The Beast of Noor Read online

  THE BEAST OF NOOR

  JANET LEE CAREY

  ATHENEUM BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS

  New York, LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY

  ALSO BY JANET LEE CAREY

  MollY’s Fire

  Wenny Has Wings

  The Double Life of Zoe Flynn

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2006 by Janet Lee Carey

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design by Michael McCartney

  The text for this book is set in Centaur and NotCaslon.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Carey, Janet Lee.

  The Beast of Noor / Janet Lee Carey.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Fifteen-year-old Miles Ferrell uses the rare and special gift he is given to break the curse of the Shriker, a murderous creature reportedly brought to Shalem Wood by his family’s clan centuries before.

  eISBN-13: 978-1-439-13240-1

  ISBN-13: 978-0-689-87644-8

  [I. Fantasy.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C2125Bea 2006

  [Fic]—dc22 2005017731

  To Tom, guardian of Noor.

  To the first intrepid Noor explorers in my critique group: Peggy King Anderson, Judy Bodmer, Katherine Grace Bond, Dawn Knight, and Justina Chen Headley.

  To Indu Sundaresan for helping me cut to the chase.

  And to my editor, Susan Burke, for her unfailing ability to always “see the dog.”

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  CHAPTERS

  Lost Polly

  The Wild Hunt

  Lost Brother

  The Falconer’s Spell Book

  The Seer

  The Enoch Tree

  Dreamwalk

  The Way Opens

  Swallowing the Spell

  Brother Adolpho’s Garden

  The Falconer’s Warning

  Wild Wolf

  Covering the Tracks

  Spell Song

  The Deeps

  Falling

  Truth Telling

  The Argument

  The Ties that Bind

  Following

  The Road that Splits Asunder

  Glisten

  Bread and Water

  Stalking

  Two Maps

  Torn Cloak

  Hunting

  The Old Men of Mount Shalem

  Wild Esper

  Epitt the Spy

  Prey

  The Queen’s Secret

  Captive

  Leaving

  Hag Wind

  The Crossing Over

  Visitors from Afar

  The Feather Quill

  The Wind Wall

  The Cliff

  Essha, Hannalyn

  Wise Root

  Aetwan’s Gift

  The Dark Lands

  Arrows

  The Hound King

  Beast Tracks

  Stolen

  Darkwood Troll

  The King’s Realm

  The Eye of the Heart

  The Parcel

  Azure Root

  Escape Plan

  The Gullmuth Pit

  The Trap

  Brown Eyes

  The Darro’s Curse

  The Dog

  Uthor’s Edge

  The Serpent and the Moon

  The Queen’s Courtyard

  To High Cliff and Home

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I OWE GREAT THANKS TO THE FAIRY TALES AND LEGENDS of old, spoken across the world and woven through all cultures. From land to land many of these tales feature forest monsters, villainous wolves, and wild dogs. One legend from the British Isles tells of a phantom dog known by various names—Black Dog, Mauthe Doog, Padfoot, Barguest, Shriker, Gytrash, and so on. Charlotte Brontë describes the Gytrash in Jane Eyre, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle seeks to hunt him down in The Hound of the Baskervilles. The phantom hound has existed long in legend and haunted many a tale. But the legend of the Shriker, which tells of Rory Sheen’s betrayal and the Darro’s curse on Enness Isle, is singular to the world of Noor.

  We who work in fantasy today take the threads from all the storytellers of the past. From these ancient, many-colored threads we work to weave a new cloth. If the landscape, the characters, and the creatures here call up the old tales told beside the fire, when stories went from mouth to ear instead of page to eye, then I have woven well and the dreamer continues to dream.

  Things are never what they seem Find the lost inside the dream.

