(eng) Lloyd Alexander - Prydain 03 by The Castle of Llyr

Author:The Castle of Llyr [Llyr, The Castle of]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

King of the Stones

GURGI FLUNG HIMSELF to the ground, covered his head with his hands, and whimpered piteously. The creature threw a long, spindly leg over the ledge and began slowly drawing himself upright. He was more than thrice as tall as Taran, and his flabby arms dangled below a pair of knobby, moss-covered knees. With a lopsided gait he shambled toward the companions. “Glew!” Taran gasped. “But I was sure...”

“It can't be,” whispered Fflewddur. “Impossible! Not little Glew! Or if it is, I certainly got the wrong impression of him.”

“Tremble!” the quavering voice cried again. “You shall tremble!”

“Great Belin!” muttered the bard, who was indeed shaking so much he had almost dropped his blade, “I don't need to be told!”

The giant bent, shaded his white eyes against the light of the bauble, and peered at the companions. “Are you really trembling?” he asked in an anxious voice. “You're not doing it just to be obliging?”

Gurgi, meantime, had ventured to lift his hands from his face, but the sight of the creature towering above him made him clap them back again and set him to wailing louder than ever. Prince Rhun, however, recovering from his first shock, studied the monster with great curiosity. “I say, this is the first I've seen anyone with toadstools growing in his beard,” he remarked. “Did he do it on purpose or did it just happen that way?”

“If that's the Glew we know,” said the bard, “he's changed remarkably.”

The giant's pale eyes widened. What would have been a smile on a face of ordinary size became a grin that stretched longer than Taran's arm. Glew blinked and stooped closer.

“You've heard of me then?” he asked eagerly.

“Indeed we have,” put in Rhun. “It's amazing, but we thought Llyan...”

“Prince Rhun!” Taran warned.

Glew, for the moment, seemed to have no wish to harm them. Instead, evidently pleased by the consternation he had wrought among the companions, he was looking down at them with an expression of satisfaction all the more intense because it was so large. But until he had learned more of this strange creature, Taran had deemed it wiser to say nothing of their search.

“Llyan?” Glew quickly asked. “What do you know of Llyan?”

Since Rhun had already spoken, Taran had no choice but to admit the companions had stumbled upon Glew's hut. Disclosing no more than he had to, Taran told of finding the recipes for the potions. Whether Glew would take kindly to strangers rummaging among his possessions, Taran did not know; to his relief, the giant showed less concern about that than he did for the fate of the mountain cat.

“Oh, Llyan!” cried Glew. “If only she were here. Anything to keep me company!” At this he buried his face in his hands and the cavern echoed with his sobs.

“Now, now,” said Fflewddur, “don't take on so. You're lucky you weren't gobbled up.”

“Gobbled?” sniffed Glew, raising his head. “Better if I had been! Any doom rather than this miserable cavern. There's bats, you know.

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