The Beast of Noor Read online

  “Ah,” said Granda. “It would take some powerful magic to do that.”

  What kind of magic? wondered Hanna. She looked up at Miles. Golden firelight bathed his cheeks and forehead, but it didn’t soften his fierce look. His face was as taut and gleaming as a bronze shield.

  Hanna dug a little line in the dirt, drops from her rain-soaked hair staining the dust a darker brown. All this talk of death and curses frightened her. She wished she could go back to three months ago, when the last days of winter had dressed the mountainside with snow. When Polly had been alive and the Shriker’s tale had seemed a story, a dark tale Granda wasn’t allowed to tell in the house.

  There were better stories then, happier ones about the Otherworld; about Wild Esper, the wind woman; and the Sylth Queen, who ruled the fairy world of Oth. Stories she could fill her heart and mind with. She believed them all, and always had, the Old Ways seeming right to her way of thinking. But she’d shut her mind against the shadow realm and the monsters that dwelled there, wishing, hoping they weren’t true. “You can’t have it both ways, Hanna,” Granda said to her once. All the same, she’d swept the dark tales from her mind, quick and tidy, the way Mother went at the kitchen floor with her broom.

  Granda had been talking with Miles while she was lost in thought, and she caught only the end of what he was saying.

  “… out in Shalem Wood at night?”

  “I’ve gone out with the Falconer.”

  “Well, your teacher’s a good soul,” said Granda. “And he’s a fine leafer. There’s many on Enness who owe their life to his healing hand.”

  The old man coughed and cleared his throat. “So, you’ve not ventured out alone, then?”

  Miles shrugged and sat again beside the fire. “A few times. I know the woods by day and night, and I always take my knife.”

  Hanna looked at her brother’s face, his high brows, which shadowed his deep-set eyes. She thought of Polly’s bones. “Tell him he shouldn’t go out alone, Granda! Not with wild beasts out there and … and more …”

  “Aye,” said Granda. “You should listen to your sister. The woods are a danger at night now the moon’s eclipsed. You’ll have to watch Hanna closely too, boy. With her dreamwalks and all.”

  “I’ve always done so,” said Miles proudly. “She never wanders farther than the garden or the well.”

  “She’s older now and may begin to wander farther in her sleep.”

  Hanna blushed. They were speaking of her as if she weren’t sitting right beside them. She wasn’t a child anymore. She wanted to shout, “I can take care of myself, thank you all the same!” But she never knew when a dreamwalk would come or where her feet would take her in her sleep.

  Granda sneezed and wiped his nose. “And you yourself had best keep clear of Shalem Wood as well, Miles,” he warned, “for once the Shriker’s freed on the night of the dark moon, he comes back to hunt more prey on full-moon nights until the winter snows come to the wood. Some years three people die, some years seven, but never only one, so Polly Downs was only the first to fall this time around.”

  Miles kept quiet. He pulled out his knife again and stripped the bark from a fresh stick, the brown curls falling at his feet.

  Granda gave a grunt. “You think you’re man enough to face whatever’s out there?”

  “I know the mountain and the woods better than anyone else on Enness Isle, except for the Falconer,” boasted Miles, “I can fend for myself all right.”

  “Ah, my boy.” Granda sighed. “My brother. Enoch, thought the same. There was no one and nothing held him back. He had such a thirst to uncover the secrets of Shalem Wood and prove he could wield magic to overcome whatever lurked out there.”

  Miles dropped his knife and quickly picked it up again. “Did he ever … find a way?”

  “It’s hard to speak of even now.” Granda coughed and held his hands out to the meager fire. Hanna saw the old man was chilled and might come down with a fever if they stayed here any longer. “It’s stopped raining.” she said, coming to a stand. “We should be going home.”

  Granda sniffed and patted the ground. “By and by, Hanna.”

  She sat again and flicked a piece of caked mud from her boot.

  “This won’t take long, and we’ll leave straight after that. You know what’s been said about my brother.”

  “Aye,” said Hanna. “You always told us he left Enness when he was a young man.”

  “Well, that’s true enough, but there’s more I’ve not told you. Here’s the truth about him, plain and simple. I hope it’ll be a warning to you both.”

