The Black Beast Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF NANCY SPRINGER

  “Wonderful.” —Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “The finest fantasy writer of this or any decade.” —Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Ms. Springer’s work is outstanding in the field.” —Andre Norton

  “Nancy Springer writes like a dream.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch

  “Nancy Springer’s kind of writing is the kind that makes you want to run out, grab people on the street, and tell them to go find her books immediately and read them, all of them.” —Arkansas News

  “[Nancy Springer is] someone special in the fantasy field.” —Anne McCaffrey

  Larque on the Wing

  Winner of the James Tiptree, Jr. Award

  “Satisfying and illuminating … uproariously funny … an off-the-wall contemporary fantasy that refuses to fit any of the normal boxes.” —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “Irresistible … charming, eccentric … a winning, precisely rendered foray into magic realism.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Best known for her traditional fantasy novels, Springer here offers an offbeat contemporary tale that owes much to magical realism. … An engrossing novel about gender and self-formation that should appeal to readers both in and outside the SF/fantasy audience.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Springer’s best book yet … A beautiful/rough/raunchy dose of magic.” —Locus

  Fair Peril

  “Rollicking, outrageous … eccentric, charming … Springer has created a hilarious blend of feminism and fantasy in this heartfelt story of the power of a mother’s love.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Witty, whimsical, and enormously appealing.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “A delightful romp of a book … an exuberant and funny feminist fairy tale.” —Lambda Book Report

  “Moving, eloquent … often hilarious, but … beneath the laughter, Springer has utterly serious insights into life, and her own art … Fair Peril is modern/timeless storytelling at its best, both enchanting and very down-to-earth. Once again, brava!” —Locus

  Chains of Gold

  “Fantasy as its finest.” —Romantic Times

  “[Springer’s] fantastic images are telling, sharp and impressive; her poetic imagination unparalleled.” —Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Nancy Springer is a writer possessed of a uniquely individual vision. The story in Chains of Gold is borrowed from no one. It has a small, neat scope rare in a book of this genre, and it is a little jewel.” —Mansfield News Journal

  “Springer writes with depth and subtlety; her characters have failings as well as strengths, and the topography is as vivid as the lands of dreams and nightmares. Cerilla is a worthy heroine, her story richly mythic.” —Publishers Weekly

  The Hex Witch of Seldom

  “Springer has turned her considerable talents to contemporary fantasy with a large degree of success.” —Booklist

  “Nimble and quite charming … with lots of appeal.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “I’m not usually a witchcraft and fantasy fan, but I met the author at a convention and started her book to see how she writes. Next thing I knew, it was morning.” —Jerry Pournelle, coauthor of Footfall

  Apocalypse

  “This offbeat fantasy’s mixture of liberating eccentricity and small-town prejudice makes for some lively passages.” —Publishers Weekly

  Plumage

  “With a touch of Alice Hoffmanesque magic, a colorfully painted avian world and a winning heroine, this is pure fun.” —Publishers Weekly

  “A writer’s writer, an extraordinarily gifted craftsman.” —Jennifer Roberson

  Godbond

  “A cast of well-drawn characters, a solidly realized imaginary world, and graceful writing.” —Booklist

  The Black Beast

  The Book of Isle, Book Four

  Nancy Springer

  Prologue

  I am Daymon Cein, the ancient seer. Now I am only a voice from the beyond, a twittering, formless thing, but once, long ago, when I was a man, I slept under the White Rock of Eala and gained vision where other men might have gained death. It was a foolhardy venture and without real reward, for I soon found fame worthless. But that is an old fool’s talk.… Later, my daughter Suevi married Abas, the Sacred King in Melior. She bore him a son, Tirell. I watched from afar, with the inner eye, as I watched all whom I loved—all of Vale, in fact. And one chilly autumn night I saw a strange thing.

