between them. This line takes us to Adein west of the fork where Rienna joins it. Only one river, and as you see, the riding is easy.”
“But the forest? It’s supposed to be…”
“Pendaran is deadly to those who enter it. No one does. But the Wood is angry, not evil, and unless we trespass, the powers within it will not be stirred by our riding here. There are superstitions otherwise, but I have been taught by Gereint that this is so.”
“What about an ambush, like from those svart alfar?”
Levon was no longer smiling. “A svart would sooner die than enter Pendaran,” he said. “The Wood forgives none of us.”
“For what?” Dave asked.
“Lisen,” Levon said. “Shall I tell the story?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said Dave.
“I have to explain magic to you first, I think. You were brought here by Silvercloak. You would have seen Matt Sören?”
“The Dwarf? Sure.”
“Do you know how they are bound to each other?”
“Haven’t a clue. Are they?”
“Assuredly,” said Levon, and as they rode south over the prairie, Dave learned, as Paul Schafer had four nights before, about the binding of mage and source, and how magic was made of that union.
Then as Levon began his tale, Tore came up quietly on his other side. The three of them rode together, bound by the rhythm and cadence of Lisen’s tragedy.
“It is a long story,” Levon began, “and much of import comes into it, and has grown out of it.I do not know nearly the whole, but it begins in the days before the Bael Rangat.
“In those days, the days before magic was as I have told you it now is, Amairgen, a counselor to Conary, the High King in Paras Derval, rode forth alone from Brennin.
“Magic in that time was governed by the earthroot, the avarlith, and so it was within the domain of the Priestesses of the Mother in Gwen Ystrat, and jealously they guarded their control. Amairgen was a proud and brilliant man, and he chafed at this. So he went forth one morning in the spring of the year, to see if it need always be so.
“In time he came, after many adventures that are all part of the full tale—though most of them I do not know—to the sacred grove in Pendaran. The Wood was not angry then, but it was a place of power, and never one that welcomed the presence of men, especially in the grove. Amairgen was brave, though, and he had been journeying long without answer to his quest, so he dared greatly, and passed a night alone in that place.
“There are songs about that night: about the three visitations he had, and his mind battle with the earth demon that came up through the grass; it was a long and terrible night, and it is sung that no man else would have lived or been whole of mind to see the dawn.
“Be that as it may, just before morning there came a fourth visitation to Amairgen, and this one was from the God, from Mörnir, and it was beneficent, for it taught to Amairgen the runes of the skylore that freed the mages ever after from the Mother.
“There was war among the gods after that, it is told, for the Goddess was wrathful at what Mörnir had done, and it was long before she would let herself be placated. Some say, though I would not know if it is true, that it was the discord and the chaos of this conflict that gave Maugrim, the Unraveller, the chance to slip from the watch of the younger gods. He came from the places where they have their home and took root in the north lands of Fionavar. So some songs and stories have it. Others say he was always here, or that he slipped into Fionavar when the Weaver’s eye was dimmed with love at the first emergence of the lios alfar—the Children of the Light. Still others tell that it was as the Weaver wept, when first man slew his brother. I know not; there are many stories. He is here and he cannot be killed. The gods grant he be always bound.
“Be all of that as it may, in the morning when Amairgen rose up, the runes in his heart and great power waiting there, he was in mortal danger yet; for the Wood, having its own guardians, was greatly angered at his having dared the grove at night, and Lisen was sent forth to break his heart