The Black Beast (3 page)

“Then the dragon turned from Aftalun and made a circle of himself around Eala, with his tail in his white-fanged mouth, and he began to bring forth young. For his being was not like our life, where male and female must meet, but his tail met his mouth and young sprang forth. Tiny dragons scattered forth, flying dragons and swimming dragons and crawling dragons, of every color and shimmer of brightness, fiery dragons and dragons cold as the ancient waters. But as the dragon spawned, Aftalun climbed upon him and bent his head beneath the water and broke his neck. Then the dragon grew still, and Eala the swan who floated within the circle of his body changed once again to the form of the maiden goddess.

“‘Now,' she said, lying at ease, ‘I have my bed.' And Aftalun came to her there.

“Then she who is Vieyra and Adalis and Suevi and many more took one more form and became Vale. She lies upon the water and mothers forth life from her body, as the dragon did. It is on her bosom that we dwell. The waters rise from her headlands, from the many springs of Eidden Lei in the north, and the waters traverse her, growing ever greater, until they return once more to the flood that is under the land. Through the Deep of Adalis far to the south they tumble. The waters roar down into the earth beyond sight or fathoming, and the mountains loom above.

“For the dragon still surrounds Vale. His jagged backbone circles our land. To the north folk call it Lorc Dahak, the Dragon Mountains, for it is rumored that the spawn of the great worm live there yet. And to the south men say Lorc Tutosel, the mountains of the night bird. To the east, where the thunderheads grow, the mountains are called the Perin Tyr, the King's Range. And to the west they are called Lorc Acheron, and what that means folk will not say.” Grandfather paused, and we all looked up at the sharp, dark forms that cut into the sky far above.

“The goddess mothered forth many things in those beginning days,” he went on, “creatures and plants in all colors of the dragon and the deep. But it was Aftalun who set them in order upon the surface of Vale. He put the sky back in place and constrained the sun to move with the days and seasons. When the goddess brought forth men of male and female kinds, Aftalun became one with us and gave us fire, and grain, and the mastership of cattle and horses, and showed us the workings of forge and loom. He formed us into the five kingdoms of Vale that stand to this day, taking form from the fivefold lotus of Vieyra, with Melior as the jewel at its heart, the throne richest and highest in esteem. Four cantons surround it, spreading like the petals of the flower. To the north lies Eidden, where Oorossy now rules, and to the south Selt, where Sethym holds sway, and to the east Tiela, the holding of Raz, and to the west Vaire, where Fabron is called king.”

“He who was our father's smith?” I interrupted. I always wanted to hear more about this man, and I felt sure that Daymon could tell me some secret if only he would. Smiths were important persons, and theirs was a magical craft of great renown. Sometimes smiths sat at a king's right hand. But that a smith should become a king himself was a marvel.

“Yes, to be sure,” said Daymon, with merely a glance at Tirell. “Aftalun raised the castle upon the bosom of Adalis with rock white as swan's down, red as blood of dragons. And finally, when all was set in place, the goddess came to him in the form of a bride of mortal kind, as she comes to the Sacred Kings even now. And Aftalun wed her once more, and she bore him a son. And he sat on the throne of Melior and ruled Vale. For years he ruled, and the seasons passed smoothly, until his children were grown and discontent began to gnaw at him.

“‘You are still immortal, for you take many forms, and this is only one of them,' Aftalun complained to his queen. ‘But I am only myself, a mortal now, and I must die when my time comes. It is not fair.'

“‘You do not wish to fly and cry with the north wind?' the goddess teased.

“‘Indeed I do not,' said Aftalun. ‘Not as moth or dove, hawk, or even an eagle. Even if those punishing Luoni of yours keep their claws away from me, as they ought, since all my life I have labored for the well-being of Vale.'

“‘Be a griffin, and fly with them,' she suggested with a hard smile.

“‘No,' he said quietly, ‘only a swan will I be, to fly with the flocks of Ascalonia. I have known immortality, and I want it back.'

“‘You must secure it by your death,' she said, and she detailed to him the sacrifice of blood she demanded. Listening to her, he filled up with cold rage, to the brim of reason and far beyond.

“‘You are heartless!' he breathed when she had finished.

