The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “He said men would be looking for me to sell—to sell me to my father, and I must be careful. He said Sirle would protect me.”

  “With what, I wonder. They lost to Drede at Terbrec.”

  “I think—with you, Sybel, he said there were places for us both, high places in that world below, if we chose to want them. I do not know how to want to be a king. I do not know what a king is, but he said there would be fine horses for me, and white falcons, and—but Sybel, I do not know what to do! I think I will be something different than the one who herds sheep and climbs rocks with Nyl.” He looked at her, pleading, his eyes dark in his face. When she did not answer, he held her arms and shook her slightly, desperately. “Sybel—”

  She covered her eyes with her hands a moment. “It is like a dream. My Tam, I will send him away soon and we will forget him, and it will only have been a dream.”

  “Send him away soon.”

  “I will.”

  He loosed her, quieting. She dropped her hands and saw him suddenly as for the first time: the tallness of him, the promise of breadth in his shoulders, the play of muscles in his arms hard from climbing as he stood tense before her. She whispered, “Soon.”

  He gave a little nod Then he walked beside her again, but apart from her this time, nudging pinecones with his bare feet, stopping to peer after hidden scurryings in the bracken. “What will you do about Gyld’s gold?” he said. “Did he get all of it?”

  “I doubt it. I shall have to let him fly at night.”

  “I will bring it—Nyl and I—”

  She smiled suddenly. “Oh, my Tam, you are innocent.”

  “Nyl would not take his gold!”

  “No, but he would not forget it, either. Gold is a terrible, powerful thing. It is a kingmaker.”

  His face turned swiftly. “I do not want to think about that word.” Then he stopped to peer into the hollow of a tree. “Last year there was a nest here with blue eggs... Sybel, I wish I were your son. Then I could talk to Ter Falcon, Cyrin and Gules and no one—no one could take me away.”

  “No one will take you. Ter Falcon would not let Coren take you, anyway.”

  “What would he do? Kill Coren? He killed for Aer. Would you stop him from it?” he asked suddenly, and she did not answer. “Sybel—”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I would want you to,” he said soothingly. “But I wish he had not come. He is—I wish he had not come!”

  He ran from her suddenly, swift and quiet as a cat among the high peaks of Eld Mountain. She watched him disappear among the trees, and the autumn winds roared suddenly at his heels. She sat down on a fallen trunk and dropped her head on her knees. A great, soft warmth shielded her from the wind, and she looked up into Gules Lyon’s quiet, golden eyes.

  What is it, White One?

  She knelt suddenly and flung her arms around his great mane, and buried her face against him. I wish I had wings to fly and fly and never come back!

  What has troubled you, Ogam’s powerful child? What can trouble you? What can such a small one as Coren of Sirle say to touch you?

  For a long moment she did not answer. And then she said, her fingers tight around the gold, tangled fur, He has taken my heart and offered it back to me. And I thought he was harmless.

  Sybel sat long among the trees after Gules Lyon had gone. The sky darkened; leaves whirled withered in endless circles about her. The wind was cold as the cold metal of locked books. It came across the snow-capped peak of Eld, down through the wet chill mists to moan in the great trees in her garden. She thought of Tam running bare-armed, barefoot through the sweet summer grass and the tiny wild flowers, shouting at great hawks with the voices of rough mountain children echoing his. Then her thoughts slipped away from her to the silent rooms and towers of wizards she had stolen books from. She had listened to them arguing with one another, watched them working, and then she had smiled and gone quietly away, carrying ancient, priceless books before they had even realized anyone had come.

  “What is it you want?” she whispered to herself, helplessly, and then as she spoke, she knew that a Thing without a name watched her from the shadowed trees.

  She stood slowly. The wind moved swift, empty past her. She waited in silence, her mind like a still pool waiting for the ripple of another mind. And presently, without a whisper of its leaving, the Thing had gone. She turned slowly, went back into the house. She went to Coren’s room. He turned his head as she came in, and she saw the dark lines of pain beneath his eyes, and his dry mouth. She sat down beside him and felt his face.

