Chapter Six

The force of raw magic that hit her the moment they emerged from the gap almost pushed her against the wall; a throbbing ephemeral net of invisible light that swathed around her in recognition; not dark, not evil, but powerful and penetrating. Eilonwy struggled against its sinuous grip, feeling its attempt to wind its way into her very breath patterns and heart rhythm; shook her head and gasped against its beat. No. No. I am my own. Not yours.

The probing subsided, but the magic still clung to her like a choking vine to its tree, so tangible that she glanced at Taran in wonder; how could he not feel it? He was gazing around at their surroundings, awestruck and anxious, but gave no indication that he sensed anything other than what his eyes and ears told him. Almost she envied him for it.

The chamber was not large, but it was cluttered; the floor was littered with the skeletal remnants of a dozen or so armored men encircling a central stone dais. Baskets and jars lined the walls; the golden light glittered upon their contents like a handful of stars strewn upon the floor. Weapons and armor were scattered about and piled in heaps. "I'm sure Achren hasn't any idea all this is here," Eilonwy whispered to Taran, who was bending over one of the corpses. "She'd have hauled it out long ago; she loves jewelry, though it doesn't become her one bit." She picked up a brooch from the floor at her feet to examine it; a lovely thing, wrought in silver knots around a single blood-red jewel, but it tingled a warning in her hand and she dropped it, grimacing. Cursed. Thank the fates Achren didn't know about this place. She was bad enough without being hung all about with cursed enchanted jewelry.

"Surely it is the barrow of the king who built this castle," Taran whispered reverently. They both turned their gazes to the stone slab in the center, and picked their way through the fallen warriors for a closer look.

She barely noticed the crowned skull that grinned at them from the richly-clothed figure; the magic around her swirled and concentrated in a viscous funnel, sucking her gaze to the sword clutched in the bony hands. For a moment, it was the only thing she saw, etched in her mind like the blinding ghost image of a lightning bolt against her closed eyes. In an instant of breathless, startling familiarity she knew. This.

This was the heart of Spiral Castle.

This was the will that she felt in the stone, the almost-voice in the silence, the grudging sympathy that bent itself around her, unpredictable, sometimes capricious, but never malicious; or, at least, she now realized, never with a malice directed against her. This...thing, this enormous mass of power made small and trapped in the shape of a sword; she could feel it chafing at its own inactivity, burdened by its boundaries. It had been made for more than this.

It held her mind captive, singular of purpose. Freedom.

Taran had already left the dais; she was dimly aware that he had despoiled one of the fallen warriors; heard him shout that he'd found a passage. Her hand closed, almost unconsciously, on the jeweled hilt, and a jolt of power, hot and prickly, surged up her arm like quicksilver and swept her from head to toe. Freedom. For both of us.

The clawed hands of the ancient king crumbled away as she jerked the scabbard free, and in her mind the magic sang with fierce, ecstatic joy.

The sword shook in her hands as she stumbled away from the slab in a daze; to her right, Taran's legs were disappearing into a low crack in the stone wall. She threw herself after him with a sensation that she was breaking through a barrier; the web of light in her mind's eye shivered and cracked, bursting into a million sparkling fragments and something huge, something massive, shifted and quaked; she felt it both in her inmost being and in the sudden tremor of the earth around her.

The passage was a crawl and she clawed her way forward blindly, gasping as the ground shook. The earth rumbled. In terror she realized the tunnel was collapsing, and shrieked as the ceiling in front of her gave way in a rush.

All at once the world turned to a agonized chaos of falling stones and earth, thunderous noise and movement that went on and on. She was tumbled about like the seeds in a gourd-rattle for what seemed like a long time, but finally the ground became solid under her and she stared confusedly at a line of trees illuminated in a ghastly blue light. A flash of blinding white lightning streaked across the sky. She attempted to get to her feet, realized she was pinned from the chest down in the rubble of the collapsed tunnel, and shrieked for Taran.

She feared he'd also been buried, but to her great relief he came running, stumbling over the heaving ground, his face ghostly white in the eerie light, his eyes fixed, horrified, on the rumbling castle behind her. She couldn't see what he was staring at, but it must be something horrendous.

"I'm stuck!" she gasped, as he bent and clawed at the stones around her. "I'm all tangled up with the sword. The scabbard's caught on something."

