The Beast of Noor

by Janet Lee Carey

“No. It’s not that.” Hanna tipped her head. “And anyway, that’s not why I came.”

  He saw how tightly she clung to the branch.

  “The Falconer said you had to leave the Shriker’s form before the next full moon. If you don’t change back tonight, you may be lost.”

  “He said that, did he?” growled Miles. The Falconer had always underestimated him. Miles pricked up his ears at the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow. They were very close by. He lifted his snout. The damp, moldy smell of troll was in the air. “Quiet now, Hanna,” he warned. A moment later his servant Mic came toward him, nearly stumbling under the weight of a large platter.

  “Your meal, sire,” he said, placing the platter on the snow.

  “Where’s Cully?”

  “He didn’t … um …” Mic tugged his hair worriedly. “He’s not back from his hunt yet?” he guessed with a sniff.

  Miles peered at the raw boar’s flank on his king’s platter. “It’s not enough,” he growled.

  Mic backed away, then fell to his knees and bowed his head. “I’ll bring you more, sire; I promise. It was all I could carry.”

  “Yes, more,” said Miles. “You and Cully, wherever he’s gotten to. But bring it later. I need to be alone tonight. No one else is to come near me.” The troll bowed again, his knotted hair sweeping across the snow. Then he leaped up, turned, and hurried back into the woods.

  Miles pawed the tray behind the junipers to eat out of Hanna’s view. He chomped the raw thigh, reveling in its texture as he gulped it down. When he’d finished, he ran his tongue along his teeth, poked it through the gap from his missing tooth, then lowered his head and licked the boar’s thighbone clean, until it was as white as the snow beside it. Meal done, he stepped out from behind the bush again. Hanna was still up in the cedar, but her neck was craning to see him better in the moonlight.

  “He called you sire.”

  “I killed the gullmuth monster. He was larger than the Shriker and stronger, but I was quicker and deadlier. I slew him!” Miles tightened his muscled legs, adding with pride, “The shadow realm is mine now by all rights. Not the Shriker’s or anyone else’s, though the trolls can’t tell us apart without this.” He pawed his king’s necklace. “Once I’ve killed the real Shriker, no one in Uthor will be confused about who’s king.” He stopped short. She would never understand. She was human and mortal and far from him now, much farther than the distance the tree gave her.

  Miles limped down to the stream, dipped his tongue through the cracked ice, and drank. Moonlight shone on the frozen stream, too bright at this midnight hour. The gleaming reflection caught in his jeweled necklace. The light from both hurt his eyes. He limped back to the bush and lay down again.

  “You’re hurt,” said Hanna.

  “I’m strong. Stronger than anyone else in Uthor. You should have seen what I did to the monster.” He glanced up, expecting to see Hanna’s admiring look. But her face showed only shock, and her eyes were hard. He should leave her alone and see how long she lasted in this place. But she was just a girl, and powerless, “I’ ll take you to the valley’s edge,” he said, “And there I’ll let you out.” He said this not knowing how he’d lead her through the wind wall.

  “Aren’t you coming home with me?”

  His breath caught. The word “home” piercing his chest like a small, unexpected spear. “I haven’t killed the Shriker yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Hanna. “As long as you come home.”

  That word again. Miles tensed his shoulders. “If I stop the hunt now, he’ll win,” he snapped. “He’ll hunt through Attenlore and into our world forever. Do you want that?”

  “No, Miles. But I want you back. You’re frightening me. You don’t seem …” She faltered.

  “Human? Is that what you were going to say?” Miles licked his snout. “I’m more than human now.” The muscles rippled along his mighty shoulders as he rose. He crossed the stream and stood beneath the tall tree. “Come down, Hanna.”

  “I won’t.”

  “I am Hound King here, and I order you to come down!”

  THE EYE OF THE HEART

  If you walk the way of love, You will not be lost.

