She went to see Maelga a few days later and sat on the skin by the fireplace, her arms around her knees, and Maelga watched her face as she stirred soup.
“There is Something in the forest without a name.”
“Are you afraid of it?” Maelga asked. Sybel looked up at her surprisedly.
“Of course not. But how can I call it if it has no name? It is very strange. I cannot remember reading about a nameless thing anywhere. What are you cooking? If I were not already hungry, I would be hungry from the smell of it.”
“Mushrooms,” said Maelga. “Onions, sage, turnips, cabbage, parsley, beets, and something Tam brought me that has no name.”
“Some day,” Sybel said, “Tam will poison us all.” She leaned her shining head back against the stones and sighed. Maelga’s eyes flicked to her.
“What is it? Does it have a name?”
She stirred. “I do not know. I am very restless these days, but I do not know what I want. Sometimes, I fly with Ter in his thoughts as he hunts. He cannot fly as high as I want him to, or so fast, though the earth rushes beneath us and he goes higher than Eld Mountain… And I am there, when he kills. That is why I want the Liralen so. I can ride on its back and we can go far, far into the setting sun, the world of the stars. I want… I want something more than my father had, or even my grandfather, but I do not know what I want.”
Maelga tasted the soup, the jewels on her thin hands winking. “Pepper,” she said. “And thyme. Only yesterday a young woman came to me wanting a trap set for a man with a sweet smile and lithe arms. She was a fool, not for wanting him, but for wanting more of him than that.”
“Did you help her?”
“She gave me a box of sweet scent. So now she will be miserable and jealous for the rest of her life.” She looked at Sybel, sitting still against the stones, her black eyes hidden, and she sighed. “My child, can I do anything for you?”
Sybel’s eyes lifted, smiling faintly. “Shall I add a man to my collection? I could. I could call anyone I want. But there is no one I want. Sometimes, the animals grow restless like this, dreaming of days of flights and adventures, of the acquiring of wisdom, of the sound of their names spoken in awe, in fear. The days are over, few remember their names, but they dream, still… and I think of the still way I learned, and how only my father, then you, then Tam, ever gave me back my name… I think… I think I want some days to take that mountain path down into the strange, incomprehensible world.”
“Then go, child,” said Maelga. “Go.”
“Perhaps I will. But who would keep my animals?”
“Hire a wizardling.”
“For Ter? No wizardling could hold him. When I was Tam’s age, I could hold him. I wish Tam were half wizard. But he is only half king.”
“You have never told him that, surely.”
“Am I a fool? What good would knowing that do? A dream like that could make him miserable. In the world below, it may even kill him. He is better off playing with shepherd boys and foxes and marrying, when he is old enough, some pretty mountain girl.” She sighed again, her white brows creeping into a little frown. Then she straightened, startled, as the door burst open. Tam stared down at her, taut, glistening with sweat, his pale hair sticking in points to his flushed face.
“Sybel— The Dragon—he hurt a man— Come quickly—” He flashed away like a hare. Sybel followed him out. She stood motionless as a tree in front of the house, and caught the current of the Dragon’s thoughts with one swift blaze of his name.
Gyld.
She felt him curled in the darkness of his wet cave, thoughts tumbling in his mind of flight, of gold, of a man’s pale face staring up at him, open-mouthed, then hidden suddenly behind his upflung arms. She gave a tiny murmur of surprise.
“What is it?” Maelga said, her hands clasped anxiously. Sybel’s thoughts came back to her.
“Gyld went to get his gold, and a man saw him flying with it, so Gyld attacked him.”
“Oh, no. Oh, dear.” Then her gray eyes pinpointed Sybel’s face. “You know him.”
“I know him,” she said slowly, and the frown deepened in her eyes. “Coren of Sirle.”
TWO
She and Tam carried Coren into the white stone house, with Maelga following after, long fingers pulling worriedly at her curls. Around them the animals stirred, murmuring, watching. Tam chattered breathlessly, his arms knotted under the weight of Coren’s shoulders.
“I was coming down from Nyl’s house—we brought the sheep in, and they were crowding together against the fence, and their eyes were rimmed with fear; we did not know why until I looked up and saw Gyld—like a great fiery leaf, a green flame—with gold and jewels in his claws. So I ran home but you were not there, so I was running to Maelga’s house when I saw the man watching Gyld—staring at him, and Gyld circled down to him, and the man flung himself down and Gyld’s claws scraped across him. I think Nyl saw Gyld— Where shall we put him?”
“I do not know,” Sybel said. “I am sorry he is hurt, but he should not have came here; yet it is partly my fault because I should have let Gyld have his gold. Put him there on the table, so Maelga can look at his back. Get a pillow for his head.” She brushed a piece of tapestry work off the thick, polished wood and they laid Coren on it. His eyes flickered open as Tam set a pillow under his head. His back, covered with a leather vest, was ripped and scored with claw marks; his bright hair was furrowed with tracks of blood. Tam stared down at him, brows peaked in his brown face.
“Will he die?” he whispered.
“I do not know,” Sybel said. Coren’s eyes sought her face, and she saw for the first time the light, vivid blue of them, like Ter’s eyes. Looking at her, he gave a little smile. He whispered something, and Tam’s face flushed.
“What did he say?”
Tam was silent a moment, his mouth tight. “He said it was cruel of you to set the Dragon at him, but he was not surprised. You did not. He had no right to say that.”
“Well, perhaps he did,” Sybel said judiciously, “considering that I set Ter Falcon at him the first time he came.”
“He came before? When?”
Sybel’s hands worked gently over Coren’s back, loosening torn cloth. “He brought you to me, after your parents died. For that I will always be in his debt. Tam, get some water and that roll of unworked linen. And then stay here to get Maelga whatever she needs.” Behind her, Maelga murmured, twisting her rings.
“Elderberry. Fire, water, fat and wine.”
“Wine?”
“My nerves are not what they used to be,” she said apologetically. Coren, limp under Sybel’s careful fingers, whispered painfully.
“Neither are mine.”
They finished a flagon of wine among them, as they washed and bandaged Coren, clipped his hair, and laid him to rest on Ogam’s long disused bed. Maelga sank into a chair beside the hearth, her hair in wild disarray. Sybel stood staring into the green flames in her hearth, her black eyes narrowed.
“Maelga, why has he come?” she said softly. “It must be for Tam. But I have reared Tam, and I have loved him, and I will not give him to men to use for their games of hatred. I will not! He is not as wise as I thought if he came here to ask that of me. If he mentions one word of war or kingship to Tam I will— No, I will not feed him to Gyld, but I will do something.” She fell silent, the green flames twisting and turning in the depths of her eyes, her long hair falling about her like a silvery, fire-trimmed cloak. Maelga pressed her fingers against her eyes.
“Old and tired,” she murmured. “He is finely made, a princeling among men, with the blue eyes and crow-black lashes of the dead Sirle Lord. Those were battle scars on his shoulders.”
Sybel shivered. “I will not have my Tam scarred with battle,” she whispered. She turned to meet the sudden, piercing lift of Maelga’s eyes.