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Chapter Two
THE GATE OF MENRANDIR
‘Swin! Swin! Swin!’
Melohtar was crying his name in despair, but Swin had other things to think about – the dizzy fear of falling, and the sickness in his stomach, and the air rushing against his face, and the water, narrow and presumably deep, which he had seen as he looked over the edge: it was directly below. There ought to be a good chance that he and Erum would escape being dashed on the rocks. He opened his eyes; the wind at once pressed against them coldly and harshly, but he succeeded in glimpsing Erum and immediately saw the two impacts, dim splashes of greyish white amid a revolving swirl of dark-brown shade.
‘Swin!’
His whole life (he says) did not pass before his eyes; but after the first moment of confusion his brain worked fast. Had Melohtar planned the attack on Erum? No, probably not. Chance had merely presented him with the opportunity. It crossed Swin’s mind that he would not be seeing Melohtar again for some time. ‘Good riddance,’ he thought. He then thought: was it such a good plan, after all, to be diving? If he entered the water too neatly, he would continue to shear downwards, fast and hard. The river was fast-flowing at that point, and there might be no ooze on the river-bed; he might break his knuckles, his neck too. So he changed his posture as he fell, drawing up his knees to his chest and preparing to clasp his head in his arms. The brown surface was coming up fast, but he had time for a last look round before he readied himself for the impact.
‘Swin...’
The cry faded away. Strata of lichenous rocks and hanging leaves swept past, inconceivably rapid and obscure in the gloom, while the voice of the River, a roar of multitudinous echoes, began to make its way through the rushing of the wind in his ears. He was now falling through a wider space. At the bottom of the gorge the cliffs on this side sloped inward, eaten away by the water, forming a wide cavernous underhang. The River was, after all, considerably wider than the narrow strip he had first seen. Through this solemn, resonant nave, with its eroded pillars, cracked sloping architraves and deep recesses of shadow, came a double handful of sunbeams, long, bright and perfectly tight-drawn. The turn of the westering sun now having almost passed the angle of the gorge, these last survivors, the last to surmount or slant over the preventing rock-faces and bushes, now illuminated the dragon-flies as thin sparks of blue, green or gold, which Swin briefly noticed as he twisted through the air, still trying to get himself into a sturdier pose. The long straight rays whirled and flashed about him like the spokes of a wheel; dazzlingly they flickered into his eyes; suddenly and completely they were gone. Now crouching, dropping like a spider, with head protected and face well tucked in, he fell the rest of the way.
There was a shock of watery coldness, darkness and pressure. At once he was aware of the powerful current. He felt himself being rotated, turning like a ball in the air. He banged hard against some obstacle, an underwater ledge or shelf, bumped again, spun, rose and came to the surface, thinking that the current must have carried him some way already and wondering if Erum had survived. He took a gulp of air and began to swim. The gorge was full of noisy tumult and veiled brightness. The cliff-walls both seemed farther away. The current swept round the last of the bend, emerging into the full light of the afternoon and the long reach of an almost straight channel. On both sides the banks consisted of huge boulders overlaid with flowering bushes. Willow-branches trailed down into the water. No easy climbing out here, not on either side; and besides, there was Erum’s head, fifty yards downstream, held up awkwardly. Swin had not divested himself of anything before jumping off the edge, so he still bore the full gear of a man-at-arms: pack, armour, weapons and shield. He considered getting rid of it, for he was dreadfully weighed down and the River had a strong terrifying undertow such as he had never imagined; but against these difficulties we can set his great strength, his practised swimming ability and a certain lucky circumstance: during the long fall, the air had blown through all his clothing and inflated his shirt under his breastplate and backplate. Soaked with water and still held firmly in place, it now provided a buoyancy round his upper torso; he could feel it as a comforting cushion at the back of his neck. His shield, fastened to his back-pack, was the worst hindrance, but as Swin got into position and struck out vigorously the shield was partly lifted out of the water.
He decided that he had no time to spare, and swam on as hard as he could.
The roar was becoming louder, and now the awful threat, the flat line like a near horizon, was plain to be seen.
Erum’s head disappeared for a few seconds.
