Alan Garner Classic Collection. Alan Garner

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СКАЧАТЬ know you do. But you have no further part in this. High Magic and low cunning will be the weapons of the fray, and the valour of children would be lost in the struggle. You can help me best by freeing me from worry on your behalf.”

      And, without giving the children further chance to argue, he took them by the hand, and out of the cave. They went in misery, and shortly stood above the swamp on the spot where they had first met the wizard, three nights ago.

      “Must we really not see you again?” said Colin. He had never felt so wretched.

      “Believe me, it must be so. It hurts me, too, to part from friends, and I can guess what it is to have the door of wonder and enchantment closed to you when you have glimpsed what lies beyond. But it is also a world of danger and shadows, as you have seen, and ere long I fear I must pass into these shadows. I will not take you with me.

      “Go back to your own world: you will be safer there. If we should fail, you will suffer no harm, for not in your time will Nastrond come.

      “Now go. Fenodyree will keep with you to the road.”

      So saying, he entered the tunnel. The rock echoed: he was gone.

      Colin and Susan stared at the wall. They were very near to tears, and Fenodyree, weighed down with his own troubles, felt pity for them in their despondency.

      “Do not think him curt or cruel,” he said gently. “He has suffered a defeat that would have crushed a lesser man. He is going now to prepare himself to face death, and worse than death, for the stone’s sake; and I and others shall stand by him, though I think we are for the dark. He has said farewell because he knows there may be no more meetings for him this side of Ragnarok.”

      “But it was all our fault!” said Colin desperately. “We must help him!”

      “You will help him best by keeping out of danger, as he said; and that means staying well away from us and all we do.”

      “Is that really the best way?” said Susan.

      “It is.”

      “Then I suppose we’ll have to do it. But it will be very hard.”

      “Is his task easier?” said Fenodyree.

      They walked along a path that curved round the hillside, gradually rising till it ran along the crest of the Edge.

      “You will be safe now,” said Fenodyree, “but if you should have need of me, tell the owls in farmer Mossock’s barn: they understand your speech, and will come to me, but remember that they are guardians for the night and fly like drunken elves by day.”

      “Do you mean to say all those owls were sent by you?” said Colin.

      “Ay, my people have ever been masters of bird lore. We treat them as brothers, and they help us where they can. Two nights since they brought word that evil things were closing on you. A bird that seemed no true bird (and scarce made off with its life) brought to the farm a strange presence that filled them with dread, though they could not see its form. I can guess now that it was the hooded one – and here is Castle Rock, from which we can see his lair.”

      They had come to a flat outcrop that jutted starkly from the crest, so that it seemed almost a straight drop to the plain far below. There was a rough bench resting on stumps of rock, and here they sat. Behind them was a field, and beyond that the road, and the beginning of the steep “front” hill.

      “It is as I thought,” said Fenodyree. “The black master is in his den. See, yonder is Llyn-dhu, garlanded with mosses and mean dwellings.”

      Colin and Susan looked where Fenodyree was pointing, and some two or three miles out on the plain they could see the glint of grey water through trees.

      “Men thought to drain that land and live there, but the spirit of the place entered them, and their houses were built drab and desolate, and without cheer; and all around the bog still sprawls, from out the drear lake come soulless thoughts and drift into the hearts of the people, and they are one with their surroundings.

      “Ah! But there goes he who can tell us more about the stone.”

      He pointed to a speck floating high over the plain, and whistled shrilly.

      “Hi, Windhover! To me!”

      The speck paused, then came swooping through the air like a black falling star, growing larger every second, and, with a hollow beating of wings, landed on Fenodyree’s outstretched arm – a magnificent kestrel, fierce and proud, whose bright eyes glared at the children.

      “Strange company for dwarfs, I know,” said Fenodyree, “but they have been prey of the morthbrood, and so are older than their years.

      “It is of Grimnir that we want news. He went by here: did he seek the lake?”

      The kestrel switched his gaze to Fenodyree, and gave a series of sharp cries, which obviously meant more to the dwarf that they did to the children.

      “Ay, it is as I thought,” he said when the bird fell silent. “A mist crossed the plain a while since, as fast as a horse can gallop, and sank into Llyn-dhu.

      “Ah well, so be it. Now I must away back to Cadellin, for we shall have much to talk over and plans to make. Farewell now, my friends. Yonder is the road: take it. Remember us, though Cadellin forbade you, and wish us well.”

      “Goodbye.”

      Colin and Susan were too full to say more; it was an effort to speak, for their throats were tight and dry with anguish. They knew that Cadellin and Fenodyree were not being deliberately unkind in their anxiety to be rid of them, but the feeling of responsibility for what had happened was as much as they could bear.

      So it was with heavy hearts that the children turned to the road: nor did they speak or look back until they had reached it. Fenodyree, standing on the seat, legs braced apart, with Windhover at his wrist, was outlined against the sky. His voice came to them through the still air.

      “Farewell, my friends!”

      They waved to him in return, but could find no words.

      He stood there a moment longer before he jumped down and vanished along the path to Fundindelve. And it was as though a veil had been drawn across the children’s eyes.

PART TWO

       CHAPTER 8

       MIST OVER LLYN-DHU

      Autumn came, and in September Colin and Susan started school. Work on the farm kept them busy outside school hours, and it was not often they visited the Edge. Sometimes at the weekend they could go there, but then the woods were peopled with townsfolk who, shouting and crashing through the undergrowth, and littering СКАЧАТЬ