The Black Cauldron

Chapter 17 The Choice

IT WAS ELLIDYR. With Islimach following, he strode to the riverbank. Dry mud caked his tawny hair and grimed his face. His cheeks and hands had been cruelly slashed; his bloodstained jacket was half ripped from his shoulders, and he wore no cloak. Dark-ringed, his eyes glittered feverishly. Ellidyr halted before the speechless companions, threw back his head, and glanced scornfully at them.

"Well met," he said in a hoarse voice, "brave company of scarecrows." His lips drew back in a taut, bitter grin. "The pig-boy, the scullery maid― I do not see the dreamer."

"What do you here?" Taran cried, facing him angrily. "You dare speak of Adaon? He is slain and lies beneath his burial mound. You have betrayed us, Son of Pen-Llarcau! Where were you when the Huntsmen set upon us? When another sword would have turned the balance? The price was Adaon's life, a better man than you shall ever be!"

Ellidyr did not reply, but moved stiffly past Taran and squatted down near the pile of saddlebags. "Give me food," he said sharply. "Roots and rain water have been my meat and drink."

"Evil traitor!" shouted Gurgi, leaping to his feet. "There are no crunchings and munchings for wicked villain, no, no!"

"Hold your tongue," said Ellidyr, "or you shall hold your head."

"Give him food, as he asks," Taran ordered.

Muttering furiously, Gurgi obeyed and opened the wallet.

"And just because we're feeding you," cried Eilonwy, "don't think you're welcome to it!"

"The scullery maid is not pleased to see me," said Ellidyr. "She shows temper."

"Can't say I really blame her," rejoined Fflewddur. "And I don't see that you should expect anything else. You've done us a bad turn. Would you have us hold a festival?"

"The harp-scraper is still with you, at least," Ellidyr said, seizing the food from Gurgi. "But I see he is a bird with the wing down."

"Birds again," murmured the bard with a shudder. "Shall I never be allowed to forget Orddu?"

"Why do you seek us?" Taran demanded. "You were content to leave us once. What brings you here now?"

"Seek you?" Ellidyr laughed harshly. "I seek the Marshes of Morva."

"Well, you're a long way from them," Eilonwy cried. "But if you're in a hurry to get there― as I hope you are― I'll be glad to give you directions. And while you're there, I suggest you find Orddu, Orwen, and Orgoch. They'll be happier to see you than we are."

Ellidyr wolfed down his food and settled himself against the saddlebags. "That is better," he said. "Now there is a bit more life in me."

"Enough to take you wherever you happen to be going," snapped Eilonwy.

"And wherever you happen to be going," replied Ellidyr, "I wish you the joy of your journey. You shall find Huntsmen enough to satisfy you."

"What," cried Taran, "are the Huntsmen still abroad?"

"Yes, pig-boy," Ellidyr answered. "All Annuvin is astir. The Huntsmen I have outrun, a noble game of hare and hounds. The gwythaints have had their sport of me," he added with a contemptuous laugh, "though it cost them two of their number. But enough remain to offer you good hunting, if that is your pleasure."

"I hope you didn't lead them to us," Eilonwy began.

"I led them nowhere," said Ellidyr, "least of all to you, since I did not know you were here. When the gwythaints and I parted company, I assure you I gave little heed to the path I chose."

"You can still choose your path," said Eilonwy, "so long as it leads you from us. And I hope you follow it as swiftly as you did when you sneaked away."

"Sneaked away?" laughed Ellidyr. "A Son of Pen-Llarcau does not sneak. You were too slow-footed for me. There were matters of urgency to attend to."

"Your own glory!" Taran replied sharply. "You thought of nothing else. At least, Ellidyr, speak the truth."

"It is true enough I meant to go to the Marshes of Morva," Ellidyr said with a bitter smile. "And true enough I did not find them. Though I should, had the Huntsmen not barred my way.

"From the scullery maid's words," Ellidyr went on, "I gather you have been to Morva."

Taran nodded. "Yes, we have been there. Now we return to Caer Dallben."

Ellidyr laughed again. "And you, too, have failed. But, since your journey was the longer, I ask you which of us wasted more of his labor and pains?"

"Failed?" cried Taran. "We did not fail! The cauldron is ours! There it lies," he added, pointing past the riverbank to the black hump of the Crochan.

Ellidyr sprang to his feet and looked across the water. "How, then!" he shouted wrathfully. "Have you cheated me once more?" His face darkened with rage. "Do I risk my life again so that a pig-boy may rob me of my prize?" His eyes were frenzied and he made to seize Taran by the throat.

