The task could not be completed without help. She knew that; it was the purpose of her journey here. Nessa unfastened the bag and emptied its burden out. With a faint, clinking music, the bones tumbled moon-white onto the silver-gray wolf pelt. A tangle of dark hair wrapped itself around them. She stared down at the jumble of shapes, biting her lip. It was only an old tale, after all: voice of truth in harp of bone. She believed it, of course she did; the only thing was, the stories never gave step-by-step advice as to how one might go about constructing the mysterious objects of which they told. Practically speaking, it was impossible. The frame could not be locked together; what might one use in place of pegs of wood or whalebone? How might one shape the curves with only a small knife and so little time? And what about the strings? A man’s hair could not provide the tension required to sound notes in a melody. It would snap the moment the pegs were tightened. Still, she had no choice. Such doubts must be set aside. Truth was the most powerful voice of all; truth would make itself heard against impossible odds. And for such a work of magic, Nessa must seek help from those who understood the deepest secrets of the heart and of the blood: those whose existence was part of the ebb and flow of the tide itself.

She settled herself on the flat stones above the dark water. She cast her mind back a long time, to a day when small Nessa had been watching the seals on the shore and thinking about the lonely fisherman who had built the tower in the earth.

“Rona,” she’d asked, “how could you call the Seal Tribe? If you wanted to talk to them, how could you make them hear you?”

“That depends,” Rona had replied guardedly. “Such folk don’t just come when you want them. They’re not at the beck and call of the human kind, and they never will be.”

“So you’ve never—?”

“Ah,” Rona had answered, “I didn’t say that. For you and me, it’s a bit different. You’ll find out, as you study the mysteries. They start to hear you, and recognize what you are, and then you begin to hear them. These old ones, the sea people, the earth folk, they understand our part is to preserve the heart of the islands, Nessa. We all want that. One day you’ll be casting your circle, and you’ll look westward to invoke the powers of the ocean, and the people of the Seal Tribe will be there watching you. And there is a way to call them, if you’ve a desperate need.”