Power of Three

Shortly after Gair’s twelfth birthday, Ondo came to pay a visit in Garholt. With him came Kasta his mother, Fandi his nurse, and his two friends Scodo and Pad.

“I wish Ondo was more likeable,” Ayna sighed. “We might get him to tell us about Father’s three tasks.”

But Ondo was not likeable. All they ever got out of him on that subject was a knowing sneer, and sniggers from Scodo and Pad. Ondo detested his three cousins. In Ondo’s opinion, no one was so fine a person as Ondo of Otmound, and he could not tolerate anyone who threatened to dim that fine person’s glory. Ayna and Ceri dimmed it by being Gifted, so he hated them heartily. But it was Gair he hated most. Thanks to Miri’s boasting, Ondo knew Gair was supposed to be the most extraordinary of the three, and that was reason enough to detest him.

But it is probable that, even without Miri’s boasting, Ondo would have concentrated his hatred on Gair. The Gifts set Ayna and Ceri apart – but what business had Gair, with no more Gifts than Ondo, to look at Ondo in that solemn, speculative way? It made big, strong Ondo feel small. It also gave him a hazy but certain knowledge that Gair was more easily hurt than the other two. That, and the fact that Gair was more than a year younger and half a head shorter than Ondo, made him the ideal cousin to pick on.

This visit, with Scodo and Pad to support him – “Those two horrid toadies,” Ayna called them – Ondo picked on Gair all the time. He gave Gair no peace. It was not only sly arm twisting and slyer kicks. It was a stream of hints, jeers and abuse: hints that Gair was not quite right in the head, jeers at the way he liked to sit on his windowsill, and reminders that Gest had come from poor, queer Islaw. “You get your bad blood from Islaw,” Ondo said. “Are you quite sure you can’t shift shape?”

Ondo took care never to be far away from his burly friends, or from Kasta or Fandi, so that Gair never had a chance to hit him. He just had to endure it. He was miserable. Ayna and Ceri were furious on his behalf, but there was nothing they could do either. They all counted the days until Ondo went home.

There were only three days left, when Ondo came into the house with Fandi, looking for Ceri, because Fandi had lost a good gold thimble. Ayna, Gair and Ceri were all there, trying to keep out of Ondo’s way. All three sighed when they saw Ondo.

“Your thimble’s in your pocket,” Ceri said coldly to Fandi. Gest had forbidden him actually to ask for presents, but he thought Fandi might have offered him something. Everyone else did.

Ondo said patronisingly to Gair, “Of course, you haven’t any Gifts, have you?”

That hit Gair so much on the raw he could not answer. Ayna said quickly, “Neither have you!”

Ondo saw he had hurt Gair. He was far too pleased to bother with Ayna. He looked at his fingernails and polished them carelessly on his coat. “Oh,” he said, “a man in my position doesn’t need Gifts.”

Gair thought of himself taking Ondo by his gold collar, rushing out of the house and upstairs with him, and plunging him face-foremost into the nearest beehive. If Fandi had not been there, he would have tried to do it. Fandi was nodding and smiling as if they were all the greatest of friends, but Gair well knew that she would bawl for Kasta at the slightest sign of trouble. He had to content himself with advancing grimly on Ondo. Ondo glanced round for Scodo and Pad and remembered they were not there. He went pale, and his sneering grin wavered. Gair pushed contemptuously past him and stalked through Garholt to his windowsill. He wished he had realised before what a coward Ondo was. It made him easier to bear.

In the house, Fandi or no Fandi, Ayna and Ceri were determined to revenge Gair.

“I don’t advise you to talk to Gair like that,” Ayna said. “We’d put words on you, if we didn’t think you were just too stupid to know better.”

Ceri, relying on Fandi to stop any violence, went one better. “It isn’t only that you’re stupid, Ondo,” he explained pityingly. “You’re ugly. Your ears stick out.”

As he said this, Ceri went red with pleasure, and delight at his own daring. He had longed to say it for years. Ondo’s ears sprang from his head like a sheep’s. Unfortunately, Fandi was quite as insulted as Ondo. She had tried every way she knew to make those ears lie flat, and they had defeated her every time. So she made no attempt to stop Ondo when he advanced angrily on Ceri.

“Just you wait!” said Ondo.

