The Stolen Lake (Wolves Chronicles)

by Joan Aiken

  The existence of aurocs was soon confirmed. A huge shadow drifted across the track, and all the burros shied and brayed nervously. As they descended the pass, more of the great triangular shadows crossed the mountainside.

  "Blimey," said Dido to Mr. Multiple, "if we could put a couple of those on show at the Battersea Fun Fair, we'd all lay by enough mint sauce to buy Threadneedle Street. Ain't they the ugliest monsters you ever saw?"

  The aurocs, becoming inquisitive, wheeled in closer and closer to the calvacade, with hardly a flip of their great fur-covered, leathery wings. Their claws could clearly be seen, and their cruel beaks, with protruding tusks on either side. Though Dido tried to joke about them, it was plain they were no laughing matter. They were evidently attracted by the sight of Mr. Holystone, motionless on his litter; they drifted lower and lower. Once or twice Lieutenant Windward discharged his musket at them, and then they would flap away to a distance, with raucous shrieks; but they invariably returned, and their numbers increased as the day drew on.

  Mr. Multiple, an excellent marksman, managed to wing one with a pistol shot; it fluttered, wabbling away, squawking hideously, to a cactus-studded knoll a hundred yards from the track, and the travelers then witnessed a horrible spectacle, for the other aurocs all swooped down on their wounded comrade and in a very short time devoured it completely, leaving nothing but a few shreds of fur and splinters of bone on the sandy ground.

  "Ugh, the cannibals!" shuddered Noah Gusset. "Still, at least it keeps their nasty minds off us!"

  Unfortunately, by the time the aurocs had finished their repulsive feast, the travelers had reached a very dangerous section of the pass they were traversing. This was a valley region of strange heaving, pulsing bogs and quagmires, colored in bright prismatic hues, dark red, ochre yellow, and sulphurous, iridescent blue; great gouts of steam drift ed up from the ground, and from time to time an explosive fountain of mud would suddenly spurt up into the air, each time from a different spot.

  "It is a thermal region," said the knowledgeable Lieutenant Windward. "I have seen such places in Iceland, when I was second mate on the Arctic Tern. These are geysers, caused by the volcanoes round about."

  "Careful! Quam celerrime here, sirs, but extra careful," warned Dylan. "Get stuck in mud here, you sink down, down, to King Arawn."

  The burros were evidently well aware of the danger; they flapped their long ears, heehawed, and stepped nervously and delicately along the narrow, slippery path, which wound a circuitous way between heaving, steaming pools and spouting fountains. Every now and then the party were spattered by hot mud. A dismal stench hung around the place, "like unwashed Christmas socks full o' rotten potatoes," Dido said.

  Strange vegetation grew in this valley, nurtured by its dark, unwholesome warmth; fleshy gray-green leaves clustered round the bubbling pools, and grotesque, sickly scented flowers hung from fat pale stalks on the rock faces.

  "I'll be glad when we get out o' here," commented Mr. Multiple, thumping his burro to make it go faster.

  But the aurocs, emboldened by the slow pace of the travelers, now circled in closer and closer; one of them wheeled so near to Plum's donkey that it panicked and shied away sideways, slipping off the track and tossing its rider into a great heaving pool of mud. Plum yelled frenziedly, trying to extricate himself from the gluey, dripping morass.

  "Keep still, man!" shouted Lieutenant Windward. "We'll throw you a rope! Don't struggle—you will only sink yourself faster!"

  But before Windward could drag a rope from his saddlebag, the hovering aurocs, assured of a helpless prey, had swooped down in a flurry of black, hairy wings, snapping beaks, and flailing talons. Two of them fought for the donkey, and the larger won; with a screech of triumph it snatched up the wretched animal by its saddle and flapped away, dwindling in no time to a speck in the distance. Meanwhile, two others had dragged poor Plum out of the mud pool and were battling over him while Windward and Multiple, cursing with frustration, waited for a chance to shoot without injuring their companion. No such chance was given; while the two aurocs were fighting, a third swooped in, snatched up the hapless man, suddenly soared up on a rising current of hot air, and disappeared behind a crag. Windward and Multiple both fired at it, but both missed.

  "Devil take the brute!" cried Windward, reloading with shaking hands. "We must go after it. We must rescue Plum!" He kicked his burro to urge it to a gallop.

