‘The Forgotten Beasts of Eld’ magical

  Oh Patricia McKillip, how I love you.
  Yes, I’m singing the praises of McKillip again. This time for her book “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld,” for which she won the World Fantasy Award in 1975.
  The wizard woman Sybel lives on Eld Mountain. She is mostly alone but is surrounded with mythical animals with whom she can communicate and call with her mind.
  There is the falcon Ter, who can tear men apart; Cryin the boar, who always has a riddle; Tirlith the black swan, who can carry people through the sky; the Lyon Gules, whose bewitching pelt captivates men; the huge black cat Moriah, whose charms are legendary throughout the land; and the powerful Dragon Gyld, who dreams of fire and gold.
  Sybel is content to live with her animals in her mountain home. But when a man brings a baby to Sybel that he claims is her kin, her isolation is broken. Sybel agrees to take the child, Tamlorn, and she raises him as her own and begins to know love for the first time. That is until the man returns again years later, and Sybel unexpectedly finds her heart softening again.
  Sybel took the hand Coren offered her as he bent in the saddle. He held it tightly a moment.
  “If I need you, I will call.”
  He loosened her hand, smiling. “And I will come.”
  “But I probably will not. Anyway, if I want you, I can call you, and you will come without choice.”
  He sighed. He said patiently, “I choose to come. It makes a difference.”
  “Does it?” Sybel's eyes curved slightly in a smile. “Go home to your world of the living, Coren. That is where you belong. I can take care of myself.”
  “Perhaps.” He gathered the reins in his hands, turned his mount toward the road that wound downward to Mondor. Then he looked back at her, his eyes the color of clear mountain water. “But one day you will find out how good it is to have someone who chooses to come when you call.”
  Aaah ... sigh.
  The tables are turned on Sybel when she is called by a powerful wizard. It’s a call she is forced to answer, and one that will spark a thirst for vengeance. So it is, that love and hate lead Sybel off her mountain, into the world of men, where she could lose everything she has come to love.
  McKillip is a master at imagination. Her fairy tales are rich and colorful, and this one in particular is as much a love story as a fable. Though not quite as lyrical as some of her later works, “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” still is a magical trip through a fantasy land.