THE WEIRDSTONE OF
  BRISINGAMEN
                     A TALE OF ALDERLEY
                           Alan Garner


  © Alan Garner 1960




                 The Legend of Alderley

   In every prayer I offer up, Alderley, and all belonging to it, will be ever
a living thought in my heart.
  REV. EDWARD STANLEY: 1837


   At dawn one still October day in the long ago of the world, across the
hill of Alderley, a farmer from Moberley was riding to Macclesfield fair.
  The morning was dull, but mild; light mists bedimmed his way; the
woods were hushed; the day promised fine. The farmer was in good
spirits, and he let his horse, a milk-white mare, set her own pace, for he
wanted her to arrive fresh for the market. A rich man would walk back to
Mobberley that night.
  So, his mind in the town while he was yet on the hill, the farmer drew
near to the place known as Thieves' Hole. And there the horse stood still
and would answer to neither spur nor rein. The spur and rein she
understood, and her master's stern command, but the eyes that held her
were stronger than all these.
   In the middle of the path, where surely there had been no one, was an
old man, tall, with long hair and beard. “You go to sell this mare,” he said.
“I come here to buy. What is your price?”
   But the farmer wished to sell only at the market, where he would have
the choice of many offers, so he rudely bade the stranger quit the path and
let him through, for if he stayed longer he would be late to the fair.
  “Then go your way;” said the old man. “None will buy. And I shall await
you here at sunset.”
  The next moment he was gone, and the farmer could not tell how or
where.
  The day was warm, and the tavern cool, and all who saw the mare
agreed that she was a splendid animal, the pride of Cheshire, a queen
among horses; and everyone said that there was no finer beast in the
town. But no one offered to buy. A sour-eyed farmer rode out of
Macclesfield at the end of the day.
  Near Thieves' Hole the mare stopped: the stranger was there.
  Thinking any price was now better than none, the farmer agreed to sell.
“How much will you give?” he said.
  “Enough. Now Come with me.”
  By Seven Firs and Goldenstone they went, to Stormy Point and
Saddlebole. And they halted before a great rock embedded in the hillside.
The old man lifted his staff and lightly touched the rock, and it split with
the noise of thunder.
  At this, the farmer toppled from his plunging horse and, on his knees,
begged the other to have mercy on him and let him go his way unharmed.
The horse should stay; he did not want her. Only spare his life, that was
enough.
  The wizard, for such he was, commanded the farmer to rise. “I promise
you safe conduct,” he said. “Do not be afraid: for living wonders you shall
see here.”
   Beyond the rock stood a pair of iron gates. These the wizard opened,
and took the farmer and his horse down a narrow tunnel deep into the hill.
A light, subdued but beautiful, marked their way. The passage ended, and
they stepped into a cave, and there a wondrous sight met the farmer's
eyes—a hundred and forty knights in silver armour, and by the side of all
but one a milk-white mare.
  “Here they lie in enchanted sleep,” said the wizard, “until a day will
come—and come it will—when England shall be in direst peril, and
England's mother's weep. Then out from the hill these must ride and, in a
battle thrice lost, thrice won, upon the plain, drive the enemy into the
sea.”
   The farmer, dumb with awe, turned with the wizard into a further
cavern, and here mounds of gold and silver and precious stones lay strewn
along the ground.
   “Take what you can carry in payment for the horse.” And when the
farmer had crammed his pockets (ample as his lands!), his shirt, and his
fists with jewels. the wizard hurried him up the long tunnel and thrust
him out of the gates. The farmer stumbled, the thunder rolled, he looked,
and there was only the rock above him. He was alone on the hill, near
Stormy Point. The broad full moon was up, and it was night.
   And although in later years he tried to find the place, neither he nor any
after him ever saw the iron gates again. Nell Beck swore she saw them
once, but she was said to be mad, and when she died they buried her
under a hollow bank near Brindlow wood in the field that bears her name
to this day.




                            PART ONE

                      CHAPTER 1.
                  Highmost Redmanhey
  The guard knocked on the door of the compartment as he went past.
“Wilmslow fifteen minutes!”
  “Thank you!” shouted Colin.
   Susan began to clear away the debris of the journey—apple cores,
orange peel, food wrappings, magazines, while Colin pulled down their
luggage from the rack. And within three minutes they were both poised on
the edge of their seats, case in hand and mackintosh over one arm, caught,
like every traveller before or since, in that limbo of journey's end, when
there is nothing to do and no time to relax. Those last miles were the
longest of all.
   The platform of Wilmslow station was thick with people, and more
spilled off the train, but Colin and Susan had no difficulty in recognizing
Gowther Mossock among those waiting. As the tide of passengers broke
round him and surged through the gates, leaving the children lonely at the
far end of the platform, he waved his hand and came striding towards
them. He was an oak of a man: not over tall, but solid as a crag, and
barrelled with flesh, bone, and muscle. His face was round and polished;
blue eyes crinkled to the humour of his mouth. A tweed jacket strained
across his back, and his legs. curved like the timbers of an old house, were
clad in breeches, which tucked into thick woollen stockings just above the
swelling calves. A felt hat, old and formless, was on his head, and
hob-nailed boots struck sparks from the platform as he walked.
  “Hallo!I'm thinking you mun be Colin and Susan.” His voice was gusty
and high-pitched, yet mellow, like an autumn gale.
  “That's right,” said Colin. “And are you Mr Mossock?”
  “I am—but we'll have none of your ‘Mr Mossock', if you please.
Gowther's my name. Now come on, let's be having you. Bess is getting us
some supper, and we're not home yet.”
   He picked up their cases, and they made their way down the steps to
the station yard, where there stood a green farm-cart with high red
wheels, and between the shafts was a white horse, with shaggy mane and
fetlock.
  “Eh up, Scamp!” said Gowther as he heaved the cases into the back of
the cart. A brindled lurcher, which had been asleep on a rug, stood and
eyed the children warily while they climbed to the seat. Gowther took his
place between them, and away they drove under the station bridge on the
last stage of their travels.
   They soon left the village behind and were riding down a tree-bordered
lane between fields. They talked of this and that, and the children were
gradually accepted by Scamp, who came and thrust his head on to the seat
between Susan and Gowther. Then, “What on earth's that?” said Colin.
   They had just rounded a corner: before them, rising abruptly out of the
fields a mile away, was a long-backed hill. It was high, and sombre, and
black. On the extreme right-hand flank, outlined against the sky, were the
towers and spires of big houses showing above the trees, which covered
much of the hill like a blanket.
  “Yon's th'Edge,” said Gowther. “Six hundred feet high and three mile
long. You'll have some grand times theer, I con tell you. Folks think as how
Cheshire's flat as a poncake. and so it is for the most part, but not wheer
we live!”
   Nearer they came to the Edge, until it towered above them, then they
turned to the right along a road which kept to the foot of the hill. On one
side lay the fields, and on the other the steep slopes. The trees came right
down to the road, tall beeches which seemed to be whispering to each
other in the breeze.
  “It's a bit creepy, isn't it?” said Susan.
   “Ay, theer's some as reckons it is, but you munner always listen to what
folks say.
   “We're getting close to Alderley village now, sithee: we've not come the
shortest way, but I dunner care much for the main road, with its clatter
and smoke, nor does Prince here. We shanner be going reet into the
village; you'll see more of yon when we do our shopping of a Friday. Now
here's wheer we come to a bit of steep.”
  They were at a cross-road. Gowther swung the cart round to the left,
and they began to climb. On either side were the walled gardens of the
houses that covered the western slope of the Edge. It was very steep, but
the horse plodded along until quite suddenly, the road levelled out, and
Prince snorted and quickened his pace.
  “He knows his supper's waiting on him, dunner thee, lad?”
   They were on top of the Edge now, and through gaps in the trees they
caught occasional glimpses of lights twinkling on the plain far below. Then
they turned down a narrow lane which ran over hills and hollows and
brought them, at the last light of day, to a small farmhouse lodged in a
fold of the Edge. It was built round a framework of black oak, with white
plaster showing between the gnarled beams: there were
diamond-patterned, lamp-yellow windows and a stone flagged roof: the
whole building seemed to be a natural part of the hillside, as if it had
grown there. This was the end of the children's journey; Highmost
Redmanhey, where a Mossock had farmed for three centuries and more.
  “Hurry on in,” said Gowther. “Bess'll be waiting supper for us.I'm just
going to give Prince his oats.”
   Bess Mossock. before her marriage, had been nurse to the Children's
mother; and although it was all of twelve years since their last meeting
they still wrote to each other from time to time and sent gifts at
Christmas. So it was to Bess that their mother had turned when she had
been called to join her husband abroad for six months, and Bess, ever the
nurse, had been happy to offer what help she could. “And it'll do this owd
farmhouse a world of good to have a couple of childer brighten it up for a
few months.”
  She greeted the children warmly, and after asking how their parents
were, she took them upstairs and showed them their rooms.
  When Gowther came in they all sat round the table in the broad,
low-ceilinged kitchen where Bess served up a monstrous Cheshire pie. The
heavy meal, on top of the strain of travelling, could have only one effect,
and before long Colin and Susan were falling asleep on their chairs. So
they said good night and went upstairs to bed, each carrying a candle, for
there was no electricity at Highmost Redmanhey.
  “Gosh,I'm tired!”
  “Oh, me too!”
  “This looks all right. doesn't it?”
  “Mm.”
  “Glad we came now, aren't you?”
  “Ye-es. . . .”
                            CHAPTER 2.
                             The Edge

  “If you like.” said Gowther at breakfast, “We've time for a stroll round
before Sam comes, then we'll have to get in that last load of hay while the
weather holds, for we could have thunder today as easy as not.”
   Sam Harlbutt. a lean young man of twenty-four, was Gowther's
labourer, and a craftsman with a pitchfork. That morning he lifted three
times as much as Colin and Susan combined, and with a quarter of the
effort. By eleven o'clock the stack was complete, and they lay in its shade
and drank rough cider out of an earthenware jar.
  Later, at the end of the midday meal, Gowther asked the children if they
had any plans for the afternoon.
  Well said Colin, “if it's all right with you, we thought we'd like to go in
the woods and see what there is there.”
   “Good idea! Sam and I are going to mend the pig-cote wall, and it inner
a big job. You go and enjoy yourselves. But when you're up th'Edge sees as
you dunner venture down ony caves you might find, and keep an eye open
for holes in the ground. You place is riddled with tunnels and shafts from
the owd copper-mines. If you went down theer and got lost that'd be the
end of you, for even if you missed falling down a hole you'd wander about
in the dark until you upped and died.”
  “Thanks for telling us,” said Colin. “We'll be careful.”
  “Tea's at five o'clock,” said Bess.
   “And think on you keep away from them mine-holes!” Gowther called
after them as they went out of the gate.
   It was strange to find an inn there on that road. Its white walls and
stone roof had nestled into the woods for centuries, isolated, with no other
house in sight: a village inn, without a village. Colin and Susan came to it
after a mile and a half of dust and wet tar in the heat of the day. It was
named The Wizard, and above the door was fixed a painted sign which
held the children's attention. The painting showed a man, dressed like a
monk, with long white hair and beard: behind him a figure in
old-fashioned peasant garb struggled with the reins of a white horse which
was rearing on its hind legs. In the background were trees.
  “I wonder what all that means,” said Susan, Remember to ask
Gowther—he's bound to know.
   They left the shimmering road for the green wood, and The Wizard was
soon lost behind them as they walked among fir and pine, oak, ash, and
silver birch. along tracks through bracken, and across sleek hummocks of
grass. There was no end to the peace and beauty. And then, abruptly, they
came upon a stretch of rock and sand from which the heat vibrated as if
from an oven. To the north, the Cheshire plain spread before them like a
green and yellow patchwork quilt dotted with toy farms and houses. Here
the Edge dropped steeply for several hundred feet, while away to their
right the country rose in folds and wrinkles until it joined the bulk of the
Pennines, which loomed eight miles away through the haze.
  The children stood for some minutes, held by the splendour of the view.
Then Susan, noticing something closer to hand, said, “Look here! This
must be one of the mines.”
  Almost at their feet a narrow trench sloped into the rock.
   “Come on.” said Colin, there's no harm in going down a little way—just
as far as the daylight reaches.”
   Gingerly they walked down the trench, and were rather disappointed to
find that it ended in a small cave, shaped roughly like a discus, and full of
cold, damp air. There were no tunnels or shafts: the only thing of note was
a round hole in the roof, about a yard across, which was blocked by an
oblong stone.
  “Huh!” said Colin. “There's nothing dangerous about this, anyway.”
   All through the afternoon Colin and Susan roamed up and down the
wooded hillside and along the valleys of the Edge, sometimes going where
only the tall beech stood, and in such places all was still. On the ground lay
dead leaves, nothing more: no grass or bracken grew; winter seemed to
linger there among the grey, green beeches. When the children came out
of such a wood it was like coming into a garden from a musty cellar.
  In their wanderings they saw many caves and openings in the hill, but
they never explored farther than the limits of daylight.
  Just as they were about to turn for home after a climb from the foot of
the Edge, the children came upon a stone trough into which water was
dripping from an overhanging cliff, and high in the rock was carved the
face of a bearded man, and underneath was engraved:
  DRINK OF THIS
  AND TAKE THY FILL
  FOR THE WATER FALLS
  BY THE WIZHARDS WILL


  “The wizard again!” said Susan. “We really must find out from Gowther
what all this is about. Let's go straight home now and ask him. It's
probably nearly tea-time anyway.”

                                     ***
  They were within a hundred yards of the farm when a car overtook
them and pulled up sharply. The driver, a woman, got out and stood
waiting for the children. She looked about forty-five years old, was
powerfully built (‘fat' was the word Susan used to describe her), and her
head rested firmly on her shoulders without appearing to have much of a
neck at all. Two lines ran from either side of her nose to the corners of her
wide, thin-lipped mouth, and her eyes were rather too small for her broad
head. Strangely enough, her legs were thin and spindly, so that in outline
she resembled a well-fed sparrow, but again that was Susan's description.
  All this Colin and Susan took in as they approached the car, while the
driver eyed them up and down more obviously.
   “Is this the road to Macclesfield?” she said when the children came up
to her.
  “I'm afraid I don't know.” said Colin. “We've only just come to stay
here.”
  “Oh? Then you'll want a lift. Jump in.”
  “Thanks,” said Colin. “but we're living at this next farm.”
  “Get into the back.”
  “No, really. It's only a few yards.”
  “Get in!”
  “But we . . .”
  The woman's eyes glinted and the colour rose in her cheeks.
  “You—will—get—into—the back!”
  “Honestly, it's not worth the bother! We'd only hold you up.”
  The woman drew breath through her teeth, Her eyes rolled upwards
and the lids came down until only an unpleasant white line showed; and
then she began to whisper to herself.
   Colin felt most uncomfortable. They could not just walk off and leave
this peculiar woman in the middle of the road, yet her manner was so
embarrassing that he wanted to hurry away, to disassociate himself from
her strangeness.
  “Omptator,” said the woman.
  “I . . . beg your pardon.”
  “Lapidator.”
  “I'm sorry . . .”
  “Somniator.”
  “Are you . . . ?”
  “Qui libertar opera facitis . . .”
  “I'm not much good at Latin. . . .”
  Colin wanted to run now. She must be mad. He could not cope. His
brow was damp with sweat and pins and needles were taking all
awareness out of his body.
   Then, close at hand, a dog barked loudly. The woman gave a suppressed
cry of rage and spun round. The tension broke; and Colin saw that his
fingers were round the handle of the car door, and the door was half-open.
  “Howd thy noise, Scamp,” said Gowther sharply.
   He was crossing the road opposite the farm gate, and Scamp stood a
little way up the hill nearer the car, snarling nastily.
  “Come on! Heel!”
  Scamp slunk unwillingly back towards Gowther, who waved to the
children and pointed to the house to show that tea was ready.
  “Th—that's Mr Mossock,” said Colin. “He'll be able to tell you the way to
Macclesfield.”
  “No doubt!” snapped the woman. And, without another word, she threw
herself into the car, and drove away.
   “Well!” said Colin. “What was all that about? She must be off her head!
I thought she was having a fit I What do you think was up with her?”
  Susan made no comment. She gave a wan smile and shrugged her
shoulders, but it was not until Colin and she were at the farm gate that she
spoke.
   “I don't know,” she said. “It may be the heat, or because we've walked so
far, but all the time you were talking to her I thought I was going to faint.
But what's so strange is that my Tear has gone all misty.”
   Susan was fond of her Tear. It was a small piece of crystal shaped like a
raindrop and had been given to her by her mother, who had had it
mounted in a socket fastened to a silver chain bracelet which Susan
always wore. It was a flawless stone, but, when she was very young. Susan
had discovered that if she held it in a certain way, so that it caught the
light just . . . so, she could see, deep in the heart of the crystal, miles away,
or so it seemed, a twisting column of blue fire, always moving, never
ending, alive, and very beautiful.
  Bess Mossock clapped her hands in delight when she saw the Tear on
Susan's wrist. “Oh, if it inner the Bride-stone! And after all these years!”
   Susan was mystified, but Bess went on to explain that “yon pretty
dewdrop” had been given to her by her mother, who had had it from her
mother, and so on, till its origin and the meaning of the name had become
lost among the distant generations. She had given it to the children's
mother because “it always used to catch the children's eyes, and thy
mother were no exception!”
  At this, Susan's face fell, “Well then,” she said, it must go back to you
now, because it's obviously a family heirloom and . . .”
  “Nay, nay, lass! Thee keep it,!”ve no childer of my own, and thy mother
was the same as a daughter to me. I con see as how it's in good hands.”
 So Susan's Tear had continued to sparkle at her wrist until that
moment at the car, when it had suddenly clouded over, the colour of whey.
  “Oh, hurry up, Sue!” said Colin over his shoulder. “You'll feel better after
a meal. Let's go and find Gowther.”
  “But Colin!” cried Susan, holding up her wrist. She was about to say,
“Do look!” but the words died in her throat, for the crystal flow winked at
her as pure as it had ever been.




                      CHAPTER 3.
                   Maggot-breed of Ymir

  “And what did owd Selina Place want with you?” said Gowther at tea.
  “Selina Place?” said Colin. “Who's she?”
  “You were talking to her just before you came in, and it's not often you
see her bothering with folks.”
  “But how do you know her? She seemed to be a stranger round here,
because she stopped to ask the way to Macclesfield?”
  “She did what? But that's daft! Selina Place has lived in Alderley for as
long as I con remember.”
  “She has?”
   “Ay, hers is one of the big houses on the back hill—a rambling barn of a
place it is, stuck on the edge of a cliff. She lives alone theer with what are
supposed to be three dogs, but they're more like wolves, to my way of
thinking, though I Conner rightly say as!”ve ever seen them. She never
takes them out with her. But!”ve heard them howling of winter's night,
and its a noise I shanner forget in a hurry!
  “And was that all she wanted? Just to know how to get to Macclesfield?”
   “Yes, Oh, and she seemed to think that because we'd only recently come
to live here we'd want a lift. But as soon as she saw you she jumped into
the car and drove away. I think she's not quite all there.”
  “Happen you'd best have a word with yon,” said Bess. “It all sounds a bit
rum to me. I think she's up to summat.”
   “Get away with your bother! Dick Thornicroft's always said as she's a
bit cracked, and it looks as though hes reet. Still, it's as well to keep clear
of the likes of her, and I shouldner accept ony lifts, if I were you.
   “Now then, from what you tell me, I con see as how you've been a tidy
step this afternoon, so lets start near the beginning and then we shanner
get ourselves lost. Well, yon place wheer you say theer was such a grand
view is Stormy Point, and the cave with the hole in the roof is the Devils
Grave, If you run round theer three times widdershins Owd Nick's
supposed to come up and fetch you.”
   And so, all through their meal, Gowther entertained Colin and Susan
with stories and explanations of the things they had seen in their
wanderings, and at last, after frequent badgering, he turned to the subject
of the wizard.
  “I've been saving the wizard till the end. Yon's quite a long story, and
now teas finished I con talk and you con listen and we needner bother
about owt else.”
  And Gowther told Colin and Susan the legend of Alderley.
  “Well, it seems as how theer was once a farmer from Mobberley as had
a milk-white mare. . . .
  “. . . and from that day to this no one has ever seen the gates or the
wizard again.”
  “Is that a true story?” said Colin.
   “Theer's some as reckons it is. But if it did happen it was so long ago
that even the place wheer the iron gates are supposed to be has been
forgotten. I say yon's nobbut a legend: but it makes fair telling after a good
meal.”
  “Yes,” said Susan, “but you know, our father has always said that there's
no smoke without a fire.”
  “Ay, happen he's getten summat theer!” laughed Gowther.
  The meal over, Colin and Susan went with Gowther to take some eggs to
an old widow who lived in a tiny cottage a little beyond the farm
boundary. And when they were returning across the Riddings, which was
the name of the steep hill-field above Highmost Redmanhey, Gowther
pointed to a large black bird that was circling above the farmyard.
  “Hey! Sithee yon carrion Crow! I wonder what he's after. If he dunner
shift himself soon!”ll take my shotgun to him. We dunner want ony of his
sort round here, for they're a reet menace in the lambing season.”
  Early in the evening Colin, who had been very taken with the legend of
the wizard, suggested another walk on the Edge, this time to find the iron
gates.
  “Ay, well I wish you luck! You're not the first to try, and I dunner
suppose you'll be the last.”
   “Take your coats with you.” said Bess. “It gets chilly on the top at this
time o' day.”
  Colin and Susan roamed all over Stormy Point. and beyond, but there
were so many rocks and boulders, any of which could have hidden the
gates, that they soon tired of shouting “Abracadabra!” and “Open,
Sesame!” and instead lay down to rest upon a grassy bank just beneath the
crest of a spur of the Edge, and watched the sun drop towards the rim of
the plain.
  “I think it's time we were going, Colin,” said Susan when the sun had
almost disappeared. “If we don't reach the road before dark we could
easily lose our way.”
   “All right: but lets go back to Stormy Point along the other side of this
ridge, just for a change. We've not been over there yet.”
   He turned, and Susan followed him over the crest of the hill into the
trees.
   Once over the ridge, they found themselves in a dell, bracken and
boulder filled, and edged with rocks, in which were cracks, and fissures,
and small caves; and before them a high-vaulted beech wood marched
steeply down into the dusk. The air was still and heavy, as though waiting
for thunder; the only sound the concentrated whine of mosquitoes; and
the thick sweet smell of bracken and flies was everywhere.
  “I . . . I don't like this place. Colin,” said Susan: “I feel that we're being
watched.”
  Colin did not laugh at her as he might normally have done. He, too, had
that feeling between the shoulder-blades; and he could easily have
imagined that something was moving among the shadows of the rocks;
something that managed to keep out of sight. So he gladly turned to climb
back to the path.
   They had moved barely a yard up the dell when Colin stopped and
laughed.
  “Look! Somebody is watching us!”
   Perched on a rock in front of them was a bird. Its head was thrust
forward, and it stared unwinkingly at the two children.
  “It's the carrion crow that was round the farm after tea!” cried Susan.
  “Talk sense! How can you tell it's the same one? There are probably
dozens of them about here.”
   All the same, Colin did not like the way the bird sat hunched there so
tensely, almost eagerly: and they had to pass it if they wanted to regain the
path. He took a step forward, waved his arms in the air, and cried “Shoo!”
in a voice that sounded woefully thin and unfrightening.
  The crow did not move.
  Colin and Susan moved forward, longing to run, but held by the crow's
eye. And as they reached the centre of the dell the bird gave a loud, sharp
croak. Immediately a cry answered from among the rocks, and out of the
shadows on either side of the children rose a score of outlandish figures.
   They stood about three feet high and were man-shaped, with thin, wiry
bodies and limbs, and broad, flat feet and hands. Their heads were large,
having pointed ears round saucer eyes, and gaping mouths which showed
teeth. Some had pug-noses, others thin snouts reaching to their chins.
Their hides were generally of a fish-white colour, though some were black,
and all were practically hairless. Some held coils of black rope, while out of
one of the caves advanced a group carrying a net woven in the shape of a
spider's web.
   For a second the children were rooted: but only for a second. Instinct
took control of their wits. They raced back along the dell and flung
themselves through the gap into the beech wood. Fingers clawed, and
ropes hissed like snakes but they were through and plunging down the
slope in a flurry of dead leaves.
  “Stop. Sue!” yelled Colin.
   He realized that their only hope of escape lay in reaching open ground
and the path that led from Stormy Point to the road, where their longer
legs might outdistance their pursuers', and even that seemed a slim
chance.
  “Stop, Sue! We must . . . not go . . . down . . . any farther! Find . . .
Stormy Point . . . somehow!”
   All the while he was looking for a recognizable landmark, since in the
fear and dusk he had lost his bearings, and all he knew was that their way
lay uphill and not down.
  Then, through the trees, he saw what he needed.
  About a hundred feet above them and to their right a tooth-shaped
boulder stood against the sky: its distinctive shape had caught his eye
when they had walked past it along a track coming from Stormy Point.
  “That boulder! Make for that boulder!”
  Susan looked where he was pointing, and nodded.
  They began to flounder up the hill, groping for firm ground with hands
and feet beneath the knee-high sea of dead leaves. Their plunge had taken
them diagonally across the slope, and their upward path led away from
the dell, otherwise they would not have survived.
   The others had come skimming lightly down over the surface of the
leaves, and had found it difficult to check their speed, when they saw the
quick change of direction. Now they scurried across to intercept the
children, bending low over the ground as they ran.
   Slowly Colin and Susan gained height until they were at the same level
as the pursuit then above it, and the danger of being cut off from the path
was no longer with them. But their lead was a bare ten yards, and
shortening rapidly, until Colin's fingers, scrabbling beneath the leaves
dosed round something firm. It was a fallen branch, still bushy with twigs,
and he tore it from the soil and swung it straight into the leaders, who
went clamouring, head over heels, into those behind in a tangle of ropes
and nets.
   This gained Colin and Susan precious yards and seconds, though their
flight was still nightmare: for unseen twigs rolled beneath their feet, and
leaves dragged leadenly about their knees. But at last they pulled
themselves on to the path.
  “Come on, Sue!” Colin gasped. “Run for it! They're not far . . . behind . . .
now!”
   The children drew energy from their fear, Above their heads a bird
cried harshly three times, and at once the air was filled with the beating of
a gong. The sound seemed to come from a distance, yet it was all about
them, in the air and under the ground.
  Then they ran clear of the trees and on to Stormy Point. But their relief
was short lived; for whereas till that moment they had been fleeing from
twenty or so, they were now confronted with several hundred of the
creatures as they came out of the Devil's Grave like ants from a nest.
   Colin and Susan halted gone was their last hope of reaching the road:
the way was blocked to front and rear: on their left was the grim beech
wood: to the right an almost sheer slope dropped between pines into a
valley. But at least there was no known danger there, so the children
turned their faces that way and fled, stumbling and slithering down a
sandy path, till at last they landed at the bottom—only to splash knee-deep
in the mud and leaf-mould of the swamp that sprawled unseen down the
opposite wall of the valley and out across the floor.
   They lurched forward a few paces, spurred on by the sound of what was
following all too close behind, but then Susan staggered and collapsed
against a fallen tree.
  “I can't go on!” she sobbed. “My legs won't move.”
  “Oh yes you can! Only a few more yards!”
   Colin had spotted a huge boulder sticking out of the swamp a little way
up the hill from where they were, and, if only they could reach it, it would
offer more protection than their present position, which could hardly be
worse. He grabbed his sisters arm and dragged her through the mud to
the base of the rock.
  “Now climb!”
  And, while Susan hauled herself up to the flat summit, Colin put his
back to the rock, like a fox at bay turning to face the hunt.
  The edge of the swamp was a mass of bodies. The rising moon shone on
their leather hides and was reflected in their eyes. Colin could see white
shapes spreading out on either side to encircle the rock: they were in no
hurry now, for they knew that escape was impossible.
   Colin climbed after his sister. He ached in every muscle and was
trembling with fatigue.
  When the circle was complete the creatures began to advance across the
swamp, moving easily over the mire on their splayed feet. Ever closer they
came, till the rock was surrounded.
  From all sides at once the ropes came snaking through the air, as soft as
silk, as strong as iron, and clung to the children as though coated with
glue; so that in no time at all Colin and Susan fell helpless beneath the
sticky coils, and over them swarmed the mob, pinching and poking, and
binding and trussing, until the children lay with only their heads exposed,
like two cocoons upon the rock.
   But as they were being hoisted on to bony shoulders it seemed as
though a miracle happened. There was a flash, and the whole rock was
lapped about by a lake of blue fire. The children could feel no heat, but
their captors fell, hissing and spitting, into the swamp, and the ropes
charred and crumbled into ash, while pandemonium broke loose through
all the assembly.
  Then, from the darkness above, a voice rang out.
  “Since when have men-children grown so mighty that you must needs
meet two with hundreds? Run, maggot-breed of Ymir, ere I lose my
patience!”
  The crowd had fallen silent at the first sound of that voice, and now it
drew back slowly, snarling and blinking in the blue light, wavered, turned,
and fled. The dazed children listened to the rushing feet as though in a
dream: soon there was only the rattle of stones on the opposite slope; then
nothing. The cold flames about the rock flickered and died. The moon
shone peacefully upon the quiet valley.
   And as their eyes grew accustomed to this paler light the children saw
standing on a path beneath a cliff some way above them an old man, taller
than any they had ever known, and thin. He was clad in a white robe, his
hair and beard were white, and in his hand was a white staff. He was
looking at Colin and Susan. and, as they sat upright, he spoke again, but
this time there was no anger in his voice.
  “Come quickly, children, lest there be worse than svarts abroad; for
indeed I smell much evil in the night. Come, you need not fear me.”
   He smiled and stretched out his hand. Colin and Susan climbed down
from the rock and squelched their way up to join him. They were shivering
in spite of their coats and recent exertions.
   “Stay close to me. Your troubles are over, though I fear it may be only
for this night, but we must take no risks.”
  And he touched the cliff with his staff. There was a hollow rumble, and
a crack appeared in the rock, through which a slender ray of light shone.
The crack widened to reveal a tunnel leading down into the earth: it was
lit by a soft light, much the same as that which had scattered the mob in
the swamp.
  The old man herded Colin and Susan into the tunnel, and, as soon as
they were past the threshold, the opening closed behind them, shutting
out the night and its fears.
   The tunnel was quite short, and soon they came to a door. The children
stood aside while the old man fumbled with the lock.
  “Where High Magic fails, oak and iron may yet prevail,” he said. “Ah!
That has it! Now enter, and be refreshed.”




