The Lad of the Gad

by Alan Garner

  Lusca was attended, nobly and honourably. The old warrior said, “Son of Irrua, I and that lad have the same father, and the woman there is our mother, and we are of one birth. But poison was the first food given to the lad; whoever is reared upon poison at the first, neither age nor harm affect him through time eternal.”

  Lusca said, “Let me be shown the way to that mighty worm.”

  Lusca and the lad went to where the worm was. They found her looking about to go round the castle, trying if she could get in. When she was not able to get in, she coiled herself on the castle. Lusca gave a cast of a royal javelin that was in his hand at the worm, so that he sent the spear through her and through two windows of the castle and through the coil on the other side. There was the worm, unable to loose herself. Then Lusca took his sword and cut the head from her. The blood made the blade green.

  Great joy of that worm seized the warrior, the lad and the woman. They flung their arms about Lusca; but he felt his life going from him with the wound of the Big Mokkalve.

  Lusca went and said to the smith, “I must get healing.”

  The smith said, “Who are you to come here? A boatful of blood has gone from your side. Bigger things have been stopped.”

  The smith took ointment to the wound of the Big Mokkalve. The side healed.

  “The gate of my side is bolted,” said Lusca. “The blue mouth is closed. If there is the Great Dug of the World, it must be with you.”

  “The Great Dug of the World,” said the smith, “is not with me. The Great Dug of the World is at the Forest of Wonders. Do not go after it. The way of the forest is this: there is a Tree of Splendour in the forest, and one of every colour on that tree. There is no fruit of the fruits of life that is not on that tree, and it is hard for any man who sees it to part from it for its marvellous splendour. No man has ever gone into that forest who ever came out of it again for its enchantment. Do not look for the Dug, till the womb of judgment or the end of life.”

  “Even if you were to have the Great Dug with you now,” said Lusca, “I would not go from here without seeing this forest, for your report of it. But who is the master of the Sword of Light?”

  The smith said, “It is for Lurga Lom to take with him on the day that he shall go against the City of the Red Stream. Until that day, he shall not know it: but, on that day, it shall know him.”

  “Where is the Forest of Wonders?” said Lusca.

  “The Forest of Wonders is far from you,” said the smith. “Beware of the Forest of Wonders. There is no hideous thing in hollow nor in the dreadful clouds of air that will not come to you then. It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that will be in the forest at the joint of that hour.”

  “No more the less shall I go there,” said Lusca, and departed.

  It was then Lusca faced for the Forest of Wonders. He saw at a distance from him the Tree of Virtues. He saw the colours and the fruits beneath the branches wide-sweeping of that flower-marvellous tree.

  He found thirteen men on the outskirts of the forest, lacking heads, and in the middle of them lay a king-warrior, a mantle of fair gold about him, clustering golden hair and a diadem of gold on the head by the body. Lusca never beheld the same number of men who were more remarkable than that dead band.

  There was a sandal of gold on the foot of the hero, and Lusca stretched out his hand to take it, but the foot cast him over seven ridges from it backwards. Then the head of the body spoke.

  “This time yesterday,” said the head, “no man could have insulted that foot.”

  “Head?” said Lusca. “Have you speech?”

  “I have,” said the head.

  “What is the story?” said Lusca.

  “Dig a grave for my men and me,” said the head, “and you shall get the story.”

  Lusca dug with the great broad spear that he had near his shield.

  “The grave is ready,” said the head.

  “It is ready now,” said Lusca.

  “Gold-arm lollan is the man whose head I am,” said the head, “son of the King of the Birds. I could not but go to seek the Tree of Virtues, and my twelve foster-brothers came with me. But enchantment was worked upon us here: for the first we saw was a musical harper walking in the forest, and the little man reached over his fist and struck the man of us who was nearest him between the nose and the mouth, and that man drew his sword to strike the musical harper, but it was not the harper he struck but the man next to himself; so that it was ourselves we beheaded, one after one, through the spells of the musical harper, and he took off the head of the last man with my own sword. But what marvel is that? There is many a greater marvel in the Forest of Wonders.”

  Lusca put his hands around Gold-arm Iollan and laid him in the grave. He placed six on each side of him and covered them with earth.

  After that work, Lusca looked at the forest until he saw a musical harper coming towards him, his harp with him, a rusty sword by his side. Lusca gave a leap at the harper without speaking, and smashed the harp on the rock of stone that was nearest him, sending fragments of the harp into every fifth of the forest. The musical harper gathered up the harp again, piece after piece, so that it seemed that neither stroke nor blow had ever touched it. Lusca took the harper and lifted his head from his body, but the little man departed with his head in his hand by the hair, his harp in the other hand, into the forest; and Lusca marvelled at that.

  It was not long after the little man had gone that Lusca saw a wild ox. He smote a blow on it.

  And there was never cat nor hag

  Nor hideous senseless spectre

  In crag nor in hollow

  Nor in rock nor in house

  Nor on land nor in the dreadful clouds of air

  But came at the roar of that ox.

