The Moon of Gomrath Read online

  Colin walked all over and about the mound, but the only track was modern, and anything but straight.

  From the Beacon, Colin set off through the trees to the Goldenstone, which was a quarter of a mile away, along no track that he could see. On reaching it, Colin continued in a straight line past the stone, over a slight rise of ground, until he came to the edge of the wood, a few yards further on. From here, across the fields, was the high ridge of the Pennines, and at one point, directly ahead of Colin, the line of hills rose to a shallow but definite peak. Again, nowhere was there any hint of a track.

  Shining Tor, presumably, thought Colin. Well, the notes were right, at least. I suppose I’d better tell Albanac. It’s all there is to go on, unless he’s turned something up.

  CHAPTER 8

  SHINING TOR

  “I t could be,” said Albanac. “It could be. Though we think of Goldenstone as elvish, I remember it is said the elves found it here when the road was made.”

  “‘Could be’!” shouted Uthecar. “You would doubt the wolf has teeth unless they were tearing the throat of you! ‘Could be’! It is! It is! The Old Magic has quickened to our need: it has shown you the way to its heart, the old, straight track from the Beacon hill. There you must stand this night, Colin, and take what chance may come.”

  “That is what I do not like,” said Albanac. “Strange memories linger on the Beacon.”

  “What of that? I shall be there, Colin, and my sword shall keep you.”

  For Colin the rest of the day dragged heavily. He checked in his diary and in the newspapers the time when the moon should rise: then he was struck by an agony of thought. What if it should be a cloudy night? Would that make a difference? So he read the weather forecasts and climbed the Riddings three times to look at the sky. But he need not have feared. It was a clear night when at last he crept from the farm-house and made his way to the wood.

  He met Uthecar at the Goldenstone, and they walked together through the quiet darkness.

  “Will the moon rise along the track?” said Colin.

  “That is our greatest chance,” said Uthecar. “But I think it will. If it does not, then there is little we can do.”

  “And how shall I know the Mothan when I see it?”

  “It grows alone among the rocks: there are five points to its leaves, its roots are red, and it mirrors the moon. You will know it when you see it.”

  They climbed up the mound on which the Beacon had stood. At the top was a little sandy space, and a few blocks of sandstone. They settled themselves upon the blocks, and waited. The dwarf’s sword lay across his knees.

  “What am I to do with the Mothan when I find it?” said Colin.

  “Take the flower, and a few of the leaves,” said Uthecar, “and give them to Susan: but see to it that you harm not the root, nor take all the leaves.”

  They sat quietly. Colin did not want to speak. He could not keep his voice from trembling, and all the time he was short of breath. Then, after repeatedly looking at his watch, Colin stood up and began to pace backwards and forwards across the top of the mound. He peered at the darkness. Nothing moved or showed. At last he sank down upon a stone and put his head between his hands.

  “It’s no good,” he said flatly. “The moon should have risen five minutes ago.”

  “Do not grieve yet,” said Uthecar. “The moon will have to climb from behind the hills. Stand up, Colin: be ready.”

  The dwarf moved down a little way from Colin, leaving him alone at the top of the mound. There was a moment of silence, then Colin said:

  “Listen. Can you hear that?”

  “I hear a night-sound: that is all.”

  “Listen! It’s music – like voices calling, and bells of ice! And look! There’s the track!”

  Suddenly through the trees and over the Beacon hill a shimmering line had flowed, a mesh of silver threads, each glistening, alive. Colin had seen something like it once before, on a rare morning when the sun had cut a path through the dewed, invisible carpet of spider’s webs that covered the fields. That had been nothing to the beauty he saw now. The track quivered under his feet, and he gazed at it as though spellbound.

  “Run!” called Uthecar. “Do not waste your time!”

  “But which way?” cried Colin. “It stretched left and right as far as I can see!”

  “To the east! To the hills! Quickly! The track will be lost when the moon passes from it! Run! Run! And fortune follow you!”

