I have paced these forests for so long I don't know if I am man or I am beast.
I, though, hold deep within me a quest for
revenge.
Then I must be a man as much as I can be.
I have learned to speak the tongue of the animal
I have learned to read
the signs in bark and snow.
I have taken within myself the spirits of my fathers,
long time gone.
In this short time, far from
home, a man of Iron I've grown.
A man of Iron I have grown.
A part of the Eternal Woods...
Late evening...
["Just
after sunset on his way back to his camp after watching the sun unite]
[with the mountains in the west, he sees the flickering of light
between the]
[tree trunks. Approaching, he sees an old man sitting calmly by a fire, as]
[if waiting for him. His left eye missing.
His beard as if gold. The signs]
[on his cloak and hood familiar. The one eyed old man matches the]
[description of the soothsayer,
as told by the elders of his village by the]
[fires at night when he only a child. The boy, now a young man, eager to]
[know, asks
the one eyed old man about his dreams. Dreams he cannot]
[understand. Dreams about strange things he is seeing himself doing.
Then]
[the winds that seem to talk to him. Voices that whisper to him behind his]
[back. The one eyed old man tells him of the
cycles of the stars, of the]
[trail of fate and of the valley where time and space had ceased to exist...]
[where his world ends and
the shadows begin. The one eyed old man tells the]
[young man that fate has chosen him to interfere with the other world.
The]
[disturbance is already made. The daughters of the four winds have sold]
[themselves to the shadows, distorting the balance of
the universe. And the]
[one eyed old man says he has seen him come for a thousand years, and that]
[the aging gods have told him to
teach him all that he has ever known and to]
[prepare him to ride beyond his world and into the shadows as their champion]
[to
restore the balance. To his aid he shall be given a sword forged when]
[this world was young. He shall be guarded and guided by two
ravens, and he]
[shall ride the eight-legged stallion of his fathers' god. He will encounter]
[the Woodwoman, and he will make a
visit to the Lake. One hundred days and]
[one hundred nights his training shall be hard. And this very night it will]
[already have
begun.]
[And thus he had met the One Eyed old Man..."]