In the course of his difficult and less than exemplary life there had been much that had intrigued Hymneth the Possessed, and even more that had infuriated him, but he had rarely, if ever, been as bewildered as he was now.
“You brought her back. You crossed half a world to take her away from me, and then you brought her back.” From beneath inhuman, bony ridges he stared at Ehomba, his confusion palpable. “Why?”
“I fulfilled my obligation to a dying man. Once I had done that, I was free.” The herdsman nodded at Themaryl. “She has a good heart, and became less overbearing during the course of our return to her homeland. Though under no formal obligation, I felt obliged by circumstance to grant her one request. That request was to return here.”
Hymneth pulled slightly away from his restored consort. “This will not change me, you know. I am still Hymneth the Possessed, lord of the central coast and of all Ehl-Larimar. Supreme ruler of this part of the world.”
“I know.” Ehomba smiled enigmatically. “I can only hope that you will now do a better job of it.”
With that, Etjole Ehomba and his friends departed that naturally blessed but ill-governed province and once more made the difficult trek back to Doroune and the eastern coast. There they waited until they made contact with an especially bold captain and crew who agreed to attempt a crossing of the Semordria to the southeast, in hopes of landing their well-paying passengers not in the delta of the Eynharrowk, but somewhere nearer a certain small southern coastal village.