                         CHAPTER 4.
                       The Fundindelve

   They were in a cave, sparsely but comfortably furnished. There was a
long wooden table in the centre, and a few carved chairs, and in one
corner lay a pile of animal skins. Through the middle of the cave a stream
of water babbled in the channel it had cut in the sandstone floor, and as it
disappeared under the cave wall it formed a pool, into which the old man
dipped two bronze cups, and offered them to Colin and Susan.
  “Rest,” he said, pointing to the heap of skins, “and think of this.”
  The children sank down upon the bed and sipped the ice-cold water.
And at the first draught their tiredness vanished, and a warmth spread
through their limbs: their befuddled shock-numbed brains cleared, their
spirits soared.
  “Oh,” cried Susan, as she gazed at their surroundings as though seeing
them for the first time, “this can't be real! We must be dreaming. Colin,
how do we wake up?”
  But Colin was staring at the old man, and seemed not to have heard. He
saw an old man, true, but one whose body was as firm and upright as a
youth's; whose keen, grey eyes were full of the sadness of the wise; whose
mouth, though stern, was kind and capable of laughter.
  “Then the legend is true,” said Colin.
  “It is,” said the wizard. “And I would it were not; for that was a luckless
day for me.
  “But enough of my troubles. We must discover now what is in you to
draw the attentions of the svart-alfar, since it is indeed strange that
men-children should cause them such concern.”
   “Oh please,” interrupted Susan, “this is so bewildering! Can't you tell us
first what's been happening and what those things were in the marsh? We
don't even know who you are, though I suppose you must be the wizard.”
  The old man smiled. “Forgive me. In my disquiet I had forgotten that
you have seen much that has been unknown to you.
   “Who am I? I have had many names among many peoples through the
long ages of the earth, and of those names some may not now be spoken,
or would be foreign to your tongue; but you shall call me Cadellin, after
the fashion of the men of Elthan, in the days to come, for I believe our
paths will run together for a while.
   “The creatures you encountered are of the goblin race—the svart-alfar,
in their own tongue. They are a cowardly people, night-loving, and
sun-loathing, much given to throttlings in dark places, and seldom
venturing above ground unless they have good cause. They have no magic,
and so, alone, are no danger to me; but it would have fared ill with you
had I not known their alarm echoing through the hollow hill.
  “And now you must tell me who you are, and what it is that has brought
you into such danger this night.”
  Colin and Susan gave an account of the events leading to their arrival in
Alderley, and of their movements since.
  “And this afternoon,” said Colin finally, “we explored the Edge, and
spent the rest of the day on the farm until we came here again about half
past seven, so I don't see that we can have done anything to attract any
body's attention.”
  “Hm,” said Cadellin thoughtfully. “Now tell me what happened this
evening, for at present I can find no reason in this.”
  The children told the story of their flight and capture, and when they
had finished the wizard was silent for some time.
   “This is indeed puzzling.” he said at last. “The crow was sent to arrange
your taking, and I do not have to guess by whom it was sent. But why the
morthbrood should be concerned with you defeats me utterly yet I must
discover this reason, both for your safety and my own, for my destruction
is their aim, and somehow I fear you could advance them in their work.
Still, perhaps the next move will tell us more, for they will soon hear of
what took place this night, and will be much alarmed. But I shall give you
what protection I can, and you will find friends as well as enemies in these
woods.”
   “But why are you in danger? said Susan. And who are the—what was
it?—Morthbrood?”
  “Ah, that is a long story for this hour, and one of which I am ashamed.
But it is also, I suppose, one that you must hear. So, if you are rested, let
us go together, and I shall show you part of the answer to your question.”
  Cadellin led the children out of the cave and down a long winding
tunnel into the very heart of the hill. And as they went the air grew colder
and the strange light fiercer, turning from blue to white, until at last they
came into a long, low cavern. An echoing sigh, like waves slowly rippling
on a summer shore, rose and fell upon the air: and before the children's
eyes were the sleeping knights in their silver armour, each beside his
milk-white mare, just as Gowther had described them in the legend, their
gentle breathing filling the cave with its sweet sound. And all around and
over the motionless figures the cold, white flames played silently.
   In the middle of the cave the floor rose in the shape of a natural,
tomb-like couch of stone; and here lay a knight comelier than all his
fellows. His head rested upon a helmet enriched with jewels and circlets of
gold, and its crest was a dragon. By his side was placed a naked sword,
and on the blade was the image of two serpents in gold, and so brightly
did the blade gleam that it was as if two flames of fire started from the
serpents' heads.
   “Long years ago.” said Cadellin, “beyond the memory or books of men,
Nastrond, the Great Spirit of Darkness, rode forth in war upon the plain.
But there came against him a mighty king, and Nastrond fell. He cast off
his earth-shape and fled into the Abyss of Ragnarok, and all men rejoiced,
thinking that evil had vanished from the world for ever: yet the king knew
in his heart that this could never be.
   “So he called together a great assembly of wizards and wise men and
asked what should be done to guard against the enemy's return. And it
was prophesied that, when the day should come, Nastrond must be
victorious, for there would be none pure enough to withstand him since,
by that time, he would have put a little of himself into the hearts of all
men. Even now, it was said, he was pouring black thoughts from his lair in
Ragnarok, and these would flow unceasingly about mankind until the
strongest were tainted and he had a foothold in every mind.
  “Yet there was hope. For the world might still be saved if a band of
warriors, pure in heart, and brave, could defy him in his hour and compel
him to sink once more into the Abyss. Their strength would not be in
numbers, but in purity and valour. And so was devised the following plan.
   “The king chose the worthiest of his knights, and went with them to
Fundindelve, the ancient dwarf-halls, where they were put into enchanted
sleep. This done, the most powerful magicians of the age began to weave a
spell. Day and night they worked together, pausing for neither food nor
sleep, and, at the end, Fundindelve was guarded by the strongest magic
the world has known, magic that would stay the sleeping warriors from
growing old or weak, and that no evil could ever break.
   “The heart of the magic was sealed with Firefrost, the weirdstone of
Brisingamen, and it and the warriors became my charge. Here I must
stay, for ever keeping watch, until the time shall come for me to rouse the
Sleepers and send them forth against the malice of Nastrond.”
   “But, Cadellin,” asked Susan, “in these days how can you hope to win a
fight with only a hundred and forty men on horseback?”
  “Ah,” said the wizard, “you must remember that the hour of Nastrond is
not yet at hand. It was prophesied that these few could prove his
desolation, and I have faith the wheel may turn full circle ere that day will
come.”
   This cryptic reply was hardly satisfying, but by the time Susan had tried
to make sense of it and found that she could not, the wizard had resumed
his tale.
   Now it happened that, at the Sealing of Fundindelve, there were not
more than one hundred and thirty-nine pure white mares in the prime of
life, to be found anywhere. Therefore I was forced to wait for that one
horse to complete my company, and when at last such a horse came my
way. I little knew that it would be so dearly bought.
   “But now I must leave this matter and speak of Nastrond. Word of what
we had done at Fundindelve soon reached him, and he was both angry and
afraid; yet his black art was of no avail against our stronghold. So he too
devised a plan.
   “In the next chamber to that of the Sleepers had been stored jewels and
precious metals for the use of the king to help put right the ills of the
world, if he should conquer Nastrond. This treasure, since it lay in
Fundindelve, was safe as long as the spell remained unbroken; and
although Nastrond had no thought for the treasure, he did desire most
furiously to break the spell, for, if this were achieved, the Sleepers would
wake and become normal men, who would grow old, and die, and pass
away centuries before his return, since there would no longer be magic left
upon the earth powerful to hold them once more ageless in Fundindelve.
   “To this end he summoned the witches and warlocks of the morthbrood,
and the lord of the svart-alfar, together with many of his own ministers,
and put greed and craving for riches in their hearts by telling them of the
treasure that would be theirs if they could only reach it. And from that
hour they have striven to find a way to break the spell. At first I had no
need to fear, for the sorcery of the morthbrood, though powerful, and the
hammers and shovels of svarts could have no effect where the art of
Nastrond had failed. But then, on the day that I found the last white mare,
disaster fell upon me.
   “This light around us is the magic that guards all here, and its flames
are torment to the followers of Nastrond: and the source of the magic, as I
have said, rests in the stone Firefrost. While Firefrost remains, and there
is light in Fundindelve. the Sleepers lie here in safety. Yet each day I dread
that I shall see the flames tremble and give way to shadows, and hear the
murmur of men roused from sleep and the neigh of horses. For I have lost
the weirdstone of Brisingamen!”
  Cadellin's voice trembled with rage and shame as he spoke, and he
crashed the butt of his staff against the rock floor.
   “Lost it?” cried Susan. “You can't have done! I mean, if it's a special
stone it should be easy to find if it's lying around somewhere in here . . .
shouldn't it?”
  The wizard smiled grimly. “But it is not here. Of that, at least, I am
certain. Come, and I shall show you proof of what I saw.”
  He beckoned the children towards an opening in the wall and into a
short tunnel not more than thirty feet in length, and half-way down
Cadellin stopped before a bowl-shaped recess about six inches high and a
yard above the level of the floor.
  “There is the throne of Firefrost.” he said, “and you will see that it is
now vacant.”
  They passed through into a cavern similar to the last. and Colin and
Susan halted in awe.
  Here lay the treasure, piled in banks of jewels, and gold, and silver,
which stretched away into the distance like sand-dunes in a desert.
  “Oh,” gasped Susan, “How beautiful! Look at those colours!”
  “You would not think them so beautiful,” said Cadellin, “if you had run
through your fingers every diamond, pearl, sapphire, amethyst, opal,
carbuncle, garnet, topaz, emerald, and ruby in the whole of this all too
spacious cave, in search of a stone that is not there!”
   “I spent five years labouring in this cave, and as many weeks scouring
every gallery and path in Fundindelve, but without success. I can only
think that that knave of a farmer was a greedier and more cunning rogue
than he appeared, and that, as he followed me from here, laden as he was
with wealth, his eyes fell upon the stone, and he slyly took it without a
word. Perhaps he thought it was merely a pretty bauble, or he may even
have seen me replace it after I had tethered his horse with sleep while he
crammed his pockets here.
  “Seldom have I need to visit these quarters, and it was a hundred years
before I next came this way and found that the stone had gone. First I
searched here; then I went out into the world to seek the farmer or his
family. But, of course, by this time he was dead, and I could not trace his
descendants; and although my quest was discreet the morthbrood came to
hear of it, and they were not long in guessing the truth, throughout the
region of the plain they coursed, and even to the bleak uplands of the east,
towards Ragnarok, but neither they nor the ferreting svarts found what
they sought. Nor, for that matter, did I.
  “Should Firefrost come into Nastrond's hand my danger would be great
indeed; for although he is powerless against the magic it contains, if he
could destroy the stone then the magic, too, would die away.
  “Firefrost was an ancient spellstone of great strength before the present
magic was sealed within, and it would not readily suffer destruction so
while the light shines here I know that somewhere the stone still lives, and
there is hope.
  “There you have the story of my troubles, and, I trust, the answer to
your questions. Now you must return to your home, for the hour is late
and your friends will be anxious—and they may have ample cause for
worry if we cannot solve this evening's problems soon!”
  They went back into the Cave of the sleepers, and from there climbed
upwards by vast caverns till the way was blocked by a pair of iron gates,
behind which the tunnel ended in a sheer rock wall. The wizard touched
the gates with his staff, and slowly they swung open.
   “These were wrought by dwarfs to guard their treasures from the
thievish burrowings of svarts, but without magic they would be of little
use against what seeks to enter now.”
  So saying. Cadellin laid his hand upon the wall, and a dark gap
appeared in the blue rock, through which the night air flowed, cold and
dew-laden.
  It looked very black outside, and the memory of their recent fear made
Colin and Susan unwilling to leave the light and safety of Fundindelve;
but, keeping close to the wizard, they stepped through the gap, and stood
once more beneath the trees on the hillside.
  The gates and the opening closed behind them with a sound that made
the earth shake, and as they grew used to the moonlight the children saw
that they were standing before the tooth of rock that they had striven to
reach as they floundered in the depths of the beech wood, with svart-claws
grasping at their heels.
  Away to the left they could make out the shape of the ridge above the
dell.
  “That's where the svarts attacked us,” said Colin, pointing.
  “You do not surprise me!” laughed the wizard. “Saddle-bole was ever a
svart-warren; a good place to watch the sun set, indeed!”
  They walked up the path to Stormy Point. All was quiet just the grey
rocks, and the moonlight. When they passed the dark slit of the Devil's
Crave Colin and Susan instinctively huddled closer to the wizard, but
nothing stirred within the blackness of the cave.
  “Do svarts live in all the mines?” asked Susan.
   “They do. They have their own warrens, but when men dug here they
followed, hoping that Fundindelve would be revealed; and when the men
departed they swarmed freely. Therefore you must keep away from the
mines now, at all cost.”
   Cadellin took the children from Stormy Point along a broad track that
cut straight through the wood as far as the open fields, where it turned
sharply to twist along the meadow border skirting the woodland. This, the
wizard said, was once an elf-road, and some of the old magic still lingered.
Svarts would not set foot on it, and the morthbrood would do so only if
hard pressed, and then they could not bear to walk there for long. He told
the children to use this road if they had need to visit him, and not to stray
from it: for parts of the wood were evil, and very dangerous. “But then.” he
said, “you have already found that to be true!” It would be wiser, he
thought, to stay away from the wood altogether, and on no account must
they go out of doors once the sun had set.
  The track came to all end by the side of The Wizard Inn, and they had
gone barely a hundred yards from there when they heard the sound of
hoofs, and round the corner ahead of them came the shape of a horse and
cart, oil lamps flickering on either side.
  “It's Gowther!”
  “Do not speak of me!” said Cadellin.
  “Oh, but . . .” began Susan. “But . . .”
  But they were alone.
    “Wey back!” called Gowther to Prince. “Hallo theer! Dunner you think
it's a bit late to be looking for wizards? It's gone eleven o'clock. tha knows.”
  “Oh, we're sorry, Gowther,” said Colin. “We didn't mean to be late, but
we were lost, and stuck in a bog, and it took us a long time to find the road
again.”
   He thought that this half-lie would be more readily accepted than the
truth, and Cadellin obviously wanted to keep his existence a secret.
  “Eh well, we'll say no more about it then; but think on you're more
careful in future, for with all them mine holes lying around, Bess was for
having police and fire brigade out to look for you.
  “Now up you come: if you've been trapesing round in Holywell bog you'll
be wanting a bath. I reckon.”
  On reaching the farm Colin and Susan wasted no time in dragging off
their muddy clothes and climbing into a steaming bath-tub. From there
they went straight to bed, and Bess. who had been fussing and clucking
round like a hen with chicks, brought them bowls of hot, salted bread and
milk.
  The children were too tired to think, let alone talk, much about their
experience, and as they drowsily snuggled down between the sheets all
seemed to grow confused and vague: it was impossible to keep awake.
Colin slid into a muddled world of express trains, and black birds, and
bracken, and tunnels, and dead leaves, and horses.
   “Oh gosh,” he yawned, “which is which? Are there wizards and goblins?
Or are we still at home? Must ask Sue about . . . about . . . oh . . . knights . .
. ask Mum . . . don't believe in farmers . . . farm—no . . . witches . . . and . .
. things . . . oh . . .”
  He began, very quietly, to snore.
   On the crest of the Riddings, staring down upon the farmhouse as it lay
bathed in gossamer moonlight, was a dark figure, tall and gaunt, and on
its shoulder crouched an ugly bird.




                         CHAPTER 5.
                       Miching Mallecho

  The next day was cool and showery. The children slept late, and it was
turned nine o'clock when they came down for breakfast.
   I thought it best to let you have a lie in this morning, said Bess. “You
looked dead-beat last neet: ay, and you're a bit pale now. Happen you'd do
better to take things easy today, and not go gallivanting over the Edge.”
  “Oh, I think we've seen enough of the Edge for a day or two,” said
Susan. “It was rather tiring.”
   Breakfast was hardly over when a lorry arrived from Alderley station
with the children's bicycles and trunks, and Colin and Susan immediately
set about the task of unpacking their belongings.
  “What do you make of last night? asked Susan when they were alone. It
doesn't seem possible, does it?”
    “That's what I was wondering in bed: but we can't both have imagined
it. The wizard is in a mess, isn't he? I shouldn't like to live by myself all the
time and be on guard against things like those svarts.”
  “He said things worse than svarts, remember! I shouldn't have thought
anything could be worse than those clammy hands and bulging eyes, and
their flat feet splashing in the mud. If it's so, thenI'm gladI'm not a
wizard!”
  They did not discuss their pursuit and rescue. It was too recent for
them to think about it without trembling and feeling sick. So they talked
mainly about the wizard and his story, and it was late afternoon before
they had finished unpacking and had found a place for everything. Colin
and Susan went down to tea. Gowther was already at the table, talking to
Bess.
  “And a couple of rum things happened after dinner, too. First. I go into
the barn for some sacks, and, bless me, if the place inner full of owls! I
counted nigh on two dozen snoozing among the rafters—big uns, too. They
mun be thinking we're sneyed out with mice, or summat.!”ve never seen
owt like it.
  “And then again, about an hour later, a feller comes up to me in Front
Baguley, and he asks if!”ve a job for him. I didner like his looks at all. He
was a midget, with long black hair and a beard, and skin like owd leather.
He didner talk as if he came from round here, either—he was more
Romany than owt else, to my way of thinking, and his clothes looked as
though they'd been borrowed and slept in.
   “Well, when I tell him I dunner need a mon, he looks fair put out, and
he starts to tell me his hard luck story, and asks me to give him a break,
but I give him his marching orders instead. He dunner argue: he just
turns on his heels and stalks off, saying as I might regret treating him like
this before long. He seemed in a fair owd paddy All the same, I think
Scamp had best have the run of the hen-pen for a neet or two, just in
case.”
  The wizard had told Colin and Susan to keep their windows closed, no
matter how hot and stuffy their bedrooms might become, so the colder
weather was not unwelcome, and they slept soundly enough that night.
   Not so Gowther. The furious barking of Scamp woke him at three
o'clock. It was the tone used for strangers, high-pitched and continuous,
not the gruff outbursts that answered other dogs, birds, or the wind.
Gowther scrambled into his clothes, seized his shot-gun and lantern,
which he had put ready to hand, and made for the door. “I knew it! I knew
it The little blighter's after my chickens.!”ll give him chickens!”
  “Watch thy step, lad,” said Bess. “You're bigger than he is, and that's all
the more of thee for him to hit.”
   “I'll be all reet; but he wunner,” said Gowther, and he clumped down the
stairs and out into the farm-yard.
   Thick clouds hid the moon, there was little wind. The only sounds were
the frantic clamour of the dog and the bumping of frightened,
sleep-ridden hens.
  Gowther shone his light into the pen. The wire netting was undamaged,
and the gate locked. In the centre of the lamp's beam stood Scamp. His
hackles were up, in fact every hair along his spine seemed to be on end: his
ears lay flat against his skull, and his eyes blazed yellow in the light. He
was barking and snarling, almost screaming at times, and tearing the
earth with stiff jerky movements of his legs. Gowther unfastened the gate.
  “Wheer is he, boy? Go fetch him!”
  Scamp came haltingly out of the pen, his lips curled hideously. Gowther
was puzzled: he had expected him to come out like a rocket.
  “Come on, lad He'll be gone else!”
   The dog ran backwards and forwards nervously, still barking, then he
set off towards the field gate in a snarling glide, keeping his belly close to
the ground, and disappeared into the darkness. A second later the snarl
rose to a yelp, and he shot back into the light to stand at Gowther's feet in
a further welter of noise. He was trembling all over. His fury had been
obvious all along, but now Gowther realized that, more than anything else,
the dog was terrified.
   “What's up, lad? What's frit thee, eh?” said Gowther gently as he knelt
to calm the shivering animal. Then he stood up and went over towards the
gate, his gun cocked, and shone the light into the field.
    There was nothing wrong as far as he could see, but Scamp, though
calmer, still foamed at his heels. Nothing wrong, yet there was something .
. . wait! . . . he sniffed . . . was there? . . . yes! A cold, clammy air drifted
against Gowther's face, and with it a smell so strange, so unwholesome,
and unexpected that a knot of instinctive fear tightened in his stomach. It
was the smell of stagnant water and damp decay. It filled his nostrils and
choked his lungs, and, for a moment, Gowther imagined that he was being
sucked down into the depths of a black swamp, old and wicked in time. He
swung round, gasping, wide-eyed, the hairs of his neck prickling erect. But
on the instant the stench passed and was gone he breathed pure night air
once more.
   “By gow. lad, theer's summat rum afoot toneet! That was from nowt
local, choose how the wind blows. Come on, let's be having a scrat round.”
  He went first to the stable, where he found Prince stamping nervously
and covered with sweat.
  “Wey, lad,” said Gowther softly, and he ran his hands over the horse's
quivering flanks. “Theer's no need to fret, Hush while I give thee a rub.”
   Prince gradually quietened down as Gowther rubbed him with a piece
of dry sacking, and Scamp, too, was in a happier frame of mind. He
carried his head high, and his din was reduced to a growl, threatening
rather than nervous—as though trying to prove that he had never felt
anything but aggressive rage all night.
 Ay, thought Gowther, and yon's a dog as fears neither mon nor beast
most days: I dunner like it one bit!
  In the shippons he found the cows restless, but not as excited as Prince
had been, for all their rolling eyes and snuffing nostrils.
  “Well, theers nowt here, Scamp: lets take a look at the barn.”
   They went into the outhouses, and nowhere was there any hint of
disturbance, nor did anything appear to have been tampered with.
  “Ay. well everwheer seems reet enough now, onyroad,” said Gowther,
“so we'll have a quick peek round the house and mash a pot of tea, and
then it'll be time to start milking. Eh dear, theer's no rest for the wicked!”
    The sky was showing the first pale light of day as he crossed the
farmyard: soon another morning would be here to drive away the fears of
the night. Already Gowther was feeling a little ashamed of his moment of
fear, and he was thankful that there had been no one else there to witness
it. “Eh, it's funny how your imagination plays . . .” He stopped dead in his
tracks, while Scamp pressed, whining, close to his legs.
  Out of the blackness, far above Gowther's head, had come a single
shriek, too harsh for human voice, yet more than animal.
   For the second time that night Gowther's blood froze. Then, taking a
deep breath, he strode quickly and purposefully towards the house,
looking neither to the right nor to the left, neither up nor down, with
Scamp not an inch from his heels. In one movement he lifted the latch,
stepped across the threshold, closed the door, and shot the bolt home.
Slowly he turned and looked down at Scamp.
   “I dunner know about thee, lad, butI'm going to have a strong cup of
tea.”
  He lit the paraffin lamp and put the kettle on the stove, and while he
waited for the water to boil he went from room to room to see that
nothing was amiss here at least. All was quiet; though when he looked into
Susan's room a sleepy voice asked what the time was and why Scamp had
been making such a noise. Gowther said that a fox had been after the
hens, or so he thought, but Scamp had frightened him off. He told a
similar story to Bess.
  “. . . and he started barking at his own shadder, he was that excited.”
  “Ay? Then what is it as has made thee sweat like a cheese?” said Bess
suspiciously.
  “Well,” said Gowther, confused. I reckon its a bit early in the day to be
running round, at my age. ButI'm not past mashing a pot of tea—er—I'll
bring you one: kettle's boiling!”
  Gowther sought the kitchen. It was never easy to keep anything from
Bess, she knew him too well. But what could he say? That he, a
countryman, had been frightened by a smell and a night bird? He almost
blushed to think of it.
   By the time he had made the tea, washed, and finished dressing, it was
light outside and near milking time. The sun was breaking through the
cloud. Gowther felt much better now.
   He was half-way across the yard when he noticed the long, black
feathers that lay scattered upon the cobblestones.




                         CHAPTER 6.
                       A Ring of Stones

  Thursday at Highmost Redmanhey was always busy, for on top of the
normal round of work Gowther had to make ready for the following day,
when he would drive down to Moberley village to do the weekly shopping,
and also to call on certain old friends and acquaintances whom he
supplied with vegetables and eggs. So much of Thursday was taken up
with selecting and cleaning the produce for Fridays marketing.
  When all was done, Colin and Susan rode with Gowther to the
wheelwright in the near-by township of Mottram St Andrew to have a new
spoke fitted to the cart. This occupied them until teatime, and afterwards
Gowther asked the children if they would like to go with him down to
Nether Alderley to see whether they could find their next meal in Radnor
mere.
   They set off across the fields, and shortly came to a wood. Here the
undergrowth was denser than on most of the Edge, and contained quite a
lot of bramble. High rhododendron bushes grew wild everywhere. The
wood seemed full of birds. They sang in the trees, rustled in the thicket,
and swam in the many quiet pools.
  “I've just realized something,” said Colin “I felt the Edge was unusual,
and now I know why. It's the . . .”
   “Birds,” said Gowther. “Theer is none. Not worth speaking of, onyroad.
Flies, yes; but birds, no. It's always been like that, to my knowledge, and I
Conner think why it should be. You'd think, with all them trees and
such-like, you'd have as mony as you find here, but, considering the size of
the place theer's hardly a throstle to be found from Squirrel's Jump to
Daniel Hill. Times been when!”ve wandered round theer half the day, and
seen nobbut a pair of jays, and that was in Clockhouse wood. No, it's very
strange, when you come to weigh it up.”
  Their way took them through a jungle of rhododendron. The ground
was boggy and choked with dead wood, and they had to duck under low
branches and climb over fallen trees: but, somehow, Gowther managed to
carry his rod and line through it all without a snag, and he even seemed to
know where he was going.
  Susan thought how unpleasant it would be to have to move quickly
through such country.
  “Gowther,” she said, “are there any mines near here?”
  “No, none at all, we're almost on the plain now, and the mines are over
the other side of the hill, behind us. Why do you ask?”
  “Oh, I just wondered.”
  The rhododendrons came to an end at the border of a mere, about half
a mile long and a quarter wide.
   “This is it,” said Gowther, sitting down on a fallen trunk which
stretched out over the water. “It's a trifle marshy, but we're not easy to
reach here, as theer's some as might term this poaching. Now if you'll
open yon basket and pass the tin with the bait in it, we can settle down
and make ourselves comfortable.”
   After going out as far as he could along the tree to cast his rod. Gowther
sat with his back against the roots and lit his pipe. Colin and Susan lay full
length on the wrinkled bark and gazed into the mere.
   Within two hours they had three perch between them. so they gathered
in their tackle and headed for home, arriving well before dusk.
  The following morning in Alderley village Susan went with Bess to the
shops while Colin stayed to help Gowther with the vegetables. They all met
again for a meal at noon, and afterwards climbed into the cart and went
with Gowther on his round.
   It was a hot day, and by four o'clock Colin and Susan were very thirsty,
so Bess said that they ought to drop off for an ice-cream and a lemonade.
  “We've to go down Moss Lane,” she said, “and we shanner be above half
an hour; you stay and cool down a bit.”
  The children were soon in the village café, with their drinks before
them. Susan was toying with her bracelet, and idly trying to catch the
light so that she could see the blue heart of her Tear.
  “It's always difficult to find,” she said. “never know when it's going to
come right . . . ah . . . wait a minute . . . yes . . . got it! You know, it
reminds me of the light in Fundin. . . .”
  She looked at Colin. He was staring at her, open mouthed. They both
dropped their eyes to Susan's wrist where her Tear gleamed so innocently.
  “But it couldn't be,” whispered Colin. “Could it?”
  “I don't . . . know. But how?”
  “But how?”
  “No, of course not,” said Colin. “The wizard would have recognized it as
soon as he saw it, wouldn't he?”
   Susan flopped back in her chair, releasing her pent-up breath in a long
sigh. But a second later she was bolt upright, inarticulate with excitement.
    “He couldn't have seen it! I—I was wearing my mackintosh! Oh, Colin . .
. ! !”
  Though just as shaken as his sister, Colin was not content to sit and
gape, Obviously they had to find out, and quickly, whether Susan was
wearing Firefrost, or just a piece of crystal. If it should be Firefrost, and
had been recognized by the wrong people, their brush with the svarts
would at last make sense. How the stone came to be on Susan's wrist was
another matter.
  “We must find Cadellin at once,” he said. “Because if this is Firefrost,
the sooner he has it the better it will be for us all.”
  At that moment the cart drew up outside, and Gowther called that it
was time to be going home.
  The children tried hard to conceal their agitation, yet the leisurely pace
Prince seemed to adopt on the “front” hill, as it was called locally, had
them almost bursting with impatience.
  “Bess,” said Susan, “are you sure you can't remember anything else
about the Bridestone? I want to find out as much as I can about it.”
  “Nay, lass,!”ve told you all as I know. My mother had it from her
mother, and she always said as it had been passed down like that for I
dunner know how mony years. And I believe theer was some story about
how it should never be shown to onybody outside the family for fear of
bringing seven years bad luck, but my mother didner go in much for
superstition and that sort of claptrap.”
  “Have you always lived in Alderley?”
   “Bless you, yes I was born and bred in th'Hough” (she pronounced it
“thuff”), “but my mother was a Goostrey woman, and believe before that
her family had connexions Mobberley way.”
  “Oh?”
  Colin and Susan could hardly contain themselves.
  “Gowther,” said Colin, “before we come home, Sue and I want to go to
Stormy Point; which is the nearest way?”
  “What Before you've had your teas?” exclaimed Bess.
  “Yes,I'm afraid so. You see, it's something very important and secret,
and we must go.”
  “You're not up to owt daft down the mines, are you?” said Gowther.
  “Oh no,” said Colin; “but, please, we must go. We'll be back early, and it
doesn't matter about tea.”
  “Eh well, it'll be your stomachs as'll be empty! But think on, we dunner
want to come looking for you at midneet.
    “Your best way'll be to get off at the gamekeeper's lodge, and follow the
main path till it forks by the owd quarry: then take the left hond path, and
it'll bring you straight to Stormy Point.”
   They reached the top of the Edge, and after about quarter of a mile
Gowther halted Prince before a cottage built of red sandstone and tucked
in the fringe of the wood, Along the side of the cottage, at right angles to
the road, a track disappeared among the trees in what Gowther said was
the direction of Stormy Point.
   The children jumped from the cart, and ran off along the track, while
Gowther and Bess continued on their way, dwelling sentimentally on what
it was to be young.
   “Don't you think we'd better go by the path Cadellin told us to use? He
said it was the only safe one, remember.”
  “We haven't time to go all that way round,” said Colin; “we must show
him your Tear as soon as we can. And anyway, Gowther says this is the
path to Stormy Point, and it's broad daylight, so I don't see that we can
come to any harm.”
  “Well, how are we going to find Caddllin when we're there?”
  We'll go straight to the iron gates and call him: being a wizard he's
bound to hear . . . I hope. Still, we must try!”
   They pressed deeper and deeper into the wood, and came to a level
stretch of ground where the bracken thinned and gave place to rich turf,
dappled with sunlight. And here, in the midst of so much beauty, they
learnt too late that wizards' words are seldom idle, and traps well sprung
hold hard their prey.
   Out of the ground on all sides swirled tongues of thick white mist,
which merged into a rolling fog about the children's knees: it paused,
gathered itself, and leapt upwards, blotting out the sun and the world of
life and light.
   It was too much for Susan. Her nerve failed her. All that mattered was
to escape from this chill cloud and what it must contain. She ran blindly,
stumbled a score of paces, then tripped, and fell full length upon the grass.
  She was not hurt, but the jolt brought her to her senses: the jolt—and
something else.
  In falling, she had thrown her arms out to protect herself, and as her
head cleared she realized that there was no earth beneath her fingers, only
emptiness. She lay there, not caring to move.
   “Sue, where are you?” It was Colin's voice, calling softly. “Are you all
right?”
  “I'm here. Be careful. I thinkI'm on the edge of a cliff, but I can't see.”
  “Keep still, then:!”ll feel my way to you.”
   He crawled in the direction of Susan's voice, but even in that short
distance he partly lost his bearing, and it was several minutes before he
found his sister, and having done so, he wriggled cautiously alongside her.
   The turf ended under his nose, and all beyond was a sea of grey. Colin
felt around for a pebble, and dropped it over the edge. Three seconds
passed before he heard it land.
  “Good job you tripped. Sue! It's a long way down. This must be the old
quarry. Now keep quiet a minute, and listen.”
  They strained their ears to catch the slightest sound, but there was
nothing to be heard. They might have been the only living creatures on
earth.
   “We must go back to the path, Sue. And we've got to make as little noise
as possible, because whatever it is that made this fog will be listening for
us. If we don't find the path we may easily walk round in circles until
nightfall, even supposing we're left alone as long as that.
   “Let's get away from this quarry, for a start: there's no point in asking
for trouble.”
  They stood up, and holding each others hand, walked slowly back
towards the path.
  As the minutes went by, Susan grew more and more uneasy.
   “Colin,” she said at last, “I hadn't run more than a dozen steps,I'm sure,
when I tripped, and we've been walking for a good five minutes. Do you
think we're going the right way?”
   “No, I don't. And I don't know which is the right way, so we'll have to
hope for the best. We'll try to walk in a straight line, and perhaps we'll
leave this fog behind.”
   But they did not, Either the mist had spread out over a wide area, or, as
the children began to suspect, it was moving with them. They made very
slow progress; every few paces they would stop and listen, but there was
only the silence of the mist, and that was as unnerving as the sound of
something moving would have been. Also, it was impossible to see for
more than a couple of yards in any direction, and they were frightened of
falling into a hidden shaft, or even the quarry, for they had lost all sense of
direction by now.
  The path seemed to have vanished: but, in fact, they had crossed it
some minutes earlier without knowing. As they approached, the mist had
gathered thickly about their feet. hiding the ground until the path was
behind them.
   After quarter of an hour Colin and Susan were shivering uncontrollably
as the dampness ate into their bones. Every so often the trunk of a pine
tree would loom out of the mist, so that it seemed as though they were
walking through a pillared hall that had no beginning, and no end.
  “We must be moving in circles, Colin. Let's change direction instead of
trying to keep in a straight line.”
   “We couldn't be more lost than we are at present, so we may as well try
it.”
  They could not believe their luck. Within half a minute they came upon
an oak, and beyond that another. The fog was as dense as ever, but they
knew that they were breaking fresh ground, and that was encouraging.
  “Oh, I wish Cadellin would come,” said Susan.
  “That's an idea! Let's shout for help: he may hear us.”
  “But well give our position away.”
  “I don't think that matters any more. Let's try, anyway.”
  “All right.”
  “One, two, three. Ca-dell-in! Help! Ca-dell-in! !”
   It was like shouting in a padded cell. Their voices, flat and dead, soaked
into the grey blanket.
  “That can't have carried far,” said Colin disgustedly. “Try again. One,
two, three. Help! Ca-dell-in! Help! ! !”
  “It's no use,” said Susan; “he'll never hear us. We'll have to find our own
way out.”
   “And we'll do that if we keep going at our own pace,” said Colin. “If
whatever caused this had intended to attack us it would have done so by
now, wouldn't it? No, it wants to frighten us into rushing over a precipice
or something like that. As long as we carry on slowly we'll be safe enough.”
  He was wrong, but they had no other plan.
   For the next few minutes the children made their way in silence, Susan
concentrating on the ground immediately in front, Colin alert for any sight
or sound of danger.
  All at once Susan halted.
  “Hallo, what's this?”
   At their feet lay two rough-hewn boulders and beyond them, on either
side, could be seen the faint outline of others of a like size.
  “What can they be? They look as though they've been put there
deliberately, don't they?”
  “Never mind,” said Colin; “we mustn't waste time in standing around.”
   And they passed between the stones, only to stop short a couple of paces
later, with despair in their hearts, cold as the east wind.
   Susan's question was answered. They were in the middle of a ring of
stones, and the surrounding low, dim shapes rose on the limit of vision as
though marking the boundary of the world.
   Facing the children were two stones, far bigger than the rest and on one
of the stones sat a figure, and the sight of it would have daunted a brave
man.
   For three fatal seconds the children stared, unable to think or move.
And as they faltered, the jaws of the trap closed about them; for, like a
myriad snakes, the grass within the circle, alive with the magic of the
place, writhed about their feet, shackling them in a net of blade and root,
tight as a vice.
   As if in some dark dream, Colin and Susan strained to tear themselves
free, but they were held like wasps in honey.
   Slowly the figure rose from its seat and came towards them. Of human
shape it was, though like no mortal man, for it stood near eight feet high,
and was covered from head to foot in a loose habit, dank and green, and ill
concealing the terrible thinness and spider strength of the body beneath.
A deep cowl hid the face, skin mittens were on the wasted hands, and the
air was laden with the reek of foul waters.
  The creature stopped in front of Susan and held out a hand: not a word
was spoken.
  “No!” gasped Susan. “You shan't have it!” and she put her arm behind
her back.
  “Leave her alone!” yelled Colin. “If you touch her Cadellin will kill you!”
  The shrouded head turned slowly towards him, and he gazed into the
cavern of the hood; courage melted from him, and his knees were water.
  Then, suddenly, the figure stretched out its arms and seized both the
children by the shoulder.
  They had no chance to struggle or to defend themselves. With a speed
that choked the cry of anguish in their throats, an icy numbness swept
down from the grip of those hands into their bodies, and the children
stood paralysed, unable to move a finger.
   In a moment the bracelet was unfastened from Susan's wrist, and the
grim shape turned on its heel and strode into the mist. And the mist
gathered round it and formed a swirling cloud that moved swiftly away
among the trees, and was lost to sight.
  The sun shone upon the stone circle, and upon the figures standing
motionless in the centre. The warm rays poured life and feeling into those
wooden bodies, and they began to move. First an arm stirred jerkily,
doll-like, then a head turned, a leg moved, and slowly the numbness
drained from their limbs, the grass released us hold, and the children
crumpled forward on to their hands and knees, shivering and gasping, the
blood in their heads pounding like trip-hammers.
  “Out—circle!” wheezed Colin.
  They staggered sideways and almost fell down a small bank on to a
path.
  “Find Cadellin: perhaps . . . he . . . can stop it. I think that may be . . .
Stormy Point ahead.”
  Their legs were stiff, and every bone ached, but they hurried along as
best they could, and a few minutes later they cried out with relief, for the
path did indeed come out on Stormy Point.
  Across the waste of stones they ran, and down to the iron gates; and
when they came to the rock they flung themselves against it, beating with
their fists, and calling the wizard's name. But bruised knuckles were all
they achieved: no gates appeared, no cavern opened.
  Colin was in a frenzy of desperation. He prised a stone out of the
ground, almost as big as his head, and, using both hands, began to pound
the silent wall, shouting, “Open up! Open up! Open up! ! Open up! ! Open
up! ! !”
  “Now that is no way to come a-visiting wizards,” said a voice above
them.




