“Sybel, what are you doing?”
ELEVEN
* * *
Her heart grew withered and chill within her, slowing the startled leap of her blood. She lifted a finger to her lips, feeling the beat of her heart in her mouth, her throat dry as powdered earth. “Be quiet, Coren. Maelga is sleeping.”
“Sybel!”
“Let me go. I will not lie to you“
His hands loosened slowly, fell clenched to his sides. He stared down at her, sun streaking his eyes, the blood high beneath his skin. He said slowly, distinctly,
“I went—”
“Sh—”
“I have been still too long! I went to the stables, and Ceneth and Bor were there, and Bor was saddling his horse to ride back to his house; I heard your name on their lips, and your name again—they laughed, saying how you drew the old Lord of Hilt like a child to Rok’s hall. I stood there as they laughed, and I felt as though—as though they had struck me and laughed—there was a sickness in me, and—then they saw me, because—a sound had come out of me, and the laughter left them like flame blown out.”
“Coren—” she whispered.
“Sybel, why? Why? Why am I the first man to know every outward part of you and the last of all men to know your inward mind? Why did Rok, Ceneth and Bor know, and not me? Why did you not tell me what you are doing? Why did you lie to me?”
“Because I did not want you to look at me the way you are looking now—”
“Sybel, that is no kind of reason!”
“Stop shouting at me!” she flared suddenly. She caught her breath and pressed her cold hands briefly against her eyes. She felt his nearness, his taut stillness, heard in the moment’s darkness the deep beat of his breathing.
“All right,” he whispered. “I will not shout. You healed me once when I might have died, and now you had better do it again because there is a thing in me that is hurt and sick. I am beginning to wonder, Sybel, why you chose to marry me at all, and so suddenly at that, after your dark night away, and what great anger you have against Drede that you would stir Sirle against him. Sybel, my thoughts are pounding against my brain—I cannot still them. Do not lie to me anymore.”
Her hands slipped from her eyes, and they were dusted with a bloom of weariness. “Drede paid Mithran to capture me and destroy my mind.”
A sound came inarticulate from him. “Drede? Drede?”
She nodded. “Drede wanted to marry me and use me without fear. Rommalb killed Mithran, crushing him. And I will crush Drede with his own fears, take his power from him through Sirle. I used our marriage to frighten Drede; I planned from the beginning to use my powers for Sirle against him. I did not tell you all this because my revenge is my own affair, not yours, and I did not want to hurt you with the knowledge that I had used you. Now you know and you are hurt, and I do not think this time I can heal your wounds.”
He stared at her. His head turned a little, as though he were trying to catch a faint sound lost in the wind. His words came finally in a hollow whisper, “I do not know, either—Ice-white Lady, I think I hold you in my hands and then you melt and slip cold through my fingers... How could you hurt me like this? How could you?”
Her face crumpled. Hot tears gathered in his eyes and he wavered, glittering before her. “I tried so to keep you from knowing—to keep you from being hurt—”
“Did you really care? Or am I just one more in your collection of strange, wondrous beasts to be used at your need, to be put aside while you go about your business?”
“Corers—”
“I could kill Rok for this, and Ceneth and Bor, but if I blasted all of Eldwold from the earth there would still be that blind fool in me who will mock me until I die. I love you. I love you so much. I would have torn Drede apart for you with my hands, if only you had told me he had hurt you. Why did you not tell me? I would have plotted a war for you such as Eldwold has never seen.”
“Coren—I could not tell you— I could not drag you into my hate and rage— I did not want you to know how—how cold and terrible I can be—”
“Or how little you need me?”
“I need you—”
“You need Rok and Ceneth more than you need me. Sybel, I do not understand this game you are playing. Do you think if I know you, I will fear you? Cease to love you?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “As you are doing now.”
