Edda nodded and sat down on the top of the low stone wall that ran along one edge of the courtyard. Prim understood that Ferhuul had been warning the giantess that the floors upstairs might not bear her weight.

Edda let the cloak fall from her head but kept it snug around her body. Others sat on wooden chairs and benches at a table nearby. Weaver had been silent for some days as sea travel did not agree with her, but now tuned her harp and sang a song that Edda had been teaching her, verse by verse. Dusk fell, somewhat concealing the approach of Corvus, who swooped down from the cliff top and perched on a long and extraordinarily massive tree bough stretched out above.

Corvus seemed uncharacteristically content to sit and listen to the song. Prim reflected that the giant talking raven had been in the Land for but one year, and though he had flown far and seen much, he could not have learned but a fraction of the tales known to the likes of Edda and Weaver.

The song was written in a very old poetic style, with many allusions to other songs and myths. But the basic story was familiar to anyone who had grown up around books. So Prim climbed up into the tree—which was easy, even though she had stopped being a girl and turned into a full-grown woman—and sat on the bough next to Corvus and whispered explanations at him so that the story would make better sense.

The story went that Egdod and Spring, who were lovers, found themselves separated after the Fall. She was tied to the Land, which was where all of her creations—soon including Adam and Eve—had their homes. He had been exiled to the Firmament. Again and again Egdod sought to return, beating his great black wings to soar across the void separating Firmament from Land. But again and again his approach, be it never so stealthy, was detected by El’s watchful angels, and he was flung back. For El in his wisdom had woven an invisible net about the Land, which could detect Egdod’s approach no matter how craftily he disguised himself. The Red Web grew as crater after crater was added. Finally Egdod learned from Sophia—a member of the Pantheon who was privy to mystic lore from another plane of existence—the truth: El’s magic would always see through his deceptions and disguises. The only way for him to return to the Land was to give up his very self: to die and to grow again from nothing. Now, Sophia in her way was the most terrible of all the Pantheon, for she held the power of life and death over every soul. Even Egdod. He requested that she sever the thread of his life and she consented. With that Egdod fell dead. But his dying made it possible for him to begin again, as a new soul in the Land. Slowly he returned to life, and, in the chaos beneath the Fastness, he made a form for himself. He went out into the Land, hiding himself in the humble guise of an insect or a worm, and sought out those dear to him. Spring he could not find anywhere, for she roamed at will and in many guises, but Adam and Eve were confined to a garden and easily found. In that garden and other places he made mischief and thereby incurred the wrath of El, who could not fathom how the Old One had slipped through his net. Again and again El in his fury struck down any creature whom he suspected of being Egdod in some new guise. Again and again Egdod returned, patiently creating new forms in which he roamed about the Land: sometimes a cloaked wanderer, sometimes a bird or a wolf or even a gust of wind. Yet always Spring eluded him.