The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  Trevyn looked, whether from stung pride or sheerest compulsion he could not say. In a moment his world had faded into nightmare. Laueroc had fallen, his father lay dead, his mother torn and dishonored; the wolves surrounded him in his turn, frenzied for his blood, worrying at his legs to pull him down. The largest wolf came at him, huge, looming, dark enough to blot out sun and day and sky.… Falsehood, he knew it to be, and he pressed his mind against the vision, struggling to see with present sight. For an instant, he thought he had succeeded. The sorcerer’s shadowy chamber was again before him. But a giant black wolf with teeth of flame was coming at him, leaping for his throat.… Trevyn could not, or would not, scream. He closed his eyes.

  “A thing of smoke and fire,” said Emrist in a strong voice. “You shall not gull us so easily again, Wael.” Trevyn’s eyes snapped open. The specter had vanished. Only old Wael faced him over a carved figurehead, his wrinkled face twisted in fury. Emrist stood with hand raised in command, straight as a young tree, his russet hair flying, though there was no wind. Trevyn went swiftly to his side.

  “Hold fast,” Emrist murmured to him. “The worst is yet to come.” Wael was muttering a spell in the harsh language of his cult, and Trevyn recognized some of the words; it was the spell for the transferring of the living soul. But not until he felt grinding misery fill his veriest being did he fully realize what Wael was doing.

  “Hold fast!” Emrist charged him again.

  The new torment was not so much pain as pressure, a straining within and a battering, hostile presence without. Though he breathed, Trevyn felt crushed, as if he held his breath under water, under something heavier and more alien than water or earth, with no hope but to smother quickly. He could see Emrist, though thick glass seemed to be between them, and he noted that his friend’s face looked white as death. If this spell succeeded, Trevyn remembered dully, he had promised to kill him. That would be the worst of promises to keep. But if his own strong body felt weakened under its magical load, how was Emrist to withstand it much longer?

  As if moving in lead, Trevyn forced a hand to his tunic, drew from it a rolled parchment. With a wrenching effort of will, he made his tongue move, form speech. “Wael,” he asked, “do you know anything of this?” He let the scroll fall open in his fingers.

  The spell left as suddenly as a weight dropping from a snapped string. In the empty moment that followed, Trevyn thought he could sense Wael’s startled fear.

  “Give it to me!” Wael demanded sharply.

  “I will trade it for a certain brooch,” Trevyn replied.

  Beside him, Emrist stood breathing deeply. “Freca,” he whispered between gasps, “you must by no means let him have it. It is a very evil thing.”

  “I will do what I must,” Trevyn told him obliquely, but with a covert wink.

  “Come, come,” said Wael, reverting to his caressing tones. “It is a paltry thing, of no importance except that I fancy it.… Why struggle for it? I will take it from you either way.”

  “The brooch, if you please,” Trevyn answered evenly.

  Wael pressed his lips to a line like a scar and extended his hand. The parchment in Trevyn’s grasp sent sudden pain through him like a searing iron, burning hot. He managed to keep his grip, though agony twisted his face. “False fire!” he taunted, between clenched teeth. Wael’s fire did not injure him, could not consume, if he wished to keep the parchment whole.

  “And water of like sort,” Emrist added. Trevyn felt his hand drenched in healing coolness, though nothing was wet. Wael wheeled away from him to face Emrist in consummate fury.

  “Renegade sorcerer—” Wael spat out the words with choking emphasis. “How I wish I could deal with you at my leisure! I would make you into a thing a dog would pity! But it seems that I must dispose of you here and now, if I am to have my way with this young fool.…” Wael swept his hand across his body like a scythe, and Emrist slid to the floor with a gasp. Trevyn stood, feeling his knees turn to water as Wael confronted him. The old warlock was grining with triumph, his gaping teeth as jagged as fangs in his ancient jaws.

  “And now for you,” he breathed. “See the Wolf, Princeling? You shall be His tonight.” Wael turned toward the gilded wolf of wood, but froze, thunderstruck, as it burst to splinters before his eyes. From the crumpled form on the floor a movement had come; a hoarded bolt of power had dearly spent itself. Wael spun with an inarticulate screech and struck the air with his clenched fists. Emrist moaned deeply, then lay still.