  Colin leaped down the hill, and his feet were winged with silver. Trees blurred around him, once he felt Goldenstone hard beneath him, then he burst from the wood, and there was the old, straight track, dipping and flowing over the rounded fields and rising, a silver thread like a distant mountain stream, up the face of the hills to the peak of Shining Tor, and behind it the broad disc of the moon, white as an elvan shield.

  On, on, on, on, faster, faster the track drew him, flowed through him, filled his lungs and his heart and his mind with fire, sparked from his eyes, streamed from his hair, and the bells and the music and the voices were all of him, and the Old Magic sang to him from the depths of the earth and the caverns of the night-blue sky.

  Then the track rose before him, and he was in the hills. The moon was clear above Shining Tor. And as he sprang up the wall of the high cliff peak the path faded like a veil of smoke. Weight took his body and pulled him from the hill, but Colin cried one great cry and snatched for the cliff top: the bells were lost in the sobbing of his breath, the drumming of his blood.

  He opened his eyes: rough gritstone lay against his cheek, grey in the moon. From between his fingers, clutching the rock, curled leaves, five-pointed, and beneath the hollow of his hand was a faint gleam of moonlight.

  Over Wildboarclough the cone of Shuttlingslow stood apart from the long ridges, watchtower to the plain which lay like a sea from Rivington Pike to the surge of Moel Fammaw. But Colin saw none of it, for his eyes and his being were fixed on the delicate Mothan which he held cupped in his hands.

  He had taken the flower and two of the leaves. The petals flickered with a cold, glow-worm light, and the fine hairs on the leaves were silver. Minutes passed: then Colin folded the Mothan gently into a leather bag that Uthecar had given him for the purpose, and looked about him.

  The old, straight track had vanished, but below Shining Tor the road from Buxton began its winding drop into Macclesfield. Colin walked along the ridge to the end of the cliff, and picked his way over the rough moorland down to the road.

  It was midnight. The road was strange, cold, smooth under his feet after the reed-clumps and boulders of Shining Tor. Once the flush of excitement had passed, and it had passed quickly with the climb from the hill, he felt tired – and increasingly ill at ease. The night was so still, and the road so lonely in the moonlight. But then Colin thought of Susan lying in bed at Highmost Redmanhey, and the Mothan in his pocket, and of the wonder of the evening, and his steps grew lighter.

  Light steps. That was what he could hear: behind him. He stopped and listened. Nothing. Looked. The road was empty. It must be an echo, thought Colin, and he set off again. But now he was listening consciously, and soon he began to sweat.

  He heard his footsteps hard on the road, and after them an echo from the drystone wall and the hill, and through footstep and echo a pad, pad of feet, and, by the sound, the feet were bare.

  He stopped. Nothing. Looked. The road was empty. But the moon threw shadows.

  Colin set his teeth, and walked faster. Footstep. Echo. Footstep. Echo. Footstep. Echo. Footstep. Echo. He breathed again. Nerves! Nothing but – pad, pad, pad. Colin spun round. Did any shadow move?

  “Who’s there?” he shouted.

  “Air! Air! Air!” said the hill.

  “I – I can see you, you know!”

  “Ho! Ho! Ho!”

  It says much for Colin that he did not run. The panic was close, but he thrust it down and forced his brain to reason. How far to Macclesfield? Four miles? No point
in running, then. He slowly turned, and began to walk. And although he could not go ten paces without looking back, he drew steadily away from Shining Tor. He saw nothing. But the footsteps that were never quite echoes stayed with him.

  After half an hour Colin was beginning to think that he would perhaps reach the town, for whatever was following him seemed content to follow: it never shortened the distance between them. Then, approaching a sharp corner, Colin heard something that stopped him dead. It was a new sound, and it came from in front: hoofs – the sound of a horse walking slowly.

  He looked behind him. Still nothing. But he could not go back. And away from the road there was too much unknown. Yet why should he be afraid of this new sound? Colin was at such a pitch that he was afraid of his own voice. He could make no decision: he was caught.

