Buch lesen: «Power of Three»

chapter one

This is the story of the children of Adara – of Ayna and Ceri who both had Gifts, and of Gair, who thought he was ordinary. But, as all the things which later happened on the Moor go back to something Adara’s brother Orban did one summer day when Adara herself was only seven years old, this is the first thing to be told.

The Moor was never quite free of mist. Even at bright noon that bright summer day there was a smokiness to the trees and the very corn, so that it could have been a green landscape reflected in one of its own sluggish, peaty dykes. The reason was that the Moor was a sunken plain, almost entirely surrounded by low green hills. Much of it was still marsh, and the Sun drew vapours from it constantly.

Orban was swaggering along a straight green track, away from Otmound, which stood low and turfy behind him, slightly in advance of the ring of hills round the Moor. Beyond it, away to his left, was its companion, the Haunted Mound, which had a huge boulder planted crookedly on top of it, no one knew why. Orban could see it when he turned to warn his sister, loftily over his shoulder, not to go near marsh or standing water. He was annoyed with her for following him, but he did not want to get into trouble for not taking care of her.

It was one of those times when the Giants were at war among themselves. From time to time, from beyond the mists at the edge of the Moor, came the blank thump and rumble of their weapons. Orban took no notice. Giants did not interest him. The track he was on was an old Giants’ road. If he looked down through the turf, he could see the great stones of it, too heavy for men to lift, and he thought he might kill a few Giants some day. But his mind was mostly taken up with Orban, who was twelve years old and going to be Chief. Orban had a fine new sword. He swished it importantly and fingered the thick gold collar round his neck that marked him as the son of a Chief.

“Hurry up, or the Dorig will get you!” he called back to Adara.

Adara, being only seven, was nervous of the Giants and their noise. It was mixed up in her mind with the sound of thunder when, it always seemed to her, even bigger Giants rolled wooden balls around in the sky. But she did not want Orban to think she was afraid, so she hurried beside him down the green track and pretended not to hear the noise.

Orban had come out to be alone with his new sword and his own glory but, since Adara had followed him out, he decided to unveil his glory to her a little. “I know ten times as much as you do,” he told her.

“I know you do,” Adara answered humbly.

Orban scowled. One does not want glory accepted as a matter of course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it. “I bet you didn’t know the Haunted Mound is stuffed with the ghosts of dead Dorig,” he said. “The Otmounders killed them all, hundreds of years ago. The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig.”

This was common knowledge. But since Adara really thought Orban was the cleverest person she knew, she politely said nothing.

“Dorig are just vermin,” Orban continued, displeased by her silence. “Cold-blooded vermin. They can’t sing, or weave, or fight, or work gold. They just lie under water and wait to pull you under. Did you know half the hills round the Moor used to be full of people, until the Dorig killed them all off?”

“I thought that was the Plague,” Adara said timidly.

“You’re stupid,” said Orban. Adara, seeing it had been a mistake to correct him, said humbly that she knew she was. This did not please Orban either. He sought about for some method of startling Adara into a true sense of his superiority.

The prospect was not promising. The track led among tufts of rushes, straight into misty distance. There was a hedge and a dyke half a field away. A band of mist lay over a dip in the old road and a spindly blackbird was watching them from it. The blackbird would have to do. “You see that blackbird?” said Orban.

A blunt volley of noise from the Giants made Adara jump. She looked round and discovered that Otmound was already misty with distance. “Let’s go home,” she said.

“This is one thing you don’t know. Go home if you want,” said Orban, “but if that blackbird is really a Dorig, I can make it shift to its proper shape. I know the words. Shall I say them?”

“No. Let’s go home,” Adara said, shivering.

“Baby!” said Orban. “You watch.” And he marched towards the bird, saying the words and swishing his sword in time to them.

Nothing happened, because Orban got the words wrong. Nothing whatsoever would have happened, had not Adara, who hated Orban to look a fool, obligingly said the words right for him.