                             CHAPTER 7.
                            Fenodyree

  Colin and Susan looked up. not knowing what to expect: the voice
sounded friendly, but was that any guide now?
  Over the top of the rock dangled a pair of feet. and between these were
two eyes, black as sloes, set in a leathery face, bearded and bushy-browed.
  “Rocks are old, stubborn souls; they were here before we came, and they
will be here when we are gone. They have all the time there is, and will not
be hurried.”
   With this, the face disappeared, the legs swung out of sight, there was a
slithering noise, a bump, and from behind the rock stepped a man four
feet high. He wore a belted tunic of grey, patterned with green spirals
along the hem, pointed boots, and breeches bound tight with leather
thongs. His black hair reached to his shoulders, and on his brow was a
circlet of gold.
  “Are—are you a dwarf?” said Susan.
  “That am I.” He bowed low. “By name, Fenodyree; Wineskin, or
Squabnose, to disrespectful friends. Take your pick.”
  He straightened up and looked keenly from one to the other of the
children. His face had the same qualities of wisdom, of age without
weakness, that they had seen in Cadellin, but here there was more of
merriment, and a lighter heart.
   “Oh please,” said Susan, “take us to the wizard, if you can. Something
dreadful has happened, and he must be told at once, in case it's not too
late.”
  “In case what is not too late?” said Fenodyree. “Oh, but there I go,
wanting gossip, when all around is turmoil and urgent deeds! Let us find
Cadellin.”
   He ran his hands down the rough stone, like a man stroking the flanks
of a favourite horse. The rock stirred ponderously and clove in two, and
there were the iron gates, and the blue light of Fundindelve.
  “Now the gates,” said Fenodyree briskly. “My father made them, and so
they hear me, though I have not the power of wizards.”
  He laid his hand upon the metal, and the gates opened. “Stay close, lest
you lose the way. called Fenodyree over his shoulder.”
  He set off at a jog-trot down the swift-sloping tunnel. Colin and Susan
hurried after him, the rock and iron closed behind them, and they were
again far from the world of men.
   Down they went into the Edge, and came at last, by many zig-zag paths,
to the cave where they had rested after their first meeting with Cadellin.
And there they found him: he had been reading at the table, but had risen
at the sound of their approach.
  “The day's greeting to you. Cadellin Silverbrow.” said Fenodyree.
  “And to you, Wineskin. Now what bad news do you bring me, children. I
have been expecting it, though I know not what it may be.”
   “Cadellin.” cried Susan, “my Tear must be Firefrost, and it's just been
stolen!”
  “What—tear is this?”
  “My Tear” The one my mother gave me. She had it from Bess Mossock.”
  And out poured the whole story in a tumble of words.
   The wizard grew older before their eyes. He sank down upon his chair,
his face lined and grey.
  “It is the stone. It is the stone. No other has that heart of fire. And it
was by me, and I did not hear it call.”
  He sat, his eyes clouded, a tired, world-weary, old man.
   Then wrath kindled in him, and spread like flame. He sprang from his
chair with all the vigour of youth, and he seemed to grow in stature, and
his presence filled the cave.
  “Grimnir!” he cried. “Are you to be my ruin at the end? Quick! We must
take him in the open before he gains the lake! I shall slay him, if I must.”
   “Nay, Cadellin,” said Fenodyree. “Hot blood has banished cool thought!
It is near an hour since the hooded one strode swampwards; he will be far
from the light by now, and even you dare not follow there. He would sit
and mock you. Would you want that, old friend?”
   “Mock me! Why did he leave these children unharmed, if not for that? It
is not his way to show mercy for mercy's sake! And how else could despair
have been brought to me so quickly? I am savouring his triumph now, as
he meant me to.
  “But what you say is reason: for good or ill the stone is with him. All we
can do is guard, and wait, though I fear it will be to no good purpose.”
   He looked at the children, who were standing dejectedly in the middle
of the cave.
  “Colin, Susan; you have witnessed the writing of a dark chapter in the
book of the world, and what deeds it will bring no man can tell: but you
must in no way blame yourselves for what has happened. The elf-road
would have been but short refuge from him who came against you this
day—Grimnir the hooded one.”
  “But what is he?” said Susan, pale with the memory of their meeting.
   “He is, or was a man. Once he studied under the wisest of the wise, and
became a great lore-master: but in his lust for knowledge he practised the
forbidden arts, and the black magic ravaged his heart, and made a
monster of him. He left the paths of day, and went to live, like Grendel of
old, beneath the waters of Llyn-dhu, the Black Lake, growing mighty in
evil, second only to the ancient creatures of night that attend their lord in
Ragnarok. And it is he, arch-enemy of mine, who came against you this
day.
  “No one in memory has seen his face or heard his voice,” added
Fenodyree. “Dwarf-legend speaks of a great shame that he bears therein a
gad-fly of remorse, reminding him of what he is, and of what he might
have been. But then that is only an old tale we learnt at our mother's knee,
and not one for this sad hour.”
  “Nor have we time for folk-talk,” said Cadellin. “We must do what we
can, and that quickly. Now tell me, who can have seen the stone and
recognized it?”
  “Well, nobody . . .” said Colin.
  “Selina Place!” cried Susan. “Selina Place! My Tear went all misty Don't
you remember, Colin? She must have seen my Tear and stopped to make
certain.”
  “Ha,” laughed Fenodyree bitterly. “Old Shape-shifter up to her tricks!
We might have guessed the weight of the matter had we but known she
was behind it!”
  “Oh. why did you not tell me this when we first met?” the wizard
shouted.
  “I forgot all about it,” said Colin “it didn't seem important. I thought
she was queer in the head.”
  “Important? Queer? Hear him! Why, Selina Place, as she is known to
you, is the chief witch of the morthbrood! Worse, she is the Morrigan, the
Third Bane of Logris!”
  For a moment it seemed as though he would erupt in anger, but
instead, he sighed, and shook his head.
  “No matter. It is done.”
   Susan was almost in tears. She could not bear to see the old man so
distraught, especially when she felt responsible for his plight.
  “Is there nothing we can do?”
  The wizard looked up at her, and a tired smile came to his lips.
   “Do? My dear. I think there is little any of us can do now. Certainly,
there will be no place for children in the struggle to come. It will be hard
for you. I know, but you must go from here and forget all you have seen
and done. Now that the stone is out of your care you will be safe.”
  “But,” cried Colin, “but you can't mean that! We want to help you!”
  “I know you do. But you have no further part in this, High Magic and
low cunning will be the weapons of the fray, and the valour of children
would he lost in the struggle. You can help me best by freeing me from
worry on your behalf.”
  And, without giving the children further chance to argue, he took them
by the hand, and out of the cave. They went in misery, and shortly stood
above the swamp on the spot where they had first met the wizard. three
nights ago.
  “Must we really not see you again?” said Colin. He had never felt so
wretched.
  “Believe me, it must be so. It hurts me. too, to part from friends, and I
can guess what it is to have the door of wonder and enchantment closed to
you when you have glimpsed what lies beyond. But it is also a world of
danger and shadows, as you have seen and ere long I fear I must pass into
these shadows. I will not take you with me.
  “Go back to your own world: you will be safer there. If we should fail,
you will suffer no harm, for not in your time will Nastrond come.
  “Now go. Fenodyree will keep with you to the road.”
  So saying, he entered the tunnel. The rock echoed: he was gone.
  Colin and Susan stared at the wall, They were very near to tears, and
Fenodyree, weighed down with his own troubles, felt pity for them in their
despondency,
   “Do not think him curt or cruel, he said gently. He has suffered a defeat
that would have crushed a lesser man. He is going now to prepare himself
to face death. and worse than death, for the stone's sake; and I and others
shall stand by him, though I think we are for the dark. He has said farewell
because he knows there may be no more meetings for him this side of
Ragnarok.”
  “But it was all our fault!” said Colin desperately. “We must help him!”
 “You will help him best by keeping out of danger, as he said; and that
means staying well away from us and all we do.”
  “Is that really the best way?” said Susan.
  “It is.”
  “Then I suppose well have to do it. But it will be very hard.”
  “Is his task easier?” said Fenodyree.
   They walked along a path that curved round the hillside, gradually
rising till it ran along the crest of the Edge.
  “You will be safe now,” said Fenodyree, “but if you should have need of
me, tell the owls in farmer Mossock's barn: they understand your speech,
and will come to me, but remember that they are guardians for the night
and fly like drunken elves by day.”
  “Do you mean to say all those owls were sent by you?” said Colin.
  “Ay, my people have ever been masters of bird lore. We treat them as
brothers, and they help us where they can. Two nights since they brought
word that evil things were closing on you. A bird that seemed no true bird
(and scarce made off with its life) brought to the farm a strange presence
that filled them with dread, though they could not see its form. I can guess
now that it was the hooded one—and here is Castle Rock, from which we
can see his lair.”
   They had come to a flat outcrop that jutted starkly from the crest, so
that it seemed almost a straight drop to the plain far below. There was a
rough bench resting on stumps of rock, and here they sat. Behind them
was a field, and beyond that the road, and the beginning of the steep
“front” hill.
  “It is as I thought,” said Fenodyree. “The black master is in his den. See,
yonder is Llyn-dhu. garlanded with mosses and mean dwellings.”
   Colin and Susan looked where Fenodyree was pointing, and some two or
three miles out on the plain they could see the glint of grey water through
trees.
  “Men thought to drain that land and live there, but the spirit of the
place entered them, and their houses were built drab, and desolate, and
without cheer; and all around the bog still sprawls, from out the drear lake
come soulless thoughts and drift into the hearts of the people, and they are
one with their surroundings.
  “Ah! But there goes he who can tell us more about the stone.”
  He pointed to a speck floating high over the plain, and whistled shrilly.
  “Hi, Windhover! To me!”
   The speck paused, then came swooping through the air like a black
falling star, growing larger every second, and, with a hollow beating of
wings, landed on Fenodyree's outstretched arm—a magnificent kestrel,
fierce and proud, whose bright eyes glared at the children.
  “Strange company for dwarfs. I know,” said Fenodyree, “but they have
been prey of the morthbrood, and so are older than their years.
   “It is of Grimnir that we want news. He went by here did he seek the
lake?”
   The kestrel switched his gaze to Fenodyree, and gave a series of sharp
cries, which obviously meant more to the dwarf than they did to the
children.
   “Ay, it is as I thought.” he said when the bird fell silent. “A mist crossed
the plain a while since, as fast as a horse can gallop, and sank into
Llyn-dhu.
 “Ah well, so be it. Now I must away back to Cadellin, for we shall have
much to talk over and plans to make. Farewell now, my friends. Yonder is
the road: take it. Remember us, though Cadellin forbade you, and wish us
well.”
  “Good-bye.”
   Colin and Susan were too full to say more; it was an effort to speak, for
their throats were tight and dry with anguish. They knew that Cadellin
and Fenodyree were not being deliberately unkind in their anxiety to be
rid of them, but the feeling of responsibility for what had happened was as
much as they could bear.
  So it was with heavy hearts that the children turned to the road: nor did
they speak or look back until they had reached it. Fenodyree, standing on
the seat, Legs braced apart, with Windhover at his wrist, was outlined
against the sky. His voice came to them through the still air.
  “Farewell, my friends!”
  They waved to him in return, but could find no words.
   He stood there a moment longer before he jumped down and vanished
along the path to Fundindelve. And it was as though a veil had been drawn
across the children's eyes.




                            PART TWO




                            CHAPTER 8.

                     Mist over Llyn-dhu

   Autumn came, and in September Colin and Susan started school. Work
on the farm kept them busy outside school hours, and it was not often they
visited the Edge. Sometimes at the week-end they could go there, but then
the woods were peopled with townsfolk who, shouting and crashing
through the undergrowth, and littering the ground with food wrappings
and empty bottles, completely destroyed the atmosphere of the place.
Once, indeed, Colin and Susan came upon a family sprawled in front of the
iron gates. Father, his back propped against the rock itself, strained,
redder than his braces to lift his voice above the blare of a portable radio
to summon his children to tea. They were playing at soldiers in the Devil's
Crave.
  Nothing remained. This place, where beauty and terror had been as
opposite sides of the same coin. was now a playground of noise. Its spirit
was dead—or hidden. There was nothing to show that svart or wizard had
ever existed; nothing, except a barn full of owls at Highmost Redmanhey,
and an empty wrist where once a bracelet had been.
   The loss of the bracelet was the cause of slight friction between the
Mossocks and the children. Bess was the first to notice that the stone had
gone, and Susan, not knowing what to do for the best, poured out the
whole story. It was really too much for anyone to digest at once, and Bess
could not think what to make of it at all. She was upset over the loss of the
Bridestone, naturally, but what troubled her more was the fact that Susan
should be so fearful of the consequences that she would invent such a
desperate pack of nonsense to explain it all away. Gowther, on the other
hand, was by no means so certain that it was all fantasy. He kept his
thoughts to himself, but in places the story touched on his recent
experiences far too accurately for comfort. However, the affair blew over
and no one mentioned it again, though that does not mean to say it was
forgotten.
  Shortly before Christmas Colin discovered that the owls had left the
barn, and for days after, the children were in a fretful state of anxiety over
what the disappearance could mean.
   “Either Cadellin's got the stone back again, said Colin, “or he's lost the
fight.”
  “Or perhaps it's only that he's sure we're out of danger; or perhaps . . .
no that wouldn't make sense . . . oh, I wish we knew!”
   And although they spent two whole days ranging the woods from end to
end, they found no clue to help them. If there had been a struggle as fierce
as Cadellin had predicted, then it had left no trace that they could see.
                                   ***
   It was a young winter of cloudless skies. The stars flashed silver in the
velvet, frozen nights, and all the short day long the sun betrayed the earth
into thinking it was spring. And late one Sunday afternoon at the end of
the first week of January. Colin and Susan climbed out of Alderley village,
pushing their bicycles before them. They walked slowly, for it was not a
hill to be rushed, and the last stretch was the worst—straight and steep.
without any respite. But once they were at the top, the going was
comparatively good.
   They did not ride more than a hundred yards, however, for Colin. who
was leading, jammed on his brakes so violently that he half-fell from the
bicycle and Susan nearly piled on top of him.
  “Look!” he gasped. “Look over there!”
   It could be only Cadellin. He stood against the skyline of Castle Rock,
staff in hand, facing the plain.
  At once all promises were forgotten: the children dropped their bicycles
and ran.
  “Cadellin! Cadellin!”
   The wizard spun round at the sound of their voices, and made as if to
leave the rock. But after three strides he checked his pace, stood for a
moment, and then walked to the bench and sat down.
  “Oh, Cadellin, we thought something must have happened to you!” cried
Susan, sobbing with relief.
  “Many things have happened to me, but I do not feel the worse for
that!”
  There was displeasure in his face, tempered with understanding.
  “But we were so worried,” said Colin. “When the owls disappeared we
wondered if you'd . . . you'd . . .”
   “I see!” said Cadellin, breaking into laughter. “No, no, no, you must not
look on life so fearfully. We called the birds away because we knew that
you were no longer in danger from the morthbrood.”
  “Well, we thought of that,” said Colin, “but we couldn't help thinking of
other things, too.”
  “But what about the morthbrood?” said Susan. “Have they still got my
Tear?”
  “Yes, and no,” said the wizard. “And in their greed and deceit lies all our
present hope.
   “Grimnir has the stone. He should have delivered it to Nastrond, but
the morthbrood and he intend to master it alone. Perhaps they believe
Firefrost holds power for them, If so they are mistaken!
   “And here we have wheels within wheels; for Grimnir and Shape-shifter,
as rumour has it, are planning to reap all benefits for themselves, and to
leave the brood and the svarts to whistle for their measure. So says
rumour; and I can guess more. I know Grimnir too well to imagine that he
would willingly share power with anyone, and the Morrigan, for all her
guile, is no match for him. And it may be among all this treachery that we
shall find our chance; but for the present we watch, and wait. Firefrost is
not in Nastrond's hand, and for that we must be thankful.
  “There! You have it all, and now we go our ways once more.”
  Colin and Susan were so relieved to find the wizard unharmed that
parting from him did not seem anything like so bleak an experience as it
had been before.
  “Is there still nothing we can do?” asked Susan.
  “No more than you have been doing all these months. You have played
your part well (if we forget this afternoon!), and you must continue to do
so. for we do not want you to fall foul of that one again.”
  He pointed with his staff. About the trees through which the Black Lake
could normally be seen hung a blanket of fog. Elsewhere, as far as the eye
could see, the sunset plain was free of haze or mist, but Llyn-dhu brooded
under a fallen cloud.
   “It has been there for over a week,” said the wizard. “I do not know what
he is about, but my guess is that he is trying to seal Firefrost within a
circle of magic to prevent its power from reaching Fundindelve. He will
not succeed, and he has not the strength to destroy the stone. But then, I
have not the power to take it by force, so the matter rests, though we do
not.”
   Cadellin walked with the children as far as the road, and they left him,
lighter at heart than they had been for many a day.
   The mist was still there the following morning. Colin and Susan had set
out on their bicycles soon after dawn to spend the day exploring the
countryside, and when they had reached the top of the “front” hill Colin
had suggested taking another look at Llyn-dhu. So there they now were,
sitting on Castle Rock, and gazing at the mist.
 For a long time they were silent, and when next Colin spoke he did no
more than put his sister's thoughts into words.
  “I wonder,” he said, “what it's like . . . close to.”
  “Do you think we'd be breaking a promise if we went just to look?”
   “Well, we're looking now, and we'd be doing the same thing, only from a
lot nearer, wouldn't we?”
   That decided it: but then they realized that they had not the least idea
of how to reach the lake. However, by picking out what few landmarks
they knew, it seemed that if they made for Wilmslow, and there turned
left, they would be heading in something like the right direction. So,
without further delay, Colin and Susan rode to Alderley, bought a bottle of
lemonade to go with their sandwiches, posted a view of Stormy Point to
their father and mother, and within thirty minutes of making their
decision were in the centre of Wilmslow, and wondering which road to
take next.
  “There's the man to ask,” said Colin.
   He had seen a small beetle of a car, from which was emerging a police
sergeant of such vast proportions that he hid the car almost completely
from view. It was incredible that he could ever have fitted into it, even
curled up.
  The children cycled over to him, and Colin said:
  “Excuse me, can you tell us the way to Llyn-dhu, please?”
  “Where?” said the sergeant in obvious surprise.
  “Llyn-dhu, the Black Lake. It's not far from here.”
  The sergeant grinned.
  “You're not pulling my leg, are you?”
  “No, said Susan, were not—promise!”
  “Then somebody must be pulling yours, because there's no such place of
that name round here that I know of, and!”ve been at Wilmslow all of nine
years. Sounds more Welsh than anything.”
  Colin and Susan were so taken aback that, for a moment, they could not
speak.
   “But we saw it from Castle Rock less than an hour ago!” said Susan, and
tears of exasperation pricked her eyes. “Well we didn't really see it.
because it was covered in mist, but we know it's there.”
  “Mist, did you say? Ah now perhaps we're getting somewhere. There's
been fog on Lindow Common for days, and the only lake in the district is
there. Do you think that's what you want?”
  “Llyn-dhu, Lindow: it could be: it had to be!”
    “Ye-es; yes, that's it,” said Colin. We must have got the name wrong. Is
it far?”
   They followed the sergeant's directions, and after a mile came upon an
expanse of damp ground, covered with scrub, and heather, and puddles. A
little way off the road was a notice board which stated that this was
Lindow Common, and that cycling was prohibited. And in the middle of
the common was a long lake of black peat-stained water.
   The children stood on the slimy shore. The air was dank and the scenery
depressing. The common was encircled by a broken rash of houses, such
as may be seen, like a ring of pink scum, on the outskirts of most of our
towns and villages today.
   “Garlanded with mosses and mean dwellings.” Fenodyree's words came
back to the children as they looked at the brick-pocked landscape. But
what was most obviously wrong was that they could see all this. For if they
were indeed at Llyn-dhu, then, within the space of an hour, it had rid itself
of every trace of the mist that had shrouded it for the last ten days.
  “Do you think this is it?” said Colin.
   “Ugh, yes! There couldn't be two like this, and it's a black lake all right!
I wonder what's happened?”
  “Oh, let's go,” said Colin: “this place gives me the willies. We've done
what we set out to do; now let's enjoy the rest of the day.”
  After a cup of coffee in Wilmslow to dispel the Lindow gloom, the
children pedalled back towards Alderley. They had no plans, but the sun
was warm, and there were a good six hours of daylight left to them.
   They were crossing the station bridge at Alderley when they saw it. A
light breeze, blowing from the northeast trailed the village smoke slowly
along the sky, but half-way up the nearer slope of the Edge a ball of mist
hung as though moored to the trees. And out of the mist rose the
chimneys and gaunt gables of St Mary's Clyffe, the home of Selina Place.




                         CHAPTER 9.
                        St Mary's Clyffe

   The room was long, with a high ceiling, painted black. Round the walls
and about the windows were draped black velvet tapestries. The bare
wooden floor was stained a deep red. There was a table on which lay a rod,
forked at the end, and a silver plate containing a mound of red powder. On
one side of the table was a reading-stand, which supported an old vellum
book of great size, and on the other stood a brazier of glowing coals. There
was no other furniture of any kind.
  Grimnir looked on with much bad grace as Shape-shifter moved
through the ritual of preparation. He did not like witch-magic: it relied
too much on clumsy nature spirits and the slow brewing of hate. He
preferred the lightning stroke of fear and the dark powers of the mind.
   But certainly this crude magic had weight. It piled force on force, like a
mounting wave, and overwhelmed its prey with the slow violence of an
avalanche. If only it were a quick magic! There could be very little time left
now before Nastrond acted on his rising suspicions, and then . . .
Grimnir's heart quailed at the thought. Oh, let him but bend this stone's,
power to his will, and Nastrond should see a true Spirit of Darkness arise;
one to whom Ragnarok, and all it contained, would be no more than a
ditch of noisome creatures to be bestridden and ignored. But how to
master the stone? It had parried all his rapier thrusts, and, at one
moment, had come near to destroying him. The sole chance now lay in
this morthwoman's witchcraft, and she must be watched; it would not do
for the stone to became her slave. She trusted him no more than could be
expected, but the problem of how to rid himself of her when she had
played out her part in his schemes was not of immediate importance. The
shadow of Nastrond was growing large in his mind, and in swift success
alone could he hope to endure.
   With black sand, which she poured from a leather bottle, Shape-shifter
traced an intricately patterned circle on the floor. Often she would halt,
make a sign in the air with her hand, mutter to herself, curtsy, and resume
her pouring. She was dressed in a black robe, tied round with scarlet cord,
and on her feet were pointed shoes.
  So intent on her work was the Morrigan. and so wrapped in his
thoughts was Grimnir, that neither of them saw the two pairs of eyes that
inched round the side of the window.
  The circle was complete. Shape-shifter went to the table and picked up
the rod.
   “It is not the hour proper for summoning the aid we need,” she said,
“but if what you have heard contains even a grain of the truth, then we see
that we must act at once, though we could have wished for a more discreet
approach on your part.” She indicated the grey cloud that pressed against
the glass, now empty of watching eyes. “You may well attract unwanted
attention.”
  At that moment, as if in answer to her fears, a distant clamour arose on
the far side of the house. It was the eerie baying of hounds.
   “Ah, you see! They are restless there is something on the wind. Perhaps
it would be wise to let them seek it out; they will soon let us know if it is
aught beyond their powers—as well it may be! For if we do not have
Ragnarok and Fundindelve upon our heads before the day is out, it will be
no thanks to you.”
   She stumped round the corner of the house to the outbuilding from
which the noise came, Selina Place was uneasy, and out of temper. For all
his art, what a fool Grimnir could be! And what risks he took! Who, in
their senses, would come so obviously on such an errand? Like his magic,
he was no match for the weirdstone of Brisingamen. She smiled; yes, it
would take the old sorcery to tame that one, and he knew it, for all his
fussing in Llyn-dhu. “All right, all right! We're coming! Don't tear the door
down!”
  Behind her, two shadows moved out of the mist, slid along the wall, and
through the open door.
  “Which way now?” whispered Susan.
   They were standing in a cramped hall, and there was a choice of three
doors leading from it. One of these was ajar, and seemed to be a
cloakroom.
  “In here, then we'll see which door she goes through.” Nor did they
delay, for the masculine tread of Selina Place came to them out of the
mist.
  “Now let us do what we can in haste,” she said as she rejoined Grimnir.
“There may be nothing threatening. but we shall not feel safe until we are
master of the stone. Give it to us now.”
   Grimnir unfastened a pouch at his waist, and from it drew Susan's
bracelet. Firefrost hung there, its bright depths hidden beneath a milky
veil.
   The Morrigan took the bracelet and placed it in the middle of the circle
on the floor. She pulled the curtains over the windows and doors, and went
to stand by the brazier, whose faint glow could hardly push back the
darkness. She took a handful of powder from the silver plate and,
sprinkling it over the coals, cried in a loud Voice:
  “Demoriel, Carnefiel, Caspiel, Amenadiel! !”
  A flame hissed upwards, filling the room with ruby light. Shape-shifter
opened the book and began to read.
  “Vos omnes it ministri odey et destructiones et seratores discorde. . . .”
  “What's she up to?” said Susan.
  “I don't know, but it's giving me gooseflesh.”
  “. . . eo quod est noce vose coniurase ideo vos conniro et deprecur. . . .”
  “Colin, I . . .”
  “Sh! Keep still!”
  “. . . et odid fiat mier alve. . . .”
   Shadows began to gather about the folds of velvet tapestry in the
farthest corners of the room.
   For thirty minutes Colin and Susan were forced to stand in their
awkward hiding-place, and it took less than half that time for the last
trace of enthusiasm to evaporate. They were where they were as the result
of an impulse, an inner urge that had driven them on without thought of
danger. But now there was time to think, and inaction is never an aid to
courage. They would probably have crept away and tried to find Cadellin,
had not a dreadful sound of snuffling, which passed frequently beneath the
cloakroom window, made them most unwilling to open the outer door.
  And all the while Shape-shifter's chant droned on, rising at intervals to
harsh cries of command.
  “Come Haborym! Come Haborym” Come Haborym!”
  Then it was that the children began to feel the dry heat that was soon to
become all but intolerable. It bore down upon them until the blood
thumped in their ears, and the room spun sickeningly about their heads.
  “Come Orobas! Come Orobas! Come Orobas!”
   Was it possible? For the space of three seconds the children heard the
clatter of hoofs upon bare boards, and a wild neighing rang high in the
roof.
  “Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth! Come Nambroth!”
   A wind gripped the house by the eaves, and tried to pluck it from its
sandstone roots, Something rushed by on booming winds. The lost voices
of the air called to each other in the empty rooms, and the mist clung fast
and did not stir.
   “Coniuro et confirmo super vos potentes in nomi fortis, metuendissimi,
infandi. . . .”
  Just at the moment when Susan thought she must faint, the stifling
heat diminished enough to allow them to breathe in comfort: the wind
died, and a heavy silence settled on the house.
  After minutes of brooding quiet a door opened, and the voice of Selina
Place came to the children from outside the cloakroom. She was very
much out of breath.
    “And . . . we say the stone . . . will . . . be safe. Nothing . . . can reach it . .
. from . . . outside, Come away . . . this is a dangerous . . . brew. Should it
boil over . . . and we near, that . . . would be the end . . . of us. Hurry. The
force is growing . . . it is not safe to watch.”
  Mistrustfully, and with many a backward glance, Grimnir joined her,
and they went together through the doorway on the opposite side of the
hall, and their footsteps died away.
  “Well, how do we get out of this mess?” said Colin. “It looks as though
we're stuck here until she calls these animals off, and if she's going to do
any more of the stuff we've been listening to, I don't think I want to wait
that long.”
  “Colin, we can't go yet! My Tear's in that room, and we'll never have
another chance!”
  The air was much cooler now, and no sounds, strange or otherwise,
could be heard. And Susan felt that insistent tugging at her inmost heart
that had brushed aside all promises and prudence when she stared at the
mist from the bridge by the station.
  “But Sue, didn't you hear old Place say that it wasn't safe to be in there?
And if she's afraid to stay it must be dangerous.”
  “I don't care:!”ve got to try. Are you coming? Because if not,I'm going by
myself.”
   “Oh . . . all right! But we'll wish we'd stayed in here.” They stepped out
of the cloakroom and cautiously opened the left-hand door.
   The dull light prevented them from seeing much at first, hut they could
make out the table and the reading-desk, and the black pillar in the centre
of the floor.
  “All clear!” whispered Susan.
  They tiptoed into the room, closed the door, and stood quite still while
their eyes grew accustomed to the light and then they saw.
   The pillar was alive. It climbed from out the circle that Selina Place had
so laboriously made, a column of oily smoke; and in the smoke strange
shapes moved, Their forms were indistinct, but the children could see
enough to wish themselves elsewhere.
  Even as they watched the climax came. Faster and faster the pillar
whirled, and thicker and thicker the dense fumes grew, and the floor
began to tremble, and the children's heads were of a sudden full of
mournful voices that reached them out of a great and terrible distance.
Flecks of shadow, buzzing like flies, danced out of the tapestries and were
sucked into the reeking spiral. And then, without warning, the base of the
column turned blue. The buzzing rose to a demented whine—and stopped.
The whole swirling mass shuddered as though a brake had been savagely
applied, lost momentum, died, and drooped like the ruin of a mighty tree.
Silver lightnings ran upwards through the smoke: the column wavered,
broke, and collapsed into the ball of fire that rose to engulf it. A voice
whimpered close by the children and passed through the doorway behind
them. The blue light waned, and in its place lay Firefrost, surrounded by
the scattered remnants of Shape-shifter's magic circle.
   Colin and Susan stood transfixed. Then slowly, as if afraid that the
stone would vanish if she breathed or took her eyes off it, Susan moved
forward and picked it up.
   In the silence she unclasped the bracelet and fastened it about her
wrist. She could not believe what she was doing. This moment had
haunted her dreams for so many months, and there had been so many
bitter awakenings.

                                  ***
   In a small room crammed under the eaves Selina Place and Grimnir
waited. Both were keyed to an almost unendurable pitch. They knew well
the price of failure. Not once in a thousand years had any of their kind
disobeyed the charge of Nastrond, but all at some time had stood in the
outer halls of Ragnarok and looked on the Abyss. Thus did Nastrond bind
evil to his will.
   “It cannot be long now,” said the Morrigan. “Within five minutes the
stone must . . .”
   A trail of smoke drifted under the door and floated across the room, and
a bubbling sound of tears accompanied it. The Morrigan jumped from her
chair her eyes were wild, and there was sweat on her brow.
  “Non licet abire!” She threw her arms wide to bar the way. “Coniuro et
confirmo super. . .” But the smoke curled round her towards the hearth,
and leapt into the chimney mouth. A wind sighed mournfully past the
windows, and was still.
   “No! No,” she mumbled, groping for the door; but Grimnir had already
flung it open and was rushing along the corridors to the stairs. He was
half-way down the first flight when there was the sound of breaking glass,
and the staircase was momentarily in shadow as a dark figure blocked the
window at its head. The Morrigan's harsh voice cried out in fear, and
Grimnir turned with the speed and menace of a hungry spider.
                                     ***
 The noise roused Colin and Susan from their trance. Again the
Morrigan shrieked.
  “Here, let's get out of this!” said Colin, and he pulled his sister into the
hall. “As soon as we're outside run like mad:!”ll be right behind you!”
   Quite a hullabaloo was breaking out upstairs, and most of the sounds
were by no means pleasant: at least they made the other hazard seem less
formidable—until Colin opened the door. There was a rasping growl, and
out of the mist came a shape that sent the children stumbling backwards
into the house, and before they could close the door the hound of the
Morrigan crossed the threshold and was revealed in all its malignity.
   It was like a bull-terrier; except that it stood four feet high at the
shoulder, and its ears, unlike the rest of the white body, were covered in
coarse red hair. But what set it apart from all others was the fact that,
from pointed ears to curling lip, its head and muzzle were blank. There
were no eyes.
  The beast paused, swinging its wedge-shaped head from side to side,
and snuffing wetly with flared nostrils, and when it caught the children's
scent it moved towards them as surely as if it had eyes. Colin and Susan
dived for the nearest door, and into what was obviously a kitchen, which
had nothing to offer them but another door.
   “We'll have to risk it,” said Susan: that thing'll be through in a second.”
She put no trust in the flimsy latch, which was rattling furiously beneath
the scrabbling of claws. But as she spoke they heard another sound;
footsteps rapidly drawing near to the other door And then the latch did
give way, and the hound was in the room.
  Colin seized a kitchen chair. Get behind me, he whispered.
  At the Sound of his voice the brute froze, but only for an instant: it had
found its bearings.
   “Can we reach a window?” Colin dared not take his eyes off the hound
as it advanced upon them.
  “No.”
  “Is there another way out?”
  “No.”
  He was parrying the lunges and snappings with the chair, but it was
heavy, and his arms ached.
   “There's a broom cupboard, or something, behind us, and the door's
ajar.”
  “What good will that do?”
  “I don't know: but Grimnir may not notice us, or the dog may attack
him, or . . . oh, anything's better than this!”
  “Is it big enough?”
  “It goes up to the ceiling.”
  “Right: get in.”
   Susan stepped inside and held the door open for Colin as he backed
towards it. The hound was biting at the chair legs and trying to paw them
down. Wood crunched and splinters flew, and the chair drooped in Colin's
hands, but he was there. He hurled the chair at the snarling head, and fell
backwards into the cupboard. Susan had a vision of a red tongue lolling
out of a gaping mouth, and of fangs flashing white, inches from her face,
before she slammed the door; and at the same moment, she heard the
kitchen door being flung open. Then she fainted.
  Or, at least, she thought she had fainted. Her stomach turned over, her
head reeled, and she seemed to be falling into the bottomless dark. But
had she fainted? Colin bumped against her in struggling to right himself:
she could feel that. And the back of the cupboard was pressing into her.
She pinched herself. No, she had not fainted.
  Colin and Susan stood rigidly side by side, nerving themselves for the
moment when the door would be opened. But the room seemed
unnaturally still not a sound could they hear.
  “What's up?” whispered Colin. “It's too quiet out there.”
  “Shh!”
  “I can't see a keyhole anywhere, can you? There should be one
somewhere.” He bent forward to feel.
  “Ouch! !”
   Colin let out a yell of surprise and pain, and this time Susan nearly did
faint.
  “Sue! There's no door!”
  “Wh-what?”
  “No door! It's something that feels like smooth rock going past very
quickly, and!”ve skinned my hand on it. That's why my ears have been
popping! Were in a lift!”
  Even as he spoke, the floor seemed to press against their feet, and a
chill, damp, air blew upon their faces, and they were aware of a silence so
profound that they could hear their hearts beating.
  “Where on earth are we?” said Colin.
   “It's probably more like where in earth are we!” Susan knelt on the floor
of the cupboard and stretched out her hand to where the door had been.
Nothing. She reached down, and touched wet rock.
  “Well, there's a floor. Lets have our bike lamps out and see what sort of
place this is.”
  They took off their knapsacks and rummaged around among the
lemonade and sandwiches.
  By the light of the lamps they saw that they were at the mouth of a
tunnel that stretched away into the darkness.
  “Now what do we do?”
  “We can't go back, can we. even if we wanted to?”
  “No,” said Susan, “but I don't like the look of this.”
  “Neither do I, but we haven't really much choice; come on.”
  They shouldered their packs and started off along the tunnel, but
seconds later a slight noise brought them whirling round, their hearts in
their mouths.
  “That's torn it!” said Colin gazing up at the shaft, into which the
cupboard was disappearing. “They'll be on to us in no time now.”




