The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  “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.

  “I knew it!” Trevyn yelped. “Why—why would you not tell me?”

  “Emrist could not know. He was himself, as he told you, and very brave.… I am not Emrist, Prince, though he is in me as I was in him.… How well I remember his love for you.” Trevyn felt the touch of dark eyes. “I, myself, do not love you, not yet, but I remember. And nay, he did not suffer much at the end.”

  “It seems to me,” Trevyn grumbled distractedly, “that everyone knows the pattern of my life except myself.”

  “It is always thus.” Bevan wryly smiled, remembering his own entangled life. “Trust the tides, Alberic.”

  “That is easy for you to say, who are immortal,” Trevyn retorted. “But if the tide tosses me to my death, that is the end for me.”

  “Why? What makes you think you are different from me? Because you are a fool? Think nothing of it, Prince. I am the one who bequeathed my kingdom a shadowed sword, who doomed my mother’s people by the breaking of the caldron, who left the fairest maiden in Isle and the dearest comrade to follow a gleam.” Bevan’s tone was whimsical. “You are here with me, are you not, Alberic?”

  Trevyn could not answer; the implications stunned him.

  “Take hold of peace, Trevyn, and it will all come plain,” said Hal quietly. “Lie back and watch the Wheel.”

  Trevyn sprang up and strode away from them both. But he paused when he reached the stream, feeling weakness overtake him. Dappled deer had come to drink; they did not tremble at his approach, but only raised their delicate heads to meet his gaze, sprinkling silvery droplets from their soft mouths. Trevyn stood, yearning, as Hal walked up beside him.

  “I am afraid,” Trevyn breathed. “I fear this peace. All day I have been on the edge between Elwestrand and Isle; both are like dreams to me, and I ache for both. I float, like a craft without a mooring. If I turn my thoughts away from Isle, she may be lost to me forever. I may never wish to leave this place of wonders. I may forget. And what then, if Wael has his way and sends his minions on to Elwestrand?”

  “Bevan and I will take care of them.” Hal sounded amused, and Trevyn snapped his head up to look at him.

  “There is something you are not telling me. I don’t understand.”

  Hal sobered. “Perhaps you will understand sometime,” he said softly. “Perhaps you will never understand. Does it matter?”

  Trevyn wanted to shout that it did, and yet he vaguely sensed that it did not. The brief wisp of realization shook him, dizzied him. He lowered his head, pressed cool palms against his burning eyes, felt Hal’s arms around his shoulders. He laid his head on his uncle’s shoulder for a moment, feeling that touch ease him.

  “Too long a day,” murmured Hal. “I’m sorry. Come on; it is not far to our tent.”

  They trudged down the beach, side by side. The legendary Prince of Eburacon sat and watched them disappear into the dusky night, then winked out like swordlight sheathed.

  Chapter Two

  It took a week for Trevyn to regain normal strength. During that time he met many of his cousins and found, somewhat to his dismay, that they were all at least as handsome as he, and fleeter of foot. The girls stunned him with their beauty; he would not have dreamed of touching any of them. The people who were native to the Strand, whom the elves had wed, were as fair, but somehow unmistakably mortal, almost sensuous. Most of them had been there since the Beginning, Hal said, untouched by the shadow that had blighted Isle for a while. They were peaceful folk.

  During that time also, Trevyn watched Hal populate an entire meadow with dazzling butterflies from his plinset. He experienced at least fifteen kinds of unicorn, each of them mostly white and utterly lovely. He watched Ylim’s high-crested horses careering over the insubstantial distant hills. And he slept a lot, those lazy, healing days. One day, Hal came to wake him with a smile starting at the corners of his chiseled mouth.

  “Have you been dreaming of trees?”

  Trevyn sat up groggily. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  “Because they’ve sprung up all around the tent. Hazel, alder, birch, rowan, kerm-oak, big and beautiful. I thought perhaps you’d been planting a grove in your sleep.”

  Trevyn blinked. “No, actually”—he yawned—“I think I was dreaming of Gwern.”

  “Of Gwern? The wyrd? Well, dream of him more often. There is always room for more trees.”