A wave of cold air swept out of the hollow, making both children shiver. They were too horrified to move. The blackbird, after a frantic flutter of protest, dissolved into mist thicker and greyer than the haze around it. The mist swirled, and solidified into a shape much larger. It was the pale, scaly figure of a Dorig, right enough. It was crouched on one knee in the dip, staring towards them in horror, and holding in both hands a twisted green-gold collar not unlike Orban’s or Adara’s.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Orban snarled at Adara. But, as he said it, he realised that the Dorig was not really very large. He had been told that Dorig usually stood head and shoulders above a grown man, but this one was probably only as high as his chin. It had a weak and spindly look too. It did not seem to have a weapon and, better still, Orban knew that those words, once spoken, would prevent the creature shifting shape until sundown. There was no chance of it turning into an adder or a wolf.

Feeling very much better, Orban marched towards the dip, swinging his sword menacingly. The Dorig stood up, trembling, and backed away a few steps. It was rather smaller than Orban had thought. Orban began to feel brave. He scanned the thing contemptuously, and the collar flashing between its pale fingers caught his attention. It was a very fine one. Though it was the same horseshoe shape as Orban’s and made of the same green gold, it was twice the width and woven into delicate filigree patterns. Orban glimpsed words, animals and flowers in the pattern. And the knobs at either end, which in Orban’s collar were just plain bosses, seemed to be in the shape of owls’ heads on this one. Now Orban, only the day before, had been severely slapped for fooling about with a collar rather less fine. He knew the art of making this kind had been lost long ago. No wonder the Dorig was so frightened. He had caught it red-handed with a valuable antique.

“What are you doing with that collar?” he demanded.

The Dorig looked tremulously up at Orban’s face. Orban found its strange yellow eyes disgusting. “Only sunning it,” it said apologetically. “You have to sun gold, or it turns back to earth again.”

“Nonsense,” said Orban. “I’ve never sunned mine in my life.”

“You live more in the air than we do,” the Dorig pointed out.

Orban shuddered, thinking of the way the Dorig skulked out their lives under stinking marsh-water. And they were cold blooded too, so of course they would have to sun any gold they stole. Ugh! “Where did you get that collar?” he said sternly.

The Dorig seemed surprised that he should ask. “From my father, of course! Didn’t your father give you yours?”

“Yes,” said Orban. “But my father’s Chief Og of Otmound.”

“I expect he’s a very great man,” the Dorig said politely.

Orban was almost too angry to speak. It was clear that this miserable, tremulous Dorig had never even heard of Og of Otmound. “My father,” he said, “is senior Chief on the Moor. And your father’s a thief. He stole that collar from somewhere.”

“He didn’t – he had it made!” the Dorig said indignantly. “And he’s not a thief! He’s the King.”

Orban stared. The Giants interrupted with another distant thump and rumble, but Orban’s mind took that in no more than it would take in what the Dorig had just said. If it was true, it meant that this wretched, skinny, scaly creature was more important than he was. And he knew that must be nonsense. “All Dorig are liars,” he explained to Adara.

“I’m not!” the Dorig protested.

Adara was in dread that Orban was going to make a fool of himself, as he so often did. “I’m sure he’s telling the truth, Orban,” she said. “Let’s go home now.”

“He’s lying,” Orban insisted. “Dorig can’t work gold, so it must all be lies.”

“No, you’re wrong. We have some very good goldsmiths,” said the Dorig. Seeing Adara was ready to believe this, it turned eagerly to her. “I watched them make this collar. They wove words in for Power, Riches and Truth. Is yours the same?”

Adara, much impressed, fingered her own narrower, plainer collar. “Mine only has Safety. So does Orban’s.”

Orban could not bear Adara to be impressed by anyone but himself. He refused to believe a word of it. “Don’t listen,” he said. “It’s just trying to make you believe it hasn’t stolen that collar.” Adara looked from Orban to the Dorig, troubled and undecided. Orban saw he had not impressed her. Very well. She must be made to see who was right. He held out his hand imperiously to the Dorig. “Come on. Hand it over.”

The Dorig did not understand straight away. Then its yellow eyes widened and it backed away a step, clutching the collar to its thin chest. “But it’s mine! I told you!”

“Orban, leave him be,” Adara said uncomfortably.

