The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  “I need nothing, Freca,” Emrist said without looking up, and Trevyn turned and went in a daze. He wandered out of the house and into the forest, stopping when he reached a quiet place to sit and compose his reeling thoughts. It did not occur to him to break his silence, to speak to Emrist and ask his help. His long silence had made him a spy in this household, and now his shame guarded the secret.

  Trevyn’s curiosity had often been piqued by his snatched moments with Emrist’s lore. The properties of wingless flight.… The seeking of sprites.… The science of griffins and firedrakes.… Any of these things, and many more, he would gladly have studied. But he had not let Emrist know that he could read, for a mute who can read and write is a mute in tongue only. Trevyn had refrained from reading in secret; he clung at least to some shreds of his honor. But in this matter of the wolf, where life and kingdom might someday be at stake, he found his honor to be of smaller concern. He returned to the house with a calm face and a plan.

  He lay awake that night until all sound in the household had long since ceased. Then he arose and made his way stealthily to Emrist’s chamber. He was not too afraid of awakening Emrist; he knew that the magician took draughts to sleep, to counter the pains of his frail body. Trevyn crept into the room, heading for the garret and the ancient parchment. But surprise tingled through him. Emrist was not in his bed, nor had the coverings been disturbed. The bright moon showed that plainly. The forbidden chest stood open, nearly empty. Trevyn ran up to the garret. Emrist was not there; nor did Trevyn’s hasty search find him the parchment he needed.

  For all Trevyn knew, Emrist might venture out every night. Sorcerers were supposed to be partial to moonlight and stars. Yet Trevyn’s very sinews sang of danger, and he descended the stairs hastily to the kitchen. Emrist was not there. Trevyn went outside and studied the night with all his senses, searching for a sign. Then he set off rapidly into the woods.

  At some distance from the house, just when Trevyn was doubting the direction he had chosen, his night-sharpened eyes glimpsed a ghost of murky light somewhere ahead. He hurried on, sometimes wondering if he really saw it, so faint was the yellowish glimmer amid the white moonlight. Then he reached the brown woodland pool, which lay in the shadow of a steep rise, and his way was made clear to him. The light seeped from behind a tangle of vines and bushes halfway up the wooded scar; it streaked its pale shadow across the mirrorlike surface of the water and mingled with the reflected moon like an arrow piercing a swan. Trevyn skirted the pool and silently climbed up the rise, came to the entrance of a concealed cave that was curtained by living greenery.

  Within, the air looked thick with sultry light. A malodorous smoke seeped out with the light and almost set Trevyn to coughing. Once he had caught his breath and accustomed his stinging eyes to the sulfurous gloom, he could see Emrist within. The magician wore a flowing, shimmering black robe that must have come out of his mysterious chest, for Trevyn had never seen it before. He had a rude stump of wood for a table, and on it stood black, flaring candles, smoldering saffron-colored bits of incense, an earthenware mug of water, and a tarnished metal dish of salt. Emrist held the parchment with the lupine seal, reading it, the lines of his face taut with strain. It seemed he was preparing for the summoning of some particularly difficult spirit.

  As Trevyn watched, full of foreboding but uncertain what to do, Emrist began his incantation. He raised his mobile hands and half closed his eyes in concentration, chanting words in some tongue unknown to Trevyn, words even harsher than the unlovely language of Tokar: “Zaichos kargen—Roch un hrozig—ib grocchus—” On the parchment before him, the emblem of the leaping wolf glowed eerily bright.

  Trevyn felt something coming through the air from the south and east, something of such darkness that he thought it would blot out the moon. It smote him with fear, terrible fear such as no spirit had ever caused in him, fear even beyond screaming. He silently trembled against the unfeeling earth as the focus of evil passed beside him and into the cave. Then he heard Emrist catch his breath, and, moving with leaden reluctance, he forced himself to look within. A shape of nightmare was growing in the shadows of the cave, a being of obscurest gloom that displaced the haze of Emrist’s making. Trevyn felt its terror as a crushing weight that robbed him of breath or movement. It was a spectral wolf, substance only of blackness, huge, looming, floating forward, with eyes and bared teeth of flame. Emrist snatched up a handful of salt and flung it at the thing, spoke to it in the Ancient Tongue, words of exorcism: “Este nillen, gurn olet, kenne Aene.” [“Be no more, evil thing, in the name of the One.”] But his words were a trembling whisper, and had no effect. With a wrenching effort, Trevyn glanced at his master and saw him sway on his feet. The shape of shadow and fire was nearly on him, and his words stopped with a choke as he caught at the cave wall for support.

