The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  Chapter Six

  “I must soon be going back,” Trevyn said to Hal when the first trace of springtime red tinged the distant hills.

  “Stay a few more days,” Hal replied, “and help us send your grandfather to his rest. Death will come soon for him; don’t you feel it?”

  He did, indeed, sense Adaoun’s gradual departure. It seemed that all of life and death lay open now to the touch of his mind. They surrounded him like an ocean, in Elwestrand. Trevyn had flown higher than the eagles on the back of the immortal white winged horse; he had tangled his hands in the mane at first, and later learned to trust. He had bathed in the sunset sea with Menwy’s jewel-black dragons, and he had walked beside the shy, sinuous leopards of Elundelei. He had slept fearlessly upon earth’s bosom, wherever night found him. Elwestrand was a land to mother all lands, he decided: marvelous, relentless, and yet most gently healing. He looked into her indigo lakes and saw Meg there, lovelier than any elf-maiden in all the bright valleys of this paradise. Trevyn wondered why he had not perceived her so before.

  So at the first faint signs of spring, Trevyn’s heart bounded like a stag, thinking he might soon be on his way back to his beloved, to Meg. If he had not lost her.… He would not think that. No use to think that, with three months yet to spend on the ship, even if he left in the morning. And he no longer tried to hasten the circling years of his life. He, too, moved in the cosmic dance, Trevyn knew, and made up some small part of its beauty. Its rhythm would guide and sustain him for all time, if only he could heed its soundless motion.

  “You will know when it is time to go,” Hal agreed, reading his thoughts.

  That evening there were new faces around the cooking fires, elves and elf-kin and fair folk of other lineage, drifting in and taking their places without a word of explanation, as floating leaves come to shore. All the next morning more came, until several thousand were gathered. They sat by the sea and watched their children run along the lapping waves. Trevyn sat with them and listened to the melody of their talk. After a while, something moved in him, and he got up and went to Adaoun.

  The ancient elf lay on his couch beneath his snowy canopy, as he had lain since Trevyn had known him. At no great distance, Ylim sat beneath the birch trees, weaving white lace of delicate pattern on a hand loom. With a nod to her, Trevyn settled himself by Adaoun’s bedside, taking a frail, dry hand into his own.

  “Alberic,” Adaoun greeted him, though his eyes could no longer see him. “Do you yet know the meaning of your name, lad?”

  “Partly, Grandfather.” Trevyn spoke softly, knowing that the patriarch understood him not so much through sound as through some soundless meeting of spirit with spirit. “It has something to do with unicorns, and white and gold.… They told me on Elundelei, and they told me the sooth-name of my enemy, but I cannot remember.”

  “You should be able to remember when the time comes. Enmity has small meaning here.”

  “I should be able to remember. For it seems to me,” Trevyn added, after a long pause, “that the words of the goddess were words that my mother tried to tell me long ago.”

  “Ah, your mother!” Adaoun smiled, the labored smile of great age. “I can see her in my mind’s eye, all green and golden, spring leaves in sunshine. What was it she told you, lad?”

  “That I am—all one.” The words seemed lacking, and Trevyn’s lips tightened as he spoke again. “That I am all alone. I am not sure why.”

  “The star-son in you.” There was no trace of pity in Adaoun’s tones, only mindful understanding. “You will always yearn for fellowship. Hal yearned, all his life.… Had he turned his back on the call that brought him here, it would have been like killing his veriest self. If your father cannot understand, it is because he has always been at one with anyone he befriends—but even he will need some healing here. The price of kingship is high.”

  “And I,” Trevyn murmured, “will I ever return?”

  “I cannot say. Ask Ylim.”

  “Nay, I don’t want to ask her. I don’t want to know what—what I already know.” Trevyn’s voice broke. “A person cannot expect to come twice to Elwestrand.”

  “Perhaps you are right. I dare not say.… But Elwestrand is in you now, lad, and you will carry it with you wherever you go. Something of it may come to you also in other ways. Be comforted, Grandson.…” The old elf’s voice trailed away to a whisper like that of winter leaves.

  “I will remember, Grandfather, and I thank you. But I am to blame for wearying you with talking. I had better go.”