By this time, Orban was beginning to see he might be making a fool of himself. It made him furiously angry, and all the more determined to impress Adara in spite of it. “Give me that collar,” he said to the Dorig. “Or I’ll kill you.” To prove that he could, he swung his new sword so that the air whistled. The Dorig flinched.

“Run away,” Adara advised it urgently.

Finding Adara now definitely on the side of the Dorig was the last straw to Orban. “Do, and I’ll catch you in two steps!” he told it. “Then I’ll kill you and take the collar anyway. So hand it over.”

The Dorig knew its shorter legs were no match for Orban’s. It stood where it was, clutching the collar and shaking. “I haven’t even got a knife,” it said. “And you stopped me shifting shape till this evening.”

“That was my fault. I’m sorry,” said Adara.

“Shut up!” Orban snarled at her. He made a swift left-handed snatch at the collar. “Give me that!”

The Dorig dodged. “I can’t!” it said desperately. “Tell him I can’t,” it said to Adara.

“Orban, you know he can’t,” said Adara. “If it was yours, it could only be taken off your dead body.”

This only made it clear to Orban that he would have to kill the creature. He had gone too far to turn back with dignity, and the knowledge maddened him further. Anyway, what business had the Dorig to imitate the customs of men? “I told you to shut up,” he said to Adara. “Besides, it’s only a stolen collar, and that’s not the same. Give it!” He advanced on the Dorig.

It backed away from him, looking quite desperate. “Be careful! I’ll put a curse on the collar if you try. It won’t do you any good if you do get it.”

Orban’s reply was to snatch at the collar again. The Dorig side-stepped, though only just in time. But it managed, in spite of its shaking fingers, to get the collar round its neck, making it much more difficult for Orban to grab. Then it began to curse. Adara marvelled, and even Orban was daunted, at the power and fluency of that curse. They had no idea Dorig knew words that way.

In a shrill hasty voice, the creature laid it on the collar that the words woven in it should in future work against the owner, that Power should bring pain, Riches loss, Truth disaster, and ill-luck of all kinds follow the feet and cloud the mind of the possessor. Then it ran its pale fingers along the intricate twists and pattern of the design, bringing each part it touched to bear on the curse: fish for loss by water, animals for loss by land, flowers for death of hope, knots for death of friendship, fruit for failure and barrenness, and each, as they were joined in the workmanship, to be joined in the life of the owner. At last, touching the owl’s head at either end, it laid on them to be guardians and cause the collar’s owner to cling to it and keep it as if it were the most precious thing he knew.

When this was said, the Dorig paused. It was panting and palely flushed. “Well? Do you still want it?”

Adara was appalled to hear so much beauty spoilt and such careful workmanship turned against itself. “No!” she said. “And do get them to make you another one when you get home.”

But Orban listened feeling rather cunning. He noticed that not once had the Dorig invoked any higher Power than that of the collar itself. Without the Sun, the Moon or the Earth, even such a curse as this could only bring mild bad luck. The creature must take him for a fool. The Giants began thumping away again beyond the horizon, as if they were applauding Orban’s acuteness. Determined not to be outwitted, Orban flung himself on the Dorig and got his hand hooked round the collar before it could move. “Now give it!”

“No!” The Dorig kept both hands to the collar and pulled away. Orban swung his new sword and brought it down on the creature’s head. It bowed and staggered. Adara flung herself on Orban and tried to pull him away. Orban pushed her over with an easy shove of his right elbow and raised his sword again. Beyond the horizon, the Giants thundered like rocks raining from heaven.

“All right!” cried the Dorig. “I call on the Old Power, the Middle and the New to hold this curse to my collar. May it never loose until the Three are placated.”

Orban was furious at this duplicity. He brought his sword down hard. The Dorig gave a weak cry and crumpled up. Orban wrenched the collar from its neck and stood up, shaking with triumph and disgust. The Giants’ noise stopped, leaving a thick silence.

“Orban, how could you!” said Adara, kneeling on the turf of the old road.

Orban looked contemptuously from her to his victim. He was a little surprised to see that the blood coming out of the pale corpse was bright red and steamed a little in the cold air. But he remembered that fish sometimes come netted with blood quite as red, and that things on a muck-heap steam as they decay. “Get up,” he said to Adara. “The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig. Come on.”

