The Grey King (11 page)

The image wavered and changed. It dissolved into a green dappled forest of gnarled ancient trees, their broad trunks smooth with a curious light grey bark. Their leaves danced above, new, soft, bright with a delicate green that had in it all of springtime. The beginnings of triumph whispered in Will's mind.

“The shore,” he said. “The beach where the sea washes. But also it is a wood, of lovely fine grain, that is in the handle of a chisel and the legs of a chair, the head of a broom and the pad of a workhorse saddle. And I dare swear too that those two chests between your thrones are carved of it. The only places where it may not be used are beneath the open sky and upon the open sea, for this wood loses its virtue if soaked by water. The answer to your riddle, my lord, is the wood of the beech tree.”

The flames leaped up in the fire behind them, and suddenly the hall was brilliant. Joy and relief seemed to surge through the air. The first two blue-robed lords rose from their thrones to stand beside the third; like three towers they loomed hooded over the boys. Then the third lord flung back the hood of
his deep blue robe, to reveal a fierce hawk-nosed head with deep-set eyes and a shock of wild white hair. And the High Magic's barrier against recognition fell away.

Will cried joyously, “Merriman!”

He leapt forward to the tall figure as a small child leaps to its father, and clasped his outstretched hands. Merriman smiled down at him.

Will laughed aloud in delight. “I knew,” he said, “I knew. And yet—”

“Greetings, Old One.” Merriman said. “Now you are grown fully into the Circle, by this. Had you failed in this part of the quest, all else would have been lost.” The bleak, hard lines of his face were softened by affection; his dark eyes blazed like black torches. Then he turned to Bran, taking him by the shoulders. Bran looked up at him, pale and expressionless.

“And the raven boy,” the deep voice said gently. “We meet again. You have played your part well, as it was known you would. Hold your head in pride, Bran Davies. You carry a great heritage within you. Much has been asked of you, and more will be asked yet. Much more.”

Bran looked at Merriman with his catlike eyes unblinking, and said nothing. Listening to the Welsh boy's mood, Will sensed an uneasy baffled pleasure.

Merriman stepped back. He said, “Three Lords of the High Magic have for many centuries had guardianship of the golden harp. There are no names here in this place, nor allegiances in that task. Here, as in other places that you do not know yet, all is subject to the law, the High Law. It is of no consequence that I am a Lord of the Light, or that my colleague there is a Lord of the Dark.”

He made a slight ironic bow to the tall figure who wore the robe of lightest blue. Will caught his breath in sudden comprehension, and looked for the thin face hidden in the hood. But it was turned away from him, staring out into the shadows of the hall.

The central figure in the sea-blue robe stepped forward a pace. There was great quiet authority about him, as if he were confident, without pomp, in knowing himself the master in that hall. He put back his hood and they saw
the full strength and gentleness of the close-bearded face. Though his beard was grey, his hair was brown, only lightly grey-streaked. He seemed a man in the middle of his years, with all power undiminished, yet wisdom already gained.
But,
Will thought,
he is not a man at all. . . .

Merriman inclined his head respectfully, stepping aside. “Sire,” he said.

Will stared, at last beginning to understand.

At Bran's side, the dog Cafall made the same small sound of devotion that he had before. Clear blue eyes looked down at Bran, and the bearded lord said softly, “Fortune guard you in my land, my son.”

Then as Bran looked at him perplexed, the lord drew himself up, and his voice rose. “Will Stanton,” he said. “Two chests stand between our thrones. You must open the chest at my right, and take out what you will find there. The other will remain sealed, in case of need, until another time that I hope may never come. Here now.”

He turned, pointing. Will went to the big carved chest, turned its ornate wrought-iron clasp, and pushed at the top. It was so broad, and the carved slab of wood so heavy, that he had to kneel and push upward with all the force of both arms; but he shook his head in warning refusal when Bran started forward to help.

Slowly the huge lid rose, and fell open, and for a moment there was a delicate sound like singing in the air. Then Will reached inside the chest, and when he straightened again he was bearing in both his arms a small, gleaming, golden harp.

