The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip Read Free Book Online Page A

floors covered with rich furs and walls shimmering with ancient, embroidered tales. Three days later he rode with two men through the crusted snow, dark, small figures like brown withered leaves against the white earth. The wind lay frozen in the ice-sheathed branches; their breaths hung in a white mist before their faces. They rode slowly on the winding path upward from the city. Sybel watched them come from her high place as they moved in and out of the trees. She felt the King’s mind, powerful and restless, like Ter’s mind, filled with the fragment memories of faces, events, with war lust and love, with the cold, black stone of jealousy and the iron core of loneliness and fear like a white, chill, perpetual mist in the corner of his mind. When he neared her, she sent a call to Ter, flying with Tam, to bring him back.
Cyrin brought the message of their coming to her gates. He walked beside her through the snow, his broad back heavily bristled in a silver-white winter cloak.
I saw a man once leap into a pit to see how deep it was , he commented. But no doubt you are wiser.
Sybel shook her head. I am not wise where Tam is concerned.
It is an easy thing to call a man into your house, but not so easy to have him leave.
I know. Do you think I do not know? But Tam wants to see his father.
She opened the gates of her yard and stepped out to meet the three horsemen.
“Are you the wizard woman, Sybel?” the King of Eldwold said to her. He looked down at her from his black horse, his gloved hands resting on its neck. He was dark-cloaked, simply dressed, as were the two men with him, but she looked into his gray, weary eyes with the web of lines beneath them, and at the relentless stillness of his mouth, and the helm of gray hair on his head, and saw only him.
“I am Sybel.”
He was silent a moment, and she could not read the thoughts in his eyes. He dismounted and stood with his reins in his hands, his voice hushed in the great still world.
“Do you know who I am?” he asked curiously. She smiled a little.
“Do you want me to say your name aloud?”
He shook his head quickly. “No.” And then he smiled, too, the lines gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You have a little of—of my first wife in your face. You were kin. You know that, of course.”
“I know. But I know little else of her family—indeed of anyone living off this mountain. I have nothing to do with men’s affairs.”
“But that is difficult for me to believe. You would have great power meddling in men’s affairs, especially in these troubled days. Has no man ever offered you that power?”
“Are you offering it to me? Is that why you have come up the mountain in midwinter?”
He was silent again, his eyes wandering over her. “Do they not consult you, people from the city—buy little spells, favors from you to heal their children or cows, perhaps? Ease a little life out of a rich kinsman? Seduce a weary husband?”
“There is an old woman, Maelga, down the road who does such things for them. Is it her you seek?”
He shook his head. “No. I came—on impulse. To ask one question of you. Have you heard of a boy living on this mountain yet belonging to no one of the mountain? Think carefully. I will pay a great deal for the truth.”
“What is his name? His age?”
“He is twelve years old—thirteen, come spring. As for his name—it could be anything.” He heard shouting suddenly through the trees and turned. Tam and Nyl ran down the mountainside toward them, laughing, awkward in the deep snow. Tam’s light voice came clear across the stillness.
“Nyl! Nyl, wait! I saw riders—”
The King’s eyes moved back to Sybel. “Who are they?”
“Mountain children. They have lived here always“ She spoke absently, seeing Ter pick up speed, fly ahead of Tam in a swift, dark line toward her. He landed abruptly on the King’s shoulder, and she caught his blue eyes and said,
No.
The King stood quietly beneath the heavy talons, his mouth