“I believe he owns no man king, lord,” Llew offered. “I think I can say with certainty that these strangers neither esteem nor regard sovereignty—whether among themselves or among others.”
Cynfarch’s blue eyes narrowed. “That also is plain to see. No intelligent man comes before a sovereign lord with demands who has not first won that right through fealty and service.”
“Father,” Cynan put in, “Llew has counseled that these strangers should be returned to their own world as soon as possible.”
“Is this so?” Cynfarch looked at Llew.
“It is so, lord,” replied Llew. “The Chief Bard knows how it may be accomplished.”
“Then let it be done as you think best,” the king said. “If banishing the Dyn Dythri to their own realm will keep us from harm and cause them no hurt, so be it.” He raised his hand to the guards. “Take them away. I will hear no more.”
The strangers were removed at once, Weston still protesting noisily. The king shook his head slowly, a scowl on his face. The uncouth behavior of the strangers had embarrassed him.
Llew, recognizing his chance, said, “Lord Cynfarch, you have seen how matters stand. The water is poisoned; arrogant strangers invade Albion with impunity; Meldron roams Caledon, destroying all who raise arms against him.”
“These are very bad times,” the king agreed.
“And there are worse to come,” Llew said. “But at Dinas Dwr there is water enough for all, and food, and we are safe behind Druim Vran. I invite you to come with us to safety in the north—at least until Meldron is defeated.”
“But how will Meldron be defeated,” demanded Cynfarch, “if no one will stand against him?”
“We will stand against Meldron,” Llew assured him. “When the time comes to stand, you will not find us slow to take up our weapons. We have brought water; it is enough to last until we reach Dinas Dwr. But we cannot wait. We must leave here at once.”
The king considered this. “I hear what you say,” Cynfarch replied. “I will give you my decision on the morning.”
Llew seemed inclined to press the matter further, but I knew that would only harden Cynfarch’s judgment. I spoke up, saying, “We will await your decision, lord.” Cynfarch withdrew to his chamber then, and the people went to their sleeping places, leaving Llew, Cynan, Bran, and myself to talk together alone. “How can he refuse?” Llew wondered. “There is no water. You cannot stay here any longer.”
“Yet we cannot go from here unless the king agrees,” Cynan said. “That is the way of it. We will have to wait until tomorrow for his decision.”
“Well then,” put in Bran, “I am going to bed.” He rose, and I heard his footsteps move away to a corner of the hall where he might lie down on a calfskin on the straw-covered floor.
“That is good sense,” Cynan said. “Come, I will show you to your beds.”
We rose and moved to the door of the hall. Upon stepping outside, however, we were met by one of the women watching over Ffand. “Lord Bard,” she said, addressing me, “you must come at once. The child is calling for you.”
The three of us went in to Ffand together. As we entered the rush-lit room, I heard the woman with her say, “Here is the bard, child. Llew is with him.”
At these words my inward vision quickened, and I saw the slender form of the girl lying in the bed, her skin pale in dimly glowing light. “Tegid?” she said.
“Here, child,” I said, kneeling beside the bed. “I am here, Ffand.”
“I am cold,” she said. Her voice was a wisp with hardly a breath behind it.
The hut was uncomfortably close, the air stale. Yet she trembled with a chill. “Bring another cloak,” I told one of the women.
Llew knelt beside me. “Does it hurt, Ffand?”
She gulped a breath. “No,” she said. “But I am so cold . . . so cold.”
“What did you want to tell me?” I asked.
It was a moment before she spoke again. “Where is Twrch?” she asked.
“He is outside. He is waiting for you. He has not left the door all day.”
“Do you want me to bring him?” Llew asked.
She shook her head—the feeblest of movements. “He will get into trouble without me,” she whispered.
“Ffand,” Llew said, “you will get better. You will be able to look after him again soon.”
“Take care of him,” the girl said, her voice growing weaker. “He is all I have.”
