The Moon of Gomrath
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“Why is it called that?” said Susan.
“There are tales,” said Albanac, “that I have only dimly heard about these things, yet I know that the Marks of Fohla are from the early magic of the world, and this is the first that I have ever seen, and I cannot tell its use. But will you give it to Atlendor?”
“I can’t,” said Susan.
“But the elves may be destroyed for lack of the Mark!” said Albanac. “Will you fail them when they most need help?”
“Of course I’ll help,” said Susan. “It’s just that Angharad told me I must always look after my bracelet, though she didn’t say why: but if Atlendor needs it, I’ll go back with him.”
At this, Uthecar laughed, but Albanac’s face was troubled.
“You have me there,” he said. “Atlendor will not like this. But wait: is he to know? I do not want to burden him with fresh troubles if they can be avoided. Perhaps this would be of no use to Atlendor, but let me take it to him, Susan, so that he can try its powers. If they are deaf to him he will accept your provision more easily.”
“And why should himself not be away beyond Bannawg sooner than the fox to the wood, and the Mark with him?” said Uthecar.
“You do not know the lios-alfar, Hornskin,” said Albanac. “I give you my word that there will be no deceit.”
“Then another word shall go into Cadellin’s ear,” said Uthecar, “lest Atlendor should think black danger merits black deed. None of the lios-alfar will leave Fundindelve if Cadellin bids them stay.”
“No,” said Susan. “I trust you. And I think I trust Atlendor. Here you are: let him see what he can do with it. But please don’t keep it longer than you need.”
“Thank you,” said Albanac. “You will not be sorry.”
“Let us hope so,” said Uthecar. He did not look at all happy. “But from what I have heard of you, I am thinking you are not wise to put off your armour. The Morrigan does not forget, and she goes not forgive.”
“The Morrigan?” said Colin. “Where? Is she after us again?”
Although the children had first crossed this woman in her human shape, they had soon learnt that there was more to her than her ungraciousness. She was the Morrigan, leader of the witch covens called the morthbrood, and above that, she could wake the evil in stones and brew hate from the air, and she was terrible in her strength. But mainly through Colin and Susan her power had been broken by Cadellin Silverbrow, and they had not been certain that she herself had survived the destruction that had overwhelmed her followers.
“The morthbrood is scattered,” said Albanac, “but she has been seen. You had best ask him who brought word of her.” He nodded towards Uthecar. “This honey-natured dwarf from beyond Minith Bannawg in the Northland.”
“Why? Have you seen her?” said Colin.
“Have I not!” said the dwarf. “Are you all wanting to know? Well then, here is the tale.
“On my way south I came to the hill of the Black Fernbrake in Prydein, and a storm followed me. So I was looking for rocks and heather to make a shelter for the night. I saw a round, brown stone, as if it were set apart from other stones, and I put my arms about it to lift it up – and oh, king of the sun and of the moon, and of the bright and fragrant stars! the stone put arms about my neck, and was throttling the life of me!
“Ask not how, for I cannot say, but I plucked myself free; and then the stone was the Morrigan! I sprang at her with my sword, and though she took out my eye, I took off her head, and the Black Fernbrake’s sides called to her screech.
“But the head leapt a hard, round leap to the neck again, and she came at me loathingly, and I was much in fear of her. Three times we fought, and three times I lifted her head, and three times she was whole again, and I was near death with pain and faintness.
“So once more I set iron to her shoulders, but when the head was making for the trunk I put my sword on the neck, and the head played ‘gliong’ on the blade, and sprang up to the skies. Then it began to fall, and I saw that it was aiming at me, so I stepped aside, and it went six feet into the ground with the force it had. Was that not the head! Then I heard stones crunching, and a chewing, and a gnawing, and a gnashing, so I thought it was time for me to take my legs along with me, and I went on through the night and the winnowing and the snow in it.”
They were waiting now for the wizard to come. And while they waited, Uthecar saw to it that talk never flagged.
