Isle of Glass Read Online Free Page B

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massive folly. All this horror was no one’s fault but his own.
    Even Kilhwch had warned him. Wild young Kilhwch, with his
father’s face but his mother’s grey eyes, and a little of the family wisdom.
“The border lords on both sides make a fine nest of adders, but Rhydderch is
the worst of them. He’d flay his own mother if it would buy him an extra acre.
Work your magic with the others as much as you like; I could use a little quiet
there. But stay away from Rhydderch.”
    Kilhwch had not known of the baron’s invitation to a parley.
If he had, he would have flown into one of his rages. Yet that would not have
stopped Alun.
    His shield was failing. One last effort; then he could rest.
He arranged his body as best he might, broken as it was, and extended his mind.
    The normal rhythm of a border castle flowed through him,
overlaid with the blackness that was Rhydderch and with a tension born of men
gathering for war. Rhydderch himself was gone; a steward’s mind murmured of a
rendezvous with a hill-chieftain.
    Alun could do nothing until dark, and it was barely past
noon. Thirst burned him; hunger was a dull ache. Yet nowhere in that heap of
offal could he find food or drink.
    He would not weaken again into tears. His mind withdrew
fully into itself, a deep trance yet with a hint of awareness that marked the
passing of time.
    o0o
    Darkness roused him, and brought with it full awareness of
agony. For a long blood-red while he could not move at all.
    By degrees he dragged himself up. As he had reached the
corner, so he reached the gate. It opened before him.
    How he came to the stable, unseen and unnoticed, he never
knew. There was mist the color of torment, and grinding pain, and the tension
of power stretched to the fullest; and at last, warm sweet breath upon his
cheek and sleek horseflesh under his hand.
    With all the strength that remained to him, he saddled and
bridled his mare, wrapping himself in the cloak which had covered her. She
knelt for him; he half-climbed, half-fell into the saddle. She paced forward.
    The courtyard was dark in starlight. The gate yawned open;
the sentry stood like a shape of stone.
    Fara froze. He stirred on her back. He could not speak
through swollen lips, but his words rang in his mind: Now, while I can hold
the man and the pain—run, my beauty. Run!
    She sprang into a gallop, wind-smooth, wind-swift. Her rider
clung to her, not caring where she went. She turned her head to the south and
lengthened her stride.
    o0o
    Only when the castle was long gone, hidden in a fold of the
hills, did she slow to a running walk. She kept that pace hour after hour,
until Alun was like to fall from her back. At last she found a stream and
knelt, so that he had but little distance to fall; he drank in long desperate
gulps, dragged himself a foot or two from the water, and let darkness roll over
him.
    Voices sounded, low and lilting, speaking a tongue as old as
those dark hills. While they spoke he understood, but when they were done, he
could not remember what they had said.
    Hands touched him, waking pain. Through it he saw a black
boar, ravening. He cried out against it.
    The hands started away and returned. There were tightnesses:
bandages, roughly bound; visions of the herb-healer, who must see this tortured
creature; Rhuawn’s tunic to cover his nakedness. And again the black boar
looming huge, every bristle distinct, an ember-light in its eyes and the
scarlet of blood on its tusks. He called the lightnings down upon it.
    The voices cried out. One word held in his memory: Dewin ,
that was wizard. And then all the voices were gone. Only Fara remained, and the
pain, and what healing and clothing the hill-folk had given.
    Healing. He must have healing. Again he mounted, again he
rode through the crowding shadows.
    At the far extremity of his inner sight, there was a light.
He pursued it, and Fara bore him through the wild hills, over a broad and
turbulent water, and on into darkness.
    o0o
    The