The Silver Hand (5 page)

4
T
HE
C
APTIVE
P
IT

I
am sorry, brother.”

I might have been speaking to the mud at my feet. Llew sat with his knees drawn to his chest, his head resting on his arms. In the dim light of the pit, he was a shadow—a morose and miserable shadow.

After seven nights and days in Meldron's captive pit, I did not blame him. The fault was mine. I had underestimated Meldron and his readiness to overthrow the long-honored ways of our people. I had misjudged the support he enjoyed among his warrior band, the Wolf Pack, and their willingness to uphold him against their own kinsmen. Yes, and I had overestimated my own ability to exploit the respect the people felt towards Llew. They might have exalted Llew, but Meldron was known to them, and he was one of their own. Llew was the outsider, the stranger in our midst.

Nevertheless, I had thought—no, I had believed in my blood and bones—that the people would not stand by and let Meldron challenge their last remaining bard. A king is a king, but a bard is the heart and soul of the people; he is their life in song, and the lamp which guides their steps along the paths of destiny. A bard is the essential spirit of the clan; he is the linking ring, the golden cord which unites the manifold ages of the clan, binding all that is past with all that is yet to come.

But fear makes men blind and stupid. And these were troubled times. I should have known the people would not challenge Meldron to the shedding of blood. In the Day of Strife, even brave men would not risk their lives for the truth by which we have ever lived.

“I am sorry, Llew.”

“Stop saying that, Tegid,” he muttered. “I am sick of it.”

“I did not mean this to happen.”

He raised his face to the low black roof above his head. “It is my own fault for letting you talk me into it. I never should have listened to you.”

“I am sorry, Llew—”

“Stop it!” His head whipped toward me. “It—it is . . .” He struggled to rise above the lethargy of our predicament but crumpled at the effort and slipped back into his misery. “What is the use? It does not matter.”

He was silent for a long time, and I thought he would not speak again. But then he said, “I remember now, Tegid. I can remember everything—I could not remember it before.”

“What do you remember?”

“My own world,” he answered. “Until I went back, I had all but forgotten it even existed. I did not want to remember, you see? And I almost succeeded in forgetting altogether. But for Simon, I would never have considered going back, and I would have lost it.”

I watched him in the darkness of the pit. He had never spoken to me about his own world, and it is not our way to inquire. Those of other worlds who sojourn among us—the
Dyn Dythri,
the strangers— are treated with respect. We accept them and include them; we teach them our ways and allow them the freedom to prove themselves and earn what honor they can.

Once our race journeyed in their world, and we gave them gifts to ease the burdens of their lives. But no more. The rift between the worlds has grown ever wider, and the bridge is treacherous and dark. We still welcome the strangers among us, but we do not willingly journey to their world, nor do we encourage them as we once did.

“It had changed,” Llew continued, speaking earnestly. “The world, my world, had changed. It was even worse than when I left—and I think only a day or two had passed on that side. No color, no life— everything fading away, decaying, disintegrating.”

He seemed to be trying to work something out in his mind, to explain it to himself, perhaps; so I did not intrude on his thought but let him speak.

“It is the Paradise War,” he continued. “What happens here, in this world, affects life over there. Profes—I mean, my friend Nettles told me; he explained it all to me. And I believed him. But I had no idea it could be so—that the change could be so devastating. It was as if the world was disappearing before my eyes.”

I remembered what he had said about Siawn Hy poisoning our world—or at least corrupting the weak Prince Meldron. “Corruption is always a potent enemy,” I observed.

“It is more than that, Tegid,” he replied quickly, shifting in the darkness to lean toward me. “Much more than that. There is a balance, you see—a harmony between this world and the other. Simon has upset the balance; his ideas, his schemes—just his presence here has changed things.”

“And changes in this world provoke changes in the other world,” I offered. “I understand.”

“Believe me, if there is going to be anything left worth saving—of either world—Simon must be stopped.”

