Elidor (Essential Modern Classics) Read online

  “I smashed the apple branch.”

  “An apple branch – I looked at it. I touched it – I – can’t remember.”

  “The Treasures,” said Roland. “Did you find the Treasures?”

  “No.”

  “What’s that?” said Helen. “Over there.”

  “And there,” said David. “And on the other side, too.”

  They were growing used to the spear light, and they could just make out the wall of the rock chamber. There were four arches in it. One was black, the passage mouth: but the others shone faintly.

  “I’ll keep a look out here,” said Roland. “You go and see what they are.”

  “This one’s a small room,” said Helen.

  “So’s this—”

  Shadows flapped in the chamber like bats as the children stooped through the arches. And for a time all was silence. Roland stood alone by the entrance to the passage, holding the spear upright on the floor. Then the shadows began to move again, and towards him from the archways, slowly and without a word, the other three came and the darkness shrank before them.

  In David’s hand was a naked sword. The blade was like ice, and the hilt all jewels and fire.

  Nicholas held a stone, golden, that seemed to be burning inside.

  And Helen was carrying a bowl – a cauldron, with pearls about the rim. And as she walked, light splashed and ran through her fingers like water.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE LAY OF THE STARVED FOOL

  “B ut how did we come through from the church to the castle?” said David.

  The children sat by Malebron on the ridge, clear of the hill. The dolmen arch was drab with lichen, and the stones of the avenue heeled like twisted palings. Clouds still rolled upon the plain, but there was a quickening in the air, and Findias, Falias, and Murias were etched in gold, as though they stood before the dawn.

  “It is not easy to cross from your world into this,” said Malebron, “but there are places where they touch. The church, and the castle. They were battered by war, and now all the land around quakes with destruction. They have been shaken loose in their worlds.”

  “But the fiddle: and the noise – what was that?” said Roland.

  “All things have their note, and will answer to it.”

  “You mean, like a wine glass ringing?”

  “Yes,” said Malebron. “And when the church answered, it existed in both places at once – the real church, and the echo of itself. Yet more than echo, for although you opened the door here, no door opened in your world.”

  “Can you always do this?” said Helen.

  “No. The finding is chance. Wasteland and boundaries: places that are neither one thing nor the other, neither here nor there – these are the gates of Elidor.”

  “Isn’t it funny how things happen?” said Roland. “You know: if we hadn’t gone into Manchester today, and if we hadn’t played that game with the map, and if the demolition gang hadn’t had a tea-break – all these little things happening at just the right time – all ending like this.”

  The children looked at the four Treasures, sword, stone, spear, and cauldron, glowing in their hands.

  “One each,” said David.

  “Yes,” said Malebron. And he took the fiddle and bow from under his cloak. They were slung on a cord across his shoulder, and there was also a pouch fastened to the cord. He opened it, and took out an oblong package, and began to unwrap layer after layer of very thin oiled cloth. He smoothed each layer, and put it aside, before peeling off the next.

  It was an old book, made of vellum. The leaves were hard, glossy, and crimped with age. Malebron opened the book and held it out for the children to see.

  Nothing that had yet happened to Roland compared with the shock of this moment.

  He was looking at a page of script written in a language that was unknown to him. And at the top of the page was a picture of himself, with Helen, Nicholas, and David by his side. The figures were stiff and puppet-like, and everything was out of scale, but there was no mistaking them. They stood close together, cradling the Treasures in their arms, their heads tilted to one side, a blank expression on their faces, their toes pointing downwards. Next to them was a round hill with a dolmen in its side, and by it another figure, smaller than the children: Malebron. His arms were spread wide, and he held the fiddle in one hand and the bow in the other.

  “We’ve even got the right Treasures,” said Roland. For in the picture he had a spear; and David, the sword: Helen, the cauldron; Nicholas, the stone.

  Malebron put his finger on the script, and read:

  “And they shall come from the waves.

  And the Glory of Elidor shall pass with them.

  And the Darkness shall not fade.

  Unless there is heard the Song of Findhorn.

  Who walks in the High Places.”

  “But who wrote it?” said David. “And how did he know?”

  “This book was written so long ago,” said Malebron, “that we have only legend to tell us about it.

  “The legend says that there was once a ploughboy in Elidor: an idiot, given to fits. But in his fit he spoke clearly, and was thought to prophesy. And he became so famous that he was taken into the king’s household, where he swore that he would starve among plenty, and so it happened: for he was locked in a pantry, and died there.

  “However it was, his prophecies were written in this book, which is called The Lay of the Starved Fool.

  “Through the years it has been read only for its nonsense. But when the prophecies started to be fulfilled, when the first darkness crept into Elidor, I saw in The Lay of the Starved Fool not nonsense, but the confused fragments of a dream: a dream that no sane man could bear to dream: a waking memory of what was to be.

  “Since then I have worked to discover the truth hidden in the Lay, because, you see, I knew nothing of what I have just told you about our two worlds. I have had to find out that for myself by trial and thought, by asking all the time: how is this true, and if it is true, how can it be?

