The companions ripped vines from the tree trunks and lashed the cut branches together, lengthening the makeshift cords with strips torn from their own garments. Ungainly though it was, and looking more like a bundle of kindling wood, the raft was soon ready. But no sooner had Taran begun tying the last knots in the tangle of vines and rags than Gurgi shrieked in fear. Taran leaped to his feet and spun around as Gurgi gestured wildly toward the trees farther up the riverbank.
Llyan had burst from the woods. The great tawny mountain cat halted for an instant, one paw raised, her tail lashing, her eyes blazing at the companions, who fell back in terror.
“The raft!” Taran shouted. “Into the river with it!” He seized one end of the clumsy craft and struggled to haul it to the water. Still yelling, Gurgi ran to aid him. Prince Rhun toiled as best he could to help. The bard had already splashed into the stream, where he stood hip-deep in the current and heaved at the branches.
Llyan’s tufted ears cupped forward and her whiskers twitched as her glance fell on the bard. From her throat arose not a savage roar but a bell-like, questioning cry. Eyes shining with a strange glow, she loped forward on huge padded paws. Purring loudly, the mountain cat made straight for the frantic bard.
“Great Belin!” cried Fflewddur. “She wants me back again!”
It was then that Kaw, perched on a low branch, beat his wings and launched himself against Llyan. Squawking and croaking at the top of his voice, the crow swooped down on the astonished beast. Llyan stopped in her tracks and roared angrily. Flying at full speed, Kaw passed within a hairbreadth of Llyan’s mighty head, striking out with his wings and pecking at her with his sharp beak.
Taken by surprise, Llyan fell back on her haunches and turned to face the crow. Kaw veered in a tight circle and swooped again. Llyan sprang into the air, claws unsheathed and slashing. Taran cried in dismay as a cloud of feathers floated downward, but an instant later he saw the crow still aloft and plunging again toward Llyan. Dancing in front of her like a large black hornet, Kaw jabbered impudently as though daring the beast to catch him, flapped his wings in her face, and sped away once more. At his next dive, which brought him so close that Llyan’s teeth snapped shut on one of his tail feathers, Kaw seized and tweaked a curling whisker.
Yowling furiously, forgetting the bard and the struggling companions, Llyan raced after the crow who flapped from the riverbank into the woods. Llyan followed, and her roars echoed among the trees.
With a final heave, the companions flung the raft into the river and scrambled aboard. The current snatched and spun the craft, nearly capsizing it before Taran could thrust a pole into the water. Fflewddur and Gurgi fended the raft off a threatening boulder. Prince Rhun, drenched to the skin, paddled desperately with his hands. In another moment the raft righted itself and the companions skimmed rapidly downstream.
Fflewddur, whose face had turned deathly pale, gave a sigh of relief. “I feared she had me for sure! Believe me, I couldn’t stand another bout of harping like the last one! I hope Kaw fares well,” he added anxiously.
“Kaw will find us again,” Taran assured him. “He’s clever enough to stay out of Llyan’s reach until he knows we’re safe. If she keeps chasing him, I’m certain she’ll have the worst of the battle.”
Fflewddur nodded, then turned and glanced back over his shoulder. “In a way,” he said, with a note of regret in his voice, “it’s the first time my music has really been—ah—in a manner of speaking, sought after. In this case, if it weren’t so dangerous, I should call it downright complimentary!”
“I say,” called Prince Rhun, crouching at the front of the raft, “I don’t mean to complain after all the work you’ve done, but I think something’s breaking loose.”
Taran, busy steering, glanced down in alarm. The hurriedly knotted vines had begun to give way. The raft shuddered in the swift current. With the pole, Taran thrust deeply for the river bottom, seeking to bring the raft to a halt. The current bore it onward and the branches bent and twisted as the water poured through the gaps. One of the vines parted, a branch ripped free, then another. Throwing aside the useless pole, Taran shouted for the companions to jump clear. Seizing Prince Rhun by the jacket, he sprang into the river.
As the water closed over his head, Prince Rhun kicked and struggled wildly. Taran tightened his grasp on the foundering Prince and fought his way to the surface. With his free hand he clung to a boulder and gained a foothold among the shifting stones. Heaving with all his strength, he dragged Rhun ashore and flung him to the bank.
