In the morning they set out once more, though not with quite as straightforward a route as any of them might prefer. Taran observed again that their lack of cover upon the moorlands made them easy prey for gwythaints. Accordingly, they turned north toward the forest of Idris, and within an hour were swallowed by the trees.
The Crochan had traveled with relative ease over the flat moors, but their spirits were soon dashed as they labored to guide it through the woods. The horses, heads tossing, sides lathered, stumbled on the narrow paths, dragging the cauldron out of balance, colliding with one another and with their masters until everyone was exhausted.
Taran called a halt and came to examine Melynlas, exclaiming in dismay to see that the weight of the cauldron pulling on his saddle had chafed him in several places. "Our horses have borne all they can," he said. "Come, Fflewddur, help me unrope them. It's our turn to help."
They relieved the animals of their burden and all stared dismally at the iron monstrosity. "I wish Doli were here," Taran sighed. "I'm sure he'd find an easier way of carrying the Crochan. He'd think of something clever. Like making a sling out of branches and vines."
Eilonwy turned to him in surprise. "There, you've just said it yourself! You see," she added, "you're doing amazingly well without Adaon's brooch."
He shook his head, but she caught the ghost of a smile as he looked about them at the trees. "Well…Doli would be better at it, I'm sure, but it's worth trying. Shall we cut branches, Fflewddur?"
"Indeed! A sword makes a poor axe," Fflewddur said ruefully, "but since we've no axes—we'll do what we can! A Fflam is willing!"
"Come, Gurgi." Eilonwy pulled out her dagger. "Let's hunt for vines."
Gurgi complied eagerly, and proved effective; years of living in the trees had honed his instincts for such a task, and he adeptly found the ones that were sound and flexible enough for use. Together, they stripped long, clinging tendrils and carried them back to the others.
Taran had a good mind for piecing things together; Eilonwy had often watched admiringly as he tinkered with various implements, and even Coll had begun to take his suggestions for improvements to their tools and constructions seriously. Now he threw himself into his goal, taking on the greatest share of the labor. Haltingly at first, and then with increasing confidence, he directed each of them to tasks—hold this there, tie that off, weave that end under—until the shape in his mind began to form at their feet.
They built the sling around the cauldron itself, until it sat in a net of vines, between supporting branches. "Quite ingenious!" Fflewddur said at last, as they stepped back and admired their handiwork. "Why, the thing will practically carry itself!"
His harp twinged plaintively, and Eilonwy nearly chastised it aloud for its untimely scrupulousness. "It may not do that, quite," she admitted, "but anything should be easier than dragging it on the ground. Well done." She nodded at Taran, thinking at him again: you see? You don't need a brooch, just be you, just be you!
He caught her eye, and looked a little flushed, though perhaps it was the exertion. "There's one way to know," he said with a shrug. "Come, we're wasting daylight."
They took positions at four corners, laying the ends of the branches across their shoulders like yokes, lifted at Taran's command, and moved onward. Even with the four of them, however, the cauldron was unwieldy and heavy. The sling itself was not light, and the rough branches dug into their shoulders and arms, biting at them as they stumbled along the forest path.
"Oh, poor weary arms!" moaned Gurgi. "Oh, moilings and toilings! This evil pot is a cruel and wicked master to us all! Oh, sorrow! Fainting Gurgi will never leave Caer Dallben again unbidden!"
Too proud to complain, Eilonwy silently agreed with him. The cauldron seemed to catch or crash into every dropped branch and hidden stone. More than once, one of them stumbled and went down, sending the rest tumbling as their support fell away, intent only on not allowing the fallen to be crushed by the cauldron. With every fall they had to roll the thing back onto the sling and lift it up again. The brush was dense and full of brambles; Eilonwy ceased to count how many times she had to rip herself free of clinging thorny canes. Thank goodness she'd had the foresight to wear Taran's old leggings! Though the irregular patches of cold air hitting her legs told her that even those rugged garments were suffering from the hard use.
They toiled on, creeping slowly over uneven ground. The land began to rise, forcing them into a punishing ascent. The trees grew denser. Near the apex of a hill, an ominous crack reverberated near Eilonwy's ear. Taran cried a frantic halt just as one of the supporting branches gave way. The cauldron fell with a crash, flinging them all painfully to the ground.
Eilonwy picked herself up with a groan as her companions struggled upright to survey the damage. "It's no use," Taran gasped, slumping upon his own bent knees. "We'll never get it through the forest. No sense trying."
It may have been what they all felt, but having it spoken aloud made her even more anxious and cross. "You sound like Gwystyl," Eilonwy snapped. "If I didn't have my eyes open, I could barely tell the difference."
"Gwystyl!" Fflewddur looked ruefully at his blistered hands. "I envy that fellow in his rabbit warren! Sometimes I think he had quite the right idea."