Taran struck away his hand. "I have never cheated you, Son of Pen-Llarcau!" he cried. "Your prize? Risk your life? We have lost life and shed blood for the cauldron. Yes, a heavy price has been paid, heavier than you know, Prince of Pen Llarcau."

Ellidyr seemed to strangle on his rage. He stood without moving, his face working and twitching. But he soon forced himself to seem again cold and haughty, though his hands still trembled.

"So, pig-boy," he said in a low, rasping voice, "you have found the cauldron after all. Yet, indeed, it would seem to belong more to the river than to you. Who but a pig-boy would leave it stranded thus? Did you not have wits enough or strength enough to smash it, that you must bear it with you?"

"The Crochan cannot be destroyed unless a man give up his life in it," Taran answered. "We have wits enough to know it must be put safely in Dallben's hands."

"Would you be a hero, pig-boy?" asked Ellidyr. "Why do you not climb into it yourself? Surely you are bold enough. Or are you a coward at heart, when the test is put upon you?"

Taran disregarded Ellidyr's taunt. "We need your help," he said urgently. "Our strength fails us. Help us bring the Crochan to Caer Dallben. Or at least aid us to move it to the riverbank."

"Help you?" Ellidyr threw back his head and laughed wildly. "Help you? So that a pig-boy may strut before Gwydion and boast of his deeds? And a Prince of Pen-Llarcau play the churl? No, you shall have no help from me! I warned you to take your own part! Do it now, pig-boy!"

Eilonwy screamed and pointed to the sky. "Gwythaints!"

A flight of three gwythaints soared high above the trees. Racing with the wind-driven clouds, the gigantic birds sped closer. Taran and Eilonwy caught up Fflewddur between them and stumbled into the bushes. Gurgi, almost witless with fear, pulled on the horses' bridles, leading them to the safety of the trees. While Ellidyr followed, the gwythaints swooped downward, the wind rattling in their flashing feathers.

With harsh and fearsome shrieking, the gwythaints circled around the cauldron, blotting out the sun with their black wings. One of the ferocious birds came to rest on the Crochan and for an instant remained poised there, beating its wings. The gwythaints made no attempt to attack the companions, but circled once again, then drove skyward. They veered north and the mountains quickly hid them.

Pale and shaking, Taran stepped from the bushes. "They have found what they were seeking," he said. "Arawn will soon know the Crochan waits to be plucked from our hands." He turned to Ellidyr. "Help us," he asked again, "I beg you. We dare not lose a moment."

Ellidyr shrugged and strode down the river-bank into the shallows where he looked closely at the half-sunken Crochan. "It can be moved," he said when he returned. "But not by you, pig-boy. You will need the strength of Islimach added to your own steeds― and you will need mine."

"Lend us your strength, then," Taran pleaded. "Let us raise the Crochan and be gone from here before more of Arawn's servants reach it."

"Perhaps I shall; perhaps I shall not," answered Ellidyr with a strange look in his eyes. "Did you pay a price to gain the cauldron? Very well, you shall pay another one.

"Hear me, pig-boy," he went on. "If I help you bear the cauldron to Caer Dallben, it shall be on my own conditions."

"This is no time for conditions," cried Eilonwy. "We don't want to listen to your conditions, Ellidyr. We'll find our own way to get the Crochan out. Or we'll stay here with it and one of us can go back and bring Gwydion."

"Stay here and be slain," Ellidyr replied. "No, it must be done now, and done as I say or not at all."

He turned to Taran. "These are my conditions," he said. "The Crochan is mine, and you shall be under my command. It is I who found it, not you, pig-boy. It is I who fought for it and won it. So you shall say to Gwydion and the others. And you shall all swear the most binding oath."

"No, we shall not!" cried Eilonwy. "You ask us to lie so that you may steal the Crochan and steal our own efforts with it! You are mad, Ellidyr!"

"Not mad, scullery maid," said Ellidyr, his eyes blazing, "but weary to my death. Do you hear me? All my life have I been forced into the second rank. I have been put aside, slighted. Honor? It has been denied me at every turn. But this time I shall not let the prize slip from my fingers."

"Adaon saw a black beast on your shoulders," Taran said quietly. "And I, too, have seen it. I see it now, Ellidyr."

"I care nothing for your black beast!" shouted Ellidyr. "I care for my honor."

"Do you think," Taran said, "I care nothing for mine?"

"What is the honor of a pig-boy?" laughed Ellidyr, "compared to the honor of a prince?"

"I have paid for my honor," answered Taran, his voice rising, "more dearly than you would pay for yours. Do you ask me now to cast it away?"

