The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (2 page)

“I had no woman to care for me,” Sybel said. “My father fed me goat’s milk and taught me to read his books. I suppose I will have a child that I can train to care for the animals when I am dead.”

Coren gazed at her, his lips parted. “If it were not for my uncle,” he said softly, “I would take the child back home rather than leave Norrel’s son here with you, your ignorance and your heart of ice.”

Sybel’s face grew as still before him as the still full moon. “It is you who are ignorant,” she whispered. “I could have Ter rip you into seven pieces and drop your bloodless head on the Plain of Terbrec, but I am controlling my temper. Look!”

She unlocked the gates, her fingers shaking in an anger that roused through her like a clean mountain wind. She snapped private calls into the dream-drugged minds about her, and, like pieces of dreams themselves, the animals moved toward her. Coren stepped in beside her. He propped the child on one shoulder, his mailed arms protecting its back, one hand cupping its head, while his eyes slid, wide, over the moving, rustling darkness. The great Boar reached them first, fire-white in the darkness, his tusks like white marble that hunters dreamed of, and a sound came, inarticulate, from Coren’s throat. Sybel rested one hand above the small red eyes. “Do you think because I care for these animals, I cannot care for a child? They are ancient, powerful as princes, wise and restless and dangerous, and I give them whatever they require. So I will give this child what it requires. And if that is not what you want, then leave. I did not ask you to come with a child; I do not care if you go with it. I may be ignorant in your world, but here you are in my world and you are a fool.”

Coren stared down at the Boar, struggling for words. “Cyrin,” he whispered. “Cyrin. You have him.” He stopped again, his breath jerking through his open mouth. His voice came slow, dredging memory. “Rondar—Lord of Runrir captured—the Boar Cyrin that no man had captured before, the elusive Cyrin, Keeper of Riddles and—demanded either Cyrin’s life or all the wisdom of the world. And Cyrin uprooted a stone at Rondar’s feet, and Rondar said it was worthless and rode away, still searching...”

“How do you know that tale?” Sybel asked, astonished. “It is not one of Eldwold.”

“I know it. I know.” He lifted his head, his arms tight around the child as a great shape swooped toward them, silent, a shadow upon the night. The Swan folded itself gently before them, its back broad as the Boar’s, its eyes black as the night between two stars

“The Swan of Tirlith—Is it the Swan? Sybel, is it?”

“How do you know my name?” she whispered.

“I know.” He watched two cats ease through the night, coming from opposite sides of the house, and she heard him swallow. Tamlorn struggled in his arms, but Coren did not move. The Cat Moriah reached them, nudged its black, flat head under Sybel’s hand, then lay down on her feet and yawned at Coren, showing teeth like honed polished stones.

“Moriah... Lady of the Night, who gave the wizard Tak the spell that opened the doorless tower where he was captured... I do not—I do not know the Lyon—” Gules Lyon, his eyes liquid gold, traced a close circle about Coren’s legs, then settled in front of him, muscle sliding leisurely into muscle beneath the glowing pelt. Coren shook his head quickly. “Wait—There was a Lyon of the Southern Deserts who lived in the courts of great lords, dispensing wisdom, fed on rich meats, wearing their collars and chains of iron and gold only so long as he chose... Gules.”

“How do you know these things?”

The Lyon’s great head turned toward Sybel.
Where
, Gules inquired curiously,
did you find this one?

He brought me a baby, Sybel said distractedly. He knows my name, and I do not know how.

“Once he could speak,” Coren said.

“Once they all could. They have been wild, away from men so long that they have forgotten how, except for Cyrin, just as men—most men—have forgotten their names. How do you—”

Coren started beside her, and she looked up. The span of unfurled wings blotted the moon, shadowed their faces, then dropped lower, each stroke sucking a heartbeat of wind. Tamlorn kicked restlessly against Coren’s hold, wailed a complaint into his ear. The Dragon dropped sluggishly before them, holding Coren in its lucent green gaze. Its shadow welled huge to their feet. Its mind-voice was ancient, dry as parchment in Sybel’s mind.

There is a cave in the mountains where his bones will never be found.

No. I called you because I was angry, but 1 am not angry, now. He is not to be harmed.

He is a man, armed.

No.
She turned to Coren, as he stood watching the Dragon with Tamlorn wriggling, whimpering, ignored in his arms, and her eyes curved suddenly in a little smile. “You know that one.”

“His name is not so old that men have forgotten it. There was an Eldwold prince taking rich gifts over the Mountain to a southern lord to buy arms and men, whose bones and treasure have never been found... There are tales still told of fire blazing out of the summer sky over Mondor, and the crops burning, and the Slinoon River steaming in its bed.”

“He is old and tired,” Sybel said. “Those days are behind him. I hold his name, and he cannot free himself from me to do such things again.”

Coren shifted Tamlorn finally, and the baby quieted. The dark prints of weariness had eased from his face, leaving it young for a moment, wondering. He looked down at her.

“They are beautiful. So beautiful.” He looked down at her a moment longer, before he spoke again. “I must go. There will be news of the battle at Mondor. I cannot bear the thought that my brothers may be dead and I do not know. Will you take Tamlorn? He will be safe here, with such a guard. Will you love him? That—that is what he requires most.”

Sybel nodded wordlessly. She took the child, holding it awkwardly, and it tugged curiously at her long hair. “But how do you know so many things? How do you know my name?”

“Oh. I asked an old woman living down the road a ways. She gave your name to me.”