Ceri backed away, feeling sick. Ondo towered above him and Ceri knew from painful experience that Ondo was an expert at hurting smaller children. He knew he was in for it, if Fandi was simply going to stand by. “Ayna!” he said hopelessly.

Ayna, in spite of being very much afraid of Ondo, dashed to Ceri’s side. Fandi caught her arm as she passed. Fandi was strong. “Really, Ayna,” she said. “Be a lady.”

Ondo pounced for Ceri and Ceri scudded for the door. Fandi pushed Ayna aside and got in his way. Ceri was terrified. He was also furiously angry, on his own account, on Ayna’s, and most of all on Gair’s. He turned on the pair of them and used a Gift which, up to that moment, he had no idea he possessed.

He did not say anything. He did not seem to do anything. But Fandi screamed. She clutched her head and her face went yellowish. As for Ondo, he gave a queer squawk and stuck, just as he was, with his arms crookedly outstretched to grab Ceri. “He looked exactly like a crayfish!” Ayna told Gair afterwards.

Paralysed and panic-stricken, Ondo shrieked the worst insult he knew. “You – you little Dorig!”

Ceri looked at them for a moment, with his own face rather a queer colour. Then he ran out of the house and hid behind the tapestries.

chapter four

Gair had never heard anything like the bawling of Fandi and Ondo, and the yells of Kasta, Scodo and Pad on their behalf. He came down from his windowsill to investigate. By then, the whole mound was in an uproar. Gair learnt from Ayna and Miri that his brother had put a Thought on Ondo and Fandi, and, from Miri, that it was going to take the next three days to get it off them. There was great excitement, because the Gift of Thought was an extremely rare Gift. The last person to have it had died over a hundred years before.

None of this mattered to Kasta. She just wanted Ceri punished for damaging her Ondo. In intervals of wringing her hands over the stuck, crooked Ondo, she searched for Ceri and made everyone else search too. Ayna and Gair did their best for him by suggesting all sorts of places where Ceri could not possibly be. But Kasta found him in the end – “She would!” said Ayna – and dragged him to Gest. Gest took his shoe to Ceri.

After that, Gest went to order the making of the triple gold collar Ceri was now entitled to. Adara caught his arm and stopped him. “Why?” Gest said crossly. “Kasta can shout all she likes, but I’d bet half the gold in Garholt it was all Ondo’s fault.”

“I’m sure it was,” said Adara. “But Ceri’s far too conceited already. Give him the collar when he’s old enough to have earned it. For the moment, I think this Gift is best forgotten.”

Gest thought she was right, on reflection. Thought was a very dangerous thing in the hands of someone like Ceri. So Adara called Ceri aside and talked to him. She explained that the Gift of Thought was a serious responsibility: it could do a great deal of harm. Ceri was neither old enough nor sensible enough to use it. Therefore, he was not being given a triple collar yet, until he could prove he knew how to use the Gift responsibly. In the meantime, he was utterly forbidden to put Thoughts on people and was to do his best to forget he had the Gift. Adara talked for a long time, and Ceri cried.

When Adara had finished, he crept miserably away among the clacking looms to Gair’s windowsill and asked Gair if he could come up. Gair agreed. He did not blame Ceri for wanting to be private too. But Ceri did not want to be private. He wanted to consult Gair.

Gair, to his great astonishment, discovered that his habit of sitting apart on the windowsill had given him a reputation for wisdom among all the children in Garholt. Gair was ashamed. He wanted to explain to Ceri that he only sat there because he was ordinary, but he had not the heart to. Ceri was sniffing and sobbing and trusted Gair to help him.

“I don’t mind about the collar,” he said. “Or the things Mother said. Or Father’s shoe – much. But I don’t know what I did, Gair. I don’t know how to stop doing it again. I’m afraid of killing someone! What shall I do?”

Since Ceri thought he was wise, Gair did not like to disappoint him. He thought about it. “Perhaps,” he said dubiously, “you’d better find out how you did it and practise using it on something that doesn’t matter.” This sounded very feeble to him. “Then you wouldn’t do it by accident,” he said.

Ceri seemed to think this was perfectly good advice. “Yes. But I don’t know what I did,” he said dolefully.

Gair could not tell him that. All he could say was, “Well, try and remember what you did. Go on. Think.”

“All right.” Ceri sat beside Gair on the sill, with his knees drawn up beside his ears and his hands between his feet, and thought until Gair was bored. At last he said doubtfully, “I think I sort of pointed a piece of the inside of my head at them.”

