The Black Beast (7 page)

We waited for more than a moment as she walked through the grassy courtyard and disappeared into the leafy keep. We were bound only by courtesy, and Tirell stirred restlessly under the restraint, but he was well rewarded. Shamarra returned with our horses loaded down with food and gear, and even Tirell stared when she handed him a three-foot sword of iron.

Weapons in Vale were usually made of bronze. We had iron, of course, but it was heavenly metal, scarce and almost as precious as gold. Abas hoarded it in his treasure room and drank from fine cups that Fabron the smith had hammered from the stuff, cups little larger than a baby's fist. A sword of iron was a weapon men would shy from in as much awe as fear. It was a plain, dangerous-looking thing with a somber glint. Shamarra buckled it onto Tirell without comment.

“There is a king's ransom in that,” Tirell remarked softly.

“Use it well,” the lady told him. “It will cut through any bronze. Guard it from thieves, for there is no other like it. Here is the helm.”

The helm and shield were of iron also. I really lost my breath then. They were both bordered in a knotwork design that made my eyes ache with its intricacy. In the center of Tirell's shield, half entangled in reaching twigs, stood the pawing form of a winged horse with a single sharp horn.

“The beast has lived long,” Shamarra said.

My weapons and arms were of bronze, fine bronze embellished with scrollwork, to be sure. The lady handed me a little dagger that was made of iron. Tirell was eager to be off. He mounted the black, and Shamarra frowned gravely up at him.

“Why do you not ride the white,” she asked, “as befits the bridegroom of the goddess?”

Tirell's face hardened and he shook his head. “As long as sorrow for my slain love lives in my heart,” he vowed, “I will wear black and ride a black, and let the black beast follow me if it will! Nor will I ever wed any maiden by name of the goddess, however fair.”

“All things carry the seeds of change,” Shamarra said. “Look yonder.”

She pointed across the lake, past the lone swan that floated white over its twin of black. There on the farther shore stood the black beast looking back at us, its head held high, horn pointing toward the sky. In the still water just below wavered a reflection—an image of white! Fair white were the folded wings and shining flanks, and purest white the horn.

“Remember that,” Shamarra said quietly. “It may yet be of use to you.”

She stood back, and Tirell started away. I came out of a stupor and scrambled onto my horse. “Perhaps we shall meet again?” I asked Shamarra—begging, rather.

She laughed, a rippling sound. “I think we will,” she answered. “Look for me by watery ways.” I urged the white mare after Tirell, and when I had caught up to him I looked back. The black beast was already pacing at my heels. The lady stood by her lake, watching us go. I waved, and she lifted a hand in answer, but already I knew which of us it was that held her gaze, and my heart was sore.

Chapter Five

Tirell was the one who found courage to embrace the beast. Though at the time I did not think of it as courage, but as folly, terrifying folly, maybe madness. I had not yet learned that valiant madness braves the dark and comes through it—that is how Abas failed; he was afraid. And I was afraid of the beast and therefore despised it as somehow misshapen, unclean, in spite of the lady's words and the fair image in the water. The real enemy was myself. I was a far worse fool than Tirell, those first few days, and I was of no help to him.

He rode out of Acheron with a hard, straight back, and now and then he laughed a laugh I did not like. Sunk in my own gloom, I felt little inclined to speak to him. The black beast paced behind me, once again content to bring up the rear—to my dismay. Soon I had other cause for dismay. Tirell rode far too fast for safety on the treacherous slopes, and more than once I closed my eyes.

We spent the night on a ledge scarcely wide enough for the horses, and we slept little. Tirell stirred and muttered on his narrow space of stone. Once or twice I asked what ailed him. He gave no reply, so I asked no more. He rode through the next day in a tense, rigid daze, almost as if he were in pain. I learned much later that Abas had been calling him, tormenting him with the inner voice. I did not know that at the time, and I didn't understand—I still don't understand. I am no visionary, and I cannot imagine what those days were like for him.