  Little Prince Tirell was only five years old at the time. His nursemaid had checked his bed and seen him safe under the wolfskin coverings. But later he got up and wandered through the corridors between lifeless guards that stood ranked at every turn, remains of kings and queens, generations and generations of them, slain at the high altar of the goddess. The dead kept watch constantly at Melior castle, in erect stone coffins with carved faces, clenched hands, and white, staring eyes. Not many people cared to roam that place alone after dark. But Tirell was fearless, even then, and a fire burned in him that would not let him rest. His bare fingers and toes served him for guidance where there was no light. He was seldom caught, for he was clever and knew every turning of the ancient walls.

  On that night he found his way easily, because the moon was bloated and orange as barley. Orange light fell from the high window slots to the cold floors. Tirell shivered along, not knowing what he was looking for any more than the rest of us.… Then more light appeared, orange torchlight! Tirell approached with interest and caution like a cat’s. He knew that everyone but the sentries should have been asleep, but two cloaked figures flitted toward his mother’s chamber.

  Now for half a year past Suevi the queen, my daughter, had kept to her rooms, seeing almost no one. Of course, Tirell was allowed to come to her. There would be a baby, she told him. He knew as well as I did that the lump under her gowns was a pillow. He sat on her lap and he could tell. But perhaps others were fooled. Tirell kept his peace; what did he know of the royal way of getting babies? And on that autumn night he heard the baby whimpering. One of the cloaked figures carried it tenderly. The other held a torch and knocked softly at the queen’s door.

  Somebody let them in; Tirell could not see who. As soon as the heavy door swung closed he scampered to the timbers to listen. He could hear his mother’s voice. “He’s in good health? Very well, then, here is gold for your silence. There will be more. See the King …” Then the door creaked and Tirell slipped away into the shadow of the next sarcophagus. From behind it he peeped and watched the visitors depart. They were Fabron, the King’s smith, and his wife; Tirell saw them as plainly as I. The woman was silently weeping and twisting her long red hair.

  Tirell went back to his bed and lay puzzling. The next morning his nurse woke him with a face wreathed in smiles. “Come, my young lord, and see! Your lady mother has something to show you!” The lad pulled on his clothes and silently followed her to the queen’s chamber, but he was not much surprised by what he found there. Suevi lay on her couch with her red-black hair pulled back from her pale, passionate face—she was always a hilltop creature, she! Beside her in a velvet basket lay a ruddy, hairless mite. Tirell stared without speaking at the tiny, frowning face.

  “Your new brother,” Suevi told him. “Are you not glad?”

  “Yes,” Tirell answered softly, “glad enough,” and he gave the baby a friendly poke. His new brother was called Frain, and Tirell stood by at the naming ceremony when the priestesses touched the baby with their long knives. Never a word did he say, to his mother or to anyone else, of what he had seen in the night.

  Book One

  FRAIN

  Chapter One

  I am Frain. I was only fifteen years old when I first heard of Mylitta, and within a few days the doom of Melior had be
gun. All has changed now; Melior is a memory and I am a swan on the rivers of Ogygia. But I think I am not much wiser.

  Tirell was in the habit of wandering in the night, then as always. We shared a tower chamber, and sometimes when I did not feel too sleepy I joined him. I liked to hear him talk. It was better than dreaming.

  One night, though, I woke up out of a sound sleep to see him on his way out of the window. He was hoisting himself up to the high stone sill by his hands, his feet dangling. I jumped out of bed, naked as a rabbit, and grabbed him by the knees.

  “Are you mad?” I yelled.

  “It runs in the family, does it not?” he snapped as he fell. “Let me up, you great oaf!” I had sat on top of him.

  “Not if you are planning to climb down there,” I told him. “Have some sense, Tirell! It must be a hundred feet to the cobbles, and the ivy is old and sparse.”

  “So what am I to do?” he shouted passionately. “Ride out by the main gates and take the guards to my wooing?”

  “By our great lord Aftalun,” I sighed, “are there not enough maids within the walls that you must woo one without? I think—” But he did not wait to hear what I thought. He threw me off. Tirell was slender, not much heavier than I even though he was five years older, but when he was truly angry I believe no one could stand against him. We grappled for a moment, and then I went flying and hit my head against the wall.

