Kasta his mother, Fandi his nurse, and his two friends Scodo and Pad.
“I wish Ondo was more likeable,” Ayna sighed. “We might get him to tell us about Father’s three tasks.”
But Ondo was not likeable. All they ever got out of him on that subject was a knowing sneer, and sniggers from Scodo and Pad. Ondo detested his three cousins. In Ondo’s opinion, no one was so fine a person as Ondo of Otmound, and he could not tolerate anyone who threatened to dim that fine person’s glory. Ayna and Ceri dimmed it by being Gifted, so he hated them heartily. But it was Gair he hated most. Thanks to Miri’s boasting, Ondo knew Gair was supposed to be the most extraordinary of the three, and that was reason enough to detest him.
But it is probable that, even without Miri’s boasting, Ondo would have concentrated his hatred on Gair. The Gifts set Ayna and Ceri apart – but what business had Gair, with no more Gifts than Ondo, to look at Ondo in that solemn, speculative way? It made big, strong Ondo feel small. It also gave him a hazy but certain knowledge that Gair was more easily hurt than the other two. That, and the fact that Gair was more than a year younger and half a head shorter than Ondo, made him the ideal cousin to pick on.
This visit, with Scodo and Pad to support him – “Those two horrid toadies,” Ayna called them – Ondo picked on Gair all the time. He gave Gair no peace. It was not only sly arm twisting and slyer kicks. It was a stream of hints, jeers and abuse: hints that Gair was not quite right in the head, jeers at the way he liked to sit on his windowsill, and reminders that Gest had come from poor, queer Islaw. “You get your bad blood from Islaw,” Ondo said. “Are you quite sure you can’t shift shape?”
Ondo took care never to be far away from his burly friends, or from Kasta or Fandi, so that Gair never had a chance to hit him. He just had to endure it. He was miserable. Ayna and Ceri were furious on his behalf, but there was nothing they could do either. They all counted the days until Ondo went home.
There were only three days left, when Ondo came into the house with Fandi, looking for Ceri, because Fandi had lost a good gold thimble. Ayna, Gair and Ceri were all there, trying to keep out of Ondo’s way. All three sighed when they saw Ondo.
“Your thimble’s in your pocket,” Ceri said coldly to Fandi. Gest had forbidden him actually to ask for presents, but he thought Fandi might have offered him something. Everyone else did.
Ondo said patronisingly to Gair, “Of course, you haven’t any Gifts, have you?”
That hit Gair so much on the raw he could not answer. Ayna said quickly, “Neither have you!”
Ondo saw he had hurt Gair. He was far too pleased to bother with Ayna. He looked at his fingernails and polished them carelessly on his coat. “Oh,” he said, “a man in my position doesn’t need Gifts.”
Gair thought of himself taking Ondo by his gold collar, rushing out of the house and upstairs with him, and plunging him face-foremost into the nearest beehive. If Fandi had not been there, he would have tried to do it. Fandi was nodding and smiling as if they were all the greatest of friends, but Gair well knew that she would bawl for Kasta at the slightest sign of trouble. He had to content himself with advancing grimly on Ondo. Ondo glanced round for Scodo and Pad and remembered they were not there. He went pale, and his sneering grin wavered. Gair pushed contemptuously past him and stalked through Garholt to his windowsill. He wished he had realised before what a coward Ondo was. It made him easier to bear.
In the house, Fandi or no Fandi, Ayna and Ceri were determined to revenge Gair.
“I don’t advise you to talk to Gair like that,” Ayna said. “We’d put words on you, if we didn’t think you were just too stupid to know better.”
Ceri, relying on Fandi to stop any violence, went one better. “It isn’t only that you’re stupid, Ondo,” he explained pityingly. “You’re ugly. Your ears stick out.”
As he said this, Ceri went red with pleasure, and delight at his own daring. He had longed to say it for years. Ondo’s ears sprang from his head like a sheep’s. Unfortunately, Fandi was quite as insulted as Ondo. She had tried every way she knew to make those ears lie flat, and they had defeated her every time. So she made no attempt to stop Ondo when he advanced angrily on Ceri.
“Just you wait!” said Ondo.
Ceri backed away, feeling sick. Ondo towered above him and Ceri knew from painful experience that Ondo was an expert at hurting smaller children. He knew he was in for it, if Fandi was simply going to stand by. “Ayna!” he said hopelessly.
Ayna, in spite of being very much afraid of Ondo, dashed to Ceri’s side. Fandi caught her arm as she passed. Fandi was strong. “Really, Ayna,” she said. “Be a lady.”
Ondo pounced for Ceri and Ceri scudded for the door. Fandi pushed Ayna aside and got in his way. Ceri was terrified. He was also furiously angry, on his own account, on Ayna’s, and most of all on Gair’s. He turned on the pair of them and used a Gift which, up to that moment, he had no idea he possessed.
He did not say anything. He did not seem to do anything. But Fandi screamed. She clutched her head and her face went yellowish. As for Ondo, he gave a queer squawk and stuck, just as he was, with his arms crookedly outstretched to grab Ceri. “He looked exactly like a crayfish!” Ayna told Gair afterwards.
Paralysed and panic-stricken, Ondo shrieked the worst insult he knew. “You – you little Dorig!”
Ceri looked at them for a moment, with his own face rather a queer colour. Then he ran out of the house and hid behind the tapestries.
Gair had never heard anything like the bawling of Fandi and Ondo, and the yells of Kasta, Scodo and Pad on their behalf. He came down from his windowsill to investigate. By then, the whole mound was in an uproar. Gair learnt from Ayna and Miri that his brother had put a Thought on Ondo and Fandi, and, from Miri, that it was going to take the next three days to get it off them. There was great excitement, because the Gift of Thought was an extremely rare Gift. The last person to have it had died over a hundred years before.
None of this mattered to Kasta. She just wanted Ceri punished for damaging her Ondo. In intervals of wringing her hands over the stuck, crooked Ondo, she searched for Ceri and made everyone else search too. Ayna and Gair did their best for him by suggesting all sorts of places where Ceri could not possibly be. But Kasta found him in the end – “She would!” said Ayna – and dragged him to Gest. Gest took his shoe to Ceri.
After that, Gest went to order the making of the triple gold collar Ceri was now entitled to. Adara caught his arm and stopped him. “Why?” Gest said crossly. “Kasta can shout all she likes, but I’d bet half the gold in Garholt it was all Ondo’s fault.”
“I’m sure it was,” said Adara. “But Ceri’s far too conceited already. Give him the collar when he’s old enough to have earned it. For the moment, I think this Gift is best forgotten.”
Gest thought she was right, on reflection. Thought was a very dangerous thing in the hands of someone like Ceri. So Adara called Ceri aside and talked to him. She explained that the Gift of Thought was a serious responsibility: it could