“‘If you do that,' she told him coolly, ‘you will regain your godhead.'

“He could not deny the dare in her eyes, even though he knew he doomed his own sons to follow the precedent. ‘All right, I will!' he cried, and rose to face her with flashing eyes. ‘But I tell you this, woman: in times to come my sons will bring your daughters to die on that same altar, and not by the knives of your harpies—but by their own fair, white hands.'

“‘Nonsense,' she said frostily. ‘The goddess weds and remains. It is only men who come and go like mayflies.'

“‘The wheel turns,' said Aftalun with a look locked on rage. Then he went to prepare his doom. With his own great hands he raised the altar upon this Hill of Vision, chiseled the stones from the dragon's teeth, folk say. Now twenty men could not move one of the slabs. How the Sacred Kings have dwindled since those days.”

Tirell and I glanced at each other, smiling, for we knew that Grandfather was baiting us. But he went on without a sign that he had noticed.

“He lay down and let himself be tied to the altar and died under the knives of the priestesses, lay there a night with his blood drying on the stones. Then he stirred, burst his bonds, rose and left the altar in one great leap. He stalked off to the mountains in the east, the King's Range, thus called in his honor. The Luoni made way for him, folk say, and some claim that he lives there yet. He was never seen again, but to this day the tallest mountain, that towers over Coire Adalis, is called Aftalun, the Hero, in his name.”

“A peculiar sort of hero,” Tirell growled, “who left a bloody altar as his legacy.” True enough, but he had never said so before. Somehow, listening to the story, I found that even the altar seemed beautiful.

“Perhaps he thought you could all bounce off it as he did,” Daymon remarked. “Kings earned their immortality at a great rate in the early days, if lore tells true. The Sacred King was needed only long enough to lie with the goddess and get her with child; he was slain on his wedding night. But the observance soon eased. The span of kingship was lengthened to a year, and later to seven years, and still later to an even twenty years. Wives follow their husbands to that grim end now, as Aftalun foretold, for custom decrees that they should slay themselves in sorrow. And folk complain that, so gentle have the priestesses become, the souls of the Kings fly away, these days, as mere hawks.”

“I'll be a moth, and gladly,” Tirell snapped. I looked at him worriedly. We had heard the tale many times, and it had never bothered him so.

“For the matter of that,” Daymon told him, “you're likely to make your own legend, to be laid like a fate on some poor heir of yours many years hence.”

“I plan to make an end of that altar,” he said quietly. Perhaps he expected consternation, but Grandfather only nodded.

“It was raised in hatred and it has been fed with envy. Men say that crops and prosperity depend on the sacrifice of a Sacred King, but better truth would be that the many hope to place their own suffering on the body of one. I agree with you wholly, Grandson. Yet, within the verity of the story, I say: no man has been as great as Aftalun who was god and became god again.” He bent a keen gaze on Tirell. “Can you understand that?”

Tirell did not answer. I stirred and spoke in his place. “Grandfather,” I asked abruptly, “what lies beyond the mountains?”

My old nurse would have said, “Fear, only fear!” and shut her mouth with a snap. But Grandfather replied mildly, “Why, the endless water, Frain, if the legends be true.”

“Some folk say differently. Have you ever seen, Grandfather?”

“No. I cannot see beyond the mountains. I know folk claim to have seen dragons to the north, bright shapes flying over the white-crested mountains in early sunlight. And to the south men speak of a great expanse of dry and lifeless sand. To the east, some say, there are storm serpents and thunder giants, a savage race with claws and tails like animals. But fear speaks in all those tales, and truth may not be in them. Men have gone to the mountains from time to time—heroes, on a dare—but none have returned in my lifetime.”

“And to the west?” Tirell prompted, to my surprise.

“There, I think, is fear.” We all looked up at the jagged hulks that loomed over us.

“Though I had a dream, once, that Ogygia lay to the west,” Daymon added. “And it was no sky realm, but lay on the water, amid vast water, and there were people riding on the surface of the water in vessels called boats.”

Ogygia was another name for Ascalonia, the realm of the gods. But boats! It was a word I did not then know the meaning of. We had no boats in Vale, and no water broader than one could throw a stone across.

