The group enters Mirrowen through the tree-root gateway as the Fear Liath closes in, turning a refuge in a hollow redwood stump into a passage between worlds. The crossing is both an escape and a revelation: the Cruithne explains the gateway’s cost to mortals, discloses his identity as Drosta Paracelsus, and names Iddawc as the spirit weapon he made; the travelers then lose consciousness and awaken in a different landscape.

Flight to the Gateway

The group reaches the gateway while moving through thick white fog with the Cruithne, whose immense footsteps announce their position. He pushes through small trees rather than going around them, snapping trunks in his path. Redwoods rise above the mist, their lower branches swallowed from view. Annon nearly turns an ankle on a root, and Hettie catches him before he falls. He keeps wanting to look behind them, but Paedrin gestures sharply for him to watch the Cruithne ahead. A shuffling sound grows louder and takes on a bark-like quality, while the Fear Liath’s approach remains a pressure at their backs.

The Cruithne leads them to a lightning-struck redwood that has fallen and shattered. Its exposed roots jut like thorny fingers, and fire has hollowed the trunk into a small cave. The entrance is too low for an adult to stand upright, but the Cruithne bends and goes inside without hesitation. Hettie follows, with Annon behind her. Erasmus joins them and rubs his hands for warmth, his breath visible in the cold; Paedrin stays outside, staring first into the stump’s dark opening and then into the fog as the pursuing bulk draws nearer.

The shelter initially looks to Paedrin like no more than a tree stump. The Cruithne calls it a gate to Mirrowen, but Paedrin objects that he is speaking in riddles. Annon urges him to trust them and come in. The entrance’s meaning is disclosed at the instant when ordinary shelter is no longer enough: the group is not merely hiding inside a hollow tree but crossing through it.

The Passage and Drosta’s Disclosure

Once the group is inside, the Cruithne says the Fear Liath can no longer see them and that this angers it. Asked why the creature cannot find them, he declines to explain the mechanism. Instead, he makes the urgency of the moment plain: he has won their trust in as few words as possible, and they have little time to listen. He warns that they will fall asleep within moments, wake at sunrise somewhere different, and suffer the effects of the passage as mortals. His instructions are practical as well as ominous: remember as much as they can.

Before sleep takes them, the Cruithne gives his name: Drosta Paracelsus. He identifies himself as the maker of the blade the group has found, called Iddawc, and asks Annon to show it. When Annon uncovers the weapon from his cloak, Drosta’s expression darkens. He explains that Iddawc is alive: it is a spirit weapon with a spirit hosted inside it, and the spirit’s name is also Iddawc. Knowing this, he says, is the means by which the weapon can be controlled. He describes it as unique in both this world and Mirrowen, and says the Cruithne discovered it deep in the mines. Many died before its capabilities were understood.

Drosta’s account connects the weapon’s existence to a failure of judgment. A Druidecht warned the others, but Drosta admits that he was foolish: he saw value in trapping such a being, devised a plan, and obtained the Arch-Rike’s approval for the price. He refuses to name that price, calling its disclosure unseemly. The plan did not simply capture the spirit; it helped the spirit transform. Drosta names vanity and pride as his own part in the wrongdoing. The weapon he fashioned is thus not only an object of power but evidence of a decision whose consequences have outlasted its maker’s intentions.

Sleep, Arrival, and Recognition

Drosta’s warning is fulfilled almost at once. As he speaks, Annon’s thoughts thicken and grow foggy, and an exhaustion unlike anything he has known overtakes him. Erasmus is already asleep, his jaw hanging open; Hettie struggles to stay awake as her chin bobs. The narrative then renders Annon’s sleep as a shroud of warm blackness, layered with indistinct voices and the faint sound of branches stirred by wind. Rainfall or perhaps a brook seems to patter nearby, but the impressions remain hazy and tangled rather than resolving into a clear account of the passage.

A hand clutching and jerking Annon’s shoulder breaks that suspended interval. Sunlight streams through thin yew trees and nearly blinds him. The air and vegetation mark a distinct change of place: instead of the heady scent of pine and thin mountain air, he wakes among the grasses, weeds, and brush of a lowland setting. The alteration confirms that the hollow stump has carried the group elsewhere, although Annon first has to recover from sleep before he can understand where he is.

The voice that wakes him belongs to his uncle, Tyrus. Annon recognizes it, turns in sudden desperation, and sees Tyrus kneeling over him. Recognition does not bring uncomplicated relief: disbelief gives way to shock and then the first surge of anger. The gateway therefore delivers more than a change of landscape. At the far side of the passage, Annon’s reunion with Tyrus opens on an unresolved emotional conflict.

Narrative Function and Stakes

The passage is structured as a threshold crossing whose explanation arrives before the travelers experience it. The fallen redwood’s exposed roots first resemble a monstrous obstruction; once the Cruithne calls the stump a gate, its hollow interior becomes an exit from immediate danger. The pursuit by the Fear Liath gives the group almost no time to debate or demand a full account. Drosta explicitly chooses brief, forceful truth over persuasion, and the travelers enter the gateway with only a partial understanding of what it will do.

That limited explanation binds three consequences into one transition: the Fear Liath loses sight of the group, the travelers undergo a mortal passage expressed as sudden sleep, and Annon wakes in a different environment beside Tyrus. At the same time, Drosta’s disclosure reframes Iddawc. The weapon is not merely a blade the travelers have found, but a living spirit-bearing creation tied to Drosta’s pride and to a costly plan approved by the Arch-Rike. The scene thus makes passage across a boundary inseparable from knowledge: the group escapes the immediate pursuit, but arrives carrying a deeper understanding of the danger and history embedded in the weapon.