Taran scrambled to his feet and trudged around the cauldron, eyeing it with revulsion, as he might examine a thing that had been dead for days, bloated and reeking. "We are too few to carry such a burden," he said. "With another horse or another pair of hands, there might be a chance. We are only deceiving ourselves if we think we can bring the Crochan to Caer Dallben."
Eilonwy rubbed her aching temples. The despair overtaking them, she suspected, was due to more than mere exhaustion; the cauldron's poisonous influence permeated the very air, soaking into their blood like venom from a snakebite. But such knowledge gave her no comfort; what could be done about it? "That may be true," she sighed, too discouraged to argue, "but I don't know what else we can do, except keep on deceiving ourselves. And perhaps by that time we'll be home."
Taran dragged himself up to cut a new branch for the sling, and after making repairs they continued up the hill and managed to reach the summit at last. But any sense of progress was short-lived. Though the descent into a wooded valley was easier than toiling uphill, it ended on the sight of a roiling brown river, blocking their way any further.
They set the cauldron down at the bank of the turbid waters, unwilling to enter them and unable to turn back. Taran's shoulders slumped and he turned away. "There is a destiny laid on us," he groaned, "that the Crochan shall never reach Caer Dallben."
Fed up with his fatalistic declarations, Eilonwy rounded on him. "Oh, rubbish!" she spat. "I'm sick of hearing about destiny. There's nothing making you do a thing, Taran of Caer Dallben — it's just us, making one choice at a time. I chose to come on this quest and I'm not stopping until it's done or we're done! And if you stop now, then you've given up Adaon's brooch for nothing!" She paused for breath; he was staring at her, too gloomy even to be upset at her outburst, and she threw her hands up angrily. "That's worse than putting a necklace on an owl and letting it fly away!"
Fflewddur stepped between them with the graceful confidence of one adept at deflection. "If I'm not mistaken," he said, indicating the water, "that must be the River Tevvyn. I've crossed it farther to the north, where it takes its source. Surprising, the bits of information you pick up as a wandering bard."
Taran sighed. "Alas, it does us no good, my friend, unless we could turn north again and cross where the river is less wide."
"Afraid that wouldn't answer," said Fflewddur. "We'd have the mountains to go over, that way. If we're to cross at all, we shall have to do it here."
Miffed at both of them for ignoring her tirade, Eilonwy sniffed, and stomped a few steps away, her gaze on the river. Let them argue it out! But the delay irked her. It was clear they'd have to cross; standing about lamenting it only postponed the trouble when they might as well face it. Why was no one practical? "It seems a little shallower down that way," she suggested, pointing to the next curve in the bank, where the brown water bent in a dimpled, smooth curl past sedge and blackberry. "Very well, Taran of Caer Dallben, what shall it be? We can't just sit here until gwythaints or something even more disagreeable find us, and we certainly can't go back to Orddu and offer to exchange the Crochan again."
Taran stared out over the water, and took a deep breath. "If you are all willing," he said, "we shall try to cross."
They arranged themselves anew, Gurgi leading the horses while Fflewddur and Taran shouldered the sling. Eilonwy looked balefully at the churning surface of the river. There would be no stripping off of clothing this time—and not just because of the presence of her comrades. No one in their right mind would want to wrestle that cauldron into the water with nothing between it and their skin, but continuing on in this cold, in soaking-wet clothing, would be asking for misery and sickness. "We'll need to light a fire and dry off on the far side," she said out loud, "safe or not. It'll do us no good to escape from gwythaints just so we can freeze to death."
"We'll look to that once we get to the far side," Taran said, though he nodded in agreement. "It'll be high time for a rest by then. Now, here—you stay between Fflewddur and me, free to move however you need to balance the Crochan. The main thing is to keep the mouth above the river. If it fills up with water, we'll never get it out."
Keeping a steadying hand on the cauldron, Eilonwy followed as they entered the water one cautious step at a time. If only I knew what to do, she thought angrily, I could make this easier. Float it across, or…or make the current work with us. Desperately, she tried to summon the power she had felt before, tried to remember the sweet savor of water-magic in her mouth. But the frigid river slushed into her boots, and the stabbing pain of it blanked her mind. It cut at her knees, ate aching into her thighs; it rose to her waist and ribs, penetrating like a thousand knives of ice. She grit her teeth, but the pain had to go somewhere; it tore itself from her throat, rough and angry and anguished like the growls of a wounded wolf. A step ahead of her, Taran and Fflewddur puffed and groaned, struggling forward against the cold and the current as it tried to snatch their burden. Taran stumbled and nearly fell; she cried out, but he landed on sure footing somehow and threw himself into the weight of the cauldron.
"Soon there!" he cried, as he looked toward the bank; Eilonwy followed his gaze and saw that they were halfway across. Gurgi had already reached the other side and had left the horses to turn back and help them.
