King of the Stones
GURGI FLUNG HIMSELF
to the ground, covered his head with his hands, and whimpered piteously. The creature threw a long, spindly leg over the ledge and began slowly drawing himself upright. He was more than thrice as tall as Taran, and his flabby arms dangled below a pair of knobby, moss-covered knees. With a lopsided gait he shambled toward the companions. "Glew!" Taran gasped. "But I was sure..."
"It can't be," whispered Fflewddur. "Impossible! Not little Glew! Or if it is, I certainly got the wrong impression of him."
"Tremble!" the quavering voice cried again. "You shall tremble!"
"Great Belin!" muttered the bard, who was indeed shaking so much he had almost dropped his blade, "I don't need to be told!"
The giant bent, shaded his white eyes against the light of the bauble, and peered at the companions. "Are you really trembling?" he asked in an anxious voice. "You're not doing it just to be obliging?"
Gurgi, meantime, had ventured to lift his hands from his face, but the sight of the creature towering above him made him clap them back again and set him to wailing louder than ever. Prince Rhun, however, recovering from his first shock, studied the monster with great curiosity. "I say, this is the first I've seen anyone with toadstools growing in his beard," he remarked. "Did he do it on purpose or did it just happen that way?"
"If that's the Glew we know," said the bard, "he's changed remarkably."
The giant's pale eyes widened. What would have been a smile on a face of ordinary size became a grin that stretched longer than Taran's arm. Glew blinked and stooped closer.
"You've heard of me then?" he asked eagerly.
"Indeed we have," put in Rhun. "It's amazing, but we thought Llyan..."
"Prince Rhun!" Taran warned.
Glew, for the moment, seemed to have no wish to harm them. Instead, evidently pleased by the consternation he had wrought among the companions, he was looking down at them with an expression of satisfaction all the more intense because it was so large. But until he had learned more of this strange creature, Taran had deemed it wiser to say nothing of their search.
"Llyan?" Glew quickly asked. "What do you know of Llyan?"
Since Rhun had already spoken, Taran had no choice but to admit the companions had stumbled upon Glew's hut. Disclosing no more than he had to, Taran told of finding the recipes for the potions. Whether Glew would take kindly to strangers rummaging among his possessions, Taran did not know; to his relief, the giant showed less concern about that than he did for the fate of the mountain cat.
"Oh, Llyan!" cried Glew. "If only she were here. Anything to keep me company!" At this he buried his face in his hands and the cavern echoed with his sobs.
"Now, now," said Fflewddur, "don't take on so. You're lucky you weren't gobbled up."
"Gobbled?" sniffed Glew, raising his head. "Better if I had been! Any doom rather than this miserable cavern. There's bats, you know. They've always terrified me, swooping and squeaking in that nasty way they have. Crawly white worms come popping their heads out of the rocks and stare at you. And spidery things! And things that are just--- just things They're the worst. It's enough to curdle your blood, I tell you! The other day, if I may call it day for all the difference it makes down here..."
The giant bent forward. His voice dropped to a roaring whisper, and he appeared eager to recount these happenings at great length.
"Glew," Taran interrupted, "we pity your plight, but I beg you, show us a way, out of the cavern."
Glew rocked his huge, scraggly head from side to side. "Way out? I've never stopped looking for one. There isn't any. Not for me, at least."
"There must be," insisted Taran. "How did you find your way into the cave in the first place? Please, show us."
"Find my way?" replied Glexv. "I should hardly call it a question of finding. It was Llyan's fault. If only she hadn't broken from her cage the one time my potion was working so well. She chased me out of my hut. Ungrateful of her, but I forgive her. I still had the flask in my hand. Oh, how I wish I'd thrown the wretched potion away! I ran as fast as I could, with Llyan after me." Glew patted his forehead with a trembling hand and blinked sorrowfully. "I've never run so fast and so far in my life," he said. "I still dream of it, when I'm not dreaming of worse. Finally, I found a cave and into it I went.
"I hadn't a moment to spare," continued Glew, sighing heavily. "I swallowed the potion. Now that I've had time to think it over, I realize I shouldn't have. But it had made Llyan so much bigger, I thought it would do the same for me, so I might have a chance against her. And so it did," he added. "In fact, it worked so quickly I nearly broke my crown on the ceiling of the cafe. And I kept on growing. I had to squeeze along as fast as I could, going farther and farther downward always looking for bigger chambers, until I ended here. By then, alas, no passage was wide enough to let me out.
