The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  “Sybel! Sybel, wake up—”

  She rose slowly, stiff, and went through the chill house. The sun streaked the snow with fire; it leaped at her eyes as she opened the door, hurting them. She blinked.

  “Maelga. Come in.”

  “Oh, Sybel—you have let your fire die.” She stepped in, and Sybel stared at the dark thing in her hands.

  “That is not the only dead thing in this room, I think.” She touched the black, stiff body of Maelga’s raven. A lightning stroke of fear she had never known before shot through her. Maelga said wearily, “Sybel, I sent him out, and this morning he flew into my house and dropped dead at my feet. I think he was dead as he flew.”

  Sybel shuddered. “It is cold,” she murmured. “I am sorry.” She stared down at the motionless bird until Maelga touched her gently, and she started.

  “Sybel, you are tired. Have you eaten lately?”

  “I do not think so. I have been reading.” Her shoulders, strained taut, fell suddenly; she covered her face with her hands. Maelga’s arms closed about her.

  “My white child,” she mourned, “what can I do for you?”

  “Nothing,” Sybel whispered. “Nothing.” She dropped her hands, sighing. “I hope Ter is safe. I will call him, send him back to Tam.”

  “I will cook you something. You are so thin since Tam left.”

  She went into the kitchen, still carrying the dead raven. Sybel caught the Falcon’s mind, felt the sudden sweep of earth beneath its flying.

  Ter. Go back to Tam. There is danger.

  There was silence a moment, before the drive of Ter’s heartbeat and the run of fire in his veins. Then he said,

  No.

  Ter. Go back to Tam.

  Ogam’s child, ask of me anything else. But I have a pair of eyes to pick and a dark mind to still.

  Ter—

  She lost him suddenly, groped for him, amazed, and lost him again; and a whisper broke into her mind, strong, implacable.

  Sybel.

  “No,” she said, and the word fell lifeless against white stones. “No!”

  She sat under the domed roof at midnight, and the full moon watched her like an eye. The world lay silent beyond the dome, hushed and hidden; the mountain itself was still, the stars frozen like ice crystals. The night was voiceless as her own mind, resting in its heart of silence that no wind, no whisper of leaves disturbed. Her eyes were dark in the darkness, motionless as she waited, listening to the quiet of her mind, waiting for the moment, the calls that rippled to the core of its silence. Gules lay beside her, his head raised, golden eyes unblinking, motionless as though he did not breathe. She felt movement near her after a while and found Cyrin, the gleam of his tusks white as starlight.

  Answer me a riddle, Lord of Wisdom, she said to him, and in his mind heard the swift passage of all the riddles of the world. And his red eyes vanished as his great, glowing head sank before her.

  That one I cannot answer.

  Her head dropped onto her knees. “I am weary,” she whispered, wide-eyed, to the darkness. “I do not know what to do.” She sat there awhile, still, feeling now and then the faint tug of herself away from herself, like the soft withdrawal of a moon-drawn wave. The moonlight etched her shadow on the white marble floor, and the dark massive shadows of Boar and Lyon. She closed her eyes finally, sent forth a call. And as she called she heard a faint, familiar shouting at her gates.

  “Sybel,” Coren said, as she ran through the night snow to him. “Sybel.” His hands were closed tight on the bars as though he had tried to pull them apart. “I am sorry—I am so sorry—I was away from Sirle—”

  “I just called you,” she said breathlessly, pulling at the frozen bolts. “Just a moment ag—-Coren, did you fly here?”

  “I tried to.” He led his horse in, stopped in front of her, trying to see her face in the dark. “What is it?” he said anxiously. “Sybel, I wanted to come three days ago, but Rok had sent me to Hilt to talk to Lord Horst about some hopeless plan—I knew you were troubled; I knew it even while I slept, but I could not leave until yesterday. What is it? Is it Tam?”

  She stared up at his shadowed face, wordless. She shook her head. “No. How—how did you know I wanted you before I knew that?”

  “I knew. Sybel, what is it? What can I do for you?”

