Lloyd Alexander - Taran Wanderer

With sudden horror Taran knew the wizard spoke the truth; Morda's wasted arms were hard as gnarled branches, and though Taran struggled desperately, the wizard's relentless grip tightened. Taran's lungs heaved to bursting and he felt himself drowning in a black sea. Morda's features blurred; only the wizard's baleful, unlidded gaze stayed fixed.

A crash of splintering wood shattered in Taran's ears. Morda's grip suddenly slackened Shouting in alarm and rage, the wizard leaped to his feet and spun about. His head still reeling, Taran clutched at the wall and tried to draw himself up. Llyan had burst into the chamber.

Growling fiercely, her eyes blazing gold fires, the huge cat sprang forward. Morda turned to meet her attack.

"Llyan! Beware of him!" Taran cried.

The force of Llyan's charge bore the wizard to his knees, but Morda in his unyielding strength grappled with the animal.

Llyan flung her tawny body right and left. Her powerful hind legs, their claws unsheathed lashed vainly at the wizard, who twisted from her paws and now clung to her arching back. Yowling and spitting, the great cat tossed her head furiously, her sharp teeth flashed in her massive jaws; yet, with all her might, she could not free herself from the wizard's clutches. Taran knew even Llyan's strength would soon ebb, just as his own had failed. She had given him a moment more of life, but now Llyan herself was doomed.

The bone! Taran dropped to hands and knees seeking the shard. Nowhere did he see it. He flung aside wooden stools, upturned earthen vessels, scrabbled in the ashes of the hearth. The bone had vanished.

From behind him rose a high twittering and squeaking and he spun to see the mouse bobbing frantically on its hind legs. In its jaws the creature held the splinter of bone.

Instantly Taran caught up the polished fragment to snap it between his fingers. He gasped in dismay. The bone would not break.

THE POLISHED SPLINTER WAS unyielding as iron. Teeth clenched and muscles trembling with his effort, Taran felt he struggled against the wizard himself. Llyan had dropped weakly to her haunches; Morda sprang free of the unconscious cat and set upon Taran once more, snatching at the fragment. The wizard's fingers locked on the middle of the shard, but Taran clung with all his strength to the ends of it. He felt the splinter bend as Morda strove to wrest it from his grasp.

Suddenly the bone snapped in two. A sound sharper than a thunderclap split Taran's ears. With a horrible scream that stabbed through the chamber, Morda toppled backward, stiffened, clawed the air, then fell to the ground like a pile of broken twigs.

That same instant the mouse vanished. Gurgi stood at Taran's side. "Kind master saves us!" he yelled, flinging his arms about Taran. "Yes, yes! Gurgi is Gurgi again! No more a mouse with shriekings and squeakings!"

In Taran's hand the sundered bone had turned to gray dust, which he cast aside. Too exhausted and bewildered to speak, he could only pat Gurgi fondly and gratefully. Llyan, her deep chest heaving, climbed to her feet near Morda's broken, lifeless form. Her tawny fur still bristled furiously and her long tail looked twice its thickness. As Gurgi hastened to unloose Kaw, who jabbered at the top of his voice and beat his wings excitedly against the cage, Llyan's golden eyes darted about the chamber and from her throat rose an anxious, questioning trill.

"Great Belin!" came Fflewddur's voice, "I'm trapped as badly as before!"

Llyan loping ahead of him, Taran ran to a corner of the chamber. The basket in which Morda imprisoned the hare now held the bard, squeezed into it along with his harp and stuck fast with his long shanks dangling over one side and his arms flapping helplessly over the other.

With some difficulty Taran and Gurgi set about freeing the bard, who hardly left off stammering incoherently all the while. Fflewddur's face was ashen from fright; he blinked, shook his ragged yellow head, and heaved huge sighs of relief.

"What humiliation!" he burst out. "A Fflam! Turned into a rabbit! I felt I'd been stuffed in a woolsack! Great Belin, my nose still twitches! Never again! I told you no good comes from meddling. Though in this case, Taran old friend, it's lucky you had that bone. Ah, ah! Easy there, that wicker's jabbing me. A rabbit, indeed! If I could only have got my paws― I mean hands― on that foul Morda!"

At last out of the basket Fflewddur threw his arms around Llyan's powerful neck. "And you, old girl! If you hadn't come looking for us…" He shuddered and clapped hands to his ears. "Yes, well, let's not think of that."

In the doorway stood a short, stocky, stoutly booted figure dressed in russet leather; on his head a round, close-fitting leather cap. Thumbs hooked into his belt, he turned bright crimson eyes on each of the companions. Instead of his customary scowl, a grin stretched across his broad face.

"Doli!" Taran cried, first catching sight of the dwarf. "It's you again!"

"Again?" snapped Doli, trying to make his voice as gruff as he could. "It always was." He strode into the chamber. For a moment he looked down at Morda and nodded curtly. "So that's the way of it," he said to Taran. "I thought as much. One moment I was a frog wrapped in a sopping wet cloak, sure all of you had been slain, and the next― as you see me.

"That cat of yours grew restless after a time," Doli went on, turning to Fflewddur. "She picked me up, cloak and all, and went off on your trail."

"She won't let me out of her sight," replied Fflewddur. "For which," he added, fondly rubbing Llyan's ears, "we've all to thank her."

"But how did she get through the thorns?" Taran asked. "Morda's traps…"

"Through?" answered Doli. "She didn't go through, she went over!" He shook his head. "In one bound! With me in her mouth! I've never seen a creature jump so high. On the other hand, I've never seen a creature like this. But what of the rest of you? What of Morda?"

"If you don't mind," Fflewddur interrupted before Taran could finish telling the dwarf of their ordeal, "I suggest leaving here immediately. A Fflam is steadfast, but there's something about enchantments, even broken ones, that tends to― ah― disturb me."

"Wait," cried Taran. "The jewel! Where is it?"

As Doli watched, puzzled, the companions hastily set about searching every corner of the chamber to no avail. Taran's concern mounted, for he was reluctant to leave the gem unfound. However, when almost ready to admit the jewel was hopelessly lost, he heard a raucous laugh above his head.

Kaw, perched on an oaken rafter, rocked back and forth chuckling and squawking, delighted with himself. The jewel glittered in his beak.

"Hi, hi!" shouted Fflewddur, alarmed. "Give it up! Great Belin, you'll have us all with paws and tails again!"

After much coaxing by Taran and indignant retorts by the bard, Kaw flapped to Taran's shoulder and dropped the gem in his hand.

"Now it belongs to wise and kindly master!" Gurgi exclaimed. "Gurgi fears stone of winkings and blinkings, but not when kindly master holds it."

Doli peered at the gem as Taran held it up. "So that's how Morda meant to enslave us. I should have guessed. This comes from the Fair Folk realm," he added. "We always honored the House of Llyr and gave the stone to Princess Regat as our wedding gift. She must have handed it down to her daughter; and when Angharad vanished, the jewel vanished with her."

"And now it comes to my hands," Taran said. He cupped the gem in his palm watching the play of light in the depths of the crystal. "Morda has turned a thing of usefulness and beauty to evil ends. Whether it may ever serve its true purpose again, I do not know. To speak truth, it draws me. And frightens me, too. Its power is vast― too vast, perhaps, for any man to hold. Even if I could learn its secrets, I would not choose to do so." He smiled at Gurgi. "Do you call me wise? At least I'm wise enough to know I'll never have wisdom enough to use it.