He gripped her suddenly, shook her, hurting her. “That is not true! What do you think love is—a thing to startle from the heart like a bird at every shout or blow? You can fly from me, high as you choose into your darkness, but you will see me always beneath you, no matter how far away, with my face turned to you. My heart is in your heart. I gave it to you with my name that night and you are its guardian, to treasure it, or let it wither and die. I do not understand you. I am angry with you. I am hurt and helpless, but nothing would fill the ache of the hollowness in me where your name would echo if I lost you.” He loosed her. She watched him, wide-eyed, her hair drifting across her face. He turned away from her suddenly. She reached out to him.
“Where are you going?”
“To find the Lion of Sirle.”
She went with him, hurrying to keep up with his swift, furious strides. They found Rok at a table in the empty hall, with Ceneth sitting hunched beside him, a cup in his hand. Rok watched Coren, his eyes brilliant, chill-blue in his flushed face, come toward him unmoved; when Coren’s fists pounded sharply on the wood in front of him, and Ceneth jumped, Rok said simply,
“I know.”
“If you know, then why? Then why?”
“You must know why.” He paused a moment. A weariness loosened his smooth voice. “A woman came to me and offered me money and power for the destruction of the man who killed Norrel, who sent Sirle to its knees at Terbrec. I did not think of her; I did not think of you. I simply accepted what I have wanted, day and night, for thirteen years. I have done what I have done. What will you do now? You, too, have wanted this war.”
“Not this way!”
“War is war. What is it you want, Coren? To let Drede go unpunished for the wrong he has done your wife?”
Coren’s fists shifted, taut, shaking, on the table. “I would have gone to Mondor alone, unarmed, to kill him with my bare hands if she had told me then. But she went to you. And now I stand a man outside a circle of secrecy, looking into it for the first time, not knowing how to name what I see. Where are your eyes, Rok of Sirle? Could you not see that step by step, moment by moment, you were watching my wife destroy herself in lies, in bitterness, in hatred? And you watched her with your calm eyes and said nothing! Nothing! You used her as she used you; now what is left in either of you? I know that endless road she has taken—you know it, too. Yet you did not lift a hand to stop her, did not drop one word to me so I could!”
Rok lifted a hand, drew his fingers wearily across his eyes. Ceneth, hunched over his wine, lifted his head.
“What are you going to do, Coren? You could kill us all—except Herne and Eorth; they knew nothing. Or you could refuse to fight. Or you could try to forget that your pride is hurt, accept what is inevitable—”
“Is it inevitable?” He straightened, turned so suddenly that Sybel started. He looked at her out of stranger’s eyes. “Is it?”
Her shoulders slumped wearily. “Coren. I love you. But I cannot stop this thing.”
He gripped her. Sybel,” he whispered. “Once—I gave up for you something like this—gave up a dream of revenge, a nightmare of grief that was like a long sickness. Now I will ask you. Give this thing up. If not for me, then for Tam.”
She looked at him. “Please,” she whispered. His hands slid slowly away from her, dropped.
“You want it that badly. So. You have learned what you were afraid Tam would learn—the taste of power. Well, I will give you your war. But I do not know what you will have left when it is over.”
He turned and left them. Sybel watched him move away from her wordlessly.
When she could not see him, she moved to the table, sat down abruptly. The two men watched her, waited for her to cry. When she simply sat unmoving, Ceneth poured wine, pushed the cup to her. She touched it without drinking, her eyes empty. At last she took a sip that stirred a faint color in her face. Ceneth ran his hands through his black hair.
“I am sorry. I am so sorry. To babble it all in the stable like a pair of children—I have seen a man wounded with that look on his face, but never a man standing healthy on his two feet. What woman alive does not scheme a little behind her husband’s back?”
“So I am like any other woman. That is comforting, but Coren is not like any other man.” She pressed her cold fingers a moment against her eyes. “I do not want to talk of it. Please. Let us make a swift end to all this. When will Derth of Niccon be ready with his boats?”
“In a week perhaps. He needs time to gather his men.”
She drew a breath, loosed it. “Well. Then I will have to learn to look into Coren’s eyes. I suppose I should be thankful I do not have to look into Tam’s.”