  “Just—a little thing.”

  “Anything.”

  “Just—hold me.”

  He dropped the reins in the snow. He opened his cloak, drew her into it until it closed on her white hair, and the crown of her head gleamed faintly below his face. She dropped her head against him, smelled the dark, damp fur around her, felt the draw of Coren’s breath and the beat of his blood. His breath caught, and she opened her eyes.

  “Sybel—you are afraid.”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Hold me closer,” she said, and his arms shifted around her, drew her nearer. She heard his heart beneath her ear, felt one gloved hand cupping her head. She drew a long, slow breath and loosed it. “I would have called you all the way from Sirle to ask you to hold me like this. Just for this.”

  “I would have come. I would have come only to do this and to go back. But Sybel, there must be more I can do for you.”

  “No. Your voice is like the sunlight; it belongs to the world of men, not the dark world of wizards.”

  His voice tangled in her hair. “What is it? What is troubling you?”

  She was silent. Then she lifted her head, sighing, drew away from him and the circle of his arms broke. “I did not want to tell you. But now perhaps I should, because if anything happens to me, you—you may be troubled until you know.”

  His hands rose, creased with snow, to circle her face, and his voice rose. “Sybel—what?”

  “Come in to the fire. I will tell you.”

  She told him after he had stabled his horse in her shed and fed it. He hung up his cloak by the fire and sat beside her. She gave him a cup of heated wine and said simply,

  “I am being called.”

  He stared at her, over the rim of his cup. Then he put it down sharply, and the wine splashed over his forgers. “Who?”

  “If I could put a name to him, I could fight him, perhaps. I have looked everywhere for a name to put to him; I have surprised wizards beyond Eldwold with the whisper of my voice in their minds, and their own fear and wonder have told me they do not know me. So now—I do not know what to do. He has taken Ter Falcon; I sent Ter to look for him, and he stole Ter’s name from me, and I could not hold Ter against his power. He is very strong. I think he is stronger than anyone I have ever heard of. So, I think, I will have to yield to him.”

  He was silent, his brows twisted. “I do not think,” he said finally, “that I will yield you to him.”

  She shifted uneasily. “Coren, that is not what I called you for. You cannot help me.”

  “I could try. I could not—I could not help Norrel, but I will help you. I will stay here with you, and when he comes for you, or when you go to him, I will be there beside you, and he will answer to me.”

  “Coren, what good would that do? I would only have to watch you die, or watch your mind being twisted against itself so that you could never speak my name again. Rommalb was terrible, but not evil. Rommalb was fear, and you survived that, but this wizard, for you, would be death.”

  “Then what shall I do?” he demanded helplessly. “Do you think I could sit here, or in Sirle, meek as a child while you are taken by some danger without a name?”

  “Well, I will not watch you die in front of me.” “Well, I would rather do that than lie awake at night with your troubled mind tugging at me, and not know where you are, why you are troubled.”

  “I never asked you to come uncalled when I was troubled. I never asked you to listen for my voice.”

  “I know: You never asked me to love you. Well, I do love you, and I am troubled, and I will stay with you no matter how much you argue. It is easy to call a man in
to your house, but not so easy to have him leave.”

  “You are a true child of Sirle, to think every danger can be frightened away by an unsheathed sword. I thought you were wise, but you are stupid. Did you go to battle at Terbrec against Drede with a spell book in your hands? Well, then what good will it do you to meet a wizard in battle with a sword than can be turned against you with one word? When that wizard melts your sword into a pool at your feet, what will you do next?”

  He was wordless, his mouth tight. Then suddenly, he shrugged. “I am stupid to argue with you. Unless you can pick me up and throw me out, Sybel, here I stay. You may ignore me and walk over my feet, and refuse to feed me, but when you go I will follow you, and I will do my best to kill anything that harms you.”

  She rose. She looked down at him, her black eyes distant, quiet, and as he met her eyes, he heard the faint stirrings about him of waking beasts. “There is a way,” she said, “to send you back to Sirle reluctant, but alive.”

