Streams of consequence flow from every action, and from every conflict there are two paths by which events may go. - Stephen R. Lawhead

She [Mérian] shook her head sadly. 'What Bran wants is impossible.'
'Well,' I [Will] said, 'I wouldn't be too sure. I have seen the lone canny fox outwit the hunter often enough to know that it matters little how many horses and men you have. All the wealth and weapons in the world will not catch the fox that refuses to be caught.

I knew, even as we touched that I had never wanted anything more in all my life. All my crabbed cravings were as a cupful of pond water beside the vast ocean of longing I felt surging through me. My head swam; my eyes blurred. I burned from the inside out as if my blood and bones were consumed with liquid fire.

All that winter's day and far into the night the kings twisted and squirmed, but Merlin held them in his iron grasp and would not let go. He became first a rock, and then a mountain in Arthur's defence. Arthur stood equally unmoved. No power on earth could have prevailed against them . . .