                          CHAPTER 10.
                           Plankshaft
   The children went as fast as they could, stumbling over the uneven floor,
and bruising themselves against the walls. The air was musty, and within
a minute they were gasping as though they had run a mile, but on they
sped, with two thoughts in their heads—to escape from whatever was
following them, and to find Cadellin or Fenodyree. If only this were
Fundindelve!
   The passage twisted bewilderingly, and when Susan pulled up without
notice or warning, Colin could not avoid running into her, and down they
sprawled, though they managed to keep hold of their lamps. There was no
need to ask questions. The tunnel ended in a shaft that dropped beyond
the range of their light. And hanging from a spike driven into the rock was
a rope-ladder. It was wet, and covered with patches of white mould that
glistened pallidly but it looked as though it would bear the children's
weight. The urgency of their plight killed all fear: they dared not hesitate.
Both hands were needed for the climb, so they tucked the lamps inside
their windcheaters, and went down in darkness.
   The rope was slippery, and it took all their will-power to descend at an
even pace. They did this by moving down rung by rung together, Colin
setting the pace by counting. “One—two—three—four—five—six—seven.”
He was ten rungs higher than his sister, and the urge to increase the rate
was very strong; he tried not to think of what might happen if Grimnir
reached the top of the ladder while they were still on it. “A hundred and
forty—and one—two—three—four—five.”
  “I'm at the bottom!” called Susan. “And its wet!”
   The end of the ladder dangled a few inches above an island of sand that
lay at the foot of the shaft, and from here four ways led off, none very
inviting. Two were silted up, and two were flooded. Colin chose the
shallower of the flooded tunnels, along which stray lumps of rock served as
unreliable stepping-stones, and for a few yards the children made dry, if
cumbersome, progress. Then Colin, in helping Susan over a particularly
wide stretch of water, saw the end of the ladder begin to dance wildly
about in the air. Someone obviously had started to descend.
  The brown water splashed roof-high as Colin and Susan took to their
heels, skidding over slimy, unseen rocks. But the tunnel sloped upwards,
and to their relief, they left the water behind and were running on dry
sand. This, however, was not long an asset: for soon it lay so thickly that
the children were compelled to run bent double, and, finally, to scramble
on hands and knees.
    What if the root and floor meet, thought Susan, and we have to go back
. . . or wait?
  Sweat was blinding her, her hair and clothes were full of sand, stones
added to her bruises, and her lungs ached with the strain of drawing air
out of the saturated atmosphere: but she had her Tear, and this time
Susan was going to keep it, even if all the witches and warlocks that ever
were came after her.
  Suppose we can't go on, though . . .
  But almost at once her fears were allayed the lamp's beam outlined the
end of the tunnel against a blackness beyond.
   “Oh, glory be,” she spluttered, and they crawled out on to a soft mound
of sand. At first, they could only droop on all fours, heads sagging like
winded dogs, and gulp in the cold air, which was a little more wholesome
than that of the tunnel; and, from the sudden lack of resonance, they
guessed that they must be in a cavern. Every movement in the tunnel had
produced a magnified, hollow echo, which made their breathing now
appear dry, and remote. The children staggered to their feet, and looked
about them.
   In shape and size it was just such another cave as the Cave of the
Sleepers in Fundindelve, but instead of the light, darkness pressed in from
every side. The yellow walls were streaked with browns, blacks, reds, blues,
and greens—veins of mineral that traced the turn of wind and wave upon a
shore, twenty million years ago.
  Colin bent down and listened at the tunnel mouth.
  “I can't hear anything,” he said, “but we'd better move on, if we can.”
   Losing their pursuer was an easy task. It seemed that they were in an
intricate system of caverns, connected by innumerable tunnels and shafts.
These caverns were remarkable. The walls curved upwards to form roofs
high as a cathedral, and the distance between the walls was often so great
that, at the centre of a cave, the children could imagine themselves to be
trudging along a sandy beach on a windless and starless night. The loose
sand killed all noise of movement, and helped the silence to prey on their
nerves moreover, it made walking hot, laborious work, and the air was still
not good; ten minutes under these conditions sapped their energy as
much as an hour of normal tramping would have done.
   Tunnels entered and left the caves at all angles and levels. They turned,
twisted, branched, forked, climbed, dropped, and frequently led nowhere.
They would run into a cave at any point between roof and floor, and wind
out on to dizzy ledges, which in turn dwindled to random footholds, or
nothing at all. And the square-mouthed shafts were a continual hazard.
Through some, the distant floors of lower galleries could be glimpsed.
while others disappeared into unknowable depths. It was no place for
panic. Every corner, every bend, every opening, had to be approached with
the greatest caution, for fear of an unwanted meeting; and the caves were
the worst of all. After crossing through half a dozen or so, and peering
round at the holes which stared sightless from all quarters. Colin and
Susan took to scuttling over the floor and diving into the first tunnel they
saw, trusting blindly that that particular one would not be tenanted. In
the tunnels they were close to wall and ceiling. lamps held their own with
shadows; but in the caves the children felt truly lost, for their puny light
only accentuated their insignificance, and the feeling of being exposed to
unseen eyes grew ever stronger. Somewhere within this labyrinth someone
was hunting them down, and Colin and Susan were never more aware of
this than when they broke cover beneath a soaring dome of rock and ran
through the nightmare sand.
   How far they travelled, and for how long before they had to rest, was
impossible to judge: time and distance mean little underground. But at
last they could go no farther, and, chancing upon a tunnel with a partially
blocked entrance, they wriggled inside and lay stretched on the floor. They
were consumed by heat and thirst, and fumbled impatiently in Colin's
pack for the lemonade. For minutes afterwards the tunnel sounded with
gulpings, and gaspings, and sighs of indulgence.
  “Better save some for later,” said Colin.
  “Oh, all right: but I could drink the sea dry!”
  The children relaxed their aching limbs and talked in whispers. But first
they switched off the lamps; there was no point in adding to their troubles
by hastening the moment when the batteries would be exhausted.
  “Listen, said Colin, the main thing right now, is to find a way out of
here without being caught. I don't think there's much doubt about where
we are; it must be the copper-mines. And if that's so, then there are
several ways out. But how do we find them?”
   They thought for some time in silence: there seemed to be no answer to
this problem.
  “There must be some . . . wait a minute!” said Susan. “Look: if we're in
the mines the way out must be above us, mustn't it? Nearly all the
entrances are on top of the Edge.”
  “Yes . . .”
  “Well, if we follow only the tunnels that lead upwards, we're bound to be
moving in the right direction, aren't we? I know it's not much of an idea,
but it's better than wandering aimlessly until Grimnir and Selina find us.”
  “It's not only those two I'm worried about,” said Colin. “Have you
noticed how the sand is churned up everywhere? It's too soft to give clear
impressions, but it shows that these mines aren't as empty as they look.
And remember what Cadellin said about avoiding them at all costs
because of the svarts.”
   Susan had not thought of that. But the added danger could not alter the
situation, and although they talked for some time, they could think of no
better plan. Still, it took courage to switch on their lamps and leave their
safe retreat for the perils of the open tunnel.
   So they journeyed into despair. For no way led upwards for long. Sooner
or later the floor would level and begin to drop, and after an hour of this
heartbreak Colin and Susan had less than no idea of their whereabouts.
Then, imperceptibly, they began to feel that they were gaining ground.
They had wormed along the crest of a sand-bank that rested on the edge of
a cliff, high under the roof of a boulder-strewn cave. Sand rolled
continually from under them and slid into the emptiness below: the whole
bank seemed to be on the move. At the end of the ridge was a tunnel
mouth, and the rock beneath their feet, when finally they made contact
with it. was almost as welcome as green fields and the open sky. This
tunnel was different: it was longer than most, and less tortuous.
   “Colin, this time I think we're on the right track!” said Susan, who was
in the lead.
  “I think perhaps we are!”
  “Oh!”
  “What's the matter? Is it a dead-end?”
  “No, but it's . . .”
  Colin peered over his sister's shoulder. “Oh.”
   The widest shaft they had yet come upon lay before them, and stretched
across its gaping mouth was a narrow plank. This was wet, and partly
rotten, and no more than three inches rested on the lip of the shaft at
either end.
  “Well have to go back,” said Colin.
  “No: we must cross. The tunnel leads somewhere, or the plank wouldn't
be here.”
  And Susan stepped on to the plank.
   Colin watched his sister walk over the pit: he had never known her to be
like this before. She had always been content to follow his lead, seldom
inclined to take a risk, no matter how slight. Yet now, for the third time in
one day, she was deliberately facing great danger, and with a composure
that claimed his respect even while it nettled his pride.
  Susan was two-thirds of the way across when the plank tilted sideways
an inch. Colin felt the sweat cold sweat on his spine but Susan merely
paused to correct her balance, and then she was across.
  “There! It's easy—a bit rocky near the middle, but it's quite safe. Walk
normally, and don't look down.”
  “All right I know how to do it as well as you!”
    Colin started out. It was not too bad: the plank was firm, and he was
prepared for a slight movement just over half-way. But even so, when it
came it caught him unawares. He felt the plank shift he teetered sideways,
his arms flailing. Two swift shambling steps, the plank seemed to swing
away from him, the lamplight whirled in an arch, he saw that his next step
would miss the plank, the shaft yawned beneath him, and he leapt for his
life.
  “Are you hurt?”
  Colin pulled himself into a sitting position, and rubbed his head.
  “No. Thanks, Sue.”
  He felt sick. For a second, which had seemed an age, he had crouched
on one foot, poised over the drop, with his other leg hanging straight down
the shaft, unable to produce the momentum to roll forward. And Susan
had reached out and grabbed him by the hair, and brought him pitching
on to his face in the tunnel.
  “Do you mind if we have a rest?”
  “We may as well, before we go back over the plank.”
  “What?”
  “Look for yourself.”
  Colin shone his lamp along the tunnel and groaned. From where they
were sitting, the floor plunged down and, for as far as they could see, there
was no change in its course.
   “Down, down, always down!” cried Susan bitterly. “Are we never going
to see daylight again?”
  “Lets carry on, now that we're here, said Colin. You never know, this
may be the way out.” He did not want to face the plank again, if it could
possibly be avoided.
   The passage dropped at an alarming rate. The floor was of smooth, red
clay, and once Susan, going too fast, lost control and slid for several yards
before she could stop herself. They learnt the lesson and went cautiously
from then on.
   Down, down, down, farther than they had ever been before, And then
the tunnel veered to the left, zig-zagged violently, and came to an end on a
ledge overlooking a great void. Colin lay on his stomach and peered over
the edge.
  “Well, we tried.”
  Seven or eight feet below was a lake of chocolate-coloured water,
capped with scuds of yellow foam. Some yards away a bar of sand showed
above the surface, but beyond that there was nothing.
  “Oh, let's get back to the plank!” said Colin.
   All the way up he was wondering how he could bring himself to cross
the plank; and there it was before him, and Susan was saying, “Do you
think you can manage?”
  “Course I can!”
  Colin willed himself forward. His ears sang, his legs were rubber, his
breath hissed through his teeth, his heart pounded, there was rock under
him.
  “Nothing to it!”
  He shone the light on the plank for Susan to cross.
  “Yes, it is easier. It slopes up coming this way.” Susan was in the middle
now. “I wonder how deep the shaft is.” She stopped.
   “No, Sue Don't look down, it'll make you giddy! Come across: don't
stop!”
   “I'm all right I want to see how far down it goes.” And she turned the
beam of her lamp into the shaft. She saw the wet rock, ribbed and
gleaming like a gigantic windpipe, fall away beneath her and vanish into
darkness far below, and . . . Susan screamed. The lamp dropped from her
hand and crashed from wall to wall into the shaft's throat. It was a terrible
depth. She swayed, and fell forward, clutching the plank so violently that it
began to quiver and grate against its anchorage. Susan knelt, staring into
the hole and whimpering with fear.
  “Sue! Sue, get up! What's the matter? Sue!!”
  “Eyes! Eyes looking at me! Down there in the darkness!”
  The plank was trembling alarmingly now, and one corner was almost off
the rock. Colin tried to steady it, but he was afraid to pull the plank, in
case the other end should be jerked off its support.
  “Sue, crawl: don't look down. Come on: its only a few feet.”
  “I can't, I'll fall.”
  “No you won't. Here: look at me: don't look at the shaft. Come on, Sue.”
  “I can't. I'll fall.”
  The plank shifted a good inch.
  “Sue: look up, Look up! ! That's better; Now keep looking at me, and
crawl.”
  Susan bit her lip, and started to edge her way towards Colin.
Immediately the plank began to tremble more than ever.
  “I can't do it. Honestly, I can't!”
  “All right, Sue. Stay there: I'm coming!”
   And, without a moment's hesitation. Colin walked out along the plank
to join her.
  “There now; give me your hand. Do you think you can stand up?”
  He bent down, trying to look no farther than his sisters face.
   Susan grabbed at the hand, and flung her other arm round his knees:
the plank rocked furiously: Colin fought for balance: Susan had completely
lost hers. Slowly she pulled herself up, clutching her brother all the time,
until she stood, trembling, with her arms on his shoulders.
  “Now walk. No, wait I'll tell you when. With me, now; one . . . two . . .”
   Colin moved backwards along the plank, feeling behind him painfully
for every step.




                     CHAPTER 11.
                Prince of the Huldrafolk

  “I don't know what came over me,” said Susan. “I wasn't afraid to begin
with: something was pulling me on all the time.”
   The children had withdrawn a good distance from the shaft, and were
sitting with their backs propped against the tunnel wall. They were both
in need of a rest.
  “I was so certain that we were right that I could have cried when the
tunnel dropped like that. And again, when you said we'd better go on, and
we came to the ledge, I wanted to jump into the water!”
  “That would have made a mess of things!”
   “I know: but it was such a strong urge. Crossing the plank was easy. I
just knew it would be safe, and I wasn't dizzy. But, when I saw those four
pairs of eyes glowing in the shaft, something went wrong in my head. The
plank wasn't safe and wide; it was old, and rotten, and narrow, and the
shaft was trying to swallow me, and those eyes were waiting.”
   “But how do you know they were eyes? It could have been the light
glinting on broken glass, or that white fungus stuff.”
   “No it wasn't They blinked, and moved about. I've never been so
frightened before; not even when Grimnir caught us. And when I dropped
the lamp it was worse.
   “But I'm not frightened now: isn't it strange? As soon as we were off the
plank I felt altogether different. No, it wasn't because we were safe: it's as
though there was a special kind of fear reaching out of the shaft and trying
to make me fall. Do you think they were svarts down there?”
  “I don't know; but whatever they were, I think we'd better move from
here. Are you ready?”
   They retraced their steps, and presently came to a break in the wall, and
a stairway, cut in the rock, leading down into a cave.
  “Shall we?”
  “Yes, anywhere's better than covering old ground.”
   But soon they realized that it was not new country at all. They were
walking at the foot of a cliff, and on top of this was heaped a shelving bed
of sand that almost touched the roof.
   “I wish we'd known there was an easier way to the tunnel,” said Colin.
“It's bad enough down here without doing things the hard way.”
   They were becoming used to conditions underground, and the
atmosphere of the place was no longer oppressive—while they were on the
move. But the loss of the lamp slowed them considerably. They went hand
in hand wherever possible, and Colin held the light, except when they were
in a tunnel: then Susan would take the lead, while Colin was left to grope
along behind in treacherous semi-darkness. Their rest-periods became
more frequent and Colin made a rule of switching off the light at such
times, The battery was not new, and they had neither matches nor
candles, and without light there would be no hope.
  The children tried to keep to uphill paths, but the switchback tunnels
bemused them at every turn.
  “I'd like something to eat next time we stop,” said Susan.
   “All right; but we must go very carefully with the food and drink. We
were fools to swig nearly all the lemonade like that, because I shouldn't
think any of the water down here is fit to think.”
  “Ugh, no!”
  “The next small tunnel we find, we'll rest and share the food out. We'll
have one sandwich each, but we mustn't have any drink.”
   “Oh, Colin, I'm parched. My mouth feels as though it's full of glue, and
I'm so hot!”
  “Me too. But we must be strict with ourselves, otherwise we may never
get out.”
   Colin was very worried about the light. It was strong, but sooner or later
its white beam would turn yellow, flicker, and slowly die. He said nothing
of this to his sister, but she was not blind to the danger.
  “Ah, here's a likely place,” said Colin.
    They crawled inside and looked around. Yes, it was very suitable. The
tunnel came to a dead-end after a few yards, and the entrance was almost
filled with sand. Quite a snug little den—until they realised that it was the
very same tunnel in which they had first rested. All that distance, and to
no purpose.
  “And I was beginning to think we were gaining height!” said Colin.
“We're like squirrels in a cage! Oh, I could throw something!”
  They unwrapped the food.
  “Here you are,” said Colin; “make the most of it.”
   “You know, perhaps we have climbed a bit,” said Susan. “For all we can
tell, this tunnel may be near the surface.”
  “Huh,” said Colin out of the darkness. “He knew she was only trying to
cheer him up.”
  Susan gave a little cough, and a gasp.
  “What's the matter? Got a crumb in your throat? That's what comes of
being greedy! I suppose it means you'll have to have a drink now. Why
can't you be more careful?”
  Colin reached for the lamp and pressed the switch. He was alone.
  “Sue! !”
  He scrambled round in the tunnel: It was empty.
  “Sue! !”
  She had gone, pack and all.
  Colin squirmed through the entrance and flashed his lamp up and
down: there was nothing to be seen. He ran unthinkingly. Tunnels,
caverns, tunnels; an endless desolation of sand and rock.
  “Sue! Sue! !”
   And at once he was past running. The sand dragged his steps, he
tripped and fell.
  “Sue!” No. That's not the way. Keep quiet. Must think. Put the light out.
Must find her. But suppose I find the way out. What then? No. Must find
Sue. Rest a minute, though: just a minute.
   Slowly strength returned to his limbs. Colin humped himself on to his
elbows and turned on the lamp.
  Svarts! Two of them. They were creeping over the sand, and were
caught full in the beam of light.
    Colin sprang to his feet; but he was no longer in danger. To take him in
the dark had been their plan; to leap, and grasp him with their sinewy
hands, and bear him off in sport. But now they reeled back, their eyes
blinded by the lamp. They croaked and hissed, blundering along the cave
wall, with their arms before their faces, trying to find refuge from their
pain. At length they stumbled upon a tunnel, and fought in haste to enter
it. There was a last jostling of leathery backs, and they were gone.
   All this happened in half the time it takes to tell, and it was over before
Colin could gather his wits: but more was still to come. For a muffled cry
sounded along the tunnel, and next the scrabble of feet. A svart burst out
of the opening, swerved away from the lamp, and fled across the cave.
Hard on his heels was the other svart: he paused, uncertain in the light,
looked over his shoulder, and started off after his companion. Something
flashed white in the air. The svart shrieked, and crashed on his face in the
sand. A broad, two-handed sword had pierced him through and through.
Colin's jaw dropped; then, even as his brain struggled to accept the
evidence of his eyes, the svart faded, and crumbled like a withered leaf,
and all that was left was a haze of dust which settled gently to the floor.
For a moment the sword stood reared on its point, then it fell to the
ground with a thud.
  “Ho! Dyrnwyn, they like not your bite! By the beard of my father, this is
poor sport indeed!”
   The deep voice boomed out of the tunnel, and into the cave strode a
dwarf—a viking in miniature. Yellow hair rolled down his shoulders, his
forked beard reached to his waist. His armour was a winged helmet and a
shirt of plated mail. About his shoulders hung a cloak of white eagle
feathers.
  “Breath of Nidhug!” he bellowed, shielding his eyes against the light.
“Have I come to this place of unclean air to be half-blinded?”
   “I-I'm sorry!” stammered Colin, switching the lamp from the dwarfs
face.
  “You would have been sorrier ere long, if I had not found you.” He took
up the sword. “And now come quickly. More svart-heads must roll soon,
and I would share them with my cousin.”
  “But—who are you? And how did you find me?”
   “Durathror son of Gondemar, am I; Prince of the Huldrafolk, and friend
of the lios-alfar. We have not time for gossip: come.”
  The sword clashed in its sheath, and the dwarf entered the tunnel.
  “But wait a minute!” cried Colin. “I've got to find my sister: she's
vanished, and I think the svarts have taken her.”
  “She is safe, never fear. Now will you come, or must I needs carry you?”
   Colin had the greatest difficulty in keeping up with the dwarf, for he set
off at a run, and slackened his pace for neither steep slopes nor
floundering sands. But they had not far to go. Rounding a corner,
Durathror slowed to a walk, and there, in a cave from which no other
tunnels led, seated on a pile of rocks and calmly eating sandwiches, were
Susan and Fenodyree.
  “Sue! Where have you been? I thought I'd never see you again!”
  “Oh, Colin, thank goodness you're safe, too!” cried Susan. “If it hadn't
been for Fenodyree and Durathror I don't know what would have
happened.”
  “I do,” said Fenodyree. “And I say it is well we came up with you when
we did.”
  “Came up with us?” said Colin. “I don't understand.”
  Susan burst out laughing.
  “It wasn't Grimnir or Selina Place following us at all: it was these two!”
  “What? Do you mean . . . ? Oh no!”
  “Ay,” said Fenodyree, “and a fine chase we had of it!
   “But I have heard from Susan of how you gained the stone, and I say
Cadellin, old wizard though he is, was wrong to think you have no place in
this. You have shown yourselves worthy this day, and I would take you
with us beyond the end of adventure, if you so wished it and it should
come to that.”
  “Cousin Wineskin,” interrupted Durathror, “well it is said of you that
your tongue would still wag if it were cut out. This talk is pleasant, and no
doubt there is much more to be said, but our errand is not over, and I
would fain rid my lungs of the stink of this place.”
  “But of course!” said Fenodyree. jumping to his feet. Forgive me,
Durathror. Let us go. The way to the light is not long, and we shall tell all
our tales in Fundindelve within the hour.”
  “I hope so,” said Durathror. “But you must know that when I found the
Young Dog there were svarts with him, and one, alas. still lives. I feel our
journey will be merry ere it is done.”
   “Quickly then,” said Fenodyree. “We should not have lingered. Susan,
behind me: then Colin: Durathror will guard the rear. Nay, do not look so
amiss, Colin; Durathror meant no insult. Your name, in my own tongue, is
as he said, and it is an old name, and bears much honour. Now let us go
with speed.”
   As they hurried along, Colin managed to find out from Susan all that
had happened to her. It appeared that two svarts had seized her from
behind, almost stifling her with their hands, and had carried her off. She
had heard Colin's shouts die away, and was on the point of despairing
altogether, when there was a loud cry, and the svarts dropped her and ran.
She felt someone leap over her and follow in pursuit; but she almost died
of shock, she said, when the voice of Fenodyree, close beside her, asked if
she was unharmed. In the distance there were two shrieks, followed by the
sound of returning footsteps; and so she met Durathror.
  “But I don't know how it is they managed to do all this in the dark.”
   “How can an eagle fly? how can a fish swim?” laughed Fenodyree over
his shoulder.
  “Yes, but how did you find me so quickly? said Colin. Was it luck?”
  “Luck? shouted Durathror. I had but to put my ear to the ground and
your bellowing all but split my head. The wonder of it is that I found no
more than two of the svart-alfar in your company.”
  “Shh!” said Fenodyree, holding up his hand. “We must go carefully
now.”
  He listened, ear to the ground, as Durathror had done.
  “Svarts are moving, but they are far away. There may be no danger
here, yet.”
   The tunnel opened into a broad gallery; before them rose an outcrop of
rock, and it was the shape of a lion's head. Above the head the gallery
stretched to a great height, cutting through other levels and caves as it
went.
  “This is the Cave of the Svartmoot, and no place for us at any time.”
  The words were barely out of Fenodyree's mouth when a faint sound
came to them from far away. Colin and Susan had heard it once before: it
was the gong that had brought the svart-alfar out of the Devils Grave on
Stormy Point on the night when the children had been run to earth in the
marsh below the Holywell.
  “Ha!” cried Durathror, and the sword Dyrnwyn sang aloud as she
sprang from her sheath in an arc of light.
  “Not now: not now, said Fenodyree. It would be a good fight, but we
should go under, and the stone with us. We must pass unseen.”
   Durathror lowered his arm unwillingly, an expression of disgust on his
face.
   “By the cow of Orgelmir!” he growled. “Yours is sour counsel! I shall not
forget this day. Never before has one of the house of Gondemar turned
from battle—and with such carrion, too. When all is safe in Fundindelve I
must needs come here and put right this ill.”
  “Your arm may yet grow tired ere you see the light,” said Fenodyree.
“That is the call to svartmoot. We must hurry.”
   He scrambled lightly on to the lion's shoulders, and the others followed.
From the shoulder they climbed up a wall, pocked with smooth footholds,
to a narrow ledge that curved round to a gallery, overlooking the head. The
sound of many feet could now be heard drawing nearer. Every tunnel
murmured.
  Fenodyree made for a passage that wound into the roof.
  “Quickly, now! They are coming by this way, too, and we must reach
hiding before they meet us,”
   The tunnel wall ended, and they were upon a wide platform: far beneath
lay the cave. At the back of the ledge was a recess.
  “In here! And show no light.”
  Colin switched off the lamp, and felt the dwarfs press to him as they
crowded as far away from the entrance as they could. Susan, crushed
against the rear wall, could hardly breathe.
   They were none too soon; for barely had they settled themselves when
the svarts were upon them. They swept by the opening like a racing tide.
For a full minute Colin and Susan listened to the slap of feet, and the hiss
of breath. And then the unseen crowd was past, and the noise of its going
blended into the general confusion of rustling, croaking, piping, and
puling, which grew steadily louder as svarts poured into the cave from
every direction, and the air grew rank with their presence.
  As though at a given signal, the hubbub died, and a tense quiet fell
upon the assembled multitude. The svartmoot had begun.




                    CHAPTER 12.
            In the Cave of the Svartmoot

 “Do not move,” Fenodyree whispered. Durathror and I go to watch the
moot. We shall come back as soon as we know what they intend.”
  The dwarfs went so quietly that even in that silence Colin and Susan
heard nothing.
  Below them, some minutes later, a voice began to speak in harsh, high
tones. The language was unintelligible it was full of guttural and nasal
sounds, and the words hovered and slurred most jarringly. The speaker
was working himself into a state of excitement, or anger, and the crowd
was carried with him. It began with a muttering, soon building to a howl
at every pause in the address.
  Colin felt a hand on his arm.
  “Come with me,” said Fenodyree. “Shortly you will see; but keep low.”
   Colin groped his way on all fours till he reached Durathror, who was
lying at the edge of the platform, and mumbling into his beard. Not long
after, Susan joined them. The noise below was now continuous.
 “They are cowards,” said Fenodyree, “and must be driven to a frenzy to
meet our swords, But he does his work well.
  “Ha, I guessed it would be so! They are powerless before sudden light,
therefore they are to prepare themselves with fire-drake blood; and here is
the Keeper!”
  The hysterical voices diminished to a murmur of intense excitement.
Then, for a second, the cave was hushed.
  “Down! whispered Fenodyree. “He is taking off the cover!”
  A sheet of fire sprang upwards past the ledge, and boiled against the
roof.
  “Eeee—agh—hooo!” roared the svarts.
  The flame sank to a column twenty feet in height. which lit the cave
with a red glare. A similar light had burned in St Mary's Clyffe earlier that
day.
  “You may look now,” said Fenodyree.
  Colin and Susan raised their heads, and the memory of what they saw
remained with them ever after.
   The floor and walls of the cave were covered with svarts. They swarmed
like bees. The first two layers of galleries were thick with them, and the
children were glad Fenodyree had climbed so high. The lions head, and a
small space beneath its jaws, formed an island in a turbulent sea. On top
of the rock stood two svarts, one black, the other white, and they were
man-size.
   “There you see Arthog and Slinkveal. lords of the svart-alfar. Slinkveal is
cunning past the thoughts of men, but Arthog it is who speaks, and carries
out his brother's word; and his heart is blacker than his hide. See now the
firedrake: the eyes of svarts can look on it without pain, and it makes
them strong to face the purer light of day: henceforth your lamp will be no
weapon.”
  The flame was rising out of a stone cup, full of a seething liquid, that
was held by a hideous, wizened svart who sat cross-legged on the sand
beneath the lions jaws. He was obviously very old, and his sagging skin
was piebald, white and black.
  “It is time we were gone,” said Fenodyree. “We have a comfortless road
ahead. Crawl to the tunnel, and do not show your light until I give you
word.”
  For a few yards only, the red glow lit their way. Behind them the tumult
increased again.
 “There is a corner ahead,” said Fenodyree, “and once round that you
may use your lamp.”
  He hurried them along at a relentless pace; and he seemed very
despondent. Durathror, on the other hand, was in a much improved
temper, and began to laugh to himself as he jogged along behind.
   “Did I not say the journey would be merry? Ha! By the blood of Lodur, it
is better than all I thought So we are to be tracked down, are we? And we
are to be met at the plankshaft, I hear: and if, all else fails, they wait for us
at the gate. Let us hurry to the gate, Cousin Squabnose, for I would have
these rat-eaters remember the gate in after-time, what few there will be to
sing of it when we have passed!”
  Fenodyree sighed, and shook his head.
   “You forget our charge, old Limbhewer. Firefrost is more to us than life,
or death in glory: we must sink our pride, and run before these goblins.
The gate is not for us.”
  “Not for us? Then how, pray, shall we gain the upper world? There is no
other road.”
   “There is: just one. And, in its fashion, it bears more perils than the
gate, though these cannot be mastered by the sword, At least, if we should
perish on this road, Firefrost will lie hidden for untold centuries to come;
for we are going where no svart will ever tread, nor any living thing, and
only I, in all the world, can tell the way.”
  “But Fenodyree? cried Susan, what do you mean? There are lots of
entrances!”
   “Not here. We are in West Mine, and from it there was one exit made.
But so deep did men delve that they touched upon the secret places of the
earth, known only to a few; and, of those, my father was the last. There
were the first mines of our people dug, ages before Fundindelve: little
remains now, save the upper paths, and they are places of dread, even for
dwarfs. They way is hidden, but my father taught me well. Never have I
trod the paths, save in evil dreams, and I had always hoped to be spared
the trial; but now it has come to that.”
  “Nay, speak this no more,” growled Durathror. “I like it not.”
  They travelled on without rest, talking little, for Colin and Susan had
not the energy, and Durathror was subdued by what he had heard.
  “It is not far.” said Fenodyree, “to . . . ah!”
  Ahead of them a light flickered on the wall: the source of the light was
hidden round a bend in the tunnel, but the dwarfs did not have to guess
what to expect.
   “What say you now, cousin? whispered Durathror eagerly. Do we run
like shadows before this light, or do we snuff it out?”
  Fenodyree's face was grim.
  “We are too near: we must not turn back.”
   “Good! This shall we do: let the men-children stand here. Go you
forward to yonder opening, and stay hidden, with drawn sword, till I call. I
shall wait behind this boulder. Hold your ground, Stone-maiden; be not
afraid. No svart will touch you, that I can promise!”
  And he melted into the dark.
  The light grew stronger, and cast shadows on the wall; spindly shadows,
with broad heads and hands; and round the bend came the svarts.
   There were ten of them, white svarts, with pug-noses. Each carried a
torch of wood that had been dipped in the flame of the firedrakes blood.
From a girdle round each of their waists hung a crude axe or hammer.
The head was a roughly worked stone, kidney or dumb-bell shaped; there
was a groove about the middle, round which was bent a withy lashed fight
with rat-skin thongs.
   Colin and Susan involuntarily shrank closer together, and the lamp
trembled in Colin's hand. The svarts halted; a deep sigh ran through them;
and slowly they began to advance.
  In spite of the knowledge that Durathror was close at hand, the children
had to fight to stop themselves from running.
   The svarts came on: the last of them was past Fenodyree. They held the
torches high, and the other hand was poised to clutch. Colin flashed the
lamp in their eyes, but they did no more than blink, and laugh hungrily.
The children retreated a step. The svarts rushed forward. But at that
moment Durathror stepped from behind the boulder, his sword Dyrnwyn
in his hand, and bowed low before them, and addressed them in their own
tongue.
  “Hail, O eaters of toadstools! We are well met!”
   The svarts fell back, mouths agape, and hissing after the fashion of
giant lizards. But those to the rear of the pack had more courage.
  “See they cried. It is he whom we must kill! The men-children are of no
matter, but our lords have long wanted his life, and for him was the moot
held.”
  “No! No!” screamed another. “There is the maid who tricked us, and
see! see! she has the stone once more! !”
  “The stone The stone! The stone!”
  “The morthbrood have played us false!”
  “Or she has stolen it!”
  “Seize them We shall take the stone to ourselves!”
  Their eyes glowed green and yellow as desire mastered their cowardice.
  “Ho!” cried Durathror. “So there is courage in svart-alfaheim! This is a
day of marvels, to be sure! Come, let my sword test the mettle of your
new-grown backbones!”
  “We come! We come!”
  And they hurled themselves upon the dwarf.
  “Gondemar!” bellowed Durathror, and he whirled Dyrnwyn above his
head with both hands. Two svarts died under that stroke. They buckled at
the knees, and crumbled into dust.
  “Gondemar!”
  Sparks flew as iron rang on stone, but there were now six svarts in the
tunnel, and four torches guttering on the sand. Six to one: far too few for
battle, whatever the prize. The svarts turned tail, and ran. Durathror
rested on his sword.
  “Cousin, it would seem Dyrnwyn is too bitter for their taste: let them
then savour Widowmaker!”
  Fenodyree came from hiding, and the svarts halted in dismay.
  “It is the white ones dog!”
  “What does he here?”
  “It is a trick!”
   One of the svarts turned, and ran towards Durathror, but, seeing he was
alone in this he scuttled back to his comrades, who were by this time in
distress. Fenodyree was laying about him in silence. He did not feel
Durathror's joy of battle these creatures stood between him and his
purpose, and must be killed that was all. He was no born fighter.
   The uproar grew less and less. Fenodyree's round helmet spun under
foot, and his mail shirt rang with the dint of blows: but not for long. Soon
the two dwarfs stood gazing at each other across a litter or torches and
stone hammers.
  “I see Widowmaker is well named!” Durathror chuckled. “She has
gained two upon me in this fight: I lead you now by one only. I must find
me more svarts!”
  “Nay, come away, cousin; we must not turn from the path, nor rest, till
we are beyond their reach.”
  Colin stooped to pick up a hammer. It was heavy, but balanced well.
  “Shall we take a couple? They may be useful.”
  “They would drag you to your death, where we are going,” said
Fenodyree. “Leave them; we do not need such tainted things . . .”
  “Durathror,” said Susan, as they journeyed on, “where do the svarts go
when they disappear?”
   “To dust, my Stone-maiden; to dust. They cannot endure the bite of
iron: it has a virtue that dissolves their flesh—and would all creatures of
Nastrond were as they!”
  “Here is the first of our trials,” said Fenodyree, “but it is naught that a
coot head will not overcome.”
  Before them the tunnel ended in a drop: they were in the roof of a cave,
and across the emptiness another tunnel lay. A broken ledge, no more
than a few inches wide, and sloping outwards, ran to it along the
overhanging wall.
 “There are handholds,” said Fenodyree. “Give me your light, so that you
may see, and have both hands free when you come.”
 It looked so easy as they watched him go crab-wise across the wall. He
moved smoothly and surely, and in a matter of seconds he was there.
   “Susan now, please. If your fingers have need of rest, half-way you will
find an iron spike to grip: it is firm. I shall light you.”
   It was easier than Susan expected. apart from the fact that the lamp
could not light hands and feet at the same time, which was occasionally
unsettling. Also, she would never have imagined how comforting an iron
spike could be, When her hand closed round it, it was as though she had
reached an island in a busy street. Susan was loth to leave that spike. She
stretched out for the next hold. found it, and was transferring her weight.
when something smashed into the wall close by her head, and splinters of
rock seared her cheek. She was caught in mid-stride, and for two dreadful
seconds she hung by one hand from the spike. The lamp's beam never
faltered. and Fenodyree's calm voice checked her panic.
  “A foot to the right, Susan. More; more. There. Now draw up your feet;
another inch, good. You are safe. Come slowly; do not be afraid.
  Across from Fenodyree, Colin had seen the stone axe spin in the
lamplight and crash against the rock; and, at the same time, he had heard
behind him a sword being drawn.
   “Cross as quickly as you may, said Durathror's voice in his ear. Stay not
for me. I go to teach this trollspawn manners.”
  And, with a ringing cry. Durathror threw himself off the ledge into
empty space. As he dropped beyond the light his cloak seemed to fold
about him in a curious way.
  “Are you ready?” called Fenodyree.
  Colin looked across, and saw his sister and Fenodyree together on the
other side.
  “Yes, I'm ready . . . but Durathror!”
  “He knows what he is about. He will not be long.”
  Nor was he. Colin had just gained the safety of the tunnel mouth when
he heard the dwarf's voice right behind him.
  “I lead you now, cousin Three skulked below. They heard our coming
and hid their torches: they died swiftly.”
   He was a little breathless. or perhaps indignation had the better of him,
for it was the first time he had ever been surprised in ambush.
  “But how did you do it?” cried Colin, “I saw you jump off the ledge
weren't you hurt?”
  Durathror threw back his head and laughed.
  “Woefully!”
  He held out his sword hand: the knuckle of his little finger was skinned.
  “Do not jest with them,” smiled Fenodyree. “They have not long been
among us, and there is still much they do not know.”
  They started along the tunnel. Fenodyree walked very slowly, and when
he spoke his voice was grave.
   “Listen to me now. We are about to leave West Mine. Were we to stay,
we should certainly die, though we took twice four hundred svarts with us,
and the weirdstone of Brisingamen would be lost. We may still die: fear is
in me greater than I have ever known. I say this now, so that when I lead
you into seeming madness you may know that I do not act rashly—or if I
do, there is no other course.
   “We are to pass through the upper galleries of the Earldelving to where
they touch upon another mine, the like of this, though smaller. The paths
were never wide or high, and the earth has stirred many times in her sleep
since they were dug: the road may no longer be as I was taught, and we
may lose ourselves for ever. But it is our only chance, if chance it be, and
we must take it. And here is the threshold: once beyond it. we may rest
awhile.”
  They were at the corner of yet another cave. Two of the three walls that
they could see were like any other in the mine, rough-hewn and fluted. But
the third, immediately to their right. was awesomely different. It's face
was smooth and grey, and it shot almost vertically, like a steel spade, into
the ground—or rather, where the ground should have been; for at the
dwarf's feet lay a shaft, a sloping chimney of stone. And it was into this
that Fenodyree was pointing.




