“What did I do wrong?” I said. I have been so proud and so sure of myself, ever since understanding came to me in the old mill, and now I saw I had prevented myself understanding truly by being so proud of my own cleverness. “But what about Kankredin?” I said. I tried to look out into the country below, to see if Kankredin was to be seen, but my eyes blurred. It was all green and blue and dizzying.
I looked at my shadow on the turf. There was another shadow stretched out beside mine, longer and large-nosed. I could not move.
“Grandfather?” I said.
His voice is like the sound behind the sound of the waterfall. “Thank you, Granddaughter,” he said. “You have been a great help to me. You took Kankredin’s hands from my throat.”
“Then what didn’t I do?” I said.
His answer came after a pause. He sounded sad. “Nobody asked you to do anything—beyond what your family has always done. And I was not very kind to your mother, after all.”
“I know,” I said. “But Closti—my father—wasn’t in the least like Cenblith, you know. You might have forgiven her.”
He paused again before answering sadly and hesitantly, “I am very devious, Granddaughter. You—you would not be here now if I had.”
It came to me that my grandfather was not only bound and sad, and weighted with shame and loneliness, but even uncertain how to talk to an ordinary person like me. I had not thought it was possible to love him until then. I wanted to turn round and look at him, but I did not dare. I looked at his shadow and said, “Grandfather, tell me what I have to do to unbind you. I want to. It’s got nothing to do with Kankredin or Mother or even Gull. It’s for you.”
Again the pause. “That makes me … grateful,” he said. “If you mean that, Tanaqui, perhaps you could think of the end of your first coat, where you speak of Kankredin. In what manner did you weave that?”
“In the expressive way Tanamil taught me,” I said.
“Then,” he said, “think on to the second coat now in your loom. You tell of meeting with your King and what he told you of me. Do you use the same weave there?”
“Yes,” I said. I had been in such awe of our King then. And I saw the coat clearly in my mind as I stood there, and my expressive weaving of the King going right across from selvage to selvage. “Of course!” I said. “You were bound twice! By Kankredin and by Cenblith.” Then I did nearly turn round to look at him, but again I did not dare.
“It was my own fault,” said my grandfather. He spoke musingly, as if he spoke to himself. This is how he must have spoken alone, for many centuries. ?
?I can’t ask anyone to unbind us because it was my fault. The first time I was a fool. The second time I was a fool, thinking that I was about to be rid of the first bond in time to welcome my people back. I let Kankredin take me unawares. I knew Kankredin. He has inherited my gifts, but it was too late when I saw that he has put them to the worst possible use.”
“Kankredin? Is Kankredin of the Undying?” I said. I could not help interrupting.
“He descends from me,” said my grandfather. “All the people you call Heathen descend from me. They went from here, and now they have come back. Kankredin is like you—two lines meet in him—but he has misused his inheritance, and now he wants to take my place.”
“Can you stop him?” I said. By this time I was shaken with the urge to look round and see my grandfather, but I could not do it.
“I can stop him if I am unbound,” said my grandfather. “That I promise you.”
I could not resist turning round. I was so frightened of looking that I slithered down on to my knees with the bobbin clutched to my chest. I think I gave a whimper of panic. But I turned round.
Kars Adon was standing there, casting a long shadow on the turf beside the blob of mine. He smiled awkwardly at me. There was nobody else there. “You mustn’t be frightened,” Kars Adon said. “I made them keep out of sight. I was afraid you might go over the edge if we all came.”
6
I do not know if it had been the shadow of Kars Adon all along, but I think not. I do know this, however: At the bottom of my mind I must have been thinking of Kars Adon as much as Hern had. I was so glad to see him standing there alive that I burst into tears and took hold of his hand; it was cold, and all knuckles, as I remembered from before.
Kars Adon, being such a stiff, polite person, was naturally hugely embarrassed. He twisted his hand out of mine and stepped back. “Please don’t cry,” he said. Then he thought he had been too chilling, and he said, “I am very pleased to see you up here. We wondered what you were doing.”
“Didn’t you see the One?” I said. “I was talking to my grandfather.”
Kars Adon looked at me with an oddness he was almost too polite to show. “There was no one here,” he said. “Who did you think it was?”
“He’s called Adon, like you,” I said, “and Amil and—”
“Hush!” said Kars Adon. He was very awed. “You mean our Grand Father was here?”
I nodded. I was crying again, to think the One had gone away without my seeing him.
“Then is that why the water coming out of the hill is suddenly smoking like this?” Kars Adon asked.