The birds aren't telepathic defenses, lass. They're the Morrigan's claws in him. There's very clear disgust in Rhys' voice when he said that.

The pathway brambles and meanders - and more than several times a branching off appears where there are no thorns and lead off somewhere. Sometimes the branches lead off to idyllic places other times to nightmarish ones.

He's not here now, Kale is in control, but there's an elf lord who lurks in the edges of his mind that occasionally tries to take control when Kale is weakened. I killed the bastard myself, unfortunately that didn't remove him from the stones that Kale touched and so he lives on in Kale's head.