Cart and Cwidder (21 page)

Tholian seemed to understand what Moril was doing. He came slowly toward Moril, lurching as if he was very tired. “Break that blessed thing!” he said. His voice was slurred, but he was fighting the cwidder's power for all he was worth.

Quickly Moril passed into a proper tune, a lullaby.

If Moril had thought about it, he would have realized he was in fact making up something new. But he did not notice, because all he wanted to do was to put Tholian to sleep. The lullaby was like a gust of power. It held Tholian to the spot. Tholian knew what was happening, but he was helpless. Moril played the tune again, louder, and took pleasure in holding Tholian in place while the tune swept beyond him, out into the valley.

Tholian rubbed his eyes and tried to take a grip on himself. Beyond him, the men round Kialan yawned and the marching and cursing in the valley faded away. The air was clear for the full force of the song, and Moril gave it to them.
Go to sleep.
It went down the valley in slow waves, washing first over Tholian, then on and out. Tholian's eyelids drooped, his knees bent, and he dropped forward onto the trampled ground with his head in his arms. There he made one final movement of resistance and fell asleep. After him, the other people dropped down, too, back and back into the valley. Horses stood still and men keeled over beside them and lay sleeping. Beside Moril, Brid fell sideways and slept curled up as if she was still kneeling. That was a pity, but Moril did not see how he could have excluded her. He played on, sending out wave after wave of sleep-song, until the valley seemed thick with it, and he could almost see it hanging in the air and pulsing gently. Under it every soul was dead to the world.

At last, a little apprehensively, Moril left the cwidder still humming, hoping like that to make the power last, and went through the heavy, silent air to Kialan. He was still tied up. Tholian's friends had not untied him, though they had been about to. Moril went back through the humming silence and fetched the knife out of Brid's boot. “Thanks,” he whispered, and he thought Brid stirred a little. With the knife he hacked through rope after tough rope, until Kialan rolled loose on the grass. He was still unconscious.

Moril bent down and shook him. “Kialan!” he said.

Kialan came round as he heard his name. Moril was almost sorry, because Kialan's face was suddenly full of pain and misery.

“It's all right,” Moril whispered. “Everyone's asleep. Quick. I don't know how long it'll last.”

Kialan climbed to his feet. He was very stiff and winced with every movement. He stared at Tholian, lying on the earth with his head in his arms, at Brid, and out at the silent, humming valley, full of a sleeping army. “Ye gods!” he said. “Was that the cwidder?”

“Yes,” said Moril. “Quick.” He ran back to Brid and shook her. Brid rolled about, but she did not wake.

Kialan came limping after him. “Suppose you leave her asleep?” he suggested. “Then when she wakes up, you'll know it's worn off.”

Moril saw that was an excellent idea. The thing about Kialan, he thought as he raced for the cart, was that he had brains. Olob was dozing, too, which was more serious. Moril snapped his fingers under his nose. “
Olob!
Barangarolob!” And Olob shook his head and looked at Moril wonderingly. Moril untied Olob and brought him toward Brid at a run, much though Olob objected to going near even sleeping enemies. As he hauled on the bridle, he thought how queer the valley looked with everyone in it lying asleep except for the lonely upright figure of Kialan. He dragged Olob up to Brid and opened the tailgate of the cart to make it easier to get her in. Then he gently put the cwidder back in its rack. It was still vibrating faintly.

“Throw the wine jar out,” said Kialan. “Let's make the cart as light as we can.”

Moril heaved out the great jar. It landed with a sploshy thump that ought to have woken the dead, but Brid, who was nearest, did not stir.

Kialan laughed. “Present for Tholian. Information he knows and money he doesn't want. He can drink our health.”

Moril gave a muffled giggle at the idea, but he did not speak. He had a feeling that the one thing most likely to wake the sleepers was his voice. He climbed into the cart and threw out most of Dagner's purchases: candles, flour, lentils, and the remains of the rhubarb.

“Oh, he'll love those!” panted Kialan. Though he was still very stiff, he managed to lift the head and shoulders of Brid and heave the upper half of her into the cart. Moril took her shoulders and dragged her right in, where she settled with a little sigh. Kialan climbed in beside her. Moril latched the tailgate and got onto the driving seat.

“Now, Olob,” he whispered. “Run. Run for your life.”

Olob tossed his head and set off. He did not exactly run, but he took the cart briskly across the trampled earth to the road by which they had entered the valley. Moril looked over his shoulder as they went under the trees. Tholian was lying beside their heap of provisions. Beyond him, Moril thought he could see a faint haze vibrating quietly over the whole valley. The cwidder's power still held.

“What about those soldiers by the trestle?” Kialan said, as Olob clattered down the steep road.