He told how Albanac had met him one day, and had spoken of a rumour that something had come out of the ground near Fundindelve and was being hunted by Cadellin Silverbrow. Having himself been idle too long, Uthecar had decided to make the journey south from Minith Bannawg in the hope that Cadellin would be glad of his help. He was not disappointed. The matter was greater than he thought—
Long ago, one of the old mischiefs of the world had brought fear to the plain, but it had been caught, and imprisoned in a pit at the foot of the Edge. Centuries later, through the foolishness of men, it had escaped, and was taken at heavy cost. Albanac’s news was that man had loosed the evil a second time.
“And there was no knowing in the hard, shrivelling world,” said Uthecar, “where we might find the Brollachan again.”
The Brollachan. “Now the Brollachan,” said Uthecar, “has eyes and a mouth, and it has no speech, and alas no shape.” It was beyond comprehension. Yet the shadow that rose in Susan’s mind as the dwarf spoke seemed to her to darken the cave.
Shortly after this, Cadellin arrived. His shoulders were bowed, his weight leaning on the staff in his hand. When he saw the children a frown grew in the lines about his eyes.
“Colin? Susan? I am glad to see you; but why are you here? Albanac, why have you gone behind me to do this?”
“It is not quite so, Cadellin,” said Albanac. “But first, what of the lios-alfar?”
“The elves of Dinsel and Talebolion will be slow to heal,” said Cadellin. “These that have come from Sinadon are stronger, but the smoke-sickness is on them, and some I fear are beyond my hand.
“Now tell me what has brought you here.”
He spoke to the children.
“We were – stopped by Atlendor – the elf – and then Uthecar and Albanac came,” said Susan, “and we’ve just heard about the elves.”
“Do you think badly of Atlendor,” said Albanac. “He is hard-pressed. But Susan has given us hope: I have the Mark of Fohla here.”
Cadellin looked at Susan. “I – am glad,” he said. “It is noble, Susan. But is it wise? Oh, you must think I have the destruction of elves at heart! But the Morrigan—”
“We have spoken of her,” said Albanac quickly. “The bracelet will not be with me for long, and I do not think that witch-queen will come south yet awhile. She will have to be much stronger before she dare move openly, and she does not feel safe even beyond Minith Bannawg, if Hornskin’s tale speaks true. Why else the shape-shifting among rocks unless she fears pursuit?”
“That is so,” agreed Cadellin. “I know I am too cautious. Yet still I do not like to see these children brought even to the threshold of danger – no, Susan, do not be angry. It is not your age but your humanity that gives me unrest. It is against my wishes that you are here now.”
“But why?” cried Susan.
“Why do you think men know us only in legend?” said Cadellin. “We do not have to avoid you for our safety, as elves must, but rather for your own. It has not always been so. Once we were close; but some little time before the elves were driven away, a change came over you. You found the world easier to master by hands alone: things became more than thoughts with you, and you called it an Age of Reason.
“Now with us the opposite holds true, so that in our affairs you are weakest where you should be strong, and there is danger for you not only from evil, but from other matters we touch upon. These may not be evil, but they are wild forces, which could destroy one not well acquainted with such things.
“For these reasons we withdrew from mankind, and became a memory, and, with the years, a superstition, ghosts and terrors for a winter’s night, and later a mockery and a disbelief.
“That is why I must appear so hard: do you understand?”
“I – think so,” said Susan. “Most of it, anyway.”
“But if you cut yourself off all that while ago,” said Colin, “how is it that you talk as we do?”
“But we do not,” said the wizard. “We use the Common Tongue now because you are here. Amongst ourselves there are many languages. And have you not noticed that there are some of us stranger to the Tongue than others? The elves have avoided men most completely. They speak the Tongue much as they last heard it, and that not well. The rest – I, the dwarfs, and a few more – heard it through the years, and know it better than do the elves, though we cannot master your later speed and shortness. Albanac sees most of men, and he is often lost, but since they think him mad it is of no account.”
Colin and Susan did not stay long in the cave: the mood of the evening remained uneasy and it was obvious that Cadellin had more on his mind than had been said. A little after seven o’clock they walked up the short tunnel that led from the cave to the Holywell. The wizard touched the rock with his staff, and the cliff opened.