He set off for home, with Adara pattering miserably behind. Her face was pale and stiff, and her teeth were chattering. “Throw the collar away, Orban,” she implored him. “It’s got a dreadful strong curse on it.”

Orban had, in fact, been uneasily wondering whether to get rid of the collar. But Adara’s timidity at once made him obstinate. “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “He didn’t invoke any proper Powers. If you ask me, he made a complete mess of it.”

“But it was a dying curse,” Adara pointed out.

Orban pretended not to hear. He put the collar into the front of his jacket and firmly buttoned it. Then he made a great to-do over cleaning his sword, whistling, and pretending to himself that he felt much better about the Dorig than he did. He told himself he had just acquired a valuable piece of treasure; that the Dorig had certainly told a pack of lies; and that if it had told the truth, he had just struck a real blow at the enemy; and the only good Dorig were dead ones.

“We’d better ask Father about those Powers,” Adara said miserably.

“Oh no we won’t!” said Orban. “Don’t you dare say a word to anyone. If you do, I’ll put the strongest words I know on you. Go on – swear you won’t say a word.”

His ferocity so appalled Adara that she swore by the Sun and the Moon never to tell a living soul. Orban was satisfied. He did not bother to consider why he was so anxious that no one should know about the collar. His mind conveniently sheered off from what Og would say if he knew his son had killed an unarmed and defenceless creature for the sake of a collar which was cursed. No. Once Adara had sworn not to tell, Orban began to feel pleased with the morning’s work.

It was otherwise with Adara. She was wretched. She kept remembering the look of pleasure in the Dorig’s yellow eyes when it saw she was ready to believe it, and their look of despair when it invoked the Powers. She knew it was her fault. If she had not said the words right, Orban would not have killed the Dorig and brought home a curse. She could have gone on thinking the world of Orban instead of knowing he was just a cruel bully.

For Adara, almost the worst part was her disillusionment with Orban. It spread to everyone in Otmound. She looked at them all and listened to them talk, and it seemed to her that they would all have done just the same as Orban. She told herself that when she grew up she would never marry – never – unless she could find someone quite different.

But quite the worst part was not being able to tell anyone. Adara longed to confess. She had never felt so guilty in her life. But she had sworn the strongest oath and she dared not say a word. Whenever she thought of the Dorig she wanted to cry, but her guilt and terror stopped her doing even that. First she dared not cry, then she found she could not. Before a month passed she was pale and ill and could not eat.

They put her to bed, and Og was very concerned. “What’s on your mind, Adara?” he said, stroking her head. “Tell me.”

Adara dared not say a word. It was the first time she had kept a secret from her father and it made her feel worse than ever. She rolled away and covered her head with the blanket. If only I could cry! she thought. But I can’t, because the Dorig’s curse is working.

Og was afraid someone had put a curse on Adara. He was very worried because Adara was far and away his favourite child. He had lamps lit and the right words said, to be on the safe side. Orban was terrified. He thought Adara had told Og about the Dorig. He stormed in on Adara where she lay staring up at the thatch and longing to confess and cry.

“Have you said anything?” Orban demanded.

“No,” Adara said wretchedly.

“Not even to the walls or the hearthstone?” Orban asked suspiciously, since he knew this was how secrets often got out.

“No,” said Adara. “Not to anything.”

“Thank the Powers!” said Orban and, greatly relieved, he went off to put the collar in a safer hiding-place.

Adara sat up as he went. He had put a blessed, splendid idea into her head. She might not be able to tell Og or even the hearthstone, but what was to prevent her confessing to the stones of the old Giants’ road? They had watched it all anyway from under the turf. They had received the Dorig’s blood. She could go and remind them of the whole story, and maybe then she could cry and feel better.

Og was pleased to see how much better Adara was that same evening. She ate a natural supper and slept properly all night. He allowed her to get up the next morning, and the next day he allowed her to go out.

This was what Adara had been waiting for. Outside Otmound she stayed for a while among the sheep, until she was sure no one was anxiously watching her. Then she ran her hardest to the old road.

