The child’s eyes were blue now, by the water, and he seemed quietly intent on learning how to skip a stone. It was almost possible to convince oneself that he was just a boy and would remain so. Almost possible. Paul bent low. “Like this,” he said, and made a stone skip five times across the lake. Straightening, he watched the child run to look for more stones to throw. Then, lifting his glance, he saw a silver-haired figure ride around the bend in the road from Paras Derval.

“Hello,” said Brendel as he came up. And, then, dismounting, “Hello, little one. There’s a stone just beside you and a good one, I think.”

The lios alfar stood, facing Paul, and his eyes were sober and knowing.

“Kevin told you?” Paul asked.

Brendel nodded. “He said you would be angry, but not very.”

Paul’s mouth twitched. “He knows me too well.”

Brendel smiled, but his tell-tale eyes were violet. “He said something else. He said there seemed to be a choice of Light or Dark involved and that, perhaps, the lios alfar should be here.”

For a moment, Paul was silent. Then he said, “He’s the cleverest of all of us, you know. I never thought of that.”

To the east, in Gwen Ystrat, the men of Brennin and Cathal were entering Leinanwood and a white boar was rousing itself from a very long sleep.

Behind Brendel, Dari tried, not very successfully, to skip a stone. Glancing at him, the lios said softly, “What did you want to do?”

“Take him to the Summer Tree,” Paul replied.

Brendel went very still. “Power before the choice?” he asked.

Dari skipped a stone three times and laughed. “Very good,” Paul told him automatically, and then, to Brendel, “He cannot choose as a child, and I’m afraid he has power already.” He told Brendel about the flower. Dari had run a few steps along the shore, looking for another stone.

The lios alfar was as a quiescent silver flame amid the snow. His face was grave; it was ageless and beautiful. When Paul was done, he said, “Can we gamble so, with the World-loom at risk?”

And Paul replied, “For whatever reason, Rakoth did not want him to live. Jennifer says Darien is random.”

Brendel shook his head. “What does that mean? I am afraid, Pwyll, very greatly afraid.”

They could hear Dari laughing as he hunted for skipping stones. Paul said, “No one who has ever lived, surely, can ever have been so poised between Light and Dark.” And then, as Brendel made no reply, he said again, hearing the doubt and the hope, both, in his own voice, “Rakoth did not want him to live.”

“For whatever reason,” Brendel repeated.

It was mild by the lake. The waters were ruffled but not choppy. Dari skipped a stone five times and turned, smiling, to see if Paul had been watching him. They both had.

“Weaver lend us light,” Brendel said.

“Well done, little one,” said Paul. “Shall we show Brendel our path through the woods?”

“Finn’s path,” said Dari and set off, leading them.

From within the cottage Vae watched them go. Paul, she saw, was dark, and the lios alfar’s hair gleamed silver in the light, but Darien was golden as he went into the trees.

Paul had always been planning to come back alone with a question to ask, but it seemed to have worked out otherwise.

As they came to the place where the trees of the lake copse began to merge with the darker ones of the forest, Dari slowed, uncertainly. Gracefully, Brendel swept forward and swung him lightly up to his shoulders. In silence, then, Paul walked past both of them as once he had walked past three men at night, and near to this place. Carrying his head very high, feeling the throb of power already, he came into the Godwood for the second time.

It was daylight, and winter, but it was dark in Mórnirwood among the ancient trees, and Paul found himself vibrating inwardly like a tuning fork. There were memories. He heard Brendel behind him, talking to the child, but they seemed very distant. What was close were the images: Ailell, the old High King, playing chess by candlelight; Kevin singing “Rachel’s Song”; this wood at night; music; Galadan and the dog; then a red full moon on new moon night, the mist, the God, and rain.

He came to the place where the trees formed a double row, and this, too, he remembered. There was no snow on the path, nor would there be, he knew; not so near the Tree. There was no music this time, and for all the shadows it was not night, but the power was there, it was always there, and he was part of it. Behind him, Brendel and the boy were silent now, and in silence Paul led them around a curve in the twin line of trees and into the glade of the Summer Tree. Which was as it had been, the night they bound him upon it.

There was dappled light. The sun was high and it shone down on the glade. He remembered how it had burned him a year ago, merciless in a blank, cloudless sky.

He put away his memories.

He said, “Cernan, I would speak with you,” and heard Brendel draw a shocked breath. He did not turn. Long moments passed. Then from behind a screen of trees surrounding the glade a god came forward.

He was very tall, long of limb and tanned a chestnut brown. He wore no clothing at all. His eyes were brown like those of a stag, and lightly he moved, like a stag, and the horns on his head, seven-tined, were those of a stag as well. There was a wildness to him, and an infinite majesty, and when he spoke there was that in his voice which evoked all the dark forests, untamed.

”I am not to be summoned so,” he said, and it seemed as though the light in the glade had gone dim.

“By me you are,” said Paul calmly. “In this place.”

Even as he spoke there came a muted roll of thunder. Brendel was just behind him. He was aware of the child, alert and unafraid, walking now about the perimeter of the glade.

“You were to have died,” Cernan said. Stern and even cruel he looked. “I bowed to honor the manner of your death.”

“Even so,” said Paul. There was thunder again. The air seemed tangibly charged with power. It crackled. The sun shone, but far off, as if through a haze. “Even so,” Paul repeated. “But I am alive and returned hither to this place.”

Thunder again, and then an ominous silence.

“What would you, then?” Cernan said.

Paul said in his own voice, “You know who the child is?”

“I know he is of the andain,” said Cernan of the Beasts. “And so he belongs to Galadan, to my son.”

“Galadan,” Paul said harshly, “belongs to me. When next we meet, which will be the third time.”

Again a silence. The horned god took a step forward. “My son is very strong,” he said. “Stronger than us, for we may not intervene.” He paused. And then, with a new note in his voice, said, “He was not always as he is.”

So much pain, Paul thought. Even in this. Then he heard, bitter and implacable, the voice of Brendel: “He killed Ra-Termaine at Andarien. Would you have us pity him?”

“He is my son,” said Cernan.

Paul stirred. So much darkness around him with no raven voices to guide. He said, still doubting, still afraid, “We need you, Woodlord. Your counsel and your power. The child has come into his strength, and it is red. There is a choice of Light we all must make, but his is gravest of all, I fear, and he is but a child.” After a pause, he said it: “He is Rakoth’s child, Cernan.”

There was a silence. “Why?” the god whispered in dismay. “Why was he allowed to live?”

Paul became aware of murmuring among the trees. He remembered it. He said, “To make the choice. The most important choice in all the worlds. But not as a child; his power has come too soon.” He heard Brendel breathing beside him.

“It is only as a child,” Cernan said, “that he can be controlled.”

Paul shook his head. “There is no controlling him, nor could there ever be. Woodlord, he is a battlefield and must be old enough to know it!” Saying the words, he felt them ring true. There was no thunder, but a strange, anticipatory pulsing ran within him. He said, “Cernan, can you take him through to his maturity?”