The Hallovers are rarely lauded as men of bravery or pluck, but one is - unbeknownst to most - celebrated as a hero. Tycel, squire to Sir Waine, was born a Hallover. Like all of his family, Tycel kept close a feather that granted its bearer the power of that Witch Clan: to float lightly to the ground no matter the drop. Unlike most Hallovers, he gave it to another: Sir Waine.
The pair first met some five or ten miles from the Hallover village, now under the Dunger yoke. Sir Waine had travelled to the Ashberry Mountains (24.18) to negotiate a loan from the Osseries, who were the bankers of the Barrier Range thanks to their lucrative Ossery Fire sales. Tycel was among the Osseries seeking the hand of a lady in marriage.
Both were spurned. Sir Waine could not convince the Osseries that Thring would make good on its debts, and Tycell could not convince the proud Witchwomen that floating like a feather was as useful as blasting fire.
When they met on the road from Ossery lands, they exchanged pleasantries and sad stories. The Hallover had sworn that he would marry before his father’s death. Each day, his father moved closer to death - subject to a strange malady that made the sufferer literally fade away into nothing.
Sir Waine took the Witchman in his arms and explained that he knew the cause of the poison. Like the feared Dynastic Sting, its source was the quicklings of the Kingswood. They called it the Stone’s Kidnap, because it fetched the subject to the poisoner but one needed the patience of stone before the abduction was complete.
Sir Waine and Tycel travelled to the father’s sickbed and the Thringman dosed the man with lilysilk. The man spoke of a floor chequered white and black, and two looming figures shifting his body and light and dark shapes, as if part of a dance.
The lilysilk had served its intended purpose, and united the man’s two selves, allowing him to describe where his body was being spirited away to. Once they had those details, Sir Waine and Tycel burst into the Chequered Room (26.17), and came face to face with the figures who needed half a father for their silent chess match.
Who the figures were, and how Tycel married before his father’s death without ever feeling the touch of a woman, are stories for another time. But if you wish to hear them, you could do worse than travel to Wingburn. The village is the last free refuge of Hallovers, who live and intermarry with the Osseries to whom the land belongs.
Hooks
- Paladins are said to marry the Green Lady. Is that how Tycel resolved his oath? Or did he marry someone else?
- Where can lilysilk be found? How is it manufactured?
- Who were the dark figures and why did they need half a man?
- Why is Tycel’s Hallover heritage forgotten or glossed over?
- Why did Thring need a loan from the Osseries?
- How did the figures get their hands on Stone’s Kidnap?
- Do strange powers emerge from the marriage of Hallovers and Osseries?
- I thought Witch Clan powers were innate - why does the Hallover one manifest in an item?
- What does bestowing a feather token on another man indicate?
