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temple s low doorway. He believes we can manage without the Gods.
Then it s a pity, I said sarcastically, that he never saw Olwen the Silver glowing in the dark.
Nimue hissed at me. Merlin paused, then slowly turned and straightened from the doorway to give me
a sour look. Why, Derfel, is that a pity? he asked in a dangerous voice.
Because if he had seen her, Lord, then surely he would believe in the Gods? So long, of course, as he
didn t discover your shellfish.
So that s it, he said. You ve been questing about, haven t you? You ve been shoving your fat Saxon
nose where it oughtn t to be shoved and you found my piddocks.
Piddocks?
The shellfish, fool, they re called piddocks. At least, the vulgar call them that.
And they glow? I asked.
Their juices do have a luminous quality, Merlin admitted airily. I could see he was annoyed at my
discovery, but he was doing his best not to show any irritation. Pliny mentions the phenomenon, but then
he mentions so much that it s very hard to know quite what to believe. Most of his notions are arrant
nonsense, of course. All that rubbish about Druids cutting mistletoe on the sixth day of a new moon! I d
never do that, never! The fifth day, yes, and sometimes the seventh, but the sixth? Never! And he also
recommends, as I recall, wrapping a woman s breast band about the skull to cure an aching head, but the
remedy doesn t work. How could it? The magic is in the breasts, not in the band, so it is clearly far more
efficacious to bury the aching head in the breasts themselves. The remedy has never failed me, that s for
sure. Have you read Pliny, Derfel?
No, Lord.
That s right, I never taught you Latin. Remiss of me. Well, he does discuss the piddock and he noted
that the hands and mouths of those who ate the creature glowed afterwards, and I confess I was
intrigued. Who would not be? I was reluctant to explore the phenomenon further, for I have wasted a
great deal of my time on Pliny s more credulous notions, but that one turned out to be accurate. Do you
remember Caddwg? The boatman who rescued us from Ynys Trebes? He is now my piddock hunter.
The creatures live in holes in the rocks, which is inconvenient of them, but I pay Caddwg well and he
assiduously winkles them out as a proper piddock hunter should. You look disappointed, Derfel.
I thought, Lord, I began, then faltered, knowing I was about to be mocked.
Oh! You thought the girl came from the heavens! Merlin finished the sentence for me, then hooted
with derision. Did you hear that, Nimue? Our great warrior, Derfel Cadarn, believed our little Olwen
was an apparition! He drew out the last word, giving it a portentous tone.
He was supposed to believe that, Nimue said drily.
I suppose he was, come to think of it, Merlin admitted. It s a good trick, isn t it, Derfel?
But just a trick, Lord, I said, unable to hide my disappointment.
Merlin sighed. You are absurd, Derfel, entirely absurd. The existence of tricks does not imply the
absence of magic, but magic is not always granted to us by the Gods. Do you understand nothing? This
last question was asked angrily.
I know I was deceived, Lord.
Deceived! Deceived! Don t be so pathetic. You re worse than Gawain! A Druid in his second day of
training could deceive you! Our job is not to satisfy your infantile curiosity, but to do the work of the
Gods, and those Gods, Derfel, have gone far from us. They have gone far! They re vanishing, melting
into the dark, going into the abyss of Annwn. They have to be summoned, and to summon them I needed
labourers, and to attract labourers I needed to offer a little hope. Do you think Nimue and I could build
the fires all on our own? We needed people! Hundreds of people! And smearing a girl with piddock
juice brought them to us, but all you can do is bleat about being deceived. Who cares what you think?
Why don t you go and chew a piddock? Maybe that will enlighten you. He kicked at Excalibur s hilt,
which still protruded from the temple. I suppose that fool Gawain showed you everything?
He showed me the rings of fire, Lord.
And now you want to know what they re for, I suppose?
Yes, Lord.
Anyone of average intelligence could work it out for himself, Merlin said grandly. The Gods are far
away, that s obvious, or otherwise they would not be ignoring us, but many years ago they gave us the
means of summoning them: the Treasures. The Gods are now so far gone into Annwn s chasm that the
Treasures by themselves do not work. So we have to attract the Gods attention, and how do we do
that? Simple! We send a signal into the abyss, and that signal is simply a great pattern of fire, and in the
pattern we place the Treasures, and then we do one or two other things which don t really matter very
much, and after that I can die in peace instead of having to explain the most elementary matters to
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