Power of Three (26 page)

Gair could see Hafny meant this. A gust of dismay swept over him, as he thought of the prisoners in Garholt.

“Gair,” said Ayna, “we must go and find Father straightaway.”

“You can't,” said Gerald. “Unless—Are they still chasing them—the ones who were after them yesterday?” he asked Hafny.

Hafny shrugged. Shrugging, Gair was beginning to think, was very characteristic of Dorig. “No. My father called that off,” he said, to their great relief. “I told you, we leave Giants alone. My father thought the Giants would kill you anyway.”

“Who
is
your father?” said Brenda. “Chief Dory or something?”

Halla's chin lifted proudly. “He's the King.”

“Well, fancy!” said Brenda.

“Halla,” said Hafny, “you shouldn't have told them that.”

“Why not?” said Halla. “We've unhooded to them.”

“But none of them have hoods.” Hafny shrugged again as he looked round the table. “I expect you're all thinking what good hostages we'll make.”

“It never crossed my mind,” Gerald said, rather angrily. “We promised to let you go.”

Gair was glad Gerald had chosen to behave with Giant honorableness. For a moment, he had been very tempted. Yesterday the Dorig had been rounding up children with gold collars, no doubt to use as hostages. It would turn the tables splendidly if today those same children took the King's son prisoner and sent the King's daughter with the news. It would be that way round, Gair knew. Nobody cared for Halla, but Hafny was interesting. Gair would have liked to have known him better. But it was not to be. Gair looked regretfully at the two Dorig. That they were King's children explained a lot. It explained Halla's haughtiness and Hafny's queer self-confidence, and the way both seemed to speak for the entire Dorig race. It explained their splendid collars. But one thing it did not explain was why Hafny felt he owed them his warning.

“Before you go,” Gair said, and he put it that way so as to place temptation firmly behind him. “Before you go, why did you say you owed us that warning?”

He was surprised to find Hafny blushing the pale pink Dorig blush—though less surprised when he also shrugged. “Well, it's your father I owe really,” Hafny said uncomfortably. “I think he was your father, from the collar and the likeness. That's how I came to have your name. Ceri kept saying it—but perhaps you don't remember. It was the day we flooded Otmound. You were out hunting and I was—well, I'd got into trouble and run away.”

“He keeps doing that,” Halla said, in a weary, elder-sisterly way.

“So what? I did it last year. Sometimes you get mad,” Gerald said.

“I did it, too,” said Gair. “Go on.”

“I walked most of the night,” said Hafny, “and about dawn your hunt came by, and I had to hide in a pool. I stayed under until I'd no air left. I couldn't feel any more footsteps, so I came up and hoped. And the first thing I saw was you dragging Ceri along and both of you armed to the teeth.”

Ceri's face was brilliant red, and Gair knew his own was the same. “You mean that was
you
?” Ceri said. “We were scared stiff!”

Hafny laughed. “I
know
,” he said. Gair, looking at Hafny laughing, wondered if he would ever understand the Wisdom. The Wisdom said Dorig were ruled by Saturn, as Gerald seemed to be, but Gair knew that if he had ever seen anyone ruled by Mercury, it was Hafny. “I was quite as scared,” Hafny said. “I didn't think, I was so frightened. I just shifted straight to a deer. And of course you both did your best to kill me. I was still so frightened that all I could think of doing at first was to get bigger. And I got to the point where I was so thin on the ground I couldn't move, and you still didn't run away. So I thought of shifting to a warrior. That meant I was still pretty thin on the ground and I couldn't speak—it's hard to talk if you're spread out—so I just walked at you and prayed to the Powers you'd run away now. And you wouldn't. I'd never met anyone so maddeningly brave. And before I could think what to do, your whole hunt was all round me. I thought my last hour had come, because they always tell you Lymen kill you at once if they find you on your own, and I couldn't speak, and I was spread so thin it hurt—I've never felt so horrible in my life. Then your father told me I could go. I've never been so grateful to anyone. I was back in that pool before I knew I'd moved, and I lay there and swore I'd do something in return if I could.”

It was queer to have the story from the other point of view. Ceri and Gair were exchanging uncomfortable looks, when Halla made Gair even more uncomfortable by saying:

“And I suppose you've been following Gair around ever since?”

“Not all the time,” Hafny protested, looking as uncomfortable as Gair felt. “Mostly here, when you were watching the Giants. We watch you quite a bit,” he said to Brenda and Gerald.

Gair felt foolish. He remembered that squirrel when he had been in the wood, and he prayed to the Sun that Hafny had not chanced to be near the time he had walked along the dike shouting to the Dorig to come and get him.

“Flipping follow-my-leader,” Gerald said. “Why on earth couldn't somebody have talked to somebody before now?”

“Do you think it's done any good?” Hafny asked him, as if he was hoping for something.

There was a gloomy pause. “No one's talked about that collar yet,” Ayna remarked. As soon as she said it, Gair felt the collar break into pulsing life—as if it had been dormant and Ayna's words had wakened it again.

Chapter

13

“WHAT COLLAR?” SAID HALLA.

“It's a Dorig collar,” Ceri said. “You can see it is. The work's the same, and both theirs have birds' heads in front, too.” And he explained that it had a curse on it and that Gest seemed to have given it to Gerald's father years ago.

The Dorig were interested but puzzled. “I never heard of a curse,” said Halla.

“Where is this collar?” Hafny asked.

