Taran Wanderer

Taran smiled at Gurgi's eagerness, but shook his head. "No, my friend, not to Caer Dathyl, nor to Fflewddur's realm." He turned his eyes westward. "I have thought carefully of this, and believe there is only one place where I might find what I seek," he said slowly. "The Marshes of Morva."

No sooner had he spoken these words than he saw Gurgi's face turn ashen. The creature's jaw dropped; he clapped his hands to his shaggy head, and began gasping and choking frightfully.

"No, oh, no!" Gurgi howled. "Dangers lurk in evil Marshes! Bold but cautious Gurgi fears for his poor tender head! He wants never to return there. Fearsome enchantresses would have turned him into a toad with hoppings and floppings! Oh, terrible Orddu! Terrible Orwen! And Orgoch, oh, Orgoch, worst of all!"

"Yet I mean to face them again," Taran said. "Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch― she, or they, or whatever they may really be― are as powerful as Dallben. Perhaps more powerful. Nothing is hidden from them; all secrets are open. They would know the truth. Could it not be," he went on, his voice quickening hopefully, "could it not be that my parents were of noble lineage? And for some secret reason left me with Dallben to foster?"

"But kindly master is noble!" Gurgi cried. "Noble, generous, and good to humble Gurgi! No need to ask enchantresses!"

"I speak of noble blood," Taran replied, smiling at Gurgi's, protests. "If Dallben cannot tell me, then Orddu may. Whether she will, I do not know," he added. "But I must try.

"I won't have you risk your poor tender head," Taran continued. "You shall find a hiding place at the edge of the Marshes and wait for me there."

"No, no," Gurgi moaned. He blinked wretchedly and his voice fell so low that Taran could scarcely hear his trembling whisper. "Faithful Gurgi follows, as he promised."

They set out again. For some days after fording Great Avren they bore quickly westward along the green slopes of the riverbank, leaving it reluctantly to wend north across a fallow plain. Gurgi's face puckered anxiously, and Taran sensed the creature's disquiet no less than his own. The closer they drew to the Marshes the more he questioned the wisdom of his choice. His plan which had seemed so fitting in the safety of Caer Dallben now struck him as rash, a foolhardy venture. There were moments when, Taran admitted to himself, had Gurgi spun the pony about and bolted homeward, he would have gladly done likewise.

Another day's travel and the marshland stretched before them, bleak, ugly, untouched by spring. The sight and scent of the bogs and the dull, stagnant pools filled Taran with loathing. The rotting turf sucked greedily at the hooves of Melynlas. The pony snorted fearfully. Warning Gurgi to stay close behind him and stray neither to the right nor left, Taran cautiously guided the stallion through beds of reeds shoulder-high, keeping to the firmer ground at the rim of the swamps.

The narrow neck at the upper reaches of the Marshes could be crossed with least danger, and the path indeed was burned into his memory. Here, when he and Eiionwy, Gurgi, and Fflewddur had sought the Black Cauldron, the Huntsmen of Annuvin had attacked them, and Taran had lived the moment again and again in nightmares. Giving Melynlas rein, he beckoned to Gurgi and rode into the Marshes. The stallion faltered a sickening instant, then found footing on the chain of islands that lay beneath the brackish water. At the far side, without Taran's urging, Melynlas broke into a gallop, and the pony pelted after, as though fleeing for its life. Beyond the stunted trees at the end of a long gully, Taran halted. Orddu's cottage lay straight ahead.

Built against the side of a high mound, half-hidden by sod and branches, it seemed in even greater disrepair than Taran had remembered. The thatched roof, like a huge bird's nest, straggled down to block the narrow windows; a spider web of mold covered the walls, which looked ready to tumble at any moment. In the crooked doorway stood Orddu herself.

Heart pounding, Taran swung from the saddle. Holding his head high, in a silence broken only by the chattering of Gurgi's teeth, he strode slowly across the dooryard. Orddu was watching him with sharp, black eyes. If she was surprised, the enchantress gave no sign other than to bend forward a little and peer more closely at Taran. Her shapeless robe flapped about her knees; the jeweled clasps and pins glittered in her weedy tangle of disheveled hair as she nodded her head rapidly and with evident satisfaction.

"Yes, and so it is!" Orddu called out pleasantly. "The dear little fledgling and the― whatever-you-call-it. But you've grown much taller, my duck. How troublesome it must be should you ever want to climb down a rabbit hole. Come in, come in," she hurried on, beckoning. "So pale you are, poor thing. You've not been ill?"