The Moon of Gomrath Page 8

  Uthecar swore an oath, and turned away in rage. And as he did so, he had a glimpse of a snarling, fanged, red mouth, and eyes of green fire set in a broad head, with short ears bristling sideways from the flat top of the skull, and of white claws hooked at him, and all hurtling towards him through the air. Without thought his arms flew to protect his face, and then he was knocked spinning by a glancing blow. As he staggered to gain his balance, Uthecar saw that he was not the immediate object of the attack, for the furred shape was already halfway into the opening through which Atlendor had passed. There was not time to draw sword. Uthecar sprang forward, and just managed to get both hands to the short, bushy tail as the flanks disappeared.

  It felt as though he was holding a half-released spring of irresistible power. Uthecar planted his legs on either side of the hole, and threw himself backwards. The hind feet lashed at him, but he avoided them, and by swinging from side to side he managed to keep them from winning fresh purchase in the ground. This just about made the struggle equal, but he knew that he could not hold out for long. And Atlendor’s muffled, but critical, voice did not help. He was obviously unaware of what was happening.

  “One-eyed Hornskin! Who blocks the hole?”

  “If the rump-tail – should – break,” shouted Uthecar, “your throat – will know that!”

  Uthecar’s shoulders felt as though they were being torn from his back, and the power to grip was leaving his wrists. There had been no reply from Atlendor.

  Then the body kicked under him, and went limp, and before he could prepare himself, all resistance went, and he fell backwards, pulling a dead weight on top of him.

  Uthecar picked himself up, and looked at the body at his feet. It was a wild-cat, well over three feet long, and it had been stabbed through the throat. Atlendor stood by the tunnel, wiping his sword on a handful of grass.

  “A palug,” said Uthecar. “I am thinking that there is too much in these woods that has come from beyond Bannawg.”

  Every time Colin stumbled, the sword jabbed in his ribs. The pace that the dwarf demanded was not easy to keep over such ground at night. Nor would the dwarf allow him to speak; an extra jab was the answer as soon as Colin opened his mouth.

  They came to Stormy Point, and here the dwarf stopped, and whistled softly. A voice replied from across the rocks, and the sound of it made Colin’s skin crawl; for it was cold, and deeply pitched, and hard to place, whether animal or not. Then at the edge of the trees something moved, and began to come towards Colin and the dwarf. It was a wild-cat, and behind it were others. More and more they came from the trees, until the ground was so thick with them that it seemed to be covered with a rippling coat of hair.

  The cats milled round Colin, and stared at him. He was surrounded by pale green stones of light. The dwarf sheathed his sword. A number of the cats grouped about Colin as an escort: they pressed close, but did not touch him. The remainder broke, and disappeared into the trees, spreading widely to kill pursuit.

  From Stormy Point Colin ran until they were clear of the wood. He had no choice: or rather, he had, but the hissing that threatened behind him, and the eyes that were turned on him, every time his pace slackened, made him choose quickly. But once they were in the fields the dwarf relaxed to a walk, and the loping jog of the wildcats became a smooth carpet of movement.

  All through the night they travelled eastwards under the waning moon. They went by Adders’ Moss, past Withenlee and Harehill, to Tytherington, and then into the hills above Swanscoe, up and down across ridges that swelled like waves: by Kerridge and Lamaload, Nab End and Oldgate Nick, and down Hoo Moor above the Dale of Goyt: mile after mile of killing ground, bare of all trees and broken only by gritstone walls. And then, deep at the bottom of the moor, they came to a small, round hill on which rhododendron bushes grew thickly; and about the hill curved a track.

  They followed the track into the rhododendrons; far below on their right a stream sounded. Above the track were what looked like the remains of terracing, overgrown, forgotten. Colin, whose angry fear had long been smothered by exhaustion, grew increasingly more uneasy: there was something here, in this rank garden set in the hills, that was not good.

