She stood unmoving, feeling the weight of exhaustion through every part of her body. It was necessary to go on. She would find the strength somewhere. Nessa opened her eyes and saw pale light beginning to creep over the landscape, touching the sand to faintest silver, illuminating the delicate, naked forms of her companions, pearly breast, snowy arm, long flank, the sweet curves of bodies that were not quite those of women. She turned; the little harp stood gleaming white under the rising moon, awaiting the strings that would release its voice.

“It is good,” Nessa said gravely. “Very good. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I will be true to my word.” Then she stepped around again, unmaking the circle, as the sea women’s chant ebbed and flowed like a powerful tide. They crouched again by the harp, and one by one the dark strands of woven hair were looped and hooked at the base, where Nessa had made notches in the bone, and wound with cautious fingers around the cunning small pegs set in the upper part of the frame. One, two…four, five…As each was strung in place and the peg turned to tighten it, Nessa could feel the growing power of the thing she had made; it did indeed bear the life of the chieftain whose body had furnished its materials, and it seemed eager, straining to sound forth the words that had been snatched away from him by death.

I am…Ulf…She felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle, and a cold thrill go down her spine. Twisted…bound…the harp whispered. Som…Somer…Nessa was almost afraid to set the last string in place. But the sea women were hastening her along again: The path, up there, to the east, run, run, hurry, hurry! She slipped the slender fiber into the notch, twined it around the little finger bone, turn on turn so it held itself in place; she began to tighten the peg. There was a sudden hissing, and when she looked up, they were shaking their heads in warning, their liquid eyes anxious.

“Not yet?” Nessa queried, heart thumping. “Ah, I understand. Not until we reach Somerled’s hall. Only then do we release this voice.” She wrapped the little harp carefully in the bag, which not long ago had held only jumbled bones. “Now I must leave you. I thank you for your aid. Without you, this would not have been made.”

They acknowledged her with a flurry of notes like the fluting of meadow birds, a dazzling, bright music of recognition. We are sisters. Go safely.