Power of Three

His ferocity so appalled Adara that she swore by the Sun and the Moon never to tell a living soul. Orban was satisfied. He did not bother to consider why he was so anxious that no one should know about the collar. His mind conveniently sheered off from what Og would say if he knew his son had killed an unarmed and defenceless creature for the sake of a collar which was cursed. No. Once Adara had sworn not to tell, Orban began to feel pleased with the morning’s work.

It was otherwise with Adara. She was wretched. She kept remembering the look of pleasure in the Dorig’s yellow eyes when it saw she was ready to believe it, and their look of despair when it invoked the Powers. She knew it was her fault. If she had not said the words right, Orban would not have killed the Dorig and brought home a curse. She could have gone on thinking the world of Orban instead of knowing he was just a cruel bully.

For Adara, almost the worst part was her disillusionment with Orban. It spread to everyone in Otmound. She looked at them all and listened to them talk, and it seemed to her that they would all have done just the same as Orban. She told herself that when she grew up she would never marry – never – unless she could find someone quite different.

But quite the worst part was not being able to tell anyone. Adara longed to confess. She had never felt so guilty in her life. But she had sworn the strongest oath and she dared not say a word. Whenever she thought of the Dorig she wanted to cry, but her guilt and terror stopped her doing even that. First she dared not cry, then she found she could not. Before a month passed she was pale and ill and could not eat.

They put her to bed, and Og was very concerned. “What’s on your mind, Adara?” he said, stroking her head. “Tell me.”

Adara dared not say a word. It was the first time she had kept a secret from her father and it made her feel worse than ever. She rolled away and covered her head with the blanket. If only I could cry! she thought. But I can’t, because the Dorig’s curse is working.

Og was afraid someone had put a curse on Adara. He was very worried because Adara was far and away his favourite child. He had lamps lit and the right words said, to be on the safe side. Orban was terrified. He thought Adara had told Og about the Dorig. He stormed in on Adara where she lay staring up at the thatch and longing to confess and cry.

“Have you said anything?” Orban demanded.

“No,” Adara said wretchedly.

“Not even to the walls or the hearthstone?” Orban asked suspiciously, since he knew this was how secrets often got out.

“No,” said Adara. “Not to anything.”

“Thank the Powers!” said Orban and, greatly relieved, he went off to put the collar in a safer hiding-place.

Adara sat up as he went. He had put a blessed, splendid idea into her head. She might not be able to tell Og or even the hearthstone, but what was to prevent her confessing to the stones of the old Giants’ road? They had watched it all anyway from under the turf. They had received the Dorig’s blood. She could go and remind them of the whole story, and maybe then she could cry and feel better.

Og was pleased to see how much better Adara was that same evening. She ate a natural supper and slept properly all night. He allowed her to get up the next morning, and the next day he allowed her to go out.

This was what Adara had been waiting for. Outside Otmound she stayed for a while among the sheep, until she was sure no one was anxiously watching her. Then she ran her hardest to the old road.

It was a hot day. The grey mists of the Moor hung heavily and the trees were dark. When Adara, panting and sweating, reached the dip in the track, all she found was a column of midges circling in the air above it. There was not a trace of the Dorig – not so much as a drop of blood on a blade of grass – yet her memory of it was so keen that she could almost see the scaly body lying there.

“He looked so small!” she exclaimed, without meaning to. “And so thin! And he did bleed so!”

Her voice rang in the thick silence. Adara jumped. She looked hurriedly round, afraid that someone might have heard. But nothing moved in the rushes by the track, no birds flew and the distant hedge was silent. Even the Giants made no sound. High above Adara’s head was the little white circle of the full Moon, up in broad daylight. She knew that was a good omen. She went down on her knees in the grass and, looking through to the old stones, began her confession.

“Oh stones,” she said, “I have such a terrible thing to remind you of.” And she told it all, what she had said, what Orban had said, and what the poor frightened Dorig had said, until she came to herself saying, “off your dead body.” Then she cried. She cried and cried, rocking on her knees with her hands to her face, quite unable to stop, buried in the relief of being able to cry at last.

A little mottled grass-snake, which had been coiled all this while in the middle of the nearest clump of rushes, now poured itself down on to the warm turf and waited, bent into an S-shape, beside Adara. When she did nothing but rock and cry, it reared up with its yellow eyes very bright and wet, and uttered a soft Hssst! Adara never heard. She was too buried in sorrow.

The snake hesitated. Then it seemed to shrug. Adara, as she wept, thought she felt a chill and a rising shadow beside her, but she was not aware of anything more until a small voice at her shoulder said imperiously, “Well, go on, can’t you! What did my brother say next?”

Adara’s head whipped round. She found herself face to face with a small Dorig – a very small Dorig, no bigger than she was – who was kneeling beside her on the track. His eyes were browner than the dead Dorig’s, and he had a stouter, fiercer look, but she could see a family likeness between them. This one was obviously much younger. He did not seem to have grown scales yet. His pale body was clothed in a silvery sort of robe and the gold collar on his neck was a plain, simple band, suitable for somebody very young. Adara knew he could not possibly harm her, but she was still horrified to see him.