  The track divided, and the cats drove Colin to the left-hand fork. It ran level for a few yards, and then made a sharp bend, and as he rounded this, Colin stopped, in spite of the cats.

  Before him, on a terraced lawn, was a house, big, ugly, heavy, built of stone. The moon shone palely on it, yet the light that came from the round-arched windows and the open door seemed to be moonlight, also.

  “We are home,” said the dwarf. It was the first time that he had spoken for several hours.

  The cats moved forward, and at that instant a cloud slid over the moon. “Stay!” cried the dwarf.

  But Colin had pulled up short of his own accord. For as the moon disappeared, the light inside the house faded. Now the house lay barely visible against the hill behind it, yet what was to be seen made Colin stare. It could have been a trick of the darkness, but somehow the building had lost its form, had slumped. Surely that was the sky through one of the windows: he could see a star. And then the cloud passed, and the moon shone on the house, and the windows threw light on to the grass.

  The dwarf drew his sword. “Now run,” he said, and he pushed Colin towards the house. The cats surged forward, bearing him with them through the door.

  Colin found himself in an entrance hall, cold in the shadowless light. In front of him was a wide stone staircase, and from the top of the staircase a harsh voice spoke.

  “Welcome. Our teeth have long rusted seeking your flesh!”

  Colin recognised the voice. He did not have to look at the woman who was coming down the stairs to know that she was the Morrigan.

  She was heavily built, her head was broad, and it squatted on her shoulders, and her mouth was wide, and as cruel as her eyes. She wore a robe so deeply blue that it was black, and it was tied with a scarlet cord. The cats made way for her, and fawned after her as she moved across the floor towards Colin.

  “No. We are so far in your debt that nothing of you shall escape from the place into which you have come, save what birds will take away in their claws.”

  She put out a hand to fondle one of the cats, and Colin saw that she wore a bracelet. In design it was identical with Susan’s, but its colours were reversed: the characters here were a pallid silver, and the bracelet itself was black.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE MERE

  U thecar and Atlendor sat in the wizard’s cave and cleaned their wounds. “It is not I that will be going out again this night,” said the dwarf. “If Susan has stepped through the gates then if we found anything of her it would not be worth the finding. There is a palug in every tree! We had to kill a score to win from Saddlebole to the gates.”

  Both he and the elf were gashed with deep wounds, and their clothes were in strips.

  “She has the Mark: that may keep her,” said Albanac. “I must go to look for her.”

  “But you have not the Mark,” said Uthecar. “If Susan has lived until now, she will have shown herself unneedful of us. If you must seek, then wait until day. Ride now, and palug teeth will meet in your neck.”

  The noise of the opening rock had made Susan lose her nerve. She thought Albanac would be only seconds behind her, and with no idea of where she should look for Colin, she ran blindly, taking no notice of way or distance. Somewhere in the wood she stopped for breath. All the while, urgency had pounced on her back, and every step had seemed to be made a fraction of a second and an inch ahead of a seizing hand. Now she stopped, and the air quietened round her and lost its pursuit: she could almost hear it rustling to a halt about her. But this was not imagination: there had been a quick dying of movement into silence, and now Susan felt that the night was bearing down on one point, and that point was herself.

  She tried to reason, but that was useless, since all reasoning could tell her was that she had no chance of finding Coli
n. And the concentration in the air throbbed like plucked strings. Susan stared so hard all around her that the blackness seemed to be spotted with light – pale flecks of green; and then she noticed that, instead of swimming in rainbow patterns, as such lights do when the eyes strain against darkness, these lights did not change colour, but were grouped close to the ground, motionless, in pairs. They were eyes. She was surrounded by a field of green, unwinking, hard eyes – every one fixed on her.

  The cats closed in. Now Susan could see them as individuals: there were two or three dozen of them, and they walked stiff-legged and bristling. Susan was too frightened to move, even as they approached, until one of the cats hissed, and lunged at her with its claws. Before she had time to realise that the blow would not have touched her, Susan jumped in the opposite direction, and here the cats gave way and made a green passage for her, and their intention was plain. She found that she could move freely where they wished her to go, but if she veered from that line, or tried to stop, claws were unsheathed.

