'Is it treasure?' Gurgi exclaimed. 'Oh, treasure of great worth! And Gurgi finds it!' He stamped his feet wildly. 'Open it, kindly master! Open and see what riches it holds!'
What Gurgi pressed into Taran's hand was a small, squat iron coffer no wider than Taran's palm. Its curved lid was heavily hinged, bound with iron strips, and secured by a stout padlock.
'Is it jewels with winkings and blinkings? Or gold with shimmerings and glimmerings?' cried Gurgi, as Taran turned the coffer over and over; Fflewddur, too, peered at it curiously.
'Well, friends,' the bard remarked, 'at least we'll have some reward for the trouble that pilfering jackdaw has given us. Though from the size of it, I fear it shan't be very much.'
Taran, meantime, had been struggling with the lock which refused to give way. The lid resisted all his battering, and finally he had to set the coffer on the ground where Gurgi held it tightly while the bard and Taran pried at the hinges with the points of their swords. But the coffer was surprisingly strong, and it took all their strength and effort before the lid at last, yielded and fell away with a loud, rasping snap. Within lay a packet of soft leather which Taran carefully untied.
'What is it? What is it?' yelped Gurgi, jumping up and down on one leg. 'Let Gurgi see shining treasure!'
Taran laughed and shook his head. The packet held neither gold nor gems, but no more than a slender piece of bone as long as Taran's little finger. Gurgi groaned in disappointment.
Fflewddur snorted. 'I should say our shaggy friend has found a very small hairpin or a very large toothpick. I doubt we'll have much use for either one.'
Taran had not ceased examining the strange object. The sliver of bone was dry and brittle, bleached white and highly polished. Whether animal or human he could not tell. 'What value can this have?' he murmured, frowning.
'Great value,' replied Fflewddur, 'if one should ever need a toothpick. Beyond that,' he shrugged. 'Keep it, if you like or toss it away; I can't see it would make any difference. Even the chest is beyond repair.'
'But if it's worthless,' Taran said, still studying the bone closely, 'why should it be so carefully locked up? And so carefully hidden?'
'It's been my long experience that people can be very odd about their belongings,' said Fflewddur 'A favorite toothpick, a family heirloom? but, yes, I see what you're driving at. A Fflam is quick-thinking! Whoever put it away didn't want it found. As I was about to remark, there's considerably more here than meets the eye.'
'And yet,' Taran began, 'a hollow tree seems hardly the safest place to keep anything.'
'On the contrary,' answered the bard. 'What better way to hide something? Indoors, it could be found without too much difficulty. Bury it in the ground and there's the problem of moles, badgers, and all such. But a tree like this,' he continued, glancing upward, 'I doubt that anyone but Gurgi could climb it without a ladder, and it's hardly probable that anyone strolling through this forest would be carrying a ladder with them. If the birds or squirrels nest on top, they'd only cover it up all the more. No, whoever put it there gave the matter careful thought and took as much pains as if…'
Fflewddur's face paled. 'As if…' He swallowed hard, choking on his own words. 'Get rid of it' he whispered urgently. 'Forget we ever found the thing. I can sniff enchantment, a mile away. Toothpick, hairpin, or what have you, there's something queer about it.' He shuddered. 'As I've said time and time again: Don't meddle. You know my mind on that score. Two things never mix: one is enchantments and the other is meddling with them.'
Taran did not answer immediately, but stared for a time at the polished fragment. At last he said, 'Whatever it may be, it's not ours to take. Yet, if there is enchantment, good or evil, dare we leave it?'
'Away with it!' cried Fflewddur. 'If it's good there's no harm done. If it's evil there's no telling what beastly thing might happen. Put it back, by all means.'
Taran reluctantly nodded. Wrapping the bone once more, he replaced, it in the coffer, set the broken lid loosely on top, and asked Gurgi to return it to the hollow. Gurgi, who had been listening closely to Fflewddur's talk of enchantment, was loath even to touch the coffer; and only after much urging and pleading by the companions did he agree to do so. He hastily climbed the oak and scuttled down even faster than he had clambered up.
