“Shall we go home for lunch?”
They had walked a long way and, going back, Dari got tired and asked to be carried. Paul swung him up on his shoulders and jogged and bounced him part of the way. Dari laughed for the first time. It was a nice laugh, a child’s.
After Vae had given him lunch, Dari napped for most of the afternoon. He was quiet in the evening too. At dinner-time, Vae, without asking, set three places. She, too, said very little; her eyes were red-rimmed, but Paul didn’t see her weep. After, when the sun set, she lit the candles and built up the fire. Paul put the child to bed and made him laugh again with shadow figures on the wall before he pulled the curtains around the bed.
Then he told Vae what he had decided to do, and after a while she began to talk, softly, about Finn. He listened, saying nothing. Eventually he understood something—it took too long, he was still slow with this one thing—and he moved closer and took her in his arms. She stopped talking, then, and lowered her head simply to weep.
He spent a second night in Finn’s bed. Dari didn’t come to him this time. Paul lay awake, listening to the north wind whistle down the valley.
In the morning, after breakfast, he took Dari down to the lake. They stood on the shore, and he taught the child how to skip flat stones across the water. It was a delaying action, but he was still apprehensive and uncertain about his decision of the night before. When he’d finally fallen asleep, he’d dreamt about Darien’s flower, and the red at its center had become an eye in the dream, and Paul had been afraid and unable to look at it.
The child’s eyes were blue now, by the water, and he seemed quietly intent on learning how to skip a stone. It was almost possible to convince oneself that he was just a boy and would remain so. Almost possible. Paul bent low. “Like this,” he said, and made a stone skip five times across the lake. Straightening, he watched the child run to look for more stones to throw. Then, lifting his glance, he saw a silver-haired figure ride around the bend in the road from Paras Derval.
“Hello,” said Brendel as he came up. And, then, dismounting, “Hello, little one. There’s a stone just beside you and a good one, I think.”
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