  Hanna added the last bit of kindling to the low-some fire. The wet wood hissed. Beside the rising cloud of steam Granda leaned back, raised his knees, and wrapped his arms about them. “My brother had a ken for magic. Enough so that he was chosen to study with the meers on Othlore.”

  Hanna peered through the flames at her brother. It was Miles’s dream to go to Othlore. He’d told her so, and they’d kept it secret between them. His face changed in the dancing shadows. Surprise, hunger, jealousy, she wasn’t sure. It might be one or all.

  Granda went on. “But Enoch wasn’t on Othlore six months before he was sent back home.”

  “Why?” Miles blurted out.

  “Some disgrace, he never said what it was. Our da was angry enough with the lad. He’d expected Enoch to come home a healer. There were many sick on Enness Isle back then. Da wouldn’t have him in the house, so he sent Enoch away to live in a shepherd’s hut in the high pasture. There was a girl who used to visit him, bring him little cakes and cider. A real beauty she was back then, with bright green eyes and a grand face with a smiling mouth.

  “I went there too to see him when I could. But Enoch didn’t make for good company, being full of anger at the meers for dismissing him and rageful at our da as well. He threw me out of his hut the last time I came to call.

  “After that day my brother vanished. Seven years I searched the mountain for my brother’s bones. And then,” Granda said with a sigh. “I found him at long last.”

  Hanna’s mouth went dry. “The way Miles found Polly?” she asked in a strained voice.

  “No, Hanna, not like that.” Granda went silent and stared into the fire.

  “What, then?” whispered Hanna.

  “He wasn’t dead. Enoch was lost … enspelled.”

  “Who enspelled him?” asked Miles.

  “I don’t know, son. Enoch was too fond of magical power and too fearless for his own good. Someone went after him and punished him for it. It may have been a meer, though the meets I know don’t wield dark magic. It may have been one of the Oth folk, a sylth with great powers, like the Sylth Queen.”

  “It couldn’t have been her,” said Hanna. “She’s queen of all the fairies, and she’s beautiful and kind—”

  “And dangerous if you cross her,” said Granda.

  “Why would she enspell your brother?” asked Miles.

  “I told you it’s a mystery.” Granda sucked in his cheeks and lost himself in thought awhile. At last he said, “A horrible spell it was. My brother’s imprisoned inside a tree.”

  Hanna shivered. “Can’t he get out?”

  “He never has done,” sighed Granda. “The Enoch Tree is up on the high cliff, an isolated place where no one ever wanders. It’s a hard climb, but I’ve a mind to take you there myself when I’m feeling stronger. For now you’ll both abide my wishes and not go digging into things beyond your nature the way Enoch did, or bounding off alone like Polly. You’ll stay clear of the woods at night. Say you will.”

  “I will,” they agreed. Hanna didn’t mind the promise, but she studied Miles’s shadowed face across the fire and wondered why his dark eyes were glowing so.

  THE FALCONER’S SPELL BOOK

  Those who cause the curse must break it, and the breaking’s in the blood.

  —A SAYING ON ENNESS ISLE

  GRANDA NEVER DID GET STRONG ENOUGH TO SHOW Miles and Hanna the Enoch
Tree. Nearly three weeks had passed since they arrived home from market day soaked to the skin. The old man was chilled from the storm. He went to bed and never got up again. No matter that the Falconer came with his healing herbs; that Gurty, the woods woman, brought twiggy smokes and teas; that Brother Adolpho prayed over him.

  Miles pulled another river stone from his sack. A man’s eldest son was supposed to lay stones about a grave two days after a father’s burial, but Granda had no sons, so the honor fell to him.

  He laid the last stone down and wiped his hands, then stood and sang the Crossing Over song under his breath. In the shadow of the great oak he cried alone for the old man, the warm wind at his back his sole company.

  Climbing down the hill, he passed the shed where Hanna was leaning over the vat dipping the round candles for the Breal’s Moon celebration. She didn’t hear him pass, though he saw her well enough, her hair tied back in a yellow scarf, her hands reddened from work as she dipped the wicks into the wax.

