pointed to the northern most hide rug. I stepped carefully to the spot and settled in cross legged, already feeling disoriented from the smoke and the heat in the tent as well as all the occurrences since my arrival to the Derudh village.
The Southern crone began to thumb gently on her drum, while the other two lifted their voices, one more reedy, the other a bass, into a rolling, humming sound that began to fill my ears. I tried to sit as still as I could, watching them, waiting for something to happen. The noise, seeming solid and with a life of its own, began to congeal around me, creating a background of sound that flowed through me, enveloping me. Watching them, my thoughts slowing to an internal central focus, the Eastern crone began placing one blade of grass at a time on the small fire, increasing the smoke in the tent. As the blades of grass flared, creating small fire devils, I was dimly aware of the the heat increasing, the shift clung to me as sweat tickled down my body.
The tent seemed to become darker, time became meaningless, my mind drifted along to the beat of the drum and the low rolling sound of their humming. My body became senseless, and the world outside became nothing more than a passing dream. The sound began to swell, inundating the tent and seeming to merge with the smoke as it filled the space and drifted lazily through the hole at the top.
I began to completely lose all my senses, in the midst of the noise and the smoke. Then the Eastern crone in a shrill voice like the sound of the cry of a hawk, said; "Who is this child before us? ....Outcast?...Outlier?...Duvodiad?.....Stranger!"
While my body began to shake with fatigue from the heat, the Western crone spoke in a bass rumbling voice, sounding of the roots and hollows that the boar makes as home; "Nay..she is a wandering child...Caru Luth...the white doe following the stag."
The shrill voice of the eastern crone, broke in; "Nay, Misbegotton..Dunland child tainted..Silvan blood..Outsider.."
Although dazed, I tried to raise my voice in objection to the slight upon my Mother, knowing as I did, the tale of my great Grandmothers love for an Elven man, and my Mothers sometime upbringing in the Sylvan lands. Then the Western crone cut through the voice of the East and my thoughts, saying, "Dunland child...Stag child...Sylvan child..Derudh child.."
The noise began to swell again, rising in a throbbing hum deep within my body, I began to sway to the sound of it, whether from the beat or the fatigue or the smoke filling me, I do not know.
The Southern crone finally spoke, her voice mellow and full, the sound of fields in summer and the steady rhythm of an ox plodding a cart home; "...Dunland child...Mixed blood child...Uniter...Leader..Derudh.."
At this last, my heart stumbled and I searched for my faltering voice, choking on the smoke, my head throbbing, my thoughts clouded and dull, my body shaking as sweat trickled down me. I tried to speak, saying in my mind, "No, I don't want to. I don't want this." But all that came out was a croaking, stuttered, "N.n..S..St..Sto.."
The drum and their humming, suddenly stopped. I blinked dazedly about me. Then the Southern crone reached out with her crooked hand, a hooked nail lightly touching my shoulder, pushing me back, and said, "It is too late..The Huntsman comes...close your eyes child"
As I lay back, closing my eyes, my thoughts falling away, the remnants of the sound of the drum was still in my ears, like a low heartbeat throbbing beneath all living things.
