The Sable Moon

by Nancy Springer

  “Why does it trouble you?” she asked. “You have saved many of your father’s liegemen, perhaps even saved your land.”

  “Because—I know those dragons are mine. They are in me.”

  “So you were able to loose them to good effect. And if you have gained the victory over Wael, Prince, it is because you no longer hate the shadowy deeps, the realm of the sable moon. My workings are not all for ill, Alberic. Even a villain such as Wael cannot help but do some good. In a sense, he brought you two together, Prince and Maiden.”

  With his eyes still on Menwy’s subtle, sculpted face, Trevyn held out an arm and felt Meg move to fill it. The slender girl pressed against him, took the wolf cub from his cupped hand, and cradled it by her own small breasts.

  “Without darkness, there would be no dawn,” Menwy added.

  “So you, who flung me into the hands of slavers, who stole my father’s brooch to make mischief with, now choose to aid me.” Trevyn sounded merely whimsical, not bitter, just then. “Why, ancient lady?”

  “Because you are fair; no better reason.”

  Trevyn risked a glance at Meg, felt with a shock her fine-drawn loveliness, saw Dair, his baby son, lay a searching muzzle along her neck.

  “And I will give the Tokarians fair winds home, those who live, as I have given them foul winds hither,” added Menwy, with a hint of jealous edge to her voice. “Still, I am no one’s servant. So, lest you lose all respect for me, Prince—feel this!”

  A shock sent Trevyn staggering. Meg screamed; Menwy loomed taller and ever taller, in form of the fearsome horned god, her head a skull with the antlers of a stag.

  “Farewell, Prince of Isle,” she sang, before he had recovered, and engulfed him. In an instant the tower was only a fleck caught in the hem of her cloak, in a black and roaring, directionless blackness darker than a thousand nights. Trevyn clutched at Meg, hid his face in her hair; Robin moaned, and Alan flung an arm over his eyes. Then they all looked up at bright sky and blinked. Voices sounded from the courtyard; Trevyn’s eagle swooped down to perch on a parapet. The day moved on apace.

  “Are ye hurt!” Megan demanded. Trevyn held on to her for support with one hand, and the other held on to his head.

  “I think I’m going to swoon,” he said plaintively. “Be here when I wake up, Meg. Promise!”

  “All right, I promise!” She peered up at him anxiously. “Trev—”

  “Is it really all over?” Alan exclaimed incredulously, gazing down at the quiet town, the empty battle plain. “Is it really done?”

  “I’m done in,” Trevyn murmured. “Meg, take good care of that wolf.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s my son,” he explained, lucidly.

  “Of course. Trevyn, will ye sit down before ye fall and hurt yerself?”

  “Not until I’ve kissed you.” But he missed his aim, lurching.

  “Later,” she told him, and shouted at the others, “Dolts, will ye help me with this big oaf!”

  They were all still dazed, gaping like Alan. “Can it really be all over?” he marveled again. “After all these hellish months?”

  “My dream has just begun,” Trevyn protested softly, and folded onto the paving stones.

  Chapter Five

  They got him into a bed presently, and he slept for a full day, then awoke to ravenously gulp a meal, then slept again. He kept it up, not for the month he had promised, but for a week. A few times the servants roused him and ordered him into a tub, soaking grime and brown, caked blood out of his golden hair. But no one had leisure to really nurse him, in the aftermath of war, and it was plain to see that he was well and content. The servants took to leaving food on a table by the bedside, fruit and bread and cheese and cold cooked meat. Trevyn would wake at odd hours, eat, drink water, and instantly doze off again. As he slept, he dreamed—pleasant dreams, mostly. Even when not sleeping, he dreamed with open eyes. Of Isle, and Elwestrand, and love, and Maeve, and, the seventh day, of Melidwen—

  Meg burst into his room that day; Dair pattered after her and jumped up on the bed. “Trevyn, what d’ye mean!” Meg cried. “What can ye be thinking of! I can’t wear this!”

  He gazed at her, breathless, and not only because of the furry, gray weight on top of him. She looked like a princess—nay, some being that was freer and more magical than a princess. She looked like someone Emrist might have invoked, spirit of starlight and daisy field and white winter lacework of birch. Soft, sparkling cloth enfolded her like an embrace, patterned white on white, floating richly around her bare, smooth feet. Her sparrow-brown hair flew as airily as the gown. She tolerated his stare for a moment, then stamped impatiently.

