The Sable Moon (19 page)

“Is it only elves who live here?”

“Nay, many others. Men of peace. Look, there is Adaoun.”

Trevyn saw Adaoun's horse first, the splendid, blazing-white, gold-winged steed that had once flown over Welas. It grazed beside a placid stream. Beyond, on a gentle rise overlooking the meadow, a swan-white awning draped slender birch trees. On a couch beneath the awning, propped up by linen pillows, sat an old, old white-bearded man.

Trevyn approached by Hal's side, his mind clamoring. Ever since his earliest childhood, he had been told about Adaoun, father of the elves, first sung in the First Song of Aene at the beginning of time, ageless as the elements, sturdy as the mountains, visionary.… Surely this shrunken mortal could not be he! But the eyes that met Trevyn's plunged deep as wells, nearly drowning him in wonder. He sank to one knee beside the ancient patriarch and felt a withered hand touch his hair in the gesture of blessing.

“Alberic,” said Adaoun in a voice soft and vibrant and powerful as the wind. “Welcome.”

“Someone else has called me by that name,” Trevyn whispered. “But I do not know why, Grandfather.” He dared the old man's eyes again, and found that he could meet Adaoun's unfathomable gaze.

“Sometime you will know,” Adaoun told him. “But for now I shall call you Grandson,.if you like. I have grandchildren now, you know, by the hundreds, now that my children have chosen the lot of mortals and taken mortal mates. But you, whom I have never met, were the first. The years flit by like mayflies for a mortal.… You must be nearly of age.”

“I am sev—nay, I am eighteen.”

“Marvelous,” Adaoun murmured. “How marvelous to be so young, and growing.… I remember quite well when the world was so young. But at last the One has blessed me with ending. Day by day my body grows weaker, and it will not be long now before I am gathered into death's embrace.”

Trevyn flinched and lowered his eyes, for he was not himself on such good terms with death. But he had no need to respond. A young woman came toward them through the birch grove, walking with a sway like sea wind, carrying a tray of food. She brought it to Adaoun, her dress nearly as red as Hal's red bird, set it before him, and wordlessly stood by his side.

“This is Ylim.” Adaoun introduced her as if her name told all about her.

“Time's weaver beyond time, whom I met in Isle once,” Hal added with amusement. “Alan and I blundered into her valley where the elfin gold still flowered in spite of the blight of the evil kings—but I did not know how to read her web then, and I did not know her name, and certainly I did not know her in that form.”

It was the form that made Trevyn stare. How could this lissome woman be the ancient seeress of Isle, the crone who had given her advice to Bevan? He could believe that she was ageless, for nothing about her suggested the tenderness of youth. But she was also lovely, and, he sensed, dangerous, if he so desired. Her skin, soft and lineless, glowed as white as lilies, as white as the belly of a white foal. Her hair, a ripple of wild mane, fell almost to her knees, golden—silver.… Trevyn blinked; it was of all colors, like a dream of horses, as changeable as the moon, as shining as the sea. Indigo eyes gazed back at him out of the full-lipped face, and something in Ylim's level look made Trevyn lower his own eyes. They caught on the high swell of her breasts, then closed in confusion. Suddenly he recognized her as the “princess” he had dreamed of in Isle.

“Well met, Alberic,” said Ylim.

Her voice was husky, impersonal, not unfriendly. Trevyn could not reply. He heard her turn and take her leave, but he could not raise his eyes to look after her.

“You will get used to her presently,” Adaoun remarked mildly. “Come, help me eat.”

He meant eat with him. There was enough food for all, bread and mellow cheese and tangy fruits that Trevyn could not name; perhaps they had no names. Afterward, he and Hal followed the stream down to the seashore, where it spread into a lagoon. Tufted grasses edged it, and tall birds waded in the shallows, flashing blue or gray or green as they caught the shifting light. Hal and Trevyn sat down on a gravelly hummock to watch.

“So,” blurted Trevyn, “am I dead?”

“Do you feel dead?” Hal asked dryly.

“How should I know? But Ylim is dead, I know that. Father found her slain by lordsmen, and laid her to rest beneath a willow tree—but she was an old woman then.”

Hal puffed his lips. “Very true. But perhaps death need not kill. Most men are born squalling, and eat and sweat and brawl out their lives, and die, but there are some … Ylim is not of mortal sort anyway. And never was. Nor is she elf. I thing she is just—herself.”