"I've thought a great deal about it since that unhappy day. I often look back on it," Glew went on. He half closed his eyes and peered into the distance, lost in his own recollections. "I wonder now," he murmured, "I wonder now if..."
"Fflewddur," Taran whispered in the bard's ear, "is there no way we can make him stop talking and show us one of the passages? Or should we try to slip by him and find it ourselves?"
"I don't know," answered Fflewddur. "From all the giants I've seen--- yes, well, the truth of it is I've never seen any myself, though I've heard enough of them. Glew seems rather, how shall I say it, small! I don't know if I'm making myself clear, but he was a feeble little fellow to begin with and now he's a feeble little giant! And very likely a coward. I'm sure we could fight him, if we could reach him. Our biggest risk would be getting stepped on and squashed."
"I'm truly sorry for him," Taran began, "but I don't know how we can help him, and we dare not delay our search."
"You're not listening!" cried Glew, who had been talking on at some length before realizing he was talking mainly to himself. "Yes, it's the same thing all over again," he sobbed. "Even if I'm a giant, no one pays me any mind! Oh, I can tell you there are giants that would crack your bones and squeeze you until your eyes popped. You'd listen to them, you can be sure. But not Glew! Oh, it makes no difference about him, giant or no! Glew the giant, mewed up in a wretched cave and who's to care? Who's even to see?"
"Now look here," answered Fflewddur with some impatience, for the giant had begun to sob and splash the companions with tears, "you've only yourself to blame if you've put yourself into a stew. You meddled, and as I've said time and again, it leads to sad results."
"I didn't want to be a giant," protested Glew, "not at first anyway. I thought, once, I should be a famous warrior. I joined the host of Lord Goryon when he marched against Lord Gast. But I couldn't stand the sight of blood. It turned me green, green as grass. And those battles! Enough to make your head swim! All that clashing and smiting! The din alone is more than flesh can bear! No, no, it was absolutely out of the question."
"A warrior's life is one of hardship," Taran said, "and it takes a stout heart to follow it. Surely there were other means to make a name for yourself."
"I thought, then, I might become a bard," Glew went on. "It turned out as badly. The knowledge you must gain, the lore to be learned...."
"I'm with you there, old fellow," murmured Fflewddur, with a sigh of regret. "I had rather the same experience."
"It wasn't the years of study," explained Glew in a voice that would have been forlorn had it not been so loud. "I know I could have learned if I'd taken the time. No, it was my feet. I couldn't bear all the tramping and wandering around from one end of Prydain to the other. And always sleeping in a different place. And the change of water. And the harp rubbing blisters on your shoulder...."
"We grieve for you," interrupted Taran, shifting restlessly, "but we cannot tarry here.".
Glew had crouched down in front of the companions and Taran tried desperately to think of the best means of getting past him.
"Please, please don't go!" crie
d Glew, as if reading Taran's thoughts, his eyes blinking frantically. "Not yet! I'll show you a passage in a moment, I promise."
"Yes, yes!" shouted Gurgi, at last able to bring himself to open his eyes and clamber to his feet. "Gurgi does not like caverns. And his poor tender head is filled with soundings and poundings!"
"It was then I decided to become a hero," Glew eagerly went on, ignoring the impatience of the companions, "to go about slaying dragons and such. But you can't imagine how difficult it is. Why, even finding a dragon is almost impossible! But I discovered one in Cantrev Mawr.
"It was a small dragon," admitted Glew. "About the size of a weasel. The cottagers had it penned up in a rabbit hutch and the children used to go and look at it when they'd nothing else to do. But it was a dragon nevertheless. I would have slain it," he added, with a huge, rattling sigh. "I tried. But the vicious thing bit me. I still carry the marks."
Taran tightened his grip on his sword. "Glew," he said firmly, "I beg you once again to show us the passage. If you will not..."
"Then I thought I might become a king," Glew said hurriedly, before Taran could finish. "I thought if I could wed a princess--- but no, they turned me away at the castle gate.
