I'm coming to the conclusion that the cycle was ALWAYS fux0red. Let's follow what's (i think) supposed to happen: There's a light age (this could start dark, but it doesn't really matter). This lasts 1000 years, when a leveler comes along and kills a large percentage of the population. For a thousand years there's a dark age, until a hero comes and rids the land of whatever evils plague it (whether this includes the leveler or not is unclear- it depends on whether he survives for the whole thousand years, and the same for a leveler mb killing a hero.), and the cycle repeats itself.
Now let's look at what seems to have actually happened.
The Age of Reason (Light) starts off with Tierces killing an unknown leveler. No problem there. Then, in The Wind Age (Dark) either Moagim kills Tierces, or Tierces was already dead. But wait, isn't the hero of one age supposed to become the leveller of the next? If so, then Tierces should have been the leveler, not Moagim. What's up with that?
Moving on, some unknown hero later(whether a thousand years later or a couple years later is again unclear, but more likely the former) comes and kills Moagim. Fine. But then Moagim reborn comes and kills the unknown hero. What? Since when is one person the leveler twice? And does a thousand years pass or not between Moagim's death and his 'rebirth' (generally accepted around here as meaning his reincarnation)? And even if it does (like it's supposed to), does another thousand years pass between his rebirth and Connacht's appearance? It doesn't seem like there's enough time for all of this to happen the way it should.
Anyway, Connacht comes and kills Moagim Reborn. A thousand years pass (like they should) and Connacht in the meantime disappears. After the thousand years, he returns as he's supposed to, but Alric kills him after only a decade or two. That's definately not supposed to happen.
So how do you explain all of this? I think that most of the people in the Mythworld simply have their facts wrong (even the journeyman/heron guard in the epilogue of M2; i don't see why he would know for sure, even if he is immortal.), and that people drew a pattern out of a coincidental line of events that simply doesn't exist. Considering how little of the Mythworld past most people seem to know, this theory makes sense. More likely that the periods in between levelers and heroes vary widely.. some could have lasted 200 years, or even 20-30 or so like Alric, and some could have lasted 1,500 years or more. This would also explain some other problems with the cycle, such as why the comet appeared 50 years late (or however much it was).
