The Black Beast (6 page)

“But what of the other, the russet-haired one? They both wear torques.”

“Speak no more of that,” said the deeper voice. “He is not suitable to our purposes or the beast's. Torque or no torque, we shall not touch him unless the lady gives us leave. Look, even now he stirs. Hush!”

I was straining to sit, to wake and look more fully around me. But the gray moss softly brushed my face, and I remember no more until morning. When I awoke the sun was high, but Tirell was still asleep. The beast lay quietly curled in the moss beside him, with its horned head resting on its hard shining hooves.

I stared at the beast for a while, and it stared back without sign or motion. Its eyes were of a flat, threatening gray, like storm clouds, and a bloodshot white rim showed all around. They did not blink even when I moved to Tirell's side. Warily ignoring the beast, I shook my brother.

“Come on, sluggard,” I called, as cheerily as I could. “Wake up!”

Tirell roused reluctantly and gazed at me with blank eyes. Then memory struck him, and he groaned under the blow. He covered his face with his hands.

“Come here, brother,” I said softly, holding him. “Weep it out.” But instantly he spurned the embrace and rose to his feet.

I rose also to face him. “Have you grieved for her?” I asked, as gently as I could.

“Grieved!” Tirell barked. “I am a prince, not an old woman, that I should sit in a pool of tears!” He turned angrily away.

“The beast is behind you!” I warned.

“Good!” he retorted harshly. “Let us ride.”

“Eat first.” I offered him bread and cheese. But he would not eat, so I chewed on my portion as we rode. The land grew steeper and steeper that day, until the horses scarcely could manage the slope. Gradually rock began to show beneath the moss, the trees grew more sparse, until they ceased altogether and we picked our way between soaring rocky cliffs. After a while it seemed to us that the horses could go no farther. We stopped, though we said no word. But the black beast swept past us and took a twisting path up a slope as steep as a precipice. Tirell followed at once, and I more slowly, clenching my teeth. It gave me no comfort that the black creature of ill omen had become our leader.

By day's end we had reached a narrow ledge below crags that seemed to shut out the sky with the sun. The beast trotted along at a speed I did not dare to match. “What does it care! It has wings!” I muttered to no listener, for Tirell seemed oblivious to talk or fear. I was falling behind the pair of them, the black beast and the black-clad prince, when the ledge suddenly became a narrow passageway between great slabs of rock. In the tiny slit of sky far above I could see stars twinkling, though it was not yet night. Anxiously I cantered after the others, then stared past them. Space showed at the end of the corridor: a clearing or a cliff?

It was a clearing. Even Tirell stopped to stare when we entered. We had found the heart of Acheron.

Soft gray-green grass spread beneath the horses' feet. The lawn sloped gently to a still, oval expanse of water beneath a dim dome of sky and shadowed by mountains all around. It was a lake, but not like the little pools I had known; it was large, clear, and fathomless, like a single eye of the ancient deep. A swan floated on it, a white swan, but I blinked; the reflection was black. In the midst of the mirrorlike water, on a sort of island, stood a curious greenery in the shape of a castle all made of living, rustling foliage. We stared for long moments in the failing light before we could be sure of what we saw.

Slowly we rode along the margin of the lake, staring at that castle like peasants come to court. Presently we found a little bridge of land that connected the island to the shore. So we approached the castle, still staring. It was all made of huge trees and twining vines, gigantic things that must have fed on the very blood of the dragon. Their leaves were of a peculiar silvery green, shimmering like silk, giving off muted flakes of light, even though there was not a breath of breeze in that place. Between the leaves were window slots and parapets and balconies, all as neat as if a builder had planned them. We rode around the living walls to the gap that should have been a gate and entered. We left our horses in the soft, grassy space that served for courtyard and walked into the green great hall.

The structure of the castle soared above us; thick branches that spiraled into steps offered to take us to the very top of it, if we liked. Steps of turf led up to a vast dais. On the dais stood a sort of pavilion, a tent, in cloth of bright, soft gold. And at the doorway of the tent sat a lady. She rose as we walked up to her, and I felt my heart stop at the sight of her; I could not speak. But she looked only at Tirell.