  "No, sir—no gallop, no gallop!" shouted Dylan urgently. "Festina lente! You go in mud, we all go—aurocs eat the lot of us. No possible save that hombre. He done for. Aurocs eat quick."

  Remembering the hideous speed with which the aurocs had devoured their own companion, Lieutenant Windward was reluctantly obliged to give way.

  "He's right, sir, I'm afraid," said Multiple, and Noah Gusset muttered, "Ay, those greedy monsters can swallow a man before you can prime your pistol. Poor old Plum's mincemeat by now no doubt of that. Ah, he had a rare voice for a shanty, when he were in the mood, did old Plum, and could knit faster than anyone in the fo'c'sle."

  Daunted and appalled by this horrid mishap, the remaining five travelers drew closer together, Mr. Multiple riding alongside the sick man with his pistol ready cocked. Fortunately, they soon left the thermal region, climbed up through a narrow, rocky defile, and presently came in sight of their first objective.

  "Arianrod," said Dylan briefly, pointing ahead and downward.

  For a moment the travelers were deluded into thinking that the lake was full of water.

  "Can the queen have been mistaken?" exclaimed Mr. Multiple. "Or King Mabon have restored it already?"

  "Perhaps a spring has replenished it," said Lieutenant Windward.

  But then they realized that the vast, star-shaped basin lying among the four mountains was filled only with white mist, which billowed and heaved like the waves of an insubstantial sea.

  They spent the night on a rock ledge above the great hollow. Dylan kindled a fire to keep off jaguars and mountain lions, which it successfully did. The fire was of small use for cooking, since they were so high, up here, that water boiled at a very low temperature, but they toasted plantains on sticks and ate hunks of barley bread. Then, wrapped in ruanas and vicuna fleeces, they lay down to a cold and uneasy night's rest, with the burros tethered in a ring round them for added protection.

  "What about aurocs?" Dido said to Mr. Multiple.

  "Dylan says they all go to roost at night; they have weak vision. And they don't like dark or cloudy weather. At least we shan't have to worry about them till sunup."

  But Dido could not easily dismiss the thought of the horrible creatures; they flapped and shrieked through her dreams. Mr. Holystone, too, seemed troubled by nightmares; he tossed and moaned, and cried out words in some foreign tongue. Dido remembered that he had said he was found as a baby on the shores of Lake Arianrod; she wondered if the knowledge that he was so close to his birthplace had somehow penetrated his slumbers.

  Long before dawn Dylan was up and feeding the burros.

  "I go now, sirs; I leaving you here," he announced briefly. "Arianrod you see below; you keeping south, sun behind you"—he gestured along the basin, between the steeply angled sides of Calabe and Catelonde—"you soon coming to Pass of Nimue. Lyonesse on ahead. You finding stable of Caradog and guardian down below. Sul's temple up above on mountain. You showing permit to Caradog, he let you through pass."

  Windward and Multiple tried to persuade Dylan to accompany them farther, but he shook his head emphatically.

  "Arianrod nogood place, sirs. Benigne. I coming no farther, I going now, celerimme."

  "But what about the aurocs, man, on the way back? How the deuce will you ever get through safely on your own?"

  "Keeping them off, no fear"—he gestured with his crossbow—"I riding best fast burro, so valete, goodbye, sirs."

  Lieutenant Windward paid his fee, which he demanded in cash; Dylan kicked his mount into a rapid trot and departed, waving his sombrero, but without ev
er looking back. The rest of the party lost no time in setting off in the opposite direction.

  A narrow track, dug out of the steeply sloping mountainside, led down in zigzags to the level of the lake basin, and then along beside what had presumably been the shore of the lake when it was full of water.

  As they scrambled down the zigzags, the sun mounted behind Catelonde, which was plainly an active volcano; black clouds of smoke issued from its cup-shaped summit, throwing wild shadows over the white mist which still filled the lake bed. However, just as the party reached the narrow, level track that skirted the lake, all this mist rose up and hung in the sky overhead, so that the travelers were able to see the dry sandy and stony arena which was what King Mabon had left his neighbor Queen Ginevra when he removed her lake.

  "Musta been a right job, taking it," said Dido. "Hey, Mr. Windward, why don't us ride along the bed of the lake, 'stead of this narrow track? Then we can all bunch together in case of aurocs."

