Aoife took them to a house much like her own, farther from the river and towards the edge of dark forest. She knocked on it impatiently.

" Tíam Étain," she called. " Our guests from Vóda have come for portrait, so we may ally with them."

A slender youth in worn clothes opened the door, squinting out at the morning light.

" Lady Aoife, must you call on me so early?" he asked.

" It's an urgent matter," she said. " We must have an idol of their god on the clan altar before they leave. They have cut ties with Calsar in order to defend us; he's sent men to gather up soldiers and force us from the river."

" You accept so easily that it's not a trap?" This tíam Étain asked, even as he let them in, Yrnhold staring at him confusedly.

" I thought you said you have no men?" he asked.

" You can't send tíam to war," Aoife responded incredulously. " Even I can wield a sword better."

" I've not heard of this idea of tíam before," Yrnhold tried to explain. " What sort of man is warless...?"

The tíam in question seemed to be pointedly not listening to them; the room was a workspace, covered in half-finished sculpture, and he was going to sit at a recently disturbed mat.

" Isn't this Lord Hélna of yours one?" Aoife asked, vaguely gesturing.

" Where is the god I'm meant to copy?" Étain asked, sounding tired.

" Lord Hélna is sexless," Yrnhold declared, "Due to her life being extended by her faithful servant cat."

" I'm the god," Sif told Étain, paying only passing attention to the confused squabble beween coven. He went by the two of them to sit in front of Étain, taking off his cloak.

Étain blinked at him, hard, and appeared a bit dumbfounded.

" Oh," he said. He turned to Aoife. " My lady, Master only showed me the way to copy before he passed away, is it truly alright for me to carve original?"

" Yes, of course it is," Aoife said. " You must remember that the heathens don't make sculpture."

Sif felt a little offended by that; he very much liked the little effigies his people made.

Étain thus turned to moving around the various pieces of wood behind him, looking through them for something specific.

" Are you really a god?" he asked as he looked. " I heard that the gods of Vóda were nothing more than the ghosts of drowned priests."

" I am," Sif said, and, recalling what proof Aoife had demanded of him, rolled up his sleeves once more. " See on my wrists, the mark of the twine that held me before I was dredged from the bog."

He privately mused about how easy it had become to tell half-truths of himself.

" Birch is the sacred tree for you, isn't it?" Étain asked. " I only have a small piece. It may not be suitable."

He seemed a little nervous.

" That's fine," Sif replied. It had been birch that had staked Helna's body down, so that sounded right. " Is it to be in my likeness?"

" Yes," Étain said, " Though I'm afraid I'm no good. My master died before he could teach me how to do anything but carve the established spirits."

" As long as it suits Aoife's purposes, it's fine," Sif said, with a shrug.

They sat quietly while Étain carved a niche into a half of a small log, shaping it roughly around a still undetailed figure.

" Now that we have Étain working on your idol, you may return whence you came," Aoife said to Yrnhold, both of them blurs in Sif's background. " Leave one of your men here, and I will send our Oébfinn. Calsar's capital is far away; we have time to prepare."

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