The River was narrowing again, the current getting faster.
Swin caught up with Erum and threw an arm round his shoulders. Erum was treading water with barely sufficient strength. His face was white, his eyes half-closed, his teeth fallen open behind closed lips. Blood oozed from a great gash on his temple and cheek. But he turned his head; and his face lit up when he saw who was supporting him. ‘Swin!’ he said. ‘Thank you!’
‘Hi,’ said Swin, grinning.
‘Where’s that dog?’
Sedro was nowhere in sight. The end of the channel was very near.
‘Can’t see him. We’re going over. Deep breath!’
‘Thanks, Swin. Blessing of Dru!’
Swin threw his arms round Erum. Together they were pulled over and down the long terrible curve, then enveloped in seething foam and flung mercilessly against jagged rocks. Luckily Swin was underneath, and luckily his amour took the worst of the impact. They were swirled vertically round and round, the water descending on them brutally, like a rock-fall. Erum choked and lost consciousness, but Swin, still holding him with one arm, was at last able to struggle free and to pull him into calmer water. There was a little muddy beach at one side of the pool. Swin tugged Erum into the shallows, and then laid him on his back on the moist ground. Erum coughed, vomited water and revived. Feeling tired, Swin then unbuckled his back and helmet, and rummaged among his possessions for a flask of wine. Erum raised himself on an elbow and stretched out a supplicating hand. Swin took it without a word. He helped Erum to stagger up to the dry grassy bank. They sat down together, passed the wine back and forth, and took in their surroundings.
They had come almost through the pinch of the Bleck. Behind them the great waterfall foamed and sparkled and shed its clouds of drifting spray. The continuous roar, though very loud, had a calm and almost peaceful tone. Beyond it the tall slopes of this side of the Gladram were clad in greyish-green firs and blackish-green cypresses, peaceful and drowsy in the golden light. The pool into which the River poured was embraced by the arms of a short valley – the beginning, from this side, of the gorge. From the pool the Bleck ran southward, but not before having to make its way round one last obstacle: a tall bank of sun-bleached driftwood, composed of boughs, branches and whole dead trees that the River had brought down. Many birds had made their nests in this uneven fawn-coloured pile: swans, ducks and moorhens were diving and squabbling in the littered brown water. Beginning at a natural groynelike ridge of rock that thrust itself out from the bank, this drift must have accumulated and extended itself to form a breakwater, which had shaped the opposite edge of the pool and allowed reeds and bulrushes to grow up in midstream. Only beyond the edge of the drift, where the flow curled round, did the Bleck show any of its former wildness; and after that it widened, slowed and gently meandered into the distance, its deep-blue breadth brightening to sky-blue just below the horizon. Above, in the pure unclouded heaven, wheeled a single white gull.
The south-facing bank was warm. There were daisies in the grass, and a few king-cups, more of which grew in big clusters along the muddy shore. There were lovely little golden flowers that Swin had never seen before; and around the bank, and above, from cracks in the rocky walls, sprang the tufts of a reddish plant, like sea-thrift, with clumps of many tiny blooms, over which small butterflies played. Grasshoppers were sizzling and jumping in the grass. Erum yawned. He and Swin exchanged a few remarks about their plight. ‘Your head’s still bleeding,’ said Swin. ‘Let me put a bandage on it.’
Erum submitted with pleasure to the touch of Swin’s hands. Swin then stripped, and Erum followed his example, though he modestly kept his under-drawers on. He gathered up the wet clothes, walked to the breakwater and found a handy branch on which to hang them. Swin sat still, brooding, enjoying the warmth of the sun. Erum came back, sat down and yawned again. The noise of the fall was soothing and sleepy.
‘Rest, if you like,’ said Swin. ‘One of us ought to keep watch, but I’m not tired.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Erum. ‘Keep an eye open for that damned dog.’
‘Sedro?’ said Swin. ‘But he’s drowned, surely?’
‘Oh no. Oh no!’
