The Snowmelt River (The Three Powers) (29 page)

“Mo it is then. And I should explain that you have been imprisoned for a single purpose—to lure another to the Mage’s chamber.”

“I—I still don’t understand. Who am I supposed to lure?”

“You know who—but you try not to think of it.”

“I try not to think of it?”

“It is your own mind rather than the will of the Mage of Dreams that has suppressed what might be unpleasant, even dangerous, from your memories.”

“My mind would never suppress my memories, no matter how unpleasant or dangerous they were. If you can help me, please help me now. I can’t bear another moment like this.”

“If you so wish, pretty one—Mo!”

Suddenly memories flooded her mind. Terrible memories. The dwarf was right, and it might have been better to have remained forgetful. She now recalled everything about coming to this world. The cave with Granny Dew, the desperate series of journeys through the snow, the Snowmelt River, the attack at the rapids where she had been picked up by some terrifying bat-creature and cast down into the violent rush of water . . .

Alan!

She almost called his name out loud, but only stopped her tongue with a major effort of will. She remembered the pit and the horrible thin man—and Snakoil Kawkaw, who, of all people, rescued her but only so that he could sell her like a slave girl in the marketplace of Isscan. She remembered Shikarr . . .

Terror almost made Mo faint as she recalled the journey within the coils of the great serpent, during
which Shikarr questioned her relentlessly about who she was and where she had come from, and about her three companions, especially the one who carried the ruby triangle in his brow.

When Mo had refused to answer her questions, the serpent tried many tricks and strategies, from mockery to hypnotic mind-power, in which she allowed Mo to peer into her many senses, including the second sight that allowed her to see the warm heart of every living creature within devouring range, or at least the warm-blooded ones, and the sense of smell that could paint a picture every bit as detailed as Mo’s own vision and which came not from her nostrils but from the blue-black forked tongue. There was a deep, wild wonder in feeling as well as seeing new colors, even tasting colors and the shapes of things, and sharing a great proud memory of ancient triumphs and humiliations. But here too, in every sigh and brush of contact with the great serpent, Mo had sensed an abiding hatred of all warm creatures, and of humankind especially, that was as deep and raw as blood.

Infuriated by her resistance, Shikarr had finally shrieked, “Do not think to escape me, child. Wherever you go, I shall follow. For in your wake isss great opportunity. Blood, flesh and bone will be my reward—in certainty and plentiful. For an innocence such asss yoursss leadsss inevitably to battle and ssslaughter.”

Mo had understood nothing of this.

When, in the first light of dawn, the serpent had eventually pulled in close to the bank and deposited Mo and
Snakoil Kawkaw a few miles from Isscan, a small rowing boat had come up and beached itself next to them. Kawkaw just lay on the bank in an exhausted sleep. Two desperate-looking men with leering faces had jumped out and encircled Mo, one with an oar upraised as a club and the other with a sharp-bladed knife. They had their backs to the river and didn’t see the great shape that suddenly lunged out of it. Mo had screamed in terror and squeezed her eyes tightly shut . . .

There had been barely time for two screams of terror, causing birds to clatter out of the trees. When Mo opened her eyes again, the great serpent was gone, and so too were the men. And the boat, now empty, offered itself to Kawkaw, who had been roused by the screams. “Get in there, and be quick about it. For there’s one in this marketplace that will pay me a pocketful of gold for a witch’s brat such as you.”

With her memories restored, Mo readily understood her role as the honey pot. The trap was intended for Alan. And that thought frightened and oppressed her, so that she whispered fearfully through her mind: “Are you still there?”

“I am.”

“I remember now—I remember where I heard about the Fir Bolg. Padraig talked about you. When we were in the barrow grave.” Mo recalled the feeling of dread as the four friends stood before the mortal remains
of the terrible warrior prince. She remembered the Ogham inscriptions cut into the walls, which were a ward against great evil from the distant past. The inscriptions told the story of a warrior tribe who were not native to Ireland, a tribe of little people, yet the fiercest warriors. Padraig had called them Fir Bolg.

“Please—oh, please, Fir Bolg, or whatever your name really is—can’t you just help me to go to sleep?”