“Then try and do it again now,” said Gair.

“What on? I’m not supposed to use you,” said Ceri.

Gair had worn the windowsill smooth. There was nothing there Ceri could use. Gair looked out at the bees – but you did not meddle with bees for a number of good reasons – and thought over the things in his pockets. He had nothing in them that he was willing to let Ceri spoil. He could think of only one thing that might do. “Here you are.” He took the gold collar off his neck, careful to keep hold of either end so that it would not start turning to black ore again, and held it out towards Ceri. “Try and break this in two.” Ceri looked awed by Gair’s daring. “Go on,” said Gair. “Plain collars are easy to mend, if you can’t.”

“All right.” Ceri clasped his arms round his knees and stared at Gair’s collar. Nothing happened. Gair was just about to give up and put the collar back on again, when Ceri’s eyes widened. Gair found his hands moving apart from one another, each holding half of the collar. “I did it!” said Ceri. Both of them burst out laughing.

“Now mend it,” said Gair.

“Ooh!” said Ceri. “Suppose I can’t?”

“I’ll get into trouble. Not you. Go on. Try.”

Gair held out the two halves. Ceri tried. The effect was immediate, but unexpected. The collar leapt together, dragging Gair’s hands with it. One piece slid on top of the other and, the next second, Gair was holding one half of a collar twice as thick. He was forced to laugh again at the frantic bewilderment on Ceri’s face.

“Oh dear!” said Ceri.

“Try again,” said Gair. “We’ll both get into trouble if it stays like this.”

Ceri knelt up and tried earnestly. The collar grew between Gair’s hands, and grew, and went on growing, until Gair was holding both ends of a gold wire. The wire tied itself into a bow. The bow compressed into a little gold bar. It took Ceri half an hour to work Gair’s collar back to its proper shape, and by that time they were both weak with laughing. Gair put the collar back on.

“Use something else next time,” he said.

Ceri went away and fetched some marbles. Then, for the next three days, while, from among the houses below came the monotonous chanting of the words which would eventually take the Thought off Ondo and Fandi, Ceri sat on Gair’s windowsill and exercised his Gift. He chopped marbles in two, turned them egg-shaped and rolled them this way and that. Gair grew heartily bored and longed to have his windowsill to himself again. But he saw Ceri felt safest there. He thought Gair was wise enough to protect him from the consequences of his new Gift. Gair felt a fraud, but he had not the heart to turn Ceri out.

Gest saw Ceri sitting up there and began to feel that both his sons were turning out peculiar. “I think they’d both better come on the next hunt,” he told Adara. Adara agreed, thinking it would help Ceri to forget about his latest Gift.

Ondo and Fandi were themselves again on the third day. Orban arrived with an escort to take them home again, and they left. Kasta gave Ceri – and Gair too – very baleful looks before she went. She was convinced Gair had egged Ceri on.

That same evening, Ceri put his marbles in his pocket, smiled happily and told Gair he knew how to manage Thoughts now. Gair was relieved. But the peace he was looking forward to was shattered when Gest told him he and Ceri were coming on the hunt.

Gair enjoyed hunting, these days, but Ceri loathed it. So far, Ayna and Gair had prevented Gest finding out. Gest would have been furious to find any son of his did not love to hunt. Gair’s heart sank, because he would be responsible for Ceri. They would be out two days too, for the great midsummer Feast of the Sun was near and had to be provided for. Ayna had been consulted and she had said there would be deer again, in the north-east of the Moor. Gair thought he would be lucky to get Ceri all that way without some kind of trouble.

There was every kind of trouble. Ceri made every possible mistake and contrived to get left behind whenever he could. He hated every minute, and said so. By dawn on the second day, Gair was thinking that it was rather to his credit that he had only hit Ceri nine times in all: six times when he richly deserved it, and three times to stop him complaining in Gest’s hearing. They trailed through a rushy meadow hung with mist. The coming dawn made the grass as white as the mist and the chill struck through to their bones. They were behind as usual. Ceri was wailing that he needed a rest or he would die, and Gair, knowing everyone else was in the next meadow already, took Ceri’s arm and dragged him along.

There was a pool of water in their way, edged with stiff rushes. Because of the whiteness of everything, Gair did not see it until he was in it. They splashed round one end of it and Ceri complained bitterly that his feet were wet now.