               CHAPTER 13.
       “Where No Svart Will Ever Tread”

   Durathyor grunted, and picked up a lump of stone and tossed it into the
hole. It glanced off the smooth cliff and rocketed out of sight past a bend
in the shaft. For an age the hollow crashing of its fall was heard, then
silence, and, when all but Fenodyree had judged that that was the end, a
single, final, thump.
  “We must go down there?” whispered Susan.
  “And before our courage fails. Durathror, will Valham aid us here?”
  “Nay, cousin; the magic is mine alone; and I could not take you, for she
was made for elves and finds my unburdened weight a trial.”
  “It is as I thought. Will you stay here, then, lest svarts roll boulders on
our heads?”
  “That I can do, and will.”
  “Good. Colin, Susan, follow me; step where I step; do not hurry. So we
shall come safe to the end.”
   Fenodyree began to climb down the oblique first pitch of the shaft,
jamming himself into the angle between the two rock faces. Loose stones
rattled down before him, and only the biggest sounded the end of their
fall.
   “There is room for you both here,” he called from the bend; “come
singly, Colin first.”
  Colin lowered himself over the edge into the gully, and worked his way
down to within a yard of Fenodyree.
  “That is near enough,” said the dwarf. “Susan!”
  “Yes.”
  “Stop when you are as close to your brother as he is to me: we must not
crowd each other.”
  “Right.”
    It was unpleasant to crowd there helplessly while a river of stones
bounced off head, shoulders, and knuckles; but Susan was not long about
it.
  “This is the problem,” said Fenodyree when the clatter of debris had
faded away. “The shaft is like a bent knee, and we are in the crook,
therefore the slope down which we can climb is on the opposite side from
us. It is steeper, too. But I think I see a way. Across there, about five feet
down, is a ledge. If we jump from here and grasp the ledge we shall be well
on our road.
  “We shall be if we miss!” said Susan.
   “The deed is nothing. It is the thought that breeds fear; and we achieve
little by lingering.”
   And Fenodyree jumped. His fingers snatched for the rock, caught it,
and he lay against the sloping wall of the shaft, and did not speak or move.
At first the children thought he was unconscious, but they were soon to
find for themselves how easy it was to be winded in such a fall.
   “It is a good hold,” said Fenodyree. He eased himself a couple of feet
from the ledge, and took up a secure position astride a corner of the shaft.
  “Throw me your light.”
  “But what if you drop it?” said Colin.
  “I shall not drop it.”
  Colin let the lamp fall, and the dwarf caught it in both hands.
  “Now jump: you cannot miss.”
  Can't I? thought Colin.
   He had a brief impression of blackness stretching under him, and of the
ledge hurtling upwards, before the air was squashed from his lungs by
vicious impact with the rock. Blue and red stars exploded in his brain, and
a vacuum formed where his lungs should have been; but Fenodyree's
steadying hand was in the small of his back, and as his senses cleared,
Colin realized that his fingers had closed upon the ledge, and were holding
him, although he was numb from the elbows down.
   When the children and Fenodyree had recovered from the effects of the
drop they considered the next stage of their journey. Colin was perched
just below Fenodyree, while Susan had pulled herself on to the ledge and
was wishing she could spare a hand to massage her aching ribs. It felt as
though every bone in her body had been shaken loose by her fall.
  “There are no more bends for a distance,” said Fenodyree, “but whether
there is a safe passage I cannot tell.”
   The V-shaped gully continued for thirty feet, and they made good
progress. Fenodyree held the lamp, leaving Colin and Susan both hands
free; but light was still a problem. For when Fenodyree was above the
children, their shadows hid the rock below, causing them to grope blindly
for holds; and when he was below, it was difficult for him to shine the light
without blinding them. He could, however, direct their feet to holds that
he had tested, so they decided on this order of descent.
  At the foot of the gully three sides of the shaft opened out like the
shoulder of a bottle, leaving the remaining side, the all but sheer rock face,
within reach.
  “We can't go down there!” said Colin, aghast. “It's as smooth as ice!”
  “The eyes of men were ever blind,” said Fenodyree. “Can you not see the
crevices and the ledges?”
  The children peered down the shaft, but still it seemed to them
impassable.
   “Ah well, you must put your trust in me,” that is all. “We shall rest here
a little, for there will be no haven after this until we near the end.”
  He called up the shaft. “Is all quiet with you, cousin?”
   “Ay, though the chill of this place is beyond belief! It is well I have my
cloak! Svarts draw nearer, but they move slowly. I fear they will not come
in time.”
  “Are you ready?” said Fenodyree to the children.
  “As ready as we ever shall be, I suppose,” said Susan.
   “Good. Colin, you are well lodged, so your sister will go first. I shall clear
a way for you as far as I can. Have patience, and rest while I am gone, for
it will be a hard climb.”
  Fenodyree let himself down to the full extent of his arms, and scuffed
around with his toes until he had found, and cleared, a ledge: then he
searched for a lower finger-hold. and in this way slowly began the descent.
The wall was not quite as smooth as Colin and Susan had thought, but the
accumulated sand of years rendered the many cracks and projections
invisible to the children's eyes.
  Minutes, or hours, later (for it seemed an eternity in the nothingness of
the shaft) the children heard Fenodyree returning. Colin switched on the
lamp, and the dwarfs face, lined and grey with effort, came into view.
  “All . . . is . . . clear. Or . . . nearly so. We must . . . not delay . . . now.”
   Colin handed him the lamp, and Fenodyree climbed down to his first
station, from which he guided Susan on to the rock face. As soon as she
was immediately above him, he descended a little farther, and soon Colin
was left alone to his thoughts.
   Susan and Fenodyree moved quickly, for the holds were precarious,
giving no more than finger and toe room, and often barely that. To remain
still for more than a few seconds was to be in serious danger of falling. Yet
momentum was hard to check, and Susan more than once came near to
losing control of her speed; but, with Fenodyree's help, she achieved a
balance between these two fatal extremes.
   Colin had nothing to do but to avoid cramp and to watch the dwindling
oblong of light and his sisters foreshortened silhouette. And as he looked,
he gradually became aware of an optical illusion. Being in total darkness
himself, he could see nothing of the shaft except the small area lit by the
lamp in Fenodyee's hand; and as this drew farther away his sense of
perspective and distance was lost, so that he seemed to be looking at a
picture floating in space, a moving cameo that shrank but did not recede.
He was so fascinated by this phenomenon that he barely noticed the cold,
or the strain of being wedged in one unalterable position.
    The patch of light contracted until it appeared to be no bigger than a
match-box, and Colin was wondering how deep the shaft could possibly
be, when the light was extinguished. But before he had time to be
seriously alarmed, he heard Fenodyree's voice shouting up to him, though
what the message was he had no idea, for distance and the shaft reduced
it to a foggy booming, out of which not a single intelligible word emerged.
Still, the tone of the voice held no urgency, so he presumed that Susan was
at the bottom and that Fenodyree was on his way up—which, in fact, was
what the dwarf had intended him to understand, and Colin had not long
to wait before the lamp flashed on a yard below where he was Sitting.
  “Oh,” said Fenodyree. “I am a sight . . . weary . . . of this shaft!
Durathror!”
  “Ay?”
  “When we are below . . . I shall call. What of the svarts?”
  “They went by another road. More follow.”
  The shelf on which Susan was resting lay at the foot of the wall. At this
point there was a kink in the shaft, like the bend of a drainpipe, and
Fenodyree had said that the true bottom of the shaft was not far below.
   Susan flexed her fingers, and wriggled her toes, The bulk of the descent
had not been too bad, once she had developed a rhythm, and her nerves
had settled, but the fast fifty feet of the wall were perpendicular, and the
strain on her fingers had proved too much, and, on three occasions, only
Fenodyree's quick reactions had saved her from coming off the rock.
  The sound of the dwarf's voice brought Susan out of her thoughts, and
she saw that Colin was beginning the final stretch, the crucial fifty feet. He
was lowering himself over the sharp ridge that marked the end of the
inclined pitch, and it was punishing him no less than it had his sister: he
would carry the bruises for days. And how Fenodyree climbed with only
one free hand was a marvel. He was nearing the end of his third trip up
and down the shaft, and there he was, taking Colin's weight on his
shoulder and guiding him to the next hold.
   “Twenty feet more, Colin, and we shall be there! Bring your left hand
down to the inside of your right knee. Your other hand will fit there, too.
Steady? Now lower yourself as far as your arms will let you. There is room
for your left foot. Right hand out at your shoulder's level; not so far There.
Six inches down with your right foot.” Fenodyree stepped on to the shelf.
“Now your left hand to the side of your hip . . .”
  A minute later Colin was standing beside Susan.
  “We are not yet at the foot,” the dwarf reminded them. “See what
awaits.”
  He guided them down the shelf to the mouth of the lower end of the
shalt. The shelf grew rapidly steeper, and very smooth. There were no
holds at all.
  “What do we do now?” cried Susan.
  “We slide Oh, never fear, it is no great way, and there is sand to break
your fall.”
  The children remained apprehensive, but Fenodyree insisted that there
was no danger, and, to prove his word, he sat at the top of the shelf and
pushed off with his hands. There was a swish, silence, and a soft bump.
  “It is as I said,” called Fenodyree, and he shone the light upwards.
  “All right,” said Susan, “but . . . oh! !”
  The chute was far smoother than Susan had anticipated and, caught off
her guard, she tobogganed helplessly into the air, and landed at the
dwarf's feet with her knees in her stomach, winded for the second time in
the space of an hour. It was small consolation that Colin fared no better.
Fenodyree had not lied there was sand, but it was wet and, consequently,
hard.
 While the children lay croaking, Fenodyree cupped his hands to his
mouth and shouted:
  “Du-rath-ror!”
  An answering voice echoed in the shaft.
  “We shall rest here,” said Fenodyree, “but we must not stay long, for if
we do not win clear of the Earldelving by sunset we shall have no choice
but to stay there until the dawn, and that would he grim indeed.”
  “Nay, then,” said Durathror, “let us forgo our rest.”
  He was standing on the shelf at the foot of the great wall.
  “But . . .”
  “But how have you . . .?”
  “I fell!” shouted Durathror merrily. “See!”
   And he leapt down to join the children and Fenodyree. His cloak
whirled about him, and he landed lightly on his feet with as little
disturbance as if he had skipped from the bottom treads of a staircase.
  The foot of the shaft opened into a small chamber, three or four feet
high. and it was flooded except for the pyramid of sand in the middle.
  Fenodyree bade the others make themselves as comfortable as possible,
but it was not easy to stay dry, and, at the same time, to be out of the path
of any svart-sent boulders that might land in their midst.
  Colin and Susan divided the remains of the food and drink between the
four of them. And as they ate, the dwarfs pieced together the events that
had brought them so unexpectedly to hand in time to rescue Susan and to
bring havoc among the svarts.
   This was their story. Durathror and Fenodyree were walking near Castle
Rock when the kestrel Windhover brought news that Grimnir had risen
from the lake and had entered St Mary's Clyffe. The dwarfs knew that
where Grimnir was, there would be Firefrost, and that this may be their
chance. Cadellin was prowling in the hills towards Ragnarok to find out if
word of the stone had spread, for he was as anxious as Grimnir to keep its
present whereabouts a secret. He could not possibly come; so the dwarfs
decided to attack alone, and in no time Fenodyree had gathered his
armour, and they were on their way.
  They heard of the children's arrival from Windhover, whom they had
arranged to meet in the cover of the garden next to St Mary's Clyffe.
Grimnir and the Morrigan, said Windhover, were in an upper room: there
was unpleasantness behind curtains downstairs. The hounds were loose.
  “Do you wait by the entrance wall,” said Durathror.
   “Windhover shall take me where these morthdoers hide, and I shall
disturb them, and, with Dyrnwyn drive all thought of Firefrost from their
heads. Wait for a space after you hear me fall upon them, seek the stone in
the lower room, for there I think it will be, and so to Fundindelve, where I
shall join you if I may.”
   Then Durathror went with the kestrel to the room under the eaves. It
was as Colin and Susan had begun to suspect: he had the power of flight.
It lay in his cloak of eagle feathers, a survival from the elder days. and a
token of great friendship.
   When his moment came, Fenodyree ran for the door: to his surprise it
was open, and he entered warily. On finding the curtained room empty he
was perplexed, but he had no time to search farther, for as he was about
to try the kitchen door it was thrown open, and Durathror cannoned into
him. There was savage joy stamped on his face as he spun Fenodyree into
the cloakroom where the children had lately been hiding, and closed the
door. Seconds later Grimnir stumbled out of the kitchen, followed by
Shape-shifter. The empty room, the open door.
  “The dwarf has taken It!” screamed Shape-shifter, and they both rushed
out into the mist.
  “Have you the stone?” whispered Fenodyree incredulously.
  “Nay, but it is in good hands!”
   They came out from the cloakroom the mist had rolled away: in the
distance a hound bayed.
   “I could not kill the morthdoers, since their magic is greater than my
sword, but they will feel her smarts for many a day.” Durathror chuckled.
“I came to join you in the end, but, entering yonder room, I saw two things
to make me pause. There is a cupboard against the wall, and a hound of
the Morrigan made clamour against it but the door was closed, and I had
seen what closed it—a small white hand, cousin, and Firefrost shone upon
the wrist I slew the beast the rest you know.”
  Fenodyree ran into the kitchen.
   “Come out, children! Susan! Colin!” He seized the cupboard handle. Oh,
you will be remembered when . . .” He stared into the shaft, and saw a
square of wood begin to grow rapidly larger as it climbed towards him out
of the far depths.
  “And it was but luck that brought us to you when we were beyond
hope!” said Durathror.
  “If only we'd known!” cried Susan.
  “Ay,” said Fenodyree; “ ‘if only'. We should have been in Fundindelve ere
now.”
  The children told their story, and when they described the crossing of
the plank the dwarfs grew excited.
  “Hair of the Moondog!” shouted Durathror. “And did you not go on?”
  “Oh yes, said Colin, but the tunnel finished on a platform over a lake.”
  Durathror put both hands to his head and groaned in mock despair.
   “Had you but known it,” said Fenodyree sadly, “the water is little more
than a foot deep, and the way from there leads to the gate, not half a mile
distant.”
  After such a revelation the children had not the heart to talk. They
huddled, wrapped in their thoughts, and their thoughts were the same.
Here they sat, at the bottom of a shaft, at the end of the world: they had
gained the weirdstone of Brisingamen, but that success promised to be the
beginning, and not the end of danger, and where it would lead them they
dared not think.
  “We must move now,” said Fenodyree.
   When they switched on the light Colin and Susan examined their
surroundings in detail for the first time: and an awful truth dawned on
them. There was no obvious way out of the chamber. Two tunnels led off
in opposite directions, but they were flooded, and the roofs dropped
steadily to meet the green-tinged water.
  “Fenodyree! How do we get out of here?”
  “Ay, cousin,” said Durathror, “all the while since I came I have sought a
way to leave, but I see none.”
  Fenodyree nodded towards the smaller of the tunnels. “Did I not say
that the road was hard? Colin, is the wrapping for your food proof against
water?”
  “Yes, I think so. But Fen . . . ! !”
  “Then when we start, cover the light with it. You will have to trust to my
eyes alone for a time.”
   “And may I have your covering for Valham, my cloak?” said Durathror
to Susan.
  He unbuckled his feathered cloak and rolled it tightly to fit into the
sandwich bag, and Susan fastened it in her pack, which if anything,
seemed lighter for the load.
  “Put out the light,” said Fenodyree. “And have courage.”




                           CHAPTER 14.
                          The Earldelving

  The water was so cold that it took their breath away. Even Durathror,
the hardened warrior, could not stifle the cry that broke from his lips at
the first shock.
   They waded along the tunnel for a short distance before having to swim,
and they had not gone much farther when Fenodyree stopped and told the
others to wait while he went ahead. He drew a deep breath, there was a
flurry and a splash, and he did not answer when Colin spoke.
  “Where has he gone?” asked Susan.
  “The roof and water meet where he left us,” said Durathror.
  Two minutes passed before Fenodyree broke the surface again, and it
was some time after that before he could speak.
  “It is no distance, he said when at length his breathing was under
control, and the air is fresh, but the root is low for many yards. so we must
swim on our backs.”
  Another swirl, and he was gone.
  “I'll wait about a minute,” said Susan. She was more frightened than
she cared to admit, but she hoped Colin and Durathror would think that
her teeth were chattering with the cold alone.
  “Right: here goes.”
  “She has great courage,” said Durathror. “She hides her fear better than
any of us.”
  “Are you scared too?” said Colin.
    “Mortally. I will pit my wits and sword against all odds, and take joy in
it. But that is not courage. Courage is fear mastered, and in battle I am
not afraid. Here, though, the enemy has no guile to he countered, no
substance to be cast down. Victory or defeat mean nothing to it. Whether
we win or lose affects us alone. It challenges us by its presence, and the
real conflict is fought without ourselves. And so I am afraid, and I know
not courage.”
  “Oh.” said Colin. He felt less isolated now, less shut in with his fears.
“Well, I'd better be on my way.”
  “Good luck to you,” said Durathror.
  Colin held his dive as long as possible, but the icy water constricted his
lungs, and he soon was in need of air. He rose to what he implored would
be the surface. but his hands and the back of his head scraped against the
roof. Flustered, he kicked himself into a shallow dive, his stomach
tightening, and his head seeming about to burst. This time. No! Again he
struck the roof. What was wrong? Why was there no air? Fenodyree had
said . . . ah! He remembered! Swim on your back the roof is low. That's it
Colin turned frantically on to his back: the knapsack pulled at his
shoulders and began to tilt him upside-down. He threshed the water and
managed to right himself. And then his lips broke surface. The air rushed
out of his lungs, and Colin promptly sank, swallowing a lot of water. He
kicked off so violently from the tunnel floor that he nearly stunned himself
on the roof, but it quelled the panic, and he lay on his back, breathing air
and water by turns.
   The roof was certainly low. In order to keep his lips above water he had
to squash his nose against the rough stone of the ceiling, which made
progress as painful as it was difficult.
   After twenty yards, Colin was relieved to find that the distance between
surface and roof was increasing, and, before long, he was able to turn on
to his face and swim more naturally. But where were the others? He trod
Water.
  “Hallo! Ahoy! Sue!”
  “Here!”
  It was Susan's voice, and not far ahead, either. Almost at once the water
grew shallow, and then he was knee-deep in mud, and Fenodyree's arm
was about him.
  “Oh, let me sit down!”
  Durathror joined them presently, and he was in great distress.
  “Squabnose,” he gasped, “I have been near death many times, but never
has he stretched out his hand so close, or looked more terrible''
  Colin unwrapped the lamp to discover how it had withstood the rough
passage. It was none the worse, and by its light the children saw that they
were lying on a bank of red mud, soft and very sticky. Ahead of them was a
tunnel, but it was far different from any in West Mine. The roof ran
square to the walls, and nowhere was more than a yard high. The colours
were striking, for the walls were of a deep-red shale, and the roof was a
bed of emerald copper ore.
  The going was difficult enough without the mud. It was no so bad for
the dwarfs, but Colin and Susan developed a severe ache in neck and back
very quickly. The tunnels never ran straight, and they would branch five
times in as many yards. Caves were few, and seldom bigger than an
average room. Water was everywhere; and what few shafts barred the way
were flooded, and therefore easily crossed.
   After half a mile the relatively open passages were left behind, and now
even the dwarfs were forced to crawl all the time. Roof falls became
frequent, too, and negotiating them was an arduous business. The
children were continually surprised by the way in which it was possible to
force their bodies through holes and cracks that looked as though they
would have been a squeeze for a kitten, but they found that, no matter
how impracticable a gap appeared, if a head and one arm could be pushed
through together, then the rest of the body would, eventually, follow.
  Now and again they would come upon a stretch of rock over which the
water had washed a delicate curtain. This was to be found where a vein of
ore lay just above the roof: the water, trickling through the copper, over
the years had spread a film of colour down the wall, ranging from the
palest turquoise to the deepest sea-green.
   The tunnels grew more constricted and involved. Susan particularly
disliked having to worm herself round two corners, at once. She thought of
the picture of Alice in the White Rabbit's house, with an arm out of the
window, and one foot up the chimney.
  “That's just how it is here,” she grumbled; “only this ceilings lower!”
  Fenodyree called a halt in a cave into which they fitted like the
segments of an orange. But they could stand partially upright, which was
some relief.
   “We have put the greatest distance behind us,” said Fenodyree, “but it
is from here that our chief dangers lie. Between Durathror's feet is the
passage that will take us to the light.”
  “What?” cried Susan. “But that's only a rabbit-hole!”
  “If it were the eye of a needle, we should still have to pass through it to
gain the upper world. But do not despair: we are not the first to come this
way, though I think we shall be the last. My father travelled the
Earldelving seven times, and he was an ample dwarf by our reckoning.
  “Now we must make ready. Take note of what I say, for this is the last
chance of speech until we come to safety, and there will be no room for
error.”
  Under Fenodyree's instructions Colin and Susan took off their
knapsacks—a complicated manoeuvre in that space—and fastened them
by the strap to one ankle. Susan's pack held Durathror's cloak, and Colin
was still carrying the lemonade bottle: this he discarded. Fenodyree
advised him to put away his lamp, for, he said. hands would be needed
more than eyes.
  He bade Durathror take off his sword.
  “Keep her ever before you,” he said, “and so neither Dyrnwyn nor the
son of Gondemar will be lost.”
  And he unbuckled his own sword and pushed it into the opening.

                                    ***
   Durathror stood alone in the silence of the underworld, He took the
empty bottle that Colin had thrown down, and set it upright in the middle
of the floor. A wry smile touched his lips as he looked at it. And shortly
afterwards the cave was empty, save for this one monument to Wild
endeavour . . .

                                    ***
   Both the children had the greatest difficulty in entering the tunnel. For
the first yard or so it sloped downwards and then turned uphill, not
sharply, but enough to cause acute discomfort at the bend. Sand choked
the entrance, though even when that was behind them the tunnel was so
heavily silted that it was almost beyond the children to move at all. They
lay full length, walls, floor, and roof fitting them like a second skin. Their
heads were turned to one side, for in any other position the roof pressed
their mouths into the sand and they could not breathe. The only way to
advance was to pull with the fingertips and to push with the toes, since it
was impossible to flex their legs at all, and any bending of the elbows
threatened to jam the arms helplessly under the body.
   The tunnel was unlike any they had met in the Earldelving, for, although
it was not straight, it did not branch. This factor, and the plugging of the
tunnel by four bodies, meant that the leader was the only one to be able to
breathe at all well.
  They became unbearably hot. Sand lodged in every fold of skin, and
worked into mouth, nose, and ears.
   Colin found that he had to rest more and more frequently. He thought
of the hundreds of feet of rock above and of the miles of rock below, and of
himself wedged into a nine-inch gap between.
  “I'm a living fossil! Suppose I stick here: that'll make archaeologists sit
up!”
   Ahead. Fenodyree was battling with a fresh difficulty. He had reached a
spot where the tunnel bent abruptly under upon itself like a hairpin, and
teasing Widowmaker's rigid blade through the angle, at arm's length, was
no simple task. Strained nerves and muscles are not an aid to fine
judgement. He succeeded, but it was some time before he was in any
condition to follow his sword. Fenodyree was coming to the end of his last
reserve of strength.
   Susan felt the obstacle with dismay. It was not possible! But where was
Fenodyree? He must have found a way round, so perhaps, like most
hazards underground, it was easier than it looked. Anyway, lying there
thinking about it would not do much good, so she tucked in her head, and
jack-knifed round into the lower level. It was unpleasant, especially when
her heels scraped the roof, but her weight carried her down, and it was
soon over.
  Colin was an inch taller than his sister, and that was disastrous. His
heels jammed against the roof: he could move neither up nor down, and
the rock lip dug into his shins until he cried out with pain. But he could
not move.
  Durathror, coming up behind, took in the situation at once.
  “Can you hear?” he shouted at Colin's ankles.
  “Yes.”
  “The reply was barely audible, “Try—to—turn—to—your—side!
Then—to—your—belly! I—shall—guide—your—feet! Are—you— ready?”
  “Yes.”
  Durathror's sword jutted beside Colin's feet, and although it was in its
scabbard, matters would not be improved if it became entangled with
Colin's wildly jerking legs.
  Colin screwed himself round in the tunnel. It was really not possible, but
desperation tipped the scales; and once he was on his stomach, his knees
bending with the tunnel, there was just enough play for Durathror to force
Colin's legs round the angle, and from then on Colin was better off than
any of the others, because they were now lying on their backs, and in that
position movement was even more exhausting and unpleasant.
   Fenodyree jerked his way along with renewed vigour, for this bend was
the last great hazard, according to his lore. Imagine, then, his horror when
his sword splashed in water. He twisted his head all ways. He could not
see; but his hands brought him bad news. The tunnel dipped, and was
flooded to the roof. This had not been so in his father's time: so much for
the elder days!
   The end of the tunnel was not yet. How far did the water lie? Inches?
Yards? He would have to squirm along, holding his breath (and he was
panting uncontrollably at the start!), in the hope that he would come to
air. Retreat would be impossible, as it was now. And that decided him.
Better a quick road to forgetfulness than a lingering one. But it called for
nerves of steel to edge forward into the water, and, at the last, under.
  This moment was to be endured three times more as Susan, Colin, and
Durathror made the choice that was no choice. But once they grappled
with the terror it did not last: for the water had collected in a shallow,
U-shaped bend, not two yards long, and they all emerged on the other side
before their lungs were drained of air. They cried or laughed, each
according to his nature, but the sound in all cases was the same.
  Not much later the floor began to drop away from the roof, and it was
possible to crawl on hands and knees. The children wrestled with the
sodden webbing of their packs and talked rapidly and loudly of the perils
they had faced, and said how good it was to move freely again.
  “Taken all in all,” said Fenodyree, “the Earldelving has not used us ill: I
had feared it would be more cruel. From here we shall be in little danger,
provided that we respect the smaller risks.”
   They now pressed on with all speed, for there could be scarcely an hour
of daylight left, and the prospect of having to spend the night in wet
clothes, with mud for a bed, was in no way appealing.
  After a time, Susan thought she saw a faint grey blur ahead of them
past Fenodyree's shoulder. She switched off the lamp.
  “Here, Sue What are you playing at?”
  “Look! Daylight!”
   It was and soon they had reached it. They were at the end of the tunnel,
and at the bottom of a shaft. The converging lines of its gleaming, wet
sides mounted to a tiny square of blue, a whole world away.
  “We've not got to climb up this shaft, have we?” said Colin.
  “Nay.” laughed Fenodyree, “we shall be in dire straits ere I ask that of
you! Our way is easier by far.”
  He raked about with his feet behind the pile of rubbish at the bottom of
the shaft.
  “It is somewhere . . . ah, I have it!”
  He dragged to one side a mass of decaying branches to reveal a hole in
the floor.
   “Here is the exit from the Earldelving: once through here, we cannot
return.”
  It was a sloping continuation of the shaft, though only half its breadth,
and it was cut through stiff clay that glistened without ledge or fissure.
   “It is a pleasant ride,” said Fenodyree, seating himself on the edge, and
grinning at Susan. He peered down between his feet, nodded, and let go. A
faint splash marked the end of his glissade, and his voice sounded cheerily
a long way below.
   Susan lowered herself into the hole with extreme caution, but the edge
crumbled beneath her hand, and yet again she disappeared from view like
a bullet from a gun. She careered over the greasy surface, faster and faster,
and landed waist-deep in a mixture of water and mud that broke her fall,
but had little else to recommend it.
  “Oh!”
  “If you put your hand out to your left.” said Fenodyree close behind her,
“You will find a corner of rock pull yourself out with that. Good. Now feel
your way round to the tunnel. We shall soon be out of here.”
   The tunnel was flooded to a depth of three feet, and was sticky with
clay, but it was high, and not long. At its end rose a shaft that offered few
difficulties, for it was composed of a series of inclined pitches, connected
by wide shelves, so that it was more like scrambling up a giant stairway
then climbing a shaft. Only the last dozen feet were at all dangerous here
the rock was vertical, but the holds were many, and the top was gained
without trouble. From there a short passage led into a circular cave—and
daylight; real, accessible daylight. A tree trunk resting against the wall
took Fenodyree, with the others packed behind him up into a gully that
overlooked the cave: the gully became a ravine and above was open sky;
cold, crisp, dry air filled their lungs.
  The side of the ravine was scored with holes and ledges, and children
and dwarfs almost fell over each other as they swarmed up the last
monotony of stone, out of the eternal, stagnant silences, into light, and life,
and wide horizons. Then there was grass beneath them, and a wind upon
their cheeks.




                        CHAPTER 15.
                      A Stromkarl Sings

  Beyond the ravine wound the elf-road and the dwarfs lost no time in
hustling Colin. and Susan on to it, but once there they permitted
themselves to relax, for as long as they remained on the road, said
Durathror, they would he hidden from searching eyes.
   They made a bizarre picture in their all-over coats of red mud,
encrusted with yellow sand that spared only their more pliable features,
and these were daubed with red, as if they were in war-paint. But none of
that mattered now as they stepped out for Fundindelve, and their aching
limbs only sweetened the prospect of rest. After all they had undergone in
the barren caves, this scene of beauty, the waning light among the scented
pines, was almost unreal.
  “It's like a dream,” said Susan: “just like a dream. I can even imagine
there's music all around us!”
  “So can I!” said Colin. “It's like a harp. What can it be?”
   “A harp.” said Fenodyree, smiling. “See, on Goldenstone, a stromkarl
plays.”
  They had come to a junction in the path, and to their right stood a
boulder, with nothing golden about it that the children could see: it was
like any outcrop of weathered, grey sandstone, except that it had been
crudely worked to an oblong shape by men long dead, and a few now can
tell its purpose.
   On top of the stone sat a young man, plucking the strings of a harp. He
was less than three feet high: his skin lustrous as a pearl; his hair rippling
to his waist in green sea-waves. And the sad melody ran beneath his
fingers like water over pebbles.
  When summer in winter shall come
  Then shall be danger of war.
  A crow shall sit at the top of a headless cross,
  And drink of the noble's gentle blood so free.
  Between nine and thirteen all sorrow shall be done.
  A wolf from the east shall right eagerly come
  To a hill within the forest height.
  Beside a headless cross of stone,
  There shall the eagle die.
  “Why do you sing the old prophecies?” said Durathror. “Are they now to
be fulfilled?”
  “Who knows? I do but sing of the summer that has come in winter.
Does your road lead to Fundindelve?”
   All the while the stromkarl was speaking, his hands plucked the silver
strings, and the tone of his bell-like voice against the background of music
was a song. He looked at neither the children nor the dwarfs once the
whole time, but concentrated on his harp, or gazed out towards the hills.
  “It does indeed,” said Fenodyree, “and we take with us the weirdstone of
Brisingamen!”
  “I am glad,” said the stromkarl. “But you will not go to Fundindelve.”
  “What do you say? How shall we not?”
  “The hooded one sits by Holywell, and the Shape-shifter watches the
gates: and to them are gathering the morthbrood. The svart-alfar will be
there at sunset, and with the night are coming others. No birds will fly,
save the eyes of the Morrigan. It will be dark within the hour; see to it that
you are not under the sky at that time.”
  “Our swords will be ever at your command for this!” said Durathror.
You have done more than guard our lives.”
  The stromkarl lowered his head.
  “My people will aid you where they may: fare you well!”
  And he jumped down on the other side of Goldenstone, and they did not
see him again.
  “It never crossed my mind that this would be their course,” said
Fenodyree, “obvious though it was. Oh, I am not wise in judgement as a
dwarf should be!”
  “Nay,” said Durathror, “your wits have served us nobly this day. But
what is there for us now?”
  “I do not know.”
  “Can we get to the farm before dark?” said Colin.
  “That is a good plan!” Fenodyree smote his hands together. “With luck,
the morthbrood will not hear of your part in this until the svart-alfar
come, and they may be late if they are still searching for us in West Mine.
We should reach the farm, but whether it will be shelter for the night I
cannot be certain.”
  “What of the stone?” said Durathror.
  “We must find Cadellin,” said Fenodyree. “In his hands it will be secure,
and he can wield its might for our safe-keeping.”
   “Why, then, give me the stone! He shall have it ere you can reach the
farm!”
  “Do you see those?” said Fenodyree, pointing across the fields.
  “I see; but what of it? Rooks flock homeward daily at this hour, and in
greater numbers than are flying there.”
  “Did you not hear the stromkarl say that no bird flies this day? Those
are not rooks: you would be torn asunder within the minute. They know
where Cadellin is as well as I, and that we must find him.”
  “Then how shall we do this?”
  “We must go stealthily, on foot, and seek him in the hills.”
  Colin looked at the rolling mass of the Pennines, out of which the first
shadows of night were creeping.
  “But how do we find him up there, and how can we move without being
seen? It's nearly all open moorland.”
   “We move by day, when their eyes are weakest, and if there is scant
cover for us, there is more chance that we shall see the morthbrood from
afar. As for Cadellin, I am to meet him on the summit of Shuttlingslow
yonder at dawn on the morning of the fourth day from this. There is little
hope of finding him sooner. Our greatest task will be to avoid the
morthbrood for so long.”
  They headed for the farm with all speed, keeping under cover wherever
possible, though the lanes were almost deserted at that time of day. Only
the occasional farm-labourer cycling home disturbed their progress, for
the dwarfs insisted on hiding at any sign of life. “The morthbrood travel in
many guises,” said Durathror.
  They came over the Riddings as the first stars were shining, and they
saw Gowther's solid figure, Scamp at his heels, going the round of the
shippons and stables to fasten up for the night. The individual, isolated,
sounds of twilight, the clink of a chain, the rattle of a door, the ring of
boots on cobbles, carried far on the evening air.
   Gowther was crossing to the house as the weary party entered the
farmyard.
  “Hallo!” he said, eyeing them up and down. “What have we got here?
You look as if you've been through every marl-pit between here and
Wornish Nook! Hey, and wheer are your bikes?”
  “It is a good story, farmer Mossock,” said Fenodyree, “but I would fain
have a roof over my head for the telling of it.”
   “What?” said Gowther. He peered hard at the dwarf. “Here, wait a
minute: I know thee! You're the feller as threatened me some months
back, anner you? Well, I've got a bone or two to pick with thee: and I'd like
to know what mischief you've been getting these childer into!”
  He loomed over the dwarf, and made to grab hold of him, but
Widowmaker came from her scabbard like lightning, and the broad
blade's point rested against Gowther's cask of a chest.
   “I am he: and much sorrow has come of your words that day, though it
is not of my doing.
  “I mean you no harm, farmer Mossock, and I crave your help; but every
moment we stand here exposed to watching eyes adds to our peril. Let us
right our grievances behind locked doors.”
  “You've got to trust him, Gowther!”
  “You must!” cried Susan. “He's saved our lives more than once today!”
  “And it is dangerous to be out here!”
   “You'll understand when we tell you!” Gowther looked at the anguished
faces of the children, then down at the steady blade.
  “All reet,” he said slowly. “You con come in. But you dunner move a step
towards the door while you've got that thing in your hond. And think on, I
want an explanation; and it had best be good!”
  Fenodyree sheathed his sword, and smiled.
  “It will be interesting, farmer Mossock.”