  He thought to speak to her. Say the stone circle was in its place, but the words were caught down in his throat. Turning the corner, he took his music book from its hiding place behind the woodpile and crossed the dirt road. He was off to the Falconer’s to take what was needed. He must gather the kind of power only magic could bring to keep his promise to Granda.

  On the night before Granda died, Miles had sat by the cot and held the old man’s hand, the flesh dry as paper.

  “You must look after Hanna and Tymm,” said Granda, his eyes afire with the fever that was on him. “Don’t let them go into Shalem Wood at night. Do all you can to keep them safe from the Shriker. Promise me now.”

  Miles gripped the old man’s hand. “I promise.”

  “Good, then.” Granda looked at him and smiled for the first time in weeks, and it was that smile above all he wanted to remember now.

  Miles quit the road and hiked across the rolling hills for the Falconer’s house. “A promise made is a promise kept,” Da used to say. Today Miles meant to do just that.

  Mother and Da still insisted it was the wolves killed Polly, but Granda had been certain it was the Shriker. If he was right, if the Shriker had returned, then Miles needed the strength to turn him back—a spell great enough to send the hellhound to the underworld for good and all. A spell like that might well be hidden in the Falconer’s book.

  Wading through the thick bracken, he adjusted the flute pouch strung over his shoulder and left the sunlit hills for the shadowy wood. He’d slept little in the past three weeks with Granda sick and the Shriker always on his mind. He’d begged Granda to tell him more about the beast when Mother wasn’t in the room, and on the nights he took his watch over the sickbed, Granda told in halting breaths how the Shriker called some victims to himself with a doleful baying, and those that heard the call couldn’t help but follow. “And never look straight into his eyes,” warned Granda. “For he’ll enspell you with them so’s you can’t even run.”

  Miles wished now more than ever that Mother hadn’t banned the tale when he was ten years old. There was so much to remember. So many mysteries unsolved. Rory had died three hundred years ago, and the Shriker seemed to disappear with him. Why, then, did the beast return to Shalem Wood fifty years ago at the time of the eclipse? Who or what had brought him back? Granda couldn’t answer that. There were more questions left unanswered: Why did the Shriker hunt some victims and lure in others with a call? How was it they heard the Shriker’s howl? Couldn’t those who heard it resist the call somehow? It was all a mystery still, and one he’d have to solve himself with Granda gone.

  “Those who cause the curse must break it, and the breaking’s in the blood.” It was an old saying on Enness Isle, and it had awakened him with a cold sweat more than once since Polly’s death. He knew what the monster could do. He’d seen Polly’s bones lying in the green meadow, felt sick at the sight of them and her lock of golden hair. He couldn’t let that happen to anyone else. He wouldn’t. If Rory Sheen’s betrayal had brought the Shriker into the world, then a Sheen must break the curse.

  Miles gazed above the pines, midday and no moon out. Still, three nights from now, on Breal’s festival, the moon would rise full over the mountain. Granda said once the beast was back in Shalem Wood he attacked each time there was a full moon. And if Granda was right, the Shriker would be on the prowl again. Miles leaped rock to rock across the shallow stream. On the far side he quickened his step. He had to arrive before the Falconer returned for their lesson so that he had time to go after the spell book, the only book the Falconer had forbidden him to read. He was driven now to take what needed taking, even if it meant going against his master.

  Arriving at the ivy-covered door set in the hill, Miles knocked and waited. No movement from within. Good. He crept inside the hollow hill and felt the chill as he passed the empty hearth. He hadn’t much time.

  Passing the falcon’s perch, where Aetwan rested when at home, he entered the open alcove that was his master’s study. The room smelled of the dried herbs that dangled from the roots in the ceiling. Wiping his hands on his pants, he raised his arm and ran his fingers along the book spines, passing Entor’s Herbal, The Othic Art of Meditation, The Book of eOwey.

  He wouldn’t have to steal a spell if the Falconer were more trusting with his magic. So far he’d taught Miles only music and herb lore, no matter how often he asked the meer to teach him spells. He’d asked the Falconer to share his magic book just two weeks ago while they were gathering herbs for Granda. But his teacher’s answer was the same as ever: “When you’re ready. When it’s time.”

