Never had Gwen thought that those words would come back to haunt all of them. But they had. Arthur’s current actions had brought them all to a stalemate. A chill mist hung knee-high above the ground around a lake and billowed higher above it. It was very quiet; a little splashing somewhere out there in the mist and an occasional call of a loon or some other water bird only made the silence deeper. For some reason, even the frogs were quiet. Gwen glanced uneasily at the great tor that loomed over them all in the predawn light. There was Yniswitrin, the Isle of Glass, rising above that mist that always hung over the lake that surrounded it. At the top, if you knew what to look for, you could see a squat stone tower. That was the abode—or at least, the visible part of the abode—of Gwyn ap Nudd, one of the Kings of the Folk of Annwn, so it was said. Either there beneath that tower, or beneath the waters of the lake, or both, were entrances to Annwn, the Otherworld, itself. On the shores of the lake were two more poles of power.
