Diana Wynne Jones - Power of Three

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Power of Three

Diana Wynne Jones

A 3S digital back-up edition 1.0

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Contents

|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12|13|14|15|

Also by Diana Wynne Jones

Archer’s Goon

Aunt Maria

Believing is Seeing: Seven Stories

Castle in the Air

Dark Lord of Derkholm

Dogsbody

Eight Days of Luke

Fire and Hemlock

Hexwood

Hidden Turnings:

A Collection of Stories Through Time and Space

The Homeward Bounders

Howl’s Moving Castle

The Merlin Conspiracy

The Ogre Downstairs

Stopping for a Spell

A Tale of Time City

The Time of the Ghost

Warlock at the Wheel and Other Stories

Wild Robert

Witch’s Business

Year of the Griffin

Yes, Dear

THE WORLDS OF CHRESTOMANCI

Book 1: Charmed Life

Book 2: The Lives of Christopher Chant

Book 3: The Magicians of Caprona

Book 4: Witch Week

Mixed Magics: Four Tales of Chrestomanci

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1 (Contains

books 1 and 2)

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2 (Contains

books 3 and 4)

THE DALEMARK QUARTET

Book 1: Cart and Cwidder

Book 2: Drowned Ammet

Book 3: The Spellcoats

Book 4: The Crown of Dalemark

Diana Wynne Jones

Power of Three

Greenwillow Books

An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

Jones

First published in 1976 in Great Britain by Macmillan

London Ltd.

First published in 1977 in the United States by

Greenwillow Books.

Reissued in 2003 by Greenwillow Books, an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers.

The right of Diana Wynne Jones to be identified as

author of this work has been asserted by her.

reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written

permission except in the case of brief quotations

embodied in critical articles and reviews. Printed in the

United States of America.

For information address HarperCollins Children’s

Books, a division of

HarperCollins Publishers, 1350 Avenue of the

Americas, New York, NY 10019.

www.harperchildrens.com

The text of this book is set in Cochin.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jones, Diana Wynne.

Power of Three.

Summary: The curse on Orban spreads bad luck to the

rest of the Otmounders, the Giants, and the Dorig until

three Otmounder children are born with Gifts.

[1. Fantasy.] I. Title. PZ7.J684Po3 [Fic] 77-3028

ISBN 0-688-80106-4

New Greenwillow Edition, 2003:

ISBN 0-06-623743-2

Power of Three

FOR KIT AND JANNIE

Chapter 1

^ »

THIS IS THE STORY OF THE CHILDREN OF ADARA— of Ayna

and Ceri who both had Gifts, and of Gair, who thought he was

ordinary. But, as all the things which later happened on the Moor

go back to something Adara’s brother Orban did one summer day

when Adara herself was only seven years old, this is the first thing

to be told.

The Moor was never quite free of mist. Even at bright noon that

bright summer day there was a smokiness to the trees and the very

corn, so that it could have been a green landscape reflected in one of

its own sluggish, peaty dikes. The reason was that the Moor was a

sunken plain, almost entirely surrounded by low green hills. Much

of it was still marsh, and the Sun drew vapors from it constantly.

Orban was swaggering along a straight green track, away from

Otmound, which stood low and turfy behind him, slightly in

advance of the ring of hills round the Moor. Beyond it, away to his

left, was its companion, the Haunted Mound, which had a huge

boulder planted crookedly on top of it, no one knew why. Orban

could see it when he turned to warn his sister, loftily over his

shoulder, not to go near marsh or standing water. He was annoyed

with her for following him, but he did not want to get into trouble

for not taking care of her.

It was one of those times when the Giants were at war among

themselves. From time to time, from beyond the mists at the edge

of the Moor, came the blank thump and rumble of their weapons.

Orban took no notice. Giants did not interest him. The track he was

on was an old Giants’ road. If he looked down through the turf, he

could see the great stones of it, too heavy for men to lift, and he

thought he might kill a few Giants some day. But his mind was

mostly taken up with Orban, who was twelve years old and going to

be Chief. Orban had a fine new sword. He swished it importantly

and fingered the thick gold collar round his neck that marked him

as the son of a Chief.