  Miles felt a tingling in his fingertips when he reached The Way Between Worlds, a book full of meers’ magic.

  He opened the window a crack to keep an ear out for his teacher, pulled down a music book, and layed his flute out on the table so that he could take it up right quick when the Falconer returned.

  Back in the alcove he scooted his chair out a bit to face the main room and the door. Now, to find the spell.

  Miles held his hand over the book. He would do it. No one else in his family had the means to stop the monster. Not Da, who was a Ferrell, after all, and didn’t himself believe. Not Mother, who was full of fear. Not Hanna or Tymm, who were too young. It would take magic power. Granda had said as much that day in the cave, and Miles was the only Sheen with that kind of power close at hand.

  Miles’s heart pounded as he opened the tome. He blinked at the illuminations along the margins—quail, swallows, flowering vines, sprites. Fine pictures, but there wasn’t time to look.

  Spells. There must be a section on that. He flipped the pages in twos and threes: a lot of information on healing herbs. Farther on he spied a section filled with the legends of Oth, what Granda called the magical Otherworld.

  Miles shook himself. Spells. Wasn’t there a section on spell casting? What sort of magic book would leave that out? He flipped through the pages, searching, searching

  A crackling sound came through the window. Miles jumped up and peered out. Holly leaves trembled in the tree beside the woodpile. It was the wind, what Granda would have called one of Wild Esper’s playful breezes. He sat again. On the small table the stray flurry turned the book pages. They fluttered like wings. Rustle, rustle, hush. Rustle, rustle, hush.

  The pages settled down at last to a section on the Breal’s Moon festival. The folk all over Noor were readying themselves for the festival now, and all were telling the mythical legend of Breal, who slew the serpent Wratheren and pulled the swallowed moon from the serpent’s jaws.

  Miles read the left-hand page. No spells there. He’d nearly finished with the right when he saw the words “Sylth Queen” in the bottom corner. Legend said the passage between the worlds of Noor and Oth could be crossed on Breal’s Moon night, and that the Sylth Queen chose that one night of all nights to come out of the Otherworld into the world of men.

  Turn the page. You need a spell. He tugged the corner, then paused, staring at the last t
wo lines on the bottom of the page: “Cast this spell, and if you have the Gift, the way to the sylth folk will appear,”

  The first spell, the only spell he’d found. But it had nothing to do with ridding the world of the Shriker’s curse. Still, it was a spell; he’d memorize it quickly and move on. Miles read the spell three times and four, closed his eyes, and thought of it. He knew enough not to say it aloud, even in a whisper. He checked the words again, then read: “By the giant’s-head boulder under Breal’s moonlight look to the way that opens in the night.” Giant’s-head boulder. He’d seen a boulder shaped like a giant’s head in the high meadow. A great head with deep-set eyes and mossy hair and …

  A humming voice outside: The Falconer was back! Miles slammed the book shut and shoved it onto the high shelf.

  THE SEER

  At the end of the dark passage Kwium found the door all learned men pass through and chose instead to crawl in through the window.

  —THE BOOK OF EOWEY

  MILES RUSHED TO THE FALCONER’S MAIN ROOM AND dived for the table. He was counting out the time when his teacher stepped inside.

  “Ah,” said the Falconer.

  Miles looked up at the figure in the doorway. The light behind the Falconer turned him to a standing shadow, his tall outline filling the open doorframe. Miles was struck again by his teacher’s height. The Falconer was the tallest man on Enness Isle, close to seven feet, and old age had barely stooped him. The smaller outline of his falcon, Aetwan, seemed to grow up from the old man’s shoulder, no features visible with the bright daylight behind.

  Aetwan flew to his perch and fluffed out his wings.

  “You’re early today.” The Falconer shut the door, removed his cloak, and hung it on a jutting root. He placed a stained leather bag on the table. “I’ve been gathering jessu root. Tell me what it’s used for.”

  Already he was testing him, when they’d hardly said hello. “You can make a tonic with it?” Miles hesitated. “To … ,”—he screwed up his brows in thought—“to ease a bellyache”