Myrddin huddled inh his cloak.  Outside rain dripped from the roof of the rough hut, but within was a fire and between his hands a wooden bowl of steaming rabbit soup thickened with herbs.  The door of the hut was only a curtain of hide at which the wind twitched now and again.  He squatted in a daze of fatigue, still too tired to try to eat, though the smell of the food brought saliva flooding into his mouth.

Lugaid did not break the silence but sat cross-legged, fingering a fold of a robe now gray instead of white, one which was clumsily patched and much frayed.  He who had once been given the seat of honor in the clan house was now like any beggar haunting the roads where men passed.  But there was no beggar's whine in his voice, and the eyes which watched Myrddin were both serene and shrewd.

"Eat and sleep," the Druid said.  "There is nothing here to threaten a man."

"How do you know that I am threatened?"  Myrddin swallowed the soup he had scooped up in a wooden spoon.

"How did I know that you would come?" countered Lugaid.  "The gods give men ways if they have the wit to use them.  Did you yourself not forecast our meeting?"

Myrddin, remembering his dream, nodded.  "I dreamed..."

Lugaid shrugged.  "Who can say what is a dream?  For it may well be a message sent or received.  I think," he added slowly, "that you have learned very much, Son of a Stranger."

"I have learned..."  Myrddin sipped again at the soup.  He wanted to pour out all that had happened to him in that hidden cave, yet there was still a bridle set upon tongue.  Perhaps he would never be able to share what he had discovered with anyone on this earth.  "I have learned what has brought me to this place, for there is a task to be done here."  At least he encountered no hindrance in saying that much.

"That I also knew.  But not within this hour must you begin it.  Sleep when you have eaten, for rest is also something which must be given any man."

And the sleep Myrddin had on the pile of leaves and hides within Lugaid's hut was dreamless, bringing no threat to make him restless.  He woke to find the rain vanished, the sun full on his face.  The hide of the doorway had been looped back to let in the day.

Through that door he could also see some of the standing stones of the Sky People, ring upon ring.  And they were more strange than any ancient building of man, even those deserted ones in which he had taken shelter during his journey here.  Between two of them now moved a figure robed in white.  As it came closer he saw it was Lugaid, his beard, now whiter than his robe, untrimmed and growing down to his waist cord, while his mane of hair touched his shoulders.

Yet the Druid did not move like an old man, but rather with the firm step of one still in middle years.  In his hands he carried a bag from which protruded leafed stems of plants.  Myrddin guessed that he had been harvesting wild herbs and growing things, as he had often done when he had lived at the clan house.

The boy shook off the cloak which had been his covering.  In place of the chill which yesterday's rain had brought, the sun now gave a gentle warmth.  He was grateful as he stretched his cramped arms and got to his feet, ducking as he went out of the doorway of the hut.  The passage was a low one, even for his slight height.

"Master," he greeted the Druid.

Lugaid shifted his bag.  "You call me master, yet you are no follower of mine.  There is something you want."  The old man smiled.  "Aye, you would ask something of me, and yet you know not just how to frame the words.  But seek not for the pretty phrases.  There need be no ceremony between us.  I gave you your name on your birthnight."