The Book Of Three (5 page)

The Trap

FROM THE CORRIDOR

, a faint sound grew louder. Taran hastened to press his ear against the slot in the portal. He heard the heavy tread of marching feet, the rattle of weapons. He straightened and stood with his back to the wall. The girl had betrayed him. He cast about for some means to defend himself, for he had determined they would not take him easily. For the sake of having something in his hands, Taran picked up the dirty straw and held it ready to fling; it was a pitiable defense, and he wished desperately for Gwydion's power to set it ablaze. The footsteps continued. He feared, then, they would enter the other cell. He breathed a sigh of relief when they did not stop but faded away toward what he imagined to be the far end of the corridor. Perhaps the guard was being changed.

He turned away, certain Eilonwy would not be back, and furious with her and her false promises. She was a rattlebrained fool who would undoubtedly giggle and take it as a great joke when the Cauldron-Born came for him. He buried his face in his hands. He could hear her chatter even now. Taran started up again. The voice he heard was real.

“Must you always sit on the wrong stone?” it said. “You're too heavy to lift.”

Taran jumped up and hurriedly cleared the straw away. The flagstone was raised. The light from the golden ball was dim now, but enough for him to see that Eilonwy looked pleased with herself.

“Your companion is free,” she whispered. “And I took Melyngar from the stable. They are hidden in the woods outside the castle. It's all done now,” Eilonwy said gleefully. “They're waiting for you. So if you get a move on and stop looking as if you'd forgotten your own name, we can go and meet them.”

“Did you find weapons?” Taran asked.

“Well, no. I didn't have a chance to look,” Eilonwy said. “Really,” she added, “you can't expect me to do everything, can you?”

Eilonwy held the glowing sphere close to the stone floor. “Go first,” she said. “Then I'll come down after, so I can put the stone back in place. Then, when Achren sends to have you killed, there won't be any trace at all. She'll think you disappeared into thin air--- and that will make it all the more vexing. I know it isn't nice to vex people on purpose--- it's like handing them a toad--- but this is much too good to miss and I may never have another chance at it.”

“Achren will know you let us escape,” Taran said.

“No, she won't,” said Eilonwy, “because she'll think I'm still locked up. And if she doesn't know I can get out, she can't know I was here. But it's very thoughtful of you to say that. It shows a kind heart, and I think that's so much more important than being clever.”

While Eilonwy continued to chatter away, Taran lowered himself into the narrow opening. The passage was low, he discovered, and he was obliged to crouch almost on hands and knees.

Eilonwy moved the stone into place and then began to lead the way. The glow from the sphere showed walls of hard packed earth. As Taran hunched along, other galleries opened up on either side.

“Be sure you follow me,” Eilonwy called. “Don't go into any of those. Some of them branch off and some of them don't go anywhere at all. You'd get lost, and that would be a useless thing to do if you're trying to escape.”

The girl moved so quickly Taran had difficulty keeping up with her. Twice he stumbled over loose stones in the passage, clutched at the ground, and pitched forward. The little light bobbed ahead, while behind him long fingers of darkness grasped his heels. He could understand why Achren's fortress was called Spiral Castle. The narrow, stifling galleries turned endlessly; he could not be sure whether they were making real progress or whether the tunnel was merely doubling back on itself.

The earthen ceiling trembled with racing footsteps.

“We're just below the guard room,” Eilonwy whispered. “Something's happening up there. Achren doesn't usually turn out the guard in the middle of the night.”

“They must have gone to the cells,” Taran said. “There was a lot of commotion just before you came. They surely know we're gone.”

“You must be a very important Assistant Pig-Keeper,” said Eilonwy with a small laugh. “Achren wouldn't go to all that trouble unless...”

“Hurry,” Taran urged. “If she puts a guard around the castle we'll never get out.”

“I wish you'd stop worrying,” Eilonwy said. “You sound as if you were having your toes twisted. Achren can set out all the guards she wants. She doesn't know where the mouth of the tunnel is. And it's hidden so well an owl couldn't see it. After all, you don't think I'd march you out the front gate, do you?”

Despite her chattering, Eilonwy kept a rapid pace. Taran bent close to the ground, moving half by touch, keeping his eyes on the faint glow; he skidded past sharp turns, fetched up against rough walls, skinned his knees, then had to move twice as fast to regain the ground he had lost. At another bend in the passageway, Eilonwy's light wavered and dropped out of sight. In the moment of darkness, Taran lost his footing as the ground rose steeply on one side. He fell and rolled. Before he could recover his balance, he was sliding rapidly downward in a shower of loose stones and earth. He collided with an outcropping of rock, rolled again, and dropped suddenly into the darkness.