“Ffand, listen—” Llew began. He took her hand. “Ffand?”
But her spirit had already flown. Without so much as a shudder or sigh, Ffand was dead.
Llew sat holding her hand for a moment, then leaned over her and kissed her forehead. He rose quickly and went outside. The woman had returned with the cloak. Together we unfolded it and spread it over Ffand’s body. Then I went out to the others.
“—and then get Bran and Alun,” Llew was saying. “I will get the horses.”
Cynan dashed away, and Llew turned on me. “The Dyn Dythri go back tonight! I will make sure of that,” he said angrily.
“But we must—”
“Tonight!” Llew shouted, darting away. “And you are coming with us, Tegid!”
30
WHERE TWO ROADS CROSS
The heat of the day had dwindled to a sultry swelter; even in the deepness of night there was no comfort to be found. Yet, we pressed briskly on: Llew, myself, and four of Cynan’s warriors riding guard on the strangers who traveled in two of Cynfarch’s chariots. Cynan rode just ahead with a torch, scouting the way, Bran and Alun rode behind.
Our destination was the place where Sarn Cathmail, our trail from the north, crossed the track that led west into the central hills of Caledon—a crossroads. According to Cynan this crossroads was surmounted by a mound with a birch grove at its summit. It was a holy and sacred place, and it was from here that we intended to send the Dyn Dythri back to their own world.
Llew remained insistent that the strangers would be returned at once, and there seemed no reason to gainsay him. So we set out, hoping to reach the crossroads at dawn and the time-between-times, when the door between the worlds would stand open for a moment at that holy place.
The night was against us; with no moon to light our way, the journey had taken far longer than we had foreseen. Now we were trying to make what haste we could to reach the place in time.
“It is uncanny,” Cynan muttered. “I know the land hereabouts. We must have ridden past the mound in the dark.” He paused, reining his horse to a halt and turning to me. “Maybe we should turn back.”
From out of the darkness, Llew answered him. “No,” he replied tersely, drawing even with us. “We would have seen something of the hill trail—even in the dark. We will go on.”
“Seen something!” protested Cynan. “I cannot see my hand in front of my face, let alone see the track ahead.”
Llew remained adamant. “We go on, Cynan. I will not suffer them to remain in Albion even one more day.”
Cynan sighed, but urged his horse to a swifter pace.
Whether bright midday or blackest night—it was all the same to me. My inward eye remained blind. Seeing nothing, I listened, alert to any sound that reached me through the still night air: Twrch padding softly, occasionally snuffling the path; the flutter of the torch, the clop of the horses, and the creak of chariot wheels. Once I heard a bird, startled by our passage, give out a sharp cry as it took wing, its call a disembodied shriek dwindling into the formless void.
After a time, we descended a long hill slope into a valley. Cynan halted to determine our location. The chariots bumped to a stop behind us. “I cannot see a thing,” Cynan complained. “Tegid would have a better chance of finding the crossroads in the dark.”
“We cannot have gone far wrong,” suggested Llew. “Do you know this valley?”
“I do not,” Cynan told him, his voice edgy with frustration.
“But you must have some idea where we are,” persisted L
lew.
“I might if I could see,” Cynan snapped.
Llew was quiet for a time. The torch crackled—Cynan’s frustration made audible.
“Well?” asked Cynan.
“We go on,” he said. “This path may lead to Sarn Cathmail—”
“It might,” Cynan agreed sourly, adding, “then again it might not.”
Llew clicked his tongue and urged his horse on. I heard the sigh of leather and the creak of the wheels as the chariots started forward once more. I fell into line and followed the others, wishing my inner vision would awaken and reveal some feature of the land to me. But I proceeded, like those with me, in darkness.
It seemed to me a long time that we rode without finding the track or the mound. No one spoke; there was no other sound but the beat of the horses’ hooves and the occasional bump of the wheels. I must have dozed in the saddle without realizing, for the next thing I knew we were scrambling over the low hump of a hill and I heard someone say, “It is growing light in the east.” And at almost the same instant, Cynan shouted, “There it is!”
