One big nit stood out to me in this book. In The Book of Three, Gwydion obtained certain powers and knowledge, among which was the ability to communicate with animals, including the oracular pig, Hen Wen. In that book, he was able to obtain information from her without the need of the "letter sticks" that are normally used to interpret her prophecies. Yet Gwydion seems to have lost this power without even a word of explanation, because at the beginning of this book, Dallben tries to get information from Hen Wen, and resorts to the letter sticks, even though Gwydion is at hand. When the letter sticks break mysteriously, the rest of the prophecy is deemed lost. What's up Gwydion? What happened to those gnarly powers? Are you just a poor man's Aragorn, or what?