“I do believe you, brother,” I replied. “But before we can save the world, we must first save ourselves.”

“We have to get out of here. We have to get free!” He rose—as he had risen countless times before, to push against the timber planks over our heads. But it was useless, and he soon collapsed again.

“Will he kill us, do you think?” he asked after a time. “Now that he is king—”

“Meldron is not the king. You are the king.”

“Pardon me,” he scoffed bitterly, “I keep forgetting.”

“I have given the kingship to you,” I told him. How many times had I told him already? “You are the king. And I do not know what Meldron will do,” I replied. “If I knew, we would not be here like this now.”

“Do not tell me that you are sorry, Tegid. I will not hear it yet again.”

After seizing us during the kingmaking ceremony, Meldron had dragged us up to the ruined caer and imprisoned us in the refuse pit behind the hall. He had covered the pit with charred timbers and sealed them with a mound of rubble and filth from the burned-out stronghold. There he left us under guard. What he intended doing with us, I could not guess. And it occurred to me that Meldron did not know either.

He feared killing us outright, I surmised, or we would be dead already. He had stretched the support of the people to the breaking-point; any further trouble and he would lose what little favor he now enjoyed. Neither could he let us go free to incite rebellion against him. So, until he could think of a better way to deal with us, we would remain his prisoners.

The pit was watched day and night to prevent anyone from helping us to escape. There were at least two guards at all times, and often more. We could sometimes hear them talking as they came and went, changing watch duties. We knew when they changed because the new guards brought us water and a little food, which they lowered to us through a small chink in one of the planks.

So the days passed. Llew and I remained in our stinking, filth-smothered prison, locked away from the light, and any who might help us. And with each passing day, Meldron despised us the more— yet he could not rule unopposed while Llew and I remained alive. This thought alone cheered me. For, in this small way at least, we were preventing him from beginning his wrongful reign.

One night, I awakened to a small scraping sound. I disregarded it at first, thinking it nothing more than the gnawing of the rats which had taken over the caer. But I gradually perceived that the slow
scrape-scrape-scrape
had a definite rhythm.

Someone was digging.

I waited, listening in the darkness. The sound grew louder, and I ventured speaking to the digger. “Who is it?” I asked, hardly daring to raise my voice about a whisper.

Llew was asleep. But he stirred when I spoke. “Tegid? What is it?” he said, rolling onto his knees.

“Shh! Listen!

“Be quiet down there . . . you will wake the warriors . . .” The voice was that of a child.

“Who are you?” I persisted.

“It is Ffand,” came the reply. “Now be quiet.”

“Who is Ffand?” Llew wondered.

“Who is with you, Ffand?” I asked, pressing my face against the roof timbers of our crude prison.

“No one is with me,” she answered, and the scraping noise began again. It continued for some time, and then it stopped.

“What are you doing, Ffand?”

“Shh!” The whisper was sharp, insistent. Silence followed. And then: “It was one of the warriors. He woke up, but he is asleep again. I have to leave now.”

“Wait—”

“It will be morning soon.”

“Ffand! Wait, I—”

“I will come back again when it is night.”

“Please—”

But she was already gone. I slumped back to the floor.

“Who is Ffand?” asked Llew again.

“She is the girl who keeps your dog,” I explained.

“My dog?” he wondered aloud, and I could tell he had forgotten all about Twrch. “Oh, yes . . . my dog.”

“You gave Twrch to a little girl. On the way to Findargad—”

“Before the battle of Dun na Porth,” he said. “I remember. I never learned her name.”

All that long, long day we waited. Night could not arrive soon enough. The darkness of our prison deepened, and we held our breath, listening for the slight scraping sound to come again. When it did not come, we brooded over what could have happened to her: maybe she could not get away tonight; maybe the guard would not go to sleep tonight . . . Or worse: maybe she had been discovered and caught . . . What would they do to her if they caught her?