The hint of music in the hall died into nothing, giving way to a low growing rumble like distant thunder. Closer and louder it grew. The lord in the lightest, sky-blue robe, his face still hooded and hidden, drew away from them. He seized his cloak and swung it round him with a long sweep of the arm.

The fire hissed and went out. Smoke filled the hall, dark and bitter. Thunder crashed and roared all around. And the lord in the sky-blue robe gave a great cry of rage, and disappeared.

T
hey stood silent in the dimlit darkness. Somewhere out beyond the rock, thunder still rumbled and growled. The torches burned, flickering and smoky, on the walls.

Bran said huskily: “Was he the—the—”

“No,” Merriman said. “He is not the Grey King. But he is one very close to him, and back to him he has now gone. And their rage will mount the higher because it will be sharpened by fear, fear at what the Light may be able to do with this new Thing of Power.” He looked at Will, his bony face tight with concern. “The first perilous part of the quest is accomplished, Old One, but there is worse peril yet to come.”

“The Sleepers must be wakened,” Will said.

“That is right. And although we do not yet know where they sleep, nor shall till you have found them, it is almost certain that they are terribly, dangerously close to the Grey King. For long we have known there was a reason for his hard cold grip on this part of the land, though we did not understand it. A happy valley, this has always been, and beautiful; yet he chose to make his kingdom here, instead of in some grim remote place of the kind chosen by most of his line. Now it is clear there can be only one reason for that: to
be close to the place where the Sleepers lie, and to keep their resting-place within his power. Just as this great rock, Craig yr Aderyn, is still within his power. . . .”

Will said, his round face grave, “The spell of protection, by which we came here untouched, has run its course now. And it can be made only once.” He looked ruefully at Bran. “We may have an interesting reception out there, when we leave this place.”

“Have no care, Old One. You will have a new protection with you now.”

The words came deep and gentle from the top of the hall. Turning, Will saw that the bearded lord, his robe blue as the summer sea, was sitting enthroned again in the shadows. As he spoke, it seemed that the light began gradually to grow in the hall; the torches burned higher, and glimmering between them now Will could see long swords hanging on the stone.

“The music of the golden harp,” said the blue-robed lord, “has a power that may not be broken either by the Dark or by the Light. It has the High Magic in it, and while the harp is being played, those under its protection are safe from any kind of harm or spell. Play the harp of gold, Old One. Its music will wrap you in safety.”

Will said slowly, “By enchantment I could play it, but I think it should rather be played by the art of skillful fingers. I do not know how to play the harp, my lord.” He paused. “But Bran does.”

Bran looked down at the instrument as Will held it out to him.

“Never a harp like that, though,” he said.

He took the harp from Will. Its frame was slender but ornate, fashioned so that a golden vine with gold leaves and flowers seemed to twine round it, in and out of the strings. Even the strings themselves looked as if they were made of gold.

“Play, Bran,” said the bearded lord softly.

Holding the harp experimentally in the crook of his left arm, Bran ran his fingers gently over the strings. And the sounds that came from them
were of such sweetness that Will, beside him, caught his breath in astonishment; he had never heard notes at once so delicate and so resonant, filling the hall with music like the liquid birdsong of summer. Intent, fascinated, Bran began to pick out the plaintive notes of an old Welsh lullaby, elaborating it gradually, filling it out, as he gained confidence in the feel of the strings under his one hand. Will watched the absorbed musician's devotion on his face. Glancing for an instant at the enthroned lord, and at Merriman, he knew that they too were for this moment rapt, carried away out of time by a music that was not of the earth, pouring out like the High Magic in a singing spell.

Cafall made no sound, but leaned his head against Bran's knee.

Merriman said, his deep voice soft over the music, “Go now, Old One.” His shadowed, deep-set eyes met Will's briefly, in a fierce communication of trust and hope. Will stared about him for a last moment at the high torchlit hall, with its one dark-robed figure standing tall as a tree, and the unknown bearded lord seated motionless on his throne. Then he turned and led Bran, his fingers still gently plucking a melody from the harp, towards the narrow stone staircase to the chamber from which they had come. When he had set him climbing, he turned to raise one arm in salute, then followed.