  “It’ll take washing every blessed day,” she complained. “And everyone who saw me thinks I’m putting on airs. And how d’ye expect me to go walking that precious son of yers in this?”

  Clutching his blankets, Trevyn wriggled out from under the wolf in question. “Take it off, if you don’t like it,” he gasped.

  “I adore it.” Her pointed face softened into a smile. “But it’s too grand, Trev. Dream me a few that are a bit more practical.”

  “I don’t direct my dreams,” he whispered, and reached out to touch her fingertips, drew her down to him by her warm fingertips, nothing more. Her flower of a mouth touched his; he parted it tenderly, probed with consummate tenderness, felt a sweet ache grow. Rosebuds and dew.… His fingers entwined her hair, found the warm nape of her neck, followed her tresses to the startled tip of her young breast under the magical cloth.… Meg placed her hands on his, dropped her head to his bare shoulder.

  “Love me,” he begged.

  “I do.”

  “I know—I should have always known. I’d have known how I loved you, if I’d paid heed. But love me now, Meg. That is your wedding gown.”

  “Then let us ride to where the wedding party awaits us,” she told him reasonably. “At the sacred grove.”

  “What?”

  “At the Forest’s southern skirt, where the two rivers join. Gwern’s grove.”

  That sobered him. He let her go and sat to face her. “How did you know?”

  “I—some things I just know—like I know that Dair really is yer son somehow—and I know that Gwern gave ye himself. He had to, for ye so whole now.”

  “Ay. I feel like my life has just begun, Meg. As if you’ve just woken me to a new world. All that’s happened since—since a young fool left you at Lee—hardly seems to count.”

  “It counts.” She grinned wickedly at him. “But ye’re right about the new world. Or a new Isle, anyway. Wonders are springing up all over. The whole land’s taken on a new sheen; everyone notices it.”

  He stared at her. “The magic is coming back,” he breathed.

  “Ye’ve dreamed it back. Ye’ve even made me a touch on the pretty side somehow. Won’t ye go back to sleep now, like a good prince, and dream me a few more dresses?”

  “Great goddess, nay,” he exclaimed. “I’ve slept long enough. Where’s Father?”

  “Sped to his love.”

  Alan had long since gone to Lysse, as fast as horse could take him. All along the path of his swift journey he saw magic springing up. Tiny yellow flowers winked from the grass, each one a radiant coronet. Veran’s crown, the Elfin Gold, had come back to Isle, and all the land glowed with intangible luster by virtue of its presence.

  Lysse met Alan on the road, far outside the gates. Sight and heart had returned to her together, and she sensed his coming long before he arrived. She greeted him smiling, but he wept in her embrace. “Even at my worst, I knew you would forgive me,” he told her when he could speak, “and that is a fearful knowledge.”

  “Hal thought the same of you.”

  “I know. Trevyn has told me a little.… My brother sends me his love, from Elwestrand. He wept to speak of me.… Well, I am no longer so proud that I can afford to think ill of him, Lissy.” He grinned wryly. “And I can somewhat account for the change in me; but what is to ac
count for the marvels abroad in the land?”

  “A turn of the great tide. Aene is claiming back what was lost for a while.” Lysse smiled dreamily. “Isle might soon be as magical as Elwestrand, I believe. But Hal and my people cannot return.”

  “I know. When do we sail?”

  “In the spring. There will be a ship at the Bay.”

  “Far better fortune than I deserve,” Alan said softly, “if Hal awaits me. But Lysse, when I took the wrong path, when I laid hold of that great, bloody sword, I felt sure it severed me from him. For all time. How can I feel so sure now that I shall see him again?”

  “Mother of mercy,” she chided, “can’t you tell? Isle is like a clean-washed stone, like a bright leaf after rain, and your small transgressions are gone in the tide of time, like all others. Alan, the haunts are gone from the land.”

  “What?” he whispered.

  “The shades have gone to rest, even the stubborn shades by the Blessed Bay. All penances are done. And the dragons have left their gloomy lairs.”