Uthecar went with the children all the way to the farm, turning back only at the gate. Colin and Susan were aware of his eyes ranging continually backwards and forwards, around and about.
“What’s the matter?” said Susan. “What are you looking for?”
“Something I hope I shall not be finding,” said Uthecar. “You may have noticed that the woods were not empty this night. We were close on the Brollachan, and it is far from here that I hope it is just now.”
“But how could you see it, whatever it is?” said Colin. “It’s pitch dark tonight.”
“You must know the eyes of a dwarf are born to darkness,” said Uthecar. “But even you would see the Brollachan, though the night were as black as a wolf’s throat; for no matter how black the night, the Brollachan is blacker than that.”
This stopped conversation for the rest of the journey. But when they reached Highmost Redmanhey, Susan said, “Uthecar, what’s wrong with the elves? I – don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve always imagined them to be the – well, the ‘best’ of your people.”
“Ha!” said Uthecar. “They would agree with you! And few would gainsay them. You must judge for yourselves. But I will say this of the lios-alfar; they are merciless without kindliness, and there are things incomprehensible about them.”
CHAPTER 5
“TO A WOMAN YT WAS DUMPE”
About half a mile from Highmost Redmanhey, round the shoulder of Clinton Hill, there is a disused and flooded quarry. Where the sides are not cliffs, wooded slopes drop steeply. A broken wind pump creaks, and a forgotten path runs nowhere into the brambles. In sunlight it is a forlorn place, forlorn as nothing but deserted machinery can be; but when the sun goes in, the air is charged with a different feeling. The water is sombre under its brows of cliff, and the trees crowd down to drink, the pump sneers; lonely, green-hued, dark.
But peaceful, thought Susan, and that’s something.
There had been no peace at the farm since their return. Two days of talk from Colin, and the silences made heavy by the Mossocks’ uneasiness. For Bess and Gowther knew of the children’s past involvement with magic, and they were as troubled by this mixing of the two worlds as Cadellin had been.
The weather did not help. The air was still, moist, too warm for the beginning of winter.
Susan had felt that she must go away to relax; so that afternoon she had left Colin and had come to the quarry. She stood on the edge of a slab of rock that stretched into the water, and lost herself in the grey shadows of fish. She was there a long time, slowly unwinding the tensions of the days: and then a noise made her look up.
“Hallo. Who are you?”
A small black pony was standing at the edge of the water on the other side of the quarry.
“What are you doing here?”
The pony tossed its mane, and snorted.
“Come on, then! Here, boy!”
The pony looked hard at Susan, flicked its tail, then turned and disappeared among the trees.
“Oh, well – I wonder what the time is.” Susan climbed up the slope out of the quarry and into the field. She walked round to the wood on the far side, and whistled, but nothing happened. “Here, boy! Here, boy! Oh don’t then; I’m – oh!”
The pony was standing right behind her.
“You made me jump! Where’ve you been?”
Susan fondled the pony’s ears. It seemed to like that, for it thrust its head into her shoulder, and closed its velvet-black eyes.
“Steady! You’ll knock me over.”
For several minutes she stroked its neck, then reluctantly she pushed it away. “I must go now. I’ll come and see you tomorrow.” The pony trotted after her. “No, go back. You can’t come.” But the pony followed Susan all the way across the field, butting her gently with its head and nibbling at her ears. And when she came to climb through the fence into the next field, it put itself between her and the fence, and pushed sideways with its sleek belly.
“What do you want?”
Push.
“I’ve nothing for you.”
Push.
“What is it?”
Push.
“Do you want me to ride? That’s it, isn’t it? Stand still, then. There. Good boy. You have got a long back, haven’t you? There. Now – whoa! Steady!”
The moment Susan was astride, the pony wheeled round and set off at full gallop towards the quarry. Susan grabbed the mane with both hands.
“Hey! Stop!”
They were heading straight for the barbed wire at the top of the cliff above the deepest part of the quarry.
“No! Stop!”
