Cinematic Point Of View

Sometimes a book finds you. “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” by Patricia A. McKillip is one of those books that found me at just the right time in my life. It was near the end of the Covid lockdown and I had been reading a TON of books. Like most of us, I’d wager my mental health wan’t that great either. Hell, I was depressed.

If I remember correctly, I was scrolling through a Fantasy Book Group looking for something new to read and came across a post about “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld”. Something about the way the poster shared their affection for the author and the book, hit me just the right, so I downloaded it on my Kindle app and started to read.

The very first sentence hooked me.

“The wizard Heald coupled with a poor woman once, in the king’s city of Mondor, and she bore a son with one green eye and one black eye.”

If you’ve read my blog before, then you might have read about my eye accident as a child. It was during the accident that one of my eyes changed color, leaving me with two different colored eyes. As corny as it sounds, this was all the sign I needed.

Published in 1974, “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” is a story about a young woman named Sybel who comes from a long line of powerful wizards. She lives alone in a stone mansion up in the mountains, and her only companions are these magical, intelligent beasts she’s summoned. There is a talking boar, a dragon, a desert lion, a falcon, and a mysterious cat. There is this one creature she hasn’t been able to summon called Liralen. It’s a beautiful, otherworldly being that keeps slipping through her magic grip.

Happy to live alone on the mountain, a soldier shows up at Sybel’s gate with a child, asking her to keep him safe. This sudden turn of events pulls her into the world she’s been trying to avoid, and as she gets more involved, she starts to learn about herself and everything it means to be human. There is love, betrayal, and hard lessons on the dangers of power.

This book is not at all what I expected it to be or honestly what I thought I was looking for when I gave it a shot. It’s more a romance than a sword and sorcery action-fantasy. It transports you though and keeps you invested. It brings to life a world of magic and mystery full of fantasy creatures, dusty old books, dense green forests, and harsh winter nights by a warm fire. And all of the characters are very human, full of interesting traits and flaws.

She called Gyld from his winter cave, and he came to her, soaring slowly above the trees, a great, dark shape against the stars. She looked deep into his green eyes. Can you carry a man, a woman, and two sacks of books on your back? She felt a tremor of joy in his mind like a flame springing alive. Forever.

Patricia A. McKillip’s writing is like poetry. So descriptive and spare. It took me some getting used to at first. I was forced to read a bit slower, and I think in doing so, I was really absorbing the words in a way I wasn’t used to. Instead of flying through the pages, I was living on the pages. And the flow of the story moves in a way that reminds me of all that I enjoy about reading Tolkien, yet different.

The character of Sybel, basically an introvert protecting herself from the world, was also the perfect person to discover at a time where in real life, we were all sort of living as “hermits.” I did not look forward to getting back out into the world with all of it’s chaos and danger. Sybel was living the same way.

“You are a strange child . . . so fearless and so powerful to hold such great, lordly beasts. I wonder you are not lonely sometimes.” “Why should I be? I have many things to talk to. My father never spoke much—I learned silence from him, silence of the mind that is like clear, still water, in which nothing is hidden. That is the first thing he taught me, for if you cannot be so silent, you will not hear the answer when you call.”

We don’t exist in a vacuum. Our experiences shape us. Sybel’s upbringing and abilities lead her to a life of isolation. It’s understandable. Some people never change and grow.

In a nutshell,“The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” is really a book about opening up to being vulnerable and the power of love and forgiveness. It’s about shifting away from living a controlled, routine, safe existence (in this case, magical solitude) and for better or worse, branching out into the world. Making friends. Coming out of your shell. Falling in love, Living for someone besides yourself and accepting that life can and will be messy and emotional and that’s it’s all worth it.

Sadly, the author, Patricia A. McKillip, passed away in 2022. In the world of fantasy books, she was much beloved and well known for creating dreamlike stories of myth and magic like this one, “The Changeling Sea,” and “The Riddlemaster of Hed.” And like her character Syble, McKillip remained relatively low-profile and never chased fame, preferring to let her work speak for itself and living a simple life.

I’m wish I had known of her work earlier but I’m glad to have found “The Forgotten Beasts of Eld” when I did. It’s a book that will live within me the rest of my days.