By nightfall we found easier footing, praise be, and we camped beneath knobby, gray-fringed trees. I distrusted those trees from our earlier meeting, and I resolved to sleep lightly. Still, I was so exhausted and heartsore that I expect I would have been lost in deepest slumber had it not been for the racket Tirell put up. All night long he thrashed and moaned and whispered and whimpered in his sleep. Any other time I would have gone to him, awakened him, soothed him and talked to him until it passed, whatever mood or dark dream it was. But, whether due to the moss or to my own vexation and weariness, I could not or would not move. I lay dozing and listening to him. “Get away,” he would whimper. “Let me alone.” Finally, just at first light, he seemed to wrench himself out of it and staggered up. I lay drowsily watching him through a veil of eyelash. He looked wild and all asweat, like a frightened colt. Come here, my brother, I thought in my half sleep. I dreamed that I embraced him. Come here, let me comfort you. But he did not so much as glance my way.

The beast lay not far away, at ease in the gray moss. It lifted its head and looked at Tirell out of cloudy eyes, but it did not move or seem to threaten him; the look was flat. Tirell stood returning that gaze, his head up and his lips drawn back in fear or disgust. I thought surely he would move away. Instead, swaying, step by slow step, he walked toward that fell black thing, as if against his will, as if drawn. I willed myself to jump up and save him from that unseen tug, but still I did not move! Then I saw there was no immediate danger. As he approached it, the black beast inclined its dagger horn, sheathed it in earth, a gesture of peace. All the time it kept fixed on him its white-rimmed gaze. Tirell reached it, sank down beside it, and laid his head wearily against its arched and muscular neck.

“Great Eala!” I blurted out loud, startled fully awake at last.

Tirell paid no attention to me; perhaps he had not heard me. His grimace was gone, and I think he sighed. He sat beside the beast through daybreak into sunrise, stroking its neck and sleek black body, even patting its bony head, scratching around its ears and daggerlike horn. That weapon was raised now, but Tirell seemed to have forgotten fear of it. He stroked the folded wings…

His head snapped up. “Frain!” he called to me in peremptory command. “Come here!”

I got up and went at once, automatically, like a well-trained servant. But as I neared the beast reluctance slowed me. Tirell beckoned impatiently. He patted the beast again, then took the left wing in both hands and spread it like the wing of a captive bird. His voice came oddly gentle out of his hard white face. “The creature is crippled,” he said. “Look.”

At the curve of the wing was a great knot where the bone had snapped and crookedly healed. It was easy to see, once I had dared to look, that the wing was useless, except perhaps for frightening peasants and fledgling princes.

“He can never fly on that,” said Tirell in tones of pity.

I stared at the beast, jealous that my brother had turned to the animal for comfort when he would not turn to me, angry at myself for feeling that way. “Come closer,” Tirell urged. “Touch it.” But I still loathed the beast.

“No, thank you,” I retorted, even more sharply than I had expected. “You pat the outlandish thing. Stay there all day if you like.”

Tirell's face went stony, and he dropped the wing. “I don't have all day. Come on.” He rose and went to his horse.

“Why, where do you expect to go?” I cried, still angry. “Will Grandfather tumble Melior for you as he did the Wall?”

He returned no answer, only glared and started away. He set a hard pace that morning, and I stubbornly drove my white to stay close to his heels. Down and down we traveled, down to the lowest slopes of Acheron. By midday we could glimpse the breached Wall through the thinning stand of trees. And there, still within the sheltering wood, we had to halt. An army confronted us!

Facing the forest with the stones of the ruin at their backs stood archers and men-at-arms and the Boda themselves in their scarlet tunics, all ranked three deep and stiffly alert. Beyond them, within their line, I could see tents and chariots and horses and strutting warriors, all the signs of a good-sized encampment. Tirell and I left our horses, crept to the last cover, and gaped.

“But our kingly father must be afraid!” I exclaimed. “Is it you he dreads? Or is it these whispering trees?”

Tirell smiled grimly and gave no reply, staring with narrowed, glittering eyes toward Melior. I continued to survey the soldiers. Some men moved, and beyond them I saw something that bent me like an unexpected buffet.

“Look,” I said. “Grandfather's hut. It's all destroyed.”

