The Black Cauldron

Chapter 10 The Marshes of Morva

FROM THE MOMENT the marsh bird appeared, Taran led the companions swiftly, following without hesitation a path which now seemed clear. He felt the powerful muscles of Melynlas moving beneath him, and guided the steed with unaccustomed skill. The stallion responded to this new touch on the reins with mighty bursts of speed, so much so that Lluagor could barely keep pace. Fflewddur shouted for Taran to halt a bit and let them all catch their breath. Gurgi, looking like a windblown haystack, gratefully clambered down, and even Eilonwy gave a sigh of relief.

"Since we've stopped," Taran said, "Gurgi might as well share out some food. But we'd better find shelter first, if we don't want to get soaked."

"Soaked?" cried Fflewddur. "Great Belin, there isn't a cloud in the sky! It's a gorgeous day― taking everything into consideration."

"If I were you," Eilonwy advised the puzzled bard, "I should listen to him. Usually, that's not a wise thing to do. But the circumstances are a little different now."

The bard shrugged and shook his head, but followed Taran across the rolling fields into a shallow ravine. There, they found a wide and fairly deep recess in the shoulder of a hill.

"I hope you aren't wounded," remarked Fflewddur. "My war leader at home has an old wound that gives him a twinge when the weather changes. Very handy, I admit; though it does seem a painful way of foretelling rain. I always think it's easier just to wait, and every kind of weather's bound to come along sooner or later."

"The wind has shifted," Taran said. "It comes from the sea now. It's restless, with a briny taste. There's a smell of grass and weeds, too, which makes me think we aren't far from Morva. If all goes well, we may reach the Marshes by tomorrow."

Soon afterward, the sky indeed clouded over and a chill rain began pelting against the hill. In moments it grew to a heavy downpour. Water coursed in rivulets on either side of their shelter, but the companions remained dry.

"Wise master," shouted Gurgi, "protects us from slippings and drippings!"

"I must say," the bard remarked, "you foretold it exactly."

"Not I," said Taran. "Without Adaon's clasp, I'm afraid we'd all have been drenched."

"How's that?" asked the perplexed Fflewddur. "I shouldn't think a clasp would have anything to do with it."

As he had explained to Eilonwy, Taran now told the bard what he had learned of the brooch. Fflewddur cautiously examined the ornament at Taran's throat.

"Very interesting," he said. "Whatever else it may have, it bears the bardic symbol― those three lines there, like a sort of arrowhead."

"I saw them," Taran said, "but I didn't know what they were."

"Naturally," said Fflewddur. "It's part of the secret lore of the bards. I learned that much when I was trying to study for my examinations."

"But what do they mean?" Taran asked.

"As I recall," put in Eilonwy, "the last time I asked him to read an inscription…"

"Yes," said Fflewddur with embarrassment, "that was something else again. But I know the bardic symbol well. It is secret, though since you have the clasp I don't suppose it can do any harm for me to tell you. The lines mean knowledge, truth, and love."

"That's very nice," said Eilonwy, "but I can't imagine why knowledge, truth, and love should be so much of a secret."

"Perhaps I should say unusual as much as secret," answered the bard. "I sometimes think it's hard enough to find any one of them, even separately. Put them all together and you have something very powerful indeed."

Taran, who had been thoughtfully fingering the clasp, stopped and looked about him uneasily. "Hurry," he said, "we must leave here at once."

"Taran of Caer Dallben," Eilonwy cried, "you're going too far! I can understand coming out of the rain, but I don't see deliberately going into it."

Nevertheless, she followed; and the companions, at Taran's urgent command, untethered the horses and ran from the hillside. They had not gone ten paces before the entire slope, weakened by the downpour, collapsed with a loud roar.

Gurgi yelped in terror and threw himself at Taran's feet. "Oh, great, brave, and wise master! Gurgi is thankful! His poor tender head is spared from terrible dashings and crashings!"

Fflewddur put his hands on his hips and gave a low whistle. "Well, well, fancy that. Another moment and we'd have been buried for good and all. Never part with that clasp, my friend. It's a true treasure."

Taran was silent. His hand went to Adaon's brooch, and he stared at the shattered hill slope with a look of wonder.

The rain slackened a little before nightfall. Although drenched and chilled to the bone, the companions had made good progress by the time Taran allowed them to rest again. Here, gray and cheerless moors spread before them. Wind and water had worn crevices in the earth, like the gougings of a giant's fingers. The companions made their camp in a narrow gorge, glad for the chance to sleep even on the muddy ground. Taran drowsed with one hand on the iron brooch, the other grasping his sword. He was less weary than he had expected, despite the grueling ride. A strange sense of excitement thrilled him, different from what he had felt when Dallben had presented him with the sword. However, his dreams that night were troubled and unhappy.

At first light, as the companions began their journey again, Taran spoke of his dreams to Eilonwy. "I can make no sense of them," he said with hesitation. "I saw Ellidyr in mortal danger. At the same time it was as though my hands were bound and I could not help him."