“I do not know any old women.”

He smiled at a memory. “You should know that one. I think—I think if you need help with Tamlorn, she will give it to you.” He paused, looking at Tamlorn. He touched the soft, round cheek, and the smile drained from his face. leaving it numb with a bewildered grief. “Good-bye. Thank you,” he whispered, and turned. Sybel followed him to the gate.

“Good-bye,” she said through the bars as he mounted. “I know nothing of wars, but I know something of sorrow. And that, I think, is what you pass from hand to hand at Terbrec.”

He looked down at her, mounted. “It is true,” he said. “I know.”

She met, as she turned away from the gate, the little round, fiery eyes of the silver Boar in her path. She caught the minds around her, holding them all in their quietness with an effort.
You may go now. I am sorry I woke you, but 1 lost my temper.

The Boar did not move.
You cannot give love
, he remarked,
until you have first taken it.

You are not very helpful
, Sybel said irritably, and the great Boar gave a little snort that was his private laughter.

That old woman climbed the wall once, looking for herbs. I snorted at her and she snorted back at me. She could help you. What would you give me for all the wisdom of the world?

Nothing, because I do not want it now. Give it to Coren. He said I had a heart of ice.

Cyrin snorted again, gently.
Indeed, he needs wisdom.

I told him so
, Sybel said.

The next morning, she went out of the house, down the mountain path that led to the city below. The great old pines swayed in the wind, creaking and moaning of the coming of winter. Their needles were soft and cold under her bare feet, stroked here and there with sunlight. She carried Tamlorn, sleeping, in the white wool blanket. He was warm and heavy in her arms, soft and freshly washed. She watched his face, with its long, pale lashes and its heavy cheeks. Once she stopped to nuzzle her face against his soft, pale hair.

“Tamlorn,” she whispered. “Tamlorn. My Tam.”

She saw a small house within the trees, its chimney smoking. A gray cat curled asleep on the roof, and a black raven perched on a pair of antlers hanging above the door. Doves, pecking in the yard, fluttered around her as she walked to the door. The raven looked down at her sideways out of one eye and gave a cry like a question:
Who?
She ignored it, opened the door. Then she stood motionless in the doorway, for across the threshold there was no floor but mist that moved uneasily, immeasurable at her feet. She looked around, puzzled, and saw the walls of the house looking back at her, with eyes and round dark mouths. The door slipped out of her hand, closed behind her, and the mists moved upward, coiling around the watching eyes, covering them, until it hid even the roof; and the raven flew toward her from somewhere beyond the mists, and gave its question again: Who?

Tamlorn wriggled in her arms, wailed a complaint. She kissed him absently. Then she said, standing in the strange, watching house,

“Whose heart am I in?”

The mist vanished and the watching faces hardened into pine knot. A thin old woman in a leaf-colored robe, with white hair in a thousand untidy curls around her face, rose from a rocking chair, her ringed hands clasped.

“A baby!” She took him from Sybel, made noises at it like cooing doves. Tamlorn stared at her and made a sudden catch at her long nose. He smiled toothlessly as she clucked at him. Then she looked at Sybel, her eyes iron-gray, sharper than a king’s blade. “You.”

“Me,” said Sybel. “I need advice, if you would be pleased to give it to me.”

“With Cyrin Boar and Gules Lyon to advise you, child, you come to me? Why, what lovely hair you have, so long and fine... Has any man told you that?”

“Cyrin Boar and Gules Lyon have never had a baby dumped in their arms. I must give it what it requires, and it cannot tell me. Cyrin said you might help me, since you snorted at him. Cyrin at times makes no sense. But can you help me?”

“Onions,” said the old woman. Sybel blinked at her.

“Old woman, I have stood in the eye of your heart while you looked at me, and anyone with such an inner eye is no fool. Will you help me?”

“Of course, child. I let you in. Onions—you grow them in your garden. I was trying to remember. Will you let me have a few, now and then?”

“Of course.”

“I love them in a good stew. Sit down—there, on the sheepskin by the hearth. That was given to me by a man from the city who hated his wife and wanted to be rid of her.”

“Men are strange in the city. I do not understand loving and hating, only being and knowing. But now I must learn how to love this child.” She paused a moment, her ivory brows crooked a little. “I think I do love him. He is soft, and he fits so into my arms, and if Coren of Sirle came for him again, it would be hard to give him up.”

“So.”

“So, what?”

“So it is Drede’s child. I have been hearing about that from my birds.”

“Coren said it is Norrel’s child.”

The thin lips smiled. “I do not think so. I think he is the son of Drede the King. There is a raven at the King’s palace whose eyes never close...”

Sybel stared at her, lips parted. She drew a slow breath. “I do not understand such things. But he is mine now to love. It is very strange. I have had my animals for sixteen years, and this child for one night; and if I had to choose one thing from all of them, I am not sure that I would not choose this thing, so helpless and stupid as he is. Perhaps because the animals could go and require nothing from anyone, but my Tam requires everything from me.”

The woman watched her, rocking back and forth in her chair, rings flashing on her still hands, fire-flecked.

“You are a strange child... so fearless and so powerful to hold such great, lordly beasts. I wonder you are not lonely sometimes.”

“Why should I be? I have many things to talk to. My father never spoke much—I learned silence from him, silence of the mind that is like clear, still water, in which nothing is hidden. That is the first thing he taught me, for if you cannot be so silent, you will not hear the answer when you call. I was trying to call the Liralen, last night when Coren came.”