“But she has changed.”

“Some are able to change—to go through the greatest of changes—and yet not change. I knew her at once when I met her here, though we had met only once before.”

Trevyn swung his arms impatiently, batting away Hal's words as if they were bothersome insects. “Uncle,” he asked doggedly, “am I going to be able to return to Isle? For return I must, and quickly. There is grave peril.”

“I did not want to ask before you were ready. But I can see you have been in evil hands.” Hal's eyes glinted angrily at the thought. “What is it? The warlords again out of the north?”

“Nay. Far worse. Tokar.”

“Tokar! The Eastern Invaders wish to try again! But Alan will not let them land, Trevyn. They will be slaughtered as they set foot on shore.”

“They will not come by ship,” Trevyn replied heavily. “Or at least not at first. I think there are already invaders in Isle. They come by magic and take for their own the bodies of wolves.” He stopped, expecting an argument, but Hal only turned to him with a face gone intensely still.

“Do not think I disbelieve you,” said Hal after a long pause. “All things are possible.… But will you tell me what has happened to make you say this?”

So Trevyn told him about the wolves, and Meg, and the gilded ship, and Emrist, and the confrontation with Wael. He ached, thinking of Meg, and sharper pangs went through him when he spoke of Emrist. Still, those events seemed a distant and puzzling pattern to him from the far shore of Elwestrand, and he recounted them as if telling about a sorrowful dream. And with those memories still floating like lacework in his mind, he absently picked up a handful of gravel, let it trickle through his fingers, then froze, stunned. Each rough fragment had turned to a gem like a tear, silky smooth, of dusky sweet and subtle colors, shot through with winks of moth-white light. Trevyn touched them shakily.

“In another hand, or at another time,” Hal marveled, “they might have become crystals, or bits of colored glass, or nothing. Expect no more, Trev. Those are the purest of gifts, as random as rain.”

Trevyn picked out one that glimmered plumply, like a tiny moon, autumn pink, with a pale shape like a spindle at its heart. “For Meg, if I am ever to see her again,” he stated grimly. “Which you have not yet told me, Uncle.”

Hal sighed. “Not even an elf-boat can weather the winter storms on that wide sea. You must wait until spring, at least. Spring in Isle, I mean.”

Trevyn jumped up, startling the wading birds, though not into flight. “While my father and my people suffer under Wael's treachery.… Thunder!” He turned on Hal in sudden consternation. “Do you have the brooch and the parchment safe?”

“I have the parchment, to my dismay. It is written in the court language of old Nemeton. An ugly reminder. But the brooch was not on the boat.”

“Tides and tempests!” Trevyn groaned. “If Wael has it again, then all is lost.”

“I dare say the sea guards it well,” Hal comforted.

“She guarded it ill before. Mother of mercy, why did I not kill Wael when I had the chance!”

“Mother of mercy, why didn't you?” Hal threw the question back at him.

“Aene knows,” replied Trevyn bitterly.

“Very true. “You were sent to Tokar in good time to know your enemy, but still kept from Wael's grasp. So you took it into your head to be a mute—forsooth!—which chance brought you straightway to the rare man who could help you. And that the old slave should have come to Rheged's palace—most wonderful. Ay, Aene has been at work.” Hal searched Trevyn's face, and his voice softened. “I know it was a hard journey, Trev. But you must accept your scars as I have learned to accept. Everyone bears scars.”

“I reproach the One for Emrist's sake,” Trevyn snapped, “not my own. If only he could have been spared.…”

“You loved him well,” Hal said gently.

“Ay. I think I could scarcely have loved him better if I had known him a lifetime, and I would gladly have befriended him that long.”

“Yet you say he was not unwilling to die.”

“When I left him.” Trevyn turned tormented eyes to meet Hal's. “I don't know what they did to him after I had gone.”

“Someone so frail would have died quickly.” Hal grasped Trevyn with his gaze. “For whom, really, is it that you mourn, Alberic? Is it not, in truth, for yourself?”

Trevyn clenched his fists, but Hal went on, gentle even in his relentless understanding. “Do not think I trifle with your grief. More than one brave man has died in torment on my account.”