Erum stretched himself out in the grass, pillowed his head on his arm and dozed off. Swin made sure that his weapons were ready to hand; he emptied the water out of his quiver and scabbard, dried his arrows, cleaned the mud off his sword and carefully whetted both it and his knife. Then he sat concealed in the long grass, wakeful and still. A couple of hours later, as the sky was turning pink, he got up and put his clothes on. Having been required to act as Melohtar’s personal servant for the last few weeks, he had a cooking-pan in his pack, and a little tub of salt. He splashed into the shallows; he braved the hissing and pecks of the annoyed swans, and gathered half-a-dozen eggs. Noticing the cress that also grew in the pool, he waded in further, tasted some, found it good and gathered a large bunch. As for fuel, there it was in a huge pile, perfectly dry. His flint, steel and tinder, unbound from their oiled wrapped, soon yielded a flame.
‘Goodness gracious,’ said Erum, waking up and staring in admiration at the fire and the bubbling pan. ‘What a fellow you are!’
‘Why?’ asked Swin, puzzled. ‘Have I done something difficult?’
They ate their supper without speech, enjoying the peace that lay between and around them. Only once did Swin break it. He began to speak of Melohtar. Erum at once hushed him, laying a finger to his lips, with a friendly smile in the ruddy twilight. And Swin nodded. There was really no need to speak of Melohtar at all.
During the short, luminous night they took turns to sleep and watch. Before dawn a mist gathered over the pool. Swin took his bow, crept forward and brought down a plump duck with his first arrow. Erum insisted on doing the plucking and drawing.
‘I don’t know,’ said Swin: ‘it’s almost ridiculous. The hunting was easy on the other side, but here – it’s as if the creatures are waiting to fall into your hand.’
‘You aren’t doing justice to your own skill,’ responded Erum, unskilfully struggling to cut up the bird with Swin’s knife.
‘No, look for the joints. Use the point...search with it...then a hard cut – yes, like that!’
Erum wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.
Presently, as he turned the spit, and the drops of fat began to fall and flare among the embers, he asked: ‘What are your plans now?’
‘Well, what are yours?’ replied Swin.
‘I’ve got none. I’ve been enjoying myself too much, just being here with you, to think about anything else.’
Swin accepted the look of adoration that came with these words: kindly and in full awareness he accepted it, held Erum’s gaze for a few seconds and smiled back. ‘I’ve got a plan,’ he said, ‘but I’m afraid you won’t like it.’
‘M’m?’
‘I’m afraid you’ll actively disapprove of it.’
‘How can I, till I hear what it is?’
‘It’s what you stopped me from doing before. To go South. To seek the Darkness.’
A dozen mallards came rushing over the surface of the misty pool, flapping their wings and raising themselves into flight. From farther off came a chorus of squawking calls and honks. The noise of the waterfall had become more noticeable – more ominous, if not louder. Erum busied himself with the cooking. No word was said until the two had begun their breakfast. Then Swin resumed.
‘It’s She who’s all around us. It’s She who’s in this plentiful abundance. It’s She who’s ill-pleased with me, She whom I need to thank and offer amends to. It’s She who, as I have been told, can heal the wound in my mind. She can restore me to myself, and when I am restored I shall understand how and why I was restored before. And then...’
‘And then what?’
‘I really don’t know.’
Erum chewed and munched. ‘All right,’ he said.
‘So you don’t disapprove?’
‘Come on, it wouldn’t change your mind if I did.’
‘No,’ said Swin cautiously: ‘but I’d imagined you trying to use your power against me.’
‘Oh! Oh yes, the Craft! Now where’s that gone, I wonder?’ Erum looked at his own right hand. He tossed a leg-bone into the fire. He clenched and flexed his fingers. The meal was finished in silence. Swin had a long drink from a small spring that flowed into the pool. He then went down the shore, went among the bushes, lowered his breeches and squatted down. Leaving his turd for the flies to enjoy, he stepped into the water. He washed his behind, cleaned his hands, splashed water on his face, did his belt up again. Erum was still sitting by the fire. He had a helpless, stricken look, but when Swin came back to him his face and speech were calm. ‘You may be right when you guess that I would try to stop you if I could,’ he said, ‘but I can’t. The power has left me. Dru has taken it away from me, for some good reason of His own. How will you go?’