  —THE OLD MEN OF MOUNT SHALEM

  IN THE SHADOW LANDS OF ATTENLORE THE SHRIKER WAITS. ON THE NIGHT OF THE DARK MOON HE BREAKS THROUGH THE GREAT WIND WALL WITH A VENGEFUL HUNGER THAT DRIVES HIM BACK INTO THE WORLD OF MEN. FINDING PASSAGE FROM THE OTHERWORLD, HE SHAPE-SHIFTS INTO A GREAT BLACK DOG OF MONSTROUS HEIGHT, TALLER THAN A WOODLAND BEAR, BROADER BACKED AND STRONGER. IN THE DEEPS OF SHALEM WOOD HE HOWLS. AND HIS MOON CALL IS A SPELL SONG FOR THOSE WHO COME TO DIE IN HIS JAWS.

  LOST POLLY

  Do not wander in the deeps, where the Shriker’s shadow creeps. When he rises from beneath, Beware the sharpness of his teeth.

  —A SAYING ON ENNESS ISLE

  THE FULL MOON DARKENED OVER AS POLLY CREPT THROUGH the trees. A sound had drawn her into Shalem Wood. A call so low and sweet it made her forget her sorrow over her lover, Tarn, who’d drowned at sea.

  She stepped in rhythm to the call that filled her body and sang down to her bones. It was beautiful. So rich and deep. Who was the singer? Where was the song? Her heart beat in time with it. The green trees swayed with it. All dancing, dancing.

  Polly began to spin, reeling round and round to the sweet, dark sound. She tripped on a root. Fell. Cried out. The sudden, sharp pain in her leg awakened her from her trance. She’d cut her knee and torn her sleeve in the blackberry hedge when she fell. Inching her way back to the trail, she came to a stand and looked about. She’d come into the woods alone at night, and in her sleeping gown! How had she gotten here?

  It had been a full-moon night when she bedded down in Brim village, by the sea. Now the moon had eclipsed, and all was deep in shadow. Nothing but pale starlight to guide her.

  Polly twisted the shell bracelet on her wrist. Think. She had to think. Taking a deep breath, she turned about. She’d retrace her steps, find the mountain road that led back to town. Aye, she could do that; she’d walked these woods by day before and knew her way well enough. Polly headed down the winding trail, never mind her sore knee.

  An owl hooted from the pine branch above. Polly sped up her pace. There was a tale Gran used to tell years ago about a beast that haunted the forest on dark-moon nights like this. But it was just a story told to frighten little children and keep them out of Shalem Wood.

  “Just a story,” whispered Polly over and over as she walked. Branches waved in the wind. Leaves trembled in the thornbushes. The broad-limbed oaks and pines creaked above like black-boned giants.

  Halfway down the trail Polly stopped, heart pounding. This was the way back, wasn’t it?

  That call again. Her chest tightened. It was that call that had drawn her into Shalem Wood. Some kind of spell.
It must be, for it didn’t sound so lovely now. It sounded more like a wolf’s howl. One wolf or many or … Polly took off running. She had to reach the road. It couldn’t be far. But which way? It was so dark in the forest with the moon gone.

  She fled through the bracken, gulping down the chill night air.

  The baying sound came again. A wolf, surely, but it must be more than one; no single wolf could have such a monstrous howl. Polly rushed right, then left, then right again. She had to find her way out!

  The sound of paws against the earth behind her. Fast. Faster. The beast was gaining. The pounding paws were too loud to come from a wolf. Not a wolf. Something bigger than a wolf.

  The thing was bounding closer. Paw to earth. Paw to earth. Pounding. Pounding. She ran fast, faster.

  The beast pounced

  Miles awakened with a fright. Someone had screamed. He leaped off his cot and stood in his stocking feet, trembling, listening.

  The scream was real, wasn’t it? He looked out the window. Outside the full moon was eclipsed. Miles blinked in wonder. He’d never seen an eclipse before. How dark it made the barn, the dirt road. How black it made the trees in Shalem Wood.

  Another horrible, high-pitched scream.

  Miles started. The first scream had been real. Had his sister, Hanna, gone dreamwalking in the woods again? Was she badly hurt?

  Miles tugged on his boots, grabbed his bow and hunting knife, and flung open his door. Halfway down the hall he ran into Da, who was already throwing on his cloak.