Wild white swans sailed down between the trees, fleeting and lovely as spirits, if spirits could be seen. They skimmed past, singing softly among themselves, and disappeared over the waves before Trevyn spoke. Truth had struck him out of Hal's words like a blow to the heart, and it was with trembling voice that he brought himself to admit it. “I—I shall be so much alone, Uncle. I shall never have another such friend. And Father shall leave me before long—” He stopped, shaken by his own sureness. Hal nodded.

“Ay. The Sight is strong in you, Alberic.”

Trevyn settled wearily back to his place by Hal's side, feeling weak and not understanding why. “Even if I make it back to Isle, to Megan,” he murmured, “and even if she still loves me, and forgives me, and will have me, I shall be alone. Though woman's love counts for much joy.”

“Much joy,” agreed Hal softly, looking straight out to sea. “Nearly every night I dream of my sweet Rosemary.… How I hope Ket gives her a babe, Trev. She is Isle's nurturer, the Rowan Lady of the Forest; with an heir she will be fulfilled at last. And Alan should come to me, as you have said. Far better fortune than I deserve. I was always a coward in love.… Bold enough in body, but a coward in my heart. Nemeton taught me early how love can be used for a torment, and I suppose I never learned better. Coming here, I thought I could not bear the pain of parting from you all. So I stilled my love, and left the pain to others.”

“We understood,” Trevyn protested. Hal glanced at him with a tiny smile.

“Did you? I doubt it; not Alan, anyway.… He is too great of heart to understand, but perhaps he will forgive. How I wish I could tell him that I love him.” Hal's voice shook.

“I will tell him,” said Trevyn quietly. “But will you not be able to tell him yourself, Uncle, when he comes here?”

Hal could not, or would not, answer. They sat, the two of them, side by side, and watched the sun approach, a fiery wheel out of the azure east—the edge of the west to all the rest of the world. They watched Menwy's dark dragons come up out of the sea to meet it, shaking their sinuous necks, sending up plumes of regal gold and purple spray. They circled, and the blazing disc, its gentler back turned toward Elwestrand, went down in their midst with a mighty roar of water and a bronze glow and with clouds of violet steam. Elwestrand lay beyond the sunset, as Hal had often said. The dragons plunged and vanished in a fountain of amethyst roil; twilight spread. Elwestrand went misty and charcoal gray, but still softly lit by the glow from the depths of the sea.

“He must swim all the way back by dawn,” Hal said, stirring at last.

“He does so every day,” Trevyn complained, annoyed by Hal's evasions. “Uncle, will you still not tell me if I am going back to Isle?”

Hal studied the darkening, pale-crested waves. “I do not know.”

“You call me Alberic,” cried Trevyn querulously, “and you speak of the Sight, and you say you do not know?”

“The Sight is a guide, nothing more. It is like a dream, which deeds must make real. You must live out your own destiny, Trevyn. You must stay here, really stay, before you will be able to go.”

“Say you will help me go, at least.”

“I cannot say even that.”

Trevyn sat staring at his uncle in perplexity. Hal would not return his gaze. Big, soft stars, like snowflakes, came out in the charcoal sky while they waited. A slender crescent moon took form atop Elundelei mountain.

“Why do you think you were brought here?” Hal broke silence at last.

“I can't tell! There is no sense to it. So that you can read me the parchment?” Trevyn laughed harshly. “That will not take until spring.”

“Ay, it is for your knowledge, but in greater part, I think, it is for your healing.” Hal turned to Trevyn at last, his voice soft with pity. “You have supped too full of sorrows, Trevyn. Put the cup from you a while. There is peace for you here. Taste it.”

“How can I,” Trevyn shouted, “when you talk riddles and will not meet my eyes? When you will give me no assurance?”

Hal sighed and wordlessly sent a flutter of plinset notes like pale green moths into the night; his instrument never lay far from his hand. A figure took form in the darkness of the beach, walking toward them. The man came and joined them, facing them, sitting cross-legged in the sand. An unaccountable trembling took hold of Trevyn.

“Emrist!” he whispered, though the stranger bore scarcely any resemblance to Emrist. He was slender, almost boyish, with dark, straight hair and coal-black eyes burning out of his fair face.

“Nay,” he replied, “I am Bevan. I was in Emrist for a while before he died.” His was the sweetest voice Trevyn had ever heard, manly and melodious, even lovelier than Hal's. “As I have been in others from time to time,” he added, with a grave, moonlit smile at that other star-son, the Sunset King.