The Castle of Llyr

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 fond each other again, and also Prince Rhun who hd 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 brows. '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 vain, for heavy boulders filled the pit, blocking it entirely. While Prince Rhun rested on one of the table-like 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 stronger 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