  “Do you understand, then, what it was to find the note that made the church answer, to watch Findias dissolve, to step through into your world, and to see you whom I have known for so long running towards me across the broken land?”

  “It’s as if everything that’s ever happened was leading up to this,” said Roland. “You can’t say how far back it started: everything working together: like cog wheels. When I spun the street names they had to stop at that one place—”

  That had been the moment when he had felt that he was being watched.

  “Remember, I have said the worlds are linked,” said Malebron. “And what you have done here will be reflected in some way, at some time, in your world.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Roland. “Will you read us that bit out of the book again?”

  “And they shall come from the waves.

  And the Glory of Elidor shall pass with them.

  And the Darkness shall not fade.

  Unless there is heard the Song of Findhorn.

  Who walks in the High Places.”

  “We’ve been going on as though we’ve saved Elidor, and now that you’ve found the Treasures you’ll be all right,” said Roland. “But doesn’t the book mean that things’ll be worse, not better?”

  “It does,” said Malebron. “We are not at the end but at the beginning. But with the Treasures we may hold Gorias, and from there win back to the other castles. Then we shall have four islands in the darkness, and some of us may yet see Mondrum green.”

  “But who’s Findhorn?” said Roland.

  “No one knows,” said Malebron. “There are desolate mountains far to the north, at the edge of the world, where in the old days it was thought that demons lived. I think these are the High Places. But Findhorn and the Song are forgotten, and now that the Treasures are safe I can go to look for him there. I have proved the wisdom of the Starved Fool now, and that gives me the courage to prove it once again.”


  They climbed down from the ridge into Mondrum, and made their way back towards Findias through the slime. The journey seemed much shorter to Roland than when he had been alone, or perhaps it was because Malebron knew where he was going and led them straight there.

  The Treasures surrounded them in a field of colour which moved with them, so that as they came to a tree it would change from grey, to purple, to the livid colours of decay, and then sink back into the dead light when they had passed by.

  They saw nothing of Findias until they reached the open ground below the forest half a mile from the castle, and at this distance the golden outline did not show. But the ruins were clear in detail, as though the children and Malebron were looking at them through a hole in a dirty window pane.

  When they were nearly at the drawbridge, Roland turned for a last sight of Elidor.

  “Malebron? Something’s happened – on the ridge.”

  They could just see the ridge above the trees, and the squat cone of Vandwy, with the avenue leading from it. The standing stones of the avenue, which they had left in disorder, were now upright, sharp, harsh, and menacing. And as they watched, a dark beam like a black searchlight leapt from the Mound.

  “Run!” shouted Malebron. “I have been too proud, and Vandwy has recovered from its wound!”

  The beam circled, sweeping land and sky, and before the children reached the drawbridge it caught them, and locked on to them beyond escape.

  The air was as thick as water. It dragged about their limbs and clogged their lungs, and was shot through with strands of blackness which their hands could not feel or push aside, but each strand plucked at their minds like wire as they blundered through.

  “Think of suns!—Meadows, and bright flowers!—Think!—Do not let night into your minds!”

  Malebron walked beside the children, urging, driving them on. He moved freely, untouched by the dark.

  “Your strength is your weakness now! Vandwy has sent Fear to be given shape by you! These shapes will be real, as the door was real! Keep them out!”

  But the fear was in the children: a numbness that sapped the will. And soon they began to hear in the forest the pursuit that they themselves were making.

  Slowly they crossed the bridge. But those few yards were longer than the whole journey. The children’s vision was so blighted by the strands that they saw the bridge shoot out like a pier over the sea, and the castle was a speck where the lines of the planks converged in the distance.

  The bridge became higher and narrower: and then it was tilted to the left: and then to the right: and then upwards, so that they could not walk: and then down, so that they were on a wooden precipice and dared not move: and then the bridge swung completely over, and they felt that they would drop off into the sky. And all the time Malebron fought for their minds.

  “The – bridge – is – safe! You – will – not – stop! Think! Move!”

  They reached the gatehouse. And as they laboured through to the courtyard there bounded from the forest something that was on two legs but was not a man, and behind it the trees ran howling.

  The children fell into the courtyard, and the grip of Vandwy slackened.

  “Take the Treasures!” said Malebron.

  “No! You need them!”

  “We are trapped. Take them to your world and guard them there. They will be safe. And while they are free their light will not die in Elidor, and we may live.”

  “Come with us!” said Helen.

  “I cannot. I must seal the gate. Nothing must follow you through the keep: stand well clear on the other side.”

  “What shall we do with the Treasures?” said Roland.

  “No more than guard them. And if we fail here, the light of Elidor may live on, and kindle again in other worlds.”

  Malebron put the fiddle to his shoulder and began to play: faster and faster, until the notes merged and drove through the children, cutting the darkness from their minds, snapping the threads of Vandwy with the pain. The keep picked up the fiddle’s note, and the surface of the stone lost its hardness, rippled like skin.

  “Now go!” cried Malebron. “Go!”

  The ramparts by the gatehouse bristled with silhouettes.

  “Malebron!”

  “Go!”