  He could have gone to his wooing then. I heard him pacing around, but I couldn’t move or see. He lit a rushlight, got a soggy cloth, and started dabbing at some blood behind my ear. “Go to,” I muttered, shoving his hand away, and I managed to sit up.

  “If you are all right,” Tirell said quietly, “I will be off.”

  “Then I will be off too, by way of the gates, and you will have me and a troop of guards for company.” I can be angry too, and Tirell knew he was beaten for the time. He cursed and flopped down on the floor where he was.

  “I was going to say, before I was interrupted,” I told him after a while, “that we could get a rope.”

  “If I could get a rope in the middle of the night,” Tirell responded sourly, “I would have tied you up long ago. They’re all over at the armory with the scaling ladders and things.”

  “So we’ll get one tomorrow, and you can go tomorrow night. Surely the girl will last till then?” I looked at his lean, unhappy face and felt my anger melt, as always. “She must be a marvel,” I added softly. “What is her name?”

  Tirell sighed and gave in to peace. “Mylitta is her name,” he answered quietly.

  “Do I know her?”

  “No, I doubt it. She is not such a marvel. She is just a peasant.”

  “Pretty?”

  “No, not even very pretty.”

  I frowned, perplexed. It was not like him to be so modest about his conquests. “Thunder, I am not going to try to take her from you!” I protested.

  “You couldn’t!” Tirell retorted with joy in his voice. “No one could! She loves me!”

  I had never heard him speak so earnestly. Was this my cool, mocking brother? At loss for a response, I turned mocking myself. “Indeed, who could help but love you?” I asked lightly.

  He snorted. “Not like my other maidens, if I may call them that. Bloodsucking whores, every one of them. But Mylitta cares not a bit for throne or torque or wealth or—or any of it. She just—she just loves me.”

  My mouth had dropped open. I closed it and swallowed. “Then she is a marvel,” I replied, meaning it. “May I meet her?”

  “Maybe.” Tirell shook off the mood and got to his feet. “Go back to bed, young my naked lord.” We sometimes parodied the courtly courtesy between ourselves.

  “And you?” I asked.

  “I don’t know whether I’ll sleep, but I’ll bide; I give you my word. How is the head?”

  “Well enough.” It was thumping like a thousand blacksmiths, if truth be told, but I would never admit that, as Tirell knew quite well.

  Tirell slept, as it turned out, and I lay waking. It was not only my aching head that kept me up. I was worrying about Tirell, as I often did. I sensed trouble to come. No happy endings were likely for Tirell or for me as long as King Abas was our father. The altar awaited him, as it awaited Tirell, or me in my turn. Then our ribs and lungs would be ripped out whole, spread and held up to the multitude to reveal the configuration of the blood bird. Princes of the line of Melior were accustomed early to the thought of this unpleasant death. Perhaps that was why many went mad. Abas was one of those.

  “Father used to sit me on his knee, when I was small,” Tirell had said to me once, “and tell me the strangest things—dreams in dragon colors and the thoughts of stones and beasts.… And then, likely as not, he would smite me. It is no wonder I cannot sleep.”

  “He has never given me anything, either of blows or of dreams!” I had replied, caught between pity and jealousy. The jealousy because our father took no notice of me at all.

  “You came later,” Tirell answered, “when his mood had turned yet darker. Be glad he does not care for you!” But he would not meet my eyes.