Gurgi and Fflewddur had managed to catch hold of what remained of the raft and were hauling it into the shallows. Prince Rhun sat up and looked around.
“That’s the closest I’ve ever been to drowning,” he gasped. “I’ve often wondered what it was like, though now I don’t think I’d care to know.”
“Drowning?” said Fflewddur, staring at the wreckage of the craft. “Worse than that! All our labor has gone for naught.”
Taran rose wearily to his feet. “Most of the branches can be used. We’ll cut more vines and start again.”
The discouraged companions turned to the task of repairing the raft, now strewn in pieces along the bank. The work went more slowly than before, for the trees grew sparser here and vines were scarce.
The Prince of Mona had made his way to a clump of osiers, and Taran glimpsed him tugging away, trying to uproot them. The next instant, Rhun was no longer in sight.
With a shout of alarm, Taran dropped his armload of vines and ran toward the spot, calling Rhun’s name.
The bard looked up. “Not again!” he cried. “If there were a field with one stone he’d trip over it! A Fflam is patient, but there are limits!” Nevertheless, he hurried to join Taran, who was already kneeling among the osiers.
At the spot where Rhun had been standing was a gaping hole. The Prince of Mona had vanished.
CHAPTER TEN
The Cavern
Heedless of Fflewddur’s warning shout, Taran leaped into the pit and slid quickly past a mesh of torn roots. The hole widened a little, then dropped straight. Calling for the bard to lower a length of vine, he let himself fall, then scrambled to his feet and struggled to lift up the unconscious Rhun, who was bleeding heavily from a gash at the side of his head.
The end of the vine dangled from above. Taran seized and lashed it securely under the Prince’s arms, shouting for Fflewddur and Gurgi to pull him up. The vine tautened, strained—and snapped. Earth and stones showered from the raw sides of the hole.
“Beware!” Taran cried. “The ground is giving way!”
“Afraid you’re right,” Fflewddur called back. “In that case, I think we’d better give you a hand from down there.”
Taran saw the soles of Fflewddur’s boots plunge toward him. The bard landed with a grunt, and Gurgi, whose hair looked as though it had scraped away most of the dirt from the hole, tumbled after.
Prince Rhun’s eyelids fluttered. “Hullo, hullo!” he murmured. “What happened? Those roots were surprisingly deep!”
“The land must be eaten away along the riverbank,” Taran said. “When you pulled, the strain and weight opened up this hole. Never fear,” he added quickly, “we’ll soon have you out. Help us to turn you. Can you move at all?”
The Prince nodded, gritted his teeth, and, with the companions lifting him, began painfully clambering up the side of the pit. But he had gone no more than halfway when he lost his handhold. Taran scrambled to block his fall. Rhun clutched wildly at a root and hung poised a moment in mid-air.
The root tore free and Rhun plummeted downward. The wall of earth rumbled as the pit collapsed around them. Taran flung up his arms against the rush of soil and shale. He was thrown down, the ground cracked at his feet, fell away, and left him spinning in nothingness.
A violent shock stunned him. Loose earth filled his nose and mouth. Lungs bursting, he fought against the weight pressing the life from him. It was only then he realized he had stopped
falling. His head still reeled, but he twisted and clawed his way through dirt and pebbles. He heaved himself upward, breathing once again.
Gasping and trembling, he dropped at full length on a sloping, rocky floor, in darkness so deep it seemed to suffocate him. At last regaining strength enough to lift his head, he tried vainly to peer through the shadows that filled his eyes. He called to the companions, but no answer came. His voice rang with a strange, hollow echo. In despair, he shouted once more.
“Hullo, hullo!” called another voice.
“Prince Rhun!” Taran cried. “Where are you? Are you safe?”
“I don’t know,” answered the Prince. “If I could see better, I could tell you better.”
Raising himself to hands and knees, Taran crawled forward. His groping fingers met a shaggy mass that stirred and whimpered.
“Terrible, oh terrible!” moaned Gurgi. “Rumblings and crumblings fling poor Gurgi into fearsome blackness. He cannot see!”
“Great Belin,” came Fflewddur’s voice out of the dark, “I’m delighted to hear that. For a moment I thought I’d been struck blind. I swear I can see more with my eyes shut!”