Rok reached across the table, held her hand. “We could finish without you, now that we have Hilt and Niccon.”
“No.” She smiled a little, her eyes black, mirthless. “No. I still have a King to catch. We are going to suffer together, Drede and I... and afterward—I do not know.” Her head bowed, dropped onto her outstretched arm. “I do not know,” she whispered.
“Sybel. He will forgive you. He will realize how terribly you were used, and he will forgive you.”
“The only thing he has to forgive her for,” Ceneth said, “is not allowing him to be angry with Drede himself, to revenge his own wife.”
She made a sudden, impatient gesture. “I did not marry him because he had a swift temper and a restless sword.”
“But, Sybel, if he loves you, he expects to know these things. You hurt his pride badly.”
“I hurt deeper than that. He thinks I do not love him. Which may be so. I do not know. I do not know anymore what love is. I am merciless to those two I love most, Tam and Coren, and I cannot stop this thing for their sakes... it must drag on and on, heavy and wearisome, until it comes to an irreversible end.”
“He loves you deeply,” Rok said gently, “and you will have long years afterward to learn to live with one another.”
“Or without.” She stirred restlessly. “I came for some food for Maelga. She will not come in the house, but she is resting in the gardens.” She rose. She stood a moment in silence, her face colorless, her hand taut on the table as though she could not move. Rok touched her, and she looked down at him as though she had forgotten him.
“You are not terrible,” he said softly, “and I think you do love him, or you would not be so grieved. Be patient. It will soon be over.”
“Soon is such a long word,” she whispered.
She went down to the kitchens, took soft bread, fresh cheeses, fruit, meat and wine for Maelga, and carried them to the garden. She stopped before the open gate, looked through the trees, but saw only the great Cats playing a silent, sinuous game, and Cyrin Boar sleeping in the sunlight. She caught the mind of the Black Swan.
Where is Maelga?
Sybel, the witch woke and left, the Swan answered. She said the world was too large for her.
Sybel’s brows tugged together anxiously. She went to Cyrin, woke him.
Did Maelga say why she left?
No, said the Boar. But when the Lord of Dorn entered the dark house of the Riddle Master, he—
“I know, I know.” She finished wearily, “He ate neither food nor wine, nor did he sleep through the night—Cyrin, Rok’s food is quite harmless.” She stared down at the food until it seemed like something unfamiliar, of another world. Then, wielding the tray with both hands, she wheeled and flung it through the trees, so that grape, meat and bread fell through the leaves in a soft shower, and the heavy silver tray traced an arc of slow-turning circles in the air and fell ringing on its side beside the Cats. They stared at her, surprised motionless at their play. She stared back at them moment, almost as startled. Then she whirled and left.
Sybel sat at her window, embroidering a battle design on Coren’s cloak, watching the slow gathering of night above the Sirle forests. She saw Coren at last, riding across the fields, dark beneath the blue-black sky; heard, in the quiet air, his faint shout to the gatehouse, and the boom of the lowered bridge. Later, she heard his steps in the hall. Her hands stilled, dropped in her lap; her face turned toward the closed door. He opened it, paused a little when he saw her. Then he came in, closed the door.
“Why are you not at supper?”
“I could not eat.” She watched him pour wine. “Where did you go?”
“To Mirkon Forest. I sat tossing a stone in my hand and learned nothing at all from it. Wine?”
“Please.”
He brought her a cup, sat beside her on the window seat. She watched him drink; his face was quiet, colorless in the candlelight. He lowered his cup and touched a fold of the cloak.
“There are still things I am unsure of, in this war of yours and Rok’s. You must have brought the Lord of Niccon here, too—he never would have come otherwise.”
“Yes.” Something leaped then in her throat; she swallowed dryly. “And—there is something else, in the way of truth, that I must tell you.”
He looked at her, his eyes apprehensive, but he said only, “Tell me.”
“You saw—you might have guessed that day Derth came, what we were doing—you questioned Rok after he had lied to you about Eorth riding Gyld, and—I saw the doubt in your eyes when you looked at me.”
