Read Online The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner - Free Book Online Page A

children in the struggle to come. It will be hard for you, I know, but you must go from here and forget all you have seen and done. Now that the stone is out of your care you will be safe.”
    â€œBut,” cried Colin, “but you can’t mean that! We want to help you!”
    â€œI know you do. But you have no further part in this. High Magic and low cunning will be the weapons of thefray, and the valour of children would be lost in the struggle. You can help me best by freeing me from worry on your behalf.”
    And, without giving the children further chance to argue, he took them by the hand, and out of the cave. They went in misery, and shortly stood above the swamp on the spot where they had first met the wizard, three nights ago.
    â€œMust we really not see you again?” said Colin. He had never felt so wretched.
    â€œBelieve me, it must be so. It hurts me, too, to part from friends, and I can guess what it is to have the door of wonder and enchantment closed to you when you have glimpsed what lies beyond. But it is also a world of danger and shadows, as you have seen, and ere long I fear I must pass into these shadows. I will not take you with me.
    â€œGo back to your own world: you will be safer there. If we should fail, you will suffer no harm, for not in your time will Nastrond come.
    â€œNow go. Fenodyree will keep with you to the road.”
    So saying, he entered the tunnel. The rock echoed: he was gone.
    Colin and Susan stared at the wall. They were very near to tears, and Fenodyree, weighed down with hisown troubles, felt pity for them in their despondency.
    â€œDo not think him curt or cruel,” he said gently. “He has suffered a defeat that would have crushed a lesser man. He is going now to prepare himself to face death, and worse than death, for the stone’s sake; and I and others shall stand by him, though I think we are for the dark. He has said farewell because he knows there may be no more meetings for him this side of Ragnarok.”
    â€œBut it was all our fault!” said Colin desperately. “We must help him!”
    â€œYou will help him best by keeping out of danger, as he said; and that means staying well away from us and all we do.”
    â€œIs that really the best way?” said Susan.
    â€œIt is.”
    â€œThen I suppose we’ll have to do it. But it will be very hard.”
    â€œIs his task easier?” said Fenodyree.
    They walked along a path that curved round the hillside, gradually rising till it ran along the crest of the Edge.
    â€œYou will be safe now,” said Fenodyree, “but if you should have need of me, tell the owls in farmer Mossock’s barn: they understand your speech, and will come to me, but remember that they are guardians forthe night and fly like drunken elves by day.”
    â€œDo you mean to say all those owls were sent by you?” said Colin.
    â€œAy, 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.
    â€œIt 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