  “You must not die in my house,” she whispered. “I do not want your voice haunting me in the night.”

  “Sybel—”

  “You have said everything. Now, listen. I may grow old and withered like a moon in this house, but I will not buy my freedom with Tam’s happiness. I have seen him run across the high meadows shouting, with Ter Falcon on his fist; I have seen him lie late at night, dreaming of nothing with his arms around Moriah and Gules Lyon. I will not go with you to Sirle to see him bewildered, hurt, used by men, given a promise of power that will be empty, exposed to hatred, lies, wars he does not understand. You would make a king of him, but would you love him? You looked into my heart with your strange, seeing eyes and you found some truths there. I am proud and ambitious to use my power to its limits, but I have another to think of besides myself, and that is your doing. And your undoing. So you will leave here, and you will not return.”

  She could not read Coren’s eyes as he looked at her. “Drede will come for his son. There was an old woman of his court, a highborn lady who swore that Rianna and Norrel never had a moment of privacy—never more than a moment. She tried to help them—they plotted again and again for a single day of privacy—half a night—but always something, someone forestalled them. We took the child at its birth, afraid for its life, and the old woman thought we might kill it if she told the truth, that it was Drede’s son. Drede’s second wife died childless; he is aging, desperate for an heir, and the woman learned somehow that the child was alive and we did not have it at Sirle. So she told Drede the truth, and now he has a fragile hope. He knows that long ago one of Rianna’s family wed a wizard living high in Eld Mountain where few men ever go. What will you do when he comes for his son?”

  She shifted uneasily. “That is not your concern.”

  “Drede is a hard, bitter man. He has long forgotten how to love. There are cold rooms at Mondor he has ready for Tam, a house filled with suspicious, fearful men.”

  “There are ways to keep Drede out of my house.”

  “How will you keep the thought of Drede out of Tam’s heart? One way or another, Sybel, the world will reach out to that boy.”

  She drew a breath, let it wither away from her. “Why did you come, bringing me such news? You told me to love Tam. I did. And now you tell me to stop. Well, I will not stop for Rok, or Drede, or for the sake of your hatred. You will have to breed your hate in some other place, not in my house, lying in Ogam’s bed.”

  Coren made a little futile gesture with his hand. “Then guard him carefully, for I am not the only one seeking him. I told Rok you would not come, but he sent me anyway. I did my best.” His eyes slid to her face. “I am sorry you will not come.”

  “No doubt.”

  “I am sorry, too, that what I said hurt you. Will you forgive me?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” He stirred, his hands moving aimlessly, and she said more gently,

  “Try to sleep. I want to send you back to your brothers as soon as possible.” She bent over him to check the cloths on his back. He turned, his eyes bright, wavering with pain, and reached up to touch her face, his fingers wandering across it.

  “Flame-white... Never did one of the seven of Sirle see such as you. Not even Norrel seeing the Queen of Eldwold for the first time as she walked toward him among her blossoming trees... White as the blaze of the eyes of the moon-winged Liralen...”

  Her han
ds checked. “Coren of Sirle,” she said wonderingly, “have you looked into the Liralen’s eyes to know their color?”

  “I told you: I am wise.” And then his smile drained downward, pulling his mouth until she could see the white of his teeth clenched. His hand dropped from her face, clenched. She gave him wine to drink, and wet his face with wine, and changed the cloth on his back, wetting it, and at last he slept, the lines easing on his face.

  He left them just as the first snow fell from the white, smooth winter sky. Sybel called his horse, which had been running wild among the rocks, and Maelga gave him a warm cloak of sheepskin. The animals gathered to watch him leave; he bowed to them a little stiffly, mounted.

  “Farewell, Ter Falcon, Lord of Air; Moriah, Lady of the Night; Cyrin, Keeper of Wisdom, who confounded the three wisemen of the court of the Lord of Dorn.” His eyes moved wistfully across the yard. “Where is Tamlorn? He spoke to me so little, and yet I thought—I thought we were friends.”

