The Book of Three

Hen Wen’s tracks lead down to the Great Avren River. Gwydion strides into the water, followed by Melyngar, with Taran holding on to the saddle horn. He’s quickly overwhelmed by the fast-moving, cold water, and Gwydion grabs him by the hair and drags him onto the far shore. Taran admits he can’t swim but assumed he’d learn once he was in the water.

They remount and move down the bank. Shortly, three birds approach: They’re gwythaints, large, black, and fierce. Gwydion swerves the horse and Taran falls off. Gwydion drags the terrified Taran under an oak tree. The birds hover and try to grab them but give up and fly away. Gwydion says they’re “Arawn’s spies and messengers, the Eyes of Annuvin” (34). Arawn also has special soldiers, the “Cauldron-Born,” dead people he reanimates who kill wantonly at his command.

Gwydion and Taran pick up Hen Wen’s trail, but her tracks disappear in a ravine. Gwydion decides they must seek out the ancient Medwyn, who lives near the Eagle Mountains, for his ability to know the thoughts of animals. They hear the baying of hounds and a hunter’s horn: It’s Gwyn the Hunter, who can see the future and kills mercilessly. Taran hears the horn’s echoes as sounds of grieving from the land. Gwydion warns him not to listen, lest he lapse into hopelessness.

They sleep. During the night, the horse whinnies, and Taran sees a shadow dart past. He chases it into some thorn bushes and catches Gurgi. Gwydion chastises Taran for impulsiveness until he realizes the boy thought Gwydion’s life was in danger. He bows his thanks.

Gurgi says the Horned King’s men crossed the river and made camp some distance away. He leads them across two valleys, and, from a ridge, they see a camp lit by torches where soldiers perform war dances near wicker baskets. The Horned King rides to the baskets; with a torch, he sets fire to each; from within them, screams of men erupt.

Gwydion realizes a war has begun, and he must return home and alert his people. They continue walking until dawn, when they arrive at a field. Five soldiers on horseback appear and draw their swords.

The warriors attack. Gwydion pulls from a pocket a woven mesh of grasses. He hurls it at an oncoming soldier; the mesh erupts in flame and envelops the rider’s head. The rider falls, screaming, as the mesh grows and spreads over him. Gwydion hands Taran a hunting knife and draws his sword. One rider attacks Taran, who slashes at him and slices the man’s leg. Melyngar charges the horses, jostling them, knocking over a rider and slashing him with her hooves.

Two more riders arrive. They dismount, their eyes “like stones,” their mouths “frozen in the hideous grin of death” (42-43). They’re Cauldron-Born; they head for Gwydion.

Gwydion tells Taran to ride away on Melyngar, but Taran holds his ground. Gwydion and Taran fight desperately, but the dead warriors are unaffected by their blades. Taran’s arm gets slashed, and he loses his grip on the hunting knife; Gwydion suffers a wound in his side. Both are overwhelmed, tied up, and slung across Melyngar.

Gwydion checks to see that Taran is alright, then says his own wound isn’t the worst he’s had. He regrets being unable to protect Taran and admits that the boy fought bravely. A captor whips them both; wisely, they stop talking.

Tightly guarded, they cross the Ystrad River. Hours later, they arrive at a hilltop fortress, where they’re brought before a beautiful, bejeweled woman. She orders that the two receive food and medicine. She touches Taran’s wound, and the boy instantly feels a “comforting warmth.” She asks him how he came to be here, and he begins babbling about the journey until Gwydion commands him to silence. The prince accuses her of being in league with Arawn.

The woman, Queen Achren, says they’ve been brought alive to her because she has an offer for him of safety. He retorts that her promises “reek of Annuvin!” (47) Angered, she slaps him, her nails scraping his face. His sword lies at her feet. She unsheathes it and points it at his throat. She promises to make him wish she had killed him, then dashes his sword’s blade against the stone wall. The sword is undamaged. In a rage, she grabs the blade in her hand until it bleeds, then, eyes lolling and lips twisting, she generates a thunderclap and a blinding light, and the sword shatters into pieces.

The Cauldron-Born drag Gwydion and Taran away. Taran resists and gets knocked out.