He landed heavily on flat stones, legs twisted under him. Taran climbed painfully to his feet and shook his head to clear it. Suddenly he realized he was standing upright. Eilonwy and her light could not be seen. He called as loudly as he dared.

After a few moments he heard a scraping above him and saw the faint reflection of the golden ball. “Where are you?” called the girl. Her voice seemed quite distant. “Oh--- I see. Part of the tunnel's given way. You must have slipped into a crevice.”

“It's not a crevice,” Taran called. “I've fallen all the way down into something and it's deep. Can't you put the light into it? I've got to get up again.”

There were more scraping noises. “Yes,” Eilonwy said, “you have got yourself into a mess. The ground's all broken through here, and below there's a big stone, like a shelf over your head. How did you ever manage to do that?”

“I don't know how,” replied Taran, “but I certainly didn't do it on purpose.”

“It's strange,” Eilonwy said. “This wasn't here when I came through the first time. All that tramping must have jarred something loose; it's hard to say. I don't think these tunnels are half as solid as they look, and neither is the castle, for the matter of that; Achren's always complaining about things leaking and doors not closing right...”

“Do stop that prattling,” cried Taran, clasping his head. “I don't want to hear about leaks and doors. Show a light so I can climb out of here.”

“That's the trouble,” the girl said. “I'm not quite sure you can. You see, that shelf of stone juts out so far and goes down so steeply. Can you manage to reach it?”

Taran raised his arms and jumped as high as he could. He could find no handhold. From Eilonwy's description, and from the massive shadow above, he feared the girl was right. He could not reach the stone and, even if he could have, its sharp downward pitch would have made it impossible to climb. Taran groaned with despair.

“Go on without me,” he said. “Warn my companion the castle is alerted...”

“And what do you intend doing? You can't just sit there like a fly in a jug. That isn't going to help matters at all.”

“It doesn't make any difference about me,” Taran said. “You can find a rope and come back when things are safe...”

“Who knows when that will be? If Achren sees me, there's no telling what might happen. And suppose I couldn't get back? You'd turn into a skeleton while you're waiting--- I don't know how long it takes for people to turn into skeletons, though I imagine it would need some time--- and you'd be worse off than before.”

“What else am I to do?” cried Taran. Eilonwy's talk of skeletons made his blood run cold. He recalled, then, the sound of Gwyn the Hunter's horn and the memory of it filled him with grief and fear. He bowed his head and turned his face to the rough wall.

“That's very noble of you,” said Eilonwy, “but I don't think it's really necessary, not yet, at any rate. If Achren's warriors come out and start beating the woods, I hardly think your friend would stay around waiting. He'd go and hide and find you later, or so I should imagine. That would be the sensible thing to do. Of course, if he's an Assistant Pig-Keeper, too, it's hard to guess how his mind would work.”

“He's not an Assistant Pig-Keeper,” Taran said. “He's... well, it's none of your business what he is.”

“That's not a very polite thing to say. Well, nevertheless...” Eilonwy's voice dismissed the matter. “The main thing is to get you out.”

“There's nothing we can do,” Taran said. “I'm caught here, and locked up better than Achren ever planned.”

“Don't say that. I could tear up my robe and plait it into a cord--- though I'll tell you right away I wouldn't enjoy crawling around tunnels without any clothes on. But I don't think it would be long enough or strong enough. I suppose I could cut off my hair, if I had a pair of shears, and add it in--- no, that still wouldn't do. Won't you please be quiet for a while and let me think? Wait, I'm going to drop my bauble down to you. Here, catch!”

The golden sphere came hurtling over the ledge. Taran caught it in mid-air.

“Now then,” Eilonwy called, “what's down there? Is it just a pit of some kind?”

Taran raised the ball above his head. “Why, it's not a hole at all!” he cried. “It's a kind of chamber. There's a tunnel here, too.” He took a few paces. “I can't see where it ends. It's big...”

Stones rattled behind him; an instant later, Eilonwy dropped to the ground. Taran stared at her in disbelief.

“You fool!” he shouted. “You addlepated . . . What have you done? Now both of us are trapped! And you talk about sense! You haven't...”

Eilonwy smiled at him and waited until he ran out of breath. “Now,” she said, “if you've quite finished, let me explain something very simple to you. If there's a tunnel, it has to go some place. And wherever it goes, there's a very good chance it will be better than where we are now.”

“I didn't mean to call you names,” Taran said, “but,” he added sorrowfully, “there was no reason for you to put yourself in danger.”

“There you go again,” Eilonwy said. “I promised to help you escape and that's what I'm doing. I understand about tunnels and I shouldn't be surprised if this one followed the same direction as the one above. It doesn't have half as many galleries coming off it. And besides, it's a lot more comfortable.”