I shook myself fully awake. “There is the mound,” Cynan was saying. “You can just make it out to the south.”
“How far?” I asked, reining in beside Llew.
“Not far,” he answered. “If we hurry, we will just make it in time.” He snapped the reins. “Ride!”
A heartbeat later we were all racing headlong toward the mound in the thinning gloom. I followed the sound of the hoofbeats and arrived just behind Llew. “Sarn Cathmail!” he shouted, leaping from the saddle. He ran to my horse and put a hand on the bridle as I halted the animal. “Hurry, Tegid. There is not much time.”
I slid from my mount, snatching my staff from behind the saddle as my feet touched the ground. “Take me to where the two roads cross.”
Llew led me to the place where a well-worn track skirted the mound and crossed Sarn Cathmail; there, taking my staff, I raised the wood to the four quarters, invoking the virtue of each in turn so that the crossroads would be established as a sacred center. Then I ran to the eastern quarter whence comes the obscuring darkness. I touched the end of my staff to the ground at this place and began inscribing a circle on the ground, uttering the quickening words of the Taran Tafod.
“Modrwy a Nerth . . . Noddi Modrwy . . . Noddi Nerth . . . Modrwy . . . Drysi . . . Drysi . . . Drysi Noddi . . . Drysi Nerth . . . Drysi Modrwy . . .” I repeated once and again—and I felt the awen, kindled the words, leap like a flame within me. My tongue seemed touched with fire, and the words of the Dark Tongue flew away like sparks into the dwindling darkness.
I continued repeating the words until I finished in the place I had begun, enclosing the crossroads within the all-encircling ring. And, as the tip of my staff joined the two ends of the circle, I felt the hair on my arms prickle and rise; my skin tingled with the surge of the power flowing around me.
“Bring the Dyn Dythri,” I called, and I heard the quick tread of feet as they approached.
“Do you see the circle I have marked on the ground?” I asked. “Let that serve to guide you. Cynan, take two men and, with a stranger beside each of you, walk the circle three times sunwise,” I instructed, making the motion with my hand.
“Now?” asked Cynan.
“Yes, now. Quickly.”
Cynan called Bran and Alun to take charge of the other two strangers, and they began treading the circle I had inscribed. When they had finished, I said, “Now take the strangers to the center, where the two roads cross. Hurry!”
“It is done,” reported Bran a few moments later. “What would you have us do now?”
“Unbind them so that they do no injury to themselves,” I directed.
Upon finishing this task, Cynan said, “It is done.”
“Leave them where they stand, and take your place with us outside the ring,” I answered. “Keep your spears at the ready.”
The men obeyed, whereupon Llew asked, “And now?”
“And now we wait.”
“What will happen?” asked Bran.
“That you will soon discover,” I replied. “Tell me what you see.”
We waited. I listened carefully and heard only the sound of the men’s breathing.
After a while, Cynan complained, “Nothing is happening.”
“Just wait,” Llew told him.
“But it is almost daybreak, and—”
“Quiet!”
At this exchange, one of the strangers shifted—I heard his feet on the paving stones. Alun Tringad gasped, “Did you see?”
“What?” Llew asked. “I saw nothing.”
Cynan grew excited. “Something is happening!”
Twrch barked sharply.
“Tell me what you see. Describe it!”
“I see water! It looks like water—as if they are covered with water,” he said.
“Are they sinking into the water?” I asked.
“No, they are as before; they have not moved,” Llew told me. “But they are changing shape—rippling. They appear as a reflection in water.”
I grasped then what he meant. It was the time-between-times. The Dyn Dythri stood on the threshold, but they must be driven across and into their own world.
“That is well,” I said. “Now, Cynan—you and your men take your spears and raise them. At my sign, all of you shout at once: rush at the strangers as if you would chase them. But do not go into the circle yourselves. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” he said and called to the guards to ready themselves for a feinting charge.