The pony turned its head and looked at Susan. Its foaming lips curled back in a grin, and the velvet was gone from the eye: in the heart of the black pupil was a red flame.
“No!” Susan screamed.
Faster and faster they went. The edge of the cliff cut a hard line against the sky. Susan tried to throw herself from the pony’s back, but her fingers seemed to be entangled in the mane, and her legs clung to the ribs.
“No! No! No! No!”
The pony soared over the fence, and plunged past smooth sandstone down to the water. The splash echoed between the walls, waves slapped the rock, there were some bubbles: the quarry was silent under the heavy sky.
“I’m not waiting any longer,” said Bess. “Susan mun get her own tea when she comes in.”
“Ay, let’s be doing,” said Gowther. “Theer’s one or two things to be seen to before it rains, and it conner be far off now: summat’s got to bust soon.”
“I’ll be glad when it does,” said Bess. “I conner get my breath today. Did Susan say she’d be late?”
“No,” said Colin, “but you know what she is. And she hadn’t a watch with her.”
They sat down at the table, and ate without talking. The only sounds were the breathing of Bess and Gowther, the ticking of the clock, the idiot buzz of two winter-drugged flies that circled endlessly under the beams. The sky bore down on the farm-house, squeezing the people in it like apples in a press.
“We’re for it, reet enough,” said Gowther. “And Susan had best hurry if she dunner want a soaking. She ought to be here by now. Wheer was she for, Colin? Eh up! What’s getten into him?” Scamp, the Mossocks’ lurcher, had begun to bark wildly somewhere close. Gowther put his head out of the window. “That’ll do! Hey!
“Now then, what was I saying? Oh ay; Susan. Do you know wheer she’s gone?”
“She said she was going to the quarry for some peace and quiet – I’ve been getting on her nerves, she said.”
“What? Hayman’s quarry? You should have said earlier, Colin. It’s dangerous – oh, drat the dog! Hey! Scamp! That’s enough! Do you hear?”
“Oh!” said Bess. “Whatever’s to do with you? Wheer’ve you been?”
Susan was standing in the doorway, looking pale and dazed. Her hair was thick with mud, and a pool of water was gathering at her feet.
“The quarry!” said Gowther. “She mun have fallen in! What were you thinking of, Susan, to go and do that?”
“Bath and bed,” said Bess, “and then we’ll see what’s what. Eh dear!”
She took Susan by the arm, and bustled her out of sight.
“Goodness knows what happened,” said Bess when she came downstairs half on hour later. “Her hair was full of sand and weed. But I couldner get a word out of her: she seems mazed, or summat. Happen she’ll be better for a sleep: I’ve put a couple of hot-water bottles in her bed, and she looked as though she’d drop off any minute when I left her.”
The storm battered the house, and filled the rooms with currents of air, making the lamps roar. It had come soon after nightfall, and with it a release of tension. The house was now a refuge, and not a prison. Colin, once the immediate anxiety for Susan had been allayed, settled down to spend the evening with his favourite book.
This was a musty, old ledger, covered with brown suede. Over a hundred years ago, one of the rectors of Alderley had copied into it a varied series of documents relating to the parish. The book had been in Gowther’s family longer than he could say, and although he had never found the patience to decipher the crabbed handwriting, he treasured the book as a link with a time that had passed. But Colin was fascinated by the anecdotes, details of court leets, surveys of the parish, manorial grants, and family histories that filled the book. There was always something absurd to be found, if you had Colin’s sense of humour.
The page that held him now was headed:
EXTRACTS: CH: WARDENS’ ACCS. 1617
A true and perfect account of all such Sumes of Money as I, John Henshaw of ye Butts, Churchwarden of Neither Alderley and for ye parish of Alderley have received and likewise disburst since my first entrance into Office untill this present day being ye 28 May Anno Di. 1618.
