Dark Castle White Horse Read online

  DAW Books presents classic works of imaginative fiction by multiple award-winning author TANITH LEE

  THE BIRTHGRAVE TRILOGY

  THE BIRTHGRAVE

  SHADOWFIRE

  (originally published as Vazkor, Son of Vazkor)

  HUNTING THE WHITE WITCH

  (originally published as Quest for the White Witch)

  TALES FROM THE FLAT EARTH

  NIGHT’S MASTER

  DEATH’S MASTER

  DELUSION’S MASTER

  DELIRIUM’S MISTRESS

  NIGHT’S SORCERIES

  THE WARS OF VIS

  THE STORM LORD

  ANACKIRE

  THE WHITE SERPENT

  AND MORE:

  COMPANIONS ON THE ROAD

  VOLKHAVAAR

  ELECTRIC FOREST

  SABELLA

  KILL THE DEAD

  DAY BY NIGHT

  LYCANTHIA

  DARK CASTLE, WHITE HORSE

  CYRION

  SUNG IN SHADOW

  TAMASTARA

  THE GORGON AND OTHER BEASTLY TALES

  DAYS OF GRASS

  A HEROINE OF THE WORLD

  REDDER THAN BLOOD

  Dark Castle, White Horse

  Tanith Lee

  DAW Books, Inc

  Donald A. Wollheim, Founder

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019

  Elizabeth R. Wollheim

  Sheila E. Gilbert

  Publishers

  www.dawbooks.com

  THE CASTLE OF DARK copyright © 1978 by Tanith Lee.

  PRINCE ON A WHITE HORSE copyright © 1982 by Tanith Lee.

  DARK CASTLE, WHITE HORSE copyright © 1986 by Tanith Lee.

  All Rights Reserved.

  Cover design by Lila Selle.

  Illustration of throne and skull courtesy of Shutterstock.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 665.

  Published by DAW Books, Inc.

  1745 Broadway, New York, NY, 10019.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious.

  All resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  The uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780698404632

  First DAW Paperback Printing, March 1986

  First New Electronic Edition, May 2022

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Tanith Lee

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Castle of Dark

  Part One

  Chapter 1: Lilune: Dusk

  Chapter 2: Lir: The Harp

  Chapter 3: Lilune: The Lake-Shore

  Chapter 4: Lir: Northward

  Chapter 5: Lilune: The Cellar Door

  Chapter 6: Lir: The Castle

  Chapter 7: Lilune: Lir

  Chapter 8: Lir: Lilune

  Part Two

  The Journey Through the Woods

  Part Three

  Chapter 9: Lilune: White Water

  Chapter 10: Lir: Down-River

  Chapter 11: Lilune: The Court

  Chapter 12: Lir: The Walled Town

  Chapter 13: Lilune: Moonlight

  Chapter 14: Lir: The Night-Beast

  Part Four

  The Witch Hunt

  Part Five

  Chapter 15: Lilune: Iron

  Chapter 16: Lir: The Ground

  Chapter 17: Lilune: The Lion

  Chapter 18: Lir: Black Soul

  Prince on a White Horse

  Chapter 1: The Waste

  Chapter 2: The Castle of Bone

  Chapter 3: Ysome

  Chapter 4: The Dragon of Brass

  Chapter 5: Vultikan’s Forge

  Chapter 6: The Honnerdrin

  Chapter 7: The Oak Wood

  Chapter 8: The Tower of the Purple Knight

  Chapter 9: Grey Magic

  Chapter 10: The Marsh

  Chapter 11: The Mad Witch

  Chapter 12: The Kreeler

  Chapter 13: By the Sea

  Chapter 14: Clock Moon

  Chapter 15: The Palace in the Clouds

  Chapter 16: The Battle Against Darkness

  Chapter 17: The Secret

  About the Author

  The Castle of Dark

  PART ONE

  1

  Lilune: Dusk

  Half an hour before, the sun had set, and the iron bell had rung in the bell-tower. Now, the girl who only got up at dusk, walked into the Hall of the Castle.

  She was slight, but not tall. Her dark hair was so long it fell over her body like a sooty mantle. Eventually it reached the floor and spread out there, so that it swept up the dust behind her as she walked. She was extremely pale; though her eyes were very green.

  Entering the huge Hall with its towering columns, the girl went to a window and looked out into the gloaming. She glanced at the evening star, a blazing drop in the west, then straight downward into the courtyard below.

  One of the two old women was drawing up water from the well. The bucket creaked. The old woman sang crazily to herself in her crack-pot voice. The girl watched her. A black pigeon preened itself on the well-head.

  The girl whispered something to the pigeon thirty feet below her. The pigeon stopped preening and seemed to be listening. The girl whispered again, her green eyes wide. It was a Calling she was trying on the pigeon, although she was supposed to be ignorant of such spells. The two old women locked the doors of the cellars where they practiced their own witchery, but the girl was sharp-witted and sharp-eared. Many a midnight she had crept close and eavesdropped. She had a right to know, didn’t she? She was sixteen, and tired of her strange shadowy lonely life. She whispered. The pigeon, with a clap of wings, suddenly bolted up into the evening sky. The girl shrank back so the old woman shouldn’t see her, as the pigeon alighted in the window embrasure. The pigeon strutted and stared at the girl inquiringly. The girl was pleased with herself.

