The Sable Moon (38 page)

The Boda were all startled and in confusion, some of them trying to restrain Tirell and most of them scrambling away from my charge. They didn't like to risk hurting me, I suppose, without orders, but I didn't care if they tried to kill me. I was desperate to get to Tirell before he came up against Abas and that sword. I shoved through the melee, leaned from my mount, and got an arm around my brother's chest from behind. My eyes met the King's glittering eyes scarcely an arm's length away; he was jerking his sword from Mylitta's body, and his glare froze me in place. My frightened horse tore us away from the guards. Torches were falling and horses were breaking loose in terror and I think Abas shouted again. I held tight to Tirell and to the white mare's neck, and she galloped off into the lightless woods.

Tirell was struggling against me, cursing between sobbing breaths. “Shut up and hold still!” I gasped. My arm felt as if it would pull off with his weight. The King and his Boda were after us. I could hear their hoofbeats. Then the mare shied. A dark shape loomed ahead of us, a blot, a moving vortex of darkness in that darkest of all nights, shifting and rearing and lifting widespread black wings. It blared a challenge I could not heed. I moaned and shut my eyes as we ran wildly past it. From behind I could hear the cries of the Boda and a long, hoarse scream of complete terror. That was Abas; I was sure of it. And I sensed that he had somehow met the black beast before.

A bit farther on my arm gave way and Tirell fell to the dirt with a thump. I wrestled my panicky horse to a halt. Tirell sat like a stone where I had dropped him.

“Come on!” I begged, tugging at him. “We'll both be killed!”

“Fine,” he muttered.

“Come on, Tirell!” I was almost weeping, as panicky as the horse, and I tried to lift him. He threw off my grip.

“Calm down,” he said tonelessly. “They're gone. Listen.”

I stood for a moment, panting. It was true that the wood was quiet.

“But the beast is somewhere about,” I said shakily.

“So much the better.” He got up. “I'm going back to Mylitta.”

“She's dead,” I whispered.

“I know it.” His voice was dispassionate, and in the darkness of the wood I could not gauge his mood. I stood feeling very small in the night.

“Remember her as she was, brother,” I pleaded. “She has been—trampled, since.”

“Luoni take our father!” he cursed in a cracking voice, and he strode off. I caught the white mare and went after him, but I had not gone far when I met him mounted on the black, riding hard toward the west. Except for the gleam of his torque he was only a racing shadow beneath the trees; I almost thought it was the black beast. “What now?” I called to him.

He did not answer, so I sighed and sent the white laboring after him. We galloped out of the sacred grove and up the Hill of Vision, up to where the White Rock of Eala stood gleaming like bleached bones in the starlight. Tirell rode headlong under it. I went around.

“Are you going to Grandfather?” I shouted.

He did not answer. He urged his horse recklessly down the Hill, and I followed more slowly. I was not afraid of losing him any longer, for the Wall blocked his path. Presently I saw a speck of light. Daymon Cein was awake in his hut, it seemed. I rode up to find Tirell standing and studying the Wall. Grandfather came out in an old white nightgown, carrying a rushlight in his hand.

“So, lads,” he said quietly, “the trouble has come.”

Tirell turned slowly and stared at him, a fey, perilous stare, almost threatening. “Had you seen that she would be killed?”

“No, lad, I am sorry.” Grandfather's voice was full of pity. “I saw your love and rejoiced in it, but the King's thoughts and actions are hidden even from himself. Only lately his fell deed has awakened me from my sleep.”

Tirell stared at him a while longer, then shifted his cyan gaze to me. “Go back,” he said flatly.

“To our gentle father?” I chided. “He would kill me sooner than greet me. Thank you, but no. I am going with you.”

“I want no company where I go,” Tirell said. His face was set in a white mask with his eyes burning through it like cold blue flame. I had known his anger many times, anger that passed like storm clouds before a high wind. But I had never seen such a locked and tortured rage in him. I shivered, facing him. It was as if my brother had become a stranger to me, or perhaps someone whom I knew all too well.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“To Acheron. To my death, if death pleases to take me. I am done with Vale.”

I felt my hair prickle. “The Wall will not let you pass,” I said, a little too quickly.

“Ah, but it will.” Tirell turned back to Daymon. “Will it not, Grandfather?”

“It might,” Grandfather replied, almost serenely. “But it has been prophesied that when this wall is breached the doom of Melior will be at hand.”

“Better yet,” Tirell snapped. “Do it.”

“Wait a bit. Even in Acheron you will need some provisions.” Daymon went into his hut, and I hurried after him.

“Grandfather,” I whispered, “what is going on? Are you both mad?”

“Perhaps,” the old man acceded. “But where is he to go? Back toward Melior? He will be taken before he tops the Hill. At least the Boda will not follow him into Acheron.”

“But Tirell is not fleeing for life!” I cried. “Did you not hear him welcome death?”

“His rage speaks. But life is not so easily thwarted. Wait and see if he does not live yet a while. May peace come to you, lad. Both of you.” He handed me a packet of cheese and bread and strode back outside with me tagging after. “Hold the horses,” he added.

I got them by the reins and stood stupidly, waiting—for what, I didn't know. Grandfather wandered over to a spot by his yew tree and slowly extended his arms. He spoke no word that I could hear, but power flowed through him until he seemed as big as the night. His arms quivered, and the stones of the Wall quivered along with him, then rumbled and fell from their places with a noise fit to waken the dragons in the deep. Grandfather lowered his arms by degrees, looking once again stiff and old. Tirell walked over and methodically began to clear a path through the rubble.

