The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

by Patricia A. Mckillip

  He looked at her incredulously. Rok said, with a grunt of laughter, “Eorth, do not start a fight on my hearth. I never would have believed Coren would ride a Dragon to my doorstep, but he did and I do, now. And I am also beginning to think twice about other things he has said.”

  Coren reached across the table for Sybel’s hand. “You see what a poor reputation I had before you married me.”

  “So. You married me for my animals. I always knew it.”

  “I married you because you never laughed at me. Except when I asked you to marry me.”

  Eorth leaned back in his chair and grinned. “She laughed? Tell us about that, Coren.”

  “No.”

  “I laughed because I thought you had sent him to marry me,” Sybel said. “Then, when I realized he loved me, I stopped laughing.”

  Ceneth rose, moved to the fire. The great house was still about them; shadows fell like tapestry from the walls.

  “If you are not careful, Eorth, Sybel will have Gyld leave you naked on top of Eld Mountain and no one will miss you.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “You are not. You are jealous that you did not marry a woman with a dragon.”

  “Now we have one in our wine cellar,” Rok murmured. “I wonder what our father would have said about that.”

  Eorth gave a snort of laughter. “He would have quit drinking. I thought of something a moment ago.”

  “Did you?” Ceneth said wonderingly. “What?”

  “That if Sybel had a daughter, she could marry Tamlorn, control him, and in two generations the Sirle Lords could be Eldwold Kings.”

  “I hardly think Tam would wait fifteen years to get married,” Rok said dryly.

  “He could marry into Sirle anyway,” Ceneth said. “Herne’s daughter Vivet is twelve in summer.”

  “Drede would never permit it.”

  “So? The boy could melt Drede like wax.”

  “And who in Sirle is to melt Tam to this plan?”

  “Sybel, of course.”

  Coren’s hand came down sharply on the table. The wine quivered in their cups. He looked at the three silent men: Rok, big, gold-maned; Ceneth with his sleek black hair and cat-calm eyes; Eorth, slow, and leaf-bright and powerful. He lifted his hand from the table and closed it. Eorth said, flushed,

  “I am sorry. I was babbling.”

  “Yes.”

  “We all were.” Ceneth troubled the fire a moment with his foot. Then he turned, dropped a hand on Coren’s shoulder. “It will not happen again.”

  Coren sighed, his face loosening. “Yes, it will. I know this house. And I know what talk is worth these days. Like a dragon flight, it comes to nothing in the end but sleep.”

  “Harsh, but true,” Rok said. They were silent awhile. The fire dwindled to a single flame that danced above the embers. Eorth yawned, his teeth winking white as Moriah’s.

  “It is late,” he said surprisedly. Ceneth nodded.

  “I am going to bed.” He stopped beside Sybel, took her hand and kissed it. “Lady, be patient with us.”

  She smiled up at him. “You make it easy to be patient.”

  He left them. They sat finishing their wine, while the shadows lengthened and locked over their heads. Coren put his empty cup down, swallowing a yawn.

  “Coren, go to bed,” Sybel said. “You look tired.”

  “Come with me.”

  “In a moment. I want to talk to Rok about Gyld.”

  “Always Rok. I will wait.”

  “And then I want a bath.”

  “Oh.” He pushed his chair back and leaned across the table to kiss the top of her head. “Do not keep Rok up too long. He is an old man and needs his sleep.”

  “Old— At least I am not getting so slow and deaf I am easy game to any fool in Drede’s service.”

  “Three fools,” Coren said. “It took three. Good night.”

  “Good night,” Rok said. Beside him, Eorth’s head drooped, his cup dangling empty from his hands. Rok took it from him and set it on the table. “Eorth.” He began to snore softly. Rok turned away from him, his mouth crooked.

  “I am sorry if we troubled you tonight. Coren is right, though: since Drede stopped us at Terbrec, we talk a good deal and do little.” He paused a moment. “What is it you wanted to tell me?”

  Sybel’s eyes lifted to his face. The hall was dim around them but for the flame of a last torch; Eorth’s snoring sounded weak against the great rising of silent, ancient stone. She leaned toward Rok, her eyes dark, unwavering on his face as the black, moonlit pools of Fyrbolg.