  Below in the courtyard, the old woman shrilled suspiciously:

  “Lilune? Lilune, my lamby. Is that you, my little owl?”

  Lilune scowled and kept silent. The pigeon, released, flew away.

  Then the other old woman spoke from among the columns of the Hall. She sounded just like the first old woman. They both looked the same, too; skinny, ancient, a-flap with tattered garments and tangled grey ringlets.

  “Lilune, come at once and sup your drink before it loses its properties.”

  Lilune didn’t like the drink on which she breakfasted. There were odd ingredients in it, which turned it black with a head of creamy foam. Sometimes the old women grated leaves on the surface, or flower petals, to tempt her.

  “I’m not thirsty,” said Lilune.

  “But the lamb must have her drink, or she won’t grow to be healthy and wise,” clucked the second o
ld woman.

  “It won’t be any use to me being healthy or wise,” snapped Lilune. She wondered if this old woman had guessed she had Called the pigeon. Lilune decided to throw a fit of temper to distract her. “I want to go out!” she yelled. “Why can’t I go out?”

  “Later, little owl,” soothed the crone. “When the moon rises. Then we’ll go down to the lake and you shall look at the pebbles there, and the empty houses. But you must take your moonshade, for it’s a full moon tonight.”

  Lilune clenched her fists in a real and desolate anger.

  This was all she had ever known: the looming black Castle, the black woods that stretched away from it to the south and east, the swampy western marshes and the northern lake with its ruins, winter-frozen, or burning under a hot summer moon. And always these two old women hovering. Without ever having known anything else, Lilune nevertheless felt she was being cheated of something.

  The second old woman plucked at Lilune’s sleeve.

  “Come and have your drinky, sweetheart. There’s candied rose-leaves in it tonight.”

  Lilune suffered herself to be led to the table. It was pointless to resist. After all, she had Called the pigeon and the old women had not found out. She glanced at the hag’s terrible, loving, mad face. Perhaps, Lilune abruptly thought, the Calling might be used to summon . . . other things?

  2

  Lir: The Harp

  Lir came up the track into the village just as the moon was coming over the hills. It was a late summer moon, round and pale smoky gold. It colored the tall grain in the fields, and the thatched cots. It colored Lir’s hair, which in any case was much of the moon’s color, and the light bronze box he carried on his back.

  As Lir turned on to the village street, dogs, catching the footfall of a stranger, began barking. Almost immediately, four or five men were out on the street, eyeing him.

  “What’s your business?” one said to him.

  “To pass through. Or to seek a night’s lodging,” said Lir. The men in the street reacted to his voice, for the voice of Lir had music in it.

  “There’s lodging,” said a man. “What payment?”

  “Whatever you require,” said Lir.

  “A day’s work with us in the fields.”

  “If you wish,” said Lir, easily.

  The men laughed. Somebody said: “But what’s that you carry on your back?”

  “Only my harp.”

  The men laughed again and came to draw Lir into their midst.

  “A minstrel, a song-maker. Come, no field-work for you. Shelter, a place to sleep, all you can eat. And the price is your songs.”

  “You may not care for my songs,” said Lir modestly.

  But the men only clapped him on the shoulder. They took him up the street to the cut-stone house where the village’s most important family lived.

  Soon the doors stood open and the big room was crammed with men and women. They had roused their children from sleep and brought them, and the babies. The very old were brought, the sick, if they could manage it. For who did not know, even in these remote lands far north of the cities, the power of a song-maker?

  They gave Lir a cup of ale, but he would take nothing else yet. It was his habit to play before he ate. He undid the bronze box and lifted out the harp. There was scarcely a sound in all the crowded room. They watched as he tuned the harp. It was made of a light blond wood, polished by use. The sound-box had a plate of brown bone, the pegs were bronze. The strings glinted like silver hair combed taut on the frame.

  Presently, Lir began to make a song for the people in the cut-stone house, and the harp woke and came alive in his hands.

  Lir never chose a song out of himself, the harp would choose it. Somehow, the thin bright notes of the harp would find the song, and when the moment was ripe, Lir would begin to sing it. Now, when the moment came, his voice rose effortless and sure. Sometimes it would be an old song, one he had learned from the wandering harpers he had heard as a child, or met with later on his own wanderings. Sometimes a new song, which created itself as it was sung. Sometimes it was a little of both. And sometimes, even Lir was uncertain, singing it, of the song’s exact meaning. Yet always the song was the right one, for the harp made it.