“My name is Qwenqwo Cuatzel.”

“Qwenqwo Cuatzel—that’s a very strange name.”

“No stranger than Maureen Grimstone sounds to my ears!”

“Oh, Qwenqwo Cuatzel, if that is really your name, I’m so exhausted and frightened. And . . .” She stopped herself suddenly, aware that she had nearly exposed her secret. She had nearly blurted out to this supposed new friend and helper the secret she had sworn to keep with Granny Dew. And now that she thought of it, she understood at last why it was that she was not permitted to sleep. Qwenqwo was right: it was her own instinct that was preventing her from falling asleep. In sleep, the big yellow eye would see all, and the Mage of Dreams would know her secret—her real name.

“Will you help me?”

“This I cannot do.”

“I’m so weary, and you’ve already been so kind to me. Surely, if I can’t be allowed to sleep, is there not something you could do, at least to help me rest?”

“I could tell you a story.”

“What kind of story?”

“A dreamtime rather than a bedtime story.”

“Would you—please?”

“Do you have a request?”

She remembered Padraig’s stories about a magical place known as the Wildwoods. “Do you know any stories about the Wildwoods?” she asked, rubbing at her eyes.

“A tale of the Wildwoods it is.”

“A long story, long enough to help me pass the hours?”

“Your wish is granted. But on one condition. Will you sing a little song for me as I tell it? Your song will distract the Mage while it entertains me.”

“What song shall I sing for you?”

“A song that comes from the purest of hearts. A song of innocence, such as the thrush or the blackbird sings to greet the sun in the morning.”

“I’m really tired, but I’ll do my best.” She yawned, blinking slowly.

“And as you sing, I will tell you the tale of an epic battle of wits between the last little wren and Gorra, the earwig.”

Mo sensed the song growing in her heart, like a tiny harp tuning its chords, and then suddenly the first notes were born from her lips, as if from the magic of her true inner being, and its magic echoed in rills and rivulets through the never-ending corridor, with its fusion of light and air and stone. Qwenqwo’s voice also
tuned itself to the same wonder of need, so his words bathed her spirit like a calming potion.

“Of course the Wildwoods, as we both know, were the home of a great king of magic, known to all the fairy creatures as Ree Nashee. And today they are filled with the most beautiful blossom of flower and shrub, and the air trills with the lovely sweet songs of the birds. But it wasn’t always the case. For the new king was conceited and gullible, unlike his famed and less arrogant father. He would admire his reflection in mirrors they made for him out of sand-polished quartz. And do you know what it was about himself he was most proud of?”

“No—do tell me.”

“His ears.”

“His ears?”

“His ears, indeed! You see, the king had ears so tall they reached quite to the top of his head, and they were wonderfully pointy.”

“He had pointy ears?”

“Indeed they drew out to tips as fine as the finest pine needles, and were capped with little tufts of golden hair that he would wax and twirl, like others wax moustaches, until they curled high above his head, like the feelers of a butterfly.”

“Oh, you’ve drawn such a lovely picture that I can see him—he is here quite clearly in my mind!”

“Sing then, Mo Grimstone. Sing your song of innocence while I continue my story. . . . For now I must inform you that the conceited king, Ree Nashee, was
married to the most beautiful wood sprite, Nimue Guinevere, who wove dresses from daisies and the summery blue of the brightest flag irises, and she pranced through the Wildwoods on Dovera, her gold-maned unicorn.”

“A gold-maned unicorn?” Mo questioned, then continued to sing.

“So sparkling that it captured the light of the morning to halo its great horn of ivory and outshone its reins and saddle, though they glittered with elvish diamonds and jewels.

“But to return to the king, it was this pride in his ears that gave Balor his chance to take control of the Wildwoods.”

“Who was this Balor?”

