The Beast of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

  “I am Miles Ferrell.” He swallowed. “I am a shepherd.” Miles winced. Why tell them that? He should have said he was studying to become a meer.

  Silence descended, and Miles licked the sweat dewing his upper lip. What now?

  “Turn around,” said the queen.

  Miles turned. I will not tremble, he thought, but a steady turning was hard won with his legs taut as spun rope and his feet suddenly heavy as well stones.

  “Mileseryl,” whispered the deyas. It was the first word he’d heard from them—his name blending into another sound, and he wondered at it.

  Queen Shaleedyn surveyed the crowd. “The shepherd boy plays well,” she said. “I shall bestow on him a gift”

  Miles’s heart leaped. A sylth gift was very rare indeed. This much he’d learned from the Falconer, when he’d spoken of such things. And now here he was, the chosen one! He stood at full attention, fearing to make a move or say a wrong word, lest she change her mind.

  He passed his flute from his right hand to his left. In his mind the songs still echoed, and the happiness left a sweet taste in his mouth. What if she gave him an ervay, rarest of all flutes, made of pure sylth silver? Ah, what a gift that would be. One like the Falconer’s or better! With a flute like that he could be a great musician and play in the palaces of kings!

  Queen Shaleedyn clapped her hands, “Gather the rose petals,” she ordered. The sylths flew up and plucked petals from the roses all about the throne. Then they busied themselves with tiny, feathered pens, and one by one the petals were writ with spells.

  Not an ervay, then; it was a magical gift she had in mind. And that was so much better. If she gave him magic, there was only one thing he needed—power to destroy the beast that had haunted his family for the past three hundred years. He would choose that above any other wish.

  A cooling wind blew through the deeps. Wings fluttered. The queen’s dark hair lifted as if she were underwater. She tilted her head and listened to the breeze whispering through the green branches.

  Queen Shaleedyn nodded thoughtfully, though not a soul had spoken, and she raised her hand. “The wind will choose the gift,” she said.

  Miles looked about. There were many wind spirits he knew: Noorushh, who rode the storm winds out at sea; Tygoss, from the southern reaches; and Wild Esper, who often rode the winds above Enness Isle. Was a wind spirit here to choose? No sign of anyone here, only a soft, lilting breeze.

  The sylths held the rose petals in their open palms. With a wave of the queen’s hand they tossed them high in the air. The breeze swirled, and the petals spun above the gathering, the golden letters showing against the rose red in the orb light. In a gentle gust they flew beyond the edge of night, but a single petal drifted down onto the queen’s lap.

  For a moment all was still.

  “This is the gift, then,” said the queen, lifting the petal from her gown. “Come kneel before me, boy.”

  Miles was relieved to be told what to do. He swiftly stored his flute and came to his knees before the queen’s throne. He could not look away from her this time with the weight of his fate resting in her lap. Queen Shaleedyn held up the petal. She read the words silently at first, her brow shooting suddenly upward like a winged bird. It fell again suddenly but kept its thoughtful curve. The queen lifted the petal higher in the orb light, her dark hair still waving in the soft breeze. At last she seemed to come to a decision, and looking down at all below, she spoke the words aloud, “The spell is so written,” she said, “He shall have the power to shape-shift.”

  Miles’s mouth went dry. Shape-shifting was a rare gift. In all of Noor few meers had ever had the power. But how could he use it against the Shriker? He wiped the sweat from his upper lip. His hand trembled as another thought struck him. The Shriker also had the power to change forms. Granda had said so.

  There was a strange sound, like overlapping waves, as the sylth folk all through the deeps took a sudden breath. The sprites flitted in and out in agitation. And soon the sylths were whispering one to another, their wings lowered as if weights had been hung on the tips. Throughout the crowd Miles heard a single question repeated lip to ear.

  “Who wrote the spell?”

  And again, “Who wrote the spell?” Heads tipped. Hands were held to mouths. Still no one admitted to having written it. Miles kept as quiet as he could. His legs began to wobble. Indeed, he couldn’t have stood just then if he tried.