Ordering Gurgi to hang on to his belt, Taran crept in the direction of the bard’s voice. Soon the companions had found each other again, and also Prince Rhun who had managed to drag himself toward them.
“Fflewddur,” Taran said in an anxious voice, “I fear the landslide has blocked the pit. Dare we try to dig our way out?”
“I don’t think it’s so much a question of digging as it is of finding, if you take my meaning,” replied the bard. “Whether we can burrow through all that dirt is, to say the least of it, highly doubtful. Even a mole would have trouble, though I’m willing to give it a try. A Fflam is undaunted! But,” he added, “without a light to guide us, we shall spend the rest of our days looking for the right spot to dig.”
Taran nodded and knitted his brow. “It’s true. Light is as precious to us as air.” He turned to Gurgi. “Try to use your flints. We have no tinder here, but if I can catch the spark in my cloak it may be enough to set it alight.” He heard rustling, slapping sounds, as though Gurgi were searching himself all over, and then a dismal wail.
“Fire stones are gone!” Gurgi moaned. “Wretched Gurgi cannot make bright blazing! He has lost them, oh misery and sorrow! Gurgi will go alone to seek them.”
Taran patted the creature’s shoulder. “Stay with us here,” he said. “I value your life more than fire stones. We shall find some other way. Wait!” he cried. “Eilonwy’s bauble! If only it will light for us!”
Quickly he thrust into his jacket and drew out the sphere. For a moment he held it covered in his hands, fearing disappointment should the bauble fail to glow.
Holding his breath, he slowly moved a hand away. The golden sphere lay cupped in his palm; he could feel its smooth, cool surface and its weight, which was somehow not weight at all. He sensed the eyes of the companions on him and could guess at their hopeful glances. But the darkness pressed heavier and more stifling than ever. The bauble gave not the slightest glimmer.
“I cannot do it,” Taran murmured. “I fear it is not given to an Assistant Pig-Keeper to command such a thing of beauty and enchantment.”
“No sense in my trying,” said Prince Rhun. “I know I can’t make it work. The very first time I held it, the thing blinked out the moment it was in my hands. Surprising! The Princess Eilonwy could light it so easily.”
Taran groped toward Fflewddur and put the sphere into his hand. “You know the lore of the bards and the ways of enchantments,” he urged. “Perhaps it will obey you. Try, Fflewddur. Our lives depend on it.”
“Yes, well,” replied Fflewddur, “I must admit I have no great skill in these things. The true lore of the bards, sorry to say, has always been a little beyond me. There’s simply too much to know and I could never squeeze more than a drop or two into my head. But—a Fflam is willing!”
Moments passed, then Taran heard Fflewddur sigh with discouragement. “Can’t get the hang of it,” muttered the bard. “I even tried rapping it on the ground, but that doesn’t do either. Here, let our friend Gurgi have a go at it.”
“Woe and sorrow!” moaned Gurgi, after the bard had passed the sphere to him and he had held it for a while. “Even with teasings and squeezings, even with battings and pattings, unhappy Gurgi cannot bring golden winkings!”
“A Fflam never despairs!” cried Fflewddur. “But,” he added dolefully, “I’m coming rapidly to believe this pit will be our grave, without even a decent mound to mark the spot. A Fflam is cheerful—but this is a disheartening situation, no matter how you look at it.”
Gurgi silently gave the bauble back to Taran who, heavy-hearted, cupped it in his hands again. With yearning now he held it, and his mind turned from his own plight to thoughts of Eilonwy. He saw her face and once more heard her gay laughter ring clearer than the notes of Fflewddur’s harp. He smiled to himself, even as he recalled her chattering and her sharp words.
He was about to return the bauble to his jacket, but stopped short and stared at his hand. A point of light had begun to flicker in the depths of the sphere. As he watched, not daring to breathe, it blossomed and shimmered.
Taran sprang to his feet with a cry not of triumph but of wonder. Golden beams shone around him faintly but steadily. Trembling, he raised the sphere high above his head.
“Kind master saves us!” cried Gurgi. “Yes, yes! He takes us from loomings and gloomings! Joy and happiness! Fearful darkness is gone! Gurgi can see again!”
