The Wandering Fire

The Wandering Fire is the second novel of The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy by Guy Gavriel Kay. The Summer Tree is the first.

Six months have passed since the end of The Summer Tree, and Kim is waiting for the dream that will tell her how to summon the Warrior to aid them in their battle against Maugrim. Jennifer is pregnant with Rakoth Maugrim's child and, surprisingly, is determined to have the baby—aware that Maugrim wanted her dead, she is determined not only to live but to have the child, believing that it will be both an answer and a threat to him. She and Paul are menaced in their own world by Galadan; Paul, tapping the potent but unreliable power of Mörnir that lives in him since his three nights on the Summer Tree, takes the two of them back to Fionavar. They arrive safely but the crossing brings on Jennifer's labor. When the child is born she names him Darien and gives him to Vae and Shahar, the parents of Finn. Jaelle sends Paul and Jennifer back to their own world.

In the spring, Kim and the others go to Stonehenge, where a dream has revealed to Kim she can call on Uther Pendragon to find out where Arthur is buried. She succeeds in raising Uther and extracting from him the name by which Arthur may be summoned. Using the Baelrath, she sends the others to Fionavar and herself to Glastonbury Tor, where she summons Arthur with the name Childslayer. Arthur is bound to answer to this name because of the May Babies, children he had ordered slain in an attempt to forestall Mordred's growing to manhood.

Kim and Arthur rejoin the others in Fionavar. This time, Fionavar is in the midst of an unnatural months-long winter. Upon meeting Arthur, a flood of memories awakens in Jennifer and she recalls her life as Guinevere. Unable to break through the walls she created to survive her ordeal in Starkadh, Jennifer retreats to the temple of Dana, relieved that at least there is no Lancelot and so although she cannot love Arthur, at least she won't betray him. Meanwhile, Darien is growing up unnaturally quickly, like all andain, so Vae, Shahar and Finn move to Ysanne's cottage by the lake. Darien is a loving little boy and devoted to Finn—but he also hears voices in the storm and sometimes unknowingly flexes the power he inherited from his father, which makes his eyes turn red.