She had no time to do anything, no time to try to cast her mind into the water to protect Taran's body, no time to say any magic words even if she'd remembered them, no time to think. Her scream was cut short as Ellidyr caught her from behind, furious at her interference. His strong arms crushed her around the ribs; she dropped her dagger as her feet left the ground; his harsh voice assaulted her ear, cursed her roundly with several specific and explicit titles she had only heard bandied among the men employed at Spiral Castle, though never in her life had they been applied to her. But neither was there time for the indignation such epithets would normally have inspired. Despite her struggling, Ellidyr got his hand around her throat, and would have made her time short indeed had it not been for her friends. Fflewddur, giving up the attempt to draw his sword, slammed bodily into the enraged prince's midsection at the same moment that Gurgi leapt upon him from above, flailing with his tree branch at Ellidyr's head. They all crashed to earth like a tangle of falling trees.
In the chaos that ensued, Eilonwy broke free and rolled. Pain tried to claw its way to her consciousness, but she could think of nothing but her last glimpse of Taran being dragged over the merciless swells and dips of the river. The dead brambles and brush blocked her way, as confused and thick as the sounds of the ongoing struggle behind her as she sought a way back to the riverbank. Slashing, scrambling, sliding through dead leaves and slogging through mud, she reached the water's edge at last and screamed for Taran again.
It was fruitless, and foolish; he could not hear, but Ellidyr could. There was a crashing in the brush, and the wild-eyed prince emerged to her right, his face bleeding and scratched, his hands outstretched. He charged and she shrieked, scrambling back the way she'd come, a blind and instinctive drive to return to her friends. She found Gurgi lying dazed at the foot of a tree, and a battered Fflewddur frantically trying to rouse him. "He's raving," the bard sputtered as she ran to them. "He'll kill us all. Get to the horses! Don't wait for us — cut them free and ride away from here! I'll follow when I can."
"But, Taran—" Noises behind her drove the argument from her lips; Eilonwy raced to the horses, where Melynlas snorted and scraped at the ground in anxiety. There was no time to cut the animals free. Ellidyr had seen her run, was on her heels; she snatched her bow, the first weapon to hand from those roped to the saddles. But it was unstrung, and her fingers were clumsy with panic. With a shout the prince rushed upon her, ripped the weapon away and cracked it over his knee. He had retrieved his sword; now he rushed at her as she scrambled backward, his blade raised. There was nothing to do but run, and run she did, turning and darting into the trees, zigzagging into the thickest tangles where she could navigate more easily than a man his size. Brambles snagged her cloak and she jerked free, leaving it hanging. Behind her Ellidyr cursed again, and she heard him hacking at the brush with his sword. "Traitorous wench! Scullery filth!" His words pursued where he could not; his horrid high laugh came careening through the trees. "The upstart bitch who wanted to run with the pack falls back," he screeched, "when a wolf takes the lead! Next time stay home with the sow, in the slops where you belong!"
More slurs followed, even more vulgar, stinging her ears, smoldering in her mind. Gasping sobs tore her throat, choked with terror and anger at her own helplessness; now, if ever, power would be useful, should be hers. If Fflewddur hadn't restrained her earlier, she might have scorched Ellidyr back into his senses. If Dallben had just taught her how to focus and control her magic instead of quelling her, suppressing her! But no. Instead it was always let go of fear and don't give in to anger, as though it were possible to look calmly into the eye of a madman, as though when a sword were pointed at your throat you had no right to be afraid, no right to use any weapon you had to defend yourself! Heat rose in her throat, sour and metallic; it pounded in her temples, in her wrists, in her fingertips. I'm tired of being held back. I'm sick of being expected not to feel things. I'm not going to be told what I cannot do anymore.
Figures crashed through the brush toward the river. Fflewddur was diving through the brambles, dragging Gurgi after him, trying to make it to the water's edge— trying, she knew, to get to Taran—Taran, still in the river, drowned for all they knew, and out of their reach while Ellidyr pursued.
"Traitors! Robbers! Oath-breakers!" Ellidyr screamed after them. "I know what is in your minds! You would follow that pig-boy to the death, and grind his deeds into my teeth! You will go fawning to the lords you worship, eager to reveal the shame of the Prince of Penn-Llarcau!" He turned and thrashed through the brush toward them, tearing his clothing and skin, slashing away with his sword. "It is mine, I tell you. The cauldron is mine!"
He was within a few yards of Fflewddur. The unarmed, wounded bard was turning to shield Gurgi, brandishing another branch in defense, but Ellidyr would slay them. She knew he would; the prince was driven mad by the Crochan, and no calming words would stop him, no appeal to reason or restraint. Nothing would stop him, nothing but force.
