The Hidden World

Chapter 9

The mist seemed to come out of nowhere. It did not roll in on them as they rode, like the heavy, gauzy sea fogs, a thick and palpable wall, but began, rather, as the finest of vapours, trailing low on the ground as though the earth was breathing it forth in pale wisps. But as the minutes passed, it rose and thickened until hills and sky and forest were blotted out, and they moved through a grey void in which only the looming menhirs could be seen. All landmarks were gone; there was nothing to help the travellers orient themselves.

"You were right. This is no natural mist," said Duncan darkly.

Aengus remained grimly silent, but Maeve felt the tension in his back muscles increasing as they rode.

She tried to recall all she could of Morgana from her grandmother's account. The fairy queen claimed direct descent from King Arthur's sister, Morgan le Fay. She was a shadowy figure, a half-mortal sorceress who had ultimately used her magic to aid the powers of evil in the war. Maeve had never thought of the dangerous and terrifying things in the book coming to life as the pleasant ones had done. But then, she had thought Annwn existed only for her pleasure. How childish that seemed to her now! If dreams could be real, so too could nightmares. Maeve turned her thoughts hurriedly away from her grandmother's description of the dark queen.

Then she noticed the humming.

It was a low sound, barely audible at first, that seemed to come from all around them—out of the air itself, or out of the earth. It was steady, neither rising nor falling in pitch, but growing ever louder as they wound their way through the stones.

"You hear it, Aengus?" said Duncan hoarsely.

"Aye."

"What is it?" asked Thomas. But Aengus made no answer.

Maeve suddenly caught her breath. One of the stones had moved.

She had seen it distinctly: a small, squat, grey shape that had stirred and scuttled away to one side, vanishing in the mist. For a moment she could only stare dumbly, wondering if she had just imagined it. Then, as they rode on, there was another blur of motion off to the right. She just caught it with the corner of her eye, and by the time her head moved, whatever it was had gone.

"Aengus," she whispered. "There's ... something ... alive out there."

He halted the horse and looked about him. Duncan and Thomas also reined in their mounts. A few metres away,another circle of grey upright shapes was visible through the mists. There were eight of them, each less than the height of a man, and the droning sound seemed to come from them.

"Who is there?" called Duncan.

One of the shapes moved, turning to face them. Maeve saw that it was not a stone after all, but was a human figure swathed in a shapeless grey cloak. A gnarled witch-face peered out at them from beneath the coarse cloth, and where the cloak divided at the front was the hem of a black gown. The humming sound rose to a wailing chorus—an eerie sound, like a lamentation.

And now the sound of running feet came through the mist on every side. They were surrounded. Human forms burst through the greyness, huge men with naked swords in their hands. The men wore tunics and trousers of coarse cloth, their hair was long and wild, their faces and arms painted or tattooed with blue swirls and jagged patterns that gave them a savage air.

One tall man stood apart from the rest. Like the eight women, he wore a black robe under a cloak of grey, and his hair was cut like the monks', with a band shaved across the top of his head so that the hair above his brow was separated from the long locks straggling down his back. The hair was iron grey, matching in hue the thin beard that streamed down his chest, and his face was hollow-cheeked and deeply seamed with age.