“Hurry up, or the Dorig will get you!” he called back to Adara.

Adara, being only seven, was nervous of the Giants and their

noise. It was mixed up in her mind with the sound of thunder,

when, it always seemed to her, even bigger Giants rolled wooden

balls around in the sky. But she did not want Orban to think she

was afraid, so she hurried beside him down the green track and

pretended not to hear the noise.

Orban had come out to be alone with his new sword and his own

glory, but, since Adara had followed him out, he decided to unveil

his glory to her a little. “I know ten times as much as you do,” he

told her.

“I know you do,” Adara answered humbly.

Orban scowled. One does not want glory accepted as a matter of

course. One wants to shock and astonish people with it. “I bet you

didn’t know the Haunted Mound is stuffed with the ghosts of dead

Dorig,” he said. “The Otmounders killed them all, hundreds of years

ago. The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig.”

This was common knowledge. But, since Adara really thought

Orban was the cleverest person she knew, she politely said nothing.

“Dorig are just vermin,” Orban continued, displeased by her

silence. “Cold-blooded vermin. They can’t sing, or weave, or fight, or

work gold. They just lie underwater and wait to pull you under. Did

you know half the hills round the Moor used to be full of people,

until the Dorig killed them all off?”

“I thought that was the Plague,” Adara said timidly.

“You’re stupid,” said Orban. Adara, seeing it had been a mistake

to correct him, said humbly that she knew she was. This did not

please Orban either. He sought about for some method of startling

Adara into a true sense of his superiority.

The prospect was not promising. The track led among tufts of

rushes, straight into misty distance. There was a hedge and a dike

half a field away. A band of mist lay over a dip in the old road and a

spindly blackbird was watching them from it. The blackbird would

have to do. “You see that blackbird?” said Orban.

A blunt volley of noise from the Giants made Adara jump. She

looked round and discovered that Otmound was already misty with

distance. “Let’s go home,” she said.

“This is one thing you don’t know. Go home if you want,” said

Orban. “But if that blackbird is really a Dorig, I can make it shift to

its proper shape. I know the words. Shall I say them?”

“No. Let’s go home,” Adara said, shivering.

“Baby!” said Orban. “You watch.” And he marched toward the

bird, saying the words and swishing his sword in time to them.

Nothing happened, because Orban got the words wrong. Nothing

whatsoever would have happened, had not Adara, who hated Orban

to look a fool, obligingly said the words right for him.

A wave of cold air swept out of the hollow, making both children

shiver. They were too horrified to move. The blackbird, after a

frantic flutter of protest, dissolved into mist thicker and grayer

than the haze around it. The mist swirled, and solidified into a

shape much larger. It was the pale, scaly figure of a Dorig, right

enough. It was crouched on one knee in the dip, staring toward

them in horror, and holding in both hands a twisted green-gold

collar not unlike Orban’s or Adara’s.

“Now look what you’ve done!” Orban snarled at Adara. But, as he

said it, he realized that the Dorig was not really very large. He had

been told that Dorig usually stood head and shoulders above a

grown man, but this one was probably only as high as his chin. It

had a weak and spindly look, too. It did not seem to have a weapon

and, better still, Orban knew that those words, once spoken, would

prevent the creature shifting shape until Sundown. There was no

chance of it turning into an adder or a wolf.

Feeling very much better, Orban marched toward the dip,

swinging his sword menacingly. The Dorig stood up, trembling, and

backed away a few steps. It was rather smaller than Orban had

thought. Orban began to feel brave. He scanned the thing

contemptuously, and the collar flashing between its pale fingers

caught his attention. It was a very fine one. Though it was the

same horseshoe shape as Orban’s and made of the same green gold,

it was twice the width and woven into delicate filigree patterns.

Orban glimpsed words, animals and flowers in the pattern. And the

knobs at either end, which in Orban’s collar were just plain bosses,

seemed to be in the shape of owls’ heads on this one. Now Orban,

only the day before, had been severely slapped for fooling about

with a collar rather less fine. He knew the art of making this kind

had been lost long ago. No wonder the Dorig was so frightened. He

had caught it red-handed with a valuable antique.