  “Ay, Trevyn seems to be in charge of them now. I wish I understood.… Love, glad as I shall be to sail to Elwestrand, I am glad we need not go soon. I would like to get to know my son.”

  After Trevyn was up and about for a few days, he and Meg took horse toward the place she had named. Liegemen and a few maids rode with them, for decorum’s sake, and Corin, out of friendly curiosity, and Ket. Craig and Robin and the other lords had long since sped back to their demesnes. There was a tremendous amount of work to be done; unguarded cottages had been robbed, repairs had been neglected, and spring planting had gone almost entirely undone in the eastern half of the realm. Already Alan had sent messengers to Tokar demanding ransom for Rheged, not in treasure, but in food, to avert famine. And the very day of the final battle he had sent patrols throughout Isle to prevent plundering and to spread news of peace. But there was little need of such reassurance. Folk sensed comfort as if it were a fragrance in the air and returned quickly to their homes. Even Trevyn’s dragons, blundering northward along the eastern shore, did not seriously upset them. All along the road to their rendezvous, the Prince and his retainers were greeted by happy folk. It seemed to awe them that he carried a young wolf in his arms.

  They rode gently, in easy stages, letting Trevyn regain his strength. Late on the seventh day they neared the river crossing, and Trevyn peered ahead with a faint frown. Against the glowing sunset sky he could see the figure of an eagle, his eagle, perched atop a tall tree, or group of trees, that he felt certain had not been there before.

  “What the—” he muttered.

  “Gwern’s grove,” Megan replied from her palfrey beside him. She rode in her lovely white dress, the only one she presently owned, though she had Trevyn’s promise of more from a certain Gypsy seamstress. She had found her fears mistaken; the gown did not need daily washing. In fact, dirt did not seem to touch it at all. The paradoxical fabric, floating and crisp, seemed no more prone to mundane soil than a cloud wisp or the caught light of the moon.

  The company splashed through the river branch, through water well above the horses’ knees. Afterward, drops sprinkled down like strings of pearls from Meg’s hem, and stayed there. A few fell to the ground and lay glimmering. Trevyn looked at them in mild surprise and let them be. Meg already wore another such magical jewel, the pink moonstone he had brought her from Elwestrand, with the mandorla at its heart. But Corin and the others picked up the gems with gasps of wonder.

  “Magic!” Corin breathed. Then no one said more, not even the irrepressible Meg. They had entered under the woven shade of the Wyrdwood.

  They rode through sheerest stillness. No underbrush rustled against their saddles; no branches scraped. The trees towered immensely, in form like the pillars of earth, the trunks smooth and unbranched to thirty feet above their heads. Hooves fell soundlessly on the leaf loam of a hundred seasons, so it seemed. Within a moment, the riders were swallowed by soft, random spaces like the honeycomb caverns of deep earth where dragons used to dwell, like the shadowy roots of the sea where the sun swims back to the east. Birds sang somewhere in the pinpoint foliage far above. Trevyn signaled a stop, looking all about him, to depths and heights, with eager, straining face.

  “We’re likely never to come out of here,” Corin blurted, breaking silence. He had looked behind him and seen no trace of the way he had come; now he held the reins with sweaty hands. But Trevyn scarcely heard him, lost in longing and awe.

  “By the Mothers, he’s here! I can feel him.…” Trevyn bit back a sob. Silent tears ran down his face. “Gwern …”

  “The place suits him,” Meg said softly.

  “Ay, it’s a god’s grove. And Gwern has invited his fellows, it seems. I feel Bevan here as well.” Trevyn struggled to compose himself. Memories gripped him and made him feel weak, memories of Emrist and of Elwestrand.

  “Trev,” Ket burst out, “please. We’re frightened.”

  Surprised, he scanned their pale faces. Meg sat serenely, but a couple of the maids had started to whimper.

  “We’re not lost!” Trevyn exclaimed. “Why, we’re nearer to heart’s home than we’ve been since birth.… All right, follow me. There is always a pattern. This way.” He led off through the motionless dance of the trees.

