Free The Black Cauldron (The Chronicles of Prydain) by Lloyd Alexander

your plan; the decision is greater than I dare make.”
    “But why?” cried Taran. “I don’t understand,” he said quickly and with concern. “Of all of us, you know best what to do.”
    Adaon turned his gray eyes toward the fire. “Perhaps you will understand one day. For now, choose your path, Taran of Caer Dallben,” he said. “Wherever it may lead, I promise you my help.”
    Taran drew back and stood silent a moment, filled with distress
and uneasiness. It was not fear touching his heart, but the wordless sorrow of dry leaves rushing desolate before the wind. Adaon continued to watch the dance of the flames.
    “I shall go to the Marshes of Morva,” Taran said.
    Adaon nodded. “So it shall be.”
    No one spoke then. Even Ellidyr made no reply; he bit his lips and fingered the hilt of his sword.
    “Well,” said Doli at last, “I suppose I might as well go along, too. Do what I can. But it’s a mistake, I warn you.”
    “Mistake?” cried the jubilant bard. “By no means! I wouldn’t be kept away from it!”
    “And I certainly won’t,” declared Eilonwy. “Someone has to make sure there are at least a few of us with good sense along. Marshes! Ugh! If you insist on making fools of yourselves, I wish you’d picked a drier way.”
    “And Gurgi will help!” shouted Gurgi, springing to his feet. “Yes, yes, with seekings and peekings!”
    “Gwystyl,” said Doli, with a look of resignation, “you might as well go and fetch that powder you were talking about.”
    While Gwystyl eagerly rummaged through the alcove, the dwarf drew a deep breath and flickered out of sight. He was back after some length of time, fully visible and looking furious, his ears trembling and rimmed with blue.
    “There’s five Huntsmen camped over the rise,” he said. “They’ve settled down for the—oh, my ears—night. If that powder is any good, we can be well away before they even know we’ve been here.”
    The companions dusted their feet and the hooves of their steeds with a black substance Gwystyl distributed from a moldering sack.
He seemed almost gleeful, as Taran untethered Melynlas and led the horse from behind the screen of brambles.
    “Good-bye, good-bye,” muttered Gwystyl. “I hate to see you waste your time, not to mention your lives. But that’s the way of it, I suppose. Here today, gone tomorrow, and what’s anyone to do about it? Good-bye. I hope we meet again. But not soon. Good-bye.”
    With that, the portal shut. Taran took a firmer grip on the bridle of Melynlas and the companions moved silently into the forest.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    A Stone in the Shoe
    O utside the way post, night had already fallen; the sky was clear once more, but the chill had deepened. Adaon and Fflewddur held a hurried council on which path to follow, and agreed the company should ride westward until dawn, conceal themselves and sleep, then turn due south. As before, Eilonwy shared Melynlas with Taran, and Gurgi clung to the back of Lluagor.
    Fflewddur had offered to lead the way, claiming he had never been lost and could find the Marshes with his eyes shut; after two harp strings had snapped, he reconsidered and gave up his position to Adaon. Doli, still muttering angrily about his buzzing ears, rode last, as rear guard, although he flatly refused to make himself invisible no matter what the circumstances.
    Ellidyr had spoken to no one since leaving the melancholy Gwystyl, and Taran had seen the cold rage in his eyes after the companions’ decision to press on to the Marshes of Morva.
    “I think he really would have tried to bring back the cauldron by himself,” Taran said to Eilonwy. “And you know how much chance he would have had alone. That’s the kind of childish thing I’d have done when I was an Assistant Pig-Keeper.”
    “You’re still an Assistant Pig-Keeper,” answered Eilonwy. “You’re going to these silly swamps because of Ellidyr, and anything else you say is pure nonsense. Don’t tell me it