  Windward thought this a good suggestion, and the burros were urged down on to the lake bed. No aurocs, however, appeared today, presumably because of the heavy cloud overhead, which now obscured the sun. A great many dried fishbones were scattered on the sand; evidently, when the water had been removed a number of mountain predators had been furnished with an unexpected fish dinner.

  "This looks like gold-bearing soil to me," said Mr. Multiple. "There's gold mines in Wales, where I used to stay with my uncle. The ground looked like this. I daresay we could all make our fortunes if we sieved up a bit of this sand."

  "Best not touch it!" warned Windward. "Don't forget, Arianrod was a sacred lake. The queen would have our guts for garters, likely, if you began digging up the bed."

  Mr. Multiple's face assumed an obstinate expression. He made no answer, but continued to keep a careful eye on the ground as he rode along. Presently he let out an exclamation.

  "Now what?" demanded Windward. "For heaven's sake, man, keep up a better pace! We shan't reach the frontier by nightfall at this rate."

  But Mr. Multiple, tumbling impetuously off his burro, had scooped something off the ground which he now triumphantly exhibited.

  "What do you say to that, then? A diamond as big as a pullet's egg, or my name's not Frank Multiple!"

  "Are you certain?" said the lieutenant skeptically. "It looks to me like any earthy pebble."

  "That's no pebble, sir—it's a diamond. See here—" and he scraped with his thumbnail. "My granddad was a goldsmith; I could not mistake. Hey—there's dozens of 'em! Let us stop but half an hour, and we are all as rich as Crusoes!"

  Windward was resolute, however, that they must press on, so Mr. Multiple discontentedly climbed back into the saddle, muttering privately to Noah Gusset that it was a hem shame! He stared hard at the ground as they rode along, every now and then leaping down to grab a stone, remounting, and kicking his donkey into a fast trot to overtake the others again.

  Dido could not help being somewhat infected by his enthusiasm; she, too, began to study the ground as she rode, and so chanced to perceive what seemed to be a rusty metal cross, half buried in a shallow sandy depression. A wink of red at its extremity had caught her eye.

  "Here—hold hard a minute, Mr. Windward," she said. "Maybe that thing's summat worth taking along—might be vallyble."

  Sliding to the ground, she knelt and tugged at the cross-shaped object. To her surprise the buried end was far longer than it had appeared, and quite deeply embedded in the ground. She had a hard struggle to pull it out.

  "Do, pray make haste, Miss Twite," said Windward impatiently. "We cannot be forever stopping for trifles!"

  "This ain't no trifle—blimey, it's a sword!" cried Dido in triumph. "And I reckon it's worth a packet, too—look at all them colored sparklers in the handle!"

  "Yes, well, that's as may be, but the blade is all rusty—I wish you will not be lumbering us up with such useless articles! In any case, it indubitably belongs to the queen."

  "Well, then, we'd better hand it to that there whatshisname, the guardian, and he can send it back to her," said Dido reasonably. "It won't hurt poor old Mr. Holy to have it by him." She laid it in the litter and hopped back onto her burro.

  No further incidents occurred to fidget Mr. Windward during the ride along the dried-up lake bed. Fortunately, the low cloud prevented any attacks by aurocs, but the atmosphere was very oppressive, sultry, and heavy. The burros slipped and stumbled on the shingly, powdery sand.

  "I guess even the ground is hot hereabouts," said Dido, feeling it with her hand when they stopped for a drink; none of them felt hungry.

  "It may well be," said Mr. Multiple. "After all, we're getting uncommonly close to that big volcano. Look, you can see lava running down it like toffee. Supposing that big rock toppled off when we were passing by?"

  "I reckon it's been there for a good few thousand years," said Lieutenant Windward.

  "This is a right spooky place. I ain't surprised Dylan didn't want to come here," Dido said.

  Deep among the four surrounding mountains—twinheaded Arrabe, dome-shaped Damyake, cloud-girt Calabe, and smoke-belching Catelonde, with a huge stone balanced on its summit—the travelers felt as if they were at the bottom of a well, with black, steeply shelving slopes rising all around them. There were very few birds to be seen here, and no animals at all; the only sound that broke the silence was an occasional rumbling mutter from Mount Catelonde ahead of them. I'll be glad when we're past that one, thought Dido. She noticed that when Catelonde rumbled, Mr. Holystone stirred restlessly on his litter, as if he could hear the sound in his dreams.