  The children staggered through the doorway of the keep. The ground shook so much that they could hardly stand: their teeth burred in their heads, the walls were a fog of sound, plaster came like snow from the ceiling. A gap appeared in front of them, and they pulled and pushed each other towards it and between two floorboards that were nailed across the gap, and ran, choking, out on to the wasteland of Thursday Street.

  The fiddle note held. Each brick in the derelict church was grinding against the next. Mortar dust spouted from the joints.

  “Look out!” Nicholas yelled. “It’s going!”

  All the sounds rose together to one unbearable pitch, the wall bellied outwards, and the church fell in a groaning roar of destruction.

  “Roland! The Treasures! What’s happened to them?”

  But Roland was gazing at the tangled ruin of the church, and could not answer.

  “It’s all right,” he said at last. “It’s all right. We’ll be able to hide them now.”

  The children stood before the rubble as the dust cleared. It was late afternoon. A long way off, a woman pushed a pram.

  In his hand Roland held a length of iron railing; Nicholas a keystone from the church. David had two splintered laths nailed together for a sword; and Helen an old, cracked cup, with a beaded pattern moulded on the rim.

  CHAPTER 7

  CORPORATION PROPERTY

  “W e couldn’t have looked after them as they were,” said Roland.

  The children became aware of voices shouting. Several men had come out of a corner shop in a street on the edge of the wasteland and were running towards the church. But no one moved: it seemed to have nothing to do with them.

  “I’ll have yez! I’ll have yez this time!”

  The men were white with fear. The first one to arrive grabbed Nicholas by the back of his collar and swung him round.

  “Was there any of yez in there?” he shouted.

  “Let go,” said Nicholas.

  “Yez’ll answer me! Was there any of yez in there?”

  “Righto, Paddy, that’s enough,” said the biggest of the men. He wore a leather belt covered with regimental badges, and appeared to be the foreman.

  “Now then,” he said, speaking to all the children. “I want a straight answer. Was there any of you in there when she dropped?”

  “No,” said Nicholas.

  The foreman sagged with relief, and the colour rose in his face. Now he could afford to be angry.

  “I’ve given you kids round here warning time and again,” he said, “but you’ll not learn, will you? You’ll not be satisfied till one of you’s killed. Well, it’s going to stop. Your parents can’t manage you, seemingly, so we’ll see what the police can do.”

  “We’ve never been here—” said Nicholas.

  “Now then,” said the foreman. “We want none of your lip.”

  “Eh, guv’nor,” said the Irishman holding Nicholas. “Do you not think a good thumpin’ might be better?”

  “No, Pad, you can’t go on treating kids soft. Round here they think kindness is weakness. And something’s got to be done. You know how it’d be the first time one of ’em was hurt, don’t you? ‘Gross Negligence on the Firm’s Part’: that’s what. ‘Insufficient Precautions’ and the like. And no mention of all we have to contend with. No mention of ‘Malicious Damage Endangering Safety of Staff’: ‘Damage to Tools and Plant’: ‘Theft’. Eh, Jack: just have a look round while we’re at it.”

  “Righ’,” said a boy wearing a tartan cap, jeans, and mud-covered, pointed shoes. He started to check the tools.

  “No: it’s all ’ere:—wait on! Someone’s pinched me football!”

  “Well?” said the foreman.

>   “I’m sorry,” said Roland. “It’s – it’s in there.”

  “Indeed,” said the foreman.

  “I kicked it through the window, and we went in to fetch it.”

  “Six bob it cost!” said Jack.

  “We haven’t any money on us,” said David, “but we’ll send you a postal order.”

  “Oh, ay?”

  “An example, that’s what’s going to be made of you,” said the foreman. “An example. I suppose you know nothing about the lead that went missing from the roof last night, do you?”

  “Of course not,” said Nicholas.

  “‘Of course not.’ Ay, well, we’ll see, shan’t we? Now drop those bits of scrap you’ve got in your hands, and come along. It’s the police station for you. Keep fast of that biggest, Pad: he’ll be the ringleader.”

  “There’s no need,” said Nicholas. “We’ll go with you. It’s all a mistake.”

  “It is that,” said the foreman. “Now drop that stuff.”

  “No,” said Roland.

  “You what?”

  “We’ve not stolen them. They’re ours.”

  “Now look: I’m not here to argue,” said the foreman. “Put those things back where you found them.”

  “They’re not yours,” said Roland.

  “‘Unlawful Possession of Corporation Property’,” said the foreman, “as well as ‘Trespass’ and ‘Wilful Damage’. It’s not funny, me lad.”

  There were five men, and Jack. They were strong, but heavily built. Jack was the only one who looked capable of any speed.

  “Remember what happened to the apple branch?” Roland said to Nicholas.

  “Er – yes,” said Nicholas.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right!” said Roland, and he swung the length of railing up against the Irishman’s elbow, down and sideways across Jack’s shins, and ran.

  Through the din that broke out behind him he could hear both the clump of wellingtons and much lighter footsteps, but soon the wellingtons faded.

  “Keep going!” shouted Helen. “We’re all here! And the Treasures!”