'And good riddance to it,' muttered Fflewddur, striding as quickly as he could from the forest, Taran and Gurgi after him, the latter casting fearful backward glances until the oak was well out of sight.
THE COMPANIONS RETURNED to their steeds and prepared to mount. Fflewddur picked up his harp, looked about him, and called, 'I say, where's Llyan? Don't tell me she's wandered off.'
Taran's alarm quickly changed to reassurance, for a moment later he saw the huge cat plunge from the underbrush and lope to Fflewddur, who clapped his hands and made loud whispering noises through his teeth.
'Sa! Sa! So there you are, old girl,' cried the bard, beaming happily as Llyan frisked about him. 'Now, what have you been after?'
'I think she's caught a? why, yes? she's caught a frog!' Taran exclaimed, catching sight of a pair of long legs with webbed feet dangling from Llyan's mouth.
'Yes, yes,' put in Gurgi. 'A froggie! A froggie with thumpings and jumpings!'
'I should hardly think so,' said the bard. 'We've seen no swamps or pools, and very little water at all, for the matter of that.'
Proudly purring, Llyan dropped her burden at Fflewddur's feet. It was indeed a frog, and the biggest Taran had ever seen. The bard, after patting Llyan's head and fondly rubbing her ears, knelt and with a certain squeamishness picked up the motionless creature.
'Yes, well, I'm delighted, old girl,' he said, holding it at arm's length between his thumb and forefinger. 'It's lovely; I don't know how to thank you. She often does this,' he explained to Taran. 'I don't mean dead frogs necessarily, but odds and ends? an occasional mouse, that sort of thing. Little gifts she fancies I might enjoy. A sign of affection. I always make a fuss over them. It's the thought, after all, that counts.'
Taran, curious, took the frog from the bard's hand. Llyan, he saw, had carried the creature gently and had in no way harmed it. Instead, the frog had suffered from lack of water. Its skin, splotched in green and yellow, was sadly parched. Its legs feebly splayed; its webbed toes had begun to curl and wither like dry leaves; and its great bulging eyes were tightly shut. Regretfully, Taran was about to return the creature to the bushes when the faint tremor of a heartbeat touched his palm.
'Fflewddur, the poor thing's alive,' Taran said. 'There may still be time to save him.'
The bard shook his head. 'I doubt it. He's too much the worse for wear. A shame, for he's a jollylooking fellow.'
'Give poor froggie a drink,' Gurgi suggested. 'Give him water with sloshings and washings.'
In Taran's hand the frog stirred as in a last, painful effort. One eye flickered, the wide mouth gaped, and its throat trembled like a faint pulse. 'Arrad!' croaked the frog.
'I say, there is life in him yet!' exclaimed Fflewddur. 'But he must be desperately sick. I've never heard a frog make a noise like that.'
'Urgghi!' the frog croaked. 'Ood!'
The creature was struggling to make a further sound, but its croaking dwindled to a hoarse and scarcely audible rasping.
'Elpp! Elpp!'
'He is an odd one,' remarked Fflewddur, as Taran, more puzzled than ever, held the frog close to his ear. The creature had forced its eyes open and stared at Taran with what seemed a most pitiful, pleading expression.
'I've known them to go 'chug-a-chug,' ' continued Fflewddur, 'and at times 'thonk.' But this fellow? if frogs could talk, I'd swear he was saying 'help'!'
Taran gestured the bard to silence. From deep in the frog's throat came another sound, hardly more than a whisper but clear and unmistakable. Taran's jaw fell. His eyes wide with bewilderment, he turned to Fflewddur. Barely able to speak, he held the frog in his outstretched hand and gasped, 'It's Doli!'
Chapter 7
Friends in Danger
'DOLI!' ECHOED THE astonished bard, falling back a pace. His eyes bulged like the frog's and he clapped his hands to his head. 'It can't be! Not Doli of the Fair Folk! Not good old Doli!'