She was slender, fair of skin, and with a face so delicately wrought, so eerily beautiful that it seemed to shine with its own whisper of light, like an echo of moonlight. Long hair of palest gold flowed over her back and shoulders. Her gown was silver that did not shine; in lustered like moonlight, like the other soft things in this place. I hope I did not gape, but I felt as if my legs would not hold me. And I shall never forget the sound of her voice as she spoke; it was soft and cool and clean and lovely, fearsome and yielding at the same time. I could have drowned in her voice.

“I am Shamarra, the lady of this lake,” she said, “and you are Tirell of Melior. What do you seek here?”

“Death!” Tirell said, and I winced. His voice sounded terribly harsh in this still place. But the maiden's face did not change.

“Death?” she said politely. “To be sure, there is death to be had here aplenty. Look around you!”

Tirell did not look around; he stared at the shimmering maiden. She walked up to him. “There are the trees,” she explained to him, “very tall, easy to climb and jump from. And then there is the lake. Indeed, the lake is a very font of death. Take some!”

I certainly must have gaped then; she was taunting him! Yet her voice sounded liquid and sweet, and I saw no malice in her look. She faced him scarcely a foot away, meeting his hard, glittering blue eyes with hers that were the color of sparkling water.

“Death!” she mused more quietly. “You have ridden past death all the way here! What could be easier than to go over a precipice? No, my lord, death is too puny a foe. Have you no worthier adversary?”

Tirell stirred as if coming out of a trance. “Abas!” he muttered.

“Vengeance,” said the lady softly, her voice like the summons of a distant trumpet call.

“Vengeance on him who slew my lady!” Tirell said hoarsely. “What have I been thinking of, to let him live after me!” Blindly he turned and started out of the verdant castle, but the lady touched his arm and he stopped where he stood.

“You are a prince,” she exhorted him. “Plan, bide your time, make sure your stroke. And before you plan, eat and sleep. I will show you where.”

Tirell let out a long breath. “Even so, Lady,” he mumbled. “I follow.”

She led us into her pavilion and welcomed us as honored guests. Within the tent of golden cloth we found every comfort, luxury even, that we could ever desire. Richly patterned cushions covered most of the floor, and a woolen carpet showed beneath. Basins of warm water awaited us, for washing, and fine linen towels. Candles stood burning clearly on tiny carved tables. Braziers glowed, each heating a different delicacy. It should have taken many servants to prepare all that met us, but besides Shamarra I did not see a being in the place.

Tirell sat down in a weary daze, lost to all courtesy as the lady served him fine white bread and amber liquor. She gave me the same, and my hand trembled as I took the cup for fear lest my fingers brush against hers and I lose all composure. I was on fire inside. I could eat only a little. Tirell did the same, then lay back against his cushions and slept. My face burned at his uncouthness.

“He is worn out with sorrow.” I spoke at last to excuse him.

The lady was looking at Tirell, and she scarcely glanced at me when I spoke, though she answered gently enough. “I know it. Never fear—I am not angry. Have you eaten well?”

“Marvelously well.” I chewed on some strange red-gold fruit, hoping to please her by eating. Presently I spoke again, hesitantly. “My lady—”

“Yes?”

“You'll think me bold—but is it wise, this baiting of him against Abas?”

She met my eyes then, though briefly, and her glance was not unkind. “It gives him reason to live,” she said. She turned her gaze back to Tirell's sleeping form. “Perhaps it will not be too long before better reason comes to him.”

She watched Tirell sleep, as I had sometimes watched him when chance offered; it was a rare sight, had she but known it. When Tirell sleeps, his proud, mettlesome face smooths out into the likeness of a young immortal, fair and free, unfettered by bitterness or scorn. Such an aspect was on him in Shamarra's pavilion, and she sat and gazed at him in long silence, seeming quite unaware or unconcerned that I gazed at her in like wise. I wanted never to stop looking at her, and I don't know when I did. I believe I fell asleep with her image in my eyes.

