The Great Tree of Avalon Read Online Free PDF Page B

themselves looked like trees of light. Thin leaves shimmered in the breeze, glowing gold. And beyond the tree, high peaks on the horizon lifted, ridge upon ridge, like rows of waves on a shining sea.
    Even the village, its gray stones catching the light, seemed at this moment bejeweled. And something more, Tamwyn realized.
    Built from whatever materials the land offered freely— stone and wood and thatch—this village simply belonged here. It was rooted in this place, as much as the harkenfruit tree. As much as the nearby fields of ripened oats and barley, the stacks of summer hay, the barrels of dark brown beer in almost every cellar, the shrine to Elen built by Drumadian followers, and the large piles of compost and dung. As much as the litter of tiny pigs over by the common barn who lay sprawled on top of their enormous mother, using her as a living bed.
    The aromas of barley, dung, and pigs wove into the air, mixing with the smell of thatch, for they, too, belonged. Just like the square iron bells set on the ridge beam of every house. The owl hooting from the tree. The rough-hewn stones of the village walls.
    Tamwyn cocked his head thoughtfully. Everything around him—this village, this landscape, even this little quartz bell on his hip—all seemed to fit. To belong.
    Unlike Tamwyn himself. He wiped some sooty thatch off his brow. Where did he belong, after all?
    Swinging his legs at the edge of the roof, he looked again at the shining peaks in the distance. Maybe he just belonged out there, in those woods and fields and ridges where he loved to run. Clumsy as he felt in a village like this . . . something happened when he ran free, leaping over stones and streams.
    Something magical.
    Craning his stiff neck, he lifted his gaze to the stars. So many of them—and so beautiful. He traced the outlines of some favorite constellations: There was Pegasus, ears back and eyes ablaze, soaring on high. And the Twisted Tree, reaching its long branches across the shadowed sky.
    He smiled, wondering what it would be like to run—really run—among those stars, weaving through the clusters of light as if they were groves of trees. Oh, to stride across those starry fields!
    Even as he watched them now, the stars dimmed, bringing on the night. While their brightness faded, their individual positions grew more clear, making it easier to connect them into constellations. Tamwyn wondered, as he’d done so often, what the stars of Avalon really were . . . and whether someone, someday, could find a way to explore them.
    He pursed his lips, thinking. Nobody knew why the stars dimmed at the end of every day, after that final flash of golden light. Nor why they swelled bright again every morning. Just as nobody knew why, here in Stoneroot, the stars shone brighter than in any other realm—something he’d learned from wandering bards. How different from Shadowroot, where the stars didn’t even shine at all . . . All these questions added up to the great unsolved riddle of the stars’ true nature—something that had puzzled people through all the ages of Avalon.
    Many a night, as Tamwyn peered up at the stars from a sheltered glade or a mossy rock, he’d pondered such things. The stars always seemed so distant, so mysterious. Frightening somehow, and yet alluring. Almost as if they called to him.
    How he’d love to travel there. Yes, and to all the other realms of Avalon. He’d find the right portals and travel through them to other lands, other peoples, other trails that he could run. Perhaps he’d even find some way to explore upper Avalon—the trunk itself, and whatever lay beyond! Why, maybe he’d even discover other kinds of creatures there . . . creatures that no one in the Seven Realms knew existed. He could be a great explorer—just like Krystallus Eopia, the famous son of Merlin.
    Ouch! He winced from the louse biting his forearm.
    With a scowl, he flicked away the little scoundrel. Some explorer he was! Why, today