The place was shattered like the Wall. Tirell gave no sign of having heard me. But the beast bounded past us and leaped into the open space beyond the sheltering forest, screaming defiance and hatred at Abas's army. Its voice was hoarse and gibbering and wailing all at once, like that of a man whose tongue is taken away; it was an ugly, hurtful sound. I was frozen by that cry, and for their part the warriors only stood and shuddered. They stared stupidly at widespread beating wings, rearing underbelly, and hooves and daggerlike horn. I think every man of them would have run if it had not been for the restraint of their own ranks pressed around them. Moments passed before they remembered their weapons. One by one they reached for their bows, and arrows started to fly.

I did not move, for Tirell and I were well out of bowshot. But Tirell gasped and ran to his horse. “Away, quickly!” he shouted at me. “The beast will follow. Come, before he is killed!”

“Why, we would be well rid of it!” I exclaimed in ex asperation. But Tirell had already shot away to the south. I galloped after him, muttering, sure that our noise would bring the whole army onto our heels. Tirell slowed down once we cleared the Wall. We cantered along between the forest of Acheron and the westernmost curve of the river Chardri, which edged ever nearer to us. We glanced behind us constantly, but neither the beast nor the Boda did we see.

By dusk we were riding along the ridge of a high river-bank. We had never thought of crossing the Chardri; no one would have thought of it, not in Vale. Ages past, folk said, when the land was young, Chardri the bard sang to Adalis where she sat on her high throne at Ogygia. She listened to him often, for he sang superlatively well. But soon her favor made him overbold; he spoke to her of love, and she granted him his pleasure as a punishment. Lying on her, he became the river that runs and sings forever from her headlands to her womb. All the folk in Vale feared him for his godlike anger. Swans dared to light on his back, but no man would willingly touch him. Still, I felt a stirring of some new feeling, an odd sense that he would not hurt me, that I could approach him as an equal.… I shook my head at my own temerity. No need to put it to the test. The horses could not have made the bank.

The forest was edging at us from the other side, and presently our way was blocked by our familiar acquaintances, the stooping, twisted trees. We rode into them. But the insidious things seemed to join hands against us. Beneath the shadow of that particular portion of wood was such a tangle as I had never seen. Roots bulged up and branches groped down and fallen boughs crisscrossed the spaces between. Rocks lumped out of the gloomy loam without pattern, like pebbles scattered by a gigantic child. Here and there lay huge fallen trees, each one a barrier. Between stood patches of brambles thicker than hedges. We had gone scarcely a furlong into this muddle when Tirell was forced to stop, cursing under his breath.

“What now?” I asked. “We are trapped here for the Boda to find. The river confines us on the eastern side, the mountains and this accursed forest—”

“It is nearly dark anyway,” grumbled Tirell, interrupting. “We may as well stay here.”

“But what if the Boda come?” I persisted. “They must have heard us crashing off, and they will be after us. We had better try to find a way around.”

“There is no way around,” said Tirell flatly. “Go get us some water.”

“But where?” He could not be expecting me to find a well in the middle of Acheron forest.

“The river, of course! Go on.” He turned away, dismissing me, as I stared. Had he heard me thinking? All right, I was not really afraid, but I was insulted. Only slaves were sent for river water. I fought my way out of the tangle, seething. There was no talking to him anymore.… I slid down the steep bank to the river, careless of my clothing. The more dirt and tatters, the better. They would speak, and I would be silent. I filled a skin bag with water and clawed my way back up, shredding grass and digging my fingers into the dirt. My anger forced me to make the climb; I would not be reduced to calling for help. When I reached the top, I saw a spark of flame in the thicket. Tirell had started a fire. My temper snapped at that.

“Are you insane?” I shouted. “Must you light the Boda a way to find us?”

“How can the beast find us in this tangle without a light?” Tirell retorted. “And yes, I am insane!”

I said no more. The stark finality of that last statement chilled me. I sat by the fire, but I felt lonely and cold despite the flames. So he thought more of the accursed beast than of me! I ate the last of our food, not even offering to share, and then I got up and stalked away from the fire, making a show of standing guard. But no pursuers came. Instead, toward morning, the beast came, a darker shadow in the darkness of the forest until it stumbled into the firelight. It was carrying half a dozen broken, feathered shafts, and blood lay in sticky puddles on its black flanks.