  Sudden fury swept up Trevyn like a gale tearing a ship from its moorings. By the One, he would not again be unmanned by some wolfish apparition! He leaped into the inner thickness, to Emrist’s side, and words long pent burst from him with a power he had not known he possessed: “Begone, vile phantom, and trouble him no more! Begone, dark thing!” In his passion, Trevyn lunged at the grinning specter to throttle it, but he blinked; his hand passed through emptiness, and his enemy vanished.

  Beside him, Emrist leaned against earth with lidded eyes. Trevyn lifted him and, grasping a candle in his free hand, supported him out of the cave and down the slope to lay him by the pool. Emrist gasped painfully at the clean night air. Trevyn cradled his head in silence, dabbing water on his face and rubbing his bony chest. Presently, Emrist’s breathing eased, and he opened his eyes. Wonder grew in them.

  “Alberic!” he exclaimed in the Old Language. “No wonder Maeve went to you! I should have known it long ago.”

  Though he had never heard the name before, Trevyn understood its meaning: elf ruler, spirit ruler, eagle King and unicorn King. But he did not know why Emrist should call him by that name.

  “Nay,” he replied gently in the same tongue, “my name is Trevyn.”

  “Your sooth-name is Alberic,” Emrist murmured, gazing up at him.

  Trevyn could not doubt him. Though Emrist was not much older than himself, he seemed old as Isle just then, and wise as any seer. A warm ache of gratitude filled Trevyn, making him blink and tighten his arms around the frail man. Once again Emrist had given him back to himself and like a father had named him.

  “Blood, what am I thinking of!” Suddenly urgent, Emrist struggled to sit up. “My lord, you are in great peril.”

  “Ay,” Trevyn agreed regretfully, “that wolfish thing will tell its master of my whereabouts. I must leave, and quickly.”

  “Worse than that. They have got your brooch!”

  Trevyn frowned in puzzlement, knowing he had left his brooch with Meg. “Who?”

  “Rheged and that warlock Wael. They have had men hunting you these many weeks, and yesterday I saw that they had found it—” Emrist lost coherence in his earnestness. “And I, the dolt, not to realize it was you! Haven’t you felt it tug, my lord? He can draw a soul to him from any such belonging, and the body of necessity with it, just as he drew the wolf-boat by a splinter of the figurehead—”

  Trevyn’s brow creased anew. “I have felt nothing. Can the Sight have misled you, Emrist?”

  He mused. “Perhaps it was sight of future, not of present—but the peril is the same. I heard them gloating, and I saw the brooch in their hands. It was in the half-sun shape of Veran’s fame, golden, with jeweled rays, a kingly thing. There was no mistaking it.”

  Trevyn struck his forehead with his palm. “They are mistaken even so,” he exclaimed hoarsely. “It’s my father’s! He only lent it to me.… Tides and tempests, Emrist, I must get it back at once! What could happen to him?”

  Emrist’s eyes, full of horror, gave him answer enough. “I will come with you,” he said.

  Trevyn bit his lip in dismay, for he knew Emrist’s traveling pace. Though he was reluct
ant to hurt one to whom he owed every thanks, his fear for Alan firmed his answer. “Nay. I must go with all speed.”

  “Then you will go with all speed into disaster!” cried an unexpected voice. “What will you do when you come to Kantukal, indeed?” Trevyn and Emrist stared as Maeve entered their little circle of light, but she ignored their discomfiture in her concern. “If your father the King is of such stuff as you, it will be many days before Wael’s spell can have much effect. Perhaps it has not yet even begun. After you two come to Kantukal, there should still be time enough for Em to thwart Wael’s scheming.”

  “Maeve,” her brother interposed mildly, “how do you come to be here?”

  “Did you think I would sleep through this night? I heard Freca leave and followed as soon as I could. I was loath to interrupt, loath to spy, and yet loath to steal away; so I hovered near, like a moth at the lamp.”

