The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

ONE

The wizard Heald coupled with a poor woman once, in the king’s city of Mondor, and she bore a son with one green eye and one black eye. Heald, who had two eyes black as the black marshes of Fyrbolg, came and went like a wind out of the woman’s life, but the child Myk stayed in Mondor until he was fifteen. Big-shouldered and strong, he was apprenticed to a smith, and men who came to have their carts mended or horses shod were inclined to curse his slowness and his sullenness, until something would stir in him, sluggish as a marsh beast waking beneath murk. Then he would turn his head and look at them out of his black eye, and they would fall silent, shift away from him. There was a streak of wizardry in him, like the streak of fire in damp, smoldering wood. He spoke rarely to men with his brief, rough voice, but when he touched a horse, a hungry dog or a dove in a cage on market day, the fire would surface in his black eye, and his voice would run sweet as a daydreaming voice of the Slinoon River.

One day he left Mondor and went to Eld Mountain. Eld was the highest mountain in Eldwold, rising behind Mondor and casting its black shadow over the city at twilight when the sun slipped, lost, into its mists. From the fringe of the mists, shepherds or young boys hunting could see beyond Mondor, west to the flat Plain of Terbrec, land of the Sirle Lords, north to Fallow Field, where the third King of Eldwold’s ghost brooded still on his last battle, and where no living thing grew beneath his restless, silent steps. There, in the rich, dark forests of Eld Mountain, in the white silence, Myk began a collection of wondrous, legendary animals.

From the wild lake country of North Eldwold, he called to him the Black Swan of Tirlith, the great-winged, golden-eyed bird that had carried the third daughter of King Merroc on its back away from the stone tower where she was held captive. He sent the powerful, silent thread of his call into the deep, thick forests on the other side of Eld, where no man had ever gone and returned, and caught like a salmon the red-eyed, white-tusked Boar Cyrin, who could sing ballads like a harpist, and who knew the answers to all riddles save one. From the dark, silent heart of the Mountain itself, Myk brought Gyld, the green-winged dragon, whose mind, dreaming for centuries over the cold fire of gold, woke sleepily, pleasurably, to the sound of its name in the half-forgotten song Myk sent crooning into the darkness. Coaxing a handful of ancient jewels from the dragon, Myk built a house of white, polished stone among the tall pines, and a great garden for the animals enclosed within the ring of stone wall and iron-wrought gates. Into that house he took eventually a fountain girl with few words and no fear either of animals or their keeper. She was of poor family, with tangled hair and muscled arms, and she saw in Myk’s household things that others saw perhaps once in their lives in a line of old poetry or in a harpist’s tale.

She bore Myk a son with two black eyes who learned to stand silent as a dead tree while Myk called. Myk taught him to read the ancient ballads and legends in the books he collected, taught him to send the call of a half-forgotten name across the whole of Eldwold and the lands beyond, taught him to wait in silence, in patience for weeks, months or years until the moment when the shock of the call would flame in the strange, powerful, startled mind of the animal that owned the name. When Myk went out of himself forever, sitting silent in the moonlight, his son Ogam continued the collection.

Ogam coaxed out of the Southern Deserts behind Eld Mountain the Lyon Gules, who with a pelt the color of a king’s treasury had seduced many an imprudent man into unwanted adventure. He stole from the hearth of a witch beyond Eldwold the huge black Cat Moriah, whose knowledge of spells and secret charms had once been legendary in Eldwold. The blue-eyed Falcon Ter, who had torn to pieces the seven murderers of the wizard Aer, shot like a thunderbolt out of the blue sky onto Ogam’s shoulder. After a brief, furious struggle, blue eyes staring into black, the hot grip of talons loosened; the Falcon gave his name and yielded to Ogam’s great power.

With the crook of an ungentle smile inherited from Myk, Ogam called also to him the oldest daughter of the Lord Horst of Hilt as she rode one day too close to the Mountain. She was a frail, beautiful child-woman, frightened of the silence and the strange, gorgeous animals that reminded her of things on the old tapestry in her father’s house. She was afraid also of Ogam, with his sheathed, still power and his inscrutable eyes. She bore him one child, and died. The child, unaccountably, was a girl. Ogam recovered from his surprise eventually and named her Sybel.