  Lusca passed a hand round his great broad spear that was beside his shield. He gave a cast of it, so that he sent it through the ox. When the spear reached it, not greater was the screaming of any other beast than the screaming of the spear itself; and Lusca marvelled at the nature of that spear.

  This is how the creatures of the forest were in that hour:

  Some scream and

  Some bellow and

  Some moan and

  Some of them stamp the ground

  With their heads and their feet.

  It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that was in the forest at the joint of that hour, for there was neither stone nor tree in it but was in one shaking and in one thunder.

  Lusca took out a venomous stone that was in the hollow of his shield, and he collected the senseless creatures, until he drove them into the mouth of a cave in the forest; and it had been a good cause of confusion to a bad hero in the Forest of Wonders at that time to be listening to the wailing, the screeching, the tremulous bellowing of those many-shaped spectres.

  Lusca came back through the forest after that work, tired, anxious, sorrowful; and many was the wandering wolf nimbly-going, rising up on every side of him. He did not overtake them, but they were going away from him in every fifth of the forest, in quick running throngs.

  Lusca called with a loud great clear voice, “Not better would I like a sleeping-couch, if I had it tonight, than to be fighting with the monsters of this forest!” Then he went to the Tree of Virtues, and he bore off with him a great shoulder-load of the branches of that blossom-haunted tree, so that he made of it a hut in the forest. It was not under the protection of the forest that Lusca went that night, but of his own hand and of his own blade.

  He blew a fire heap.

  And it was the rushing of red wind

  Or sound of wave down jagged waterfall

  The wailing of the creatures

  The sound of a great wind against rough hills

  Eyes in their heads like stars.

  But that rock, Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, was unchanged in shape or sense or form, his speech unwandering, listening to great evils. />
  He went a second time and gave a hand about the creatures, so that he drove them into the same cave again. He followed them up the bed of the cave, and there is no knowledge of what direction they went from him then.

  Lusca came back. It seemed to him that none the less for all the loss of creatures he wrought was the malignity of the forest. He came to the fire. He did not find one spark of it alive, nor a hut, but a close coppice oak-wood of thin trees, smooth and very high, and bitter quick venomous winds, and wet, heavy snow bending those trees and cold linns of spring water welling there.

  It could not be told then all the destruction of enchantment that was throughout the Forest of Wonders.

  Next Lusca met a giant, with two grey goat horns through his skull. A round, black hand he had, and one leg like the mast of a ship under him.

  “What news?” said Lusca.

  “I have no mind to tell news,” said the giant, “except only this. It was night-straying that brought me into the forest.”

  Lusca gave a stroke of his sword through the giant’s head, and the sound of the giant was the noise of an oak falling. But the giant gave a twist to his body until he came standing again on the one leg, the sword through his head, Lusca on his shoulder with two hands in the grip of the sword that could not let go.

  Then Lusca took hold firmly and squeezed. He made little fragments of the handle and fell off backwards from the shoulder of the giant to the ground. He turned his head. This is what he saw: a pillar of stone, the sword through it from one side to the other.

  He climbed the stone, but he could not draw out the sword, so he went back through the forest to the coppice of thin trees. He found both trees and earth in one slab of ice. It was not a good camp for him to stay that night.

  “I am a stranger,” said Lusca, “and I have come a long way to be at the Forest of Wonders, but I shall not be the better for it, if I am alive tomorrow.”

  He did not know what to do. The water of the forest was as cold as drowned sally; the air was full of ghosts, so that if a kindred friend had come close to a man he would not hear him for the talk and the shouting.

  “It is not a danger to me,” said Lusca. “They are not things of fight or conflict.”

  He saw a shining lamp lit up, a girl bearing the lamp, and that the girl was Grian Sun-face, from the gold tower under the lake.

  She said, “Come with me to my father’s castle. He is the King of the Forest of Wonders. The Great Dug of the World is with him.”

  The King of the Forest of Wonders rose up and took Lusca by the hand and put him sitting in the king’s place.

  “Who is the young hero?” said the king to Grian Sun-face.

  “Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, is that man,” she said, “and give him everything he shall ask of you, for he is able to take it against your will. Though your hosts are many they are very little in his hands, for it was by him that the battle was broken on the Big Mokkalve in the Lands of Sorcha. Many, too, were the horrors of your forest, yet they fell by him. It is better to give him everything he shall ask of you.”

  “What thing will he ask?” said the king.

  “I am sure that he is on the track of the Great Dug of the World,” said Grian Sun-face.

  “It is well we did not meet at the beginning of this night,” said the king. “But now what good thing would you have of the forest?”

  “The thing I would have is the Great Dug of the World,” said Lusca.

  “The Great Dug of the World is not with me,” said the king. “The Cat of the Free Isle has it, for she brought it away before you, to make alive again the Kurrirya Crookfoot and your two brothers.”

  “Sweet is that to hear,” said Lusca, and he went straight to the battle-hill in the Lands of Sorcha, Grian Sun-face with him.

