For a moment Eilonwy was too disoriented to speak. Everything in the room seemed to rush together, into a closed-in darkness where the only thing she saw was the face before her. "Come," the stranger said, as if continuing an ongoing conversation. "Gwydion waits for us. Gurgi is here, too, and Fflewddur, and Prince Rhun. All of us. You are safe—hurry!"

Perhaps she should have been afraid. Certainly she was surprised. It was unsettling enough, to awaken to uninvited company when you'd fallen asleep alone. But as he spoke, she realized he was young—too young to be frightening, and Eilonwy felt only a twinge of vexation at being yanked so unceremoniously from her dream. It was not a pleasant transition, to go from being held and comforted to having nonsense babbled at her by some strange boy. "That's very interesting," she muttered dryly, and stifled a yawn, "but who are they? And for that matter, who are you?"

His breath caught on a sharp intake, and in even that darkness she saw his eyes widen. Well, what did he expect? Anyone who came barging into someone else's room and waking them up ought to know they would have to explain themselves. Otherwise, he was either boorish or an idiot...possibly both. Clearly, she would have to set a good example.

"I am Eilonwy," she said proudly, sitting up straighter, and touching her silver crescent in reverence, "Daughter of Angharad, Daughter of Regat. But who are you? I haven't the least idea in the world what you're talking about."

He caught at her arm, jostling her again. His voice cracked with panic. "Wake up! You're dreaming."

Dreaming. The apple tree swam before her eyes, fragrant and inviting. "Why yes," she murmured in surprise, "as a matter of fact, I was. But how did you guess? I don't believe dreaming actually shows when you're doing it. Or does it?"

Strands of sleep still clung about her, pulling her mind back to that warm internal space. Where had she been? An apple tree. In an orchard. A farm. Yes, that was it! Strange...she was sure she had not actually seen any hint of there being a farm in the dream, but she knew it was one, all the same. "Sometime I shall have to find out. The only way, I suppose, is to look at myself when I'm sleeping. And how I might go about that, I can't imagine."

It was a farm, but how did she know that? "Difficult...difficult..." she whispered to herself. "Like trying to turn yourself inside out. Or would it be outside in?"

"Eilonwy!" Strong hands closed upon her arms and pulled her back up. The boy was forcing her upright, when all she wanted was to lie back down. Why didn't he leave her in peace? She jerked out of his grip with a protesting cry. "You must listen!" he pleaded.

"That's what I've been doing," Eilonwy retorted. "So far you've made no sense whatsoever, and I was much more comfortable asleep. I'd rather dream than be shouted at. Such a pleasant dream, too." Again, her mind drifted to trees...a garden...a low stone wall. "There was a pig in it..." she murmured, "and...someone who..."

Wait, no... what nonsense. There hadn't been a pig in her dream; where had that come from? "Oh, it's gone now," she said, cross with disappointment. "Faster than a butterfly. You've spoiled it."

The stranger's anxious presence oppressed her, an intruder amongst the apple blossoms and blue sky, the sweet spring grass and the cool dappled shade beneath the tree. Where had that other voice gone, the one that had been so reassuring and gentle and lovely?

I will come for you.

"Listen to me," the boy begged. "There is no time for--"

"No one should be allowed to come stomping into other people's dreams without asking first," she interrupted irritably. "There's something impolite about it. Like walking into a spider's web while the spider's still using it."

He released her and ran to the casement. Good. Perhaps he had taken the hint and would clear out so she could sleep. The room was chilly, now, filled with tendrils of mist that reached in for her like searching fingers. Eilonwy bent and tossed another log on the fire, where it ignited instantly by her will. The dancing flames kindled her mind to sharper awareness.

The boy was still at the window, and now he turned and motioned to her urgently. "Make haste, I beg you! Climb down with me; the rope is strong enough for both of us."

Eilonwy stared at him, bemused. "A rope?" she repeated, in disbelief. "Me, go sliding down with you? Are you witless? Why would I go anywhere with someone I've just laid eyes on?"