  —THE PROPHET JYNN, FROM THE BOOK OF EOWEY

  HIGH UP IN THE BRANCHES HANNA FELT LIKE WEEPING. It looked as if she’d lost Miles for good. He waited at the base of the tree with shining red eyes, his thick pink tongue hanging over sharpened teeth. Her brother was huddled somewhere under the heavy beast’s flesh, but she could not find him, could not see him with the eye of the heart as the Falconer had taught her. She wasn’t strong like a meer. She was only a girl. And anyway, both her eyes and her heart were telling her that her brother was a monster.

  Hanna wiped her damp eyes. “Do you remember Mother and Da?”

  “Of course I remember them.”

  “They’ve been so worried, Miles.”

  There was silence below for a time, then he said, “That can’t be helped.”

  “Of course it can. You can come home.”

  “Not while the Shriker hunts.”

  Hanna didn’t know what to say to that. It would be so much easier to talk to Miles if only she could see him. She felt in her pocket for the glisten pouch. It was for this moment Meer Eason had given it to her, but the pouch wasn’t there. She’d left it in the rucksack down by the frozen stream, her arrows scattered on the snow beside it. There was something in her pocket, though, and it was warm. She drew out the smooth stone she’d found at the shore and was surprised to see it glowing softly. Blue light spread across her palm. The light shone upward, warming her cheeks and brow.

  “What have you got?” asked Miles from below. His red eyes had gone large, and he swished his tail slowly.

  “My stone,” whispered Hanna. “It’s never glowed like this before.” She remembered then how Eason and Olean had said to bring the stone with her. Was this why they’d admired it so?

  “Who gave it to you? Was it the Sylth Queen?”

  “No. I found it.”

  “You don’t just find a lightstone.”

  “Well, I did.”

  “Where?”

  “Down at the shore.” She gazed into the blue light and saw that it was ever so slightly pulsing.

  “Bring it closer,” said Miles.

  She climbed down one branch but no more. Then she held out her hand. Miles went up on his hind legs and rested his forepaws against the tree to get a better look. The blue light traced along his furry face, his long snout and pointing ears. And in the soft light Hanna saw the wounds all over his body. Not only the long red slash across his foreleg, but the cut on his high cheekbone and the long scar on his side, matted brown with dried blood.

  She pressed her lips together, her eyes suddenly moist. “You did a brave thing protecting me from the beast the way you did,” she said. “And I’m grateful. More than grateful.” A fresh breeze blew about her hand as she spoke. “I owe you my life. But it’s enough now. It has to be, because you’re in too much danger yourself.”

  “I’d be in more danger if I changed back to human form.”

  “No,” said Hanna. “Less. The danger’s all around you now. It’s in the shape you’ve taken.”

  Miles snapped his jaws. “Do you think I’d have any chance of killing our enemy if I changed back into a boy?”

  Hanna wanted to cry, “But you ’ve become the enemy!” But she knew it would be the wrong thing to say. She shone the lightstone at his side. “Do your wounds hurt?” she asked.

  “Aye.”

  “Come out of the beast and let me bind them.”

  THE PARCEL

  Find the lost inside the dream.

  —THE OLD MEN OF MOUNT SHALEM

  MILES BLINKED UP AT THE PALE LIGHT. “I’M KING HERE. I can have anyone I like bind my wounds.”

  Hanna didn’t reply, but her face dropped and he saw her lip quivering. He looked away. She would never understand everything he’d gone through to p
rotect her, to save Attenlore and Enness Isle from the Shriker.

  He pondered his broad paw resting on the rough tree trunk. Even with his many wounds he still had the power to kill the Shriker if he stayed in this form. And he wasn’t going to give up the hunt for his softhearted sister.

  “Miles?” asked Hanna, her voice trembling. “Can you change back?”

  “Of course I can,” he snarled. “Whenever I want to.” It was a lie, and the lightstone seemed to waver as he said it.

  A sick fear gripped him and he quickly shook it off. “I’II change back when the Shriker’s dead,” he growled. Though that, too, wasn’t the full truth. He didn’t want to give up his kingship, earned through blood and battle, to become a mere boy again. He was rich beyond measure and had a good chance of expanding his kingdom once the Shriker was dead. He didn’t want to change back, did he? No, he thought firmly, then deeper still, and quieter, Yes.