  He took them in a sweeping spiral, gradually closing in on an unseen vortex at the center of the hushed grove. They rounded the last gentle curve and arrived. Sunlight streamed down into a clearing amid the giants. There a single sapling grew, its leaves translucent jewels that sent flakes of color skimming like dragonflies across the grass. Resting in the sun-dappled shade sat a pair of wedding guests, Alan and Lysse. Beside them, at the sunlit base of the slender tree, lay a unicorn, moon-white, with a golden horn.

  “Is that beastie yours, too, lad?” Alan asked Trevyn when they had embraced.

  “Mine and everyone’s.” He took Meg by the hand and led her to meet his mother.

  They all camped there that night, feasting on plain food that tasted better than it had any right to, talking beneath the light of a swelling moon, answering innumerable questions. Trevyn heard about Megan’s travels and her lupine friend. Lysse found that she liked the girl better by the moment. Alan heard at last the full history of his jeweled brooch, and he learned that he had sworn a spell upon his green Elfstone.

  “Things that show the sun crest are your talisman, as the parchment with the wolf emblem was Wael’s,” Trevyn explained “And your gem is magical in its own right, mightily so.… Only a King could have managed it. But I think nothing less could have woken me.”

  “I’m no sorcerer,” Alan protested.

  “But you’ve always been great in power, you and Hal. You never used your magic, that’s all.… And you called me by my sooth-name. That was prettily done.”

  “It should have been done far sooner,” Alan grumbled. “But it was hard for me to know you as the Very King who shall succeed me.… What is your talisman to be, Alberic?”

  By way of answer, the unicorn came and laid its head in his lap.

  They all sat half drunk with wine of magic and love. By dawn they lay drowsily, but still softly talking. At first light, Trevyn regretfully left the others and went off by himself.

  By closing his eyes, he quickly found Gwern’s grave, hidden under a blanket of luxuriant flowers. Though he hated to do it, he upended them with his dagger and dug away industriously, muttering at the mess he was making of himself. But he found the sword of Lyrdion before too long and lifted it, intending to hide it among his gear until he had a chance to take it to the sea.… A flash like the blaze of the rising sun went up from the weapon, and everyone in the grove came running.

  “Bevan, you nuisance,” Trevyn quietly rebuked the air, “why did you do that?”

  His family and friends gathered around, absorbing the scene. “I thought Gwern lay there!” Alan exclaimed, looking at the open grave.

  “Nay, Gwern lies nowhere, except—everywhere, here. All powers
of loveliness seem to be met here today.” Obeying an impulse, Trevyn lifted the great sword skyward. Hau Ferddas shone like a fair, golden bird, effortlessly soaring, as warm in his hand as a living thing. The gems on the hilt were pools, were eyes, were magic mirrors. The metal of the blade shimmered like a silken gown.

  “What, more marvels now?” Alan breathed. “Suddenly that sword has become as fair as sunshine, a token of all honor and goodness, in your grasp.”

  “Bevan’s doing,” Trevyn said. “So that we should see it as it was for him, and understand.”

  “And this is the weapon you must take to the sea?” Alan murmured incredulously.

  “Ay, that I must. At another place or time, it could yet become a horror.” He scowled at the invisible spirit of the star-son. “And this has not made it any easier!” He swaddled the sword in its fabric bonds.

  They all seemed to realize at once that they were exhausted. Of one accord they trooped back to their campsite and quickly fell asleep. But they only slept for a few hours; in late morning they were awakened by the approach of more riders. Rosemary appeared, looking lovely in cloth of russet and cream. Two countryfolk followed her. Ket ran to meet her, and Megan ran to embrace the others; they were her mother and father. Goodman Brock had earned fame for his courage and tenacity in holding his land and helping his neighbors throughout the siege of wolves. But he looked uncomfortable on horseback, and stunned to see his daughter in such finery. He scrambled down from his mount and gave her a cautious kiss, then stood disconsolately while his wife went off, chattering, with the other women. Because he felt out of place, he glowered when Trevyn greeted him.

  “Whew!” Trevyn whistled. “I believe you’re remembering a cocky young fool—”

  Brock had to smile at that. “Why, nay, I recall no foolishness,” he declared. “But I have heard much talk of a certain marvelous Prince.” He gulped, and lost his smile again. “Is that a unicorn?”