He puffed as he heaved at the heavy rocks. "What sword?"

"You took one," she panted. "I thought I might as well, too. Need weapons, don't you?"

The loosened earth began to crumble around her; Taran seized her under the arms and pulled and she clutched at him, kicking furiously. All at once her prison gave way and they both toppled down a rocky slope, landing in a tangled, bruised heap. "Oof!" Eilonwy pushed herself up and groaned. "I feel like all my bones were taken apart and put back together wrong."

He ignored this, pointing back up the slope. "Look!" Finally able to turn and see what was happening to the castle, she did so, and what she saw made her heart stand still.

The towers swayed like trees in a high wind, wreathed in blue flame. The great outer walls were splitting like firewood beneath some invisible axe, massive stones tossed into the air like chips. The noise was deafening, worse than a hundred thunderstorms all battling at once, and she covered her ears with her hands and crouched next to Taran, both of them frozen with horror, unable even to stand as the earth rippled like ocean waves around them. With a final roar that must have been heard for a hundred leagues, Spiral Castle collapsed from the very foundations. A wave of dust and smoke boiled up from its ruin, blasting both of them, and they dropped to the ground, huddled together and hiding their faces, until the air stilled.

The silence that fell was complete, broken only by their breathing as they waited, afraid to move, afraid to look. The dust settled slowly, glazing them with gritty film. Eilonwy, blinded by her own hair, cramped and disoriented, became gradually aware that in the castle's last violence Taran had crouched over her and thrown his arms out to shield her from the blast. He was still curled around her, his breath broken against her ear. Her back was warm against his chest. She examined the sensation in some bewilderment. She felt...well, not uncomfortable exactly, but...

She squirmed, and he released her at once, scrambling upright, falling back onto his heels, and dropping his arms with an expression that suggested he wasn't exactly sure how they'd gotten there. He cleared his throat. "You, um...you all right?"

"You saved my life," Eilonwy murmured, astonishment twisting into guilt. She wished she hadn't called him stupid, wished she had...oh, she didn't know what she wished. Taran looked embarrassed, and picked at a weed growing at his knee.

"Well, you saved mine. So we're even." He glanced up at her and grinned; the first smile she'd seen from him, first smile she'd seen from anyone that wasn't sneering or mocking or bitter. His was the tiniest bit crooked over very straight teeth, and something in her chest gave a queer, lopsided flutter at the sight.

"Well, but..." she stammered. "I mean...thank you. That was quite courageous, running back up there when you'd already gotten out. I wouldn't have expected it of an assistant pig-keeper. It's wonderful when people surprise you that way."

His grin turned into a smirk of amused annoyance, as though he were trying to decide whether to be offended or pleased. It made her laugh.

"I meant...never mind." She looked back at the castle, reached out with that inner sense that had always linked her to it, but there was nothing but silence. Emptiness. Instead she felt the weighty presence of the sword, still clutched in both her hands. Wouldn't Achren love to get her claws on this...

Achren. She sucked in her breath, staring at the fallen stones. "I wonder what happened to Achren. She'll be furious, probably blame everything on me. She's always punishing me for things I haven't even thought of yet."

Taran followed her gaze grimly. "If Achren is under all that, she'll never punish anyone again. But I don't think we'd better stay to find out." He rose stiffly, brushed the dust from his clothes, and arranged the sword he'd taken from the barrow at his waist.

Eilonwy examined the sword she carried, too long to hang from her waist, and who wanted something banging into your hip all the time anyway? She slung the leather belt over her shoulder, settling the sword's weight at her back, and looked up to see Taran staring. "Why," he said, "that's the sword the king was holding."

She shrugged. "Naturally." No point in trying to explain that it had called to her. He'd only be confused. "It should be the best one, shouldn't it?" Her bauble was sitting on the ground, still alight, and she bent to retrieve it. "Now then. We're at the far side of...well, what used to be the castle. Your friend is down there among the trees, assuming he waited for you. I'd be surprise if he did, with all this going on," she added.

Taran brightened at the mention, however. "Gwydion!" he gasped, and took off toward the grove. Eilonwy, a few steps behind him, halted in confusion, her heart sinking.

Who was Gwydion?