In the morning I awoke early, before Tirell, feeling as fresh as if I had rested for a week. Eagerly I made my way out of the pavilion and out of the leafy castle to look around me. Though the sun was up, everything still lay in shadow, for high ramparts of rock rose all around the lake and its grassy margin. Shamarra was bathing in the lake, her golden hair floating out behind her. She lifted her arm lazily in greeting and walked toward me, pulling her glistening garment about her. I watched her until courtesy compelled me to shift my eyes. When she neared me I was looking at the willows.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked politely.

“Indeed, yes, very well.” My mind floundered foolishly for something to say to her. “Might I also bathe in the lake?” I blurted. I, who had never bathed in anything except tubs of lifeless water brought from wells by slaves! I have never had much sense where Shamarra was concerned.

“I don't know,” she answered soberly. “Go and look.”

So I went and knelt by the verge, expecting something strange. The black lotus of Vieyra grew at the very edge, its four-petaled reflection wavering in the lucent water, white. But only my own freckled face stared back at me. A secretive thing water is, all surface and shimmer, hiding mysterious depths for all that it seems as clear as air. I turned to Shamarra, questioning.

“You are an innocent,” she said. “Nothing in the lake can harm you.”

I grew oddly angry, though there had been no mockery in her voice. “Then I can bathe,” I said.

“To be sure.… But there will be a price to pay.” She walked away.

Her warning rang in me. But I felt suddenly absolutely determined to bathe. It was not just obstinacy—though I admit to some obstinacy—it was … I sensed, however vaguely, that the lake was a key, a magical means that might make me more like her. I loved her already; I wanted to bathe where she had bathed.

I stripped and stepped in at once. Nothing untoward happened, and nothing marvelous either. I liked the feel of the water on my skin—smooth, tingling, moving over me like a thousand cool fingers. By the time I was done, the sunlight had worked its way down the rocky western mountains that towered just beyond Shamarra's domain. I stood on the grass, dripping and admiring those glowing heights. I gazed until footsteps sounded and Tirell walked up to me.

“All hail, handsome prince!” I greeted him lightly. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes,” he said. Then, with his customary cynicism, he added, “Why? Did she drug the mead?”

“No. In the land of death perhaps all men sleep like the dead.” I spoke thoughtlessly, then stiffened and glanced at my brother. But he merely shrugged.

“It is foolishness, all this talk of dying,” he remarked. “The lady spoke truth. I could have thrown myself off a cliff almost any step of the way here.”

“I was miserably aware of that,” I said.

“Would you care?” he asked morosely.

“Of course.”

“Why?” His voice was toneless.

I could not tell what he wanted. And a little demon of anger stirred in me; I was annoyed at the dance he had been leading me. If I had known how rare such speech from him was to become, I would have answered him more gently.

“If you go,” I stated, “then the altar awaits
me.”

I don't know if he was hurt; my eyes were on the mountaintops. I heard him snort.

“What would you do?”

“Flee beyond those peaks yonder,” I answered promptly. “Look at them! Aren't they splendid?”

Tirell looked up at the mighty crags and shrugged. “Our way lies toward Melior,” he said. “Forthwith.”

I took that as the command that was intended and ambled back to the lakeside to get my things. “Look into the water,” I called to Tirell, just as a random thought. But he shuddered and vehemently shook his head.

“Thank you, but no! That lake is the strangest thing in this strange place, and I for one will be glad to leave it. You're mad to let it touch you. There is our hostess.”

Shamarra sat on the grassy verge in front of her palace of greenery. Even in the bright sunlight that now reached it, the lakeside seemed dim and gray, and Shamarra's islet dimmest of all. At rest she seemed soft and still as the grass at her bare feet. But as we approached and she stood to greet us she shimmered and shone. The movement changed her.

Tirell bowed to her. “Lady, I come to take leave of your kindness. My heart burns to be on with the task you have pointed out to me.”

“Vengeance?” Shamarra raised her delicate brows. “But for that task I think you will need a sword, is it not so?”

Tirell felt that he was being mocked; I saw the muscles of his neck harden. “I can find a sword, Lady,” he stated.

“Not such a sword as I will give you. Wait but a moment.”