  I feared for my brother as he probably never feared for himself, reckless and thoughtless as he was. Where could we run to, where could we take the maiden? There was no place in Vale where Abas could not find us. Abas cared for Tirell, in his harsh way, and his vision was frighteningly sharp. Sometimes his sapience seemed almost divine. He would notice Tirell’s happiness, and Tirell would pay the price; Abas could not abide happiness, or dogs, or wanderings in the night.…

  I remembered one day when we had been digging in one of our secret places (Tirell was only fourteen then and I was nine, but none of our masters could constrain us—we spent our days much as we liked). We had been digging for clams down near the river. That was daring enough, and forbidden. All children were chided not to dig in the earth, lest they loose the flood that is beneath the land. But even we princes did not dare to wash ourselves in the river after we were done, though it ran only a few steps away. Water was greatly feared in Vale. It was used only with many offerings and greatest reverence. So we went back to the castle to wash in water the slaves had brought with all due and proper ceremony. And as bad luck would have it we met Abas in the courtyard. He seldom took any heed of our comings and goings, seldom came out of his chambers at all; I do not know what had brought him out on that day. He stopped where he was and stiffened with an intake of breath when he saw us.

  “Tirell!” He ignored me, concentrating all of his attention on his heir, as usual. I did not realize then how lucky I was. Tirell answered him only with a steady glance.

  “You have been in the dirt! You are covered with dirt, black—” Abas had recoiled from his son in loathing. It is hard to describe his horror. I do not think he was concerned with the retribution of the Mother or of any god—he had never showed great reverence for Adalis or Chardri. I did not understand at the time, but I think now that the dirt meant far more than dirt to him—that he was afraid, as he feared the night, that he looked at our grime and saw something far worse.

  “Rolling in it, rolling in filth! Wallowing—”

  “We were digging,” Tirell said with childlike appeal and adolescent dignity. Digging was forbidden, as I have said, but I suppose Tirell preferred that crime to the sort of vague perversity Abas seemed to be spinning. Abas cried out in shock and his horror turned to anger.

  “So, digging like beasts, deep, deep, and do you not know what lies beneath?” He moved closer to Tirell, threatening, his long fingers wildly addressing the air. “Below, dark, black, beneath, within, do you not know? The grip, the dark, the close clutch, the boneless grasp where the water runs—the thing will take you, draw you down, dark, black. You innocent, stay far from digging.…” He was quivering all over, his hands palpitating the air nearer and nearer to Tirell’s face, and suddenly they shot forward as if they would gouge out his eyes. I winced in terror, myself, but Tirell stood firm, and Abas crowed in an ecstasy of rage.
Then he dropped to his knees before his son, his shaking stilled. I think that disconcerted Tirell more than anything that had happened. He kept his face still, but tears made white tracks through the grime.

  “My son,” Abas whispered, “my son, keep far from that darkness.” He reached for him as if to kiss him, but Tirell bolted, and I ran after him. Behind us we heard yells of incoherent rage.

  “I hate him,” Tirell panted, still weeping. “I hate him! He is the dark thing, he himself!”

  Who could have borne the burden of that mad love? But Abas saw truly, in his way. That darkness was in Tirell.

  He was too much like his father for anyone’s comfort. No one was afraid of me, a plain sort of person with freckles and rusty hair, but everyone feared and adored Tirell. When he found Mylitta he was twenty, handsome, extravagant—everyone worshipped him. People would line the dirt streets to see him dashing by in his chariot with his cloak flying and his neck gold-torqued and his lash urging the white steeds to yet greater speed. All the young courtiers imitated his clothing and his walk. Tirell had midnight-black hair and icy blue eyes, and he moved like a leashed leopard; I think people would have turned their heads to look at him even if he had not been prince. His face was flawless, as if it had been carved out of white alabaster. He had the legendary tall good looks and coloring of the Sacred Kings, and he had many admirers. But no friends.

  And now he had Mylitta, and what was to become of them? I fell asleep finally at dawn, without a hint of hope; I was used to that.

  Tirell had no trouble, some hours later, distracting the armorers while I stole a coil of rope from the supplies and stowed it under my cloak. The cloak was an accursed nuisance now that the springtime weather was warming, but like the torque it was a symbol of rank. And for pranks like this it could be useful.

  We took the rope to our bedchamber and hid it under the straw mattress. “All right,” Tirell said. “Now what?”