Jennifer whispered his name. Without taking his eyes from Galadan he heard her say, in a voice shockingly cold, “It is too soon, Paul. Whatever you are, you must find it now. If not, I will curse you as I die.”

And still reeling from that, he saw Galadan raise a long slender finger to a red weal on his temple. “This one,” said the Lord of the andain, “I lay at the root of your Tree.”

“You are lucky,” Paul said, “to be alive to lay it anywhere.”

“Perhaps,” the other said, and smiled again, “but no more fortunate than you have been until now. Both of you.” There was, though Paul had not seen it come, a knife in his hand. He remembered that knife. Galadan moved a few steps closer. No one, Paul knew, was going to enter the room.

And then he knew something more. There was a deep stirring, as of the sea, within him, and he moved forward himself, away from Jennifer, 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.