In the brightening light of the fire she could see him more clearly: tall and lean, garbed in plain but serviceable garments; his dark hair was long and tied back, his face clean-angled and clear-eyed. Though travel-disheveled, he was a handsome lad, of a sort she might have taken a certain interest in under different circumstances. But not if he were as raving mad as he seemed to be, and it was, somehow, disappointing. "I've only known you these few minutes," she said, "but it seems to me you make the silliest suggestions. You might try sliding down the rope yourself and let me go back to sleep."

She sank back to her couch, weariness pulling at her again. "I hope I can remember where I left off. That's the worst of having your dream broken into. You can never find it again."

Before she could get settled, he was back, kneeling beside her as she lay down. "Eilonwy," he said, in a pleading whisper, "what holds you? You must fight against it. Can you not remember me? Taran, assistant pig-keeper…"

Eilonwy stared at the cushions beneath her, inexplicably strewn with crushed hawthorn petals. Where had those come from? "How interesting," she murmured, distracted. "Sometime you must tell me more about yourself. But not now."

"Think!" he said, gripping her wrist. "Remember Caer Dallben? Coll, and Hen Wen? Remember Fflewddur and Doli, and Gurgi and Gwydion? Your horse, Lluagor?"

The names plunked like pebbles tossed into a pool, ringing the surface of her mind, each concentric circle spreading outward in search of recognition. Something deep, deep beneath them stirred, and she had a brief sense that it was she, herself... trapped at the bottom of something dark and cold, desperately trying to reach up to the air and light. "Caer Dallben," she repeated, the words coming out sluggish. "How curious. I think that might have been part of my dream, too. Does it have an orchard?"

"Yes!" His grip tightened on her arm.

"Yes," she murmured, at almost the same time. "There was an orchard. The trees were in blossom. And I was climbing up, as high as I could go…" Up. Up. Up to the surface. Where had the branches gone? Was she climbing, or drowning?

"Yes," the boy prompted eagerly, "so it was. I, too, remember the day. You said you'd climb to the very top of the apple tree. I tried to warn you, but you did it anyway, just as you always do."

Eilonwy! Come down, you're too high!

"I wanted to learn the trees," she said, absently stroking a hawthorn petal, and pressing it to her lips. "You must learn them anew every year. They're always different. And…in the dream…I had gone to the last branch."

"It was no dream." He was leaning toward her, speaking so urgently that his breath stirred her hair. She saw only the white frill of apple bloom, felt the gentle sway of the tree in the wind, but it all seemed far away, up there at the surface of whatever she was mired in. "It was the life you know," the boy insisted, "your own life, not a shadow that vanishes in the sun. Indeed, you went to the highest branch, and it snapped, just as I feared it would."

Those branches are thin. You're going to fall!

The snap underfoot, the jolting, sickening certainty...

"How should anyone know someone else's dream?" she mumbled shakily. "Yes, it broke, and I was falling. But there was someone below who caught me."

The lost breath, the pounding heart, the scent of crushed grass and apple blossom and...and...this, this smell that she knew, of woodsmoke and leather and someone with a name that danced maddeningly out of her reach...

"It...could have been...an Assistant Pig-Keeper," she whispered. "I wonder...what became of him..."

I won't let you be lost. I will come for you.

"He is here."

She held her breath. That voice. It was the same. Low, and gentle, and pleading for something she had barely known existed, let alone was in her power to grant.

"He has long sought you," it said, in a tone that wavered upon the edge of trembling, "and in ways he himself did not know. Now that he has found you...can you not find your path back to him?"

The surface shimmered, just above her, pulsing with the pounding of her heartbeat. There was light and air, there, and she might find her way to that voice, if only she could reach, if only she did not feel as though her limbs were being pinned back, down here in the dark and the cold...why couldn't she move? The harder she tried, the heavier she felt, a weight like the drag of a hidden current at her knees, irons at her feet.

One never could move properly, in dreams. Of course, that was why. That was it. There was no use in fighting it, only in waiting to wake up. "It is only a dream," she whispered, "nothing more."

There was an answering sound of anguish, and suddenly she was gasping back to full alertness and alarm; the boy—that boy! He had seized her arm and was dragging her toward the casement. "Achren has done this to you," he cried. "She will harm you no longer!"