  “Something,” she said finally, “that I have never told any man.”

  Rok was silent. Eorth was silent, too, a moment; he caught a sudden breath midsnore and woke himself up, blinking at them.

  “Eorth, go to bed,” Rok said impatiently, and Eorth heaved himself to his feet.

  “All right.”

  Rok watched him go. Then he turned back to Sybel, his eyes narrowed.

  “Tell me.”

  Sybel folded her hands on the table. “Did Coren tell you about the wizard who called me?”

  Rok nodded. “He said you had been captured—called—by a very powerful wizard who was attracted to you, and that the wizard died and you came back free. He did not tell me how the wizard died.”

  “Let that be for a moment. What Coren does not know is that the wizard was paid by Drede to take me, and to make me—obedient to Drede, so that Drede could marry me without fearing me.”

  “How—obedient?”

  Her mouth twitched a little, steadied. “He was paid to destroy a part of my mind, the part that chooses and wills of its own. I would have retained most of my powers, but they would have been subject to Drede. I was to be made—content with Drede.”

  Rok’s lips parted. “Could he have done that?”

  “Yes. He held—he held my mind so completely, more completely than any man holds his own mind. I would have been controlled by Drede; I would have done whatever he wanted without question or hope of question, and I would have been happy, afterward, that I had pleased Drede. That, Drede wanted.” Her taut hands loosened; one lifted, cut the air. “For that, I will destroy him.”

  Rok sat back in his chair, the breath easing from him soundlessly. “Is that why you married Coren?” he asked suddenly. “As part of your revenge?”

  ’Yes.”

  “You do not love him?” he asked almost wistfully.

  “I love him.” Her hands eased apart then. “I love him,” she repeated softly. “He is kind and good and wise, all those things I am not, and if I lost him, I would hunger for those things in him. For that reason, I do not want him to know what is—what is in my heart. He might hate me for this. I do not—I do not like myself so much these days. But I want Drede to suffer. I want him to know what dread and hopelessness I knew. He is learning a little of it now. Tam said he is beginning to be afraid, and with good reason. I want war between Sirle and Drede, and I want Drede powerless. I will help you under two conditions.”

  “Name them,” Rok breathed.

  “That Coren will not know I am involved. And that Tam is not used in any way against Drede. For that, I will call the Lords of Niccon and Hilt to side with you against Drede; I will use my own animals against Drede, and I will give you a king’s treasure for the gathering and arming of men.”

  Rok gazed at her wordlessly. She saw the muscles of his throat move as he swallowed. “You yourself are a dream come true, Lady,” he whispered. “Where will you get the treasure?”

  “From Gyld. He has amassed enough gold through the centuries to arm every man and child in Eldwold. If I ask him, he will give me part of it. You see, Ter was captured, too, that day, and he watched powerless himself, while Drede and Mithran spoke of their plan. When I came to Eld Mountain today, every animal there knew what had been done to us.”

  “But how did you escape that wizard, if he was so powerful?”

  “Rommalb killed him.”

 
“Rommalb—” She saw the memories flick in his eyes. “The nightwalker— How?”

  “He—crushed him.”

  Rok’s face was shocked, motionless in the firelight. “That is what Coren met on your hearth?”

  She nodded. “It was not a pleasant meeting, but Coren did what—what few men have ever done.”

  “What?”

  “He survived.” She stirred, her hands stretching taut on the table. “I never meant for that to happen; it was Cyrin’s doing, and I was terrified. But Coren is wiser than I dreamed he could be.”

  “So he must be—wiser than we all dreamed. Why do you not set this Rommalb at Drede?”

  “Because I want a slow revenge. I want him to know what is being done to him and why, and who is responsible. The things he fears most in the world are the power and energy of Sirle, and me. He came to Mithran’s tower that day expecting to find a woman who would smile and take his hand and do his bidding. Instead he found that woman gone and a great wizard lying broken on the floor. Since that day he has been afraid. Now, with your help, I will overwhelm him with his fears.”