“Go on!” commanded the small Dorig, and his yellow-brown eyes filled with angry tears. “I want to know what happened next.”

“But I can’t!” Adara protested, also in tears again. “I swore to Orban by the Sun and the Moon not to tell a soul, and if you heard me I’ve broken it. The most dreadful things will happen.”

“No, they won’t,” said the little Dorig impatiently. “You were telling it to the stones, not to me, and I happened to overhear. What’s to stop you telling the stones the rest?”

“I daren’t,” said Adara.

“Don’t be stupid,” said the Dorig. “I’ve been coming here and coming here for nearly a month now, and I’ve got into trouble every time I got home, because I wanted to find out what happened. And now you go and stop at the important part. Look.” His long pale finger pointed first to the ground, then up at the white disc of the Moon, and then moved on to point to the Sun, high in the South. “Three Powers present. You were meant to tell, don’t you see? But if you’re too scared, it doesn’t matter. I know it must have been your brother Orban who killed my brother and stole his collar.”

“Oh, all right then,” Adara said drearily. “Stones, it was my brother. I tried to stop him but he pushed me over.”

“Didn’t my brother say anything else?” prompted the Dorig boy.

“Yes, he put a curse on his collar,” said Adara. “Stones.”

“Ah!” said the Dorig boy. “I thought he must have done something. He wasn’t much of a fighter, but he was very clever. What was the curse?”

“Stones,” said Adara, and hesitated. She dared not repeat the words of the curse, well though she remembered them, for fear of bringing it on herself. She had to pick her way, telling it haltingly in her own words, through the pattern of the collar and the pattern of disaster woven into it, until she reached the owls’ heads at either end. “Then he said the birds’ faces were to – er – watch and make sure the one who has the collar will – not be able to let it go even though – er – it costs him the everything he’s got. Stones,” she concluded, thankful to have got it over.

The small Dorig beside her frowned. “But didn’t he name any Powers? I thought—”

“Oh yes, stones,” said Adara. “But not ones I know, and not until Orban tried to take the collar off him.”

“What Powers? Sun, Moon—?”

“No, no. Stones,” said Adara. There seemed to be no way of mentioning the Powers without naming them. Adara dropped her voice and crossed the fingers of both hands, with her thumbs under that for added protection. “The Old Power, the Middle and the New,” she whispered.

“Oh.” The Dorig boy looked very awed and also very satisfied. “That’s all right then. Nothing will stop the curse working now.”

“Unless the Powers are appeased,” Adara said. “Can’t I try and appease them? It was my fault.”

“I don’t think so. Not all Three.”

“Well, I swear to try,” said Adara.

The Dorig boy seemed a little troubled by her decision. “But I don’t want you to.” He thought a moment. “What’s your name?” he asked.

Adara simply looked at him. She knew well enough that you did not trust strangers with your name. And the worst of it was that she had already made him a present of Orban’s.

“It’s all right,” he said irritably. “I quite like you. And I only asked so that I shouldn’t swear to kill you by mistake. Mine’s Hathil – truly. Now what’s yours?”

Adara looked into his yellow-brown eyes and thought he was telling the truth. Having glanced at his hands, in case his fingers were crossed, and found them straight, she said, “Adara.”

“Thanks,” said Hathil. “Now I can swear. You can swear to lift the curse if you want. I swear to revenge my brother by helping the curse in every way I can. I shall spill every drop of Orban’s blood, except Adara’s, and dedicate it to the Powers. I call on them not to be placated until none of Orban’s people are left alive on the Moor. May the hidden stones bear witness, and the Sun, Moon and Earth.”

Adara listened dejectedly. She did not deny Hathil had the right to swear, but it did not seem fair on all the other people who had done him no harm. When he finished, she said, “Don’t you think you’re rather young to swear all that?”

“Blame your brother,” Hathil said stiffly. “He’s a murdering brute.” Adara sighed. “And I liked H—my brother,” Hathil explained. “He was clever, and he told me all sorts of things. I was going to go exploring when I grew up, and now I can’t because they’re going to make me King instead. They won’t let me out of their sight most of the time now. But the one good thing I can see about being King is that I can order everyone to fight Orban. And I’m not too young to swear. Do you see those stones?” He jabbed his pale finger down at the old road. Adara looked through at the cracked old stones in some perplexity. Though they had figured largely in the conversation, she could not see quite what bearing they had on Hathil’s age. “The Giants who made this road,” said Hathil, “were almost destroyed by a Giant who swore to stamp them out when he was not much older than I am.”

Adara was impressed. “How do you know that?”

“I learnt it,” said Hathil. “It pays to learn things.”

Adara, in spite of her dejection, felt Hathil was right. Perhaps, if she learnt and learnt, she might find a way of lifting that curse before it destroyed Orban, and before Hathil was old enough to carry out his oath. “I think,” she said, “you’ll make an awfully good King.” Hathil looked at her suspiciously. “You seem to know so well what you’re going to do,” Adara explained.