  She knew that whatever the danger was that Cadellin had feared, these cats were part of it: there was too much intelligence in their movements for them to be ordinary cats, and that was the least strange aspect of them.

  So for a while, just as had happened earlier with Colin, Susan was herded through the wood. The cats did not touch her, but they walked close, and urged her to run: and this eagerness showed Susan her weapon against them.

  She had been stumbling at nearly every step in the flat and broken moonlight, but it was a particularly violent twist of her ankle that threw her sideways, right off balance. She flung out a hand to break her fall – and the cats leapt away from the hand as though from a burning coal. Susan crouched on her knees and looked at the circle of cats: it took some time for her to absorb this new fact consciously: she stretched out her wrist, and they fell back, spitting. They were afraid of the Mark. She stood up, and took the bracelet off her wrist, and gripped it so that it formed a band across her knuckles, then she stepped forward, swinging her hand in front of her in a slow arc. The cats gave way, though they snarled, and twisted their heads from side to side, and their eyes flashed hate.

  Susan had no idea of where she was, but the best direction seemed to be back the way they had come. So slowly she turned about, and began to walk; and the cats let her pass, though they flanked her as closely as before. The difference was that the choice belonged to Susan.

  Now it was a matter of fighting every step, because the cats did not give an inch willingly, and if Susan could have found the strength to hold out mentally against all that was concentrated on her, she would no doubt have been able to reach Fundindelve unharmed. But although the physical compulsion had gone, the malice ate into her will: and she was very frightened, and alone. The first swell of triumph had soon collapsed. Cadellin seemed much less unreasonable than she had judged him to be a short time ago.

  Susan held out for perhaps half an hour, and in that time she had gained less than a mile – not long or far, but it was as much as she could stand. The strain was too great. Thrusting the Mark in front of her, she plunged forward, with no other aim beyond immediate escape from the pressure of those eyes. And, of course, she did not escape. The cats bounded after her, no longer milling round her, but streaming close, almost driving her, anywhere, it did not matter, as long as it was faster, and faster, blindly through the wood, waiting for their moment, and it came.

  Susan was running so wildly that only luck kept her upright, but that could not save her when she came to the top of a rise and the ground ended under her feet. She fell little more than her own height on to a wide path, but she fell awkwardly and with the force of her running, and sprawled headlong. The Mark flew from her grip, and bowled across the sand towards the far edge of the path.

  Susan scrambled after it, but she was too late. Below the path the hill fell steeply to the plain in a scree of pebbled sand and boulders, and already the bracelet was gathering speed down the slope. Susan looked over her shoulder, and did not pause. The cats were ten yards away, and there was something in them that told her that they had forgotten their original purpose, and wanted only revenge. She leapt down the scree after her bracelet, so intent upon it that she ignored the pitch of the slope: and after a few steps her weight began to run away with her. Her legs scissored into strides, each one raking longer than the last, her feet as heavy as pendulums. She tried to lean backwards, but she could not control her body at all. And the Mark of Fohla drew away from her, travelling faster than she was, and increasing its speed, dancing over the stones: and then it hit a boulder, and sprang into the air, and at the peak of the bound it stopped, and hung, spinning, but did not fall.

  At first the bracelet was a clean band of silver, catching the moon, but then it began to thicken raggedly into white fire like a Catherine wheel. The fire grew broader, and there was now no bracelet, but a disc of light with a round black centre that had been the space enclosed by the bracelet, and the disc grew until it filled all Susan’s vision, and as the last rim of night disappeared it seemed that the edges of the fire came towards her and the black middle receded, though it did not diminish in size, so that instead of a disc it was now a whirling tunnel, and Susan was rushing helplessly into it.