Bran stood in the stone room above, playing, while Cafall and Will came up after him. And as he played, there took shape in the blank wall at the end of the chamber, below the single hanging golden shield, the two great doors through which they had come into the heart of Bird Rock.

The music of the harp rippled in a lilting upward scale, and slowly the doors swung inward. Beyond, they saw the grey, cloudy sky between the steep walls of the cleft of rock. Though fire blazed no longer on the mountain, a strong, dead smell of burning hung in the air. As they stepped outside, Cafall bounded out past them, through the cleft, and disappeared.

Struck suddenly by a fear of losing him again, Bran stopped playing. “Cafall! Cafall!” he called.

“Look!” Will said softly.

He was half-turned, looking back. Behind them, the tall slabs of rock swung silently together and seemed to melt out of existence, leaving only a weathered rock face, looking just as it had looked for thousands of years. And in the air hung a faint vanishing phrase of delicate music. But Bran was thinking only of Cafall. After one brief glance at the rock, he tucked the harp beneath his arm and dived for the opening through which the dog had disappeared.

Before he could reach it, a whirling flurry of white came hurling in upon them through a cloud of fine ash, snarling, kicking, knocking Bran sideways so hard that he almost dropped the harp. It was Cafall; but a mad, furious, transformed Cafall, growling at them, glaring, driving them deeper into the cleft as if they were enemies. In a moment or two he had them pinned astounded against the rocky wall, and was crouching before them with his long side-teeth bared in a cold snarl.

“What is it?” said Bran blankly when he had breath enough to speak. “Cafall? What on earth—”

And in an instant they knew—or would have known, if they had had time still for wondering. For suddenly the whole world round them was a roaring flurry of noise and destruction. Broken, charred branches came whirling past over the top of the rocky cleft; stones came bounding down loose out of nowhere so that instinctively they ducked, covering their heads. They fell flat on the ground, pressing themselves into the angle between earth and rock, with Cafall close beside. All around, the wind howled and tore at the rock with a sound like a high mad human scream amplified beyond belief. It was as if all the air in Wales had funnelled down into a great tornado of tearing destruction, and was battering in a frenzy of frustrated rage at the narrow opening in whose shelter they desperately crouched.

Will lurched up on to his hands and knees. He groped with one hand until he clutched Bran's arm. “The harp!” he croaked. “Play the harp!”

Bran blinked at him, dazed by the noise overhead, and then he understood. Forcing himself up against the fearsome wind pressing in between the rocky walls, he gripped the golden harp against his side and ran his right hand tremulously over the strings.

At once the tumult grew less. Bran began to play, and as the sweet notes poured out like the song of a lark rising, the great wind died away into nothing. Outside, there was only the rattle of loose pebbles tumbling here and there, one by one, down the rock. For a moment a lone sunbeam slanted down and glinted on the gold of the harp. Then it was gone, and the sky seemed duller, the world more grey. Cafall scrambled to his feet, licked Bran's hand, and led them docilely out to the slope outside the narrow cleft that had sheltered them from the fury of the gale. They felt a soft rain beginning to fall.

Bran let his fingers wander idly but persistently over the strings of the harp. He had no intention of stopping again. He looked at Will, and shook his head mutely with wonder and remorse and enquiry all in one.

Will squatted down and took Cafall's muzzle between his hands. He shook the dog's head gently from side to side. “Cafall, Cafall,” he said, wonderingly. Over his shoulder he said to Bran,
“Gwynt Traed y Meirw,
is that how you say it? In all its ancient force the Grey King sent his north wind upon us, the wind that blows round the feet of the dead, and with the dead is where we should have been if it weren't for Cafall—blasted away into a time beyond tomorrow. Before we could have seen a single tree bending, it would have been on us, for it came down from very high up and no human sighted eye could have seen it. But this hound of yours is the dog with the silver eyes, and such dogs can see the wind. . . . So he saw it, and knew what it would do, and drove us back into safety.”