throbbing light machine

I wanted this passage so badly I had to go to the library in all the rain and wind to get it. I'm typing it up here so that I'll always have it close at hand, and because I thought maybe some of you might also want it. So: the bit from the end of "The Castle of Llyr," where Eilonwy can't remember Taran and dreams of the apple tree in spring.



"I am Eilonwy Daughter of of Angharad Daughter of Regat," continued Eilonwy, putting her hand to the silver crescent at her throat. "But who are you?" she repeated. "I haven't the least idea in the wold what you're talking about."

"Wake up," Taran cried, shaking her. "You're dreaming."

"Why yes, as a matter of fact I was," Eilonwy answered, with a vague and sleepy smile. "But how did you guess? I don't believe dreaming actually shows when you're doing it." She paused, frowning. "Or does it? Sometime I shall have to find out. The only way, I suppose, is to look at myself when I'm asleep. And how I might go about that, I can't imagine." Her voice faltered and trailed away; she seemed suddenly to forget Taran was even there and sank back to the couch. "Difficult - difficult," she murmured. "Like trying to turn yourself inside out. Or would it be outside in?"

"Eilonwy, look at me!" Taran tried to raise her, but Eilonwy, with a little cry of annoyance, drew away. "You must listen," Taran insisted.

"That's what I've been doing," she replied. "So far you've made no sense whatever. I was much more comfortable asleep. I'd rather dream than be shouted at. But what was I dreaming? A pleasant dream - with a pig in it - and someone who - no, it's gone now, faster than a butterfly. You've spoiled it."

Taran had forced the girl to sit upright once more. Now he stared at her with alarm. Despite her travel-stained garments and disheveled hair, she appeared unharmed. But her eyes were strangely depthless. It was not sleep that filled her, and his hands trembled as he realized Eilonwy had been drugged or - his heart chilled at the thought of it - bewitched.

"Listen carefully," he pleaded. "There is no time..."

"I don't believe people should be allowed to come stamping into other people's dream without asking first," Eilonwy said, with some vexation. "There's something impolite about it. Like walking into a spider web when the spider's still using it."

Taran ran to the casement. He could see nothing of the companions below, nor any sign of Kaw. The moon was down and the sky would soon lighten. Quickly he turned back to Eilonwy.

"Make haste, I beg you!" he cried. "Climb down with me. The rope is strong enough for both of us."

"A rope?" ecalimed Eilonwy. "Me? Go sliding down with you? I've only known you there few moments, but it seems to me you make the silliest suggestions. No, thank you." She stifled a yawn. "You might try sliding down the rope yourself," she added with a certain sharpness, "and let me go back to sleep. I hope I can remember where I left off. That's the worst of having your dream broken into. You can never find it again."

Taran, sick with alarm, knelt beside her. "What holds you?" he whispered. "Fight against it. Can you not remember me? Taran, Assistant Pig-Keeper..."

"How interesting," remarked Eilonwy. "Sometime you must tell me more about yourself. But not now."

"Think," Taran urged. "Remember Caer Dallben - Coll - Hen Wen..."

Through the casement the sea wind carried trails of mist like tangled vines. Taran spoke the names again, and the names of the companions.

Eilonwy's glance was so distant that she herself seemed far from the chamber. "Caer Dallben," she murmured. "How curious - I think that might have been part of my dream, too. There was an orchard; the trees were in blossom. I was climbing up, as high as I could go..."

"Yes, so it was," Taran pressed eagerly. 'I, too, remember the day. You said you'd climb to the very top of the apple tree. I warned you not to, but you did anyway."

"I wanted to learn the trees," Eilonwy went on. "You must learn them anew every year," she said, "for they are always different. And in the dream I'd gone to the last branch."

"It was no dream," Taran urged, "but the life you know; your own life, not a shadow that vanishes in the sun. Indeed, you went to the highest branch. It snapped, as I feared it would."

"How should anyone know someone else's dream?" said Eilonwy, as though speaking to herself. "yes, it broke and I was falling. There was someone below who caught me. Could it have been an Assistant Pig-Keeper? I wonder what become of him?"

"He is here now," Taran said quietly. "He has long sought you and in ways even he himself did not know. Now that he has found you, can you not find your path back to him?"

Eilonwy rose to her feet. Her eyes flickered and for the first time a light shone in them. Taran held out his hands to her. She hesitated, then took a step forward.

But even as she moved to him, her glance turned shallow and the light died. "It is a dream, no more than that," she whispered, and turned away.


Oh, Taran.