ALONE IN THE tiny cottage, Myrrdin paced restlessly. The fierce wind shook the house. The storm had seemed to come up out of nowhere. One moment Myrrdin had been waiting for Arthur’s return so they could celebrate Alban Awyr together. Then the next, the storm had begun. There was no rain, no lightning, and no clouds, only the wind—shrieking, moaning, and wildly clawing at the earth.
Arthur really should have been back by now with the sheep. Myrrdin went to the back door thinking, for the hundredth time, that he had heard Arthur returning. He looked out and saw that the sheep had indeed come back. They bawled anxiously, huddled next to the closed byre door. With a sigh of relief Myrrdin slipped out the back door, struggling against the wind to shut it firmly behind him. The night sky was clear, and the waxing moon had risen, spilling its silvery beams over the harsh mountainside. Yes, the sky was clear. No storm clouds, but the wind blew more fiercely than ever.
He struggled against it to open the byre gate and the sheep hurried inside. But Arthur was not there. More worried than ever, Myrrdin counted the sheep as they crowded into the tiny stable. “Seven, eight, nine,” he counted to himself. “Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen.” Where in the world was Arthur? “Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six.” Twenty-six. But he and Arthur owned twenty-seven sheep. One sheep missing. Myrrdin guessed what had happened. One ewe had wandered off, and Arthur had gone looking for her. And he had not found her, or he would have returned with the flock himself.
Cursing, Myrrdin decided to Wind-Ride. He was desperately worried now. To be caught up in those mountains during a windstorm at night was dangerous indeed. The heavy wind was strong enough to tumble even a grown man off his feet and over a cliff. And Arthur was not a grown man—he was just a boy.
Myrrdin took a deep breath and tried to calm his wildly beating heart. As his pulse began to slow, he closed his eyes and his inner essence departed his body and flew from the byre up into the night sky, going higher and higher up the mountain in a desperate search for the missing boy.
ARTHUR SHIFTED HIS grip on the ewe as he struggled to bring her down the mountain. The wind whipped at his cloak and tugged at the blue scarf his mother had made for him. Hastily he wrapped the scarf closer around his neck with his free hand. It would never do to lose it. He thought of that scarf as his talisman, this gift from the mother he could barely remember.
He sighed, but merely in exasperation, for he was too young to think he could be in mortal danger. The wind tugged even harder at him. He had to get down the mountain to Myrrdin as soon as possible. He knew that Myrrdin would be worried sick by now, riddled with anxiety. A fierce gust almost pushed him off his feet and he stumbled. The terrified ewe struggled and Arthur almost lost his grip on her.
He looked up anxiously at the sky. Strange that the night was clear during a windstorm such as this. He struggled on down the mountain as best he could when a particularly strong gale blew him off his feet. He lost hold of the ewe and helplessly rolled toward the edge of the cliff. He reached out to grab something, anything to hold him, but his desperate grasping fingers encountered nothing but wind.
As he rolled toward the edge he realized that he was tumbling toward his death. A chaotic thought flashed through his horrified mind—his Uncle Gwydion was sure to be annoyed that a useful tool had been destroyed. Then the edge of the cliff loomed up to meet his terrified eyes as the wind took him for its own.
MYRRDIN’S SPIRIT SCOURED the mountains anxiously. In this form he could not be buffeted by the wind, not while his physical body remained safe in the byre. But he could see no sign of Arthur. The meadow grasses flattened and straightened in wild patterns. The wind whipped around the rocks, moaning in agony like a demented thing.
Suddenly, Myrrdin saw something at the edge of his vision. A scarf was tangled in a low, scruffy bush at the edge of a precipice. It fluttered mournfully in the gleeful wind. In horror, Myrrdin’s spirit recoiled, rushed down the mountain, and slammed itself back into his waiting body.
Myrrdin opened his eyes and took off out of the byre at a dead run.
ARTHUR HUNG HELPLESSLY in mid-air, anchored to the Earth only by his desperate one-handed grip on a low, scruffy thorn bush. His blue scarf tangled in the bush at the edge of the cliff, fluttered madly. His body twisted in the merciless wind. The wind keened in his cringing ears with triumph. It snarled, it snapped, it tugged at his weakening grip. He closed his eyes and refused to look down. He already knew that the mangled body of the ewe lay far, far below. He sobbed in terror and knew that he couldn’t hold on much longer. His grip was slipping. His body was chill and frozen by the harsh wind.