Sunrise

Chapter Seventeen: Riddles

Buzzing noises woke her up.

Waking up wasn't the easiest thing to do. Not when she was so comfortable; more comfortable than she ever remembered being. Every inch of her seemed wrapped in warmth and softness - at least, until she shifted position, whereupon something prickled sharply in a hundred places and she opened her eyes with an irritated frown, and looked around to find the source of the buzzing noise.

Of course! She was lying in hay...hay that smelled like a hundred summers, like sunshine and rain and faint, dusty flowers; hay that crackled when she moved and whose cut edges poked through her thin linen robe. And there was the door of the byre, with golden light pouring in, and hundreds of bees at work in the wildflowers marching in gay procession into the meadow beyond. That explained the buzzing.

Eilonwy took a deep, appreciative breath, and closed her eyes to better feel the energy pulsing all around. Thousands of points of light danced across her mind's eye, moving in a measured, unhurried rhythm, flooding her with golden warmth, until her fingertips tingled. This strange, hidden valley was even more rich than the woods. It fairly glowed with life. For a moment she fancied she could hear the grass growing...but no, you couldn't hear anything over the busy hum of so many bees.

She sat up and stretched, and noticed Fflewddur, snoring nearby in the same heap, his long limbs sprawling like a pile of sticks. Opposite them was another large mound of hay, with a black, furry ear sticking out of the top. She giggled, remembering the bard's reaction to finding a bear sleeping in the byre. The color of the light outside suggested it was nearly sunset, and it had been late in the afternoon when Medwyn had shown them into their shelter, after they had enjoyed his generous hospitality.

Medwyn. She plucked a stalk of hay and chewed on it, thinking. She had never heard of Medwyn in any of her books, nor had Achren ever mentioned such a person, or his enchanted valley - if it was enchanted. There was something here that felt...well, full, somehow, and powerful, but it had none of the acrid taste or smell she associated with magic. If it was enchantment, it was of an entirely different kind than she had ever experienced, and nowhere did she sense it more strongly than about Medwyn himself. It hung around him like a mist, some force that felt tingly and breath-quickening one moment, and the next made you so drowsy and content you wanted to curl up and go to sleep where you stood.

Eilonwy rose and stretched, grateful for the absence of the gnawing hunger that had stalked them for days. When she stepped from the byre she caught her breath. The valley, under the westering sun, shone like a golden bowl, every grass blade and stone edge gilded and glowing. Beyond its edge, humps of land curved ever upwards until they reached the mountains – real mountains, like nothing she had ever seen, impossibly massive, their snow-streaked sides glowing crimson in the fiery light. The buzzing of the bees was fading, giving way to a vast silence broken only by the whisper of the hemlock leaves clustered around the cottages. The air was crisp now, as cool and fresh as though she were the first to breathe it; she shut her eyes and sucked it deep into her lungs, letting it out in a long sigh of contentment. The fawn she had befriended earlier danced delicately up to her and snuffled into her outstretched hand.

At the far end of the lake Taran sat at its edge; she waved at him and he raised a hand, but she could not read his expression at this distance. Between them, the large hale figure of Medwyn was strolling along the waterline, heading in her direction. His eyes were cast down toward his slow-moving feet, which gripped the grass as though they would grow roots at every step, and again she was struck with a sense of strange power that hung about him. Her inner perceptions could not find its way through it; he was too unfamiliar, barely human; his presence closer to what she'd felt from his wolves, or from Melyngar, but much, much older – as ancient and careless of time as the mountains that ringed his valley.