Beneath her numb feet, the river rocks jostled and tripped her. The cauldron bumped over hidden stones and crashed against larger ones jutting from the water…but they were nearly there, the river now lowering back to their thighs, to their knees…
Fflewddur suddenly lurched and went down with a cry; Eilonwy screamed as the cauldron jerked downstream and crushed him between itself and a boulder. She threw herself, splashing wildly, around its upstream side and seized its handle, sobbing, pulling with all her strength, nearly insensible with panic. Now, now, if ever, now!
A burst of indescribable sweetness and warmth filled her throat, her arms, shot like liquid flame into her fingertips; the cauldron's handle tingled in her grasp. In a blaze of sensation she felt the water around her change course; the current shifted, fought itself, reversed itself. She wrapped her mind around the sensation in an instinct that reacted without thought. Somehow—somehow—she was the water, changing course, forcing the cauldron…forcing it where? It didn't matter, just…away, away, blast you, get off my bard!
The Crochan moved, rolled over and sank into the shallows; she felt its settling as though the riverbed itself groaned aloud. But it was no longer her concern; she was the current, flowing smooth around Fflewddur, pushing him up and off the boulder it had pinned him against, until he stood upright.
She released her held breath and the warm sensation ebbed, falling away from her like a shed garment; she gasped and wept, clutching at its filmy edges. But they melted and left her—freezing, exhausted, almost hysterical, to drag herself to the muddy bank of the river.
Taran, she now realized, was still in the water, having done his share of hauling at the cauldron, though she'd had no awareness of him at that moment. He was wading out to Fflewddur, who was struggling through the shallows, his right arm hanging useless at his side. The bard's white face and haggard expression propelled her up and toward them. "Is it broken?" he gasped as Taran reached him. "Is it broken?"
"I'll be able to tell in a moment," Taran said, catching Eilonwy's eye worriedly as they helped the stumbling bard up the bank. Fflewddur sat down with his back to an alder, his forehead beaded with sweat despite the cold.
Taran peeled off the bard's sopping cloak, slit the sleeve of his jacket, and pushed his shirtsleeve up past the elbow. Eilonwy whimpered in horror; Fflewddur's arm was clearly broken, the snapped bone pushing up an unnatural lump, marring the slope of his forearm; his hand dangled immobile.
Taran went pale. "Yes, I'm afraid it is broken."
Fflewddur cried aloud and then groaned, a despairing sound so unlike anything she had ever heard from him that Eilonwy fell to her knees and threw her arms around him. "Oh, it's terrible!" he wept, "terrible! A Fflam is always cheerful, but this is too much to bear!"
"Oh, don't!" Eilonwy squeezed him until she realized her hands were warm and sticky instead of cold; she raised one and looked at it; it was covered in blood. Taran grabbed her wrist and shook his head at her violently before she even had the wherewithal to shriek at the sight; her heart raced and her head went light. It wasn't her own blood; she wasn't hurt; it was…
Taran looked meaningfully at Fflewddur and back at her, he silently mouthed "Bandages," and she nodded. Feeling sick and dizzy, Eilonwy pushed herself up and ran to the horses. Despite her best efforts she could not suppress her breathless sobs as she hunted through the saddlebags. It felt all too familiar: the blind fumbling through their supplies, the taste of tears, the smell of leather, trying not to hear what was passing between Taran and their wounded companion.
Not Fflewddur, she thought feverishly, not Fflewddur. Adaon was awful enough; but not Fflewddur, please, please!
Seizing a roll of linen and an herb packet, she pelted back to where Taran knelt next to the bard. The boy had cut through Fflewddur's tunic and shirt and was holding his own cloak to a gash in his friend's ribs. He took a wadded handful of the cloths she offered and pressed it hard to the flow of blood.
"This is deep," Taran murmured to her, "but it looks worse than it is. He ought to be sewn up, really, but I don't trust myself with that skill. If he's patched up properly, he'll be all right." He gave her a swift glance, and she read in his eyes that he knew what this reassurance meant to her, and narrowly escaped bursting into tears again. "See if you can calm him down," Taran added, for Fflewddur was still lamenting loudly. "All that fuss makes it harder for me. I need him to be still."
Eilonwy stood, took Fflewddur's good hand in her own trembling one and patted it. "Come now," she said coaxingly, willing her voice not to shake. "It was a bad accident, but you mustn't take on so. It can be fixed. We'll bind it up."
"No, no, it's useless!" cried Fflewddur. "It will never be the same! Oh, it is the fault of that beastly Crochan! The wretched thing struck at me deliberately, I'm sure!"
