The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (5 page)

“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 hands 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.”

“What is his name? His age?”

“He is twelve years old—thirteen, come spring. As for his name—it could be anything.” He heard shouting suddenly through the trees and turned. Tam and Nyl ran down the mountainside toward them, laughing, awkward in the deep snow. Tam’s light voice came clear across the stillness.

“Nyl! Nyl, wait! I saw riders—”

The King’s eyes moved back to Sybel. “Who are they?”

“Mountain children. They have lived here always“ She spoke absently, seeing Ter pick up speed, fly ahead of Tam in a swift, dark line toward her. He landed abruptly on the King’s shoulder, and she caught his blue eyes and said,

No.

The King stood quietly beneath the heavy talons, his mouth twitching a little. “Is he yours?”

“Yes. He is good protection for a lonely woman.” She gave Ter a single word: Off, and he moved after a moment to the wall behind her. The King drew a soundless breath.

“I have never seen one of that size. I wonder that you do not fear him.”

“Surely you understand power.”

“I do. But...” His voice softened; a little, frayed smile came into his eyes like moving water behind a film of ice. “I am always a little afraid of those I have even that much power over.”

Nyl and Tam, slowed to a silent walk, reached them, their eyes slipping warily over the faces of the King’s guards.

“Sybel,” Tam said, and Drede turned. “Maelga wants you.” He reached out instinctively to soothe the King’s horse, a question in his wide eyes, and Sybel said gently,

“This man is from Mondor; he has come in search of someone he lost.”

Nyl came to stand beside Tam, his breath pulsing white in and out of the air. The King said to them, “Do you know of a boy your own age living on the mountain who was not born here?” Nyl shook his head, and the King’s eyes flicked to Tam. “Do you? There will be a reward.”

Tam swallowed. His hand moved slowly up and down the horse’s velvet neck. “No,” he said at last. His voice caught, and he said again, “No“ The King’s iron brows knit a little.

“What are your names?”

“I am Nyl,” said Nyl. “This is my brother Tam“

“Your brother? You do not look alike.” He touched a strand of Nyl’s black hair, fallen across his bony, freckled face, loosed from his cap.

“We never did,” said Tam. And then he was still as the King’s hand touched his head, pulled back the hood of his cloak to reveal his ivory hair.

Ter Falcon gave a cry behind them. The King lifted Tam’s face with one hand and Tam’s mouth shook. Then it pulled into a smile that blazed across his eyes. The King closed his eyes. He loosed Tam and turned to Sybel.

“I must speak to their mother. Has she told you anything of her sons? Anything strange?”

“No,” Sybel said. “Nothing. They are simple children.

The King’s eyes held hers for a long moment. “What do you know of this truly, I wonder, you who know me. I think perhaps I shall come to see you again.” He turned, put a hand on Tam’s shoulder. “Take my horse. Lead me to your home.”

“Our mother is not home,” Nyl said suddenly. “She went to help Marte, who is having a baby. Shall I get her?”

“Yes. Go,” said Drede, and he ran ahead of them swiftly through the trees. Tam turned the horse, murmuring to it. He gave Sybel one flash of his white face as they left. She turned and went back through the garden into the still house, to the domed room where she sat, her hands quiet in her lap, her eyes unseeing.

Tam came back after a long while. He went to her silently, crept close to her under the fall of her long hair as though he were a small child again. For a long time he was silent. Then he said softly,

“Nyl ran ahead, and told his mother what lie we told the King. So—he left unsure of me. Sybel—”

She felt him trembling. “What, Tam?”

“He—we talked a little. He—” His head dropped suddenly onto her knees. Her hand moved gently over his hair as he cried, his hands crumpling her skirt. He quieted finally, and she lifted his face between her hands.

“My Tam, it is not such a terrible thing for a boy to want his father.”

“But I love you, too! I do not want to leave you, but—I wanted—I wanted—to say I was his son and watch his eyes—to see if he was pleased with me. We talked of Ter—he said it was a marvelous thing that I was not afraid to hunt with him.” He stared up at her, heavy-eyed, desperate. “I do not know what to do. I want to stay and I want to go. Sybel— If I go—would you come?”