£ s. d. Imprimis Payed for Ale for ye Ringers and oure Selves 0 3 2 Item to John Wych his bill for a new Sally Poll 0 2 0 Item to a man yt had his tongue cut out by ye Turks 0 0 2 Item to Philip Lea half his bill for walking 0 1 6 Item to a pretended Irish gentleman 0 1 3 Item spent for cluckin to make nets 0 1 8 Item to a woman yt was dumpe 0 0 6 Item spent when I did goe throw ye town to warne those to bring in ye wrishes yt had neglected on ye wrish burying day 0 0 4 Item given to a Majer yt had been taken by ye French and was runeated by them 0 1 0 Item payed to Mr. Hollinsheadfor warrants to punish ye boys’ Immoralities 0 0 8But the next entry took all the laughter from Colin’s face. He read it through twice.
“Gowther!”
“Ay?”
“Listen to this: it’s part of the churchwardens’ accounts for 1617.
‘Item spent at Street Lane Ends when Mr. Hollinshead and Mr. Wright were at Paynes to confine ye devil yt was fownde at ye Ale house when ye new pipe was being put down and it did break into ye Pitt.’
“Do you think it’s the hole at the Trafford?”
Gowther frowned. “Ay, I’d say it is, what with the pipe, and all. That side of Alderley near the Trafford used to be called Street Lane Ends, and I’ve heard tell of a pub theer before the Trafford was built. Sixteen-seventeen, is it? It conner be part of the mines, then. They didner come that way until about two hundred years back, when West Mine was started. So it looks as though it was the well of the owd pub, dunner it?”
“But it couldn’t be,” said Colin. “It was called ‘ye Pitt’, and by the sound of it, they didn’t know it was there. So what is it?”
“Nay, dunner ask me,” said Gowther. “And who are yon Hollinshead and Wright?”
“They’re often mentioned in here,” said Colin. “I think they were the priests at Alderley and Wilmslow. I’d like to know more about this ‘devil’.”
“I dunner reckon much on that,” said Gowther. “They were a superstitious lot in them days. As a matter of fact, I was talking to Jack Wrigley yesterday – he’s the feller as put his pickaxe through the slab – and he said that when he was looking to see what he’d got, he heard a rum kind of bubbling sound that put the wind up him a bit, but he thinks it was summat to do with air pressure. Happen yon’s what the parsons took for Owd Nick.”
“I dunner like it,” said Bess from the doorway. She had just come downstairs. “Susan’s not spoken yet, and she’s as cold as a frog. And I conner think wheer all the sand’s coming from – her hair’s still full of it – and everything’s wringing wet. Still, that’s not surprising with two hot-water bottles, I suppose. But theer’s summat wrong; she’s lying theer staring at nowt, and her eyes are a bit queer.”
“Mun I go for the doctor, do you think?” said Gowther.
“What? In this rain? And it’s nearly ten o’clock. Nay, lad, she inner that bad. But if things are no different in the morning, we’ll have the doctor in sharpish.”
“But what if she’s getten concussion, or summat like that?” said Gowther.
“It’s more like shock, I reckon,” said Bess. “Theer’s no bruises or lumps as I con see, and either way, she’s in the best place for her. You’d not get much thanks from the doctor for dragging him up here in this. We’ll see how she is for a good neet’s rest.”
Bess, like many country-women of her age, could not shake off her unreasoned fear of medical men.
Colin never knew what woke him. He lay on his back and stared at the moonlight. He had woken suddenly and completely, with no buffer of drowsiness to take the shock. His senses were needle-pointed, he was aware of every detail of the room, the pools of light and darkness shouted at him.
He got out of bed, and went to the window. It was a clear night, the air cold and sweet after the storm: the moon cast hard shadows over the farmyard. Scamp lay by the barn door, his head between his paws. Then Colin saw something move. He saw it only out of the corner of his eye, and it was gone in a moment, but he was never in any doubt: a shadow had slipped across the patch of moonlight that lay between the end of the house and the gate that led to the Riddings, the steep hill-field behind the farm.
“Hey! Scamp!” whispered Colin. The dog did not move. “Hey! Wake up!” Scamp whined softly, and gave a muted yelp. “Come on! Fetch him!” Scamp whined again, then crawled, barely raising his belly from the floor, into the barn. “What on earth? Hey!” But Scamp would not come.