  “Did you hear that?” asked Da.

  “Aye. Where’s Hanna?”

  “She’s in her room. I told her to stay put.”

  Someone else, then. Who was out there? No time to think—they were already racing across the dirt road, the torch fires blowing back as they rushed along.

  Starlight fell dimly on the treetops. The moon still hid in shadow. It was hard to see very far ahead, even with the torches.

  “This way, Da!” They took the broadest trail through the whispering pines.

  “Hello!” called Da. “Anyone out there?”

  No answer. An owl winged overhead.

  Miles splashed across a mountain stream, the cold water soaking into his boots. On the far side he saw something. “Look!” he called. They raced up the grade toward the blackberry bushes, where a bit of torn fabric flailed in the wind. Da held his torch up near enough to see the pattern in the cloth, white cotton stitched with violets.

  Miles touched the violets. Small stitches like the ones his sister, Hanna, made.

  “What is it?” asked Da.

  Miles couldn’t tell his da what he knew now, knew down in his bones, though he couldn’t say why.

  They’d find the girl—find her too late.

  THE WILD HUNT

  On the night of the Wild Hunt the Darro came riding across the sky on his shadow mare.

  —THE LEGEND OF THE SHRIKER

  CLOUDS ROLLED IN FROM THE SEA, DARKENING THE ROCKY shore at the edge of Shalem Wood. In the green tide pool below the craggy cliffs Miles gathered mussels with Hanna. He plunged his hand into the cold sea water and shuddered. It had been a week since he’d heard the screams. But they’d found the girl, all right, after searching night till dawn.

  It was Miles who saw the glint of white at the edge of the meadow. The bones nestled in the green grass were stripped clean, only a lock of golden hair and a shell bracelet left behind. He knew the bones were Polly’s as soon as he saw the bracelet, for she always wore Tarn’s gift. Why had she gone into the wood on such a night? Da had asked it as they searched the trail with torches, and Miles had wondered ever since.

  Miles blinked. He’d try not to think of Polly though he’d thought of little else day and night this past week. And now they’d come to town, he’d heard the villagers talking of her death. No. He wouldn’t think of that, either. He had dinner to help fetch.

  Tugging three mussels from the crags, he dropped them in Hanna’s basket, wiped his dripping nose on the back of his hand, and stood in the shadow of the cliff. He didn’t mind gathering mussels for Mother, though he was fifteen now and the task was beneath him. He had hopes of being chosen to study magic on Othlore Isle. And if he got his wish, the years he’d spent herding Da’s sheep and gathering food for Mother would hardly be worth his while. Only his studies with the Falconer would count for something to the wise meers.

  Miles found the place in the sky where the dim white orb of sun was shrouded by storm clouds. Othlore. He longed to see the isle, though it was hundreds of miles away. “Soon,” he whispered to himself and to the sea. He’d prove himself there. And when he returned home full of magic power, he’d make sure the village folk never talked down to him again, never reviled him or pushed him aside as they did now. They’d treat him with honor as they did the Falconer. He felt the pulse drumming in his ears just thinking of it.

  Hanna dropped her mussels in the basket, licked the salt from her fingers, and glanced up at him with her mismatched eyes—one blue, one green—a feature she was ashamed of, but one he was used to and liked well enough, “It’s time we got back,” she said.

  Miles let her words blow free between them. True, it was time to go. He didn’t want to face the villagers yet, with their wary looks and blaming talk. Still, Hanna was right, Granda would have sold the wool by now, and he’d be waiting for them near the market square.

  Hanna took up the basket and swung it back and forth as they started up the beach. Along the shoreline a fisherman’s wife was heading for the tide pools with her little girl. The child flung out her chubby arms and took off, running toward Hanna.

  “Effie!” her mother called. “Stay back!”

  Effie raced up the beach.

  “She’s all right,” said Hanna, touching the child’s rosy cheek.

  The woman raced up and grabbed Effie.