Eilonwy ripped away from the brambles and stood straight, the heat in her wrists and fingertips crackling and surging. Words she had heard, sometime, somewhere, rushed into her mind like forgotten dreams brought to daylight, strange words that tasted like iron and salt, like metal and smoke, words that compelled her to raise her arms and sweep them out as she spoke them. Her hands twisted in midair and the heat in her fingers unfurled like ribbons; she felt it fling itself across empty space and land upon the brush around Ellidyr, felt it spark and kindle into eager, consuming fury. The bare branches burst into flame around him, showering sparks. He roared out in pain and terror, falling back from the fire.
Fire. Fire glowed in her veins, flared in her eyes, and in that moment nothing had ever been more dangerously beautiful, more gloriously strong. Ellidyr's screams fed its satisfying crackle in her ears; she felt the flames reach out to sear his hair, to wrap themselves around him even as he tried to beat them away and off. "Witches!" he screamed. "Witchcraft and sorcery, spawn of that wizard! No wonder you would have taken the cauldron to him! You would use it as your own, claim it for…"
With a wave of her hands Eilonwy stoked the flames hotter, reveling in his gurgling shriek as they caught and kindled his clothing. He turned and ran, streaming ribbons of orange light, still raving about sorcery and treachery. She gloated in the sensation of his charred cloak flaking upon the wind, in the stench of his scorched hair, in his fruitless attempts to beat out the sparks that showered about him. Let him run! The air sweeping past him was breath to flame, fuel for her rage, and she would see him burn to ash before—
A rough, jostling jerk at her arm pulled her around, and she was staring into the wild eyes and gaping mouth of Fflewddur Fflam. "Enough!" he cried, shaking her a little. "It's enough, great Belin, you've driven him away; now leave off!"
For a moment she could not comprehend what he meant; her eyes were still filled with the blazing beauty of fire, her mind and body with the heady rush of power given its way. "You've done it," Fflewddur panted again. "I don't know how, but you've…we're all right. He's left us. Don't do a thing you'll be sorry for later."
Sorry. What was there to be sorry for? The words had no meaning. Behind the bard she saw the flickering light of the brush still burning, the illuminated shape of Gurgi beating it with a wet cloak. The tingling heat drained from her fingers; her pulse slowed in her ears as she came back to her senses. Ellidyr was gone, fled away from them. Her companions were safe, all but…
"Taran!" she gasped, and ran.
The smoldering ashes of twigs and leaves were smoking upon the wet riverbank. Eilonwy paid them no attention, crushed them under her pelting feet. The water flowed by, cold and swift and deadly. Taran was nowhere to be seen. She sobbed his name, splashing into the shallows, stumbling over the hidden rocks. Fflewddur was behind her, a steadying presence, calling her back from panic. "Come," he urged, "it's none too deep. He'll likely be hung up somewhere downstream; if we follow the current we're sure to find him."
Yes, find him, but in time? Trying to suppress her sobs only resulted in hysterical gasping as Eilonwy ran along the shallow banks. Gurgi and Fflewddur forged ahead, shouting for Taran, but a stitch in her side stabbed at her with every breath, and fear-inspired nausea made her stumble; she fell to her knees, her hands splayed beneath the frigid water, flat against the riverbed.
The shock of it flooded her frenzied mind, arresting her like a slap to the face. The water flowed between her fingers, a clasping hand that gripped hers with a familial reassurance; it recognized her, and it sensed what she sought. Or perhaps she recognized it, felt in its thousands of conjoined droplets the thread of something her heart knew the shape of. Instinct took control; she pushed herself to her feet and followed it.
The water jostled and split around her hands and wrists, cold and fluid, but the thread was an almost solid thing between her fingers, a tiny band of warmth that drew her onward, deeper into the center of the river. Perhaps this was how birds felt, flying south every year, or how a spider knew where to anchor each shimmering silk. The sweet, fresh taste of water magic was filling her mouth again, filling all of her; she caught a glimpse of her broken reflection upon the surface of the river and wondered that she was not, herself, as transparent and sparkling as a crystal vessel held to light.
She knew, vaguely, that Fflewddur was calling anxiously to her from the banks, but she had no attention to spare him. That bright thread pulled her like a hooked fish through the current and she could not resist it, even had she wanted to. It twisted within the smooth fluid curves of water breasting over submerged stones, wobbled through the white froth of rapids, rotated in eddying hollows. She followed, the sense of it growing stronger, until she felt the water sliding around something solid and unfamiliar to it, something it enfolded in its curious cold embrace: Taran, drifting in the current, almost hidden amidst a snarled thicket of dead branches. His face was turned, white and empty-eyed, to the sky.
