The Beast of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

  “There’s a good boy.” Miles let go his knife and put out his hands. Fingers spread wide. Palms upward. He went down on one knee. “Come, Breal.”

  Breal whipped his head around and gave the ghost three ear-shattering barks. Then he turned his back on Rory Sheen and ambled over to Miles.

  “Ah,” said Miles, “there’s a good fellow.”

  Breal wagged his tail and licked Miles’s face.

  In the air above them the ghost began to crack. Bit by bit he broke apart, the falling pieces clattering against the stone courtyard. The shards lay in a gray brown pile like shattered pottery. A moan passed through the crowd and then a sigh.

  In the silence that came after, Miles watched the pile that had once been Rory Sheen crumble to a fine dust. It swirled up overhead and blew into the far-off sky.

  Hanna knelt beside Breal and put her arms around his neck. “Ah, you’re such a good dog, you are.” She kissed his soft ear, and Miles placed his hand on Breal’s noble head.

  “So,” said Queen Shaleedyn, “you named him Breal.”

  “I didn’t,” said Miles with a grin. “It was Hanna did that.”

  The queen conferred with Esper, then lifted her hand. “By this test,” she said, “I claim the truth. The Shriker is dead. The Old Magic is satisfied.”

  One by one the sylths came out from behind fountain and pillar. First there was laughter, then there was cheering. Sprites flitted about like shooting stars.

  “The Shriker’s dead!” they all shouted. “Long live Breal!”

  TO HIGH CLIFF AND HOME

  In such hours as these a world is born.

  —WILD ESPER

  WILD ESPER CARRIED MILES, HANNA, AND BREAL FROM Attenlore to Enness Isle, world to world, which was only a whisper and a breath apart to her. She placed them by Shree’s red-leafed maple on the high mountain cliff Miles stood between Breal and Hanna. Together they watched Esper blow back out to sea. The sun was setting, and the clouds over Turnbow Bay were trimmed in vermilion.

  “I wonder, will we see her again?” said Hanna.

  “It’s sure we will,” said Miles. He ran his hand along Breal’s head, relishing the taste of clean mountain air on his tongue.

  On the cliff top Gurty came around from behind the Enoch Tree and dropped her garden spade. “Miles!” she cried. “You’re home at last! Give your old Gurty a hug.” She embraced him, holding him a bit overlong for his taste.

  “Well, now,” she said, taking a step back. “You’ve grown taller, boy.” Gurty looked past him and blinked. “And where’d you get the dog?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Aye, there’s many a long story up here on Mount Shalem, and I’ve been in one or two myself.”

  Miles looked from her soiled garden gloves to her eyes, which held the bright color of morning grass, but it was Hanna who spoke his thought. “It was you, wasn’t it? You were the green-eyed girl who left Enoch for another.”

  “Ah, well, I was young then,” sighed Gurty. “And your great-uncle Enoch had a dark power in him that drew me in and pushed me away all at the same time.”

  Miles knew all too well what Gurty meant.

  “I come here spring through fall to mind the soil around the tree and make what amends I can.” Gurty turned to gather up her digging tools. Hanna knelt down to help in the gathering, and Miles stepped around the far side of the Enoch Tree.

  On the back side of the gnarled oak he ran his hand along the rough bark, and a glint of white caught his eye. There seemed to be a piece of crystal rock wedged into the trunk. Miles gripped the edge and tugged. When it was loosened enough to pull free, a long, sharp fang came out.

  Shuddering, he dropped the fang as if it were a fiery thing, then he went down on one knee to retrieve it. The Shriker’s fang lay long as a dagger across his open palm, and he trembled in the wake of its finding. He touched the tip. Sharp as an ice pick. Then he fingered the smooth curve to the base. He’d run his own tongue over a fang like this not so long ago.

  Breal came up beside him. Miles slipped the great, long tooth inside the rucksack before Hanna or Gurty could turn about and see the thing he’d found. He stood again and stepped around the trunk. No wind blowing across the high cliff, but the tree began to sway.

  “Look,” cried Gurty. The oak gave a shudder. Slowly the old man stepped out of the tree. First one leg, then the other, then the full of him.

  Miles’s heart pounded in his ears as Enoch stood blinking in the afternoon light. The old man’s lean face and deep-set eyes were so much like Granda’s. When he took a step, it seemed as if Miles’s own granda were stepping toward him.

  Breal’s hackles went up. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

  “Easy, boy,” whispered Miles.

