The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

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.

“Let me go instead of Herne.”

“I want you with me.”

“I want,” Coren said, “to go instead of Herne. Herne is a great fighter, but he does not think. I think. And walking alive into the heart of Drede’s city will require thought.”

Rok sighed. “It is a gift,” he said bluntly, “to Sybel. You will go with me.”

“I will go with Ceneth or not at all. I am thinking of Tamlorn. What is to stop some great warrior, hot with bloodletting, from taking the life of one defenseless boy whose crime it was to be Drede’s son?”

“Ter will be with him,” Sybel said. He turned to her, and she saw again, as she had been seeing through the past days, the clear line of bone beneath the skin of his face, the curved lines beneath his eyes.

“Do you want me with Rok?”

She shook her head, her hands folded tight on the table. “Do what you must. But is it Tam you want to save? Or do you want to challenge death, ask it a riddle?”

She saw his teeth come together in his closed mouth. “You have a third eye, Sybel. But the pride in me will not let me stay behind with Rok. If I meet Drede and give you his head on my sword point, will that satisfy you?”

Her voice shook. “No.”

“What gift will, then?”

“Coren, let it be,” Ceneth murmured. “You may hate us all, but we have a battle before us, and whether you fight for us or against us or not at all, make the choice and keep it.”

“Oh, I will fight with you,” Coren said. “But I will not stay safe with Rok while you and Herne whet your swords on Drede’s hearthstones.” He turned back to Rok. “There is a young boy I know who once ran barefoot on Eld Mountain, and who will lose his father in this war, who will see his father’s guards slain before his eyes, who will have only a Falcon at his side that cannot tell him he will live to be King of Eldwold. He gave me my life once. Let me spare him some terror. Let me do at least that for him.”

Rok looked at Sybel, but her eyes were hidden, and her folded hands against her mouth. He said finally, “You and Ceneth will lead men of your own choice into the city. Ter will tell Sybel where Tam is, and she will tell Coren.”

“No,” Sybel said. Her hands dropped. “I will not go into Coren’s mind. When Ter flies out to you, you will know Tam is near. If his life is in danger, though, he will be taken by the Swan to Eld Mountain.”

“But if Drede hides him,” Ceneth said, “how will we know where to look for him? You could tell Coren—slip the knowledge in his mind—”

“No.”

Ceneth sighed. “Then tell me, and I will tell Coren. You have done so much mind work already that—”

“Ceneth,” Rok said wearily, “be quiet.”

“But I think—”

“Do you?” Coren said, and his question snapped in the air like breaking ice. Ceneth flushed under his gaze.

“I am quiet,” he breathed. “But I am wondering who exactly you are fighting in this war.”

Eorth’s broad hand dropped onto the table. “Ceneth, be quiet,” he begged. “I have forgotten half of what Rok has said already. If we are going to get this war off the table and into the field, you will all have to stop bickering.”

“That,” Bor grunted, “is the wisest thing you have ever said.”

Sybel closed her eyes with her fingers. “If Tam is in any great danger I will see to it you know. One thing I must warn you: you may see strange, wonderful beasts on the battlefield, if you are close-pressed with Drede’s men. Do not follow them. Oh, you have seen them here, but in the magic of their luring they grow oddly beautiful. I have told them to stay away from you, but warn your own men, or they may wake to themselves lost in some quiet forest.”

A sudden smile broke over Herne’s lean, restless face. “This will be a war for harpists to break their strings over for centuries.”

“Yes,” Eorth said, “but first I have to know again what was going on before the animals came in.”

Rok refilled his cup and began the weave again patiently.

Twilight closed over the hundred eyes of fires ringing the Sirle house. Sybel, leaving the rest of the planning to the warlords under Rok’s command, watched the fires’ patternless flickering from her high window. Coren came in eventually as the night deepened. She rested her face against the cold stones, listening to the sound of his undressing. She heard the rustle of cloth against cloth drawn back, the whisper of his breath across candle flame. She drew off her clothes, slipped into bed beside him. She lay awake, knowing from his restless breathing his own wakefulness. The night wind stirred between them, traced her cheek with a cold finger. She heard his breathing deepen finally; she lay awake long, watching the curve of his arm and side change and fall with his breathing in the faint moonlight. Then she turned away from him, one hand over her eyes, and thought of Drede lying awake among his own stones, watching the torch flame wash across his walls. Coren stirred, disturbing her thoughts. He quieted, then shifted again with a little, sharp cry. She felt then, in the quiet darkness, a shadow over her own thoughts, as though she were watched, secretly. She turned abruptly.

The Blammor stood over her. She had no time to cry out before the crystal eyes met hers, aloof as stars, and then the darkness overwhelmed her and she heard all around her the thick, imperative beat of her own heart. Visions ran through her mind, of a wizard lying broken on his rich skins, of the death faces of men through the ages meeting the core of their nightmares one final time in rooms without windows, between stone walls without passage. A wet air hovered with the darkness, carrying the cloying scent of pooled blood, of wet, rusted iron; she tasted dry, powdered dust, the withered leaves of dying trees, heard the faint, last cries like a dark wind from some ancient battlefield, of pain, of terror, of despair. And then her thoughts lifted away from her into some plane of terror she had never known, and she struggled blindly, drowning in it.

