“Do you mean to say all those owls were sent by you?” said Colin.
“Ay, my people have ever been masters of bird lore. We treat them as brothers, and they help us where they can. Two nights since they brought word that evil things were closing on you. A bird that seemed no true bird (and scarce made off with its life) brought to the farm a strange presence that filled them with dread, though they could not see its form. I can guess now that it was the hooded one – and here is Castle Rock, from which we can see his lair.”
They had come to a flat outcrop that jutted starkly from the crest, so that it seemed almost a straight drop to the plain far below. There was a rough bench resting on stumps of rock, and here they sat. Behind them was a field, and beyond that the road, and the beginning of the steep “front” hill.
“It is as I thought,” said Fenodyree. “The black master is in his den. See, yonder is Llyn-dhu, garlanded with mosses and mean dwellings.”
Colin and Susan looked where Fenodyree was pointing, and some two or three miles out on the plain they could see the glint of grey water through trees.
“Men thought to drain that land and live there, but the spirit of the place entered them, and their houses were built drab and desolate, and without cheer; and all around the bog still sprawls, from out the drear lake come soulless thoughts and drift into the hearts of the people, and they are one with their surroundings.
“Ah! But there goes he who can tell us more about the stone.”
He pointed to a speck floating high over the plain, and whistled shrilly.
“Hi, Windhover! To me!”
The speck paused, then came swooping through the air like a black falling star, growing larger every second, and, with a hollow beating of wings, landed on Fenodyree’s outstretched arm – a magnificent kestrel, fierce and proud, whose bright eyes glared at the children.
“Strange company for dwarfs, I know,” said Fenodyree, “but they have been prey of the morthbrood, and so are older than their years.
“It is of Grimnir that we want news. He went by here: did he seek the lake?”
The kestrel switched his gaze to Fenodyree, and gave a series of sharp cries, which obviously meant more to the dwarf that they did to the children.
“Ay, it is as I thought,” he said when the bird fell silent. “A mist crossed the plain a while since, as fast as a horse can gallop, and sank into Llyn-dhu.
“Ah well, so be it. Now I must away back to Cadellin, for we shall have much to talk over and plans to make. Farewell now, my friends. Yonder is the road: take it. Remember us, though Cadellin forbade you, and wish us well.”
“Goodbye.”
Colin and Susan were too full to say more; it was an effort to speak, for their throats were tight and dry with anguish. They knew that Cadellin and Fenodyree were not being deliberately unkind in their anxiety to be rid of them, but the feeling of responsibility for what had happened was as much as they could bear.
So it was with heavy hearts that the children turned to the road: nor did they speak or look back until they had reached it. Fenodyree, standing on the seat, legs braced apart, with Windhover at his wrist, was outlined against the sky. His voice came to them through the still air.
“Farewell, my friends!”
They waved to him in return, but could find no words.
He stood there a moment longer before he jumped down and vanished along the path to Fundindelve. And it was as though a veil had been drawn across the children’s eyes.
Autumn came, and in September Colin and Susan started school. Work on the farm kept them busy outside school hours, and it was not often they visited the Edge. Sometimes at the weekend they could go there, but then the woods were peopled with townsfolk who, shouting and crashing through the undergrowth, and littering the ground with food wrappings and empty bottles, completely destroyed the atmosphere of the place. Once, indeed, Colin and Susan came upon a family sprawled in front of the iron gates. Father, his back propped against the rock itself, strained, redder than his braces, to lift his voice above the blare of a portable radio to summon his children to tea. They were playing at soldiers in the Devil’s Grave.
Nothing remained. This place, where beauty and terror had been as opposite sides of the same coin, was now a playground of noise. Its spirit was dead – or hidden. There was nothing to show that svart or wizard had ever existed: nothing, except a barn full of owls at Highmost Redmanhey, and an empty wrist where once a bracelet had been.
The loss of the bracelet was the cause of slight friction between the Mossocks and the children. Bess was the first to notice that the stone had gone, and Susan, not knowing what to do for the best, poured out the whole story. It was really too much for anyone to digest at once, and Bess could not think what to make of it at all. She was upset over the loss of the Bridestone, naturally, but what troubled her more was the fact that Susan should be so fearful of the consequences that she would invent such a desperate pack of nonsense to explain it all away. Gowther, on the other hand, was by no means so certain that it was all fantasy. He kept his thoughts to himself, but in places the story touched on his recent experiences far too accurately for comfort. However, the affair blew over and no one mentioned it again, though that does not mean to say it was forgotten.
Shortly before Christmas Colin discovered that the owls had left the barn, and for days after, the children were in a fretful state of anxiety over what the disappearance could mean.
“Either Cadellin’s got the stone back again,” said Colin, “or he’s lost the fight.”
“Or perhaps it’s only that he’s sure we’re out of danger, or perhaps … no, that wouldn’t make sense … oh, I wish we knew!”
And although they spent two whole days ranging the woods from end to end, they found no clue to help them. If there had been a struggle as fierce as Cadellin had predicted, then it had left no trace that they could see.
It was a young winter of cloudless skies. The stars flashed silver in the velvet, frozen nights, and all the short day long the sun betrayed the earth into thinking it was spring. And late one Sunday afternoon at the end of the first week in January, Colin and Susan climbed out of Alderley village, pushing their bicycles before them. They walked slowly, for it was not a hill to be rushed, and the last stretch was the worst – straight and steep, without any respite. But once they were at the top, the going was comparatively good.
They did not ride more than a hundred yards, however, for Colin, who was leading, jammed on his brakes so violently that he half fell from his bicycle and Susan nearly piled on top of him.
“Look!” he gasped. “Look over there!”
It could be only Cadellin. He stood against the skyline of Castle Rock, staff in hand, facing the plain.
At once all promises were forgotten: the children dropped their bicycles and ran.
“Cadellin! Cadellin!”
The wizard spun round at the sound of their voices, and made as if to leave the rock. But after three strides he checked his pace, stood for a moment, and then walked