The deer hovered by the trees beyond as the sounds of the ravening wolves came to them across the grass, their own senses almost frozen in impotent horror.

Mamma," whispered Rannoch as he nestled by her side, "what is man?" Bracken looked into her calf's eyes. "Man? Man is something you must always fear." "But why must I fear him?" asked Rannoch. "Because, my little one...man is cruel and cold. He eats up everything he touches. He enslaves Lera and breaks the laws of the forest. Because, Rannoch, he is the only creature that hunts without need.

But of all the animals, man holds the fate of the world in his hands.

Why does death engender fear? Because death meant change, a change greater then we have ever known, and because death was indeed a mirror that made us see ourselves as never before. A mirror that we should cover, as people in olden days covered mirrors when someone died, for fear of an evil. For with all our care and pain for those who had gone, it was ourselves too we felt the agony for. Perhaps ourselves above all.

On his brow a leaf of oaken, Cangeling child shall be his fate. Understanding words strange spoken, Chased by anger, fear, and hate.

Our destinies are our own, if we have the courage to take control of them.

It's those that fight hardest for freedom who are never free.