The Stolen Lake (28 page)

"And there you stay!" he shouted through the door, "until tomorrow evening, when it is time for you to go to Sul.
Hodie mihi, eras tibi! Nota bene! Respice finem! Suaviter in modo! Experto crede!
"

And she heard him stomping off back into the temple, where he soothed his feelings and allayed his temper by making a lot of noise on various instruments and thumping some very cacophonous chords on the piano. Poor old boy, thought Dido, he ain't
half
sore that he lost Elen. I guess those old girls will be right mad with him.

And then Dido began to wonder and worry as to whether she had done the right thing in encouraging the princess to escape on Hapiypacha. Would the leopard really consent to be ridden all the way over the mountains to Wandesborough? Or would he toss Elen off into a sigse thorn thicket and then eat her? Or would she fall off his back? Or would they get lost, and fall asleep on the bare mountain slopes, and become the prey of aurocs?

Still, thought Dido, anything's better than waiting here to be chucked off a blessed rock into a perishing lake.

She had ample time to think this. It was a miserable night. The room was extremely dark with the door shut, since there was only one window, about the size of a brick, very high up. Dido groped her way to the heap of hair and curled up on it miserably. She felt, for the first time, horribly lonely—for Elen, for Mr. Multiple, for Holystone, for Noah Gusset—even for Captain Hughes and Hapiypacha. Where were they all, this night? Dido was very tired indeed, but it was a long time before she slept.

She woke up hollow with hunger—for the guardian's bean stew was not very nourishing, and it was many hours since she had eaten it—and also parched with thirst. She thought longingly of the water in the tank on the other side of the nailed-up door. The sun was up—she could tell that by the light in her window hole. Banging on the door, she shouted, "Lemme out!" For a long time there was no answer; then Caradog's voice replied, "Quiet, child, you interrupt my devotions. And in any case you cannot come out till moonrise. You had better think, meditate, put yourself in a proper frame of mind to go to Sul."

"I don't want to go to flaming Sul!"

But nothing she said could elicit any further response from the guardian; she heard him from time to time chanting and playing on his instruments. Then there was a long silence; perhaps he was away seeing to his beasts.

The day dragged. It is bad enough at any time being shut up in a room in the dark with nothing to do; but the prospect of being a human sacrifice at the end of it makes the whole situation incomparably worse.

Dido's thirst, hardly bearable at the beginning of the day, was so acute by nightfall that she could hardly speak when at last the guardian wrenched open the door and let her out. She had to work her sore throat several times before she could get out the word
Water
in a hoarse wheezing whisper.

"Thirsty, are you?" said Caradog sourly. "No more than you deserve. Water's not what you need, with a thirst like that; what you need is a cup of my willow tea." He had a cup ready brewed, which he handed to her; for the second time within two days Dido thought of Mr. Holystone's admonition: Always throw away the first cupful from a stranger. But she was too thirsty to throw away this cupful; she grasped the cup with shaking hands and tipped the contents eagerly down her painful throat, which was almost closed up with dryness. The willow tea tasted stale and metallic, like water that pennies have been soaked in. But then, all the guardian's concoctions tasted peculiar; Dido thought nothing of it.

"Now I want some cold water," said she, and before he could stop her she walked into the room with the tank and swigged down about four cupfuls, one after the other. Caradog wagged his head angrily.

"Not good, not good!" he said. "You should go empty to the sacrifice!"

"Croopus!" said Dido. "I'm the one as is going to be sacrificed. You oughter be giving me crumpets and plum jam and haddock kedgeree and pancakes."

Caradog looked at her as if she had gone mad.

"Condemned person's breakfast," explained Dido. "Who's a-coming to the ceremony?"

The one thing that had cheered her (and that not much) during her hours of incarceration had been the thought of a huge crowd with the queen, the grand inquisitor, the mistress of the robes, and the rest of them, come to see her jump to her doom. She would make a speech, which she had been preparing, giving them a piece of her mind, telling them what she thought of them. But the guardian undeceived her.

"Ceremony?" he said. "You mean the sacrifice? Nobody comes. Only you and I. Come along—it is time."

