“Yes, yes,” said Twk. “But what about the last six lines?”
“Well, back atop the precipice, as I looked at the twilight boundary ahead, I thought of what we know of serpents, and then I knew the answers to Verdandi’s rede.”
“What be it we ken o’ snakes?” asked Gwyd.
“They have no ears,” said Liaze.
“No ears?” blurted Twk. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Their hearing is poor, and though they can detect airborne sound-some say through their jawbone-they hear mainly through their skin,” said Liaze.
Twk sighed in exasperation. “Yes, yes, but-”
“Twk, Twk, ma laddie,” said Gwyd, striking flint to steel and setting the tinder to light and putting it in among the dried grass, “j’st let the princess finish.” The Brownie began gently blowing upon the glowing ember.
“This means serpents can feel vibrations in the ground; it’s one way they track prey and avoid predators.”
Twk started to say something, but a glare from Gwyd silenced him before he could speak.
“Oui, Twk, I think I know what you were going to add: that they can also see and taste and some think they can sense the body warmth of their game. Yet, heed: Verdandi said, ‘Ground your lyre and ground it well / For you to cast the needed spell.’ But I am no spellcaster, so what might that mean? I think she is telling us that music will put the serpent asleep.”
“Will? Or might?” said Gwyd, looking up from the flames now consuming the dry grass of his campfire. “Remember, lass, Verdandi said, ‘Sleep must come, if it comes at all,’ and t’me that means she’s not certain.”
“Be still, Gwyd, and let the princess finish,” said Twk.
Gwyd smiled and began feeding twigs to the blaze.
“I think if I set the base of the harp well into the ground,” said Liaze, “perhaps even dig a small hole and tamp soil about the base, and if I pluck the strings hard-hard enough for the serpent to feel the vibrations through the earth-and play a soothing air, then the creature might fall into slumber.”
“I see,” said Twk, breaking his own admonition. “Sleep must come, if it comes at all, / For one to thrive beyond the wall.”
“Oui,” said Liaze, smiling at the wee Pixie. “And that one who will thrive beyond the wall is Gwyd as he goes after one of Mithras’ apples.”
“Why can’t it be me who goes after the apple?” asked Twk.
Gwyd roared in laughter. “What? Ye? Why, the apple might fall on ye and crush ye flat.”
“Then I’ll take Jester,” said Twk.
“No,” said Liaze. “Recall, the rede says for one to thrive beyond the wall, and you and Jester make two.”
“Aye,” said Gwyd, “The princess be right, laddie buck. It hae t’be me.”
Twk sighed and nodded glumly, then said, “What about the last two lines?”
“ ‘Take only one else one will die, / As will the one ’neath ebon sky,’ ” quoted Liaze. “That means for us to take only one apple, for were we to try to take two of them, I deem the serpent will awaken, and Gwyd will not be able to escape; and if he does not get away with an apple, then Luc will also die there on the black mountain, for we will have no golden draught.”
“Aye, Princess,” said Gwyd. “When I delayed e’en a scant moment on ma most recent apple-takin, the serpent almost made the last o’ me.”
Tears welled in Liaze’s eyes, and she paused in her currying. “Oh, Gwyd, ’tis a perilous thing you do, and I-”
“Hush now, Princess,” said Gwyd, “f’r this be the way o’ it: ’tis ye who must play the well-grounded harp, and I who must retrieve the apple. We’ll fare all right, I ween.”
“But what about me and Jester?” asked Twk. “What are we to do?”
“Nought that I can see at the moment,” said Liaze.
“Bu-but Verdandi said that I and mine-Jester, I think-would be needed at a critical time,” said Twk.
“Then, Twk,” said Gwyd, now feeding larger branches to the fire, “this be not the time.”
As he had done every day, Jester announced the coming of dawn, and shortly thereafter the trio was on the way. Down through the rest of the wide vale they rode, and in midmorn they passed through the twilight marge to come into an arid plain.
“Oh, Gwyd, have we missed the right point to go through the bound?”
“Nae, Princess,” said Gwyd. “This do be the land o’ the garden.”
“But it is so sere,” said Twk. “How can a garden grow in such a place as this?”
“There be a bit o’ water, Twk, where the garden lies,” said Gwyd. Then he turned to Liaze. “Princess, head f’r that darkness low on the horizon; they be mountains adistant.”
And so, across the dry plain they ran, and dust flew up from galloping hooves. In sparse clumps here and there only thorny weeds grew, and the horses passed among them.
Galloping, walking, trotting, cantering, all day they fared toward the mountains afar, and Liaze wondered if the horses were making any progress at all. Often Liaze stopped to water the steeds, after which she fed them grain as they walked.
“You are certain there is water where we go?” asked Liaze, adding, “We will be bone-dry when we get there.”
“Aye, Princess, a small stream meanders down fra the mountains and into the garden. Snowmelt, I ween, f’r it takes y’r breath away wi’ its chill.”
“Ah,” said Twk, “that’s what feeds the apple tree among all this dust.”
“Indeed,” said Gwyd, and on they rode. “But who would hae thought t’plant it here t’begin wi’?”
“Mithras,” said Twk with finality.
On they pressed as the sun sailed up and across the sky and then fell toward the horizon. And then it set, and Jester fell asleep. They moved more slowly until the gibbous moon rose five days past full to shine brightly down upon them, and Liaze picked up the pace again.
But at last, ahead in the near distance a wall of stones loomed. “There, Princess,” said Gwyd, “there be the garden.”
“I see it,” said Liaze.
“Weel,” said Gwyd, “I think ye need t’leave the horses here, else they’ll be affrighted by the smell o’ the snake.”
Liaze haled the horses to a halt and dismounted. Gwyd jumped down and stepped back to Twk, and the wee Pixie dropped to the Brownie’s shoulder, leaving Jester asleep behind. Then Liaze and Gwyd with Twk aboard strode toward the rock enclosure, and as they neared, within the walls beyond they could hear the rustling of the great serpent, sleepless and standing ward.
34
iaze eyed the rough stone wall, some twelve feet high and perhaps forty paces in length from corner to corner, or so it was on this bound of the garden. “Are the other sides as this one?”
“Aye, lass,” said Gwyd. “It be square, though ’round the corner”-Gwyd gestured to the left-“there be a gate.”
“A gate?”
“Aye. Ye can look through and see the tree and beastie, though the bars are set too close f’r me t’squeeze through.”
“Could I get through?” asked Twk.
“Aye,” said Gwyd, turning leftward, “ye could. Howe’er, the snake’d snap ye up like ye was nought but a morsel.”