  Hanna started and pulled back.

  “I told you not to go near them!” the mother scolded, shaking the girl so harshly she began to cry.

  “Go home with you!” she shouted at Miles and Hanna. “Go back where you belong!” She lifted her crying child and carried her back down the beach.

  “I wouldn’t have harmed her,” said Hanna.

  “It’s not you she’s afraid of.”

  Hanna kicked up the sand. “Not my eyes, then?”

  “Not your eyes this time. I saw the farmwives and the shopkeepers today. They were talking in hushed voices behind their hands, but I heard them all the same.”

  “What are they saying now?”

  A wave swept in, the foam licking the edge of Miles’s boots.

  “Tell me,” said Hanna.

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do,” insisted Hanna.

  Miles looked over at his sister. She was small for her thirteen years, but she had a stubborn strength that often made up for her size. “They’re saying we’re to blame for Polly’s death.”

  Hanna stopped short. “What? But they can’t be blaming us for that! All you did was find her and bring her … her bones back to town. It isn’t right!”

  “Right or wrong doesn’t matter to them, Hanna.”

  Miles pulled up a piece of cordgrass, bit down hard, and sucked the sharp, green taste from the stem. It was just like the village folk to blame his clan for Polly’s death. They’d always been outsiders, living ten miles from town, coming down mountain only once a month to buy supplies or worship in the kirk. The villagers had never warmed to them, but Miles had never felt their outright anger. Not until today. Fishmongers, farmwives, merchants, it didn’t matter. He saw the piercing hatred in their eyes—the chill look of fear. Those who believed in the old legend were spreading rumors, saying the Shriker killed Polly Downs and that it was all the fault of his own Sheen clan, for the legend said it was a Sheen that brought the monstrous dog to Shalem Wood three hundred years ago.

  Wind stung Miles’s face and ears. Flies flew up from the green seaweed, circling his head, buzz
ing. Crossing the beach to the cliff, they started for the narrow path where the goldenrod bowed tip to sand in the heavy wind.

  The first raindrops fell, early warnings of the storm to come. Hanna stepped ahead of Miles, dug the toe of her boot into the foothold, and scaled the cliff rocks. The mussel shells made a clatter sound as her basket banged against the cliff.

  “I’ll take the basket,” said Miles.

  “I’m all right.” Hanna grunted as she pulled herself up to level ground, then straightened out her skirt, waiting for him to follow. Miles grabbed a handhold, leaped up to level ground, and quickened his step to beat out the storm.

  The dirt alley wound this way and that, with cottages to the left and right, some near the cliff edge looking out to sea, others facing the dirt road to town. Two women came into their backyards with their washing. At another cottage an old man was feeding slops to his pigs.

  Hanna and Miles were fast on their feet, and they would have made it back to the market square before the storm if Gerald, Mic, and Cully hadn’t caught them in the alley.

  “Ah, look! It’s the Sheens!” called Gerald.

  “The shepherd boy and his sister, who talks to trees,” said Cully.

  “Watch out,” warned Mic, “or she’ll hex you with her eyes!”

  “Which one? The blue eye or the green?”

  Miles widened his stance and curled his right hand into a stony fist. The boys were all fifteen like himself, and each a head taller than him. Still, he would warn them off. “Out of our way, fish bait!”

  “Fish bait, is it? You Sheens all stink of sheep!” Cully pinched his nose.

  “You know that’s not our name,” said Hanna. “We’re Ferrells.”

  “Your granda’s a Sheen and so’s your mother!” called Mic. “So the bad blood’s in your veins!”

  Hanna tried to walk around them, but Mic stepped in front of her. Beyond the fence the old man with the slop bucket took out his pipe and lit up. On the other side the women watched. It was three against two, and Hanna only a girl, but none of the grown-ups made a move to help.

  Cully stuck his chest out. “My granda says the Shriker killed Polly Downs, and all because of you Sheens. Your clan brought the Shriker into Shalem Wood long ago, and he hunts there still.”