  A look of fear shadowed Enoch’s face. He turned and went down on his knees before Breal, his hands upturned like a beggar.

  Ears pressed back, Breal slowly padded up to him. He sniffed Enoch’s head, his cheek, then stood quite still over the kneeling man. Enoch put his arms around Breal and rested his head on the dog’s thick neck.

  Enoch wept. Miles wanted to step toward them but found he couldn’t move. Breal moved instead, after the old man’s sobs had broken over him in waves. It was a small thing and a great thing all at once, and it took only a moment. Pulling his head back just far enough, Breal licked the tears from Enoch’s cheek. The old man had been held in the tree fifty years for his crimes, and fifty years was a good long time to pay for all Breal’s kiss said so, and with his kiss Enoch’s sobs subsided.

  At last Enoch wiped his nose on his ragged sleeve. He hugged the dog again, then stood unsteadily and looked about, eyes wide, as a new babe views the world. “Which one of you freed me?” he asked hoarsely.

  Miles thought of the long fang he’d pulled from the back of the tree. “I may have,” he said.

  Enoch looked long across the few feet between them as if seeing Miles for the first time. He touched his fingers to his brow and gave a slight nod. It was a meer’s greeting, and Miles felt it like a small flame passed from man to man. He thought to say, “I’m not a meer,” but Enoch was speaking.

  “Tell me your name.”

  “Miles.” He did not say, “My granda was your brother.” He could not say it. Not now. Not just yet, for there would be too many tears behind the words and too much talking after. Next time, he thought, and he knew the moment he thought that, there would be a next time, and a next, with his great-uncle home.

  “eOwey sent you at last,” said Enoch. “How long I’ve prayed for it.”

  He put his hand on Breal’s head. “What is your name?” he asked, as if the dog might speak.

  “He is called Breal,” said Hanna.

  Enoch’s eyes brimmed, the unspilled tears adding their own sheen. “I never thought I’d stand among human folk again.” He looked at all of them. “And your names?”

  “I’m Hanna.”

  “Hannalyn.” He said her deya name with a respectful bow.

  “How did you … know?” asked Hanna.

  “It’s long I’ve lived inside a tree. I’m honored to meet thee, Hannalyn.”

  Hanna’s eyes shone.

  Gurty took a step forward, pulling off her garden gloves. “I think you know my name.”

  Enoch squinted. “Gurty? It’s you, isn’t it, my green-eyed girl?”

  “Aye.”

  Enoch put out his hand. She reached for him, and in midair their smallest fingers met. Their touch had a sound to it, or so it seemed to Miles, the sigh of leaves rustling in the wind.

  Breal nudged Miles with his cold, wet nose. “Aye,” whispered Miles. He nodded to Hanna, and they left the couple alone on the cliff.

  They reached the broad meadow with the rocky outcropping that overlooked the sea. Miles stopped and leaned against the giant’s-head boulder, where his own story had begun so long ago on Breal’s Moon night.

  Beyond the edge of Enness Isle the ocean shone violet. One day soon
a ship bearing saffron flags would sail across Turnbow Bay and dock in Brim Harbor. Passage for him, passage for her; for Hanna had told him what the meers said to her by the well, and he guessed she may well accept Olean’s offer to study on Othlore. He didn’t share his thoughts, but let them pass. The meers’ ship would come in its own time. Right now he wanted to be home and felt the wanting of it in his bones. There was only one thing left to show Hanna before they left the meadow.

  Miles clapped his hands. “Here, Breal.”

  Breal ran through the grass, panting happily. Miles went down on his knees beside the boulder. “Come close by, Hanna,” he whispered. “There’s something here for you to see.”

  Miles gently lifted Breal’s soft lip to show his missing fang. Then, with his other hand, he hooked his mouth with his forefinger and pulled back his cheek to show his own gap. Hanna looked from mouth to mouth. The missing teeth were in the very same place.

  Miles let go of his lip. “Do you see?” he asked with wonder.

  “What does it mean?”

  “I’m not sure, but I missed the fang as soon as I changed into the Shriker’s form, though I could never remember when it had come out.” He reached into the rucksack and drew out the long tooth: a dog’s fang, only much larger. It could only have come from the Shriker. Miles nodded toward the cliff. “I found this in the Enoch Tree while you were busy helping Gurty with her tools.”

  Hanna gazed at it with wonder. “Aye,” she breathed. “Shree said the Shriker attacked Enoch, but before the beast could kill him, the Sylth Queen took her own revenge—”

  “And the Shriker lost his fang when the man went all to wood,” finished Miles. “It must have been like that.”