Eilonwy took the glowing sphere from Taran's hand and stepped forward into the new passageway. Still doubtful, Taran followed.

The Barrow

AS EILONWY HAD SAID

, the passageway was more comfortable, for they could walk side by side without crouching and scuttling like rabbits in a warren. Unlike those of the upper galleries, the walls were lined with huge, flat stones; the ceiling was formed of even larger stones, whose weight was supported by upright slabs set at intervals along the square corridor. The air, too, smelled slightly better; musty, as if it had lain unstirred for ages, but without the choking closeness of the tunnels. None of this comforted Taran greatly. Eilonwy herself admitted she had never explored the passage; her blithe confidence did not convince him she had the slightest notion of where she was going. Nevertheless, the girl hurried along, her sandals tapping and echoing, the golden light of the bauble casting its rays through shadows that hung like cobwebs.

They passed a few side galleries which Eilonwy ignored. “We'll go straight to the end of this one,” she announced. “There's bound to be something there.”

Taran had begun wishing himself back in the chamber. “We shouldn't have come this far,” he said, with a frown. “We should have stayed and found some way to climb out; now you don't even know how long it will be before this passage stops. We might go on tramping for days.”

Something else troubled him. After all their progress, it seemed the passageway should now follow an upward direction.

“The tunnel's supposed to bring us out about ground, ”Taran said. “But we haven't stopped going down. We aren't coming out at all; we're only going deeper and deeper.”

Eilonwy paid no attention to his remarks.

But she was soon obliged to. Within another few paces, the corridor stopped abruptly, sealed by a wall of boulders.

“That is what I feared,” cried Taran, dismayed. “We have gone to the end of your tunnel, that you knew so much about, and this is what we find. Now we can only go back; we're lost all our time and we're no better off than when we started.” He turned away while the girl stood looking curiously at the barrier.

“I can't understand,” said Eilonwy, “why anyone would go to the trouble of building a tunnel and not have it go any place. It must have been a terrible amount of work for whoever it was to dig it all and set in the rocks. Why do you suppose...?”

“I don't know! And I wish you'd stop wondering about things that can't make any difference to us. I'm going back,” Taran said. “I don't know how I'm going to climb onto that shelf, but I can certainly do it a lot more easily than digging through a wall.”

“Well,” said Eilonwy, “it is very strange and all. I'm sure I don't know where we are.”

“I knew we'd end up being lost. I could have told you that.”

“I didn't say I was lost,” the girl protested. “I only said I didn't know where I was. There's a big difference. When you're lost, you really don't know where you are. When you just don't happen to know where you are at the moment, that's something else. I know I'm underneath Spiral Castle, and that's quite good for a start.”

“You're splitting hairs,” Taran said. “Lost is lost. You're worse than Dallben.”

“Who is Dallben?”

“Dallben is my--- oh, never mind!” His face grim, Taran began retracing his steps.

Eilonwy hurried to join him. “We could have a look into one of the side passageways,” she called.

Taran disregarded the suggestion. Nevertheless, approaching the next branching gallery, he slowed his steps and peered briefly into the gloom.

“Go ahead,” Eilonwy urged. “Let's try this one. It seems as good as any.”

“Hush!” Taran bent his head and listened intently. From a distance came a faint whispering and rustling. “There's something...”

“Well, by all means let's find out what,” said Eilonwy, prodding Taran in the back. “Go ahead, will you?”

Taran took a few cautious steps. The passage here was lower and seemed to slope still further down. With Eilonwy beside him, he continued gingerly, setting each foot carefully, remembering the sudden, sickening fall that had brought him there in the first place. The whispering became a high keening, a wail of torment. It was as though voices had been spun out like threads, twisted taut, ready to snap. An icy current wove through the air, carrying along with it hollow sighs and a swell of dull mutterings. There were other sounds, too; raspings and shriekings, like sword points dragged over stones. Taran felt his hands tremble; he hesitated a moment and gestured for Eilonwy to stay behind him.

“Give me the light,” he whispered, “and wait for me here.”

“Do you think it's ghosts?” Eilonwy asked. “I don't have any beans to spit at them, and that's about the only thing that will really do for a ghost. But you know I don't think it's ghosts at all. I've never heard one, though I suppose they could sound like that if they wanted to, but I don't see why they should bother. No, I think it's wind making all those noises.”

“Wind? How could there be... Wait,” Taran said. “You may be right, at that. There might be an opening.” Closing his ears to the horrifying sounds and preferring to think of them as draughts of air rather than spectral voices, Taran quickened his pace. Eilonwy, paying no attention to his order to wait, strode along with him.