“But even that is fearsome,” Grandfather mused. “Why, I wonder, when a little water is a blessing, does a world of water become a nightmare of terror? Still, it is so.”

“The main fear must lie closer at hand. Who built this wall?” It was Tirell again, he who usually sat silent. Grandfather turned slowly to face him with expressionless eyes.

“I don't know. But you are right. There are fell folk on the other side. I hear them sometimes, living here. Theirs are awesome voices.” He did not shudder, as another man might; he needed no such devices to impress us. We knew he never spoke more than he meant.

“Voices of what? Men?” Tirell demanded, but Daymon shook his head. He had said all that he would.

We ate our noonday meal in silence. It was bread and cheese and such simple stuff as the peasants brought Grandfather in thanks for his help. I liked it better than our fancy fare at home. After we had finished, Grandfather spoke to us, casually enough.

“So, lads, what is your trouble?”

I guess I gaped, but Tirell retorted coolly enough, “Trouble? I was aware of none.”

“When a man is troubled, always he will turn to examine his roots. Tell me, Tirell—” Grandfather's eyes grew suddenly as sharp as swords. “Why has your father not yet been killed? His twenty years are gone, and there has been drought in the land these two summers past.”

Tirell barked out a laugh. “Killed? Because he would take some killing, that is why! He has an army waiting for those who would come to slay him.”

“Even so. But it was not always thus. In past times the Sacred Kings walked tamely to their slaughter. Abas is not one of those. Though he is mad and cruel, he is also clever and bold and proud—it is for that, I think, that my daughter cleaves to him. He is not one to let harm come to himself or his sons.” Grandfather turned his piercing eyes to me. “You fear too much for Tirell, Frain. There is no need yet to flee beyond the mountains.”

“It can scarcely be said that our father loves us,” I mumbled resentfully.

“Who is to measure the love hidden beneath his hatred? But his pride will serve to preserve you two. Turn elsewhere for love.” The old man rose stiffly to his feet, our signal that the visit was ended. “Go with all blessing,” he said.

So we went, up the bare grassy Hill and past the altar and the glares of the priestesses and down the slope to the shade of the sacred grove. But I for one was not feeling particularly blessed.

Chapter Two

“Let us go”—Tirell broke silence—“and visit Mylitta, since you wish to see her.” He was quiet, his bearing as quiet as I had ever seen it, and his face unreadable.

So we turned aside from the track and rode northward into the grove that ringed the Hill. The trees stretched straight and tall; it seemed that the sunlight never quite reached the soft soil beneath them, and there was no young growth. There was scarcely a noise, even of birds, in the greenish twilight between those trunks. I kept looking about me nervously.

“She lives where the grove meets the river,” Tirell said, his voice sounding much too loud in that stillness. “It is a little place, a few fields, quite by itself. I have never come at it from this direction, but—”

I screamed and flung up my hands. A black shape was hurtling at us from the gloom beneath the trees, a shape of no creature that I had ever seen. It looked like a horse, but a grotesque horse with flaring nostrils and pale, flashing eyes. Black feathered wings rose from its shoulders, and from its forehead jutted a horn like a black dagger. And the noise! Thunder drumming and wind whipping in those wings—Tirell was in the lead, and the thing was on him before he could do more than stare. His white mare shied and bolted, throwing him to the ground. He lay there, winded, and the black beast reared above him, beating those monstrous wings.

I had stayed on my horse somehow, but it wouldn't obey me. So I sprang down and ran forward, yelling like an idiot and waving my fists; I was half mad with fear for Tirell. The weird horselike thing threw me a glance of utter, withering scorn and struck me with a wingtip; even that slight blow was enough to send me sprawling. Then it turned and leaped away. It was gone as suddenly as it had come, and the thunder sound of its hooves faded away. Tirell and I sat on the dirt, staring at each other and gulping for breath.

“Are you all right?” he exclaimed.

“You should ask!” I retorted. “Can you get up?”

We both struggled to our feet and discovered that we were not hurt. I tried to brush the loam off of Tirell's fine blue cloak. “That was quite a fright you gave the thing, brother,” he remarked. He was often ironical. I ignored him.