  “Now, I will have that scroll!” Wael advanced on Trevyn with burning eyes. Trevyn let him come without a sign. All fear for himself had left him with Emrist’s moan. Rage filled him, but he did not let it show—not yet. He stilled himself until the sorcerer was within two paces, within one pace, and then he sprang with lion force, silent as Fate. Knocked to the ground, Wael gasped and flailed the air with his hands, but to no avail. Trevyn tore the brooch from his clothing. The moment he seized it, Wael slithered from his encumbered grasp and made for the door. “Guard!” he shrieked. “Guard!” The ancient warlock scuttled away down the corridor, and Trevyn let him go. With brooch and parchment in hand, he knelt by Emrist, taking his head into his arms. Emrist opened his eyes and smiled.

  “You have them both?” he murmured. “That is good, very good. We wore him out at last, it seems. But you must go now, Freca, quickly.”

  “Let me get you on my back, then.” Trevyn spoke past the lump in his throat.

  “Nay, I am done.” Shouts and the sound of running feet echoed through the corridor, drew nearer. “Go, make haste.”

  “I cannot leave you here!” Trevyn blinked back stinging tears.

  “By the mighty One,” Emrist begged in the Old Language, “do not let me fail in this one last thing. Alberic, as you love me, think of your kingdom and your sire and go!”

  The guards reached the door. Trevyn kissed Emrist once, the kiss of death’s parting, and then ran. The door opened before him; he burst through the startled guards like a stag through the bushes. The stair by which he had come was blocked. He ran the other way, the guards hard after him, found the front stair and leaped down it, careless of his neck, half crazed. He sped down another corridor, almost toppling a lean, swarthy man in a crown. The guards lagged far behind him now, but the whole palace was aery for him. Leaping, half falling, he descended some more stairs, then paused, listening. Shouts closed in from every side. He did not know which way to turn.

  A hand plucked his elbow, and he whirled. The old man, his fellow slave, beckoned, led him to a servant’s door behind a curtain. From there they twisted through a maze of dark, narrow passages and rooms smelling of chamber pots and unwashed bodies: the slave quarters. The shouting faded away behind them. The old man went surely, though none too quickly, with Trevyn treading restively at his heels. Slaves gaped at them from doorways, scurried out of their path.

  “You’ll get worse than a drubbing for this, if any of those tell,” Trevyn said tightly.

  “Someone will tell. But I am an old man, and quite ready for death,” the slave replied placidly. They came out at last to the back courtyard where Trevyn had found him before. The old man led the way to the postern gate, gripped the iron bars, and braced himself against them. “On my back,” he directed tersely.

  Trevyn kicked off his sandals and climbed up, one-handed, clutching the parchment and the brooch. Wriggling, he was able to squeeze out over the pikes and drop down outside the gate. “Good speed to ye,” said the old slave, and stood watching as Trevyn silently saluted him and trotted away.

  He had not left the shadow of the wall before the guards sighted him. The cry went up, and as he sped away he heard the call to horse. He ran aimlessly. The town gates would be closed against him, he knew. He and Emrist had not planned for this; hopeless as their confrontation of Wael had seemed, getting Trevyn and the brooch out of Tokar had been goals as distant as the stars. Now the tumult of his mind kept him from thinking. If only because it was easier on his ti
ring legs, he ran downhill. Between the houses and shops he could glimpse the gleam of the southern sea. Foolishness to go that way, where he would be trapped against the endless water. Yet some deep instinct of his elfin heritage called him to the sea, the longtime deliverer of his mother’s people. He ran toward the shining deep.

  He ran with aching heart and burning lungs. Folk scattered before him, caught sight of his straining, tear-streaked face, his eyes blazing with a fey green brilliance, and saw that face later in their dreams. Trevyn saw nothing except the sea. He scarcely heard the shouts of his pursuers over the pounding in his ears, but as he reached the harbor the ring of hooves on cobbles cut through the clamor of his desperation. He glanced back to see Rheged’s mounted warriers scarcely a stone’s throw behind him. Trevyn bit his lip, darting like a deer for some escape. He reached the tip of the farthest wharf, raised his arm to hurl his treasures into the sea. Then fishermen shouted, and he followed their gaze open-mouthed. A form of dark loveliness rippled the sunlit water. A slender elf-boat skimmed toward him faster than any dead craft of men could ever sail. She sped through the crowded harbor and touched dock at his feet. Trevyn stumbled on board and sank down just as the kingsmen came up to him. The elf-boat bounded off with him the moment she felt his weight. The kingsmen scrambled aboard a merchant vessel, but Trevyn did not even trouble himself to watch the pursuit. No power of sail or slaves could match the speed of this swimming thing.