  Lir was a true harper. From the earliest, probably it had been so. Sooner than he could walk, he had sung. No doubt he sang nonsense then, but yet it was noticed. He was born one of many, the seventh son, and there were daughters too. Gladly, his parents apprenticed him to a roaming minstrel who was laid up through the winter in their village with a sore leg. And later, when a rich cousin died and money was available, they sent Lir off to learn in the Song-Makers’ School in the town. The school taught many things: the arts of rhyming and shaping, of tricks and cunning and showmanship, for fingers and tongue alike. It taught etiquette, and how to flatter, and how to make it seem each verse you sang was fresh, devised only for him you sang it for that hour. From this school, and others like it, a minstrel might go and get himself a place at some castle court, even at some lord’s house in a city. At sixteen, Lir with his beautiful voice, his skill and all the school had taught him, was fair set for such a place. He could have had pride and fame and wealth, but it was not to be.

  One summer night, a minstrel came to the town.

  It was a night when the moon was large and lasting, and a night-market was being held in the town square. By the sheep-pens and between the stalls and along the avenues where the red torches were stuck on poles, the minstrel strode. He was a wild-haired man with wild eyes. On his cloak were serpents of yellow thread, and on his back a box of yellow ivory. Any minstrel was generally popular. He would bring news, stories, good cheer, and welcome dreams to combat harsh reality. Perhaps his harping would ease the sick and the sad. Still, this was a town with a school of minstrels in it. Minstrels were a commonplace here. Yet the people stared at this one.

  At the center of the market place, he sat down cross-legged on a bale of straw. Opening his ivory box, he took out a harp, and set it in the crook of his arm. But he didn’t play. He only sat, looking about him. Finally a girl cried from the market crowd: “Come, man. Let’s have a tune we can dance to.”

  Then the minstrel cried back: “It isn’t my night for dancing tunes, my girl. Nevertheless, this harp of mine is eager. I will tell you what. About my neck is a yellow gem. Let any man come up here and make a song with this harp of mine, and whoever pleases me the best, he shall have the gem.”

  This was new: a minstrel who paid others to do his business. But the jewel he had pulled from his neck looked to be a rare one. Pretty soon a lout came over and took the harp, and struck up a discordant jig. There was much laughter and abuse. Next, another man approached, with more talent. Several of the young men from the Minstrels’ School were close at hand, walking about through the market. Eventually, one of these moved to take the harp. He played well, as if at a lord’s feast. When he was done, he gazed at the minstrel with the gem-stone, to see if he had won it. But the man grinned and sent him away with a “Good enough, but not good enough for me.”

  After that, the young men of the school came thick and fast, vying with each other, joking and calling the wild-eyed minstrel an oaf when he dismissed them. “Doubtless this wanderer would play us all into Hell,” they said. “Probably the Dark One himself, Hell’s Prince, invites this old chap in to harp for him, after his supper of bats’ brains.”

  “And maybe he does at that,” said Wild-Eye, and the serpents rippled on his cloak. But the yellow jewel never left his grip.

  A deal of music was made, all of it excellent now, and the crowd in the market-place was enjoying itself. The moon burned high and the torches burned low. Still, the yellow jewel had not changed hands.

  For some while, Lir had been standing at the edge of the crowd, watching. The show entertained him, and strangely troubled him, too. He felt a wrongness. Certainly,
he had no intentions of adding his own efforts to the contest. Those he considered superior to himself had failed with the exacting minstrel. Besides, Lir had a girl with him, a pretty girl, and summer nights are short.

  It was just as Lir was getting ready to turn away that the minstrel called out to him.

  “You, the fair-haired boy. You’ve been staring long enough. Now let us hear what you can do.”

  Lir felt the blood come up in his face, but he said: “It’s not my night for harping either, sir. I’ll sit the game out, with you.”

  The minstrel shook his head. He said: “Don’t disappoint the harp. She chose you, not I.”

  Then a thing happened which was discussed at some length afterwards. For the harp was leaning by the minstrel’s knee, and he never touched it that anyone saw, but it gave off a fierce twanging moan.

  Lir discovered he had left his girl and was strolling across to the straw bale where the minstrel sat.

  Lir had already learned to be sure of his trade in public, for the school taught that, too. In any case, with song or harp, he had never been shy. But he accepted the minstrel’s harp with some caution. It seemed made entirely of bone; Lir had never handled the like of it. However, leaning on the bale, he prepared to tune the harp. The minstrel touched his shoulder. “No need,” said the minstrel. “Only play.”

  “What will you have then?” Lir asked.

  “Not what I will have, but what the harp will give.”

  Lir shrugged. He had a mind to sing one of the songs the school had introduced him to, a ballad of clever gibberish, to make the crowd laugh. But when his fingers met the strings, a vast fall of notes spilled from them, like water drops. He had not planned them, could not better them. And with a curious trembling of the heart, Lir let Wild-Eye’s harp lead him. The song which rose was one he did not know, nor could he form it again, after. But it was very fine. It burst from him as leaves burst from the trees in spring, as marvellous and as natural. The music carried him away as if it had loaned him wings.