‘I’m thinking of a raft,’ Swin answered. ‘There’s all that wood, and I can’t get lost on the River, and I may get along quicker too.’
‘Where will you make for?’
‘The Pilgrims’ Gate. Beyond the second bend.’
‘Mendrandir!’
‘So you’ve heard of it.’
‘Yes. May I come with you?’
‘Of course, if you like – but why?’
Erum sat like a defeated child, his legs stretched out before him, his hands resting on the grass, one on each side, palms upward. ‘I ask myself, does this course seem to be in accordance with the will of Dru?’ he said dully. ‘And I have the feeling that it is. Though I can’t think why. When we met the old witch at Tregg, when I stopped you before, I was very sure of myself... Anyway, from another point of view, either I go back or I don’t. Without you I probably won’t get very far. And even if I do survive the journey...there’s not much for me to go back to now. Only the Queen: she may still be well-disposed to me, but you know, I don’t think I trust even her.’
‘What about Ruddle the High Priest?’
‘He’s an enemy now.’
‘You’ve got a real knack of making enemies,’ Swin commented.
Erum frowned angrily. He twisted, thumped the turf a couple of times with his fist, then jumped to his feet.
‘So what?’ he cried, and punched the air. ‘Damn them! Damn the whole boiling of ’em! I’ll follow Dru and seek to do His will while I have breath in my body! Let’s seek the City of Reconciliation together!’
Swin shouted an encouraging ‘Amen!’ and then they began to discuss the practicalities of building a raft.
The task took them three days. Versatile as Swin was, he had no carpenter’s tools, though the knife was useful; and most of the larger logs were jammed together inextricably, or else, when freed, turned out to be rotten. And how to bind them together? Erum experimented with plaited streamers of willow; there were no withy-shoots or osiers to be found. He also tried braiding the long bindweed-stems, the rushes and the shoots of the young ivy. One way or another, a rough but sufficiently tight-bound platform was at last put together. On the fourth morning after their arrival they pushed the raft out below the breakwater. Swin shoved with a pole, and they began to float down the peaceful Bleck.
They had been travelling for about half an hour when Erum clicked his tongue in self-reproach.
‘T’sk! Silly me! I’ve only just recognised where we are.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘This is the place where the ferryman took us over.’
Handling the pole cautiously, Swin looked up and down the banks. He saw something flat that could have been a landing-stage, but the reeds had grown up round it and screened it from view. ‘When was that?’ he asked.
‘A few days before we me you,’ said Erum thoughtfully. ‘When the Elves hunted us out. Melohtar and me. There was a man here, all alone in the middle of nowhere, and he rowed us across. It was like a dream.’
‘If he was real, who was he?’
‘He said his name was Athelstan.’
Athelstan? Swin did not repeat the name aloud, but it reverberated within his mind. Athelstan? Athelstan? Athelstan? Meanwhile he had to get accustomed to the pole, the trunk of a fir sapling, which was their only means of controlling the raft. Allowing it to drift into the middle of the stream seemed like a danger, for the water might well be deeper than the fourteen feet of the pole. Allowing the raft to drift with the current, not too far from the bank – that was all very well (Athelstan?) but, to begin with at least, their course demanded continual correction. Soon Swin was sweating in the sun. But Erum sat on the logs, pensive and still, heedless of all the erratic revolvings.
All day the peaceful glittering Bleck carried the travellers onward. The logs became achingly uncomfortable, but neither Swin nor Erum suggested landing for a break. Sometimes they eased their discomfort by getting into the water and swimming or paddling alongside. The countryside, beyond both banks, was flat plain, grassy or marshy – the ‘flat horizon’ that Erum remembered – with blue hills slipping away behind them on the right. The sun rose high and beat down on their heads and backs, while the rippling water sent back a million fiery glances. At midday they sat hunched up together, using Swin’s shield and breastplate to shade their heads.
‘Have you ever seen a pendulum flower?’ asked Erum.
‘No, what is it?’ answered Swin, the bright lines of the reflections dancing up and down the side of his red face and bare chest.
