Chapter 18 - The Pool of Insight
General Summary
Dietmar, Eddi and Franz, along with their donkey companion and Reinhard's owl arrive at the pond , glowing green with algae. This, Eddi feels, is the place that she has dreamed of so often. The owl leads them to the hut on the lakefront. The place is small, with a low doorway, intricately carved posts ending in the heads of fish, a dock, and a small boat - too small to easily fit three human-sized people. Behind a woodpile stacked next to the hut Eddi spies a small shape - likely, a reddish hat atop a small person. The companions address it, asking to be admitted into the hut to spend the night. A voice from under the hat asks what they are willing to give in exchange. Eddi offers some flint and steel, torches, fish jerky, and Dietmar throws in a bag of junk taken from the hairy humanoid encountered in the forest earlier that day. The voice asks to inspect the bag, and emerges from behind the woodpile.
The creature is thin and a bit haggard, about three and a half feet tall. It wears a tattered tunic. It typically talks in strings of three rhyming words. In response to entreaties to reveal its name, even after the guests give it theirs. It surmises that they might be lying, and insists on being called "The Guy", or any other name of the guests' choosing. It does soon prove to have magical abilities. Dietmar offers to magically mend its tunic, but it insists that it knows this trick, and proceeds to magically mend Eddi's net. It says that tunics don't concern it, but then mends its tunic as well. It then allows its companions inside, and as they settle down, it climbs up to its loft, and starts playing with fire. While his two companions step outside, Franz begins to convince to play a game of cards to tell them its name. The Guy agrees, provided Franz commits to play dice with it afterwards for 'double-or-nothing'.
In the meantime, Eddi and Dietmar step outside to get a better look at their surroundings. Eddi stares into the water and sees a giant shape moving beneath the surface. It has her husband's face, and it grabs her and drags her down to the bottom of the pond. When the vision ends, she confesses her fears to the friar, who grants her absolution. The experience leaves the two mystically bonded. But while she was in her reverie, he prayed to God to reveal to him the presence of magical objects inside the hut. Though they were hidden from view, he could sense several. Upon returning to the hut, he was able to glance at two of them - a small dowel stuck behind a plank in the wall, and a creepy-looking wooden doll with different-sized eyes and yellow yarn hair.
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Back at the Temple of Teeth, the morning of the new day dawns. After waking, Cilly cures an increasingly dejected Klawuhn, who is also beginning to regret that he did not accompany his other companions to the pond. She then accompanies the blue-haired Rán out on a harvesting trip. The elf collects lillies-of-the-valley, which give off a sound like tiny metallic bells when harvested, and mistletoe from oak trees, with a copper sickle. Rán teaches the newcomer about elixir ingredients - though there are formulas that get passed down from master to pupil, potion-brewing is really an idiosyncratic processes - intent, individuality, equipment, and surroundings all matter. The ingredients of a healing potion would be different from an elixir made to cure the Plague. Chamomile and powdered conch shells are discussed. Cilly learns that the latter may be available at the pond, and again, regrets not having gone there. In place of the liquid of the pond, mixed life-giving fluids gathered from males and females may also serve the same purpose. It is also necessary to restore the earth where cutting has taken place, so Cilly sheds some of her blood with the sickle on the place where she cut down flowers.
While Cilly is thus preoccupied, Klawuhn and Reinhard speak with Froh about the source of Klawuhn's predicament. The realm of the light elves and those of the dark elves used to be one. But one of their number, named Alberich, learned the secret of the river that flowed through the realm - that its daughters possessed a golden treasure that could be forged into a ring that gave one power over the whole world. The catch was that one had to renounce love in order to take it from them. The river's daughters were unconcerned about sharing the secret with Alberich, as he had fallen in love with them. But Alberich overpowered his feelings and directed them toward the pursuit of power. He gained control of the treasure, and forged the ring. When that happened, most of the elves to who such a lifestyle was inimical fled from Alberich, who used the ring to dominate others and force them to work for him. The light of the realm became harmful to him, and he fled from it, into darkness. The passage between the two halves of the realm shrunk down to a narrow tunnel, from which Froh's boars now emerge, to be hunted down. The pit to Schwarzalbenheim - Alberich's realm, and the realm that might restore Klawuhn, is about a day's travel to the east, not too distant from the Pool of Insight. Froh surmises that Klawuhn may have been sent to Albenheim to try to heal the rift, though it would be very difficult to accomplish. Klawuhn expresses a wish to travel to the pit, and adds his voice to Cilly's when she returns from her harvesting. Traveling to Schwarzalbenheim is unlikely to hurt the changelings, Froh adds - having relations that can go from one realm to the other is one of the main reasons they are made. Reinhard, however, has no wish to leave the temple.
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The following morning, the pond companions have a meal with the Guy, and begin to ask him what he does on the lake. He tells them that he does a little fishing, and rows his small boat to the opposite side of the pond to collect wood which he uses in his carving and carpentry. The Guy says that he possesses multiple magical objects, and expresses a willingness to trade them for items of equal value. He eventually exchanges the dowel, which can extend into a fishing rod, and the creepy doll, which can speak up to six words in succession for [???]. Franz, hearing Eddi's story from the previous night, goes to look out onto the lake, and sees a disturbing vision. He then insists on playing cards to learn the Guy's realm name, and draws a pair that beats the Guy's pair. The Guy insists that the agreement was to play dice for double or nothing, but Franz refuses, and accuses the Guy of cheating, for which the little critter kicks him in the groin, and runs off into the woods [???]Rewards Granted
- A magical fishing pole and a magical creepy doll
- Eddi learns Symphonia, to be used in conjunction with Dietmar
Character(s) interacted with
- Elves at the Temple of Teeth (esp. Rán, Froh)
- The Guy
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