33 Talmot

Talmot awoke to dawn breaking over the horizon, rays of sunlight sparkled on a vast sea. He reached out with his hands and felt cool sand beneath him as light sprays of saltwater fell upon his bearded face. The general stared skyward for a long moment, a cloudless gray sky loomed over him. Tenuously he reached back and gingerly felt the lump that had formed behind his ear. A smooth, but rather large rock lay under his head. Sand had accumulated in his boots and snuck down the back of his shirt, leaving the general's mood as sour as the bitter taste of salt in his mouth.

"Goddammit," the general uttered uselessly, sitting up and viewing the landscape before him. His feet were pointed toward the body of water, turning back he could see a small fishing village lined the shore. Talmot surmised he must have been knocked unconscious when the traitor, Gareth, had kicked him through the magical hole in the air Lorna had referred to as a stitch.

Why wasn't Lorna here yet? He thought to himself, gently massaging his cramping neck muscles. Spending hours passed out on the beach hadn't been kind to his already sore muscles. For once, he was feeling all of his fifty-seven years. The witch would be along shortly, he reasoned, it had taken her hours to unravel the stitch back in Cora's orchard, and her contract forbade her from abandoning her holder.

As the days went on, traveling with the witch, he wondered if she had been finding loop-holes in the contract and, on more than one occasion, questioned the woman's real motive. Everyone in Ibudal had an agenda, and he was confident the red-haired witch was no different. The general knew that much more caution was needed moving forward and perhaps an alteration to her contract. That could all be handled when they eventually arrived back in Ravin-Sha.

"Water?" a voice croaked, shaking him from his musing. Talmot looked up to find an old woman, even more decrepit than Cora Delvine, standing next to him. The general had been so lost in his thoughts that he had not heard the woman approach. She was dressed in a simple gray dress and wrapped in a light snow white shawl. Jewelry of every shape and color hung from her neck, wrists, and ears, silver, and gold glittering in the early morning sun.

Talmot nodded, taking the tin cup gratefully, his tongue felt like sandpaper within his mouth. "Thank you," he muttered after draining it in a single gulp. The old woman sat down next to him slowly, her frail body looked almost as if it would blow away in the wind.

She reached out a wrinkled hand, taking the cup back and attaching it securely to the belt fastened around her tiny waist. She pushed back long strands of silver hair and looked directly at the general, Talmot felt compelled to return the stare.

"Thought you was a drunk when I opened the window this morning and saw ya sleepin' out here." she in her gravelly tone. Talmot contemplated what lapse in judgment had led him to be seated here next to the old crone in a place he had no recollection of.

Talmot shook his head, slowly returning his gaze back to the open ocean before him. The general watched as seagull rustled nearby, trying to pry a clam from the wet sand. "But ya don't smell of spirits, and that uniform tells me you ain't from around here. Ya in the army, son?" she asked.

Talmot nodded this time, confirming the woman's suspicion.

"We don't have an army here," she said gruffly, "Ya must be from pretty far off then," she stated, it was not a question. Talmot glanced down towards the crone out of habit. She had reached down to her waist, pulling at something. His soldier's instinct kicked in at the woman's movement, but even if she had a blade, her brittle form posed almost no threat.

He continued to watch as the old woman gathered something from a small pouch at her waist. Between two gnarled hands, she began to shake the contents pulled from the bag. It sounded to Talmot like small stones or buttons clacking together. She closed her eyes and muttered softly under her breath while the shaking continued.

After a few moments of the woman's strange behavior, she opened both hands wide with palms facing forward toward the rolling ocean. The sun had entirely emerged now, and the bright light highlighted what looked like small bones scattered in front of them on the damp sand.

Talmot didn't move or speak, just observed silently as the old woman leaned forward and examined the bone shards before her.

She settled back and looked at for a long moment carefully. Her studious gaze caused him to shift slightly in the sand. It was as if she was both looking directly at him and past him at the same time. The generally felt distinctly uncomfortable. She finally turned back to face the water, a sense of relief fell over Talmot.

"The bones have been saying for a week only one thing," she said to him, still staring straight ahead as the waves crashed down spilling seawater so close to them Talmot had to nudge his boots up a little. "War."

"War is nothing new," Talmot sighed. He figured he might as well humor the woman, what else did he have to lose at this point.

"In this land it is!" she snapped. Her many earrings clinking as her head snapped toward him.

"Well, what do they say today?" he lamented, though her neck bore no marking he was still skeptical of fortune-tellers. It was all unnatural devilry to him."Your path is already determined, death looms, deceit and anger hover around you like a dense fog, a choice must be made, or all innocence shall perish," she told him. A melancholy weaved between the woman's words so that he felt a deep sadness resonate within his chest.

Talmot quickly dismissed the feeling, as well as the woman's cryptic words. She knew nothing of him or his choices. Damn the crown to hell, he thought. Talmot made his own destiny, hadn't he always?

Static began to fill the air, slowly at first. Before long, the static grew into a loud buzzing, blighting out the sounds of the waves and sea. He could no longer hear the gulls squawking or the tinkle of the old woman's jewelry.

The space in front of them opened up wide, allowing him to glimpse into an alien landscape, and the white-clad figure of Lorna stepped through the reopened stitch. Her heart-shaped face looked as despondent as ever framed by the crimson hair now billowing behind her in the wind.

"It's about time, woman!" Talmot said, almost yelling, feeling his frustration bubbling to the surface again. He stood and attempted to brush some of the sand from his black Ibudali uniform.

"I worked as quickly as possible under the circumstances," she replied so quietly he almost could not hear the words. Talmot watched as Lorna and the old woman exchanged looks between them. After a long, and what he thought awkward pause, the old woman finally gave a long nod in Lorna's direction.

The red-haired woman returned the gesture, only less exaggerated. "Come, let us go now," Lorna said, turning to the general. Talmot was more than ready to depart the beach and its inhabitants. Before he could follow the witch through, he felt a slight tug on the sleeve of his jacket.

"General, the woman you seek, has the answer you have been searching for. It is on her heart," she whispered to him.

Talmot determined then that she must be mad, surely she meant 'in' her heart, not on? The riddle relayed nothing to him that he could discern. She was just a crazy old bat who spent too much time with the sea birds, Talmot told himself.

He waved the woman away, snatching his arm back from her grasp and stepped through the portal. Lorna closed the stitch behind them, but the smell of salt and seaweed still lingered in the air. Talmot breathed a sigh of relief as recognized the familiar dirt road he and Lorna had been traveling on the day before.

The pair set off in search of Cora and Gareth, he began to make a list of necessary provisions they would need to pick up as soon as they reached the nearest town. One thought kept nagging at him though, he had never mentioned to the woman on the beach that he was a general.