‘We’ve decided to stay here until the morning,’ Nab announced, and without saying a word they all lay down on the saturated ground.
It was impossible to sleep. Somehow an air of evil hung about the place; the mist seemed to form itself into figures which danced and leered at them through the gloom, racing on to be replaced by another and another, each one different to the last until their minds became numb with a kind of dull sick horror. Tiredness eventually overcame Beth and she fell into a restless fitful sleep in which the evil figures which had paraded before her in the mist assumed gigantic proportions. They laughed down at her from the heavens and their long fingers wrapped themselves around her body and picked her up, tossing her like a rag doll from one to the other. Their flesh seemed to be made of some sort of slimy gelatinous substance so that where they touched her she felt terribly wet and cold and the dampness went right through her body, wrapping its icy fingers around her soul and tugging at it as if trying to shake it free. She struggled and fought to release herself from their grip but they only laughed and threw her up in the air again where she waved her arms about in panic until she was caught by another. A terrible fear spread over her, freezing her heart and turning her legs to jelly as the utter helplessness of her situation forced itself into her consciousness. She was about to give up her struggles and abandon herself to despair when she felt herself shaken by another warmer grip and heard her name called insistently by a familiar voice. ‘Beth, Beth,’ it said, and slowly she shook off the webs of the nightmare as the voice brought her back to wakefulness. She opened her eyes to see Nab’s anxious face looking down at her. Although it was so cold she felt little beads of perspiration mingling with the damp on her forehead.
‘Hold me,’ she said in a small frightened voice and he did so, reviving her body with life and melting the chill in her soul with the warmth of love.
‘You were tossing in your sleep, and crying out. We were afraid for you,’ he said.
She told him of her dream and the others sat around and listened in fear. There was silence when she finished; they sat in the damp half-light of the early morning not knowing what to think or to do. Soon a pale watery sun began to try to filter through the mist and around them they saw a bleak landscape of twisted, stunted trees and flat bog which lay dark and oozing for as far as they could see in the unreal light. They had been walking along one of a number of raised paths on which grass grew but the one they were on now came to an end just a few paces further on and sank back into the quagmire. The heavy dank smell of decaying vegetation hung over everything, and they could see, protruding from the bog like fingers, the dead rotten stumps of old trees covered in fungi and lichens and mosses which dripped continuously into the bog.
‘This is an evil place,’ whispered Warrigal quietly to himself as if he was afraid that the bog might hear.
‘We must go back and try to find another path,’ said Nab, but he didn’t move for his body seemed to be sunk into a deep trough of despair and apathy from which he was unable to raise it.
Suddenly Brock exclaimed loudly, ‘What’s that! Look; walking through the mist.’
They could faintly see a tall white figure walking slowly and deliberately through the bog towards them and they could just about make out the regular splashing of delicate footsteps in water.
‘It’s a heron,’ Brock said. The bird walked towards them picking up its long spindly legs and placing them down carefully in the bog and as it did so its head, with the deadly sharp pointed beak, moved backwards and forwards in time with the rhythm of its walk. The animals had occasionally seen such a creature before as herons had sometimes come to the stream at the back of Silver Wood but that had been a rare occurrence and they had never been this close to one before. It stood before them, its long white wings folded in on either side of its body and reaching down at the back to a little rounded peak, reminding Beth of an old-fashioned tail coat. From each eye to the top of its head stretched a narrow spherical black marking that seemed to continue on into its plume which now was held down so that it pointed from the back of its head at an angle to the ground. To Beth it looked as if it was wearing a pair of glasses with thick black rims. When it spoke the long neck, which was tucked in between its shoulders, quivered slightly.
‘I am Golconda, the Great White Heron; Guardian of the Marshes of Blore. I have been awaiting your arrival for some time since the Sea Elves warned me of your coming. My task is to see the traveller safely through the marshes. We must beware, for with your presence here the atmosphere is thick with goblins. A band of them reside in the marsh and normally we live in an uneasy truce. However they are aware of your importance if not of your purpose and they will do all they can to stop you.’
‘But no one saw us,’ said Nab. ‘We took the greatest care. How could they know we are here?’
The heron laughed; a deep rasping noise which seemed to grate its way up from the bottom of his legs.
‘You cannot escape the eyes of Dréagg. His spies are everywhere. He knew where you were from the moment you left your wood. Do not underestimate him. Now follow me, but be extremely cautious. There is but one way through the marshes. If you step off the way you will swiftly be submerged in the ooze.’
They set off through the marsh, each of them following exactly in the footsteps of the other except for Warrigal, who once again sat perched on Nab’s shoulder. As they walked Nab asked the heron why he was unable to feel the Roosdyche here.
‘It is because Dréagg has blighted this place,’ Golconda said. ‘It belongs to the goblins who have no need for light nor for the power of the earth. Ashgaroth and his gifts are unknown here, it is an empty space for him and does not exist. Can you not feel the Evil One all around you?’
‘Why do you then stay?’ asked Warrigal.
‘I have told you; someone must show travellers across. There is no other way to the sea without going through an enormous detour over the high mountains and that would take far too long and be even more dangerous. In any case it is impassable in winter. And I can survive on what is to be found in the marshes. The goblins do not suspect that I work with the elves; I am a solitary bird and they leave me alone. I am too unimportant for Dréagg to waste his efforts on so I stay and no one bothers me. That is the way that it has been.’ He paused while they walked under the overhanging branches of a small oak tree which swept down almost to the ground. The trunk of it was covered in thick green lichen, and on the roots which stuck up out of the green sludge, grew hundreds of little orange fungi that contrasted strongly with the dull greens and browns all around.
‘But you,’ Golconda went on. ‘I know all I wish to know about your journey and your mission and I bid you the greatest of good fortune for you will need it. But tell me of your wood and of the animals in it, and of your early days, Nab; and the Urkku with you, who is of the Eldron: tell me of her. I see that she speaks to you in our tongue. I would like her to talk to me of the ways of the Urkku.’
The time passed quickly as they talked; they forgot the evil around them as they related the stories and legends of Silver Wood to the heron, and when Nab told him of the early days, sunshine and laughter seemed to fill his mind. But when they got to the end the heron stopped them and asked Beth to tell him of her life and they listened in fascination and amazement as she told them haltingly of how she had lived and of the ways of man.
They enjoyed talking to him for he was a good listener, only occasionally interrupting to ask a pertinent question or add some observation of his own. He reminded them all, in his stature and bearing, of Wythen and they wondered sadly if they would ever see the old owl again. Soon, before they realized it, the darkness began to fall and night started to set in.