It was a hot day. The grey mists of the Moor hung heavily and the trees were dark. When Adara, panting and sweating, reached the dip in the track, all she found was a column of midges circling in the air above it. There was not a trace of the Dorig – not so much as a drop of blood on a blade of grass – yet her memory of it was so keen that she could almost see the scaly body lying there.

“He looked so small!” she exclaimed, without meaning to. “And so thin! And he did bleed so!”

Her voice rang in the thick silence. Adara jumped. She looked hurriedly round, afraid that someone might have heard. But nothing moved in the rushes by the track, no birds flew and the distant hedge was silent. Even the Giants made no sound. High above Adara’s head was the little white circle of the full Moon, up in broad daylight. She knew that was a good omen. She went down on her knees in the grass and, looking through to the old stones, began her confession.

“Oh stones,” she said, “I have such a terrible thing to remind you of.” And she told it all, what she had said, what Orban had said, and what the poor frightened Dorig had said, until she came to herself saying, “off your dead body.” Then she cried. She cried and cried, rocking on her knees with her hands to her face, quite unable to stop, buried in the relief of being able to cry at last.

A little mottled grass-snake, which had been coiled all this while in the middle of the nearest clump of rushes, now poured itself down on to the warm turf and waited, bent into an S-shape, beside Adara. When she did nothing but rock and cry, it reared up with its yellow eyes very bright and wet, and uttered a soft Hssst! Adara never heard. She was too buried in sorrow.

The snake hesitated. Then it seemed to shrug. Adara, as she wept, thought she felt a chill and a rising shadow beside her, but she was not aware of anything more until a small voice at her shoulder said imperiously, “Well, go on, can’t you! What did my brother say next?”

Adara’s head whipped round. She found herself face to face with a small Dorig – a very small Dorig, no bigger than she was – who was kneeling beside her on the track. His eyes were browner than the dead Dorig’s, and he had a stouter, fiercer look, but she could see a family likeness between them. This one was obviously much younger. He did not seem to have grown scales yet. His pale body was clothed in a silvery sort of robe and the gold collar on his neck was a plain, simple band, suitable for somebody very young. Adara knew he could not possibly harm her, but she was still horrified to see him.

“Go on!” commanded the small Dorig, and his yellow-brown eyes filled with angry tears. “I want to know what happened next.”

“But I can’t!” Adara protested, also in tears again. “I swore to Orban by the Sun and the Moon not to tell a soul, and if you heard me I’ve broken it. The most dreadful things will happen.”

“No, they won’t,” said the little Dorig impatiently. “You were telling it to the stones, not to me, and I happened to overhear. What’s to stop you telling the stones the rest?”

“I daren’t,” said Adara.

“Don’t be stupid,” said the Dorig. “I’ve been coming here and coming here for nearly a month now, and I’ve got into trouble every time I got home, because I wanted to find out what happened. And now you go and stop at the important part. Look.” His long pale finger pointed first to the ground, then up at the white disc of the Moon, and then moved on to point to the Sun, high in the South. “Three Powers present. You were meant to tell, don’t you see? But if you’re too scared, it doesn’t matter. I know it must have been your brother Orban who killed my brother and stole his collar.”

“Oh, all right then,” Adara said drearily. “Stones, it was my brother. I tried to stop him but he pushed me over.”

“Didn’t my brother say anything else?” prompted the Dorig boy.

“Yes, he put a curse on his collar,” said Adara. “Stones.”

“Ah!” said the Dorig boy. “I thought he must have done something. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he was very clever. What was the curse?”

“Stones,” said Adara, and hesitated. She dared not repeat the words of the curse, well though she remembered them, for fear of bringing it on herself. She had to pick her way, telling it haltingly in her own words, through the pattern of the collar and the pattern of disaster woven into it, until she reached the owls’ heads at either end. “Then he said the birds’ faces were to – er – watch and make sure the one who has the collar will – not be able to let it go even though – er – it costs him the everything he’s got. Stones,” she concluded, thankful to have got it over.

