The Black Beast (21 page)

“We are truly of one flesh,” I muttered. “He is my ancestor—”

“He is in you, as you have long known.”

I shifted my position with a sigh, feeling less afraid of the brown man now. “What then?” I asked. Frain lay sleeping, Grandfather sat back with half-hooded eyes, Fabron listened with open fascination.

“Tyr charged at his brothers, intent on killing them, bugling, baleful, fire-eyed. They escaped him for the time in the crowd. Aymar took Evi as his shield, a coward's act. The two brothers got to their horses and fled back to the castle, taking the woman with them.

“The beast stationed itself before the gates of Melior, never moving, never even trying its wings, and no one dared to come near it. Aymar and Aidan were trapped within their walls. After a month of this Aymar went quite mad and hanged himself in his tower room. A few months later Aidan reached the last stages of desperation. He armored himself and went out to face the thing he feared. He stood bravely, struck at the beast and broke its wing, but he was slain. The beast went away toward the west, and men forgot it as quickly as they could.

“After the proper length of time Tyr's son was born to Evi. Torvell was his name. The boy grew to the age of twenty years, when he was required to go to the goddess and the altar in his turn. He took his bride in obedience to the priestesses, and as he was being led to the Hill of Vision his father came to him, thus giving him the only gift he could—the black madness that takes all pain away. Torvell went up as an eagle.… And such has been the grim gift of Tyr to many of his descendants, even in these latter days, when the demands of the goddess have gentled.”

The tale was done. I took a few breaths and then turned to Grandfather. “Why did you never tell me?” I demanded.

“I never knew. The history of the beast is one that men have taken care to forget, like that of Acheron.” Grandfather blinked at the brown man in a sort of professional appraisal. “You must be very old.”

“Does he—does the beast remember?” I whispered.

“I think not in any clear sense—though it embodies much of what is human. It has sheltered here often over the years—and by knowing it, Tirell, I have known you.” The brown man bent his golden gaze on me. “But if I fight for you, it will be in large measure for Tyr.”

I got up and bolted toward the door. I could not stand the touch of those wise eyes. But Fabron got ahold of me. “Tirell, no!” he cried. “It is black night and blinding snow out there—you'll be lost for very sure.”

“I am only going over to the bam to see the beast,” I mumbled.

But the beast nosed his way in through the blanket as if he had heard me call. So I had no excuse to leave. I settled in the most shadowy corner of the hut, holding fast to the beast as if the creature were my talisman, hiding my face against his crest I was more afraid then ever, for I had felt that tug again, and I had sensed the name of it. It was called love, and it was the same force that Abas was using to try to lure me back to Melior.

It was still snowing in the morning. I spent the day grinding grain into flour between two rocks, working so furiously that the powder smoked and toasted on the stone. The hard labor eased my feelings somewhat. Fabron watched me and whistled. “Such fervor!” he exclaimed, not expecting an answer. “Well, better thee than me, Tirell.”

He helped me with the cooking. We had milk and eggs. We used some of each to make my flour into a kind of paste that we wrapped around sticks and held over the fire. The lumps came out black on the outside and gummy on the inside. Still, Frain ate the stuff ravenously, and Grandfather put down a fair amount. His disposition seemed to have bettered since Frain's strength had improved. We offered our so-called bread to our host, but the brown man did not bother with it. He crunched raw grain between his strong yellow teeth.

It snowed for three days. The brown man would go out to care for his animals in his bare, shaggy, black-nailed feet, leaving wrenchingly human footprints in the snow. He would bring us water in a jug. He seemed to find his way through the white dither of snow by instinct, like an animal, trudging off into the directionless storm and returning before we had much chance to worry. Perhaps he could scent the water. It came from a stream; I could tell that as soon as I looked at it. Those deathly swimming things were in it, with spook lights in their shrunken hands. They looked straight at me in the close quarters of the hut, and I recoiled in shock.

“What queer creatures you mortals are,” the brown man sighed. “Frightened of fresh water, frightened of mountains and whispering trees, frightened of night and shadows …” His gaze shifted to Fabron. “Frightened of truth.…”

“Don't you see them in there?” I demanded.

“Of course. They are what gives the water strength, and so you. Death is the seed of life. Everything you eat is dead, Tirell.”

