The Amber Seeker

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Laid out on my desk in front of me are three small tokens I wish you to have: a bronze owl, an amber bear and a walrus ivory dolphin. I don’t yet know exactly how I’ll get them to you, but I’ll find a way. The owl is a symbol of Athena, the bear of Artemis, the dolphin of Apollo, but they mean far more to me than mere gestures to the gods. When you receive them, I hope that what I write below will help you to understand what they stand for.

What will this document be, exactly? A kind of letter? I suppose so. An epistle – the epistle of Pytheas has a ring to it, does it not? Perhaps it will be more than that. A testament? A kind of memoir? A confession? We’ll see.

Where should I begin? With Rian, of course. She is the link between us. I bought her innocent and sold her world-wary. I have tried to pretend that what happened doesn’t matter because she was a slave, but she was impossible to enslave, really. Some wild animals can’t be tamed: otters, polecats, bears. Rian was like that. Ussa might have branded her, but her mind was always seeking freedom. When I bought her, I thought of her more as an adornment than a possession. She was an otter cub, and I wanted to pet her.

I first saw her on a stony beach in a strange northern region called Assynt. She stood out from everyone around her, even then. They were dark and swarthy, whereas she was small and her hair was amber, exactly the colour of the material I was seeking. It was like a flame coursing over her head and down her back. She never seemed to be aware of how striking it was, how beautiful it made her, and even though she tied it up, nothing could prevent it shining, gleaming, mesmerising everyone who looked at it.