The Moon of Gomrath (3 page)

“Thank you,” said Albanac. “You will not be sorry.”

“Let us hope so,” said Uthecar. He did not look at all happy. “But from what I have heard of you, I am thinking you are not wise to put off your armour. The Morrigan does not forget, and she goes not forgive.”

“The Morrigan?” said Colin. “Where? Is she after us again?”

Although the children had first crossed this woman in her human shape, they had soon learnt that there was more to her than her ungraciousness. She was the Morrigan, leader of the witch covens called the morthbrood, and above that, she could wake the evil in stones and brew hate from the air, and she was terrible in
her strength. But mainly through Colin and Susan her power had been broken by Cadellin Silverbrow, and they had not been certain that she herself had survived the destruction that had overwhelmed her followers.

“The morthbrood is scattered,” said Albanac, “but she has been seen. You had best ask him who brought word of her.” He nodded towards Uthecar. “This honey-natured dwarf from beyond Minith Bannawg in the Northland.”

“Why? Have you seen her?” said Colin.

“Have I not!” said the dwarf. “Are you all wanting to know? Well then, here is the tale.

“On my way south I came to the hill of the Black Fernbrake in Prydein, and a storm followed me. So I was looking for rocks and heather to make a shelter for the night. I saw a round, brown stone, as if it were set apart from other stones, and I put my arms about it to lift it up – and oh, king of the sun and of the moon, and of the bright and fragrant stars! the stone put arms about my neck, and was throttling the life of me!

“Ask not how, for I cannot say, but I plucked myself free; and then the stone was the Morrigan! I sprang at her with my sword, and though she took out my eye, I took off her head, and the Black Fernbrake's sides called to her screech.

“But the head leapt a hard, round leap to the neck again, and she came at me loathingly, and I was much in fear of her. Three times we fought, and three times I lifted her head, and three times she was whole again, and I was near death with pain and faintness.

“So once more I set iron to her shoulders, but when the head was making for the trunk I put my sword on the neck, and the head played ‘gliong' on the blade, and sprang up to the skies. Then it began to fall, and I saw that it was aiming at me, so I stepped aside, and it went six feet into the ground with the force it had. Was that not the head! Then I heard stones crunching, and a chewing, and a gnawing, and a gnashing, so I thought it was time for me to take my legs along with me, and I went on through the night and the winnowing and the snow in it.”

They were waiting now for the wizard to come. And while they waited, Uthecar saw to it that talk never flagged.

He told how Albanac had met him one day, and had spoken of a rumour that something had come out of the ground near Fundindelve and was being hunted by Cadellin Silverbrow. Having himself been idle too long, Uthecar had decided to make the journey south from
Minith Bannawg in the hope that Cadellin would be glad of his help. He was not disappointed. The matter was greater than he thought—

Long ago, one of the old mischiefs of the world had brought fear to the plain, but it had been caught, and imprisoned in a pit at the foot of the Edge. Centuries later, through the foolishness of men, it had escaped, and was taken at heavy cost. Albanac's news was that man had loosed the evil a second time.

“And there was no knowing in the hard, shrivelling world,” said Uthecar, “where we might find the Brollachan again.”

The Brollachan. “Now the Brollachan,” said Uthecar, “has eyes and a mouth, and it has no speech, and alas no shape.” It was beyond comprehension. Yet the shadow that rose in Susan's mind as the dwarf spoke seemed to her to darken the cave.

Shortly after this, Cadellin arrived. His shoulders were bowed, his weight leaning on the staff in his hand. When he saw the children a frown grew in the lines about his eyes.

“Colin? Susan? I am glad to see you; but why are you here? Albanac, why have you gone behind me to do this?”

“It is not quite so, Cadellin,” said Albanac. “But first, what of the lios-alfar?”

“The elves of Dinsel and Talebolion will be slow to heal,” said Cadellin. “These that have come from Sinadon are stronger, but the smoke-sickness is on them, and some I fear are beyond my hand.

“Now tell me what has brought you here.”

He spoke to the children.