"Don't be silly," Taran said. "You'll be all right, I promise you," He tore several wide strips from his cloak. "Good as new in a little while. Of course, you won't be able to move your arm until it's healed." He motioned to Eilonwy and pointed to a very straight stick lying near her upon the ground; she handed it to him and he nodded thanks.
Fflewddur ceased not to moan. "Arm? It's not my arm that worries me! It's my harp!"
His harp? Eilonwy picked up the leather case where Taran had dropped it nearby. She unlatched its top and slid the instrument out; it was unscathed and even dry, thanks to its well-oiled, wool-lined case. "Your harp is in a better state than you are," she said, laying it in his lap.
Fflewddur's wailing stopped like a doused candle flame. "Great Belin, but you gave me a shock!" he exclaimed, and caressed the wooden curves with his free hand. "Arms? Naturally, they heal themselves with no trouble at all. I've had a dozen broken—yes, well, that is to say I snapped my wrist once during a little sword play—in any case, I have two arms. But only one harp!"
As Taran and Eilonwy stared at him and then each other in consternation, the bard heaved a sigh of relief. "Indeed," he said, "I feel better already."
The harp tensed and jangled, but no strings broke, and he stroked it gently. Quickly Taran splinted his arm, and took up the herb packet Eilonwy had brought. "Chew these," he said, handing Fflewddur some dried sprigs. "They will ease your pain. And you'd better stay perfectly still for a while. You ought to lie down."
"Lie still?" cried the bard. "Not now, of all times! We must fish that vile pot out of the river!"
They all looked dismally at the cauldron, sitting on its side, while the river gushed and eddied inside its gaping mouth. Taran frowned. "No. The three of us will try to raise it. With a broken arm, even a Fflam wouldn't be much help."
"By no means!" cried Fflewddur. "A Fflam is always helpful!" But when he struggled to rise, he gasped in pain and sank back.
"You rest," Eilonwy ordered him. "Just now, the most helpful thing a Fflam can do is not hurt himself further." He looked at her ruefully and gave a helpless, frustrated shrug.
Eilonwy and Gurgi followed Taran to the shallows where the cauldron lay half-submerged, caught between boulders. He instructed them on where to stand and pull on the vines still surrounding it, while he waded into the river and tried to push from the other side.
Once again, Eilonwy tried in to summon magic, to make the water respond to her will alone, though she said nothing to Taran, unwilling to inspire hope where she was so unsure. This power seemed only to spring to her aid at moments of utmost need, times when life or death hung in the balance. When it was only a cauldron? She sought it in vain. No warm presence filled her, no fluid current obeyed her, though she tried with all her might to believe in the reality that lives did hang in the balance. Without the urgency of a direct emergency, the sensation seemed just out of reach, a mocking echo of a song she could barely hear. She forsook the attempt with a sob of frustration, and threw herself into pulling at the Crochan with all her might.
It was no use. Taran made his way, panting, to shore, hitched the horses to the Crochan with ropes, and told her to drive them away from the river. He returned to the water, his lips blue with cold, and shouted to her in a voice that shook. She led Melynlas and Lluagor; they strained at the makeshift harness, pulling at the Crochan. Fflewddur struggled up and took her place, and she joined Taran in the water, wedging her shoulder beneath the iron and pushing until she thought her heart would burst from her chest.
The cauldron sat, mocking them, like a black beast roaring laughter from its open mouth. Driven to bash the horrid thing with anything to hand, she picked up a large stone from the river and would have smashed it against the side in a rage. Taran, seeing her intent, grabbed her arm, blocking her. "Don't! The noise!"
Eilonwy dropped the stone with a furious cry and shook him off. He was right, of course —such a din as it would have made would alert any of their enemies like a tolling bell. But Llyr! Was there to be no relief for them!
"Come," Taran ordered, taking her arm, "we've got to warm up."
He pulled her and Gurgi to the bank, but no one rushed to gather firewood. They all slumped upon the dry ground in exhaustion and despair, staring at the cauldron in silence. The river ran past, endless, its eddies moaning and muttering within the mouth of the great kettle. "We shall camp here for the rest of the day," Taran said finally. "Tomorrow, when we have our strength back, we can try again. There may be some other way of getting it out, I don't know. It is tightly wedged and everything we do seems to make it worse."
His shoulders were rounded over his knees, his clothing a tattered wreck, blood smeared upon his face. Eilonwy, looking at him, saw her own exhaustion mirrored back. "I wish," she said, "we'd never seen it."
His tired eyes agreed with her. "It's a thing of evil," he said, "and has brought nothing but evil. Now, at last, I fear it has defeated us."
He rose, and moved toward the horses. Nearby, the bushes rustled, and they all spun around.
A ragged, bloody figure stepped from the edge of the forest, and turned toward them. Hollow eyes blazed in a gaunt face. Eilonwy cried out in surprise and recognition, but no pleasure.
It was Ellidyr.