Dazed as I was by the events of the night, it did not occur to me that we had put Grandfather in péril. Just as it had never occurred to me to wonder why he lived so much alone, at the Wall.…

I joined Tirell, lifting stones until we had cleared a narrow path for the horses. By the time we were finished the sky had turned from black to gray. I could see the shapes of the mountains looking down on us. Grandfather had long since disappeared—into his hut, I supposed. We led the horses through to the far side of the ruined Wall. But before I could mount, Tirell took my arm with no gentle hand.

“Now,” he said, facing me to the south, “make your way between the river and the mountains until you come to Vaire. There is plenty of cover, and it is not too far. Fabron will give you aid, if only secretly. I am sure of it.” His voice was hard. I shook off his hand.

“I go with you,” I told him.

“No good will come to you with me, princeling. I am a shadowed thing. Choose your path more wisely.” Tirell's eyes looked like blue jewels, hard and fixed in their sockets.

“If you go to Acheron, I go there too,” I said.

He shrugged coldly and mounted his black. He set off silently and I followed without a word. In a moment we rode into the shadows of strange, twisted trees. But before we had gone far, hoofbeats sounded behind us. I whirled to face the pursuit, but Tirell scarcely moved his head. “What is it?” he asked indifferently.

“It's the black beast,” I told him.

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Festivals

Old Style—Feasts of Fires

1 November—for repose of dead

2 February—in honor of the Mothers

1 May—for purification

2 August—for harvest

New Style—Festivals of the Sun (Eastern reckoning)

21 December—Winterfest, a gifting time in honor of the Sacred Son

22 March—Glainfest, a vernal observance

24 June—Bowerfest, for the Oak King

22 September—Cornfest, for threshing

Eastern Kings

Herne

Hervyn

Heinin

Hent

Iuchar

Idno

Iscovar

Iscovar's supposed son, Hervoyel,

later reigned as Hal of Laueroc

Glossary of Names

A
DAOUN
: father of all the elves, creation of the First Song of Aene.

A
ENE
: not, strictly speaking, a name, but the elfin term translatable as “the One”: a power neither good nor evil, female nor male, but all of each.

A
LAN
: Sunrise King, Hal's brother and longtime companion, Trevyn's father.

A
LBERIC
: Trevyn's true-name or elfin name, meaning “a ruler of elfin blood,” but comprising many opposites.

A
LYS
: the most inclusive name of the Goddess of Many Names, the earth-mother, moon-mother, maiden, and hag.

A
RUNDEL
: Hal's horse, who harked from the Eagle Valley of the elves.

B
AY OF THE BLESSED
: the estuary of the Gleaming River, where Bevan set sail for Elwestrand and Veran landed; where the elves took ship, and Hal, the last of Veran's line.

B
EVAN
: son of Celonwy, the moon goddess, and Byve, High King in Eburacon before the sack of that city. A star-son.

C
ELONWY
: the moon-mother or Argent Moon, one phase of the great goddess. Within the history of Isle, Bevan's mother.

C
ELYDON
: the Forest Island of Many Trees. Rosemary's home.

C
ORIN
: in the wandering days, Alan's comrade. Later, lord of Nemeton.

C
RAIG THE
G
RIM
: onetime outlaw, later lord of Whitewater.

C
REBLA
: Wael's true-name, an anagram of Trevyn's own.

C
UERT
: Prince of Laueroc who fled with Veran to Welas.

C
UIN
: Alan's distant ancestor, Bevan's comrade, first High King of Laueroc.

C
ULEAN
: the last High King of Laueroc. Killed himself with Hau Ferddas at the time of the Eastern invasion.

D
AIR
: an elfin name referring to the oak, for strength. Trevyn's son.

D
EONA
: Alan's great-great-grandmother, reared in Welden, through whom the blood of the. Cuin found its way back to Laueroc. Cuert's granddaughter.

D
OL
S
OLDEN
: elfin for
The Book of Suns
, Veran's account of the prophecies of Aene.

D
uv
: an ancient name of the great mother, the goddess.

E
AGLE
V
ALLEY
: inaccessible valley where Hal and Alan found the elves, on Veran's Mountain.

E
BURACON
: the ruined city of Bevan and Byve, surrounded by Forest and haunt.

E
LUNDELEI
: moon mountain, mountain of eagle vision, Mount Sooth. On Elwestrand.

E
LWESTRAND
: the elves' strand or the western land, a magical island beyond the sunset.

E
LWYNDAS
: Alan's elfin name, meaning elf brother, spirit brother, Elf-Friend.

E
MRIST
: a Tokarian magician.

F
RECA
: the name Trevyn was given in Tokar, elfin for “Brave One.”

G
WERN
: alder-son and son of earth; Trevyn's wyrd.

H
AL
: Sunset King, Very King, healer, bard and seer, Alan's brother and fellow ruler at Laueroc.

H
AU
F
ERDDAS
: elfin for Mighty Protector, Peace-Friend. The magical sword of Lyrdion, dangerous in its own right and darkened through the ages by the deeds of the men who used it.

H
ERNE
: first of the Eastern Kings; invader of Isle.

I
SCOVAR
: Hal's purported father, the last of the hated Eastern kings who ruled at Nemeton.

I
SLE
: a water-ringed land that stands as a rampart between Elwestrand and the shadowed east.

K
ET THE
R
ED
: onetime outlaw, later seneschal of Laueroc.

L
AUEROC
: originally, Laveroc—that is to say, City of Meadowlarks. Founded by Cuin; longtime home of the High Kings. Later, court city of the Sun Kings.

L
EUIN
: seventh lord of Laueroc under the Eastern kings. Alan's father; Hal's actual father.

L
YRDION
: an isolated ruin along the northwest coast of Isle, once home of a dragon-king and his dragon-lords.