Wellby Emberthumb, called Father Emberthumb, keeps the church in Crick's Bend and raised Temerity, whom he found as an infant on his doorstep.1 Temerity calls him Pa.1 He is a small, thin, elderly halfling, his hair grey with flecks of faded brown and his crown bald, with a liver spot, and he has soft, kind eyes.2
Description
He tends the paths across the church grounds himself, raking them clear and edging them with stones out of the river.2 He is allergic to cats.2 He says a prayer at meals to remember the good fortune he has had.2 His hobby outside the church is gardening.1 He keeps a collection in the church: histories of the Silver Vale, two rows of religious texts marked with the Silver Flame, and notebooks holding every sermon he has written in sixty years.1
Biography
Session 5
Emberthumb was writing at his desk by lantern light when Temerity walked into the church. He hopped down off his chair, and she picked him up in a hug. “Temerity, if I have told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times, it is very disrespectful to pick up a halfling,” he said, then kissed her forehead.2 Asked by Luma, he said he was ninety-six.2 He had received her letter only that morning and had not yet written back; her bird was still at the house.2
He gave Anthusa Toguri Temerity’s old room, and offered the rest of the party the pews, with blankets and pillows from the house, refusing to let friends of Temerity’s pay for rooms at the Miller's House.2 When they said they would rather camp, he fetched an old tent from the house.2
He cooked fish stew with carrots and potatoes, added corn to roast at the fire because Temerity asked, and had Anthusa Toguri helping him in the kitchen.2 He asked Temerity to say grace, and answered it with “the flame provides”.2 Told that Temerity’s hymn sheet music had gone missing from her old room, he watched Hazel produce it from her bag, slid two silver coins across the table and said, “If you had asked, I would have given it to you.”2 He told her to keep the coins, as she needed them more than he did.2
He had not known how the city was lit until Temerity told him about the lava lantern that exploded and Luma showed him her sketches.2 When Hazel said she had not realized he meant it so literally when he spoke of beholding the miracle of the Silver Flame, he said humility is a virtue, but that yes, he had been quite literal.2 Looking around the table at Temerity and her companions, he said that many of his prayers had been answered.2
Session 6
Emberthumb was up before the party on the morning of 27 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, with coffee already brewing and Anthusa Toguri at the kitchen table, asking her what life in Argentum is like.3 Handed the bag Hazel had sent, he looked at the bread and the last pastry and gave the pastry to Anthusa without being asked. He poured coffee for the whole party and sent Temerity to the church storage for enough glasses to go round, having too few mugs in the house.3 He asked whether he would see them on the way back south, and said he would try to make room in his schedule for dinner at the Kemble farm.3
Session 8
Emberthumb was at the Kemble table when the party arrived on 28 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, in a chair built up to put him at everyone else’s height.1 He asked Temerity how the trip north had gone, told Luma he used to pore over old maps in his younger days, and invited her to the church to see the one or two surveyor maps he has of the bend.1 When Eliza Kemble announced Juniper Kemble’s feelings, he looked sorry for the two of them.1
At the church he took Luma past the dais to his desk and brought out two maps: a surveyor’s map sixty-nine years old showing only the river and some large trees, from a company out of Argentum, most of it paid for by the Ashford family; and his own hand-drawn copy of it from nine years later with the mill, the houses, the circle and his planning marks for the church, since he could not afford to hire the company himself.1 He let Luma read a history from his shelves that goes back two hundred years.1
In his room, Temerity asked him what happens with purification. He said he did not know. Purification belongs to the church rather than the holy texts. His understanding is that arcane corruption created the Sorrow through the Starfall, and that purification is the Synod of the Silver Flame’s tool for excising that corruption where nothing else will prevent it. He said he would like to think it both necessary and as merciful as possible.1 He compared the corruption to weeds, which will snuff out a garden if left, and said it would deeply pain him to learn purification was a code word for killing, and that he had to believe the followers of the flame had found a better answer.1
When Temerity told him she had let a Syndicate man go with a child rather than apprehend him, and asked whether she had done the right thing, he said he would never blame her for erring on the side of protecting a child, that he could not believe purification simply means the murder of children, and that she had a responsibility to find out what it does mean.1
Then, with some nervousness, he told her something he said he had kept to himself for many years: he had known she was blessed long before he saw her come back to life in silver fire. When he found her on his doorstep as an infant, there were no footprints in the wet ground, a strange light hung in the sky, and a voice in the back of his mind said: “This is my child. They carry my blessing. They are chosen to wield the light. Guide them, protect them, and they will save this sorrowful world.”1 He trusted her to make the right choice when it was hard, he said, and if she found out otherwise, she would change course. “You’re a good kid, Temerity, you always have been.”1 When she told him about the voice in her dream, he said it certainly sounded like the same one.1 He told her she could talk to him about anything, that he could not promise to have every answer, and that he would do everything he could to help. She knelt and hugged him, and he patted her arm, which was as far around her as he could reach.1
Session 9
On the party’s last morning in Crick’s Bend, 29 Coldrise, 1714 PSF, Emberthumb was brewing coffee in the house when Temerity came to fetch him for breakfast. He took one of the loaves Rhysaene had bought at Rebecca Brice’s store and sliced and buttered it.4 When Rhysaene thanked him for his hospitality, he said friends of Temerity were welcome anytime.4
Session 11
Emberthumb had never discussed with Temerity whether the Synod allows nobles and heroes what it does not allow others.5 Temerity meant to send part of her pay home to Crick's Bend, and started a letter home.5
Appearances and Mentions
- Session 5
- Session 6
- Session 8
- Session 9
- Session 11, mentioned