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

will be, in silence.” He held her hand a moment against his mouth. Then he turned the dark horse onto the mountain path, and Sybel watched until Tam’s face, turned always toward her, was lost among the trees.
She turned, shivering a little, and went back into the garden. The snow began to fall, light, silent, endless. Gules Lyon appeared silently beside her; she trailed her hand absently through his mane. She went into the quiet, darkening house and sat down before the fire. Moriah came to rest at her feet. She sat there while the fire crept into embers and pulsed within them secretly, and while they burned themselves to blackness, and the night fell, cold, around her, and the snow fell across her threshold, blotted the last footprints of Tam, and the crescents of the prints of the King’s horse. That night, the next day, and the next night she sat there, hands motionless on the arms of her chair, her eyes unwavering, as if she could still see the dancing green flame, and the white hall was cold and silent about her.
She stirred finally, blinking. She saw her animals about her, even the fiery mass of Gyld, curled silent on be stones, and the beautiful, secret-eyed Swan watching her from the doorway of the domed room. She turned and found Cyrin’s red eyes behind her. She smiled a little, her mouth stiff in the cold.
“I am here. Are you hungry?”
Her voice faded, unanswered, among the stones. Then Gules Lyon pushed beneath her hand.
Get up , he said. Tend the fire. Eat.
She rose, sighing, and knelt before the hearth. Then her hands checked, wood-filled, over the grate. She turned, feeling the nameless Thing with her among the animals. She searched for it, her eyes narrowed, in be shadowed comers, behind the folds of tapestry. It stood just beyond her eyesight, just beyond the circle of her mind, formless, nameless. A thought, the sudden pulse of a memory, flicked through her head. She put the wood down and went into the domed room. She unlocked a huge, gold-leafed book, one of Ogam’s, with parchment pages of ancient writings, the collections of forgotten tales as old as the reign of the third King of Eldwold. She leafed through the pages, searching for a few brief lines, and found them finally. She sat down on the floor, the heavy book on her lap, and read silently:
And there is that fearsome monster, which awaits men around dark corners, through dark doorways, in the blackest hours of the night. Only the fearless survive looking upon it. It is called Rommalb, when spoken of, for to speak its name truly is to summon it.
She smiled slowly. “Rommalb,” she said aloud, and turned the name around on her tongue. “Blammor.” And looking up, she saw it finally.

FOUR
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It was a shadow in the shadows, a black mist taller than she, with eyes like circles of sightless, gleaming ice. She closed the book and slowly rose to face it. She touched its mind and found it as still, as dark.
Give me your name.
Its mind-voice was a rustle of dried leaf. Blammor.
Why have you come to me so freely? Most struggle to hide their names. But you came uncalled.
I was not uncalled. And you have a strange power, that draws me and that is to see me as I am truly. Therefore I came to you, and I will serve you, as one day you will serve that one who sees you truly.
Do I see you truly now? A black mist with fire-white eyes, sightless yet seeing?
That is part of me.
You fascinate me, she said. Do all men see you this way? There are tales of your terribleness.
Men see what they are most afraid of.
What do you require of me?
Nothing , it said, but your fearlessness. I will go now. I have night work.
It faded into the shadows. They trembled a, moment at its passing.
She turned, rubbing her chilled arms, a little smile crooking her mouth. She went to the hearth again and lit a taper from the green flame burning steadily on the mantel. The fire danced in a few moments from the hearth, and she lit candles from it, and torches, moving softly to place