The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (22 page)

“Yes. I need a child now that Tam is no longer a child. Coren...”

“What?”

’Please—I do not want to spend another night in this house. I know you are tired, and so is your horse, but—will you take me home now?”

His arms circled her. “My White Lady,” he whispered. “I have waited so long for you to want to come to me, White one, my Liralen...”

“Am I that to you?” she said wonderingly. “I have given you as much trouble as that white bird is giving me. I have been so close to you and yet so far...” Her voice drifted away; she was silent, listening to the pattern of her words. Coren looked down at her.

“What are you thinking?”

She murmured vaguely. Old memories blossomed, faded in her mind, of her first callings of the Liralen, of Mithran’s words, of the last dream of it, where it lay broken in the depths of her mind. She drew a sharp breath, pulling away from Coren.

“Sybel— What?”

“I know—” Her hand closed tightly around his arm; she pulled him to her threshold. He followed, bewildered, looked over her head into the empty yard. Then she said, her voice taut, unfamiliar, “Blammor,” and his face jerked back to her.

“What are you doing?” he breathed. The Blammor came to them, the mist of a shadow between the great pines, its moon-colored, sightless eyes white as the snow-buried peak of Eld. Sybel looked into its eyes, gathering her thoughts, but before she could speak to it, the dark lines of it grew mist-colored, molding a form. The fluid crystal of its eyes melted downward, curving into white, clean lines: a long, flute-slender neck, a white curve of breast like a snow-touched hill, a broad sweep of snowy back, and long, trailing, pennant-shaped wings that brushed the soft ground like trains of finest wool. A sound broke sharply from Coren. The great bird looked down at them, taller than either of them, gentle and beautiful, and its eyes, the Blammor’s, were moon-clear. Sybel touched her eyes, feeling the fire burning dry at the back of them. She opened her mind to the bird, and tales murmured beneath its thoughts, ancient and precious as the thin tapestries on the walls of a king’s house.

Give me your name.

You have it.

“Liralen,” Coren whispered. “The Liralen. Sybel, how did you know? How did you know?”

She reached out to touch it, the feathers strong yet sleek beneath her hand. Tears ran down her face; she brushed them absently. “You gave me a key, when you called me that. I knew then it must be something close to me, yet far... and then I remembered that when I called the Liralen so long ago, the Blammor came and told me itself it was not uncalled. And the night it came to me and I nearly died of terror like Drede, I saw deep in me the Liralen dead, and I did not want it dead—that saved my life, because in my sorrow for it I forgot to be afraid. And somehow, the Blammor—the Liralen—knew even better than I how much it meant to me. That is why Mithran could never take it: he knew that he would have to take the Blammor, and that he could never do.”

The Liralen’s voice drifted into her mind.
You are growing wise, Sybel. I came long ago, but you could not see me. I was always here.

I know.

How may I serve you?

She looked deep into its eyes. Her hand at rest in Coren’s gentle hold, she said softly,

“Please take us home.”