She grew tall and strong in the Mountain wildness, with her mother’s slender bones and ivory hair and her father’s black, fearless eyes. She cared for the animals, tended the garden, and learned early how to hold a restless animal against its will, how to send an ancient name out of the silence of her mind, to probe into hidden, forgotten places. Ogam, proud of her quickness, built a room for her with a great dome of crystal, thin as glass, hard as stone, where she could sit beneath the colors of the night world and call in peace. He died when she was sixteen, leaving her alone with the beautiful white house, a vast library of heavy, iron-bound books, a collection of animals beyond all dreaming, and the power to hold them.

She read one night not long afterward, in one of his oldest books, of a great white bird with wings that glided like snowy pennants unfurled in the wind, a bird that had carried the only Queen of Eldwold on its back in days long before. She spoke its name softly to herself: Liralen; and, seated on the floor beneath the dome, with the book still open in her lap, she sent a first call forth into the vast Eldwold night for the bird whose name no one had spoken for centuries. The call was broken abruptly by someone shouting at her locked gates.

She woke the Lyon, asleep in the garden, with a touch of her mind, and sent it padding to the gates to cast a golden, warning eye at the intruder. But the shouting continued, urgent, incoherent. She sighed, exasperated, and sent the Falcon Ter instructions to lift the intrudes and drop him off the top of Eld Mountain. The shouting ceased suddenly, a moment later, but a baby’s thin, uncomforted voice wailed into the silence, startling her. She rose finally, walked through the marble hall in her bare feet, out into the garden where the animals stirred restlessly in the darkness about her. She reached the gates, of thin iron bars and gold joints, and looked out.

An armed man stood with a baby in his arms and Ter Falcon on his shoulder. The man was silent, frozen motionless under the play of Ter’s grip; the child in his mailed arms cried, oblivious. Sybel’s eyes moved from the still, half-shadowed face to the Falcon’s eyes.

I told you, she said privately, to drop him off the top of Eld Mountain.

The blue, unwavering eyes looked down into hers. You are young, Ter said, but you are without doubt powerful, and I will obey you if you tell me a second time. But I will tell you first, having known men for countless years, that if you begin killing them, one day they will grow frightened, come in great numbers, tear down your house and loose your animals. So the Master Ogam told us many times.

Sybel’s bare foot tapped a moment on the earth. She moved her eyes to the man’s face and said,

“Who are you? Why are you shouting at my gates?”

“Lady,” the man said carefully, for the ruffled feathers of Ter’s wing brushed his face, “are you the daughter of Laran, daughter of Horst, Lord of Hilt?”

“Laran was my mother,” Sybel said, shifting from one foot to another impatiently. “Who are you?”

“Coren of Sirle. My brother had a child by your aunt—your mother’s youngest sister.” He stopped with a sudden click of breath between his teeth, and Sybel waved a hand at the Falcon.

Loose him, or I will be standing here all night. But stay close in case he is mad.

The Falcon rose, glided to a low tree branch above the man’s head. The man closed his eyes a moment; tiny beads of blood welled like tears through his shirt of mail. He looked young in the moonlight, and his hair was the color of fire. Sybel looked at him curiously, for he gleamed like water at night with link upon link of metal.

“Why are you dressed like that?” she said, and he opened his eyes.

“I have been at Terbrec.” He glanced up at the dark outline of bird above him. “Where did you get such a falcon? He cut through iron and leather and silk…”

“He killed seven men,” Sybel said, “who killed the wizard Aer for the jewels on his books of wisdom.”

“Ter,” the young man breathed, and her brows rose in surprise.

“Who are you?”

“I told you. Coren of Sirle.”

“But that means nothing to me. What are you doing at my gates with a baby?”

Coren of Sirle said very slowly and patiently, “Your mother, Laran, had a sister named Rianna—she was your aunt. She married the King of Eldwold three years ago. My—”

“Who is the King these days?” Sybel asked curiously.

