The Endless Knot by Stephen Lawhead

us. The house, like the hall, had been transformed into a forest bower with fragrant pine and birch branches adorning walls and ceiling, and rushlights glowing like ruddy stars, creating a dimly pleasant rose-hued light.
    Goewyn was waiting, greeted me with a kiss, and drew me inside, taking the meadskin. “I have waited long for this night, my soul,” she whispered as she wrapped her arms tightly around me.
    Our first embrace ended in a long, passionate kiss. And as the sleeping place was prepared—fleeces piled deep and spread with cloaks— we tumbled into it. I closed my eyes, filling my lungs with the warm scent of her skin as our caresses grew more urgent, taking fire.
    Thus occupied, I do not know whether it was the shout or the smoke that first called me from the bed. I sat up abruptly. Goewyn reached for me, tugging me gently back down. “Llew . . .”
    â€œWait—”
    â€œWhat is it?” she whispered.
    The shout came again, quick and urgent. And with it the sharp scent of smoke.
    â€œFire!” I said, leaping to my feet. “The crannog is on fire!”

4

A F INE N IGHT’S W ORK
    T he fire is on the western side,” Goewyn said, watching the rusty stain seeping into the night sky. “The wind will send it toward us.”
    â€œNot if we hurry,” I said. “Go to the hall. Alert Tegid and Bran. I will return as soon as I can.”
    Even as I spoke, I heard another cry of alarm: “Hurry, Llew!” I kissed her cheek and darted away.
    The smoke thickened as I raced toward the fire, filling my nostrils with the parched and musty sharpness of scorched grain: the grain stores! Unless the fire was extinguished quickly, it would be a lean, hungry winter.
    As I raced through the crannog along the central byway joining the various islets of our floating city, I saw the yellow-tipped flames, like clustered leaves, darting above the rooftops. I heard the fire’s angry roar, and I heard voices: men shouting, women calling, children shrieking and crying. And behind me, from the direction of the hall, came the battle blast of the carynx, sounding the alarm.
    The hot, wicked flames leapt high and ever higher, red-orange and angry against the black sky. Dinas Dwr, our beautiful city on the lake, was garishly silhouetted in the hideous glow. I felt sick with dread.
    Closer, I saw people running here and there, darting through the rolling smoke, faces set, grimly earnest. Some carried leather buckets, others had wooden or metal bowls and cauldrons, but most wielded only their cloaks which they had stripped off, soaked in water, and now used as flails upon the sprouting flames.
    I whipped off my own cloak and sped to join them. My heart sank like a stone. The houses, so close together, their dry roof-thatches nearly touching, kindled like tinder at the first lick of flame. I beat out all the flames in one place only to have them reappear elsewhere. If help did not come at once, we would lose all.
    I heard a shout behind me.
    â€œTegid! Here!” I cried, turning as the bard reached me. King Calbha, with fifty or more warriors and women came with him, and they all began beating the flames with their cloaks. “Where are Bran and Cynan?”
    â€œI have sent Cynan and Cynfarch to the south side,” Tegid explained. “The Ravens are on the north. I told them I would send you to them.”
    â€œGo, Llew,” instructed Calbha, wading into battle. “We will see to matters here.”
    I left them to the fight and ran to aid the Ravens, passing between huts whose roofs were already smoldering from the sparks raining down upon them. The smoke thickened, acrid and black with soot. I came to a knot of men working furiously. “Bran!” I shouted.
    â€œHere, lord!” came the answer, and a torso materialized out of the smoke. Bran carried a hayfork in one hand and his cloak in the other. Naked to the waist, his skin was black from the