Free The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip Page B

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