The young man caught a startled breath. “Drede. Drede is the King of Eldwold, and he has been King for fifteen years.”

“Oh. Go on—Drede married Rianna. That is very interesting, but I have a Liralen to call.”

“Please!” He glanced up at the Falcon and lowered his voice. “Please. I have been fighting for three days. Then my uncle tossed a baby into my arms and told me to give it to the wizard woman on Eld Mountain. Suppose, I said, she will not take him? What will she want with a baby? And he looked at me and said, you will not come down from that mountain with the child—do you want your brother’s son dead?”

“But why does he want to give it to me?”

“Because it is the child of Rianna and Norrel, and they are both dead.”

Sybel blinked. “But you said Rianna was married to Drede.”

“She was.”

“Then why is the child Norrel’s son? I do not understand.”

Coren’s voice rose perilously. “Because Norrel and Rianna were lovers. And Drede killed Norrel three days ago on the Plain of Terbrec. Now will you take the baby so I can go back and kill Drede?”

Sybel looked at him out of her black, unwinking eyes. “You will not shout at me,” she said very softly. The mailed hands of Coren curled and uncurled in the moonlight. He took a step toward her, and the soft light shaped the long bones of his face, traced lines of exhaustion beneath his eyes.

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “Please. Try to understand. I have ridden the late day and half the night. My brother and half my kinsmen are dead. The Lord of Niccon joined forces with Drede, and Sirle cannot stand against them both. Rianna died of the child’s birth. If Drede finds the child, he will kill it out of revenge. There is no safe place for it in Sirle. There is no safe place for it anywhere but here, where Drede will not think to come. Drede has killed Norrel, but I swear he will not take this child. Please. Take care of him. His mother was of your family.”

Sybel looked down at the child. It had stopped crying; the night was very still about them. It waved tiny fists aimlessly in the air, and pushed at the soft blanket wrapped around it. She touched its pale, plump face, and its eyes turned toward her, winking like stars.

“My mother died of me,” she said. “What is its name?”

“Tamlorn.”

“Tamlorn. It is very pretty. I wish it had been a girl.”

“If it had been, I would not have had to ride all this way to hide it. Drede is afraid the child might declare its legitimacy, when it is older, and fight Drede’s own heir. Sirle would back it—my people have been playing for the kingship of Eldwold ever since King Harth died at Fallow Field and Tarn of Sirle held the throne for twelve years, then lost it again.”

“But if everyone knows the child is not Drede’s—”

“Only Drede, Rianna and Norrel know the truth of the matter, and Rianna and Norrel are dead. Kings’ bastards can be very dangerous.”

“He does not look dangerous.” Her lean, pale fingers whispered over its cheek. A smile strayed absently across her face. “It will go nicely, I think, in the collection.”

Coren’s arms tightened around the child. “It is Norrel’s son—it is not an animal.”

Sybel’s level eyes raised. “Is it not less? It eats and sleeps and it does not think, and it requires special care. Only… I do not know what to do with a baby. It cannot tell me what it needs.”

Coren was silent a moment. When he spoke finally, she heard the weariness haunting his voice like an overtone. “You are a girl. You should know such things.”

“Why?”

“Because—because you will have children someday and you—will have to know how to care for them.”

“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 I 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 I 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.”

“Liralen…” The old woman’s face softened until it seemed dreaming and young beneath her curls. “The pennant-winged, moon-colored Liralen… Oh, child, when you capture it finally, let me see it.”

“I will. But it is very hard to find, especially when people interrupt me with babies. My father fed me goat’s milk, but Tam does not seem to like it.”

The old woman sighed. “I wish I could feed him, but a cow would be more useful, unless I find some mountain woman to nurse him.”

“He is mine,” Sybel said. “I do not want some other woman to begin to love him.”

“Of course, child, but— Will you let me love him, just a little? It has been so long since I have had children to love. I will steal a cow from someone, leave a jewel in its place.”

“I can call a cow.”