We had given up hope when the slow
scrape-scrape-scrape
began again. “She has returned!” I whispered. “Ffand!” And I tapped lightly on the beam above my head. “Ffand!”

A moment later her voice answered, “Shhh! Be quiet! They will hear you!”

I made to speak again, but Llew cautioned me. “Let be, Tegid. Let her work.”

I settled back, and we listened to the rhythmic scraping sound above us. But it had no sooner begun than it stopped. And it did not begin again that night. We listened long, but the sound did not come again.

We waited through the next day, anxious and uneasy, hoping she had not been discovered. Wondering why she had stopped . . .

Ffand did not come the next night, and we feared the worst.

So dejected were we that we did not expect her again. So, when the scraping sound began again on the following night, we were startled by its suddenness, and realized we had been waiting—waiting for it and willing it to begin again.

She worked all through the night, stopping only twice: once to rest—she said her hands were tired—and once when one of the guards woke to relieve himself.

She did not return for the next two nights. But we knew now not to be concerned. Little Ffand was obviously canny and capable. She would choose her times well and would not risk discovery needlessly. In any event, we had no other course but to await her pleasure.

Ffand returned on the following night to tell us that King Meldron had announced he would be holding court in the morning, “He has said we must all get ready to leave this place. He says we are moving to Caer Modornn.”

“When?”

“Very soon,” came the reply. “At dawn the day after the court.”

Llew laid a hand on my arm. “Ask her how long it will take to free us? Can she do it tonight?”

“Ffand,” I said, my cheek hard against the plank above, “can you finish tonight? Can you free us tonight?”

There came a little silence. And then, “I do not think so.”

“Listen, Ffand, it must be tonight. They will surely come for us tomorrow. We must be free tonight.”

“I will try.”

“Maybe we can help,” said Llew. “Ffand, tell us what to do.”

The scraping sound began again—more quickly this time, and louder as the girl began working harder and faster to free us. She did not stop or slacken her pace but worked through the night.
Scrape-scrape-scrape
. . .
scrape-scrape
. . .
scrape-scrape-scrape
. . . all through the night.

And then . . . there came a dull thud, as if something heavy had fallen away.

“There!” Ffand's voice came down to us. “It is done.”

“Good. Tell us what to do, Ffand,” I said.

“The timber is loose now,” came the reply. “But it is too heavy for me to move—you have to do it.”

“Which timber, Ffand? Knock on the one we are to move.”

A sturdy thump sounded on a timber at one corner of the pit. “Good. Now, listen very carefully, Ffand. We will do the rest. But you must leave us now. I want you well away from here.”

There came no answer.

“Ffand?”

“I do not want to go.”

“You must. I do not want you to get hurt if anything goes wrong. Go now.”

Llew spoke to the timber. “Ffand—” he said, earnestly, “listen to me.”

“Yes?”

“Thank you, Ffand. You have saved our lives. But you must get far away from here if all your hard work is not to be wasted. Understand? Besides, think of Twrch—what will happen to him without you? I want you to look after him a little longer. Will you do that for me, Ffand?”

“Oh, very well,” she sighed.

“One more thing,” I said quickly. “How many guards are there?”

“Only two tonight, and they are sound sleepers.” She paused, putting her face close to the timber. “Farewell.”

“Ffand?”

No answer.

“She has gone,” I surmised. “Ready?”

Llew knelt beside me at the far end of the pit. Together we gripped the timber, working our fingers into the cracks between the beams on either side. At last I understood what Ffand had done: using the heap of rubble to shield her from the guards, she had scraped through the debris and soil at the end of the pit and freed one beam. It still bore its weight of rubble, but by shifting the heavy timber back and forth a little at a time, we began to loosen and, at last, to withdraw it. Debris and filth rained down on us, falling through the crack we made. But we worked at the plank, sliding it back and forth until there was a gap large enough for a man to squeeze his shoulders through.