“What are you doing with that collar?” he demanded.

The Dorig looked tremulously up at Orban’s face. Orban found its

strange yellow eyes disgusting. “Only sunning it,” it said

apologetically. “You have to sun gold, or it turns back to earth

again.”

“Nonsense,” said Orban. “I’ve never sunned mine in my life.”

“You live more in the air than we do,” the Dorig pointed out.

Orban shuddered, thinking of the way the Dorig skulked out

their lives under stinking marsh water. And they were cold-blooded,

too, so of course they would have to sun any gold they stole. Ugh!

“Where did you get that collar?” he said sternly.

The Dorig seemed surprised that he should ask. “From my father,

of course! Didn’t your father give you yours:

“Yes,” said Orban. “But my father’s Chief Og of Otmound.”

“I expect he’s a very great man,” the Dorig said politely.

Orban was almost too angry to speak. It was clear that this

miserable, tremulous Dorig had never even heard of Og of

Otmound. “My father,” he said, “is the senior Chief on the Moor.

And your father’s a thief. He stole that collar from somewhere.”

“He didn’t—he had it made!” the Dorig said indignantly. “And

he’s not a thief! He’s the King.”

Orban stared. The Giants interrupted with another distant

thump and a rumble, but Orban’s mind took that in no more than it

would take in what the Dorig had just said. If it was true, it meant

that this wretched, skinny, scaly creature was more important than

he was. And he knew that must be nonsense. “All Dorig are liars,”

he explained to Adara.

“I’m not! ” the Dorig protested.

Adara was in dread that Orban was going to make a fool of

himself, as he so often did. “I’m sure he’s telling the truth, Orban,”

she said. “Let’s go home now.”

“He’s lying,” Orban insisted. “Dorig can’t work gold, so it must all

be lies.”

“No, you’re wrong. We have some very good goldsmiths,” said the

Dorig. Seeing Adara was ready to believe this, it turned eagerly to

her. “I watched them make this collar. They wove words in for

Power, Riches and Truth. Is yours the same?”

Adara, much impressed, fingered her own narrower, plainer

collar. “Mine only has Safety. So does Orban’s.”

Orban could not bear Adara to be impressed by anyone but

himself. He refused to believe a word of it. “Don’t listen,” he said.

“It’s just trying to make you believe it hasn’t stolen that collar.”

Adara looked from Orban to the Dorig, troubled and undecided.

Orban saw he had not impressed her. Very well. She must be made

to see who was right. He held out his hand imperiously to the

Dorig. “Come on. Hand it over.”

The Dorig did not understand straightaway. Then its yellow eyes

widened and it backed away a step, clutching the collar to its thin

chest. “But it’s mine! I told you!”

“Orban, leave him be,” Adara said uncomfortably.

By this time, Orban was beginning to see he might be making a

fool of himself. It made him furiously angry, and all the more

determined to impress Adara in spite of it. “Give me that collar,” he

said to the Dorig. “Or I’ll kill you.” To prove that he could, he

swung his new sword so that the air whistled. The Dorig flinched.

“Run away,” Adara advised it urgently.

Finding Adara now definitely on the side of the Dorig was the

last straw to Orban. “Do, and I’ll catch you in two steps!” he told it.

“Then I’ll kill you and take the collar anyway. So hand it over.”

The Dorig knew its shorter legs were no match for Orban’s. It

stood where it was, clutching the collar and shaking. “I haven’t

even got a knife,” it said. “And you stopped me shifting shape till

this evening.”

“That was my fault. I’m sorry,” said Adara.

“Shut up!” Orban snarled at her. He made a swift left-handed

snatch at the collar. “Give me that!”

The Dorig dodged. “I can’t!” it said desperately. “Tell him I can’t,”

it said to Adara.

“Orban, you know he can’t,” said Adara. “If it was yours, it could

only be taken off your dead body.”

This only made it clear to Orban that he would have to kill the

creature. He had gone too far to turn back with dignity, and the

knowledge maddened him further. Anyway, what business had the

Dorig to imitate the customs of men? “I told you to shut up,” he said

to Adara. “Besides, it’s only a stolen collar, and that’s not the same.

