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head. "Shun them--- huts, that is," he added. "You never know what
disagreeable thing you'll run into--- and by the time you find out, it's too
late."
"Changed into a toad?" cried Rhun, not the least dismayed. "I say,
that might be interesting. I should like to try it one day. But there's
nothing like that to worry about. No one lives here. And they haven't for a
long time."
"Hurry, then," Taran said, resolving never again to let Prince Rhun
out of his sight. "We must join the others. We'll have long, hard riding
before we catch up to them."
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"Immediately!" said Rhun, who was wearing nothing but his shirt. "I
shall get my things together."
Gurgi, meanwhile, had clambered down from the tree. His curiosity
getting the better of his prudence, he loped across the clearing and thrust
his head into the doorway, at last venturing inside with Rhun. Fflewddur and
the impatient Taran followed him.
It was, Taran saw, as the Prince had told them. A heavy layer of
dust covered the wooden tables and benches. A spider had spun an enormous web
in one corner, but even the web was deserted. On a broken hearthstone lay the
charred remnants of a long-dead fire. Near the hearth, a number of large
cookpots, dry and empty now, had been overturned. Earthen bowls and tall jars,
shattered into fragments, were strewn about the floor. Through the holes in
the roof the leaves of more than one autumn had fallen, nearly burying a stool
whose legs had broken into splinters. The hut was silent; the noises of the
forest did not enter. Taran stood uneasily while Prince Rhun fumbled with his
gear.
Gurgi, fascinated by so many strange odds and ends, lost no time in
poking through them. Suddenly he cried out in surprise. "Look, look!" he
called, holding up a sheaf of tattered parchment.
Taran knelt beside Gurgi and examined the ragged bundle. The fold
mice, he realized, had discovered the packet long before. Many of the sheets
had been gnawed away; others were rain sodden and blotted. The few undamaged
pages were covered with cramped writing. Only at the bottom of the pile did
Taran find pages in good repair. These had been carefully bound in leather to
make a small tome, and their surface was clear and unmarked.
Prince Rhun, who still had not got around to buckling on his sword,
came to peer over Taran's shoulder. "I say!" he cried. "What have you there? I
can't guess what it is, but it looks interesting. And isn't that a handsome
little book? I shouldn't mind having it to put down things I'm supposed to
remember to do."
"Prince Rhun," Taran said, handing the undamaged volume to the
Prince of Mona, who thrust it into his jacket, "believe me, if there's
anything that might ever help you do anything, you're welcome to it." He went
back to puzzling over the parchments. "Between the mice and the weather," he
went on, "there's not much to make out of this scrawl. There seems to be no
beginning or ending, but as far as I can tell, these are recipes for potions."
"Potions!" cried Fflewddur. "Great Belin, that's something we've
little use for!"
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Taran, nevertheless, continued to scan and sort the pages. "Wait, I
think I've found the name of whoever wrote them. Glew, it looks like. And the
potions, as it says here, are to"--- his voice faltered and he turned
anxiously to Fflewddur--- "to make yourself grow bigger. What can this mean?"
"How's that?" asked the bard. "Bigger? Are you sure you haven't read
it wrong?" He took the pages from Taran's hand and examined them carefully
himself. When he had finished, he gave a low whistle.
"In my wanderings," said Fflewddur, "I've managed to learn a number
of things, not least of which is don't meddle. I fear that's exactly what this
fellow Glew did. Indeed, what he sought was a potion to make himself bigger
and stronger. If those are Glew's boots over there," he added, pointing to the
corner, "he surely needed one, for he must have been a little fellow."
Half hidden by leaves, a pair of well-worn boots lay on their side.
They were hardly large enough to fit a child and seemed, to Taran, pitiful in
their smallness and emptiness.
"He must have been painstaking," Fflewddur went on. "I'll say that
much for him. He describes everything he did, and set down all his recipes,
quite carefully and methodically. As for his ingredients," the bard said,
making a sour face, "I should rather not think about them."
"I say," Prince Rhun eagerly interrupted, "perhaps we should try
them ourselves. It would be interesting to see what happens."
"No, no!" Gurgi shouted. "Gurgi wants no tastings of nasty lotions
and potions!"
"Nor do I," said Fflewddur. "And neither did Glew, for the matter of
that. He had no wish to drink his concoctions until he had some hope they'd
work--- for which I can't blame him in the least. He went about it very
cleverly.
"As I gather from what he's written down here," continued the bard,
"he went out and trapped a mountain cat--- a small one, I should think, since
Glew himself was such a small person. He brought her back, put her in a cage,
and fed her his potions as fast as he could cook them up."
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"Poor creature," said Taran.
"Indeed," agreed the bard. "I shouldn't have liked to be in her
place. Yet he must have grown fond enough of her to give her a name. Here, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]