Achren.

The voices of Llyr broke upon her ears in a roar. Achren! Achren had warned her. He will come full of lies...claiming to know you and pretending to have come to help you. It had happened, just as Achren had said it would, and she, Eilonwy, had nearly fallen for the ruse. No wonder he wanted to drag her away! Rage sparked in her belly and flared into her limbs; in an instant she tore away and spun to face her assailant.

"You dare touch a Princess of the House of Llyr?" she spat, and he stared at her open-mouthed, his face blank with dazed pain that only made her angrier. This plain peasant boy, this intruder into her very room had the audacity to look as though she had wounded him, when he had no business even looking at her at all!

And then his dismay turned to a sort of anguished determination; as quick as thought, he was darting toward her, low, in a posture clearly intended to lift her bodily against her will. It was too quick even to think of magic; she reacted on instinct, rearing back and swinging a panicked blow to his face with all her strength. He reeled backward, staggering, his hand to his cheek, his expression a tragic story of heartbreak too deep for tears. She felt no pity, only a scalding satisfaction; the hearth-fire roared red with her anger.

"I will get you out of here," he gasped, and lunged toward her again. The scarlet incandescence that kindled in her limbs gathered hot in her hands and sparked in her fingers, and she opened her mouth to say the words that would send him tumbling from the casement, trailing flame like a shooting star, and...and...could not say them.

Why could she not? Something was wrong; her own magic betrayed her; she knew too little, was too untried. With a cry of rage at her own weakness, Eilonwy twisted away as he tried to seize her again. She stumbled to the door, throwing it open and diving into the corridor, pursued by the boy's shouts. They mingled with the voices of Llyr, roaring their approval or approbation – which it was, she neither knew nor cared.

She ran wildly down corridor and stairwell, screaming for Achren. Achren would know what to do, how to protect her; Eilonwy should have gone for her at once, the moment the stranger had appeared in her room. How had she been such a fool?

Men's voices roused an alarm as she reached the lower floors; metal clashed amidst shouts and cries...not only from behind her but from ahead. They were beset from all sides. Achren had spoken truly –she had enemies, people she had never seen nor met, never harmed nor wronged, yet here they were, assaulting her home. How was she to defend it if she could not yet control her power? She must find Achren!

Down, across the courtyard; she tumbled though the doors of the Great Hall and across its empty floor, making for the alcove where stood the chest of magical items. If there were anything here that might help her, surely it would be there.

She burst into the shadows, to find Achren herself already there, anticipating her. The queen had stripped off her long-sleeved outer robe, baring white arms as though for battle. In the early light bleeding in through the casements, her glittering unbound hair shone almost red. She held her hands out to Eilonwy, who rushed to them, forgetting her former reticence.

"Is it not as I said?" Achren took her by the shoulders. "They are more in number than even I anticipated. But fear not. Only follow my command, and all shall go as I have planned it. They shall have neither you nor your throne."

"One of them found my chamber," Eilonwy gasped out, "and I could not cast anything against him. I tried, but I couldn't...as though my mouth were stopped."

The grey eyes gave her a long, searching look. "You will not fail with me beside you," Achren said. "I have seen this ragged band, and none are of consequence save the man who leads them—the one you scried, with the black sword. 'Ware him, and leave him to me." She straightened and looked beyond Eilonwy, her face pale and determined, as voices approached them, shouting through the Hall. "Now, we will stand together. Do not be afraid...but if you are, do not let them see it."

She reached out to the tattered curtain that shaded the alcove and flung it aside. Beyond it, a handful of figures swept toward them at a run. White fire flashed from the upraised blade of a black sword, and Eilonwy shrank back despite her resolve. Achren stepped before her protectively, her bare arms upraised.

"Put down your weapons," she ordered, in a voice that tolled bright as a copper bell. At the sound of it, all but the leader of their assailants stumbled. Even he slowed, though his sword remained raised at the ready. Achren did not flinch as he came nearer. "The girl's life is bound to mine," she declared. "Would you take my life? Then she must share my death."

All came to a halt. Eilonwy stepped sideways, lifting her head to behold her enemies.