"What else could I do?" moaned Glew, shaking his head miserably. "What was left for me but to try enchantments? At last I came upon a wizard who claimed to have a book of spells in his possession. He wouldn't tell me how it had fallen into his hands, but he assured me the magic it held was most powerful. It had once belonged to the House of Llyr."
Taran caught his breath at these words. "Eilonwy is a Princess of the House of Llyr," he whispered to the bard. "What tale is Glew telling us? Is he speaking the truth?"
"It had come," Glees went on, "from Caer Colur itself. Naturally, I..."
"Glew, tell me quickly," Taran cried, "what is Caer Colur? What has it to do with the House of Llyr?"
"Why, everything," replied Glew, as though surprised at Taran's asking. "Caer Colur is the ancient seat of the House of Llyr. I should think everyone would know that. A very treasure house of charms and enchantments. Oh my, yes. So, as I was saying, naturally I believed I had at last found something to help me. The wizard was eager to be rid of the book, as eager as I was to have it."
Taran's hands had suddenly begun to tremble. "Where is Caer Colur?" he asked. "How can we find it?"
"Find it?" said Glew. "I don't know if there's much left of it to find. They say the castle has been in ruins for years. Bewitched, too, as you might expect. And you should have some hard rowing to do."
"Rowing overland?" said Fflewddur. "Don't ask us to believe that."
"Rowing," repeated Glew, nodding sorrowfully. "Long ago, Caer Colur was part of Mona. But it broke from the mainland during a flood. Now it's no more than a speck of island. Be that as it may," Glew went on, "I took all the little treasure I had managed to save..."
"Where is the island?" Taran pressed. "Glew, you must tell us. It is important for us to know."
"At the mouth of the Alaw," replied Glew, with a certain vexation at being interrupted once more. "But that has nothing to do with what happened to me. You see, the wizard..."
Taran's mind raced. Magg had taken Eilonwy to the Alaw. He had needed a boat. Was Eilonwy's ancestral home his destination? His glance met Fflewddur's, and the bard's expression showed he had been following the same thought.
"...the wizard," Glew continued, "was in such haste that I had no chance to see the book. Until it was too late. He had cheated me. It was a book--- a book of nothing! Of empty pages!"
"Amazing!" cried Prince Rhun. "The very book we found!"
"Worthless," sighed Glew, "but since you found it, you may keep it. It's yours. A gift. Something to remember me by. So you won't forget poor Glew."
"Small chance of that," muttered Fflewddur.
"Finally, I turned to brewing my own potions," said Glew. "I wanted to be fierce! I wanted to be strong, to make all Mona tremble! Oh, it was long labor, I tell you. Alas, you see the results. And the end of all my hopes," the giant glumly continued. "Until you came along. You must help me escape from this frightful cavern. I can't stand the bats and the crawly things. It's too much, I tell you, too much! It's nasty and horrid and sticky and wet," he cried in loud despair. "I can't abide mold and mushrooms! Mold and mushrooms! I've had enough of them!" He set to weeping again and his pitiful moans shook the cavern.
"Dallben, my master, is the most powerful enchanter in Prydain," Taran said. "It may be that he can find a means to help you. But it is your help we need now. The sooner we are free, the sooner I shall return to him."
"Too long to wait," moaned Glew. "I'll be a mushroom myself by that time."
"Help us," Taran pleaded. "Help us and we shall try to help you."
Glew said nothing for a moment. His forehead wrinkled and his lips twitched nervously. "Very well, very well," he sighed, climbing to his feet. "Follow me. Oh--- there's one thing you might do," he added. "If it would be no bother to you, it's such a little thing, if you really wouldn't mind. So at least I might have the satisfaction, however brief. A tiny favor. Would you call me--- King Glew?"
"Great Belin," shouted Fflewddur, "I'll call you king, prince, or whatever you choose. Only show us a way out of here--- Sire!"
Glew's spirits seemed to lift as he shambled toward the dim reaches of the cavern. The companions scrambled down the ledge and hastened to keep up with his huge strides. Glew, having spoken to no one since his confinement, never left off talking. He had, he explained, tried to brew new potions--- this time to make himself smaller. In one of the chambers he had even set up a kind of workshop, where a bubbling pool of steaming hot water served to boil his concoctions. Glew's cleverness in devising makeshift pestles and mortars, cookpots and basins from painstakingly hollowed-out stones surprised Taran and filled him with a pitying admiration for the desperate giant. But his mind turned over and over on itself, seeking an understanding that escaped him like a will-o'-the-wisp each time he drew close to it. He was certain the answer lay in the ruined halls of Caer Colur, and certain the companions would find Eilonwy there.
