Free A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeleine L'Engle

son of Reschal, Old One of the Wind People.”
    “A year ago today, you sang the song in your delirium,”Reschal said, “and it was the child of my old age who found you in the forest.”
    “And it is mirth that is called for,” the young man affirmed, “and we shall sing today for birth, for the birth of the new One which Zyll and I will become when you join us together.”
    “On the night that Zyll was born,” the Old One said, “I dreamed of a stranger from a distant land, across a lake far greater than ours—”
    “From across the ocean”—the young man put his hand lightly on the Old One’s shoulder—“from the sea which beats upon the shores of Cymru, the sea which we thought went on and on until a ship would fall off at the end of the world.”
    “The end of the world—” the old man started, but broke off, listening.
    The young man listened, too, but heard nothing. “Is it the wind?”
    “It is not the wind.” Reschal looked at the young man and put a gnarled hand on the richly muscled arm. “Madoc, son of Owain, king of Gwynedd—how strange those syllables sounded to us. We did not know what is a king, nor truly do we yet.”
    “You have no need of a king, Old One of the People of the Wind. Owain, my father, is long buried: I am a lifetime away from Gwynedd in Cymru. When the soothsayerlooked into the scrying glass and foretold my father’s death, he saw also that I would live my days far from Gwynedd.”
    The old man again lifted his head to listen.
    “Is it the wind?” Still, Madoc could hear nothing beyond the sounds of early morning, the lapping of the lake against the shore, the stirring of the wind in the hemlocks which made a distant roaring which always reminded him of the sea he had left behind him.
    “It is not the wind.” There was no emotion in the old man’s face, only a continuing, controlled listening.
    The young man could not hide the impatience in his voice. “When is Zyll coming?”
    The dark Old One smiled at him with affection. “You have waited how many years?”
    “I am seventeen.”
    “Then you can wait a while longer, while Zyll’s maidens make her ready. And there are still questions I must ask you. Are you certain in your heart that you will never want to leave Zyll and this small, inland people and go back to the big water and your ship with wings?”
    “My ship was broken by wind and wave when we attempted to land on the rocky shores of this land. The sails are torn beyond mending.”
    “Another ship could be built.”
    “Old One, even had I the tools to fell the trees for lumber for a new ship, even had my brother and my companionsnot perished, I would never wish to leave Zyll and my new brethren.”
    “And your brother and your companions?”
    “They are dead,” Madoc said bleakly.
    “Yet you hold them back so that they cannot continue their journey.”
    “We were far from home.” Madoc spoke softly. “It is a long journey for their spirits.”
    “Are the gods of Gwynedd so weak they cannot care for their own?”
    Madoc’s blue eyes were dark with grief. “When we left Gwynedd in Cymru because of the quarreling of my brethren over our father’s throne, it seemed to us the gods had already abandoned us. For brothers to wish to kill each other for the sake of power is to anger the gods.”
    “Perhaps,” the old man said, “you must let the gods of Gwynedd go, as you must free your companions from your holding.”
    “I brought them to their death. When my father died, and my brothers became drunk with lust for power, as no wine can make a man drunk, I felt the gods depart. In a dream I saw them turn their backs on our quarreling, saw them as clearly as anything the soothsayers see in their scrying glass. When I awoke, I took Gwydyr aside and said that I would not stay to watch brother against brother, but that I would go find the land the Wise Ones said was at the farther end of the sea. Gwydyr demurred at first.”
    “He thought he