Give it!” He advanced on the Dorig.

It backed away from him, looking quite desperate. “Be careful! I’ll

put a curse on the collar if you try. It won’t do you any good if you

do get it.”

Orban’s reply was to snatch at the collar again. The Dorig

side-stepped, though only just in time. But it managed, in spite of

its shaking fingers, to get the collar round its neck, making it much

more difficult for Orban to grab. Then it began to curse. Adara

marveled, and even Orban was daunted, at the power and fluency

of that curse. They had no idea Dorig knew words that way. In a

shrill hasty voice, the creature laid it on the collar that the words

woven in it should in future work against the owner, that Power

should bring pain, Riches loss, Truth disaster, and ill luck of all

kinds follow the feet and cloud the mind of the possessor. Then it

ran its pale fingers along the intricate twists and pattern of the

design, bringing each part it touched to bear on the curse: fish for

loss by water, animals for loss by land, flowers for death of hope,

knots for death of friendship, fruit for failure and barrenness, and

each, as they were joined in the workmanship, to be joined in the

life of the owner. At last, touching the owl’s head at either end, it

laid on them to be guardians and cause the collar’s owner to cling to

it and keep it as if it were the most precious thing he knew. When

this was said, the Dorig paused. It was panting and palely flushed.

“Well? Do you still want it?”

Adara was appalled to hear so much beauty spoiled and such

careful workmanship turned against itself. “No!” she said. “And do

get them to make you another one when you get home.”

But Orban listened, feeling rather cunning. He noticed that not

once had the Dorig invoked any higher Power than that of the

collar itself. Without the Sun, the Moon or the Earth, even such a

curse as this could only bring mild bad luck. The creature must

take him for a fool. The Giants began thumping away again beyond

the horizon, as if they were applauding Orban’s acuteness.

Determined not to be outwitted, Orban flung himself on the Dorig

and got his hand hooked round the collar before it could move.

“Now give it!”

“No!” The Dorig kept both hands on the collar and pulled away.

Orban swung his new sword and brought it down on the creature’s

head. It bowed and staggered. Adara flung herself on Orban and

tried to pull him away. Orban pushed her over with an easy shove

of his right elbow and raised his sword again. Beyond the horizon,

the Giants thundered like rocks raining from heaven.

“All right!” cried the Dorig. “I call on the Old Power, the Middle

and the New to hold this curse to my collar. May it never loose until

the Three are placated.”

Orban was furious at this duplicity. He brought his sword down

hard. The Dorig gave a weak cry and crumpled up. Orban wrenched

the collar from its neck and stood up, shaking with triumph and

disgust. The Giants’ noise stopped, leaving a thick silence.

“Orban, how could you!” said Adara, kneeling on the turf of the

old road.

Orban looked contemptuously from her to his victim. He was a

little surprised to see that the blood coming out of the pale corpse

was bright red and steamed a little in the cold air. But he

remembered that fish sometimes come netted with blood quite as

red, and that things on a muck heap steam as they decay. “Get up,”

he said to Adara. “The only good Dorig is a dead Dorig. Come on.”

He set off for home, with Adara pattering miserably behind. Her

face was pale and stiff, and her teeth were chattering. “Throw the

collar away, Orban,” she implored him. “It’s got a dreadful strong

curse on it.”

Orban had, in fact, been uneasily wondering whether to get rid of

the collar. But Adara’s timidity at once made him obstinate. “Don’t

be a fool,” he said. “He didn’t invoke any proper Powers. If you ask

me, he made a complete mess of it.”

“But it was a dying curse,” Adara pointed out.

Orban pretended not to hear. He put the collar into the front of

his jacket and firmly buttoned it. Then he made a great to-do over

cleaning his sword, whistling, and pretending to himself that he felt

much better about the Dorig than he did. He told himself he had

just acquired a valuable piece of treasure; that the Dorig had

certainly told a pack of lies; and that if it had told the truth, then

he had just struck a real blow at the enemy, and the only good

Dorig were dead ones.

“We’d better ask Father about those Powers,” Adara said

miserably.

“Oh no we won’t!” said Orban. “Don’t you dare say a word to

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