“We were – stopped by Atlendor – the elf – and then Uthecar and Albanac came,” said Susan, “and we've just heard about the elves.”

“Do you think badly of Atlendor,” said Albanac. “He is hard-pressed. But Susan has given us hope: I have the Mark of Fohla here.”

Cadellin looked at Susan. “I – am glad,” he said. “It is noble, Susan. But is it wise? Oh, you must think I have the destruction of elves at heart! But the Morrigan—”

“We have spoken of her,” said Albanac quickly. “The bracelet will not be with me for long, and I do not think that witch-queen will come south yet awhile. She will have to be much stronger before she dare move openly, and she does not feel safe even beyond Minith Bannawg, if Hornskin's tale speaks true. Why else the shape-shifting among rocks unless she fears pursuit?”

“That is so,” agreed Cadellin. “I know I am too cautious. Yet still I do not like to see these children brought even to the threshold of danger – no, Susan, do not be
angry. It is not your age but your humanity that gives me unrest. It is against my wishes that you are here now.”

“But
why
?” cried Susan.

“Why do you think men know us only in legend?” said Cadellin. “We do not have to avoid you for our safety, as elves must, but rather for your own. It has not always been so. Once we were close; but some little time before the elves were driven away, a change came over you. You found the world easier to master by hands alone: things became more than thoughts with you, and you called it an Age of Reason.

“Now with us the opposite holds true, so that in our affairs you are weakest where you should be strong, and there is danger for you not only from evil, but from other matters we touch upon. These may not be evil, but they are wild forces, which could destroy one not well acquainted with such things.

“For these reasons we withdrew from mankind, and became a memory, and, with the years, a superstition, ghosts and terrors for a winter's night, and later a mockery and a disbelief.

“That is why I must appear so hard: do you understand?”

“I – think so,” said Susan. “Most of it, anyway.”

“But if you cut yourself off all that while ago,” said Colin, “how is it that you talk as we do?”

“But we do not,” said the wizard. “We use the Common Tongue now because you are here. Amongst ourselves there are many languages. And have you not noticed that there are some of us stranger to the Tongue than others? The elves have avoided men most completely. They speak the Tongue much as they last heard it, and that not well. The rest – I, the dwarfs, and a few more – heard it through the years, and know it better than do the elves, though we cannot master your later speed and shortness. Albanac sees most of men, and
he
is often lost, but since they think him mad it is of no account.”

Colin and Susan did not stay long in the cave: the mood of the evening remained uneasy and it was obvious that Cadellin had more on his mind than had been said. A little after seven o'clock they walked up the short tunnel that led from the cave to the Holywell. The wizard touched the rock with his staff, and the cliff opened.

Uthecar went with the children all the way to the farm, turning back only at the gate. Colin and Susan were aware of his eyes ranging continually backwards and forwards, around and about.

“What's the matter?” said Susan. “What are you looking for?”

“Something I hope I shall not be finding,” said Uthecar. “You may have noticed that the woods were not empty this night. We were close on the Brollachan, and it is far from here that I hope it is just now.”

“But how could you see it, whatever it is?” said Colin. “It's pitch dark tonight.”

“You must know the eyes of a dwarf are born to darkness,” said Uthecar. “But even you would see the Brollachan, though the night were as black as a wolf's throat; for no matter how black the night, the Brollachan is blacker than that.”

This stopped conversation for the rest of the journey. But when they reached Highmost Redmanhey, Susan said, “Uthecar, what's wrong with the elves? I – don't mean to be rude, but I've always imagined them to be the – well, the ‘best' of your people.”

“Ha!” said Uthecar. “They would agree with you! And few would gainsay them. You must judge for yourselves. But I will say this of the lios-alfar; they are merciless without kindliness, and there are things incomprehensible about them.”

A
bout half a mile from Highmost Redmanhey, round the shoulder of Clinton Hill, there is a disused and flooded quarry. Where the sides are not cliffs, wooded slopes drop steeply. A broken wind pump creaks, and a forgotten path runs nowhere into the brambles. In sunlight it is a forlorn place, forlorn as nothing but deserted machinery can be; but when the sun goes in, the air is charged with a different feeling. The water is sombre under its brows of cliff, and the trees crowd down to drink, the pump sneers; lonely, green-hued, dark.