  His head moved slowly from side to side. “You are merciless.”

  “Yes. If you choose to refuse me, I will go to bed and we will never speak of this again. But with or without Sirle, it will be done.”

  “You have such things involved with this—Coren’s love, Tamlorn’s. Do you want to risk them?”

  “I have thought deep in the night, night after night, about this plan. I know the risks. I know that if Coren finds out how I have used him, or if Tam suspects that I am destroying his father, they will be hurt past bearing, and I will lose all that I value in this world. But I told you tonight what I have decided.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She held his eyes. “It will be done.”

  He drew a soft breath and loosed it. “I think it will be done with Sirle.”

  The building of the gardens for the animals began with the softening of the earth in spring and progressed into the long summer. One by one Sybel called the animals to Sirle: first the Black Swan to take its place in a small, glass-clear lake filled with smooth stones and fire-bright fish. She went to meet it as it descended slowly over the garden, and came to glide without a ripple, night-black and regal, over the still waters. Its voice ran smooth, melodious through her thoughts.

  It is small, but pleasing.

  Rok, said Sybel, is going to have a white fountain put in the middle.

  The shape, Sybel?

  Two swans in flight, soaring upward, with their beaks touching.

  Yes. And that matter concerning you?

  It will be settled. Soon.

  I am in readiness, when you have need of me.

  She called Gyld from his corner in the dark, damp wine cellar and he fell asleep again in a grotto shaded by trees, cooled by a vein of the Slinoon trained beneath the wall that danced past his cave into the Swan’s lake. Jewels, cups and gold pieces past value winked dully in the shadows around him, for he had given Sybel the path to his mountain cave, and Rok had sent Eorth, Bor and Herne secretly to bring his gold. They had returned, three days after he sent them, exhausted, overladen and awestricken.

  “We could not bring it all,” Bor said to Rok and Sybel. He rubbed his weary eyes as though at a vision for which there were no words. “Rok, we waded ankle-deep in places through silver pieces. There were the bones of three dead men, and one wore a king’s crown. And that is the beast we put so blithely into our wine cellar.”

  “You have nothing to fear from him,” Sybel said. “He is old, and he wants nothing now but his dreams, and his gold securely about him. He is pleased with his cave.”

  “You could buy a kingdom with that gold,” Herne said, his blue eyes gleaming in his arched, restless face. A corner of Rok’s mouth lifted faintly.

  “Yes.”

  She called the Lyon and the great, green-eyed Cat next, and they came by night, gleaming, velvet beneath the moonlight across the Sirle fields. Sybel met them at the gate, opened it for them, and they passed through softly into the garden, the grass whispering beneath them, the blossoming trees white and still against the night sky.

  By winter there will be a warm place built for you, she said. I will miss you wandering in and out of my rooms. Perhaps by winter they will learn not to fear you. This place is small, but it is private and no one should disturb you.

  Gules Lyon lay down in the long grass at her feet. Moriah prowled soft as a shadow through the night, while the Black Swan drifted drowsing through moon-shot waters.

  The Lord of Sirle has done much for you, White One, said Gules. Have you spoken to him yet?

  Yes. I offered him Eldwold. He accepted.

  Gules gave a rumble, deep in his throat. Good.

  Coren came to see them the next morning. He brought his brothers; they stood together silently, watching Gules tear open the haunch of a deer Coren had shot for him. Ceneth sucked breath between his teeth.

  “You control that?”

  Sybel nodded. “In the mountains, most of the time they do their own hunting, since the gardens were wide. But here, there are so many things—farmers, horses, cattle—that would be frightened by their comings and goings.”

  “I will assign men to hunt for them,” Rok said, and her face cleared.

  “Thank you. Now I will give them your names.”

  She called the two Cats to her, and the Black Swan; and the men were still beneath the still gazes of the three, while Sybel moved among them, one by one, naming each.

  Rok. Bor. Eorth. Herne. Ceneth. Remember them. Guard them.

  “Where is Cyrin?” Coren said. “Have you called him?”

  “No.”