  “You must have been mistaken,” Sybel said, and he turned to her swiftly.

  “Or is he, like you, afraid of his own wantings?”

  “That is something you will never know.” She took the hand he offered her as he bent in the saddle. He held it tightly a moment.

  “Can you call a man?”

  “If I choose to,” she said, surprised. “I have never done it.”

  “Then if you ever have anything to fear from any man who comes here, will you call me? I will come. Whatever I am doing will remain undone, and I will come to you. Will you?”

  “But why? You know I will do nothing for you. Why would you ride all the way from Sirle to help me?”

  He looked at her silently. Then he shrugged, the snow melting in his fiery hair. “I do not know. Because. Will you?”

  “If I need you, I will call.”

  He loosed her hand, smiling. “And I will come.”

  “But I probably will not. Anyway, if I want you, I can call you, and you will come without choice.”

  He sighed. He said patiently, “I choose to come. It makes a difference.”

  “Does it?” Then her eyes curved slightly in a smile. “Go home to your world of the living, Coren. That is where you belong. I can take care of myself.”

  “Perhaps.” He gathered the reins in his hands, turned his mount toward the road that wound downward to Mondor. Then he looked back at her, his eyes the color of clear mountain water. “But one day you will find out how good it is to have someone who chooses to come when you call.”

  THREE

  * * *

  The winter closed around them with a cold, strong grip. Great peaks of snow drifted against the house; the swan lake froze until it lay like the crystal face of the moon amid the snow. Ice ran in bars across the windows of the white hall, dropped downward in frozen tears before the door. The animals came and went freely through the warm house, found dark, silent places among the rocks to sleep. Gyld slept curled over his gold; the black Cat Moriah spent long hours drowsing dark and dreaming beside Sybel’s fire. Sybel worked in the silent domed room, reading, calling through the black, fiery skies, through moon-colored day skies for the Liralen. She sent her calls, searching and sensitive, across the whole of Eldwold, southward into the deserts, to the Fyrbolg marshes in the east, and the Mirkon Forest in the north, and the silent, unexplored lake-lands far beyond the rich lands of the Niccon Lords in North Eldwold. Silence answered her always, and patiently she would call again. Tam moved through the winter oblivious of it, spending days away in the small stone cottages tucked in the curves of the mountain, or lying long and silent with his arm across Gules, staring into the green fire, or hunting with Ter on his arm. He came one morning in midwinter to the domed room and found Sybel still motionless on its floor, after a long night of calling. He knelt beside her and touched her. She came back to herself with a start.

  “My Tam, what is it?”

  “Nothing,” he said a little wistfully. “Only I have not seen you for days. I thought you might wonder where I was.”

  She rubbed her eyes with her palms. “Oh. Well. What have you been doing? Have you been with Nyl?”

  “Yes. I help him feed the sheep. Yesterday we mended a fence that fell beneath a snowdrift, and then I took Ter into the caves. They seem so warm in winter. And then... Sybel...” She watched him, waiting, as he frowned at the floor, rubbing his hands up and down his thighs. “I told—I told Nyl about Coren and what he—what he said—and Nyl said—if he were a king’s son he would not live up here feeding sheep and running barefoot in the summer. And then—for a while—it was hard for him to talk to me. But tomorrow we are going to the caves again.”

  Sybel sighed. She rested her head on her bent knees, silent awhile. “Oh, I am tired of all this. Tam, have you told anyone but Nyl?”

  “No. Only Ter.”

  “Then make Nyl promise he will tell no one. Because others might come for you, try to take you away whether you want to go or not. They may try to hurt you, those that do not want to have you king. Tell Nyl that. Tell him to answer no questions of any man he does not know. Will you?”

  He nodded. Then he said softly, looking; at her, “Sybel, would my father come for me?”

  “Perhaps. Do you want him to come?”

  “I think—I think I would like to see him. Sybel—”

  “What?”

  “Is it such a bad thing to be?” he whispered. “Is it?”

