The Black Beast by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    â€œCome 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.
    â€œCome 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.
    â€œGrieved!” Tirell barked. “I am a prince, not an old woman, that I should sit in a pool of tears!” He turned angrily away.
    â€œThe beast is behind you!” I warned.
    â€œGood!” he retorted harshly. “Let us ride.”
    â€œEat 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