  In mid-afternoon, some three quarters of the way along the basin, they reached a point from which the far end was visible; they could see the narrow pass which led out and southward toward Lyonesse.

  "You can see why the water didn't flow out when the queen first had the lake put here," said Mr. Multiple. "It's been dammed."

  "Well, she wouldn't want it to trickle away, after having brought it so far."

  "I suppose they brought it up in water-skins, on burros."

  "Or llamas," said Dido.

  Mount Catelonde gave a loud snort, and Mr. Holystone cried out sharply, stirring and rolling over on to his side. His hand, groping about, found the handle of the rusty sword that Dido had unearthed, and clasped it.

  He murmured some brief remark and opened his eyes.

  "Hey! Mr. Windward!" Dido called to the lieutenant, who was on ahead. "Mr. Holystone said summat—he's a-stirring—I believe he's a mite better! Maybe if we gave him a drink..."

  Windward, sighing, turned his burro and came back.

  "Did he really speak? It's not a Banbury story?"

  But he, too, sounded hopeful. He, like everybody else, greatly respected Mr. Holystone's judgment. In the present circumstances, without the captain, and now their numbers reduced by the loss of Plum, the steward's restoration to health and consciousness would be a piece of great good fortune. "What did he say?"

  "Sounded like 'halibut.'"

  "Oh, fiddle-de-dee, Miss Twite!"

  "No, it did! Truly! Listen!"

  "Caliburn," muttered Mr. Holystone indistinctly, and then, louder and with more assurance, "Caliburn!"

  Noah Gusset had already halted the pair of burros that carried the litter slung between them, and was taking out his leather water-bottle. Now Dido and Mr. Multiple assisted the sick man to sit up. He looked around him wonderingly, at the black, snow-streaked mountain slopes and the sandy lake bed, at their concerned faces watching him, and, lastly, at the sword in his hand. For the third time, in a tone of joy and recognition, he repeated the word. "Caliburn! My sword, come back to my hand!"

  "Mr. Holystone!" cried Dido in rapture. "Are—are you feeling more the thing, now?"

  His eyes rested on her with an expression of perplexity.

  "I know the place," he said. "I know the sword. I know myself. But who are you? Who are these?" glancing again at Windward, Noah, and Multiple.

&n
bsp; "Why—why, we're your friends, Mr. Holy! Don't you recognize us?" Dido was terribly startled and grieved.

  "No, my child. But I can see that you are all good people. Your faces are—are trustworthy."

  "Trustworthy!" said Lieutenant Windward rather shortly. "So I should hope! If you knew how far we had hauled you up these godforsaken mountains! Come now, do you not remember us? I am Lieutenant Windward, first lieutenant of His Majesty's sloop Thrush—this is Mr. Midshipman Multiple—this is Miss Twite—"

  "Don't you remember all those times I helped you polish the cap'n's teaspoons, Mr. Holy?"

  As it was quite plain that he did not, Noah Gusset sensibly suggested, "He be main weak and wambly yet. Why doesn't us give him a drop o' summat hot?"

  Since it was impossible to boil water, they gave the recovering man a drink of aguardiente, and some of the cassava bread and baked turtles' eggs which none of them had fancied for their midday meal. The patient ate slowly, and could not take much, but the food visibly did him good. When he had finished, he stood up, unassisted, by slow and careful stages, stretched, and staggered, but kept his balance, leaning on the sword, which he had held tightly clasped in his hand since awakening.

  Then, frowning in perplexity, he said, "You brought me here? On that litter? But then ... where had I been before?"

  He articulated his words very slowly, as if translating from another language in his mind.

  "Brought you here? Why, from the Thrush, of course," Windward repeated. "You're the captain's steward. Don't you remember anything?"

  Holystone shook his head.

  "I remember battles. The alliance against us—King Mark, King Lot, King Anguish—and my nephew. Mordred. And then I was wounded—here—" he raised an uncertain hand to the back of his head. "I gave Caliburn to Bedivere to throw in the lake."

  His hand lovingly caressed the hilt of the sword. He glanced down and said, "The blade is rusty. But a rub in the sand will soon mend that."