  “You don’t understand,” said Miles, as much to the voice inside himself as to his sister in the high branches.

  Hanna held the stone away from her face and wiped her eyes. She was crying, and he guessed she didn’t want him to see her tears.

  “I was thinking,” she said, “how afraid I was of the Falconer when I first brought you to his cottage. Do you remember?”

  Miles felt a stirring in his chest. Why must she bring his teacher up now? He went back down on all fours at the base of the tree.

  Hanna shone the lightstone across the snow. “The Falconer sent you a gift.”

  “Why didn’t he bring it himself?”

  The soft light from the branch above jeweled the broken ice by the abandoned rucksack. “It’s in the pack.”

  “What is it?”

  Hanna shook her head. “Open it.”

  Miles nosed the pack and tugged a cloth bag out with his teeth. He sniffed the bread and goat cheese and the dusty smell of dried beans through the cloth. Then he went for the pack again, dragging out the sooty cook pot and then a leather parcel tied with twine. It had an odd shape and smelled of winterleaf, the Falconer’s favored healing herb. He read the tag penned by the meer: “For Miles in Attenlore.”

  Miles gently bit through the twine and nosed the leather package open. Brightness shone out. He blinked, only half believing what he saw as his eyes adjusted to the light. The Falconer’s silver ervay lay on the soft leather wrapping, glistening in the glow of lightstone and moon.

  How long he’d waited to touch those fine silver pipes. To run his fingers along the ancient Othic letters engraved along the side.

  “The ervay was his greatest treasure,” he whispered. “A gift from High King Steffen of Angalore.” He put out his scarred paw to touch the fine instrument; a shadow fell over the gleam, and he placed his paw in the snow again. This was like his dream. But why had his teacher sent it to him here? And why now?

  It was considered a high honor to be gifted with a thing so rare. Only a master musician should play an ervay. Miles shook his heavy head. “I don’t understand.” Looking up, he asked Hanna a second time. “Why didn’t he bring it himself?”

  His question was met with silence, and he sucked in a sudden breath. A cold shock ran across his back. “He’s … he’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Miles drew back. “I don’t want it,” he cried. “Not if it means he’s … not this way.”

  A low wind breathed a tune through the ervay. A strange song that was both sweet and haunting. The tune rose up from the snow, filling the night air like a sigh. Miles hung his head. “I don’t want it,” he cried again.

  He looked down at his blood-encrusted paws. Beyond all his mistakes, his anger, his misuse of magic, the Falconer had loved him and believed in his gift.

  The tune blowing through the ervay sang hollow through his bones. Deep and deeper. And he heard it for what it was. The song of his own making. His keth-kara.

  Miles’s eyes welled up. “You saw,” he sobbed. “You saw me.”

  His chest ached as it opened outward. The song broke the darkness like a dawning. He was growing small again, though he felt himself expanding. This could not be so, yet it was so. The thickened hide trembled and slowly shrank away. The weight lifted from him.

  He found himself down on all fours in the snow. A long-haired boy in brown rags that hung from his frame. A heavy chain around his neck. He wept at the sight of his own hands.

  AZURE ROOT

  The azure is a noble tree, and its blue root has great healing powers.

  —ENTOR’S HERBAL

  THE SKY OPENED AND SNOW FELL ACROSS THE MOUNTAIN, covering Attenlore and drifting down into Uthor Vale. It filled the Shriker’s tracks, rounded the jagged rocks by the stream, dusted the trees, and filled the darkened air with cold brightness. From the cedar branch the cry of “Miles” rang out.

  Hanna scrambled down the tree and threw her arms around him. “You’ve come back,” she cried happily. “I knew you could do it! I knew you could!”

  They stood embracing. Miles felt her arms through his rags and chilled skin, warm as a healing balm. He looked down at her damp head. She was so much stronger than he’d ever thought her to be. He lifted her woolen hood back over her head. Blue, even in the night he could see the color. It startled him after having lived so long in a world of black and white.

  “We’d better leave here,” he said at last. “The trolls will return by morning.” He didn’t mention the danger they were in. Trolls were the least of their worries, now.