“Amazing!” cried Prince Rhun. “Astonishing! Look at this cave! I never knew we had such a place on Mona!”
Again Taran cried out in wonder. Until now, he had believed they had fallen into something like a large burrow. The glow of Eilonwy’s bauble showed they had come, instead, to the edge of an enormous cavern. It stretched before them like a forest after an ice storm. Columns of stone rose like the trunks of trees and arched to the ceiling where stone icicles clung. Along the shadowy walls, huge outcroppings sprang like hawthorn blossoms and glittered in the bauble’s golden rays. Threads of scarlet and vivid green twisted through luminous shafts of rock. White tendrils of crystal curled along jagged walls gleaming with rivulets of water. Still other chambers lay beyond this one, and Taran caught sight of wide pools, flat and glistening as mirrors. Some gave a dull, greenish glow, others a pale blue.
“What have we found?” Taran whispered. “Can this be a part of the Fair Folk’s realm?”
Fflewddur shook his head. “The Fair Folk surely have tunnels and caves where you’d least expect them, but I doubt this is one. There’s no sign of life at all.”
Gurgi did not speak, but stared with round eyes at the cavern. Prince Rhun, an expression of delight on his face, stepped ahead. “I say, this really is surprising!” he said. “I shall have to tell my father about this and see if he won’t open it up to visitors. It would be a shame to keep it hidden away.”
“It is a place of great beauty,” Taran said in a hushed voice.
“And a deadly place for us,” replied Fflewddur. “A Fflam enjoys the scenery—that’s one advantage of being a wandering bard—but from the—ah—outside, if I make myself clear, which I believe is where we should put ourselves as quickly as we can.”
The companions retraced their steps to where the landslide had carried them. As Taran had feared, the light of the golden ball showed that digging a passage would be in vain, for heavy boulders filled the pit, blocking it entirely. While Prince Rhun rested on one of the tablelike stones, and Gurgi delved into his wallet for food, Taran and Fflewddur spoke hastily between themselves.
“We must find another passage,” Taran said. “King Rhuddlum and his men will never reach Eilonwy now. We are the only ones who know the direction Magg has taken.”
“All too true,” Fflewddur glumly replied. “Yet I fear that knowledge is going to stay locked up with us here. Achren herself couldn’t have thrown us into a stron
ger prison.
“There are surely other ways in and out,” the bard went on, “but these caverns can stretch who knows how far. Underground, they may be enormous—and the entry no bigger than a rabbit hole.”
Nevertheless, they agreed they had no choice but to continue into the cavern and seek a passage leading them above ground. Keeping the Prince of Mona protectively between them, Taran and the bard set off through the forest of stone, with Gurgi trotting behind and clutching Taran’s belt.
Without warning Prince Rhun suddenly cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Hullo! Hullo!” at the top of his voice. “Anyone here! Hullo!”
“Rhun!” Taran cried. “Be silent! You will bring more danger on us.
“I should hardly think so,” answered Rhun innocently. “It seems to me that finding someone or something is better than finding nothing at all.”
“And risk our necks doing so?” Taran retorted.
He halted until the echoes had died away. No further sound came from the reaches of the cavern, and Taran warily beckoned the companions forward.
The ground dipped and they found themselves amid stones that jutted like huge teeth from the ground. Farther on the cavern floor rolled and twisted in high waves and deep valleys, as though a stormy sea had been frozen motionless. Another chamber held massive piles of rock and tall mounds that had taken the fanciful shapes of unmoving clouds.
Here the toiling companions rested a moment, for the path had narrowed and grown more difficult. The air was heavy, stagnant as swamp water, and chilled them to the bone. Taran urged them to their feet once again, anxious to find a tunnel leading upward, but fearing more and more that their search would be long and painful. A glance at the bard’s face told Taran that Fflewddur shared his fears.
“I say, there’s an odd thing,” called Rhun, pointing to a tumble of rock.
It was, indeed, one of the strangest shapes Taran had seen in the cavern, for it looked like a hen’s egg sticking halfway out of a nest. The stone was white, smooth, and somewhat pointed at the top, crusted here and there with patches of lichen, and stood nearly as tall as Taran himself. What at first resembled a nest was a tangled, discolored fringe of coarse strands that seemed to balance on the edge of a sharp drop.