Eilonwy cried out, and the thread broke; the water tugged and gurgled around him possessively as she forced her way through the tangled wood, shrieking for Fflewddur and Gurgi when she found she could not reach him. They came, wading through water waist-deep, but Fflewddur could go no further than she. It was Gurgi, who leapt into the jagged, broken snags with the ease of a squirrel, who found a way to pry the branches apart, who reached down to jerk Taran's sodden jacket from the hooked splinters of a rotting oak, and freed his beloved master.
They scrambled to catch him as the current pulled him downstream again, Fflewddur's long strides churning the water as he wrangled, one-armed, to hoist the limp boy to the nearest bank. The moment they were on land he tumbled to ground, laying Taran out flat; Eilonwy fell next to him, grabbing at the boy's cold hands, shouting his name.
What followed was nothing she cared to remember, then or ever after. Though Fflewddur, bending over the boy's body, moved in such a way that blocked her view, whatever he did made Taran suddenly convulse and retch, a horrible sound that made her cover her ears. He vomited enough water, it seemed, to fill half the river, his ribs heaving with terrible gasps in between, ending on a long, weak groan. His limbs spasmed clumsily, hands flying out of her grasp, almost striking her in the face. He groaned again, his eyes open and staring without recognition.
"Fire," Fflewddur panted, in the midst of the horror. "We must warm him." He looked at her desperately over the trembling body of the boy they both loved. "You did it so easily back there. Can you do it now?"
Could she? Already her fingers tingled with that familiar glow; she would burn anything, the forest, the world, her own funeral pyre, if it would bring Taran back. "Gurgi," she gasped, "firewood!"
He was already bounding to the trees, snapping dead branches and hurling them down; she ran beneath and snatched them up, sprinted back and piled them high near Fflewddur as he chafed at Taran's wrists and neck with his good hand.
There was no indecision now, no need for calming breath or concentration; somehow this time she knew without knowing, the way a toddling infant knows how to walk from the day it takes first steps. The words slid easy between her lips, her fingers snapped, the air moved and the wood flamed. Gurgi brought log after log. Eilonwy added them until the blaze leapt up in sheets of shimmering heat, until the freezing river was steaming from their clothing, until their faces were scorched with welcome warmth.
They brought Taran as close to the fire as they dared, leaning him against a log between them, and turning him periodically to dry on every side. His groans ceased as he warmed; he looked asleep now instead of dead, and hope was a spark of song within her that she almost feared to heed.
Time, such a rushing rapid flood for the last hour, slowed to a trickle, counted in breaths and heartbeats and the flutter of eyelids they waited for to open. "Will he be all right?" Eilonwy asked, when Fflewddur finally ceased chafing the boy's wrist and laid his hand down with a sigh.
He looked at her, his red-rimmed eyes mirroring the worry and exhaustion she felt. "I think so, love. You never can tell, after something like that, but a Fflam is hopeful. All we can do is wait for him, now." He stretched his long legs out with a groan and leaned limply back against the log himself. "Why it couldn't have been that blasted prince instead, I'll never know. Fate seems to be sleeping, sometimes, just when you most want her. But you did well enough for him." He squinted at her sideways then, and she frowned a bit self-consciously, remembering his discomfort with all things magical.
"I only wanted to protect all of us," she muttered. "I didn't plan it, really; it just happened." She stared at the crackling fire, found its essence in her bones, and crooked her fingers; it flared in response, trickling tongues of flame toward them.
Fflewddur whistled. "You haven't always been able to do that, have you? Any of that, I mean. Dallben been teaching you?"
"No," she whispered, both resentful and guiltily triumphant, and confused either way. "He's taught me almost nothing, except what not to do. I just…found it, somehow. Like a fish remembering it can swim."
The bard was silent for a while, but she felt his unease radiating. "It's a powerful gift," he said carefully at last, "and goodness knows it came in handy back there. Ellidyr had it in for all of us, and I don't believe I could have stopped him. I owe you my life." He paused, and then added, chuckling, "Again."
But he was still uneasy, and she knew it. "I wanted to kill him," she confessed suddenly, to herself as much as to him. "I would have, if you hadn't stopped me. And I don't know whether I'm sorry or not."
"Wicked prince would have slain us all!" Gurgi broke in, nuzzling her arm. "He would have slashed and gashed poor Gurgi to rags and ribbons, when all Gurgi wanted was to find Master. Wise princess saves us with magical blazings! What fearsome flamings! And then she finds Master when even Gurgi's nose could not make a way through the splashing and dashing water. She must not give mind to questions and sorryings, now."