  Trevyn laughed shakily. “I know what you mean. I have been such a moth these many weeks past, afraid to singe my wings.… But Maeve, would you not rather have Emrist by you here and safe?”

  “There was little safety for him here tonight.” She met his eyes quite candidly. “And though he is frail of body, Freca, his power is a giant in him.”

  “His name is Trevyn,” Emrist corrected her. “He who shall rule as Alberic, son of Alan, of the line of Laueroo—”

  “‘Freca’ will do well. If we are to go a-courting to Kantukal, you cannot be my-lording me.” Trevyn could not say what had changed his mind, unless it was the wisdom he had seen in Maeve’s eyes. But he felt assurance at once that what he did was right for Alan as well as for Emrist.

  “—of Isle,” went on Emrist, unperturbed. “Heir also of Hal, of the line of Veran of Welas, King of the Setting Sun—”

  “Spare me.” Trevyn got to his feet. “I’ll go fetch your things from the cave.”

  “Leave them there till they rot,” Emrist replied bitterly. “I’ll use them no more.”

  “The parchment? I would like to read it, if I may.”

  The magician hesitated. “It is a very evil thing,” he answered slowly. “But it may yet be of use, I dare say.”

  Trevyn made his way up to the cave in the dark, leaving them the candle. He found the entrance mostly by the smell of pungent smoke. The other candles had drowned in their wax, and the incense had subsided to ashes, but still there was light within the cave—a small, spectral light. It had been no trick of Trevyn’s mind that the emblem of the leaping wolf shone with the same warmthless shimmer as the death-lights flickering over a marsh. It almost seemed to move before his eyes, and the mouth gaped, glinting with ranked teeth. Trevyn stared at the thing awhile before he took hold of the parchment by a far corner. He rolled it so that the emblem disappeared inside, and, grateful for the darkness, made his way back to the others.

  “What is her name?” Maeve asked as she and Trevyn worked in the kitchen later that night.

  “Who?”

  “Your sweetheart. The one you dreamed about sometimes as you lay with me.” There was no bitterness in her voice, and she glanced with some surprise at his burning face. “There is no need for shame!”

  “Her name is Meg,” Trevyn replied slowly. “She is a little peasant who lives by the Forest near Lee.… I don’t know why she cozens my mind so.”

  “There is no need for a reason.” She was packing food for their journey, and Emrist was asleep; his adventure had left him exhausted. On the morrow, he and Trevyn would start toward Kantukal. But Trevyn hardly knew how to take leave of Maeve.

  “It is true, I have loved you in my way,” she remarked, reading his thoughts again. “But my way is only the way of the wild things that know their seasons. I am bound by nothing, and no one owns me, or is owned.… Go from here in all peace, Alberic.”

  She had made him her king, now. So, since he had nothing to say, he nodded and left her there.

  Chapter Four

  With first light, Trevyn and Emrist took to the road. Trevyn wore the sword he had won from the robbers, and he carried the wolfish parchment in a fold of leather, gingerly, as if it might burn. As they walked, Emrist explained to him about the cult of the Wolf.

  “Wael is chief priest; he speaks for the Wolf.” Trevyn nodded in understanding; Hal and Alan had banished such powerful sorcerers from Isle. “So folk raise idols in its honor in Kantukal, and the coffers of its temples grow rich. That is nothing new; there are many such gods. But this one is vile even in the reckoning of Tokarians; its rituals are unspeakable. Human sacrifice is not the worst of it. People live utterly in fear of the Wolf. I have known for months that I must try to—destroy it—”

  Emrist faltered to a stop, conscious of the contrast between his slight physique and his brave talk. But Trevyn soberly waited for him to go on. He knew the power and stature of his master.

  “So I went to buy a mute,” Emrist said at last, “I, who have never bought a slave. I needed someone to stand by me in case my body failed me, someone who could not ever utter the spells, for they are perilous.”

  “And yet you did not use me?”

  “Nay.… You had bled, Freca.…” Emrist grimaced, mocking himself. “Of course, Maeve offered to help. Truth is, I could not bear to risk either of you. And I wanted to face Wael myself.”

  “Wael? But you summoned the Wolf.”