‘It’s a demonstration of the natural purposes of Dru. Our wise men use it as an example, what they call an experiment, into His designs... Imagine a hall with a polished oaken floor. You put a strong hook into one of the roof-beams. From the hook you hang a strong cord. At the bottom end of the cord is tied a large bag of fine silver sand, so that it hangs just above the floor. You lift the bag, keep holding it and take a few steps backwards with it, so that the cord is now slanting. The more steps you can take, the better. Then you make a small hole in the bag, so that the sand begins to run out in a thin stream, and at once let go of the bag. What do you suppose happens?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Swin.
‘The bag swings, of course, but as it goes it draws a lovely many-petalled flower in lines of sand on the floor. From this we see how all things strive to bear witness to the beauty of Dru’s order – His natural justice.’
Swin grunted.
‘And the curved lines of sand,’ pursued Erum, ‘are called parables, because they figure unto us that our courses through life, the curves, the turns and the crossings of the paths we must tread, will form, in the end, a glorious pattern. And then we shall thank Him for every adventure, every crossing, every byway, every turn that perhaps seemed to lead us away from our true course.’
‘And where does it end?’
‘The line comes to rest at the centre.’
Swin considered this. Then he said, ‘It’s hard to see. I always used to think of destiny, what my people call the Path of Metod, as straight. Like now. We can see where we’re going, at last, and it’s straight and right. So Dryghten-Sweald ought to be satisfied with us.’
‘Or “there and back again”?’ suggested Erum, quoting a proverb.
‘Exactly.’
‘Well, heaven knows, my friend, that if I had Staffal or some other wise old counsellor to explain exactly what the matter was – if it was something that you or I believed we could just go, and do, and come back home again, having risen to the challenge, no matter how daunting –’
His voice cracked and faltered. He began to cry. Swin moved up close beside him, put an arm round him and held him firmly. The raft slid into the shallows and came to rest. For a long time Erum wept on Swin’s shoulder, wept for his loneliness, his betrayals, his violation and his lost innocence. ‘Thank you,’ he tremulously whispered at last. ‘You’re the best of friends.’
They went on with their journey. The sun passed from its height and slowly, slowly moved to the West. The countryside went on slipping past.
‘The little chaps found themselves a Wizard,’ said Swin, reopening the discussion.
‘They did,’ said Erum dubiously, ‘but the time has gone past – such simple there-and-back roads to salvation belonged to another age. You saw what Ar did to him.’
‘The bastard!’
‘Quite. My path has crossed that Wizard’s twice now. I like him. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do. And he’s made me see – though indeed I’ve no excuse for not seeing it before – that it’s the powers of the Temple – that it’s Ar and Atan themselves who are antagonistic to Dru’s purposes in some very profound way. It was he who saved me from that hell-hound, the first time... Oh, and do you know what he said to me then? About Sedro?’
Drinking water from the flask, Swin looked back at him with raised eyebrows. Diffidently, delicately, Erum conveyed Baranithron’s judgement to Swin’s mind. Then Swin sat aghast, shocked by the scarcely-thinkable obscenity. But in a little while he began slowly to nod his head.
The end of the day came at last. Swin poled the raft in, and they stepped ashore, very glad to ease their limbs after fifteen hours of travel. They prepared supper and ate it, and Erum took the first watch.