“No, child, if anyone is a thief it must be me. You must think of yourself, of what would happen if people suspected you of calling away their animals.”

“I am not afraid of people. They are fools.”

“Oh, child; but they can be so powerful in their loving and hating. Did your father, when he talked to you, give you a name?”

“I am Sybel. But you did not have to ask me that.”

The gray eyes curved faintly. “Oh, yes, my birds are everywhere… But there is a difference in a name spoken of, and a name given at last by the bearer. You know that. My name is Maelga. And the child’s name? Will you give me that as a gift?”

Sybel smiled. “Yes. I would like you to have his name. It is Tamlorn.” She looked down at him, her ivory hair tickling the small, plump face. “Tamlorn. My Tam,” she whispered, and Tamlorn laughed.

So Maelga stole a cow and left a jeweled ring in its place, and for months afterward people left their barn doors open hopefully. Tam grew strong, pale-haired and gray-eyed, and he laughed and shouted through the still white halls, and teased the patient animals and fed them. Years passed, and he became lean and brown, and explored the Mountain with shepherd boys, climbing through the mists, searching deep caves, bringing home red foxes, birds and strange herbs for Maelga. Sybel continued her long search for the Liralen, calling nights, disappearing for days at a time and returning with old, jeweled books with iron locks that might hold its name. Maelga chided her for stealing, and she would reply absently,

“From little wizardlings, who do not know how to use them. I must have that Liralen. It is my obsession.”

“One day,” Maelga said, “you will mistake a great wizard for a little wizardling.”

“So? I am great, too. And I must have the Liralen.”

One evening, twelve years after Coren had brought Tamlorn to her, Sybel went to the cold, deep cave Myk had built for Gyld the Dragon. It lay behind a ribbon of water, and trees about it grew huge and still as pillars vaulting a chamber of silence. She stepped over three rocks to the falls, then slipped behind it, the water running across her face like tears. Within, the cave was dark and wet as the heart of a mountain; Gyld’s green eyes glowed in it like jewels. The great, folded bulk of him formed a shadow against the deeper shadow. Sybel stood still before him, like a slender pale flame in the dark. She looked into the unblinking eyes.

Yes?

Thoughts rose slow and formless as a dark bubble in the Dragon’s mind, and opened to the dry, parchment rustle of his voice. It has been a thousand years since I fell asleep over the gold I gathered from Prince Sirkel, and fell asleep watching his open eyes and his blood trickle slowly over coin piece and coin piece and gather in the hollow neck of a cup. His voice whispered away. There was silence while another bubble formed and broke. I dream of that gold, and wake to see it, and it is not here… I wake to cold stone. Give me leave to gather it once more.

Sybel was silent as a stone rising from stone. She said, You will fly, and men will see you and remember your deeds with terror. They will come to destroy my house and they will see gold burning in the sun, and nothing, nothing will turn them back from my house.

No, said Gyld. I will go by night and gather it in secret, and if any man watches, I will slay in secret.

Then, said Sybel, they would come and kill us both.

No man can kill me.

What of me? And Tam? No.

The great bulk stirred, amorphous, and she felt the warm sigh of his breath.

I was old and forgotten when the Master woke me by name in the hollow veins of Eld, and brought me out of my dreaming with his song of my deeds… It was pleasant to be sung of once more… It is pleasant to be named by you, but I must have my sweet gold…

Quick and turning as a snake his thoughts fled away from her, slipping down, down through caverns of his mind to the dark maze of it. Swift as water draining into earth, stealthy as man burying man beneath moonlight, he carried his name down to the forgetting regions where he was nameless even to himself, but she was there before him, waiting behind the last door of his mind. She stood among the half fragments of his memories of slayings, lustings and half-eaten meals and said,

If you want this so badly, I will think of a way. Do nothing, but be patient. I will think.

His breath came once more, and his thoughts welled once more to the dark cave. Do this one thing for me, and I will be patient.