There was the boy from her chamber, just behind the dark-haired leader. Near to him stood another about the same age, round-faced and flaxen-haired. A whiskered, grey dog-like creature with an faintly human face came scrambling on all fours, raising to his rear legs to stand beside them. Nearby sprawled Achren's pale lackey from the afternoon. A lanky, long-nosed fellow sat astride his ribs, apparently intent on mopping the flagstones with his face.

The leader looked from Eilonwy to Achren intently – a keen, sharp gaze in a weather-lined, stern countenance. Then in a single swift movement he sheathed his blazing sword. "Obey her," he said shortly to the boy beside him. "I fear Achren speaks the truth. Even in death she may be deadly."

There was a pause, thick and tense, and finally the boy followed the order, sliding his sword away. Eilonwy watched him ambivalently; as in her chamber, so he stared at her now: steadily and boldly, his face filled with a grief out of all proportion to her rejection. Down in that cold darkness that anchored her, she felt something stir again, an anxiety quelled instantly by a sensation like a tightening rope.

Achren lowered her arms, laying her slender hands on Eilonwy's shoulders. "You show wisdom, Lord Gwydion," she said. The velvet voice was back...soft, rich, over a core of ice. "You have not forgotten me...nor have I forgotten you."

Gwydion. The name seemed familiar, but another invisible rope looped around her, and the brief sense of recognition ebbed away.

If Achren had hoped to goad the man into a reaction, she was disappointed. Though her tone was heavy with mocking significance, Gwydion's expression did not change. He bore all the alert tension of a wolf about to spring, and Eilonwy felt instinctually that the danger he posed was little altered by whether his sword were in hand or not.

"I see, too, the Assistant Pig-Keeper and the foolish bard who should have been food for the carrion crows long before this," Achren went on, nodding at the boy and then toward the men on the ground. "How fitting—'twas in my domain you found each other, and now here we are, together once again. It is poetic, is it not, harper? A true circle, in the best bardic fashion. What a pity you shall never have a chance to tell the tale." She waved her elegant hand carelessly, indicating the remaining companions. "The others, perhaps, know me not as well as you do, but soon they shall."

Gwydion, motionless until then, made an impatient gesture toward Eilonwy. "Unloose the Princess from your spell," he ordered. "Return her to us, and you shall depart unhindered."

The man gave orders as though it was his right! Eilonwy frowned at this audacity, and Achren's hands tightened on her shoulders. "Lord Gwydion is so generous," she mocked. "You offer me safety, when your own peril is greatest. You were rash even to set foot in Caer Colur. And now the more hopeless your plight, the bolder your words."

Eilonwy, standing so near her, sensed the quick rise and fall of a careful, measured breath, then…. "Pity," Achren said, after a single missed beat, "that one such as you scorned to be my consort, and rule with me when the chance was given."

Releasing the girl's shoulders, she moved towards Gwydion with slow steps, graceful as a stalking cat. "Unloose the girl? No, Lord Gwydion. She will serve me as I planned. My spells are not all that bind her."

The ropes tightened again, until Eilonwy wanted to gasp for breath, but how—how, when there was nothing holding her? Here she stood, unbound…what spells? What did it mean? Demand for an explanation caught in her throat, unable to rise past the tightening in her chest.

"You know her ancestry, and the blood of enchantresses that flows in her veins," Achren went on. She turned to look back at Eilonwy, her face alight with triumph, and something almost like pride. "Caer Colur has long awaited its princess. It calls to her, and so it ever shall, while one stone stands upon the other. This is her birthright; I do no more than help her claim it."

The voices of Llyr were clamoring again, chanting in a deafening, droning hum, so that Eilonwy thought she could feel the sound if she only knew where to lay her hands. And yet for all their insistence, she felt strangely hollow, as though Achren were speaking of someone else… as though these words, despite their truth, had nothing at all to do with her.

"You force her to claim it!"