                                     ***
  “Well This is the rummest do I've come across! It is that! What about
thee, Bess?”
  Bess was ironing Fenodyree's rapidly washed tunic, and she pointed
with her flat-iron at the two dwarfs, who were squatting on either side of
the hearth wrapped in blankets.
  “Theer's little use in saying pigs Conner fly, when you see them catching
swallows! But I dunner like the sound of it at all.
   “And you say as you've to get our Bridestone to the top of Shuttingslow
by Friday morning? Well, that wunner be difficult. You two con stay here,
if you've a mind to, and catch a bus from Macclesfield to Wildboarclough,
and then all you'll have to do is climb up the hill and meet your wizard.”
  “We must take no chances,” said Fenodyree. “That would he a
dangerous course, we shall go on foot.”
  “Well, I don't see it, myself.” sniffed Bess.
  “When do we start?” asked Susan.
  “At dawn tomorrow. We dare not stay long in any place.”
  “ ‘We'?” said Bess. “Oh, no! If you think you're dragging these two
childer off on your madcap errands you con think again!”
  “Oh. but Bess . . . ! !”
  “Ay. its all very well saying ‘but Bess'! What would your mother do if she
knew of these goings on? She's enough to worry about as it is. And look at
the state you were in this evening! You conner run risks like that and get
away with it every time.”
   “Mistress Mossock,” said Durathror, “the Stone-maiden and her
brother are children, but they have warriors' hearts they deserve well of
this quest.”
  “That's as may be. But what should we say to their parents if they went
out of here in the morning, and never came back? We're responsible for
them, tha knows.”
   “If Colin and Susan do not see this through to the end in the company of
those best fitted to help them,” said Fenodyree, “their chances of ever
setting eyes on parents or home again will be less than little. They have
thwarted evil this day, and it will be a pledge of honour for witch and svart
alike to make good that wrong. It would be madness to leave them
unprotected here.”
  “Ay, I follow your meaning—if all we've heard is true.” said Gowther.
“Yon's a good point. But we're still responsible, choose how you look at it.”
He stood up to knock his pipe out against the bars of the grate. “I'll be
coming with you in the morning.”

                                   ***
   As soon as the dwarfs were dressed, they wrapped themselves in their
blankets and said they would sleep for a couple of hours, but they were to
be woken immediately at the least hint of trouble. They had already seen
to it that everybody's bedding had been brought down into the kitchen, for
they insisted that they should all stay in the one room that night, with
ample supplies of food, light, and fuel.
  At nine o'clock Durathror awoke and said he was going outside to see
how the land lay.
   He stole across the farmyard and up the hill to the top of the Riddings.
The light north-easter that had been blowing for many days had veered to
the north, and was much stronger. The full moon was rising in a clear sky;
clear, except for the north. There banks of cloud were piling on the
horizon, and Durathror frowned. He sniffed the air, and looked warily all
about him.
   “Wind's getting up a bit, inner it?” said Gowther when the dwarf
returned.
  “Ay: it is not a good wind: I have doubts.”
   Colin and Susan had dropped off to sleep very early and by eleven
o'clock Gowther and Bess were nodding in their chairs.
  Shortly before midnight Scamp began to growl. It started as a distant
rumble deep in his chest, and grew to a hard-throated snarl. His lips
curled and his hackles rose. Durathror and Fenodyree quietly drew their
swords and took up stations either side of the door. Scamp barked, but
Gowther hushed him and sent him under the table: yet still he whined,
and growled, and rolled his eyes. All ears were straining to catch the least
sound, but no sound came.
  “Happen it's a fox,” whispered Gowther.
  Fenodyree shook his head.
  “Something is coming: I can feel it.”
  “Mossock!” said a voice just outside the door. “Mossock, are you there?”
  “It is the Place woman,” whispered Durathror to Gowther.
  “Ay, I'm here. What do you want?”
  “You know what we want. Hand over to us the children, the
dwarfs—and the stone, and you shall go unharmed.”
  “And supposing I tell thee to go and jump in the Bollin, what then?”
  “Do not play the fool with us. Mossock. You have a minute in which to
open this door before we break it, and you. Your house will fall, and weeds
will grow on this land for a hundred years. Hurry We are not usually so
indulgent. Do not ask for trouble.”
  “Pay no heed: she is bluffing.” said Fenodyree. “They cannot pass over a
threshold unasked. It is an old binding spell stronger than any they can
weave.”
  “Oh? Reet Did you hear that, Mrs Place? Well, to make it quite clear
how we stond, here it is straight, and simple. You Conner come in!”
  There was a moment's silence before the Morrigan spoke again, and
now her voice was soft, and more menacing than before.
  “We did not expect it to be so easy. But do not deceive yourselves by
thinking that, because we cannot enter, you are safe. Wherever you are,
and whatever you do, there is no escape; for we have called those to whom
such spells are meaningless, and tomorrow night they will come to you.
Listen, dwarfs! Can you not hear them? The mara are stirring. Soon they
will be awake!”




                      CHAPTER 16.
                   The Wood of Radnor

   Along the crest of the Riddings the morthbrood watched Shape-shifter
climb laboriously up from the farm. Grimnir sat a little apart from the
brood, while over the top of the hill, in an old quarry, were mustered the
svart-alfar.
   “They are all there,” said the Morrigan. “And they will not be drawn,
though we think the threat of the mara will bring them out once the night
is gone. On the move, we shall have them: but we must raise the
fimbulwinter at daybreak.
  “Is slinkveal here? Good. The svart-alfar will remain in the quarry until
dawn. You will not be needed, but then again, you may.
  “The watchers have been chosen, and know their duties. Grimnir will
accompany us to resume our work.”

                                   ***
  Durathror and Fenodyree kept watch by turns throughout the night,
and at six o'clock they woke the others: by seven all were ready to go. Day
was near, and there was a hard frost.
   Colin, Susan, and Gowther were taking with them a change of clothing,
food for the whole party, and ground-sheets, Fenodyree had made himself
a cloak out of an old blanket.
  They were about to shoulder their packs when there came a gentle
knock at the door.
  “Ay. who is it?” said Gowther.
  It's me, Maister Mossock. Is owt up?”
  “Oh, wait on a minute, Sam I'll be reet with thee.”
  Gowther waited until the dwarfs had hidden in the next room before he
drew the bolts and unlocked the door.
  “Theer! Come in, lad. I was hoping you'd be here before I went.”
  “I saw the curtain were pulled to,” said Sam Harlbutt, “and the
shippons were fast, so I thowt as how happen surnrnat was wrong.”
  “Oh no, theer's nowt wrong: but—er——I've been called
away—er—sudden like, and young Colin and Susan are coming with me.
We should be back by Saturday. Con you manage by yourself? l'll get John
Carter to give thee a hond, if you like.”
  “Oh no, maister Mossock, I'll be all reet.”
  He showed not the least surprise.
  “But I'd best get on with the milking pretty sharpish, hadn't I? Dick
Thornicroft'll be here with his wagon in half an hour.”
  “Oh ay! Er—ay. you'd best do that now.”
   Gowther felt Sam's unspoken criticism, but could think of no
explanation to give him. It was their practice to share the milking,
Gowther taking the morning, and Sam the evening. The cows ought to
have been milked an hour ago, but Fenodyree would not let Gowther put
his foot over the doorstep while it was still dark.
  “Er—Sam, if Dick comes before you've finished, ask him to call when
he's been to Barber's.”
  “Right-ho, Maister Mossock.”
  “And Sam!”
  “Ay?”
   “When you've done milking, I'd like you to take Bess in the cart to her
sister's at Big Tidnock she'll be stopping theer while we come back. The
dog'll be going, too.”
  “Oh, right-ho, maister Mossock.”
  Sam Harlbutt was an imperturbable as only a Cheshire man can be.
  They waited until Sam was well into the milking before they slipped
quietly out into the lane.
  “Which way?” said Gowther.
  “Let us first follow the road to the back of this hill,” said Durathror.
“From there we may see much to interest us.”
  The lane ran past the mouth of the quarry behind the Riddings, and
Gowther was rather perplexed when Durathror suggested beginning their
journey with a scramble about inside.
  “It's nobbut an owd sond-hole. We shanner get far running round here!”
  “We shall not be long,” said the dwarf. “I want . . . ah As I thought!
Svarts were here in the night, but I do not think there was much else with
them. Come with me now to the hilltop.”
  He ran backwards and forwards along the Riddings like a hound
beating for a scent.
  “Nor was there aught worse than the morthbrood here. That is good.
But yonder is what I do not like. Cousin Fenodyree, what make you of
those clouds to the north? How is it they have not changed since I saw
them under the moon? The wind should have carried them to us long
ago.”
  “Hm,” said the dwarf. “Fimbulwinter?”
   “Ay. They do not mean to lose. First, they drive us out with the threat of
the mara. We dare not bide. Next, they watch us through the day, and
when we reach some lonely place, they pen us close under the
fimbulwinter till night comes, and they can take us as they wish.”
  “Wait on,” said Gowther; “what's all this ‘fimbuiwinter' business? And
you've not told us yet . . .”
   “I know,” broke in Fenodyree. “But there are some things better left
untold. It will be time enough to fear the mara when we see them: and I
hope we shall not do that. Meanwhile you will rest happier for your
ignorance.”
  “That makes me a lot easier, I must say!”
  Fenodyree smiled, and inclined his head politely.
   “You're a supercilious little feller when you want to be, anner you?” said
Gowther testily. He was a direct, open man, who liked everything to be
clearly defined. He could not tolerate haziness or uncertainty: and he had
not quite overcome the countryman's natural distrust of strangers—such
strangers, too!
   “I do not mean to give offence,” said the dwarf. “But I must ask you to
lean on our judgement in this venture. You are in our world now, and
without us you will not regain your own, even though it lies at your feet.”
  Gowther looked down at Highmost Redmanhey, then back at the dwarf.
There was a long pause.
  “Ay. I spoke out of turn. You're reet, and I'm wrong. I'm sorry.”
  “It is of no matter,” said Fenodyree.
  “Oh, look!” said Colin, anxious to change the subject. “We're not the
only people out early this morning. There are two hikers down by Mr
Carter's: can you see them?”
  In the lane below, a man and a woman, both rucksacked, and wearing
anoraks. ski-trousers, and heavy boots were leaning over a field gate,
apparently absorbed in a map.
  “There are two more behind us on Clinton hill,” said Susan.
  Sure enough, a quarter of a mile away, not much higher than where
they were standing, two hikers gazed at the wide plain and its rim of hills.
  “Happen it's a rally.” said Gowther.
  “Ha It is indeed!” laughed Durathror shortly. “Those are witches and
warlocks, or I am not my father's son!”
  “What?” said Colin. “Are they the morthbrood?”
   “There is the danger,” said Fenodyree. “They mingle with others
unnoticed, and can be detected only by certain marks, and that not
always. For this reason must we shun all contact with men: the lonely
places are dangerous, but to be surrounded by a crowd would be a greater
risk.”
  Gowther shook his head, and pointed his ash stick at the hikers'.
   “You mean to tell me it's the likes of them as we've to run from? I was
thinking more of broomsticks and tall hats!”
  The whale-backed Pennines, in their southern reaches, crumble into
separate hills which join up with the Staffordshire moors, and from the
Cheshire plain two hills stand out above all the rest. One is Bosley Cloud,
its north face sheer, and southwards a graceful sweep to the feet of the Old
Man of Mow. But, for all that, a brooding, sinister mountain, forever
changing shape when seen from meandering Cheshire lanes.
   The other is Shuttlingslow. It is cone in outline, but with the top of the
cone sliced off. leaving a flat, narrow, exposed ridge for a summit. And
three days hence, on that ridge, eight miles from where they now were,
Firefrost would be given into safe hands—if the morthbrood could be kept
at bay for so long.
   “Ay, and that's another thing,” said Gowther. “What are we going to do
between now and Friday? It's nobbut half a day's tramp to Shuttlingslow
from here.”
   “Hush!” said Fenodyree. “There are keen ears listening. The where and
the when are all they do not know of our plans. If we can shake off these
bloodhounds and lie hidden until nearer the time, we may reach the hill.
Trees and running water will shield us best; and for a start we must try to
lose the morthbrood spies in the wood that fringes Radnor mere. We shall
keep to this lane until we come opposite the middle of the wood, there we
shall enter and, with luck, come out at the far side alone.”
   “But we shall need more luck to remain alone,” said Durathror, “for I
fear that little escapes those eyes.”
   Above their heads wheeled a cloud of ragged-winged birds. Out over the
plain other flocks were sweeping in what, from the height of the Riddings,
could be seen to form a very definite pattern, an interwoven net of such
efficiency that any one section of the ground of, say, a mile square, was
rarely left uncovered by any one flock for more than a minute at a time.
And they flew in silence, the only living things in all the sky. The hikers
continued to pore over the map, and to admire the view.
   Fenodyree led the way back to the cross-roads, where the old
Macclesfield road, Hocker Lane, ran left to Highmost Redmanhey, and
right to Nether Alderley. To Alderley they turned, and walked beneath the
round shoulder of Clinton hill. Below, across the fields, was Radnor Wood.
  “I'll tell you what,” said Gowther. “Tom Henshaw seems to be as
mithered with these birds as much as we are: he's getten enough
scarecrows, anyroad.”
  “Ay,” said Durathror, “and can you tell me, farmer Mossock, what need
he may have of them on pasture land?”
  It was as Durathror said. Every field within sight held a tattered figure
with outstretched arms—even those under grass, and with cows in them.
  “Now I wonder what's up with owd Tom! He did say as how he'd been
having queer turns off and on since before Christmas, but this is . . .”
  “No time to linger.” said Fenodyree. “You will embarrass our
companions.”
   They looked round, and saw that the two hikers who had been leaning
over John Carter's gate were now walking casually along some distance
behind, to all appearances engaged in nothing more sinister than
knocking off the tops of dead fool's-parsley with their sticks. A flock of
thirteen birds closed in and began to glide in circles overhead.
  “Are they scarecrows?” asked Colin as they continued down the lane.
  “Mostly.” said Fenodyree: “but eyes for the morthbrood, every one.”
   The road gradually converged on Radnor wood until the two were
running together, with only a low stone wall between them, and at a bend
in the road Fenodyree said:
  “When the morthdoers round this corner, we must be hidden.
  “Now! Over the wall!”
   Brambles were waiting for them on the other side, but they tore
themselves free, and ran as best they could through the scrub and
undergrowth of the matted fringe of the wood after Fenodyree, who was
dodging nimbly over the rough ground and heading for the thickest patch
of timber in sight.
   At once the birds began to raise a great rumpus, but Durathror.
bringing up the rear as usual, saw nothing of the hikers before the trees
closed around him.
   As soon as they were in the shade of the beeches the prickly
undergrowth thinned out, and they made good speed, zig-zagging through
the lessening gaps between the trees and the masses of rhododendron. For
a short time the birds screamed overhead and then they dropped through
the branches and circled in and out among the trees, calling assuredly,
deliberately, as though relaying information.
  Fenodyree relaxed the pace to a quick walk.
  “There is no need to hurry,” he said resignedly. “I hoped to find cover
while they pondered. This wood did not favour the morthbrood in the
elder days, and I thought the memory of it would hold them long enough
for . . .”
  His words were drowned by an outbreak of screeching above their
heads. Instinctively they drew together, back to back, and the dwarfs
hands flew to their swords. All round them birds were crashing heavily to
earth for ten seconds it might have been raining crows. Then the woods
were still.
   Gowther bent to pick up a tumbled mass of black feathers that had
landed at his feet, but Durathror stopped him.
  “Do not touch it!” He said. “They are evil even in death.”
  He turned the bird over with the point of his sword. Imbedded under
the heart was a small, white-feathered arrow; and at the sight of it all
colour fled from Durathror's cheeks.
  “The lios-alfar,” he whispered. “The lios-alfar!”
  Trembling, he put away his sword, and looked to the sky.
  “Endil! Atlendor! It is I. Durathror! This is well met!”
  “Peace!” said Fenodyree. “They are not here.”
  “Are they not?” cried Durathror. “Ho! I tell you, cousin Wineskin, that
our journey will be happier from this hour. If the lios-alfar are come from
exile there is little we need fear between now and Friday's dawn, do you
not see?
  “Atlendor. welcome! Airmid! Grannos!”
   But for all Durathror's shouting, nothing happened. He ran hither and
thither calling, calling, but echoes and the hollow voice of the north wind
in the tree-tops were his only reply.
  “Thrurin! Skandar!”
  Fenodyree shook his head sadly.
  “Come away. The lios-alfar have been gone from the Long Wood of
Radnor these two hundred years. They do not return. Come! They are not
here: none but the morthbrood will answer your call.”
  Durathror walked slowly back to join the others.
  “But it can be only the lios-alfar.” There was complete bewilderment in
his voice. “Why do they not know me?”
  Fenodyree crouched to examine the arrow more closely.
    “Well, whoever fired yon, conner be much of a size,” said Gowther. “If
it's eighteen inches long that's all it is, and what sort of a body could use
the bow to fit it?”
   “The elves of light,” said Fenodyree, “the lios-alfar. This is an elven
shaft. Yet still I do not think they are with us. It is more like to be the work
of stromkarls.”
  “Stromkarls?” cried Durathror. “Have you ever known the river-folk to
take up arms? It is the lios-alfar!”
  “Eh up! What's yon?” said Gowther, and pointed into the trees,
   Something white moved among the branches, though not even Gowther
could say where it first appeared. It fell gently towards them, swinging
backwards and forwards with a graceful, swooping, dipping motion, and
landed at Durathror's feet. A white eagle feather.
  The dwarf grabbed it. and flourished it under his Cousin's nose.
  “See! A token! And from an elven cloak I What say you now?”
  Fenodyree looked hard at the feather, and then at Durathror.
  “It is the lios-alfar,” he said.
   Fenodyree urged them on with all speed after the delay. No other sign
from the elves, if they were elves, was forthcoming, and Durathror was
prevailed upon to curb his excitement, and to turn his thoughts to their
immediate problems.
   “But it is hard;” he said to Colin later in the day, when they were
sharing the same cloak in an effort to stay alive, “it is hard to lose the
companionship of elves. And if one has been dearer to you than your own
kin, a more than brother right from earliest memory, the loss is nigh
unbearable. When Atlendor took his people northwards I thought to
renounce my heritage, and go with him, but he would not have me come.
‘You have a duty to discharge,' he said, ‘one of great weight.' The eyes of
the lios-alfar see not only the present. By Goldenstone we said our
farewells, and he gave to me Valham, and I parted with Tarnhelm, the
greatest treasure of the huldrafolk.” Durathror smiled ruefully. “I
exchanged the power of going unseen for the power of flight, and
Gondemar, my father, cast me out in his anger. So have I wandered all
these years, barred from my people and from the elves. Had not Cadellin
pitied me, and opened to me the gates of Fundindelve, mine would have
been a desolate lot.”
  But all this came much later in the day, and for the present the children
and Gowther were left to make what sense they could of the dead birds
and Durathror's ravings.
   Not that there was time for thought. They were forcing their way down
an almost extinct track of frozen, rutted leaf-mould, between
rhododendrons of such size that the branches met over their heads as well
as across their path, when Fenodyree held up his hand. They stopped;
listened.
  “Footsteps! Into the bushes!”
  They forced their way through the glossy hide of leaves into the tangled,
bare branches that comprised the main bulk of the growth.
   “Stay wherever you are, and do not move!” whispered Durathror
fiercely. “He is close.”
  It was difficult to see through the bushes in the dappled light. They
heard someone approach, but caught only a glimpse of dark clothing.
Whoever it was, he was breathing heavily. Then, as he came level with
where they were hiding, he stopped. Colin, Susan, and Gowther prayed
that the beating of their hearts was not as loud as it sounded. Durathror
and Fenodyree exchanged glances.
   “Phew! Be hanged to old Place!” muttered a deep voice, and the owner
of it sat himself down on the trunk of a fallen beech that lay across the
path: and in that position his face could be seen. It was Mr Hodgkins, a
local businessman.
   Every morning during the week, between the hours of eight and nine, he
was to be found, with dozens like him, on the platform of Alderley Edge
station, carrying his briefcase and tightly folded newspaper, and tightly
rolled umbrella. But now, in place of the stiff white collar and formal, city
clothes, James Henry Hodgkins's frame was clad in thick ski-trousers, and
a hooded anorak, above which protruded the neck of a sweater. A beret
hid his thinning hair, round his lean neck were snow goggles, leather
gauntlets hung by tapes from his wrist, nailed boots encumbered his feet,
and down his lined, sallow, businessman's face ran rivulets. He put his
back against the roots of the tree, took out his handkerchief, and began to
mop.
   Five pairs of eyes watched him in agony. Neither the children, Gowther,
nor the dwarfs had had time to make themselves comfortable among the
branches, even if that were possible, but were standing frozen in the most
awkward attitudes, cramped, precariously balanced. Any movement would
have set the leaves dancing at the end of theft snake-like branches. It was
as though they were dangling in a snarl of burglar alarms. However,
James Henry was not one to waste time unduly, and as soon as he was
restored to a more even temperature he pulled himself up and went on his
way. cursing the unwieldy rucksack that chafed his shoulders and was
always becoming entangled with the bushes.
   “Well!” said Gowther. “Owd Hodgkins! Ten years he's been a customer
of mine. It just shows, you con never tell.”
  “I didn't breathe once the whole time!” said Susan.
  “I couldn't!” said Colin. “There was a branch twisting my collar, and it
nearly strangled me! It's not much better now. Is it safe to move yet.
Fenodyree?”
  “Ay, if we can,” said the dwarf.
   He was wrestling to free his leg, which was hooked round the knees by a
branch. But the branch swung higher at every jerk, and Fenodyree was
being tipped gradually backwards off his feet. He looked so ridiculous, his
knee level with his ear, that the others would have been tempted to laugh
at his plight, had not they found themselves in difficulties as soon as they
tried to move.
   These were old bushes, and behind the green outer cover lay the growth
and litter of a hundred years; tough, crooked boughs, inches across,
stemming to long, pliant, wire-like shoots; skeins of dead branches which
snapped at a touch, forming lancets of wood to goad and score the flesh;
and everywhere the fine, black, bark dust with the bitter taste that burnt
throat and nostrils and was like fine sand in the eyes.
  “It's as . . . bad . . . as walking . . . on an old spring mattress!” said Colin.
   They had to step on to the thicker branches to clear the snare at ground
level, and once off the ground they were helpless. The bushes dictated the
direction in which they could move, and movement was not easy.
Branches would give beneath their feet, and spring back awkwardly,
catching limbs, and making even Gowther, for all his weight, lurch
drunkenly, and grab in desperation the nearest support, which was
invariably a change for the worse. And always they seemed to be forced to
climb, with the result that they were soon two or three feet from the
ground. Sense of direction left them: they just took the line of least
resistance. But they noticed, with growing concern, that the earth, or what
they could see of it. was becoming less like earth and more like water.
Ice-covered puddles were frequent; very frequent; broader; deeper; they
joined each other; and then there was water tinkling the pendants of ice at
the bush roots, and no earth at all. Ahead, the curtain was not so dense,
and Fenodyree, with renewed enthusiasm, plunged, bounced, rolled, and
squirmed, and his head broke free of the chaos. Before, on either side,
beneath, lay Radnor. The rhododendrons spread for many yards out over
the mere, their roots gripping deep in the mud; and at the point where
they stretched farthest into the water, five faces bobbed among the leaves
like exotic flowering buds.
   Happen I'm nesh,” said Gowther, “but I dunner foncy a dip today. I'm
fair sick of this here cake-walk, though; so what do we do, maister?”
  “Nay, do not ask me, my friend. I am past thought,” said Durathror.
  “We must go back,” said Fenodyree. “Cousin, we may have space to
draw our swords here. If we can do that, we shall cut an easier road to the
path.”
   Dyrnwyn and Widowmaker, after much effort, were drawn from their
scabbards, and by leaning backwards over the water, the dwarfs gained
room for the first, most difficult strokes. After that, in comparison with
what had gone before, the progress was much easier. The dead growth,
and the leaf-bearing tentacles fell to the keen temper of the swords, which
left only the thicker limbs to be negotiated, and they were not the
obstacles they had been when the all-smothering lesser branches were
there to aid them. The real danger, and it was a risk that had to be taken,
was that the dwarfs were carving a track that could not fail to be visible
from the air.
  “Now we must run,” said Fenodyree as, hot, weary, smarting from a
hundred pricks and scratches, they tumbled on to the path. “For the
morthbrood know where we are.”
  Only when they had put much dense woodland behind them did
Fenodyree allow a few minutes for rest.
  “Are we making for anywhere in particular?” asked Colin.
  “Not for the moment,” said Fenodyree. “I have a place in mind that may
be the saving of us—if we can reach it. But I shall not speak of that while
there is danger of hidden ears.”
  “Cousin,” said Durathror, do you hear?”
  They fell silent, tensely listening.
  “Ay; it is an axe.”
  They could all hear it now—the clear, rhythmical ring of steel in timber.
  Gowther relaxed.
   “I know who yon is,” he said. “It'll be Harry Wardle from the Parkhouse.
He's all reet. I've known him since we were lads, if theer's been onybody in
this end of the wood today, it's as like as not he'll have seen 'em. Let's ask
him.”
   “Hm,” said Durathror. “I would rather not meet with men at this time:
trust no one.”
  “But Harry and I were at school together: he's a good lad.”
  “He may be all you think,” said Fenodyree. “If he is, he may be able to
help us. Speak with him: Durathror and I shall watch. If he is of the
morthbrood he will not raise the alarm.”
  They halted at the edge of a clearing. A lean, bony, middle-aged man,
with close-cropped. iron-grey hair, was standing with his back to them,
and wielding a long-handled felling axe.
  “How do, Harry,” said Gowther.
  Harry Wardle turned, and smiled.
  “Hallo, Gowther! What's brought thee down here?”
  “Oh, I'm just out for the day with young Colin and Susan here.”
   “Eh, you farmers! I wish I could take time off when I wanted! How is the
farm these days?”
  “Middling for the time of the year, tha knows. Could be worse.”
  “And Bess?”
  “She's champion, thanks. Busy morning. Harry?”
  “Fair. Couple more trees to drop after this before dinner: but I'll be
having baggin after this one's down. Care for some?”
   He nodded towards the flask and sandwiches that were lying on a tree
stump.
  “No; thanks, Harry, all the same, but we mun be getting on.”
  “Just as you please. Going far?”
  “I dunner know: as far as we've a mind to. I expect. Mony folks about
today, Harry?”
  “Not a soul, till you come along.”
  “Well, if onbody does show up, you hanner seen us, reet?”
  A slow grin spread over Harry Wardle's face.
  “I've never clapped eyes on thee, Gowther. What's up? Are you fancing a
cock pheasant or two? Because if you are. take a look round Painter's Eye;
but dunner say to onybody as I told thee.”
  Gowther winked slyly.
  “Be good. Harry.”
  “Be good, lad,”
  They waved, and left him, and a moment later the Sound of his axe rang
out behind them through the trees.
  “Well?” said Gowther. “What did I say?”
  “He is no warlock,” said Fenodyree, “but there is that about him I do
not trust: it would have been wiser to pass him by.”
  “Hush!” said Durathror. “Listen!”
  “I can't hear anything,” said Colin.
  “Nor me,” said Gowther.
   “But you should hear something!” cried Fenodyree. “Why has your
friend's axe been stilled?”
  “Eh? What?” said Gowther, suddenly flustered. “Here! Howd on a
minute!”
  But Durathror and Fenodyree were speeding back towards the clearing,
drawing their swords as they ran.
  The clearing was empty. Harry Wardle, axe, flask, and food, were gone.
  “But . . .” stammered Gowther, his face purple. “but it's not . . . no, not
Harry. No! He'll have nipped back to the Parkhouse for summat, that's
what!”
  “If that were so,” said Fenodyree, “he would have come up with us, for
we were heading for the Parkhouse, were we not?”
  “Ay, I suppose we were,” Gowther looked stunned. Durathror, who had
taken the path on the other side of the clearing, returned, shaking his
head.
  “As you say, farmer Mossock,” said Fenodyree, “you can never tell.”