The small Dorig beside her frowned. “But didn’t he name any Powers? I thought—”

“Oh yes, stones,” said Adara. “But not ones I know, and not until Orban tried to take the collar off him.”

“What Powers? Sun, Moon—?”

“No, no. Stones,” said Adara. There seemed to be no way of mentioning the Powers without naming them. Adara dropped her voice and crossed the fingers of both hands, with her thumbs under that for added protection. “The Old Power, the Middle and the New,” she whispered.

“Oh.” The Dorig boy looked very awed and also very satisfied. “That’s all right then. Nothing will stop the curse working now.”

“Unless the Powers are appeased,” Adara said. “Can’t I try and appease them? It was my fault.”

“I don’t think so. Not all Three.”

“Well, I swear to try,” said Adara.

The Dorig boy seemed a little troubled by her decision. “But I don’t want you to.” He thought a moment. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Adara simply looked at him. She knew well enough that you did not trust strangers with your name. And the worst of it was that she had already made him a present of Orban’s.

“It’s all right,” he said irritably. “I quite like you. And I only asked so that I shouldn’t swear to kill you by mistake. Mine’s Hathil – truly. Now what’s yours?”

Adara looked into his yellow-brown eyes and thought he was telling the truth. Having glanced at his hands, in case his fingers were crossed, and found them straight, she said, “Adara.”

“Thanks,” said Hathil. “Now I can swear. You can swear to lift the curse if you want. I swear to revenge my brother by helping the curse in every way I can. I shall spill every drop of Orban’s blood, except Adara’s, and dedicate it to the Powers. I call on them not to be placated until none of Orban’s people are left alive on the Moor. May the hidden stones bear witness, and the Sun, Moon and Earth.”

Adara listened dejectedly. She did not deny Hathil had the right to swear, but it did not seem fair on all the other people who had done him no harm. When he finished, she said, “Don’t you think you’re rather young to swear all that?”

“Blame your brother,” Hathil said stiffly. “He’s a murdering brute.” Adara sighed. “And I liked H—my brother,” Hathil explained. “He was clever, and he told me all sorts of things. I was going to go exploring when I grew up, and now I can’t because they’re going to make me King instead. They won’t let me out of their sight most of the time now. But the one good thing I can see about being King is that I can order everyone to fight Orban. And I’m not too young to swear. Do you see those stones?” He jabbed his pale finger down at the old road. Adara looked through at the cracked old stones in some perplexity. Though they had figured largely in the conversation, she could not see quite what bearing they had on Hathil’s age. “The Giants who made this road,” said Hathil, “were almost destroyed by a Giant who swore to stamp them out when he was not much older than I am.”

Adara was impressed. “How do you know that?”

“I learnt it,” said Hathil. “It pays to learn things.”

Adara, in spite of her dejection, felt Hathil was right. Perhaps, if she learnt and learnt, she might find a way of lifting that curse before it destroyed Orban, and before Hathil was old enough to carry out his oath. “I think,” she said, “you’ll make an awfully good King.” Hathil looked at her suspiciously. “You seem to know so well what you’re going to do,” Adara explained.

“Oh, that,” said Hathil. “Yes, I do.”

After that Adara went home greatly comforted and worked hard to learn as much as she could. She grew up famous for her wisdom. Orban, on the other hand, grew steadily more unlucky. He broke his leg twice. When he was fourteen, he accidentally killed his best friend. When he was eighteen and had grown into a sulky young man with scraggly red hair, he fell in love with the most unpleasant woman on the Moor. Her name was Kasta. Many people thought it was the greatest misfortune yet, when Kasta married Orban. They had several children, but none lived to be a year old.

The bad luck spread from Orban to the rest of Otmound. Sheep died, hunting was bad and other food scarce. Otmound got steadily poorer. Outside, Dorig roamed in increasing numbers, and grew bolder and bolder. Otmounders soon dared not go out alone for fear of being pulled under water.

The bad luck spread from Otmound to the other mounds. There was fire in Beckhill and flooding in Islaw. And as Adara, for all her learning, could not learn how to lift the curse, it went on spreading, so that long before Ayna, Ceri and Gair were born, even the Giants were affected.