It was the boy…the pig-keeper. If Gwydion was all sternness and stoicism, this youth was his opposite—he was wobbling from one foot to the other, his hands clenched in agitation, his expression equal parts rage, terror, and grief. "Eilonwy did not come willingly to Caer Color," he burst out. "She does not stay willingly!" He lunged forward, and was brought up short by Gwydion seizing his shoulder. Eilonwy stared at him in confusion. The fury she had felt toward him was gone; she could not identify what had taken its place, but whatever it was, it took many, many tightened ropes to quell it.

Achren gestured toward the alcove and its tall wooden chest. "Is she indeed unwilling?" she said. "I have shown her what this contains. All the implements of magic treasured up for her. Power such as she has never known lies within her grasp. Do you ask her to cast it away? Let her give you her own answer."

The slender hand lay on her shoulder once more, and Eilonwy took a breath, but she did not speak. Words seemed like empty things she was expected to recite, while her own thoughts were unable even to reach her mind, let alone her mouth. She unconsciously fumbled at her throat, feeling vaguely that perhaps she could pull speech out with her hands.

"Hear me, Princess," Achren said, her grip tightening. "They would deprive you of your heritage, of the enchantments that are yours by blood-right."

Something moved within her, quelled the conflict, became quiet and smothering, a layer of oil upon the surface of troubled water. The choking sensation dissipated. "I am a Princess of Llyr," Eilonwy said aloud. "I want what is mine. Who are these who would take it from me? I see here the one who frightened me in my chamber. A keeper of pigs, so he claimed. The rest I do not know."

A wail rose up from the grey creature. "Yes, yes, you know us! Oh yes, do not speak hurtful words to sad companions! You cannot forget. This is Gurgi—humble, faithful Gurgi! He waits to serve wise princess as he always did!"

The strange rhythm of this speech, as though he was never meant to speak a human tongue but had picked it up piecemeal from sheer stubbornness, struck her ear as something familiar again. But it was too fleeting to pin down, and Achren was leaning toward her, sinuous and suggesting. "And their fate? What shall be the fate of those who seek to despoil the inheritance of a Princess?"

Her mouth felt dry and clumsy and not like her own. "They...they shall be...punished."

"She speaks with your voice!" the pig-keeper shouted angrily. "With your words! In her heart she does not wish us ill."

"Think you so?" Achren's arm slid into the crook of her elbow, the companionable gesture of a trusted friend. She pointed to the man on the ground, prostrate beneath the long, straddling legs of his captor. "Princess, one of your loyal servants is still captive of these intruders. Cause him to be released."

Achren had called him a bard, but the long-nosed man was clearly as strong as any warrior among them; he took a firmer grip of his captive's neck and shook him wildly. "Your trained spider is my prisoner!" he bellowed. "He and I have business together, long unsettled. Do you want him back unsquashed? Then let the Princess come with us!"

Eilonwy watched as the captive cursed and writhed. She ought to feel something...pity for him, or outrage, or a sense of righteous vengeance. But such a passion seemed inaccessible...as distant as the names she could not reach, floating upon the surface of that deep, dark space beneath which she was anchored. If anything, she felt an inexplicable sense of vindictive pleasure, and little inclination to see him freed.

But Achren obviously had her own plans."I have no need to bargain," she said. Her nails dug into Eilonwy's wrist and her free hand gestured sharply toward the group gathered. "Which shall it be?" she murmured, close to her ear. "The ill-favored creature who dared call himself your servant?"

Eilonwy tried to speak, and failed. Her limbs felt tied down –and yet she moved; how? She had no memory of falling asleep, yet this must be a dream; it must. For as she had watched a girl fall from an apple tree from somewhere outside herself, now she watched the same girl raise her hand, and point toward the grey creature with his gentle, puzzled face. Achren whispered fervently in the girl's ear, things Eilonwy heard as if from a distance, but did not understand. It did not seem to matter. A current of magic—a searing, destructive, alien force she had never known—tore through her from core to fingertip, painfully seizing every muscle and tendon in its path, and she would have screamed, had she been capable of making a sound.

The creature clutched his head and went stiff. Achren's nails dug into her wrist. No, not hers, but the girl's before her, mechanically carrying out an outside will. Achren whispered again, and the poor tortured creature wailed, spun, and fell on the ground, rolling back and forth in agony, striking out at his companions as they came running to help him.