The second day was like the first. They drifted steadily down the stream, Swin using the pole more skilfully and less often; they talked desultorily about all their adventures, about the plight of the North and the burning of the Demesne. ‘Poor old Aldred,’ said Erum at one point. ‘I reckon he’s been treated worst of all. He made his people trust us. I wonder what they think of him now?’ But their talk came to no conclusion. Meanwhile their surroundings were becoming more and more crowded with birds and all kinds of other animals. Amid the flowering bushes and the endless reed-flats there were swans in fleets, colonies of grey herons, lines of cormorants fishing or drying their wings; Swin and Erum heard the whistling of snipe and sandpiper, the loud talk of the rail and the booming voice of the bittern, besides ever-varyingly the rising and descending, the diving and the dabbling, the quacking and the squabbling of ducks and coots and moorhens and small, long-necked brown geese with pink bills, pink feet and scarlet wings. Ever and anon, among all this joyful teeming life, the travellers descried the single white gull floating overhead, or swooping down to the shore, or riding at midstream; but of this bird they never spoke. And further off, where the woods began, there were other birds, storks and kestrels – ‘Any eagles?’ asked Erum, but Swin shook his head: ‘No,’ he answered, ‘they wouldn’t come down to the plains, so far south. I can’t remember when I last saw an eagle. But see there!’ ‘Oh yes. What are they? Deer? Antelope?’ But the best moment of all was in the evening. They had come to the beginning of the Second Bend some time after noon, and found their way through the scattered upturned rocks; the raft had sustained a few jars and spins, more or less violent, but was still holding together; they had come round into the eastward reach, so that the setting sun was now behind them, the whole breadth of the River merged into the voluptuous dimness of the evening. Swin was anxious not to miss the Gate that had been described to him by Lady Arloth. He poled in closer to the left bank, so that the raft went slower, and kept his eye on the shore as it passed alongside. Thus it was he who first saw, as the flush faded and the cloud-bars lost their gorgeous colours, the five majestic forms that approached the water’s edge: father, mother and three half-grown cubs: lions.
Next morning the river-mist was white and thick. The bird-calls were subdued; the gurgles and cloppings of the water were closer, louder and a little menacing. Erum built up the fire and fried fish for breakfast, river-fish which he had angled for and proudly caught the day before. They tasted very good, but they had a disturbing effect on Swin reminding him of yet another of his lost memories. He rubbed his head with his fingers, trying to ease the pain. After breakfast the two friends sat and waited for the mist to clear. But they had a shared and rising impatience, a feeling that precious time was being wasted. After an hour they gave up waiting and pushed the raft out from beneath the leaves of the overhanging branches.
‘A wharf, a rampart and a white tower.’ Swin repeated the description to Erum.
‘Dru help us!’ was the heretical answer.
After a time their worries began to increase. The shoreline vanished and was replaced by an indistinct swamp-margin of large trees, dead, as it seemed, or dying, that stood or slowly reeled over to lie drowned, their jagged upper branches protruding from the dirty, slime-covered water. Long grey clusters of some thick-woven creeper hung down from the boughs like torn rags. Many of the branches, standing up from the river-bottom, were dangerous obstructions. Others had snapped off, drifted away, lodged and clung together in small islands with their own grass, birds’ nests and trailing weeds. Swin had to steer further out into the stream, so that the margin became no more than a confusion of white mist and ghostly shapes of trees. The regular punting was having now a bad effect on the raft: the weak bindings were straining and beginning to part, the oblong form becoming distorted. A few large, foul-smelling bubbles came up after each withdrawal of the pole; sometimes, for all Swin’s care, the raft juddered against a fixed branch; once or twice a black mother-bird, shielding her brood with her wings, gave him an angry red-eyed scream. A very long time seemed to pass. There was now no sound, apart from the unpleasant chuckling of the water, and the occasional ‘plop’, as it might be, of a large frog or fish. The background of bird-noises had ceased; there was nothing to be heard from the land at all; or was there? Was there? Faint and distant at first, muffled by the clammy fog, but soon becoming unmistakable – irregular, spaced at intervals longer than a heart-beat, sometimes splashing, sometimes vaguely thudding, at other times cracking or crashing through dead wood, footsteps, yes, the footsteps of some very large creature were coming along the bank and in the same direction as the raft. Some monstrous slow-stepping creature was coming along the bank with them, its course gradually converging with theirs.
Swin pushed a little further out. ‘Take my bow,’ he said quietly. With stiff, shaking, clumsy fingers Erum took an arrow from Swin’s quiver (only one of these had so far been lost). He bent the bow a little and raised it, watching for any attacker that might appear. There came a slight thinning of the mist. The two men saw a break in the nearer trees, and a platform of squared stones standing high above the surface of the River. Flat bands of green and black, running all along its smooth wall, indicated the depth of the River at other seasons. At the nearer end of this wall there was an iron ring with a long red stain. Despite all the weathering and discolouration, and despite the surrounding mist, the squared stones of the wharf had a shadowy lustre of their own, a pure deep greyness, if the colour grey can be imagined as giving forth light. Beyond it the expanse of the rampart-wall was also coming into view; faintest of all rose up the shape of the round tower, its head disappearing into the low cloud. Swin directed the raft towards the wharf, taking care to use the pole as quietly as possible. But the other visitor was arriving at the same time. Crash, splash, crash, came the footsteps, nearer and nearer, until the shadowy form, walking taller than the mist-veiled trees, was revealed.