  He looked at her, surprised. “Surely the place is ready for him. Call him now, Sybel. He must be lonely by himself. He will think you do not want him.”

  She drew a breath. “I hope he will be happy here.” She lifted her face toward the wind and sent the final call across the land, and felt Cyrin, beneath a tree, rise in answer.

  “Cyrin,” Eorth said to Herne. “The Boar. Coren says he talks.”

  “I believe it,” Herne said simply. “After what we have seen these past days, I am willing to believe anything.”

  Sybel spoke with Rok again that night, in private when the household lay asleep around them and the dogs stretched dreaming at their feet. The scent of early summer rose from the crushed blossoms and new rushes on the stone floor, from the fields lying night-damp, with seedlings breaking the earth.

  “I have told Ceneth and Bor that you will help us against Drede,” Rok said. “Eorth and Herne know only that we plot a war: they will not question how or why, but Ceneth and Bor have wits and use them. They know Sirle might overthrow the King alone, but not the combined forces of the King and the Lords of Niccon and Hilt. So they asked me, of course, where we would get the strength. I explained. They approved.” He paused a moment, sipping wine. “We were reared to battle, Sybel. Our grandfather laid the seventy-day siege of Mondor, and our father, not much older than Tamlorn, then, fought beside him. Since Norrel’s death at Terbrec we have wanted revenge, but Niccon sided with Drede at that battle, and Horst of Hilt threw up his hands in despair and waited for the outcome of the war over his dead daughter. So we have not been sure of support.”

  “Would Horst of Hilt fight, do you think, for the wrong Drede has done Laran’s daughter; or would he fight for Rianna’s child, Drede’s son?”

  Rok shook his head. “I would not like to make a choice like that myself. Coren is right, I suspect: he will fight for the man he thinks will win. In this case: Drede.”

  “So. I will persuade him otherwise.” She lifted her eyes to Rok’s face. “And the Lord of Niccon. When shall I bring them to you?”

  “Let me begin gathering men. Drede will turn to Hilt and Niccon, ask for support, and they will no doubt give it to him. Then, Sybel, you may call them, and Drede will watch his support drain like water through his fingers...
I think he will know then who is behind the Sirle war.”

  She nodded. “And Coren. Does he know what you are planning?”

  “He will, when Herne and Eorth begin to babble. No doubt he will think I am mad, until he sees Derth of Niccon ride into our courtyard.”

  “He must not know where the money comes from.”

  “No.”

  She stirred a little. “I am afraid.”

  “Of Coren?”

  “Yes. I am afraid of the look in his eyes the day he finds out what game I am playing with Sirle.”

  “It is our game as much as yours. You gave us a choice, and we took it. Besides, do you think if you told him what Drede had done to you he would not want revenge of his own? Why will you not tell him?”

  “No.”

  “But why? He is your husband—he would surely support your revenge. He has no love for Drede.”

  Her mouth tightened. “I will not draw Coren into the whirlpool of my anger and hatred. No revenge of his making could satisfy me, and it is purposeless involving him in mine. I want—I want to keep him free of hate. He—the night we flew the Dragon, we dropped downward suddenly, rushing toward darkness as though toward the endless deep of the night, blind, helpless, as you are when there is nothing left of you but the unhidden center of yourself—and from the core of him came a living, joyous laughter. Lost in his own hate for Drede, he could not have laughed like that. He may fight in this war simply because if he refused to fight for my sake and you died at battle, he would never forgive himself for not being with you. But I will give him no great cause to fight for. I will not drag him through his grief and bitterness again. He has given me so much love. At least I can give him that one protection.”

  Rok looked at her silently a moment, his lips parted “I doubt if it is possible,” he said at last, gently. “But I love you for trying.”

  She went the next afternoon to the room high in the house that Rok had given her and sat for a while in the silence, stilling her thoughts, searching in far and secret places for the elusive Liralen. Her books stood on shelves against the walls, the metal and jewels on their backs searched by fingers of light that came from windows facing three directions. Lost to Sirle, sending thread after thread of a call that drifted always idly, unattached, unanswered, she did not see Coren until he knelt before her where she sat on cushions, and spoke her name.