Stop, Eilonwy shrieked, or thought she did, but her mouth filled only with a silent exhale. Stop. Stop!

"Stop!" The bard shouted, leaping up. "No more! Harm Gurgi no longer. You shall have Magg—take him!" He aimed a disgusted kick at the gaunt figure at his feet, who scrambled up as fast as he could, and came scuttling toward them.

The flow of magic ceased, leaving Eilonwy reeling, though the girl she watched showed no sign of discomfiture. The creature crawled toward her, his poor whiskered face exhausted. "Wise Princess," he whimpered, "it is no wish of hers to fill poor tender head with harmful hurtings. Gurgi knows this. He forgives her."

Down, down, at the bottom of that darkness, while they all shouted about her, she wept.

Wrong, it was all wrong. Was this how it felt to be a fly stuck in a spiderweb, every desperate bid for freedom only winding it tighter in merciless strands of seductive silk? How was she to know how to escape it?

Begin with what you do know. Where are you, really?

A strange question. She could not remember who had asked it, but she considered, all the same.

I am in Caer Colur.

The Hall stood before her, filled with blazing torches, colored light.

No. No, that was not what she saw at all. There was no fire, no light but the red light of a breaking dawn, streaming in over broken walls, pouring itself upon rubble and ruin.

It is a dream. It is a dream, it must be. Wake up, wake up...by Llyr, speak, move, anything!

"Achren knows how to reward those who serve her." That voice again, smooth and silky, commanding attention, drifted over her shoulder, drawing her back to the commotion about her. "As she knows how to punish those who defy her. Magg's kingdom shall stand among the mightiest in the land. And Caer Colur shall rise more glorious than ever. Its Great Hall shall be the seat of power over all Prydain. The Lord of Annuvin himself shall kneel in homage to me."

Tighter and tighter, the web drew. Caer Colur is mine. The seat of my power, and if anyone kneels in homage here, it should be to me.

But she didn't want anyone kneeling to her. Did she?

"Arawn of Annuvin shall cower and beg for mercy," Achren continued. "But his throne shall be toppled. It was I who showed him the secret ways to power. He betrayed me, and now he shall suffer my vengeance. It was I who ruled Prydain before him, and none dared question my dominion. Thus shall it be once more. Thus shall it be, evermore."

She does none of this for my sake. She lied. She has been lying, all this time.

Gwydion made a gesture as much of impatience as of rebuke. "The lore tells of your ancient rule," he answered, "and how you sought to keep hearts and minds in thrall to you." Achren did not move, as he walked slowly forward toward them. "You tormented those who would not worship you," he went on, "while for those who bowed to you, life was little better than a slow death. I know, too, of the blood sacrifices you demanded, and your joy at the cries of your victims."

They were face-to-face, her expression cold and defiant, his severe, over an underlying foundation of sadness. "No, Achren." His voice lowered, as though the two of them were alone. "It will not come again. Think you this girl shall lead you to it?"

Achren glared back at him, white-faced, her teeth clenched. "She will obey me," she said, "as surely as if I held her beating heart in my hand."

Gwydion turned from her to look at Eilonwy. Up close, his grey eyes were flecked with green, and filled not with anger but compassion. Eilonwy stared back at him, her heart pounding, willing him to see what she could not say. Her face felt as frozen as a mask. Help me. Please. Can you see who I am? Where I really am?

She could not tell if he understood. He turned back to the woman at her side, speaking gravely. "Your words are vain, Achren. They cannot deceive me; I witnessed the ascension of her mother, here in this very Hall, and I know that the magic of Llyr answers only to Llyr's daughters." For a moment the sadness was foremost in his face, as he glanced toward the dais. "Do you seek to rule through the Princess? The enchantments she commands still sleep, and you have not the means to waken them."

Achren drew back sharply. "You speak beyond your knowledge."

"Oh, no, he doesn't!"

All turned, equally startled, toward the round-faced boy. Heretofore, he had said no word at all, and Eilonwy had forgotten his very existence. But now he was rising to his toes in excitement, his face shining with triumph. "The book!," he burst out. "The golden light! We've got them, and we shall never give them up!"