A dark shape about the size of Gair loomed at them through the mist. Ceri’s whine stopped in a squeak. Gair jumped. But the shape was only a red stag, about to make off across the meadow.

“Quick!” Gair shouted to Ceri. In great excitement, he levelled his spear and ran through the whiteness to head the stag off. “Quick! Or I’ll hit you again.”

“That’ll be ten times. And I’m cold,” Ceri said sullenly. But, when Gair glanced back to see, he found Ceri had stopped using his spear as a walking stick and was pointing it in the general direction of the stag. If Ceri stood firm – a thing not altogether to be relied on – they could pin the stag between them.

Gair circled quickly beside the pool, trying to drive the stag towards Ceri. But the beast circled with him, keeping its horns lowered. It seemed they had found a crafty one. Gair could not see it very well in the swirling whiteness, but it looked larger than he had thought. Some trick of the mist and the dawn light made its head look higher than his own. The antlers looked wicked. Gair advanced behind his spear, wondering why he felt so cold. And the stag grew again, until it towered over him.

“Gair!” said Ceri, in a squeaky voice of real terror. “Gair, that’s standing water!”

So it was, Gair realised. He had made poor work of looking after Ceri. He thrust at the stag with all his strength, but the spearhead met nothing. The huge antlered shape wavered and swirled into mist, darker and greyer than the white mist around. There was a blast of cold air. Gair backed hurriedly round the pool towards Ceri, water squirting in sheets from under his feet, until they stood shoulder to shoulder. There they watched in fascinated horror the grey mist harden into a tall, tall shape covered in dim silvery scales like armour, a pointed head solidify, a pale face with queer yellow eyes, a round shield and a sharp, bent scimitar. Gair could have kicked himself. He had been told often enough that Dorig were shape-shifters. But he had had no idea they looked so dangerous. He hoped it would not notice how both their spearpoints were juddering.

It came towards them in a wafting, gliding way that had both of them sick with terror. “Keep back!” Gair said to it. It took no notice. Gair wondered if it spoke some other language.

Before he could speak again, Gest’s voice barked, “Stop that, you!”

The Dorig jumped. Gair, feeling weak and bewildered, found that the entire hunt was back and surrounding the pond in the mist. As soon as Gest spoke, the dogs began to paw and snarl to get at the Dorig. Those who were not holding dogs had their spears aimed at it. Slowly and haughtily, the Dorig looked round the hostile ring. It was a good head taller even than Gest. But it still said nothing.

“You’re outnumbered,” said Gest. “There’s nothing you can do. Get out of here.”

The Dorig did not say a word to this, either, but it plainly understood. It simply turned and dived into the pool. It made barely a splash. Smokily, it slid under the surface of the water and was gone, with not much more disturbance than if someone had thrown a small pebble into the pond. Indeed, Gair had the impression that the Dorig did become smaller – almost half the size – before it had quite reached the water.

Gest looked at the rippling white pool for a moment, as if something puzzled him. “Lucky for you two that we missed you,” he said to Gair and Ceri. “Keep up with the rest in future.” He had been pleased to find the two boys standing their ground against a full-grown Dorig warrior, but it never occurred to him to say so.

They felt they were in disgrace. As they moved on again, Ceri burst into tears. He swore to Gair that he was crying out of annoyance. It had never occurred to him to put a Thought on the Dorig. Gair said sourly that it made a good story. He was quite as shaken as Ceri, but he hoped no one had noticed.

“You had a narrow escape,” Brad said, coming up alongside Gair. “Why didn’t you keep clear of the water? Didn’t you notice the cold?”

“Yes. But I thought that was the mist,” Gair admitted. He liked Brad best of all the boys in Garholt, or he would not have admitted it. “Why do they make it cold? Do you know?”

“Fishiness, I expect,” said Brad. “They’re cold-blooded, aren’t they? Ask my father.”

Gair left Ceri with Brad and trotted up beside Banot. Banot grinned. “You’ve got your mother’s knack of asking the difficult questions, Gair. I don’t think they are cold-blooded, but I couldn’t say for sure. As for making it cold, they say the shape-shifting does it. It takes a good deal of heat to shift shapes, and they get it from the air. It’s like – well, you may find it grows cold when Ceri puts a Thought on someone.”