  “Nay, stay a bit longer. It is not the talking that drains my strength; life wearies me. But I shall rest from it before long. They will send us off together, lad.” Adaoun’s smile broadened. “I also go to the sea, to Menwy’s domain. My ashes will flow with the circling waters and ripple with the wind, touching many shores.… Take me out of here, Grandson, to a place where I may lie on the earth and feel the sky. I don’t want to die under a roof.”

  The airy canopy was hardly to be called a roof, but to Adaoun, father of all elves, it was an irksome interruption of Aene’s song. So Trevyn gathered him up, light as a bundle of dried kindling, and carried him out to a wooded slope where the wind sounded in the trees and eagles sang far overhead.

  “Here,” Adaoun whispered.

  Trevyn laid him down on the bare earth, feeling a pang as he did it.

  “Now go, Grandson.” Adaoun spoke in words scarcely more than a movement. “I crave no company for dying. Farewell.”

  “Farewell, Grandfather,” Trevyn murmured, then went down to the sea to wait with the others. He told no one what had passed. But they knew it nevertheless. As the descending sun approached the sea crests, tipping them with gold, and as the sea-drakes formed their escort, the elves raised their heads and hearkened as if to unseen wings. Then Hal and some others got up and went to the place where Adaoun lay, as surely as if they had seen. They returned to the seaside in soft twilight, bearing the leaf-light body on a litter between them, shoulder high. Adaoun lay with eyes bright and open, robed in white, with a purple cloak trailing over his feet. Evergreen ivy girdled him and garlanded his head; a curled frond encircled his right hand. His kindred surrounded him in awe too deep for words. These were not people who made much of death: the leaf greened and withered and returned to earth, as was just. But Adaoun was one who had been with them since the Beginning. His passing brought the elves to the fullness of all the circling ages they had known.

  Trevyn had never expected to see the elves revel with fire. Trees, like all living things, were most precious to them, and they hated to cut them even to clear land for their crops. But on this night, they spent freely of all things, fire and food and selves. The ranged great pyres along the strand, and danced around them in solemn triumph, and sang to the music of Hal’s instrument and many more. Between times they feasted, roasting nuts on the glowing coals, toasting bread over the flames. Feral eyes shone from the shadows at the reaches of the firelight: unicorns, and bright birds, and many other rare creatures stood there to watch this unaccustomed feast of fires. Huddled on the sand, blanket-wrapped children gazed wide-eyed at the leaping flames and at Adaoun, whose still form sometimes seemed to stir in the flickering light. When they dozed off at last, flames still leaped before their lidded eyes. The older elves did not sleep, nor did Trevyn. They exulted through the night on Adaoun’s account, and when the sun blazed up at last, sending streamers of brightness over the sea, it seemed simply the just reflection of the glory on shore.

  Dawn’s light showed Trevyn a boat waiting restively in the shallows. Close by it floated a far smaller vessel, a mere platform of wood, almost flush with the water. The elves waded around it, stacking on it their precious stores of fuel, cord upon cord, until a couch of wood was formed. On this they laid Adaoun, folding his cloak beneath him, settling him tenderly. Then, scarcely speaking, they turned to Trevyn. Hal embraced him in farewell.

  “I’ll see Father off to you when it is time,”
Trevyn said.

  “I know it. And yet, that is entirely up to him!” Hal smiled wryly. “Do you understand now? Destinies must discover themselves.… So I’ll watch the sea and hope. You are going to light Adaoun’s pyre for us?”

  “If I may.” Trevyn regarded his uncle lovingly. “A fitting time for the trying of power, is it not?”

  “None better, since power is not to be used lightly.… I have put that parchment with your things. But have a care how you handle it!”

  “If all goes well against Wael, I’ll gladly destroy it. Though I may have to barter it to him yet.… But I must go; my heart cries in me to be gone.” Trevyn cast a yearning glance at the marvels that lined the shore, the white swans, the subtle cats, the unicorns.… “My heart cries,” he amended. “Let me go swiftly. Farewell, Uncle, and—many thanks.”

  “All blessing go with you,” Hal said, and kissed him, and released him. The sun still clung to the sea as Trevyn climbed on board the elf-boat and threw away ladder and rope. The ship swirled away from shore with the still form of the departed patriarch following in its wake. Trevyn looked beyond and saw the hundreds of his friends and kindred raise their hands to him in silent salute. He gazed until he could no longer see their faces, then blinked as he turned to front the rising sun.

