The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (8 page)

“Nothing.” He turned back to his work. “I have heard you know the answers to every riddle save one. That will be the one I need answering.”

Cyrin snorted gently. “The wise man knows the riddle to ask it.”

“And that the asking and answering are one.” He swept the chopped carrot into a pot, and began peeling a potato. “You mistrust me. I am no trained falcon bound by the leash of Rok’s politics. He had nothing to do with my coming.”

“When the Lord of Dorn received in secret from the witch Glower the death spell she made for his enemies, a shadow darker than night stood beside him, bound to him.”

Coren was silent, slicing the hard potato into rings. He said finally, “It is not to you I must prove I can love freely, but to Sybel.”

“Her eyes see clearly through darkness.”

“I know. I have hidden nothing from her.”

“Roots are grown in darkness.”

“So they are.” He inspected another, and peeled it. “But I do not think, like a root grows, in secret.”

“The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind, and he died of what he saw there.”

Coren’s head turned sharply. The silver-gray Boar stood panting mildly in the doorway.

“If that is a riddle, I do not know the answer.”

The sweet-mouthed Boar considered. “Then I will tell you. Ask Sybel what name she spoke today before she spoke yours.”

Coren’s red, straight brows flicked into a frown. “I will,” he promised, and reached for a pale length of parsnip.

He brought a rich soup and hot spiced sausage, thick-crusted bread and cups of heated wine to her, and found her sleeping, her hands limp in her lap. She half woke as he pulled a small table between their chairs, and he spoke her name gently.

“Oh.” She straightened, rubbing her eyes with her fingers.

He gave her wine. “I am glad you slept a little.”

“It was good. I did not dream.” She sipped wine, color returning to her face. “Your soup smells like Maelga’s.”

He served her, then sat down beside her with a bowl on his knees. “You should not go so long without eating.”

“I forget to. Coren, this is good. I do not know which is warmer in me, your kindness or your soup.”

He smiled. “It does not matter. Cyrin came to talk to me while I cooked.”

Her brows rose. “He did? He speaks so rarely. What did he say?”

“He gave me a riddle. When I could not answer it, he told me to ask you what name you spoke today just before mine.”

“Why? Is that the answer?”

“I think so. Whose name was it?”

She thought, frowning. “Oh. It was the Blammor’s name, but I do not see—” She stopped abruptly, her eyes widening. Her voice flashed sharp with anger. “Cyrin!” Coren’s plate crashed full at her feet as he rose.

The Blammor appeared before them, the green flame dancing dimly through it. Its crystal eyes stared into Coren’s, and he stood motionless, voiceless, his face the color of ice. Imperceptibly as a mist, the Blammor moved, lengthening, widening, until it hovered like a shadow over Coren, so close his bloodless face seemed smudged and limned with darkness. A sound broke from him, sharp, incoherent, and he swayed gently, as though he were held upright by a wind. Then Sybel, her hands clenched cold against her mouth, heard his whisper.

“Blammor...”

The Blammor turned its eyes to Sybel.

Is there anything more?
it asked indifferently, and she shook her head.

“No,” she whispered. It melted away; the fire sprang, warm into her face.

Coren’s head dropped into his hands. He covered his hands with the heels of his palms, ground them against his eyes as though to rub away a vision. He fell, so suddenly she could not catch him; she knelt beside him, helped him sit.

“Coren—” He did not answer. She reached desperately for wine, and saw, watching beyond the circle of light, the red, imperturbed eyes of Cyrin. She sent the blaze of a furious cry into his mind.

I would have sent him on his way—there was no need—

“Sybel—” Coren’s voice came to her as from a deep place within him. She turned to him, her hands closing on his cold, taut fingers.

“I am here.”

“Hold me. Hold me tightly.”

She put her arms around him, held him so close she could feel the leap of his heart and the long shudderings of his breath.

“I am sorry. I am sorry,” she whispered, and kissed him as though he were Tam come to her for comfort. Then a thought stirred in her mind, and she drew away from him. He murmured a protest, his hands dropping from his eyes to pull her back. She said sharply, “Coren.”

He opened his eyes, dazed, as though he were coming out of a dream. “What?”

“Coren, how did you know Rommalb’s name?” He gazed at her, his hands limp on her shoulders, his face drawn, white. She moved his hands, held them tightly as she sat with him on the floor. He said finally, “I know it.”

“But, Coren, how?”

“How do I know anything?” He leaned back against the stones, closing his eyes.

“But how?”

“I had to know.” His words lay strengthless a moment between them. “I would have died on your hearth,” he whispered. “I have been in one great battle, I have fought unexpectedly at night, alone, but I have never—I have never before seen death come at me so certainly as at your hearth. It was the color of night, and I could not breathe because it was airless, and I knew—I knew if I could find a name, put a name to it, it could not harm me. All my thoughts shouted of death—flew in circles like frightened birds—but I knew it could not be death, in your house, at your hearth. So a part of me searched for a name among all the ancient names I have known. Then I knew what it was. It was not death but fear. Rommalb. The fear men die of.” He opened his eyes, looked at her from some nameless place. “Sybel, I could not let myself die for something that could not harm me.”

“Men have,” she whispered. “Countless men, through countless years.”

“I could not. I had—I had a thing I wanted to stay alive for.”

“Drede?”