A vision hovered white as the Blammor’s eye somewhere beneath the terror. While a part of her cried helpless, voiceless against the welling darkness, a thought, trained, honed to a fine perception, detached itself, probed toward the misty image. It lay drifting at the bottom of her mind; she searched for it as though calling through the deepest places of Eldwold, and finally, beneath her mind’s eye, the image clarified and she found a moon-white bird with twisted trailing wings, lying broken, the curve of its smooth neck snapped back against itself.

She whispered, “No.” And then she found herself on the floor, her face against the stones, her breath coming in whimpering, shuddering gasps. She lifted her head, felt tears drying on her face in the cool air. Then she felt the darkness full around her of a looming Thing that watched, waited. She drew herself up, shaking, weak. She stepped toward Coren, but he lay a stranger, as though he were in a dream beyond her. She stood motionless, looking at him, until her trembling eased. And then soundlessly she dressed.

She made her way through the winding stone corridor, slipped like a shadow past the guarded hall, past the inner wall where the slow steps of men paced back and forth above her head. She opened the gate to the gardens, held it wide in the moonlight, and the whisperings came to her of animals wakened, moving toward her in the night. She saw the great shape of Gules Lyon first, and she reached out to him, clung to his mane.

What is it, White One?

I am going back to Eld Mountain. You are free.

Free?

The Black Cat Moriah brushed against her. She looked deep into the green eyes.

You must do what you will tomorrow. I ask nothing of you. Nothing. You are free.

But what of you, Sybel? What of Drede?

I cannot—there is a price for his death I cannot pay.

Sybel, said the flute-voiced Swan, free to fly the gray autumn sky once more? Free to taste the wind on the wing tip?

Yes.

But what of Tam?

I will ask nothing of you. Nothing. You must do as you will.

She touched Gyld’s mind, found him awake, with slow thoughts revolving in his mind of a wet-walled cave deep in a silent mountain, with a tiny stream in it that trickled across pieces of gold and pale bone.

You are free.

But what of Drede? Shall I slay him for you first?

I do not want to hear his name again! I do not care if he lives or dies, if he wins or loses this war—I do not care! You are free.

Free. The various voices brushed in her mind like the sounds of instruments.

Free from the winter… free to run gold as the sun beneath the desert sun’s eye.

Free to fly to the world’s edge on the rim of twilight.

Free to be stroked by fat-fingered kings in the Southern Deserts, to hear the whisperings of moon-eyed witches.

Free to dream in the silence of one treasure greater than them all.

Free, said the silver-bristled Boar. Answer me a riddle, Sybel. What has set you free?

She stared into his red eyes. You know. You know. My eyes turned inward and I looked. I am not free. I am small and frightened, and darkness runs at my heels, in my running, watches.

Sybel, said the Black Swan, I will take you to Eld Mountain. And then I will fly to the lakes beyond North Eldwold that lie like the scattered jewels of sleeping queens.

I will take you, Gyld said. And then I will wind my path again deep, deep into my sweet cave.

Take me then, she said, and felt his lumbering movements in the cave. She bent down, held Gules Lyon’s mane, looked deep into his eyes.

“Gules,” she whispered, and felt his mind drift away from hers, leaving the memories of him like things shadowed in a dim room. She loosed him and he left her, running huge and silent across the Sirle fields. She turned to the Cat.

“Moriah.”

The great Cat slipped, shadow-dark, into the shadows, its green eyes winking back at the moon.

“Black Swan,” she whispered, and it rose above her, circling slow, the great span of its wings black against the moon, curving to a line of breathless wonder.

“Cyrin.”

The marble-tusked Boar stood a, moment before her. “The Riddle Master himself lost the key to his own riddles one day,” he said in his deep, reed-pure voice, “and he found it again at the bottom of his heart. Farewell, Sybel. The Lord of Dorn ran three times around the doorless walls of the house of the witch Enyth, and then walked into the wall and it vanished like a dream.”

“Farewell,” she whispered. He ran out of the open gate, moon-bright across the fields of sleeping men. She straightened, called Ter from his post beside the sleeping Tam in the stone walls of Mondor.

Ter. You are free.

No.

Ter. You are free to do as you will, to go from Tam or to stay with him, king’s bird. But one thing I ask of you. One thing for my sake. Do not touch Drede. He is mine and I choose to forget him.

But why, Ogam’s child? Where is your triumph?

Gone, in the night. I have awakened, alone and afraid.

Afraid?

Afraid, fearless one. You are free.

She whispered his name, and it fell without answer in the still night. She rose, mounted the green-winged Dragon. She rode high with him through the star-flecked night, high above the war fires of Sirle, of Mondor, to a high mountain and a white hall of silence, where she loosed the Dragon forever from her. She went into the doors of Myk’s cold, empty house and locked them behind her.