The boy sat up, rubbing sleep from his eyes, then rose quietly, draped a blanket over his shoulders and stumbled outside to relieve himself. While Tad was thus occupied, the elder went to a corner of the room and retrieved a large bundle of eight wooden poles, cut from eight kinds of trees, all of which were tied together with strips of white cloth. From a peg by the door, he took down a worn, leather pouch, which he slung over his shoulder and with the poles under one arm, went back outside.

Tad was waiting for him with a wooden hoe and shovel balanced over one of his thin shoulders. The elder smiled down at the boy and with his free hand lightly tousled Tad's unkempt, curly hair. Still not quite awake, Tad returned his grandfather's smile with a wide yawn and settled the wooden farm implements more firmly on his shoulder. Together, they walked away from the village toward the dawn, where the horizon was slowly becoming more distinct; the sun gently pushing back the night, making way for the day.

A few minutes walk from the village was a low, rounded hill, upon which stood a semicircle of tall stones. The Sentinels, as they were called by the villagers, had been standing long before the village had been founded and no one in this part of the realm knew who had placed the seven stone pillars in the earth. They only knew that the entire hill was considered sacred, as were the surrounding fields, over which grew numerous huge oak tress, themselves perhaps hundreds of years old.

At the base of the hill, there was a large, flat plain, empty save for the verdant, ankle high grass, along with a smattering of wildflowers and here the elder and his grandson stopped. Tad set down his tools and took the bundle of poles from his grandfather. Fighting back another yawn, Tad knelt down in the dew-sprinkled grass and began to untie the cloth strips that held the bundle together, while his grandfather continued up the hill, toward the stones.

Six of the stone sentinels were more than twice the height of a man, thick where they entered the earth, tapering slightly toward their rounded tops. These six stones formed the semicircle and were equally spaced from each other along the line of the arc, located at the apex of the hill. The seventh stone was shorter than its brothers, not quite as tall as the elder, situated on a line between the two tall end stones of the semicircle. This stone was called The Watcher.

As the elder reached the top of the hill, he could see the brightening eastern sky silhouetting the six silent Sentinels. He unslung the leather pouch as he approached The Watcher stone and removed a small bag of white cloth from the pouch. The Watcher was about as wide as the elder's shoulders at its base and the stone tapered up sharply from the ground to the flattened top, which was about as wide as a man's head. From the cloth bag, he sprinkled a mixture of powered herbs, roots and grain over the flattened top of The Watcher. Replacing the bag in his pouch, he removed a small clay urn and uncorked it. He dipped his finger into the fluid contained within the urn and drew the rune of birth and becoming, Berkano, upon The Watcher. He dipped into the urn again and traced two more runes onto the stone; Wunjo, for joy and prosperity and Jera, to assure a forthcoming good harvest and a time of plenty.