He shook his head, said nothing for a long while, his eyes closed, until she thought he was sleeping. And then he straightened, leaned forward and kissed her. She drew back, her eyes wide, bewildered. “I have never heard of anyone like you. I expected to see you mad or dead in my house, and then find your five brothers at my gates demanding to know why. Instead, you gave Rommalb back his name, and you turn away from death to come back and kiss me on my floor.”

“It seemed a better thing to do,” he said, smiling, and then the terror of a memory froze the smile on his face, and his eyes emptied, chill as lost stars. He shook it away from him, and rose stiffly. Sybel helped him, her brows quirked worriedly.

“You have such terrible welcomes to my house. I will make Ogam’s bed for you. And then I will make Cyrin into sausages.”

“No—Sybel, he asked me a riddle, and I asked him for the answer to it. So he gave it to me.”

“He tricked me into giving it. And there was no reason for him to treat you this way, a guest in my house, who came out of kindness.”

He sat down, then reached after a moment to pick up the pieces of broken bowl. “If you cannot find a reason, I suppose there was none.”

“I cannot. Leave that, Coren; I will clean it, after you go to bed.”

“No. I will not sleep tonight in darkness. Let me sit here beside your fire. Sybel—”

“What?”

He looked up at her. “Are you afraid of nothing? What are you that Rommalb itself comes obedient to your call?”

“I am afraid of some things. I was afraid for you, then. I am afraid for Tam. But I never thought to be afraid of Rommalb.” She knelt to clean the spilled soup, and he watched the firelight pass glittering among the white strands of her hair until they blurred together and he fell asleep.

She found him in the morning still sitting beside the fire, with Gules Lyon at his feet. The snow had stopped; the world was moon-colored beyond the ice-barred windows. A loaf of bread sat half-eaten on the table; the wine was gone. He smiled at her, his eyes red-rimmed, and she said gently,

“You did not sleep well?”

“I woke, and you had gone, so I did not sleep. Cyrin talked with me awhile; he told me tales.”

“I hope that is all he told you.”

“He told me of Prince Lud, who could have had any flower in the world he wanted, but he wanted only the flaming rose that grew on the Black Peak of Fyrbolg. And he got what he wanted and was content. So I still hope.”

Color rose about her eyes. “I do not think any of this is Cyrin’s business. Besides, you said yourself I am no flaming rose, but an ice flower, growing in a lifeless world. You belong in the world of the living, and there, I think, you will find your rose.”

He sighed. “And you said, sometimes I am a fool. I think I am the one who has been living until now in a lifeless world. Sybel... last night I dreamed of Norrel. Always—always before, when I dreamed of him, I never saw him as he was alive, but only as he lay dying, alone, feeling the death wound in him, seeing Drede turn away from him, trying to call, with no voice to call, no one to hear him—I see him call me in my dreams, and he does not see me, and I cannot come to him. But last night, I fell asleep watching you clean the floor, and I dreamed of Norrel as he was alive, when we would talk together late at night. He was talking to me of Rianna, of his love for her. And I was smiling, listening, nodding, because I understood how he felt, what he was saying. I woke, still hearing his voice, and in the moment of my waking, I thought of Drede and I felt pity for him, because he could not have what Norrel had... Sybel, he is only an old, frightened man, with no one to love him but Tamlorn. And I thought he was like Rommalb, a death giver..”

“Do you still want him dead?”

“I think—I am tired of thinking about him.” He rose, came to her, stood before her without touching her. “I love you. When you need me again I will come.”

“No, Coren,” she said helplessly, and found she had reached out to touch him. “I am not good at loving. In all my life, I have only loved Maelga, Tam and Ogam, even though he was not very good at loving either. Stay in Sirle, where there are women who—who can give you what you require. I belong here.”

“I require you,” he said simply. He turned to get his cloak. “When the Prince Rurin pursued the witch Glower for turning all his servants into pigs, she—”

“I know. She thrust a great mountain of glass in his path that he could neither ride over or around. So he returned, defeated.”

“So,” Coren said, and bent to kiss her unresponsive face farewell. “What is the difference between glass and ice?”

“Oh, go home,” she said crossly, then laughed in spite of herself. She went to the gates with him to let him out. She stood shivering in the soundless morning, watching him ride down the mountain. The Boar Cyrin came to stand beside her, his warm breath blossoming in and out of the air. She looked down at him.

“That was a great chance you took,” she said soberly. The silver-bristled Boar grunted his private note of laughter. He used with her, for the first time, his bell-sweet voice.

“One wise fool knows another.”

Tam came to visit her a few days later. She looked up from her reading to hear Ter’s voice and see him circling her domed roof. She threw her cloak over her shoulders and hurried out, and he came to rest on her shoulder, just as Tam rode up to her gates with five men behind him. He slipped off his horse and shouted to her, and she saw his heavy, fur-lined cloak trimmed with gold thread and his soft boots and gloves with cuffs of fur. She opened the gates and he flung himself at her, laughing.

“Sybel, Sybel, Sybel—” He hugged her tightly, then whirled away. “Look at my horse. My father chose him for me—storm-gray, velvet-gray—his name is Drede. He was afraid to let me come, but I begged and begged—I cannot stay long, though—”

“Oh, my Tam, I am glad to see you— Come in.” She looked into Ter’s glittering eyes and asked,
Is he well?