Brenda's face glowed. She wrung the maximum drama out of the answer. “In this very house!”

She annoyed Gerald heartily. He said, far more casually than he felt, “I'll show you if you like.”

“All right,” said Hafny.

So Gerald led them all to the study, where Halla and Hafny stared round as curiously as Ayna and Ceri had done the day before. The cold blast of power from the collar made Gair feel ill. When Gerald opened the drawer, he had to hold onto the back of a chair and clench his teeth.

“Oh!” Brenda cried out, enchanted by the richness of the thing, its greenness and its beauty. She put out a large mauve hand to pick it up.

“Don't touch it!”
shouted everyone else in the room.

Brenda snatched her hand back, looking puzzled and hurt. “Why ever not?”

“The curse will come off on you,” said Halla. She and Hafny were almost as badly affected as Gair. They both stood sideways to the drawer, as if they could not bear to look at the collar straight on, and both had gone pale. When Dorig went pale, they went ashy.

“Yes, it's cursed all right,” Hafny said. “As strong as could be.”

He and Halla snatched sidelong looks at the collar. “Hafny,” Halla said. “Owls belong to our family. Whose could it have been?”

“I don't know,” said Hafny, looking like death. “The work doesn't look all that old. Halla, do you realize? This room must be right above our halls.”

Halla's hands went to her thin white cheeks. “Powers! Then it must be causing our troubles, too! Where did it come from?”

“Otmound,” said Ayna. “We think.”

“Father hates Otmound,” said Halla.

“Do you know how we can get the curse off it?” asked Gerald. “You're not the only ones it's making trouble for.”

To Gair's disappointment, both Dorig shook their heads. “I know you can't destroy a thing that's cursed,” said Halla. “You have to lift the curse first. How to lift a curse is one of our Songmen's secrets. We could take it to them—”

“No!” said Hafny. “Put it away. Shut it up. Let's go.”

Gerald, rather pale himself, slammed the drawer shut. Immediately, Gair felt better and the two Dorig recovered their color. But none of them felt particularly happy as they trooped away into the hall, except Brenda. Brenda was brimming over with excitement.

“Oh,” she said. “It was lovely.
Evil
beauty!”

“Shut up!” growled Gerald. “I suppose you two want to go now?”

“Yes please,” said Halla. “If you could take the Thought away.”

Ceri concentrated briefly, and Halla and Hafny both disappeared in a wave of cold air. The rest looked round the hall in bewilderment. Then Brenda nearly stepped on a mouse. She recoiled with a squawk, and all but tramped on another.

“You'll get squashed, you stupid fools!” said Ayna.

The next moment, the mice were piling into gray pillars in that way that Gair thought he would never get used to, not if he lived among Dorig for the rest of his life. Hafny and Halla hardened out of them, laughing.

“Funny how Giants are always scared of mice!” Hafny said.

“You wouldn't think it so funny if I'd stepped on you,” Brenda told him angrily.

Gair found he had come to a decision. How he had reached it, he was not sure. He did not think that the collar in the drawer was at the moment pulsing with evil, and that, of all the people there, he was the most responsive to it. He simply knew he had decided. “Hafny,” he said, “could I talk to your father? Would you take me to him?”

There was a shocked silence in the hall. Then everyone began telling Gair at once he was insane. Halla went off into hissing laughter. But Gair ignored them and watched the expressions on Hafny's narrow face. Hafny looked surprised, alarmed and rather scared, but he did not seem, like Halla, to find the idea ridiculous. Gair might have thought, but he did not, that Hafny was almost as sensitive to the collar as he was himself. What he thought instead was that, in his queer way, Hafny was honorable; that Dorig, now he knew a little more about them, were not as alarming as he thought; and that the Giant way of talking was worth trying on the King.

“You'd be taking a risk,” Hafny said at length. “I think you'd be better off going to find your father. What would you want to say?”

“Hafny, you're not going to
agree
!” Halla exclaimed.

“Gair, you are
not
to go,” said Ayna. “We should have gone to find Father hours ago.”

“You must do that,” Gair said. “Go as soon as I've gone, and I'll come to Garholt when I've seen the King. I'd like,” he said to Hafny, “to ask your father to make peace. I'll be a hostage if necessary.”

“No. Be a messenger,” said Hafny. “No one hurts messengers.”

“All right,” said Gair. “Would you mind if I took the collar with me and asked your Songmen how to raise the curse?”

Hafny shivered a little before he shrugged. “If you wrap it up thoroughly.”

Gair looked at Gerald. “I could ask about those Halls of the Kings, too.”

But Gerald's large Giant features showed that he had also come to a decision. “I'm coming, too. I'll ask. You'll be safer with me, if they don't touch Giants, and I've got to find out which Downs he means. I can't ask old Claybury to dig up all Sussex and Berkshire on spec, can I?”

Then Gair did think of the collar. He remembered that Gerald was an only child, and that he had lived beside the collar all his life and admitted to touching it. “You mustn't. You won't be safe.”

Gerald looked mulish. Hafny said dryly, “He's likely to be safer than you are.”

“Stop it, Hafny!” said Halla. “I refuse to take them. It must be a thousand years since Lymen or Giants came down to our kingdom. Everyone will be furious. I won't help you.”

“Good for you!” said Ayna.

Hafny turned to Halla. “Halla, listen. If this went right, you wouldn't need to be afraid every second you were up on land. You could come up whenever you wanted. Walk in fresh air. Climb trees. You'd like that.”