“Thanks,” said Gair. Banot had given him a great deal to think about, but it did nothing to stop his growing feeling of shame. He had been so stupid! He had walked into standing water with Ceri and it had taken the whole hunt to rescue them. No wonder Gest was disappointed in him. He longed to prove – to himself at least – that he was not quite that stupid and ordinary. He trotted back and asked Ceri to put a Thought on something.

Ceri, to Brad’s keen amazement, obligingly broke his spear in two and joined it again. But, either this was only a very small Thought, or the dawn mists were still too chilly. Gair could not tell if the air round Ceri had gone any colder. Neither could Brad.

“I’ll do something else when we get home,” Ceri offered. Gair agreed that would be best. They turned for home soon after and Gair thought about their narrow escape most of the way. He had been terrified, he had to admit that. The noisy, heavy Giants beating the bank of the dyke for him had been nothing to the silent silver Dorig. It was the queerness of the Dorig that made it so frightening. Even Banot did not claim to understand or explain them; and Banot, Miri had told Gair, had made quite a study of the Dorig. Gair thought Banot must be a very brave man. He wished he was more like him. He was so ashamed of himself that he began to think he would like to find out more about Dorig too, in spite of his horror at the mere idea. No one thought Banot stupid.

Gair never had a chance to find out if Ceri’s Thoughts made the air cold. They arrived in Garholt that evening with a fair catch, ravenous for the good supper that was waiting. Gair and Ceri both tried not to fall asleep while they ate and told Ayna and Adara about the Dorig.

“It was tall,” Ceri said, yawning, with his mouth full. “I couldn’t believe even Dorig—”

There was a violent hammering at the main gate. A woman’s voice screamed, “Dorig!”

All the chatter at the eating-squares stopped. Before anyone could move, the words had been spoken and the gate rumbled open.

“Dorig!” shrieked Kasta, towing a green-faced terrified Ondo. “You have to help us, Gest!”

Streaming into the mound behind Kasta came a host of people from Otmound. All were white and frightened. Some were wet; some, Orban among them, were hacked and bloody. They had cooking-pots, bundles, spindles, babies and all the gold they could wear. Sheep, dogs and cats came streaming into the mound amongst them.

For a time, there was desperate confusion. The Garholters had to leave their supper unfinished and find food, beds and medicine for the fugitives. And, as Kasta kept screaming that the Dorig had chased them the whole length of the old road, the Garholt sheep had to be got inside and the doors locked as quickly as possible. Gair found himself with Brad, both of them yawning till their ears cracked, guarding Ayna and the other girls, who were running about by Moonlight, shrieking the words to the sheep, which had scattered for the night nearly as far as the old road itself. They were relieved but puzzled not to see a single Dorig.

“Just as well,” said Brad. “I think I’d snore in their faces. What do you think happened?”

Gair wanted to know that too, but he had to wait until the sheep were in, the doors locked, watch posted and the fugitives all settled in somewhere. Orban, Kasta and Ondo were, of course, settled in Gest’s house. Ayna, Gair and Ceri all gathered to watch Orban, with his wounds now bathed and bandaged, drink mug after mug of beer and explain what had happened.

The long and short of it was that the Dorig had driven them from Otmound. That afternoon, the wells of Otmound had begun to overflow. While the Garholt hunt had been peacefully making its way home, Og’s people had been struggling to hold back a flood which no words would stem. The water ran from the wells, filled the mound and went on rising. By Sundown, the flood had reached the rooftops and everyone was forced to go outside. And outside, the Dorig were waiting.

“Crafty swine!” said Orban. “It was just like smoking out bees. They hid in the Haunted Mound and waited for us to come out.”

Orban and Og rallied those who could fight and attacked the Dorig, while the rest got away with their possessions. The fight had gone very badly. Og was killed. Orban had been forced to run for it with the rest of the fighting-men, and the Dorig had pursued them. But the Dorig had not been anxious to go beyond the thorn trees along the first Giant road – Kasta, as usual, had overstated the case – and had turned back to Otmound. Orban had caught up the rest and they had come on to Garholt as fast as they could.

“And you’d better watch that they don’t try that trick with the wells here,” Orban said, passing his mug to Miri for more beer.

“They can’t,” Gest said confidently. “All our wells are protected.” He pointed to the nearest, with its rounded stone hood and the twig-shaped writing on the stonework, which was the indoor equivalent of a thorn tree.