Taran Wanderer

The brambles were hard as cold iron and Taran blunted both his strength and his blade against them. All he gained for his labor was a tiny hole to which he pressed his eye; he made out nothing more than a dark mound of boulders and black turf surrounded by rank weeds and burdock. What first seemed the lair of a wild beast he saw to be a rambling, ill-shaped dwelling of low, squat walls roofed with sod. There was no movement, no sign of life, and he wondered if the wizard had left his fastness and the companions had come too late. The thought only put a sharper edge to his uneasiness.

"Somehow Doli forced his way in," Taran murmured, shaking his head. "But his skill is greater than mine; he must have struck on an easier passage. If we try climbing over," Taran added, "we risk being seen."

"Or caught on brambles with jabbings and stabbings!" Gurgi replied. "Oh, bold Gurgi does not like climbing walls without knowing what lies in lurkings beyond."

Taran took the crow from his shoulder. "Morda surely has his own passage: a breach in the thorns, or perhaps a tunnel. Find it for us," he said urgently to Kaw. "Find it for us, old friend."

"And hasten, too," Gurgi put in. "No jokings and trickings!"

Silent as an owl, the crow flew upward, circled the barrier, then dropped out of sight. Taran and Gurgi crouched waiting in the shadows. After some while, when the sun had dipped below the trees and dusk had gathered with still no tidings from Kaw, Taran began to fear for the bird. Prankster though he was, Kaw understood the seriousness of his mission, and Taran knew it was more than whim that delayed the crow's return.

At last Taran dared wait no longer. He strode to the barrier and carefully began to climb. The branches writhed like serpents and tore viciously at his hands and face. Wherever he sought a foothold the thorns turned against him as with a will of their own. Just below, he heard Gurgi panting, as the sharp points struck through the creature's matted hair. Taran paused to catch his breath while Gurgi clambered up beside him. The top of the wall was almost within reach.

With a sudden lashing and rattling among the thorns, a slipnoose tightened around Taran's upraised arm. He shouted in alarm and in that instant glimpsed the terrified face of Gurgi as loops of finely knotted cords whipped over the creature's body. A bent sapling sprang upright, pulling the ropes with it. Taran felt himself ripped from the brambles and, dangling on the end of the strong cord, flung upward and over the barrier. Now he understood the words Doli had striven to gasp out: traps and snares. He fell, and darkness swallowed him.

A BONY HAND GRIPPED his throat. In his ears rasped a voice like a dagger drawn across a stone. "Who are you?" it repeated. "Who are you?"

Taran struggled to pull away, then realized his hands were bound behind him. Gurgi whimpered miserably. Taran's head spun. The guttering light of a candle stabbed his eyes. As his sight cleared, he saw a gaunt face the color of dry clay, eyes glittering like cold crystals deep set in a jutting brow as though at the bottom of a well. The skull was hairless; the mouth a livid scar stitched with wrinkles.

"How have you come here?" demanded Morda. "What do you seek of me?"

In the dimness Taran could make out little more than a low-ceilinged chamber and a fireless hearth filled with dead ashes. He himself had been propped in the angle of a low wall. Gurgi lay sprawled on the flagstones beside him. He glimpsed Kaw pinioned in a wicker basket set on a heavy oaken table, and he cried out to the bird.

"What then," snapped the wizard, "is this crow yours? He found one of my snares, as you did. None enters here without my knowledge. This much have you already learned. Now it is I who shall learn more of you."

"Yes, the bird is mine," Taran answered in a bold voice, deciding his only hope lay in telling as much of the truth as he dared. "He flew beyond the thicket and did not return to us. We feared some mishap and went in search of him. We journey to the Llawgadarn Mountains. You have no cause to hinder us."

"You have hindered yourselves," replied Morda, "foolish creatures without the wits of a fly. To the Llawgadarn Mountains, you say? Perhaps. Perhaps not. In the race of men is much greed and envy; but of truth, little. Your face speaks for you and calls you liar. What do you hope to hide? No matter. Your paltry store of days you call life is spun out. You shall not leave here. And yet― now you are in my hands, it may be that you shall serve me. I must ponder that. Your lives indeed may have some small use― to me, if not to yourselves."

More than the wizard's words filled Taran with horror. As he watched, unable to take his own eyes away, Taran saw that Morda's gaze was unblinking. Even in the candle flame the shriveled eyelids never closed; Morda's cold stare never wavered.