“I don't see a thing,” Frain said, puzzled.

I wouldn't drink the stream water. I melted snow in a pan for myself; there are no dead things in such lifeless water. But the jug haunted me—that, and the brown man's kindness. Long before the storm abated I took to pacing the beehive house in unrest, nearly frantic to be gone. Finally, as suddenly as it had begun, the snow stopped and began just as quickly to melt. It was spring, after all. Green buds showed above the white ground.

I boiled eggs for our journey and made more of my awful bread. As I cooked the brown man tried to talk to me.

“You are not so very different from me,” he said. “Part beast, as we have said, and also part immortal, being a descendant of Aftalun.”

“He did not frighten me,” I muttered.

“He and Shamarra are of Ogygian kind, sky gods. But I am of earth, as was the maiden you loved.”

“Don't speak of her!” Spasms of pain rippled through me; I had to clench myself like a fist to keep from blubbering. “Abas will be sorry he did not slay me as well,” I said finally, angry because of the pain and the fear.

“He has no desire to slay you. Every day he seeks you earnestly.”

I barked out a laugh. “He would kill me cheerfully enough if he had me in his reach! He would kill his own mother if the mood took him. Anyone who knows him knows that. Ask Frain what Abas is capable of doing.”

“Frain sees the most clearly of you all, in his youthful way,” the brown man agreed, speaking very softly, for Frain stood just outside the door. “But in this one regard he falls short of truth. He believes himself to be Abas's son, but he has known no fatherhood from him. Therefore he thinks you stand in the same peril as himself.”

Angered the more because the brown man seemed to know all our secrets, I could not answer. “Why are you so enmired in rage and hatred, Prince?” he asked me. “You will make fit food for the Luoni.”

“Sisters of yours?” I inquired acidly.

“In their way, as Mylitta was in hers. Yes.”

The name pierced me like a fiery lance. I sprang up and lunged at him, straight through the flames, scattering cooking gear and cursing. I can't tell what I might have done to him—though, he being what he was, I believe I could not have hurt him much. But Frain hurried in and came between us. My rage always seemed to reach him somehow.

“If only she had not been killed,” the brown man mused as if I had not moved, “all would have been well for you, Tirell. Now I can't see what is to become of you, and neither can Daymon Cein.”

Frain reached out toward me. I was all in tumult; I suppose if I had let him touch me I might have wept, and perhaps that would have saved me from much sorrow later. But I turned away from him as if he were made of white-hot iron and ran outside, into the wilderness. I did not rejoin the others until they had gone a day's journey toward Qiturel.

Chapter Four

I was fit only for the company of catamounts from that time on until Melior. Perhaps I did not always act it—I hope I did not—but I felt it, fear driving me wild inside, the brown man's remembered touch and Grandfather's old head bobbing along at my shoulder—if only he would walk faster!—and Fabron and Frain—all I had wanted were followers, and I had found friends, confound it. Love distressed me; clashing with my rage, it kept up a constant foam and splatter in my mind. And there was Abas still calling—damn Abas!—and I knew I did not dare to answer. We were afoot, helpless; his Boda could have caught us like insects in a moment if they had known where we were. So I could vent none of my spleen on Abas. I wanted only to be finished with my hatred, have my business done, settled—but Grandfather crept along.

And there were all the streams in the way. Eidden is full of them. Eidden Lei—Eidden Hills, the name means. They are covered with pine forest, and the streams run down between. Some of them stretch all the way back to the mountains.

“We are
never
going to get to Qiturel,” Frain complained, “if we must pussyfoot up and down every trickle until we find a bridge. Ford them, for mercy's sake!” He was impatient, as tired of the journey as I was.

“You've grown bold in your old age, lad,” Grandfather remarked frostily, staring at him, and he subsided. But he repeated the argument at every rivulet we met.

I would not go near the streams, in spite of all Frain's urgings. I could see the swimming things in them, waiting to touch me with their cold fingers. I would not even drink the stream water Frain dipped for me. I would find myself a well or go thirsty. But one day, when we came to a particularly broad but shallow stream and started up it toward the mountains again, Frain lost his temper.

