Bran thanked the man and journeyed on along the forest road. In a little while, he began seeing signs of devastation of which the noble lady had warned him: houses burned; fields trampled flat; hills gouged out; streams diverted from their natural courses; whole trees uprooted, overturned, and thrust back into the hole with roots above and branches below. The mutilated bodies of dead animals lay everywhere on the ground, their limbs rent, their bodies torn asunder. Away to the east, a great fire burned a swathe through the high wooded hills, blotting out the sun and turning the sky black with smoke.
Bran looked upon this appalling destruction. Who could do such a thing? he wondered, and his heart moved within him with anger and sorrow for the ruined land.
He moved on, walking through desolation so bleak it made tears well up in his eyes to think what had been so cruelly destroyed. After two days, he came to the glade in the centre of the forest. There, as the old man had said, he saw an enormous mound, and from the centre of this mound rose a tall, slender standing stone. Bran ascended the mound and stood before the narrow stone; there at his feet he saw a clear-running fountain and, beside it, the marble slab with the silver bowl attached by a thick chain. Kneeling down, he dipped the silver bowl into the fountain, filled it, and then dashed the water over the pale stone.
Instantly, there came a peal of thunder loud enough to shake the ground, the wind blew with uncommon fury, and hail fell from the sky. So fiercely did it fall that Bran feared it would beat through his skin and flesh to crack his very bones. Clinging to the standing stone, he pressed himself hard against it for shelter, covered his head with his arms, and bore the assault as best he could.
In a short while the hail and wind abated, and the thunder echoed away. He heard then a grinding noise—like that of a millstone as it crushes the hard seeds of grain. He looked and saw a crevice open in the ground and a yellow vapour issuing from the gap like a foul breath. In the midst of the yellow fumes there appeared a woman—so old and withered that she looked as if she might be made of sticks wrapped in a dried leather sack.
Her hair—what little remained—was a tangled, ratty mass of leaves and twigs, moss and feathers, and bird droppings; her mouth was a slack gash in the lower part of her face, through which Bran could see but a single rotten tooth; her clothing was a filthy rag so threadbare it resembled cobwebs, and so small her withered dugs showed above one end and her spindly thighs below the other. Her face was more skull than visage, her eyes sunken deep in their sockets, where they gleamed like two shiny stones.
Bran took but a single brief look before turning away, swallowing his disgust as she advanced toward him.
“You there!” she called, her voice cracking like a dry husk. “Do you know what you have done? Do you have any idea?”
Half-shielding his eyes with his hand, Bran offered a sickly smile and answered, “I have done that which was required of me, nothing more.”
“Oh, have you now?” queried the hag. “By heaven’s lights, you will soon wish you had not done that.”
“Woman,” said Bran, “I am wishing that already!”
“Tell me your name and what it is that you want,” said the woman, “and I will see if there is any help for you.”
“I am Bran Bendigedig, and I have come to break the vile enchantment that ravages Albion.”
“I did not ask why you have come,” the old crone laughed. “I asked what it is that you want.”
“I was born with an unquiet heart that has never been satisfied—not that it is any of your affair,” Bran told her.
“Silence!” screeched the woman in a voice so loud that Bran clapped his hands over his ears lest he lose his hearing. “Respect is a valuable treasure that costs nothing. If you would keep your tongue, see that it learns some courtesy.”
“Forgive me,” Bran spluttered. “It was not my wish to offend you. If I spoke harshly just then, it was merely from impatience. You see, I have met a noble lady who is all my heart’s desire, and I have set myself to win her if I can. To do that, I