She stepped out of the cave, water shining in her hair, and breathed deeply of the cool night air. She thought of the Dragon in flight, smooth flame in motion, and of the deep, peaceful pools of the Black Swan’s eyes, and the memory of the Dragon’s ground mind with the broken embers of his passions faded deep into her own. Then she heard a rustling behind her in the dark, still earth, sensed a watching.

“Tam? Maelga?”

But no voice, no mind answered. The black trees rose like monoliths, blocking the stars. The rustling faded like the breath of wind into silence. She turned again toward the house, a line between her white brows.

She went to see Maelga a few days later and sat on the skin by the fireplace, her arms around her knees, and Maelga watched her face as she stirred soup.

“There is Something in the forest without a name.”

“Are you afraid of it?” Maelga asked. Sybel looked up at her surprisedly.

“Of course not. But how can I call it if it has no name? It is very strange. I cannot remember reading about a nameless thing anywhere. What are you cooking? If I were not already hungry, I would be hungry from the smell of it.”

“Mushrooms,” said Maelga. “Onions, sage, turnips, cabbage, parsley, beets, and something Tam brought me that has no name.”

“Some day,” Sybel said, “Tam will poison us all.” She leaned her shining head back against the stones and sighed. Maelga’s eyes flicked to her.

“What is it? Does it have a name?”

She stirred. “I do not know. I am very restless these days, but I do not know what I want. Sometimes, I fly with Ter in his thoughts as he hunts. He cannot fly as high as I want him to, or so fast, though the earth rushes beneath us and he goes higher than Eld Mountain… And I am there, when he kills. That is why I want the Liralen so. I can ride on its back and we can go far, far into the setting sun, the world of the stars. I want… I want something more than my father had, or even my grandfather, but I do not know what I want.”

Maelga tasted the soup, the jewels on her thin hands winking. “Pepper,” she said. “And thyme. Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”

“Did you help her?”

“She gave me a box of sweet scent. So now she will be miserable and jealous for the rest of her life.” She looked at Sybel, sitting still against the stones, her black eyes hidden, and she sighed. “My child, can I do anything for you?”

Sybel’s eyes lifted, smiling faintly. “Shall I add a man to my collection? I could. I could call anyone I want. But there is no one I want. Sometimes, the animals grow restless like this, dreaming of days of flights and adventures, of the acquiring of wisdom, of the sound of their names spoken in awe, in fear. The days are over, few remember their names, but they dream, still… and I think of the still way I learned, and how only my father, then you, then Tam, ever gave me back my name… I think… I think I want some days to take that mountain path down into the strange, incomprehensible world.”

“Then go, child,” said Maelga. “Go.”

“Perhaps I will. But who would keep my animals?”

“Hire a wizardling.”

“For Ter? No wizardling could hold him. When I was Tam’s age, I could hold him. I wish Tam were half wizard. But he is only half king.”

“You have never told him that, surely.”

“Am I a fool? What good would knowing that do? A dream like that could make him miserable. In the world below, it may even kill him. He is better off playing with shepherd boys and foxes and marrying, when he is old enough, some pretty mountain girl.” She sighed again, her white brows creeping into a little frown. Then she straightened, startled, as the door burst open. Tam stared down at her, taut, glistening with sweat, his pale hair sticking in points to his flushed face.

“Sybel— The Dragon—he hurt a man— Come quickly—” He flashed away like a hare. Sybel followed him out. She stood motionless as a tree in front of the house, and caught the current of the Dragon’s thoughts with one swift blaze of his name.

Gyld.

She felt him curled in the darkness of his wet cave, thoughts tumbling in his mind of flight, of gold, of a man’s pale face staring up at him, open-mouthed, then hidden suddenly behind his upflung arms. She gave a tiny murmur of surprise.

“What is it?” Maelga said, her hands clasped anxiously. Sybel’s thoughts came back to her.

“Gyld went to get his gold, and a man saw him flying with it, so Gyld attacked him.”

“Oh, no. Oh, dear.” Then her gray eyes pinpointed Sybel’s face. “You know him.”

“I know him,” she said slowly, and the frown deepened in her eyes. “Coren of Sirle.”