He picked up a thing like a witch's broom, a long stake with a bundle of ichu grass tied at one end, and with it gestured Dido toward the doorway. She had intended to put up a vigorous struggle, but to her surprise and rage she found herself obeying him with dreamy docility, walking peacefully along, putting one foot in front of the other.

"Blister it, mister," she muttered, yawning, "I reckon you put some hocus-pocus in that cup of tea, you wicked old wretch, didn't you? What a noddy I was to go and drink it. Mighta known you'd be up to tricks. Should have remembered what Mr. Holy told me...." She yawned again.

"Just keep walking," said the guardian.

Outside, it was not so dark as it had seemed in Dido's room; a mild blue dusk filled the silver-cobbled streets. Beyond the twin peaks of Ertayne and Elamye the evening star shone clear, and the slopes of Mount Catelonde were turning a soft velvety red. A few birds still keened and whistled overhead; and, when they climbed higher, Dido, looking down, saw that Lake Arianrod had been completely refilled, and now lay among its mountains like a calm, steel-blue star.

"When you think about it," she said to the guardian—she could still argue, though she seemed to have lost command over her arms and legs—"when you think about it, there wasn't no need for Mabon to send back the lake."

"Why not?" grunted Caradog.

Dido, turning to look at him, observed that he had donned formal clothes for the ceremony—a frock coat and black stovepipe hat.

"Why not? She wanted it back so her
Rex Quondam
could come out of it, didn't she? But he'd already come! And you're throwing me in, like you did all the other poor gals—and hundreds of other guardians before you, I suppose—so as to keep her alive till he gets back. Well, he's got back. And she's still alive. So what's the point?"

"Keep moving," the guardian said. He gestured with the hand that held the broom. The other clasped a silver-tipped wand of office. He added, "Even though Artaius has returned, his lady is still of immense age. Married to a much younger king, she will need more care and support than ever before."

"Well,
I
reckon she's lived quite long
enough,
" said Dido. But despite her indignant feelings she could not prevent herself from obeying the guardian. They came to the high stone shaft with the face of Sul; they descended to the terrace below. And here Caradog waited, leaning on his silver-tipped rod and eyeing the horizon, until the delicate slip of the new moon moved out from behind the shoulder of Mount Damyake, with the mysterious, shadowy ghost of the old moon cradled inside it, like an egg inside its egg cup.

"Now it is time," he said.

"Blame it!" expostulated Dido. "It ain't
right
for me to die! Have you thought of that, mister? You're an
old
gager; you've lived nigh on fourscore years, I shouldn't wonder. You did a whole lot of things and learned a lot o' stuff—though mussy knows, you ain't put it to very good use. But I haven't hardly done
nothing!
And I ain't learned much, neither, except the use of the globes that Mr. Holy taught me, and how to curtsy and cut up whales."

At the thought of Mr. Holystone her voice, to her shame, began to wobble dangerously; she stopped speaking and drew a deep breath.

"Cease repining, child, and go down those steps," said Caradog. "Do not quarrel with your destiny. If Sul wishes you to die, then it is your time."

Dido remembered the story that Bran had told about the man who picked up the necklace. Well, if it is my destiny, she thought, best not to make a pother about it.

She walked slowly down the long flight of stone steps and out onto the rock spur. It was much longer and wider than it had looked from above; it took about twenty steps to reach the end. There she stood, feeling the mild evening breeze, gazing down at the waters of Lake Arianrod a thousand feet below. One thing the old cuss has forgot, she thought—there ain't any fish in the lake now. Their bones was lying all over the sand. So no one's going to nibble me to a skellington; I shall just drown. But still, I don't much want to drown.

A red light began to glow behind her. She half turned, cautiously, and saw that the guardian had set light to the end of his broom, which was a kind of long-handled torch. He stood at the inner end of the rock spur, holding the flaming brand, presumably to prevent Dido from trying to go back, should she have any thoughts of doing so. He was waving the torch in slow circles so that it plumed and sparkled. The sight made Dido dizzy, so she turned her back on him again. How long will it be before I get so fuddleheaded that I topple off? she wondered dismally. Maybe it would be best to jump?

But I don't want to jump!