“I don't know,” Moril said anxiously. He had no idea how far the cwidder's power spread, and the trestle had been behind him as he played. When they came to the main road, Moril held his breath and Kialan craned sideways to get a sight of the trestle.

Those soldiers were asleep, too. Most of them were sprawled in the road, pigeon breastplates upward, snoring. One was asleep with his arms on the trestle, in a most uncomfortable position. Kialan gave a wild little laugh. “He'll be stiff when he wakes up!”

12

It was a short, steep climb up the last of the hill. Then they came out onto the green spread of the last Upland. They could see Mark Wood in the distance, gay green and bronzed by the afternoon sun, and beyond it, looking deceptively near, the gray bulk of the Northern mountains.

“Now you
must
run, Olob,” said Moril.

Olob ran. It could not be called a gallop—Moril had never known Olob to gallop in his life—but he ran, and ran as fast as Moril had ever seen him go. Behind him the lightened cart wove from side to side and bounded in the ruts of the road. Kialan wedged his feet against the side of the cart and tried to hold Brid in one place, but they nevertheless pitched and rolled and bounced until it was a marvel Brid did not wake up. But Brid slept on, stirring once or twice when she hit the side of the cart, but never coming out of her deep sleep. Moril began to hope that it would last until they reached Mark Wood. Once they were there, they could hide the cart among the trees, with a good chance of escaping Tholian.

“How did you work it?” Kialan called jerkily above the rilling of wheels and banging of hooves. “The sleep.”

Moril could not explain, any more than Dagner could explain how he made songs. “By thinking,” he said. “You said a lot of things that helped me.”

They jounced and battered another half mile. “I had a weird dream,” Kialan called, “while I was tied up. I dreamed—wow, what a bump!—I dreamed you took me along to your father's grave, by the lake, and opened that board I carved, just as if it was a door. Then you said, ‘Do you mind getting in here for a while? I'll call you when it's safe to come out.' And—I say, what happens if we lose a wheel?—and I went in and went to sleep. What do you think of that?”

“I don't know,” said Moril. “I might have done. There's no one behind, is there?”

There was no one, though they could hardly believe it. The wide Upland seemed empty. They rattled, wagging this way and that, through a village, and that seemed asleep, too. Olob pounded on, blowing now, and Brid still slept. The sun sank, and Mark Wood was nearer. Twilight seemed to come from the trees and soak into the green landscape around them. Big clouds were building up beyond the mountains. The sunset shot them with fierce pink and lakes of moist yellow.

“You know,” jerked Kialan, “when I thought—in the valley—that we weren't going to get away this time, I wanted to apologize. I was pretty awful when I first came into the cart, wasn't I?”

“We were, too,” Moril called over his shoulder. “We didn't know what had been happening to you. Was it horrible in Holand?”

There was a bouncing, battering pause. “Ghastly,” said Kialan. “But it wasn't only that. I didn't understand. I thought you were all—beggars or something, and I thought—oh, of fleas and ignorance and so on for the whole way North. And I was fed up.”

Moril laughed. “You looked it.”

They reached the verge of Mark Wood almost as the sun set. Olob had not run so far for years. Moril could see steam rising off him in the thickening twilight. His sides were heaving under the scarlet harness, and there were flecks of foam along him. The road went upward into the trees, under a sloping cliff, and, though it was not a steep rise, Olob slowed down.

“I'll have to let him walk,” Moril said, acutely sorry for him. “He's had enough.”

So Olob fell to a weary plod, and everything suddenly seemed ten times more peaceful. They could hear birds cawing and calling in the great beech trees above.

“Good gracious!” said Brid, sitting up. “Where are we? Why do I feel so bruised?”

Moril knew it was bound to happen, but he wished it had been farther into the wood and not just when Olob was tired out. They explained to Brid. She was rather indignant.

“Using me as a kind of sleep measure! I like that!”

“It was a jolly good idea,” said Kialan, “though I says it as shouldn't.”

But Brid had realized that Tholian was probably after them by now and changed to being as nervous as a cat. She turned her head back over her shoulder and implored Moril to get in among the trees quickly. Moril looked over his shoulder, too. Between the tree trunks, he could see the darkening green of the Upland and a long stretch of the road. It was empty.

“I will when we get to the top of this hill. Olob's tired.”

The dark gathered quickly under the trees, but it was still light enough to see. Brid squawked faintly. There were people among the trees on horses, coming slowly down the hill on the cliff side. But Olob gave no sign of alarm. Moril trusted Olob and kept on the road, in spite of Brid's imploring whispers. All the same, it was rather frightening the way that the horsemen, as soon as they saw the cart, turned toward it and increased their pace. They came fairly thudding down on them.