Free The Lad of the Gad by Alan Garner Page A

near the fire. The ball of iron turned through blackness to redness and the warrior, the lad and the woman gave him three kisses.
    â€œTake a blessing and a victory for your coming,” said the warrior. “Isbernya is the land in which you are now. There visited us a worm, and she swallowed our heavy flocks and our people after them, and she slaughtered our hosts, both young and old, so that none are alive except the three you see here. But our wise men left prophecy for us, that when the ball in the fire should turn through blackness to redness, Lusca, son of the King of Irrua, should come to free us from fear and to slay that wonderful worm.”
    Lusca was attended, nobly and honourably. The old warrior said, “Son of Irrua, I and that lad have the same father, and the woman there is our mother, and we are of one birth. But poison was the first food given to the lad; whoever is reared upon poison at the first, neither age nor harm affect himthrough time eternal.”
    Lusca said, “Let me be shown the way to that mighty worm.”
    Lusca and the lad went to where the worm was. They found her looking about to go round the castle, trying if she could get in. When she was not able to get in, she coiled herself on the castle. Lusca gave a cast of a royal javelin that was in his hand at the worm, so that he sent the spear through her and through two windows of the castle and through the coil on the other side. There was the worm, unable to loose herself. Then Lusca took his sword and cut the head from her. The blood made the blade green.
    Great joy of that worm seized the warrior, the lad and the woman. They flung their arms about Lusca; but he felt his life going from him with the wound of the Big Mokkalve.
    Lusca went and said to the smith, “I must get healing.”
    The smith said, “Who are you to come here? A boatful of blood has gone from your side. Bigger things have been stopped.”
    The smith took ointment to the wound of the Big Mokkalve. The side healed.
    â€œThe gate of my side is bolted,” said Lusca. “The blue mouth is closed. If there is the Great Dug of the World, it must be with you.”
    â€œThe Great Dug of the World,” said the smith, “is not with me. The Great Dug of the World is at the Forest of Wonders. Do not go after it. The wayof the forest is this: there is a Tree of Splendour in the forest, and one of every colour on that tree. There is no fruit of the fruits of life that is not on that tree, and it is hard for any man who sees it to part from it for its marvellous splendour. No man has ever gone into that forest who ever came out of it again for its enchantment. Do not look for the Dug, till the womb of judgment or the end of life.”
    â€œEven if you were to have the Great Dug with you now,” said Lusca, “I would not go from here without seeing this forest, for your report of it. But who is the master of the Sword of Light?”
    The smith said, “It is for Lurga Lom to take with him on the day that he shall go against the City of the Red Stream. Until that day, he shall not know it: but, on that day, it shall know him.”
    â€œWhere is the Forest of Wonders?” said Lusca.
    â€œThe Forest of Wonders is far from you,” said the smith. “Beware of the Forest of Wonders. There is no hideous thing in hollow nor in the dreadful clouds of air that will not come to you then. It is impossible to count or to tell all the evil and the confusion of enchantment that will be in the forest at the joint of that hour.”
    â€œNo more the less shall I go there,” said Lusca, and departed.
    It was then Lusca faced for the Forest of Wonders. He saw at a distance from him the Tree of Virtues. He saw the colours and the fruits beneath the branches wide-sweeping of that flower-marvelloustree.
    He found thirteen men on the outskirts of the forest, lacking heads, and in the middle of them lay a king-warrior, a mantle of