  He laid his face down on her friendly deck and wept. He grieved for Emrist, and for the old slave whose name he did not know, and perhaps for himself. He hoped against reason that the elf-boat was taking him home to Isle, to his father’s strength and his mother’s comfort and a chance of forgiveness from Meg. He had long since forgotten to dream of Elwestrand. He wept until he could weep no more, and then he slept. The parchment lay crumpled beneath him, where his body held it. But the brooch nestled in fingers slackened by exhaustion. And presently, and quite unknown to Trevyn, a gentle wave came up and took it from him.

  Chapter Seven

  Alan had hardly been his ardent self since Hal had turned his face to the west. And he had struggled with the slow gnawing of despair since the springtime day that Trevyn had left on a glittering ship that sailed east. But the sharp unrest that struck him one morning in late summer was a new sensation.

  “It’s like something tugging under my ribs,” he told Lysse.

  “Indigestion,” she replied in wifely tones. “You’d better stay away from the seasonings for a while.”

  Alan agreed and tried to think of other things. But the pang did not leave him, and in a few days he realized that its focus lay to the east. “Something is pulling at me,” he explained to Lysse. “I can’t tell what, or whether for good or ill.”

  She searched his eyes lovingly, puzzling for a clue to his malaise. “I see no good to come of it,” she finally said. “You must think of your people, my lord.”

  “It will do no harm to journey as far as Nemeton. It has been a long time since I’ve seen Cory. Perhaps something in those parts needs my attention.”

  Lysse stared at him with worry growing in her eyes. “It sounds fair,” she exclaimed, “but I feel a foreboding—must you go?”

  “Ay, I must go! I’ll have no rest until I know the meaning of this—this force that wrenches at me.”

  “Then take me with you, Alan,” she said earnestly, “for, by my troth, I am afraid to let you out of my sight.”

  “Why, Love? Do you not trust me?”

  “My heart is heavy,” she said, “and I think trust has nothing to do with it.”

  Alan shook his head, beleaguered. “But, Love, I need you to stay here and take command for me. I cannot depend on Ket these days; he is as addle-headed as a young gallant.” Lysse had to smile at that. Ket courted Rosemary with dignity and gravest courtesy, but his joy in her had made him absentminded. “Perhaps they’ll soon set the date and get back to business, so you can travel with me again,” Alan continued. “But this time you must stay.… I am sorry.”

  Lysse regarded him with anxious exasperation. “Give me your word, then,” she demanded at last.

  “To what? Say what, and it is yours.”

  “I hardly know.…” Lysse frowned. “To take no rash course. To return to me straightway, and to your throne.”

  “Confound it, woman, did you think I’d do less? But certainly I’ll give you my word.”

  Once he had decided on the journey, Alan wasted no time, reaching Nemeton with a group of retainers in only ten days. This was the easternmost town in Isle, and the closest to Tokar. At Nemeton the Eastern Invaders had landed their warships, and raised their infamous Tower, and ruled. Hal had been reared there; he had broken and burned the Tower when his time came, and he and Alan had moved their government to the gentler Laueroc, their father’s holding. Now the place was held in fealty by Alan’s former comrade, and the horror of its memory was gradually fading from folks’ minds.

  “Well met, Alan! But what brings you?” Corin asked when they had embraced.

  “Whim,” Alan replied. “Sheerest whim. Some wind of chance blows me this way.”

  Corin knew better. It had been years since Alan had taken time for carefree adventuring, and now that Hal was gone … Cory had not seen Alan since, but he guessed from long friendship the extent of Alan’s burden in spirit and in duty. And the Prince mysteriously gone as well! Corin wished he knew what to say to Alan. He watched him and wondered as they feasted that night. He wondered the more when Alan rode out the next day to the Long Beaches, for Alan had never been a lover of the sea.