But peaceful, thought Susan, and that's something.

There had been no peace at the farm since their return. Two days of talk from Colin, and the silences made heavy by the Mossocks' uneasiness. For Bess and Gowther knew of the children's past involvement with
magic, and they were as troubled by this mixing of the two worlds as Cadellin had been.

The weather did not help. The air was still, moist, too warm for the beginning of winter.

Susan had felt that she must go away to relax; so that afternoon she had left Colin and had come to the quarry. She stood on the edge of a slab of rock that stretched into the water, and lost herself in the grey shadows of fish. She was there a long time, slowly unwinding the tensions of the days: and then a noise made her look up.

“Hallo. Who are you?”

A small black pony was standing at the edge of the water on the other side of the quarry.

“What are you doing here?”

The pony tossed its mane, and snorted.

“Come on, then! Here, boy!”

The pony looked hard at Susan, flicked its tail, then turned and disappeared among the trees.

“Oh, well – I wonder what the time is.” Susan climbed up the slope out of the quarry and into the field. She walked round to the wood on the far side, and whistled, but nothing happened. “Here, boy! Here, boy! Oh don't then; I'm – oh!”

The pony was standing right behind her.

“You made me jump! Where've you been?”

Susan fondled the pony's ears. It seemed to like that, for it thrust its head into her shoulder, and closed its velvet-black eyes.

“Steady! You'll knock me over.”

For several minutes she stroked its neck, then reluctantly she pushed it away. “I must go now. I'll come and see you tomorrow.” The pony trotted after her. “No, go back. You can't come.” But the pony followed Susan all the way across the field, butting her gently with its head and nibbling at her ears. And when she came to climb through the fence into the next field, it put itself between her and the fence, and pushed sideways with its sleek belly.

“What do you want?”

Push.

“I've nothing for you.”

Push.

“What
is
it?”

Push.

“Do you want me to ride? That's it, isn't it? Stand still, then. There. Good boy. You
have
got a long back, haven't you? There. Now – whoa! Steady!”

The moment Susan was astride, the pony wheeled round and set off at full gallop towards the quarry. Susan grabbed the mane with both hands.

“Hey! Stop!”

They were heading straight for the barbed wire at the top of the cliff above the deepest part of the quarry.

“No! Stop!”

The pony turned its head and looked at Susan. Its foaming lips curled back in a grin, and the velvet was gone from the eye: in the heart of the black pupil was a red flame.

“No!”
Susan screamed.

Faster and faster they went. The edge of the cliff cut a hard line against the sky. Susan tried to throw herself from the pony's back, but her fingers seemed to be entangled in the mane, and her legs clung to the ribs.

“No! No! No! No!”

The pony soared over the fence, and plunged past smooth sandstone down to the water. The splash echoed between the walls, waves slapped the rock, there were some bubbles: the quarry was silent under the heavy sky.

“I'm not waiting any longer,” said Bess. “Susan mun get her own tea when she comes in.”

“Ay, let's be doing,” said Gowther. “Theer's one or two things to be seen to before it rains, and it conner be far off now: summat's got to bust soon.”

“I'll be glad when it does,” said Bess. “I conner get my breath today. Did Susan say she'd be late?”

“No,” said Colin, “but you know what she is. And she hadn't a watch with her.”

They sat down at the table, and ate without talking. The only sounds were the breathing of Bess and Gowther, the ticking of the clock, the idiot buzz of two winter-drugged flies that circled endlessly under the beams. The sky bore down on the farm-house, squeezing the people in it like apples in a press.

“We're for it, reet enough,” said Gowther. “And Susan had best hurry if she dunner want a soaking. She ought to be here by now. Wheer was she for, Colin? Eh up! What's getten into him?” Scamp, the Mossocks' lurcher, had begun to bark wildly somewhere close. Gowther put his head out of the window. “That'll do! Hey!