Cart and Cwidder (25 page)
Authors: Diana Wynne Jones
That night, there was a feast in honor of Dagner, Hestefan, and Fenna, Hestefan's daughter. Keril asked Hestefan to sing. Hestefan sang, old songs, new songs, and many that Moril had never heard. When he sang, you forgot it was Hestefan singing and thought only of the song. Moril was impressed. Then Hestefan told a story. It was one Moril did not know. And while Hestefan was telling it, he found he forgot who was telling it and simply lived in the story. Moril realized he still had a lot to learn.
After that they wanted Dagner to sing. Dagner was nervous, but surprisingly ready to perform.
“Huh!” said Brid. “He just wants to impress Fenna, that's what.”
Whatever the reason, Dagner took his own cwidder, fetched for him by Kialan, tuned it, and sang the song Moril had tried to finish for him. He did it nothing like the way Moril had made it go. The new parts of the tune were quite different from Moril's, and he had changed the beginning. It now went:
“Follow me, follow me.
The blackbird sings to follow me
.
No one will know where we goâ
All that matters is we go.”
Kialan looked at Moril and made a face to show that he liked Moril's version better. Moril smiled. Everyone had to do things their own way. While Dagner went on to sing his “Color” song, Moril slipped quietly away, fetched the old cwidder, slung it on his shoulders, and went to where Hestefan was refreshing himself with beer beside an open window. Hestefan looked as if he was too hot, just like Moril.
“Please,” Moril said to him, “will you take me with you when you go?”
“Well,” Hestefan said dubiously, “I was thinking of slipping off now, while nobody's noticing.”
“I know you were,” said Moril. “Take me, too. Please.”
Hestefan looked at him, a vague, dreamy look, which Moril was positive saw twice as much as most people's. “You're Clennen's other son, aren't you?” he said. “What's your name?”
“Tanamoril,” said Moril. “I'm called Osfameron, too,” he added, as an inducement.
Hestefan smiled. “Very well then,” he said. “Come along.”
DIANA WYNNE JONES
wrote more than forty award-winning books of fantasy for young readers. For her body of work, she was awarded the British Fantasy Society's Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy and the World Fantasy Society Lifetime Achievement Award.
www.dianawynnejones.com.
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T
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Book 3
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Cover art © 2005 by Dan Craig
Cover design by Christopher Stengel
Cover © 2005 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Map by David Cuzic
Cart and Cwidder
copyright © 1975 by Diana Wynne Jones
First published in Great Britain in 1975 by Macmillan London Ltd.
Published in 1993 by Mandarin, an imprint of Reed Consumer Books Ltd.
First published in the United States in 1977 by Atheneum.
Published in 1995 by Greenwillow Books.
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EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN 9780062200778
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