  Gules Lyon, yawning, its eyes of luminous gold, moved soundless as a shadow from the domed room, milled a circle around Coren, brushing restlessly against him. In the kitchen, Moriah, wakened, murmured a deep-throated song that had no words, melted leisurely toward them. Coren, his eyes on the still black eyes, saw them go momentarily lightless, and heard, in the soundless night, the slow pulse of great winds sucking against the air. He straightened, reached out to Sybel, his hand warm on her wrist, and her thoughts came back to him. He met her gaze, held it while the soft snort of Boar and suck of Dragon wing wove a frail web of sound burst by the Cat’s sudden, full-throated scream of warning. Then he tugged at her a little, as though shaking her out of a dream.

  “Sybel. Are you trying to make me afraid? Why do you not just go into my mind, as you went into Drede’s mind, and send me quietly without my knowledge, back to Sirle? I could not argue with that.”

  She stared at him a moment without answering. Then her face twisted, and she broke away from him. He rose quickly, caught her, and she dropped her face into her hands. “I cannot,” she whispered. “I want to, but I cannot.”

  “Then what? If you set these animals at me, I will fight them, and they will be hurt, and so will I. And then we will both be angry with each other for letting such a thing happen. Sybel, it would be better for both of us, you and I, if you simply let me care about you. Let me keep my foolish watch here—care enough for me to let me do that. It is the only thing I can do. Please. You owe me some kindness.”

  She dropped her hands. The long fall of her hair hid her face; he could not see it in her silence. Then she shook it back, looked up at him, her eyes quiet, weary with waiting.

  “I want you to go. For your sake I would tie you to Gyld and send you to Sirle, to Rok’s doorstep. But for my sake, there is no place I want you but here. Will you go?”

  “Of course not.” He drew her close to him until her head dropped forward onto his breast, and he smiled vaguely at Gules Lyon, his lips brushing the top of her hair. She whispered against him,

  “I am selfish. But Coren, this one thing I know, and I will tell you now: where I am going, in the end, I will go alone.”

  She lay awake that night with Gules Lyon at the foot of her bed, and Moriah at her doorway, and the great, cold worlds of fire splayed silent above her head. She felt the steady pulse of the call in her mind, rippling through the silence, through the opened doors and corridors of it, moving downward, steadily, strongly, to the deep places where she kept the clear, cold knowledge of herself in her ground mind. The call moved inevitably toward that place, while her own powers ebbed away, her thoughts lay useless, unformed in her mind. Finally, there was nothing in her but that call, numbing her will, turning the white still house unfamiliar to her until it seemed the shadow of a dream. The deep, secret places of her mind lay open, unprotected; her power was measured, her name taken, all that her name meant: all experience, all instinct, all thought and power was measured and learned.

  She rose at a command that was scarcely more than a word, and dressed so softly that cloth barely whispered against cloth. A great, gold Lyon lay sleeping in the moonlight; a black Cat, nameless, stretched like a shadow across the threshold. She looked at them, found no names in her mind to wake them, for their names lay like jewels in a deep mountain, hidden from her mind’s eye. She stepped over the sleeping Cat so gently its eyes did not flicker. In the room beyond, a red-haired man sat before a green flame, his eyes closed, his hands open, limp. She moved past him silent as a breath in the still room, past the silver-bristled Boar asleep at his feet.

  The door clicked softly, closing, and Coren started awake. He looked around, blinking. A twig snapped in the fire and he leaned back again, watching the dark room where Sybel slept guarded by Gules and Moriah. And as he watched, Sybel led his horse silently through the snow, out of her gates. She mounted and rode it bareback down the long, fire-white mountain path, past Maelga’s sleeping house, down toward the dark, towered city of Mondor.

  SIX

  * * *

  She climbed the winding steps of a high tower on the north wall of the city. They spiraled into shadow above her, below her; her own shadow, shaped by torchlight, loomed before her up the worn stones. At the end a light limned a closed door. She gripped the heavy iron ring of its latch and opened it.