"You, pig-boy, dared reproach me for seeking glory," said Ellidyr. "Yet you yourself cling to it with your dirty hands. I shall not tarry here. My terms or nothing. Make your choice."

Taran stood silent. Eilonwy seized Ellidyr by the jacket. "How dare you ask such a price?"

Ellidyr drew away. "Let the pig-boy decide. It is up to him whether he will pay it."

"If I swear this," Taran said, turning to the companions, "you must swear along with me. Once given, I will not break an oath, and it would be even more to my shame if I broke this one. Before I can decide, I must know whether you, too, will bind yourselves. On this we must all agree."

No one spoke. At length, Fflewddur murmured, "I put the decision in your hands and abide by what you do."

Gurgi nodded his head solemnly.

"I shall not lie!" Eilonwy cried, "not for this traitor and deserter."

"It is not for him," Taran said quietly, "but for the sake of our quest."

"It isn't right," Eilonwy began, tears starting in her eyes.

"We do not speak of rightness," Taran answered. "We speak of a task to be finished."

Eilonwy looked away. "Fflewddur has said the choice is yours," she murmured at last. "I must say the same."

For a long moment Taran did not speak. All the anguish he had felt when Adaon's brooch had left his hands returned to him. And he recalled Eilonwy's words in his blackest despair, the girl's voice telling him that nothing could take away what he had done. Yet this was the very price Ellidyr demanded.

Taran bowed his head. "The cauldron, Ellidyr, is yours," he said slowly. "We are at your command, and all things shall be as you say. Thus we swear."

Heavy-hearted and silent, the companions followed Ellidyr's orders and once again lashed ropes around the sunken Crochan. Ellidyr hitched the three horses side by side, then attached the lines to them. While Fflewddur held the bridles with his uninjured hand, the companions waded into the shallows.

Ellidyr, standing up to his knees in the rushing water, commanded Taran, Eilonwy, and Gurgi to post themselves on either side of the Crochan and keep it from slipping back against the boulders. He signaled an order to the waiting bard, then bent to his own task.

As he had done with Melynlas long before, Ellidyr thrust his shoulders as far below the cauldron as the rocks allowed. His body tensed; the veins rose to bursting on his streaming forehead. Still the cauldron did not yield. Beside him, Taran and Eilonwy heaved vainly at the sling.

Gasping for breath, Ellidyr turned once more to the Crochan. The sling creaked against the boulders; the ropes strained. Ellidyr's shoulders were cut and bleeding, his face deathly white. He choked out another command to the companions; his muscles trembled in a final effort.

With a cry, he pitched forward into the water, stumbling to gain his balance. Then he gave an exultant shout. The cauldron had lifted free.

Desperately the companions labored to bring the Crochan to shore. Ellidyr seized one end of the sling and thrust ahead. The cauldron skidded to dry, firm ground.

On the riverbank they quickly roped the sling between Melynlas and Lluagor. Ellidyr hitched up Islimach as the leading horse, to guide the others and bear a share of the weight.

Until then Ellidyr's eyes had burned with triumph, but now his face changed.

"My cauldron has been won back from the river," he said, with a curious glance at Taran. "But I think perhaps I was too hasty. You met my terms too quickly," he added. "Tell me, what is in your mind, pig-boy?" Rage filled him again. "I know well enough! Once more you would try to cheat me!"

"You have my oath." Taran began.

"What is the oath of a pig-boy?" Ellidyr said. "You gave it; you will break it!"

"Speak for yourself," Eilonwy said angrily. "That's what you would do, Prince of Pen-Llarcau. But we are not like you."

"The cauldron needed all of us to raise it," Ellidyr continued, lowering his voice. "But does it now need all of us to carry it? A few would serve," he added. "Yes, yes― only a few. Perhaps only one, if he were strong enough.

"Was my price too low?" he went on, spinning around to face Taran.

"Ellidyr," Taran cried, "you are truly mad."

"Yes!" laughed Ellidyr. "Mad to believe your word alone! The price must be silence, utter silence!" His hand moved to his sword. "Yes, pig-boy, I knew in time we should have to face one another."

He lunged forward, his sword out and raised. Before Taran could draw his own blade, Ellidyr swung viciously and pressed to the attack. Taran stumbled down the riverbank and leaped to a boulder, feverishly grasping for his weapon. Ellidyr strode into the water while the companions raced to stop him.

As Ellidyr swung his blade again, Taran lost his footing and toppled from the boulder. He tried to rise, but the stones slipped from under him and he stumbled backward. He threw up his hands. The current was clutching at him and he fell. The sharp edge of a rock loomed up, and he knew no more.