  They found the hag, sitting by the fire, the Great Dug of the World next to her, and the dead Kurrirya next to that, in the grave of green cresses. But of the cat or of his brothers Lusca had no sign.

  The hag said, “This hill is my hill, and the man who makes fire on my hill is my man; and I must have ransom of gold or ransom of the head of the man himself or would you spend this night with me?”

  “Lay aside your silly talk,” said Lusca. “Where are my brothers?”

  “The Cat of the Free Isle made them alive,” said the hag. “They have gone after her to find the place where she is in.”

  Lusca knelt by the Kurrirya.

  The hag said, “Get him from uselessness: up from dreaming.”

  He took the Great Dug of the World and bathed the Kurrirya with the stuff that was in it.

  The hag said, “Where life ran let words come. Join the silver bone: bond the gold vein. Drench death down.”

  The Kurrirya rose up as whole and as healthy as he had ever been.

  Lusca said, “My foster-brother and my kindred friend. And the gate of my side is closed.”

  “The woman you must find,” said the Kurrirya, “is at the City of the Red Stream. I came through the world and death to give you this; but you did not, and you would not, as I told you.”

  “And me you left,” said the hag.

  Lusca made a look at the hag. She changed misshape for shapeliness before him. She stood, Behinya, the treasure of a woman, sister to Bright-eyed Faylinn, the Cat of the Free Isle.

  Then they welcomed each other in words of the olden time, kissed lovingly and told their adventures from first to last.

  “Now tell me of the city,” said Lusca.

  The Kurrirya said, “Here is how the city is: there are three chieftain streams around it, and they are in a crimson-lit flame. For the heat and the fire no man dare approach the city. Whoever sees it will never have his health from all the flame and the heat. Every evil that ever was met was good when put against the ills of that city. In the city is the woman. That is the place where she is in.”

  Lusca, the Kurrirya, Behinya and Grian Sun-face then took the good and the ill of it upon themselves and put the ship out over the back-ridges of each deep sea till they came to the City of the Red Stream.

  They found the big brother and the little brother of Lusca sitting outside the walls of the city by the three chieftain streams of flame. The brothers had taken all the third plunder division of the world on their way to the city, but the city itself they could not reach for the full-red lake.

  “There are no men in it,” said the big brother, “except a hundred only; and they are the Kings of the World.”

  “But there are three thousand women in it,” said the little brother. “Over them all is the woman we must find.”

  “It is by the women,” said the big brother, “that the greater portion of valour of life is remembered. Great is the fear, even for you, from them.”

  They bore away that night until the morning of the morrow, until the day shone with its fierce light. Yet no less for that were the flames about the city burning.

  There came out over the walls of the city Bright-eyed Faylinn. She had a cloak about her, the clustering hair over her shoulder, two spears of fire in her hand.

  Then Lusca struck a shield blow and a fight kindling upon his shield. Faylinn said, “I never left corner nor country, nor islet nor island, on sea or on land, but I visited there; yet I never heard the like of that shield blow, for the whole city is in one quivering and one thunder.”

  The Kurrirya said, “Lusca is here, and his two brothers are here, the sons of the King of Irrua; and Grian Sun-face, daughter of the King of the Forest of Wonders, and Behinya, your own half-sister, and I, the Kurrirya; I am here.”

  Faylinn said, “No greater for that is the heed that we pay them.”

  “Do not speak foolish and unprofitable words,” said the Kurrirya. “Except for the red stream you would know the strong man; the blue candle of valour, the right hand of heroes, the battle-prop of countries and the sustaining warrant of all; the king-tree of heroism, the mind without turning; Lusca, son of Dolvath, son of Libren, son of Loman, son of Cas, son o
f Tag of the kindred of Irrua.”

  Faylinn said, “No greater for that is the heed that we pay them. You have not the crossing of the red stream.”

  Lusca said, “What brings the wonderful heat into this flood beyond every other flood?”

  Faylinn said, “I think it friendly to let you know it. Seven stones I have in that stream. It is a part of their virtue that whatever stream or river-mouth in which they are placed shall always turn to be a blaze of flame, so long as the stones shall be in it.”

  Lusca said, “Is there anything that would prevent the heat of this full-red lake?”

  Faylinn said, “I think it friendly to let you know it. There is knowledge and prophecy for us that a man shall come and shall quench the fire in our despite. Against him the flames shall grow cold. But the man is not Lusca, nor his big brother, nor his little brother, nor the Kurrirya Crookfoot. The man is Lurga Lom.”

  Lusca heard this, and a fist upon manhood, a fist upon strengthening, a fist upon power went into him. He said, “If ever the earth has put on the ridge of its back such a man, let me see him.” He went from the city in the power of the sharp-travelling wind to the Upland of Grief in Isbernya, to the forge and the cave of Shasval the Smith. He stood at the cave and said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”

  The smith said nothing and hammered a Sword of Light.

  Lusca said, “Where is Lurga Lom?”