“Mother of Aftalun!” he shouted fiercely, and splashed in until he was wet to the boottops. He stood with water running about his ankles, hands on hips and glaring at us. “Am I being eaten alive?” He lifted each foot fastidiously. “Pulled down? Carried away?” I still remember the sweet daring of him, standing there, but at the time I was speechless with wrath and fear.

“Come on!” he challenged us. “Tirell, you pugnacious coward—”

I found my voice. “Frain, I'll thrash you for that!” I roared.

“Come and get me,” he said, grinning, and threw a handful of water at me.

I went in after him, of course, blind as a charging bull, and found myself on the other side before I knew it. He had led me there, the rogue. I stood on the bank, shocked and panting, and he went back for Grandfather.

“Do you want me to carry you?”

“Great goddess, no!” Grandfather glared at him and picked his way across, leaning on his staff and with Frain's hand at his elbow, however he attempted to shake it off. Fabron followed the pair of them, sweating a little and staring straight ahead. The beast nickered angrily and plunged across. And there we all were.

“Now,” said Frain smugly, “can we be getting on?”

So after that we waded across the shallow streams. But the time saved did not improve my temper—Eala, no! I felt everything rising to a peak in me, felt myself drawing nearer and nearer to what frightened me, or being drawn, being driven, and fear and rage walked with me. I had come through darkness, spoken with dragons, walked in water—I would not have been able to touch it a few months before. But every step caused me fresh terror.

The journey wore on. The brassy sun beat down every day. There was no escaping the promise of drought, even there in shady Eidden, the brown man's country, where the silver mists rose in the morning and the rolling ranks of hills broke through—I loved them. Bah! Love! Something was trying to heal me. It was healing Grandfather.

“It's coming back, Tirell! It's starting to come back!” he whispered to me excitedly one morning a few weeks after we had left the brown man.

“What is coming?” I growled, though I already knew.

“The sureness, the sight!”

I thought as much. I had seen it growing in him days before he spoke. The rest of him had not changed much, but his eyes had gotten younger. “Why, what do you see?” I asked.

He grimaced. “Only those dearest to me. I can feel Frain's presence there beyond the alders.” Frain went off by himself more and more those days. I shrugged. I had known where Frain was too, if only because the black beast with its animal senses knew.

“And,” Grandfather added, “the presence of your mother in Melior.”

So she was yet alive. More love to harrow my heart.

Our pace hastened a bit. Grandfather's step was growing stronger, and it continued to strengthen all the way to Qiturel. We arrived at last in the heat of early summer and were admitted by a suspicious gatekeeper. He would not let us in the keep, but he went off to get Oorossy, shaking his head. We must have looked like beggars. Well, in a Way we were.

To my surprise I saw an old acquaintance nearby—my faithful black steed! The horse was tied outside the stable, as if he had been making trouble. I went over and stroked him, and he eyed me sourly. There were no manners in that horse, but he would carry a rider till he dropped.

“Yours, Prince Tirell?” asked Oorossy, coming out to greet us.

“He used to be. How strange that he has come to you!” Not strange, really. The steed was big and powerful, a war horse, so he would naturally be sold to a lord's stable. I wondered what had become of the other two. We never found out.

“No, he's yours,” Oorossy declared, adding a curse or two. “The big, hammer-headed, foul-tempered, graceless plug! Take him and welcome! Fabron, Prince Frain, you're welcome.” He clapped Fabron heartily on the shoulder. “Choose mounts for yourselves. It is not seemly for royalty to go afoot. Daymon Cein, I am at your service. What may I get you?”

“A drink of water,” Grandfather snapped.

He took us inside to have wine instead. I found, to my dismay, that I liked Oorossy. He made a proper shrewd, rough and roaring canton king. He fed us well and couched us well and found us fresh clothes in the morning. After breakfast we held council and I told the tale of our wanderings. We had virtually disappeared for the past six months, and not even Abas seemed to know where we were. Oorossy said that all of Vale was in ferment with wondering what had become of me. The time was good for challenging Abas. His forces were divided between three places: Vaire, where he laid siege to Ky-Nule, and the Wall, and Melior. The people were murmuring, foreseeing yet another season of drought. Only the lack of an heir to the altar prevented insurrection.