The Book of Three: Chapters 15–20

There was a crash, as though the earth had split asunder; the water turned to foam, and Taran felt himself dashed against an unyielding wall.

Cautiously, he felt around him; his fingers touched only wet, flat stone, an embankment of some kind. A pale blue light shone high above him. Taran decided he had come to rest in a cave or grotto.

“Here! Get that one!” a gruff voice shouted.

Their captors were half-a-dozen squat, round, stubby-legged warriors. Axes hung from their belts and each man had a bow and quiver of arrows on his shoulder.

The left eye of the short, burly fellow who stood beside Eilonwy was turning greenish-black.

Before them, at a long stone table, a dwarfish figure with a bristling yellow beard glared at the warriors. He wore a robe of garish red and green.

He had hoped Gurgi would have overcome his fear, but he could not blame the creature for running off after his ordeal in the whirlpool.

“Naturally,” said Eiddileg, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You have no idea you’re in the very heart of the Kingdom of Tylwyth Teg, the Fair Folk, the Happy Family, the Little People, or whatever other insipid, irritating names you’ve put on us. Oh, no, of course not. You just happened to be passing by.”

Before Taran could warn Eilonwy not to be imprudent, the door of the throne, room burst open and a crowd of folk pressed in.

“The Lake Sprites have been quarreling all day; now they’re sulking. Their hair’s a mess. And who does that reflect on? Who has to jolly them along, coax them, plead with them? The answer is obvious."

“Thank you, dear girl,” said King Eiddileg, bowing lower. “I see you’re the sort of person one can talk to intelligently. It’s unheard of for one of you big shambling louts to have any kind of insight into these matters. But you at least seem to understand the problems we face.”

“More clotted nonsense,” King Eiddileg said, looking contemptuously at the swords pointed toward him. He shook his fingers at them. “There! And there! Now you might try to move your arms.”

There could be no use, Taran saw, in concealing the reasons for his journey; he explained to Eiddileg what had befallen them.

The Dwarf King ceased his blustering at the mention of Arawn, but when Taran had finished, King Eiddileg shook his head.

“For an Assistant Pig-Keeper,” said Eiddileg, “you’re reasonably eloquent. But the Fair Folk will worry about Arawn when the time comes.”

“I don’t think you really know what’s going on above ground,” Eilonwy suddenly exclaimed. “You talk about charm and beauty and sacrificing yourself to make things pleasant for people. I don’t believe you care a bit for that. You’re too conceited and stubborn and selfish.”

“Finders keepers,” the Dwarf King snapped. “A troop of the Fair Folk came on her near the Avren banks. She was running through a ravine. And I’ll tell you something you don’t know. Half-a-dozen warriors were after her, the henchmen of the Horned King. The troop took care of those warriors—we have our own ways of dealing with you clumsy lummoxes—and they brought your pig here, underground most of the way.”

In the great domes far overhead, gems glittered as bright as sunshine. There was no grass, but deep carpets of green lichen stretched out like meadows.

Without another word, Doli beckoned them to follow him across the meadow.

Hen Wen had not left Taran’s side all day. Now, as he spread his cloak on the ground, the white pig grunted with pleasure, waddled over, and hunkered down beside him.

As Taran cautiously approached, the gwythaint fluttered vainly, unable to free itself.

“Oh, stop it!” Doli finally burst out. “I can’t stand looking at botched work. Here, get out of the way.” He shouldered Taran aside, squatted on the ground, and picked up the saplings.

When Fflewddur, endeavoring to make friends, put his finger into the cage, the gwythaint roused and slashed at him with its beak.

“Even so,” she added, “Doli means well. He’s not half as disagreeable as he pretends to be, and I’m sure he’s worried about us. He’s like a porcupine, all prickly on the outside, but very ticklish once you turn him over. If he’d only stop trying to make himself invisible, I think it should do a lot to improve his disposition.”

Melyngar neighed uneasily; Hen Wen, placid and agreeable until now, began to roll her eyes and mutter to herself.

Beside him, he heard Gurgi shout triumphantly. Of the volley, only Gurgi’s bolt had found its mark. A warrior toppled from his horse, the shaft deep in his throat.

The dwarf scowled and thought for a few moments. “Possible,” he said, “but we’ll have to go into the valley. We’ll be in the middle of the Horned King’s vanguard if we do.”

But the dawn revealed a sight that filled Taran with despair. The valley roiled with warriors wherever he turned his eyes.

His head spun; his arm, swathed in white linen, throbbed painfully.

“How—can—I—tell—you—anything,” Eilonwy said, deliberately pronouncing every word and making extravagant grimaces as she did so, “if—you—don’t—want—me—to—talk?”

Doli, for the first time, grinned. “Never thought any of you had any mettle to show,” he said, attempting to be gruff.

“There we were,” he cried, “fighting like madmen, hopelessly outnumbered. But a Fflam never surrenders! I took on three at once. Slash! Thrust! Another seized me from behind, the wretched coward. But I flung him off. We disengaged them and made for Caer Dathyl, chopping and hacking all the way, beset on all sides.”

“I girded it on him myself,” Eilonwy interrupted. She turned to Gwydion. “I told him not to draw it, but he’s impossibly stubborn.”

“How long I lay there, I cannot be sure,” Gwydion continued. “In Oeth-Anoeth, time is not as you know it here. It is better that I do not speak of the torments Achren had devised. The worst were not of the body but of the spirit, and of these the most painful was despair."

“Where is the gwythaint now?” asked Taran.
Gwydion shook his head. “I do not know. But I doubt she will ever return to Annuvin, for Arawn would rend her to pieces once he learned what she had done. I only know she has repaid your kindness in the fullest measure.

The white-bearded monarch, who looked as old as Dallben and as testy, was even more talkative than Eilonwy.

“These are small gifts for great valor,” he said. “But it is in my power to bestow them, which I do with a glad heart, and with hope that you will treasure them not so much for their value as for the sake of remembrance."

“Taran of Caer Dallben,” he said, “you are still as touchy and headstrong as ever. Believe that I know what you yearn for in your heart. The dreams of heroism, of worth, and of achievement are noble ones; but you, not I, must make them come true. Ask me whatever else, and I shall grant it.”

Coll embraced Taran, who was amazed that such a hero would deign to remember an Assistant Pig-Keeper, as well as Eilonwy, Hen Wen, and anyone else he could get his hands on; his face beamed like a winter fire and his bald crown glowed with delight,

From what I hear, you have been as impetuous as your friend Fflewddur; I have been told, among other things, of a night when you dove head first into a thornbush.