                           CHAPTER 17.
                              Mara

   “We must not act rashly,” said Fenodyree. “Fear is our enemies' greatest
ally.”
  “Ay,” said Gowther, “but let's be moving, shall we? I dunner mind
admitting I've had a shock; and stonding here talking while who knows
what maybe creeping up on us inner improving things.”
   “But which way shall we go now in least danger?” said Fenodyree. “That
is what we must decide. I put no trust in blind flight. and though time is
precious, a little may be well spent in counsel. Remember, your Harry may
have to travel some distance to give his warning.”
  “Well, they know what direction we're following now, don't they?” said
Colin. “And I don't suppose Harry Wardle realizes we're onto him, so why
not double back on our tracks?”
  “That is good,” said Durathror. “The hares will dart north while the
hounds run south.”
  “I think . . . not.” said Fenodyree. “It is a good plan in many ways, but
we have too great a charge to take the risk. Consider: it is probable that
the body of the morthbrood is to our rear. They will come southwards
through this wood, and along its flanks. If we lie in the thicket, and they
pass by, ours will be the advantage. But if we should be found, far from
help, unable to wield a sword for the dense growth, what need then of
fimbulwinter or the mara? And if we should win through their line
unnoticed, our way would grow more perilous. North of here lie villages:
too many men. South, the land is open for ten miles and more. We are not
far from the southern boundary of this wood: let us hurry southwards. If
we are clear of Radnor before the alarm has spread, the morthbrood may
waste time in sitting round to mark where we run clear.”
  So it was agreed; they walked swiftly and carefully, close together, and
the swords were naked.
   Durathror kept glancing upwards at the patches of blue sky. He was
troubled. Then he began to sniff the air.
  “Is it near, cousin?” asked Fenodyree.
  “It is. An hour, two hours: not more.”
  “Yon warlock, with his snow-garments, removed any doubts,” said
Fenodyree to Gowther and the children. “The morthhrood have called
Rimthur to their aid, and the ice-giant's breath, the fimbulwinter, is upon
us. We must bear it if we can.”
  The curtness of his speech told them more than the words. He was pale
beneath his nut-brown skin, and even Gowther felt in no need of further
explanation.
   After they had skirted the Parkhouse and its outbuildings the wood
declined into timbered parkland, which thinned to open fields, and under
the last cluster of trees, the dwarfs halted to consider the next move. To
their right was the Congleton road, bordered by a stone wall. On their side
of the wall a belt of woodland followed the road, and the open ground
between where they were crouching and this thicker cover was sparsely
dotted with trees. A flock of birds wheeled overhead. No human figures
were to be seen; the intermittent buzz of traffic on the road was the only
noise beyond the wind.
  Where may our way lead now?” said Durathror.
  “It's a deal too exposed for me,” said Gowther. “And if we carry on we
come to Monks' Heath, which is a sight worse. But howd on a minute let's
have a look round. It's a while since I was round here. I wish them birds
would give it a rest!” He scanned the country before them. “It'd be better if
we could reach them trees by the wall; ay, yon's the best road. Sithee; they
go reet down the wall, and bend across to Dumvilles plantation, and that'll
take us round the edge of Monks Heath to Bag brook. From theer we
may—we may—be able to nip across to the game coverts by Marlheath at
Capesthorne. It's these next two hundred yards as is going to be the
biggest snag. But happen if we keep an eye open for birds we con pick our
time and dodge about a bit till we're theer.”
  And that is what they did. Choosing a moment when the sky was clear,
they darted towards the road like frantic ants, weaving from tree to tree in
bursts of speed that amazed Gowther: he had not run like this for thirty
years. But they reached the strip of woodland before the next patrol flew
by.
   The trees left the road almost at right-angles and continued across the
fields as what Gowther called Dumville's plantation. For most of its length
it was very narrow, only a matter of feet in places, but it gave splendid
cover from the air. After half a mile the wood swung right and headed
south once more it curved over the brow of a low hill, and from there a
good view of the surrounding country was obtained.
  “It's well-wooded, at any rate.” said Susan.
  “But it will appear bare to you for most of our journey.” laughed
Fenodyree. “Things are not as they were: in the elder days ours would have
been an easier task. There were true forests then.”
  “I wonder who you is on Sodger's Hump,” said Gowther.
   They all looked. A mile away, above the cross-roads on Monks' Heath, a
grassy hill stood out above the land. It was like a smaller Shuttlingslow—or
a tumulus. It had the tumulus's air of mystery; it was subtly different from
the surrounding country; it knew more than the fields in which it had its
roots. And this uneasy mood was heightened by a group of Scots pines
that crowned the summit. They leaned towards each other, as though
sharing secrets. And outlined among the trees was a man on horseback.
Little detail would be seen at that distance, but the children thought that
he was probably wearing a cloak, and possibly a hat. He sat completely
motionless.
  “I . . . cannot tell who he is,” said Durathror, after much peering. “There
is that about him that strikes a chord of memory. What think you,
cousin?”
  Fenodyree shook his head.
  “It could, and could not, be one I know. It would be strange to find him
here. It is almost certain to be a warlock guarding the cross-road.”
  But, for some time after, the dwarfs were withdrawn, and pensive.
  The trees dropped to the Macclesfield road in the hollow where it
crossed Bag brook, and, dividing his attention between birds and traffic.
Fenodyree was kept busy for a good ten minutes while he shepherded the
others to the opposite side of the road and under the bridge arch. This
accomplished, the dwarfs, for the first time since the disappearance of
Harry Wardle, put away their swords.
   “I begin to have hope of this quest,” said Fenodyree. “We are well clear
of Radnor, and I think the morthbrood have lost the trail.”
   “Ay, but I hope we dunner have to stay under this bridge all day, patting
ourselves on the back,” said Gowther. “I wouldner say as this mud is over
fresh, would you?”
  “We shall move at once!” said Fenodyree.
   “Here is what we shall attempt. North of Shuttlingslow lies Macclesfield
forest, as wild a region as any on the hills; but men have covered much of
it with spruce and fir. Do you know it?”
 “Ay.” said Gowther, “it starts above Langley reservoirs. I dunner reckon
much to it, though—mile after mile of trees on parade; it inner natural.”
  “That is the place; a dungeon of trees. But their sad ranks grow thickly
and there is little chance of finding aught that hides within. The forest will
keep us till Fridays dawn, when we shall climb over the last mile of
moorland to Shuttlingslow.”
  “As easy as that?” said Gowther.
  “If we can gain the forest,” said Durathror.
   Fenodyree's plan was to head south for a few miles before turning east,
and to travel, wherever possible, through woods. The intervening stretches
of country, he hoped, would he crossed by following the lines of streams.
Ignoring discomfort, the advantages of this plan were many. Along the
streams, alder and willow were certain to be found, linked by lesser
growth, reeds, rushes, and straggling elder. Moving lower than the
adjacent fields would make for greater stealth, since there would be no
danger of being outlined against the sky. And, in the last resort, it would
be possible to lie close under the bank if caught in the open by the
approach of birds. Also running water kills scent, which might be
important, for there were still two of the hounds of the Morrigan left alive.
  All this Fenodyree explained; his plan was accepted without dissent,
and they now began the most arduous part of their journey, falling into a
pattern of movement that was to govern them for slow, exhausting miles.
They had to keep together as a body, yet move and act as individuals, each
responsible for finding, and gaining, cover before birds were overhead,
and pushing on as soon as the sky was clear. Desperate scrambles, long
periods of inactivity, mud, sand, water, ice, malicious brambles; one mile
an hour was good progress.
   The brook led them south-west, towards the left of Sodger's Hump, and
inevitably crossing under the Congleton road, which was not at all to
anybody's liking. However, a few yards short of the bridge, though still
dangerously close, a tributary joined Bag brook. It flowed in an acute
angle from the left, from the direction of the Capesthorne game covert.
This meant that they were almost doubling back on their tracks, but it
promised to be such an accommodating route that no one regretted the
lost ground or wasted energies: it was worth all that to be travelling in
exactly the right line—an experience that was to prove all too rare. Not
long after turning up this smaller brook they saw the first hikers on the
fringe of Dumville's plantation.
  The brook came from a valley of birch scrub and dead bracken; this was
an improvement on bare fields, but ahead towered a sanctuary of larches,
and the crawl seemed endless.
   “By the ribbons of Frimla!” said Durathror when they were beneath the
laced branches. “It is good to drop that coward's gait and walk on two
legs.”
  “I only hope the birds are deaf,” said Susan.
   The ground was covered inches deep with dead larch twigs and small
branches. It was impossible not to tread on them, and with five pairs of
feet on the move, dwarfs and humans passed through that wood with a
Sound like a distant forest fire.
   From the larches they crossed a small area of scrub to a plantation of
firs—specimens of Gowther's despised “trees on parade”. But these trees
were well grown, and there were few low branches. The floor was mute; no
sun cut through the green roof: here twilight lay hidden at noon.
Everybody was more at ease than at any time since leaving Highmost
Redmanhey.
   “It's a treat not to think eyes are boring into your shoulder-blades, inner
it?” said Gowther.
  “And to be out of the sun,” said Colin. “It was trained on us like a
spotlight.”
    “Well, the light's certainly dim enough in here,” said Susan. “It's taken
till now for my eyes to get used to the change.”
   “I mun be still a bit mazed, then,” said Gowther, “for to my way of
thinking it's coming on darker instead of lighter.”
  “It is,” said Fenodyree.
   The wood broke on the foot of a small hillock and there all was plain to
see.
  The blue sky and brilliant sun had vanished. From horizon to horizon
the air was black and yellow with unbroken clouds.
  “These are but the outriders,” said Durathror “Do we stay here beneath
shelter, or move on?”
  “On,” said Fenodyree. “While we may.”
  A path took them through the covert, past many green pools; and, at a
plank that spanned a boundary ditch, all shelter ended. Before them was
parkland, the nearest wood a quarter of a mile away across open country
that offered no scrap of cover.
  “Well, that's that, inner it?” said Gowther, “What do we do now? Wait
while night?”
  Fenodyree shook his head.
  “We must not travel in the dark: not when we are so far from help. We
shall move soon. The storm is at hand, and at its height it will pluck even
the morthbrood from the sky. Then shall we cross.”
   They did not have to wait. The first snow whipped by as Fenodyree
finished speaking, and the next moment the world had shrunk to a
five-yard circle, shot through with powdered ice, and bounded by a wall
and ceiling of leaping grey.
  “Naught can find us in this!” shouted Fenodyree against the skin of the
wind. “Now is our chance!”
   Once they were out of the shelter of the wood the full weight of the
storm flung itself upon them, Susan, Colin, and the dwarfs were picked up
and thrown to the ground, while Gowther lurched as though he had been
stunned. They groped their way together, and linked arms, Gowther in the
middle as anchor, and the wind frog-marched them at a giant-striding
run directly to their goal.
   It was the shallowest of valleys. They bounced over the edge, and were
dropped by the storm as it leapt across the gap. Close to where they
landed a fallen tree threw up soil-clogged roots, a natural shield against
the wind.
  “We shall fare no better than this,” said Fenodyree, “and we cannot
battle with such a storm, so let us make the most of what we have.”
  At first it was enough to be out of the storm's reach: the snow hissed
past, and little settled. But the air was cruel; and behind the roots there
was not much space for five people to move, so they crouched and stood by
turns, and the breath froze on their lips, and their eyelashes were brittle
with ice.
   The children pulled on an their spare clothing, and huddled to share the
dwarfs' cloaks. Gowther came off worst. He had to make do with sticking
his feet into the rucksack, and wrapping himself about with the clammy,
cold rubber-scented groundsheets. It was then that Durathror spoke of the
lios-alfar, and of his friendship with Atlendor.
  “But why should the elves leave here in the first place, and where did
they go?” asked Colin when the tale was ended.
   “The lios-alfar,” said Durathror, “are the elves of light, creatures of air,
the dew drinkers. To them beauty is food and life, and dirt and ugliness,
death. When men turned from the sun and the earth, and corrupted the
air with the smoke of furnaces, it was poison to the lios-alfar the scab of
brick and tile that spread over this land withered their hearts. They had to
go, or die. Wherever men now were, there were noise and grime; only in
the empty places was there peace. Some of the lios-alfar fled to the
mountains of Sinadon. some to the Isle of Iwerdon across the Westwater,
and others past the Depths of Dinsel in the south. But most went north
with Atlendor to far Prydein, even beyond Minith Bannawg, and there
they dwell upon the high hills. Now some, at least, have come south, but to
what end I cannot tell, nor why they are hidden from me. But there can be
no evil in it, that much is certain.”
   During the afternoon the wind dropped, and the roots were now no
shelter from the snow. It fell steadily, monotonously, so that it seemed to
the half-frozen figures behind the tree as though they were on a platform
that moved upwards through a white, beaded curtain. Reality, space, and
time dissolved in the blank, soaring, motionless world. Only an occasional
squall drew back the curtain for a second or two, and destroyed the
hypnotic illusion.
  Towards nightfall Fenodyree made up his mind. Ever since the wind
had ceased to clamp them behind the tree roots he had been weighing the
advantages, and disadvantages, of moving on. As things stood, they were
more than likely to lose their way, and they were dangerously close to
Alderley, and to the Edge. No, that was a risk he did not want to take. But,
on the other hand, it was becoming obvious that they could not survive the
night in the open. Already they were experiencing the fatal, warm
drowsiness of exposure, and the mesmerism of the snow was undermining
their resistance to the peril. Both Gowther and Colin had had to be roused
more than once.
  “We must move,” said Fenodyree. “If we do not find a roof for our heads
we shall not have need of one by morning. I shall see if there is better cover
downstream. The fewer tracks we make in this snow the safer we shall
rest, but it would not be wise to go alone. Farmer Mossock, will you come
with me?”
  “I will that!” said Gowther. “I've about had enough of this place!”
  Fenodyree and Gowther disappeared through the curtain.
  They followed the valley for a quarter of a mile, and came to a cart track
near to where it joined the Congleton road on their right.
  “Hey!” said Gowther. “I know wheer we are Straight on'll be Redesmere,
and theer's some pretty thick woods just ahead: it's mainly rhododendron
again, but happen we con make ourselves summat out of it. It's the best
we'll find round these parts.”
  “It maybe better than you think, my friend!” said the dwarf, his eyes
gleaming. “I had given no thought to Redesmere.”
  They retraced their steps. All the time, Gowther had been at pains to
put his feet exactly in Fenodyree's tracks, and his boots had blotted out
the dwarfs smaller prints. Going back, they trod the same tracks as on the
outward journey, and the result would give any hunter much to think
about.
  The snow was now a foot deep all over, and considerably more where it
had drifted.
  “We shall cut branches here and there to make a thatch, if nothing
better comes of Redesmere,” said Fenodyree. “But we must not waste a
moment, since it is past sunset already, and that is danger even before the
coming of night. If we are to . . . ah! !”
  “What . . .”
  “Sh! Look!”
  In the time that had elapsed since they passed that spot on the way to
Redesmere something had crossed their path. leaving tracks like nothing
Gowther had ever seen in all his days. A shallow furrow, two yards wide,
had been swept through the snow, and along the centre of the furrow ran
the print of bare feet. Each foot was composed of a pointed big toe,
divided by a cleft from the single wedge that filled the place where the
other four toes would normally have been. The prints were evenly
spaced—three yards apart.
  “Hurry!” gasped Fenodyree. “And may we come in time!”
  He did not draw his sword.

                                   ***
 “I've a real snow-thirst,” said Susan. “More than anything else at this
moment I'd like a gallon of milk.”
  “Oh, don't,” groaned Colin. “A gallon would only wet my lips!”
 The stream-water was too cold to drink: it numbed their throats, and
made their teeth ache. And their mouths were dry and sweet with fatigue.
   They spoke little, for conversation had died long ago: it took too much
effort. They moved only when cramp demanded.
  After Gowrher and Fenodyree had been gone about twenty minutes,
Susan, developing pins and needles in all her limbs, got up to stamp
around and flap her arms. She was on the point of crouching down again
when she heard a faint swishing sound, as of somebody wading through
the snow. Thinking the others were returning, she stood on tiptoe to peer
out of the valley. This brought her eyes just above ground-level; and at
that moment a flurry of wind pulled aside the veil of snow. A second later
the wind had gone by, and the veil fell back into place, but in that instant,
Susan's eyes had registered every detail of the thing that was passing
within ten yards of where she stood.
   It bore some resemblance to a woman, an ill-proportioned woman,
twenty feet high, and green. The long, thick-set trunk rested on massive
legs with curving, bloated thighs. The arms were too short, muscular at
the shoulders, but tapering to puny, indeterminate hands. The head was
very small, elliptical, and scarcely broader than the neck on which it sat.
There was no hair; the mouth was a shadowed line; the nose cut sharply
down from the brow, between eyes that were no more than dark smears. It
wore a single garment, a loose tunic that reached to the ground, and clung
to the body in folds like wet linen. The flesh gleamed dully, and the tunic,
of the same colour and texture, might have been of the same substance. A
statue of polished malachite; but a statue that moved.
  Susan began to scream, but before the sound reached her lips a rough
hand was clapped over her mouth, and Durathror pushed her down into
the snow.
  “Lie still!”
  For a time, above the heating of her heart, she felt the earth shake
beneath a ponderous tread that died away.
  “Did you see it?” she whispered.
  “I saw it. We must find my cousin: next time our luck may not hold.”
   “What is it? What's wrong?” said Colin from the bottom of the slope.
But as he spoke Fenodyree, with Gowther on his heels, staggered out of the
gloom and caught Durathror by the arm.
  “Mara!”
   “It has this instant gone by,” said Durathror, “It did not see us there is
still too much light.”
  “So did it miss our tracks. Come we have found shelter.”
  “Then why do we delay?”
  They slipped down the valley as quickly as they dared.
  “Is curiosity satisfied now, farmer Mossock?” said Fenodyree when
Susan had given a breathless description of what she had seen.
  “Ay, it is that! But what in creation are they?”
   “Troll-women: from rock are they spawned, and to rock they return if
the sun should find them above ground. But by night they are
indestructible, all-powerful. Only our wits can save us now, and be
thankful we have more than they, for the mara's brain is as meagre as its
strength is great.”
  The words were barely out of his mouth when a thin cry, like the
plaintive voice of a night bird, yet cold and pitiless as the fangs of
mountains, came from behind them.
  “Run! It has found our trail!”
   They had crossed the path where Fenodyree had turned back, and were
forcing a way between the bushes when the mara called a second time,
and now it was near.
  “Steady!” cried Gowther. “We munner get separated in here!”
   The thicket was not impenetrable, but it was close enough to make it
difficult for five people to move quickly through it together. The snow was
no longer falling it was almost night.
  Again the voice.
  “Stay!” cried Durathror.
   They had all heard: it was not an echo, It was an answering call—from
in front!
   Immediately there came another from the right, and the sound of
snapping branches and rustling undergrowth. Hemmed in on three sides,
they were, for the moment, spared the anguish of decision. They swung
left. The voices were continuous now.
  Durathror ran ahead of the rest. Susan was nearest to him, trying to
keep in his wake, and as they came to a thick screen of brush, Durathror
put up his arms to shield his eyes, and forced his way through. Susan's
dive after him was halted by a stifled cry from Durathror, followed by a
splash.
  “What's happened?”
  “Where are we?”
  “What is it?”
  “Are you all right?”
   Susan put her head through the gap—and looked out across an
apparently limitless sheet of water. In the gathering darkness she could
not see any land. Beneath her, to his waist in the water. Durathror
struggled to climb back through the weeds and dead vegetation to the
land. By this time the others had all reached the spot.
  “Redesmere!” said Gowther savagely. “I should have thowt of that one!”
  “Back!” spluttered Durathror.
  “But we conner!”
  “We have no choice,” said Fenodyree, “and very little time. We may pass
through the net: we may.”
  Without a word Colin turned, and the rest hurried after.
  “Colin, wait! Let me lead you!” Fenodyree called softly.
  “All right . . . oh!”
  “Colin! !”
  “Stop, everybody!” cried Colin. “There's water here, too!”
   “What? Theer Conner be! Here, wait on a minute!” Gowther turned off
left, and plunged into the bushes: ten seconds later he was back, only to
vanish in the opposite direction without speaking. When he reappeared he
was walking very slowly.
  “I dunner ask onybody to believe this.” he said, “but we're on an island.”




                       CHAPTER 18.
                    Angharad Goldenhand

  “And it inner very big, either,” said Gowther.
  “But . . . but . . . it can't be an island!” said Susan.
  “I know it Conner: but it is.”
  “It's not possible!” said Colin.
  “That's reet.”
  “But . . .”
  Laughter broke in on their bewilderment, and they were aware of the
dwarfs sitting in the snow, each with his back against a tree, at ease, and
openly amused.
  “It is in truth an island,” said Durathror, “And, by the blade of Osla! I
did not took to such a fair ending to this day's work.”
  “Hush!” said Fenodyree. “And lie low awhile.”
   On the nearer shore, fifty yards away, three mara were casting about to
pick up the vanished scent. They wailed, and whooped, and peered at the
ground, uprooting bushes and bending trees.
  Gowther pressed himself farther into the snow: he was exposed, and
obvious: it would not be long before the mara would put two and two
together and wade out to the island, and then . . .
  Having flattened everything for yards around, the three shapes stood on
the lake side, facing out across the water.
  This is it, thought Susan. How far can I swim in these clothes? But the
mara did not move: their bodies merged into the shadows. All was quiet.
And then they turned, and disappeared into the wood the whooping broke
out again, and continued until all sounds were lost in the distance.
  Gowther stood up. and shook the snow out of his clothes.
  “They must be pretty dim!” said Colin. “Why didn't they find us?
Anyone with half an eye could have guessed where we were: our footprints
must have ended at the water.”
   “But the mara have not half a mind,” said Fenodyree. “Our tracks were
all they had to follow, and when they ended the trail was lost. Nothing was
moving on the lake, there were no tracks, therefore there was nothing to
find: so their minds work. They will wander now until dawn, and let us
hope there are few men abroad this night.”
  “Yes, but they knew we were somewhere close.” said Susan, “Why didn't
they try this island?”
  “Ah, but they did not know: they have never seen us. All they have seen
are tracks that end in water. For the mara that is no puzzle: their minds
look no farther than their eyes, and I think that to their eyes this island is
hidden.”
   “Is it now?” said Gowther heavily. “You dunner surprise me in the least!
Happen you con also tell us how we come to be here without wetting our
feet, and how we're going to get back to land again!”
  “I do not doubt that we shall walk from here at sunrise,” said
Fenodyree, in the meanwhile, sleep safely and well.”
  “This is the Isle of Angharad Goldenhand, the Lady of the Lake. and it is
one of the Two Floating Islands of Logris. It was lodged against the shore
when Angharad guided our feet hither. Here no evil will threaten us. For
one night we may lie at peace, and the Lady will watch over us.”
  “Very comforting!” said Gowther. Melting snow was sliding down the
inside of his collar, and he was tired. “But wheer is this ‘lady' of thine? I
Conner see owt but snow and trees, and I doubt they wunner make a
warm bed!”
  “She is here, though we do not see her, and we are under her protection.
Now we must eat a little, and sleep.”
    A hunk of dry bread, and a mouthful of cheese, washed down with snow,
made their supper. Hungry, damp, cold, and thirsty beyond measure,
Susan curled up between the roots of a tree. Her ground-sheet was more of
an affliction than a comfort. A long night of misery stretched ahead: sleep
would never come. But come it did, and surprisingly quickly. A warm
languor crept through her limbs her brain told her to resist, but she could
not. “This is how you freeze to death.” “Well, there's nothing to be done
about it now. And its the . . . first . . . time I've been . . . warm . . . for years
. . . years . . .” The snow against her cheek was a pillow of swan's down.
The scufflings of Gowther and Colin in their exhaustion and discomfort
were carried far away beyond her reach. Susan slept.

                                       ***
   It was a curious dream. Much of it seemed to be no more than a
mixture of all her waking thoughts and wishes, timeless, disjointed, as
difficult to hold as an image in rippling water. And then, for long periods,
the people, and voices, and episodes of her dancing brain would fall into
place, and become so vivid, so concrete, that there was nothing of
dreaming about them. But always, after a while, the pattern would break.
It was like a painting in which the brush strokes became detached from
the canvas, and drifted away as isolated scraps of colour, Only to regroup
themselves to show the scene advanced a little in time. But this was the
main thread of Susan's dream.
   She was sitting cross-legged with Colin, Gowther, and the dwarfs under
the trees of the island. Before them were golden dishes piled high with
meats, and spices, fruits, and cool, green cresses. Redesmere flashed blue
in the light of high summer. Stromkarls were laughing and playing in the
water, others listened to the music of the voice of Angharad Goldenhand.
She sat between the children, dressed in a robe of white linen. She was
tall, and slender, and fair; her long, plaited hair like red gold; and on her
brow a band of gold.
   It seemed that nothing of their adventures was unknown to her, and she
had much to tell. “The lios-alfar of the west,” said Angharad “grew fewer
every year. Only beyond Minith Bannawg did they hold court in great
numbers; and then they had heard rumour of the capture of Firefrost by
Grimnir and the Morrigan, the elf-lord Atlendor son of Naf had come
south to find what truth there was in the tale. He was ill of the smoke
sickness when he reached the island, and Angharad nursed him to health.
Then, when the stromkarl came from Goldenstone the previous evening,
Atlendor decided to go back to his people, since news of Firefrost was good
and there was need of him in Prydein. He had set out that morning, in
haste to be clear of the sullied air, and he dared not stay for words when
he put an end to the spies in Radnor wood.”
   The dream ran on in a world of sunlit laughter, and stromkarls brought
Fenodyree and the children cloaks of red muspel hair, woven from the
beards of giants, and lined with white satyrs' wool; and there were four
cloaks sewn together to cover Gowther's broad shoulders.
  “And for you,” said Angharad Goldenhand. “for whom the danger is
most real, take this bracelet of mine. It will guard you on your journey,
and when the other is with Cadellin Silverbrow, think of this as fair
exchange: it has many virtues.”
  She took from her arm a band of white metal, and fastened it about
Susan's left wrist.
  “May the Sleepers lie safe in Fundindelve.”
  “Thank . . . thank you.”
  Susan was overwhelmed a little by such generosity; normally it would
have embarrassed her, but she could not be embarrassed in the warmth of
Angharad's smile.
  The picture dissolved once more, but those golden eyes, full of sunlight,
remained steadfast through the wheeling colours of her dream.
  “Thank you,” said Susan.
  The golden eyes faded.
  “Thank you. Thank you!”
   Her voice sounded loudly in her head; the kaleidoscope receded into a
blank screen of consciousness, against which her words fell with a peculiar
lack of resonance. Susan knew she was almost awake: awake to a world of
snow, and hunger, and weariness, and great peril. Desperately she tried to
force her way back into sleep, to make that reality, but the wall was too
strong. One by one her senses returned. She felt air cutting into her lungs
like blades of ice, and when a drifting snowflake landed gently on her
cheek she groaned, and thrust her head into the crook of her elbow.
Instantly Susan forced her eyes open, and strained to bring them into
focus; but the remains of sleep were heavy upon her, and it was a full
quarter of a minute before she knew beyond doubt that her cheek had not
lied.
  Susan was wrapped in a cloak of bronze-red hair, lined with a fleece of
curls.
   There was something enclosing her wrist, something that had not been
there earlier. She worked her arm free of the cloak to see what it was. A
silver bracelet.
  The others were awake now, Colin and Gowther fingered their cloaks as
though in a stupor. A waning moon shone in a clear sky of frost.
  “But it was a dream. . . . ! !”
  “. . . and the stromkarls. . . .”
  “It conner have happened. . . .”
  “Did you see . . . ?”
  “So did I!”
  “It Was summer, too!”
  “. . . and all that food.”
  “Are you hungry?”
  “No!”
  “Theer's only our footprints in the snow, and all.”
  “But these cloaks. . . .”
  “And what about this?” said Susan.
  “Ay, that is a precious gift,” said Durathror, They had forgotten the
dwarfs, in their astonishment.
   “Oh, hallo!” said Gowther. “I'm glad as somebody here knows what
they're about! Witches, boggarts, and green freetings I've had to take in
one day, and after that I conner feel inclined to argue with owt you say,
but now that were getting to the stage wheer I dunner know whether I'm
sleeping or waking, I begin to wonder if I'm dreaming the whole lot!”
  “Dreams, glamour, they are not easy to tell apart,” said Fenodyree, “and
men have ever thought dreams are not reality. The Lady of the Lake is a
skilled weaver of enchantment. She knew that without help we could not
have survived the night. Now, with muspel cloaks upon our backs, we need
not fear the cold of fimbulwinter, even though the ice-giants themselves
came south. And that gift may be more than all.”
   He pointed to the bracelet. It had an air of great age. Along the outer
face it was lightly incised, and inlaid with black enamel, much of which
was missing, One half was a plain, coiling, leaf design, flanked by two
oblongs of a diamond lattice pattern, with four spots within each
diamond. On the other half, between two more oblongs, was an inscription
in heavy, square lettering that was unknown to Susan.
  “Yes, but in what way is it valuable?”
  “I cannot tell you. But Angharad would not wear it for ornament alone.”
  “She might have told me what it was for, though.”
  “Perhaps it would not do for you to learn all its secrets at a time;
sudden power is an evil, dangerous thing for any hands. Wear this always,
guard it as you would the stone, and I know it will not fail you in need.
And, above all, let it remind you of one who gave shelter and aid to those
whose downfall would lift a weight of sorrow from her heart.”
   “What do you mean?” said Colin. “I don't understand. She's on our side,
isn't she?”
   “Ay, but you must know this: Angharad Goldenhand is wife to one who
sleeps in Fundindelve; a great captain. A week had they been married
when the king summoned his knights to go under the earth. Seven days of
happiness to last her down the years. Do you see now how generous she
has been? We are rescued, fed, and clothed, and are going on our way the
better equipped for our task, yet if we succeed, Angharad Goldenhand
may not greet her lord for many a hundred years to come.”




                          CHAPTER 19.
                          Gaberlunzie

   The sun had risen, but the mara were far beyond its reach as they
reclined upon the floor under the lion's head in the Cave of the Svartmoot.
Arthog and Slinkveal and other svarts were present, too, and there must
have been fifty of the morthbrood ranged along its walls. In one corner
what looked like a mound of rags, parchment-covered sticks and old hoots
writhed and twitched. On top of the head stood Shape-shifter and
Grimnir, and the cave was lit by the red glow of the firedrake held in the
lap of the aged, piebald svart, in his seat below the lion's jaws, Selina Place
was speaking in the Common Tongue.
  “. . . and a coven of our sisters killed by elves, and yet you saw nothing!
Mossock and the children reach the far end of Radnor, yet you saw
nothing! They must have passed you! Such incompetence, brother
Galley-trot, could see us all in Ragnarok ere midnight.
  “But they didn't pass me!” blustered James Henry Hodgkins. “I'd have
seen them!”
  “But they did, and you did not. One more error, dear brother and you
will he svart-meat.
  “And while Ragnarok is on our lips, let us speak plainly to you all.
Nastrond has no word of us, but he will hear, and when that time comes
all your lives will be forfeit if we cannot wield the stone. Lest any of you
have not our faith in success, you must know that the boundary is sealed.
Any who try to cross will be slain so let no one think to find favour with
Nastrond through betrayal.
   “Now to our plans. We do not believe the humans have survived the
night. All dwellings and outhouses were watched, so they must have stayed
in the open. Dwarfs are hardier, but we doubt if they can endure such
cold, therefore we expect to hear news quickly. The search is to continue
until the stone is found, for if it has passed to the elves all your efforts will
be needed.
    “Today the skies will be clear. This cannot be helped, since it will take
till sunset to bring more cloud. By night we shall have enough to give
unbroken cover for as long as we wish, though, so that you may follow
tracks more easily, there will be no further snow. Thus the mara and the
svart-alfar will be able to hunt throughout the day, if needs be.
  “The lyblacs and the morthbrood will now go to relieve their fellows,
and will pass on our instructions. Remember, the sky is full of eyes;
cowards and traitors will not run far. That is all.”
   The heap of rags spilled over, and broke into a number of tattered
forms, which rose jerkily to their feet like scarecrow marionettes, and
slunk, spindly and stooping, out of the cave.

                                     ***
   “It is not what you say Nastrond has learnt from his spies that we fear,
so much as his own mind,” said Shape-shifter to Grimnir, closing the door
of the broom cupboard after her. “We have felt it probing our thoughts
often within the last month. There is no telling when he will act. And the
svarts are not to be trusted if they fear us less: an example must be made
of one or two without delay—that has always been the best
encouragement. We shall have to ‘unmask' a ‘traitor' at the next moot.”
  With the first light, the island had grounded close to a stream on the
opposite side of Redesmere from where the mara had lost the trail.
   Clothed in the featureless snow, the countryside seemed vast; limitless
as a desert, and as silent as a mine, the land offered no cover. Any
movement against that background would he seen for miles, a line of
footprints could not be missed, and in the brittle air any sound would
carry undiminished to distant ears.
   Durathror suggested and the others reluctantly agreed, that their best
course was to walk along the actual bed of the stream, but as close to the
bank as possible. And so it was that, with the extra hardship of legs frozen
from the knee down, they took up the pattern of the previous day's travel.
Happily, the muspel cloaks had the property of sliding round obstacles
without catching or tearing and, worn with the lining on the outside, and
the hood up, were good camouflage.
  Ten minutes after sunrise, the first birds swept overhead.
   The morning wore on, monotonously, though not uneventfully. Half a
dozen scarecrows were by-passed, and two pairs of hikers came near to
achieving their purpose, and a swift death. But these moments, and an
occasional set of footprints, were all that distracted attention from the
task of wading upstream.
  By noon they had advanced a little over a mile; then Gowther stopped.
   “I've been thinking,” he said. “If we follow this brook much longer we'll
be turning north, and pushing up into Henbury, and we shanner be so
very far from wheer we started. Now just over yonder is Pyethorne wood,
and that borders on Thornycroft pools, and, if I remember, we'll find a
stream as will take us in the reet direction from theer. Shall we have a
look?”
   Unfortunately, though, to gain the wood they had to skirt the edges of a
field, cross a lane near to the lodge of Thornycroft hall, and make their
way over two hundred and fifty yards of exposed parkland.
  They managed to reach the lane undetected, but as they lay under the
hedge, the remaining stages looked to be by far the worst check they had
yet encountered.
  “I see no way,” said Durathror, creasing his eyes against the glare of the
sunlit snow. “And to await night here would be madness.”
   “But do we have to go through there?” said Colin, “Can't we work round
to somewhere else?”
  “Ay, I've been thinking about yon, too, said Gowther, but I doubt we
shanner do better elsewheer. Sithee if we go north we'll be moving back on
Alderley, and we'll have put Macclesfield between us and wheer we want to
get to. If we take our road round by the south, we'll have to pass through
Gawsworth, unless we go quite a step out of our way; and if you'll be
guided by me, we'll steer clear of Gawsworth, matters being as they are.
Some mighty queer things happen theer at the best of times, without all
this. No, Pyethorne wood's the place: it's our nearest water, and we should
go no closer to Gawsworth than Dark Lane and Sugarwell, which is all to
the good.”
  “I think we must choose your Way” said Fenodyree after some
argument. “But how are we to gain the wood?”
   “We'll have to chance it,” said Gowther, “And if we meet onybody, let's
hope they know nowt about us. No, I hanner forgotten the birds, neither.
But theer's been enough folks gone along this lane, and down the drive, for
our tracks not to stond out a mile—especially if we watch wheer we tread.
Now, if we flop down in a heap at the side of the drive every time the birds
come over, and make sure as we've no bits and pieces sticking out from
under our cloaks, we should be all reet. Now listen: you follow the drive till
it binds reet almost at the hall. I'll go first, so as I con come back and tell
you if theer's ony snags. Then you'll see two paths, one going left, and the
other pretty near straight on to the wood. I just hope as how we shanner
be the first to have used it today. Give me twenty minutes. and I'll meet
you theer.”
  “Farmer Mossock,” said Fenodyree. “I see we have a new leader! Your
shrewdness will take us to Shuttlingslow better than my slow wits!”
  “No,” said Gowther, “it's just that I like to be doing: so long!”
  The sky was clear; he stepped into the road, and walked through the
drive gateway, and past the lodge.
   Twenty minutes later Susan and Durathror followed, and, ten minutes
after, Colin and Fenodyree.

                                    ***
   “The lodge was bad,” said Susan, “but after the strain of that drive I
nearly collapsed when we had to walk out in full view of the big house and
all those staring windows.”
  “We had to drop flat twice in front of the house!” said Colin. “If anyone
was watching, they must have thought we were mad.”
  “Ay, it was a bit strenuous,” said Gowther, “How do you think we
fared?”
  “The birds missed us, I think.” said Fenodyree, “and I saw no one in the
rooms. How was it with you, cousin?”
  “I saw no one, and heard naught: we have done well.”
   But garrulous old Jim Trafford was a small man, and it was his
afternoon off. By half past two he was in his accustomed corner in the
Harrington Arms, and monopolizing the conversation of four of his
acquaintances.
   “I reckon it's twice as cowd as it were eleven year back,” he said. “I've
seen nowt like it; it's enough fer t'send you mazed. Eh, and I think it's
takken one or two like that round 'ere this morning. No, listen! It were
nobbut a couple of hours since, nawther. I were up at th'all, going round
seeing as they were orreet fer coal afore I come away, and one o' th'fires
were low, like, so I gets down let t'give it a poke. Well, I'm straightening up
again, and I 'appens fer t'look out o' th'winder, and what does I see? I'll tell
yer. Theer was two little fellers, about so 'igh, gooing past th' 'ouse towards
Pyethorne. No, listen They 'wore white capes wi' 'oods as come over their
faces, and they kept peering round, and up, and down, and walking 'all
backards. I'll swear as one 'em 'ad a beard—a yeller un it were. It's th'
gospel truth.
   “Well, I shakes me 'ead, and carries me bucket into th' next room. Fire's
orreet theer, but scuttle wants a lump or two. On me way out I looks
through th' winder, and theer they are again. And this time I sees a good
bit o' beard, but now it's black!
   “Round and round they scowls, then they drops flat on their faces, and
pull their 'eads and legs in like tortoises. It's a fact! You conner 'ardly see
'em agen th' snow. Well, after a minute two, they gets up, and off they
trots, back to back now, if you please! Then smack on their faces again I
tell yer, I couldner 'ardly credit it. I watches them while they're near to th'
wood, then they puts down their 'eads-and runs! It's this 'ere frost what's
be'ind it, and no error, Theer'll be a few like them, I'll tell thee, if we 'ave
much more o' this. . . . Eh, Fred! What's to do? Art feeling ill? What's th'
'urry?”
  The door slammed.
  “Eh, what's up wi' im'? Eh, you lot, come over 'ere! See at Fred 'Es
gooing up th' avenue as though 'is breeches was on fire!
  “I tell yer, its the weather!”