  The queen held out the petal and gazed down at her folk. “The wind has chosen,” she said decidedly. The whispering stopped. Heads bowed, hands fell to their sides, the sylth folk tucked their wings behind broad backs and slender.

  Queen Shaleedyn’s face shone in the blue orb light. “Two things you must promise,” she said to Miles.

  “I’ll promise anything.”

  “Anything?” The queen’s eyes flashed. “You should not be so quick to promise when you don’t yet know what I will ask!”

  Miles’s cheeks grew hot. Sylths murmured at his back. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean …”

  “What do you mean, then, boy?”

  “I mean to keep whatever promise I make,” said Miles.

  The queen observed him awhile, fingering the sapphires about her slender neck. The spider in her hair busily decorated the strands about her left ear. At last she gave a little nod. “First, promise me you’ll use this power only in great need.”

  “I promise,” said Miles.

  “Second, promise you will keep this power secret.”

  Miles shifted on his knees. This was harder to agree to. How would the meers know to choose him to go to Othlore if he had to hide his power? If he couldn’t even tell the Falconer? He would need to go there still. Go there soon to find the power to destroy the Shriker. The gift the queen was offering wouldn’t be enough to take the Shriker on.

  “If you cannot promise this—,” said the queen, folding her long fingers about the spell petal.

  “I promise,” Miles blurted out. He watched the tightly gripped petal half hidden in her hand, fiercely hoping she would not withdraw the gift. Another moment passed, and her hand opened outward, her fingers unfurling in the orb light.

  “We follow the law of the Old Magic,” warned the queen. “A promise made is a promise kept. Break it and our punishment is swift.”

  Miles trembled, thinking of Enoch. “I’ll keep my word,” he choked.

  The queen gave a nod. “Stand and open your mouth.”

  Queen Shaleedyn leaned forward to place the rose petal on his tongue, and closing his mouth, he sucked the spell from the rose, swallowing its magic.

  A slow fire filled his body. Miles swayed and closed his eyes. Crimson and golden colors pulsed behind his eyelids as the power and the heat flooded through him. The sylths began to hum a low sound like that of swarming bees. The deep-voiced deyas joined in. And from the throne above he heard the queen chanting:

  “Follow where the blind are leading,

  Listen where the mute are keening,

  Where the deaf are storytelling,

  Where the silent bells are knelling,

  Take the road that splits asunder,

  Nor left, nor right, but travel under,

  Where the one self meets the other,

  In the beast eye spy your brother,

  One from two and strange combining

  With the other intertwining.”

  Miles tumbled forward. His heart beat like the silent bells, his flesh parting as if a beast were pulling him asunder. He screamed, though no sound seared his throat. And the sylths all lifted suddenly to the sky like sparks flung from a fire.

  Miles awoke to the shifting dark, felt his cheek and neck. The flesh fire was gone. His skin was cool, his heart now steadily beating. He stood up slowly, rubbed his arms and legs, and felt his strength return. The sylth folk, deyas, and sprites were gone, and the great gray stone was empty, but the scent of roses still filled the air. A single withered vine remained where the blooms
had sprung up about the throne. It clung to the boulder, the leaves hanging dark and heavy as oiled hair.

  Night was now far gone. Miles quit the deeps and took a path, narrow as a deer trail, in the silk moonlight. He followed a barely audible gurgling sound until he met a mountain stream. The night water was as golden black as spilled coins on a wool purse. He gulped mouthful after mouthful, then waited for the small pool to settle again.

  In the stilled surface he studied his brown eyes, his lean face and disheveled dark hair. He was the same and not the same. The boy in the water trembled as a droplet fell from his chin to break the skin of water. Miles washed the smear of dirt by his nose and sat back on his haunches. A warm wind caressed his back. Something new was forming in him.

  He closed his eyes. There it was. Taut and ready as a weapon to the hand. A new power. Coiled up like a serpent at the base of his spine.

  BROTHER ADOLPHO’S GARDEN

  Where the silent bells are knelling.