"That's right," Fflewddur murmured, as though he'd only just remembered. "How on earth did you know where he was? I'd never have seen him, hidden in those snags."
"I don't know," Eilonwy said. "I felt him in the river and I followed."
Silence. The fire snapped. "Well," Fflewddur said at last, and coughed, "if there were yet any questions about whether you should have followed us out here, I think they can be safely put to rest. And I don't say that only because I'm still sitting here in one piece. Your heart is worth a ransom, my dear, even without magic." He reached across Taran's still form and squeezed her shoulder. "Don't you hang onto anything that blaggard aimed at you. Words are weapons, too, but easier to deflect when you know they aren't true."
Eilonwy snorted in derision. The ugly obscenities that had chased her through the trees, she met with only scorn now that they were out of danger. "I don't care what he said. I heard worse at Spiral Castle. Achren used to…" She bit her tongue.
She had seen the queen slay men with a word and a gesture for little more than offending her, her beautiful, terrible face alight with exultant power, with vindictive joy at holding the world accountable for every insult. Justice, Achren had called it, and perhaps it had been, once. Perhaps it had begun as justice and only slid into vengeance later, as the line between them grew dim, as the ability to silence and quell any resistance became as soothing and heady as a long draught of wine.
Was that what she had felt, while Ellidyr had run, streaming fire?
"Fflewddur," she said abruptly, "could you give us a song?"
"I can't play," he reminded her, and she shook her head.
"Just sing something. Anything, so long as it's cheerful."
She loved him for not asking why. He obliged, hemming through his mental library before settling on a romantic ballad that, uniquely for that genre, ended happily. Eilonwy nestled deeper into the dry leaves, curled into Taran's side; he was warm now, a comforting development, and she reached for his hand and cradled it in both her own, listening to the bard's lilting voice, holding her mind to the music as though something terrible would happen if she let it wander for an instant.
The song ended, and there was silence again, but for the crackling fire and the twitter of birds in the trees. She realized that no one had said a word about gwythaints, or whether their fire would draw unwanted attention. The loss of the Crochan had, at least, taken its pervading sense of dread along with it.
"Don't tell Taran," she murmured out loud, "what I did, back there. When he wakes up, I mean. I'll tell him myself, but…not yet."
Fflewddur and Gurgi made no response, but she felt their silent agreement, and loved them, again, for asking no questions.
The sun sank, pushing the blue shadows long under the trees, and they wrapped themselves in their dried cloaks, covered Taran in his, warmed from hanging over the fire. Gurgi doled out food from his wallet. As night fell, the blaze burned low, sustained now with sticks and twigs instead of logs, its glowing ember bed now serving to radiate all the heat they needed.
Eilowny stared into the mesmerizing flicker, mind and spirit in a meditative flow that followed the fluid light, watching the colors shift: orange and gold, blue and lavender, moving in a hypnotic dance, back and forth and around in sequence. Her thoughts ran likewise, in a crackling slide between doubt and certainty, fear and curiosity. She could feel the fire breathe, sense both its insatiable hunger and its jubilant satiation as it consumed each new twig. It moved at her every silent command, at every twitch of her fingertips. Power crackled in her thoughts and in her veins, full of possibility, full of danger. What could she do with it? What should she do with it?
I won't be like Achren, she thought desperately. I'll never be like that…killing and destroying for my own pleasure.
But her gut curled at the memory of the grim smile she had worn when Ellidyr screamed.
Had even Achren always been like Achren?
A log popped loudly, the glowing ghost of a tree's long life crumbling into the bed of coals beneath. A single ember bounced and rolled toward her, past the edge of the bare ground around the fire, dangerously near the dead leaves and bracken beyond it. Another nudge, she thought, and it could ignite the brush, start a new fire, one that could grow into an uncontrollable blaze, could destroy half the forest….all from one spark, one tiny, stubbornly-burning coal. Wasn't that how so many things happened? One little thing you did, one choice you made opened certain doors and closed others, and you had to walk through them without knowing what lay beyond, without even knowing you'd done it.
She raised her foot to stamp out the wayward ember…and then, on sudden impulse, kicked it back into the fire, where it settled among its companions, safely smoldering. Even you must have your chance, she thought— irrationally, and she almost laughed at herself. But it seemed to fit somehow, and somewhere in the back of her mind an old crone whispered someday you'll understand.
I didn't actually realize where this was going until I got to the last page, and saw what the muse was getting at, two years ago when it whispered the name of this novel in my ear...and that, my friends, is one of those moments that addicts you to writing.