                                   ***
   Pyethorne wood is not large. Much of it is little more than a neck of
land dividing the two lakes of Thorneycroft hall, and it was in this part of
the wood that Gowther waited for the others to join him. Together again,
they decided to rest for an hour or so before exploring the far end of the
lake to the east of the hall.
  “We must keep guard by turns, said Fenodyree Durathror and I shall
divide the night between us, and, until we reach the forest, one of you will
watch over the midday halt. Is it agreed?”
   They curled up in their muspel cloaks, and forgot the snow. Even their
ice-bound feet grew warm, and after such a morning, sleep was not long in
coming.
   Colin had offered to take the first turn. He sat upon a tree stump, and
looked about him, seeing the beauty of the day for the first time. The air
was still; and although the sun shone in a cloudless sky, there was not
enough warmth in its rays to melt the thin blades of snow that stood
inches high even to the tips of the slenderest twigs on every tree.
Pyethorne was a wood of lace that day. There had been floes on Redesmere
at dawn, but now the ice here was unbroken, thick, and blue as steel.
   Out across the ice was an island, so overgrown with trees that it was as
though they sprouted straight out of the lake; and at first that was all
Colin could see; but as the minutes went by something began to take
shape within the trees. The impression was strongest when he did not look
directly at the island, but, even so, for long enough he could not be certain
that there was anything there. And then, like a hidden figure in a picture
puzzle it came unexpectedly into focus, and Colin gasped. It was a square
tower, old, ruinous, so hemmed in by trees that if Colin had had anything
other to do than sit and look about him for an hour and a half, he would
never have noticed it.
   I must see how long it takes the others to find that, he thought,
laughing at his own blindness, and he continued his watch.
  Then, oddly, the tower began to grow on Colin's nerves. He felt that it
was staring at him with its expressionless eyes. He sat with his back to it,
but that made matters worse, and he had to turn round. Imagination he
told himself. A tower could not help but look sinister in that condition;
obviously no one lived there. But Colin could not settle unless he was
facing the tower.
   He began to range his eyes from left to right, across the lake and back
again, but never once did he look directly at the island. And, of course, the
urge to do so grew stronger. Worse, he thought how unpleasant it would
be if he turned his head, and saw—something. Then in his imagination he
pictured these “somethings”, and from that it was a simple step to
believing they really were there. Colin dew a deep breath. Having allowed
himself to be worked into such a state, there was only one thing to do. He
looked full at the tower.
   His yelp of fright brought the dwarfs bounding to their feet. There, not
forty yards away, among the outer trees of the island, was a man dressed
all in black, and seated on a black horse, and his eyes were fixed on Colin.
   “What is wrong?” whispered Fenodyree, but Colin could only point. At
this the rider began to walk his horse towards them across the ice. In
silence they watched him come.
   He was tall, and sparely built, though little of him could be seen under
his full cloak. Black riding-boots, silver spurred, came to his knees; on his
head was a wide-brimmed hat. His hair, green as a raven's wing. curled on
his shoulders, framing a lean, brown face. Small gold rings pierced his
ears; and his eyes were blue—a fierce blue, burning with an intensity to
rival the heart of Firefrost.
  When he was still some yards away he reined in his horse.
   “I have been looking for you,” he said in a deep voice. Yet it was not only
deep, but soft also, with a lilt in it that was not Scots, or Irish, or Welsh,
but could have been all three. Some of the apprehension that had been
gripping Gowther and the children left them.
   “Welcome, Gaberlunzie,” said Fenodyree. “Yesterday we saw you from
afar, but could not be sure. Will you not come among the trees? The
Morrigan and her brood harry us, and the spies are out.”
  The stranger looked at the sky.
  “I thought there were no birds,” he said.
  He dismounted, and brought his horse under the trees.
  Fenodyree quickly told their story, and the man called Gaberlunzie
heard him in silence.
  “And therefore we must be on Shuttlingslow at Friday's dawn to meet
Cadellin Silverbrow, or the world we know may not endure. Will you stay
with us, and help us?”
  The blue eyes stared into space: then Gaberlunzie gave his answer.
   “I shall not bide. Listen to my say. Beyond Minith Bannawg there is
trouble breeding greater than this—or so we fear. The lios-alfar of the
north are not enough to act alone. So I have come to gather to their aid
kinsmen and allies. I have wandered through Dyfed's plundered land,
along the shores of Talebolion, many a weary month to Sinadon. And I am
needed in Prydein within the week.
   “I stopped by Fundindelve to ask for help, but there was no answer, only
the morthbrood. The storm caught me before I could reach Angharad
Goldenhand, and when darkness came I heard the mara and sought this
island without delay. It was a cold swim, and the sun rose before I dared
to sleep.
  “I must turn northwards this day: my duty lies there. But what help
there is in me you shall have before I go. If I leave you at the forest by
nightfall, will that serve you well?”
  “That would almost end our labours,” said Fenodyree. “But, alas, we
dare not move openly: by day the skies are watchful, and by night the
mara walk. We crawl on our bellies to our noble end.”
  “But now you will ride!” laughed Gaberlunzie. “No, I do not trifle with
you.”
  “Look! !” cried Susan her voice hoarse with alarm.
   So intent had they been that they had not noticed the wall of mist come
creeping over the snow. Like a white smoke it curled among the trees, and
eclipsed the far end of the lake even as Susan spoke.
  “Grimnir!” said Durathror.
  “Whist now!” said Gaberlunzie, who was the only one undisturbed. “Sit
you all down again. It is nothing of the sort. It is what I have been
expecting. Cloudless skies, snow, such frost as this, and darkness not two
hours away—what more natural than a good, white mist to blind the
morthbrood and speed us on our road? Now on to my horse, and away!”
  The fog was about them, absolute.
   “You hold on a minute!” said Gowther. “Before we try to fit six on one
horse, I'd like to know how you think we're going to find our way in this
lot. It's about as much as I can do to see my feet.”
  “Do not worry, friend: my eyes are not your eyes, and my horse is not of
earthly stock: we shall not stumble. But come! Are we to argue here until
the day of doom? Mount!”
   And they did mount. Durathror and Fenodyree bunched together in
front of Gaberlunzie; behind him sat the children, and behind them
Gowther, his arms on either side of Colin and Susan, holding
Gaberlunzie's cloak in his fists.
  Gowther expected to come off within a minute of starting—that is. if the
horse could start. But a flick of the rein, and they were away like the wind;
no horse ever sped so smoothly. Fields, hedges, ditches, flowed under its
hoofs. The snow muffled all noise of their passage as they plunged full tilt
through the mist. The air whipped about them, and their hands grew
black, and cold grasped their heads as if with pincers.
   After a while they left hedges behind, the land became broken and
uneven, but they did not falter. Wide trenches opened under them, one
after another, dangerously deep and ghostly, broken walls, gaping like the
ruins of an ancient citadel, lowered on either side. It was as though they
were riding out of their own time back to a barbaric age, yet they were
running only by the peat stacks of Danes Moss, a great tract of bogland
that lay at the foot of the hills.
  Trench after trench they crossed, and each a check to the morthbrood,
should they follow after; for Gaberlunzie was of a cunning race. And so
they came into the hills, and down to a lonely road in a valley.
  “We are in the forest now.” said Gaberlunzie.
  He swung his horse off the road, and in one sailing leap they were
among the trees. A broad path cut upwards through the close-set ranks,
and here Gaberlunzie slowed to a walk.
  “I shall not stop; you must leave as best you may, so that my trail will be
unbroken. Do not stop to cover your own, but look for a place of shelter.
Later you will see foxes: do not harm them.”
  “But what of yourself?” said Fenodyree. “It will not do to be abroad after
sunset.”
  “The morthbrood are welcome to the chase! For I shall go by Shining
Tor, and Cat's Tor, and the Wind-gather Rocks, and the sun will rise for
me out of the three peaks of Eildon. I do not think the morthbrood will be
then so keen.”
  Five minutes later they said their good-byes, and tumbled into the
snow.
  “Do as I have said,” called Gaberlunzie, “and you will come to no harm
here; and when you meet Cadellin, say I wish him well.”
  Durathror was the last to leave, and as he picked himself up, the form of
Gaberlunzie, one hand raised in farewell, blended into the mist, and
passed out of his sight for ever.
  “I don't like the idea of leaving all these tracks,” said Colin.
  “There is little else we can do,” said Fenodyree. “And I feel that
Gaberlunzie knows what he is about. Our task is to hide, and this is the
place. Take care lest you shake the snow from the branches!”
   The trees grew only a few feet apart, and the sweeping branches came
close to the ground, so close that even the dwarfs had to crawl, while
Gowther had to pull himself along on his stomach.
   They went downhill from the path a good way before Fenodyree
stopped.
   “Here will be as safe as anywhere. Even without the mist you can see no
more than a few yards. Let us make ourselves as comfortable as we can,
for we shall not stir again until we go to greet Cadellin.”

                                    ***
   Down the path through the forest two slim shadows moved. Coming to
the trampled snow, and the trail leading under the branches, they
stopped, and sniffed. And then they began to roll and frolic all around; two
foxes sporting on a winter hillside. When every trace of human feet was
obliterated, they set off down the trail, throwing the snow into confusion
as they fought.
   The sound of their approach reached the dwarfs ears, and they waited,
sword in hand, for whatever was drawing near. Then the foxes tumbled
into sight, and landed on their haunches, side by side, flecked with snow,
their red tongues lolling, and their sharp eyes narrowing, in a wicked,
panting grin.
  For a while they sat there, and Durathror was about to speak, but they
hung up their tails, and streaked away downhill.
  “Thank you,” said Fenodyree.
  “Why?” said Colin. “What were they doing?”
  “Covering our tracks rather well I reckon. said Gowther. “Now yon's
what I call clever.”
   “And the scent of a fox is stronger than that of either men or dwarfs,”
said Durathror, smiling.
   He smiled again, alone to himself in the night while the others slept,
when he heard the baying of hounds pass over the hill, and fade into the
far distance.




                          CHAPTER 20.
                          Shuttlingslow

   No one slept much all through the second, and last, night in the forest.
It had been a strain on the nerves to lie inactive, yet constantly alert, for a
whole day. The cold was no longer a problem, and the food of Angharad
was safeguard against hunger and thirst for many days, so there had been
nothing to do but wait, and think.
   It was as though the night would never end yet they could find little to
talk about, wrapped in their cloaks, five dim shapes against the lighter
background of the snow.
   And, because of the snow, it was never quite dark, even in the forest:
and although they could not approach the dwarfs' powers of sight the
children found that, as the night wore on, they could see well enough to
distinguish between individual trees and the hillside.
  Tension mounted with every hour. But at Last Fenodyree said:
  “Dawn is not far off. Are we ready?”
                                   ***
  They climbed up the path. The marks of hoofs were still there for the
dwarfs to see, but they were overlaid with many tracks; hound, svart, and
others.
   After a long drag uphill they came above the forest on to a bleak shelf of
moorland; and out of the far side of the plateau, half a mile distant, the
last two hundred feet of Shuttlingslow reared black against the paling
night.
  They halted, and stared, prey to their emotions at the sudden
appearance of the long-sought goal. It was so very near.
  “Yonder it is,” said Durathror, “but shall we ever reach it?”
   They looked cautiously around. The snow lay two feet deep upon the
moor. Not a tree could be seen in the gloom; only a dark line of wall, the
dry stone walling of the hills, cut across the landscape. Once committed to
this waste, once they had made their mark, there could be no drawing
back. And after all those miles of stealth it seemed madness to walk out
across such naked land. More, an actual fear of the open spaces came over
them, even the dwarfs; they felt light-headed, and weak-kneed, and longed
for the security of a close horizon.
  Then Gowther squared his shoulders. “Come on,” he said, “let's be
doing.” And he strode off towards Shuttlingslow.
   It was a hard trek, and a stiff climb at the end of it, but both were
achieved without sight of the morthhrood or any of their kind. Up they
toiled, hands and feet working together on the near-perpendicular slope;
up and up, till their lungs felt torn and their hearts were bursting. Thirty
feet more! They had done it! In spite of all the forces ranged against them,
they had done it!
   They lay panting on the flat summit ridge. All about them was nothing
but the air. When exultation had died, they crawled round until they were
lying in a rough horseshoe, facing outwards. In this way, while keeping
together, they could watch all the surrounding land except for the
southern approach, which was hidden by the far end of the ridge. The
crest of Shuttlingslow is only a few yards wide, and they were able to talk
without raising their voices.
  Fenodyree reckoned that dawn was less than half an hour away. All eyes
strained to pick out Cadellin as soon as he should appear. Once Durathror
thought he saw him, but it was a troll-woman striding across a hillside
miles away. It grew lighter. North, south, and east, the hills rolled away,
and to the west, the plain, a lake of shadow into which the night was
sinking.
   “Isn't it time we were seeing him?” Colin asked. He could now see the
straight track they had drawn across the plateau. The others too, were
glancing in that direction.
  “The sun has not yet risen,” said Fenodyree. “He will come.”
  But he did not come. And soon they could no longer pretend that it was
night. There was no break in the ceiling of cloud, but the day would not be
denied.
   “It looks as if we've shot our bolt, dunner it?” said Gowther. “Do we just
lie here and wait to be picked like ripe apples?”
  “We must wait until the last moment,” said Fenodyree. “And wherever
we go now we shall not escape the eyes of the morthbrood.”
  “It looks like being a grand day, then; Friday the thirteenth and all!”
  “Ay.” said Durathror. “Between nine and thirteen all sorrow shall be
done.”
  Their spirits drained from them their trail stood out as clearly as if it
had been painted black. And there was no Cadellin.
   Occasional specks moved singly or in groups across the white backcloth
of hills, and out on the plain, from the smudge that was Alderley Edge,
drifted what might have been a plume of smoke, but was not.
  “Now that they are astir,” said Durathror, “Cadellin must needs come
quickly, or he will come too late.”
   As it gained height the column of birds split into patrolling flocks, two
of which headed towards Shuttlingslow. When they were a mile away it
became obvious that one flock would pass to the south of the hill, and the
other to the north. The northerly flock raced over the plateau, and the
watchers on the hilltop wanted to close their eyes. Suspense did not last.
The leader swung round in a tight circle over the line of footprints. and
brought the flock slowly along the trail, close to the ground.
  “Do not move!” whispered Fenodyree. “It is our only chance.”
   But the muspel cloaks were not proof against keen eyes at close range.
The whole flock shot skywards on the instant, and broke north, south, east,
and west to din the alarm. One or two remained, at a safe height, and they
cruised in beady silence. The specks in the distance slowed, changed
course, and began to move in towards a common centre—Shuttlingslow.
More appeared, and more still, and distant, thin voices were raised in
answer to the summons, and mingled with them the whine of the mara,
and a baying note, that the children had heard once before at St Marys
Clyfle, and Fenodyree more recently in the forest. From all over the plain
clouds of birds were rushing eastwards. Durathror stood up.
  “Is this the end of things, cousin?”
  “It may be.”
  “Where is Cadellin Silverbrow?”
  “I cannot think! unless it be that he is dead, or prisoner, and either way
we are lost.”
  “But if he's coming from that direction.” cried Colin, pointing south,
“we shouldn't see him until he was right at the top!”
  “Fool that I am! Quick! We may throw away all hope by standing here!”
   Half-way along the ridge the birds attacked. In a cloud they fell, clawing
and pecking, and buffeting with their wings. And their attentions were
directed against Susan above all. In the first seconds of advantage they
fastened upon her like leeches, and tangled thickly in her hair. And their
strength was human, But before they could drag her from the hill Dyrnwyn
and Widowrnaker were among them.
   Backwards and forwards along the crest the conflict raged, until the
ground was red and black, and still they came. Not before fully a quarter
of their number had been hewn from the air did they abandon the fight.
  Durathror and Fenodyree leaned on their swords, heads hanging. All
were torn and bleeding; but the wounds were not deep.
  “It is well they broke,” panted Fenodyree, “for I was near spent.”
  “Ay,” said Durathror, “it will go hard with us if they come again.”
  Gowther reversed his grip on his ash stick, which he had been wielding
with terrible effect, and pointed.
  “And yon have not been idle, sithee. We'll have to be thinking quick!”
    The morthbrood were pouring in from all sides; only to the south-west
was the land not thickly dotted with running figures. The near groups
were not heading for the top of Shuttlingslow, but were moving to encircle
it; and out of the valley of Wildboarclough, seven hundred feet below at
the foot of the hill's eastern slope, came a band of svarts, five hundred
strong. There was no Cadellin.
  “Can western this flood, cousin?” said Fenodyree.
  Durathror shook his head.
   “By weight of numbers they will conquer. But since it has come to this
we must draw what teeth we may before we go down to rest. And it is how
I would wish to die, for so have I lived.”
  “Well, I'm not going to let them have the stone as easily as that!” cried
Susan. “You stay if you like, but I'm off!”
  And she started down the hill at a mad speed towards where the
numbers of the morthbrood were thinnest.
  “Come back Sue!” shouted Colin.
 “No!” said Gowther. “She's the only one round here as is talking sense.
Well, come on! Are you fain to let her go by herself?”
   They sprang after Susan; floundering in the snow, leaping, bounding,
falling, rolling, they hurtled after her, unmindful of bruises, caring nothing
for safety, while the air clamoured with the shriek of birds.
   Once off the escarpment their gait slackened, yet they were making
every effort to hurry. The snow was knee-deep, and clogged the feet like a
nightmare. Rocks, reed clumps, hummocks of grass sent them stumbling
at every stride. The birds flew low but did not attack.
  Over Piggford moor Susan ran, flanked by dwarfs with gleaming
swords. A few stray svarts, and the loose-limbed scarecrow creatures
barred the way from time to time, but they fell back at the sight of the
hard blades. They preferred to join the crowd that was now sweeping
round the sides of Shuttlingslow.
  The moor curved down three hundred feet to a stream that Susan did
not discover in time, and they all slithered into the water, and lost
precious seconds there. Choking, they scrambled up the opposite hill. And
that climb exhausted the last of their strength. It beat them mentally as
well as physically, for it was a convex slope, and the skyline, the apparent
top of the hill, was always receding. It was never far away, but they could
never reach it. Soon it was nearly beyond them to climb the stone walls
that blocked their path, and when they did totter to the crest, and saw
that it was only a wide shelf, and that a further incline awaited them, all
but Durathror collapsed as though their legs had been cut from under
them.
   Durathror looked behind him. Except for one or two stragglers,
Pigglord moor was bare. Yet the noise of the chase was loud: he heard it
clearly, even through the bedlam of the milling birds. The morthbrood
must have crossed the stream.
  “Up!” he cried. But they were not at the top of the final rise when the
pursuit came into sight. The svarts, with their snow-skimming feet. and
the tireless, bobbing lyblacs had outstrippcd the morthbrood, and they
had at their head one that was worse than all—a mara, grey and terrible.
And before the mara ran the two hounds of the Morrigan, their blind
heads low to the scent, and their mouths hanging red.
  “Stay not for me!” shouted Durathror, facing about.
  For a second Fenodyree wavered, then he nodded, and pushed the
others on towards the crest of the hill.
   The hounds were well ahead of the mara, and the first, drawing near,
slowed to a walk, ears pricked forward.
  “Ha!” cried Durathror.
  The hound paused.
  “Ha!”
  And as it leapt he ducked, and thrust upwards with both hands to his
sword, and the beast was dead before it hit the ground. But it wrenched
Dyrnwyn from Durathror's grasp in its fall, and then the other sprang. But
Durathror was lightning itself in battle, and the teeth closed not on his
throat, but on his forearm which he rammed between the wet jaws, and
over he went, hurled on to his back by the weight of the monster. And
while they wrestled the mara strode by unheedingly.
  Durathror fumbled for the dagger at his waist: he found it, and the end
was quick.
  But he could do nothing to save the others. Already the mara towered
over them. Bravely, rashly, Fenodyree launched himself upon it, but
Widowmaker flew from his hands in a shower of sparks at the first blow,
and, leaning down from its twenty feet of grim might, the troll grasped
Susan by the wrist, and plucked her from the ground.
   The scream that cut the air then stopped svarts and lyblacs in their
tracks, and even the birds were hushed. Durathror hid his face, and
groaned; tears flooded his cheeks. Again the piteous cry, but weaker now.
Durathror knew his heart must break. Again. And again. Shouting wildly,
mad with grief, he rose, and snatched for his sword. But the sight that met
him brought him straight to his knees. For, limp, in the snow, just as she
had fallen, was Susan, Beside her was the mara, and it was shrinking.
Like a statue of butter in a furnace heat it writhed and wasted. Its
contours melted into formlessness as it dwindled. No sound did it utter
again, save a drawn-out moan as movement finally ceased. And there on
the moor-top stood a rough lump of rock.
  Half-unconscious, Susan knew little of the mara's fate. As the
spiral-patterned clouds and flashing lights withdrew from before her eyes
she could only stare at Angharad's bracelet, dented and misshapen from
the grip of the stone-cold hand that had fastened upon her wrist.
  “Are you all reet, lass?”
  “What did you do?”
  “I'm not hurt. It was the bracelet, I think. What's happened?”
  The svarts and lyblacs were in confusion: and, for the moment, lacked
the united courage to advance. Durathror was quick to seize the chance.
He faced the crowd, and spoke in a voice for all to hear.
  “See how the invincible perish! If such is the fate of the mara, how shall
you endure our wrath? Let him who loves not life seek to follow further!”
  The mob slunk back. But now the morthbrood were at hand, and they
were not to be so promptly awed. He knew he had won only a
breathing-space—just long enough to prevent their being overrun while
Susan gathered her strength.
   And then Durathror saw what he had lost all hope of seeing: a lone man
on the top of Shuttlingslow, two miles away. And as he looked he saw the
tall figure leave the crest, and begin to descend.
  Durathror joined the others; they, too, had seen.
  “But I dunner think yon bunch have,” said Gowther. “Now how are we
going to hold out while he gets here?”
  “It is an hour's journey over this ground,” said Fenodyree.
   The morthbrood were conferring with the svarts: there was much
shouting, and waving of hands. The svarts were not keen to risk the mara's
end, while the morthbrood did not want to take the brunt of the dwarfs'
swordmanship themselves. The Morrigan, in her black robes, was
screaming furiously.
  “Cowards! Liars! They are but five! Take them! Take them now!”
  Fenodyree did not wait for more.
  “Come,” he said, “We cannot hold them if she is here. We must seek
where we may make a stand against them.”
   A hundred yards was all they had, and as soon as they moved, the
morthbrood surged after them. From the beginning there was little
promise of escape, but when they crossed over the top of the hill, and
came to a deeply sunk, walled lane, and saw warlocks streaming along it
from both sides they realized finally that this was the end of all pursuits,
and, though it may seem strange, they were glad. The long struggle was
nearly over, either way a load of responsibility was lifted from their hearts.
  “We shall run while we can!” cried Fenodyree; and he jumped down into
the lane and pulled himself over the wall on the other side. “Look for a
place for swords!”
  But they had no choice. Lyblacs, armed with staves, thronged the side of
the valley below them.
  “A circle!” shouted Gowther. “Colin! Susan! Into th' middle!”
  And so they took their stand and all evil closed upon them.
  “They are not to die, yet!” cried the Morrigan. “Who takes a life shall
answer with his own!”
  Back to back the dwarfs and Gowther fought, silently, and desperately.
And in between crouched the children. The bestial shouts, the grunts and
squeals of dying svarts, echoed from valley to valley. Fenodyree and
Durathror wove a net of light with their swords as they slashed. and
parried, and thrust. And when Gowther swung his stick skulls split and
bones cracked. Their one hope was to survive until the wizard came; but
where an enemy fell there was always another to take his place; and
another, and another, and another, and another.
   They fought themselves to a standstill. Gowther's stick was knocked
from his hands, but he bent and took up a svart-hammer in either hand,
and from that moment the slaughter increased. Following his example, the
weapon-less children snatched themselves weapons, and entered into the
fight.
   And thus for a while the battle ran their way. But it was the last flare of
a guttering candle before the night swamps all. The end came suddenly. A
svart-hammer crashed home above Fenodyree's elbow, and the bone
snapped with the noise of a whiplash. His sword-arm hanging useless,
Fenodyree was a broken wall, and soon the enemy would pour through the
breach. Durathror acted. He pushed out his free hand behind him while
keeping his eyes fixed on his work.
  “The stone! Give me the stone!”
  Without questioning, Susan ducked behind Gowther, took off the chain
bracelet, and locked it about Durathror's wrist. As she did so, a dozen
pairs of hands clutched her, and dragged her backwards: but too late.
Durathror sprang into the air. Valham enfolded him, and he turned
towards Shuttlingslow in a last attempt to save the stone.
   And the birds fell upon him like black hail. He disappeared from sight
as though into a thunder cloud. The lightning of his sword flashed through
the smoke of birds, and the earth grew dark with their bodies: but there
were also white eagle feathers, with blood upon them, and their number
grew.
  The battle on the ground was done: all eyes were upon that in the air.
Nothing of Durathror could be seen as the cloud moved slowly away, but
few birds were dropping now.
  Lower down the hillside a round knoll stood out from the slope, topped
by a thin beech wood; and on its crown a tall pillar of gritstone jutted to
the sky like a pointing finger. Clulow was its name.
   Over this mound the last blow was struck. A white object fluttered out
of the base of the mass, hovered for a moment, pitched forward, and
crashed through the trees, and lay still.
   Down rushed the lyblacs and svarts, howling. At the noise, the figure
stirred. Durathror raised his head. Then he hauled himself upright against
a grey trunk, steadied himself, and began to walk up the hill. He lurched
and stumbled from tree to tree. His mail shirt was ripped half from his
back, and Valham hung in ribbons. Often he would stand, swaying on his
feet, and it seemed that he must fall backwards, but always he would
stagger on, bent almost double, more wound than dwarf, and, at the last,
leaning his full weight upon his sword.
  So Durathror came to the pillar of stone. He put his back against it, and
unclasped his belt. Loosening it, he threw it round the column, and
buckled it tightly under his arms so that he should not fall. When this was
done, he grasped Dyrnwyn in both hands, and waited.
  For ten yards around, the hilltop was bare of trees, and at the edge of
the circle the svarts halted, none wanting to be the first to cross the open
ground and meet that sword. But it was only for a moment.
  “There is the stone!” cried Shape-shifter from behind. “Take it!”
  “Gondemar!” thundered Durathror.
   Where he found the strength is a mystery and a great wonder. But such
was his fury that none could withstand him, not even Arthog, lord of the
svart-alfar, that was as big as a man. In the thick of the press he came
against Durathror, and Durathror brought his sword round in an arc. The
svart parried with his hammer but Dyrnwyn clove through the stone, and
Arthog's head leaped from his shoulders. But no sword can shear through
stone unpunished, and at the next stroke the blade snapped half-way to
the hilt. Yet still Durathror fought and none who faced him drew breath
again; and the time came when the svarts and lyblacs fell back to the trees
to regain their strength and to prepare a last assault.
   Durathror sagged in his harness, and the stump of Dyrnwyn hung by his
side. His head dropped forward on to his chest, and a silence lay upon the
hill.




                       CHAPTER 21.
                     The Headless Cross

  Grimnir ran. Fear, excitement, greed drove him.
   From the top of Shuttlingslow he had watched the chase right to the fall
of the man; and from that high vantage point he had seen something else,
something approaching rapidly, away to the north, and although he had
been on his guard against danger from that quarter for months the form it
had taken, and the time it had chosen to appear, could not have disturbed
him more.
   He came unnoticed over the bill above Clulow soon after Arthog died
when every eye was upon Durathror as the svarts withdrew from that still
figure with the splintered sword. His gaze rested on the prisoners, each
held by two warlocks of the morthbrood, standing between the main body
and the wood; and Grimnir checked his stride, hope and distrust
conflicting within him.
   For above the clearing in the wood circled a carrion crow. It spiralled
down, barely moving its wings, and came to rest on top of the
standing-stone. A long time it perched there, watching, motionless. The
silence was overpowering. And then the crow launched itself into the air,
and resumed its measured glide. Closer to the drooping warrior it came,
closer . . . closer, and settled on his shoulder. But Durathror did not move.
His trial was over.
   A sigh rose through the trees, and the crow hopped from the dwarf's
shoulder to the ground. Straight to his wrist it went: and from there back
to the pillar, with Firefrost dangling at its beak. The bird threw up its
head neck feathers blown into a ruff, and, with wings outstretched, began
to dance a clumsy jig. It rolled grotesquely from side to side, its head
bobbing up and down, and a yell of triumph burst forth on every side.
   Grimnir cast a quick glance over his shoulder. Yes, he must act at once.
If the crow should drop its eyes and look above the throng it could not fail
to notice . . . Swiftly he strode down the hill and pushed through the
morthbrood. And as he went a new cry moved with him; for in turning to
see who was coming so impetuously from behind, the crowd looked
beyond him . . . and panicked.
   Colin, Susan, Gowther, and Fenodyree had watched Durathror's battle
in an agony of helplessness. Fury and despair had done their worst; their
minds were numb with shock. So it was with little interest or emotion that
they turned their heads when the note of fear ran through the
morthbrood. Then Grimnir came upon them. He faltered, but only for a
second. “Kill them,” he said to the guards.
   Susan opened her mouth, but no sound would come. For the first time
in memory or legend Grimnir had spoken. And the voice was the voice of
Cadellin.
   The morthbrood were scattering in all directions. The guards were
more intent on saving their own lives than on taking life away from others.
For this is what they saw. Racing out of the north was a cloud, lower than
any that hid the sun, and black. Monstrous it was, and in shape a ravening
wolf. Its loins fell below the horizon, and its lean body arched across the
sky to pouncing shoulders, and a head with jaw agape that even now was
over the far end of the valley. Eyes glowed yellow with lightning, and the
first snarls of thunder were heard above the cries of the morthbrood.
There seemed to be one thought in all their minds—escape. But when
Managarm of Ragnarok is about his masters bidding, such thoughts are
less than dreams.
   The svarts and lyblacs were beginning to break when Grimnir entered
the wood. He kicked and trampled through them towards the pillar. The
crow was still there squatting low, its head deep in its shoulders, glaring at
the oncoming cloud. It saw Grimnir on the edge of the clearing, read his
purpose in a flash, and sprang. But Grimnir was too agile. He jumped,
snatched high, and his fingers closed about the birds scaly shins, and
swept it out of the air. The other thin, gloved hand wrenched Firefrost
from its beak. Grimnir cast the heap of feathers viciously against the
pillar, and fled.
  “Eh up!” said Gowther. “Here he comes again!”
  The children and Fenodyree were still groping at the implications of
what had just happened and it was not until Gowther cried, “And he's
getten thy bracelet!” that they came back to life.
  They might not have been there for the notice the morthbrood and all
the rest took of them. Even Grimnir ignorcd them as he sped up towards
the lane.
  “After him!” shouted Fenodyree. “He must not escape!”
   The hillside was thick with pell-mell bodies, but Grimnir could not be
easily lost, and they set off blindly, without thinking what they could do if
they caught him. Grimnir leapt on to the wall and stood poised, as though
staring at something in the lane. Then he turned, and ran back down the
hill, moving faster than ever. But Grimnir had barely left the wall when he
staggered, and a sharp cry broke from him, and he toppled on to his
hands. A double-edged sword stood out from his back. Along the blade
coiled two serpents of gold, and so bright were they that it pained the eyes
to look on them.
   Slowly Grimnir rose, until he was on his feet. The sword dropped to the
ground. He took three steps, swayed, and fell backwards. The deep cowl
slid from his face, and the madness was complete. It was the face of
Cadellin twisted with pain, but nevertheless Cadellin; kind, noble, wise, his
silver beard tucked inside the rank, green, marsh-smelling, monk-like
habit of Grimnir the hooded one.
   Susan thought she was out of her mind. Colin could not think or speak.
Fenodyree wept. Then there was a crunching of rock above them, and they
looked up: someone was climbing over the wall. It was Cadellin.
   He came towards them over the snow, and his eyes too, were full of
tears. No words were spoken in greeting, for it was a moment beyond
words. Cadellin dropped on one knee beside Grimnir, and the tears spilled
on to his cheeks.
  “Oh, Govannon!” he whispered. “Govannon!” Grimnir opened his eyes.
  “Oh, my brother This is the peak of the sorrow of all my years. That it
should come to this! And at my hand!”
  Grimnir raised himself on one elbow, and, ignoring Cadellin, twisted his
head towards the wood. An eager light gleamed in his eyes. Among all the
haphazard scuttling, one figure moved with a set purpose and that was
Selina Place, who was running towards the little group as fast as she
could, her robes streaming behind her.
  Grimnir brought his head round and stared at his brother, but he did
not speak. Their eyes spoke through the barrier of years, and across the
gulf of their lives.
  Again Grimnir turned to Selina Place. She was close. He looked up into
the smoking jaws of Managarm, then at Cadellin. A bleak smile touched
the corners of his mouth, and he lifted his fist, and dropped the stone into
Cadellin's hand, and fell back, dead.
   Cadellin took up the sword, and sheathed it. He strove to keep his voice
level.
  “I am sorry we could not meet at dawn,” he said. “I did not expect to
come upon the mara.” He looked at Firefrost resting in his palm. “Not did
I expect this. There will be much to tell in Fundindelve. But first . . .”
   He turned to the Morrigan. She stood a dozen yards away, glowering
uncertain. She was not sure what had happened. Then Cadellin held up
Firefrost for her to, see.
  “Get you to Ragnarok!”
   Selina Place, fury in every line of her, shrieked and ran. And as she ran a
change came over her. She seemed to bend low over the ground, and she
grew smaller; her robes billowed out at her side; her thin legs were
thinner, her squat body heavier; and then there was no Selina Place. only a
carrion crow rising into a sky of jet.
   “Make haste,” said Cadellin, “or we ourselves shall he lost. Gowther
Mossock, will you stand here in front of me? I shall put my hand on your
shoulder. Colin, Susan, stand on either side: take hold of my robe: do not
let go. Fenodyree, sit by our feet: cling fast to my hem. Is Durathror not
with you?”
  “He is here,” said Fenodyree. “But he will not come again.”
  “What is it you say?”
  Fenodyree pointed.
  “Durathror! Quick! We must guard him!”
  “Stay!” cried Fenodyree as Cadellin made towards the wood. “There is
not time, and it would be of no use. See! Managarm is on us!”
   All the sky to the north and east was wolf head. The mouth yawned
wider, till there was nothing to be seen but the black, cavernous maw,
rushing down to swallow hill and valley hole. Witches, warlocks, svarts,
lyblacs, stampeded southwards, crushing underfoot any that blocked the
way. The birds outdistanced them all, but they were not swift enough.
   One bird alone did not go south. It flew towards the advancing shadow,
climbing ever higher, until it was a black dot against a blacker vault, and
even a dwarf's eyes could not tell if it did clear the ragged fangs that
sought to tear it from the sky.
  As the hill slid down the boundless throat Cadellin lifted his right hand,
and held Firefrost on high. Gowther stood firm. Colin and Susan clasped
their arms about Cadellin's waist, and Fenodyree grappled to him with his
one good arm as much of the wizard's robes as he could hold.
  “Drochs, Muroch, Esenaroth!”
  A cone of light poured down from the stone, enclosing them in a blue
haze. A starving wind, howling like wolves, was about them, yet the air
they breathed was still, Slanting yellow eyes were seen dimly through the
veil; hungry eyes. And there were other noises and other shapes that were
better left unknown.
  The fury raged and beat against the subtle armour, but it was as
nothing to the power of Cadellin Silverbrow with Firefrost in his hand.
   And at last, at once, the darkness passed, and the blue light faded.
Blinking in the sunlight of a brilliant sky, the survivors of the wrath of
Nastrond looked out over fields of white; wind-smoothed, and as empty of
life as a polar shore. No svart or lyblac stained the snow; no gaunt figure
lay close by; the pillar of Clulow was bare. Away to the south a black cloud
rolled. There was joy, and many tears.
  And this tale is called the Weirdstone of Brisingamen. And here is an
end of it.