  “Come in, Sybel.”

  She walked into a round room. A canopy of woven stars glittered brilliant, motionless above her head; white wool and linen etched with ancient tales in rich threads hung from the walls, breathed gently over the high, thin windows. She stepped on soft sheepskin, ankle-deep, that lay the length of the room. A warm fire glowed in the middle of the room. Before it stood a tall man in a robe of black velvet with a silver belt of linked moons at his hips. He stood silently, watching her. His face was lean, hawk-lined, with no hint of feeling but for a single brief line curving faint beside a corner of his mouth. His eyes were cool, deep-shadowed green.

  “Give me your name.”

  “Sybel.”

  At the word the invisible thread of the call that had shadowed her mind broke, and she stood free, blinking in the room. She shivered a little, her eyes moving dark over the walls. The green eyes watched her, unmoved.

  “Come to the fire. You have had a cold journey in the snow.” He held out his hand, lean-boned, long-fingered, with a single jeweled ring on his forefinger the color of his eyes. “Come,” he said again, insistently, and she moved to the firebed slowly, unclasped her wet cloak.

  “Who are you? What do you want with me?”

  “My name now is Mithran. I have called myself many things through the years. I have served princes in outlandish courts in many worlds; I serve them quietly and well—if they are powerful. If they are not, I use them for my own purposes.”

  Her eyes moved, black, to his face. “Who do you serve now?” she whispered. The line trembled, gossamer-faint, at the corner of his mouth.

  “Until this moment I have been in service. But now, I think I might serve myself.”

  “Whose service?”

  “A man who at once fears you and wants you.”

  Her lips parted. The breath hissed through them, startled. “Drede?”

  “You are surprised. Why? You called him twice from his house, so skillfully he did not know what impulse moved him. He is fighting for his power in Eldwold, and the only weapon he has is his young son against the six sons of Sirle.

  “I told him I would not meddle in their affairs! Why does he think I would go against him, the father of Tam?”

  “Why not, when a red-haired Sirle lordling courts you with his sweet words? You have raised Tamlorn, but you have your own life to lead. You are powerful and—beautiful as a rich line of poetry from an ancient, jewel-bound book. How can Drede be sure that an impulse will not move you to Coren?”

  “Coren—” She covered her eyes with her fingers, feeling them cold. “I told Drede—”

  “You are not made of stone.”

  “No. I
am made of ice.” She whirled away from the fire, stopped beside a gleaming table, her hands splayed on it. “You know my mind. You know it better than any man alive. I have made difficult choices, but always my own freedom to use my power serving my own desires, harming no one, has been my first choice. Why can he not see that?”

  “You loved Tam. Why can you not love Coren of Sirle? You are capable of love. It is a dangerous quality.”

  “I do not love Coren!”

  He stepped away from the fire toward her, his eyes unblinking, unreadable on her face. “And Drede? Do you love him? He would make a queen of you.”

  Blood rose in her face. She stared unseeing at goblets of moon-colored silver on the table. “I was drawn to him a little... But I will not sit meekly beside him, dispensing my power as he sees fit, drawing Sirle to its doom—I will not!”

  The calm, sinewy voice pursued her, inflexible. “I am paid to render you to him so meek.”

  Her hands slipped from the wood. She turned to him, the blood slipping from her face, her eyes narrowed as though she were listening to words of a strange spell. “Drede—wants—”

  “He wants you obedient to him. He wants you to know he can love you, trust you without question, as he can trust no one else in the world. He knows you somewhat. And he thinks there is but one way to achieve this. He hired me to do it.”

  A fear such as she had never known began to stir deep in her, send chill, thin roots through her blood, her mind. “How?” she breathed, and felt tears run swift across her face.

  “You know, I think. Sybel. How much that name means to you—memory, knowledge, experience. There is not one possession more truly, irrevocably yours. Drede has hired me to take that name from you for a while, then give it back to another woman, who will smile and accept it, and then give to Drede, without question, forever, what he asks.”