lucky, I'll tell you the secret of it.' Beyond that, Llonio would say no more.
At this time a thought had begun taking shape in Taran's mind. Nearly all of Llonio's finds had been put to one use or another? save the flat stone which still lay in the shed. 'But I wonder,' he told Llonio, 'I wonder if it couldn't serve to grind meal better than the quern…'
'How then?' cried Llonio, greatly pleased. 'If you think it can, do as you see fit.'
Still pondering his idea, Taran roamed the woods until he came upon another stone of much the same size as the first. 'That's a stroke of luck,'he laughed, as Llonio helped him drag it back.
Llonio grinned. 'So it is, so it is.'
During the several days following, Taran, with Gurgi's eager help, toiled unceasingly. In a corner of the shed he set one stone firmly in the ground and the other above it. In this, he laboriously hollowed out a hole and, using the leftover harness leathers, in it he affixed a long pole that reached up through an opening in the roof. At the top of the pole he attached frames of wood, over which he stretched large squares of cloth.
'But this is no quern,' Gurgi cried when at last it was done. 'It is a ship for boatings and floatings! But there is no ship, only mast with sails!'
'We shall see,' Taran answered, calling Llonio to judge his handiwork.
For a moment the, family stood puzzled at Taran's peculiar structure. Then, as the wind stirred, the roughly fashioned sails caught the current of the breeze. The mastlike pole shuddered and creaked, and for a breathless instant Taran feared all his work would come tumbling about his ears. But it held fast, the sails bellied out and began turning, slowly at first, then faster and faster, while below, in the shed, the upper stone whirled merrily. Goewin hastened to throw grain into Taran's makeshift mill. In no time, out poured meal finer than any the quern had ground. The children clapped their hands and shouted gleefully; Gurgi yelped in astonishment; and Llonio laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
'Wanderer,' he cried, 'you've made much from little, and done it better than ever I could!'
Over the next few days the mill not only ground the family's grain, Taran also struck on a means of using it as a sharpening stone for Llonio's tools. Looking at his handiwork, Taran felt a stirring of pride for the first time since leaving Craddoc's valley. But with it came a vague restiveness
'By rights,' he told Gurgi, 'I should be more than happy to dwell here all my life. I've found peace and friendship? and a kind of hope, as well. It's eased my heart like balm on a wound.' He hesitated. 'Yet, somehow Llonio's way is not mine. A spur drives me to seek more than what Small Avren brings. What I seek, I do not know. But, alas, I know it is not here.'
He spoke then with Llonio and regretfully told him he must take up his journeying again. This time, sensing Taran's decision firmly made, Llonio did not urge him to stay, and they bade each other farewell.
'And yet,' Taran said, as he swung astride Melynlas, 'alas, you never told me the secret of your luck.'
'Secret?' replied Llonio. 'Have you not already guessed? Why, my luck's no greater than yours or any man's. You need only sharpen your eyes to see your luck when it comes, and sharpen your wits to use what falls into your hands.'
Taran gave Melynlas rein, and with Gurgi at his side rode slowly from the banks of Small Avren. As he turned to wave a last farewell, he heard Llonio calling after him, 'Trust your luck, Taran Wanderer. But don't forget to put out your nets!'
Chapter 18
The Free Commots
FROM SMALL AVREN THEY WENDED eastward at an easy pace, halting as it pleased them, sleeping on the turf or sheltering at one of the many farmsteads among the rich green vales. This was the land of the Free Commots, of cottages clustering in loose circles, rimmed by cultivated fields and pastures. Taran found the Commot folk courteous and hospitable. Though he named himself only as Taran Wanderer, the dwellers in these hamlets and villages respected his privacy and asked nothing of his birthplace, rank, or destination.