  —SONG OF THE SYLTH QUEEN

  HANNA LEANED AGAINST THE GATE AT THE EDGE OF THE kirk garden and watched the shell-white clouds cross the sky. Miles had seemed all gone over this morning. Hair askew and dark rings around his eyes, he’d walked unsteadily to the kitchen table, as if the floorboards were a rolling ship’s deck and he must plant his feet to keep from falling.

  At breakfast his eyes wandered here and there. He seemed unaware of Mother, Da, Tymm, or herself. Miles was usually hungry of a morn, but he hardly touched his oatmeal. He gazed at the tallow candle, then down at his dirt-stained hands. She watched him curl his fingers like a cat’s claws, then sigh and look out the window.

  “Where’s your head, boy?” Da asked.

  “Oh, here,” said Miles, but Hanna could see it wasn’t.

  There’d been no time at all to ask Miles where he’d been so late last night or tell him her dreamwalk, and so she’d left the cottage troubled in her mind.

  Across the busy garden Brother Adolpho handed Taunier a hoe as he talked around his smile. Hanna tried not to stare at the two of them, but she’d had a secret liking for Taunier, the fifteen-year-old blacksmith’s apprentice, since he’d come to Enness Isle. Taunier’s long hair was shining black, and his skin was brown as thool. He was both strong and handsome, but the real reason she liked him was because he’d greeted her often with a smile when she worshiped at kirk, and never had he commented on her eyes.

  Brother Adolpho looked directly at Taunier, who was already as tall as the Brother. Hanna leaned against the gate. If she could take a moment of Brother Adolpho’s time, she might speak with him today. Questions were crowding her mind, gathering many on many, the way the clouds were doing.

  Taunier went to work with his hoe. Brother Adolpho entered the stone shed and came out with a trimming saw. Now was her chance. Basket in hand, she walked up the path past the workers. On the wood bench Brother Adolpho was cleaning the blade of his saw.

  “Are you here to work, Hanna?”

  “Aye. I brought my own basket,”

  He gazed at the other folk, who’d turned their backs as Hanna passed. “Well, let me see what we can do with you.” He laid down the saw and rag, stood with a sigh, and rubbed his lower back. Hanna followed him into the shed, where he searched for seeds in the half dark.

  “Marigold seeds,” he mumbled. “And some poppies, too, I’m thinking.”

  They were alone now and she could ask him. “Brother Adolpho?”

  “Aye?”

  His back was still to her as he stepped into a single ray of light falling through the open door. She must ask one question first, before she could ask the others, but how could she put it into words? “Do you … believe in the Otherworld?”

  He moved his hand along the shelves. “Do you mean the peaceful afterworld of Eyeshala, where our souls go after death?”

  She hesitated, and he turned and looked down at her. “Ah,” he said. He peered through the door to see if they were quite alone. “You’re speaking of Oth. A place full of sylth folk and sprites and unicorns and such.”

  Hanna nodded shyly.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I need to know,” she whispered. There was a fierceness hiding in her hushed tone.

  “I see,” he said. “Oth. Well, it’s an unseen place, now isn’t it?” He turned back to the shelves. “Not all the Brothers would agree with me, but it makes me think on the verse that begins, ‘eOwey sang the worlds and in the song made all things seen and unseen.’”

  Hanna remembered the verse, and her heart lightened. “And so … you believe?”

  “I have faith enough to say it’s a mystery.” He reached for a cloth pouch. “There are so many worlds. More than just our own Noor. You only have to look at the stars to see that.” He lifted his finger and stirred the dust motes floating in the streaming light. “A million suns and more, and many worlds circling them, no doubt.” He handed her the pouch. “Marigolds,” he said.

  “May I have bluebells, too?” Hanna didn’t want to leave the shed just yet and thought to make him search more.

  “Bluebell seeds, is it?” he muttered, walking farther back into the shadows. The smell of turned earth filled the shed as he walked, a spring scent with the newness of life hidden in it.

  Hanna swung the small seed pouch. She was glad to think the Brother had room in his mind for many worlds, the way Granda had, and she should have known he would, for the two had been close kith when Granda was alive.

  “Bluebells, bluebells,” Brother Adolpho sang to himself.