  A pang went through him for the loss of his kingship, his wealth, and his power, but he ignored it and turned to rewrap the ervay, knotting the twine with trembling fingers. He wasn’t dressed for this weather. His green cape was torn and dirty now. It draped like a defeated flag across his back. Snowflakes thickened and swirled about him as he placed the Falconer’s gift into the rucksack. The vale was full of beasts on the hunt this time of night. They would have to move on, and quickly.

  “Here,” said Hanna, holding out the quiver. She’d picked up the fallen arrows and removed his bow. He took them from her, the wound on his left arm stinging as he did so. “It’s not much use against the Shriker,” he said.

  “It is if you aim well.”

  He was grateful to her for saying that. She’d always trusted in his strength and his talent with a bow. But he felt clumsy in his boy’s body, and he wondered if he would disappoint her.

  A chill wind picked up as they walked against the driving snow. There was little light above now that the moon was half hidden by clouds. Hanna used her lightstone to guide the way, and he saw the beam from the stone was as pale blue as lake water. How strange to be back inside his own skin. His body felt small and weak. His legs lacked muscle; his arms were flimsy as twine, his left one too damaged from the wounds left by the gullmuth and the Shriker to be of any use in a fight; and his nails were soft and insubstantial.

  He ran his tongue along his smooth, flat teeth and found a gap on the upper right side. His wounds had all come with him, like the other times he’d shifted back, no surprise there. But why sustain this small loss of a missing tooth from his shape-shift? Was that all he’d gained from the beast?

  Trudging on through the flurries, he lifted his face to the night. The air was no longer ripe and thick with telling scents. That power was gone from him. Still, his nose told him one thing, and strongly. “I stink,” he said.

  Hanna laughed. “Not as bad as Cully.”

  “So, you met Cully?”

  “Aye.”

  “And did you draw your weapon?”

  “I used my troll glass.”

  Miles stopped. First a lightstone, now a troll glass. “Did you find that on the shore as well?”

  “No,” said Hanna with a smile. “Aetwan gave it to me.”

  A ripple of jealously ran up his back. Aetwan had never given him anything with magic power.

  Hanna talked as they walked on. “The troll glass worked well enough on Cully. But he was more afraid of the great Hound King. He
told me how the Hound King defeated the gullmuth monster.”

  “It was a real battle, that,” said Miles, cheering a little. They climbed a steep grade, sidestepping patches of ice. The terrain flattened out again. The blue light faltered ahead, and he knew his sister’s hand must be shaking. When he turned around, he found her leaning against a thick tree trunk.

  “It’s no good walking,” she said. “We can’t even see where we’re going.”

  “We can’t stay in the open, Hannah.” He felt the need to list the dangers, so many wild things wandered here at night, but he saw her pale face in the blue light. And he knew she was worn down.

  They would have to hide until daylight. “How long has it been since you slept?” he asked.

  “I napped an hour or so last night, I think, cramped inside a hollow tree.”

  Miles looked around. “I can’t say for sure,” he said, “but if we’re where I think we are, then there’s a cave nearby. Wait here,” he added.

  Miles used the Falconer’s flint stone to spark a little fire in the musty cave. Hanna cooked a small pot of soup with the dried mushrooms and beans she’d brought from home.

  The bright little fire and the hot soup eased them against the cold, and the hard bread softened when it was dipped in the broth. They ate together in silence. Miles didn’t want to speak of the storm outside or of the beast that waited hidden in the valley.

  After finishing his soup, he handed his empty bowl to Hanna, careful to keep his arm covered so she wouldn’t view his wound. He winced with pain as he broke a stick and added it to the fire. Squatting by the glow, he poked at a bit of kindling here, a dried pinecone there, to keep the flame alive. He remembered with an ache how many fires he’d tended by his teacher’s side, how he’d once seen the Falconer herd fire, move the flames this way and that just by positioning his hand, a power he’d asked to have for himself and one not given him.

  The meer had held back his magic with good reason; Miles knew that now. He’d mishandled the magic he was given from the start, nearly lost his life—and Hanna’s—by doing so, though at the time it had all seemed right.