And then he knew something more. There was a deep stirring, as of the
sea, within him, and he moved forward himself, away from J ennifer, and said,
“Would you battle the Twiceborn of Mórnir?”
And the Wolflord replied, “For nothing else am I here, though I will kill
the girl when you are dead. Remember who I am: the children of gods have knelt
to wash my feet. You are nothing yet, Pwyll Twiceborn, and will be twice dead
before I let you come into your force.”
Paul shook his head. There was a tide running in his blood. He heard
himself say, as if from far off, “Your father bowed to me, Galadan. Will you
not do so, son of Cernan?” And he felt a rush of power to see the other
hesitate.
But only for a moment. Then the Wolflord, who had been a force of might
and a Lord of the mighty for past a thousand years, laughed aloud and, raising
his hand again, plunged the room into utter darkness.
“What son have you ever known to follow his father’s path?” he said.
“There is no dog to guard you now, and I can see in the dark!”
The surging of power stopped within Paul.
In its place came something else, a quiet, a space as of a pool within a
wood, and he knew this, instinctively, to be the true access to what he now
was and would be. From within this calm he moved back to Jennifer and said to
her, “Be easy, but hold fast to me.” As he felt her grip his hand and rise to
stand beside him, he spoke once more to the Wolflord, and his voice had
changed.
“Slave of Maugrim,” he said, “I cannot defeat you yet, nor can I see you
in the dark. We will meet again, and the third time pays for all, as well you
know. But I will not tarry for you in this place.”
And on the words he felt himself dropping into the still, deep place, the
pool within, which uttermost need had found. Down and down he went, and,
holding tight to Jennifer, he took them both away through the remembered cold,
the interstices of time, the space between the Weaver’s worlds, back to
Fionavar.
Chapter 2
Vae heard the knocking at the door. Since Shahar had been sent north she
often heard sounds in the house at night, and she had taught herself to ignore
them, mostly.
But the hammering on the shop entrance below was not to be ignored as
being born of winter solitude or wartime fears. It was real, and urgent, and
she didn’t want to know who it was.
Her son was in the hallway outside her room, though; he had already
pulled on trousers and the warm vest she had made him when the snows began. He
looked sleepy and young, but he always looked young to her.
“Shall I go see?” he said bravely.
“Wait,” Vae said. She rose, herself, and pulled on a woolen robe over her
night attire. It was cold in the house, and long past the middle of the night.
Her man was away, and she was alone in the chill of winter with a fourteen-
year-old child and a rapping, more and more insistent, at her door.
Vae lit a candle and followed Finn down the stairs.
“Wait,” slie said again in the shop, and lit two more candles, despite
the waste. One did not open the door on a winter night without some light by
which to see who came. When the candles had caught, she saw that Finn had
taken the iron rod from the upstairs fire. She nodded, and he opened the door.
In the drifted snow outside stood two strangers, a man, and a tall woman
he supported with an arm about her shoulders. Finn lowered his weapon; they
were unarmed. Coming nearer, and holding her candle high, Vae saw two things:
that the woman wasn’t a stranger after all, and that she was far gone with