“Why Balor, of course, was a titan of the sort you would call a Cyclops, with a single eye in the center of his brow. He had long been jealous of the kings of the Wildwoods. And now he cast the wickedest of all his spells. But Ree Nashee was also powerful in magic, and that spell was only capable of making the king go to sleep. But it wasn’t an ordinary sleep. It was the kind of sleep that lasted forever. And the way he conceived it was deviously brilliant. You see, Balor spat into the palm of his hand and turned his spittle into an earwig called Gorra, into which Balor infused all of his malice. Then he instructed the earwig to climb into the left ear of the king while he was sleeping, and once hidden within the king’s ear, Gorra was to whisper the most powerful enchantment direct to his mind.”

Mo’s eyelids drooped. “I like this story.”

“So it was that Gorra the earwig began plotting and planning. He climbed into the left ear of Ree Nashee and there he whispered every despicable thing it was possible to conceive. He proved to be as wicked as Balor himself, and twice as cunning. Soon he was plotting how he would end the enchantment of the Wildwoods with his mischief. Above all, earwigs have a dislike of birds. So through stealing the magic of the sleeping king he saw to it that there wasn’t a single bird left singing in the Wildwoods—that is, except for one that Gorra was not sharp-eyed enough to see. And do you know why he could not see her?”

“Why?”

“Why, because it was none other than Aieve, the mother wren, and the smallest bird of all. Nimue Guinevere, seeing what had happened to her husband, had conceived of a plan of her own and had managed to hide Aieve under the sleeping king’s hat. Aieve flew out of that hat and landed on the left shoulder of the sleeping king, where she peered deep into that great pointy ear and saw where the earwig was hiding. Suddenly she sang out in a piping shriek of a voice, because you could hardly expect a wren to sing deep like a bull, and the words of her challenge will never be forgotten.”

“What did she sing?”

“She sang, ‘Since everybody knows that earwigs are the stupidest of all creatures, and since everybody also knows that riddling is the wisest and wittiest of occupations, then,
to prove that I am right and you are wrong, I challenge you to a duel of riddles.’”

“A duel of riddles?”

“The fiercest of duels there ever was.”

“How fierce?”

“A duel without quarter—riddler takes all!”

“The riddling of all riddles?”

“So it was! Now I wager you might know a riddle or two for such an occasion?”

Mo’s eyelids half opened, and she nodded.

“Then,” the copper-haired dwarf laughed loudly, “shall we say that I will play the part of Gorra and you the part of Aieve?”

Mo clapped her hands and began:

“You are surely the wind in the tree tops!” The dwarf answered Mo’s riddle before returning to the earwig’s story: “So the riddling continued, hour after hour, and day after day, from the eyes of the peacock to the song of the lyre bird, through the birth of muses, to carpets woven from snow-white angels’ feathers, until at last, Gorra sang aloud his final challenge:

“Aieve cried out in frustration, for Gorra had her stumped. She racked and racked her little wren brains, but she could find no answer to Gorra’s riddle. And then Gorra, so overcome with his own vanity and pride, called on all his relatives to join him for the feast of wren flesh. And soon the Wildwoods were filled with the squeaking and rustling of every earwig who heard the invitation, Gorra’s brothers and sisters and uncles and aunts and his cousins three hundred times removed, until the whole forest floor appeared to be on the move. Gorra called out to them to hurry, poking his head out of Ree Nashee’s left ear, wearing such a look of triumph on his earwiggy face, and gazing out at Aieve’s plump little body with a slavering, rat-a-tat gnashing of his side-to-side jaws.

“But now, if you like, you might help Aieve solve the riddle?”

Mo chuckled:

It was the dwarf’s turn to chuckle with delight. “Alas, like every good tale, it must come to an end.”

Mo grinned. “And I think I know how Gorra’s story ends.”

“Oh, you do—do you?”

Mo closed her eyes and laid down her head, if not to sleep, at least to the contentment of daydreams. And in her daydream she chuckled:

“Aha!” laughed Qwenqwo. “Who is spinning this yarn—you or me?”

The trembling ceased in Mo’s body, though not even a great story of the Wildwoods could entirely ease her sense of dread. For, like Balor, a sorcerer had baited his trap. The Mage of Dreams would draw Alan into that trap. He would send some kind of a message—an enchantment. And instead of an earwig hidden in the king’s ear, she, Maureen Grimstone, was the bait set to capture Alan, and her friends.