  When he glanced back again, they were just dark posts on the rim of the water, so swiftly did the elf-boat swim. Trevyn waited until they had almost faded into his horizon. Then he spoke a soft command. “Luppe,” he said, “halt,” and the elf-boat eased to a stop, turning aside from Adaoun’s trailing bark. Trevyn loosed the rope that bound it to his ship, letting it drop into the sea. Then he stretched out his hand.

  “Alys,” he whispered, “hear me. A fire for my grandfather, if you please. A bright blossom to adorn his going and seed his remnants where it will.” He moved his hand, and fire burst from the bark, curving and cupping Adaoun and cradling him in its glow. Sea birds circled overhead with wondering cries, winged shapes of aching whiteness against the sky. A far larger form circled above, blazing white and gold: Wynnda, the immortal winged horse, bidding farewell to his only master. For a moment, to the watchers on shore, sun and ship, pyre and gold-pinioned steed converged. Then the sun, streaming, tore loose of the sea, the ship sailed from view, the steed wheeled away and the fire sank into the water with only a plume of white smoke to mark its place: and that, too, soon faded into oneness with the spinning wind, as Adaoun’s ashes drifted with the dance of the sea.

  Trevyn watched the horse and the fire until his eyes could bear no more beauty. Then he whispered, “Switte, go on,” and the ship swirled away once more, quartering north of the rising sun. Trevyn leaned on her prow and watched the waters cleave, and would not look back. More than time and seas, he knew, would sunder him from that place of peace. Star-sons had sailed to Elwestrand, but none had ever returned.… He did not know how Bevan stood looking after him on that far shore, with his hands cupped to comfort Hal.

  Book Four

  MENWY AND MAGIC

  Chapter One

  Trevyn did not lie and stare through this voyage; his body pulsed too full of eager life for that. He paced and pondered and studied sea and sky. The elf-ship was plentifully stocked with everything he needed, and some baubles besides, to amuse him. He ate provisions worthy of a King’s son, and slept in bright blankets, and dressed in soft clothing embroidered as beautifully as a ballad. All in all, he stood the months of the voyage well. His dealings with the goddess had taught him a kind of wry serenity. Still, his heart jolted him to his feet when, one day as the sun neared its equinox, a gray seabird flew overhead and circled to meet him.

  “How near lies Isle, little brother?” he hailed it.

  “No more than a skim and a flitter,” it cried cheerfully, “for you fly faster than I—phew!” The bird circled away as it fell behind. Trevyn scanned the horizon that day until his eyes burned. Disorderly thoughts crowded his mind—fleeting visions of his home and people there, sometimes people he scarcely knew; but mostly he thought of Meg. He stayed on deck that evening until full dark had fallen, and saw nothing. But the next morning the rocky headlands of Welas lay so close that he shouted and reached out as if to touch them. Cliffs soared from seaside to mountaintops; Trevyn could see every tree that clung to them, and he hugged the elf-boat’s prow in wet-eyed delight.

  Before midday she turned the point and entered the Bay of the Blessed. Trevyn gulped, for at the far end someone awaited him, a still figure beside a white horse. No ordinary person could be about; this was a forbidden place.… His mother, perhaps? Nay, he could see now, it was Gwern! Trevyn felt only faintly surprised by the warm surge of joy that went through him. In a moment the elf-boat slid to the shore by Gwern’s bare feet, and he silently positioned the boarding plank for Trevyn to disembark. Gwern’s brown face no longer seemed quite so unreadable; Trevyn saw him bite his lip to still it, and grinned in unsolicited reply. He shouldered his blanketroll and strode to shore, extended a hand, touched fingertips the color of earth. To his chagrin, his full eyes overflowed.

  “I wasn’t expecting anyone to meet me,” he mumbled.

  Gwern turned without comment and pulled the plank to shore. The elf-boat wheeled away and scudded out of the Bay. Trevyn stood watching her as one watches a departing friend, almost dismayed that she had spoken no word of farewell. Then he blinked and shook his head, as if to shake off foolishness.

  “Did it hurt to leave Elwestrand?” Gwern asked in his curiously flat, husky voice.