Taran and Gurgi had ridden into the outskirts of Commot Cenarth when Taran reined up Melynlas at a long, low-roofed shed from which rang the sound of hammer on anvil. Within, he found the smith, a barrel-chested, leather-aproned man with a stubbly black beard and a great shock of black hair bristly as a brush. His eyelashes were scorched, grime and soot smudged his face; sparks rained on his bare shoulders but he seemed to count them no more than fireflies. In a voice like stones rattling on a bronze shield he roared out a song in time with his hammer strokes so loudly that Taran judged the man's lungs as leathery as his bellows. While Gurgi cautiously drew back from the shower of sparks, Taran called a greeting, scarcely able to make himself heard above the din.
'Master Smith,' he said, bowing deeply as the man at last caught sight of him and put down the hammer, 'I am called Taran Wanderer and journey seeking a craft to help me earn my bread. I know a little of your art and ask you to teach me more. I have no gold or silver to pay you, but name any task and I will do it gladly.'
'Away with you!' shouted the smith. 'Tasks I have aplenty, but no time for teaching others to do them.'
'Is time what lacks?' Taran said, glancing shrewdly at the smith. 'I've heard it said that a man must be a true master of his craft if he would teach it.
'Hold!' roared the smith as Taran was about to turn away, and he snatched up the hammer as if he meant to throw it at Taran's head. 'You doubt my skill? I've flattened men on my anvil for less! Skill? In all the Free Comrnots none has greater than Hevydd Son of Hirwas!'
With that he seized the tongs, drew a bar of red-hot iron from the roaring furnace, flung it on the anvil, and set to hammering with such quick strokes that Taran could hardly follow the movement of Hevydd's muscular arm; and suddenly there formed at the end of the bar a hawthorn blossom perfect in every turn of leaf and petal.
Taran looked at it in astonishment and admiration. 'Never have I seen work so deftly done.'
'Nor will you see it elsewhere,' Hevydd answered, at pains to hide a proud grin. 'But what tale do you tell me? You know the shaping of metal? The secrets are not given to many. Even I have not gained them all.' Angrily he shook his bristly head. 'The deepest? They lie hidden in Annuvin, stolen by Arawn Death-Lord. Lost they are. Lost forever to Prydain.
'But here, take these,' ordered the smith, pressing the tongs and hammer into Taran's hands. 'Beat the bar smooth as it was, and quickly, before it cools. Show me what strength you have in those chicken wings of yours.'
Taran strode to the anvil and; as Coll had taught him long ago, did his best to straighten the rapidly cooling iron. The smith, folding his huge arms, eyed him critically for a time, then burst into loud laughter.
'Enough, enough!' cried Hevydd. 'You speak truth. Of the art, indeed, you know little. And yet,' he added, rubbing his chin with a battered thumb nearly as thick as a fist, 'and yet, you have the sense of it.' He looked closely at Taran. 'But have you courage to stand up to fire? To fight hot iron with only hammer and tongs?'
'Teach me the craft,' Taran replied. 'You'll have no need to teach me courage.'
'Boldly said!' cried Hevydd, clapping Taran on the shoulder. 'I'll temper you well in my forge! Prove yourself to me and I'll vow to make a smith of you. Now, to begin…' His eye fell on Taran's empty scabbard. 'Once, it would seem, you bore a blade.'
'Once I did,' Taran answered. 'But it is long gone, and now I journey weaponless.'
'Then you shall make a sword,' commanded Hevydd. 'And when you've done, you'll? tell me which is harder labor: smiting or smithing!'
To this Taran learned the answer soon enough. The next several days were the most toilsome he had ever spent. He thought, at first, the smith would set him to work shaping one of the many bars already in the forge. But Hevydd had no such intention.
'What, start when half the work is done?' Hevydd snorted. 'No, no, my lad. You'll forge a sword from beginning to end.'
Thus, the first task Hevydd gave Taran was gathering fuel for the furnace, and from dawn to dusk Taran stoked the fire until he saw the forge as a roaring, flame-tongued monster that could never eat its fill. Even then the work had only begun, for Hevydd soon put him to shoveling in a very mountain of stones, then smelting out the metal they bore. By the time the bar itself was cast, Taran's face and arms were scorched and blackened, and his hands were covered with more blisters than skin. His back ached; his ears rang with all the clank and clatter and with