  Hanna blinked in the dusky shed. It was a good verse he’d given her. She could believe that eOwey created all things seen and unseen. And she was content to think the great spirit made the sylths and the sprites, as much as the fish and fowl, and the animals and people of Noor. But then there were the others, and it was for them that she had come.

  Waiting in the shadows, she felt the chill of her dreamwalk visiting the shed. “Brother Adolpho?”

  “I think these are the seeds,” he said, turning round.

  “If eOwey made all things,” said Hanna, “what about …” She tightened her stomach against a sudden tumbling feeling.

  “Ask,” said Brother Adolpho. He said it gently, as if he could tell it was hard for her.

  She licked her dry lips. “What about the evil ones?”

  Brother Adolpho placed another small pouch in her basket. “You have more questions than I’ve got seeds today, Hanna.”

  She blushed and was glad for the half-light in the shed, making it too dim for him to see the color coming to her cheeks.

  “I’ll say this to your question. No creature begins evil. A babe is innocent enough when he comes into the world, though he may grow up to be a liar or a thief or worse.” He walked into the sunlight, and Hanna followed him outside. They stood on the cobbles by the corner of the great stone kirk, where the stained-glass windows sparkled in the sun. “I know there’s been talk in the town, but folk will always talk.”

  Brother Adolpho crossed his arms and smiled at all the workers in the foreyard. “Don’t let your fears blind you to the beauty of the world, Hanna,” he said.

  Hanna tried to think on the beauty of the world a few moments later as she passed Mrs. Nye in the rows. “Sheen!” she hissed, as if the name itself were a curse.

  “There goes the half-witch,” said Mic behind her back. Hanna winced. They can’t harm me here in the garden, she thought. But even as she made her way past Cully, she remembered the time last winter when the village boys had caught her talking to an oak tree and tied her to the trunk. “Well, now, we’ve captured the half-witch who likes to talk to trees!” they shouted, and, “We should burn her!”

  Miles had come along and stopped their game. He was shorter than her captors but fiercer than all. He threw stones and sent most of them scurrying off. The last two he fought till they were bruised and bloody. But Miles wasn’t here to fight for her today.

  Hanna walked to the back side of the kirk
, where Brother Adolpho wanted her to plant the seeds. He’d set her in a place apart. Was that to protect her from the villagers’ cruel taunts? She crouched in the shadow of the bell tower, the bells all still and quiet now. “The beauty of the world,” she whispered, but kneeling here so close to the back of the graveyard, where the woodland lost were buried, she felt this shadowed place like a hunger.

  The graves set apart in the lone corner of the yard held the torn remains of the bodies found in Shalem Wood. The Shriker’s victims, Granda had said. Some graves were three hundred years old, but the ones closest to the fence were newer. She wondered where the midwife’s grave was. Was it close to Polly’s?

  No creature begins evil. Hadn’t Brother Adolpho just told her that? Hanna spaded the soil. Thinking, and thinking more. In Granda’s tale the Shriker was born a black bear hound, a breed raised up to guard the sheep on Enness Isle and Tyr. Bear hounds were fierce, but only to those who attacked the sheep or to strangers who came after their master. Loyal dogs, all of them, and born that way, so Da was fond of saying.

  The Shriker was born a bear hound; it wasn’t eOwey, but the Darro who changed him with his curse and turned him into a shape-shifter. She rubbed her temples, not caring that she soiled her face as she tried to dampen down the sudden pain. The thoughts were too big for her head, or too heavy to hold alone, especially here in the shadow of the hill. For no matter how he had begun, the Shriker was evil now. There were more gravestones here than she wanted to count. And these deaths were all his doing.

  The sun began to dip behind the mountain in the rounding of the hour, and the day went darker gold. Hanna peered through the fence and saw posy of wild roses on one grave halfway up the hill. By its place among the others she thought it must be Polly’s grave. Mother had told her that Brian Gowler had loved the girl, and he’d tried to court her after Tarn’s death. But Polly had kept her shell bracelet like it was a wedding band. She’d stayed true to Tarn’s memory, and she wouldn’t have another.

  Hanna lowered her head. The roses were Brian’s, no doubt.