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.