Charlotte Kersten

“The giant Grof was hit in one eye by a stone, and that eye turned inward so that it looked into his mind and he died of what he saw there.”

Year published: 1974

Categories: Adult, fantasy

Summary: the young sorceress Sybel lives alone on her mountain, surrounded by the marvelous, ancient beasts of legend that her father called to him. She is content to tend to the animals and gather secrets, but one night a strange young man comes to the mountain with a baby in his arms. The baby is a relation of Sybel’s, born to the Queen of Drede and her lover. Sybel knows nothing of love but she takes the baby in, drawing her into the treacherous world of human power and emotion for the first time.

My Thoughts: I really wish I had a sufficient grasp of the English language to tell you how Patricia McKillip’s writing makes me feel. In my opinion there are few fantasy authors who have as perfect a command of the written word. She is poetic without becoming overwrought, thoughtful without becoming ponderous, ethereal without becoming detached from the humanity of her characters. Each one of her novels is a perfect little dreamscape, an exquisitely-wrought fairy tale that unfolds before you one lush sentence at a time.

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld is in many ways concerned with what it means to exist with others in the word. Sybel is constantly torn between isolating herself on her mountain and descending into the world of men: one way lies certainty and safety but loneliness and emptiness, the other way lies all of the joy and terrifying pain that comes from vulnerability. When she is hurt in the deepest way after venturing into the world of men, the book also considers the question of what Sybel owes the world in return for the ways that it has both wronged her and provided her with joy- does she owe it her rage and vengeance, or her continued love and vulnerability?

I think the book is at its most powerful when it meditates on love and hate, and how we change based not only how we love and hate, but on how we act based on these emotions. At the start of the book Sybel tells Coren that she does “not understand loving and hating, only being and knowing.” She is skittish and cold, slow to trust and deeply leery of others, but gradually comes to know what it truly means to care for others as she is drawn into the world with Coren, Tam and the mountain witch Maegla. Her relationship with Coren is at the heart of her struggle between isolation and trust:

“What do you think love is—a thing to startle from the heart like a bird at every shout or blow? You can fly from me, high as you choose into your darkness, but you will see me always beneath you, no matter how far away, with my face turned to you. My heart is in your heart. I gave it to you with my name that night and you are its guardian, to treasure it, or let it wither and die.”

Sybel learns to hate when the King of Drede, in his obsession with her, hires a sorcerer to strip away her willpower so she will belong to him without any question of a struggle. The sorcerer, Mithran, decides that he will keep Sybel for himself instead, and she is paralyzed as he begins to assault her. After killing him and escaping, Sybel’s hatred for the king grows and consumes her:

“How did you hate? Did you nurse revenge from a tiny, moon-pale seedling in the night places in your heart, watch it grow and flower and bear dark fruit that hung ripe—ripe for the plucking? It becomes a great, twisted thing of dark leaves and thick, winding vines that chokes and withers whatever good things grow in your heart; it feeds on all the hatred your heart can bear—That is what is in me, Coren. Not all the wondrous joy and love of you can wither that night plant in me.”

She embraces all of the coldness that she once harbored for the world and hatches a plot that will strip Drede of all of his power and leave him helpless and terrified just as he tried to do with her. It is a plot that involves war, manipulation and deceiving Coren while strategizing with his violence-mongering brothers. Ultimately, she realizes that she must confront the mass of hatred and love that has grown inside of her. I want to return to this thought after considering the attack on Sybel in a little more depth.

Drede and Mithran both attempt to strip Sybel of all agency and control her utterly. Their violence towards her is at its heart a matter of men being afraid of a woman’s power: in this case her literal magical power and knowledge, but also her ability to consent or not, to reject them think independently for herself and find them wanting. They cannot experience love or desire outside a context of complete control because of this fear; they cannot experience admiration for Sybel without this terror that she will be more powerful than them. In some ways I think this is another meditation on vulnerability; this time, the way that our constructions of masculinity perpetuate violence towards women through their destruction of vulnerability:

“Sybel, I am helpless in this matter. I want you, but I am afraid of you…”

After their attacks on her, Sybel’s story becomes one of all-consuming rage as a result of victimization. It’s common to hear that there is no wrong emotional response to experiencing trauma, and the core message here is very much in line with this. But what I think McKillip is concerned with goes beyond what one feels and extends to what one does in response to trauma. Sybel’s ultimate realization is that she has every right to feel hatred and anger in response to what was done to her, but she has hurt those she loves by deceiving and manipulating them, plotting for a war that would destroy their lives and manipulating Coren’s mind just as Mithran would have done to her. In the process she has also damaged herself:

“But you had a right to be angry.”
“Yes. But not to hurt those I love, or myself.”

It’s the story of a marvelous, strange young woman and the tremendous power that she wields, it’s the story of her ancient beasts and their secrets, it’s the story of love that survives great wrongs, and it is ultimately the story of Sybel starting to heal:

“Come with me tomorrow through the forest; we will gather black mushrooms and herbs that, crushed against the fingers, give a magic smell. You will feel the sun on your hair and the rich earth beneath your feet, and the fresh winds scented with the spice of snow from the hidden places on Eld Mountain. Be patient, as you must always be patient with new pale seeds buried in the dark ground. When you are stronger, you can begin to think again. But now is the time to feel.”