And then, looking up, she thought with a pang of dismay, Blister it, there's aurocs about. I thought they wasn't supposed to come out after dark? For an unmistakable triangular shape was floating down toward her, silhouetted black against the twilit sky; it must have launched itself from a crag somewhere higher up the hillside.

"No, really, that's a bit much!" Dido exclaimed. "Drowning's one thing, but I ain't a-going to be a bedtime tidbit for no auroc!" and, taking a deep breath, she tensed her knees, preparing to launch herself off the rock pinnacle, when she was startled almost out of her wits by a very familiar voice.

"Keep quite still, pray, Miss Twite," said Captain Hughes. "Don't kick; don't cry out. Above all, don't wriggle. Just remain calm, and I promise you that in a very short time I shall convey you to a place of safety."

And he gripped her very firmly indeed under her arms, and floated off with her above the dark waters of Lake Arianrod.

Dido and Captain Hughes talked their heads off all the way across the mountains.

"What a
naffy
idea, Cap'n. A flying machine! How in the world did you ever come to hit on it? Was that how you got out of prison? But how'd you ever
make
it?"

"Ahem!" he said. "As you know, I have always been interested in aerial appliances and such things; I had considered for a long time whether a device might not be constructed, by means of which, if a person were able to commence his flight from some lofty eminence—say a tower, or a mountainside—"

"But how'd you ever manage to make it in
prison?
"

"Very fortunately, all the facilities were to hand—materials, drawing implements, besides a skilled and willing helper. But, Miss Twite—I must delay no longer in telling you how creditable—
exceedingly
creditable, indeed—are the accounts of your behavior during this expedition that I have received from—"

"You had a helper in prison? Who was that, then?"

"In point of fact I had two companions during the period of my confinement. One of them, that dismal fellow Brandywinde, I found to be wholly ineffectual—a wretched milksop! But the other, the man David Llewellyn, known as Silver Taffy to his companions, though a shocking rogue in many ways, proved a most proficient assistant."

"Silver Taffy was in the jail too? Did he escape as well?"

"Why, yes. I do not know where he has got to now, however; I believe his intentions were to enter the city of Bath in disguise. He also undertook to look after poor Brandywinde—though I
did
wonder whether his intentions in that respect were wholly straightforward and trustworthy," said the captain, sounding a little doubtful for the first time. "We had to strap Brandywinde into his aerial floater with great care, since he had lost the power of his hands. So what use he could be to Silver Taffy I fail to see.... But is it not a capital device?" Inventor's pride swept away his doubts. "Made of silk, you see, stretched over cane struts. I shall take out a patent when I return to England; what do you think of the 'Owen Hughes Patent Aerial Floater' as a title?"

"That sounds first-rate, Cap; you'll make a fortune.... So you jumped outa the windows of the Pendragon Tower and floated away—then what happened?"

"Why, hearing from Mr. Multiple that you and King Mabon's daughter had been recaptured by Queen Ginevra—who, I am shocked to discover, is a
wholly
discreditable personage—I shall indite a memorandum to His Majesty's government in the strongest terms as soon as I am back aboard the
Thrush—
"

"You heard from
Mr. Multiple?
" Dido's voice almost cracked with wonder and joy. "But I thought he was dead?"

"No. I understand that he was on the point of being assassinated—some villains were about to toss him into an underground chasm—when he, very fortunately, recollected that he had a considerable quantity of diamonds about his person; by bribing his assailants with these they were persuaded to release him, and so he was enabled to make good his escape."

"
Croopus! Am
I pleased about that!" said Dido.

Her position was becoming very uncomfortable indeed. As they floated along the valley between the huge dark shoulders of Mount Catelonde on one side and Calabe on the other, the captain had contrived to pass a leather strap around her, under her armpits, and had buckled this to bevels on the understruts of his aerial floater, so that she was tolerably safe, but the strap cut cruelly into her shoulders. Still, the good news about Mr. Multiple made her able to disregard such discomfort with ease. She asked, "Where'd you come across Mr. Mully, then?"

"I met him in the mountains. He, it seems, had retraced his way from the cave where he was nearly murdered, purchased a peasant's llama with his last small diamond, and was journeying to Lyonesse City to inform King Mabon of the princess's recapture."