No doubt there are many varieties and kindreds of those monsters, the broods of Yabeth, that still roam through the woods of Anglad Morwen, of Erynvorn and Belegrast. Aldred cannot be sure from Swin’s and Erum’s descriptions, which do not at all points agree, whether or not this creature was of the same kind as those that waylaid the Punchkins below the mouth of Lantros. It walked on two massive hind legs, like the ones that have been described before. Swin maintains that it had a long curved horn springing from its brow, and similar sharp bony projections, like a spiked necklace, sticking out around its neck. Erum says that it was not a necklace by a collar, scalloped and set with seven glittering eyes. But they agree that the other monsters which appeared a moment later, rearing their heads up beyond the wall, clambering over it and galloping round from the farther end of the quay, were four-footed beasts of a different kind. The first, the two-legged creature, smashed through the last trees and strode onto the stone platform, which shuddered and resounded under the blows of its two-clawed feet. Its head, whether spiked or collared, had a malignant grin that was full of hundreds of teeth, and suddenly appallingly close as the creature ducked down to squint at the two travellers. With the strength of terror, Erum drew back the bowstring to the full, and shot. It abraded his bare arm and snapped hard against his fingers, but the arrow’s speed was enough for it to penetrate the deep-seamed skin of the creature’s neck. Erum and Swin saw the dark blood spurt forth as the arrowhead pierced and re-emerged. The creature gave an ear-splitting bellow of rage. Its empty golden eyes were glazed over with sudden red. It leapt forth to slay. Full in the swamp it fell, its out-thrust claws narrowly missing the raft; and a great noisome wave surged up. The raft was thrown back, flipped right over. Swin and Erum came down underneath it, both unhurt. Swin let go of the pole, caught hold of his friend and helped him out from the darkness under the raft. Erum clung to one of the jerking logs. The other creatures, on all fours, with long-necked heads held high, were advancing into the water. With great presence of mind Swin rescued the pack before he scrambled on to the raft. The first monster was floundering and struggling to get upright. The big thrashing waves it was making, black and filthy as they were, had already pushed the raft back from the shore, towards the deep water and the swifter current. The other creatures that still malevolently pursued, though better adapted to the swampy surface, seemed to be waders rather than swimmers. Five minutes later Swin’s and Erum’s escape was complete.
Swin pulled Erum on top of the disintegrating raft.
After a while they noticed that the mist was thinning. It was going to be another fine day.
They floated on down the endless River. With a similar leisurely slowness they talked about what to do next. They made a game of it, with Swin as the pessimist and Erum as the optimist. Swin said that they had missed the Gate now, and ought for their own safety to get well away from it, and might not be able to work back to it; and they could no longer steer the raft, and it was breaking up anyway. Erum said that these troubles were really all one, and that it was hardly a difficulty: they had escaped from the monsters, and would now go ashore when they must, and from then on could only trust in Dru. Swin said, the sooner the better: he was sick of this damned River and this arse-numbing voyage; and where were they going to now, anyway? What were these new mountains they were travelling towards? Weren’t rivers supposed to reach the sea, some time? Erum screwed up his eyes, made out the ethereal blue points and clustered peaks that pricked up into the sky, and said that he did not know either. This land was all unknown. Swin, who was really very disappointed and vexed, said that there they would be, out in the wild, with no idea where they were going, or how to get there. Erum said with a smile that this was no new predicament for him: Lord Dru had guided his and Melohtar’s steps before, and he was sure that Dru had a plan for him and Swin now. On a more practical note, he congratulated Swin on saving all their belongings, including the bow. He was sure that they would be able to keep themselves alive in this rich country.
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