  “Ay.… And yet, I am so glad to be back, Gwern! This is home, after all.” He breathed deeply, looking around at the land that somehow sang particularly to him. Then his glance caught on the white horse, and his breath stopped in his throat.

  “For you,” Gwern said stolidly. “You’ll have need of a bold horse.”

  The stallion wore not a thread of trapping except a lunula of silver on its breast, held there by silklike scarlet cord. It was light and graceful of build, swan-necked, not thewed like a war horse but with something of unicorn fineness, Trevyn thought, and perhaps unicorn fierceness, if fierceness were called for. Bright azure eyes blazed down at him from the stallion’s high-flung, bony head. It was these that stopped Trevyn’s breath, for the pupils were spindle-shaped, like a cat’s, and the strange, blue sheen was ringed with fey white. Trevyn found his voice only after a moment’s sincere search.

  “Where, in mercy—” he began, but Gwern interrupted him irritably.

  “I don’t know! I woke up one morning, and there he stood, moon mark and all. But he’s yours, right enough. Find out for yourself.”

  “That’s no elwedeyn horse,” Trevyn protested. “That’s more like one of Ylim’s wild star-crossed steeds from the foothills of Elundelei.”

  The horse jerked down its head so that its azure gaze met his of opal green, and Trevyn felt its impatient command. “All right,” he breathed, and moved to its side, vaulted onto its back, half expecting to be flung off headlong. But the horse stood taut and still for his mounting. Gwern handed up his blanketroll.

  “Why does he serve me?” Trevyn demanded. “There’s not a speck of love or loyalty in him.”

  Gwern shrugged, then whistled like a plover, calling an elwedeyn colt out of the woods for his own use. He had no gear, not so much as a cup to drink from, and his ragged clothing fluttered about him like brown, tattered leaves. Perhaps he smelled, also, but Trevyn either did not notice or did not mind. The two of them set off side by side at trot and canter toward Laueroc. The land was green and lovely, lush with early June rains, surpassingly beautiful even to Trevyn’s elfin eyes.

  “Have you seen Meg?” he asked before they had ridden very far.

  “She has traveled with me all spring.” Coming from Gwern, this statement sounded perfectly unremarkable, and meant not a nuance more than it said. “She left me a week ago, when I felt sure you were coming to land. She is bound eastward, to see your father.”

  Trevyn tried to muddle
this through for a moment. “Is she—is she very angry with me?” he asked at last.

  “She loves you.” Gwern’s tone did not even try to reassure; he spoke only simple fact. “But she has her qualms, and she is not likely to come to you. You’ll have to seek her out.”

  “But I won’t be able to, not for a while,” said Trevyn painfully. “I mean …”

  “The wolves, ay. All of Isle is under the shadow of them.”

  “And my father; what has he done about them? Where is he? Has battle been joined?”

  Gwern grimaced uncomfortably. “I don’t know. How should I know? Some things I can tell, but others … I know your father thinks you’re dead. Meg said so.”

  “What!” Trevyn had never felt so alive, and he sputtered in astonishment that anyone, especially his father, could fail to feel his wellbeing. “Whatever gave him that idea?” he cried.

  “I don’t know. Meg’s gone to tell him you’re coming. But if we ride hard, we’re likely to find him before she does.”

  They rode until deep dark, ate Trevyn’s elfin viands, and were up by the following dawn. They rode rapidly and companionably through that day and the next. Trevyn could not understand why he had ever disliked Gwern. The brown youth’s plainspoken presence cheered and soothed and excited him now; he felt some feeling both achingly lovely and as comfortable as old clothes. Gwern, like Trevyn, guided his unbridled steed with a touch and a word of the Elder Tongue. Gwern was someone as alone as himself, Trevyn understood now, and very much like himself. The glow he felt was more than comradeship. But for the time he would not give it any other name.

  They made Laueroc on the fourth day. Trevyn noted, as they traversed the town, how still the streets seemed, how lacking in chatter and workaday bustle. Those few folk who were about gave him no salute except a stare. An air of dread and hopelessness brooded over the place, as palpable as a cloud of fog. Trevyn entered the castle grounds with foreboding. The courtyard was empty. He left Gwern there with the horses and ran into the keep, up the spiraling stairway toward the living quarters. Halfway up, he almost collided with Rosemary. She gasped at the sight of him.