  “Nay, I summoned Wael,” Emrist corrected grimly. “There is no Wolf without Wael.”

  “But what was that black phantom—”

  “A thing of smoke and fire. Your hand passed through it unharmed. Any sorcerer could make one as fine—though I confess I was not expecting it last night.” Emrist glanced at Trevyn, half laughing, half angry. “Wael has made a fool of me.”

  “Wael was there?” Trevyn breathed.

  “He was there. You felt the fear?”

  “Ay, terrible fear.” He shuddered at the memory.

  “That was the fear of his living spirit, which I summoned. Without its mask of flesh, the evil of his soul overwhelmed us. That and the shock of something not understood.” Emrist shook his head ruefully. “How stupid I was to be so taken in!”

  “Well, you will have your chance for revenge,” Trevyn muttered. He tripped over a twisting root and scarcely noticed the bump, thinking. “Then that was Wael, too, in the laughing wolf in Isle,” he finally said.

  “I thought teeth made the occasion for those brands!” Emrist exclaimed. “Ay, I do not doubt it.”

  “How are we to get the brooch back from him, Emrist? What do you know of Wael?”

  The magician sat down on a shady bank to answer. Trevyn sat beside him, restraining his impatience at their slow progress.

  “I have often watched him by the power of my inner eye,” Emrist said when he was settled. “I have seen him with the king, or in court, or at his vile rites, or alone in his chamber. Rheged places much dependence on him, and his days are full of consultation.”

  Trevyn peered. “And where does he keep the brooch during all this consultation?”

  Emrist had to smile at his eagerness. “Why, on him, of course,” he answered gently. “Or else the spell would not take.”

  “On him?” echoed Trevyn numbly.

  “Ay, even when he sleeps. It must always touch his skin, you see, to draw. He wears it pinned inside his shirt, facing his stony heart. I saw him pin it there.”

  “Mother of mercy!” Trevyn swore morosely. “I am likely to need this bloody hacking sword.”

  “Unless it is a magical sword, it will be of small avail against Wael. Nay, we can only face him with our own poor powers.… And what an ass he has made of me!” Emrist sighed hugely. “I might have been slain by sheer, foolish fright last night if it had not been for you. I owe you my thanks, Freca.” He spoke the name with warm affection.

  Trevyn reddened at the words. “You owe me nothing,” he said roughly. “The debt is all mine. What about the gold you gave for me?”

  Emrist smiled sheepishly. “That was only sorcerer’s gold
. I would not use it with honest folk.…”

  “Why, what becomes of such gold?”

  “It vanishes after a little while.…” Trevyn threw back his head and laughed, and Emrist joined in, a laugh from the heart that shook his small frame. “Ay, I would like to have seen those slave merchants drubbing each other for the theft of it!” he gasped.

  “Is there any chance you could conjure up some horses for us?” Trevyn asked wistfully. “Or even a donkey for yourself?”

  “Nay, that would be dishonor.” Emrist rose to his feet with dignity. “I can do what I must without such devices. Come, let us be moving.”

  They traveled more east than south for the time, working their way through a maze of small valleys between wooded slopes. Eventually, following that direction, they would find the broad Way that ran due south to Kantukal. It would make traveling easier, if no less dangerous. Trevyn carried a quarterstaff of green oak as well as his sword, in case they were beset. Though he distrusted these wilds, he knew they must sleep that night, for they had scarcely rested the night before. At dusk he found them a camp within a thicket of cypress, and they watched by turns.

  Nothing happened that night. But the next day Emrist’s pace was slower, and pain clenched his face. Trevyn gave him the staff to lean on, but he grew weaker hour by hour. Trevyn rubbed his legs for him that evening and prepared him a draught to ease his rest. Sunk in a haze of weariness, Emrist drank what Trevyn gave him without thought or question. In a few minutes he was deeply asleep. Trevyn slung their packs onto his waist, then carefully lifted Emrist, blanket and all, to his back. The moon, nearly at the full, lit his way. Trevyn went softly, hearkening to every sound, for he would have been hard put to protect himself and Emrist if he had been taken unawares. Still, he made good speed, and by morning he found himself in a tamer country, with cottages and garden plots to be seen from time to time.