Taran comes to. He lies on smelly straw in a dungeon. Daylight seeps in through a high grate. His head throbs. He worries about Gwydion and hopes he’s still alive. He kicks futilely at the door and walls.

A golden ball drops through the high grate. Blue eyes peer through the grate, and a girl’s voice begs Taran to return the ball. It’s her play-toy. She says her name is Eilonwy. She asks who he is, and Taran blurts out the answer. He says that he can’t fetch her ball because his hands are back-tied. Something seems to attack the girl, who shrieks. There’s a scuffle, then silence.

Later, a slot opens in the bottom of the door, and a bowl of water appears. Taran puts his face in the bowl and drinks. He sleeps fitfully.

A scratching sound from under the straw awakens him. He backs away; a flagstone rises and moves aside, and Eilonwy steps into the room. She looks ghostly until she finds her ball. Light pours from it, revealing a girl a couple of years younger than Taran but just as tall, with reddish-blond hair to her waist. She wears a smudged white gown and a crescent-moon necklace. She unties Taran and apologizes for taking so long: Achren whipped her, and Eilonwy bit her in return.

Eilonwy says the Spiral Castle is crisscrossed with secret passageways, and she knows many more of them than her aunt, the queen. Eilonwy is related to the king of the Sea People; when her parents died, she was sent to Achren to be trained as an enchantress. She notices the slash on Taran’s arm, tears a strip from her gown, and wraps the arm.

Taran asks her to lead him to Gwydion. She says it’s easier to bring them both outside the castle. He asks for some weapons and Gwydion’s horse. Eilonwy agrees to it. Giggling, she says, “that should be very exciting” (57), and disappears down the floor hole. Hours pass. Taran tries to lift the tunnel’s flagstone, but it won’t budge. He hopes the encounter with Eilonwy isn’t some sort of trap.

Taran is about to give up on Eilonwy when she suddenly climbs back into his cell. She announces that Gwydion and his horse await Taran outside the castle. She leads him down through the tunnel, walking quickly and chatting non-stop. Taran falls behind, slips, and falls through a break in the tunnel to a dark area far below.

Eilonwy comes back. She sees that he’s fallen through a broken part of the tunnel and is too far down to climb back up. She drops her light ball down to him. Around him, he sees a chamber with an exit tunnel. There’s a clatter of stones and Eilonwy drops down next to him. He scolds her for putting herself in peril by joining him, but she says she agreed to help him, “and that’s what I’m doing” (65). She points to the found tunnel and says it’s probably a better route out. Taking the ball, she again leads the way.

Taran and Eilonwy pass a couple of side tunnels and continue straight. Taran notices the tunnel keeps going down instead of up toward ground level. Suddenly the passage ends at a wall of boulders. Eilonwy thinks it makes no sense for a passage to be built to nowhere. Taran is upset; he turns back, and Eilonwy follows.

She suggests they explore a side passage. Gingerly, Taran leads the way. Ahead, he hears a strange keening, wailing, and rasping. Eilonwy suggests it might be ghosts or maybe wind. They reach another dead end, but this one has a gap, and they squeeze through.

Beyond lies a dark chamber that seems to absorb the ball’s light. The sound is now a screaming. They see shields and swords and find mummified corpses of warriors lying on the floor around a slab on which lies another body. Eilonwy points to robes, jars of jewels, weapons, and helmets. Taran thinks the body on the slab is that of the castle’s founding king.

Taran senses a breeze and follows it to a small opening in the wall. He grabs a sword and climbs through to a low, narrow tunnel. He and Eilonwy crawl through the tunnel until tree roots rise up through the floor, splitting it and sending them sprawling at the base of a slope outdoors. Above them stands the castle, enveloped in blue fire and shaking to its foundations. Eilonwy is partway out of the tunnel, a sword she found caught in the tunnel and trapping her. Taran tears frantically at the stony soil and roots until he pulls her free. The castle collapses in on itself.

Eilonwy thanks Taran for saving her. She wonders what has become of Queen Achren. Taran notices that Eilonwy holds the great sword of the dead king in the crypt. She explains that it was probably the best weapon there.

They hurry to meet Gwydion. Taran finds the white horse. Standing next to it is a man he’s never seen before.