"I'm afraid the only place you're going to see Ellidyr is in your dreams," replied Eilonwy. "There certainly hasn't been a trace of him anywhere. For all we know, he could have been to Morva and gone, or not even reached the Marshes in the first place. It's too bad you didn't dream of an easier way to find that cauldron and put an end to all this. I'm cold and wet and at this point I'm beginning not to care who has it."

"I dreamed of the cauldron, too," Taran said anxiously. "But everything was confused and clouded. It seems to me we came upon the cauldron. And yet," he added, "when we found it, I wept."

Eilonwy, for once, was silent, and Taran had no heart to speak of the dream again.

Shortly after midday they reached the Marshes of Morva.

Taran had sensed them long before, as the ground had begun to turn spongy and treacherous under the hooves of Melynlas. He had seen more marsh birds and had heard, far in the distance, the weird and lonely voice of a loon. Ropes of fog, twisting and creeping like white serpents, had begun to rise from the reeking ground.

Now the companions halted, and stood in silence at a narrow neck of the swamp. From there, the Marshes of Morva stretched westward to the horizon. Here, huge growths of thorny furze rose up. At the far side, Taran distinguished meager clumps of wasted trees. Under the gray sky, pools of stagnant water flickered among dead grasses and broken reeds. A scent of ancient decay choked his nostrils. A ceaseless thrumming and groaning trembled in the air. Gurgi's eyes were round with terror, and the bard shifted uneasily on Lluagor.

"You've led us here well enough," said Eilonwy. "But how do you ever expect to go about finding a cauldron in a place like this?"

Taran motioned her to be silent. As he looked across the dreaded Marshes, something stirred in his mind. "Do not move," he cautioned in a low voice. He glanced quickly behind him. Gray shapes appeared from the line of bushes straggling over a hillock. They were not two wolves, as he had thought at first, but two Huntsmen in jackets of wolf pelts. Another Huntsman, in a heavy cloak of bearskin, crouched beside them.

"The Huntsmen have found us," Taran went on quickly. "Follow every step I take. But not a motion until I give the signal." Now he understood the dream of the wolves clearly, and knew exactly what he must do.

The Huntsmen, believing they could take their prey unawares, drew closer.

"Now!" shouted Taran. He urged Melynlas forward and galloped headlong into the Marshes. Heaving and plunging, the stallion labored through the mire. With a great shout, the Huntsmen raced after him. Once, Melynlas nearly foundered in a deep pool. The great strides of the pursuers brought them closer, so close that in a fearful backward glance Taran saw one of them, teeth bared in a snarl, reach out to clutch the stirrups of Lluagor.

Taran spun Melynlas to the right. Lluagor followed. A shout of terror rose behind them. One of the men clad in wolfskin had stumbled and pitched forward, screaming as the black bog seized and sucked him down. His two comrades grappled each other, striving desperately to flee the ground that fell away under their feet. The Huntsman in bearskin flung out his arms and scrabbled at the weeds, growling in rage; the last warrior trampled the sinking man, vainly seeking a foothold to escape the deadly bog.

Melynlas galloped onward. Brackish water spurted at his hooves, but Taran guided the powerful stallion along what seemed a chain of submerged islands, never stopping even when he reached the far side of the swamp. There, on more solid ground, he raced through the furze and beyond the clump of trees. While Lluagor pounded after him, Taran followed a long gully toward the protection of a high mound.

Suddenly he reined in the stallion. At the side of the mound, almost a part of the turf itself, rose a low cottage. It was so cleverly concealed with sod and branches that Taran had to look again to see there was a doorway. Circling the hill were tumbledown stables and something resembling a demolished chicken roost.

Taran began to back Melynlas away from this strange cluster of buildings and cautioned the others to keep silent.

"I shouldn't worry about that," Eilonwy said. "Whoever lives in there surely heard us coming. If they aren't out to welcome us or fight with us by now, then I don't think anyone's there at all." She leaped from Melynlas and made her way toward the cottage.

"Come back!" Taran called. He unsheathed his sword and followed her. The bard and Gurgi dismounted and drew their own weapons.

Alert and cautious, Taran approached the low doorway. Eilonwy had discovered a window, half-hidden by turf and grass, and was peering through it. "I don't see anybody," she said, as the others came up beside her. "Look for yourself."

"For the matter of that," said the bard, ducking his head and squinting past Eilonwy, "I don't think anyone's been here for quite some time. So much the better! In any case, we'll have a dry place to rest."

The chamber, Taran saw, indeed seemed deserted, of inhabitants, at least, for the room was even more heaped up and disorderly than Dallben's. In one corner stood a wide loom with a good many of the threads straggling down. The work on the frame was less than half-finished and so tangled and knotted he could imagine no one ever continuing it.

Broken crockery covered a small table. Rusted and broken weapons were piled about.

"How would you like it," asked a cheerful voice behind Taran, "if you were turned into a toad? And stepped on?"