  Miles scratched Breal behind the ear. “It was a member of the Sheen clan that had to break the curse. The queen knew that, and since Enoch had failed, it came down to us.” He said “us,” not “me,” and he meant it, for he’d come to see that Hanna had played as much a part in the breaking of the curse as he had. He looked at her tired face, saw the cut across her brow from the cave-in. “You were brave to search Uthor for me,” he said. “I never told you that.”

  In the long silence that followed, Hanna leaned against the giant’s-head boulder, her arms crossed, thinking. “The Falconer said it has always been our story. Yours and mine.”

  “Aye.” Miles slid the Shriker’s tooth back into the rucksack. “But we didn’t do it alone. Granda armed us with the tale. The Falconer helped, Wild Esper, and Shree. Even the queen helped in her way.”

  “And all the while Gurty tended the tree,” said Hanna. “And Enoch was praying for his freedom.”

  Miles looked round the mossy boulder. His heart filled up like the sea itself, and he knew a song would come, someday, a song that might touch the way he felt just now. And he had the Falconer’s ervay to play it on when it came.

  The sun had gone behind Mount Shalem. A lone falcon caught the last rays on his wing. The trees in the woods below were tinting blue with twilight, but here and there patches of red and gold could be seen where the maples grew among the evergreens.

  “Well,” said Miles, “are you ready, Hanna?”

  “Aye. Mother, Da, and Tymm will be glad to see us.”

  They started down the grassy slope.

  “Come on, Breal,” called Hanna.

  Breal rushed ahead and led them down the path toward home as i f he’d always known the way.

  GLOSSARY

  Abathan Peace

  Akabree tha All praise to you

  Attenlore Otherworld name for Enness Isle

  Braughnoick Old man. The term is often used in a derogatory way.

  Breal Legendary hero who killed the serpent who swallowed the moon

  Brodureth The Oak King of Oth

  Darro Death’s messenger

  Deya Tree spirit

  Dreamwalker A sleepwalker with dreams that can foretell the future

  Elandra Obey

  Eldessur You are called.

  Eldessur Kimbardaa You are called. Come home to yourself.

  eOwey One who sang the universe into being, also called the Maker.

  Ervay A flute with two pipes made of sylth silver

  Eryl Human male. Term commonly used by deyas

  Esper A wind spirit or wind woman, also called Wild Esper

  Essha Listen with understanding

  Evendera kalieanne. Mosura tan abanaad.

  Magic spell roughly translated as: I call the moon to place a pathway at my feet.

  Eyeshala The beautiful afterworld of the souls

  Grandtree Ancient tree that houses a deya

  Gullmuth Huge woolly mammoth with birdlike head

  Hessha elandra Hear and obey

  Isparel Wind spirit of the east

  Kalass Stay back or keep away

  Keth-kara The pure self-sound eOwey sings as each individual is formed

  Kith Friend or spirit friend

  Konor-duvan The creation chant

  Kravel Ravenlike black birds. Females have orange plumage on their heads.

  Leafer Healer, or one who uses herbs to heal

  Lyn Human female. T e rm commonly used by deyas

  Meer Literally “one who wields magic.” A title given to one who has studied magic with meers and is blue-palmed.

  Mishtar Hero who fought alongside dragons and eventually helped to negotiate an end to the dragon wars.

  Noor Name of the world

  Noorfest Holiday celebrated at winter equinox

  Noorushh Wind spirit who rides the sea winds

  Oth Name of the magical Otherworld

  Otherworld Another name for Oth

  Othic Ancient language formed when Noor and Oth were one world

  Othlore Island where meers study magic

  Shriker Name of the cursed dog, a shape-shifter who is out for revenge

  Skullen A type of giant snake that lives in the trees of Uthor

  Sqyth-born One whose eyes are different colors, usually one blue eye and one green. Also called sqyth-eyed. The word sqyth was formed from sqy (sky) and -th (from ear-th or O-th).

  Sylth Winged fairies of Oth that are human size

  Taberrell The largest of the dragons, with blue-green scales and golden chests

  Tamalla Herb used to bring on a state of calm or help one to sleep

  Terrow Smaller dragons with golden scales

  Thool Dark brown drink served hot and sweetened like cocoa

  Tygoss Wind spirit from the southern reaches

  Wratheren Legendary serpent that swallowed the moon