  His eyes were fixed on the road where it licked out of sight like a black tongue. The gentle clop of the hoofs seemed to go on for ever. The road would always be empty—

  It was a black horse, and its rider was cloaked and wore a wide-brimmed hat.

  “Albanac!”

  Colin staggered forward, laughing. A touch of reality – even such reality – and the scene had changed. Colin saw himself in perspective. It was a fine night of full moon among peaceful hills, and Susan was waiting for him to bring the Mothan. From the time he had left the Beacon till now he had been on another plane of existence: it had been too much for his imagination.

  “Albanac!”

  “Colin! I thought you would be somewhere on the road. Have you the Mothan?”

  “Yes!”

  “Come, then. We’ll be away to Susan.”

  Albanac reached down and lifted Colin into the saddle before him, and turned the horse towards Macclesfield.

  “Why, Colin, you are wet and trembling. Is anything amiss?”

  “No. It’s just that it’s all been a bit unsettling. I’ve had quite a time!”

  “Ay, so I see.”

  As he said this, the horse turned its head and looked back along the road. It snorted, and its ears flattened to its skull.

  Albanac twisted in the saddle. Colin, half enfolded in the cloak, could not see the road behind, but he felt Albanac’s body stiffen, and heard the breath hiss through his teeth. Then the reins slapped the high neck, and the horse leapt away with all the tempest of its fairy blood, and the speed of its going drove questions back into Colin’s throat, and the night filled his ears, and the cloak cracked in the wind.

  Nor did Albanac stop until they came to the Riddings, and they looked down upon Highmost Redmanhey, timber and plaster magpied by the moon, and the lamp in the window of the room where Susan lay.

  “Why is there a light?” said Colin.

  “All is well,” said Albanac. “Cadellin waits for us.”

  The little room was crowded. When Colin opened the door Bess cried, “Oh, wheer have you been? You shouldner have—”

  “That’ll do, lass,” said Gowther gently. “Did you get what you went for, Colin?”

  “Yes.”

  “And are you all reet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s all as matters. Let’s see what’s to be done, then.”

  Colin took the flower and leaves from his pouch.

  “You have run well,” said Uthecar. “It is the Mothan. Give it to your sister.”

  “Here you are,” said Colin, and handed the Mothan to Cadellin. But the wizard shook his head.

  “No, Colin. This is the Old Magic: it will not bend to my mind. Let Uthecar take it: he is better skilled in this lore.”

  “Nay, Cadellin Silverbrow,” said the dwarf. “It will not hear me. Mine is not the need. It is through Colin that it moves. Do you fold the flower within the leaves and put them in her mouth.”

  Colin went to the bed. He folded the Mothan tightly and opened Susan’s jaws with his finger just enough to work the pellet past her teeth. Then he stood back, and for everyone the silence was like a band of steel about the head. Three minutes went by: nothing happened.

  “This is daft,” said Bess.

  “Quiet!” said Uthecar hoarsely.

  Another long silence. Colin thought he was going to collapse. His legs were trembling with the effort of concentration.

  “Listen!” said Albanac.

  Far away, and, if anywhere, above them, they heard a faint baying, and the deep winding of a horn. The baying grew nearer, and now there was the jingling of harness. The horn sounded again: it was just outside the window. And Susan opened her eyes.

  She stared wildly about her, as though she had been woken in the middle of a dream. Then she sat up, and pulled a face, and put her hand to her mouth. But Uthecar sprang across the room and hit Susan hard between the shoulder blades with the flat of his hand.

  “Swallow it!”

  Susan could not help herself. She hiccupped under the blow, and the Mothan was gone. Then Susan leapt out of bed. She ran to the window and threw it open so recklessly that the lamp was knocked into the yard below and exploded in a glare of paraffin. Susan leant out of the window, and Colin blundered across the darkened room and grabbed her by the shoulders, for she seemed intent on something that made her forget danger.

  “Celemon!” she cried. “Celemon! Stay for me!”

  Colin pulled her back over the sill – then clutched the frame to save himself from falling, for the shock of what he saw in the sky above the farm took his legs from under him.