  Alan went alone, without even a dog for company, and watched the sun blaze on the salt water, and loped his horse along the line of the tide. But he was not all alone on the deserted beach. Before noon he reached the point that projects to the east and found Gwern sitting there. Alan had not seen him since that day at the Bay of the Blessed, though he had sometimes heard report of him. Gwern was said to be living like a wild man on the fringes of Isle, eating fish and blackberries, traveling along the sandy southeastern coast. He did not turn to the sound of Alan’s horse. He sat with his bare feet buried in the sand, staring out over the water, straight at the plains of Tokar, though Alan did not know that.

  Alan vaulted off his horse and let it roam, walked over to Gwern, sat beside him on the gravel and seaweed left by high tide. Gwern scarcely glanced, at him before his earth-brown eyes flicked back to the east. “King,” he asked with his customary lack of ceremony, “what draws you here?”

  “I wish I knew.” Alan was not offended by Gwern’s directness. In fact, he liked it somehow, though there was no comfort of warmth to be found in Gwern. Alan was used to the fellowship of his friends, but this youth who treated him as equal was neither friend nor enemy, he sensed. Gwern was supremely himself. Nothing he did or said could reflect on Alan in any way, and nothing Alan did could much affect him. His impersonal presence refreshed Alan’s raw and burning mind like a cool breeze within.

  Gwern said nothing. He never said anything unless there was something of essence to say. Alan frankly stared at him, knowing he would not mind. Gwern’s clothing was in tatters, his body not filthy exactly, but definitely a stranger to soap. What could this dust-colored oddity have to do with Trevyn? And yet, watch Gwern like a weathercock for Trevyn, Lysse had said. Well, the weathercock pointed east.

  “You have been following the shoreline.” Alan broke silence. “Following Trevyn?”

  “As closely as I can without leaving the land.” Gwern dropped the words at his leisure, like pebbles into a pond, as if they were insignificant. But Alan felt his heart jump.

  “Where is he, then? What do you see?”

  “I see nothing; I do not have the Sight. I do nothing. I only feel.” Gwern did not look at Alan as he talked, and his face, lit by the iridescence of the sea, was utterly expressionless.

  “What do you feel, then?” pursued Alan, somewhat exasperated. “For I’m pickled if I ca
n tell.”

  Gwern took breath to speak, then held it. “Hot,” he finally said.

  “What?” Alan almost shouted.

  “Hot! He is hot. I can’t help it.” Gwern sullenly dug himself deeper into the sand.

  Alan shared his lunch with Gwern, then left to go back to Nemeton, reluctantly; the eastward pull was strong on him. The next day he returned to the beach and found Gwern no more communicative than ever. They spent the day staring out over the waves. From time to time Gwern would rise and move southward a few feet, perhaps even a furlong. Once he smiled.

  “What was that?” Alan asked.

  “Love,” Gwern replied without hesitation. “Longing and love.” Later, his face subtly changed. “What?” Alan asked again. “Despair,” answered Gwern.

  Alan would not leave the shore that night, sleeping fitfully on the damp gravel. The next day Corin worriedly mustered some retainers and set out in search of him. He found him pacing the verge of the waves, wet to his knees. A bit farther along the strand sat an unkempt youth who neither moved nor spoke at his approach, but glared like a madman over the featureless water. Corin stared, then dismounted and fell into step beside Alan, asking him, as an old friend will, what troubled him. The answer made little sense. Alan seemed too distraught for sense.

  “I gave her my word,” he blurted disjointedly, “which she had never asked of me before, never.… I would be a villain to betray her. But if it were not for that, days ago I would have taken ship and set sail. It must be something to do with Trevyn. If he needs me, and calls me thus … I may never forgive myself. But I gave her my word.…”

  Down the beach, Gwern stirred and made a strangled sound in his throat. Alan whirled. “What was that?” he demanded.

  “Dread,” Gwern replied.

  Alan paced through the day with scarcely a rest or a bite to eat. The tug, like an invisible hook to his heart, had grown to a racking pain that threatened to tear him asunder. Gwern edged his way down the tideline, apparently in some distress of his own; his masklike face had gone hard and tight. Corin paced beside his liege, unable to help him. That night Alan lay tossing in restless exhaustion while Cory watched beside him. With daybreak he was up and pacing as before. Gwern emerged from the woodlot where he had disappeared for the night and stood at the strand’s edge, blinking into the rising sun. Once it was well up, he settled into the sand and seemed to root himself, scarcely breathing, his clay-colored face intense with subterranean anguish. Trevyn had entered Wael’s chamber at Kantukal.