  The ground vanished from under her feet, and she ran, still out of control, but the swinging weight had gone from her legs. The tunnel spun about her, so that she felt she was running on the roof and on the walls as often as on the floor. She ran timelessly, but the black circle in front of her, which gathered the perspective to itself, and so appeared to mark the end of the tunnel, slowly began to increase in size, and the blackness was no longer even, but speckled with grey. The contrast grew with the circle, and colours started to emerge, and Susan was looking at trees, and water, and sunlight. Then the circle was bigger than the fire, and soon it was a complete picture fogged with silver at the edges, and that thinned like dawn mist, and Susan ran out of the tunnel on to grass. She stopped, breathless, and looked about her.

  She realised at once where she was: she was standing on an island, thick with trees, in the middle of Redesmere, a stretch of water that lay four miles to the south of Alderley. But it was now day, and by the warmth of the air, and the glint of light on the water, the song of birds, and the green on the trees across the lake, it was summer, too.

  Something nearly as strange had brought her to this island once before, and it was then that she had first put on the bracelet. Her heart lightened as she looked round for the person she knew she would find – Angharad Goldenhand, the Lady of the Lake. And there was Angharad, standing among the trees, tall, slender, dressed in long robes, her hair the colour of gold, her skin white as the snow of one night, her cheeks smooth and even and red as foxgloves: and in her hand was Susan’s bracelet.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE BODACH

  A ngharad smiled. “It is time for you to know more of your place in these things,” she said, and she fastened the bracelet on Susan’s wrist. “Come with me.”

  She took Susan by the hand, and they went through the trees to a clearing, and there they sat down. Susan felt the burden of loneliness slip from her as Angharad spoke, for Angharad knew all that had happened; there was no need for Susan to explain.

  “Little of this is chance,” she said, “for good or evil, and on your shoulders it may all lie.”

  “Mine?” said Susan. “But why me?”

  “Firstly, all your danger rests with the Morrigan.”

  “The Morrigan?”

  “Yes: she is here, and revenge fills her heart. It will be long before she is restored to her old power, but even now she is a threat to the world, and all her will is turned against you. She has Colin at this moment, and will use him to destroy you, if she can. For the Mark of Fohla is a protection against her, though it will not always be so.”

  “But why me? Why do I matter?” said Susan. “I don’t know anything about magic. Why can’t you or Cadellin deal with her?”
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  “When you put on the Mark you put on a destiny,” said Angharad. “That is what Cadellin feared. And at this time through you alone can we work most surely. For, you see, this is moon magic, and we wear a part of it.” She held out her wrist, and Susan saw a white bracelet there. “Our power waxes, and wanes: mine is of the full moon, the Morrigan’s is of the old. And the moon is old now, so she is strong.”

  “Then how do I fit in?” said Susan.

  “You are young, and your bracelet is the young moon’s. Then you can be more than the Morrigan, if you have courage. I am able to put you on the road now, and help you guard against the Morrigan while the moon is old, but that is all. What do you say? Will you help?”

  “Of course I will. I’ve no choice, really, have I?” said Susan. “She’ll still be after me, whatever happens, and Colin won’t stand a chance.”

  “That is so,” said Angharad. “Revenge was great in her, but now, if not before, she will know that you wear the Mark. The new moon is always her fear, and at this time above all, for it will be the moon of Gomrath, when our magic was strongest in the world, and may be yet again.

  “The Morrigan will try to destroy you before you take on the power. You must carry war to her now, and hold her. If you succeed, she may never be a threat to us. If you fail, she may grow beyond confining.

  “Now take this.” Angharad gave Susan a leather belt. From it hung a small, curved horn, white as ivory, and the mouthpiece and the rim were of chased gold.

  “She in her art will call on other power, and you will have little. So take this horn: it is the third best thing of price that was ever won, and is called Anghalac. Moriath gave it to Finn, and Finn to Camha, and Camha to me. Blow it if all else is lost, but only then. For once Anghalac sounds you may not know peace again, not in the sun’s circle nor in the darkling of the world.