“Hurry!” cried Llew.
I raised my staff high and brought it down quickly. “Now!”
With a wild shout, Cynan and the warriors leapt at the strangers. I heard the confused cry, and the sound of someone stumbling and falling with a grunt. “What is happening?”
“It is—they are going,” Llew told me. “They are crossing over. One if them is gone already—I cannot see him. He has disappeared! And now Weston is going . . . he is—” Llew broke off.
“What is it? Llew?”
He made no answer, but I felt him start forward. “No! Llew, come back!”
“Nettles!” he cried. “Wait!”
I thrust out my hand and caught the trailing edge of his cloak as he darted forward. “Llew! Stop!”
I held tight to his cloak. He struggled forward. “Let me go!”
“Llew! Stay!”
Twerch barked wildly.
Llew shrugged off the cloak and rushed forward into the circle. Cynan called him back. Bran shouted . . . but he vanished—and Llew with them.
“Why did he go?” asked Cynan, when he found his tongue.
“I do not know. Perhaps he saw something . . .”
“What? I do not understand. Why would he leave us?”
“I cannot say.”
We waited in the awkward stillness after the tumult of the moment. The breeze lifted as the sun rose. Cynan touched my arm gently. “I think we should go from here.” Regret and shock made his voice sound strange in my ear.
“Yes,” I agreed.
When I made no move, he touched me again. “Soon,” he said. “It is growing light.”
“We will leave soon.”
He called to his men, and they began moving toward the horses and chariots. I stood alone, struggling still to comprehend what had happened. I heard hooves on the road behind me; Bran, mounted, led my horse to me, and pressed the reins into my hand.
“Come,” he said. “He is gone.”
Clutching my staff, I raised myself slowly into the saddle. My companions were already moving away. I could hear the hollow clop of hooves on the road, and the slight grumble of the chariot wheels. I paused, hoping that my inward sight would awaken and I would see something . . . but my inward eye remained dark. So I lifted the reins and turned my horse to follow the others.
Even as I turned, I heard Twrch whine softly—a plaintive cry for his missing master. I did not need to see him to know t
hat the hound still stood gazing at the place where he had seen Llew disappear; he had not moved.
I whistled to him softly. When he did not respond, I called him. “Come, Twrch.”
But the dog did not move.
“Twrch!” I called more sharply. “Come, boy!”
When the hound refused my command, I wheeled the horse and returned to the crossroads. I dismounted and, guided by his whine, laid my hands on the hound, grasped his chain-link collar and pulled. The dog paid no heed to my effort; and, though his forefeet were lifted from the ground, Twrch remained firmly planted on the road.
“Twrch! Come!” I jerked the iron links hard. The stubborn animal did not give ground. I jerked the collar again; the dog yelped in pain, but did not budge. “Twrch!”
I did not like hurting him but I could not shift the beast. Yet I could not leave him there. I would need a rope to drag him away. I turned and called to Cynan. Twrch barked.
I turned back and stooped to the dog, stretching my hand toward his collar. The canny beast must have sensed my intent, for he dodged to the side before I could lay hold of him again. “Twrch! Stop it! Come, boy.”
I lurched forward, tripped on a paving stone, and fell to my knees. The staff flew from my hands. I caught the hound by a handful of fur and held on. Fumbling for the dog’s collar with the other hand, I struggled to my feet. Twrch barked again, loudly, furiously, and bounded forward, dragging me with him.
I fell onto the road, and the dog twisted and broke free. “Twrch!” I called, scrambling to my feet. “Here, boy! Come, Twrch!”
I stepped forward. Twrch barked sharply—once, twice . . . The sound seemed to come from a great distance. And then all I heard was the sound of my own footsteps upon the crossroad stones.
I squatted down and began patting the road around me for my staff. I heard a sound like that of a rush of air, but I felt nothing. Instinctively, I thrust out my hands.
My flailing arm connected with a living body.