  He could not say if they were stars, or what they were. The sky was a haze of moonlight, and in the haze it seemed as though the stars had formed new constellations, constellations that moved, had life, and took the shape and spangled outline of nine young women on horseback, gigantic, filling the heavens. They milled round above the farm, hawks on hand, and among them pranced hounds with glittering eyes and jewelled collars. The riders wore short tunics, and their hair gleamed along the sky. Then the horn sounded again, the horses reared and flared over the plain, and the night poured shooting-stars into the western sea.

  Only Colin had seen this. As he turned back to the room Bess appeared in the doorway with a lamp. Susan stood facing the window, tears on her cheek. But when light filled the room she relaxed, and sighed.

  “How is it with you, Susan?” said Cadellin.

  She looked at him. “Cadellin. Bess. Gowther. Uthecar. Colin. Albanac. Oh! Then what was that? I’d forgotten you.”

  “Sit on the bed,” said Cadellin. “Tell us what you know of these past days. But first, Mistress Mossock, will you bring Susan food and drink? It is all she needs to secure her now.”

  This was soon done, and while she ate, Susan told her story. She spoke hesitantly, as though trying to describe something to herself as much as to anyone else.

  “I remember falling into water,” she said, “and everything went black: I held my breath until the pain made me let go, but just then the water rushed away from me in the dark, and – well – although the darkness was the same, I was somewhere else, floating – nowhere in particular, just backwards and forwards and round in nothing. You know how when you’re in bed at night you can imagine the bed’s tilted sideways, or the room’s sliding about? It was like that.

  “That wasn’t too bad, but I didn’t like the noises. There were squeakings and gratings going on all round me – voices – no, not quite voices; they were just confused sounds; but they came from throats. Some were near and others far away. This went on for a long time, and I didn’t like it. But I wasn’t frightened or worried about what was going to happen to me – though I’m frightened now when I think of it! I didn’t like being where I was, but at the same time I couldn’t think of anywhere else that I wanted to be. And then all at once I felt a hand catch hold of my wrist and pull me upwards. There was a light, and I heard someone shouting – I think now it was Albanac – and I started to move faster than ever; so fast that I was dizzy, and the light got brighter and brighter, and it made no difference when I shut my eyes. Then I began to slow down, and th
e glare didn’t hurt so much, and I could see the outline of the hand that was holding me. And then I seemed to break through a skin of light, and I was lying in shallow water at the edge of a sea, and standing over me was a woman, dressed in red and white, and we were holding each other’s wrist and our bracelets were linked together – and Cadellin! I’ve just realised! Hers was the same as mine – the one Angharad gave me!”

  “Ay, it would be,” said the wizard quietly. “No matter: go on.”

  “Well, she undid her bracelet and slipped it out of mine, and we walked along the beach, and she said her name was Celemon and we were going to Caer Rigor. I didn’t feel there was any need to ask questions: I accepted everything as it came, like you do in a dream.

  “We joined the others who were waiting for us on a rocky headland, and we rode out above the sea towards Caer Rigor, and everyone was excited and talked of home. Then suddenly there was this bitter taste in my mouth and all the others had it, too, and no matter how hard we rode, we couldn’t move forward. Celemon said we must turn back, so we did, and then I felt dizzy again, and the taste in my mouth got worse until I thought I was going to be sick, and I couldn’t keep my balance, and I fell from the horse, over and over into the sea, or fog, or whatever it was. I was falling for hours, and then I hit something hard. I’d closed my eyes to stop myself from being sick, and when I opened them I was here.

  “But where is Celemon? Shan’t I see her again?”

  “I do not doubt it,” said the wizard. “Some day you will meet, and ride over the sea to Caer Rigor, and there will be no bitterness to draw you back. But everything in its time. And now you must rest.”

  They left Susan with Bess and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  Colin was light-headed with exhaustion and bewilderment, and on the way downstairs his attempt to describe what he had seen when he had pulled Susan from the window was lost on all but Cadellin, who seemed to take it all as confirmation of his own thoughts.