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place of oaks, stone and mystery. The path led from the trees into the wide open space of the summit where the lone feasting hall stood and where the circle of standing stones marked where Cuneglas had been acclaimed. This summit was Powys’s most sacred place, yet for most of the year it stood deserted, used only at high feasts and at times of great solemnity. Now, in the wan moonlight, the hall stood dark and the hilltop seemed empty. I paused at the edge of the oaks. A white owl flew above me, its stubby body rushing on short wings close to my helmet’s wolf-tailed crest. The owl was an omen, but I could not tell whether the omen was good or evil and I was suddenly afraid. Curiosity had drawn me here, but now I sensed the danger. Merlin would not offer me my soul’s desire for nothing, and that meant I was here to make a choice, and it was a choice I suspected I would not want to make. Indeed, I feared it so much that I almost turned back into the dark of the trees, but then a pulse on the scar of my left hand held me in place. The scar had been put there by Nimue and whenever the scar throbbed I knew that my fate was gone from my choosing. I was oath-sworn to Nimue. I could not go back.
    The rain had stopped and the clouds were tattered. There was a cold wind beating the treetops, but no rain. It was still dark. Dawn could not be far off, but as yet no hint of light rose across the eastern hills. There was only the glimmering wash of moonlight that turned the stones of Dolforwyn’s royal circle into silvered shapes in the dark.
    I walked towards the stone circle and the sound of my heart seemed louder than the footfall of my heavy boots. Still no one appeared and for a moment I wondered if this was some elaborate jest on Merlin’s part, but then, in the centre of the stone ring, where the single stone of Powys’s kingship lay, I saw a gleam that was brighter than any reflection of misted moonlight from rain-glossed rock. I moved closer, my heart thumping, then stepped between the circle’s stones and saw that the moonlight was reflecting from a cup. A silver cup. A small silver cup which, when I came close to the royal stone, I saw was filled with a dark, moon-glossed liquid.
    ‘Drink, Derfel,’ Nimue’s voice said in a whisper that barely carried above the sound of the wind in the oaks. ‘Drink.’
    I turned, looking for her, but could see no one. The wind lifted my cloak and flapped some loose thatch on the hall’s roof. ‘Drink, Derfel,’ Nimue’s voice said again, ‘drink.’
    I looked up into the sky and prayed to Lleullaw that he would preserve me. My left hand, that was now throbbing in pain, was clasped tight about Hywelbane’s hilt. I wanted to do the safe thing, and that, I knew, was to walk away and go back to the warmth of Arthur’s friendship, but the misery in my soul had brought me to this cold bare hill and the thought of Lancelot’s hand resting on Ceinwyn’s slender wrist made me look down to the cup.
    I lifted it, hesitated, then drained it.
    The liquid tasted bitter so that I shuddered when it was all gone. The rank taste stayed in my mouth and throat as I carefully laid the cup back on the king’s stone.
    ‘Nimue?’ I called almost beseechingly, but there was no answer except for the wind in the trees.
    ‘Nimue!’ I called again, for my head was reeling now. The clouds were churning black and grey, and the moon was splintering into spikes of silvered light that slashed up from the distant river and shattered in the thrashing dark of the twisting trees. ‘Nimue!’ ‘ called as my knees gave way and as my head spun in lurid dreams. I knelt by the royal stone that suddenly loomed as large as a mountain before me, then I then fell forward so heavily that my sprawling arm sent the empty cup flying. I flit sick, but no vomit would come, there were just dreams, terrible dreams, shrieking ghouls of nightmare that screamed inside my head. I was crying, I was sweating and my muscles