The Giants' Dance Read Online Free PDF Page A

gloom. Willow stood by the cradle, her daughter in herarms. Bethe had been woken up by the quake and was mewling.
    â€˜Where’re you going?’ Willow asked, seeing him climb the ladder into the loft.
    â€˜To call on an old friend.’
    He went to his oak chest and brought out the book that grew bigger the more it was read. He brought it down the ladder, took a soft cloth and wiped clean the great covers of tooled brown leather. There was not much time. Soon the other Valesmen would notice the glow and they would come for his advice.
    He placed the treasured book on the wooden lectern by the fire, a piece of furniture he had made himself specially for it. Then he composed himself for the ritual that should always attend the opening of any book of magic.
    He placed his left hand flat on the book’s front cover and repeated the words of the true tongue that were written there:
‘Ane radhas a’leguim oicheamna;
    ainsagimn deo teuiccimn.’
    And then he voiced the spell again in plain speech.
‘Speak these words to read the secrets within;
    learn and so come to a true understanding.’
    There were no iron clasps on this book as there were on most others, for this book was locked by magic. As he muttered the charm the bindings were released and he was able to open it. Inside were words for his eyes alone. He turned to a special page with Gwydion’s parting words in mind.
‘…should you find yourself in dire need, you must
    find the page where flies the swiftest bird. Call
    it by name and that will be enough.’
    His fingers trembled as the page before him began to fill with the picture of a bird, black and white with a russet throat and long tail streamers. He hesitated. Is this truly a moment of ‘dire need’? he asked himself. Am I doing the right thing?
    He looked inside himself, then across to where Willow nursed their daughter, and suddenly he feared to invoke the spell. But then he saw the livid light flare and heard Bethe begin to cry, and he knew he must pronounce the trigger-word without delay.
    â€˜Fannala!’
    He spoke the true name of the swallow. Immediately, his thoughts were knocked sideways as if by a great blow to his head. A bird flew up out of the book and into the candlelight. There was a flash of white breast feathers and it was gone, so that when Will’s bedazzled eyes tried to follow it he lost it in the shadows. When he looked again not knowing what to expect, a grey shape had appeared in the corner.
    â€˜Who’s there?’ Willow shouted, clutching Bethe close to her and snatching up a fire iron.
    Will was overwhelmed. It seemed that a great bear or tiger cat had appeared in the room and was making ready to attack. Yet the shape gave off a pale blue light that faded, and then the figure of an old man walked out of the darkness.
    The wizard was tall and grave, swathed in his long wayfarer’s cloak of mouse-brown. His head was closely clad in a dark skullcap, and his hand clasped an oaken staff. Bare toes peeped out from under the long skirts of his belted robe, and he wore a long beard that was divided now into two forks.
    â€˜A swift, I told you! Not a swallow ! Fool!’
    Will stared as the wizard stroked the two stiff prongs of his beard together and made them into one.
    â€˜Master Gwydion…’
    The wizard looked around the homely room with heavylidded eyes, his brow knotted. He footed his staff with a bang against the fireplace. ‘I hope you have good reason to summon me thus!’
    Will felt the wizard’s displeasure like a knife. Their parting had been more than four years ago, and Will expected warmer words.
    â€˜Good reason?’ Willow said, putting down the fire iron but still unwilling to have her husband roughly spoken to beside his own hearth. ‘I should say there’s good reason. And less of the “fool”, if you please, Master Gwydion. Those who don’t mind their manners in