They soon arrived at the end of the passage. Once more, fallen stones blocked their way, but this time there was a narrow, jagged gap. From it, the wailing grew louder, and Taran felt a cold ribbon of air on his face. He thrust the light into the opening, but even the golden rays could not pierce the curtain of shadows. Taran slid cautiously past the barrier; Eilonwy followed.

They entered a low-ceilinged chamber, and as they did, the light flickered under the weight of the darkness. At first, Taran could make out only indistinct shapes, touched with a feeble green glow. The voices screamed in trembling rage. Despite the chill wind, Taran's forehead was clammy. He raised the light and took another step forward. The shapes grew clearer. Now he distinguished outlines of shields hanging from the walls and piles of swords and spears. His foot struck something. He bent to look and sprang back again, stifling a cry. It was the withered corpse of a man--- a warrior fully armed. Another lay beside him, and another, in a circle of ancient dead guarding a high stone slab on which a shadowy figure lay at full length.

Eilonwy paid scant attention to the warriors, having found something more interesting to her. “I'm sure Achren hasn't any idea all this is here,” she whispered, pointing to heaps of otter-skin robes and great earthen jars overflowing with jewels. Weapons glistened amid stacks of helmets; woven baskets held brooches, collarpieces, and chains.

“She'd have hauled it out long ago; she loves jewelry, you know, though it doesn't become her one bit.”

“Surely it is the barrow of the king who built this castle,” Taran said in a hushed voice. He stepped past the warriors and drew near the figure on the slab. Rich raiment clothed the body; polished stones glowed in his broad belt. The clawed hands still grasped the jeweled hilt of a sword, as if ready to unsheath it. Taran recoiled in fear and horror. The skull seemed to grimace in defiance, daring a stranger to despoil the royal treasures.

As Taran turned, a gust of wind caught at his face. “I think there is a passage,” he called, “there, in the far wall.” He ran in the direction of the ghostly cries.

Close to the ground, a tunnel opened; he could smell fresh air, and his lungs drank deeply. “Hurry,” he urged.

Taran snatched a sword from a warrior's bony hand and scrambled into the tunnel.

THE TUNNEL WAS

the narrowest they had encountered. Flat on his belly, Taran squeezed and fought his way over the loose stones. Behind him, he heard Eilonwy gasping and struggling. Then a new sound began, a distant booming and throbbing. The earth shuddered as the pounding increased. Suddenly the passageway convulsed, the hidden roots of trees sprang up, the ground split beneath Taran, heaving and crumbling. In another instant, he was flung out at the bottom of a rocky slope. A great crash resounded deep within the hill. Spiral Castle, high above him, was bathed in blue fire. A sudden gale nearly battered Taran to the ground. A tree of lightning crackled in the sky. Behind him, Eilonwy called for help.

She was half in, half out of the narrow passage. As Taran wrestled with the fallen stones, the walls of Spiral Castle shook like gray rags. The towers lurched madly. Taran clawed away clumps of earth and roots.

“I'm all tangled up with the sword,” Eilonwy panted. “The scabbard's caught on something.”

Taran heaved at the last rock. “What sword?” he said through gritted teeth. He seized Eilonwy under the arms and pulled her free.

“Oof!” she gasped. “I feel as if I had all my bones taken apart and put together wrong. The sword? You said you needed weapons, didn't you? And you took one, so I thought I might as well, too.”

In a violent explosion that seemed ripped from the very center of the earth, Spiral Castle crumbled in on itself. The mighty stones of its walls split like twigs, their jagged ends thrusting at the sky. Then a deep silence fell. The wind was still; the air oppressive.

“Thank you for saving my life,” said Eilonwy. "For an Assistant Pig-Keeper, I must say you are quite courageous. It's wonderful when people surprise you that way.

“I wonder what happened to Achren,” she went on. “She'll really be furious,” she added with a delighted laugh, “and probably blame everything on me, for she's always punishing me for things I haven't even thought of yet.”

“If Achren is under those stones, she'll never punish anyone again,” Taran said. “But I don't think we'd better stay to find out.” He buckled on his sword.

The blade Eilonwy had taken from the barrow was too long for the girl to wear comfortably at her waist, so she had slung it from her shoulder.

Taran looked at the weapon with surprise. “Why--- that's the sword the king was holding.”

“Naturally,” said Eilonwy. “It should be the best one, shouldn't it?” She picked up the glowing sphere. “We're at the far side of the castle, what used to be the castle. Your friend is down there, among those trees--- assuming he waited for you. I'd be surprised if he did, with all this going on...”

They ran toward the grove. Ahead, Taran saw the shadowy forms of a cloaked figure and a white horse. “There they are!” he cried.

“Gwydion!” he called. “Gwydion!”

The moon swung from behind the clouds. The figure turned. Taran stopped short in the sudden brightness and his jaw dropped. He had never seen this man before.