“I do not remember.”
“You do not remember because I—made you forget.”
“You what?”
“I went into your mind. I found those memories and took them and then it was as though it never happened.” He was still then, his breath still. “I told you so—so that you will know that it happened once, and will never happen again.”
“I see,” he whispered. He lifted the cup to his mouth; it shook slightly in his hand. He placed it on the stones between them. “I never thought you would do that to me. I never thought you would want to.”
“That—that is why I came running to you, crying. Because I had done that thing to you that Drede and Mithran would have done to me. I was afraid then of myself. But when you took me in your arms and held me, I felt—if you loved me, I could not be what I glimpsed myself to be. But now, I have no one to tell me not to be afraid. What do you see now, when you look at me?”
“Something of a stranger in your dark eyes.” He leaned forward; she felt his forgers lightly touch her face, as he said with a wistfulness that ached in her, “Where is the woman who lay so quietly in my arms that night on Eld Mountain?”
“I am sorry,” she whispered. “I am sorry I married you.”
His hand closed, dropped on the stones. “I was afraid of hearing that.” His eyes closed. “So what shall I do now? I cannot stop loving you.”
“Coren, I do not want you to. Only—I will hurt you as I will hurt Tam. And I think when this is done, neither of you will forgive me.”
“Tam. What is to become of him in your plans? That child of yours who loved red foxes.”
“We are going to make a king of him, ruled by the Sirle Lords. And one day he will look at me and see a stranger, too.”
“And Drede. Sybel, what are you planning to do with him?”
“I will deal with whatever is left of him afterward. I do not care about his death, only about his life, and he is so frightened now of me that he is nearly mad—” She checked, looking up at him as he rose, his eyes wide, incredulous.
“Sybel, how can you—how can you drive him and me mad so coldly—”
“I am not cold! You have hated, yourself—you told me! How did your blood run, Coren? thick and hot in your heart? How did you hate? Did you nurse revenge from a tiny, moon-pale seedling in the night places in your heart, watch
it grow and flower and bear dark fruit that hung ripe-ripe for the plucking? It becomes a great, twisted thing of dark leaves and thick, winding vines that chokes and withers whatever good things grow in your heart; it feeds on all the hatred your heart can bear— That is what is in me, Coren. Not all the wondrous joy and love of you can wither that night plant in me. I have plotted revenge from the night I came out to you at Maelga’s house with my torn dress open so that you could look at me and want me as Mithran wanted me—”
She heard the sharp hiss of breath between his teeth. Then he struck her, a sudden, open-handed blow across the mouth that shocked her silent.
“I was no more than that to you! No more than Mithran!”
She lifted her fingers to her face. “No one has ever hit me before,” she said. He stared down at her stillness and an incoherent keen broke from him.
“You do not even care. Oh, White Lady, now what shall I do?” he whispered. “I do not know what to do.”
He turned from her blindly; she saw his hands grope over the door, open it. She dropped her head on her knees, hiding her face in the folds of his cloak, but she saw his agony even behind the darkness of her closed eyes.
She finished the cloak for him, the deep blue cloth blazoned with the snow-white falcon of the Sirle Lords, and word came from Niccon on the day she finished it that the boats were finished and had been sent down-river from a branch of the Slinoon that fed from the Lake of the Lost King on the northern borders of Niccon. Rok called his brothers to the house, and Sybel sat with them, listening quietly beside Coren.
“We will meet Derth of Niccon in two days at the point where Edge River meets the Slinoon,” Rok said. “Horst of Hilt will meet us at Mondor, coming from the east. He will have to break through the forces of the men on his land who are fighting for Drede, so Eorth and Bor, you will lead half of our men to close in behind those forces, crush them between you and Horst’s army. We will occupy Drede at Mondor; his army is guarding the Slinoon up from the city a little. We will drive him back toward Mondor. Ceneth, you and Herne will lead the men downriver, into the city to take Drede’s stronghold, and to—” He paused at a movement from Coren.
The Forgotten Beasts of Eld Page 16