Impatient to be gone, he ran forward as Glew halted at a chimney-like shaft of rock. Close to the ground the dark mouth of a tunnel opened.
"Farewell," sniffed Glew, pointing sorrowfully at the tunnel. "Go straight on. You shall find your way."
"You have my word," Taran said, while Gurgi, Fflewddur, and Prince Rhun crawled into the opening. "If it is in Dallben's power, he will help you."
Clutching the bauble, Taran bent and thrust his way past the jagged arch. Bats rose in a shrieking cloud. He heard Gurgi cry out in fear and raced ahead. Next moment, he collided with a wall of stone and fell back on his heels while the bauble slipped from his grasp and dropped among the pebbles on the uneven ground. With a shout Taran spun to see a massive rock pushed into the opening, and flung himself toward it.
Glew had sealed the passage.
*¤*nihua*¤*
Chapter 12
The Tomb
THE BARD, LIKE TARAN,
had dashed headlong into the wall, and now struggled to his feet. Gurgi's yells rang above the screeching of the bats. Prince Rhun stumbled to Taran's side and threw his weight against the immovable rock. The bauble had rolled into a corner, but one glance, in the light of the glowing sphere, showed Taran there was no other way in or out of the chamber. "Glew!" Taran called, pushing with all his strength at the blocked passage. "Let us out! What have you done!"
While Gurgi, jabbering furiously, beat his fists against the unyielding stone, Taran plunged against it once more. Beside him, he heard Prince Rhun gasping with his own efforts. Fflewddur shoved and heaved mightily, lost his footing, and sprawled to earth.
"Little worm!" the bard shouted at the top of his voice. "Liar! You've betrayed us!"
From the other side of the stone came Glew's muffled voice, "I'm very sorry. Forgive me. But what else am I to do?"
"Let us out!" Taran demanded a
gain, still straining to move the rock. With a sob half of anger and half of despair, he dropped to earth and scrabbled desperately at the loose pebbles.
"Move aside heavy stone, evil, wicked little giant!" shouted Gurgi. "Take away lockings and blockings! Or rageful Gurgi will smack your great feeble head!"
"We would have done you a kindness," Taran cried. "And you repay us with treachery."
"I say, that's true enough," called Prince Rhun. "How do you expect anyone to help you if they're buried in here?"
Faint though it was, a sobbing sound drifted from beyond the blocked passageway. "Too long!" moaned the voice of Glew. "Too long! I can wait no more in this ghastly cave! Who knows whether Dallben would care about my fate? Very likely he wouldn't. It must be done now. Now!"
"Glew," Taran said, forcing himself to be as calm and patient as he could, for he was convinced the giant had taken leave of his senses, "there is nothing we alone can do for you or we would have done it before this."
"But there is! There is!" cried Glew. "You shall help with my potions. I'm sure I can brew another to bring me back to size. That's all I ask. Is that too much?"
"If you want us to help you cook up more of those dreadful messes you fed Llyan," called Fflewddur, "you're taking a curious way to win our friendship." The bard hesitated and his eyes widened in sudden dismay. "Great Belin," he murmured, "as he did with Llyan...!"
Even as the bard spoke, Taran's legs began to quake, for the same thought had occurred to him. "Fflewddur," he whispered, "he is indeed out of his wits. This cavern has driven him mad."
"Not a bit of it," replied the bard. "It makes excellent sense, in a nasty, horrible fashion. He has no one else to try his concoctions on!" He pressed to the stone and cupped his hands around his mouth. "You shan't do that, you wretched, sniveling worm!" he shouted. "We won't swallow your evil stews! Even if you starve us! And if you try to cram them down our throats, you'll learn that a Foam can bite!"
"I promise," pleaded Glew, "you won't have to swallow a thing. I'll take all the risks myself. Terrible risks they are, too. Suppose I should turn into a puff of smoke and blow away? You never know, when you're dealing with such recipes. It could happen."
The Castle of Llyr Page 8
