The Black Beast by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online

the black beast. “What now?” I called to him.
    He did not answer, so I sighed and sent the white laboring after him. We galloped out of the sacred grove and up the Hill of Vision, up to where the White Rock of Eala stood gleaming like bleached bones in the starlight. Tirell rode headlong under it. I went around.
    â€œAre you going to Grandfather?” I shouted.
    He did not answer. He urged his horse recklessly down the Hill, and I followed more slowly. I was not afraid of losing him any longer, for the Wall blocked his path. Presently I saw a speck of light. Daymon Cein was awake in his hut, it seemed. I rode up to find Tirell standing and studying the Wall. Grandfather came out in an old white nightgown, carrying a rushlight in his hand.
    â€œSo, lads,” he said quietly, “the trouble has come.”
    Tirell turned slowly and stared at him, a fey, perilous stare, almost threatening. “Had you seen that she would be killed?”
    â€œNo, lad, I am sorry.” Grandfather’s voice was full of pity. “I saw your love and rejoiced in it, but the King’s thoughts and actions are hidden even from himself. Only lately his fell deed has awakened me from my sleep.”
    Tirell stared at him a while longer, then shifted his cyan gaze to me. “Go back,” he said flatly.
    â€œTo our gentle father?” I chided. “He would kill me sooner than greet me. Thank you, but no. I am going with you.”
    â€œI want no company where I go,” Tirell said. His face was set in a white mask with his eyes burning through it like cold blue flame. I had known his anger many times, anger that passed like storm clouds before a high wind. But I had never seen such a locked and tortured rage in him. I shivered, facing him. It was as if my brother had become a stranger to me, or perhaps someone whom I knew all too well.
    â€œWhere are you going?” I asked.
    â€œTo Acheron. To my death, if death pleases to take me. I am done with Vale.”
    I felt my hair prickle. “The Wall will not let you pass,” I said, a little too quickly.
    â€œAh, but it will.” Tirell turned back to Daymon. “Will it not, Grandfather?”
    â€œIt might,” Grandfather replied, almost serenely. “But it has been prophesied that when this wall is breached the doom of Melior will be at hand.”
    â€œBetter yet,” Tirell snapped. “Do it.”
    â€œWait a bit. Even in Acheron you will need some provisions.” Daymon went into his hut, and I hurried after him.
    â€œGrandfather,” I whispered, “what is going on? Are you both mad?”
    â€œPerhaps,” the old man acceded. “But where is he to go? Back toward Melior? He will be taken before he tops the Hill. At least the Boda will not follow him into Acheron.”
    â€œBut Tirell is not fleeing for life!” I cried. “Did you not hear him welcome death?”
    â€œHis rage speaks. But life is not so easily thwarted. Wait and see if he does not live yet a while. May peace come to you, lad. Both of you.” He handed me a packet of cheese and bread and strode back outside with me tagging after. “Hold the horses,” he added.
    I got them by the reins and stood stupidly, waiting—for what, I didn’t know. Grandfather wandered over to a spot by his yew tree and slowly extended his arms. He spoke no word that I could hear, but power flowed through him until he seemed as big as the night. His arms quivered, and the stones of the Wall quivered along with him, then rumbled and fell from their places with a noise fit to waken the dragons in the deep. Grandfather lowered his arms by degrees, looking once again stiff and old. Tirell walked over and methodically began to clear a path through the rubble.
    Dazed as I was by the events of the night, it did not occur to me that we had put Grandfather in péril. Just as it had never occurred to me to wonder why he lived so much alone,