  Hal wandered out, singing softly. Trevyn followed, stretching and admiring his new grove. He and Hal had made a reluctant pact to begin reading the parchment he had brought from Tokar, a thing and a task that seemed supremely out of place in Elwestrand. Still, during the next few days they deciphered it, sitting beneath the dream trees. It was in the court language of the Eastern Invaders, as Hal had said, which he had been obliged to learn as a child, and he approached it with distaste. After he and Trevyn understood the spell for the transferring of the living soul, as well as they could grasp anything so vicious, they devised exorcisms in both Wael’s unlovely language and in the Ancient Tongue. But Hal felt dubious.

  “I have learned a bit about magic since I have been here,” he expounded, “enough to know that for every spell there is a counter, and no end to it. I don’t think this will settle anything, Trev—though perhaps I am not the best judge. I had some power, in Isle, but it was prophesied that I was not to use magic because the Easterners had made it shameful. A King’s power must reside in rightfulness. I spurned the Sword of Lyrdion for that reason, and I still wonder if—if it is fitting for a King to do magic.”

  “To make birds out of air and music?” Trevyn smiled.

  “Ah—but I am no King, here. And I am not the one that does it. Aene, perhaps.”

  “Bevan did magic, and he was the greatest of the High Kings.”

  “Ay, but that was in the old days.” A twinge crossed Hal’s face. “Before the Children of Duv went to woe, before the Easterners brought blight and shadow—”

  “Magic is in us all, nevertheless. And anyway,” Trevyn added, before Hal could argue, “if I can learn Wael’s true-name, I’ll have no need of spells. I’ll need no other power to vanquish him.”

  “Then take care he does not learn yours.” Hal’s eyes narrowed. “From what you have told me, he seems like such a warlock as would have been at home in the dark keep of Nemeton. My old foe Waverly, perhaps.”

  “Or perhaps Bevan’s old foe Pel Blagden, Emrist said. Where is Bevan? I would like to speak to him again.”

  Hal shook his head. “He is as hard to find as those mysterious hills of mine. I have only seen him twice, and one of those times was with you.”

  “You invoked him, whether you know it or not,” Trevyn declared, “with your music. Well, I need some answers, Uncle. I am off to the mountain.”

  Hal raised his brows. “To Elundelei? Alone?”

  “Of course, quite alone. Did you not tell me I could find truth there?”

  “Truth and peril, ay. There might be a price to pay.”

  Trevyn sighed. “W
ell, I must risk it. And it seems to me—perhaps I have already paid.”

  He baked himself a supply of bread and got some cheese from the herders. Food came without great labor in Elwestrand, and people shared it cheerfully. Trevyn left on his journey the next morning, afoot, munching fruit from the wayside trees as he went. It did not occur to him, in Elwestrand, to catch a horse, subject it to his will, and ride. He would not attempt to harness any dream in this land of dreams. He walked toward the high pasturelands, the foothills of Elundelei, pausing from time to time to admire the coursers he saw.

  It took him three days to top Elundelei. He met with no one after the first day, after he passed the upper meadows: The second day he wound his way up the crags—a steep path, but not perilous. Rowan and columbine grew in the cracks of the rocks, and the ledges were dense with ferns; he slept among them without a twinge. The third day, late, he reached the top and found a graceful tree with fruit that shone like Ylim’s hair, silver or gold; he could hardly tell in the magenta light. He took one and ate it, for he was hungry. It filled him like bread, yet delighted him like red wine; he thought he could eat a dozen, but found he could scarcely finish the one. As he ate, he stood atop the crags and looked around him. He had heard that no one had ever been able to circle the shoreline of Elwestrand; it always stretched endlessly ahead. Yet, plainly, he stood on a tiny island, a mere speck in the vastness of the sea, which stretched into shadowy infinity on all sides. Only at the farthest reach of the east could Trevyn see a horizon, a thin, bright line. He faced it, watching for the sun. Behind him, and beside the laden tree, a seemingly bottomless cavern serpentined down between the last two upright horns of crag. The home of the moon, Trevyn knew. He would not enter there. He seated himself on the grassy plot beneath the tree and looked on from afar as the sun flamed into view, plunged and sank, boiling, into the sea. Great eagles, as golden as the sun, called and circled over Elundelei. Among them all, Trevyn saw, the largest one shone white.