  She sighed again, her fingers twisting absently through her long hair. “Oh, if you were older... It is not a bad thing, itself, but it is a bad thing to be used by men, to have them choose what you must be, and what you must not be, to have little choice in your life. If you were older, you could choose your own way. But you are so young and you know so little of men—and I know so little more.” She drew a breath. “Tam, do you want this thing?”

  He shook his head quickly. “I do not want to leave you and the animals.” He paused a moment, quiet, his eyes vague as though he looked into himself. “But Nyl—his eyes went so round when I told him, like owl’s eyes. And I felt strange to myself. I would like to see my father.” His eyes slid to her face. “You could call him for me. He would not have to know me; I could just see him—see what he looks like—”

  She touched her eyes lightly with her fingertips, aware of Tam’s eyes, intent, hopeful on her face. “If I call him,” she said, “it may be that you will have no choice as to whether you stay or go.”

  “He will not know it is me! I will pretend to be Nyl’s brother—Look at me, Sybel! How could he know I am his son?”

  “And if he sees your mother in your face? My Tam, he would look once into your bright, hoping eyes and they would tell him more than the color of your hair or the shape of your face.” She rose. Tam caught her arm.

  “Please, Sybel,” he whispered. “Please.”

  So she called the King of Eldwold that morning in his warm house with its floors covered with rich furs and walls shimmering with ancient, embroidered tales. Three days later he rode with two men through the crusted snow, dark, small figures like brown withered leaves against the white earth. The wind lay frozen in the ice-sheathed branches; their breaths hung in a white mist before their faces. They rode slowly on the winding path upward from the city. Sybel watched them come from her high place as they moved in and out of the trees. She felt the King’s mind, powerful and restless, like Ter’s mind, filled with the fragment memories of faces, events, with war lust and love, with the cold, black stone of jealousy and the iron core of loneliness and fear like a white, chill, perpetual mist in the corner of his mind. When he neared her, she sent a call to Ter, flying with Tam, to bring him back.

  Cyrin brought the message of their coming to her gates. He walked beside her through the snow, his broad back heavily bristled in a silver-white winter cloak.

  I saw a man once leap into a pit to see how deep it was, he commented. But no doubt you are wiser.

  Sybel shook her head. I am not wise where Tam
is concerned.

  It is an easy thing to call a man into your house, but not so easy to have him leave.

  I know. Do you think I do not know? But Tam wants to see his father.

  She opened the gates of her yard and stepped out to meet the three horsemen.

  “Are you the wizard woman, Sybel?” the King of Eldwold said to her. He looked down at her from his black horse, his gloved hands resting on its neck. He was dark-cloaked, simply dressed, as were the two men with him, but she looked into his gray, weary eyes with the web of lines beneath them, and at the relentless stillness of his mouth, and the helm of gray hair on his head, and saw only him.

  “I am Sybel.”

  He was silent a moment, and she could not read the thoughts in his eyes. He dismounted and stood with his reins in his hands, his voice hushed in the great still world.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked curiously. She smiled a little.

  “Do you want me to say your name aloud?”

  He shook his head quickly. “No.” And then he smiled, too, the lines gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You have a little of—of my first wife in your face. You were kin. You know that, of course.”

  “I know. But I know little else of her family—indeed of anyone living off this mountain. I have nothing to do with men’s affairs.”

  “But that is difficult for me to believe. You would have great power meddling in men’s affairs, especially in these troubled days. Has no man ever offered you that power?”

  “Are you offering it to me? Is that why you have come up the mountain in midwinter?”

  He was silent again, his eyes wandering over her. “Do they not consult you, people from the city—buy little spells, favors from you to heal their children or cows, perhaps? Ease a little life out of a rich kinsman? Seduce a weary husband?”

  “There is an old woman, Maelga, down the road who does such things for them. Is it her you seek?”

  He shook his head. “No. I came—on impulse. To ask one question of you. Have you heard of a boy living on this mountain yet belonging to no one of the mountain? Think carefully. I will pay a great deal for the truth.”